Contract to Kill
Authors: Andrew Peterson
Tags: #Mystery, #Action & Adventure, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Political, #Spies & Politics, #Crime, #Suspense, #War & Military, #Thrillers, #Military, #Terrorism, #Thriller & Suspense, #Thriller, #Literature & Fiction
Also by Andrew Peterson
First to Kill
Forced to Kill
Option to Kill
Ready to Kill
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Andrew Peterson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477827666
ISBN-10: 1477827668
Cover design by Chris McGrath
To the memory of Patricia Taylor (1925–2015). Aunt Pat was a matriarch in our family—her kindness and compassion will be missed.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Shindand District of western Afghanistan
Summer 2009
Tanner Mason tuned out the engine’s drone and fought off a nagging fatigue. Outside the comfort of his vehicle, if he could call it that, a drab desert loomed under a twilight sky. Anything not beige was either brown or gray.
Looking around the cramped interior, he wondered if the MRAP truly was mine resistant and ambush protected. So far it hadn’t been tested, which was just fine with him. He’d seen the hulks of other MRAPs in the scrapyard, and some of them looked pretty bad. Fortunately, his employer spared no expense when it came to protecting his people. Mason didn’t know what one of these twenty-five-ton babies cost, but the Marine Corps variant, the 6x6 Cougar, went out the door at $750,000.
Mason’s convoy held four vehicles, three of them belonging to Beaumont Specialists, Inc., plus one German unit for support. This was a private-military-contractor mission, with Mason in command.
Each MRAP held ten men, consisting of two operators and eight combat personnel. Mason didn’t like the term “mercenary” and never referred to himself or his men that way. They were private military contractors. PMCs. Technically, they were guns for hire, but didn’t that describe all combat troops?
Sitting across from him, Chip Hahn looked straight ahead with his usual neutral expression. A Korean American, Chip was the same age as Mason at forty-one. He’d rarely met a tougher individual than Chip, and he valued him as his second-in-command. Chip had once said that Mason looked like the blond villain from
Die Hard
. Mason conceded a slight resemblance—at least from the neck up. The rest of Mason mirrored a professional cage fighter, because he’d once been one.
Today’s objective sat in the middle of a remote village sandwiched between two seasonal river basins. A local bigwig known as Mullah Sanjari had been positively identified as the man responsible for coordinating and conducting more than two dozen IED and RPG attacks against coalition forces. BSI’s mission was twofold. First, kill or capture the mullah. And second, recover or destroy any weapons or ordnance found inside his walled compound.
Over the past eight days at varying times, Mason’s convoy had driven in and out of the village without incident. Their MRAPs would roll in, drive around, and then leave. The strategy created a sense of normalcy, a ploy that had worked well in other locations.
Today would be different.
Mason made eye contact with Chip and mouthed,
You okay?
Butterflies
, Chip mouthed back.
Mason nodded.
Me too
. He pressed the transmit button and spoke calmly through his boom mic. “Two minutes. Final weapons and radio check. Everyone check in with squad leaders.”
After the sequence of radio calls ended, Mason told his troops, “No one hesitates. We shoot first and sort things out later. Sixty seconds.”
Just inside the village, the convoy detoured east to avoid using the same route they’d taken the day before. The ride got rougher as the convoy increased its speed.
Mason received his twenty-second call from the driver.
“Everyone brace yourselves. We’ll be braking hard. Turret gunners on my mark. Ten seconds.”
The M2 gunners were already in their slings, so all they had to do was straighten up.
The roar of the engine stopped and the rear doors flew open.
“All squads, move out!”
Warm air assaulted Mason’s face as he started a mental stopwatch.
As rehearsed, the Germans fanned out to position themselves at each cross street.
Three seconds.
Mason yelled, “Eighty-fours!”
Half a dozen stun grenades flew over the compound’s wall toward the buildings in the northeast corner.
Everyone crouched.
Concussive blasts shook the wall, creating waterfalls of dust.
One of Mason’s men stepped forward and used a shotgun to make a ballistic breach of the compound’s only door.
Six seconds.
In a crouch, Mason led the assault team through the opening.
He pivoted toward the buildings and saw three ethereal forms materialize through the dust and smoke.
Mason dropped to one knee, leveled his M4, and waited an extra second to verify they were enemy combatants. They were. AK-47s had a distinctive shape.
Before the Taliban could recover from the stun grenades, Mason fired three quick bursts.
Two went down, but even with multiple chest wounds, the third gunman tried to bring his AK up.
Hahn finished him while Mason changed magazines.
Ten seconds.
The rest of Alpha squad followed them over to the closest building and ducked next to its wall.
He’d keep Bravo and Charlie outside until needed. If this turned into a Taliban trap, there was no sense in risking more than one squad.
Although Mason spoke Arabic, he nodded to his translator, who yelled for anyone inside to surrender. When no one responded, Mason issued a hand signal. His men stayed low, broke the windows, and tossed stun grenades into the buildings.
More concussive thumps compressed the air.
At the fifteen-second mark, a single muffled shot rang out.
“Bravo, advance, advance!”
His second squad sprinted into the compound.
Mason used a forefinger to point at the door next to him, then drove a fist into his palm, like a hockey referee signaling a boarding penalty.
Bravo breached the door and entered the building, leapfrog style. Calls of “clear” sounded as each room was searched and secured.
Mason and Chip followed them inside through air smelling like rotten eggs and burned electrical wiring. In the back room, his men stood around the source of the gunshot. Rather than be captured, Mullah Sanjari had taken his own life.
Chip put a forefinger to his lips and pointed to a rug under the table.
Mason issued a hand signal for everyone to clear the room, putting a wall between them and the mullah’s chamber.
“Go get Hutch,” Mason whispered to Hahn. “It could be rigged with an IED.”
As Hahn left, Mason signaled for his men to hold positions. Special Agent Hutch worked for the ATF as an explosives and arson expert, and his experimental embedment with BSI’s special ops unit was being evaluated by the ATF brass. As far as Mason was concerned, Hutch was an invaluable asset, and Mason hoped he’d be able to keep him permanently. Mason really liked the ATF guys because they treated him and his contractor colleagues like equals.
Hutch appeared twenty seconds later.
“Sergeant Hahn thinks we’ve got something under the rug. Give it a look. I’ll cover you.”
Mason took a knee, pulled his Glock, and nodded to Hutch. He pointed his weapon at the center of the rug as Hutch flattened himself on the dirt floor. Before pulling the rug aside, the ATF agent checked its entire undersurface for trip wires. Beneath the rug, a three-foot piece of plywood served as a trapdoor entrance to a typical spider hole.
Hutch rechecked it for trip wires, then produced a pen magnet and slowly passed it over the entire surface of the plywood. He looked at Mason and issued a thumbs-up. Hutch made a three-finger gesture with his right hand, then grabbed the plywood with his left hand.
Mason nodded, and Hutch counted to three with his fingers. On three, Hutch flung the trapdoor aside and rolled away from it. Mason squinted and kept his handgun pointed at the dark hole.
In Arabic, he ordered anyone who might be hiding to speak up and identify himself. When nothing happened, he looked at Hahn and made a gesture like breaking a twig. Hahn reached into his belly pack and removed a couple of light sticks. He snapped them, shook their contents, and tossed them into the hole.
Hutch rolled back to the hole and peered inside. “Jackpot.”
“What have we got?”
“A shitload of RPG and mortar rounds,” Hutch said. “They’re stacked in wooden crates. It also looks like there’s close to fifty thousand rounds of AK ammo . . . Chinese made.”
Mason looked at Hahn and Hutch. “You two get down there and check it out. Don’t touch anything until SA Hutch clears and photographs it.” He pushed his transmit button. “We’re checking out an underground chamber. All squads maintain positions.”
Hutch followed Hahn down a primitive log ladder.
“We’ve also got a cardboard box full of ball bearings,” Hutch said. “There’s some electronic shit, batteries, cell phones, wires, and thumb switches. I’d say we’re looking at a bona fide IED factory. It looks like someone’s been prying AK rounds apart for the powder. Gotta be several thousand empty casings down here . . . Wait, there’s another box under the table.
Holy
shit!
”