Target Deck - 02 (31 page)

“What is it?” Frank asked, setting down his spit bottle.

“Our entire human intelligence network is about to get rolled up.”

“What the hell do you mean
rolled up
?”

“Jimenez correlated the calls made by the drop phones being distributed by both Aghassi and Samantha. It is right there on his computer, it looks like he used analysts notebook to compile the data.”

Frank looked up at the projection on the wall showing Samruk International's target deck for the Oaxaca operation. There was Jimenez at the top, with his lieutenants under him, and then dozens and dozens of smaller cells that were franchised out on a contract basis for smuggling, killing, and other more technical tasks such as telecommunications and network security. What none of them had realized was that all the while, Jimenez had been building a target deck on Samruk and their network as well.

“Where is Deckard?”

Deckard walked across the freshly expended hot brass that rolled across the street.

“It is for you,” the radio man sitting in his assault truck said as he gave him the hand mic.

With Fedorchenko's platoon on stand down to recover from their airborne operation and Aghassi and Nikita running recon, Deckard was out on a parallel operation with Sergeant Zhenis and Second Platoon. They were back in Oaxaca City, mowing grass and churning through their target deck. After a brief firefight, they had taken down another ring of contract killers.

“This is Six,” Deckard said over the command net.

“We have a problem.”

It was Frank.

“What?”

“Our entire ring of informants is about to be liquidated. Spooky-One's mission was a success and they are on exfil right now. The virus allowed us to tap into the cartel's network but not in time to stop him. Jimenez had someone conduct a link analysis on all cellular traffic in Oaxaca.”

Deckard's guts twisted in a knot.

“How bad is it?”

“We're trying to establish that now while we reach out to as many of our sources as possible.”

Gun fire popped off somewhere deeper in the city. It was just a few shots, which soon turned into a spray. Seconds later, the heavy bolt of a machine gun thumped on full auto coming from a different direction, each blast echoing across the city.

“Start giving me names and locations,” Deckard told him. “We'll see how many we can pull out.”

As he listened to the gunfire, Deckard knew it was already too late.

Nikita pushed off the rock wall one final time and brought his hand behind him to slow his descent. The rappel rope was pulled through the figure eight snapped into his climbing harness as he lowered down to the slope. When his boots made contact, he braced himself against a tree. Aghassi came down right behind them.

Slipping on the muddy slope, Aghassi fell to his knees before struggling back up. They both looked at each other, shaking their heads. One too many close calls for one night. They needed a beer or ten.

Pulling the rappel ropes free, they pulled one end of the doubled up rope until it slid through the single carabiner they had left concealed on an anchor point up above. The one piece of equipment lodged deep inside a crack in the rock would be the only evidence left behind that they had even been there. The ropes and other gear went into a rucksack they had stashed at the bottom and the two mercenaries began making their way down the slope.

They had no idea as to what a shit storm they had just uncovered.

27

Deckard braced himself against the dashboard as the assault truck jerked to a stop.

“Samantha, call your source right now,” Deckard spoke into the radio hand mic. “Tell him that we are right outside his house and are taking him with us.”

The assault vehicles that the Samruk mercenaries drove were outfitted with eight seats in the flatbed in the back, four on each side sitting back to back. The moment the trucks stopped, they popped the quick release on their seat belts and slipped right off the edge and down to the ground. The turret gunner remained, maintaining security with their PKM machine guns. The assault teams formed together en route as they ran towards the target house.

“I'm calling now,” Samantha replied.

“Tell him if he doesn't come with us that he won't be safe. We'll bring his family if need be but if he stays the cartel assassins are going to clean him out tonight.”

“I'm dialing his cell, it's ringing.”

The lead assaulter kicked the door, not to kick it in but to knock with his foot and get the home owner's attention. He didn't want to lean in front of the door and knock with his fist in case the residents decided to answer with a 12-gauge buck shot.

No one was answering, shotgun blast or not.

Looking down at his Falcon View navigation program displayed on a Tough Book computer, he saw that they were in the right place.

“I just talked him,” Samantha reported from the Operations Center. “He's coming to the door now. I told him to make sure he is unarmed.”

Suddenly, the door opened a crack. The assault team kicked it the rest of the way in and stormed the building. There was gunfire popping off all over town. Jimenez was having his right hand man, Ignacio, take out their entire network of informants. The Kazakh mercenaries and their Western advisers were not taking any chances. They secured the source and whoever else was home, bringing them back to the trucks for extraction.

Seconds later, the assaulters were already pouring out of the house with the source and his wife, both flex cuffed and blindfolded for everyone's protection. Once Samantha confirmed their identities back at the compound they would have their restraints removed.

With his night vision goggles flipped up, Deckard could see all the way down the street with the occasional lights illuminating the area. His eyes went wide as tires squealed and smoked down at the intersection. A tractor trailer skidded to a halt, blocking off the road. Behind them, a second trailer pulled across the intersection, cutting off any chance of escape.

“Shit,” Deckard cursed. “Light them up,” he said flipping over to the assault net. “We're about to get hit.”

Just then an RPG-7 gunner let off a rocket that streaked down the street. Passing between two assault trucks, it bounced off the road and detonated against a stone wall, crumbling it in a cloud of smoke. A second RPG followed hot on the heels of the missed shot, blasting into the armored front cab of the lead assault truck.

Gunfire rained down on the street from roof tops on both sides, the bullets plinking off the thick bullet proof windshield. A Samruk commando went down under a fusillade of gunfire right before Deckard's eyes.

Deckard clicked the hand mic in his hand.

“Blue building, right side of the road, fifty meters to our front. Do it.”

PKM gunners churned through 250 round belts of ammunition as they sprayed the rooftops. Muzzle flashes traversed from side to side as they homed in on enemy gunmen. The drivers gunned it, one driver moving out before the men were fully loaded. One assaulter was flung off the back of the vehicle while his truck took off without him.

“Stop! Stop!”

As Deckard's truck jerked forward and then buckled as the driver braked, he flung open his door and reached out for the Samruk mercenary while firing his AK-103. With the butt stock wedged under his arm pit, it wasn't aimed fire, but intended to suppress the enemy along with the PKM gunners. Grabbing the fallen mercenary, he pulled him inside the vehicle, still firing with the door hanging open.

“Go!”

The convoy shot forward a second time. The first truck had already smashed right through the garage door. Deckard's Kazakh driver expertly turned the wheel hand over hand, sharply turning while slowing just as they passed into the now open garage door.

The driver had to spin the wheel again to avoid the first truck. It was smoking as it had crashed into a large industrial metal rack loaded up with metal poles. The blue building Deckard had chosen to escape the kill zone turned out to be an aluminum shop. Aluminum scrap was stacked everywhere alongside the various hardware and tools of the trade. One by one, each vehicle squeezed into the metal shop until all five were out of the line of fire.

Somehow, the truck that absorbed the RPG round had limped in as well but once it stopped it was clear that it wouldn't be moving again anytime soon. The PKM gunner on the last vehicle rotated to cover his six o' clock and fired occasional bursts across the street.

Sergeant Zhenis jumped off the back of his truck and began barking orders in Russian. The platoon medic began treating a casualty who had been shot through the leg. It was too late for another mercenary, he had taken a round in the neck and had already expired. A pool of blood spread underneath him as his comrades lowered his body to the ground.

With Zhenis pushing his men where they needed to go, several took a knee next to the garage door. Others began climbing the metal racks all the way up to the roof. They moved up one at a time with their rifles slung over their backs. At the top, one found a hole in the roof that had been covered over with a piece of rippled sheet metal. Pushing it aside, he cleared the way and pulled himself up through the opening.

Deckard turned as the radio in his truck crackled.

“Six,” Cody said on the command net. “We are inside the enemy's network. It is exploding with chatter. You've got every gunman in the city converging on your position.”

“What am I up against Cody?”

“Everyone. Once Jimenez and Ignacio determined which source you were going to pick up they must have arranged the ambush. They let you drive into their trap. Sorry we couldn't catch it sooner but I'm still penetrating the network-”

“It is what it is,” Deckard cut him off. “How many enemy are we looking at.”

“Hundreds. Jimenez also put out a contract on our heads on his Facebook and Twitter feeds.”

“He has a Facebook and Twitter account?”

“I'm afraid so, and most of Mexico is listening. Iganacio's soldiers along with every freelancer and wannabe sicario is descending on your position. I'm going to work on shutting down the part of the communications network that you are in and monitor the rest of it for early warning but it's going to take time. It would be faster if you took it out manually.”