Echo Six: Black Ops 8 - ISIS Killing Fields (10 page)

"Good luck, Brooks out."

Something had been nagging at the back of his mind. The name of the command post, Al-Amoh, it reminded him of the Mexican war against General Santa Ana. The epic defense of the Alamo, the name was almost the same. As he recalled, the defenders all died when the Mexicans stormed the mission. Not a good omen.

* * *

It was mid-morning before the bulk of Khalil's men arrived. They assembled behind a long, low row of dunes two klicks from the foreigners. The sand dunes screened the noise of their vehicle, and Khalil was confident they'd achieve complete surprise. He regarded his fighters milling around their vehicles, chattering to each other in excited, high-pitched tones. They were about to attack the foreigners and their Iraqi collaborators. To wipe them out and allow their blood to soak into the desert sands, for the vultures to pick over their dead flesh, and gnaw at their bones.

He felt a tremendous pride in his achievement, a total of eighty men, every one of them a committed and skilled fighter.

More than a match for the arrogant foreigners!

He waved to his second-in-command. "Abu, come here. I will explain how we will destroy the enemy. There is something else you should know." He took out the rumpled photo that never left his side, "This soldier is their leader. His name is Talley, and the Caliph has given orders for him to be a priority target. Capture him if possible, I have plans for this man."

Abu Abbas glanced at it and passed it to the next man. He was older than most of his men. An embittered warrior who'd volunteered for every battle since the invasion of Iraq almost twenty-five years ago. During his years of constant fighting, he'd lost an eye to a grenade fragment, and a bullet had torn away his lower lip, giving his face a nightmare appearance. He'd shrugged off the injuries and kept on fighting. Perhaps his terrifying appearance was a sound reason to go on. Whatever it was, he was a good officer and a cruel and vicious fighter. He came close to al-Khalil, who moved his position to stand a meter upwind of him. Abbas was not a man who considered washing or any other personal hygiene a matter of importance.

"Tell me how you plan to kill them, Khalil."

"We will attack them from both sides, my friend. I will command the main force, fifty men, which I will position to the east. You will go to the west and hit them from that side. They will naturally fall back to the west, and when they do, I will be waiting for them."

Abbas pondered the statement. "There's no guarantee they'll go west, Commander."

Khalil stifled his irritation.

It is obvious which way they'll go. Can't this fool see
it?

"They will head west, back to their treacherous allies in Iraq, along with the Iraqi traitors who've joined them."

The other man inclined his head. "As you say, Khalil, but be quick." He twisted his grotesque features in an approximation of a smile, "Otherwise, we'll kill them all before they get to you."

"They will flee in terror when they see you coming, Abu. Your bullets will scythe them down like corn before a thresher, but I'm sure there'll be enough for my men to satisfy their appetites for infidel blood. I will leave now and get my men in position." He looked at his wristwatch, "You will attack in one hour. By that time, we will be ready to hack down any survivors who come toward us. Remember that man; the one named Talley, I want him. Good luck, and Allah be with you. He will look favorably on what we achieve this day. The blessings of the Prophet on you and your men."

"Bless His holy name," Abbas replied automatically. He ran to where the men waited, selected thirty of the toughest fighters, and told them of the victory they would achieve that day. He ordered the remaining fifty to board the trucks. Several minutes later, they drove off into the desert, taking a roundabout route get behind the foreigners. Abbas checked his weapons, a battered AKM which he'd wrested from the fingers of an Iraqi officer, and a 9mm Stechkin automatic. The Stechkin was his preferred method of killing. Capable of firing on full automatic, he could empty the twenty-round magazine in the blink of an eye. He'd once killed a group of five prisoners in two seconds flat. An achievement, and his men were in awe of the skill with which he handled his weapon.

He waited and watched as his men went through the familiar rituals, finding the direction of Mecca and kneeling to pray. Many chewed on Khat, the leaves native to the Arabian Peninsula that stimulated a man's mind, yet relaxed him at the same time. He didn't discourage its use, quite the opposite. If he wanted to send a man into a suicidal encounter with a superior enemy, what better way than to have him already in a drug-induced stupor, believing in his own invincibility.

Not that he took the drug himself. It was for the cannon fodder, the cattle. Men who were worthless, other than in their ability to pull the trigger or detonate a bomb vest. For a man determined to live, to indulge his particular hobby of causing pain and death, it was counterproductive. He got his kicks in different ways, more satisfying ways. He looked around as he heard a voice addressing him from behind.

"Abu Abbas, we have been waiting here for a long time. When do we attack?"

Mustafa was one of his younger fighters. The boy was enthusiastic, and his eyes had dilated with the Khat he was still chewing so that they looked like dark moons.

"Ten minutes, and we go. Tell the others."

A big grin, "Yes, Abu. Allahu Akbar!"

"God be praised indeed. Another ten minutes, then your name will become legend. Patience, the time is almost upon us."

The boy rushed away. He was fifteen, thereabouts, and Abbas knew he would die very soon, certainly before his sixteenth birthday. Which wasn't a problem, there were plenty more like him. He waited and checked his watch again. It was time, and all eyes were on him.

"Move out!"

* * *

They boarded their vehicles. Talley positioned the three LSVs in the front of the column with Salim's Iraqis behind them. First, the Captain's Humvee, then the truck, and Lieutenant Bino bringing up the rear. He didn't rate the risk of an attack from the east as high, from the direction of the Iraqi border. Their enemies were ahead of them, further inside Syria to the west, although you never knew. He took a last look around, held up his arm, and pointed ahead to the west, to Al-Amoh.

"Move out!"

Engines roared, and they started to roll. His LSV picked up speed, and next to him, Geena Blake laughed aloud.

"I think I'm going to enjoy this, Commander. Just like old times, a ride across the sands. Wonderful."

He glanced at her in puzzlement.

Old times? Which old times? What the hell does
she mean?

He was working out how to phrase the question when the first burst of gunfire split the air over his head. Bielski was already spinning the wheel and ramming his foot hard down on the gas pedal. Ahead of them, a pair of light trucks crowded with men was coming straight at them. The bullets spat out from a machine gun mounted on the lead truck. He automatically calculated the kind of threat it offered.

A light machine gun, thank Christ, any heavier would have sliced through us like a hot knife through butter.

The weapon they faced was a PK 7.62mm general-purpose machine gun. He knew the gun mounted a one hundred-round box mag. A magazine that could spew out bullets in excess of six hundred rounds a minute. Several of the insurgents were shooting at them. Most of the rifles were AKs, their slow, staccato chatter unmistakable. He also detected a shotgun blasting away at them. He counted about thirty men. They outnumbered them, if he included the Iraqis. He hit the transmit button.

"Guy, go to the right and hit them from the flank. Roy, go left and watch for the crossfire. We'll keep them occupied. Give you a chance to get close." Two clicks acknowledged the order. He pressed the transmit button again. "Virgil, use the Minimi. Give 'em something to think about."

"I'm on it." Behind him, the wiry operator from Georgia, with the looks of a farm boy and a lethal skill with the M249 machine gun, opened fire. Ahead of them, the lead truck swerved as his bullets began to find targets. He hit the transmit button yet again.

"Captain Salim, I need you to halt and set up a defensive line to hit them when they come close."

Nothing. He looked around, in time to see the two Humvees leading the charge to the west, with the truck losing ground as they tried to escape the fighting. He worked to control his anger.

Special Forces? They should be flipping burgers on minimum wages, not pretending to play at soldiers. At least Drew must have fixed that Humvee.

He tried again, but his earpiece remained silent. He recalled Geena’s pride in her super sophisticated commo gear, and spoke close to her ear so she could hear.

"Get Captain Salim on the radio. Tell him to stop running and get back here. We need him."

She stared at him. "I'll do what I can."

He left her to it. He had his own problems. Bielski had managed to squeeze past the leading ISIS truck by using a narrow fold in the ground. They were now two hundred meters on the left flank, starting to emerge from the gully, and straight into the path of the gunfire from Roy Reynolds' LSV. He was about to order them to cease fire, but then he saw it, right in front of them. The second of the ISIS trucks, coming in fast. They were outnumbered, and their options were limited. There was one way to win this, and that was to take a chance.

He hit the transmit button, "Don't let up. Keep firing. If you give them the chance, they'll kill us all."

One click, they'd got the message. Bielski plunged on, heading toward the rearmost truck. The hostiles fired repeatedly, and their bullets spat toward them like angry bees. He swerved again, except this time, everything went wrong. Instead of eating their way through the sand, the wheels found a deep rut, which had been thinly disguised like a tiger trap, hidden by a frond of palm. One moment they were charging down the enemy, all guns blazing. The high-pitched chatter of Virgil Kane's Minimi rising above the noise of battle as it took down enemy fighters like tin cans in a shooting gallery. The next, the world went crazy.

They went over, upside down, and he went spinning across the sand. Talley just managed to keep hold of his M4. The ISIS truck was boring in on them, and he ducked down as enemy gunfire spat bullets into the sand all around them. Someone started shooting back, and he saw Drew Jackson kneeling behind the rearmost wheel of the upturned buggy, firing short bursts from his HK416 in an effort to hold them back. Then Bielski popped up and started shooting with his beefed up HK417, the heavier version of the Heckler 416. His 7.62mm bullets started to take their toll, as his cool head and superior marksmanship told against the wild shooting of the enemy. Yet they were closing, and closing fast, as he reached the cover of the vehicle. Geena was lying on the ground, rubbing sand from her eyes.

Good, she’s alive.

He ignored her, tucked in behind the front wheels, and started to shoot. The ISIS fighters were crazed fanatics. They were no rookies when it came to a fight. Ten men came at them in short rushes, leaping from cover to cover. He slammed in a new magazine and emptied it at the nearest group, three men who were almost on them. Only one went down, the other two had faked the charged and dropped into cover at the last moment. As their comrade went down, they dived behind his body to use it for cover. They poked their rifles over the corpse and sent a hail of bullets at him that forced him to duck down. When he looked up, it was too late. They were all around them.

A hostile had managed to get behind Jackson, his rifle raised for the kill, and Talley shouted an urgent warning, "Drew, on your six!"

The wily Virginian needed no further warning, and he dropped flat as the burst of 7.62mm rounds sliced through the air where his head had been a split second ago. Then he had to leave Drew to make it on his own as more hostiles came at them hard. His men couldn't stay where they were. Couldn't fall back, the enemy was all around them. There was a single order left to him.

"Charge! Kill the bastards. Kill them all!"

Then he was face to face with the enemy, a meter away after the speed of their advance took ISIS by surprise. He slung the M4A1 behind his back. There was no place for a rifle in this battle. It was man against man, hand to hand. He snatched the Sig Sauer P226 from the shoulder holster and put a bullet in the first man to confront him. He slumped, but another fighter came from behind the falling body. In a lightning leap he made a savage attack on Talley, who was looking aside for another target.

He hit him with a left hook, and the fighter flinched as the piledriver thumped into his jaw. Still, he was quick and brought his rifle around to use it as a club. The wooden stock crunched onto Talley's right shoulder, and his armored vest barely cushioned the blow by a fraction, not enough to stop its force altogether.

He dropped his pistol as the shock of the blow numbed his arm, and leaned away from the follow up blow. His Sig was on the ground, out of reach. He had no choice but to unsling the M4 in a single movement, and he swept it around one-handed into the firing position. Yet his opponent knocked it aside with his own rifle. The fight became a slugging match between primitive clubs, much like men had fought thousands of years before, probably in the same place.