Standing the Final Watch
STANDING THE FINAL WATCH
The Last Brigade, Book One
William Alan Webb
Dingbat Publishing
Humble, Texas
Standing the Final Watch
Copyright © 2016 by William Alan Webb
ISBN 978-1-940520-62-9
Published by Dingbat Publishing
Humble, Texas
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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are entirely the produce of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual locations, events, or organizations is coincidental.
Prologue
October 12th
Lake Tahoe sparkled under a high sun in a cloudless sky. From the warmth of the tour boat’s passenger lounge, Mary Buffer giggled as her chubby husband Winslow braced against the bow railings and turned his face into the wind. They had not vacationed since Emily’s birth three years ago, and Mary intended to enjoy every moment.
The red-haired toddler stood on tiptoes and waved at her father, then knocked on the window to get his attention. Her warm breath steamed the glass. Winslow grinned at her despite the cold spray and waved back.
Out of the chill and sipping hot chocolate from a foam cup, Mary watched Winslow acting like a little boy and her giggle turned into a laugh. He often painted with words his fantasy of cutting the clear waters of the Caribbean, wind blowing his sparse hair, as he stood at the helm of his own sailing ship. He even confided that those daydreams cycled in an endless loop in his mind. She hoped so; starting a practice as a new CPA required long hours and hard sacrifices, and he deserved time to dream and play.
The muffled buzz of a speedboat grew louder as it neared. Mary glanced left, but milling people blocked her view as the smaller boat throttled down near the port bow. She looked back at Winslow in time to see something metal hit the deck and bounce, stopping near his feet. The egg-shaped object seemed familiar, but her mind did not recognize it before the blast of the grenade ripped him apart.
His right arm smacked into the lounge window and left a bloody smear as it slid to the deck. His right shoe, and most of the foot and shin, remained upright on the deck. The rest of Winslow Buffer swirled astern.
Inside the large cabin Mary Buffer watched her husband’s arm slide from view. Stunned, she dropped the foam cup and covered her mouth for almost two seconds before she screamed and grabbed Emily. Panic flooded her with adrenaline and the instincts of motherhood took over. Getting away from the horror on the bow drove her to claw and elbow through her fellow tourists, headed for the stern while dragging Emily behind her.
Another woman followed with a toddler under each arm, yelling for her husband, but panicky screams drowned her out. Mother and children fell when a large man shoved through, and they disappeared in the tangle of feet. Two men fought to shield their families from the stampede as everyone made for the starboard door. Mary stumbled, but a lithe middle-aged woman with blonde hair caught her left arm, and a girl who could only have been her daughter grabbed her right. Together they got Mary back to her feet. The two women exchanged a brief glance and Mary drew strength from the older woman’s nod of confidence.
A moment later the crowd shoved Mary against a window, Emily behind her and the women on either side. Outside, the speedboat bobbed on the waves. Three of the four men jumped aboard the tour boat and fanned out. They wore black shoes, gloves, and three-hole balaclavas, and all carried machine pistols. One of the attackers locked eyes with her through the window. His were green, but she could see no humanity in them, no spark of empathy, nothing except cold indifference. He turned as a deck hand rounded the stern corner of the lounge and hosed him with 9mm rounds that chewed his chest into a red slaw of bone and lung. As the crewman toppled over the side, the killer met Mary’s eyes again. This time he smiled.
Mary screamed and his smile widened. Pinned against the glass with Emily, she could not move no matter how much she struggled.
Forward of the lounge, the pilothouse overlooked the entire boat from a height of ten feet. The port door opened and the ship’s captain stepped out, aiming a large pistol in shaking hands. Mary’s breath caught. The terrorists on board had their backs to him, but the fourth man, still on the speedboat, spotted the danger and sprayed the pilothouse doorway, grinding up both the captain and the door frame. She watched as shells ejected from the gun and bounced on the boat’s deck in a shining stream of metal.
Mary tried to squirm away as the terrorists burst in through the nearest door. Several men without families dove over the starboard side. Stopping next to her, the smallest of the three black-clad killers pointed with his machine gun and another killer charged back outside. After clubbing and punching his way through hysterical women and children, the gunman emptied his magazine into the swimmers’ backs.
The leader, short but exuding authority, stood next to Mary. He scanned the lounge and spotted Emily huddled behind her. He leaned over and tousled her hair. Emily’s face reddened as she sobbed louder, gulping little breaths.
“What a pretty little girl,” he said. “You should be very proud.”
Mary could not speak. The man’s accent strongly hinted of New England. She smelled something fragrant, shampoo, or maybe cologne. Deep creases in his face resembled knife scars and a large mole dominated his upper lip. She edged away, hoping he would not notice, but he pointed at her and shook his head.
“Everybody shut up and stand still!” he yelled.
He repeated it three times before the terrified tourists quieted, except for Emily, who kept crying. Mary whispered, “Don’t cry, sweetheart, Mommy’s here,” and stroked her forehead. Sliding sideways, she interposed herself between Emily and the gunman and buried the toddler’s face in her shoulder to hush her. At the first opportunity, she would run for the door and not stop; she would take her chances in the water. If she dove deep enough, maybe the bullets wouldn’t hit her.
Two young mothers clutching babies fell to their knees, begging for mercy. The leader motioned them to their feet and patted the air as if reassuring them all would be fine. He scanned the terrified crowd and examined each face, as if selecting a steak for dinner, and stopped when he spotted the slim blonde hugging a twenty-ish version of herself, the same mother and daughter who’d kept Mary from falling moments before.
“Those two.” He pointed with his gun again. “They’re the ones. Take care of them first.”
The biggest attacker grabbed the women by their arms and dragged them, kicking and biting, to the port side bulkhead, and jammed his machine pistol against the younger woman’s temple. Mary watched them with horror and relief, assuming those two had been the target of the attack, but shame kept her from looking at them.
Following a burst of gunfire, the leader pointed his machine gun at her. Mary froze.
“Sorry, lady,” he stage-whispered. “Allahu akbar,” he said, much louder. It came out as ‘Allayhu akbah.’ He squeezed the trigger. Mary saw the flash, then nothing more.
Chapter 1
The Dark Man whispered in my ear,
He came last night at Midnight clear.
“I bring you news, but not of cheer,
I bring no cheer, but only tears.
I bring the tears to drown your fears,
I bring the fears of all your years.”
Sergio Velazquez, “The Dark Man”
43 minutes later in real time
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa
“Ground fire, mission abort!” The words coming over the radio were frantic but the voice was calm. “I repeat, mission abort. XP—” extraction point “—compromised. Have taken damage. Returning to Zombie on emergency flight path Alpha. Have wounded aboard.”
“Nick?” Norm Fleming said. “There’s still time to call it off.”
Sitting backward in the rough chair, staring at nothing, Nick Angriff remained silent for what seemed like hours. “That’s Green Ghost’s call,” he finally said. “I won’t overrule the man on the spot.”
“It’s suicide.”
“It’s still his call.”
Fleming grimaced. “Normally I’d argue, but…”
“I’m glad you agree, because I’m going after them. Takeoff in five minutes.”
“That’s an act of war.”
“This whole op is an act of war, but the DRC isn’t going to declare war on America.”
“But America may declare war on Nick Angriff. Take a second to think about it.”
“You’re always the voice of reason, Norm. We leave in five minutes. Link their GPS feeds to me and the pilots.”
At the designated time, two Russian-built MIL Mi-26 helicopters lifted off from the base in eastern Kenya and headed due west.
Four hours later, a sergeant sitting across from him got Angriff’s attention. “Zombie time, Saint.”
Angriff nodded and glanced at his wrist-mounted GPS. It was time for the strike team to go in. He walked the length of the cargo bay to the cockpit and tapped the co-pilot on the shoulder. Even leaning down, he almost had to shout to be heard over the roar of the engine. “We’re out of time!”
“Throttles are wide open, sir. This is all she’s got.”
Angriff returned to his seat and said a silent prayer they would be in time.
Four hours earlier
“That’s it, boys,” Green Ghost said to the eleven men surrounding him. He slapped a mosquito on his neck. “You heard it for yourselves. Pickup ain’t coming; the XP is overrun. It’s our call what to do next.”
In the dense jungle they could melt away and never be noticed. That detail Ghost didn’t need to mention.
Vapor spoke first. “You’re the boss, but I came here to kills burps.” Butt-ugly raghead pricks. “It’s fucked up to leave without doing it.”
“You know what you’re saying, right?” Green Ghost said.
Vapor shook the ammo belt stretched over his shoulder. “I don’t wanna hump this ammo back through the fucking jungle.”
“I don’t know about the others,” Wingnut chimed in. “But what the hell. Let’s do what we came for.”
The vote was unanimous, except for Green Ghost.
“You guys are idiots,” he said. “We don’t have a chance in Hell of pulling this off.” Then he raised his arm. “What the fuck. Let’s do what we came for.”
Current time
The three-vehicle convoy plowed through elephant grass and onto a dirt ribbon marked on their maps as a road. Rifle fire echoed in their wake as fire suppression teams fanned out to secure the landing zone. Refueling crews got to work. The pilots of the two giant Russian helicopters did not power down, but kept the rotors turning.
“Saint!” the armored personnel carriers’ commander called through cupped hands. “Open channel abort order from Centcom! Do I respond?” He waited, standing in the turret, half afraid of the answer he expected to receive.
“Negative — we’re dark!” Standing in the APC’s forward hatch, the man code-named Saint Nick half-turned to face him and made a twirling motion with his index finger. “Wind her up! Get this bucket moving!”
The lieutenant gave the order and the APC gathered speed, two others rumbling behind as they left the encampment. Saint Nick, famous worldwide as Lt. General Nicholas T. Angriff, gave him a thumbs up then turned back to the front, staring down the jungle path.
Until that moment, the lieutenant could have made a legitimate case of just following the legal orders of a superior officer. Receipt of the abort order changed all that. Now he risked his career by ignoring a direct order from the highest headquarters in the U.S. Army, yet he trusted no officer’s judgment more than Nick Angriff’s. Many soldiers considered Angriff lucky… somehow, things always worked out for him, even when they should have been FUBAR, and subordinates loyal to him got his loyalty in return. That was worth a lot. So, with his heart beating hard against his chest, the lieutenant ordered his driver to speed up and the radio shut down.
“Just had catastrophic radio failure!” he called. “All comm. gear is down.”
Angriff smiled. He loved moments like that, when adrenaline sharpened his senses and quickened his reflexes, filling him with a euphoria found nowhere else, only when leading brave soldiers in close proximity to the enemy. He sniffed the overwhelming scent of rotting vegetation, like a death adder flicking its tongue to find prey.
Checking his wrist-mounted GPS, he saw the distance between him and his men had closed to nine clicks. Racing through the Congolese jungle in an eight-wheeled APC, down a muddy strip that passed for a road, Saint Nick did not give a tinker’s damn what happened to him. He would not, however, abandon men who’d gone to battle on his orders. The price of his loyalty might be death or court-martial, but if so, he would pay that price. As the APCs skidded down the narrow path, he braced himself and called for still more speed. Seconds mattered.
Distant gunfire echoed through the jungle, faint but growing louder the deeper they sped into the green depths. Somewhere ahead, twelve Americans fought for their lives, men who had volunteered for a high-risk, high-reward strike designed and authorized by Angriff. He’d tried to dissuade one of them from what amounted to a suicide mission, because he considered the strike team leader to be the son he’d never had, but that leader knew the risk-reward far outweighed his own life and went anyway. With him and his team trapped and under fire, Angriff faced a stark choice: let them die, or risk his life and career to save them. He’d ordered a communication blackout before the rescue mission kicked off, because, in theory, the enemy could track them by their radio transmissions. CentCom knew that and radioed orders anyway, so insubordination now bordered on abandoning his post in time of war.
“Go, go, go!” He banged on the metal hull with the palm of his hand.
Overhanging branches whipped at the APC and Angriff ducked to avoid being decapitated. Sweat blurred his vision as he scanned the undergrowth in search of targets, and he wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeves. Twin fifty-caliber Desert Eagle semi-automatics hung crisscrossed in shoulder holsters, one under each armpit.
Angriff’s plan gave the U.S. plausible deniability in a clear violation of another country’s sovereignty by cloaking the mission in deception and disinformation. All the equipment came from foreign manufacturers, from the three Swiss APCs to the belts holding up their Iranian uniforms. Deception underpinned every detail of the operation. Even their M16 rifles bore Singapore manufacturing marks.
Assembling the necessary gear without using U.S.-sourced equipment had taken Angriff months, but the covert attack on a summit meeting of leaders from Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, Al-Queda, and five other African Muslim terror groups could not be tracked back to America. Operating in a hostile country without permission constituted an act of war, after all. The strike survivors exchanging fire with angry terrorists could not be associated with the U.S. military, because their special unit existed to be non-existent. The team members used nothing but code names,
even to each other. Officially they were Strike Team Zombie, but the few people cleared to know of their existence called them the Nameless.
Nothing could be traced back to the American armed forces or government, with one exception: Nick Angriff himself. Three-star generals could not be denied if they were killed or captured. Angriff knew that if the worst happened, he would be disavowed as a rogue general leading an illegal operation against the direct orders of a superior officer. He did not care.
Without warning, bullets ricocheted from the metal hull with loud whangs, zipping in from different angles while cutting leaves that fell like rain. Angriff raised his left arm to block a vagrant shaft of sunlight. He drew his right-hand pistol and searched for a target as the APC sped on, bouncing and splashing through the mud. The familiar weight of the Desert Eagle was reassuring.
Twenty yards ahead, a huge banana plant shivered and the tip of a rocket propelled grenade launcher nosed through, pointed right at him. Aiming the Desert Eagle with both hands, he guessed the gunner’s hiding spot, calmed his breathing, and fired two rounds. Despite the roar of the APC, Angriff heard a scream. The rocket canted upward as the dying man fell, toppling backward, and when his dying trigger finger tightened as a reflex, the missile whooshed skyward like a Roman candle. As they passed the spot, Angriff saw the man twitching in the swampy soil.
The APC topped a small hill. Two men in ragged green uniforms stood in the road, aiming rifles in the other direction. His brain identified them as enemies and in quick succession he fired the last five rounds from the pistol. One of the huge bullets missed, two hit the man on the left in his neck and head, blowing away the left side of his skull, and the other two struck the man on the right in his lower spine. The man’s stomach exploded, spewing gore into the mud. He staggered forward, pushing internal organs back into the huge hole just above his navel, and then he fell, face down.