Echo Six: Black Ops 8 - ISIS Killing Fields (24 page)

The commander of the nearest tank saw him as he stood up with the missile, and the turret began to move. Too late, he used the weird joystick arrangement to fix the vehicle in the optical sites and squeezed the trigger release. The range was so close, less than two hundred meters; the missile almost had no time to reach full speed before it slammed into the frontal armor of the T80. The result was spectacular, more than five pounds of high explosive, a shaped charge designed to penetrate the thickest armor.

The vehicle exploded in front of his eyes. The ammunition cooked off in a secondary explosion a second later, and at first he thought the tank commander had survived, blasted out of his turret. With a growing realization, he could see it was just the upper half of his body. The missile hit had torn him into two pieces. It was sickening, but he had other things to worry about. The Arab was ready with the next suitcase launcher, and he passed it up to Talley. It was quicker this time. He looked through the peculiar periscope-like optical sight to locate the target, adjusted the crosshairs with the joystick, and squeezed the trigger.

The missiles were devastating. The second vehicle exploded, and the result was chaos and confusion. Of the four remaining tanks, two went into reverse and picked up speed, fleeing from the terrible scourge of the missiles. The other two began to traverse their turrets to target him, but as the first vehicle fired, the driver panicked and started reversing away to follow his two companions. As he did so, he nudged the other tank at the moment they fired. The collision sent the shell wide, exploding harmlessly in the desert.

The Arab put the third missile ready, and now it was like a well-drilled operation. Lock the optical sights on the target, shift the aim to the exact impact point with the joystick, and squeeze the trigger. The next suitcase launcher came up on the wall, and he squeezed the trigger. At the moment of firing, the tank crew may have sensed they were about to take a hit, for the tank lurched around as the driver reversed a track to spin the machine on its axis. The missile went wide, but Talley was already loading the next one.

This time, he scored a hit. Another T-80 became a heap of smoke and flames, a fiery coffin for its crew. The next launcher was on the wall, except they were running. The GAZ Tigers had already overtaken the surviving two T80s and had almost disappeared in the sand and dust. The next suitcase arrived, and Talley told him to stack it ready for use.

“Assemble the rest of them, and then we’re done.”

“Yes, Sir. You think they’ll come back?”

“If they do, we’ll be ready. Keep the suit on, and stay with the missiles.”

The Arab stared at him. “It’s very hot wearing this. I’d prefer to move away from this area and take it off.”

“Some of my men would prefer to kill you. If I were you, pal, I’d stay as you are.”

“Yes, yes, I will do that.”

“Very wise.” He strolled along the rampart to where Guy and Domenico waited. Below, his men were examining the gap in the wall made by the tank shells. He grinned as Roy Reynolds bellowed orders to Bino’s Iraqis, urging them to work harder to locate more heavy blocks of stone to repair the damage. When Talley was far enough away from the irradiated missiles, he thankfully stripped off the suit and left it on the rampart, ready to throw on at a moment’s notice. The fresh air was magical on his skin, and even though they were in a hot desert climate, it felt cool, and the sweat started to dry. He gulped air into his lungs and went to join them.

“Thank God for Russian anti-tank missiles.”

Guy pointed out into the desert. The Russians had driven away, and the dust cloud had disappeared. “I have a feeling they won’t be back.”

Talley wasn't so sure. “Maybe not, but we still have to worry about aircraft. We need air support, and we need it now.” He waved to Drew. He was instructing the reluctant Iraqis on the fine art of moving chunks of stone from one place to another. "Get a patch through to Petersen. Tell him what happened here, and make sure he contacts the Russians to warn them we're here. We don't want any more friendly fire incidents."

“Copy that.” He raced to the Humvee where he’d stowed the radio.

“And check on Geena. Make sure she’s okay.”

“Bielski is with her, keeping an eye on her.”

“Do it anyway.”

He waved an acknowledgement. Talley left him to it and looked at his two senior men. “I doubt they’ll be back. We gave them a good beating. As to the aircraft, I don’t know. Those Sukhois are low-level ground attack fighter-bombers. They’ve no way of knowing what we have here in terms of ground-to-air missile defenses. They’ll be nervous about mounting a raid, and the chances are they’ll leave us alone.”

“We still have a problem, Boss,” Rovere said, “We're a long way from home, and the enemy is on full alert. ISIS, the Russians, it seems to me there are a lot of people trying to kill us.”

He nodded. “You’re right. This is what we’re going to do. I’ll order Drew to find every piece of ordnance capable of exploding, and mine the underground armory. That should take care of the chemical weaponry, and make sure ISIS doesn’t get its grubby hands on it to use against our people.”

“It’ll do that for sure, but it’ll also turn the desert green, or whatever these things do, for several kilometers around.”

“In which case, we’d better be a long way away when it happens. We’ll stay here until just before dawn, and leave before first light. That’ll give us a chance for some rest, and with any luck, we’ll rustle up some food. I know the Iraqis had supplies. They can share them out.”

Rovere grinned. “That Captain Salim is something of a gourmet. I’ll check out his stuff first.”

“Except it would be in his Humvee, which he left behind for ISIS to loot.”

He grimaced. “Another good reason to hunt them down and kill them. I could do with a good meal.”

“Too bad, it’s not going to happen. I reckon you lucked out there, Domenico.”

He was ready with a fast retort. “Good luck is often with the man who doesn't include it in his plans.”

Guy groaned. “If I hear another word of Shakespeare, I’m gonna kill someone.”

“You should be grateful,” Rovere told him with a straight expression, “I’m giving you a classical education free of charge. Think what you’d have missed without me.”

“Peace of mind and a happy life.”

Talley felt a weight lifted off his shoulders at the narrow escape from the Russians. He strolled further along the wall where Vince diMosta was staring into the distance. He looked around as Talley came alongside him.

“I reckon that was good shooting, Boss.”

“Those Russian Saggers are damned good and easy to use.”

“It’s good to use them against their own armor.”

Talley looked out into the desert. “There is that. We’re staying here overnight and leaving just before first light, although I doubt the Russians will be back.”

He grinned. “Not after you scorched their asses, no.”

Both men gazed at the burning wrecks as the wind blew smoke toward them. It also sent the awful odor of burning flesh to surround them in the thick, cloying odor. Talley shuddered. “Poor bastards.”

“That’s what they planned to do to us,” diMosta reminded him.

Talley frowned and ran down the steps. Now the attack was over, he had a single priority. He ran to the Humvee where Drew and Bielski were guarding Geena.

“How is she?”

Bielski looked embarrassed. “She’s conscious, Boss. It’s amazing, hard to believe. I worked on several more of her wounds and cleaned up most of the blood. I’m sorry, I know she’s wearing nothing underneath that sheet, but I didn’t have any choice.”

He shuffled his feet, and Talley gave him a reassuring look. “I appreciate the care. Go check-in with Guy. We’re staying overnight and pulling out just before dawn.”

He nodded and jogged away. Drew finished putting yet another bandage over a series of deep abrasions on her wrist, where she would have pulled herself through tunnel. He looked up at Talley. “She’ll pull through, Boss. At least, physically, as to the rest…”

“I get it. What about Petersen?”

Drew raised his eyes to the heavens. “Petersen was Petersen, doing his total asshole impression. He gave me the runaround about lack of resources, shortages of men and equipment, and repeated the same old crap.”

“So we’re on our own.”

Drew grinned. “Aren’t we always? I’ll leave you with her for now. I need to take a look around. See what munitions I have to work with.”

“You already guessed what we’re planning.”

“Sure, it doesn’t take a genius to work it out. Get rid of a heap of toxic chemicals, along with a radioactive chaser. Blowing them up always works.”

“You got it. Do what you can, Drew. Just make certain those ISIS bastards don’t get them back. When we leave this place, no one’s coming back here in a long, long time.”

“Copy that.”

He strolled away, and Talley looked down at Geena. Apart from the bandages, she didn’t look as bad as she had before. They’d cleaned most of the blood and dirt from her skin, and the biggest giveaway to what she’d been through the bandages on her hands, arms, and legs. Even more so was the expression in her eyes. As he stared at her, her eyes opened, and he flinched. It was as if down in that dark shaft, someone had stripped away her soul, and behind it, left a shallow, frightened husk.

“Abe.”

“Yeah, I’m here. Tell me how you feel. You look a lot better than when we first picked you up.”

Her cracked lips parted in a small smile. “I think I would have found it difficult to look any worse. How are things going here? Drew pumped me full of morphine, and I still feel pretty woozy. I could swear I heard loud explosions. Has ISIS returned?”

He explained about the Russians. How they’d managed to destroy half of their armor, and the rest had run. Her look was quizzical.

“What do we do now? Will our people send someone to get us out of here?”

“Negative, we’re going back under our own steam. Stay in the back of the Humvee. A few hours and we’ll be back across the border and into Iraq. A couple of days in a hospital, and you’ll be right as rain.”

She rewarded him with another small smile. “It’s a nice thought, Abe. Can I tell you something, a confession?”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m still down there, crawling along the qanat. I feel like I never got out. I remember coming out into the open, and there were men all around me, shouting and screaming. I thought they were going to kill me.”

Since he’d started to speak to her, she’d been trembling, but as she mentioned the qanat, she began to shiver uncontrollably.

“You frightened them more than they did you. Geena, I know it’s hard, but somehow you have to get your mind out of that tunnel. You’re safe. You’re back with us, and nothing is going to happen to you. No more tunnels, and I promise you a few cold beers and slap up meal when we get home.”

She didn’t stop shivering. “If we get home. We are still in bandit country.”

He put his face close to hers and brushed her lips with his, just a very gentle touch. He was terrified of hurting her more, but her eyes opened wide, and this time the smile was much larger. “What was that?”

He kept his face close to hers. “I guess you could call it a promise. Whatever you want when we get back, it’s yours. What you did back there, I don’t believe anyone else could have done it. You showed more guts than any ten Special Forces operators.”

“I doubt it, but I’ll hold you to that. So we’re leaving at dawn.”

“Before dawn, we'll be out of here and into the hills before they know we’ve left.”

She tried to smile again but then slipped away into unconsciousness. Maybe it was the morphine, although a better explanation was her mind’s way of dealing with the incredible stress. Bielski was hovering about fifty meters away, and Talley had little doubt the Pole had elected himself as her protector and nurse. That was fine. He was a good man. He signaled him to join him, and he jogged over. “She okay?”

Talley smiled. “You’ve done well, Tadeus. I want you to stay with her while I get everything ready.” He looked up at the sky, and it was still broad daylight, although he knew within an hour or two, night would descend on the fort. As soon as it was dark, they’d need to go to work. The last thing he’d want was for the enemy to see them preparing to move out. He found Guy still up on the wall, keeping diMosta company and staring into the distance, watching for the enemy.

“We’ll start preparing to leave as soon as the light fades.”

His number two pointed at the Iraqis, who were still laboring, albeit at half speed, to repair the damage to the wall. “What about them, you want me to tell them to stop?”

“That’s a negative. If anyone has eyes on us, let them see we are planning on staying. The best way to do that is to make them think we’re repairing the walls, ready for the next attack. As soon as it’s dark, they can start taking the rocks away, so there’s space for us to drive out.”

Guy chuckled. “They’ll be impressed. I heard a few complaints about them being forced to work like laborers. The next set of orders will tell them to take it all back down again.”

Talley shrugged. “I don’t give a shit. Bino will handle them, and besides, so far they haven’t handled themselves any better than laborers. So we may as well treat them as such. Speak of the devil.”