From Filth & Mud (30 page)

Jacob and Doug began to take a second look through the office. After a few fruitless minutes, Jacob studied Van Damme who was now looking toward the back wall. Jacob followed his gaze up to the drop ceiling where a few missing panels exposed the support beams and some PVC piping. Jacob jumped up onto one of the laboratory work benches and peeked into the ceiling. A few mice scurried quickly away as his head crested the lattice framing. Their scurrying paws kicked up dust and rodent feces into his face, and he gagged as his nostrils flared with the putrid stench of urea and fecal matter. Undeterred, he scanned the interior of the ceiling, panning his infrared flashlight into the dark and that is when he noticed it. A small metallic box, the size of a lunch box was lodged up against the wooden framing of the floor above. The box was about six feet away and impossible to reach from his position.

“Found something?” Doug whispered.

“I see a small box up there that looks like someone went to some lengths to hide. I’m guessing that fact alone makes it worth our while.”

He searched the room and found a broken broom handle, then quickly jumped back onto the desk. He reached for the box and gave it a few taps with the handle, but to his chagrin, the box did not move. A swarm of large cockroaches responded to the tapping and scurried toward him, climbing down his back and onto the table. Doug swatted a few of the two-inch long bugs off of his trouser legs and boots. There was only one way to get the box. Jacob sighed before leaping up to a wooden support beam that ran the length of the room. He struggled to hoist himself up into the tight confines of the drop ceiling and shimmied along the top of a support beam until he reached the metal box. Suddenly the sound of pitter-pattering rodents scurried closer. Jacob hastily grabbed the box and crawled back through the hole from whence he came.

Once back on the floor, he inspected the metal box, which was slightly cold to the touch. After removing his shooting gloves, he opened the box to find an icy CO
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package and a couple of syringes within. He shut the box quickly and stored it in his daypack. He had learned over the last few months while sitting in hospital rooms with Nathan the importance of keeping certain medicine cold. He was convinced that he had just found what they were looking for, and if that was the case, he had to ensure that it was preserved as safely as possible.

Jacob looked at Doug and nodded. “We hit pay dirt. Let’s move out.”

The two men and their canine companion exited the building through the roof after receiving the all-clear from Tim. They picked up Odin just outside of the building and joined Tim and Tanner along the back alley. Jacob checked the drone swarm overhead, and the display only read their heat signatures in the darkened neighborhood. Their exfiltration route east was clear, and they soon joined John’s team before heading back to base.

Jacob unslung his rifle and peeled his body armor from his chest as he sat in the makeshift operations center of the two-story building. He dug into his daypack, revealed the small metal box, and placed it on John’s table. His friend nodded affirmatively and ordered everyone out of the room.

“What’s this Jacob?” John asked as he held the box gingerly between his fingertips.

“Something tells me that you already know, John.” Jacob’s words were accurate.

“I do. However, I don’t know if you necessarily want to report that you have this.” John lifted the lid of the box peeking warily inside.

“Why is that?”

“Well something like this is extremely valuable and in the right hands under the right circumstances, priceless.” John delicately shut the lid. “It’s also very dangerous. Jacob, I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t know exactly what this is, but I know that the doctor that we are looking for was developing this in a highly restricted lab, where they keep stuff that will make your eyes bleed. I don’t want to go home with a Gulf-War-Syndrome-type of disease, so I’m going to hand this back to you and advise you that you should put this somewhere safe until we find the doctor.” John slid the box back across the table to Jacob.

Jacob grabbed the box, wrapped it in his keffiyeh, and placed it back into his daypack. “I’ll find a place for it, and I assume that you won’t be discussing it with Jak or the client?”

“Discussing what?” John was stone-faced.

“Alright, now let’s find ourselves the good doctor.”

“Luckily for you, we’ve been flying the swarm since we’ve been here, and we think we found him.” John opened one of the drone control cases and brought up a live feed of a square mile of Basrah. “This building is the site of heavy inbound and outbound militia activity. They are the same guys who were raiding the lab earlier in the day. Now what is particularly fascinating about this building is that the militiamen are bringing in medical supplies into it and also patients.” John queued some video and replayed a clip from the previous day. The image froze, and he enlarged it. “You see here? Why would you bring a couple of guys in wheelchairs and three kids in a hospital van into a building that is otherwise occupied by militia fighters. And look here,” John forwarded the video a few hours later, “They are also bringing in medical personnel. My guess is that they have the doctor in here, and they are forcing him to take care of these people.”

“But he’s not that kind of doctor,” Jacob said with a shrug.

“Of course not, but around here a doctor is a doctor. Either way, it’s worth a shot. The problem is that this is one of their most heavily defended buildings, so it’s going to take a firefight to extract the doctor.”

Jacob’s tactical mind was already spinning. “We’ll have to create a distraction. We’ll have to hit them with a massive attack on one of their other strategic locations, preferably as far as possible from this building.”

“What do you have in mind, Jacob?”

“Well since the rest of the XPS teams have now made it up the Shatt, we can use them for this attack. You take three teams and lead an assault on their operations center. I will take the other three teams with me, infiltrate that building, and get the doctor. I will start the assault on the building about fifteen minutes after you start your assault on their operations center. Can your guys provide some air cover with that drone swarm?”

John chuckled. “You’re damn right they can. I’ll make sure that all of our drones are up and armed with their special payload! It’s going to be like old times!”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, my friend.”

- - - - - - -

The sun was still under the horizon and would not rise for another two hours. Jacob checked his watch. His team was in place and ready to hit the militia stronghold right at its most unguarded hour. Attacks were always most effective in the predawn hours because of the body’s circadian rhythm. Even the most seasoned military men found it difficult to remain vigilant at this hour. Jacob checked with his overwatch and QRF teams; both were in place. They now waited for John’s team to mount their attack on the operations center, which lay two miles away, near the city center.

The distant buzzing of three vehicle-mounted Miniguns spurting tracer hellfire into the militia headquarters began the action. The buzzing was interrupted by the staccato blasts of several SMAW II - Serpent rocket launchers. John was undoubtedly behind one of those powerful rockets and from the quick succession of blasts, it sounded like he was having fun raining misery onto the militia. Jacob started his watch. The SMAW blasts stopped, and the resonant buzzing returned with renewed fervor, but now it was accompanied by the steady clunking of a hammering MK2 .50 caliber machine gun. The deadly duo thumped and droned harmoniously: a deadly baseline.

Five minutes passed before the lights in the target building sprang to life and men started to run around still dazed with sleep. A dozen men stumbled out of the building, loaded into pickup trucks, and headed west toward the firefight. They would soon run into an ambush of their own about a mile down the road where they would be gunned down by the withering fire of a Minigun and several SAW machine guns from the second team. The southern exfiltration route was similarly protected.

“I don’t see any activity on the roof or around the perimeter. Looks like most of the Tangos took off to the ops center,” Tim relayed the information from his sniper’s hide.

“Roger, let’s move.” Jacob nodded to Tanner, Odin, and Doug, and the foursome moved quickly across the empty street led by Van Damme who was now hot on the trail of Dr. Monte-Alban.

As they neared the door, a militiaman appeared holding an ill-fitting helmet in one hand and an AK-47 in the other. Jacob dropped him with a short, silenced burst from his M4 Carbine. A second straggler crumpled as suddenly as he appeared, the remnants of his head splattering against the doorway, no doubt dispatched by the 7.62 mm round of Tim’s accurized rifle. Jacob pushed through the open doorway, his vision enhanced by his NVGs, which cast the darkness within in a greenish hue. Van Damme led the way then proceeded down a long corridor that banked to the right and into a large waiting room. He halted at the faint sound of unknown footsteps and sprawled flat, anticipating the volley of fire from his team. Jacob, who was following closely on his heels, froze and waited until a rifle barrel poked around the corner of the room. Jacob dropped the man with a three-round burst to the chest and the team continued behind their fearless canine. As the second man in the formation, Doug placed a round in the head of the downed man as they moved by. 

Van Damme followed his nose to the bottom of a stairwell and froze until Jacob gave him the ultrasonic command to proceed up the stairs. Upon hearing it, Van Damme slowly ascended the stairwell in a low crawl, his paws making no sound. As he moved, the stereoscopic night-vision camera mounted on Van Damme’s ballistic jacket relayed the images to Jacob’s wrist-mounted screen. Van Damme reached the top of the stairwell and stood guard for the team as they began their swift and silent ascent. The stairwell opened up into another long, unlit corridor with a dozen rooms breaking off to either side. These presented perfect ambush points, which the team had to painstakingly clear one at a time. The team stacked on either side of the closest room and made a stealthy entry. As the door crept slowly open, Jacob could see the bald head of a child lying in a pile of blankets. He quickly panned to his right where the body of a woman slouched over a chair. Even in the darkness, he could see the entry wounds of a bullet in each of the occupants’ foreheads.

The team continued their assault. Doug exited the next room and reported the same. All of the rooms were occupied by executed patients; most were children.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Tanner fumed.

“Jesus Christ, this place looks like a fucking hospital,” Doug stated the obvious.

“Stow it!” Jacob commanded. “We’re here to find our VIP.”

Just then Van Damme pointed up toward the ceiling and froze. Doug crouched down next to him and petted the brave Malinois. “We hear it too, boy!” The pounding of frantic running on the floor above was obvious.

“I hate to interrupt you, but it looks like the attack on the Ops Center is being repelled. They’ve got reinforcements and have John’s teams pinned down. Fighters are headed your way, and I just saw the lights on the third floor!” Tim informed them.

“Roger. Team two, hold off any reinforcements. Team three, stay frosty and wait for our evac.”

“Roger,” came both replies.

“Tim, cover that third floor as best as you can.” Jacob’s command was interrupted by a dull thud of a rifle’s report.

“Splash one Tango – Roger,” Tim replied.

The silent death was immediately answered by a cacophony of automatic weapons fire out of the third floor windows amid an explosion of chaos. In between the volleys, Jacob heard something strange. The voices were unfamiliar, and the tonal qualities themselves did not register in his mind. The screaming voices were muted by the hail of weapons fire, but they were clearly not Iraqi, or Arabic, for that matter. They sounded Asian.

Jacob moved his team toward the second floor stairwell, which stood on the far side of the building. The time for stealth had passed. It was time for the violence of action. He gave Van Damme the command to stay and the dog found cover behind an overturned couch as the rest of the team continued up the stairs. Their movements were covered by the deafening blanket of gunfire. The team emerged into the lit hallway on the third floor and assaulted through to join the firefight. As they turned the corner, Jacob came up on three uniformed Chinese soldiers who were firing furiously through windows at an unseen enemy. One of them instantly crumpled, and he and Doug opened fire on the remaining two. A sudden stream of automatic fire sprayed the wall to his right as two more Chinese soldiers emerged from a room at the end of a perpendicular hallway. Had they not been surprised by the mercenaries in black, they might not have missed.