The Reluctant Warrior (Warriors Series Book 2) (18 page)

Bear and Chloe dug out road barriers and signs and each walked two hundred yards down and placed them across the street. On top of the barriers they hung large ‘Road Temporarily Closed’ signs.

Bear adjusted the sign at his end and looked at it critically for a moment.
Broker said the NYPD would stay out of this. Wonder if they’re watching.
He stopped thinking about it and placed smaller signs at the entrances to the apartment blocks on the street.

Roger and Broker watched them while keeping an eye on the warehouse.

Bwana climbed inside the SUV from the passenger side and lifted a long, heavy case from behind the seat. He unwrapped a Remington M24A3 sniper rifle from the case and put it together with practiced ease. The Remington, along with the Barrett, were his sniper rifles of choice, and as he slapped a Leupold Ultra M3 scope on it, he remembered the last time he had used it had been in Iraq.

The target then had been a planner and banker for terrorist organizations and was the brains behind several suicide bomb attacks in Europe and Africa.

Clare had green-lighted the assignment, and a three-man team had followed him from country to country before deciding on the hit in Iraq. The target had been paranoid about his security and had never stayed in the same country for more than a month and, even then, stayed only in apartments for less than a week, places that his organization had vetted and secured.

Broker had picked his trail up by tracking down his advance team, who went to the apartments and secured them by paying cash and, on the rare occasion, by card – a mistake that Broker gleefully capitalized on.

The three-man team had worn white dishdashahs, the long, one-piece dress traditionally worn by men, covered their faces with gutrahs, the headpieces, and had followed the target in a Toyota Saloon that had seen better days. Three days of sweltering heat in Dora, Baghdad, choking dust, and endless traffic, and they were no closer to finding a pattern to the target’s movement or a spot for the hit. The target’s apartment was surrounded by gun-toting men all day and night, and was struck off immediately as a take-out site.

Conscious that the target could leave the country at any time, they finally decided to take out the target the next day.

There were two constants in the target’s movements – one was the street he took in his heavily armored Land Cruiser once he exited the apartment. This street led to a crossroad where the vehicle took any exit randomly.

The crossroad would be the site of the hit, since the vehicle slowed down almost to a stop to allow for oncoming traffic.

The other constant was the target’s seating in the Land Cruiser. The target sat in the rear, next to a window, directly behind the driver.

The sniper’s hide would be the flat roof of an apartment block – apartment block was being generous to the bombed-out building – behind the target’s building, taller than it, with a clear view of the street.

The bullet would have to traverse a shade over two thousand yards in the heat of the day, a temperature of around a hundred and ten Fahrenheit and a wind speed of eight meters/second. Difficult shooting conditions, but Bwana had shot in those conditions before.

The challenge was to get the target to lower his window, which was made of toughened, bulletproof glass.

The three-man team occupied the roof of the building at dawn the next day. The building was deserted, a hollow shell, through which the ghosts of the dead wandered.

Bwana and his spotter surveyed the roof and positioned his Remington on the site that afforded the fullest view of the street. Bwana set the Harris bipod up, put together the rifle, took wind and temperature readings, and then did what the best snipers did – lay down prone and willed his metabolism to slow and went inside himself. His spotter did the same.

The third man went down to the street and did a check of their comms – barely detectable earpieces and microphones that were covered by the folds of the gutrah.

At eleven in the morning the Land Cruiser swung in front of the block and waited, its engine ticking over. The man on the street whispered in his gutrah and got an acknowledgement from Bwana and the spotter.

At half past eleven, the target’s bodyguards came out, forming a protective circle around the target. One of them opened the door for him, and Khalid Ashraf, the target, settled into the window seat with a satisfied grunt. The Toyota set off.

A hundred yards later, the Toyota slowed, and Ashraf squinted through the window at the large white banner on the side of the street. ‘Salaam Alaikum, Ashraf,’ read the banner in large Arabic script.

Another hundred yards, another banner. ‘Ashraf, we have a secret for you.’

Ashraf leant forward, ignoring everything else, and his eyes grew wide as the next banner approached, ‘Pay attention, Ashraf.’

The Toyota was approaching the crossroad and was slowing down in anticipation. Khalid ignored everything else on the street and yelled out to the driver to go slower as he spotted another banner on the street. The banner became his universe.

He squinted harder to make out the smaller lettering. He couldn’t.

He squashed his face against the glass and tried again. No luck. He wiped the glass with his sleeve and tried again. The letters still remained unreadable. The banner was almost in line with his window now.

He cursed and lowered the window.

‘I have a message for you, Ashraf,’ it read.

And Bwana took the shot.

The spotter continued watching through a pair of Steiner binoculars and then patted him silently on his back and stood up without a word. Bwana took apart the rifle swiftly, without haste, and looked up at the spotter when it was neatly packed. Bwana acknowledged only one other sniper as his better.

That sniper was Zeb, his spotter on that day.

Roger tapped the roof, bringing Bwana out of his reverie. He folded the rear seats, set up a tripod and mounted the rifle on it. He made small adjustments and murmured, ‘All set,’ in his collar mic.

Broker went to the front passenger side and leaned casually against it while Roger fiddled with something stuck in the rear wheel. Chloe and Bear were still on the street, on opposite sides, making sure the street was clear, Bear drifting closer to the warehouse.

‘Now,’ Broker said and leaned inside and turned on a cell phone jammer. An NSA classified device – he had gotten hold of it through his channels – it had an effective radius of a kilometer, which was enough for them.

Bwana took a deep breath and released it and then swung the driver’s side passenger door sideways. He now had a view of the warehouse and, more importantly, the three CCTV cameras.

He crouched down, and the first camera jumped at him through the Leupold. A moment to allow the rifle to become an extension of his arm, the trigger, a sixth digit on his hand, and the camera to the right disintegrated. Bwana swung the rifle steadily to the left and shot that one.

When Broker saw the third camera explode, he nodded at Roger. Roger straightened and, wiping his hands on his trousers, reached inside the SUV and picked up a small satchel. He walked swiftly through the gate of the warehouse and made his way to the corner on the right.

He glanced back and saw Bear heading to the corner on the left with a similar satchel. He hugged the wall and ran to the first window. It was glassed and barred and a foot above his head. He paused for a moment and heard movement and muffled voices from inside. None of the voices appeared to be shouting or strained.

His Glock slid smoothly in his hand and, reversing his grip, he extended his hand and rapped the glass firmly.
Highly unlikely anyone’s near the windows. They’ll be packing and unpacking and doing whatever shit hoods do inside.

From the satchel he took out a couple of cylindrical objects, a stun grenade and a CS gas grenade, pulled their pins, and tossed them through the broken window in an overarm arc.

He heard the first bang from the stun grenade when he reached the second window, and then he heard shouting. A second bang followed, and he smiled thinly.
Bear.

He broke the next two windows and tossed devices through them and sprinted to the rear of the warehouse. Pandemonium had broken out inside the warehouse, the flash-bangs, shouting and screaming becoming a wall of sound.
More than ten inside, closer to fifteen, and likely this is their first experience of flash-bangs. How does it feel, assholes?

Half a minute from entering the gate, he navigated the rear corner and stopped suddenly.

The rear door was wide open, and five hoods were outside.

Three of them were armed, one had an AR-15 rifle and two of them had Skorpion machine pistols. The other two were in no position to offer any resistance. One was retching against the wall, and the fifth was kneeling down, holding his stomach. The three with guns were looking through the open door in amazement and shock.

AR-15 spun round on hearing Bwana’s approach, his loose shirt stretching tight across his stocky frame, the barrel coming up.

‘The fuck you are? What…?’

Roger flowed from a standstill, all thought and speed, moving under the arc of the rising rifle, twisting his body to the side, grabbing it with both hands like a javelin, and jabbed back, hard, catching the hood flush in the face. He collapsed in a heap; another jab and he was out of the equation.

Roger turned to look at Bear and saw that he didn’t need any help.

Bear had two facing him with the Skorpions, but he had the advantage of surprise and training. It also helped that the two were bunched closely together. He moved swiftly, turning, keeping one hood between the other and, coming inside the firing arm of the first hood, kicked his knee out. As the hood fell, losing his gun, Bear picked him up bodily, a hand on his collar and one at his belt, and threw him at the second hood. He hit them with a Skorpion and swiftly bound their hands with the plastic ties.

He bumped fists with Roger, and the two of them picked up the three hoods and threw them inside the warehouse. The two affected by the stun grenades were still dazed and stumbled inside the warehouse without offering any resistance when Roger and Bear frisked them for weapons and then pushed them inside.

Roger took a quick peek and saw the rest of the gangbangers were lying incapacitated and dazed, some of them crying.

‘Better be sure,’ he said and picked up the fallen AR-15 and fired a burst in the ceiling of the warehouse.

He stepped to the side immediately, slammed the door shut, and wedged the AR-15 against it. It wouldn’t hold against a determined and concerted assault from inside, but they weren’t expecting one and were prepared for that eventuality too.

Bear opened his satchel and brought out a thick steel mending brace, a battery-operated screw driver and drill set, and with Roger helping, sealed the door against the frame with the brace.

They collected the Skorpions and the AR-15 and with a last look around, headed back.

‘On our way,’ Bear said in his mic and got an acknowledging ‘roger’ from Broker.

Bear threw the last of the flash-bangs and CS gas grenades through the windows as they left, for good measure.

Roger looked at him quizzically, and a grin parted the thick beard. ‘Mamma always said I should finish my lunchbox at school.’

He trotted to the rear of the vehicle and removed the street signs, and Chloe did the same at the other end.

‘All quiet here,’ Broker commented when Roger removed the magazines from the guns and dumped them in the SUV and joined him at the front. ‘Not a peep from anyone within the warehouse. If they had, Bwana would have fired at and through the door, and that would have pegged them back.’

‘What about spectators from the apartments?’

‘Nah. I think they have learnt to leave well enough alone.’

Roger left him to help Bear and Chloe load the signs in the rear, and they all climbed in, a tight fit this time with Chloe perched on Bear’s lap, since Bwana was still manning the Remington.

Broker powered the ride and reached down to turn off the jammer. He twisted around to check they all were aboard and then called a number.

‘No names. You know who I am. It’s time to ride and claim your headlines,’ he drawled when he got a reply. ‘About ten, no thirteen or fifteen of them,’ he corrected when Roger mouthed at him silently.

‘Of course they’re alive. We don’t believe in killing,’ he said piously. ‘You’ll need to hurry, though. Those bastards are passive at the moment, but that might change, and also the gang might send more hoods.’

‘How’re they passive? Well, I dunno. Hoods have a siesta in the afternoon, don’t they?’

The phone squawked, and Broker cut in. ‘That’s all I can share. The headlines are all yours for the asking if you move immediately,’ and he hung up.

‘NYPD?’ Chloe asked him as she loosened her hair and tied it again and replaced the cap over her head.

‘Deputy Commissioner. I’ve done him enough favors for him not to ask too many questions.’

‘What’re we waiting for now?’ Chloe asked. ‘We shouldn’t be here when the NYPD arrive.’

‘We’ll wait till we hear their sirens,’ Bear replied in a muffled voice, Chloe’s back squashed against his face.

‘Huh, and who asked you to talk?’ she said, jamming her back further against him.

Bwana fired and reloaded immediately, the muffled clap of the shot loud in the confines of the vehicle, cutting off any further talk. He reloaded.

All of them peered at the warehouse. ‘Got someone?’ Roger broke the silence.

Bwana continued keeping his vigil through the scope. ‘Wasn’t aiming to. Saw a face at the slat and shot well high to discourage them. I don’t reckon they’re still in any shape to attempt an escape.’