Close Quarters (A Breed Thriller Book 4), page 1
Close Quarters
A Breed Thriller
Cameron Curtis
Published by Inkubator Books
www.inkubatorbooks.com
Copyright © 2022 by Cameron Curtis
Cameron Curtis has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-915275-23-3
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-915275-24-0
CLOSE QUARTERS is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Contents
Inkubator Books
Epigraph
Maps
Chapter 1
Kunar, 2005
Chapter 2
Present Day
Chapter 3
Day One
Chapter 4
Day One
Chapter 5
Day One
Chapter 6
Day One
Chapter 7
Day One
Chapter 8
Day Two
Chapter 9
Day Two
Chapter 10
Day Two
Chapter 11
Day Three
Chapter 12
Day Three
Chapter 13
Day Four
Chapter 14
Day Four
Chapter 15
Day Four
Chapter 16
Day Four
Chapter 17
Day Five
Chapter 18
Day Five
Chapter 19
Day Five
Chapter 20
Day Five
Chapter 21
Day Five
Chapter 22
Day Six
Chapter 23
Day Six
Chapter 24
Day Six
Chapter 25
Day Six
Chapter 26
Day Six
Chapter 27
Day Six
Chapter 28
Day Six
Chapter 29
Day Six
Chapter 30
Day Six
Chapter 31
Day Seven
Chapter 32
Day Seven
Chapter 33
Day Seven
Chapter 34
Day Eight
Chapter 35
Day Eight
Chapter 36
Day Eight
Chapter 37
Day Eight
Chapter 38
Eighteen Months Later
Epilogue
Inkubator Newsletter
Acknowledgments
Also by Cameron Curtis
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For Jenine
Sancte Michaele Archangele,
Defende nos in proelio;
Contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur:
Tuque, Princeps militae caelestis, in virtute Dei,
In infernum detrude Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
Qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo.
Amen
Blessed Michael, Archangel,
Defend us in the hour of conflict.
Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil
May God restrain him, we humbly pray:
And do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
By the power of God, thrust Satan down to hell
And with him those other wicked spirits
Who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.
Amen
- The Leonine Prayer to Saint Michael Archangel
Then war broke out in heaven.
Michael and his angels waged war upon the dragon.
The dragon and his angels fought
But they had not the strength to win.
- Revelations, 12.7-8
Maps
1
Kunar, 2005
Javelin
I focus my binoculars on Forward Operating Base Jericho.
Mortar explosions send geysers of rock and dirt skyward. The log and stone bunkers remain silent. The base is a moonscape. Troopers have gone to ground, sheltered inside the dugouts and trenches.
FOB Jericho is located at the extreme north of the Arwal valley. Its mission is to prevent the flight of Al Qaeda units to the north. It also blocks infiltration of Taliban fighters to the south.
It does neither job well. FOB Jericho is a shooting gallery. It is garrisoned by a company of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The FOB had been located on an outcrop of a nearby mountain. Impossible to resupply, except by air. The base was moved to its present position when the garrison became isolated. Flat ground on the west bank of the Arwal river.
The Taliban don’t have air resupply. On their backs, they hump weapons and supplies over mountains. With the strength of mountain goats. They have mortars in protected positions, and snipers overlooking the FOB. The snipers act as observers and direct artillery onto the base. Sometimes, they carry PKM machine guns onto the mountain and place them outside M4 range. Drop plunging 7.62mm machine gun fire on the Americans.
“We’re supposed to go in there for extraction?” Keller shakes his head. “Breed, I’d rather walk home.”
My Delta team have spent the last week hiking the high mountains of the Hindu Kush. We located a major Taliban base camp and mapped a caravan trail leading east to Pakistan. Now all we want is a ride home. But helicopters will not land on an FOB blanketed with mortar fire.
We half-lie, half-sit in a ditch next to the road. Consider our options.
“Sure,” Lenson says. “Let’s walk over to the next bus stop.”
“They’ll call in air support.” Hancock glances at his watch. “Get this all cleared up.”
“We’re supposed to own this valley,” I say. “Are we going to let Hajji tell us when we can come and go?”
Keller takes a bite of a Baby Ruth. “They do all the time. Ask the boys in there.”
I swing my binoculars to cover the base. From a log and corrugated tin structure, a pair of paratroopers sprint toward a bunker. With a chuffing sound and a roar, a mortar round falls from the sky. There’s an explosion. A fountain of rock, dirt, and galvanized iron sheets spurts into the air. The troopers dive into the bunker.
“Damn,” I say. “The Talis just blasted the outhouse.”
“That settles it,” Keller says. “We are walking to the next bus stop.”
“Let me have that radio,” I say to Lenson.
Lenson passes me the handset.
I lift it to my ear. “One-Four Juliet from Five-Five Actual.”
“Go ahead, Five-Five Actual.”
“We are a quarter click outside your north wire. Pass the word to your boys we are coming in.”
Keller groans.
The radio crackles. “Five-Five Actual, we are taking fire. Maybe you want to hold off.”
“Negative, One-Four Juliet. We are on the way. Pass the word.”
“Roger that, Five-Five Actual.”
As team leader, it’s my decision. We shoulder our rucksacks. My rifle is an M24 7.62mm sniper weapon system. I’m carrying eighty pounds in a special lightweight titanium frame. An astronaut’s backpack, custom-built for my loadout. Thirty pounds of spare ammunition, food, and field rations. Across the top are fifty pounds of Javelin anti-tank missile. The disposable launch tube looks like an oversized dumbbell. It’s a thick tube that contains the rocket. The forward cap protects the missile’s infrared seeker head. Strapped behind it is the Command Launch Unit—the CLU. It’s a portable screen that provides sighting for the missile. Night and thermal imagery for operators.
I look at three unhappy faces. “Let’s go.”
Get to my feet, run in a low crouch toward the wire. There’s four hundred meters of flat, clear ground. It ends in a concertina fence with a wooden gate. Across the top of the gate is a sign that reads:
FORT JERICHO
Thirty yards behind the fence is a trench. Sandbags, and the muzzle of a tripod-mounted M240 multipurpose machine gun. The helmets of paratroopers are visible over the top.
The paratroopers in the trench call out to us. “Push it open, man. Door ain’t locked.”
Keller and the team on my heels, I barrel through the gate.
More chuffing sounds. Another roar. I pile into the trench. The rest of the team roll in behind me.
KABOOM!
The mortar round explodes between the trench and the main bunker complex.
“You guys get this all the time?” I ask.
“Like clockwork, dude,” the paratrooper grunts. “They want to delay the sixteen hundred supply helo.”
“That’s the bus we want,” I tell him.
“Not today, brother. We need air support to clear that mortar. Then the sixteen hundred bus rolls in. At eighteen hundred.”
“Fuck that. Where’s your CO?”
“He’s at the Ponderosa. That’s the main bunker t
I poke my head up, scope the terrain.
“That mortar team’s on the reverse slope,” I tell him.
“No shit, Warrant.”
“So who’s spotting him?”
Mortars are indirect-fire weapons. They lob shells over terrain features like hills, trenches, trees and rivers. When out of sight of their targets, an observer is required to spot the fall of rounds and direct their fire.
“They’ve got some Hajjis overlooking the valley.”
The paratrooper’s friend chimes in. “Yeah. Occupying the old digs we gave up for this hole.”
I look back at the team. Under fire, everyone is a professional. Everyone is an adult. “Let’s go see the CO,” I say.
Pile out of the trench, run for the Ponderosa.
Mortar rounds bracket us as we run across the open ground. I hear Keller sucking wind behind me. It’s not physical exertion. It’s adrenaline, from knowing you can be hit by shrapnel at any second.
The Ponderosa is much better appointed than the trench. A short flight of stairs leads into a heavily sandbagged dugout. As we pile in, I see a guy sitting in a small office with a desk-mounted radio.
“One-Four Juliet?” I ask.
“You got it. Five-Five Actual?”
I nod. “Where’s your CO?”
“That’s Captain Harris,” the radio operator says. “Back in the map room.”
I push through the bunker into a lighted, sandbagged chamber fifteen feet square. A stocky paratroop captain is studying a map of the Arwal valley.
“Captain Harris.” I salute. “I’m Warrant Officer Breed.”
The captain returns my salute. “Warrant. We were informed you would be passing our way. Thought you might hold off until we got this shelling lifted.”
“No, sir. We have orders to get back to Bagram A-S-A-P. We need to catch the sixteen hundred bus.”
“A-S-A-Fucking-P? Warrant, today that means eighteen hundred.”
“Captain, we’re a sniper team. If we neutralize that Tali observer, we can lift the shelling and get the bus here… on schedule.”
“Think I don’t have snipers and designated marksmen in my unit, Warrant?”
“Sir, I am sure you do.”
“Think they are not as mission-capable as a Delta unit, Warrant?”
“Sir, I am sure they are.”
“That observer team is a click-and-a-half up that hill, behind boulders. My men have been trying to take them out for two weeks.”
“Do you have Javelins on base, sir?”
Captain Harris blinks. For the first time, he notices the dumbbell strapped across my rucksack frame. How could he have missed it?
“Effective to a mile and a quarter, sir. I need a clear line of sight long enough to get a lock. That’s all.”
“You got authority to spend a hundred grand to get one Tali?”
“We have time-critical intel, sir. That makes this Tali a High Value Target.”
“Be my guest, Warrant. Knock yourself out.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I assemble the Javelin, remove the missile’s caps, and fire up the CLU. The thermal sight is equipped with its own built-in cooling unit. While I wait for device to make itself ready, I scan the mountainside with binoculars. Next to me, Keller has his own binoculars and a laser rangefinder.
“There they are,” Keller says. “I make one, two, three Talis with a radio. Reckon it’s an ICOM ICV-8 or HT. Folding antenna. Range thirteen hundred yards.”
A tough ask for a .308 sniper rifle. Impossible for an M4.
Of course, the Talib is equipped with squad comms you can get off eBay. Simple, cheap, and effective.
I take a sitting position in the shallow ditch outside the wire. We’d tried to get a lock from inside the perimeter, but the Talis were hiding behind a boulder. It was impossible for me to get a direct lock on any of them.
Outside the concertina, I have a better angle. I set the CLU to maximum magnification. By default, the weapons system operates in Top Attack mode. When fired, the missile climbs to altitude. From there, it plunges onto the top of the target on which it has been locked. The top armor of a tank is invariably thinner than its frontal armor. That makes the Top Attack much more effective. Total flight time is between three and seven seconds.
It’s great for taking out Taliban who hide behind rocks.
“I’ve got them.” I lay the crosshairs of the sight on the Talib holding the ICOM. That way, if the Taliban scatter, the missile will take out the guy carrying the comms. In this business, details matter. There’s enough thermal differentiation between the Talib’s body and the surrounding mountainside to lock the seeker head on target. “Firing.”
I launch the missile.
The Javelin is a two-stage “soft” launch system. That means the first stage of the solid fuel rocket ejects the missile from the tube. Tosses it fifteen or twenty feet downrange. Then the flight rocket ignites and sends the missile on to the target. The system minimizes backblast. It allows the Javelin to be fired from inside bunkers.
A bright flash marks the ignition of the Javelin’s flight rocket. In seconds, the missile is arcing high toward the target.
I set the tube down and grab my binoculars.
Seven seconds flight time is plenty to lay your binos on target. The Taliban jabber at each other. Point at the glowing lance ascending its lethal trajectory. The missile peaks, noses over, and plunges toward them.
The Taliban duck behind the boulder. They look straight up, then cower.
KABOOM!
A bright orange and red flash erupts from the point of impact. Rock splinters, body parts, and torsos are launched into the air amidst a cloud of ugly black smoke. Debris rains on the mountainside.
“Good hit,” Keller says.
Silence descends on Forward Operating Base Jericho. The mortars have stopped.
I check my watch.
“Reckon we can catch the sixteen hundred bus.”
2
Present Day
Manaus – The Minister
Augusto Sales lights up a Camel and stares at me.
“You will never find Fiadh Connor,” he says. “I am not insensitive to her father’s anguish. As one man to another, Mr Breed, I tell you she is dead. Lost somewhere in the thirty-three thousand square miles of Brazil’s Selva da Morte. Cuchulain has dispatched you to find a wild goose.”
We stand at the top floor windows of the Port Authority, a functional government building. The offices up here are plush. The color of a bruise, the Rio Negro stretches from the floating port to the far bank. To my left is the Encontre das Aguas, where the Negro’s dark waters merge with those of the Rio Solimoes. Together, the two tributaries form the Amazon.
Ships tied up at the piers are of surprising size. Everything from large container vessels to fishing boats stop at Manaus. The streets are crowded and dusty, choked with clouds of dust particles embedded in a matrix of hot, humid air.
“I’ve studied the maps,” I tell him. “The search area can be narrowed to within six miles of the Rio Preto.”
Sales has commandeered the Harbormaster’s office. A wide desktop of Amazonas Mahogany. More pedestrian wall shelves have been crammed with shipping schedules and logbooks. Charts, marked with soundings, are spread on a long table. Old watercolors of riverboats have been hung on the walls.
