Task Force Intrepid (The Gold of Katanga), page 8
The team paused for a second to see if there was any reaction from inside the camp. Nothing. All was quiet. Salvo moved up to the post to see if there was any movement. Nothing. He signaled the men to follow. They had prepared for a locked gate but it was unchained. Kruger opened the gate and viewed the area with his NVG mount. The place was deserted. The office trailer and the barracks lay to their right. The men were ramped up but Kruger led slowly. The office was the nearest building to clear but he wanted a simultaneous attack in order to maximize surprise.
Blake McGee split off and walked toward the trailer with a firm plan. He would enter the door and eliminate the two men who slept in air conditioning. His morbid sense of humor thought that the bodies would not decay and bloat as quickly as the men in the block house. When he reached the door, he stood off to one side and checked the handle to see if it was unlocked. It was. All he waited for now was the word from the Boss across the mic to go hot.
Kruger, Salvo and Taylor were planning on grenading the place and then entering and clearing the room. It housed somewhere around thirty men. He estimated it to be around thirty five meters long and assumed that bunks were lining the walls along each side. Probably bunk beds. Three frag grenades would be lobbed to the far end leaving the survivors at close range. This would be an outright slaughter but the men that were about to die needed to die. They were a part of the evil that had slain the men who had worked here. They had shown no mercy, given no notice for their victims to get their affairs in order.
With the events of the evening, their reactions would be slow, it wouldn’t be much of a fight. Being heavily outmanned, it was a coup for the Task Force. They had no idea what awaited them at the second mine. Simmons would stand security with his SAW. All of the men were ready.
Kruger gave the simple command: GO.
McGee turned the knob and flung the door open, shouldered his rifle, scanning left first. His trained eye filtered through the monocular NVG saw nothing but office and communication equipment. He drew his right foot back and pivoted clockwise, scanning the sight picture as he went. His brain registered a bunkbed straight ahead with two bodies bolting upright out of their slumber. The man on the bottom of the bunk reached towards the floor where his AK-47 lay. As he bent over, it provided the perfect shot to the top of his head.
McGee pulled the trigger smoothly and rapidly, sending two shots into the Rebels head causing cranial evacuation. He acquired the second target on the top bunk. He had rolled up on to his side presenting a center mass shot. He squeezed off another round and then laterally shifted his sight to the head of the man. The result was the same.
Ever vigilant, McGee cleared the rest of the trailer from top to bottom, left to right. All clear. He noted the number of bullets he had expended as he left the trailer and took up position with Simmons as the carnage was unleashed inside the barracks.
Kruger, Salvo and Taylor stood outside the doorway and unhooked a grenade a piece. They pulled the pins. Kruger entered first and took the far side, Salvo the middle and Taylor the near side. Kruger lobbed his grenade over the bunks to the far wall, Taylor rolled his down the aisle and Salvo, the same as Kruger.
The men exited the barracks and took cover alongside the outer wall. The grenades went off simultaneously, blowing out the windows and rattling the ground. The whoosh of the explosion threw debris and body parts out of the windows. The concussion would briefly immobilize anyone left alive.
Kruger re-entered the door to the far side, Taylor the middle and Salvo near the door. They methodically scanned their sectors of fire. The back end of the building was destroyed and most of the bodies were not moving. Kruger saw movement about three quarters of the way up. A soldier got to his knees and was reaching for his rifle. His shouldered R4 delivered two shots to the body. Another man, two shots. He stood over the overturned bed of the man closest to him and put the muzzle on the mans face and pulled the trigger.
Taylors’s sector found little movement and he scanned slices of the men to his left and right. Bodies with the slightest twinge were neutralized. Salvo’s sector had the most movement. Repeated double taps echoed out of his rifle and he finally let go of a burst of fire at a group of men huddled in the corner.
“Cease fire,” Kruger said loudly. “Clear forward.” The men walked the aisle looking for men behind overturned bunks. Taylor finished three men huddled behind a bed with an automatic burst, then flipped back to Semi. They reached the end, turned and cleared the other direction.
“We have movement,” Simmons came over the mic. “Four hostiles near the mining equipment.” Before the reply came from Kruger, the sound of the rapid fire M249 split the air. “Targets down.”
“Make sure,” Kruger said.
Another burst of fire finished the job.
The five shooters regrouped outside the barracks and scanned the area. Silence. The men knew that this was the easy part. A slaughter with minimal damage to property and no resistance. The Rebels, whoever they worked for, were ill prepared for a serious attack. Too bad for them.
“Never put all your eggs in one basket, men,” Kruger said. “Thunderbird One, Thunderbird One, do you copy?” Kruger was calling in Sergei.
“Comrades ! We are five minutes out. Report status, over.”
“Objective A disinfected. No friendly casualties, over.”
“Roger that Whiskey Kilo, out.”
The men formed a three sixty perimeter and waited. Each man focused on the task at hand. Step one was complete. Executed flawlessly. They soon heard the sound of the Puma headed their way. The next concern was the disposition of the second camp. Had the sounds awakened the other compound? Sound traveled far in this country.
Sergei came in from an unexpected direction, appearing just over the ridgeline that they had set up their OP on and dipped the chooper down and flared a perfect landing.
The men hustled into the Puma and strapped themselves in. They replenished their ammunition and rehung their grenades. The chopper took off and skimmed its way over the landscape. Dawn had barely broken. Enough to start to see the features of the terrain. They followed the road to the mine.
“I will make a pass over the compound to see if our friends are awake. If they are, we will give them some morning greetings.”
The flight lasted only a few minutes and did not give the men a chance to switch off. The South African gunners were hanging by a sling in the doorway, wielding their PKM’s, looking anxious for action.
“We are coming up on the compound,” Sergei said. The men tried to peer out the door and at the ground. “Shit, we have movement in the compound.” There was no way of knowing if the men had been wakened from the noise of the first assault or had just awoke.
“Rodney, Kirik, engage the targets,” Sergei’s voice came over the mic.
The chopper came at the compound from the road. He slowed his run. The South African door gunners unleashed the PKM at the guard post. Brass began flying everywhere. Salvo had been quick to aid, shooting his M203 40mm grenade launcher into the machine gun pit.
Rodney could see the effects hanging his head out of the door. “We got it, bru.”
Sergei increased the power, headed north and made a quick banking maneuver to bring the chopper to bear on the targets inside the compound. The deft aerial gunnery skills of Veermak and Bouwer started at about 200 yards out and let loose a stream, leading the target as the chopper went by.
“Got a few. Looks like a beehive down there.”
Sergei came on the mike. “Boss, I can afford one more pass. Have the men firing what they can. I will stay level then set down as planned.” Sergei banked hard and went for another run. Simmons and Salvo had unstrapped and were acquiring targets as the chopper went past. Hot brass flew around the bay.
“That ought to slow them down,” Simmons said. All of the men unstrapped and prepared to engage targets immediately.
The chopper banked right and began to set down behind the cover of the machinery with the door gun shooting a continuous stream of fire towards the Rebels. Return fire started zipping around them. Veermak continued to deftly take down Rebels at a range of one hundred and fifty yards. The team exited out of the other side and sprinted for cover behind small mounds and heavy equipment. The chopper had been on the ground no more than five seconds. It powered away with the PKM machine gun streaming bullets continuously until they disappeared into the landscape.
“Nice work Dragonfly. Hang around if you can,” Kruger said.
The men deployed to any defilade available. Fortunately there was plenty of steel in the area. There still remained the open ground between them and the Rebels. It was a clear area. During working hours, it provided the room for the machinery and vehicles to move around.
Kruger, Simmons and McGee found cover behind a bulldozer. The pings of the AK fire bounced off the dozer and gave him a moment to pause and assess the situation. “Get solid defilade. Let them shoot off some rounds. Pick your shots,” he exhorted over the mike.
Salvo and Taylor found a dump truck and hid behind the dual rear axle. Dirt kicked up all around. Salvo peeked around the wheel and saw the men firing from the hip. “Quite a few, Boss.”
Kruger lay flat against the ground and looked around the rear track of the bulldozer. He saw the commanders starting to deploy their troops in a flanking action. Time to go to work.
“They are going to flank. Salvo, 203 on the right. I’ll take the left. Simmons, spray the middle. On three. Three, Two, One….”
From their cover Kruger and Salvo fired their 40 mm grenades at the men attempting to flank each side. Thump. Thump. Several men were blown to pieces and others knocked down by the grenades. Simmons set the M249 on the seat of the dozer kneeling on the steel tracks and traversed the area near the barracks. Three men fell like dominoes, streams of blood shooting from their torsos.
“Keep it going Simmons! McGee, get behind that trencher. Taylor, fall back and get some elevation in that rock pile. Covering fire!” Kruger, Salvo and Simmons poured out continuous fire while the two men went to new defilade.
“Changing mags,” Salvo said. He dropped his empty magazine with its replacement already in hand. Slam, Chamber and Fire.
“Changing mags,” Kruger echoed immediately after Salvo. The Rebels began to retreat behind to cover of the mason barracks and another storage building. “Cease Fire. Cease Fire.”
“Taylor, status, over”
Colin Taylor had withdrew to a stone pile that allowed him to oversee the battle space and have a firm defensive position.
“Putting the .50 together, Boss.”
“McGee, over.”
“Bastards nicked my hip. Not serious. Good to go. Have the right flank covered.”
“You sure McGee?”
“Roger that Boss. Let’s get this on.”
“They have retreated behind cover. We have to make sure that they don’t flank….” Kruger spotted two men, one with an RPG coming around the left building. He moved to the front of the dozer behind the bucket, shouldered his rifle and put his bead on center mass.
The boom of the Barret M107 .50 caliber rifle shouted its rapport before his trigger broke. Kruger watched head of the man carrying the RPG evaporate into a pink mist. The body dropped like a stone. He moved his sight to the second man who bent over to pick it up and dropped him.
“Nice shot, Colin.”
Mcgee’s R4 came to life as more men approached from the right flank. “Two hostiles down.”
“Salvo, let’s put some more 203 on those buildings.”
“Roger that.”
The duo put two grenades a piece into the barracks creating large holes. More poorly aimed AK fire came at them. The Rebels stuck their weapons around the corners of the buildings and fired.
Taylor aimed his Barrett .50 into those holes hoping to hit any bodies behind the wall. Being Semi-Automatic, he was able to keep his sight picture after each shot. Kruger fired more 40mm grenades into the mason block buildings, breaking down any cover these men had.
Feeling that they had established the upper hand and that these men were trapped, he decided that the team would not move forward across the open in a skirmish line. There couldn’t be many more men left.
“Got a runner,” Taylor said. From his vantage point he could see a man running towards the fence hoping to escape. He waited till the man reached the fence. The scope was too powerful to follow a moving target at this close of a range. When the man reached the fence, he could see his face very clearly. It was filled with terror. He took a deep breath and fully exhaled. He went against the conventional wisdom of letting out half a breath then pulling the trigger. He found that when he fully exhaled he had ten to twenty seconds to shoot. With a deflated chest he was able to bear down on the rifle and hold steady. The man in his sight began climbing the fence. His cross hairs were pegged on the spine. His trigger finger squeezed slowly….The force of the .50 caliber round hit the torso of the fleeing Rebel and erupted his insides. The splatter hung on the fence as the man fell dead. “Tango down.”
“Dragonfly One do you copy, Dragonfly One do you copy?”
“Roger that Boss, what is your situation, over?”
“Dragonfly, we have a few Rebels left over, hiding behind some buildings. Request that you run and gun a pattern from east-west and clear out remaining hostiles, over.”
“Ah, with pleasure. Give me your position, over.”
“We are behind the bulldozer and other earth movers on the south end. Hostiles are holding up behind the remains of the buildings on the north end, over.”
“Copy that. Sixty seconds out.”
“Roger that, Dragonfly.”
Kruger felt relief that they would not have to skirmish opposed across the open. He always planned to fight without relying on air power. In Rhodesia, they did not have the luxury of calling in Fast Movers or Heavy Gunships to pound the enemy. The meager inventory of the Rhodesian Air Force was used sparingly for large missions. If they were lucky, the Alouette choppers that they moved in would rain down limited shots of 20mm Cannon fire. Usually outnumbered, they often would simply skirmish and sweep. Though each man on the team was an extraordinary reflexive shooter, Sergei would be happy to earn his pay.
SLEW always provided the essentials of what they needed to accomplish the mission. Often times, like now, High End Heavy tools were not available. Kruger planned missions based on the most basic of principles. A highly trained, cohesive light fighter unit that accomplished missions with their brain, gear and weapons they could carry. If the missions’ needs exceeded that, he would usually opt out.
In the world of private wars, loyalties and dependability were always suspect. They were not backed by a full scale military with an entire air force or navy. He knew that he had survived by skill, luck and most importantly, knowing which battle to fight and which to walk away from.
“Heads down, comrades, we have remaining hostiles in sight,” Sergei said happily. Everyone tucked as tight as possible to avoid any stray bullet.
The Puma came from the south and banked into an east west bearing. The first pass was high speed with Bouwer pouring lead down in a fury. The remaining Rebels began to scurry in all directions.
“Whiskey Kilo, enemy is scattering. Remain in your positions and fire at will, over.”
The Puma banked and came back through dropping men in their tracks. Everyone on the team loosened up and sought out targets of opportunity. It was over in less than five minutes. Sergei broke off and took up a holding pattern over the compound.
“Assemble on me,” Kruger ordered.
The men made their way to the bulldozer with rifles still at the ready. “Let’s clear those buildings.” They formed a skirmish line and walked forward with raised rifles.
They spotted movement from inside the barracks. Kruger spoke quickly. “Hold your fire.” A bloodied man showed himself with hands raised and walked forward. The young man sank to his knees and put his hands together in a prayer position and began to speak in a language none of them knew. It was obvious he was begging for his life.
“McGee, cover this man, we can turn him over to Major Bell’s boys.” Kruger said noticing blood around his waist. Fortunately, it didn’t look bad. “Simmons, have a look at Blake.”
McGee shoved the Rebel down face first and put his boot on his neck. “It’s your lucky day, you crazy little bastard.”
The rest of the men cleared the destroyed buildings. Several single shots were fired, hastening death for the wounded. It was a necessary evil. Their mission was to eradicate the men who had shown no mercy to the civilians and soldiers that had worked here. These men were not civilians and were part of a yet unknown entity that dealt death to the innocent. They knew that no quarter would be given to them should they be in the same situation. The African continent had yet to adhere to the Geneva Convention.
As soldiers serving in their respective militaries and fighting under specific, politically correct rules of engagement, they all had captured foes only for them to be released or escape and cause further damage on the battle field. The American military had proof of the flaw in humane treatment of combatants as criminals rather than the enemy. Foreign fighters who had spent time in Gitmo were picked up in Iraq and Afghanistan. As professional contract soldiers with limited goals and infrastructure, it was mission first. They could settle any conscience issues with their Maker some other day.
They methodically checked each body for any information they could find on who or what they were. Surprisingly, they found nothing out of the ordinary. No patches, no documents, just basic personal things people carry.
Satisfied that they were all dead and that the Congolese could take control of the operation, they called it a success.
“Dragonfly One, set it down. Compound is clear. We have one prisoner.”
Blake McGee split off and walked toward the trailer with a firm plan. He would enter the door and eliminate the two men who slept in air conditioning. His morbid sense of humor thought that the bodies would not decay and bloat as quickly as the men in the block house. When he reached the door, he stood off to one side and checked the handle to see if it was unlocked. It was. All he waited for now was the word from the Boss across the mic to go hot.
Kruger, Salvo and Taylor were planning on grenading the place and then entering and clearing the room. It housed somewhere around thirty men. He estimated it to be around thirty five meters long and assumed that bunks were lining the walls along each side. Probably bunk beds. Three frag grenades would be lobbed to the far end leaving the survivors at close range. This would be an outright slaughter but the men that were about to die needed to die. They were a part of the evil that had slain the men who had worked here. They had shown no mercy, given no notice for their victims to get their affairs in order.
With the events of the evening, their reactions would be slow, it wouldn’t be much of a fight. Being heavily outmanned, it was a coup for the Task Force. They had no idea what awaited them at the second mine. Simmons would stand security with his SAW. All of the men were ready.
Kruger gave the simple command: GO.
McGee turned the knob and flung the door open, shouldered his rifle, scanning left first. His trained eye filtered through the monocular NVG saw nothing but office and communication equipment. He drew his right foot back and pivoted clockwise, scanning the sight picture as he went. His brain registered a bunkbed straight ahead with two bodies bolting upright out of their slumber. The man on the bottom of the bunk reached towards the floor where his AK-47 lay. As he bent over, it provided the perfect shot to the top of his head.
McGee pulled the trigger smoothly and rapidly, sending two shots into the Rebels head causing cranial evacuation. He acquired the second target on the top bunk. He had rolled up on to his side presenting a center mass shot. He squeezed off another round and then laterally shifted his sight to the head of the man. The result was the same.
Ever vigilant, McGee cleared the rest of the trailer from top to bottom, left to right. All clear. He noted the number of bullets he had expended as he left the trailer and took up position with Simmons as the carnage was unleashed inside the barracks.
Kruger, Salvo and Taylor stood outside the doorway and unhooked a grenade a piece. They pulled the pins. Kruger entered first and took the far side, Salvo the middle and Taylor the near side. Kruger lobbed his grenade over the bunks to the far wall, Taylor rolled his down the aisle and Salvo, the same as Kruger.
The men exited the barracks and took cover alongside the outer wall. The grenades went off simultaneously, blowing out the windows and rattling the ground. The whoosh of the explosion threw debris and body parts out of the windows. The concussion would briefly immobilize anyone left alive.
Kruger re-entered the door to the far side, Taylor the middle and Salvo near the door. They methodically scanned their sectors of fire. The back end of the building was destroyed and most of the bodies were not moving. Kruger saw movement about three quarters of the way up. A soldier got to his knees and was reaching for his rifle. His shouldered R4 delivered two shots to the body. Another man, two shots. He stood over the overturned bed of the man closest to him and put the muzzle on the mans face and pulled the trigger.
Taylors’s sector found little movement and he scanned slices of the men to his left and right. Bodies with the slightest twinge were neutralized. Salvo’s sector had the most movement. Repeated double taps echoed out of his rifle and he finally let go of a burst of fire at a group of men huddled in the corner.
“Cease fire,” Kruger said loudly. “Clear forward.” The men walked the aisle looking for men behind overturned bunks. Taylor finished three men huddled behind a bed with an automatic burst, then flipped back to Semi. They reached the end, turned and cleared the other direction.
“We have movement,” Simmons came over the mic. “Four hostiles near the mining equipment.” Before the reply came from Kruger, the sound of the rapid fire M249 split the air. “Targets down.”
“Make sure,” Kruger said.
Another burst of fire finished the job.
The five shooters regrouped outside the barracks and scanned the area. Silence. The men knew that this was the easy part. A slaughter with minimal damage to property and no resistance. The Rebels, whoever they worked for, were ill prepared for a serious attack. Too bad for them.
“Never put all your eggs in one basket, men,” Kruger said. “Thunderbird One, Thunderbird One, do you copy?” Kruger was calling in Sergei.
“Comrades ! We are five minutes out. Report status, over.”
“Objective A disinfected. No friendly casualties, over.”
“Roger that Whiskey Kilo, out.”
The men formed a three sixty perimeter and waited. Each man focused on the task at hand. Step one was complete. Executed flawlessly. They soon heard the sound of the Puma headed their way. The next concern was the disposition of the second camp. Had the sounds awakened the other compound? Sound traveled far in this country.
Sergei came in from an unexpected direction, appearing just over the ridgeline that they had set up their OP on and dipped the chooper down and flared a perfect landing.
The men hustled into the Puma and strapped themselves in. They replenished their ammunition and rehung their grenades. The chopper took off and skimmed its way over the landscape. Dawn had barely broken. Enough to start to see the features of the terrain. They followed the road to the mine.
“I will make a pass over the compound to see if our friends are awake. If they are, we will give them some morning greetings.”
The flight lasted only a few minutes and did not give the men a chance to switch off. The South African gunners were hanging by a sling in the doorway, wielding their PKM’s, looking anxious for action.
“We are coming up on the compound,” Sergei said. The men tried to peer out the door and at the ground. “Shit, we have movement in the compound.” There was no way of knowing if the men had been wakened from the noise of the first assault or had just awoke.
“Rodney, Kirik, engage the targets,” Sergei’s voice came over the mic.
The chopper came at the compound from the road. He slowed his run. The South African door gunners unleashed the PKM at the guard post. Brass began flying everywhere. Salvo had been quick to aid, shooting his M203 40mm grenade launcher into the machine gun pit.
Rodney could see the effects hanging his head out of the door. “We got it, bru.”
Sergei increased the power, headed north and made a quick banking maneuver to bring the chopper to bear on the targets inside the compound. The deft aerial gunnery skills of Veermak and Bouwer started at about 200 yards out and let loose a stream, leading the target as the chopper went by.
“Got a few. Looks like a beehive down there.”
Sergei came on the mike. “Boss, I can afford one more pass. Have the men firing what they can. I will stay level then set down as planned.” Sergei banked hard and went for another run. Simmons and Salvo had unstrapped and were acquiring targets as the chopper went past. Hot brass flew around the bay.
“That ought to slow them down,” Simmons said. All of the men unstrapped and prepared to engage targets immediately.
The chopper banked right and began to set down behind the cover of the machinery with the door gun shooting a continuous stream of fire towards the Rebels. Return fire started zipping around them. Veermak continued to deftly take down Rebels at a range of one hundred and fifty yards. The team exited out of the other side and sprinted for cover behind small mounds and heavy equipment. The chopper had been on the ground no more than five seconds. It powered away with the PKM machine gun streaming bullets continuously until they disappeared into the landscape.
“Nice work Dragonfly. Hang around if you can,” Kruger said.
The men deployed to any defilade available. Fortunately there was plenty of steel in the area. There still remained the open ground between them and the Rebels. It was a clear area. During working hours, it provided the room for the machinery and vehicles to move around.
Kruger, Simmons and McGee found cover behind a bulldozer. The pings of the AK fire bounced off the dozer and gave him a moment to pause and assess the situation. “Get solid defilade. Let them shoot off some rounds. Pick your shots,” he exhorted over the mike.
Salvo and Taylor found a dump truck and hid behind the dual rear axle. Dirt kicked up all around. Salvo peeked around the wheel and saw the men firing from the hip. “Quite a few, Boss.”
Kruger lay flat against the ground and looked around the rear track of the bulldozer. He saw the commanders starting to deploy their troops in a flanking action. Time to go to work.
“They are going to flank. Salvo, 203 on the right. I’ll take the left. Simmons, spray the middle. On three. Three, Two, One….”
From their cover Kruger and Salvo fired their 40 mm grenades at the men attempting to flank each side. Thump. Thump. Several men were blown to pieces and others knocked down by the grenades. Simmons set the M249 on the seat of the dozer kneeling on the steel tracks and traversed the area near the barracks. Three men fell like dominoes, streams of blood shooting from their torsos.
“Keep it going Simmons! McGee, get behind that trencher. Taylor, fall back and get some elevation in that rock pile. Covering fire!” Kruger, Salvo and Simmons poured out continuous fire while the two men went to new defilade.
“Changing mags,” Salvo said. He dropped his empty magazine with its replacement already in hand. Slam, Chamber and Fire.
“Changing mags,” Kruger echoed immediately after Salvo. The Rebels began to retreat behind to cover of the mason barracks and another storage building. “Cease Fire. Cease Fire.”
“Taylor, status, over”
Colin Taylor had withdrew to a stone pile that allowed him to oversee the battle space and have a firm defensive position.
“Putting the .50 together, Boss.”
“McGee, over.”
“Bastards nicked my hip. Not serious. Good to go. Have the right flank covered.”
“You sure McGee?”
“Roger that Boss. Let’s get this on.”
“They have retreated behind cover. We have to make sure that they don’t flank….” Kruger spotted two men, one with an RPG coming around the left building. He moved to the front of the dozer behind the bucket, shouldered his rifle and put his bead on center mass.
The boom of the Barret M107 .50 caliber rifle shouted its rapport before his trigger broke. Kruger watched head of the man carrying the RPG evaporate into a pink mist. The body dropped like a stone. He moved his sight to the second man who bent over to pick it up and dropped him.
“Nice shot, Colin.”
Mcgee’s R4 came to life as more men approached from the right flank. “Two hostiles down.”
“Salvo, let’s put some more 203 on those buildings.”
“Roger that.”
The duo put two grenades a piece into the barracks creating large holes. More poorly aimed AK fire came at them. The Rebels stuck their weapons around the corners of the buildings and fired.
Taylor aimed his Barrett .50 into those holes hoping to hit any bodies behind the wall. Being Semi-Automatic, he was able to keep his sight picture after each shot. Kruger fired more 40mm grenades into the mason block buildings, breaking down any cover these men had.
Feeling that they had established the upper hand and that these men were trapped, he decided that the team would not move forward across the open in a skirmish line. There couldn’t be many more men left.
“Got a runner,” Taylor said. From his vantage point he could see a man running towards the fence hoping to escape. He waited till the man reached the fence. The scope was too powerful to follow a moving target at this close of a range. When the man reached the fence, he could see his face very clearly. It was filled with terror. He took a deep breath and fully exhaled. He went against the conventional wisdom of letting out half a breath then pulling the trigger. He found that when he fully exhaled he had ten to twenty seconds to shoot. With a deflated chest he was able to bear down on the rifle and hold steady. The man in his sight began climbing the fence. His cross hairs were pegged on the spine. His trigger finger squeezed slowly….The force of the .50 caliber round hit the torso of the fleeing Rebel and erupted his insides. The splatter hung on the fence as the man fell dead. “Tango down.”
“Dragonfly One do you copy, Dragonfly One do you copy?”
“Roger that Boss, what is your situation, over?”
“Dragonfly, we have a few Rebels left over, hiding behind some buildings. Request that you run and gun a pattern from east-west and clear out remaining hostiles, over.”
“Ah, with pleasure. Give me your position, over.”
“We are behind the bulldozer and other earth movers on the south end. Hostiles are holding up behind the remains of the buildings on the north end, over.”
“Copy that. Sixty seconds out.”
“Roger that, Dragonfly.”
Kruger felt relief that they would not have to skirmish opposed across the open. He always planned to fight without relying on air power. In Rhodesia, they did not have the luxury of calling in Fast Movers or Heavy Gunships to pound the enemy. The meager inventory of the Rhodesian Air Force was used sparingly for large missions. If they were lucky, the Alouette choppers that they moved in would rain down limited shots of 20mm Cannon fire. Usually outnumbered, they often would simply skirmish and sweep. Though each man on the team was an extraordinary reflexive shooter, Sergei would be happy to earn his pay.
SLEW always provided the essentials of what they needed to accomplish the mission. Often times, like now, High End Heavy tools were not available. Kruger planned missions based on the most basic of principles. A highly trained, cohesive light fighter unit that accomplished missions with their brain, gear and weapons they could carry. If the missions’ needs exceeded that, he would usually opt out.
In the world of private wars, loyalties and dependability were always suspect. They were not backed by a full scale military with an entire air force or navy. He knew that he had survived by skill, luck and most importantly, knowing which battle to fight and which to walk away from.
“Heads down, comrades, we have remaining hostiles in sight,” Sergei said happily. Everyone tucked as tight as possible to avoid any stray bullet.
The Puma came from the south and banked into an east west bearing. The first pass was high speed with Bouwer pouring lead down in a fury. The remaining Rebels began to scurry in all directions.
“Whiskey Kilo, enemy is scattering. Remain in your positions and fire at will, over.”
The Puma banked and came back through dropping men in their tracks. Everyone on the team loosened up and sought out targets of opportunity. It was over in less than five minutes. Sergei broke off and took up a holding pattern over the compound.
“Assemble on me,” Kruger ordered.
The men made their way to the bulldozer with rifles still at the ready. “Let’s clear those buildings.” They formed a skirmish line and walked forward with raised rifles.
They spotted movement from inside the barracks. Kruger spoke quickly. “Hold your fire.” A bloodied man showed himself with hands raised and walked forward. The young man sank to his knees and put his hands together in a prayer position and began to speak in a language none of them knew. It was obvious he was begging for his life.
“McGee, cover this man, we can turn him over to Major Bell’s boys.” Kruger said noticing blood around his waist. Fortunately, it didn’t look bad. “Simmons, have a look at Blake.”
McGee shoved the Rebel down face first and put his boot on his neck. “It’s your lucky day, you crazy little bastard.”
The rest of the men cleared the destroyed buildings. Several single shots were fired, hastening death for the wounded. It was a necessary evil. Their mission was to eradicate the men who had shown no mercy to the civilians and soldiers that had worked here. These men were not civilians and were part of a yet unknown entity that dealt death to the innocent. They knew that no quarter would be given to them should they be in the same situation. The African continent had yet to adhere to the Geneva Convention.
As soldiers serving in their respective militaries and fighting under specific, politically correct rules of engagement, they all had captured foes only for them to be released or escape and cause further damage on the battle field. The American military had proof of the flaw in humane treatment of combatants as criminals rather than the enemy. Foreign fighters who had spent time in Gitmo were picked up in Iraq and Afghanistan. As professional contract soldiers with limited goals and infrastructure, it was mission first. They could settle any conscience issues with their Maker some other day.
They methodically checked each body for any information they could find on who or what they were. Surprisingly, they found nothing out of the ordinary. No patches, no documents, just basic personal things people carry.
Satisfied that they were all dead and that the Congolese could take control of the operation, they called it a success.
“Dragonfly One, set it down. Compound is clear. We have one prisoner.”
