Hybrid: Project Vigil (9 page)

“If I may ask. What happened at that oil rig? Frontier?” Caroline said over Sunday breakfast.

“We screwed up.” His memory played it again as many times before.

He was in the helicopter heading for oil rig hijacked by some terrorists. He was young but it was his sixth real action. It was just before dawn, he could see first light on the horizon.

He turned his NOD's on to see the rig not so far away. “One minute!” He pulled charging handle of his M4A1 backwards, round was loaded into the firing chamber. It wasn't so long after he was woken up when Pentagon gave “greenlight” for them to go in. Four squads of Hybrids alongside with two squads of SEALS were about to attack from air and sea. They landed on the rig. All lights were out. Then the hell broke out. They were everywhere! John found himself pressed against a wall in the middle of firefight.

“That's not enough do blow a oil rig up causing an oil spill of enormous size.” Caroline interrupted his story.

“There was more.”

“
RPG incoming on the right!” John ducked behind some crates, after the rocket exploded he sprayed shooter with bullets. He loaded his last mag. Somebody yelled. “Ammo status!” “Last mag!” John answered. They needed to get the bomb squad to disarm explosives around drilling mechanism, but they were pinned down by RPG and MG fire. ”Suppressing fire!” John yelled so everyone heard. At once all of them lined up their guns and hammered elevated platform where all enemy fire was coming from with bullets. Bomb squad moved through. As soon as they opened the door they ran out. “We set it off! Jump off the rig!” John didn't think twice, he leaped over the railing to the sea. Above him rig disappeared in flames. He hit the water hard. After he managed to catch his breath he

contacted command.

“HQ this is Crisis. We've lost the objective.”

“So that's it. What about Sierra Leone?” She asked further.

“You said only one a day.” John turned her audio recorder off. Caroline wanted to make record of every mission John participated in. Not all of them have been such a mess like
this, just some of them.

“You know that's the worst part of it.” John spilled some coffee over his right hand, but he couldn't feel it.

“What?”

“It's not the standing over coffins of your comrades that makes you miserable, not even healing your own wounds. It's that feeling in your chest. You know you did your best and despite that you failed and they paid the price. You know you did what you could but it wasn't enough.”

John went back to his search. He moved the chair to better place.

“We've got twenty names and we want to kill them all...”

"
You want to kill them all."

“...and I want to kill them all. I don't know where they are. Claire tell me you have something.”

____________________

30 minutes later

“John, you can't do this!” Claire wanted to convince him while he was still at home deciding what weapon he should take.

“He is here. I'm not risking it what if he tries to kill me again?”

“That's different. Now you go there to kill him.”

John was determined to kill the man. The one he saw yesterday. He couldn't believe they released all of them. This one lived alone, no family and not so far away.

“I'm going out.” He just said to Caroline.

“Okay, just be back for lunch!”

He jumped into the car and drove it out of front yard. He drove at 100 miles per hour, nobody seemed to care.

When he was there he jumped out of the car with pistol in hand. Door didn't give much resistance. What John found inside wasn't what he expected. The place was empty except...

Audio recorder started playing:

That moment I saw you I knew. I knew you will piece it together and you'll come. Come and kill me. I don't want to say that I regret what I did. I just...I don't want to give you the pleasure of killing me. But I want the pleasure of killing you...

Then John noticed it, wires everywhere. The house was set to explode.

When you knock on hells gate tell them I sent you...

John walked back slowly but he started running soon. Explosion threw him across the front yard.

"I thought we went to kill him." Claire said after he dusted himself off.

When John came home Caroline was about to serve lunch.

“How was your ride around town?” She asked.

“Don't pretend you didn't hear it.”

“Yeah, I knew you would be blowing something up.”

John gave her a death stare.

“Wasn't me. Someone tried to blow me up.”

“Explains all the cuts and bruises on your face. Looks like it ended like Frontier.” She grinned.

“Go to hell.”

After lunch John took care of his wounds because his face looked like if he dragged it across a dirt road. After he wiped the dust and blood it didn't look so bad. John wanted to look good for their evening visit, he didn't want people to be curious. Good excuse wouldn't hurt. John thought that he should abandon his plan to kill those men. At least for the time he is here. Peaceful life could be fine. He could find some time to build all the machines he could use in battle.

____________________

Next day

On their visit to their neighbors John met lots of new people, actually it looked like there's half the town there. Mr. Stonebridge was a good man, funny and fair
and he also liked shooting. He promised to take John to local shooting range. He even offered John a part time job in his shop. John kindly refused because he wanted to go to college.

After some brainstorming with Claire they agreed to build a magnetic cannon. It may seem as an easy task, put some magnets on a tube plug it in and see what happens. But it's not that simple. It will be controlled remotely, it has to be able to take some damage, provide long range fire support, 50 miles would be nice, rate of fire about 4 rounds a minute, automatic reloading. Power requirements and overheating will be a problem. Most of parts will have to be ordered from bigger manufacturers but essential electronics could be made at home with John's resources. By the end of day they had blueprints, filled out orders and time schedule. It should be ready for first testing in two months.

It was few hours after nightfall. John, some other hybrids and several squads of Marines waited for signal near some city in Iraq. Flashes of light ascended to the sky from anti-aircraft cannons. Somewhere a bomb exploded sending a huge fireball upwards. John watched it through a scope of sniper rifle.

“So what do you see?”

“I got two MG nests, four mortars and a truck. There are about twenty insurgents.”

Next to him was their CO for the mission his name was Cole or something like that.

“What about the building behind them?”

“I can't see anything or anyone but looks like solid hardpoint, they could be holed up there just waiting for us to try to cross the field.” It could be a trap John thought.

“It's just three hundred feet of ground and we'll cross it.”

John watched few more minutes before radio chatter started. First was status report, all units were ready. Tanks were to attack from highway and infantry was supposed to attack from here and meet with tanks on the highway.

“All units, Irene!” Irene was signal to commence the attack.

John put the sniper rifle on his back and took his M4 from the ground next to him.

“We're ready. Run!”

They sprinted through the open field hoping that nobody will notice fifty marines.

When they were about halfway to wall dividing them from insurgents John heard sound of mortar firing.

“Mortaaaaaaars!!! Incoming!” He yelled as loud as he could. Then he heard familiar 'Whoosh' and explosion behind him. Wall wasn't so far away so he ran without stopping. He climbed over the wall and took cover behind some rocks. Machine guns started firing, bullets hissed past his head. There was no way to shoot from his position, but car wreck provided enough cover and good view. However he needed to sprint through machine gun fire. When he saw the gunner was reloading John got up and sprinted. Other gunner spotted him. Bullets hit the ground around John, but he didn't stop. He jumped behind the wreck. As he thought all MGs were exposed to him. Lining up the rifle was easy but then someone shouted.

“Artillery strike incoming!”

Two 155mm HE rounds reduced MG nests and their operators to dust. John stood up.

“What the hell? I was just about to kill them.”

“There will be plenty of others.” Cole said.

“We could've spared artillery support for later. Now the whole goddamn city knows we're here.”

“RPG!”

Before John could do anything it exploded few feet in front of him.

John woke up in his chair. His heart was beating so fast he was afraid it might jump out of his chest.

“What happened next?” Caroline asked when he later told her about it.

John came back to himself being dragged behind a rock by a medic. Long piece of metal was sticking out of John's arm.

“I'll just carefully take this out buddy. It will hurt.” The medic said.

“Oh, screw you! I'm a warrior not a pussy!” John grabbed it, tore it out and threw it on the ground. As he said building was enemy hard point with machine guns and RPGs. John took cover next to soldier with rocket launcher.

“Can this thing make a big enough hole in the wall?” John asked.

“Of course, sir!”

“Then wait for my go and send it!”

Soldier looked confused, he looked at his commander.

“Do as the man says!” Was commanders response.

“Someone get me two primed mortar shells!” John yelled at others.

When everything was provided John put down all his weapons except pistol and grenades on the ground. He took mortar shells in hands. Cole came to him.

“Whatever you want to do, there will be another artillery strike in ten minutes.”

"There is still intel we need in there. I'm going in."

John set up a timer on his HUD and then he gave the nod, missile launched forward and so did he. All enemies shot at him at once. But he ran anyway, with two primed mortar shells in hands. Any other soldier would shout some battle cry, but John didn't. He just carried out orders, there was no honor in it, no glory, just another mission, another order. He jumped inside tossing mortar shells aside letting them explode on each side of room. After he hit the floor he pulled his pistol and knife out of their sheaths. Everyone on first floor was dead so he ascended to the second. Right when John set foot on second floor a man came charging at him across the hallway. John stepped aside and let him hit the wall behind and stabbed his neck from behind. First room. A man standing in front of a window didn't notice John. John kicked him out and killed the other one with two shots. He kicked down door to last room. Immediately guy right behind door wanted to punch him with AK-47, but John was faster. He cut open man's abdomen. Another charged at him, there was no time to react so they crashed together and fell to the ground. The man was a top of John. John fired few shots hoping to hit something and he did. He hit another one who emerged from smoke while the other one was trying to choke John. John hit him with his left fist, again and again until he crushed man's ribcage. Then he shot him.

“How did you get out?”

“I took the intel and jumped out of the window.”

“That's insane.” Caroline said while chewing her toast.

“Yeah, that insanity let me live long enough to kill few more dozens of people.”

After breakfast John went for a walk around town. He liked this place, people were so friendly, trees and plants everywhere and fresh air unlike the filtered one in his cell back at facility. It all seemed so peaceful he couldn't believe they trained them to fight in such places. All fighting was on Middle east. Of course they trained them to fight there as well, but not so much. But most of all they trained them to never fear the enemy. And John never feared, sometimes because he was brave, sometimes because there was nothing to fear or when there was no time for fear. His fellow soldiers described his actions with words like insane or crazy.

John could sense stress in people's voices. The word about house blown up has spread all over the town. Some people have seen him drive away from there, he was new here so nobody recognized him and fortunately none of them bothered to remember his registration plate.