Reflexive Fire - 01

Prologue

   Sergeant Major Bill Keely turned to face to the front of the aircraft, looking towards the cockpit, holding one hand spread open in front of him under the dull red glow of the MC-130's interior lights.

   With oxygen masks over their faces to counter the effects of the thin air at altitude, they relied on hand and arm signals alone.  Not that it mattered.  His men would never hear him over the roar of four Allison turboprop engines in addition to the wind rushing in through the open ramp.  The free-fall jumpers held out five fingers, mimicking his movements to acknowledge their understanding.

   Four operators plus himself made for a relatively simple jump.  Four of them had mustard stains on their HALO wings, indicating multiple combat jumps, but of course that was only on citations locked away in a file cabinet somewhere.

   Delta operators were known for keeping a low profile, and none of them wore their combat badges in garrison.

   Keely faced back around, easily hefting the hundred plus pound rucksack snapped onto his harness.  Looking out into the black void below, it was impossible to judge altitude, wind speed, or where they were in relation to the ground.  They'd be dropping from 30,000 feet, locating their drop zone under night vision after they pulled their ripcords at 4,000 feet.

   The Delta troops lined up like ducks in a row for an equipment check.  Behind him was Pat, the other old timer on the team with twenty three years in the Army, ten with Delta, leaving him with an open disdain for the entire Army command structure.  Pat flipped open the top flap on Keely's reserve chute.

   The Fucking New Guy, Alex, was behind Pat checking his MC-5 parachute, and so on all the way down the line.  The first thing Pat looked at was the CYPRES display.  The small console under the reserve flap displayed a four digit number, barely visible in the poor lighting.  That number was programmed into the unit on the ground by each jumper at the direction of the jump master, based on the barometric pressure.  If a jumper was knocked unconscious in mid air the CYPRES would detonate a small charge releasing the reserve parachute at 2,000 feet.

   If your CYPRES fired and you ended up riding in on your reserve you were having a bad fucking day, to say the least.

   Next Pat moved on to the cotter pins holding the reserve parachute in place, making sure they were properly stowed through the nylon loops.  Slapping the reserve flap down on its Velcro fasteners, he unsnapped the main chute below it and conducted same check on the single cotter pin holding the spring loaded pilot chute in place under the green flaps. 

   Finally he checked the small oxygen tank strapped on the Sergeant Major's left side.  At this altitude you would get a serious case of hypoxia from lack of oxygen, requiring them all to strap bottles of O2 and breathe off a mask for the trip down.  All good, he snapped the flap down then pounded his Sergeant Major on the shoulder.

   Keely pivoted around, the side of his helmet emblazoned with the words, Shut Up and Squat.  A few months prior, Pat had wrote it with a Sharpie marker during a training jump.  The boys joked that it was the Team Leader's motto in the gym because he had legs thick enough to resemble the pine trees surrounding Ft. Bragg.

   Pat gave him a thumbs up to let him know his chute was good to go.

   Behind Pat the new guy, Alex, was holding his rucksack with one hand while conducting his checks with the other; the weight of the ruck was clearly a little too much for him.  Finally he gave Pat a thumbs up.

   Keely lowered his free fall goggles over his eyes and checked the dual tube night vision goggles mounted on his helmet a final time before moving to the edge of the ramp.  Feeling the wind whip at his legs and knowing there was 30,000 feet of nothing below him, the Sergeant Major motioned for the rest of the team to follow him to the lip of the ramp.

   Two minutes ticked away in what seemed like seconds, the team taking shallow breaths and waiting for the light mounted on the fuselage to turn from red to green, letting the jumpmaster know that they were over their drop zone.

   Pat looked over his shoulder at the New Guy.  Alex had just completed selection last year and the Operators Training Course a few months ago.  He'd only had a few jumps with the team, which led to a heated argument between Pat and Keely about Alex and whether he had any business being on this mission.

   Keely told him that the guy completed HALO school and had the required jumps with the team; he was a career Special Forces soldier; what more did he expect?  Eventually Pat had to accept Keely's decision or go look for another job.

   Alex, strained by the weight of the rucksack, finally let it hang by the harness to shake out his tired arm.  Behind him he heard something pop.  Looking down, his stomach suddenly flip-flopped.  In a rush, he had attached the rucksack's metal fastener to his rip cord grip rather than the metal ring on his parachute harness where it belonged.  The weight of his rucksack had pulled his ripcord once he let it hang.  The metal cable that ran from the ripcord to the cotter pin holding the pilot chute in had been released.

   Glancing over his shoulder, he saw his pilot chute whipping around the metal floor of the aircraft.

   The two operators behind him, Mark and J-Rod, lunged towards the pilot chute a moment too late as it was sucked out of the ramp of the aircraft.

   Before the rest of the team knew what was going on, the pilot chute did its job.  Catching in the wind outside the aircraft, it yanked Alex's main parachute out of its deployment bag.  As he was sucked out of the back of the high performance aircraft, he toppled over Pat and Keely, sending them end over end flying off the ramp and into the darkness.

   Suddenly alone in the back of the aircraft over enemy territory, Mark and J-Rod looked at each other as the green light flashed.

   Turning toward the ramp, they followed their team out into the night.

One

   The garrote wire slid silently under the sentry's chin.

   With an aggressive yank on the piano wire, the Colombian was snapped backwards into the jungle underbrush, his rifle falling from limp fingers onto the manicured lawn.

   The large palm leaves reaching over the yard shook for the briefest of moments before going still, and the birds began to chirp again, blissfully unaware of the killing below.  The assassin reached out from his concealed position, reaching for the M4 carbine the cartel henchman had dropped.

   The killer shrugged into the sentry's black combat vest adorned with extra magazines and then pulled the dead man's ball cap over his head.  The Colombian belonged to the
asesino
,
as they called themselves.  The personal bodyguard of Colombia's most wanted man.

   From his vantage point he could see two sides of the villa, an expansive fortress built into the almost impenetrable jungle mountains.  The compound could only be accessed by winding roads lined with villages and ranches, bought and paid for with cartel money and guarded by cartel check points.

   A careful scan of the fortress revealed several teenage girls splashing each other in one of the three in ground pools on the property but no other guards in the immediate area.  Emerging from the jungle, the interloper turned his newly acquired M4 rifle over in his hands, drawing the bolt back to ensure that a round was seated in the chamber.

   It looked as if money talked and bullshit walked.

   The Ramirez cartel apparently had enough cash on hand to arm its paramilitary force with better weapons and equipment then many soldiers in the US Army were issued, the M4 being a short barrel version of the carbine and outfitted with a holographic reflex optic for close quarter shooting.

   Looking down at his watch, he could see the numbers ticking down.

   For now he would hide in plain sight while attempting to locate his objective.  As he moved alongside the sculpted hedges, he knew that his disguise would not stand under scrutiny for long due to his being nearly a head taller than most Colombians. 

   He had to work fast.

   Approaching the villa, the assassin heard voices coming down the wide stairs that led up to the second floor.  Leaning against the wall he held the M4 at the ready, listening to two voices converse back and forth.  His Spanish was rusty but he could pick out that they were talking about having someone shot.  Maybe this was Mr. Murder himself, Ramirez.  The extra footsteps the assassin heard must belong to his bodyguards.

   Whatever the case, the drug lord wasn't his concern at the moment.  Waiting for the party to arrive pool side, he disappeared into an alcove that contained a short flight of stone stairs heading into the basement. 

   Stepping carefully across the tile floor, he arrived in a kind of underground grotto complete with fake stone walls and hanging vines over a indoor pool.  Stalactites made of artificial rock hung from the ceiling over the pool and an adjoining hot tub that bubbled with a low hum, waiting for another Colombian beauty from Ramirez's harem.

   He hoped his target was down here somewhere because there was no way he was going to search the entire villa uncontested.  It was just a question of when.

   Pat sat with his back against the wall listening to the buzzing of several flies circling overhead.  Every now and again one of them dropped down to make a dive bombing run on his head, causing him to flinch away.

   Across from him J-Rod wasn't looking so hot.

   As far as he could tell, none of them made it to the drop zone.  He had managed to link up with J-Rod and Mark after stumbling through the jungle for several hours.  With the Narco traffickers on their trail, they had been unable to put distance between themselves and the enemy, not with J-Rod's fractured ankle.

   He and Mark had taken turns carrying him, but it was only a matter of time before they made contact.  Mark was dead; he knew that much for sure.  He could only imagine what had become of the rest of the team; then on second thought he would rather not.

   Now they sat in a concrete cell belonging to the Ramirez Cartel.

   Waiting.

   The Delta Operator looked through the iron bars at the two guards lounged back in their chairs listening to the radio, rifles propped carelessly against the wall.  It could be a while until his government negotiated terms of release with the cartel.  As a soldier captured in the course of what was to be a covert operation he had become the best political bargaining chip a criminal, terrorist, or dictator could ask for.

   He had become Khrushchev's Gary Powers, and there would almost certainly be a reckoning.

   Constantly drilled to objectively critique the performance of himself and his fellow soldiers from the beginning of his military career, Pat kept rehashing the events in his mind over and over again.  What could he have done differently?  No.  He forced himself to concentrate on his current situation.  They had to focus on escape.

   He turned his back to the guards as both of them looked up, eyes towards the corridor leading deeper into the Villa's basement.  Someone down the hall was saying something in muffled Spanish.

   “A worker is asking for help with the pool,” J-Rod whispered. “Something is wrong with one of the pumps,” he said, finishing the translation.

   Once again Pat damned the Army for deciding he should learn Thai when he spent all his time in the Middle East and South America.

   One of the guards got to his feet, grumbling something that needed no translation and headed down the corridor.

   Pat leaned back against the wall.  It was more than just a little disconcerting that the drug lord had a small private prison under his villa.  There were several other cells.  The floor and walls stank with the blood and feces left behind by former inmates.  This wasn't his first rodeo.  If it came to that and he couldn't find a way to escape, he'd be damned if he let a similar fate happen to himself or J-Rod.

   With his head down, a new guard came walking out of the corridor, his blue ball cap obscuring his face.  Even though Pat had his watch confiscated by the cartel gunmen during his capture, he knew that the guards rotated in two hour shifts, this guy being about an hour early.

   The guard listening to the radio looked up at the newcomer and must have sensed that something was wrong.  He attempted to get to his feet but never made it.  The stranger struck first.

   With his hand creating a knife cutting edge, he jabbed his fingers into the indentation under the guard's larynx depriving the Colombian gunman of oxygen, Pat recognizing a basic
atemi
.  With the guard already gasping for air, the stranger easily put him into a choke hold until he passed out.  The newcomer locked the hold in place as the man's face turned blue.  He didn't seem worried about the second guard coming back any time soon.

Easing the corpse back down onto the chair the stranger turned towards the prisoners.

“Deckard?” Pat said, squinting his eyes.  “Is that you?”

“Hey, Patrick,” he replied, approaching the cell.

“Who the hell are you?” J-Rod demanded.  “Where is the rest of the rescue team?”

“They called up the best and the brightest for you guys,” Deckard replied.  “But their risk mitigation worksheet had an improper heading on it, so they are still grounded on the tarmac at Ft. Bragg.  You got me instead.”

   “Who is this guy?” J-Rod demanded.          

   “The guy who was available,” Pat answered.  The younger Delta operator had been expecting an entire squadron of fellow Delta operators, backed up by a battalion of Army Rangers, not some guy wearing a Televida ball cap.

   “We need to hurry.  The Agency is jumping the gun and sending the Colombian military to crash the party.  We only have a few minutes to clear the area.”

   “The guy with the cell keys is upstairs,” Pat said, not wasting any time.  “He opens the cell when they bring us food.  Saw him down here an hour ago when the guard shift changed.”

   “What does he look like?”

   “Curly hair, mustache; today he's wearing jeans and Michael Jackson T-shirt.”

   Deckard looked at him sideways.

   Pat shrugged as a halfhearted response.

   “The rest of the team?”

   Pat shook his head.  “One dead, don't know about the rest.”

   Nodding his understanding, Deckard turned towards the stairwell leading upstairs.  There wasn't anything else to say.  Leaving the dead behind was a tough pill to swallow, but intellectually Pat knew it was the only option.  The Colombian military could recover the bodies later even if he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud.

   Picking up a small shaving mirror that lay on the stool next to the radio, Deckard used it to peer up the stairs from behind cover, looking for signs of the enemy.  Satisfied with what he saw, he moved up the stairs, M4 rifle leading the way.

   “You know that guy?” J-Rod asked, while they waited helplessly in their cell.

   “Yeah, we were in the same unit for a while.”

   “Who does he work for now?”

   “Fuck should I know,” Pat grunted, “and if he gets us out of here, I don't care.”

   Hearing a series of bumps, they turned to see Deckard dragging their jail keeper down the stairs, his heavy cowboy boots clunking down every step as Deckard held him under each arm.  All three of them winced at the noise even though no one else could hear it over the radio, still blasting salsa music.  Finally he set the guard down next to the other corpse, the dead man's faded Michael Jackson shirt pulled up over his hairy belly.

   The asesino member's throat bore a ragged wound that looked to have sliced completely through his windpipe and carotid arteries, dark crimson stains now obscuring Michael Jackson's visage.

   “Right front pocket,” Pat informed him.

   Deckard dug around and came up with a key ring, the cell key being an old fashioned type for warded locks.  Turning the key, Deckard swung open the barred door, wincing for a second time at the sound the rusty hinges made.  J-Rod limped out with Pat supporting him with one arm.

   “How bad are you?” Deckard asked, giving him a once over.

   J-Rod was white in the face.  His ankle was blown up like a soft ball.

   “I can manage.”

   “It’s a fracture,” Pat clarified.  “We aren't going anywhere fast.”

   “I might have a way cleared out for us.”

   Deckard disappeared back into the corridor, stepping over the body of the first prison guard he eliminated.  Reaching for the door, he could hear the laughs and shouts of the two girls who he had seen in the outdoor pool, now joined by several male voices.

   Hurrying back to the prison, he looked back up the stairs.

   “What's up?” Pat asked.

   “That way is no good, too many people in the grotto.”

   “The grotto?”

   “I don't think you're invited.”

   Deckard crept back up the steps.

   J-Rod propped himself up against the wall while Pat handed him one of the unattended rifles and picked up the other for himself.  No extra magazines, but the situation was already looking better than it had a few minutes ago.

   Coming up the steps, Deckard was crouched at the top motioning for them to stop.  Quickly looking under the bannister and into the room, Pat could see that the cartel don had spared no expense.  It was a formal sitting room lined with mahogany walls, Italian leather furniture, and a large plasma screen television on which another guard was now watching a muted AC Milan game.

   Rolling up his left sleeve, Pat saw that Deckard was using an interesting but somewhat anachronistic weapon, a garrote wire.  On his left wrist Deckard wore a leather bracelet around which was wrapped some medium gauge piano wire that led to a small wooden dowel on the other end.  At the moment the dowel was held in place by a rubber band on the bracelet.

   Releasing the rubber band, the dowel fell away as Deckard unrolled the piano wire wrapped around the bracelet.  It was a technique the Delta operator had never seen before, most garrote wires, as commonly thought of were two wooden handholds attached by a few feet of wire.  Deckard's was one handhold, the other secured around the leather bracelet which would protect the wrist.