Reflexive Fire - 01 (31 page)

   Taking a squad with him, Deckard backtracked to the breach site.  Third Platoon was effecting an entry into the mansion, while his platoon redirected their base of fire.  They would follow on, moving to the objective, once Richie established a foothold, but first they had to get the gate open.

   The UWSA had further obstructed the way by parking a bulldozer behind the compound's entrance.  Climbing over the mud-covered treads, Deckard noticed that the obstacle would have been somewhat more effective if they had removed the keys from the ignition.

   Twisting the key, Deckard revved the engine to life and backed the heavy machinery out of the way.  Running forward, a squad of mercenaries unlocked the gate and swung the doors open.  Now Alpha Company's assault trucks came pouring through, locking down the compound with automatic weapons pointed in every direction.

   With the immediate area secure, Deckard got on the radio, ordering First Platoon to cheat forward up to the mansion.  From Peng's garden, the Kazakhs were supposed to move in a wedge formation with good separation between each individual soldier.  In reality it turned into more of a bum rush as they ran for the entrance.

   Deckard sprinted after them, trying catch up with his platoon.

   Inside, the mansion opened up into a large central room that was in absolute chaos.  A fountain in the center of the lobby was shot to pieces, water rippling across the floor.  The dead bodies of two Kazakhs from Third Platoon lay nearby, blood mixing with the water in a pinkish hue.

   Richie was crouched behind what was left of the fountain, his men swapping fire with Peng's shooters on the second floor balcony above and from doorways on the ground floor.  With First Platoon scurrying across the lobby like ants flowing from an ant hill, the Samruk troopers quickly established fire superiority.

   FMK grenades were hurled at the militia holdouts, four Kalashnikovs hosing down each enemy position.  Marble bannisters and wooden door jams were reduced and destroyed under the barrage.  With the initiative back on their side, Second Platoon cleared the east wing while First Platoon cleared the west wing of the mansion.

   Moving from room to room, squad members carrying shortened Remington 270 shotguns ballistically breached interior doors, kicking them open before assault teams entered and engaged the enemy, single and multiple shots cracking off as they cleared down the long halls.

   The mercenaries had hit a snag.

   Having cleared the ground floor, they discovered the stairway down into the basement, the landing opening up on a concrete slab leading to the entrance to Peng's underground fortress.

   Richie pushed the Kazakhs aside, examining the vault door.  Whistling, he walked back and forth, looking at the grouting the door was set in.  His eyes probed, searching for any weaknesses and finding none.  The safe room was more of an underground bunker.

   The door itself was reminiscent of some of the barriers he had encountered in England or France, seriously high-end stuff.  The door would be loaded with layers of ball bearings or metal chips to prevent drilling, the metal itself including layers of copper and aluminum designed to transfer heat and interfere with cutting torches.

   If his suspicion was correct, and sometimes it was, a gas ejection device would be placed between barrier layers.  In civilian settings they usually included non-lethal tear gas, but in this situation it was more likely to be a nerve or blister agent.

   “Maybe an explosively formed penetrator,” he remarked with his hands on his hips.

   “Not on your fucking life.”

   Richie jumped, on hearing the voice appear from nowhere.  Turning, he found Deckard standing behind him, covered in sweat, grit stuck around his neckline and the corners of his eyes.

   “I told you to bring down that bridge, not start a shooting war with the world's largest military.”

   “Couldn't be helped, boss.”

   Deckard sighed.

   “We need to identify Peng, which means you can't put a plasma jet through that vault door and incinerate everyone beyond recognition.”

   “You got it all wrong--”

   “Use the thermic lance instead.  You can still frag everyone inside after.”

   Richie stormed off, mumbling something, heading for the stairs.

   Deckard held his radio to his ear, listening as Alexander with Second Platoon gave the word that they had cleared the barracks, encountering limited resistance.

   Suddenly the mansion rattled, something buzzing overhead.

   “Fast movers,” Deckard announced to no one in particular.

   Bounding back up the steps and into the hallway, Deckard ran for the door while screaming into his radio.  “All units, get under overhead cover!”

   Stepping outside, Samruk's commander looked into the night sky.  The first pass was just to get a lay of the land.  With the second, they would be going hot.

   “Everyone get indoors now.  Leave the trucks where they are.  I want--”

   Flashes streaked through the sky.  The ball of fire began falling towards the earth, splitting into two sections before burning out on its trajectory to the ground.

   He couldn't be sure, but had a feeling that he had just witnessed a UAV, probably a Global Hawk, getting shot down at ten thousand feet.

   Looking down, he keyed his hand mic.

   “Anyone find the armory?  Report.”

   “No.”

   “
Nyet
.”

   “
Nyet
.”

   “Nah.”

   “
Nyet
.”

   “
Nein
.”

   “Probably behind this door.”  Richie.

   “Make it fast.  I need some of that hardware up here if intel is correct.”

   “Got it.”

   The Chinese Chengdu J-10 fighter jets came in low and slow, strafing Peng's compound.  The first J-10 let rip a burst of twenty-three millimeter cannon fire, the massive bullets tearing up the terrain before crossing over one of the assault trucks.  Several mercenaries who hadn't evacuated fast enough were cut down by the jet's stream of fire.

   Now anyone left outside understood the urgency, sprinting for the mansion and the barracks as the second J-10 came in right behind the first, firing up another one of A/co's trucks, detonating something on board.  The vehicle was quickly consumed in a blaze, bullets cooking off in the flames sounding like firecrackers.

   Whether the Chinese were pissed about Richie's indiscretions and were seeking revenge, or Peng had called in a favor, using some piece of dirt on the PRC as leverage, the rationale seemed irrelevant at this point.

   The fighters were circling around for another pass.

   Richie walked towards the vault door, his hands covered with heavy gloves, face shielded with a darkened welding visor.

   Burning through nearly two inches of steel a second, he pressed forward holding the thermic lance by its pistol grip, the other end connected to an oxygen bottle.  The vinyl covered rod made up the actual lance.  Inside were steel and aluminum wires that, when infused with oxygen from the O2 bottle and charged by a twelve-volt battery, burned at over ten thousand degrees.

   The lance created a superheated plasmic cone that was enough to burn through any barrier in seconds, rather than spend all night wearing through dozens of drill bits.

   Moving the lance from one attack point to the next, sweat beaded on Richie's forehead, even as cannon fire swept the compound topside.  They could feel the gunfire reverberate through the mansion.  He was moving as fast as he could.

   “Richie, what the hell is going on down there?” his radio nagged him, the voice on the other end sounded stressed.

   Gritting his teeth he hoped for the tear gas rather than a fast acting nerve agent.

   Deckard dove for the ground as 23mm fire ripped into the UWSA's headquarters.  The Chengdu fighter came in along the fortress' long axis, shooting up another assault truck, the barrage of fire walking across the lawn and into the mansion itself.

   Large caliber bullets tore open the roofing and smacked into the stone floor before the jet broke off, circling around for another pass.

   “All stations on this net,” Deckard said into his radio “triangulate fire approximately a hundred meters in front of the jets the next time they make a pass at us.”

   To Richie's delight it was just an Oleoresin Capsicum based gas that was ejected from the vault's fail-safe mechanism and not mustard gas or something worse.  The OC stung his face, burning his eyes with some of the worst pain he'd felt in recent years.  The tears flowed down his face freely as he hyperventilated in the narrow confines of the basement.

   Pushing the thermic lance through the blast plate on the door, he managed to disable the final locking bars.  Trying to blink away the tears, he spun the valve shut on the oxygen bottle and set down the lance.  The Kazakhs moved forward with scarfs and bandanas tied across their faces against the OC gas and attached a tow strap to the handle on the composite metal door.