Reflexive Fire - 01 (6 page)

   The truth was that he was no George Patton.

   The Kazakh mercenaries fanned out across the steppe in a linear L-shaped formation around a building mockup, isolating the objective while reducing the chances of friendly fire.  The Kazakhs lay down in the prone with AK's facing inwards while the assault team moved in a line towards the objective.

   Deckard had shown up unannounced to watch the maneuvers, the Sergeant Major close at his heels.

   The reality of the situation was that Deckard had never commanded anything even approaching this level.  While a part of several Army Special Operations units, he had worked as a part of small teams of highly trained soldiers.  Afterwards, he had mostly conducted singleton operations in rather austere parts of the world.  Given the opportunity, it was an environment he had thrived in.

   The assault team halted at the gaping hole left in the sheets of wood representing a doorway.  The second man in the stack threw a rock through the door, simulating a grenade.  Waiting a few moments, the assault team rushed through the door, each member making gunfire noises as they cleared the single room to let their sergeant know they were engaging invisible targets.

   Commanding a battalion of hundreds of soldiers was something else entirely.  It meant tracking operations, training, and personnel on a very detailed basis.  It meant training meetings, intelligence meetings, and meetings for meetings.  Paperwork and teleconferences.  Death by Power Point.  All the things he had avoided like the plague.

   With the objective secured, the assault team moved out of the mockup, and the team leader counted them back into the platoon to have accountability for everyone.  At this point the sergeant ended the drill and instructed them to do it again.  The men looked bored, and Deckard couldn't blame them.  Some of these guys had been doing much more advanced training and even combat operations in Kazakhstan's Special Forces.

   Watching them continue to drill on the objective, Deckard was already forming ideas for future training objectives.

   “What is the purpose of this type of training?”

   “Cordon and search operations.  Weapon confiscation,” Korgan said shrugging his shoulders.

   “Why focus on this specifically?”

   “Not for us to know,” the Sergeant Major grumbled in his thick accent.  “Instructions from the Samruk offices in Astana.”

  
Interesting.

Five

“Here is what I need to happen,” Deckard ordered.  After a pause the Sergeant Major translated to the platoon sergeants.  “Two five-man assault teams will constitute a squad.  Three assault squads per platoon plus one weapons squad.”

   One of the Kazakhs spoke up, a confused look on his face.

   “He wants to know what you mean by weapons squad.  All squads have weapons,” Korgan translated.

   “Weapons squad will consist of three, three-man machine gun teams.  Three PKMs per weapons squad.”

   As the Sergeant Major translated, the younger NCO frowned, the two speaking rapid fire Russian for several seconds.

   “But we have no machine guns...”

   “Give me a week.”

   Korgan again spoke to the platoon sergeant, and now his frown was replaced with approval.

   “I want four radio operators, two snipers, and five medics per company, in addition to the first sergeant and company commander.  These positions will be filled by those who show the most ability as we continue to train.  Monetary bonuses will be put into place, based on duty positions and performance.

   “At the battalion level I want one mortar section and one anti-tank section, manned and ready to begin training once the necessary equipment arrives.  Until then have these men continue to train as assaulters.”

   The meeting went on deep into the night with Deckard outlining what would be the battalion's new Table of Organization and Equipment before launching into weapons and equipment procurement and requests, living facility upgrades, training schedules, and attracting and recruiting more Kazakh veterans to the unit, until he realized it was nearly four in the morning.

   Everyone was grateful when the sun finally began to crest the horizon and break the oppressive cold that lingered in their bones.  Even with their bodies warmed up from running several miles, the cold stung at their faces.  Somehow, Deckard couldn't help but feel that he was the only one who wasn't used to it.

   The dusty road seemed to go on across the steppe forever until finally the firing range could be seen in the distance.  Alibek, the Alpha Company Second Platoon Sergeant, took the lead by picking up one of his privates and slinging him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

   Deckard followed suit, picking up the nearest Kazakh mercenary, a private named Oraz.  He was one of the younger troops in the platoon, but like the others he had the Asiatic features typical of many Kazakhs.  Once the entire platoon had paired up, Alibek took off running towards the range.  Again, the American was impressed with the level of leadership shown by the young military veterans he had under his command.

   Maybe it was the culture.  Maybe it was a meal ticket.

   Whatever they may have lacked in hard skills, they made up for in enthusiasm.  It was no fault of their own that their military wasn't as developed as in the West, but then again, maybe it was an asset.  The technology and bureaucracy of modern armies often led to a loss of focus on combat proficiency.

   Quadriceps burning, he was relieved when Sergeant Alibek finally set his partner down halfway to the range and switched positions.  Oraz hefted Deckard's weight with a grunt and began charging down the road.  Finally they arrived at the shooting complex, little more than flat ground with some stakes stuck in the dirt to indicate range fans and meter distances, every member of the platoon with a cloud of hot steam coming off their bodies.

   Alibek began shouting commands in Kazakh and pointing to the targets posted down range.  Deckard needed no translation and simply followed along as the mercenaries began loading magazines and racking the charging handles of their AK-47s.

   The next twenty minutes were spent sprinting across the range in buddy teams, bounding while the other remained in over watch, laying down a suppressive fire on targets.  Next, they repeated the same maneuver in four-man fire teams, Deckard joining in with an odd group of three.  The drills continued until each soldier had expended sixty rounds on the targets down range, not much but for now it was their allotment.

   Alibek and his peers made an impressive display of making the best with what little they had, but Deckard knew it was going to take a lot more for them to pull off what he had in mind.

   “No, dammit, that's not what I want!”

   Rapid fire Russian was spat back and forth on the other end of the line.

   “Hold on,” Deckard sighed, picking up the other phone.

   “Samruk International?”

   “Yes, this is O'Brien.”

   “This is Raul Fernandez.  My supplier is inquiring about end user certificates for the merchandise, and we are already at the loading bay with three pallets.  I-”

   “Is this about the surplus GME-FMK2-MO grenades that Argentina dumped in your country and you've been trying to sell at marked up prices to the Iraqis for the last three years?”

   “Um, well-”

   “Yeah, I know about that.  Listen, you tell those fuckers that the Ministry of Defense provides the EUCs, not myself or Samruk.  They have already been forwarded to your people, and I have a signature of delivery, so you need to start communicating with them.”

   “I will call them immediately after I hang up, but we still have the issue of-”

   Fernandez rattled on about the HAZMAT reportable quantity of Research Developed Explosives and the proper markings and packing materials for the pallets while Deckard stared at his email's inbox.  It was filling up at an alarming rate, with messages from manufacturers and dealers all over the world.

   These days Deckard's credit card had a triple A rating that went straight to the top.  Some items would be procured in a more clandestine manner through front companies, but for some of the major end items, there just wasn't time for any kind of elaborate subterfuge.

   The voice on the second cell phone switched from Russian back to English.

   “Give me a second here, Fernandez,” Deckard ordered, grabbing the line with the Russians on the other end.

   “What's the deal Niko?”

   “We have agreed to your proposal for the AK-103 rifles, Mr. O'Brien; however we request that you also buy the corresponding M43 ammunition, using us as your broker.”

   “Which plant do you go through?”

   “The old factory 21.”

   “Copper washed steel?”

   “Green lacquer.”

   “I also need T-45 green tracer.”

   Niko paused.  “How about type Z red tracer?”

   “Good enough.”

   “Sounds like a deal, and listen, tell your brother I need someone to source some M-23 vests.”

   “How many?”

   “About a battalion's worth.”

   “Fuck.”

   “You can't do it?”

   “Uh, give me two days.”

   “Alright, Niko, don't fuck me on that ammunition.  I want you to test fire each lot number before you ship.”

   “Yes, Kommisar.”

   “No one likes a smart ass,” Deckard said before hanging up and going back to Fernandez.

   “Fernandez, you track down those EUCs yet?”

   “My secretary is faxing them to our export control office right now.”

   “Good, let me know if you find those Portuguese commando mortars I asked about, okay?”

   “No problem, Mr. O'Brien.”

   Deckard hung up and turned back to his laptop.  He was making international arms dealers shit themselves with delight these days.

   Beginning with the first emails, Deckard began to work his way through his inbox.  There were emails from a guy who ran a small business in North Carolina sewing together custom nylon gear for Special Forces teams at Ft. Bragg.  Samruk needed some chest rigs made for their sniper and recon troops that couldn't be sourced elsewhere.

   There were a few more messages from the manufacturer of holographic reflex gun sights.  Deckard had put in a mass order several days ago.  They wanted the business, but now his order was competing for space on the factory floor with several government contracts.  With Deckard sweetening the deal, the owner agreed to run his workers on twenty-four hour shifts until his order was fulfilled.

   Next came emails from a representative of Glock in Austria.  After attempting to go through an Italian arms dealer, Deckard ran into a wall when he discovered the guy had actually been jailed by Interpol for a dirty deal he acted as the agent for between the Chinese owned Liho Inc. and the Libyan Government.  Not willing to waste more time, he was now going directly to the source, and they were not fucking around with the letter of credit transaction or insurance costs for shipping.

   There were more messages from South Africa about 40mm grenades and an American based company building PKM machine guns with titanium frames, but it was the misspelled email from a textile plant in Wujiang City that really gave Deckard a headache.

   Most First World
military forces now outsourced production of their uniforms to China, and through several contacts, Deckard had managed to find one textile plant that was printing off rolls of fabric for Canadian desert uniforms as well as Italian 'vegetato' woodland camouflage fabric.  Mr. Yao had understood that once the freight forwarder sent the bill of lading to the textile company's bank, the documents would then be forwarded to Deckard's accountant and the monetary transaction would then occur.

   Now he was asking for a down payment.  Deckard was already paying a huge overhead for Yao to source and supervise the cutting and sewing of the fabric by a third source.  He had contemplated having the fabric shipped to Tamil Nadu where the old ladies could take some time off from sewing lingerie and deliberately trashing pairs of jeans to make them look more trendy for American kids and construct the uniforms.  Once again it was an issue of time. 

   He just didn't know how much or how little he had.

   “Why have you fucking done this!” Djokovic hissed.  “
I
already had an arrangement.”

   Deckard's Executive Officer had cornered him coming out of his office.