Echo Six: Black Ops 8 - ISIS Killing Fields (2 page)

He had a small unit to take the fight to the enemy, and he’d already lost a man. No, make that two men he’d lost. Specialist Walt Bennett lay dead on the sand.

Talley wondered where the rest of them had gone to ground. The radio had been silent. He hit the transmit button. "This is Echo One, Lieutenant Rovere, what's going down?"

There was a renewed burst of firing, and he waited. Finally, the Italian replied, "They've got us pinned down. These bastards are damned good. We need fire support, Boss, and we need it now. Where are the machine guns?"

"The Minimis are on the way. Any casualties?"

A pause. "We lost Kirkenboom. I'm here with Casta and Cross, Gerard and Duvall, and oh, yeah, Drew Jackson is around somewhere."

Kirkenboom, a Dutchman, he'd been with them for four months. A tough, resourceful fighter, he'd planned to get married next year, and when his NATO service ended, to set up a fitness gym in his native Holland. His fiancée was about to learn a bitter truth. Talley felt the bitterness well up inside his guts. In his mouth, he sensed the sour taste of failure.

I’ve lost three men. The reasons don’t matter. They died on my watch. My job is to keep them safe, and bring them home. I failed.

"What about the others?"

"That's it, six of us."

"Where’s Buchmann?" He pictured the huge German. A one-man army and they needed him if they were to get out of this alive.

"He's not here."

Where is he? They couldn't have got him. He's almost indestructible. If Buchmann is dead... Face it. We’re fucked.

"Copy that, Echo Three. You heard the DShK open fire. It’ll be truck mounted, and be aware they could have more than one. If they attack with truck-mounted machine guns, they'll chew us up and spit us out. First chance you get, take out the machine guns. They could hit at any moment.”

"We'll be ready for them. Boss, the ground assault is getting too damned close. Whatever you have in mind, make it quick."

"Roger that, I’m working on it."

Where the hell is Buchmann? We need him, need his grenade launcher. Shit, the big German is like having a light tank along
.

The enemy came in a rush, screaming their hatred. Driven by the certain knowledge they were about to score a great victory against the foreign soldiers. Black-robed men raced closer to Rovere's position, moving out in the open for the final leap at the NATO men. They were relying on the darkness to give them cover, not a good tactic to use against men equipped with NV gear, although they didn’t seem to care too much about taking casualties. Why should they, when their Mullahs had conned them into believing in some mythical afterlife; an afterlife populated by scores of nubile virgins, a life of ease and free love. It sounded like Sweden, without the snow.

The attackers raced past him, and for vital seconds, he was out on their flank. The cries of religious hatred were loud, even over the sounds of battle.

"Allahu Akbar!" ‘God is great! Kill!’

He counted around twenty of them, and they still hadn't seen him. It was time to change that, and he hit the transmit button. "This is Echo One, be advised I'm coming at them from the south. Watch where you put your shots."

A few double clicks answered him in the affirmative. He catapulted to his feet and started to run. Some of the hostiles detected movement at the corner of their peripheral vision, after a savage burst of heavy machine gun fire lit up the sky. Before they could turn, Rovere gave the order, and his men were up and running; meeting the enemy head on, ignoring the gunfire spraying bullets around them. If the heavy machine gun had opened up, they would all have died, but the gunner held his fire, not ready to kill his own men. Talley fired into the tight knit group of fighters and saw at least two go down to his bullets. A good result, but he was worried. He'd estimated there were many more.

Where are the rest of them?

The Italian had luck on his side. His men had found a shallow depression in the desert and slipped into a patch of total darkness. The enemy paused in confusion, and when the NATO men reappeared, they were a few meters in front of the ISIS fighters. Black clad fighters armed with AKs screamed their defiance, but Rovere's squad was already pouring bullets into them, scything them down like harvested wheat. The ISIS ranks paused, and they swerved away from the murderous gunfire. Men vaulted over the bodies of their dead as their numbers began to thin out. Before they had time to retreat, the Minimis spoke, and four more ISIS went down.

Rovere's men raced on, firing on the run, and the two groups collided. Three more hostiles were bleeding out on the sands as Talley ran to join them at full speed. He came abreast of Rovere and Tadeus Bielski. The Pole was slamming a new magazine into his rifle when an enemy jumped him. Rovere was busy fighting off another man, and ahead of them, loud shouts and screams announced the second bunch of ISIS coming in.

Talley kicked a rifle barrel aside. The man dropped his rifle, and another fighter loomed up in front. He snapped off a quick shot, and the man went down. Bielski shot his attacker and put a bullet into the fighter who had picked up his assault rifle and was swinging it round to target them. Talley acknowledged his thanks.

"Keep going forward, Tadeus. There're plenty more of them coming at us."

"Commander, the Lieutenant, he's in trouble."

Talley glanced around him. Rovere was embroiled in a hand-to-hand fight with a huge Arab. "I'll deal with him. Get ready for the next wave, and remember to watch for the truck-mounted machine gun. If you get near it, kill the crew and try to disable the gun."

Bielski put a bullet into another fighter who appeared out of nowhere, but he still hesitated. Talley made a fast assessment of his priorities. The machine guns were the big danger. They'd decide whether they lived or died.

"Bielski, go forward and find that machine gun. I'll stay with Rovere. Move it, or we'll all be dead."

"Copy that."

He ran off into the night, and Talley rushed to Rovere's aid. Before he reached him, the Italian stumbled and fell. His opponent, a giant Arab, leapt on him in triumph, bringing down his assault rifle in an effort to smash Rovere's brains with one huge blow. Talley snapshot his 9mm Sig Sauer from the hip. There was no time to finesse an accurate shot. The bullet went wide, and he fired again, and again.

The second bullet missed, and the third round thumped into Rovere's armored vest. Now the Arab was alerted to the danger. With one huge paw holding down the Lieutenant, he swung his rifle around one-handed to get off a shot at Talley. Rovere saw the opening, snatched out his own pistol, and pointed the barrel upward. He found what he wanted and fired into the massive target. A target he couldn't miss at close range. The crotch of the Arab loomed over him. In desperation he fired and kept firing until the breech of the automatic clicked on empty. The big man went down, rolling away from Rovere, screaming in agony as his lifeblood flowed out of his ruined genitals. Talley put out a hand to help Rovere to his feet.

"Are you okay?"

Rovere’s breathing was labored as he recovered. "I shot off his balls. He'll spend eternity in hell as a eunuch."

"I don't give a shit about his balls. There're more of them coming in, and they have those heavy machine guns. We have to link up with the others and deal with them. "

"Sure, that was a close one, Boss. Thanks."

"No sweat."

He was anything but okay, still panting with the exertion and struggling to draw air into his lungs. The fight with the big Arab had exhausted his strength, even if he wouldn't admit it. A tough and skilled warrior on the battlefield, Rovere had come close to defeat.

"I should have handled him better, but the big bastard wouldn't take no for an answer. I...shit, no!"

Astonishingly, the wounded giant was still alive and had somehow crawled close to Rovere. He'd dropped his rifle when the bullets smashed into his groin, but now he was trying to stab the Italian in the leg with a dagger he'd pulled from under his robe. Rovere rapped out a stream of Italian. A second later, he reached down, snatched the knife from the man's hand, and gave it back to him. Point first, straight into the throat. He shrugged at Talley. "Just like I told you, the bastards won't give up."

"What did you say to him?

"He had a choice. I told him to give it up, or I'd send him to hell."

"You spoke in Italian."

Rovere held up his hands in mock helplessness. "Is it my fault if he doesn't speak the language of our Roman ancestors? The language of culture and the classics, theater, and opera, unbelievable."

"Domenico, I don't speak Italian either."

They'd started to run like madmen to link up with the other operators, but Rovere could never resist having the last word. "No, you don't speak Italian. But neither did you try to stab me with a rusty dagger."

A second later, they were in the midst of a furious new battle. Both Echo Six and the remainder of the ISIS fighters had lost the ability to maneuver as they came together in the dark desert night. Talley and Rovere plunged into the swirling mass of fighting men, and he lost sight of his Lieutenant. Bielski had halted and was fighting with accuracy and precision, slicing into the ISIS ranks with single, aimed shots from his Sig. He repeatedly fired from the hip at point blank range. Until a bullet fired from inside the melee sliced skin from the side of his neck, and he reeled back. Talley raced to stand over him and waved away two other SEALs, Casta and Cross, who were about to lend their support.

“I’ve got it covered.”

They rejoined the fight, but almost immediately, a black robed fighter with a long sword and an unkempt black beard lunged toward them.

Talley kicked out, and the sword sliced a chunk out of his boot as it deflected the thrust. Then he punched the swordsman hard, a crushing blow to the side of the face. Yet he didn't go down, kept hold of the sword, and he saw the blade start moving for another swing as Bielski groped for his pistol. Casta and Cross had turned in the opposite direction to fight off two more ISIS who'd come howling in, seeking blood.

He roared a warning. "Bielski, stay down. Hit the deck."

The sword scythed around for a second strike, and in desperation, Talley blocked it with his body. The blow whacked into the Kevlar plates of his armored vest. Then he closed with the fighter and punched him again and again in the face. The man squealed in pain and rage but kept hold of the sword. Talley tried to deliver a punch hard enough to finish it, or at least to knock him out, but he was ready for it. As the fist swung toward his face, he stepped back and whirled around, almost like a ballet dancer. Talley watched it happen, as if in slow motion the sword sliced toward him, the steel glittering in the moonlight.

He hardly heard the suppressed shot, a soft murmur over the noise of battle. Bielski had recovered his Sig and fired a shot from where he lay on the desert floor. Casta and Cross turned, ready to support, but it wasn't necessary. The Arab stared down at the wound in his chest, dropped the sword, and slumped to his knees. A second bullet hit him between the eyes, after the Pole moved close enough to make certain.

"Bastard! He was trying to kill me," he snarled in fury.

Talley flinched as a stray bullet slammed into his vest, and then another glanced off his helmet. He dived to the ground, amused by the Pole's anger. "Killing us is the general idea. Thanks for finishing him for me, Tadeus. I nearly wound up without a head."

They were lying prone, firing at targets of opportunity as they appeared and disappeared. A lull came over the battle. He jumped to his feet, and the others fanned out to search out the enemy. Talley found more targets, a lot of them. In the distance, maybe fifty meters away, more ISIS raced toward them. Bielski was on his left flank, and he saw them, too. "Heads up, more of them are coming in. For Christ's sake, I count thirty of them. Do these people never give up?"

Talley took aim with his HK416 assault rifle and then relaxed. The gunfire that had turned the remote desert area into a battleground almost drowned out the noise of the grenade launcher. He heard another 'crack', and a huge shape appeared out of the night. It was like magic. One moment he wasn't there, and the next he was. Buchmann. How he'd got there, Talley had no idea. Only that he was damn glad he was there. He afterward found out the German had glimpsed the third group of ISIS just as the fight started. Buchmann decided Echo Six could handle the two smaller squads without any problem, and he lay in wait for the largest group.

The first grenade landed, and then the second. The detonations were a fierce roar, almost simultaneous, and the charging ISIS went down like stalks of wheat hit by a tornado. Buchmann kept firing until he'd unleashed five deadly 40mm grenades. He didn't wipe all of them out, but those who survived the deadly storm of explosive and razor sharp steel fragments halted, too stunned to go on. He didn't give them a chance to recover. The huge German attacked, charging at the enemy, his assault rifle spitting rounds as he emptied magazine after magazine into their ragged ranks. He was shouting repeatedly, "Schweinhund, schweinhund!"

Most of them died. They never stood a chance. He went through them like a WWII panzer. Talley seized the chance and barked out an order, "Get in there with Buchmann. Help him finish them off before they recover."