Choke Point

FOUR

There was no man that Sergeant First Class Jimmy ‘30K’ Ellison respected more than Pepper. He was ferociously loyal to his friend and teammate and had sworn a personal oath to always have his back.

So the second that Pepper sounded the alarm, 30K broke off from his position near the shacks and hauled ass toward the combatants behind the trucks, the ones laying down heavy fire on Pepper’s position.

Now you couldn’t blame his youth (he was just twenty-eight) on what he was about to do. And you couldn’t blame it on him being some crazy farm boy who hailed from Alma, Arkansas, although the latter was true. This wasn’t something rash or reckless, over the top or insane, no.

It was just him being him. Not a reckless kid whose father had abandoned him. Not a warmongering maniac with a Stoner 63 light machine gun clutched in his grip, although, once again, the latter was true.

‘Ain’t no such thing as style points, kid,’ he’d once told Kozak. ‘You do what you gotta do to get it done. The rest is just details.’

30K’s Cross-Com pinpointed the locations of the four rebels strung out near the trucks, cutting loose with their rifles then dropping to cover like carnival targets.

Man, these were off the shelf, generic brand cowards, the kind that 30K neither feared nor respected. Worthy adversaries needed to prove their mettle, and these clowns couldn’t even earn his pity. He raced up behind them and hollered, ‘Hey, pendejos!’

He gritted his teeth, leveled his rifle on them as they turned, then the rat-tat-tat of his Stoner delivered their last rites more powerfully than any trailer park preacher 30K had ever seen or heard.

‘Learn how to fight like men,’ he spat, then spoke into his Cross-Com. ‘You’re clear, Pepper.’

‘Thanks, bro.’

‘Guys, this is Ghost Lead. Rally on the biggest shack out back, near the river. Got four targets holding there, with a fifth inside, not moving. Could be the package.’

‘Ghost Lead, 30K here. I can see the shack from my position. I’m going in.’

‘Roger that.’

One day 30K would learn some humility. Probably wouldn’t be today. Or tomorrow.

Pepper said he hated going to bars with him because there’d always be a fight, but when there was, 30K was the guy you wanted around. Hey, it wasn’t his fault. If someone called him a hick or a redneck, he’d turn up the Southern accent, flex his hands into fists, and set them straight the hard way. He wasn’t an evil guy, just evil-minded for the sake of saving lives. He hadn’t spent a lifetime blowing up mailboxes and frogs, only most of his childhood. He knew the names of every principal from every school he’d been kicked out of because he kept the list in his wallet. These were the men who’d doubted him, who’d thought he didn’t have what it took. They were just like his father. They didn’t want him around. Was he psychologically scarred? Was he mentally and emotionally handicapped? Hell, no. He was just pissed off. But when he’d joined the Army, he’d learned order and discipline and had earned the respect of the men in his company. His colleagues and superior officers would often ask why he carried that chip on his shoulder, why he was so angry at the world. And he’d say, ‘Hey, it ain’t me! It’s the world!’ Damned fate had dealt him a shitty hand as a kid. He’d never win the Mr Personality Award. But look where he was now.

Was he too cocky? Too confident? Well, if he were writing the Special Forces training manuals, he’d start every chapter with the reminder that you must believe in yourself and your team. You had to visualize the victory and make it real before it happened. And if that was being too cocky, then he was guilty as charged. If you were going in for brain surgery, which doctor would you pick: the one who said she was pretty sure she could help you. Or the one who said, ‘I’m going to fix you.’

Enough said.

30K chose a path that wound eastward along the mottled, oily waters of the river. He remained about ten meters from the tiny continents of lily pads clustering along the shoreline as he closed in on the shack that Ross had identified. The structure was about ten meters wide, forty long, built like an old barn or shed with wide gaps between the wall beams, certainly not a living structure but perhaps a heavy equipment storage house or repair shop or something. The tin roof was alive with crawling vines, and they reminded 30K of an earlier observation he’d made — that there had to be more than a thousand shades of green in this jungle. There were greens the color of baseball fields, greens the color of flak jackets and Christmas trees and berets. He saw a bird so green that its feathers seemed made of crystal backlit by LEDs. Sure, he’d been in South America on several other ops, but never in this part of Colombia. Too bad he didn’t have more time to hike up the river, find some local girls and have a beer.

A familiar whirring at his left shoulder sent his gaze skyward: the drone. Kozak had his back now and even reminded him of that. ‘Come on, big brother, move it!’ With that, the drone raced forward. 30K cursed and stormed after it. He’d been calling Kozak his ‘little brother’ for a while now because he knew the string bean didn’t like it. Hey, if it made the guy with the funny accent work a little harder to prove himself and step out of his big brother’s shadow, then rock on, that was fine with 30K. He’d appointed himself the team’s morale officer, pushing everyone to new heights because he enjoyed the hell out of annoying them, and the better they were, the better he was — meaning they all had a better chance of staying alive.

With the tables turned now and 30K sprinting madly to prove himself, he had red-zoned his heart by the time he reached the edge of the forest to spy on the four guards posted near the back of the shack. They had crouched down, rifles raised, their eyes intently panning along the clearing and probing farther out, into the deep maw of tangled branches.

‘Marked four,’ said Ross.

30K’s Cross-Com shimmered with the targets. He lifted his rifle. Took a breath. He had a bead on the first one and practised panning right to the second. No scope on his Stoner. Just experience and instincts. ‘Got two, just right of the door,’ he told Ross.

‘Gotcha. On three.’

30K would remark later that, yes, it had been his fault. He’d been a little too eager.

Ross never made it to three. By the time the word ‘two’ left his lips, 30K had already opened fire.

‘Damn it, I said three!’ cried Ross not a second after 30K had taken out his two guards.

30K saw them now, the other two FARC rebels, the ones Ross was supposed to drop. Both charged inside the shack, where that unmoving third target had remained.

‘Uh, sorry, boss, not much of a math guy.’

‘Great,’ said Ross. ‘Now it gets fun. Pepper? Kozak? You cover the exits. 30K? Get over here. You’re taking point.’

Oh, well, he was in trouble now. He rushed up to the shack’s wall, then shadow-hugged the wood, slipping his way to the corner, wary of more contacts. Every footstep was measured, his gaze flicking between the ground and the wall, making sure he didn’t do something stupid like trip and give up his location. He turned and met up with Ross near the main door, which was actually a pair of doors, cracked open a few inches.

Ross raised an index finger with one hand, cupped his hand to his ear with the other. He nodded over something, then reported over the team net. ‘AFEUR guys report the rest of the rebels have fled back into the jungle. Hold fire.’

After that, Ross nodded and rolled left beside the door, rifle at the ready. He gave 30K the hand signal: Go!

But 30K frowned as he drifted closer to the doors, stealing a look inside.

What he saw made him recoil. ‘Whoa …’

Ross had tugged free a flash bang grenade, and 30K turned back, put his hand over the boss’s, and shook his head.

‘What?’

‘Take a look.’