OUTCAST Ops: Red Ice

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The assault on the ranch house was the worse Sarah Vessler had ever experienced.

The suspects were not strung-out druggies with stolen, half-functioning weapons, but hardened soldiers with military-grade weapons and a willingness to fight to the death. As the task force began deploying from the Bradleys and MRAPs, heavy gunfire greeted them from the ranch house and barn.

An RPG was launched from the ranch house’s second floor. It shot across the dark field, where it struck one of the MRAPs, rocking the fourteen-ton vehicle and blanketing the assault team with shrapnel. The M2’s opened up again, raking the house and barn with more .50 caliber rounds.

Vessler crouched in the shadow of the Bradley. Despite the MRAPs suppression fire, the enemy wasn’t giving up.

“OUTCAST Six to Striker. Are you all right?”

Vessler remembered the drones overhead. “OUTCAST Six, this is Striker. We need those party favors onboard the Cobras.”

“Copy, Striker. Moving Cobra Bravo to cover the barn. Dropping party favors from Cobra Alpha in three, two one…”

A hundred feet above the ranch house, Night Cobra Alpha hovered silent and invisible in the night sky. The drone’s camera pointed at the house below, giving Danielle, who was five hundred yards away, a real-time update of the situation. Using the tablet, she adjusted the drone’s position and released three of the flash-bang grenades. The incendiary devices struck the roof, bounced off, and exploded in mid-air, bright flashes of light and sound stunning the defenders.

As soon as the flash bang grenades were released, Danielle dropped three CS canisters. All three struck the roof, rolled down the sloping steel and fell to the ground. As they landed, they began spewing thick, acrid smoke. Rifle and machine guns from inside the house fired blindly into the heavy smokescreen. Danielle moved the Cobra and repeated the drop sequence, releasing the other half of the mini-drone’s cargo onto the structure. In a few seconds, the house was shrouded in tear gas.

She checked Night Cobra Beta, saw it had reached its new position over the barn, and dropped its entire load at once.

“OUTCAST Six to Striker. Party favors have been passed around.”

Vessler watched as the mix of smoke and flash-bang grenades hammered the ranch house and barn. The Bradleys, which up to now had not been involved in engaging any target outside of ICEHOUSE, rotated their turrets in opposite directions and fired their autocannons. Each burst sent ten 25mm APDS-T rounds into the ranch house and barn, ripping into concrete, wood, glass, steel and flesh.

By now the tear gas had spread, entering the house and barn through the damaged windows and walls. The gunfire from both locations was lessening, the defenders either unable to continue, or waiting for better shots.

From the strike team, half a dozen more CS canisters were blasted into both the house and barn, obscuring both structures even more.

“Striker to all Sun elements: Move it, now!”

Over at the barn, the single usable DShK and the six defending North Korean engineers blindly traded fire with the MRAPs, which replied with long bursts from CROWS-mounted M2s, the .50 rounds ripping through the wooden walls and into multiple defenders. Under the covering fire of the M2s, the agents assigned to secure the barn raced toward it. The rest of the task force charged the ranch house. They triggered off short bursts from their own weapons as the M2s continued shooting into both buildings.

Despite the firepower of the Bradleys and MRAPs, several agents went down as the strike team stormed the buildings. A three-round burst from one of the Bradleys obliterated the ranch house’s front door. The barn doors, riddled with both 25mm and .50 caliber rounds, fell apart and tumbled to the ground.

At Vessler’s command, a dozen flash-bang grenades sailed through the holes in HEDGEHOG. The multiple explosions of light and sound seem to last for hours, but in fact lasted less than ten seconds. As the explosions died away, the team stormed inside.

Gunfire met them, dropping two of the first agents inside the house. The strike team replied with their own gunfire, all thought of arrest or seizing evidence replaced with instincts of survival. No quarter was asked or given, even the badly wounded suspects tried to continue the fight, forcing the strike team members to kill them.

The fighting was room to room, gunfire exchanged at point-blank range — and when guns ran dry — hand to hand. More than one agent was killed or injured by the well-trained North Koreans in hand-to-hand fighting, as knives became the preferred close-in weapon of choice.

Five minutes of savage fighting saw the ground floor in task force hands, but at a heavy toll; none of the defenders survived, and the number of injured and dead agents was into double digits. Vessler ordered the wounded to be taken outside onto the covered porch while she considered her next move.

Vessler knelt at the base of the stairs. Splattered with blood from both friend and foe, she was stressed, her joints and limbs aching. She and half a dozen agents had been ready to charge up the stairs, but after the fight on the first floor, none were eager for round two.

“Striker, this is Gandolf. HAYBALE is secured. Three friendlies dead, four wounded. No prisoners. SOBs went down fighting.”

Vessler exhaled slowly. “Copy, Gandolf.”

“Striker, there’s tons of fertilizer in here, along with three trucks, explosives, fuel oil, and what looks like the parts to several detonators. Looks like these bastards were constructing Oklahoma City-sized truck bombs.”

Vessler felt herself get cold. “Ramrod, did you—”

“Copy, Striker,” Mulkerin said. “I have my OD guys on their way. Gandolf, don’t touch anything without my boys’ say-so. If any of that stuff goes off, there won’t be enough of you left to fit into a thimble.”

“Copy, Ramrod. We’re staying away from it all.”

Vessler took deep breaths to steady herself, then felt nauseous as she inhaled the smells of blood, smoke and other smells of combat. “Striker to OUTCAST Six…”

“OUTCAST Six here.”

Vessler felt a surge of anger at Danielle’s calm demeanor, but dismissed it. The tech specialist had done her share of fighting, but her skills were needed elsewhere on this battlefield. “I need you to run Cobra over for a look-see at the second floor of HEDGEHOG. We have the first, but the cost was high.”

“Copy. Cobra’s on the way now.” After a couple of minutes, Danielle said, “Looks like half-a-dozen suspects still on the second floor.”

Vessler’s head dropped. “Striker to Ramrod.”

“Ramrod here.”

“I need your Bradleys to rake HEDGEHOG’s second floor. We’ve lost good people taking the ground floor. I don’t want to lose any more.”

“Any prisoners?”

“Zero. They fought to the death. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I have. I still say my boys should have gone in. They have experience fighting fanatics.”

“Not like this, Ramrod.”

Mulkerin snorted. “Stand by, Striker. My boys will show these shitheads the meaning of firepower.”

“Striker to all: Ramrod’s going to air-condition the second floor. Stay low and be ready.”

The heavy hammering of two M242s was accompanied by the sound of breaking glass, tearing wood and shattering plaster. After ten seconds a high-pitch whine started up and what sounded like a swarm of angry bees ripped through the walls. Vessler watched as the railing on the second floor landing was chewed apart as if it was being eaten by a swarm of invisible termites, and the walls were shredded to almost the point of non-existence. There were a couple of screams from upstairs, short bursts of gunfire, but neither lasted long.

After thirty seconds of intense fire, it stopped, and the silence was as intense as the noise had been.

“Ramrod to Striker. That’s it. Any more and we risk collapsing the house. I doubt anyone up there survived that.”

“Thanks. Striker to all Sun elements: Take it upstairs.”

They crept up the stairs slowly, senses wide open to the first sign of trouble. At the head of the stairs, the team split up and swept each room. Most of the rooms were horror scenes, torn bodies on the floor with blood and gore everywhere.

“Striker,” an agent called out. “We have a live one! Front bedroom at the end of the hall.”

Vessler dashed from the main bedroom to the other side of the house. One of the task force members met her at the door. “He won’t last long. Hell, as shot up as he is, I’m surprised he isn’t dead already.”

The man lay in the middle of a pile of bodies. His clothes, a flannel shirt and jeans, were soaked in blood — both his and that of the others around him. One arm lay across his body. He slowly turned his head to look at Vessler with hate-filled eyes. Vessler walked over to him, staying out beyond his arm’s reach despite his wounds. “You’re under arrest.”

He spat at her, the bloodied saliva making it only a few inches before striking the blood-soaked floor. “Americans,” he said in accented English. “You will lose.”

“We won this round, buddy,” one of the agents in the room said.

The North Korean chuckled, then coughed and his breathing became labored. “D-do you think so?”

Alarm bells rang through Vessler’s mind. “Everyone out! Now!”

Her tone garnered an instant response and the three men raced for the door. As Vessler turned to follow, she saw the man relax in death and the grenade he’d been holding close to his body rolled free. She yelled, “Grenade!” and then threw herself across the hall and into another bedroom, sliding across the floor to put a dresser between her and the explosion. There was the crack of the grenade and she felt everything shudder. She waited a few seconds, then raised her head.

“Everyone okay?”

A chorus of affirmative replies greeted her still-ringing ears, and she got up slowly. “Ramrod, this is Striker: I need your medics in here ASAP. Gandolf, leave half your men at HAYBALE and bring the rest of them over here. Someone check the basement, while the rest of you check the bodies. Watch for booby-traps.”