Extraction (John Taylor #8) - Chapter 3

Haymarket, Virginia

Taylor called the number Claire had given him and never made it past the secretary, who left him on hold for ten minutes after getting Taylor’s name, only to return with a time and place to be the next day. Taylor tried to ask follow-up questions but was stonewalled by a repeat of the time and place he’d have to go to get any information.

Whitaker begged off any celebration, since given her age and how early in the pregnancy this was, she wanted to wait a little while to make sure there weren’t any issues before they started really making a thing of it. Instead, the three of them spent the evening watching a movie and just relaxing, which Taylor thought was a good way to spend the night before he had to head out on a new assignment.

The next morning Taylor arrived at a hanger sitting on one corner of what Taylor had thought was a small commercial airfield in north Virginia a little under an hour from DC. A quick records check the night before had told him that the hanger had belonged to White Mountain, which they appeared to be leasing.

Taylor parked at the entrance to the hanger and walked through the front doors into a posh office area, where he was met by a large man with full sleeve tattoos, one of which indicated he’d been a marine at some point in his life. He had the tell-tale look of someone who juiced up, which was probably one of the things that got him kicked out of the marines. Of course, not everyone who used ended up getting kicked out, since in some cases the actual punishment was left up to the unit commander’s discretion.

“Can I help you,” he said, trying to glare down at Taylor in what he assumed was an intimidating pose.

“I was told to be here today. Name’s Taylor.”

“Don’t you recognize the war hero from his appearances on TV?” said a much leaner guy about Taylor’s height.

His tone made it clear he didn’t actually think much of TV appearances in general or Taylor in particular.

“I don’t watch TV,” the giant said.

“Good; it’ll rot your brain,” the guy said, sticking out his hand. “Mark Stone.”

“John Taylor,” Taylor said, taking an instant dislike to the guy.

He was too smooth for his own good, kind of a like a not quite good enough car salesman.

“This is Angelo. Follow me, I’ll show you around. So, if I read your bio in Time right, you were a Green Beret, right?”

“A long time ago.”

He wanted to refuse all interviews after the events during the election when a psychotic bomber tried to kill Caldwell just before the election, but she convinced him to do it anyway. They’d done their research and asked all kinds of questions about his past, including his capture in Afghanistan, the incidents in Miami and Oklahoma City, and his killing of a terrorist right before he released a chemical weapon on Washington. Thankfully, they’d missed the incident in Russia, allowing him to gloss over the parts of Kara’s past that might cause her problems.

“Sure, sure. I read about that last patrol where you got captured. Brutal stuff. I was over there for two tours with the Seals and one in Iraq. I didn’t get taken captive or anything, but I can tell you I know how you feel. That place is a hellhole.”

Taylor had to admit that was one of the smoother insults he’d gotten. Normally guys like him just came out and called him a coward for being taken alive. Taylor also couldn’t help but notice how easily he’d thrown in that he’d been a SEAL. Taylor would have bet he was kicked out on a bad conduct discharge. Guys who got a BCD from the SEALS liked nothing more than telling you they’d once been a SEAL.

The warehouse was bristling with activity, with a dozen guys moving around, checking crates, or talking in groups of one or two. There was a fair amount of hardware here, all of it getting boxed up and tied with webbing onto a pallet. If he had to deal with them, at least they wouldn’t lack for supplies.

“So we’re about packed up and ready. Although we’ve got pretty good intel on the area, we’re going in prepared. I didn’t know if you were bringing your own equipment, so we set aside an M4 for you, since that’s what most of you guys liked to use back in the day.”

Taylor held up the rifle case and duffle he’d been carrying in with him in response. While he knew he wouldn’t be able to rely solely on his own equipment, he at least wanted to make sure any of the critical equipment was taken care of. Most important were the rifle and sidearm, both of which he’d used regularly in practice and kept well maintained, since the last thing he’d want if things went south was a weapon that jammed up on him when he needed it to work.

Besides that, he’d brought some electronics, including a sat phone and GPS, along with a few less critical items that he just preferred using, like his web harness, mostly because once he’d found one that was somewhat comfortable, he didn’t want to give it up.

“Cool, cool,” Stone said. “Well, if you need to draw ammo or anything, see Lopez over there. Newest guy draws the short straw and has to take loadmaster.”

Taylor was floored by that reasoning. Normally someone experienced got the assignment as the supply sergeant or loadmaster, since if that job got screwed up, you’d find yourself out in the field completely screwed. Of course, that had been the wisdom when he’d been in the service. Guys like this were usually the type that tried to dodge the mission-critical but somewhat boring work, so of course, they’d push it off on the new guy.

“I was hoping to get some more details on this op?”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. I was about to start our briefing so we could load up and get underway. I don’t have to tell you how long the flight over there is.”

“Sure,” Taylor mumbled, walking away.

Maybe it was rude, but Taylor had no plans to turn his back on Stone, let alone trying to be the guys’ friend. Stone just shrugged and headed off to whatever he needed to do while Taylor made his way over to the guy Stone had called Lopez.

“I was told you’re the guy I needed to talk to about requisitioning supplies.”

“Yeah. I can take your order, but you’ll have to wait till after the briefing for me to pull it. You brought your own weapons?” he asked, looking down at Taylor’s rifle case.

“Yep. M4 and a 1911.”

“Ha, they had you pegged. Yep, we have ammo for that. How much you want?”

“Standard loadout on the M4.”

“Nothing on the 1911?”

“No, I’m set.”

“Any other ordinance?”

“I don’t suppose you have flashbangs or anything like that.”

While guns weren’t hard to buy the other stuff he’d carried in the service, like explosives, were another thing.

“We do, actually. We can’t hand them out now, but once we land we’re covered by our charter and the rules change. We have a full compliment. What do you want?”

“Four frags and two flash if you have ’em.”

“I do. I’ll put you down for it. We’re only taking what we can carry, so just keep that in mind. There won’t be a resupply until we’re done. Do you have armor?”

“Yep, I’m good on that.”

He’d seen enough shitty body armor over the years to not trust that to anyone else either.

“Okay. All set.”

“Thanks,” Taylor said.

Lopez hadn’t triggered any of his internal warnings and Taylor briefly wondered why someone like him would be working with guys like these. Maybe Taylor was wrong, but he seemed pretty genuine.

“Okay, let’s get started,” Stone said, standing at the end of a long table with a bunch of metal chairs around it.

Taylor found a spot near the end and pulled his chair slightly away. Although they probably assumed Taylor was being standoffish, he did it so he could watch most of them as the briefing happened. Once he had information on them from Bryant, he wanted to have at least a general idea of what they each looked like and maybe get a little bit of each of their personalities. The files would be a big help, but even classified records, if that’s what Bryant managed to get, would be somewhat sanitized, even if just by the language used. Taylor preferred to get a firsthand impression before reading about someone, just to have a better idea of what he was looking at.

“I know some of you know about this op already, but I’m going to go over everything anyway, since we have a couple of new faces and I want to make sure we all know what’s expected. Four days ago, a team from Northbridge had their compound taken over by a local warlord and the staff held for ransom. The reason we’re here is that Northbridge has decided they don’t want to ransom the men. They want a rescue op instead.”

“Fine by me. All I care about is if the check clears,” the guy named Angelo said.

“We’ll get paid,” Stone said and the rest chuckled.

Taylor was glad to see that Lopez kid didn’t join them, although that might be because he was busy looking nervous. The rest of these guys, assholes though they were, all had the look of guys who’d spent time in the field and seen at least some action. Lopez looked just one step out of boot and Taylor had to wonder how someone like him ended up with this bunch.

“All right, settle down. Let’s get through this so we can all grab a few cold ones before we head out tomorrow. You know my rules on drinking once the op starts, so we gotta make sure we have time to get it all out of our systems tonight.”

Taylor had to be surprised a second time. He would have bet money these guys had less self-control than that.

“We are scheduled to depart from here at zero seven hundred tomorrow and fly to Djibouti, landing at Camp Lemonnier at about zero five thirty local time, where we’ll stage our gear. The Navy has been nice enough to give us a hot and a cot, but we will have a nanny the whole time and limited access outside of the hanger they shove us in. We’ve secured a charter to take us down the coast and we’ll pull out at eighteen hundred. Lopez, it’s your job to make sure the boat is loaded and everything stowed before we head out. It’s a six-hour trip to our drop-off point, which is an empty stretch of sand about twenty-three miles east of Berbera. There shouldn’t be much of a moon that night and the forecast is for heavy cloud cover, so we should be pretty dark when we go in.”

“How often is the forecast ever right?” a guy Taylor hadn’t been introduced to said.

“True, but it’s the best we could do in timing. If it’s not, it’s not. Our target is two miles inland, and this area is rocky and mostly uninhabited, so we should be okay. We bury the boats just in case we need a backup evac and hike inland. We should be catching them about one or two in the morning and these aren’t the kind of guys to put out patrols.”

“Another bunch of fucking kids with guns,” Angelo said.

“Maybe. We aren’t expecting much opposition. Intel says maybe twenty guys, and these aren’t trained military. We’re talking local militia. Safe money is they run at first contact. We drop the few sad sacks who man up enough to stay and fight, and pull out the hostages. Once we have them clear, we radio for pickup. The Navy has okayed three helos from Camp Lemonnier to meet us back near the beach, where they will pick the hostages and us up and take us back to Djibouti. Then it’s beers and bonuses all the way around.”

“What if they don’t run?” Taylor called out.

“What?” Stone asked, taking a second to identify Taylor’s voice in the crowd.

“What if they don’t run? Some of these militias have been fighting in this area for decades. They’ve seen combat and didn’t flinch, or are we forgetting ninety-three.”

The fact that they were going in against local militia in the same country where two Blackhawks were shot down and nineteen Americans, including six guys from Delta, died and seventy-three more were wounded should have occurred to someone. Best estimates said well over a hundred, and some estimates say as high as two hundred, militia died and they never gave up or ran away.

“This isn’t going to be like that,” Stone said in a dismissive tone. “We aren’t going into a crowded city and this isn’t an entire militia. We’re talking about a small compound occupied by a raiding force. They’re there just hoping to get a few easy bucks. They’ll run as soon as the heat gets turned up. Now, I know you’re hot shit in the papers, but this is what we do for a living. We’re letting you tag along, but you’re going to do this our way or we’re going to leave you here.”

Taylor didn’t bother saying anything else. He’d heard this kind of briefing before and the ops had always turned out to be complete cluster-fucks, and in none of those cases did the planners ever listen to anyone. Taylor could feel the mess they were about to walk into, but that made it harder to just turn around and walk away. If these guys did things their way, Nash was a dead man for sure, along with the rest of the hostages.

“We’re going light on this, so only pack the essentials. Except for team gear, we aren’t leaving anything behind in Djibouti, so unless you want to carry it along with ammo, armor, and team gear, leave it behind. Since we’re just expecting some locals with AKs, we’re not bringing anything heavier than M249s. Once we come ashore, I want a loose formation. I don’t expect any ambushes, but this is rocky terrain and the whole place is hostile, so let’s not offer any juicy targets. Ellis and Webb will be out front on point. Behind that, I want Cobb and O’Brien. I don’t want you packing your M24, Cobb. We aren’t expecting anything distant.”

“Just ’cause you’re not expecting it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. You’ll be sorry if all we have are M4s.”

“Once we’re in contact, it’s all going to be close quarters, so you’re M24’ll just be a liability. I know you hate to be in the shit with the rest of us, but you’re going to have to deal. Next up’s going to me, Dunn, Patrick on radio, Quinn, and Mr. Taylor. Lopez and Hunter will be on rear security. Once we get to the compound. I’ll move up and scout with Ellis and Web, and then we’ll move. It’s a secure compound with no other buildings, but the last satellite images show the reinforced doors haven’t been repaired since the assault, so we shouldn’t have trouble getting in. We’ll go in hot and heavy, breaking into teams of two. You’ll find maps of the compound and your individual routes in your packet. Once inside it’s going to be me and Dun, Quinn and Patrick, Cobb and Ellis, O’Brien and Webb. Lopez, Taylor, and Hunter will hold in the door and make sure our exit is secure. Once we locate the hostages, we’ll move back to the door and then to the LZ for exfiltration. You’ll find three LZs labeled Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie in your packet. Either Dunn or I will make the call on which LZ we head towards depending on the situation on the ground. From there we hike to the LZ and catch our ride.”

Normally, Taylor wouldn’t have minded being left on security. These guys had clearly operated together before, except perhaps Lopez, and throwing a random person into a functioning team without any pre-training to get the bugs worked out was usually a bad idea. Taylor, however, didn’t trust any of these guys as far as he could throw them, which in Angelo’s case wasn’t very far. He wasn’t going to sit back and wait for them to bring the hostages out and he wasn’t going to ask Stone to change the assignments, since there was no way they’d say yes. He’d just attach himself to one of the teams when the time came, and they could deal with it.

“That about wraps it up. Everyone pick up your briefing packet and look over the details. I’ll be around for an hour to answer any questions and I want everyone here and ready to go by zero five hundred.”

Taylor had heard enough to know that this whole thing was going to be a cluster-fuck. They were over-cocky and under-prepared, which was a deadly combination. If he was still in Special Forces, their briefing would have lasted for hours and included sand tables for the exterior and maybe even a full-size mock-up of the compound, instead of routes drawn onto a photocopied map. They would have spent the night going over the point of contact, getting the moves down and working out where possible problem spots would be, instead of having everyone going out and getting drunk.

Had Taylor known that this would be so slapdash, he would have planned on going back to DC tonight, at least for a few hours.

Taylor made sure his gear was ready and he’d have what he’d need, and then dialed Whitaker, walking off to one corner so he could have a private conversation.

“How’s it going,” she said, road noise in the background suggesting she was in a car.

“Just great,” Taylor said, sarcastically. “These guys are a bunch of cowboys, just as advertised. I swear to God they’re going to get a bunch of people killed.”

“Are you sure you should go? While I think it’s a good thing you’re doing, helping get Claire’s husband back, it’s not worth your life.”

“I should be fine. Hell, they want me to stay as far in the rear as possible and just leave everything to them.”

“Yeah, but you’re not going to do that.”

“No, I’m not. It should still be fine. Their intel says there should be light contact, mostly by inexperienced militiamen.”

Taylor didn’t point out that he thought that intelligence was complete garbage, since if Whitaker really pushed it, she could probably convince him not to go.

“Are you headed somewhere?” Taylor asked.

The road noise didn’t have the honks and sounds that he’d come to expect from downtown D.C.

“Yes, actually. We’re headed to you.”

“We?”

“Kara’s in the car with me. She decided to stay with me for a few more days before she went back home. Mary Jane decided to go with her mom to some event that Kara wasn’t interested in.”

“And why are you headed towards me?”

“You said you weren’t going to be flying out until later tonight or the morning, and we were hoping to get you away to have dinner with us.”

“You should have called. There’s usually a lot of prep work on a thing like this and there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to get away.”

“Yes, but you’re a ‘plus one’ on this. I’ve dealt with PMC guys before and they can be a little territorial. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t want you getting involved, but if you want us to turn around and go home, we can.”

“No, no,” he said when she called his bluff. “I’d like to see you both, and you’re right. They don’t want my help. We aren’t leaving until the early morning and half the team has headed out for a night of drinking anyways, so there’s not much to do around here. I’d be happy to see you.”

“Good. Are you still at that airport?”

He’d made sure she knew where’d he’d be, at least before he left. She understood that he wouldn’t tell her specifics of where he was going once they left the country. It wasn’t that he doubted her or thought she was a security risk of any kind. Taylor just found the old habits of mission security hard to break.

“Yeah, I’m still here. I’m in this secure area in the back, so it’s probably easier if I head up to the small customer lot and wait for you there. You can drop me at my car afterward before you head back.”

“Sure, we’ll call you when we get close.”

Taylor hung up and finally let himself smile. The mission might be a complete disaster, but at least he’d get to see his girls again before he left with these assholes.

His smile only lasted until he got to the front door of the hanger, however. As he opened it and stepped out, he saw a short, pudgy man he recognized … and hated.

Edward Packer had been Caldwell’s campaign manager during the presidential campaign late last year, and had almost gotten his boss killed because all he could think about were optics and politics, despite having an insane bomber chasing them who thought his boss was the next anti-Christ. They had butted heads more than once, and their last conversation had ended with Taylor threatening to beat the man half to death and leave him hogtied in a corner.

Taylor was certain the hatred was equal, since on the eve of what should have been his greatest moment in politics became one of the worst. Caldwell hadn’t been happy with how reckless Packer had been with her life, and more importantly the life of her daughter and he had been fired the night of the election, even as the votes were coming in showing his candidate won by a significant margin.

Taylor had heard that he’d more or less been blackballed from politics and couldn’t get a job running a city manager campaign, let alone anything high profile. On his way out the door, Packer had made it clear he blamed Taylor for getting him fired, despite the fact that Taylor was the only reason Caldwell had lived long enough to become President. Packer was the kind of guy who’d never accept responsibility for anything though, and was always looking for someone to blame his troubles on.

What Taylor couldn’t understand was why Packer was here at all. The man was a weasel, and his involvement in this operation was a bad sign. He saw Packer look over, recognize him, and almost trip before recovering and quickening his pace to get inside. Unfortunately for him, Taylor had just stepped through the doors he needed to go through, which made it all but impossible to get by him.

“What are you doing here?” Taylor asked, not moving out of the way, forcing Packer to stop.

“I work for Northbridge, my group is in charge of this project and I am supposed to be here. Now get out of my way. I have things to do.”

He tried to step past Taylor, and Taylor sidestepped directly in his path, causing Packer to bounce off of him.

“What are you doing here? Right now? Are you running this operation?”

“Listen, Mr. Taylor. I understand you and I might not get along, but you are here by our invitation and we could just as quickly remove that invitation. Now get out of my way.”

Taylor reached down and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, lifting up and forcing Packer to go up on his tiptoes.

“I’ve had questions about this thing since I heard about Northbridge having some kind of operation set up in fucking Somalia, of all places, and that you weren’t just ransoming your people back like everyone else does. Now that I know you’re involved, I know for a fact that something isn’t right here. I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find out.”

Letting him go, Packer stumbled backward, trying to keep from toppling over. He didn’t say anything else.

As he started to go through the door Taylor turned and said, “And Packer, if something happens to Wayne Nash, I’m going to assume you’re somehow at fault, and I’m going to come for you. You don’t have Caldwell here to protect you this time.”

“Fuck you, Taylor,” he said bravely before instantly turning and scrambling inside.

Taylor shook his head, frowning. This whole thing was looking worse and worse by the second. He could smell the disaster coming. If it wasn’t Claire, he would have just walked away.