Chapter 9

The plan started to fall apart almost as soon as they got moving. The truck that was only making a pass once an hour or so came and went around the compound, but Webb never signaled. They waited almost ten minutes for some kind of sign as the men got more and more antsy. Finally, as Stone was about to send a man around to check on Webb, the truck came through again.

That alone would have had Taylor pulling back and observing the compound again, since a plan that started falling apart before any contact was made was never a good plan. Although, this could also be because they’d only watched the truck make two circuits of the compound before setting their plan, which really hadn’t been enough to start making assumptions about an enemy’s patterns.

While he was in the service, his team would sometimes spend a week or more in a hide, just watching and building up patterns and profiles of their target. They’d listen to them on the radio, see who talked to whom, to the point where they almost thought they knew the men they’d shortly be fighting. A two-hour recon was beyond rushed.

Stone then made the second major error a team leader could make. He’d made a plan and he wasn’t willing to alter it, even when it fell apart this fast. Maybe that was partially Taylor’s fault, since in challenging Stone so aggressively, changing plans now would almost be like losing face. Either way, Stone had was pot committed to his plan.

They watched the truck circle around and disappear behind the building again. A few minutes in, Taylor could tell they were getting really nervous. What if the truck did a third sweep? At that point, it’d be impossible to keep going with the original plan. Taylor almost hoped it would come around again, since that would force Stone into slowing things down and doing this more methodically. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

After a few minutes, Webb’s voice suddenly came over the comms channel saying, “Dismounted. You’re good to go.”

“Stone,” Taylor said as Stone started to shift up, readying to give the command. “They changed their pattern. We should pull back and set up to observe them through the day.”

“Shut up,” he said, furious. “Either get with the program or stay here. I don’t care which.”

He didn’t stop to get Taylor’s response.

“Let’s go,” he said to the guys around him, all of whom scrabbled over the small rise they’d been holding behind and rushing towards the back wall of the compound.

Taylor followed in close behind them, slamming his back into the stucco wall. Although no one was on this side of the compound, everyone still tried to flatten themselves against the wall. They’d all been through similar training and keeping a minimal profile had been drilled into all of them before they ever left boot.

The pause only lasted a second, with Stone and Dunn checking their groups to make sure everyone had made it this far before the two groups broke apart. Taylor was at the back of his line of four as they circled around the southeast corner of the building and stacked up, waiting to turn the southwest corner and make for the gate.

Taylor couldn’t imagine why the compound didn’t have any kind of ditching or fence to create an outer perimeter, especially in a place like this. Maybe the Northbridge team only thought it was temporary and didn’t see the need for improvements, but this was almost certainly how the militia had been able to get on them so unnoticed. Of course, the militia should’ve realized they’d suffer from the same vulnerability and do something other than sending a truck around the building periodically.

With no lights except the light that spilled out of the gate, there was little chance anyone standing there would see a person peeking around the corner to watch them.

“Go,” Stone said over the comms.

Their team took off, circling wide. The trucks were mostly on the south side of the gate, parked randomly instead of in neat rows, which is why they’d been picked to swing out. Had there been more lighting, this would have been a dangerous move, since there was a good bit of open ground from the corner of the compound to the trucks, but as dark as it was, the guards would lose time pointing lights in this direction, assuming they had them, by which time they’d all be under cover.

Taylor would not have wanted to do this move in the daytime, that was for sure.

There was some commotion at the front gate as the guards tried to figure out where all the noise created by both teams running feet was coming from. Taylor half expected Stones team to start blazing away as they ran up, giving the guys inside time to react sooner, but surprisingly, they maintained discipline.

Had it been Taylor’s plan, he would have tried to take out the handful of guys silently, getting them further into the compound before the alarm was sounded. For a former SEAL, Stone was incredibly straightforward, seeming to prefer direct action over anything more subtle. While it had the benefit of being straightforward and simple, it meant that he’d been dealing with the opposition before they even got into the large building that made up the bulk of the compound and covered the entire southern third of the walled-in area.

Taylor couldn’t see where Stone was until he fired the first few shots, the muzzle flashes shinning against the stucco walls, backlighting him and O’Brien, who were running two abreast, for a moment. The guards had been looking in their direction, and they were caught totally unaware, all five going down in seconds. It was well handled, but the gunfire was loud, echoing off the walls and surrounding hills, filling the night with sound.

As soon as the guards were down, Taylor and the other two men with him moved. They’d eventually be joined by Webb who was probably scrambling down the outcropping he’d been observing from and running to join them. Stone’s team, since they’d been closer when they’d started firing, were through the door first. Stone and O’Brien didn’t even pause to wait for Dunn and Ellis to catch up with them, since they had more room to cover before joining them at the south building.

By the time Taylor got to the gate, Lopez and Patrick from Stone’s team had already peeled off and taken up spots inside the two little buildings on either side of the gate, taking up guard positions. He couldn’t see Stone and O’Brien, which meant they’d already gone through the western entrance to the large building, and they could already hear gunfire coming from inside. The plan had been for Dunn and Ellis to circle around the other direction, checking out the handful of standalone buildings before going through the eastern entrance to the main building, but as soon as gunfire started sounding off inside, they skipped that, running across the open courtyard towards their entrance.

Taylor was floored. They knew this place was crawling with hostiles, which is why they’d planned to use the buildings, hopping along with cover until they got to the door. The open center of the compound was a deathtrap. Not even Stone had been dumb enough to suggest they run straight across.

They’d made it halfway through when the first hostile came through the eastern door. Patrick was on it and gunned him down, but there were more inside and they were smart enough to use the doorway as cover, keeping the gate team from doing more than peppering the walls and door, trying to suppress them. It didn’t work and both Dunn and Ellis were gunned down two-thirds of the way across, their bodies dropping hard as bullets kicked up dirt around them, tearing off chunks of their clothing and packs.

Webb had just made it inside and was moving to go to them, maybe in some desperate attempt to pull the men to safety, when Taylor grabbed the back of his pack and pulled him back behind the gateway buildings.

“They’re gone,” he shouted over the sounds of Lopez and Patrick trying to hold the men back.

“What about Stone?” Webb yelled back.

The answer came almost instantly, as the western door banged open and a militia member began firing. Maybe Stone and O’Brien had gotten far enough into the building that these guys could get around them, but it was just as likely that they were both down as well. The entire plan had been stupid from the beginning, but Taylor had hoped they’d make enough progress to at least let him make a play for the hostages. That wasn’t happening now. There was too much open ground between him and the main building where they were almost certainly being held, and the way guys kept bubbling out of the doorways, going inside was a death sentence.

For now, Webb, Lopez, and Patrick were doing a good job suppressing the hostiles, keeping them holed up inside the doorways. Occasionally one of them would get brave and try and make a run to one of the other buildings, maybe trying to flank the gate team, and get gunned down.

This couldn’t go on for long, though. There were just too many people inside that building and the gate team only had so much ammunition. Eventually, they’d run dry and get overrun.

“We need to pull back,” he yelled at Patrick. “We can’t hold here.”

“No! Stone’s still inside. We need to hold the gate until they come back.”

“Are you blind! There are hostiles coming out of both doors. Stone is captured or dead. If you stay here, you’ll die too.”

“I’m not leaving,” Webb said, and switched magazines, continuing to put pressure on the doorways. “We’re staying until Stone comes back.”

Taylor was floored. These guys were all supposed to have some combat experience. How could they not see how bad their position was?

He was just trying to decide his next move when Lopez went down to his left. He’d learned a little too far out of the doorway and caught a bullet. It was bad luck, mostly, since the guys firing from inside the main building were doing so mostly blind. Bullets were smashing against the walls around them, but it was almost random. They couldn’t get clean shots until the gate team slowed their suppressive fire, which would probably happen in the next few minutes, based on how fast they were burning through ammo.

Taylor looked at Lopez writhing on the ground, and made up his mind. Pulling one of the grenades from his web harness, he pulled the pin, counted, and tossed it towards the eastern door, which was the only one that had a clean shot towards where Lopez had fallen. Part of Taylor had hoped it would have gone inside the doorway, since that would have bought them more time, but it was a long throw over one of the sheds next to the gate and it bounced off the wall next to the door, landing next to one of the bodies that had fallen just outside the door.

It was good enough for Taylor though. He was already moving before it went off and already had Lopez’s ruck and harness off of him when it exploded. He didn’t know if he’d managed to get anyone, but even if he did, it would have only been one shooter, since the firing from that doorway started back up after a few seconds’ lull.

That had been enough time, however. The heavy pack unhooked, Taylor threw Lopez over his shoulders and started to make his way out of the door. The weight was also too much, but he didn’t have to go far as he staggered through the gate and outside the compound.

“Where are you going,” Webb yelled at Taylor.

Taylor didn’t reply. He’d already made his argument and this wasn’t the time for a discussion. They could follow him, or they could stay and die. If they were stupid enough to stay, Taylor was at least going to use them as a distraction.

The guard’s pickup was still parked right in front of the gate and still running. He dumped Lopez in the bed of the truck, throwing his rucksack next to him as sounds of gunfire still echoed across the small valley.

He glanced over briefly as he slid into the driver’s seat and noted Webb, who’d taken up Lopez’s previous position, was now lying prone on the ground. That meant only Patrick was left. He felt bad for abandoning the man, but he’d given him the chance to run and the idiot hadn’t seen how hopeless the situation was.

Taylor threw the truck into gear and took off, following the road north, away from the compound. He wasn’t worried about anyone inside the compound hearing the truck. Firefights were loud, more so when you’re firing from inside a structure. Anyone in that compound’s ears would be ringing for the next several hours. They’d probably notice the missing truck first, but that would take time. Even though Stone’s plan had gotten everyone killed, or at least wounded, they’d killed a fair number of the hostiles, so it would take time to recover. Besides, they wouldn’t send men out far looking for them, since they were still in another warlord’s territory.

Taylor drove north, pushing the beat-up old truck as hard as he could until he found a place that looked safe enough to stop. The elevation had continued to slope up gradually but steadily the further north he’d gone, since the road also veered slightly inland, further into the rocky foothills. In this case, it was at the top of a large rise about a mile and a half north of the compound.

Although it was maybe thirty feet higher than they had been at the compound, the way it had been situated made it impossible to see from where he was. He could, however, see most of the road he’d just driven across, and so far there were no vehicles following behind him, which meant either they didn’t realize that he’d left or they were too concerned about more attacks or their own wounded to bother chasing him.

Taylor pulled off the road and whipped the truck sideways so he could still see the road behind him while he checked on Lopez, just in case.

Lopez was still conscious, moaning as Taylor climbed over the side of the truck and into the truck bed with him. The first step was to find the wounds. Most of his gear was starting to become slick with blood and there was a small pool of it on the bed of the truck, making it harder to find where the kid was actually hit.

The first step was to start pulling off some of the kids’ equipment and search for rips or tears in the clothing, and reaching into his clothes and feeling for punctures in the skin.

The first one had been fairly easy to find, since a small shard of bone was sticking out of the kid’s pants leg where a bullet had shattered one of the two bones in his lower leg, although Taylor wasn’t sure which. He pulled out his knife and cut off the pants, washing the area with water before wrapping it in a bandage. Although it continued to bleed after he’d washed off the wound, it wasn’t gushing in a way a cut artery would bleed, so Taylor only bandaged the wound tightly, to contain the bleeding for now. Lopez screamed out as the bandage tightened against the bone, but the pain would be better than bleeding to death.

Taylor continued to check the man over, looking for other places he’d been hit. He found a second hole in Lopez’s side, but it was clean through the meat and the exit wound wasn’t significantly larger than the entrance, so it hadn’t been a hollow point or something else nasty that could have caused more internal damage. Taylor washed both the entry and exit wounds and bandaged them.

Lopez was fading in and out of consciousness, but his breathing was clear and he still had a decent pulse. The loss of consciousness was worrying him. He hadn’t found any more bullet wounds and the strong pulse and breathing meant he wasn’t hit in the lungs and he probably didn’t have an internal bleed. While the pain from his leg would probably be intense, it also didn’t seem enough to be making Lopez groggy like he was. Unconsciousness from pain was usually total, not an in and out kind of thing like he was doing.