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Date Posted: 09:45:30 04/22/09 Wed
Author: Randy
Author Host/IP: S010600179a334297.gv.shawcable.net / 24.69.74.23
Subject: Lawdy

I woke up early in the morning and cut some more from it, added a little.

Then Sunflare got up, and ripped through the draft like Uriel at Apocalypse Time. Much cleaner, now.


Day 01: 0435
Costa Rica


He moves through the darkened hallway. Quick are his steps; a footfall punctuates a heartbeat. A breath chases a breath. He can feel her; she is near.

Here, there is a door, slightly ajar. His hand rests upon the dark, polished wood. He nudges it, ever so gently against the protest of rusting hinges, and a scent of jasmine and dust rides a soft, misted light into the corridor.

Outside, someone pounds feverishly, rhythmically, upon a thousand drums in perfect unison. His pulse races to catch the tempo. Small hairs stand erect, and a tingle moves over his skin.

Now, the door is open. The light, the scent, and the drumbeats flood the hallway. She is there, standing before the window, gently smiling. Her gown, diaphanous like the curtains shrouding the window, flows sensuously about her body. She is nude, beneath, with long legs and full breasts and lithe arms that embrace him. She pulls him to her and he feels her warmth, her breath on his neck, lost in the smell of her.

The drumbeats are louder, now, and he feels something wet and warm in the corner of his eye.

Weeping?

She kisses him softly on the lips.

“I’ve missed you, Paul,” she says. “I’ve been so cold.”

And her head tilts back, back, so far back. It falls heavily to the floor, and her neck is a pulpy stump.

Then, she vanishes. The room is black, the drums are louder, and Paul is falling…tries to sob, but the sound catches in his throat.

“Mister Kepler!”

His eyes snap open.

Jacobson, his squad’s radioman, has a hand on his shoulder, briskly shaking him.

“We‘re ten minutes from the target, sir,” he leaned in close, speaking loudly, fighting to be heard above the din of the rotors.

Paul glared at Jacobson. He tried to say something, to tell Jacobson to get away from him, to leave him the hell alone. He could only moan.

“Ten minutes, sir,” the radioman repeated, louder.

Paul Kepler nodded slowly. The fog in his head slowly parted, and he remembered where he was. The confusion faded, but the grief, the rage, these were slower to pass.

Kepler moved to the door of the Huey and attached the loose end of his gunner’s belt to a metal ring in the floor. He poked his head out into the slipstream of night air, and scanned the brightening skyline for signs of their target area. The jungle, just fifty feet below, was a mad rush of blacks and greens, mountains and valleys. He shook his head violently, to clear the last of the cobwebs from his brain, and forced his mind to concentrate on the mission-prep photographs that he had memorized.
Their target was a compound, belonging to a narcotics mogul named Vargas, which was set atop a plateau. The whole of the area was perhaps 200 meters long in any direction, with a gated, patrolled road that led down to the virtually impassable dirt trails that lined the wilderness of the interior.

At the northern edge of the plateau was a two story mansion, about 100 feet long, fronting a swimming pool and patio area. A paved road led south from that building, down the center of the plateau, to a gate. On either side of the asphalt road were large, rectangular beds of flowers.

Leading up the northern side of the mountain were power lines and a water conduit, supplied from a town some ten miles distant. These were routed through a pump house at the north west edge of the compound, and through a series of power poles that lined the road.

On the western edge of the grounds were a series of utility sheds, a motor pool, and a helicopter pad.

To the east of the paved road were two houses. One was for servants; cooks, groundskeepers, maintenance personnel, and just north of that, a two-story wooden guard house where armed men who were not on duty were quartered.

Senor Vargas, understandably, didn’t allow his people to come and go at random. The road was used for the scheduled deliveries of supplies to the estate, but the personnel were rotated on and off the mountaintop via the helicopter.

Vargas was currently at the compound. Kepler’s organization had certainty on that score. But the helicopter that was parked at the estate would have to be taken out of commission to ensure that he remained there when they arrived.

A medium machine gun, an M-60, was mounted at the door. He opened the top cover, and checked to make certain that the belt was solidly seated. When the Huey reached the target compound and made its single revolution around the perimeter, his first order of business would be to inflict as much carnage on its defenders as he could before he and his men disembarked.

In his headset, a brief spike of static sounded, then the co-pilot spoke: "Five minutes to the target area. Better get the checks goin'."

Kepler turned and looked at the men seated on the benches that lined the interior of the chopper. They were alternately glancing at him for their cues and closing their eyes in feigned indifference to the risks of what they would be doing in a few minutes' time. There were 13 of them on the Huey, weapons pointed muzzle-down between their knees, and 13 more on the chopper that was following only seconds behind. Every man was dressed in black fatigues, wrapped in web belts, and festooned with grenades and ammunition.

He held up five fingers, and the men under his command responded. After a flurry of locking magazines and loading rounds into rifle chambers, they began the last-minute adjustments of gear. Night vision goggles were activated. The squad’s radio man, Jacobson, made a last minute confirmation of the set frequencies, and the medic gave a final once-over to his bags and pouches.

The co-pilot’s voice sounded in Kepler's ears, again: "Landing zone in one minute."

The nose of the Huey tilted steeply upward. What started as a level flight just above the jungle turned into a sudden climb up the face of a mountain. When they reached the top, Kepler knew, they would level out again. When that happened, a moment of negative gravity would grab his insides, and with it would come the sensation of his stomach being pulled out through his nostrils. He gripped the machine gun even tighter, knuckles white on the trigger guard...

Psyching... Psyching ...

Then they were at the crest, and the floor fell out from under Kepler as the Huey levelled out over the brightly-lit target compound. He swallowed his bile, clenched his jaw, and pulled the trigger of the M-60.

Paul orientated himself and swung the gun to center on a two-story building at the western edge of the compound --the guard quarters-- and pulled the trigger. The barrel spat fire, and the report shook the frame of the chopper.

Kepler squeezed off several bursts, and noted with satisfaction that his aim was dead on target. He could see the impacts peppering the building. Interior lights flashed and went out. Chunks of debris flew from the exterior; someone ran through the front door, into the floodlit grounds, and folded over.

The Huey began its approach from the eastern side of the compound, and circled clockwise around the perimeter. Throughout the manoeuvre, Kepler's gun kicked out burst after burst. He managed to keep the guard house targeted for most of that time, but when they passed through the western edge of the area he shifted his fire to a helicopter. Before it moved out of his field of fire, he sprayed the parked chopper thoroughly, then resettled his aim back onto the guard house.

Scattered flashes of return fire became visible from the courtyard, and it was time. The Huey dropped until it hovered a few feet above the well-manicured lawn, and the co-pilot shouted over Kepler's headset: "Go, go, go!"

Two by two, boots piled out of the Huey and hit the ground running. Their landing zone was chosen because it was the only area, free of power-lines or buildings, where a chopper could hover low enough to insert a squad. It was also just a short sprint from the guards’ quarters, one of the primary targets to be secured. The downside to this, as the sudden, sharp snaps of incoming rounds testified, was that the landing zone was also wide open and offered no cover.

Cradling his BXP --a submachine gun of South African design-- Kepler leapt to the ground and began to sprint to the driveway that bisected the compound. Rotor-wash tugged his fatigues, and dust stung his face. Someone on the far side of the grounds fired in his direction, filling the air around him with snaps and whines, walking tracers closer to him…closer…

Paul dived to his right, into one of the long beds of Flamingo flowers that ran parallel to the road to the manse…the plants didn’t offer cover from gunfire, but they gave concealment. From his prone position he could see muzzle flashes near the vehicle garage. He raised his weapon, sighted in, and squeezed the trigger. The BXP pounded his shoulder like a miniature jackhammer, and the firing from the garage stopped.

Behind Kepler, his team members were spreading out to take their designated targets. Four were assigned to the guard quarters, to deal with whoever survived the initial strafing; three more to the servants’ quarters; two more were fighting their way to the helipad at the south east corner of the compound and, after leaving thermite grenades in the cockpit, would move north to the garage and utility sheds. Kepler and three of his people were to move to the main house. They would be backed up by another squad from the second chopper, due shortly after their own insertion.

The crescendo of gunfire swelled. Men were shouting from the main house, and shooting at them from the garage area. Some of the defenders fired at the retreating Huey that had brought Kepler’s squad into the fray, but it turned and disappeared down the side of the mountain. Moments passed, and more rotors became audible. The second Huey, door gun firing, popped over the lip of the plateau near the first landing zone, and began to hover.

Kepler low-crawled forward, one side of his face dragging along the surface of the asphalt. He and his team were using the concealment of the long rows of flowers that lined the eastern side of the road to hide their advance, but their chances of reaching the house under the flanking fire from the eastern area were worse than bad. Near misses ricocheted off the pavement, kicking up chunks of road, pelting them with tiny, stinging fragments.

His team reached the concealment of thick foliage and prepared for a sprinting charge at the garage area. It was then, just as Kepler’s head rose to scan for targets, that he heard it: a heavy, thunderous, pounding sound. The reports came from one of the concrete utility sheds, or what appeared on the aerial photos to be a utility shed…each shot punctuated by a fountain of flash and flame that jumped two feet outward from the barrel.

Kepler’s stomach knotted up, and he froze-- that ‘utility shed’ was a reinforced shelter for a heavy machine gun. His own team had arrived without sufficient warning for the crew to man the position. But the second Huey, which was only now beginning to hover for the insertion, was a free and easy target.

Before Paul could shoulder his BXP , the machinegunner sighted in the weapon, and began to spray the open crew door of the helicopter. A wall of lead tore into the men who were tightly packed in the fuselage. Flesh, bone, metal, and fire mingled--the interior of the chopper became a slaughterhouse-- and even as Kepler squeezed his trigger and tried to walk his fire into the gun crew, the engine of the Huey exploded in a gout of flame and smoke. One rotor broke free, and sliced across the compound toward the main house. The blade toppled a power pole, and lines fell. Crackling showers of white and blue sparks exploded along the hundred meter path of its travel, and the floodlights along the western edge of the compound died. The blade tore into the lower level of the mansion with explosive force, and raised a cloud of dust that obscured the front of the building.

The stricken chopper spun wildly for another brief moment, tossing several men onto the grass as it spat burning fuel over them. Then it rolled over onto one side, and disintegrated as its remaining rotors slammed into the earth, broke, and rebounded into the body of the aircraft.

There were howls. There was fire.. A figure ran toward Paul, swathed in an orange vortex of burning aviation fuel. After a few paces, it slowed, stopped, then pitched forward to the ground.

Kepler grimaced, turned away from the hell behind him, and fired a futile burst at the pillbox. Then he sprinted forward, motioning for the three men with him to follow. His boots pounded through the flowerbed, heels kicking up sod and leaves. There were fifty meters between his team and the gunner, who had seen them, and was swivelling the barrel of his weapon in their direction.

Paul made a signal with a free hand, and shouted, “Half-envelopment!” He ran harder, His lungs sucked air and the tendons of his legs threatened to snap. His men obeyed, and the ragged cluster formed into a thin line that drifted to the right of the emplacement, even as the crew sighted in and sent a hail of fire at them.

…forty meters…

One of Kepler’s men was hit by two of the heavy rounds, struck in the thigh and lower torso. His body, from the navel downward, seemed to fly apart, showering the man beside him with wetness and gore.

…thirty meters…

Geysers of dirt erupted just in front of them, and primal screams behind. Kepler lowered his head, nostrils flaring. He ran harder…

…twenty meters…

A short pause, and the gun sounded again-- the rounds landed to the right of and behind him-- even farther off target. Kepler could see a figure through the port in the pillbox. It seemed to be frantically doing something…arms working…shouting…

Kepler felt a shiver of jubilation, a flash of understanding. The gunner’s weapon was overheating. The barrel, slightly warped, was impossible to sight accurately.

…ten meters…

He dove to a prone position and, emptied the rest of his magazine in a barrage of suppression fire. When the gun went dry, metallic smoke drifting lazily from the breach, he reloaded while the gunner in the pillbox tried to adjust for the effects of heat on his weapon. More rounds kicked up dirt and grass, bracketing Paul, just as the first of his team arrived at the emplacement, and crouched beside it.

The gunner stopped firing, and Kepler grinned. “That’s right, fucker,” he muttered. “yer done…”

Kepler’s grin turned to a full-on smile.

The first of his men to arrive reached around the corner, and deftly slid a grenade through the slit of the pillbox. Kepler heard curses, shouted in Spanish, followed by a flash, a dull ‘thud’, and a cloud of smoke.

Now, the way was clear. Two hundred feet to the south of them, the cockpit of the parked helicopter filled with brilliant white light and smoke. Kepler ran towards the house, gesturing his men to follow. Smoke billowed from the servants’ quarters, and there was now only sporadic firing from within the guards’ quarters…not long bursts of automatic fire, but single shots delivered in quick pairs. They were double taps…kill checks. Paul knew that his men had secured guard housing.

As soon as they reached the main house, Kepler deployed his team along the outer wall, on either side of the gaping hole that the errant Huey blade created. The jagged, dark hole was taller than a man and twice as wide. Beyond was darkness and a thick pall of dust and smoke. Now, he decided, was the time to rally.

He keyed a button on his harness. “Tango 2, report.”

There was a long moment of silence, before two more kill checks sounded from guards’ housing. Then came the reply.

“Tango 2, tango 1. We’ve secured the building. Got one dead.”

“Tango 3, report.”

“Secure, tango 1 . We lost one. And the doc is badly wounded. We‘re holding his guts in.. ”

“Tango 4, report.”

“Tango 4, tango 1.…uh…had a problem in the vehicle pool. Secure. Two dead, one wounded.. Can’t walk, was gonna ask for the doc…but…”

“Roger. tango 4 sit tight, and we’ll send someone to you. Out.”

Kepler donned his night vision set and scanned the area. A large patch at the southwest corner of the compound, where the Huey burned, glowed a throbbing white. Otherwise, there was no sign of live defenders. A few bodies, most shot down in the first minutes of the assault, were scattered near the house and the western buildings. He saw a couple more inert lumps that used to be human beings near the small vehicle pool on the eastern edge. .

Paul risked a quick turkey-peek into the hole in the wall…there was a lot of rubble in there, and dust hanging in the air obscured his vision, even with the night vision goggles. He was certain that anyone who was in the vicinity of the flying helicopter blade would be no threat. But he knew that the house wasn’t empty. He knew that their primary target was inside when the operation was launched, and he only saw a couple of henchmen come out of the house to meet them. Someone was in there. How many, or in what condition, he couldn’t know.

He keyed his mike again. “Tango 2, link up with 3 and take charge. Secure the back, then stand by to move inside on my signal. Have a man grab what they can off the doc and send him to the motor pool. We have one wounded there, see if he can be patched up.”

There was a long pause.

“Uh…Tango 1, the doc’s still breathing.”

“Do it.”

Another pause, then something that sounded like a sigh came across the net.

“Roger.”

For the next few minutes, Kepler’s team held its position at the front of the house, while the other teams carried out his orders. All was quiet.

Kepler watched the progress of team 2. Small-weapons fire erupted. It came from the back, at team 2’s objective, and was punctuated by an explosion. Possibly a grenade. Even at the front of the mansion, the wall that Team 1 huddled against shook once, carrying the concussion through the stone.

He motioned for his men to follow, and charged through the hole in the wall, BXP at the ready, scanning the darkness with his night vision set. The room the rotor blade had entered was now little more than a half-collapsed tangle of drywall, debris, and splintered framing planks. The ceiling tilted down at a crazy angle. Ruined furniture lined the far wall next to another, smaller hole. Beyond that, in the darkness, Paul could see the still-heated metal of the Huey rotor glowing in his goggles.

More gunfire sounded, and Kepler kicked down a door on the right side of the room. It was hanging awkwardly by a single hinge, and fell outward. He stepped through, looked left and right, then covered the hallway beyond while another member of his team followed up and scuttled, weapon at the ready, down the corridor. Jacobson followed, and Paul turned to cover the rear of their advance.

Another small explosion sounded from outside, behind the house. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling in a thin sheet, covering them.

They moved through the hall, into an open antechamber, floored and walled in marble. In the center of the room was a fountain flanked by two spiral staircases that terminated at a landing. Beyond was a larger room. Flashes of gunfire from outside reflected, every few seconds, from the walls.

There was another detonation, in a chamber beyond the large area that Kepler and his men were in. The walls shook, and a large sheet of marble crashed to the tile from one wall while flying glass skittered across the floor. A door flew from its hinges from somewhere on the second story and tumbled down one of the staircases.

All was quiet for several seconds.

“Pool area secured, team 1,” said a voice in Kepler’s headset. “Saw the primary. He was playin’ Rambo on the balcony, far east room, just above the pool. Couple of near misses changed his mind. Went inside.”

Kepler grinned. “Hold your position, then. If he does a cliff diving act, fish him out. Alive, if you can. In one minute give us some fire through the windows. Lay it on thick. About ten seconds should do it.”

“Roger.”

Paul and the pair with him moved quickly up the stairs, and turned to the right. The hallway terminated in two, solid, oaken doors.

Kepler took a position at the side of one door, and Jacobson at the other. The third member went prone in the center of the hallway.

Then, the three heard chaos erupt in the room beyond the doors. That was all Kepler needed. There was no lock. He merely counted eight, turned a knob and pushed the doors open, one by one.

Laying face down on the floor, under a desk, amidst the falling dust, scattered glass, and splintered furniture, was the man who Kepler had been sent to find: Senor Vargas.

Paul stepped into the room, weapon trained on him. “I guess that’s game, set, n’ match, amigo.”

Vargas glanced up, clearly startled to see the men walk into his study. Then, his expression quickly changed to a scowl, and he reached out for something under the desk that Paul couldn’t see.

Kepler fired a single shot, into the floor, just short of Vargas. The man froze.

“You’re missing the point, here,” Paul said. He gestured with the barrel of his weapon at two other men, dead near the shattered balcony doors. “Stand up.”

Vargas rose to his feet, hands to his side, palms open, facing outward. He was dressed in silk pajamas and alligator skin slippers. His face was pale, but his expression calm.

“Habla Espanol?”, he asked.

Kepler shook his head once. “Muy poco. Have a seat.”

Vargas’ eyes never left Paul’s as he slowly lowered himself into the shredded remains of what was recently a fine, leather upholstered chair. It creaked and moaned as his considerable weight settled into it, but held together.

“You seem to have me at a disadvantage, senor…you are the American DEA, I presume? Or its mercenaries? ”, Vargas said. His English was quite good, and his voice was steady. Far from the cowering figure that Paul had first seen.

“You purchased a document in Prague last summer,” Paul said. “Where is it?”

“A document,” Vargas repeated. Paul estimated his expression to be one of genuine puzzlement. “I purchased many documents...purchased many things in Prague that summer.”

“Dee,” Kepler said. “John Dee.”

Vargas stared at him, incredulously. “So, gringo. All of this…” one hand gestured slowly, expansively, across the room, “and you come for a document? A document of nonsense?”

Kepler nodded, and Vargas began to laugh. It was wild laughter. Wild and bitter.

“No money, no cocaine, no DEA. You come for old papers!”

“Worth enough for you to pay twenty million dollars.”

Vargas snorted. “I am a collector. What I pay twenty million for now will sell for fifty million later.”

Kepler showed his teeth. “We both know that‘s bullshit.. So, where are they?”

“And then you will kill me.” It wasn’t a question.

Paul nodded. “Not a matter of ‘if.’ Just ‘how fast‘.”

Vargas’ eyes narrowed. His sudden contempt was evident. “That’s all you have? Fuck you, gringo.” He started to bend over, to reach for whatever lay beneath the desk.

“And Miguel,” Kepler said.

Vargas froze.

“Yep. Economics major at UCLA. 1236 St. John Circle. He doesn’t have to be involved in this. But he can be.”

Slowly, the calm of his expression broke, and Vargas sat upright. “You would kill my son?”

Kepler shrugged. “You kill sons every day. Daughters too, from what I hear. But don’t think I’m preachin’.”

Now, the remainder of team 2 filed into the hallway behind Kepler.

“So, Senor Vargas,” Kepler said, wearily. “Do we have an understanding?”

Vargas nodded slowly.

Kepler turned to Jacobson. “Get on the horn. Send code blue to the Old Man.”

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