HUNTED

A Cal Shepard Black-Ops Thriller

JT SAWYER

Copyright © HUNTED, A Cal Shepard Black-Ops Thriller, November 2024, JT Sawyer

Cover art by ZamajK

www.jtsawyer.com

No part of this book may be transmitted in any form whether electronic, recording, scanned,mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, incidents, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Contents

Other Titles by JT Sawyer

Thank You

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

More Adventures To Come

Other Books by JT Sawyer

About the Author

Other Titles by JT Sawyer

The Cal Shepard Search and Destroy Series

Search and Destroy

The Perseus Protocol

Critical Response

The Kill Squad

HAVOC

Lethal Conduct (prequel short-story)

The Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series

Dead In Their Tracks

Counter Strike

The Kill List

Blindsided

Deadly Harvest

Borderlands

Without Mercy

High Risk

Blood and Honor

Ballistic

Blood On the Mesa

Manhunt

Nate Hendrix Survival Thrillers

Escape & Evade

Trigger Effect

Vendetta

Thank You

Thank you for buying this book! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it.

Join my email list if you would like to receive a FREE copy of Lethal Conduct, a short prequel featuring Cal Shepard and his CIA direct-action team.

Prologue

Defense Research Institute

Moscow, Russia

Engineer Dimitri Vanakov increased his pace from a brisk walk to a trot after finishing the phone call with his chief weapon designer, who’d informed him of a catastrophic failure. A failure that could cost him not only his precious research division, but his career and possibly even his life.

He bolted past two assistants in the hallway, barely taking in their faces as he raced to the room at the far end. Vanakov slowed, thrusting open the steel door and stepping inside.

A vein throbbed in his forehead as he glanced at the two generals and three scientists sitting at the oval table as a PowerPoint presentation on remote telemetry systems unfolded.

He directed his gaze to General Uri Borschef, the Kremlin’s head of special operations. “Sir, there is a problem with one of our, uhm, weather satellites.”

Borschef stood, resting his beefy hands on the edge of the table. He glanced at the scientists and officer sitting around him and waved a hand towards the door. “We will finish the telemetry discussion at a later time.”

The men quickly gathered their laptops and documents then departed. Vanakov closed the door, pressing his back against it like he was preventing a sinister creature from breaking through the barrier.

“Tell me we’re not talking about Satellite 2183?” inquired the general.

Vanakov nodded while chewing on his lower lip. “Yes. It malfunctioned just after we initiated re-entry procedures. The return trajectory was quite a bit off from our original calculations. The good news is that the EMP device embedded inside appears to be intact.”

“When I spoke with you last week, you indicated your team could bring it down in western Russia as a best-case scenario, while worst-case was as far out as Kazakhstan. Since you’re standing there sweating your balls off, I’m guessing that range has just grown exponentially.”

The engineer folded his wiry arms. “This was not a normal re-entry. Either something was terribly off with the design, which is highly unlikely, or the satellite was somehow intentionally brought down.” He averted his eyes from Borschef. “Either way, it’s now on the ground in Africa. Namibia, to be precise.”

The general’s left eye twitched and he began pacing beside the table, muttering curses in Russian. “And I assume you already tried activating the self-destruct feature?”

“Our attempts were unsuccessful, sir.”

Borschef tilted his head up, his eyes darting along the white ceiling tiles. Vanakov gazed at the man’s face whose color and expression resembled someone who had been embalmed. For a second, Vanakov wondered if the man was going to drive a fist into his face.

The engineer cleared his throat. “My techs and I are out of options on our end.”

The general removed a seldom-used encrypted iPhone. “We need to get there before our American counterparts in the region discover it was more than space-junk that fell from the sky. I have a problem-solving team currently in central Africa that I can dispatch to the satellite’s location. Just get me the coordinates.”

Vanakov scrunched his eyebrows together. “A research team of ours?”

“Tenevoy Volki,” the general said in a flat tone.

Vanakov felt his ribs constrict at the mention of the notorious black-ops team the Kremlin employed for their dirty work abroad.

And he thought of the African villages that were about to be incinerated once the Volki team arrived, spilling whatever blood was necessary to retrieve the satellite.

Chapter 1

Kalahari Desert

Critical Response Team leader Cal Shepard grasped the edge of the bench seat again as the old Huey dipped down into a massive valley while flying nap of the Earth along the undulating desert terrain forty miles southwest of the tri-border region of Namibia, Zambia and Angola. While the helicopter was retrofitted with modern tech, each of the occupants still heard the worn fuselage groan with each turn or drop in altitude.

Gold light flitted down through the wispy veils of fine sand that perpetually filled the atmosphere of this parched land. Only the occasional glimpse of palm trees nestled in between the muscled walls of a side canyon provided a flicker of relief from the unrelenting sun.

From the view out the front, Shepard could see a wide expanse of endless sand dunes that extended to the horizon, while the landscape to the right and left consisted of parallel lines of jagged brown mountaintops that resembled the vertebral plates of a stegosaurus. Though it was one of the most unforgiving regions on Earth, the Kalahari Desert possessed a primeval beauty beyond anything he’d observed in his travels.

Though his time with the CIA and with the Critical Response Team had seen his boots in the desert many times during the past fifteen years, he preferred the emerald forests of the life-rich tropics. With any luck, they would have what they came for in a few hours and be whisked away from this moonscape.

It was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission: trek one mile to the middle of a boulder field in the desert and recover the components from a Russian satellite Perseus had flagged as possessing critical software.

Perseus formed the backbone of the Critical Response Team, the advanced threat detection and information-gathering computer program that collated open and closed source intelligence from around the world. While Perseus was housed in a clandestine location in Maryland, CRT served as the front line for preventing political coups, high-value assassinations and terrorist attacks. Or, in this case, a potentially weaponized EMP device from being deployed.

The rest of his team was swaying back and forth with each tilt of the Huey. The eclectic group operated under the command of Ryan Foley, a legend in the special operations community who had later formed the CIA’s Search and Destroy Unit, where Shepard initially got his start in the world of covert operations. While Foley relied on Perseus to provide their missions and targets, he ultimately answered to the President, who signed off on his budget and had created CRT intending to have a black-ops unit without bureaucratic entanglements.

Directly across from Shepard was Jessica Hamill. A prior CIA case officer who’d worked in Eastern Europe, where she had specialized as an infiltration expert. Sitting beside her was former Delta Force operator, Derrick Nolan, a sniper and demolitions expert, who had been in hot spots in every part of the globe during the War on Terror.

On the weathered jump seat to Shepard’s immediate left was Samira Khouri, aka Viper. Like Shepard, she had been recruited by the CIA out of college and had served in Foley’s Search and Destroy unit. Her background growing up in Syria and bouncing around refugee camps provided her with fluency in Arabic and French. She could have easily slid into an analyst position at Langley, but her physical accomplishments at the Farm had put her on a fast track for fieldwork.

The two pilots up front were only known by their call signs, but Shepard knew the French Algerians were old Agency contacts of Foley’s from his days of running missions in Africa.

Nolan looked up from the tablet on his lap. “Fifteen minutes then we’re in camel country.”

“Sounds like a cigarette commercial,” said Viper.

“I don’t think there are any camels left in Namibia,” said Hamill.

“You’re always such a tour guide, reading up on the natural history of wherever we’re headed,” quipped Nolan. “You gonna tell us about the edible plants next?”

“Just the one with the single stalk,” she said, raising her middle finger.

“Remember, once we’re on the ground, it’s Gaboon vipers, not plants and animals that we’ll have to worry about,” said Shepard. “And I imagine that the area is gonna be chock full of snakes.”

“That’s right, you and Samira spent time here before,” said Nolan as the helo lurched to the right, while it hugged the rocky contours of a canyon.

“Mostly anti-piracy work along the Skeleton Coast, not so much in the interior,” said Viper.

Nolan leaned forward. “According to Foley’s briefing earlier, the device we’re going to retrieve is officially listed as a weather satellite belonging to a private firm out of Belarus but he said that the firm is a Russian shell corporation which formerly had one of the Kremlin’s cyber-defense gurus on its board.”

“That doesn’t sound shady at all,” said Hamill.

“Regardless, we need to get the EMP device housed inside the satellite, so at least we’re not going to be humping the whole damn thing back to the helo,” said Shepard.

Their earpieces crackled with CRT’s intel wizard, Lynn Vogel, who was nearly four-hundred miles away in the Namibian coastal city of Swakopmund. “Looks like you’ve got some competition. There’s a truck that just arrived at the west end of the boulder field. Six heavily armed guys disembarked and are heading in the direction of the satellite. Two others remained with the truck, which is only a quarter mile from your intended LZ.”

“Local militants?” asked Shepard.

“Uncertain at this point,” replied Vogel.

“Damnit,” said Shepard, grinding his teeth.

He’d already been over the insertion plan with the pilots, who had assured him that the gnarly landscape didn’t offer a level place to set down and that their upcoming LZ was the closest they could get.

A few minutes later, Vogel returned. “I just examined satellite imagery of that region from the last thirty minutes and traced the origin of the truck. It’s from a cluster of towns along the border of Zambia to the northeast. Perseus is showing newsfeeds from the past few months that indicate it’s the same area where there’s been a rash of attacks attributed to a militant leader named General Anton Choma.”

Shepard and Viper immediately locked eyes, their taut faces holding similar expressions. “That rat-bastard must have turned from piracy on the high-seas to pillaging the interior,” she said.

“I’d heard he and his crew were still operational, but they were supposed to be further inland in eastern Angola,” said Shepard.

“They sound like quality dudes,” said Nolan in his usual tone of sarcasm.

Shepard canted his head, glancing at the tortured landscape of red buttes and cleaved rock below. “Years ago when they started out, they were made up of former military out of Zambia and Angola, led by General Choma. He and his band of mercs used to hire themselves out to any warlord or militia looking for their brand of savagery.”

“And the Choma guys make the other warlords down here look like tree huggers. They’re butchers,” said Viper. “They razed a village in the highlands three years ago during our last assignment, hacking up everyone with machetes.”

“So, we let the militants do the heavy lifting and haul the satellite components back to their truck, then we do some sniping,” said Nolan.

Shepard rested his hand on the MK 12 rifle on his lap. “My thoughts exactly.” He pulled out the folded topographic map in his pants cargo pocket and laid it out on the floor as they all leaned in closer. While he often opted for the digital atlas on the tablet, his first choice was always a printed topo map which contained his notes along the side margins.

“That would make a perfect ambush site,” said Viper, tapping her finger on a chokepoint where the dirt road meandered through a canyon fissure.

Shepard nodded. “It’s only eight miles from the present location of the truck, which will give us just enough time to stage our assault.”

He gazed at Nolan. “You’ll take the high ground and disable the driver. The rest of us will be positioned in the boulders near the road and drop the others as they disembark.”

The co-pilot leaned back, holding up five fingers. The Huey descended further, and Shepard wondered how the helo wasn’t scraping the ground. He folded up the map, returning it to his pocket. Shepard swiveled around towards the pilots and relayed the location of the new LZ.

The group cinched down their backpacks then clutched their rifles, preparing for a hasty touchdown.

“And let’s remember we’re here to retrieve intact satellite components, so let’s not shoot the truck to shit, if possible,” said Shepard.

As if being deep in the Kalahari with armed militia wasn’t enough to worry about, he radioed back to Vogel. “Any word on that storm front you’ve been tracking?”

“Still a massive cell moving in from the south, but it’s not due to impact the southern half of the continent until midnight. I’ll keep you posted, but I suspect you’ll be back on our doorstep long before then.”

A few minutes later, the bird set down amidst a whirling spray of tawny sand. Nolan yanked open the cabin door. Everyone hopped out, crouch-walking to an immense finger shaped slab of sandstone thirty feet to the left.

The Huey departed, veering to the west as it headed towards a U-shaped cluster of rocks eleven miles away, which afforded better concealment.

Shepard felt the familiar, but always unsettling, feeling of his lifeline to civilization being temporarily severed as he watched the helicopter fade in the distance.

Chapter 2

Twenty minutes after exiting the helo and trotting to the ambush site, they were in position. Nolan occupied the high-ground, nestled with his Sig Sauer M250 submachine gun in a cluster of boulders sixty yards from the chokepoint where the striated sandstone formations sloped down to the road on either side, creating a narrow passage.

Shepard, Viper and Hamill were situated below in a shallow ravine laced with knee-high shrubs forty yards beyond Nolan’s perch.

The maze of rock spires dotting the region reminded Shepard of the rugged Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. Time spent in such terrain made one appreciate the tactical advantage the Apache Indians had over the superior numbers of the US Army, and why the Geronimo Campaign had been such a costly affair.

He heard his earpiece activate as Vogel’s concerned voice flooded into his comms device. “You’re going to have company soon.”

“Another truckload of Choma’s guys?” he inquired.

“No. Appears to be a HALO team descending south of your position near the original crash site of the satellite. Four individuals.”

He narrowed his eyes, staring at the cobalt sky as if he could somehow pick out the figures. “What the hell? Any indication of who they are?”

“The plane is a match and model similar to ours...Antanov class but without any markings. Perseus detected a match on the leader. Sergei Krachenko. Team leader of the Tenevoy Volki Unit for the past six years, the Kremlin’s unofficial kill squad.”

“He’s someone our government would like to get a hold of,” said Viper. “The Volki crew is responsible for dozens of war atrocities around Africa and the Middle East.”

“We’ll have to deal with them if, and when, the time comes,” said Shepard.

“The truck is three kilometers from your location,” said Vogel’s voice in their earpieces. Shepard was always grateful for her over watch, especially since they had no current line of sight on the Choma vehicle, given the winding road.

A few minutes later, a flock of black birds erupted from the branches of a dead tree a half-mile down the road. The chug of the engine filled the air, and a cloud of dust grew evident beyond the nearest boulders.

“Got ‘em in my crosshairs,” said Nolan from his elevated perch. “Two guys in red berets in the cab.”

“Wait for my command,” said Shepard, watching the two-ton truck that had just come into view, the canvas tarp over the back cargo area flapping in the breeze.

Thirty yards away, he told Nolan to commence firing. The 6.8 x 51mm rounds punctured the hood and radiator then continued in a barrage into the windshield, killing the driver and passenger. The truck continued rolling forward another fifteen feet, then stopped as the engine hissed out gray smoke.

A cluster of men wearing red berets immediately poured out of the back. Shepard and his crew unleashed a steady burst of 5.56 rounds, quickly dispatching the remaining militants before they could even get off a shot. It was a shooting gallery and the entire encounter was over in less than twenty seconds.

“Vogel said there were eight guys. I only counted five exiting the rear and there wasn’t anyone else up front with the driver,” said Viper. “So that leaves one person unaccounted for.”

“Cover me,” said Shepard, crouch-walking along the ravine then trotting up the embankment beside the back tires. Ragged breathing came from beyond the perforated canvas tarp. It was a sound he was all too familiar with, knowing the man on the other end had had his body peppered by gunfire.

He glanced back towards the ravine, seeing Viper and Hamill with their rifles fixed on the truck. Shepard stepped over the dead bodies and swept around the rear bumper, pointing his MK12 at a bearded figure slumped against the shell of the mangled satellite hull which occupied a third of the truck bed. Several antennae were pointing up, the entire structure resembling some kind of metallic sea urchin.

Slivers of sunlight from the numerous bullet holes stabbed through the shredded canvas covering, brightening the interior. He gazed at the pale face and the crimson trickle unspooling from the man’s lips.

While Hamill and Viper emerged from their shooting positions and advanced towards the vehicle, Shepard tapped on his ear-mic. “Nolan, contact the helo and tell ‘em we’ll be ready for exfil in five minutes.”

After climbing inside the truck, Shepard noticed the dying man’s right hand resting upon the open surface of a foot-wide open hatch in the satellite. A flashing light inside the housing illuminated the man’s face.

Despite the gaping bullet wounds in the figure’s chest, he managed to creak out a smile, a gold tooth accentuated against his ashen lips. He muttered something in a foreign language then slumped back and thrust up both hands as he puffed out his cheeks in a gesture of explosion. Then the man coughed out a final breath before collapsing back against the cab.

Shit, there better not be a grenade in there.

Shepard shuffled in closer, shoving the dead man aside and staring inside the hatch. A blood-stained fingerprint was visible on a depressed button, which had just begun flashing red. Shepard saw the satellite start to vibrate then felt a pulsating sensation rippling through the air. A searing pain in his skull sent him backpedaling towards the tailgate and he leaped out onto the road.

“Take cover,” he yelled, as the three of them jumped down into the shallow ravine on the left.

Chapter 3

Shepard and the women ducked below the road, waiting for an explosion that never came. A few seconds later, he peered out towards the truck.

“What happened?” inquired Hamill, who was nestled behind him.

“The guy inside activated something within the satellite. By the sound of it, I figured it was a self-destruct mechanism.”

“My understanding of sat-technology is that they have the means of preventing catastrophic overload to avoid self-destruction if the device is compromised. I don’t think they have the means of blowing up. Maybe that’s what the guy thought he was doing.”

“I hope you’re right, because I’m going back in there to look.”

Viper emerged from the ditch, all of them reconvening on the road. “Where’s the damn helo?”

Shepard tapped on his ear mic, calling Nolan, but there was only silence.

Complete silence.

He glanced back to the south, seeing the former Delta operator making his way down from his perch while frantically waving his arms.

Returning his attention to the truck, he heard a shrill sound coming from beyond the vehicle.

The Huey was racing to the ground, descending in a vicious downward spiral. A minute later, it careened into the hard-packed road a few hundred yards away, raining down a storm of twisted shrapnel and jagged glass.

Shepard and the two women hunched down by the front of the truck as a fireball engulfed the road.

Chapter 4

Sergei Krachenko gathered his parachute, jamming it into a crevice in the rock formation. He removed the FN TAC3 rifle slung across his vest and provided overwatch while the other three members of his elite team hid their chutes.

The HALO drop into the Kalahari had been rougher than expected because of the high elevation winds, which had dramatically increased since reaching the border of Angola and Namibia just prior to their insertion.

Such things didn’t matter to Krachenko. The mission to recover his country’s satellite component, or destroy it, if necessary, was imperative.

Krachenko’s Tenevoy Volki, or Shadow Wolves, handled sensitive missions outside of Russia and comprised a cadre of black-ops commandos who answered directly to the Russian president. During the past six years, Krachenko had overseen destabilization operations, with regimes from one end of Africa to the other.

Normally, his team consisted of twelve, but the remainder were still up in Niger, engaged in training counter-insurgents. Krachenko and the three other members beside him had been heading to Johannesburg to take possession of a weapons shipment when they diverted to Namibia to retrieve the downed satellite.

When they had finished stowing their chutes, the operators fanned out in kneeling positions beside him, their weapons trained on the sandstone formations to the east.

Krachenko’s second-in-command, Konstantin Solimin was to his right. Solimin had joined the military upon turning eighteen and spent the next twelve years advancing through special operations before joining Krachenko’s unit.

Beyond Solimin, was the pug-faced Gennady Mavetsky. He served briefly in the Spetsnaz before being sentenced to prison for nearly killing an officer during an off-duty brawl. Having grown up as a trapper in Siberia he had spent his youth tracking wild game and poaching bears. If it weren’t for Krachenko needing a skilled tracker for his operations in the African bush, Mavetsky would be serving out a lengthy penitentiary stay.

Squatting to the left was Alexey Bystrov, the team’s medic, who was the youngest and newest member of the group. With blue eyes and a square jaw, he could have walked into the film industry, but had followed in his older brother’s footsteps, embarking upon a life of service to the Russian empire.

Krachenko gazed at the terrain ahead, mulling over the news relayed from his intel analyst about two other recent arrivals to the region.

“Who do you think the other players are?” said Mavetsky.

“The one group heading this way in the truck has to be local Choma militia from across the border in Zambia,” said Krachenko. “They targeted a small convoy of diamond miners south of here last fall, from what I remember. Supposed to be plaguing the villages from Angola down through Botswana.”

Solimin brushed a fly off his cheek. “How did they determine the precise location of the satellite so quickly?”

Krachenko shook his head. “They might’ve had scouts in the area already, or maybe some toothless goat herder saw it fall from the sky last night and called it in. Who knows? What concerns me is the report we received before the jump, about the four-man team that was dropped off in the Huey. Our intel crew indicated that helo originated on a flight path out of Swakopmund along the coast.”

“Probably CIA. They’ve been known to run anti-piracy assets out of that region,” said Solimin.

Krachenko nodded, adjusting his backpack. “Agreed. The only hard-hitters we contend with in Africa are the Americans or the Brits, still acting like this continent is theirs for the taking.”

“But aren’t we trying to do the same, shape these nations into what our government needs?” asked Bystrov.

Solimin frowned. “Nyet. Unlike Americans who constantly wage ground wars to protect their corporate interests abroad, the Kremlin has no desire to conquer any of these backward countries. Manipulating dictators so we can thwart Western control of the mineral resources is all HQ cares about.”

Krachenko glanced at the GPS on his watch then thrust his chin towards the rocky slope to his right. “Regardless of who’s in the region, they’re merely obstacles to our mission. The current coordinates of the satellite indicate it is stationary, on the other side of that boulder field to the northwest, a little over five kilometers from here.”

“That must mean the Choma guys either stopped for a break or were put down by that other team,” said Solimin.

“Either way, we need to get moving. It's imperative we get our device back, no matter what it takes. That EMP is a prototype and years ahead of what other governments possess. ” Krachenko broke into a slow jog as the other men trotted alongside him.

Mavetsky grinned. “Maybe if we wrap this up quickly, we’ll have time to enjoy some horizontal refreshments at that one whorehouse in Jo-Burg.”

Bystrov canted his head. “Not sure what the point would be for you since the women probably don’t have magnifying glasses.”

Mavetsky’s expression soured as the other men laughed. He dragged a finger slowly across his throat as he scowled at Bystrov. “Watch yourself out here, duroc. Lots of shit can kill you in this part of the world.”

“The only killing will be outside of this circle of four,” said Solimin to the two men who looked like they were about to stop and face off.

Krachenko tapped on his watch face several times after seeing the screen become blank. He glanced at the direction ahead, seeing a plume of black smoke beyond the boulder fields where the satellite was supposed to be located.

They hadn’t trotted more than sixty feet along the open valley when they heard a high-pitched sound behind them to the northwest.

The men spun around, watching their airplane rapidly spiraling like a misguided torpedo into the distant mountains.

Chapter 5

Shepard waited for the wind to clear away the acrid smoke from the crashed Huey before stepping out from behind the front of the cargo truck.

He and the two women gazed over their extremities, making sure the adrenaline-dump hadn’t cloaked any wounds from the flying shrapnel. He stood and brushed the dust off his cheeks while watching Nolan emerge from an angular slab of sandstone near the road.

“The hell happened?” Shepard said. He tapped on his ear-mic but there was no response from Vogel. Nothing. Not even the usual irritating sound of static.

“That bird looked like it had the batteries yanked out of it,” said Nolan, as he came up beside them. “One minute it’s on a straight trajectory towards the vehicle, then it just plunged into the ground.”

“My comms are down,” said Hamill, removing her earpiece.

“And the GPS fix on my watch is gone,” said Viper as she tapped on the screen. “Everything’s gone.”

Shepard moved to the rear of the truck, glancing in the back and replaying the events of the past few minutes. “Foley had indicated that Perseus revealed a high-probability that the EMP device in the satellite could be weaponized. I think we just confirmed that.”

Everyone turned and stared in silence at the satellite husk, like it was a supernatural being. “A single burst must have been directed out through the remaining antenna.”

“Wonder what the range on that thing is?” asked Nolan.

Shepard moved to the side of the truck, looking at the mangled Huey fuselage which was still spewing black clouds of chemicals into the air.

He felt a pang of loss for the two men who’d just died.

At least they only had seconds to realize they were screwed.

“I’m all for deactivating this fucking thing and getting what we came for,” said Nolan. He leaned his beefy rifle against the rear bumper and climbed inside the truck then took off his pack, pulling out a small toolkit and flashlight. “Should take me a couple minutes to remove the device inside the housing. That should also disable its capabilities to inflict further damage since it won’t have the antenna to transmit a signal.”

Shepard looked at the dead men splayed around the vehicle, their ruby-red berets and tiger-stripe camouflage outfits reminiscent of other Choma militants he’d seen along the West African coast. “Whoever sent these guys are going to be getting itchy trigger-fingers when they realize they’re overdue.”

Hamill, who had overseen their escape and evasion plans, pulled out a folded map from her BDU pocket. She moved into the shade provided by the truck and laid it out on the ground as Shepard and Viper huddled behind her.

Hamill pointed to a tiny speck on the map about thirty miles south of the border of Angola. “There’s a village here called Nema, along the Rundiri River. Around fifty people there, as I recall,” said Hamill. “Mostly caters to tourists wanting to visit the Bushmen camps. For much of the year, they have an air taxi service for visitors coming out of the capital.”

Shepard gazed over the map, which comprised northeastern Namibia. There were immense regions of raw Kalahari Desert interspersed with a few outposts. In the opposite direction was the border of Botswana which would be a forty-mile trek, followed by a few hundred miles of desolation before they would encounter a town. The same with the journey towards South Africa.

“Nema it is then. Foley knows that’s our primary E & E route, so hopefully we’ll see him there.”

“You’re assuming the EMP blast was limited to this valley,” said Viper, gazing at the distant mountain ridges.

Shepard flared an eyebrow. “All we have control of right now is this little three-foot space around us and our direction of travel out of this wasteland.”

A few minutes later, Nolan slid down from the truck, holding up a rectangular metallic device the size of a shoebox with red wires dangling from the sides. “Hard to believe there’s a little demon inside this thing that can cripple our world.”

Shepard extended out his hand, clutching the device, which was surprisingly light. The titanium housing had small vents on three sides and a credit-card sized lid on top beside the button with the bloody fingerprint. He pulled off his backpack, making space in the center then slid it inside.

He glanced towards the northern horizon. “We need to get as much time and distance between us and anyone else on our trail, so ditch any items that were fried by the blast. After that, we make like Pheidippides.”

“Who?” asked Nolan, as he began rummaging through his pack.

“The Greek guy who ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver the news of their victory in battle,” replied Viper. “Haven’t you noticed, Cal always has some Greek figure he tosses into conversations, like you’re supposed to know who the dude is?”

“Oh, yeah, that Pheidippides. Now I remember,” quipped Nolan. “I’m more of a Norse mythology guy, myself. But you probably all knew that from my rugged Scandinavian features.”

“With that big nose of yours, you strike me more as having ogre heritage,” said Hamill.

Nolan smirked. “And you wonder why you always walk home alone from the bar.”

After discarding their analog watches, GPS units, comms and night vision goggles, everyone sucked down some tepid water from their pack’s hydration bladders and cinched down their shoulder straps for the coming jog.

Hamill glanced back to the south. “Vogel mentioned Sergei Krachenko earlier...he’s been doing Russia’s dirty work around Africa the past couple of years, destabilizing regimes and providing training and weapons to warlords across the continent. When I worked as a case-officer in Eastern Europe, I heard rumors about the Volki guys. There are two crews, one that operates around Africa and the other in the Middle East. And both of them had reputations for their human rights abuses.”

“Tenevoy Volki. The Shadow Wolves,” whispered Shepard. “They live up to their reputation from what I know. Surgical strike unit responsible for dozens of assassinations and kidnappings over the years.”

“They must really want their hardware back,” said Viper.

“Well, depending on the blast radius of the EMP device, they’re most likely in the same predicament as us...no comms or air support on the way,” said Shepard. “At least I hope they’re on even ground with us.”

“Another reason to get headed towards Nema,” said Nolan.

Shepard removed his Silva baseplate compass then aligned it on the topo map, adjusting for the requisite magnetic declination in this part of the world. A numeric figure they had discussed during their evasion plan prior to departing.

He pointed to a lone butte to the northwest. “Not hard to navigate in the desert. Let’s also make that our homing beacon in case we get separated.”

“Fifteen miles, I’d say,” said Nolan in a confident tone.

“Try twenty-two, ace,” replied Shepard, who lightly punched the man in the shoulder. “Didn’t you learn how to estimate distance at sniper school?”

Nolan smirked. “That’s what my range-finder is for, boss.”

“At least it’s flat, hard-packed ground and not the dunes,” said Viper. “I hate walking for miles on the sand.”

Hamill adjusted the shemagh around her neck to provide better protection from the elements as the wind increased. “And open terrain means no cobras, which is fine by me.”

“We get to that butte, and we’re more than two-thirds of the way to Nema, and hopefully a plane.”

Shepard knew hope was a poor element in a plan but, right now, there were factors beyond his control.

He lowered his ball cap and slid on his eye goggles, then he broke into a slow trot, while the others followed behind him. “Let the marathon begin.”

Chapter 6

Kofi Choma lowered his binoculars and climbed down from the rickety lookout tower in the trees at his brushy encampment in western Namibia. His tiny outpost of thirty militants along the creek consisted of little more than a few dozen tattered canvas tents and three trucks, but this rag-tag crew was critical to maintaining General Choma’s southern turf.

As the eldest son and the leader of Anton Choma’s southern border brigade, Kofi was growing concerned by the lack of communication with the salvage crew he’d sent out at sunrise.

His friend, Razim, came up beside him, resting his bony fingers on the handle of the machete dangling from his hip. “Shouldn’t they have been back by now? The goat-herder who reported the thing that crashed last night said it was only a few hours away, near the Tamur Valley.”

Kofi nodded, removing his ruby beret and using it to wipe away the growing bead of sweat on his forehead. He cast a nervous glance towards the mountains in the west. “Father was excited about whatever fell from sky. I don’t want this opportunity to impress him to slip away.”

“Could be computer stuff worth a lot,” said Razim.

“Or a spy satellite. I bring him something of great value and he give me a bonus. Maybe he even promote me to jungle camp up north.” He patted Razim on the chest. “Get everyone armed and ready. We go see for ourselves what happened.”

Chapter 7

Two hours after their HALO jump, Sergei Krachenko and his team arrived at the last known location of the satellite. Cresting the long ridge of boulders, he crouched to avoid silhouetting himself and scanned the road below through his rifle scope. He glanced inside the truck bed, seeing an open panel on the satellite housing where the critical EMP device had been located.

There was an acrid odor hanging in the air, originating from a tangled mess of metal fragments and glass shards from the downed helicopter on the road.

He thought back to their own Antanov plummeting to the ground shortly after they arrived. His stomach churned as he thought about the implications. Not only had he lost two men who were good friends and skilled pilots, but he and his team were stranded in one of the wildest regions on Earth.

“Someone must have set off the EMP inside the satellite. That’s the only thing that can explain two aircraft going down around the same time.”

“So much for quickly getting in and out of this dust bowl,” said Solimin.

Krachenko worked his way down through some rock fissures, heading towards the road. “I’m assuming the other party we heard about got away with the critical hardware. Has to be the Agency. How else could they have gotten on-site this fast?”

“If I recall correctly, that EMP device has an effective blast radius of up to one-hundred kilometers if deployed by the satellite,” said Bystrov. “That means there could be numerous cities west of us that were affected.”

Solimin nodded. “All the more reason to make sure the Americans don’t make it out of this country with a weapon prototype like that in their possession.”

Arriving at the road, Krachenko paused near a large rock slab and scanned the dead men near the truck. After ensuring there were no threats, he and two of his team walked down the narrow dirt road towards the bullet-riddled vehicle, while Solimin provided overwatch.

Krachenko meandered past the splayed bodies then climbed up into the bed of the truck. Bullet perforations in the canvas roof permitted sunlight to stab through and illuminate the satellite core.

He looked at the empty interior of the spherical satellite housing as his face turned red. The Volki commander licked his lips then glanced back at Mavetsky and Bystrov who were combing through the pockets of the dead men. “The device is gone alright.”

Mavetsky moved along the road, searching the ground for tracks until he arrived at a cluster of four unique tread patterns that broke off to the north.

After a few minutes surveying the ground, he returned to the truck. “Looks like two men and two women. The men are carrying heavier loads, so one of them must have the satellite component.”

He removed some spent brass from his pocket. “And one man is equipped with some decent firepower. Found this 6.8 brass when we were moving down through the boulders.”

Krachenko looked at the casing then out towards the open desert. “That’s not a standard round you’d ever find out in these parts. Even the Recce guys out of South Africa don’t use that.”

“Fucking CIA, like you said,” muttered Bystrov, who removed a faux silver bracelet from a dead man’s wrist. He inspected it before tossing it into the ditch.

Krachenko glanced at his blank watch screen. The digital LED display was absent, eliminating his GPS capabilities. “Comms and electronics are dead so we’re back to old-school tactics for now. Tell Solimin to get down here, then we’re going on a hunting trip. That other crew is probably only a few hours ahead of us.”

He yanked off the watch, flinging it outside.

Mavetsky moved closer to the truck bed, gazing past Krachenko and towards the figure slumped against the rear wall, his eyes lingering on the gaping jaw.

“What is it?” said Krachenko. “You know him?”

Mavetsky hopped into the truck, walking to the back. He flicked open his folding knife. “Nyet. But I figure he no longer has any need for that gold tooth.”

Chapter 8

The trek across the Kalahari Desert for Shepard and his team was monotonous because of the endless miles of parched landscape that was only intermittently broken up by the odd clump of brush or the withered skeleton of a desiccated tree trunk, rising like a gnarled finger from the Earth.

Occasionally, a dry riverbed with high banks revealed itself, the snaking terrain seeming to flow out from the sawtooth mountains many miles towards the horizon.

Navigation was straightforward since the distant mountains to the east and west served as handrails with the lone butte in the north, rounding out the rest of the geologic compass in this stark region.

Shepard and the others had been clipping along at a slow trot for the past four miles when he suddenly paused, flicking his head to the right.

He lowered the shemagh around his head to listen better as he scanned the undulating dunes to the east.

“I heard it too,” said Nolan. “Not a plane.”

“There,” said Viper, stabbing a spear hand towards three black specks that had just emerged from behind a deep arroyo several miles away.

“More Choma guys, I’m guessing,” said Hamill as they all stared at the convoy of vehicles trudging slowly north. Two of the rigs were old ten-ton trucks with covered beds of tan canvas, while the third was a Toyota pickup containing a half-dozen men bobbing with each bump along the rocky terrain.

Shepard swiveled his head around, searching for anything to take cover behind but the environment wouldn’t be serving as an ally in what was about to unfold. That the trucks were moving along a parallel route made him think they were patrolling the region and hadn’t noticed them yet.

He removed his pack, flinging it down then dropped before it, while propping his MK12 on the new bench rest, as the others followed his lead.

Nolan took up residence on the side of his pack, flipping out the bipod on his Sig Sauer M250 while sighting in the vehicles through his scope.

“Looks like about a dozen guys hanging on the sides of the big trucks, decked out like the other Choma goons with red berets and Chinese AKs.”

“Which means a few dozen more inside the rigs,” said Viper.

Shepard slowly panned his head around the valley, searching for other vehicles that might head in from another route to close the gap.

“From where they’re at now, I don’t think they’ve spotted us,” said Hamill. “Maybe they’ll keep heading north.”

A few minutes later, that ray of hope drained away as the convoy of trucks suddenly paused then veered to the left, making a beeline towards the team.

“What’s the plan, boss?” said Viper, as she adjusted her rifle sights.

Shepard seethed out an exhale, watching the vehicles grow larger through his scope.

Shit! Four against a platoon of hell-bent militants.

His heart was racing as a familiar feeling of adrenaline began surging through his veins.

“Outrunning this is impossible, which leaves us with outgunning them. Brute force is the only option, so it’s time to become savage as hell and take the fight to them. Nolan will provide initial cover while the rest of us bound ahead and lay down some hate. You all know the drill.”

Shepard didn’t need to hear verbal confirmations to know that each of them was in compliance. They had trained enough for an event like this to understand what was expected.

He just hoped they had enough ammo to support their efforts or their bodies would be feeding the buzzards within the hour.

A blitz of rounds zippered the ground to Shepard’s right as several men hanging on the side of the lead vehicle took one-armed shots. Shepard’s rifle barked out several rounds, dropping two militants on the left sideboards while Hamill’s AR cut down another pair of Choma guys on the right side.

The trucks came to a halt two-hundred yards away, each vehicle pulling up beside one another. By the time the fighters finished spilling out of the rear of each vehicle, there were nearly thirty armed men getting into hasty shooting positions.

Nolan unleashed a fury of the potent 6.8x51 rounds, which stitched across the torsos of three men near the first truck. He directed his attention to the small Toyota on the left, hitting the driver and two men inside the cab then snapped off a blitz of rounds into the militants pouring out of the back.

While Nolan continued his assault, Shepard sprung up, bounding ahead while the two women followed.

“Moving!” he said.

Forty feet later, they dropped, sending a volley of lead downrange, while Nolan sprinted up beside Hamill, replacing the spent magazine pouch with another one-hundred rounder.

Viper dropped two men creeping out near the front bumper of the middle vehicle while Shepard and Hamill punched bullets into the torsos of several men spraying wildly from under the last two trucks. Nolan continued peppering any visible appendage near the front vehicle then dumped a dozen rounds into the canvas tarp covering the back of the truck.

When the rear truck tried to back up and depart, Nolan sprayed the front windshield, riddling the two men inside and sending the vehicle careening into the side of the Toyota.

Shepard used the resulting confusion to pop up and bound another forty feet as the two women followed in unison. The three shooters performed fluid tactical reloads of their weapons, while Nolan cleared the path ahead with controlled bursts of machine-gun fire.

Shepard dropped to the ground again, sucking in a deep breath before sending another barrage of rounds into the chest of the driver of the middle truck then into the boots of someone shuffling on the other side.

The ground to Shepard’s right thumped and exploded as rifle fire strafed the hard-packed earth, sending pebbles and grit into his face. He winced, his eyes tearing up. He stopped shooting, blinking hard as he fought to avoid breathing the talcum-like dust in the air. To his left, he saw the ground erupt from more gunfire, the rounds nearly tearing along Viper’s ribs.

He tamped down his concerns about losing her and forced his attention back to the militants. Shepard felt the sting of sweat rolling down into his eyes, grateful it wasn’t blood and that they were still in the fight.

But for how long? We need to end this!

He wanted to crawl into a ball and make himself smaller but there was no way to do that in this exposed terrain. The only option was to turn the tide and keep advancing on the trucks with ferocious cover fire for as long as their ammo lasted. Then, they would have to resort to pistols, knives, and bare hands as they clawed their way out of this valley.

Shepard gulped in some gritty air, then realigned his sights on a lanky militant near the back tire of the middle vehicle. He squeezed off several rounds as the noise from his fellow shooters on either side drowned out his own weapon.

It was always evident when Nolan had advanced to their position as the air quaked and fewer incoming rounds struck the ground. The former Delta operator had placed the weapon on full-auto, unleashing a deadly barrage on the half-dozen remaining shooters and clipping the legs sticking out from the sides near the flattened tires or strafing the torsos of anyone foolish enough to pop up from the other side to get off a lucky shot.

Shepard saw three men running away from the trucks, their weapons lowered as they sprinted in the opposite direction towards the mountains.

The remaining militants were now wildly firing around the bumpers.

Shepard waited until Nolan inserted his last magazine and began another circuit of cover fire then he hopped up, closing the gap between the trucks and darting to the left side of a rig while Viper ran towards another vehicle on the right.

Shepard dumped a round into the head of a man peeking up over the tailgate then quickly swept around the rear bumper, his rifle coughing out two bullets into the chest of a startled militant reloading his AK.

Viper had just finished dispatching a stout man holding a revolver before shooting a t-shirt clad figure reaching for a downed rifle.

Shepard and Viper hastily cleared the cabs and beds of the vehicles and convened at the rear of the smallest truck.

The acrid odor of gun smoke, sweat and dust filled the air as Shepard meandered between the dozens of splayed bodies, kicking aside weapons and inspecting the bodies for movement.

Near the lead vehicle, Shepard approached a groaning man. By his black beret and newer camouflage outfit, he figured the guy was the leader. “Are there any others heading this way?”

The figure wheezed, blood trickling out from his lips as he gave Shepard a look that bordered between confusion and terror.

Cal made simple hand gestures towards the truck then out to the horizon to bridge the language barrier. The man shook his head and winced as he sat up, slumping against the flattened rear tire.

Shepard had hoped to glean more information on the Choma encampment and numbers of fighters, but the man collapsed to the side, his eyes rolling back as he eked out his last breath.

Despite the wind, hordes of flies had already descended upon the throng of bodies.

“Some of them got away,” said Viper, pointing to the three figures running in the distance as her eyes swam with a predatory look. “We should go after them.”

“We need to continue north towards Nema. They know the region and could hole up in a cave or canyon and cost us precious time.”

He glanced down at his vest, seeing there was only one full magazine of ammo left for his MK12, while Viper was down to the last mag in the rifle. He bent over, retrieving an AK and checking the action. Shepard moved to the rear of the last truck and climbed inside, stepping over a dead body and dragging out an open crate at the back.

Reluctantly, he set down his MK12 and pulled out the last magazine in his vest, leaving them behind on the bench seat. It was unlikely they would happen across a weapons cache of .308 or .223 rounds in these parts.

From the wooden crate, he removed six, thirty-round rifle magazines filled with 7.62 FMJ rounds and inserted them into his vest while inserting a fresh mag into the recently acquired AK.

Nolan and Hamill had moved up to the convoy, standing as sentries outside the tailgate. “How many rounds you got left in that hog?” he said to Nolan, nodding at the smoking barrel of the submachine gun.

“Down to my last mag, probably thirty or forty rounds left.”

“I’m on my last as well,” said Hamill.

“Well, there’s plenty left here, so pick out a new weapon and load up your vests. It’s time to get outfitted like the locals.”

The team picked through the scattered AKs, selecting out their new rifles and resupplying on ammo. Viper motioned to the bed of the middle truck. “There’s a thirty-gallon container of water in the back. We should fill up, since who knows where the next water source will be.”

Shepard nodded, realizing just how parched his throat had become. “Good idea, but drop in some purification tablets since that water probably came from some parasite-riddled, cow-pisshole near a village.”

“Thanks for that image,” quipped Nolan. “And just when I was going to enjoy splashing some on my face.”

The team trotted back to the area where they’d dropped their packs then returned to the vehicles, quickly refilling their hydration bladders and putting in the requisite number of chlorine dioxide tablets from their survival kits.

Hamill glanced at one of the smoking engine blocks. “Nolan, next time, try to spare us one rig, so we have some wheels out of here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a tired grin, his usual pithy reply absent as he leaned against the tailgate.

As they prepared to resume their trek to the butte, Shepard glanced around at the faces of the dead. Nearly all the men appeared to be in their early twenties. He didn’t feel remorse for what he had done. In this line of work, the enemy was a target that had to be destroyed before they destroyed you.

“You alright?” asked Viper, who came up beside him.

He angled his head towards the bloody battlefield. “Helluva life to be born into. When I was their age, I was in college, my only concerns being finals and winning the next wrestling tournament.”

“Something as simple as geography can often determine one’s misery or relative happiness in life,” she said.

He moved in closer, removing his shemagh and gently wiping away a trickle of blood on her ear and neck. She turned towards him with a thankful smile. Shepard let his eyes linger on her face for a brief moment, a comforting sight in the sparse landscape of his soul.

He wanted to say something about being grateful for not losing her during the firefight, but his mind oscillated between needing to remain the objective leader and a desire to remind her how much she meant to him.

Shepard cleared his throat and motioned for them to all step closer. He rested his hands on the shoulders of Nolan and Hamill, while Viper stood across from him.

He glanced at each of their weary, dust-caked faces. “Just remember, we will get through this, like we always do. We just have to keep pushing north, regardless of what gets thrown in our way. And there’s no finer group of human beings I’d want by my side on the march ahead, or any trek in this world for that matter.”

“Roger that,” said Nolan.

“Amen,” replied Hamill.

Viper just gave a firm nod, holding his gaze for a moment.

Shepard thrust his chin towards the butte. “Let’s put this behind us and push on with our marathon towards the Promised Land.”

He adjusted his pack and slung his rifle across his chest, turning towards the lone rock formation, suddenly feeling like it was much farther than before.

Chapter 9

Algeria, Africa

At forty-nine years of age, intel analyst Vladimir Loye looked a decade younger than he was. His moderately wealthy upbringing contributed to that as much as his lifestyle of staying extremely fit, so he didn’t end up like his pear-shaped contemporaries at SVR Headquarters back at the Kremlin.

Loye was one of Russia’s best intelligence analysts, but his insubordinate nature had prevented him from climbing through the tangled bureaucracy in Moscow, and had kept him assigned beyond his requisite years as the chief targeter for the Tenevoy Volki Unit. However, unlike his contemporaries, his role involved providing services beyond mere intelligence gathering, ranging from espionage to political smear campaigns and coups.

When his superiors at the Kremlin contacted him about retrieving an EMP device embedded in a downed Russian satellite, he notified Krachenko, who diverted his flight from South Africa to Namibia.

But it was only hours ago that he had watched the visual feed over the Kalahari, observing an assault team sweeping down upon the Choma militants to extract the precious device.

Has to be a CIA rapid-response team.

In the end, it wouldn’t matter since he knew Krachenko was willing to paint the countryside red to accomplish his mission.

It was with disbelief that he had viewed the live satellite feed from his makeshift command center in a rented warehouse, staring again at dozens of dead Choma fighters dispatched in a second battle by the four newcomers, who had moved with exquisite precision. He panned the feed to the southeast, watching Krachenko and his men who were on foot less than two hours from that same valley. Only Loye could not get through to the Volki commander and relay any information.

The entire region has been crippled by our device. Our fucking device!

He rubbed his smooth chin. The expression on his lean face was one of shock and wonder. Loye’s eyes floated over the large wall monitor, watching the two men and two women who were now moving at a slow run along the desert floor.

“Who the fuck are those people?”

The three computer techs sitting at the consoles beside him intensified their search efforts.

“Running them through facial recog now, so I should know in a few minutes,” said the bearded analyst at the far end. “But I plotted out points of significance along the northern route they are heading and the only place around for miles is some goat-fuck town called Nema.”

Loye glanced up at the map of Namibia on the monitor. “Makes sense. Not much out there otherwise. They must have contingency plans to be picked up there in the event their primary route is compromised.”

A skinny tech with a gold hoop earring swiveled around in his chair. “Compromised is right. Our EMP took out electronics within a hundred-fifty kilometer region. Good thing it went off in Africa since there’s only a dozen or so cities affected.”

Loye balled a fist, cursing silently. He knew the Kremlin would be breathing down his back once they discovered someone else had not only activated the device, but had it in their possession.

He paced around the workstation, mulling over his options. He needed to get some new assets in place to assist Krachenko with the retrieval and also to provide for the Volki team’s extraction, since their plane had crashed following the deployment of the EMP.

Loye removed his encrypted iPhone, calling a Johannesburg number. “It’s me. Your services are required. You’ll be compensated like you were for the weapons shipment that just arrived. How many are on your team and when can they be ready?”

Cornelius Bakker replied in a thick Afrikaans accent. “Six men along with myself. All former South African soldiers. We can be in the air within an hour. Just tell me where.”

“By my analysis, the small town of Nema on the edge of the Kalahari is the destination, so it’s only about a two-hour flight across the border from you. I’ll send the coordinates right after I wire over the first half of your money.”

“And the target?”

“Four hostiles who are in possession of the package I need. They’re spec-ops and some serious hitters. If I had to guess, I’d say Agency but take the gloves off on this mission and eliminate anyone who gets in the way, including civilians who interfere. There’s no such thing as collateral damage on this op.”

“Copy that. I’ll notify you when we’re wheels up.”

“And one more thing...Krachenko is coming in from the south so your approach should be from any other direction. His comms are down. You see him, you’re under his command. Are we clear?”

“Crystal clear.”

Loye ended the call and paced around the room, recalling the intel on the EMP device. The damage must have reached as far as the capital to the west. He shook his head. Fuck, if it gets out that our device just wasted a bunch of cities in Africa, my head’s coming off, and probably Krachenko’s.

“I’m not finding shit about any of those four shooters on our usual databases, which is unheard of these days,” said a tech with a long ponytail who pointed at Shepard’s image on his laptop. “That team could be American, British, German...who knows?”

Loye shook his head. “Not likely they’re Germans. No one I know over in Germany has the intel or resources to pinpoint the satellite wreckage that fast. Only Langley or MI6 could get a crew spun up like that, but I’m not aware of any Brit spec-ops teams in the region. Has to be the Americans. I’m almost certain of it, especially since the CIA used to run anti-piracy ops along the West Coast, so they probably had assets nearby.”

“Got something of interest and it’s not good,” said a stout man seated in the middle of the work station, pointing to the overhead monitor which showed an intercepted cellphone call made from a location east of the recent battle in the valley. “Just picked this up from a guy who said he escaped the shootout with the Americans. Assuming, they’re Americans.”

Loye rolled his hand repeatedly as he glared at the man. “For fuck’s sake, what is it?”

“He said that Kofi Choma, the son of General Choma, died in the fight and that the thieves had gotten away.”

Loye seethed out an exhale, dragging a meaty hand across the back of his neck. “Shit. This was supposed to be a simple mission. Now, every militant and bounty hunter is going to be looking for that device.”

“Not to mention Choma himself,” said the man as he pulled up a new map which outlined a large cluster of vehicles and tents in Zambia. “This is the last known location of Choma’s main forces. I pegged around sixty or so men there.”

Loye traced his eyes from the camp to Nema. “Damn, if the Choma guys pinpoint where the Americans are heading there’s going to be some serious firepower closing in on Krachenko and his guys. He needs to get our satellite component back in time.”

He mulled over whether to notify Bakker of the competing teams on the ground, but decided against it. At least for now.

Let’s see how things play out during the coming hours.

Everything was about to become extremely fluid and, despite his surging adrenaline level, this was the realm where he thrived and did his best work. Having an overhead command of the chess board, and toppling pieces on either side to achieve his country’s end, had always served him well.

Chapter 10

After two hours of tracking the four bandits who had stolen the EMP device, Krachenko paused at a rock pile overlooking a desolate valley. He squatted down and scanned the topography with his binoculars, while Mavetsky continued interpreting the ground signs.

Krachenko’s eyes eventually settled upon dozens of Choma militants splayed around three vehicles on the valley floor.

“Nice handiwork,” said Solimin, gazing through his rifle scope. “Four against thirty or so guys. Reminds me of the job we did in that village in Mali a few years ago.”

Mavetsky nodded. “This crew of shooters isn’t so hard to track. They leave a trail of dead bodies wherever they go.”

“Not hard to take down tribal riff-raff,” said Bystrov, who spat a stream of chewing tobacco on the ground. “And those Choma guys probably didn’t land a single hit when they were pissing themselves and spraying their AKs.”

“You just described your shooting style,” said Mavetsky.

Bystrov tossed a stone at the other operator, striking him in the side of the neck. Mavetsky scowled, leaning forward. “You throw like a girl.”

Bystrov smirked. “You’d know what that’s like, given your interest in little girls.”

“Enough,” said Krachenko in a menacing tone.

The Volki commander panned his binoculars to the left. “No signs of the other team. They must be running at a good pace. We’ll head below and look for their tracks, but my guess is they are heading to that lone rock formation in the north.”

“That appears to be the only place out here for cover. And, maybe water,” said Solimin.

“And where they will let their guard down for a while to take a much-needed break,” said Krachenko, tucking away his binoculars. “By the time we get into sniper range of that location, we will have cover of night. Then we will take back what is ours.”

Chapter 11

Swakopmund, Namibia

South Atlantic Coast

On board CRT’s grounded Antanov, Vogel nervously tapped her finger on the edge of her desk as she stared at the latest satellite image of Southern Africa. The area around Namibia was still a blank spot, and she surmised the EMP blast had resulted in government agencies and private companies redirecting the orbits of their satellites to avoid the region given the anomalous event.

Foley glanced up at her from his work station on the other side. “Besides that Russian plane going down near our team, there was a passenger jet that crashed west of them shortly after the EMP device was triggered. And I just picked up a VHF frequency out of the capital here that the government has implemented a flight ban, so we’re not going anywhere for a while. Hell, even if we could get airborne, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to be up at twenty-thousand feet if, by chance, there’s another EMP blast.”

“From the little I could pick up on the old radio band, the major cities from central Namibia towards the east have lost power. The country is under a state of emergency.”

Vogel leaned in, examining the images on her laptop sent over from Kyle West, CRT’s cyber-guru back at their Baltimore headquarters. “It appears that, besides our location here, the other towns up and down the coast were spared. The EMP must have had a limited range.”

“It probably doesn’t seem like it to the poor souls in those crippled cities, but it’s fortunate that this happened in such a sparsely populated country. Imagine if this had occurred in Johannesburg or Cairo?”

“Or New York or London?” Vogel said in a flat voice as she slid back into her seat.

Foley sighed, knowing they had to get this EMP device not to mention, rescuing his team who were trapped in one of the most barren regions in the world.

So much for our original plan of flying the team to Spain for some R & R.

He headed to the side exit, leaning out and shouting towards the front of the plane for his two pilots to come inside.

A few seconds later, Mike Hodges and Taylor Wynn climbed back in, both men wiping their greasy hands on rags retrieved from their back pockets.

With his six-foot four stature, Wynn had a commanding presence. The former Army pilot had flown for the elite 160th SOAR and was working as a civilian flight instructor in Miami when he was recruited by Foley.

African-American co-pilot Hodges was an entire foot shorter than his colleague and had a bristly top of salt-and-pepper hair, making him appear much older than forty-one. Hodges had flown combat missions for the Air Force for eleven years, later becoming a flight instructor. Following his discharge, he freelanced as a courier pilot for the CIA in Africa.

Foley pulled out a rolled up topo map from a shelf under the desk. It was identical to the map of Namibia that the team carried. He flattened it out on the floor, placing pistol mags and coffee cups in the corners to hold it open, while Vogel and the two pilots huddled around him.

Foley pointed to a small black dot near an intersection of dirt roads. “Their E & E plans involved heading northwest towards Angola if their helo exfil had been compromised. Hamill identified several small towns with airstrips. Nema was the closest. If they can get there, then they would at least have access to a small plane. Nolan can fly, so that shouldn’t be a problem, but this assumes that the aviation instruments weren’t destroyed by the EMP.”

Hodges leaned in. “All of those towns are more like settlements, so don’t expect much in the way of transportation...of any kind. The small bush planes in Namibia are mainly used as air-taxis for tourists heading from the capital city of Windhoek to the safari camps in the Kalahari. Since it’s off-season, the planes, if there are any, might be in storage.”

Vogel nodded. “If they could locate a truck that would help, since most of the vehicles in the less-developed parts of Africa are older models lacking electronic components.”

Foley slid his finger in an arc towards the south. “They aren’t likely to pursue another route since they’d risk encountering Choma encampments along the way.”

“Plus, there are no airfields in those regions,” said Hodges. “When I flew birds for the Agency, we had to sometimes use the two-lane highways for quick drop-offs.”

Foley stood up, folding his arms and staring down at the map. “My bet’s on them sticking with Nema.”

Vogel nodded. “I agree, sir. And since their sub-dermal trackers are offline, we’re down to calculated guesses.”

He glanced at her. “Fortunately, I have one of the best analysts on the planet who cut her teeth in the intelligence field before human insight was replaced by an over-dependence on technology.”

“I appreciate your confidence, sir, but we still need a way to traverse the three-hundred fifty miles from here to Nema.”

Hodges folded his arms. “Having all the cities to the east of us grid-locked and without power means civil unrest. There are going to be plenty of gangs taking advantage of the chaos.”

They heard flecks of sand pelting the fuselage as the wind increased again.

“No way we can risk getting the Antanov up in this weather even if the airspace was clear,” said Wynn.

Vogel bit her lower lip. “Like there isn’t enough on the table right now, we have a storm sweeping up from the south within six hours.”

Foley removed the objects securing the map then rolled it back up. “We’ll get through it. Besides, you all know the saying: ‘There’s no such thing as foul weather, only inappropriate clothing.’”

He grabbed his leather jacket off a peg on the wall and headed to the door. “Hodges, you’re with me. We need to procure an old vehicle and some extra fuel.”

Foley gazed back at Vogel. “While we’re gone, see about locating the best secondary roads between here and Nema. Then pack up some gear, chow and our discretionary funds, in case bribes are in order. You, me and Hodges are going on a little cross-country trip. And grab the rest of the ammo and weapons. I have a feeling this is going to be a stormy trip in more ways than one.”

Chapter 12

Shepard lowered the shemagh around his mouth, inhaling the cool air as he paused before a skeletal tree trunk. It was the largest remnant of a dead forest that extended for a half-mile to the north and east.

He dragged a dusty sleeve across his forehead, wiping away the sweat. If they had been walking, he would have needed a fleece jacket, but the 40 degree F temperature was helping keep his core from overheating after slow-jogging for fourteen miles over the past three hours.

They had paused twice to briefly rest, do blister checks, and rehydrate but their pace had been unrelenting.

The lone butte to the north was like a psychological talisman keeping them focused, and their destination appeared to be less than an hour away.

Now that they were closer, the geologic formation appeared much larger. The serrated ridges made the butte look like a jagged molar, and Shepard wondered if there were any caves around the base that could provide shelter for a few hours.

He pulled out the folded topo map, studying the contour lines for this region, which were few and far between, indicating flat terrain. The region north of the butte was drastically different, with tighter contour lines which revealed several steep canyons and arroyos along the remaining ten miles to Nema.

With his feet and knees aching, he was grateful they didn’t have to negotiate that gnarly region first or their efforts would have been greatly reduced.

The wind had increased since they first arrived in this barren region, and there was little to provide a buffer from the airborne grit and debris that were now sandblasting them. He recalled the earlier conversation with Vogel about the impending storm and figured these winds were the precursor of a savage low-pressure system about to sweep up from southern Africa.

Vogel and Foley...he missed their reassuring voices in his ear, filling them in on the obstacles and perils ahead.

What miracles are they working on their end to reach us?

He pondered whether the miniscule sub-dermal GPS trackers embedded in their shoulders were still functional after the EMP blast.

Despite having Perseus and all of our modern tech, we’re back to using old-school tactics and paper maps. And our pricey rifles are replaced with crude Kalashnikovs.

How quickly things can change.

All of them sat down with their backs to the stump, letting their eyes further adjust to the changing light which had turned the sky a forbidding hue as the blood-orange sun dipped below the distant mountains in the west.

“How long you think it’s been here?” asked Nolan, before sucking down some chemically treated water from his hydration tube. “This tree stump, I mean?”

“Seriously, that’s what’s on your mind right now?” replied Hamill.

Nolan rested his head against the battleship gray wood whose bark had succumbed to the elements long ago. “I’m guessing this was a tough old beast that lived out here for a century or two, getting pummeled by the heat and wind, while shading many gazelles and hunters. Imagine all the things it witnessed in its lifetime.”

Viper flared her eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you’re converting from being a full time smart-ass to a philosopher?”

Shepard nudged her as he whispered. “Shh, let him ponder the mysteries of life. Otherwise, he’ll just turn his wrath towards one of us.”

“Just towards you, Cal. You’re such an easy target with your California tan and those Mickey Mouse boots you wear. When the Maker was handing out feet, you musta thought he said meat, so he gave you those slabs.”

Shepard chuckled, breaking open the wrapper on a Met-Rx bar and biting off a chunk. “Yeah, well, I’ve seen your feet, or should I call them flippers. Surprised you don’t have to wear snowshoes to get around in life.”

Nolan laughed then turned towards Hamill. “And then there’s Nature Girl, who’s probably been cataloguing all the insect species on our little trek.”

She licked her cracked lips as she glanced at him. “Just this one six-foot tall pesky bug. Actually, I wouldn’t classify you as an insect. You’re a much lower form of life than that.”

He laughed, patting her on the shoulder. “You can sure hold your own. You’re alright, kid.”

“I’m two years older than you, dumb-ass.”

Nolan leaned to his other side, gazing at Viper, who swiveled around to face him with narrowed eyes. “You start shit with me, and I’ll choke you out, Nolan. I’m too tired to...”

He held up a gloved hand. “Relax. I was actually going to say how those lovely almond eyes of yours brighten this otherwise bleak setting.”

Her taut cheeks softened as a faint grin crept out. “Yeah, sure. Save the pickup lines for the bar bunnies.”

Shepard stood up, arching his back and stretching his arms to the side before grabbing his pack. “Alright, let’s get a move on it, before I need to pull out my ear plugs.” He looked at Nolan as he said the last words, both of them chuckling.

Shepard knew the banter was a helpful tool in lessening the anxiety during lulls in the operation, and Nolan excelled at that pursuit. So much so that the two women often compared notes on how to verbally retaliate, which only got his comedic wheels spinning further.

Shepard leaned forward, offering a hand to Viper, who readily accepted as he pulled her up.

She emitted a coy grin. “Such a gentleman. That’s not like you, Cal.”

“Pff. And it’s not like you to accept anyone’s help.”

“Depends on who’s offering me a hand.”

She turned her gaze to the south; her face growing rigid. “You think they’re on our trail...the Russians?”

“They have to be, but hopefully these winds have obliterated our tracks, which should slow them down a bit,” said Shepard, gazing at the ground then up at the rising moon.

Hamill tucked away an empty wrapper after consuming an energy bar. “Assuming it was their plane that went down around the same time as the Huey that would mean they could be headed to another exfil point, waiting for a ride.”

Shepard stared into the faraway shadows. “The Volki crew will have contingencies just like us. So, they’re either trotting along the same desert ground we were, or they’ve headed to a secondary site to get picked up so they can intercept us somewhere ahead.”

“Danger in every direction...same story as always,” said Nolan.

Shepard motioned to the forest of withered trees. “This is a good place to use some counter-tracking moves that won’t burn up a lot of time or calories. Viper and I will skirt through this brush to the northwest, while you two will veer to the northeast. We’ll all reconvene on the other side where the trees end and then continue on to the butte.”

It was called a bombshell technique, a method he’d learned from his old friend Mitch Kearns, a combat-tracker that had worked under Foley during his special-forces days, and whom had briefly served as a mantracking instructor for Shepard’s former Search and Destroy Unit.

The bombshell approach involved splitting the group into pairs, or even multiple pairs, and then trekking off in a parallel direction towards a common rallying point a mile or more in the distance. It was intended to be a force divider for the pursuers, who would also have to split up and burn precious time inspecting each route, while risking a potential ambush.

Shepard realized a skilled tracker would look ahead at the direction of travel, while considering the geographic containment provided by mountains and valleys to determine which way the quarry was going, but this was a low-cost method for buying them some time.

He adjusted his pack’s shoulder straps and cinched down the waist belt. Shepard covered the growing expression of concern on his face by pulling up the shemagh, aware that the perils ahead would be far from over once they reached the butte.

A musky odor suddenly wafted over the region, causing everyone to stand still. In unison, their attention turned to the shadows to the east as the ground began vibrating.

Shepard tightened the grip on the AK, staring into the desert which had a blue-gray tint under the emerging moonlight.

“Not vehicles. What is that?” whispered Viper.

The vibrations increased before turning into thumping. A wave of something primordial saturated the air.

“My God. Over there,” said Nolan, thrusting his chin towards the first leviathan emerging from behind a rocky ridge a few hundred yards to their right. A massive elephant led a procession of nearly forty creatures of all sizes. Rivulets of dust and sand swirled around the elephant’s massive feet for a moment before being swept away by the wind, only to rise in the atmosphere and partially obscure the moonlight, as if the mighty creatures commanded both earth and sky.

Shepard lowered his rifle, his shoulders relaxing, as he gazed at the single-file herd. He wondered where they were heading and how often they trekked through this wilderness, relying on the map and compass in their brains and the generational knowledge that comes from living in one region for so many millennia.

“That’s the matriarch at the front,” said Hamill. “She runs the show and is the oldest of the bunch.”

“And probably the wisest,” said Samira. “Think of the things she’s faced down over the years to protect her tribe.”

Shepard removed his goggles for a moment, forgetting about the human world and wanting to fall in line behind these majestic creatures.

The herd marched alongside the edge of the dwarf forest then skirted north, hugging its edge for a half mile before dropping into a small valley and disappearing. Only the dust cloud briefly revealed their whereabouts until the wind dispersed their passage.

Shepard and the others remained silent for a few minutes, the night returning to its former quiet.

As he pushed on through the narrow game trail in the forest, he felt a strange sense of peace. While he yearned to hold on to the feeling, he forced himself to tamp it down, knowing they still had their own perils to face before the desert was done with them.

Chapter 13

Border of Zambia and Namibia

General Anton Choma swatted a mosquito that got past the netting hanging at either entrance of his spacious safari tent. With the growing intensity of the wind from the coming storm, the shelter felt like it was on a geologic fault line about to erupt as the thick canvas flapped violently with each gust.

He leaned back in his leather chair, reading a news article on his tablet, while the numerous solar lanterns hanging from the log rafters illuminated the twenty-by-sixteen interior. In between paragraphs, he took a sip of bourbon from the gold-rimmed shot glass on his desk.

Finishing the article, he powered down the tablet and set it aside. Choma grabbed a half-eaten chicken drumstick off his dinner plate and flung it at the resting jackal chained to a post in the corner. The three-month-old beast had been captured in a live-trap by his eldest son, Kofi, and presented as a gift. In return, Choma rewarded his son with a command of his own outpost along the Namibian-Botswana border.

Only that outpost had gone silent in recent hours, and he wondered if it was possible for his own blood to have betrayed him.

Did Kofi steal the satellite, planning to sell it for himself? He thought about that possibility then dismissed it, knowing that his son’s IQ was only a few notches above the spotted creature across from him.

Did the Russians show up and take back their prized possession?

Choma thought back to the late-night call on his sat-phone when an Algerian arms dealer informed him of the nature of the supposed space-trash that fell from the sky. And of the significant sum for the finder’s fee if Choma transported the device to the city of Algiers.

There was commotion outside in the moonlight, and he heard his soldiers shouting aggressively. A second later, his bodyguards escorted three haggard men through the front flaps of the tent.

By their tattered camouflage clothing, he knew they belonged to Kofi’s bush unit. Two of the men appeared to be a little beyond sixteen years of age, while the tallest figure in the center was the oldest. The latter had most of his teeth intact, which meant he was probably around twenty years old, since most of the deep desert militants had ground away their teeth by twenty-five from a lifetime of sand particles in their meals.

Choma learned few of his men’s names, since they had a short life-expectancy working for him. The majority of them were murderers and rapists he collected from Zambian prisons, following their release. As long as they followed his two rules of obeying his orders and not stealing, they could live out their miserable lives in his border units.

The tall man stepped forward, his hand trembling as he slid an iPhone onto Choma’s desk. His eyes darted wildly around the tent as he recounted the brutal assault on their three trucks by a group of foreign fighters who rained hell down upon them.

Choma listened intently, while staring through the gangly man, who kept shifting his weight from side to side.

“And the device you were sent to bring back to me?”

The tall man shook his head, lowering his gaze.

“What of Kofi?”

Again, the man shook his head.

Choma’s right eye twitched. He stood, leaning his meaty hands on the edge of the desk. The three militants glanced at the ivory-handled 1911 pistol on the desk then at Choma before taking a step back.

“It’s all there on the phone,” said the oldest man. “I took video of the attackers. I tried calling here but only got through to one of the other border camps.”

Choma snatched up the iPhone, playing the footage. His cheeks tightened as he muttered curses. When he was done, he tossed the device down then glared at the fatigued soldiers. “So, you were playing cameraman, while Kofi and the others were having their brains spilled on the sand?”

The two younger men shuffled to the side, while the oldest raised his interlaced fingers like he was praying. “Please, General. They had weapons too powerful for us. We lost most of our men within minutes of getting out of the trucks. We had to run. To get back here to warn you.”

Choma walked around the desk, placing a hand on the man’s bony shoulder. “Yes, you have warned me. You did good by providing me with images of the thieves’ faces.” He quickly yanked out a fixed blade on his hip and drove it into the man’s belly then slid it up to the sternum. He put a hand on the shrieking man’s face and shoved him back into the arms of his two comrades.

“There is no lower form of life than a coward,” said Choma, dragging his bloody blade across the sleeve of one of the soldiers. He rested the knife on the dying man’s quivering cheek, while casting a gaze between the two youths. “If either of you run from battle again, I will find you and feed you the flesh of your families.”

He nodded towards the exit, the two men quickly scurrying outside. The bodyguards dragged the dead man into the corner where the greedy jackal tore into the torso.

Choma retrieved a satellite phone from a thick metal case in his desk and stepped beyond the rear door into the moonlight.

He momentarily reflected on the tactical loss of his son, grateful that he had four wives and seven more boys. He thought back to the video footage of the battle.

That was a slaughter.

Those four shooters had no cover and kept advancing on my men like demons. Professional soldiers, maybe out of South Africa. That’s the only way they could have gotten to the device so quickly.

He recalled the prominent rock formations in the video, knowing the exact valley where the firefight had occurred. They must be heading north towards Nema.

He dialed a memorized number in the neighboring country of Angola.

The voice of Sowa Motobi picked up on the first ring. “Old friend, it has been too long. How may I be of service?”

As his former right-hand man, Motobi had once served with him during their days in the Angolan military. After being discharged, Motobi went into mercenary work in central Africa, eventually returning to his native country and creating his own lucrative black market network within the lawless tri-border shanty towns of Angola, Zambia and Namibia.

“How would you like a big payday for a few hours’ work?” said Choma.

“Sounds intriguing. Go on.”

“Something of mine has fallen into the wrong hands. I need it retrieved and know you have the right men for this kind of job.”

“You also have no shortage of men. Why the sudden generosity?”

He glanced through the open slit of the tent, seeing the spotted beast chomping on the ribcage. “My troops are more like blunt weapons, jackals enforcing my territory. I could use something more surgical, so I came to you first. If you don’t want the job then I will...”

“I didn’t say that. You made the right call, and I can get the job done as I always have. I assume by calling me this late that this is urgent.”

“Very.”

“Where are the thieves located?”

“South of the Angola-Namibia border. I will send the exact location once my scouts pinpoint the area they are heading. And Sowa, come prepared with some additional firepower. This crew of four took out nearly thirty of my men in the open desert.”

“Like you said, a surgeon is sometimes required. Send me the coordinates, and I will have my helo team heading south as soon as this storm passes.”

“There’s a little shithole of a village called Nema just south of the border. We’ll meet there for the hand-off. Call me once you’ve taken down the thieves.”

“I know the place. I’ll be in touch shortly.”

Choma folded the satellite phone’s antenna and stood gazing at the moon as he contemplated his next move. A few moments later, he barked out the name of his second-in-command.

A tall man in a ruby beret rushed up, standing at attention. “Give the order to break camp. I want everyone ready to leave at sunrise. We are heading west along the border and will gather up the rest of my units along the way.”

“Should this be a hasty pack-up, sir, or do we take down everything?”

“Hasty. We need to move fast, so we can stage along the border north of Nema for a delivery I’m expecting. And make sure to bring all of the RPGs, in case we need to reduce that town to rubble.”

Chapter 14

After three hours of tracking their quarry while maintaining a slow-trot, the Volki team stopped before the withered remains of dwarf trees that extended north and east. The small forest was in a slight depression, which must have filled with seasonal rainfall during the pre-drought years, providing a few decades for life to flourish.

Krachenko and Bystrov kept their rifles fixed on the terrain to the north while Solimin lowered on one knee, providing rear cover. Each of the men swigged down the last of the water in their hydration bladders while snacking on some jerky sticks.

A few minutes later, Mavetsky began working the dirt like a hound, locating and deciphering the boot prints along the tree line. He paused beside a large stump, observing a column of ants that were busy carrying what looked like food crumbs back to their anthill.

“Hey, maybe you can find tracks of the extraterrestrials who brought down our satellite,” said Bystrov to the tracker.

Mavetsky smirked. “With your bug-eyes and big chin, you are the only alien out here, duroc.”

The mantracker walked in a figure-eight pattern around the area for a few minutes, eventually making his way back to the group. The burly man thrust a spear hand to the right. “The Americans all sat down by that stump a few hours ago, having something to eat; and one man took a piss by the edge of the trees. He didn’t even bother to cover it, which makes me think they’re not worried about being followed after running this far.”

Mavetsky moved a few feet to the left, pointing to two divergent trails leading through the trees. “They’re trying to split us up to buy time.” He paused at a set of boot prints with a waffle-pattern. “These are the same tracks I saw by the tailgate of the truck where our satellite had been. He’s the one with the deepest heel marks, so either he’s a fat-ass, or he’s carrying the device. He’s most likely the leader, since he was standing in place for a while by the stump, probably giving orders.”

“No fat-ass runs for three hours.” Krachenko glanced at the thick swath of trees ahead. “Hiking through this scrub is going to slow us down and they could’ve set up some booby-traps. I’m for boxing around this, as long as you think they’re still going to be pushing north?”

“Their direction of travel since they began has been towards that butte. I agree, they are heading north, but it will probably take us just as long to box around this as it will to stay on the trail, and I might learn a few things about them I would otherwise miss. My guess is that they didn’t waste time setting up traps."

Mavetsky looked again at the distant mountain ridges to the east and west, then stared ahead beyond the trees. "Since they left that first truck, they’ve only been intent on gaining distance. Pausing to set man-traps would be counter-productive to that goal. Plus, the team leader helped up one of the bitches back by that stump, which makes me think she might be injured.”

“That means they’ll need to rest more often,” muttered Solimin.

Krachenko gave a slow nod. There was little he could to do argue with the tracker, given he lacked the requisite skills for reading the manuscript on the ground. “Very well. You’ve got the lead. We’ll follow the leader’s boot prints.”

***

An hour later, they emerged from the swath of dead trees. The gnarly brush, along with Mavetsky constantly pausing to scan the ground, slowed their passage. They each squatted along the tree line, studying the valley floor ahead.

After a few minutes, they stood and were about to move forward when Krachenko made a faint whistling sound, thrusting up a fist. In unison, everyone took a knee.

Solimin pointed towards a sandy slope three hundred yards to the northeast. A second later, a flatbed truck emerged from the dunes, meandering along the narrow strip of football-sized river rocks lining the wash.

Arabic music blared from the open windows and the bobbing heads of a driver and passenger grew visible in the moonlight, the truck moving at a paltry fifteen miles per hour along the torturous terrain. Lashed on the flatbed was a pile of elephant tusks along with the carcasses of several large animals that Krachenko couldn’t make out.

“Poachers,” whispered Mavetsky. “They must be following the elephant tracks I spotted running west.”

“Shit, there must be a fortune in ivory,” said Bystrov.

Solimin smirked. “That truck is our fortune.” He glanced over his shoulder at Krachenko, who gave him a nod of approval. Solimin steadied an elbow on his knee, positioning his rifle. The driver’s complete outline through his scope was challenging to see in the dim light, so he placed the red-dot on the dark mass just above the edge of the open window.

Krachenko had taken a prone position, focusing his rifle sights on the passenger. “Mavetsky, you and Bystrov run ahead as soon as we fire and secure that vehicle before it crashes into something.”

The two younger men got into sprinting positions, their rifles clutched near their chests.

Krachenko paused his breathing, his cheek welded against the stock of the FN TAC3 rifle. “Execute,” he whispered.

Both suppressed rifles barked out their lethal 5.56 rounds. The truck kept heading straight for a few seconds then veered to the left, as the driver slumped over the steering wheel.

Mavetsky and Bystrov bolted ahead as if an invisible reel on the truck was pulling them overland.

Bystrov trotted alongside the rolling truck, opening the door and plucking out the limp driver. He shoved his rifle on the center seat and climbed inside, bringing the vehicle to a halt. Mavetsky yanked open the passenger’s door and dragged out the dead body. He stared down into the glassy eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy then rolled over the dainty figure. He bent down and rummaged through the pockets, pulling out an old folding knife then tearing off a leather bracelet and examining the beads in the moonlight, before tossing both items in the sand.

Krachenko and Solimin arrived a minute later and began inspecting the truck.

“Unload all those tusks off the back,” snapped Solimin as the two younger men got busy. Mavetsky stared at the smooth ivory glimmering in the moonlight.

“I call dibs on that small tusk on the side,” he said to Bystrov, who was plucking a forearm-sized piece from the back and jamming it into his pack.

“That slows us down and I’ll toss it,” said Krachenko.

Mavetsky grinned, slapping a wide-eyed Bystrov on the shoulder as both men looked at their prizes. “On the contrary, boss, this will only quicken our pace,” said the tracker.

“These will fetch a good price back home,” said Bystrov.

Mavetsky climbed onto the flatbed and released the cargo buckles, watching the pile of tusks roll like logs off the side.

“We should bury this payload and GPS tag it for the next time we fly south to Jo-Burg,” said Mavetsky.

Krachenko shook his head, giving the tracker a firm stare. He recalled his days as a young operator when he salted away looted cash or raw diamonds from mining towns they’d ransacked. He thought the feeling of possessing such things would never grow old.

Until he realized he’d accrued enough over the years that it eclipsed his military savings. Now, his quest was for a different type of wealth, climbing the ranks until he was one day running the entire division of clandestine services and advising the president himself.

***

Loye was pacing around the tactical-operations center in the musty warehouse, smoking a cigarette while mulling over the options to get Krachenko and his team out of Namibia.

“Sir, just got confirmation from Bakker that he and his team crossed into Namibian airspace a few minutes ago. His cargo plane should be setting down shortly, about thirty kilometers from that butte south of Nema, and then they’ll be wheels up on their dirt bikes.”

Loye paused before the computer monitors on the wall, gazing at the center screen, which showed a large topographic map of eastern Namibia. The recent conflicts with the Choma militants were highlighted along with red arrows showing the direction that the Americans had taken.

“Time until Bakker intercepts the team of four with our tech?” Loye inquired.

The man with the ponytail leaned forward at his workstation. “Bakker indicated sometime just after midnight, depending on topography and the weather.”

Loye fixated on the geologic feature that was in line with the direction of travel the Americans had been following. It was the only significant landmark out there for miles and the surrounding terrain consisted of endless sand dunes, except for the region to the north, where the tight contour lines for several canyons were visible.

If Bakker or Krachenko fail to stop them, then the Americans have to keep pushing towards Nema.

He pointed to the tiny dot on the map. “What’d you find out about that piss-ant town?”

The stout man in the faded t-shirt spoke, “‘Town’ is being too kind. There’s a petrol station which also serves as a general store and an admin building of some kind, along with a bunch of old farmhouses along the Rundiri River, and that’s about it. Maybe sixty people living in the entire settlement. On the outskirts to the west, there’s a dirt airstrip and refueling pumps.”

“What are the vehicular resources there?”

“Trucks at the residences and a few tractors, and there’s a couple boat docks along the river.”

“No air assets at the runway?”

“Nothing I can see.”

He glanced back at the butte, his mind running through Bakker’s coming assault. Loye shot a nervous glance at Nema.

“If the crew who stole our tech gets to a vehicle in that village, then this whole thing is over and we all permanently become persona non grata back in Russia,” Loye said, folding his arms while the analysts gave each other uneasy looks.

The man with the ponytail eagerly swiveled around towards Loye. “The good news is that between Bakker and his six guys, along with our Volki team of four, a good amount of skilled firepower is about to descend on that rock in the desert.”

“Those Americans took out a platoon of armed men earlier while rushing into a shit storm of bullets, so firepower might not be enough. But you’re right about skill. Now, if we could just eliminate luck and random variables from the picture, this story might have a good ending for us.”

The bearded analyst cracked his knuckles, thrusting his chin up at the weather monitor on the left screen. “There’s also a storm about to slam that region.”

Loye grit his teeth. “Too many variables beyond my control right now.” He glanced at his watch then at the bearded man. “Get a hold of our remaining Volki team in Niger. Relay that they are to put their training evolutions with the insurgents on hold. I want them wheels up in the jet. And tell them to prep for extreme conditions in the air and on the ground due to the coming weather.”

“Copy that, sir.”

“What’s the estimate of the time from Niger to the border of Angola and Namibia?”

A few quick calculations on the online map ensued before the man replied, “Unfortunately, that’s nearly two-thousand miles, so we’re looking at six hours, including a stop to refuel at the halfway point in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Add in an hour before they can depart Niger and another hour driving south towards Nema once they hit the ground, and we’re looking at them being in the game by mid-morning tomorrow.”

Loye fixated on the overhead map again. “Krachenko and his team will need a way out of there anyway once he has the device, so this is the best bet against those fucking random variables. And with eight more of our Volki comrades coming in from the north, this will close the net around the Americans in case they do, by some stroke of fucking luck, make it out alive from that butte.”

Chapter 15

After two miles of jogging in a small arroyo, Shepard slowed to a brisk walk as the air hung heavy with a strange odor of rotting meat.

What the hell is that stench? He reminded himself that the two-leggeds weren't the only predators in the region. I hope there isn’t a lion kill nearby.

He climbed up the sandy slope, partially cresting the top. A hundred feet ahead was a cluster of burned out vehicles in a circle around a campfire pit. Over a dozen charred bodies were spread along the ground. The only signs of life were several rodents picking through the remains.

The rest of his team joined him in surveilling the carnage. Finally, he stepped up and moved slowly towards the nearest pickup truck, keeping his AK leveled ahead. He trudged over hundreds of spent brass casings.

Shepard raised his shemagh to avoid the acrid odor of burnt flesh that made his stomach roil. Over the next few minutes, they walked around the remains of several flattened tents, an overturned camp kitchen and assorted mining tools. Most of the bodies were riddled with dozens of bullet holes, and the dehydrating effects of the wind had already made their skin look like it was shrunk-wrap to their bones.

“I count fourteen people,” whispered Viper, as if not to awaken the dead. “Mostly males.”

Nolan stood beside the body of a man cradling a small child. “This was a massacre. These people never had a chance.”

“Got something over here,” said Hamill, who was standing beyond a large flatbed truck. They gathered around her, staring at the body of a dead Choma militant wearing a ruby-red beret who had an ax buried in his chest.

Shepard gazed at the plethora of boot prints. He followed several sets of parallel tracks on the ground that resembled people being dragged towards a string of wide tire tracks that headed north. “These poor pilgrims must have been surveying for copper or gold and been hit by a Choma patrol.”

“I’d like to send a cruise missile down on this General Choma about now,” said Nolan.

“How long ago do you think this happened?” inquired Hamill.

Shepard bent over, scanning the prints. “The tracks are already half-filled in from the wind, so it’s hard to tell. The fact that the campers were barefoot and not wearing shirts, I’d say this was a surprise attack, when they were already in their bedrolls. They couldn’t have been here too long, or the hyenas would have torn them apart.” He glanced at the burned wrecks. “These also look like newer vehicles than what the Choma guys were driving so these folks must have been from the city or a larger settlement.”

Viper gazed at the grisly scene then out to the barren desert. “What the hell were they doing prospecting this far out?”

Hamill chimed in, “From what I’ve read, there are a handful of people in the outlying towns who supplement their income by finding gold dust around the old sites, back when the Germans ran the mining industry.”

Nolan shook his head. “So, the Choma thugs slaughtered these helpless people for a pouch full of shiny dust.”

“The EMP might have rendered these newer rigs useless so they might have been stuck out here, waiting for help,” said Shepard.

He removed a five-gallon water jug from one of the collapsed tents, shaking the empty container before flinging it into the sand. His throat was burning from dehydration as much as it was from the acid surging up from his sour stomach. He’d witnessed brutality before, but something about these innocent people being struck down shook him to the core.

“There’s nothing we can do for them now. We need to keep pushing on,” he said, averting his eyes from the bloodbath. “But if we happen across the crew who did this, our safeties are coming off.”

Chapter 16

Cornelius Bakker stepped down off the rear cargo ramp of the plane and studied the rolling terrain that led west towards a lone rock formation. The butte jutted out of the ground like some misplaced vertebrae of an ancient beast, illuminated even at this distance by the full moon.

Inside the cargo plane, his seven-man team was releasing the buckle-straps holding down the Yamasaki dirt bikes that were lashed to the fuselage during the trip from Johannesburg. The flight in had been rough because of the jarring air-pockets, causing even a few of his hardened men to lose their dinners.

Bakker removed his GPS unit and examined the topographic map, locking in the coordinates of the butte before the approaching storm clouds from the south obscured the horizon.

As a former staff sergeant in the South African Defence Forces, he was used to his share of foul weather, but he knew this storm was almost upon their heels and that any attempt to power through it on their bikes was going to be a recipe for disaster.

He raised the clear riding goggles hanging from his neck and slid them up in place, just as a blast of sand assailed the plane.

“We’re ready to roll, boss,” said a man with a thick red beard who walked down the ramp and came up next to him. Tanner Dodds was a burly six-foot eight commando who had been with Bakker since he launched his small security firm.

Dodds adjusted his tactical vest then slung his Sig Sauer M400 rifle.

“We’ll head out a few hours before sunrise after this storm cell is supposed to clear the area,” said Bakker. “No need to risk having anyone get separated in a sandstorm or drive off the edge of a canyon under these conditions.”

He heard an incoming call on his earpiece, knowing it had to be Vladimir Loye checking on his status.

“Go ahead. This line’s secure.”

“My SAT coverage is useless now with the brownout conditions in the upper atmosphere. I sent you the location of the four Americans who just arrived at rock formation west of you. How long before you can engage them?”

Bakker removed his ruggedized tablet, pulling up the images from Loye and doing a mental calculation of the distances. “We are waiting until the weather eases up. Once we depart, it should be a two-hour ride to the butte, assuming we don’t run across any hidden Choma encampments out here. We should be back on the plane and wheels up a few hours after sunrise.”

“The route ahead was unobstructed during my last visual sweep of the region. The nearest cluster of Choma’s is up near the tri-border region of Angola and Zambia, north of you. Looked like about sixty guys. My bet is they’re preparing for a full-blown incursion into Namibia to get our satellite once the weather clears.”

“Look, this is supposed to be a simple hit-and-run, taking down the Americans and obtaining your device. We’re not equipped for a small-scale war with General Choma and his goons.”

Before Bakker could make a pitch for a bonus to be tacked onto his paycheck, Loye abruptly began speaking.

“That American team has only four people, and they only took out Choma’s other group earlier because those peasants barely knew the working end of their AKs. You and your shit-hot killers will be fine if you run into any opposition. Regardless, I’ll tack on some hazard pay, in the usual amount, given the extreme weather and the possibility of crossing paths with any unexpected visitors from the north. Just get me my fucking satellite.”

Without getting a chance to respond, his earpiece clicked off.

Bakker looked at his second-in-command. “That’s what I like about the Russians. They always get to the damn point and let you know exactly what they want.”

Dodds smirked. “And what the hell the price will be if you fuck things up.”

“Loye never makes threats, though it’s implied in his tone. He knows we’re reliable and always get the job done, which is why I’ve been handling their weapons shipments. But this little op will go a long ways towards showing Krachenko that we’re not limited to arms deals.”

Dodds gave a firm nod. “I sure wouldn’t mind getting in on some of the action the Russians are involved with in other hot spots around Africa. If we could score some of those contracts, it would be a helluva a payday.”

Both men walked back inside the plane as a swirling vortex of tawny silt approached. “My thoughts exactly,” said Bakker. “That’s the great thing about this continent...it’s a never-ending cycle of business opportunities since there’ll always be a starving nation needing a little nudge to liberate its people from this year’s dictator.”

Dodds chuckled. “When you put things that way, it makes it sound like we’re doing God’s work.”

He slammed his fist onto the red button on the cabin wall, closing the entrance ramp. “My friend, God abandoned this stretch of the world long ago.”

Chapter 17

Under the midnight moon, Shepard’s vision was filled with the welcome sight of the butte. The geologic formation of sandstone was nearly four-hundred feet high with a circumference of four miles on the map. On the south and east side, there were vertical walls of smooth rock with black mineral streaks, while the west side exhibited numerous fissures and talus slopes of collapsed boulders, forming a gradual incline leading to the top.

As they approached the formation, Shepard veered to the right, making an obvious beeline in the sand so their tracks would be obvious. There was no hiding them given the terrain, but he wanted it to seem like they were heading for the east side of the butte. When he arrived at the base of the cliffs, they shifted direction towards the west, hugging the shadows.

The buttonhook maneuver would allow them to see anyone following their tracks and provide an easier avenue for sniping.

Five minutes later, they arrived at a cluster of bus-sized boulders that had sheared off from the cliff during past freeze-thaw cycles. Despite the desert having the reputation of being intolerably hot, nearly all arid habitats possessed extreme temperature ranges, from triple-digit during the day to below freezing at night during certain times of the year.

Shepard set down his pack and leaned against a rock slab, finishing the last gulp of water from his hydration tube. The cool wind chilled the sweaty layers under his tactical vest and he could tell the temp had dropped at least twenty degrees in the past hour. He pulled out another meal-replacement bar and bit off a section, chewing away at the chalky tasting substance, while trying to imagine it was a ribeye steak.

“If there’s going to be water out here, it’ll be along the base of this formation where there are clusters of trees. Hamill, you venture up the west side while Nolan takes the east. Turn back after fifteen minutes. Samira and I will keep an eye on our former travel route until your return.”

“Copy that,” said Nolan, trying to slurp out the last few drops from his water bladder. He grabbed his AK then disappeared into the shadows to the right, while Hamill headed in the opposite direction.

“You see something?” said Viper to Shepard after he sent a penetrating gaze towards the south.

He was silent for a few moments, continuing to stare into the blue-gray landscape, where it melted into the silty horizon as a wall of sand inched across the desert. “I can’t shake the feeling that they’re not far off. The Russians. I don’t think they were heading to a secondary exfil site.”

“My gut tells me the same thing.”

He glanced up at the vertical sandstone walls and around the base to either side of where they stood. “It’s still around another ten miles to Nema. We need to make a stand here tonight. I’m not about to repeat this afternoon’s performance in the open desert.”

She gave him a knowing glance. “Feels like that time in Tunisia a few years ago with Foley and Patterson?”

“Yeah, only without the hundred and twenty-degree temps.”

Viper fought back a mild grimace. “Or those basketball-sized camel spiders.”

He turned towards her, his eyes lingering on her face.

“What?”

He let his gaze dwell on her for a moment then slowly pivoted away. “Nothing.”

He wasn’t sure if it was from sheer exhaustion or from the near-death experience of the battle, but he found his normal resistance to her lovely features decreasing. Strangely, a sense of calm flooded over him as he stood beside her.

“Seriously. That was just like the look you gave me earlier. What’s up?”

He sighed, shoving down his feelings. “You are one of the most fearless people I’ve ever met.”

“Says the guy who led the way through a storm of bullets.”

Shepard ruffled out a long exhale, rolling along with the conversation. “You would have done the same thing.”

“Yeah, but you did it with such style.” She dropped into a fighting posture, mimicking his rifle stance but adding in exaggerated head movements.

He patted her on the shoulder. “I think there was a little less swagger than that.”

“Not by much.” She lightly punched him in the arm.

Shepard reacted by gently holding her wrist. He slid his hand down to hers and caressed the back of it. Shepard seemed as surprised as she was.

Samira canted her head. “While I don’t necessarily disapprove of your actions, I’d like to know what the hell you’re doing right now, Cal, since you’ve made it clear that there needed to be a professional distance between us. Your words not mine.”

He sighed, continuing to hold her hand. “You’re right. Some days, most days lately, I’ve been wishing that things were different between us.”

She narrowed her eyes and, for a moment, he wasn’t sure if Samira was going to embrace him or deliver an uppercut. “You turned off that switch a long time ago, Cal.”

“I know. I know, trust me, but there are a lot of times when I wish I’d taken a different route.” Shepard abruptly released her hand and shuffled back as he heard footsteps on his left. Hamill appeared a second later, pausing beside him with a look of trepidation on her face.

“We’re not alone. There’s a cave about four-hundred yards north, near a stone well. There are a half-dozen Choma guys inside, sitting around a campfire along with several women and kids who were tied up.”

He cleared his throat. “Must be the survivors from that burned out convoy we came across.”

“They went from being fulltime nomads to slaves,” said Hamill. “The Choma guys look like they’re all situated in and around the cave, so dropping them shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Shepard rubbed the back of his neck. “Except, we don’t know if there are any other militants on the outskirts of this butte. We rush in to save those people and get caught up in another gunfight, it might not end like the last time.”

Viper thrust her hand out to her left, pointing to a massive wall of sand that filled the entire horizon and extended up towards the heavens, slowly obliterating the distant mountains and the stars. “That storm Vogel warned us about is going to slam this region soon. That’ll provide good cover for us to launch an attack.”

“A sandstorm would sure fit the bill,” said Shepard.

Following a long moment of silence, Nolan appeared from the shadows along the cliffs.

“Anything?” said Cal.

“Sheer rock walls. More importantly, there were a couple of sinkholes near the cliffs. My flashlight didn’t even reach the bottom so we best steer clear of that route.”

“And be on the lookout for where we’re stepping,” said Hamill. “Those geologic features are usually found in clusters from what I’ve read.”

After they filled Nolan in about the militants, they discussed their options. Turning their backs on the captives was quickly dismissed, and they agreed that a recon of the cave area was in order to determine how to expedite a rescue.

Shepard donned his clear goggles again as the wind whipped another round of grit into their faces.

He motioned for Hamill to lead the way, following in her tracks which quickly filled with debris from the raging wind. He made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder, feeling Viper’s eyes upon his back as they trudged along the route.

What the hell were you thinking, Cal, opening that Pandora’s Box with Samira out here?

She was right about him driving away the emotional connection between them in order to maintain a professional distance for himself.

Except the firefight in the valley had awakened something in him; a part of him dreaded the thought of losing her, in a way he’d never experienced before.

You go down this road and it will change everything...the team dynamics, and my decision-making abilities when it comes to her.

He clutched the AK tighter.

Screw that! We could have been cut to pieces back in that valley. What’s the point of living to fight another day if you don’t have the one person you care about the most beside you?

He thought back to something his old CIA mentor Neil Patterson once said: You’re going to retire one day...either at someone else’s hand, literally, or by old age, and you better make sure you’ve lived the life you want, and with the one that makes every sunrise a pleasure to behold, or there’s little point to any of this.

Shepard snapped his mind back to the present, steeling himself for the long night ahead.

The mission and the team first then figure out the rest of this after we’re wheels up for Spain.

He repeated the words a few more times until his head was back in the game, knowing that the battle in the valley was looking like one of many to come before the Kalahari would loosen its grip on them.

Chapter 18

Foley had been driving the old Mitsubishi pickup in the dark for the past three hours, sticking to the secondary highways that formed a patchwork of tangled routes between towns north of the capital. Some were manageable blacktop roads while others were dirt roads compacted like cement after years without rainfall.

Hodges turned on his red-tinted flashlight, studying the foldout map for the next junction. On his lap were a half-dozen paper maps of Namibia that he’d purchased at a gas station before departing Swampkofund.

“Take a left at the upcoming intersection. Then it’s another mile to the small town of Hartseer,” he said.

“We’ll need fuel so that will be a good place to stop, assuming they still rely on the old mechanical gas pumps,” said Foley, resting his right hand on the stick beside his MP5 rifle.

“There are indications on this tourist map that Hartseer has a safari outfitter which provides helicopter tours of the region,” said Vogel from her scrunched position in the rear bench seat.

“If they have an operational bird, then I can get us to Nema in sixty minutes,” said Hodges.

“I thought the tourist season had wound down,” said Foley.

Hodges replied, “A lot of the outfitters take on other jobs during their downtime, like doing geologic surveys or chauffeuring wildlife biologists around the country in their helicopters, so we might be in luck.”

“Let’s just hope this area has escaped the same fate as the other cities out this way,” said Vogel.

Hodges glanced at the tumbleweeds and debris blowing across the road as another blast of wind pelted the truck. “If an EMP strike like this occurred in the States, nearly everyone would be thrust back into the 19th Century except for some rural areas in the Appalachians or out West. When I was assigned to Namibia, many of the outlying towns and villages only got phone landlines put in ten years ago. There are still plenty of folks living in homes with dirt floors, so being off-grid out here isn’t as catastrophic as it is in the more developed parts of the world.”

Foley nodded. “I agree to an extent, but never underestimate what desperation can do to people. And especially how it can warp those already in power, regardless of whether they’re in a high-rise or grass hut.”

After making the left turn, Foley continued on the winding road which skirted along an arroyo before arriving at the southern edge of the town of Hartseer.

The sight of two armed men in tan uniforms standing beside a crudely constructed barricade of metal trash cans caused Foley to quickly brake. Orange flames bellowed out the top of the middle barrel, casting an eerie glow upon the surprised sentries.

“Shit.” He dragged the MP5 across his lap while Vogel and Hodges did the same.

“These guys look like paid security not militia, so we should be OK,” said Hodges.

Two men with flashlights and AKs bobbed along the dirt road as they approached.

“Let me talk to them,” said Hodges, who slid his MP5 on the floor then stepped out of the vehicle. He met the two officers around the front bumper, where the three conversed in Afrikaans for several minutes.

When they had finished, Hodges made his way over to Foley’s open window with the two men beside him. The co-pilot did hasty introductions then waved beyond the barricade.

He thrust his chin at the lanky older man whose uniform was adorned with a gold star above the left breast pocket. “The security chief told me that there’s been talk on the HAM radios about roving gangs striking the surrounding villages so the capitol police sent down a handful of their off-duty officers for protection. They’ve set up barricades around Hartseer since he said it houses the region’s water purification plant. He also said the bridge is out on the other side so the passage north isn’t an option.”

“That means we’ll have to backtrack and loop around through Otavi to the east which is going to add on at least two hours,” said Vogel. “Did you ask him about the safari outfitter having a helicopter or plane?”

The chief must have understood her query as he began sputtering out something in Afrikaans, motioning with his hands while Hodges translated. “The outfitter went out of business a few years ago. He said the road towards Otavi is our best bet to continue inland.”

“We need gas,” said Foley, whose attention had focused on the nervous officer to the right of his chief as the man kept biting his lip, while staring back at a distant building beyond the barricade. Both of the men were fidgety and had bloodshot eyes. The chief looked like he was trying to maintain a calm façade, though his trembling hands made Foley wonder if the man was amped up on drugs.

Hodges and the chief spoke for a few minutes, with the man seeming to grow agitated by the request. He thrust his finger back at the road, his eyes widening. “There’s no fuel left, and he said we should leave so he can get back to patrolling the town.”

Foley’s instincts were screaming at him to leave. He waved to the chief as Hodges returned to the other side and got in. "Thank you, sir. Stay safe.”

“We’re not going to get very far,” said Vogel as Foley backed up and turned around.

“We just need to get outside of their view, then we’re going in on foot to see what’s happening, since that supposed chief is full of shit,” said Foley.

“My impression too,” said Hodges. “Did you see the droplets of blood on his shirt collar, not to mention it looked like his uniform was two sizes too small.”

Foley nodded. “And his fingernails were worn down along with heavily calloused hands. That guy’s not from the city.”

“That other officer sure looked jittery,” said Vogel. “His twitchy fingers made me nervous as hell with the way he was handling his AK.”

Foley sped down the road a mile then pulled off to the right, heading a hundred yards towards a lone acacia tree. “I think Hartseer has been taken over by some thugs exploiting the blackout.”

Foley exited the rig, scanning the rolling terrain towards the town. “Grab everything inside. If there is a helo or a plane in working condition, then we won’t be coming back here.”

The moon was high enough to illuminate the landscape which consisted of little more than ankle-high scrub and rocky hills. He grabbed the gallon jug of water from the back seat and swigged down a third of it before passing it around. “Tank up. This could be a long night.”

When they were ready, he shouldered the duffle bag with the firearms and they set off.

It only took twenty minutes to reach the western cusp of town. Foley squatted beside a dilapidated goat barn near an old homestead, surveying the homes in the distance.

Calling Hartseer a town was a stretch, given there were only around three dozen homes spread along either side of the main road. On the opposite side were railroad tracks and a loading station. Beyond that was a small lodge with a thatched roof and a helicopter, the moon reflecting off the windshield.

“That guy at the barricade sure didn’t want us coming into town,” he said as he continued scanning the region.

A general store and gas station were located at the north end of Hartseer. Near the southern barricade was a small church. He panned his head towards the barricade where only one guard was positioned. Foley removed the Pulsar thermal monocular from his pack and studied the area around the church.

He paused at the sight of a pile of bodies by the rear corner of the building. Foley felt his stomach churn as he watched three armed men rummaging through the pockets of the dead. “Damn, this is worse than I thought. Looks like they rounded up all the men and killed ‘em.”

“I wonder if the rest of the townspeople are in that church?” asked Vogel.

He fixed his stare on Hodges. “There’s a bird across the tracks. Looks like an old Huey.”

“The ubiquitous Huey. That should do, assuming it’s been maintained and has fuel,” said the co-pilot.

“The grounds around the landing pad and the lodge look well-kept...so much for the business going under a few years ago.”

Vogel leaned in closer. “Please tell me we’re not going to just make a run for that helo and leave these barbarians to slaughter the rest of the town?”

“We’re outnumbered, and getting our people back is the priority,” said Hodges in a monotone voice.

Vogel narrowed her eyes. “You’re shitting me. We’re not going to just turn away from what’s going on down there.”

“If one or all of us get iced in a shootout then Shepard and the rest of the team are screwed,” said Hodges. He rested his hand on Vogel’s arm. “Lynn, I get where you’re coming from, but we don’t even know if there are more bad guys running around town or staked out in a sniper hide. We need to get to that bird without any of us springing a leak.”

“You both have valid points,” said Foley. “I don’t think we’d even have a clean getaway if we just took off in the helo, so that’s why a distraction is in order to tilt the odds of winning a firefight in our favor. We do that and we can also save whoever’s left in that church.”

He slid out the takedown sniper rifle from the duffle bag. After he assembled it, he pointed to a fuel truck behind the last row of homes. “We’re gonna blow that to hell. Once the rats are flushed out of hiding, then we’ll do some varmint hunting.”

A whimpering sound came from somewhere in the dark to the right. They all turned their heads in unison towards a rusty metal shed beside an old goat corral.

Foley used hand movements to direct Vogel, who followed him to the shed, while Hodges remained behind to cover them. They walked slowly, skirting around the brittle twigs littering the ground. Vogel took up a position to the left of the door, while Foley grabbed the rope handle and yanked it open.

He had avoided using the flashlight mounted to his rifle barrel until the last minute and now flicked it on, illuminating the terrified faces of a young woman, elderly man and three children huddled in the corner. The youngest girl shrieked, burying her head in the woman’s side while the adults frantically waved their hands.

“It’s OK," whispered Foley who moved inside, lowering his rifle.

He flicked the switch on the flashlight, turning it to a red hue as he kept his rifle at a low-ready. The old man stood, the whites of his eyes accentuated by his leathery brown skin. “You not police. Who are you?” he said in a heavy Afrikaans accent.

“We’re trying to get to our friends north of here. They broke down and need our help. We are only passing through this area.” Foley kept things vague, with the main emphasis upon being transient and not a threat.

“What happened here?” inquired Vogel, pulling a Snickers bar from a pocket and handing it to the young woman.

She grabbed it without hesitation, nodding at the stranger while opening it and breaking off chunks for the children. She glanced up at the old man who began speaking, “Jemwe gang come down from foothills after power go out. They kill convoy guards and gather everyone in church.”

“Why are there convoy guards here?” asked Foley.

The old man scrutinized the two new arrivals as sweat trickled down his cheeks. “Copper mining company in the mountains have pick up here. Convoy come every month from capital to take the minerals.”

“So they’re not here to safeguard the water treatment plant?”

The man gave him a puzzled look.

“That’s what I thought,” said Foley.

He leaned outside, scanning Hodges’ location and the immediate surroundings. He turned towards the older man. “Tell me about that helicopter across the railroad tracks. Does it work?”

The man nodded, folding his arms. “You fly?”

“Not me, but my friend does,” he said.

The woman’s eyes widened as she and the old man exchanged glances before he spoke again. “Take us with you, please, sir.”

Foley shook his head. “You don’t want to go where we’re headin, but we’ll take care of the Jemwe guys so you won’t have to leave.”

He let his MP5 hang down and removed the Glock 19 from his leg holster. “You have experience shooting?”

The old man nodded again, this time fervently. Foley handed him the pistol and held his gaze for a moment, pleased to see the old man’s finger indexed above the trigger. “You may hear some explosions, and you’ll certainly hear some shooting, but just stay in here until we come back for you, alright?”

He clutched his rifle again, flicking off the red light and backing out of the shed, while Vogel followed him. They returned to Hodges, explaining the coming assault plan.

Foley resumed his former position, scanning the town below and doing a final sweep of the church. “I count at least six guys with possibly a few more inside, or combing through the other houses.”

He grabbed two extra MP5 magazines from the duffle bag and stuffed them in his vest while Hodges got into position with the takedown Remington 700 rifle.

Foley looked at Vogel and Hodges as they settled their rifle sights on their respective targets. “Give me two minutes to get behind the dumpster near the church and wait for my hand signal, then we’ll put down these animals.”

Chapter 19

Shepard crouched beside the base of a large palm tree a few feet from the stone well, studying the occupants in the cave ahead. The entrance to the sandstone formation resembled a fish mouth and was roughly thirty feet wide and nearly as high.

There was a gently sloped pathway of streaked, slick rock that led up to the left of the cave, meandering to the top of the butte.

A blazing fire cast shadows upon the spacious interior, illuminating the occupants inside.

Five men in their early twenties were slumbering on bedrolls around the fire, their rifles resting beside them. Along the sloping rear walls were the bound captives, two women with bruised faces and four children. The latter appeared to be under the age of eight and were Velcroed to one another, in between each woman.

Shepard traced his eyes along the contours of the cave until he arrived at the entrance, seeing one sentry squatting against the wall on the right, smoking a cigarette while dumping out the contents of a backpack full of stolen items from the miner’s convoy.

Shepard glanced towards Nolan, hunched beside another immense palm tree, a few feet to his left. The operator pointed to a sentry sitting on a sheltered ledge twenty feet above the left of the cave. Shepard wondered how much the man could observe given he kept dipping his head down to avoid being sandblasted.

The winds were topping fifty-five miles per hour now, and Shepard could feel his body rocking with each tumultuous wave. He gazed over at Viper and Hamill near a cliff face on the far left.

So, seven hostiles, assuming there’s no one roving around north of here.

Shepard looked at both sides of the cliffs, searching for a vehicle but the ferocious winds had reduced visibility to sixty feet.

They must have a rig somewhere nearby. That could be our ticket out of this wasteland.

He watched a few minutes longer then gave hand signals to his team, each of them about to explode into action using an assault they’d performed hundreds of times before.

Nolan focused his AK sights on the sentry on the ledge while Shepard zeroed in on the thug by the entrance. Hamill and Viper had their weapons trained on the campfire crew. The crude WASR Kalashnikovs would be hard pressed to make precision headshots beyond one-hundred fifty yards but peppering someone in the chest with enough lead would still do the job at closer ranges.

The former Delta operator was near enough that Shepard verbally counted down to three, both men dropping their targets with numerous center-mass shots. Before the sentry on the ledge rolled to the ground, Hamill and Viper had already sprung up and were advancing towards the cave, zippering each militant with 7.62 rounds as they sat up.

Nolan remained in overwatch while Shepard leaped into action, rushing in to shoot down the remaining stragglers who were trying to dart away.

Upon dispatching the last hostile, Viper lowered her rifle and immediately raised her outstretched hands as she moved slowly towards the trembling captives. The crying children scurried onto the laps of the women as all of them pressed against the cave wall.

Viper spoke in English then Arabic, unsure what they understood. She squatted down a few feet from them, removing her shemagh as she looked at the oldest woman whose striking green eyes were ringed with fresh bruises.

Shepard gazed around the cave, grateful for the respite from the wind but uncertain how much rest they would get in the bloodied shelter.

***

Shepard and Hamill gathered the dead men’s weapons, placing the AKs and magazines on a bedroll along with a handful of Makarov pistols and machetes.

Nolan joined them, rummaging through the pockets of the militants until he stood up with a keyring, waving it towards his teammates. “I imagine this belongs to the truck.”

Shepard gazed over at Viper, who was consoling the former captives while conversing with the two older women as they recounted their ordeal in broken English. He was always amazed at how Viper could flip a switch, going from a hardened killer to a compassionate rescuer in the blink of an eye.

“These guys should help feed the hyena population,” said Nolan, who began dragging away two corpses by their ankles. Shepard and Hamill joined in the effort, depositing the bodies a hundred feet away near the base of the cliff.

It was during a brief lull in the sandstorm that they all saw it. The glint of the truck’s windshield in the moonlight, sixty yards away.

“Maybe we’ll get a break after all,” said Hamill.

Shepard gave a hearty nod. “I’ll go with Nolan to check it out, while you return to the cave and put out that fire. We don’t need a signal beacon right now.”

Chapter 20

Following three miles of torturous driving along the rock-strewn terrain, Krachenko brought the flatbed truck to a halt. The sandstorm had increased to the point where visibility was reduced to twenty meters, posing a risk of him plummeting into a dry wash or, worse, a small canyon.

Beside him was Solimin while the other two men were hunched outside against the cab, clutching the handholds to avoid being dislodged.

He turned off the headlights and killed the engine. Leaning back, he slid the rear window open slightly as Mavetsky and Bystrov leaned in closer. “We’ll be staying put for a while so find a way to shelter in place.”

The men grunted their dissatisfied responses then went about unraveling a large canvas tarp which they secured over the bedrails and propped up in the middle with a shovel.

Solimin patted the cracked dashboard that was littered with old candy wrappers and cigarette butts. “Lucky we get to bask in this opulent suite. Rank sure has its privileges.”

Krachenko chuckled. “A few years ago that would have been us back there, sleeping in the shit and pulling midnight sentry duty.”

“Yeah, we’ve sure moved up in life.”

Both men laughed. Krachenko rubbed the stubble on his chin, watching the hood of the vehicle disappear in the brownout conditions.

Solimin rummaged through the glovebox. “Remember the time in Belarus when we had to evade through the sewers after the hit on that oligarch fell apart? I’m still not sure what the hell that blue stuff was glowing in the water.”

“I told you, it was the same toxic goop that made those rats look like they were on steroids.” He shook his head. “It took a month for my skin to recover after getting infected. My hair from the knees down never did grow back.”

“And here, I thought you shaved like a woman.”

“Says the guy whose arms and legs look like a fucking gorilla.”

Solimin grinned. He lowered his voice, gazing over his shoulder at the two lumps in back huddled under the flapping tarp. “Speaking of gorillas, what’s the end-game going to be for Mavetsky? He’s not exactly a team player and won’t always have you around to bail his ass out during leave.”

“We’ve dealt with his kind before. They usually straighten out in the end, if they know what’s best for them.”

“He’s far too warped. He’s going to draw unwanted attention to us one day, when he’s tossed in jail for murdering another prostitute. You knew he could become a liability when you recruited him for his bush skills which, I agreed at the time, we needed for our ops in Niger. But, we’ve made inroads with the locals there and could use a native tracker instead.”

“So you suggest I discharge Mavetsky?”

“‘Discharge’ can mean different things.” Solimin swiveled towards Krachenko. “Don’t tell me the same thing hasn’t crossed your mind this past year.”

He had known from the beginning that the Mavetsky was a sociopath, but his tracking skills were unmatched, so he had disregarded his bizarre personal inclinations.

Every warrior had some physical or mental outlet to cope with the PTSD from years of endless missions. For Solimin, it was collecting and reading classical Russian literature and he had amassed a small fortune of first editions at his private chalet in St. Petersburg; Bystrov restored vintage motorcycles which he used for racing; Krachenko was a scuba-diver and spent his free time probing wrecks in the Andaman Sea during visits to Thailand.

But the gaping black hole in Mavetsky could only be temporarily filled through enacting his appalling fantasies. Krachenko had covered for the operator more than once, after discovering his penchant for killing sex workers, and the list of countries Mavetsky could visit in Eastern Europe was growing fewer with each visit. The former soldier was a feral animal that would have ended up in a gulag years ago if it weren’t for his rare fieldcraft abilities.

However, Volki operations had flourished in the wilds of Africa since Mavetsky joined the unit, and Krachenko had no intention of letting their growing status in the eyes of the Kremlin slip away.

All he had to do was maintain a firm grip on the young sadist’s leash for a few months longer until Krachenko could transfer to running ops in the Middle East.

“Maybe we should go back to the days of corporal punishment.” He gazed towards Solimin. “That’s the way our former chief did things. However, that wasn’t exactly the best way to instill confidence in the team in the long run. I prefer to incentivize men rather than beat them or lop off their heads, if at all possible.”

“Incentivizing only works with someone sane, my friend. Mavetsky is going to pollute everyone around him eventually, including you, and then there goes your shot at climbing up the ranks.”

Krachenko leaned back, rubbing an old injury on his right arm. While he couldn’t disagree with anything Solimin had said, now wasn’t the time to reduce the numbers of fighters in his team.

“Let’s revisit this back in Niger once we’ve secured the satellite and I’ve gotten Moscow off my back.”

Chapter 21

Hodges was positioned thirty yards to Vogel’s left, his suppressed Remington 700 fixed on the rear door of the church. His sole job was to punch holes through any armed goons appearing in the exit. Vogel was perched with an AR-15 with a thermal scope, her sights fixed on the lone sentry by the road barricade.

Foley had taken a wide arc along the hillside, emerging near a dumpster near the left corner of the church parking lot. He clutched his suppressed MP5, focusing on the nearest henchman.

He glanced back in the direction of Vogel. Some comms would be nice about now.

Foley had been come up through the special forces and, later, clandestine services during the days before drones and the elaborate tech that dominated contemporary field ops, so he was back to resorting to old-school methods for communicating. In this case, when the first body dropped by Foley’s weapon, then the shooting was to begin.

He leaned out from the side of the dumpster, seeing three men sitting on the back steps. From the shouts inside the church, he figured there were more goons inside.

Time for some janitorial work.

Foley focused his night-sights on the head of the nearest man and squeezed off a single round then immediately repeated his movements with the next two figures, dropping them on the porch.

He darted from the shadows, bounding for the church. The rear door opened, and a thump followed as another henchman was struck in the sternum by Hodges’ .308, which dropped the thug where he stood.

Foley ran up the rear steps, hopping over the dead men and rushing inside the church. He fired two rounds into a man rising up from the right corner then swung his MP5 to the left and shot another figure in the head near the front altar.

Two dozen women and children huddled in the middle, shrieking and clinging to each other. A teenage girl in a red turban thrust her finger at the door behind Foley, but he couldn’t turn in time.

A man bolted inside then froze as his chest and stomach erupted with blood and viscera from multiple bullet holes. A few of the rounds went wild, striking the pews. Foley leaped behind the organ in the corner, yelling at the others to take cover.

A second later, the old man from the shed stepped inside, his shaky pistol hand waving the gun around. He lowered it, his lips trembling as he rushed to a young boy crouched against the wall.

Foley heard a few more thumping bodies collapse outside the building. A minute later, he heard Vogel’s voice as she announced her presence before entering the back door.

“Eight hostiles down,” she said, glancing around the interior at the dismayed faces.

Foley looked at the old man, who was hugging the young boy. “Thanks for the save.”

The man nodded, a faint smile emerging as he embraced the child.

***

An hour later, Foley and the rest of his team followed the old man to the safari outfitter’s lodge. He unlocked the side door and entered, all of them heading to the office at the back.

“Do you work for this company?” asked Vogel.

He nodded, opening the middle drawer of a desk and removing a set of keys. “Do maintenance on this building and two others in town. I in charge of place during off season.”

Hodges stepped closer. “When was the helicopter last refueled?”

The man thought for a moment before responding. “Should be half-full. Owner keep it that way as he come back every few months.”

Foley unzipped a duffle bag, removing a brick of cash and putting it on the desk. “As promised, this is to compensate your boss, as well as a little extra for your own troubles.”

The man’s eyes widened as he stared at the money. He lifted his shirt and slowly removed the Glock, sliding it onto the desk. He shuffled forward and extended his hand towards Foley and the others. “This night could have ended bad, if you not show up.”

Foley removed a spare magazine, placing it beside the pistol. “In case there’s ever such a night again.”

The man handed the keys to Hodges and motioned towards the old Huey stationed outside the window. “You refuel in Mangetti or other towns to northwest. They have older fuel pumps not affected by electricity. Same with helicopter. It very old.”

Hodges grinned. "That's the kind of bird I first learned on, so that's alright with me."

Chapter 22

Shepard was squatting near the mouth of the cave, his vision fixed on the hazy brown surroundings. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Samira kneel beside him.

“How are they holding up?” said Shepard, glancing towards the shadowy figures at the back of the cave.

“The children are scared as hell, as you’d expect. The two women, they bore the worst of it. They, uhm, the Choma guys, they took turns...” She lowered her hardened gaze, folding her arms. “Those guys were fucking animals. Worse than animals.”

A long moment of silence followed, then Samira cleared her throat before continuing. “They were, like you suspected, a part of that mining camp that was massacred earlier. They were planning to drive back home after working all week, but their trucks wouldn’t start. The electronics must have been fried from the EMP, so they camped out, planning to make their way on foot tomorrow.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the group of survivors eating some of Samira’s survival rations.

“The older woman, Tara, said their settlement is about thirty kilometers due west. It’s a small town funded by an international aid group and has a clinic.” “I think we should push in that direction. Some of these kids are in bad shape and the younger woman has broken ribs, and possibly some internal bleeding.”

“Tara say anything about Nema?”

“Like we thought, it’s a tourist location that caters to foreigners wanting to visit the Bushmen villages up north. She said there are only a few locals living there right now, since it’s off season.”

Shepard thrust his chin out towards the location of the truck. “That other town sounds a helluva lot more appealing than banking on Nema.” He handed Samira her full hydration bladder, which he had filled at the stone well. “Go talk to Tara again and see what the route is like driving west from here.”

“This could present a problem for Foley locating us, since he knows our E & E plan was to head to Nema,” she said.

“If we’re a no-show, he’ll head to the next most-likely exfil point in the region. Besides, I’ve been wondering if he’s even going to be able to get Nema; if the rest of the country is in gridlock from the EMP blast then the roads might be shut down.”

Viper raised an eyebrow. “You really think it could have extended out beyond this valley towards the rest of the country?”

“We should assume the worst.”

Her expression soured. “God, what if it took out the entire continent?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “The only thing within our control right now is this little patch of ground around us so let’s focus on that.” He rested his hand on her arm, letting his eyes linger on her face for a moment. “Thanks for talking with them. That couldn’t have been easy after what they’ve been through.”

She flared an eyebrow. “You are thanking me. Who are you, Cal Shepard?”

He smiled, caressing his thumb over her arm. “Just grateful for a lot right now.”

Before she could respond, he angled his head up to the right. “Nolan and I found a path that looks like it heads to the top of the butte. Once this storm dies down, we’re going to head up and see if we can recon the surrounding desert. I’ll check out the route to the west. That town with the clinic may be our best bet and I imagine they’re more likely to have air assets than a place like Nema.”

***

It was nearly three hours later that the winds subsided enough to make the trek to the top of the butte.

“Hey, look at this,” said Nolan, pausing to point at a rock ledge along the left of the slope.

Shepard’s eyes lingered on a series of rock-art panels dotting the sandstone. Some were animal symbols painted in red ochre, while others were spirals or serpentine images. To the far left was a long row of red figures with spears who were standing beside what resembled a body of water while a group of archers on the other side were poised with their bows.

Nolan licked his lips. “Not much has changed. We’re still fighting over resources or a geographic line in the sand.”

“I’ve always felt that warfare is just a highly organized form of theft,” said Cal. “And the side with the most arrows always gets the treasure, whatever it happens to be in that day and age.”

***

Arriving at the top of the butte, they meandered through ankle-high scrub for ten minutes until they reached the edge along the south side.

They squatted down, scanning the gray-blue surface below in the direction they covered earlier. The white orb above was at zenith and it was bright enough to read a book, the light enabling them to make out a herd of gazelles miles in the distance as the animals trudged across the Kalahari, moving between clumps of vegetation nestled along the valley floor.

“I’m not seeing any two-legged visitors,” said Nolan. “If the Volki crew is approaching, they’re going to have to skirt quite a way to the west to have any chance at being concealed, unless they’re going to belly-crawl between rock piles out here.”

“Maybe they bugged out to another location. If I were in their boots, I’d come at us from the north tomorrow, before dawn. Or wait until we arrive at Nema, since that’s the most direct line of travel from here.”

“That’s what I'd do, too,” said Nolan.

They scrutinized the southerly direction for a few more minutes and retraced their steps back a hundred yards before making their way towards the eastern edge of the butte.

Again, they squatted down and studied the landscape. This section had undulating terrain interspersed with sand dunes that jutted out towards the serrated mountains near the horizon.

Nolan pointed to the rim a few feet away. “Pretty sure the area below is where I saw those sinkholes.”

“I’d sure as hell like to avoid those. I remember seeing a few in northern Arizona once that were deep enough that cattle sometimes fell to their death. And one even had a lake at the bottom.”

“I thought Hamill said there weren’t any camels in this part of Africa,” said Nolan, waving his hand towards a singular line of slow-moving creatures in between a row of large dunes many miles away.

Shepard removed the binoculars from his pack, glassing the moonscape below. He felt his stomach constrict. “Shit, those aren’t camels. They’re dirt bikes. Eight tangoes heading for this rock formation.”

“They’re moving in unison and not using their lights, which probably means NVGs. A little sophisticated for Choma guys.”

“Russians must have contingencies in place. Or there are other players involved we don’t know about. An EMP device isn’t a commodity that’s gonna go for chump change on the black market.”

“Probably fifteen miles out, I’d say.” They crept back from their positions, trotting across the butte.

Shepard grinned. “So, that means ten miles out, given your reputation with ranging and distance.”

“Piss off, dude. My math and range skills far exceed yours. Along with my skills of persuasion.”

“The hell does that mean?” Cal said, weaving around a large shrub as they quickly made their way towards the rock pathway leading back to the cave.

“I overheard you and Samira earlier jabbering about your relationship. I had just returned from scouting the east side of the butte, so I hung back in the shadows, unsure if there was going to be fireworks or just you going into an early grave.”

Nolan shook his head. “God, you two need to get a room already...or a cave somewhere. This thing between you and her has been simmering beneath the surface since I met you.”

“Well, my past actions may have sabotaged the attempt at altering that configuration.”

“And there’s your problem. You gotta stop looking at your relationship with her in tactical terms. It’s not an op. Either you’re into the woman or you’re not, and most everyone on this team knows which of those it is, so just get rid of that ‘I need to remain aloof shit’ and get on with it.”

“Says the guy whose longest relationship lasted three months.”

“I haven’t found my Samira yet. That’s the difference, my friend. I’ve seen how she looks at you. And I’m pretty sure she’s only stuck around on this team this long because of her devotion to you, and to Foley, but mostly you.”

He patted Cal on the shoulder. “Look, CRT and Perseus and all these ops aren’t going to last forever. In fact, I’d say our months are numbered, given how rapidly technology is changing in the world. There’s going to be a few more creations like Perseus out there soon, if that hasn’t happened already. Not to mention there’ll be another President in office in the very near future and Foley’s funding will probably dry up overnight. My point is, don’t let your usual religious zealotry to this job keep blinding to you to the treasure right in front of your stubborn ass.”

Shepard paused at the edge, staring down at the stone pathway. “You do know I’m your team leader and could can your ass, right?”

“Yeah, but you’d regret it after a week, and beg me to return, and then I’d have to pretend not to hear you groveling, so you didn’t lose face, and where would that get us.”

Shepard chuckled. “Damn, Derrick, with your bullshit, you could be fast-tracked for a job in D.C.”

They began their descent as Nolan continued speaking in a lower voice. “My last piece of advice is: when this is over, just grab Samira and run. Don’t look back. Especially since that means Foley bumps me up to team leader, and I can finally put CRT on the right track.”

“And there goes the free world.”

He let his friend’s words percolate for a moment then shot his attention back to the incoming bounty hunters. And he was sure that’s what they were, regardless of any government affiliation. The EMP device was the prize, and there had to be a hefty price tag on procuring it.

Arriving at the bottom, they quickly trotted back to the cave. Shepard shifted mental gears, plotting out potential ambush sites as another round of adrenaline began pumping through his veins.

After returning to the cave, Nolan informed the others of the impending threat and told the former captives to seek shelter at the rear by some rock fissures. Shepard headed towards the Choma stockpile of weapons they’d found on the militants, along with those gathered from the truck. He handed off two rifles to the women, who indicated their familiarity with the weapons.

He stowed six grenades in his pack, attaching a few more onto his vest. Next, he grabbed an extra AK, checking to make sure it had a full thirty-round magazine. He picked up the lone set of night-vision goggles he’d found in the vehicle. The last time he saw a model this old was during the early days of fighting Al Qaeda along the Pakistan border.

Still better than being in the dark, should we lose the moonlight.

Nolan, Hamill and Viper joined him, gathering up similar armaments as he hastily explained the plan. It was crude, but designed to split up the coming bikers.

He heard Foley’s voice in his head as he recalled an ambush they had laid in a remote valley in Sierra Leone years ago.

Level the playing field first, then destroy the aggressors.

He glanced up at his surroundings, realizing the irony of plotting out his enemy’s demise using caveman tactics.

Chapter 23

Once the storm cleared, Krachenko managed to drive the truck another four miles before halting at a shallow canyon. From there, they trotted north for the next thirty-minutes, eventually pausing at a cluster of shoulder-high boulders a quarter-mile south of the butte.

“There,” whispered Solimin as he pointed to a string of dirt bikes crossing the desert to the east of the large rock formation. “Could be Bakker out of Jo-Burg. His crew is known for their desert ops on bikes. The tide may have just turned in our favor.”

Krachenko slid back from his perch beside the rock pile. “Loye must have enlisted other assets to cover the border regions in this direction. Assuming that’s the case, he would have also informed them to answer to me, so that the device doesn’t end up in the wrong hands again.”

“But where the hell are the Americans who stole our shit?” asked Bystrov, who jammed a wad of tobacco inside his lower lip.

“They could have pushed on. Maybe they’re no longer at this location,” muttered Mavetsky, as he brushed grit from his ear.

Krachenko was silent, staring into the vastness on either side of the butte. “They are here. They are as tired as we are and aren’t going to risk continuing north in exposed terrain. It looks like their tracks head to the east side.”

Solimin leaned in closer. “If that is Bakker’s crew, then they must have inserted via plane, so we’ll have a ride out of here once we get what we came for.”

“Just point me in the direction of the fight,” said Mavetsky.

Krachenko thrust his chin towards another rock pile three hundred yards to the northeast. “We’ll approach from that side of the formation and set up shooting positions from there.”

“What about Bakker and his guys?” said Bystrov.

Krachenko gazed up at the dissipating cloud cover. “It looks like they are heading towards the north end of the butte, so we’ll let them engage the Americans for a while until we can pinpoint their location and get our tech. If, at any time, the bikers interfere with our approach, or if they return fire, then engage them.”

Solimin leaned back, sending a fierce gaze at Bystrov and Mavetsky. “And it should go without saying but precision shots. We don’t want to damage our device, if at all possible.”

“I thought its destruction was an acceptable outcome if recovery was impossible,” said Bystrov.

Krachenko replied, “The EMP mechanism is critical to retrieve or, worst-case destroy, but the Kremlin techies want the data files and motherboard inside. Those are essential to bring back intact.”

Mavetsky stared into the night while grinning. “Maybe don’t get too precise with shots on the women. Leaving those whores half-alive will suit me just fine.”

Despite the wind, there was an air of silence for a few moments. Bystrov grimaced, inching away from the man. “You’re a sick bastard.”

“Save your perversities for when you’re on leave,” snapped Solimin, who was shaking his head. “We’re here to get our device back, period.”

Krachenko gave a scornful look, driving away the grisly image of Mavetsky’s twisted desires. “Leave no one alive. And no souvenirs. We get what we came for, then head with Bakker to his plane and fly the hell out of this wasteland.”

Chapter 24

The Oryx M2 helicopter descended another two-hundred feet, hugging the contours of the desert. Sowa Motopi gazed around the cabin at the five other fighters doing a final weapons check.

Since departing his guerilla base in southern Angola, they had endured a bumpy ride through the remnants of the storm, but calmer skies had accompanied them for the last fifteen minutes. He glanced down at the GPS in his hand, studying the coordinates on the map that Anton Choma had sent him.

Soon, they would sweep in towards the rock formation where the thieves were most likely located and rain down a world of pain upon the interlopers.

He flipped down his night vision goggles, scanning the miles of endless sand dunes below since crossing the lush Cubango River, which separated Namibia from Angola.

Motopi hated the Kalahari, having grown up with a father who was a prospector, traversing the ramshackle regions along the borderlands and dragging his wife and four children along, while living out of the back of an old pickup truck, hoping to locate a gold outcropping.

But hunger and eye abrasions from the wind were what Motopi recalled having an abundance of, while watching his siblings and mother slowly succumb to the elements, starvation, or his father’s drunken rages.

Now, Motopi controlled those same border towns, running black market operations in opium, trafficking and weapons. And it was all done with his small cadre of brigands, hard men who had survived wars in neighboring countries during Motobi’s mercenary days.

When his former commander contacted him, he initially felt a sense of duty to General Choma, whom he had served with for years during their youth in the Angolan military. And, of course, there was the hefty payment in gold that Choma had offered.

Except, Motobi had contacted an old friend in Morocco who was an arms dealer with international ties and the man had offered to double Choma’s reward for the device, which had appeared recently in back-channels on the dark web.

Motobi needed to get to the GPS coordinates before any other players showed up, if they weren’t already inbound. Regardless, he was confident that the dual mini-guns on the helicopter and the small armament of belt-fed machineguns his men were equipped with could repel a small army.

This will be a good night after I get that device. Then I can turn over my operations along the border to one of my men and retire along the coast, or get a yacht...or both.

He gazed out at the desolate landscape, seeing an approaching rock formation that aligned with the GPS coordinates on his watch.

A faint grin crept out from his furrowed face, the white teeth accentuated against his black skin.

Father always said there was treasure in the Kalahari.

Chapter 25

Krachenko and his men trotted along the pebbly terrain towards the first cluster of car-sized boulders near the butte. He squatted, scanning the path ahead before venturing out. He hadn’t run more than thirty yards when he heard the drone of rotor wash.

He paused, studying the valley of rock spires to the east. The bird must have been flying nap of the Earth, hugging the contours to cloak its presence and using the spires to create an echo chamber that would make pinpointing its exact location impossible.

He resumed running, picking up his pace as his men did the same, each of them now in an all-out sprint for the boulders, three-hundred yards away.

That was when the echoes ceased, causing his heart to race further. Krachenko flicked his head to the right, seeing the helicopter emerge from the shadows, as if it was some unholy creature.

The air erupted with automatic weapons fire, the dual miniguns on the helicopter screaming out as tracer rounds zippered along the ground towards his team.

His legs were already burning, but he pushed his body to the limit, bolting ahead of the incoming row of strafing rounds.

After it unleashed its fury, the bird roared past them, and he slowed momentarily to watch the flight pattern. He knew it would be arcing back towards them in a return run.

Who the fuck was that?

The sound of screaming behind him froze Krachenko in his tracks. He pivoted around, seeing Solimin leaning over Bystrov’s wounded body. The young operator was shrieking and clutching his leg. Even in the moonlight, Krachenko could see the glistening streams of blood running down the right quadriceps which was shredded during the savage blitz.

Mavetsky ran past Krachenko then swung around once he saw his boss stopping. “He’s fucked. And so are we if we try to help him out here in the open.”

Krachenko scowled, thrusting his chin towards a knee-high slab of basalt surrounded by some brush a few feet away. “Then see that we’re covered. In case you’ve forgotten, I never leave my people behind.”

He ran back towards the others while Mavetsky got into sniping position. That the helicopter hadn’t already returned told him they had probably paused near the butte to deposit some men. From experience, he knew that a chopper that size would be carrying upwards of eight shooters.

Krachenko felt his stomach further constrict. It had been a long time since he and his men were the ones who were at such a tactical disadvantage. Usually, his team was raining down hate upon the countryside, and the feeling of being hunted flooded his veins with dread.

Not good. We’re going to be outgunned from the ground and above. We need to take out that helo first then deal with the terrestrial threats.

Solimin had grasped Bystrov around the back to hoist him up. When Krachenko arrived, he propped Bystrov up on his other side, increasing their pace as they headed for Mavetsky’s position.

The crisp desert air filled again with the sickening sound of the approaching Oryx racing back for its second run. The trio made it to the stark cover beside Mavetsky, who was firing controlled bursts into the approaching menace.

Krachenko carefully slid Bystrov to the ground then moved off twenty feet to the right, yanking a phosphorous grenade off his vest and pulling the pin. He whipped it through the air then spun around to cover his ears while squeezing his eyes shut.

The grenade exploded on the ground, sixty yards out from the front of the helicopter. The bird violently wobbled and suddenly descended as the pilots were temporarily blinded.

Krachenko dropped to one knee, steadying his rifle and unleashing a fury of rounds into the front glass while Mavetsky punched 5.56 bullets through the fuselage.

The mini-guns remained silent; the chopper veering hard to the right then spiraling into a nosedive as the two Russians continued their barrage. For a second, it looked like there was an attempt to pull up as the helo levelled off, only to skid along the ground. The nose slammed into the earth then flipped end over end, the tail section spewing out flames as the bird erupted into an orange cloud.

Krachenko immediately swiveled to the right, scanning for movement near the south side of the butte. Though he saw nothing, his gut told him there were more predators in the shadows.

He backtracked towards the others, taking a knee beside Bystrov. The man’s lips were trembling and his face was ashen.

Solimin shook his head as he and Krachenko shared a knowing glance. Krachenko grasped Bystrov’s hand and gave him a firm grip.

“Tell my family...tell them...” the young man clutched his superior’s hand harder.

Krachenko leaned in. “They will know you served your country with honor. And what an admirable warrior you were.”

Bystrov’s eyes widened, his chest heaving. He glanced over at Solimin, who rested his hand upon the man’s quivering cheek. “It’s OK, son. It’s OK.”

The young soldier slumped back, his hand falling by his side. Solimin hung his head while Krachenko lowered the young man’s eyelids.

Mavetsky looked back at his boss then over towards the butte. “Commander, we’re about to have company. So far, I’ve counted three hostiles that were dropped off by the helo, four-hundred meters out by that rock scree to the northwest.”

Krachenko lowered his body further, forcing his mind back to the battle which had only just begun. He crawled up beside Mavetsky. “We’ll be picked apart here. We need to get to those boulders to the east.”

“I’ll stay and cover you and Solimin while you two make a run for it,” said the tracker.

Krachenko gave a grunt of approval then slid back towards the dead man. Solimin had already removed Bystrov’s rifle magazines and pertinent gear.

Both men got into a sprinter’s crouch. “Ready?” asked Solimin in a shaky voice that Krachenko hadn’t heard in years.

“At least there’s a bright side: we won’t have those miniguns spraying us.”

“The bright side for me is when we’re on a plane back to HQ,” said Solimin.

He patted his friend on the shoulder as they sprung into a low-crouch and began running.

Chapter 26

Flecks of sand pelted Cornelius Bakker’s face as he sped along the last half-mile of open desert towards the northeast side of the butte.

His seven men were arranged single-file behind him, their bikes leaving a trail of dust that was quickly disseminated by the wind.

Through his night-vision goggles, he saw a cluster of bus-sized boulders scattered like stone buckshot around the base of the butte. He had tried to contact Loye on his comms, but the static made it impossible to make out the Russian’s words.

From what Loye had last indicated, there was a truck parked on the northwest side of the butte near an old well along with a pile of dead militants that the Americans must have dispatched.

They have to be holed up under some rock ledges or caves. Where there’s water out here, there’s always shelter of some kind.

He eased the throttle, slowing the bike near an angular slab of slick rock that jutted out from the Earth like a witch’s bent finger. He raised up his Sig Sauer M400 rifle, scanning the terrain ahead with the mounted night scope.

“Thought I saw a blast of light in the sky to the south for a minute,” said Dodds, who pulled up alongside him.

“Maybe our target sent up a distress signal,” said Nigel Peck, a bearded man behind Dodds. “They might have a ride inbound.”

Bakker grimaced. “Or Krachenko and his guys are lighting up the sky, engaging our target already, which means this fight is over before we even get there, and we don’t get the rest of our money.”

“I’ve got movement by the northeastern end of that butte,” whispered Dodds, who lowered his rifle, pointing with a spear-hand. “Saw a glimpse of a couple people trotting along the base by that scree. Looked like they were running back towards the direction of the well you told us about.”

Bakker scrutinized the terrain for a moment. “Then maybe Krachenko is in the south and they are fleeing from his advance. We need to get to that well and cut off the Americans before they can head off in the truck. I’m not about to get into a gunfight in the open desert.”

He lowered his rifle, slinging it along his back. Bakker continued driving forward, the column resuming their positions as they sped towards the butte.

***

“Looks like they took the bait,” said Nolan, as Viper and Hamill trotted up to his perch between two immense rock spires. He stepped back, removing the crude night-vision goggles obtained from the Choma crew.

Shepard remained in the shadows nearby, covering the western approach as the moon flitted out behind the last few storm clouds.

He looked over at Viper. “You made it damn clear to Tara and the others that they are to stay put, right? I don’t need anyone wandering along this way and stepping on those grenade tripwires.”

“Yes. I think they’re all still in too much shock to venture out of the cave. Come sunrise, that’ll be another story and we might lose our guide to that town if they take off on foot.”

Shepard glanced at the sky, knowing that dawn was only a few hours away.

What will today bring?

Nolan whispered from his lookout. “Bikers are a mile out. They’ve had to slow down quite a bit, trying to get over that last gnarly stretch. We’ve got five minutes, maybe.”

Shepard motioned for Hamill to come over as the two of them got into shooting positions. He sent a glance towards Viper. “Given the position of the moon, you and Nolan will be in the dark in the direction you’re about to head. Remember to use the terrain as the weapon and don’t engage unless necessary. We still don’t know where Krachenko and his men are at, but that explosion to the south a little while ago must mean they’re engaging a group of militants.”

“Two minutes,” said Nolan, this time in a frenzied voice.

“Good luck,” Viper said to Shepard, her gaze lingering on him for a moment before breaking away. She joined Nolan, both of them making an obvious sprint from the boulders as they ran south, hugging the base of the butte.

Shepard cursed aloud as the moon ducked behind some clouds again, the bikers disappearing from sight for a few seconds. When he had visibility, he glimpsed three bikers veering towards Nolan and Viper and quickly fading from sight behind the hundreds of rock spires dotting the desert.

That left four men still heading towards Shepard and Hamill, over a hundred yards out. Given the low light, iron sights, and crude AKs, he and Hamill opted for unleashing a volley of 7.62 rounds rather than any attempt at precision shooting.

At eighty yards, they commenced their attack, dumping rounds downrange. The drivers were peppered in the legs and torsos, causing them to careen into the spires.

Shepard was about to sweep his rifle to the left when the lead biker suddenly emerged from a dip in the ground. The man had flicked on his bike’s high-powered headlight, blinding Shepard. He averted his eyes while sending a hail of bullets towards the target last seen.

He ducked back and dropped to one knee, blinking hard then searching the ground ahead for signs of movement. In the moonlight, he saw the bike on its side, the engine sputtering out black smoke but no signs of the driver.

***

Bakker emerged from a roll after leaping from the bike, which now lay ten feet away with a flat front tire. Two of his other men hadn’t been so lucky. Their bullet-riddled bodies were lying in contorted positions a few yards away.

Bakker hunkered down behind a rock spire. He tapped on his ear-mic, requesting a SITREP from his men. He heard the response of his three mercs driving south after the two runners. A second later, came the reassuring voice of Dodds, who was situated in the shadows thirty feet to Bakker’s left.

“Two of them just fled south, back in the direction of the well,” said Dodds.

“Is your bike operational?”

“Copy that.”

“Alright, you follow the two squirters on foot towards the well. I’m going to buttonhook out into the desert on your bike and then sweep in from the other direction.”

“I can drive,” said Dodds in an insistent voice.

“You also weigh more than me. I’ll be faster. Now get a move on it.”

He saw Dodds creep out from his hide and slowly make his way towards the base of the butte. While everything Bakker had stated was true, he also figured there would be some surprises in store for anyone following on foot behind the two Americans, and he had no desire to be ambushed again.

***

After several hundred-yard dashes, Nolan and Viper paused beside a clump of knee-high vegetation, relying on the night-vision goggles to scan the meager animal trail that led south. The landscape was a strange hue of green and the movement of several packrats drew her attention to the copious amounts of scree at the base on the right.

“What are you waiting for? Those three bikers aren’t far behind,” said Nolan.

“Where there are packrats, there are cobras, my friend.”

She scrutinized the narrow path ahead. “How far down did you say those sinkholes were again?”

“There was a break in the rockslide, where the scree had fallen into the holes.”

She scanned the precipitous sides of the butte again, seeing a smooth panel of rock a hundred yards away where the crumbled cliff face seemed to melt into the sand.

“Got it!” Just as she stood, they heard the approaching rumble of the motorcycles, causing the packrats to scurry away.

Chapter 27

Nigel Peck had become the lead biker after splitting off from Bakker. His youth growing up doing motocross in the desert east of Pretoria, South Africa, had prepared him for this night.

He took each turn with a measured degree of skill coupled with cockiness. His spry, twenty-five- year-old physique had been hardened by years of martial arts training and he would soon prove his tactical driving abilities to his comrades-in-arms and, more importantly, to Bakker.

Peck had outfitted the bikes with special sound-dampening mufflers and spare fuel tanks to cope with long-range desert ops, and he was proud of his handiwork.

Throttling down to navigate around a pile of rubble, he came around the bend, pausing as he stared at the silhouette of a woman up ahead who had her arm cradled around the shoulder of a tall man who was limping along.

Dumb-ass must have rolled an ankle running from us.

Peck gazed at the surrounding rock formations, wondering if there could be other shooters perched above until he recalled Bakker saying this was a four-person team. He emitted a grin, throttling the Yamasaki and waving at the other two men to follow him.

As he sped up to the desired speed, he removed the fully automatic MP5 from the sling over his chest. Leveling the barrel so it was parallel to the ground, Peck pointed the weapon towards the approaching figures.

His index finger slid down over the trigger just as a grating sound rumbled below his tires. He and the other riders slowed, but they were too late to avoid the shadowy maw in the ground. The rim of the sinkhole gave way and the grinding sound of crumbling rocks blotted out the screams of the three men as they tumbled into the shadowy recess below.

For a second, it reminded Peck of the rush of a night jump. Until his body separated from the bike and he fell headfirst into the jagged boulders littering the bottom.

***

Krachenko fixed the sights of his FN rifle on the slow-moving shadow skulking near the base of a dead palm tree, seventy meters away. He waited for the figure to step out then fired off three rounds. The violent jerking of the head, accompanied by viscous fluid spattering the rocks, confirmed his kill.

Anticipating the remaining enemy’s move, he quickly rolled a few feet over to his right as the ground was strafed by incoming gunfire. Solimin’s rifle to the left barked out several rounds as the operator took down the other gunman.

That only leaves one threat left, but where are you? Krachenko lay flat, peering out from beside a jagged slab of basalt as his eyes strained to make out movement in the fading light emanating from the burning helicopter crash.

He knew Mavetsky was covering the area to the left, while Solimin was focusing on the region ahead near the wreck. Krachenko fixed his gaze on the undulating dunes to his right. His instincts told him the attack would come from that direction as the remaining assaulter attempted to hook in around his position.

He swiveled towards Solimin, giving hand signals he would be moving east. Solimin nodded, repositioning himself to cover Krachenko’s route.

He crouch-walked from one spire to another until he arrived at the first set of dunes. From here it was a kilometer of sand formations that extended into the distance. The smallest dunes were well over his own height which would provide plenty of concealment for a stalker on the other side. The only approach for his attacker would be to either silhouette himself over the peak of the dune or to creep out from between two dunes.

Krachenko knew that an experienced shooter would never risk cresting the top, so that left only one move. He squatted, resting his rifle stock on the rocks and focusing his sights on the wing of sand near the first gap in the dunes.

The moon had faded behind the clouds and Krachenko strained his eyes for signs of movement. Several minutes passed until he caught a momentary shimmer in the returning moonlight. A brief shine along the surface of the sand. Reflexively, he squeezed off two rounds.

A groan emanated from the dunes. The Volki commander crept out, trotting towards a whimpering figure who was curled into a fetal position as blood leaked out along the neckline above his tactical vest. Krachenko noticed the heavy sheen of sweat on the man’s cheeks, which was still glistening in the moonlight. It had been Sowa Motobi’s undoing.

He kicked away the man’s Stag Arms AR-15 rifle and removed the Colt 1911 pistol from a leg holster. He glanced over the desert camouflage clothing and the pricey comms headset. “You’re not a Choma regular. Who sent you?”

The man muttered something in an unfamiliar tongue. Krachenko pressed his heel down onto the guy’s chest until he complied, seething out a response with a heavy accent. “I got orders from General Choma. He said you stole something of his.”

“You zeroed in on the wrong party, asshole.” The faint sound of gunfire echoed off the butte cliffs along the northeast, causing Krachenko to pivot around. He saw several motorcycle headlights bouncing along the desert floor then disappear. Krachenko leaned over the man who was gasping for air, while blood trickled down his chin. “Where were you supposed to meet Choma after you got what you came for?”

“Nema.”

“How many guys does he have?”

The man clutched his sides, coughing. “Usually fifty or sixty guys.”

Krachenko sent a heel stomp down onto the man’s throat, crushing the trachea and snapping the cervical vertebrae. “A better death than you deserve.”

He heard the familiar footfalls of Solimin as his boots crunched along the sand. “Did I just hear mention of Choma? Are he and more of his thugs inbound?”

“No, at least not to this location. Nema is going to be another story, so let’s catch up with Bakker and get our satellite back.”

Mavetsky trotted up, taking a knee beside the edge of the dune while he changed out magazines in his rifle. “I just saw three bikes riding along the eastern flank of that butte. They were there one minute, then gone the next.”

“The riders were dispatched?” said Krachenko.

The mantracker shook his head. “It looked like the ground swallowed them up. I think they must have fallen into a pit or ambush site.”

Krachenko pointed towards the far end of the formation. “There were a handful of bikes by that northern edge. Let’s head there and see about linking up with Bakker.”

***

Ten minutes into their dash back towards the cave, Shepard and Hamill slowed down, recalling the two rock cairns Shepard had placed a few feet before the tripwires for the booby-traps.

One grenade was lightly held down by a heavy tree branch obtained from the well, while the other was secured twenty feet ahead and anchored to the ground with a thin piece of sandstone over the top. The pins had been removed. Strung across the pathway was a fine filament stripped out of the innards of 550 cord taken from Shepard’s survival kit. This was tied to the base of the juvenile palm trees dotting the game trail.

They dispersed the rock cairns then carefully crossed through the minefield. Continuing on for another sixty yards, they huddled by an outcropping of black basalt.

Shepard inhaled the cool air, smelling desert jasmine from the nearby shrubs. Then he noticed another scent intermingled with the sweetness.

This one was noxious.

It was faint, but he was sure it came from exhaust fumes being wafted around by the fickle wind.

While Hamill kept her AK fixed on the grenade-laden pathway to their rear, Shepard peered out into the open desert. Except for fleeting moments, the cloud-veiled moon was of little help in discerning movement.

Then he smelled the foul odor again.

Stronger.

Closer.

The air behind him rang out with the first grenade exploding. The resulting fireball reflected off the smooth butte walls. A brief burst of light bounced off something metallic in the desert, eighty yards out.

Shepard took aim at the approaching biker whose steering had grown disoriented from the explosion.

Night vision isn’t always an ally.

He squeezed off a burst of rounds, striking the rider in the chest and belly. The man slowed then lurched sideways, falling in the sand.

“Threat to the north eliminated,” said Hamill. “He literally went up in pieces.”

“Cover me,” Shepard said, trotting past the desiccated trunks of dead palm trees. Upon reaching the transition to open sand, he ran towards the downed biker.

The man was groaning wildly as he tried to crawl out from under the Yamasaki.

Shepard stood over him, removing the MP5 on his side and a suppressed HK pistol from a leg holster. Several rounds had struck the tactical vest, but one had entered the lower abdomen just below the vest, while several more had mangled the left shoulder and clavicle.

“Helluva way to go,” said Shepard, squatting down to lower his profile. “But you probably know that already.”

“So what. You gonna make me an offer...I give up my source and you put me out of misery, like you’re some fucking knight.”

“I don’t care about your source. You’re probably the B-Team for the Russians. What I’d like to know is: how far out does the power-outage extend in this region?”

“What the hell does that matter?”

Shepard stepped on the man’s abdomen. Bakker shrieked, trying to shove away the boot. “Dead zones from here to the capital and most areas north and south in Namibia.”

The man chuckled. A dribble of blood and saliva unfurled from his lips as Shepard stepped back. “You may have won this round but Krachenko and his crew will have your heads on a pike by tomorrow morning. They’ve been tailing your asses this whole time.”

“Yeah, I heard him and his little wolf pups were out here. And if you were sent to this exact location then that tells me his intel crew are watching the whole show unfold from above.”

“You should know that Volkis never take prisoners.”

Shepard rocked his head from side-to-side. “Neither do I.” He leaned back, doing a partial chamber check on the suppressed HK pistol then squeezed off a round into the man’s head.

He removed the protruding GPS unit from the man’s vest pocket and pulled up the location of the last waypoint. Most likely their plane, but who knows if it’s still there.

Shepard rummaged through the merc’s pockets and vest, then removed the shemagh, noticing a comms headset. He pulled it off, figuring it had to be operating via satellite with the Volki command center.

He slid on the headset, hearing a Russian man barking orders.

But being fluent in the language didn’t make the incoming message pleasing to interpret.

Chapter 28

Shepard retreated with Hamill back to the cave. After checking on the women and children, they took up sentry positions near either end of the shelter.

Five minutes later, the hurried footfalls of two people approaching from the south revealed Nolan and Viper. They both came to a halt beside Shepard, leaning back against the smooth stone walls while sucking in deep breaths.

“Any stragglers behind you to worry about?” he inquired.

“No, the sinkholes have a few more animal skeletons at the bottom, though,” replied Nolan.

Shepard glanced back at the former captives at the rear of the cave. “I just heard some disconcerting news on the comms of one of the dead bikers. Before the merc died, he confirmed that Krachenko and his Volki crew are still at our backs, if not about to descend upon our doorstep at any minute.”

Nolan leaned in closer. “I saw a helicopter go down in the south just after we left you and Hamill. I think there must be another group of Choma’s guys out here involved in a firefight.”

“We can’t assume the Volki guys are off the chessboard,” said Viper.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Shepard. He pointed towards the lone Yamasaki resting on its side near the dead merc. “There are still several operational motorcycles. That one there and another one up near the first contact point. Nolan and I will drive the bikes north to Nema. It’s only a few hours away.” He glanced into Viper’s weary eyes. “Meanwhile, you and Hamill will take the truck and drive the women and kids to the town of Mangetti that Tara mentioned.”

“What? Why separate our forces like that?” she asked.

“Because the other thing in that message I overheard was that Choma and over fifty of his misfits are staged near the Angolan border. If we all head directly to Mangetti then that place, and all of its occupants, will become the new focal point. I’m not gonna put all those innocent people in the crosshairs of that butcher.”

“I agree with Cal,” said Nolan, who had just taken a long draw on his hydration tube. “We can lure the Volki crew away, or whoever else is in the south, while you and Hamill get the others to safety.”

“And what about putting the people of Nema in the crosshairs?” asked Viper.

“Nema’s a small settlement of a few dozen people compared with the hundreds of Mangetti. Plus, there’s a natural buffer with the river gorge there, so anyone seeing Choma and his army coming is going to have a little time to head in the other direction.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And what about you two? What’s your escape plan after you get there?”

“We’re wasting valuable time,” said Nolan.

Shepard turned his attention towards the former Delta operator. “Tell Hamill the plan and get everyone to the truck, then meet me back here.”

After Nolan departed, Shepard stepped closer to Viper, reaching down for her hand. He caressed her fingers for a moment then slid the truck key into her palm. Shepard reached into his BDU pocket and removed something wrapped in his shemagh, putting it into her backpack. “And here’s a little something to remember our Kalahari adventure...just in case something happens to me.”

She gripped his arm. “Nothing better happen. We’re all going to Spain after this, Cal.” Samira moved her hand up to his cheek. “You better remember that.”

***

Solimin paused beside a thick clump of bushes, resting on one knee as he scanned the route to the north. He pointed the barrel of his rifle towards several dark splotches in the ground to the left. “We better take a wider berth around this formation. Those look like sinkholes. Probably the same ones that Mavetsky saw three of Bakker’s guys plunge into.”

“I fucking hate the desert even more after being down here,” said Krachenko.

Mavetsky pulled back the night vision binoculars he’d obtained from the dead merc. “No signs of the plane Bakker came in on, but I saw two motorcycles that appear less mangled than the others, near the rock spires thirty meters ahead.”

Krachenko nodded at the tracker. “You inspect the bikes while we cover you from here. See if you can find one more, or some means of draining the fuel from another, so we have extra gas.”

“Copy that.” Mavetsky bounded from one geologic formation to the next, melting into the shadows.

Solimin pointed to two dark blips floating across the northern horizon as two motorcycles appeared briefly in the moonlight before disappearing over a ridge of sand dunes.

“I couldn’t tell if they were riding tandem or not,” said Krachenko. “Shit, the Americans must be pushing on to Nema.”

“Looked like two riders but I’m not entirely sure,” Solimin replied, muffling a cough.”

“You good?”

Solimin turned, his face more stolid than usual. “I think I cracked a rib when I took a fall on the rocks after that helo exploded.”

He patted Solimin on the shoulder. “You old-timer. You’ve got too many miles on that rusty frame.”

“Pff...you’re the guy keeping the knee-brace industry in business, so piss off.”

The two men chuckled, watching Mavetsky make it to the motorcycles. Once he gave the thumbs-up, Krachenko sprung up and darted towards the tracker while Solimin provided overwatch.

Chapter 29

Blood orange fingers of dawn split through the cumulus clouds, illuminating the Kalahari and allowing Viper to maneuver the truck along the rutted dirt road that led to Mangetti.

It had been two hours since they departed the cave, after waiting thirty minutes for Shepard and Nolan to gain distance from the butte. As she suspected, a team of Volki operators followed shortly afterwards, the face of Sergei Krachenko in range of her binoculars but too short of targeting the man with her rifle.

Now, she felt sidelined, heading to a village to ride out the rest of the mission from a distance. In the end, she had agreed with Shepard’s reasoning for splitting up. It was the only way to ensure the safety of the women and children, and prevent a wave of carnage from descending upon Mangetti.

But what the hell is your plan in Nema, Cal? There had been brief talk about obtaining a vehicle or even seeing if any boats were available on the Rundiri River.

Viper gripped the steering wheel tighter. Need to get a damn phone and reach Foley. That shouldn’t be such a hard thing to accomplish!

She silently cursed, marveling at how their cutting-edge team, supported by one of the most advanced cyber-programs on the planet, had been upended in mere seconds by a brief EMP shockwave.

We are too dependent on externals...on our tech. She thought about the future of CRT which relied entirely on Perseus to guide its mission focus. How much time before it becomes obsolete? And how long after that before this team becomes dispensable?

She didn’t have any answers, only gnawing questions. Viper glanced in the rearview mirror at the weary faces of the survivors leaning into one another in the back seat. She knew that pulling others out of harm’s way would always be the mission, and no software system or bureaucracy was going to alter her innate desire to do the right thing.

***

After cresting a small berm, Shepard brought the Yamasaki to a halt. He stepped off the bike, pulling out the map from his BDU pocket and unfolding it long enough to get his bearings. He pointed over the handlebars to a distant ridge. “Nema is just on the other side of that, maybe six more miles.”

He briefly gazed to the west, figuring Viper and Hamill would arrive in Mangetti soon. He felt her absence, like a part of himself was missing. Shepard returned to his bike, focusing on the path ahead. His body ached and his head was pounding from the lack of sleep and the concussive effects of too much battle. But through it all, was the one constant of seeing Samira’s face whenever he closed his eyes.

Just get through this day. I’ll figure out the rest after that. Stay alert...I’ve got a lot to live for.

Chapter 30

Krachenko piloted the bike through the maze of rock pillars, slowing to avoid choking on more dust from Solimin’s motorcycle ahead. Suddenly, Solimin decelerated and came to an abrupt halt under the withered skeleton of an old tree.

Krachenko slowed further and came to a rest beside the tree.

“What the fuck are we stopping for?” said Mavetsky, who hopped off Krachenko’s bike.

Solimin shuffled towards the tree trunk, resting one hand against the smooth surface. “Just need to take a piss.”

“Krachenko killed the engine and disembarked. He moved under the scant shade provided by the immense branches of the dead tree. He glanced at his comrade, noticing the red stain on the soil where Solimin had relieved himself. “You alright?”

“Fine. Just need to rest for a second.” The soldier leaned against the trunk and slid to the ground, closing his eyes.

It was then that Krachenko noticed the crimson swath of blood saturating Solimin’s pants near the lower abdomen. He slid in closer, kneeling down beside his friend. “Shit, you got hit back there. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I figured I would if it interfered with our progress.” He tilted his head, his cheeks growing pale. “Guess that time has come.”

Krachenko yanked out his trauma kit and moved in closer, but Solimin waved him off. “You know that’s not gonna do anything now. The sand in my hourglass is nearly up.”

“We don’t have time for this,” snapped Mavetsky from behind, as he kept overwatch on the terrain to the north.

Krachenko ignored him, peeling back Solimin’s outer jacket and lifting the t-shirt, revealing a nickel-sized hole just above the right hip. The lower abdomen was swollen and bruised, and he wondered how the man had gotten this far.

“You’re a tough old badger. Fortunately, it’s just a nick. I’ll get you patched up and you can ride with me.”

Solimin emitted a weak chuckle. “We’ve already had our ride in the sun, my friend. I’m grateful to have served under you all these years.” He reached out his trembling hand. Krachenko clasped both of his around Solimin’s.

“Remember, to save some of yourself for what comes after the battlefield. There has to...has to be more than just this in your life.” Solimin rested his head against the trunk, staring up at the cobalt sky. He blinked hard for a few seconds then trickled out his last breath.

Krachenko held on to his grip for a minute longer. He placed Solimin’s hand on his lap before gently lowering his eyelids.

He felt his chest tighten as he fought to suck in a deep breath. Krachenko stood and glanced at the endless miles of sand and rock, framed above by a powder-blue sky. “Helluva final resting spot, my old friend.”

“Can we go?” said Mavetsky.

Krachenko shot a predatory look at the tracker, resting his hand on his pistol. “Last I recall, I was giving the orders, so unless you want the vultures to feed upon two bodies out here, you need to shut the fuck up. Got it?”

“Got it,” Mavetsky, said with a heavy sigh.

“Gather up Solimin’s remaining mags while I scout the route ahead.”

***

Loye gazed up from his laptop, watching the satellite video feed in silence as two motorcycle riders continued north after pausing for a break. That one of them was left behind was troubling and could only mean another one of the Volki commandos had perished.

From the stocky configurations of the two riders, he was certain the riders were Mavetsky and Krachenko. He felt a pang of loss for the other operators, knowing Bystrov and Solimin would not easily be replaced.

He clutched the sides of his seat, knowing all of his carefully laid plans had gone to hell in mere hours. He had watched helplessly as Bakker and his crew were taken down, followed by Krachenko’s unit being savagely attacked by a mercenary outfit that had blitzed in from nowhere.

He slammed his laptop shut and stood, heading to his intel-crew at their workstations. “What’s the ETA of the other Volki team coming from Niger?”

The bearded analyst pulled up the flight tracking software and tapped a finger at a red dot on the map of Africa. “They should be touching down within two hours at a small airstrip in Angola. After that, they’re going to rendezvous with the helo pilot you arranged.”

Loye leaned over the man, pecking away on the keyboard to enhance the map. “They could be in Nema thirty minutes after that.” He pulled back and began pacing around the workstation.

The man with the ponytail swiveled around in his seat. “I’ve been tracking that mass of troops that crossed the Zambia border into Namibia, and they’re going to be in Nema within the hour.”

“What size is the force?” asked Loye.

The analyst spun around, examining the image on his computer screen. “Fifty-plus men, I’d say.”

Loye slid both his hands through his black hair then let them rest behind his head, like he was preventing himself from tumbling back into a pit. “Concentrate efforts on the villages and exfil routes west of Nema and along the Rundiri River. Krachenko will have to head that way if he’s to avoid getting mowed down by Choma’s army.”

It looks like this is going to be another long fucking day.

Chapter 31

Upon arriving in the town of Mangetti, Tara led the other survivors to a small clinic, while Hamill and Viper remained by a refueling station near the truck.

They purchased two bottles of warm Coke and an expired bag of potato chips, and sat down in the shade of a large elm tree, while several stray dogs came up to inspect the new arrivals.

Mangetti occupied a mile of valley floor and was nestled between two mountain ranges intersected by a single-lane paved road that ran to the coast. From what they gathered from Tara, the place was a service-town for the outlying villages which catered to tourists, prospectors and copper miners.

Mangetti’s two-hundred occupants lived in tin-roofed homes that were a blend of adobe and stick-frame construction. Besides a mini-mart and hardware store, which were only open on weekends, the other shops were a mechanic’s garage and the clinic.

They learned from the owner of the gas station that Mangetti hadn’t suffered complete blackout conditions like many other regions since the town depended on gas generators and a large array of solar panels, which had been provided by a British humanitarian group a few years back. But none of that had spared the mobile phones, cell towers and two-way radios in the region. They were as isolated from the outside as they were at the cave, only now they had processed food and the company of mangy scavengers.

Viper tossed a stale chip to a black dog hovering by them, who ignored the greasy morsel and plunk down beside her. She glanced down the dirt road that also served as a sidewalk for the locals, watching some children kicking a ball in the distance as chickens scrambled out of the way. “Hard to believe that a few hours ago we were in the stone-age, fighting for survival.”

Hamill took a long draw on the Coke then set the empty bottle down. “Yeah, I think this is why towns and cities were developed in the first place. Too many nasties in the wilds to deal with.”

“I’d take that cave any day over New York City or L.A.”

Hamill put out her hands, prompting Viper to fill it with chips. “And that’s where you and I differ, my friend. I’ll gladly hunker down in a city over some bug-infested desert or jungle. Plus, there are far more resources in a city.”

Viper shrugged her shoulders. “Depends on how you grew up, I guess. You hopped around Europe with your parents when you were a kid. I bounced around refugee camps with mine after we fled Syria. Having a tarp over my head and food to eat was what mattered the most.” She waved her hand towards the homes. “This town seems like a posh resort compared with a lot of the places I lived in until we made it to America.”

“The geography of our childhood shapes so much of our world view. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“And I’m sorry you had to suffer through so many grueling years of eating those rich pastries in Austria and France.”

“Shut up,” said Hamill with a grin, flicking a twig at her.

A long silence followed as the two women took in their new surroundings, constantly gazing out towards the eastern desert as they wondered about their friends.

They watched Tara emerge from a side street and head towards them. She was clutching a woven tote bag and sat down across from them.

“Here are some dates, cashews and fruit. I’m sorry, but it’s all I can offer to repay you for what you did.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” said Viper, resting her hand on Tara’s arm.

The woman emitted a weak smile as tears streamed down her dusty cheeks. Hamill pried apart a mango, handing Tara a slice. “What will you do now?”

“I have an aunt here that will let us stay with her until I figure things out.” She dragged a sleeve across her moist face. “I asked around but everyone’s phones are not working, nor are their computers. It sounds like the same thing that happened to our vehicles in the desert also happened here. People are scared because their livelihoods are going to be affected, being out of touch with their business partners in the other towns and in the capital.”

Hamill and Viper gave each other knowing glances, seeing the larger impact of this mission in a way they could never have anticipated two days ago.

Tara stood, motioning towards the clinic. “I must go check on my friend and her son. I don’t know what your plans are, but please come see me before you leave.”

The two women rose and exchanged hugs with Tara. After she was gone, they returned to the truck and retrieved their packs. Viper opened the top flap of her backpack to grab some sunscreen, recalling the bundle that Shepard had given her. She unfurled the shemagh, glancing at the items, her pulse quickening.

Cal, what have you done?

Hamill moved up beside her, clutching her rifle. “You hear that?”

Both women canted their heads, searching the sky. “Helicopter. That’s either going to be good for us or very, very bad,” said Viper, zeroing in on a black blip along the skyline that had just emerged over the mountains. “How many mags you got left?”

“Not as many as I’d like. Six pistol mags and two for the AK.”

“Nearly the same here.” Viper glanced around the stark village grounds. “I noticed an adobe-style home at the far end of the settlement. That’ll provide some good cover to retreat to in the event these are the Russians or Choma’s guys.”

“I say we stage right here for an assault when they touch down, while they’re all clustered together.”

“Agreed.” They grabbed their packs and headed towards some empty oil drums.

“And if we make it through this next shit storm, then I’d say don’t waste time waiting for Cal to make the next move. Finding someone that you want to spend your days with is hard enough. It seems like you’ve already done that part. You just have to cut through some of the barbed wire that’s been keeping you two apart for so long.”

She kneeled down beside a barrel, steadying her rifle. “When did you turn into such a wise woman?”

“You’re assuming I wasn’t one all along.” She winked at Viper then fixed her AK on the incoming helicopter, as it touched down.

And for the first time since they set foot in Africa, Viper felt the tension drain from her shoulders, seeing Foley stepping out of the Huey.

Viper and Hamill hopped up, eagerly striding out to meet the new arrivals. Samira surprised herself at the hearty hugs she foisted upon Foley and Vogel.

He shot a glance around Mangetti. “Please tell me Cal and Derrick are throwing down some cold ones in town right now.”

Viper lowered her head, her smile fading. “Not here. Not in this town, anyway.”

She glanced beyond their shoulders and into the open interior of the old Huey. “I see you brought the gear bags from the Antanov. Any chance you also brought the bundles of discretionary cash?”

He gave her an odd stare. “Yeah, why?”

Viper nodded in the direction of the clinic. “There’s a woman here who’s suffered a great deal because of the device we came for. I was thinking a small donation might be in order before we depart for Nema.”

Foley and Vogel exchanged knowing glances as he frowned. “I’m beginning to feel like an ATM on this mission.”

Chapter 32

The last three miles of travel along the open desert were grueling, with Shepard and Nolan hitting every jagged rock and depression, which seemed to conspire against their passage.

Cresting a ridge, Shepard paused his bike while Nolan came up alongside him. Both men scanned the layout of Nema a half-mile in the distance. It consisted of little more than a few dozen homes, a fuel station and Quonset huts spread out over a half-mile of parched terrain, intermingled with the occasional acacia tree.

“Welcome to the Promised Land, just like you said,” quipped Nolan. “Just hope the bar is serving this early.”

“That’s never stopped you before.”

“Day drinking is an underrated pastime.”

Shepard thrust his chin out towards a stone farmhouse on the east side of the village, beside a bridge spanning the Rundiri River. “Let’s start there. Looks like a defensible position and with some decent escape routes.”

“I think I speak for everyone here, meaning you and I, that I’m ready to be done with the evasion phase of this mission.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” He swept his gaze over the settlement. “No one in sight, and it looks like all the vehicles are gone, too. Maybe we’ll find one and then we can get out of Dodge.”

“Some of the homes are boarded up. Hamill said this was a tourist destination, at least for part of the year. Never would have thought it to be a ghost town.”

“The Russian transmission I heard from that merc’s radio, indicated a buildup of Choma’s guys along the border. The folks here must have gotten word and cleared out.”

“That bridge over the river gorge looks like the only approach from the north. If I can figure out a way to block that off, then I may be able to buy us some time if Choma moves into the valley.”

“Let’s clear the farmhouse then do what we can to harden our defenses. I’m hoping that Samira and Jess can find a way to get in touch with Foley, so they can get the Antanov down this way.”

“Hope is a poor part of a plan.”

“I’m hoping you’re wrong, amigo.”

***

General Choma glassed the desert to the south then let the binoculars hang down from his neck. He glanced at the row of sixty-two soldiers in the trucks to his left and right.

Their sole function was to overwhelm the foreigners who’d just arrived in Nema. He gazed at the sweat-soaked face of the young scout who’d just returned on his motorcycle. “You are sure there are only two men?”

The guy nodded, dumping the contents of his canteen over his head. “Two white men on motorcycles, but I also saw a cloud of dust several kilometers to the south, so there might be more people coming.”

Choma ruffled out a breath. Motobi and his assault team must have been taken down.

Since Choma’s inside man living in the Angolan village where Motobi resided hadn’t reported in about the helicopter returning, he figured Motobi’s bones were being picked apart by vultures near the butte.

He glanced at his watch. Since it was only a few hours past dawn, he knew daylight was not an issue. They would traverse the twenty-one miles to Nema within two hours. And with no resistance from the locals or concerns about the Namibian military, who were occupied with the fallout from the chaos in the larger cities, Nema would be his for the taking.

The hell with surgical operations from now on. I will level that village until I get back what is mine.

He raised his hand and gazed down at either side of his troops. “Follow behind me and stay in single file. Once we reach the bridge, half of you will remain on this side of the river to provide cover support while the rest will accompany me into Nema. Any of the villagers can be shot on sight, but I want the two soldiers alive so kneecap them only.”

Chapter 33

Once they reached the outskirts of Nema, Krachenko veered to the west rather than following the tracks of the Americans. He feared an ambush and opted instead for approaching the town from the opposite direction.

With each mile they traveled, he felt the cavernous loss of Solimin. Beyond the reduction in manpower, the man had always been an invaluable sounding board for Krachenko’s strategic thinking not to mention a goldmine of tactical experience from decades of combat. Solimin had also been the only person left from his early days in the military, and someone with uncontested loyalty who had been knee-deep in blood and sweat with him for decades.

Now, Krachenko was stuck with a sociopath, whose only redeeming quality stemmed from his mantracking and shooting abilities. Beyond that, he viewed Mavetsky as a warped instrument unusable outside of the wilds.

We must shape the men under us into the tools we need. He heard Solimin’s voice in his head.

Except there is nothing that can refine Mavetsky, he thought.

He stopped his bike at the first adobe home on the left, parking beside a clothesline of recently washed garments near the rear porch, while Mavetsky pulled up alongside him. Krachenko removed the binoculars from his pack and scanned the jeep path that led towards the far side of Nema.

“That bridge by the old farmhouse provides a nice geographic containment point and the Americans’ tracks looked like they led in that direction,” said Mavetsky, who gazed briefly at the women’s underwear on the clothesline. “I’m just not sure if the two riders had company along.”

“Not a soul in sight in this whole region,” said Krachenko.

“Lots of vehicle tracks heading west. Looks like people got out of here in a hurry.”

Krachenko panned the binoculars beyond the bridge towards the dusty horizon. He stopped glassing for a second, glancing at the garments on the clothesline and the half-eaten breakfast platters on the porch table. “Shit. I think I know why, and it sure as hell isn’t because of a sand storm. There must be more militants inbound.”

He swung his binoculars towards the stone farmhouse near the bridge, his eyes settling on two motorcycles parked near the far side of the dwelling. A lone figure emerged from the side door, lugging two propane tanks towards a barn. A minute later, a red tractor emerged with another man driving it along a gravel path towards the bridge.

“What the hell are they doing?”

Mavetsky leaned his scoped rifle on the porch railing, scanning the farmhouse. “You want me to drop ‘em?”

“No, we don’t know where the satellite components are. But now is a good time to close the distance between us.”

“And then we eliminate them?”

“No. I have another idea.”

Chapter 34

Nolan finished parking the red tractor in the middle of the one-lane bridge then turned off the engine. He stepped around to the rear, examining the two propane tanks and gas cans that had been lashed to the storage rack.

Once ignited, the IED would send a hail of metal shrapnel and searing flame onto anyone crossing this route. After finishing his inspection, he trotted back along the bridge and crossed the open field leading to the rear of the stone farmhouse, where Shepard was providing overwatch beside a water cistern.

“That should slow down anyone trying to cross from that direction,” said Nolan, who was staring at the brown haze over the northwestern horizon. “Looks like we’ll be having company soon.”

“It’s not that direction that concerns me right now. I could swear I just heard dirt bikes somewhere across town. It was only for a second, though.”

“Volki. Has to be. We took down the other crew that arrived on the motorcycles.”

Shepard glanced between the growing dust cloud beyond the bridge and back at the road from town leading to the farmhouse. “We need to focus our attention on the front of this place for now. You take the upstairs bedroom.”

“One more thing: when I was on the bridge, I noticed a small dock along the river with a motorboat. There’s a footpath beyond the pump house on the edge of this property that leads down to a beach.”

Shepard briefly felt his shoulders relax. “I wish we had time to inspect it, but that’s good to know. If I recall from an earlier look at the maps, the Rundiri River flows all the way to the ocean.”

“Just in case, I’ll look for some fishing poles while I’m inside the house.”

“And see if you can drum up a .50 cal and some RPGs.”

And the blessing of the African god of war.

***

General Choma stood in the back of the pickup truck, removing one hand from the roll bars and raising it high so his men knew the convoy was stopping. From the vehicle’s perch on the rocky ridgeline, he scanned the town of Nema, three miles distant.

It had been over a decade since he’d last visited this region, and he was pleased that a new steel bridge spanned the river near the edge of town. He watched as a white man in desert fatigues disembarked a tractor in the middle of the bridge and ran back towards a stone house.

“You are mine, you rat bastard.”

He pivoted towards the vehicle behind him, waving them over.

The battered Toyota Tundra pulled up on his right side, the driver turning down the blaring music which was a Korean version of a One Direction song.

“I want you and the four vehicles behind you to head southwest towards that rock outcropping overlooking the river, four kilometers down. There’s an old wooden bridge there that will hopefully still be passable for the trucks. If it isn’t, then cross on foot. I want your group to close in on that farmhouse from the other side of Nema.”

The man nodded, his oversized red beret sliding further down his glistening forehead. He leaned out the Tundra’s window and barked orders at the vehicles behind him before driving over the rocky slope to the right.

Choma drummed his palm on the top of the truck, indicating his driver should proceed forward. He figured that the tractor the foreigner had placed on the bridge was more than just a roadblock. He glanced back at the convoy, picking out the most inexperienced crew who would take point when they arrived at the river.

Chapter 35

After watching the front of the property for the past fifteen minutes, Shepard moved to the rear of the house, standing alongside the dining room window with his eyes fixed on the approaching vehicle convoy across the river. The trucks were struggling to negotiate the rocky terrain, crawling the last few miles.

“Ten more minutes to contact, I’d say,” he shouted towards the stairs leading to the second floor, before setting his pack down on the kitchen table.

“Good, because you’re not going to believe what I’m seeing right now.”

Shepard pulled back, turning towards the stairs. “The Volki crew?”

“One of them, anyway. At least I’m pretty sure he is by the way he’s decked out. And he’s approaching the farmhouse, waving a fucking white flag.”

Shepard wove through the kitchen to the living room, peering through the thin veil of curtains before the bay windows. “Any other movement out there?”

“Nada.”

He watched the lone figure in black fatigues stop sixty feet from the farmhouse. “We need to talk. All I want is our satellite component, then we’ll be on our way.”

“The balls on this guy,” shouted Nolan. “My front sight is fixed on his brainbox, so just say the word.”

“Not yet. I want to hear what he has to say.”

“You’re not seriously thinking about going out to meet him?”

“He and his crew could have already stormed our location, which means they must have reduced numbers like us. And he’s not going to frag this place and risk destroying the satellite component. He knows we have the upper hand.”

“And he’s probably got one or two of his guys staked out in a sniper hide.”

“Which is why you’re going to keep an eye on my right hand. If I wave then drop the son of a bitch and make for that boat.”

“And you?”

“I won’t be too far behind you.”

Shepard walked to the front door. He headed out, stepping off the porch and making his way across the parched meadow, while keeping his rifle fixed on the solitary figure.

He alternated his gaze between the operator and the outlying homes in the distance. If there were other gunmen, they would have to be at least three-hundred yards out. Not a problem for a rifle with reach, but at least no one would blitz in on foot to surprise him.

Shepard stopped ten feet from the man. From the dust-caked garments to the deeply tan face and hands, Shepard wondered if he was glancing in a mirror.

“Sergei Krachenko, I presume?”

A faint smile creaked out from the cracked lips. “And you are?”

“I’m fucking tired and ready to get out of this desert.”

“It appears from your accent that you are American, as I suspected. It also appears we share a common goal, wanting to leave this devil’s furnace.”

He glanced beyond the man for a moment. “You the one with the mantracking skills? Otherwise, we would have left you guys behind long ago.”

“I can hold my own but, no, I have a mongrel in my unit who could track a rat over concrete. But then, you CIA types must have had similar training for operating in this part of the world.”

Shepard didn’t respond to the latter statement. “So, the Kremlin is worried about its EMP device falling into the wrong hands and sent the notorious Volki commandos to procure it. That must have put a dent in your ethnic cleansing campaigns up north or whichever nation you’re destabilizing this month.”

“Says the American whose government looks upon international laws with contempt but denounces others who do the same whenever their corporate interests abroad are threatened.”

“So, Russian para-military forces are on this continent for nation-building and rendering aid to developing countries. Gimme a break, Sergei.”

“We’ve both been at this game long enough to know that we are mere chess pieces. In the end, the great republics of the world, despite the sacrifices that gave birth to them, eventually decay and give way to the whims of the elites. Men like you and I are just the grease that helps the wheels spin a little longer.”

“Maybe longer than they should, in some cases, but there always seems to be a new tech that keeps them afloat a little longer.”

“You talking about my country or yours?”

“Maybe both.”

“It seems like you must have access to some high-tech capabilities since you located our satellite before we could even get to it.”

“Yeah, well, it hasn’t mattered much since your EMP device sent us back to the dark ages.”

“Good thing we both come from another era of warfighters when hard skills, coupled with hard-won experience, allowed you to defeat the enemy.”

Shepard canted his head to the left. “Speaking of defeating the enemy, you may have noticed that there’s a growing cloud of dust beyond the river caused by Choma and his army, so why don’t you get to the Goddamn point of your little visit.”

“You sure it’s Choma? Could be the rest of my guys. Maybe that’s why I came over here...to convince you to surrender the satellite component.”

“It’s Choma. I got an update from your intel chief on the radio after I took down the leader of that biker crew by the butte. He also said he’s worried about you and that you work too hard.”

Krachenko emitted a smug grin. “Sounds like the guy I know. Except I won’t rest until I’ve completed my objective.”

“Hard to do when you’re being picked apart by vultures.”

The man took a step forward. Shepard kept his AK pointed at the operator’s chest.

Krachenko’s hands remained at his sides as he spoke. “I’ve seen, and even admired, your handiwork since we arrived in-country. I think you and I are of a kind. The killing is not the hard part, probably never has been.”

The Russian glanced back to the south for a moment. “It’s the day-to-day part of living your life and trying to put all the horror and loss behind you that’s hard.”

Shepard scrutinized the man’s weary face, seeing a controlled rage behind his eyes. “And getting your satellite component will erase all of that and set the world right again?”

“Something like that. But then, you know, it’s only the next mission that will drown out the noise once more.”

Shepard knew the man was right about that last part. Burying your head in the mission was all that had mattered these past few years. Now, there had been a seismic shift in his being, and he sensed there was another expanse beyond the horizon. All he had to do was survive this day, and he might have a shot at it.

“Sorry, but your precious tech is going with me when I depart these dusty shores. And I don’t expect to...”

The ground around them erupted as nearby gunfire strafed the field. Krachenko reached for the pistol at his side, but Shepard thrust the barrel into the man’s chest.

Another burst of automatic gunfire tore through the meadow and Shepard saw a group of ten men with ruby berets bounding towards them, shooting wildly.

“Shit.” He turned and ran for the farmhouse. Krachenko followed on his heels, as plumes of dirt around them filled the air.

He bolted up the porch steps and in through the open door, slamming it, as Krachenko darted against the wall beside the living room window.

“Was there anyone at your six covering you who can help us out?” said Shepard as he began firing his AK out the window, dropping two militants in the middle of the field. He heard Nolan’s rifle barking out rounds upstairs, which took down three more guys.

He yelled again at Krachenko. “Yes or no, damnit?” Shepard squeezed off another controlled grouping, taking down two shooters while Nolan finished off another militant.

“Yes, one of my guys is out there.” Krachenko squeezed off a burst of rounds from his pistol, killing the last two goons sprinting towards the porch.

“In here, actually,” said a gruff voice from the kitchen. “Keep your weapon where it’s at.”

Shepard turned his head slightly and saw a burly man with a twisted nose, grabbing the pack off the table. He unbuckled the top and inspected the contents. “It’s the payload, commander,” he said, glancing at Krachenko and fixing his FN rifle on Shepard.

“Check mate,” said Krachenko as he stood up, moving towards the kitchen. He angled his head towards the stairs. “I’ve got your friend pinned down here. You try anything, and I’ll spill his blood all over the floor.”

He moved closer to the bottom of the stairs. “You fucking hear me?”

A second later, the windows and floorboards rattled as an explosion rumbled through the air. Shepard saw a ball of flame roil up from the bridge, the shockwave from the tractor blast rippling through him. He took advantage of the chaos and dove through the shattered front window onto the porch, rolling off the porch and onto the ground.

Splinters of wood blew over his face as another RPG strike hit the back corner of the farmhouse. Shepard shook his rattled head, getting up and darting past the front house towards the barn.

Just as he reached the side door, a hissing sound filled the air. A moment later, the upstairs porch blew apart from another RPG round, sending chunks of debris skyward.

Shepard ducked inside the barn, racing past an old Nissan truck and peering through a crack in the upright boards as he searched for Nolan. Instead, his field of vision filled with the sight of nearly forty men across the river, unleashing hell upon the farmhouse.

***

“There!” shouted Viper as she thrust a spear hand out the open door of the Huey from her position on the rear bench seat. “That house at the east end just took a hit. Cal and Derrick have to be there.”

“I’m gonna have to set her down by that Quonset hut at the other end of town,” said Hodges as he brought the helicopter lower.

Foley leaned back from the passenger seat up front, pointing to the duffle bag between Vogel’s feet. “Lynn, pull out the two LAAWs Rockets and hand the grenade launcher to Viper. You and I will take up shooting positions on the roof of the school while Hamill and Viper make their way towards that stone house.”

Hodges set the helo down in the parking lot of what appeared to be a storage hangar. Everyone except the pilot hopped out, splitting into their respective teams.

Foley watched with trepidation as the billowing cloud of black smoke increased from the RPG strikes on the farmhouse, hoping they had arrived in time.

Chapter 36

Following a brief respite in the shooting, Shepard heard footfalls racing around the front of the barn. He slid back behind the rear bumper of the truck, aiming his AK at the doors.

He controlled his breathing, feeling another surge of adrenaline racing through his veins. He was relieved to see Nolan burst through the entrance and duck off to the side.

“Behind you,” said Shepard.

Nolan swung his rifle around then aimed the barrel to the side as he fixed on the voice’s location.

“Shit, I didn’t know if you’d made it out of the house.”

“How the hell did you make it out?” asked Shepard.

“Front balcony, then down a tree.”

“And our guests inside?”

Nolan shrugged, returning his vision towards the narrow slats in the tired wood walls. “The kitchen and dining room got blown to hell. Even the stairs were mangled. I just barely got off a shot on those propane tanks on the tractor when I saw the trucks on the bridge.”

He moved to the opposite wall and scanned through the cracks. “Did the Russians take the bait and grab your pack?”

“Yeah. Now, we could just use a ride from Foley and my prayers will be answered for the day.”

“We might be in luck. I saw an old Huey land at the other end of town. Could be him or Krachenko’s guys.”

“Or more Choma.”

“I don’t think it’s Choma’s crew. The soldiers across the river briefly redirected their fire towards the bird before it set down.”

“So, it’s a fifty-fifty chance it’s either more Russians or our people.”

He shuffled back towards the Nissan, leaning inside the open window and seeing the key in the ignition. “Only one way to find out. You can ride shotgun.”

“Sounds more appealing than a boat ride.” Nolan pressed his face closer to the fissure in the wall. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast. There’s a shit-ton of guys plowing past what’s left of the tractor.”

***

Viper and Hamill bounded from house to house, hugging the dirt alley that led behind the two rows of dwellings until they arrived at the midpoint.

The two women squatted near a dumpster beside a small clinic, the cacophony of gunfire along the river growing more deafening. The explosions had stopped and only small-arms fire remained.

A second later, the air above hissed with two LAAWs rockets sailing towards its target across the river. Viper never saw the end result, but the thunderous explosion told her there were probably fewer militants left.

She glanced at the path ahead, which meant crossing an open area that ran through the middle row of houses. “Cover me,” she said, preparing to sprint across the middle of town.

“Hang on,” snapped Hamill, thrusting her rifle barrel towards a faded green truck bobbing along the rutted alley. The vehicle had only gotten a few hundred yards before it careened to the right, crashing into the corner of a hardware store. Shepard and Nolan spilled out from either side, returning gunfire at the oncoming horde of militants.

Viper angled her head up, clutching the grenade launcher. “Let’s get to the top of this building and clear a path for them.”

***

“Damn, who taught you how to drive?” said Nolan, as he spilled out of the passenger’s side and came up in a kneeling position behind the rear bumper.

Shepard hopped out, staring at the flattened rear tires which had suffered numerous punctures from gunfire. He bolted for the other side of the truck, making his way towards Nolan, as they fired off a barrage of rounds at the oncoming horde of militants who were bounding between homes.

Nolan directed his AK towards two men darting in from an alley, striking them in their midsections and necks. They tumbled onto some empty wood pallets.

Shepard fired off several rounds at a militant’s head as he dashed around the corner of a house, dropping the man. He patted Nolan on the shoulder. “Let’s get inside this building.”

They bolted for the general store, throwing their shoulders into the wooden doors and crashing in through the front. Shepard spun around, grabbing a shelving unit full of paint cans and sliding it against the doors.

“Did you see the dude with the black beret standing in the truck down the road?”

“No,” replied Nolan.

“Pretty sure that was Choma. Looked just like the intel photos of him I’d seen when we worked along the coast. Plus, he was barking orders at the other guys.” Shepard trotted to the rear exit door and peered out the window.

“Good news is that I saw Samira and Hamill about three-hundred yards ahead, so Foley must have come through, after all,” said Nolan.

“Outstanding. Now, we just gotta get from here to there. You sure those scrawny chicken legs of yours can keep up with me?”

“I can outrun you any day, amigo.”

Nolan fired a burst of rounds into the front doors as people started slamming against the entrance. He continued with another volley as more shadows appeared through the holes.

Shepard began shooting through the back window, dropping two men approaching from the east. “Well, we’re about to be put to the test.” He heard something crash through a steel exit door on the side of the building. “Shit, we’ve got company.”

He ran to the middle of the store, seeing three militants emerge from a storage room. Shepard squeezed off two rounds into the head of the first figure, then heard the sickening click of his AK jamming.

Shepard tossed it aside, removing his pistol, but he was too late. The next man ran at him, his bloodshot eyes revealing he was under the influence of drugs. He slammed into Shepard, driving him back into a pallet of water bottles.

He grabbed the shirt collar, pulling the drug-addled goon closer to jam the man’s rifle against his chest, then drove a savage head-butt down on the guy’s nose which crumpled. He sent his knee into the groin then slammed an angular elbow strike into the jaw. Shepard stepped back, withdrawing his Gerber tactical blade and driving it repeatedly into the guy's neck until he collapsed.

A headshot from Nolan took the third attacker down. The operator quickly turned and sent another barrage of rounds through the growing hole in the front door.

Shepard bent over, retrieving a new AK and checking the magazine. He plucked a grenade from the belt of one of the dead men. “How about we get to that helo?”

“I could use a change of scenery.”

They bolted to the back door, scanning the alleyway outside. Shepard pulled the pin from the grenade and swung open the back door, tossing it towards the incoming wave of militants about to close in on the building.

Chapter 37

Krachenko and Mavetsky waited until a cluster of militants bolted past them before emerging from under the floorboards in the pump house. The small structure was one of several buildings located a hundred yards west of the farmhouse, which they had made it to after the farmhouse erupted in a cloud of dust and debris following the RPG strikes.

The thumping sound of a large mechanical pump in the middle of the floor was partly blotting out the shouting and gunfire in the distance, and Krachenko figured the militants had focused their entire force upon the two men fleeing in the truck.

He slid up to the edge of the tinted window, scanning the path that led to the footpath heading down to the river. “We’ve got a fifty-meter dash through open terrain and will be fair pickings for anyone spotting us. If we can get below the rim, we should be able to make it to that boat. After that, with a little luck, we’ll head to a village downriver.”

“Maybe we’ll be able to get a call out to Loye from there, if they’re connected to the modern world.”

He just hoped the boat was operational, though there were few options available.

Krachenko pulled back from the window and slid over to the metal container housing the pump. He glanced over at Mavetsky, who was staked out at the opposite window. “Keep an eye on things. I’ve got an idea.”

He pried off the heavy lid with two hands and gazed at the contraption, which resembled a miniature grasshopper leg thrusting up and down as it moved water through a vertical steel pipe with one end in the ground. The motor that operated the device had a thick electrical cord that ran along the boards and out below the stone wall, which Krachenko figured connected to solar panels outside that he’d seen earlier.

Krachenko moved to the corner, grabbing a spray can of lubricant from the jumble of tools and oily rags. “Open all the windows then get ready to run, when I tell you to.” He held the spray can over the pump, his pulse racing further. “Assuming this even works.”

He lowered his dust goggles and turned his head, spraying the oily fluid onto the flywheel in the motor. The device began sputtering as it hissed out gray smoke. Krachenko continued depressing the spray can as the motor belched and wafted out noxious clouds that flooded out through the windows.

The Volki commander coughed, raising his shirt collar while dropping lower to one knee as he emptied the can. He needed to wait until the smoke floated out over the grassy field, so he counted to ten then sprang up, pushing through the thick haze to the west window.

“Alright, we’ve got a little cover to make it. Let’s get to that fucking boat.”

Mavetsky yanked open the wooden door and made a hard right turn, sprinting through the billowing smoke. Krachenko didn’t bother to provide cover. There was no point, and no time. They both had to make a mad dash for the footpath and make it below the rim, if they were going to avoid getting their heads painted all over the ground.

He followed behind the tracker, both of them gagging on the fumes. Krachenko watched the American’s pack bouncing on Mavetsky’s back, like a coveted treasure propelling the Volki commander forward. He heard several popping sounds and didn’t need a visual to know they were being fired upon. The dirt to his right erupted as someone wildly strafed them.

His eyes were burning. The tears welling up almost made him overshoot the rim. Krachenko slowed, sliding below the rocky edge and bolting down the zig-zag trail that led a hundred meters below to the river.

Mavetsky was bounding like a mountain goat, stepping off trail and plowing through cactus as he made a beeline for the boat dock. Rounding the bend in the last switchback, Krachenko slipped on the ball-bearing pebbles and lost his footing. His momentum carried him headfirst into the ground. Instinctively, he balled up and shoulder-rolled onto the beach, his head barely missing a jagged wedge of basalt.

He forced himself up, wondering if his skull was still attached to the rest of his aching body. Krachenko sprinted for the dock, seeing Mavetksy unhitching the lines and pushing off.

“You fucker.”

The tracker yanked on the engine’s pull cord until the motor sputtered to life. Krachenko increased his run to an all-out sprint, leaping off the dock and onto the rear of the twelve-foot motorboat then crashing into Mavetsky’s knees.

He was about to stand when the right edge of the wooden boat splintered apart as gunfire from the rim peppered the vessel. Krachenko crawled to the back of the boat, grabbing the steering lever and heading downriver.

At the first bend, he peeled left until they were clear of the farmhouse.

Krachenko sat up, glancing at the canyon edges on either side as the gunfire behind him faded. He gazed down at Mavetsky, who was laying on his side, wincing as he pressed a hand behind him.

“I can’t feel my fucking legs,” said the tracker. “I must’ve taken one in the back.”

Krachenko throttled down the engine until they were drifting along the coffee-colored waters. He slid up to the man, yanking the backpack off him and examining the satellite device inside. He set it on the floor and inspected Mavetsky’s wound, already knowing the outcome of a bullet to the lower spine.

The Volki commander removed the remaining rifle and pistol magazines from the tracker’s vest along with his trauma kit. Next, he slid out the Glock 17 pistol, setting it aside with the rest of the gear. “You won’t be needing these. Not where you’re going.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” bleated out Mavetsky, as he tried to sit up on one elbow.

“Solimin was right: you’re a fucking liability because you have only your own survival in mind, above everyone else’s.”

“What? No, commander.” He nodded at the canyon. “I wasn’t going to leave you behind. I was just getting a head start and knew you’d be...”

“Shut up. Maybe the crocs will find you of interest but that’s asking for a lot.” Krachenko grabbed him by the vest, hoisting him up to the side of the boat before encircling his hands around the man’s boots and flipping him over the edge.

Mavetsky disappeared under the silty waters then bobbed to the surface for a moment as he flailed his arms. Krachenko watched the tracker slip beneath the waves before he revved the engine and sped down the serpentine waterway.

Chapter 38

With the grenade buying them a few seconds, Shepard and Nolan burst from the back door of the store and sprinted towards a small house twenty yards away. They took up shooting positions at the corner with Shepard standing while Nolan kneeled, both men unleashing a fury of bullets at the oncoming throng of crazed militants who were flooding the alley from the east.

“Reloading!” said Nolan, as he dropped out a mag and inserted a fresh one. Shepard continued sending triple-taps into the crowd, but as soon as he dropped one man, another jumped over the downed body and bolted forward.

In the distance, he saw a pickup truck barreling down the alley. The large man in the black beret, whom he’d seen earlier, jumped down from the back with an AR rifle. “Choma.”

Shepard didn’t have time to get off a shot at the man, his attention diverting behind him as he heard several men scrambling over a six-foot high stone wall that extended along the rear of the house.

He pivoted around, shooting the first figure in the head who had just lowered to the ground. Shepard’s AK coughed out a half-dozen rounds as he dispatched two more men clambering over the wall in a desperate attempt to reach them.

“Grenade,” yelled Nolan.

Shepard turned, seeing the olive-drab projectile bounce on the dirt beside Nolan, who kicked it into the alley. Both men ducked around the edge of the house, the explosion tearing through the homes on either side, sending shrapnel into the crowd.

Nolan and Shepard immediately resumed their positions, shooting through the haze of dust as more militants poured into the pathway. Shepard saw something strike the side of the hardware store, sending a shower of wood splinters and bricks into the alley. Another blast hit a dumpster near Choma’s truck.

“Time to go. On me!” he said, patting Nolan on the shoulder.

Shepard sprinted down the alley, rushing past three homes then took a knee by a rusty car with flattened tires, providing cover for Nolan who was already on the move. Another volley of grenades from a distant rooftop hammered the militants, and Shepard knew Hamill and Viper were blazing a route for them.

Just as Nolan arrived, bullets strafed the metal side panel of the vehicle next to Shepard’s head. Sparks rained down on his head, causing him to shuffle back around the other side of the abandoned vehicle. He flopped on his left side, aiming his AK under the frame and squeezing off several rounds into the boots closing in from another pathway.

Two men collapsed and he finished them off with rounds to the chest. Nolan was a few feet away, shooting through the broken side windows. “There’s too many. And I’ve only got one mag left,” shouted Nolan.

Another series of explosions resounded between the homes to their left as one of the women continued to unleash their grenade launcher. Shepard sat up, taking a knee and firing off his last three rounds at a man in a sleeveless camo shirt darting between trash barrels across the alley.

He tossed aside the rifle, removing his Glock. “Down to my pistol. We need to get the hell out of here.”

Nolan swapped out his last magazine. Both men alternated between shooting the main horde to the left and the lone gunmen who kept popping up directly across the street.

“On me again,” shouted Shepard as they retreated to the last row of homes that ran parallel to the river. They bounded from structure to structure as more explosions kept the main attack force at bay.

At the fourth home, Shepard paused by the corner, scanning the large gap in the road that stretched across the middle of town. He saw a blur of movement as the man in the black beret and two armed men darted across the street.

“Shit, three tangos heading towards Viper and Hamill.”

He didn’t wait, knowing Choma was planning to remove the threat from the nearby rooftop. Shepard bolted across the road followed by Nolan, both of them continuing on past two more homes.

Shepard stopped again, surveying the pathway between buildings then rushing up to the front of the house. “Get ready.”

Nolan squatted beside him, focusing his rifle ahead. “Set.”

Shepard’s vision narrowed to a miniscule swath between the homes. Suddenly, three shadowy figures bounded across their field of vision.

He and Nolan squeezed off a controlled burst of rounds. Two of the thugs fell from their chest wounds, while the third disappeared.

Shepard hopped up, zig-zagging across the road towards the next home as Nolan followed. Shepard made his way to a distant porch where the figure in the black beret was sitting on the steps, holding his abdomen. Shepard came around the side, keeping his Glock fixed on the man’s head while glancing at the other structures.

He glanced at Choma, who was wheezing and coughing up blood. The man had an imposing figure with linebacker shoulders. His ivory-handled 1911 pistol was sitting on the porch beside his right leg.

“The satellite...you have it?”

“No.”

“Those other guys, the ones in black, Russians, I take it. Did they get away with it?”

“Does it matter now?”

Choma looked up, his breathing growing shallow as he slumped back against an upright post as more blood leaked out from his abdomen. “The hunt isn’t over until it’s over. It’s all that matters.”

“I figured the money was the most important thing to a guy like you?”

“Money and power, yes, but nothing can replace the hunt. You must agree.”

“I only hunt when necessary, while your goal is just to inflict suffering and butcher everyone along the way for pleasure.” He pointed his pistol at the man’s head and fired off a single round. “Time to put an end to that.”

Nolan came up alongside him, both men scanning the alleyways and the rooftops before returning their gaze to the dead general. “Looks like we got more than we came for.”

Shepard nodded, retrieving the dead man's pistol. “There are going to be a lot of people in these parts who’ll sleep better at night.”

They scanned the alley leading to the farmhouse, still hearing numerous explosions. Both men turned and trotted in the opposite direction, a spring in their step, as they made their way to the nearby building where their teammates were located.

Chapter 39

Shepard rested his head against the cabin wall of the Huey, feeling like they couldn’t depart the region fast enough. He glanced towards Vogel. “Sure is good to see your face, Lynn.”

She smiled. “Likewise, my friend. It sure feels like the past two days were a week long.”

He rubbed his sore shoulder. “Maybe I’m getting too old for this. These ops sure don’t seem to get any easier.”

Shepard leaned over towards Viper, unzipping her pack and removing the folded shemagh inside. He unwrapped it, pulling out the data files and motherboard from the satellite. “At least we got what we came for.”

He handed it to Vogel. “Hope it was worth it. I lugged that damn EMP device for a helluva lot of miles and hoped to walk away with it in the end, but I got the primary components. Next time, if there's ever such a thing, I hope Perseus can bring down the satellite in a more hospitable region."

She stared at the items like they were ancient artifacts. “Someone in R & D at Langley will sure want to see what’s on these. After we’re done with them, that is.”

“Just after we got up on the roof of the building, I saw two guys in black fatigues making a run for the river,” said Foley, who was sitting beside the door.

Shepard flared his eyebrows. “Krachenko and his tracker, no doubt.”

“And the rest of his four-man team?” said Foley, glancing at the others.

Shepard shook his head, while looking at the weary faces of his friends. “What was the fallout from the EMP blast?” he asked.

Foley and Vogel gave each other uneasy glances while she relayed recent events. “The larger cities and the capital all suffered initial losses of power that’s going to take some time to recover from but, fortunately, they still operated on an older grid system whose electrical stations were largely subterranean, so some areas fared better than others.”

Foley leaned closer. “It could have been worse. But all eyes around the world have turned to Namibia. I’m sure even our government is sending an incident response team to analyze what happened, which is why we’re not going to linger here.”

“What now?” said Hamill.

“We’ll make our way back to the Antanov and fly north up the coast towards Spain. I’d say you’ve all earned some serious R & R.”

Shepard sighed, feeling like the tension in his neck wouldn’t drain away until they touched down on Mediterranean shores.

Spain. A beach to walk on. Sounds good to me.

He gazed over at Samira, feeling like she was a continent away. He wondered what would come of their relationship, and how it felt like there was still another leg of this mission to navigate.

Except this isn’t about any mission. It’s about having a life...with her.

Chapter 40

Thirty-Six Hours Later

Valencia, Spain

Following the long flight and the refueling stops along the West African coast, the team settled into a seaside villa south of the city. Despite the Mediterranean setting, the air was chilly.

The sun had dipped below the horizon and Cal had just entered his cliff side villa with a small armload of split juniper provided by the establishment.

He stacked the wood on the pile to the right then slid a few logs onto the embers in the stone fireplace before heading to the couch. It took him a few moments to get comfortable since it felt like every joint in his battered body was aching.

Though they were only in the Kalahari for just over two days, it seemed more like a month. He could tell from the weary eyes of his teammates during the long flight that this mission had exacted a grueling toll, not only physically but psychologically, and even morally, and Shepard knew the horrors and inhumanity they had witnessed would linger in their psyches for years to come.

He leaned back, staring into the fire, grateful that his team was alive.

We were damn lucky. But such a thing can’t last forever.

His mind shot back to the present when he heard the door open to his right.

A blast of cool air rushed in around Samira as she entered. Dressed in a long-sleeve pullover shirt and jeans, he hardly recognized her at first. Her black hair was wet from a soak in the hot-spring on the other side of the property and she ran a hand through it while walking towards him.

She settled onto the couch at the other end from Shepard, holding her pale hands in front of the fireplace. “Maybe the Kalahari wasn’t so bad after all.”

He gave her a puzzled expression. “While I sure don’t mind the company, I’m surprised you’re here. You’ve been avoiding me since the mission ended.”

“There’s something we need to resolve. Something that’s been on my mind a long time and, to the best of my knowledge, just arose on your radar recently.”

He stared out the windows, watching a swirl of leaves dancing in the wind then gazed towards her. A long silence followed, interspersed only by the sound of crackling wood in the fireplace.

Samira looked into the flames as she spoke. “I joined the Agency years ago because it was work that mattered...a means of repaying my adopted country for the life it gave me and my family after we fled Syria. And I will always do what I can to protect our way of life in the U.S., especially since I know what it means to be raised in a region that was truly hell on Earth. I joined CRT in part, because it allowed me to continue those efforts; and also because Foley was heading it up, which meant there’d be no bureaucratic bullshit, and the gloves could come off.”

She interlaced her fingers, looking at him. “But the other, bigger, selling point for joining this unit was to continue working with you. When we were on the Search and Destroy team together all those years, it was like being a part of a family. Later, when you got married to Cassie, I was really happy for you...having a life outside of the agency.”

Samira let out a long exhale. “When Cassie died, it was like losing a sister. And I know a part of you died then, too. I couldn’t risk losing all of you, so I signed on with Foley once I knew you were on board.”

She swiveled towards him. “But somewhere along the line, my feelings changed for you, and although I sensed you felt something too, you made it abundantly clear that you weren’t interested in pursuing anything beyond our friendship. Except I don’t want to live with you keeping me at arm’s length all the time. I have a hard enough time trusting people, which means there's a very small circle of people that I allow in.”

Shepard slid forward, closing the gap between them and resting a hand on her knee. “We’ve both lost so much in this line of work. When I saw you almost get picked apart by gunfire in that valley, I witnessed what life would be like without you. It’s not the first time I’ve had that thought, but I’ve always felt a need to keep everyone at a distance being team leader, and I couldn’t entertain the idea that there could be more between us as long as we were living in our fishbowl of a team.”

Samira paused for a moment, biting her lip before continuing. “I feel like you’ve always looked at getting involved as just a complication you didn’t want to deal with and that’s not how I want this to go, if it goes anywhere. It’s why I’ve never pushed this matter...until right now.”

He slid his hand over hers. “You are a blessing in my life, Samira, on so many levels, and I don’t want any more space between us. Nothing is ever going to be uncomplicated with our work, but I’ve never seen you as anything but a source of joy...when you’re not busting my chops about something.”

“Well, I can’t promise I’ll let up on that,” she said with a grin.

Shepard smiled. “I should have told you all of this before, and I realize the circumstances at that butte the other night weren’t ideal but, after the battle in the valley, seeing another sunrise wasn’t exactly a guarantee.”

Samira placed a hand on his shoulder, leaning in towards him. “I need to hold on to something real in this world. To hold on to you, Cal. I don’t want to live beside you and be apart from you at the same time. But I won’t cross this threshold if it means there’s going to be an awkward air between us when we are briefing for a mission, or getting whisked away across the globe to God knows where.”

He felt the anguish of the past few days slipping away, the wild aroma of wood smoke intermingled with the scent of Samira’s hair. Shepard caressed her cheek as he looked into her eyes.

“I’ve let too much time slip away between us and I just want to...”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “There’s only this moment. One night of peace with you.” Samira leaned back, beckoning him to come closer.

The tight shirt that clung to her athletic figure and the wild look in her eyes caused the restraints on his desire to crumble apart. He moved forward and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around him, their bodies pressing into one another.

He whispered in her ear. “I want more than just one night of peace with you, Samira.”

She smiled. A rare, disarming smile. “I can live with that.”

He slid his hand behind her back, sliding in closer and kissing her as the wind’s intensity outside increased.

Chapter 41

Algeria

Krachenko sat at a steel table, wolfing down a meal of rice, grilled lamb and vegetables while glancing up at the workstations in the warehouse’s corner where his intel analysts were busy dismantling the EMP device.

Loye sat down across from him, sliding a cold bottle of beer towards him. “My condolences on the loss of Solomin. I know you two were good friends. I’m just sorry the rest of the team couldn’t make it there in time to provide support. As it was, they were lucky to even find you floating on the river after your fuel ran out.”

Krachenko clutched the bottle as if he was contemplating throwing it at the wall. “You know, I’ve been doing this shit a long time and whenever I hear HQ back at the Kremlin tell me that an op is going to be a simple retrieval job, I wince. I just fucking wince. Because those pencil-dicks have no idea what goes on beyond their windows. Nor do they have a clue of how it’s the Stone-Age down here, politically and otherwise.”

He took a swig of beer, glancing at Loye. “Find anything on that agency team?”

Loye flared an eyebrow. “Not only did I not find a shred of intel on them, but when I tried to enhance the earlier images of their faces at that first Choma truck, the resolution was too grainy to make out anything of use. It’s as if something was scrambling the pixilation, reversing the clarity the more I tried to augment the faces. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The Volki commander shoved his empty plate away, tapping his fingers on the table. “Is that a tech problem on your end or is that some kind of jamming capability affecting our satellite feed?”

There was a long pause as Loye’s eyes darted along the ceiling. “It’s not a software issue on our end. This has to be some capability originating with that team or whoever their handlers are. I’ve heard of such things, but never seen it in action before.”

“That’s saying a lot, given your experience.”

The lanky analyst with the ponytail approached, carrying the EMP device. He was accompanied by the other two analysts, who stood back a few feet while shooting nervous glances at one another.

“There’s a problem, sir,” the young man said, sliding the titanium housing on the table and pointing to the unscrewed quarter panel on the side. “Uhm, well, the primary data files and the motherboard are missing.”

Krachenko leaned in, his eyes narrowing. This time, he didn’t exercise restraint and hurled the beer bottle against the wall. He stood, walking past the three tense analysts and continuing towards the rear exit in the distance.

He shot a glance back over his shoulder at Loye. “Keep digging. Find those Americans.”

Krachenko walked through the door and out into the sunlight. The heat was barely noticeable on his weathered face as he thought about the inquisition he was about to face with his superiors at the Kremlin, and how his chances of leaving this wretched continent had just vaporized.

He removed a pack of Camel cigarettes from his shirt pocket and tapped one out, lighting it with a match.

And with each exhalation, Krachenko focused on the face of the American he’d spoken to in Nema.

This isn’t over. Once you’re identified, I’m coming for you...no matter how long it takes.

More Adventures To Come

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About the Author

JT Sawyer is the pen name for Tony Nester. Before becoming a fulltime writer, JT made his living teaching survival courses for the military special operations community, Department of Homeland Security, US Marshals, FAA, and other federal agencies throughout the country. He has appeared on the Travel Channel, Fox News, Discovery, in the New York Times and served as a consultant for the film Into the Wild, along with being the author of 12 non-fiction books on bushcraft and survival.

Nowadays, JT prefers having a roof over his head and placing his fictional characters in dire situations in his thriller and post-apocalyptic books. He lives with his family in Colorado. Visit jtsawyer.com for more information.