Chapter 5
Kasha gently patted Bullard’s cheek. “Hey, boss. How are you feeling?”
Sluggish, his eyes unfocused, he rolled his head toward her voice.
She could see his eyelids moving, his eyes working to see her. “It’s me, Kasha. We’re still in the Benin stronghold. Don’t force yourself to fully wake up. You were drugged.” She could sense, more than see, the shock on his face.
He struggled to sit up, but the men forced him back down again. He glared at everyone, obviously still confused and disoriented.
Merk leaned over so it was his face Bullard saw. “It’s Merk. We’re here. We’ve got your back.”
Bullard blinked several times and then said, “Merk?”
“Yeah. Just think, the day came when Bullard needed backup,” Merk joked, but his hand on the big man’s shoulder was gentle.
Bullard frowned as if trying to reorganize his thoughts.
Kasha watched as he tried to shrug and then shake his head, but his body wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, and the movements came off jerky and uncoordinated.
“What happened?”
Kasha picked up the story and gave her boss a brief description of what they knew or had figured out. “But when I tell you that things are about to go to hell, you need to believe me,” she said quietly. “We found a huge cache of weapons here. Cases and crates of machine guns, grenades, ammo.”
His gaze narrowed as he struggled to comprehend the enormity of it. “Whose?” he tried to bark as usual, but it came out more of a puppy snarl.
She kept her smile hidden as she answered. “That we don’t know yet. But we have their laptops. Remember when we arrived, how there was all the computer equipment, so much that we stacked it in a back room?”
He turned to look at her again, and she saw the comprehension in his eyes.
She added, “From that, we’ve discerned different locations, sales and even banking info. We’re in their email system and what looks like a sales tracking document.”
Merk added, “We have a lot of the names of people involved. But we’re not sure of the hierarchy of who’s selling, who’s buying, who’s the boss, who’s screwing the government and which government they’re trying to support.”
As Bullard slowly understood, he groaned. “Just my luck. … I figured this place was too good to be true.” He reached up a shaky hand and rubbed his forehead. “I’ve been looking for a second holding, as Kasha can tell you.” He slowly pointed a finger at her. “I was never sure of the wisdom of having just one place.”
He coughed or laughed, Kasha wasn’t sure.
“If I needed to go to ground, and my place was compromised, which has happened to me unfortunately a little too often, then I needed another location.”
“Why so far away?” Merk asked.
“It seemed like the best idea.” He cleared his throat. “I could still get here by plane if I had to. I could drive if I had to. I could also fly by helicopter if I had to.” He nodded in Merk’s direction. “Sure, a place only a couple hours away by car would have been nice. But I couldn’t find anything appropriate. As you guys know, it’s all about layout, layout, layout.”
“No, it’s about location, location, location,” Brandon said. “And this location sucks. We fetched you out of the village, and it’s filled with mercs. Apparently you also put out the call you were looking for men. Is that correct?”
Bullard frowned. “I did say to somebody I was looking to hire staff—to run the holding, not for my teams. But that doesn’t mean I want mercenaries for either position. As you know, we need the right men for this kind of company.”
“The villagers down there were potentially telling the truth. They said they showed up because they heard you were looking to hire. Some of them were looking pretty ragged around the edges. Doesn’t mean they’re not good men though,” Merk said.
“Just don’t hire those six who held you captive in the village. I got their photos, and now Kasha has them downloaded too.”
“Help me up,” Bullard said and coughed. “It would be my luck to have them coming my way when I’m down.”
Merk helped him sit up. “Some mercs may be decent, but some are scum. It’s hard to know the difference unless you’ve known them a while or can trust who might have referred them. It takes time to trust someone you don’t know, and putting them on a mission without that trust is hard. Unfortunately lots of mercenaries out there—on both sides—know who you are.”
“Which is exactly why I never would have put out a call like that. Too many people do know my name.” He gasped, then coughed several times. “That means I could have been targeted right from the beginning.”
“You might have. But it’s also possible these men came for many other reasons.”
Kasha walked back to the computer. “Don’t forget they could also be the arms dealers themselves, trying to figure out how to get back into the holding. Making plans even as we stand here, holding Bullard up.”
“Well, considering Brandon killed the one here,” Harrison said with a laugh, “when their man never returned, it’s guaranteed they’ll come back with lots of firepower.”
Bullard exchanged a grim look with each of them. “Sounds like we have work to do.”
Brandon said, “Sorting out firepower first. We’ve got their grenades. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have rocket launchers. Just because the gunrunners left lots of weaponry here, we don’t know what they removed before you arrived.”
That startled a gasp from Kasha. “Are you serious?”
Harrison nodded. “Yes, absolutely he’s serious. What you need to count on is that, no matter what’s here, they’ve got equal, if not way worse, weaponry on their side. We just have to make sure we take them out first.”
*
With Bullard feeling better, plans had to be made and put into action quickly. Tahlia set about making meals while Kasha ran coordination from the war room. Bullard had been rolled in there so he was nearby too. It was her job to stop Bullard from doing too much. She gave everybody a hard look when she heard that tacked-on duty. “You know nobody’s going to stop Bullard, right?”
The others just grinned and nodded.
She sighed. “But I’ll do my best.”
Bullard snickered. “Lucky for you I don’t feel like I can do very much now.”
Brandon and Harrison headed to the weapons in the garage. They needed to make sure they had enough weaponry already loaded and sorted out for each man here. Plus Kasha. They also needed to know if they could use anything else in the computer storage room. Those grenades for one thing, but the last thing they wanted to do was damage Bullard’s secondary headquarters. After ninety minutes of inventorying the cache, Brandon got the call to come eat. Since it was 7:40 p.m., he had to admit he was famished.
He looked over at Harrison, and they high-fived each other and returned to the war room. Tahlia had brought trays of food to them, serving plates of rice and beans, covered in a meat curry. Brandon didn’t know what the meat was, but he was so hungry that it didn’t matter.
While he ate heartily, he listened. These people were pros. He could still learn a lot from them. Being part of the military was often just a case of following orders, even if you disagreed. Brandon was rarely allowed any input into the military’s tactical arrangements. Here it was different. Everyone had a say. Everybody discussed plans and strategies.
“The plane is now arriving even earlier with reinforcements. We hope it’s here before 10:00 p.m.,” Kasha said. “Bullard just received confirmation.”
Brandon studied Bullard now sitting up and drinking a cup of coffee. “Are you sure coffee is good for you in your state?” he asked in a half-teasing voice.
Bullard grinned. There was something fierce in the look in his eye. “Try to take my coffee away from me, and you’ll see just how alert I am.”
Brandon grinned. “I’ve heard lots about you, something about a grizzly bear under attack.”
Bullard chuckled. “That might be true. Right now I need the coffee, and then I’ll try some of that food. Tahlia is a great cook.”
Brandon studied the older woman, who even now was trying to stay in the background. She looked nervous. But then she probably understood they were getting a ton of weapons ready for an attack. He glanced around to see who was missing. “Has Merk gone to watch?”
Stone walked in just then. He nodded to Brandon. “You’re up next.”
Brandon finished his food and grabbed a cup of coffee. “I’ll go out now.” As he left, he noticed Harrison behind him. He raised an eyebrow. “Are you coming too?”
“Yes, there’ll be two of us every time. Trying to keep watch on the entire place takes more eyes than we have right now. But we definitely don’t want a lone lookout person taken down to leave the rest of us vulnerable.”
Upstairs they relieved Merk. He was happy to see them coming. “I can smell dinner from here,” he said with a big smile. “I really hope you didn’t eat it all.”
Harrison grinned and smacked Merk on the shoulder. “No, lots of food for you. Go on down now. The two of us will be here for the next two hours.”
“Are we doing two-hour rotations?” Brandon asked, Merk still hanging around for this discussion.
Harrison nodded. “We’re expecting them any time. We’ve loaded the machine guns, so one for each of us is getting readied with extra ammo. Bullard is taking down the serial numbers for each gun and even keeping track of the ammo.”
“Why? Is he charging us for them?” Merk asked jokingly.
Brandon chuckled. “No, he’s likely expecting grief from the military whenever they arrive.”
Harrison opened his vest. It was lined with grenades. He also had two handguns. Merk took one look and whistled. “But no machine guns.”
“Bullard’s clearing them right now. We should have them in thirty minutes.”
Merk nodded and headed downstairs, calling back, “I’ll bring you the weapons when he’s done.”
On the rooftop walkway, Brandon and Harrison walked together. After they had done one full round, they split up and each headed in different directions, so they would meet on the other side. Moving slowly, Brandon studied the hillsides. Darkness was settling in. It threw long shadows on the surrounding areas. He wished he’d had enough time to get used to the geographical landmarks before night fell. All they could do now was watch for movement and reflections and listen for noises that shouldn’t be there. He moved soundlessly in the night, sticking close to the wall but watchful of the gun ports. The last thing he wanted was to get picked off by a sharpshooter.
On the other side, the two nodded and continued around. They kept up their slow, steady movement for five rounds and then ducked down and waited. Harrison raised an eyebrow. “Now they should be wondering where we’ve gone to.”
“No, they’ll expect us to have left. We did our rounds but got lazy because there’s no action.”
Harrison nodded. “Let’s go look at the rifle slots in the wall, count them, see how far apart they are.”
Brandon saw one he’d noticed earlier. “We should text Merk and see what the holdup is on the weapons.” He ducked, using his body and his free hand to shield the light from his phone as he checked it briefly to see the time. It was after 8:00 p.m.
Harrison already had his cell phone out and was heading to the stairwell to hide before texting Merk.
Within minutes, they heard a hawk’s call. Harrison responded in kind. Moving silently in the night, Merk arrived and gave each of them one of the semiautomatic machine guns, along with an ammo belt. In a low voice, he said, “Locked and loaded.”
Then he took up a position on the opposite side. Now three were on rooftop watch.
That meant only Stone was downstairs with Bullard, Tahlia and Kasha. Brandon knew he didn’t have any proof for the way he was feeling, but he didn’t trust Tahlia. It could be because he didn’t understand her language and the fact she was here when they arrived, along with that armed intruder in the computer storage room. That could mean all kinds of things. But what it didn’t do was raise any sense of security about her. His instincts weren’t firing up red flags but neither were they comfortable with her in the building.
The three men continued to roam the rooftop walkway silently, making sure nobody had anything shiny. A sharpshooter didn’t have to see your form. He just had to aim at the reflection and shoot. At one point, Brandon squatted flat against the chest-high stone wall to look out a gun port. And froze. What was that?
As Harrison crept up beside him, Brandon held out his hand with one finger up. He watched silently. Instead of looking directly at the area where there was movement, he turned his head slightly to the side and let the movement be caught by his peripheral vision. And there it was. He saw a second one. He raised a second finger for Harrison. Harrison rose up slowly beside him. He waited and watched too. In a low tone he said, “I only see two.”
“Two here.”
With the enemy’s position marked, Harrison ducked low and raced around to Merk. If the intruders were smart, they would have the entire place surrounded. They had put enough men in the little village to do a full-on assault. But, if they did that, they wouldn’t have any men leftover for a second run. Too often people put all their best men out front, hoping to take it in one go, but, once they lost half their men, they were not able to finish. Better to be stealthy and strategic. Loss of life in a situation like this was critical.
Brandon kept watch, but the two men out on the hillside before him never moved. That meant they were waiting, which could mean the main attack was coming from another area.
He turned from the east side wall and slunk along the wall until he was in position between Merk and Harrison, with the north, west and south sides covered by them respectively. He studied the plateau around the holding. It took him a good ten minutes for his eyes to adjust to the receding light. But once they did, he picked up four men creeping along the ground. He again shielded his phone screen as he sent a short text to Kasha in the command center that they had two invading men on the east and four bogeys on the west. Within seconds, he had Harrison at his side. He whispered, “Merk has two on his side too.”
“Full frontal here then,” Brandon said. “What about the fourth side?”
Merk whispered, “I’ll check it out. Back in five.” He disappeared, his footsteps soundless on the stone. The four men approaching slowed and came to a stop. They were about one hundred yards off. Brandon could certainly pick them off, but he wanted to see what they were going to do first.
He was surrounded and outnumbered. Quite possibly also outgunned—depending on what the enemy had with them.
But Brandon also had several advantages they didn’t. He was higher up, and it was much easier to shoot downward. He had more-than-enough ammo to wipe out every person in the village ten times over. He was behind a wall and protected. Those men were out in the open, hoping stealth would get them inside the security wall. That was the priority for Brandon and the others: to make sure nobody breached the perimeter wall.
Harrison was back in minutes. “There are two more. We need another person up on this rooftop.” He disappeared again.
Keeping an eye on the four men, with his machine gun ready to fire, Brandon was surprised to hear Kasha’s voice come up beside him. He stiffened and turned to look at her. She had the same weaponry as he did, and she was crouched beside him, hiding below the wall, but with the machine gun just barely resting on top where there was a crack in the stone. It was a very good position.
She stared at him, a knowing smirk on her face. “Just because I’m female doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He grinned but tried not to show his white teeth. “Sweetheart, you can play war games with me any time.”
She gave a quiet half laugh.
Outside, still nobody made a move.
Brandon had to wonder what they were waiting for.