The End Read online

  Enough.

  Not that we needed any reminder of the importance of our op tonight, but it’s one thing to read the reports and look at the photos, and another thing to hear and smell the real deal.

  I make a motion with my hands and we slither out of view. As we group up a few minutes later to check on our course and the time, there’s another rattle of machine-gun fire, followed by the single shots.

  Sher sidles up to me. “Hey, boss, remember what Dunton said to me back at Aviano, about bringing Darko’s head back on a stick? And I said we didn’t have a stick issued to us?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Think I can pick up a stick between here and there?”

  “Sure,” I say. “And if you can’t, I’ll help you.”

  Chapter 7

  I’m pretty damn proud of my guys as we approach Point Q—where we’re supposed to meet our guide—because we’re five minutes early. Civvies probably wouldn’t understand my pride, but considering what we’ve gone through—sliding through hostile country, searching for Clayton, securing his body and effects, and witnessing the latest war crime in this bloody region—well, it’s a pretty damn good achievement that we’re early.

  We wait. Lots of what we do is waiting. We’re near another road, but this one is narrow, chopped up with potholes and chunks of missing asphalt. It’s a crossroads, with another road bisecting it, and lots of woods. No farmhouses, no stores, and, best of all, no traffic.

  Adjacent to the intersection is a monument, a dressed piece of stone with a wrought-iron fence around it. Point Q.

  Borozan whispers, “What’s the piece of stone?”

  “Gravestone, maybe,” I say. “Or a war monument. Lots of war monuments in this part of the world. Lots of blood spilled, somebody always wants to mark it, so grudges can last forever.”

  Overhead there’s a whisper of jet aircraft, not visible through the clouds and slowly descending through the snow, which has started up again. But even in the darkness and the cloud cover, we see flashes of light on the northern horizon, like giant flashbulbs are going off.

  A thudding grumble of explosions reaches us, and I shift my weight, feeling that little worm of doubt at the base of my skull, the one that tells you just how isolated and alone you really are.

  “How thoughtful,” Borozan whispers. “Those pilots up there are guaranteeing work for stonecutters when this is all over.”

  “Somebody’s got to look out for them.”

  “Hah,” she says, gently nudging me with her shoulder. “See you at the lake, when you least expect it.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  “Hard to picture you fitting in at a remote lake.”

  “I plan to be the perfect neighbor. Quiet and dull.”

  Another nudge. “I find that hard to believe.”

  She slips away. Garcia comes up to me. “Time, jefe. And nobody’s there.”

  “I can see that.”

  “How long do we wait?”

  I say, “Until I get bored. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds fine, jefe.” And then he’s quiet. I know what he means. It’s always preferable to go in alone, dependent on no one else, rather than relying on local talent to help you out. Maybe our guy Alex out there is legit, someone who wants to help us, or maybe he just likes the color of the gold or bitcoin that Dunton or his boss was offering. Fair enough. But sometimes guys like Alex get cold feet, or they encounter somebody with deeper pockets.

  I check my watch. Five minutes late. No big deal. But I have Option B in my mind, which is that in another five minutes, we’re gone. I’ll take our chances finding our own way to Darko’s place, and if that means roughing it, then we’ll do it.

  Watch check. Three minutes to go.

  But having a local on your side, who knows where the paramilitaries are roaming, where the newly set up minefields or trip wires have been laid, well, that can be worth the extra risk.

  Watch check. Two minutes to go.

  The whisper of jets returns. Going back for another load of bombs? Why not?

  One minute to go.

  I shift my weight and Garcia says, “Movement, jefe. Going across the road.”

  I see what he sees, a shadow slipping across, and then someone hiding behind the stone monument. A little tightness in my chest eases up, but there’s one more thing left.

  My guys wait, just as I do.

  More movement.

  Then a light flashes at us, an infrared light that’s only visible to us folks wearing our night vision gear.

  One flash.

  One flash.

  Three.

  One more.

  The signal.

  I take my infrared signal light out and send out three long flashes, pause.

  He flashes back twice.

  “Okay,” I say, “we’re good. Sher, take point, we’ll be right with you.”

  From the darkness, Sher’s quiet voice comes back. “Got it, boss.”

  “Let’s go meet our Alex.”

  We slowly move out of our positions, Sher going out first, and there’s a sudden pop! of light from the woods near the stone monument, and a noise like an orange crushed in your hand, and Sher falls flat on his back.

  Chapter 8

  No hesitation.

  I duck, rush out, and with Borozan, we grab Sher’s coat collar and start dragging him back to the woods. Garcia lays down suppressing fire, two-round or three-round bursts in the direction the shot came from, and we move move move.

  Back into the woods, Garcia has our rear. I pant, holding onto Sher’s collar with my left hand, my right hand holding my HK416, and Borozan is doing the same. We keep on dragging Sher and I know we need to stop and see how badly he’s been hit, but we also need to find some cover.

  The shooting back there has stopped, and I spare a two-second glance and see Garcia is moving through the woods right behind us, scanning and searching our six for any pursuers or ambushers. Without talking, I take the nine o’clock quadrant and I know Borozan has the three o’clock quadrant.

  Move move move. I break left, just in case we were followed or there’s an ambush ahead of us.

  It seems clear.

  Sher’s breathing is ragged and gurgling, and I’m waiting for Borozan to make the call so we can stop and she can start working on him, and before I can say anything, she says, “Now!”

  I stop, swing up and scan the area.

  Trees, brush, blowdowns, and Garcia running up.

  “You followed?” I call out.

  “Nope. Nothing back there. How’s Sher?”

  “Borozan’s working on him.” I wave and say, “Keep your eyes over there. This area’s mine.”

  “Got it, jefe, got it.”

  I get down on one knee, behind a fallen pine trunk, try to ease my breathing, listening to Borozan working back there, tearing open first aid packages, whispering to Sher, and as I scan the wooded area, my mind is racing.

  Alex was compromised.

  Or Alex wasn’t Alex.

  We were ambushed.

  Check that: somebody out there had actionable intelligence of our location and intent.

  I ease my breathing. Look back at Borozan. She’s hunched over Sher, whose legs are extended and splayed out. I back up and Garcia sees what I’m doing and joins me, shuttling back as quiet as we can to where Borozan and Sher are set.

  Borozan lifts up her head.

  “Well?” I ask.

  “Dead,” she said. “Single shot, right through his throat, out the back of his neck. Professional and to the point. Didn’t have a goddamn chance.”

  She crumples up a bandage wrapper. “Not a goddamn chance.”

  Chapter 9

  We do what we have to do with Sher’s body, which is to quickly hide it. We find a place where two pine trunks have fallen near each other, and Garcia, Borozan, and I work together nearly silently. In my mind, that imp of the perverse speaks up—you know, that tiny voice inside your head tha
t tells you to “jump” when you’re standing at the edge of a cliff.

  My little voice at about 0230 hours is saying, Well done, old boy. When this op is done and you reenter The World, you can go back to government service as a high-priced consultant and give seminars and demonstrations on the best way to stash a teammate’s body in the field after getting hit by a goddamn ambush you should have seen coming.

  Then we’re done, and we move out, none of us saying a word.

  After about forty minutes of rugged travel, I hold up my arm and call in Garcia and Borozan. Snow is coming down heavier, and we’re holed up inside a tangle of brush and brambles.

  If starting out on an op means no “rah rah” or “band of brothers” talk, then this definitely isn’t time for such allegedly inspiring language.

  I say, “Any of you guys remember the Kosovo bombing, back in 1999?”

  I’m hoping for a smart-ass reply—like, “No, I was too busy growing pubic hair”—but instead I just get grunts. Not a good sign. I go on.

  “Most of the NATO bombing raids started from the same place we did—Aviano. The Serbs and others had civilians outside the gates, with binoculars, cell phones, and compasses. They could see aircraft take off, plot their direction, and then call in the info to their buddies across the Adriatic.”

  Borozan speaks up, voice tired. “Given known flight time, they could figure out when the bombing would start.”

  “Right,” I say. “Based on an eyeball sighting of our chopper taking off and noting the time, and also noting our warlord friend Darko has been in the news lately, well, wouldn’t be too hard to set up a welcoming committee.”

  Garcia spits into the snow. “What now, jefe?”

  “Good question. Our guy Alex was either turned or killed, meaning we don’t have friends around here. This was supposed to be a five-guy op. We’re three. We’re being hunted and the whole countryside is probably on alert. That’s where we’re at.”

  The snow is coming down at a steady pace, and I’m surprised at how warm and comfortable I feel. It must be all of the adrenaline and other chemicals racing through my aging bloodstream.

  Some last op.

  “All right, just in case smart-ass hackers in Belgrade have tapped into our systems, we’re going nineteenth century. Cell phones, handhelds”—I tug at the telemetry patch on the back of my neck—“and this get dumped. Now.”

  In a minute, there’s a tidy little pile of electronic devices, and then I rip something off my MOLLE vest and dump it there as well.

  Garcia says, “Holy shit, jefe, that’s our sat phone.”

  “Very observant,” I say. “I’ll make sure you get high marks for that on your next eval.”

  Borozan says, “How are we gonna call for extraction without a sat phone?”

  “Simple,” I say. “We find an empty house with a phone, get a hold of long-distance, and we call ops at Aviano, tell ’em where to pick us up. It worked in Grenada.”

  “What worked in Grenada?” Garcia asks.

  “Okay, now you’re weak on operational history, so forget the kind words about your eval,” I say. “Invasion of Grenada, back in 1983. Some SEALs were caught in the governor-general’s mansion. The batteries for their radio gear ran out of juice. They used the landline in the mansion to call Special Ops Command in Florida, and with that, they were able to get a handful of AC-130s in to give them air support.”

  “Hell, yeah,” Borozan says.

  “So what do you think, jefe?” Garcia asks.

  I say, “We go on. I’m not buying the crap that if we zap Darko, a wave of love, peace, and understanding is going to roll through the Balkans. But he’s a bad guy, and sometimes all you can do is find the right bad guy and put a round in his forehead. Tends to discourage other bad guys.”

  Borozan says, “We’re only three now. That makes it harder for us to get spotted. And we’re pretty pissed off, so that’s working for us, too. I don’t like the idea of losing Clayton and Sher and then running back home. I want some payback, and I want it tonight.”

  “Me, too,” pipes in Garcia.

  I check my watch. With the foul-up at Point Q and all of our running around, we’ve now lost an hour.

  “Okay. Ten-minute rest break, and then we’re on the move.”

  Garcia says, “Screw that, jefe, I’m ready to roll now.”

  “Affirm on that,” Borozan says.

  I can’t speak for a moment. I’m near Borozan, so in the darkness and falling snow, I gently touch the small of her back.

  “All right, we go,” I say. “But Garcia, you see a stick about a meter long, with a sharp point on the end, let me know.”

  “What for?”

  “Somebody’s head is going on it before sunrise.”

  Chapter 10

  Every fifteen minutes or so, I stop so we can consult our topo map, which is extremely detailed and helpful. Without the electronic gizmos, it’s the only thing keeping our minds clear and showing us what’s ahead. There are areas of rocky cliffs, gorges, and rugged terrain, and we’re going to pass through all of it. It’s cold, it’s the middle of the night, and snow is still coming down.

  I know how our enemies, paramilitary or otherwise, will be operating on their home turf. In the first hour or so, they will be filled with piss and vinegar, determined to find the evil Americans out there in the darkness and capture or kill them in triumph.

  That’ll work for a while, but then the cold will start to get to them, and the wind, and the melting snow down the backs of their necks, and they’ll get lost, stumble around. They’ll get to a rocky gorge, look at it, say the Serbian equivalent of “the hell with it,” and go find a warm barn or farmhouse to hole up for the night.

  I don’t blame them, but I intend to use that to our advantage.

  So it’s rough going, and that’s when all the training pays off. Our friends and co-combatants in the SEALs have a saying: “The only easy day was yesterday.” Despite being swabbies, they’re pretty much on the mark.

  At an exposed knob of rock, with the wind really whipping up, I check our map once again. “We drop down from these rocks, go about two klicks, and we run up against this stream. We find a place to ford the stream, and that puts us only a klick away from Darko’s compound.”

  Garcia says, “Asshole creep’s probably deep in a warm, dry bed, dreaming about shooting kids and humping women.”

  “Well, we’re going to give him special room service,” I say. “We’ve still got time to do the job in the dark and get the hell out.”

  “You really think so, boss?” Borozan says.

  I slide the map into a side pocket. “What are you getting at?”

  “We trained for a five-member assault. What are we going to do when we get there?”

  “What we always do,” I say. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome. Didn’t you get the memo?”

  “I try not to read memos,” she says. “They usually waste my time, talking about briefings on recycling and sensitivity training.”

  Garcia laughs. “Oh, that explains your bitchiness, not going to sensitivity training.”

  Borozan responds with an extraordinarily vulgar suggestion involving Garcia, a goat, and three testicles, and in the dark and falling snow, I smile. It’s good to see them bicker.

  We get a move on, descending from the exposed rock. Without the driving wind, it feels good to be out of the snow, but that good feeling lasts only until we finally meet up with the stream.

  Which is not a stream but a raging river.

  We squat down. I check the map and glance up and down the jagged rocks and dirt of the riverbanks. Across the river is the same expanse of tall pine trees, exposed rocks, and some roots.

  I’m beginning to hate trees.

  I say, “On the map it looks like a teeny-tiny stream.”

  “Things change,” Borozan says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Borozan, you go downstream about a hundred meters, see if there’s a way across. Garcia, you
do the same upstream. Maybe there’s a place where it slows down and widens, so we can wade across. Get back as quick as you can.”

  Borozan says, “And you’ll be doing what…?”

  “Pondering the burdens of command,” I say. “Go.”

  My guys—only two!—slip away and go into the darkness. I take out the topo map and in the ghost-green light of my NVGs give it a once-over, seeing if I might have been wrong in getting here. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  And I wasn’t really joking when I mentioned “burdens of command.” This is what it all boils down to, your crew relying on your experience, skills, and judgment, and it was my decision to dump all of our electronics back there.

  Including our GPS system, which is about five times more exact than what the civvies use in their gas guzzlers. It would have told us where we were within a half-meter-range of error.

  But now I was relying on the old-fashioned methods, and though I wouldn’t admit it to Borozan and Garcia, I didn’t like it.

  Movement to the left and right. Nice to see my guys working in tandem, and, like the competitive sorts they are, both move faster to see who gets to me first.

  And it’s Borozan, and she says, “Sorry, boss. It even gets worse down there. Another stream feeds in and it gets deeper and rougher.”

  Garcia is in a good mood. “And it’s Garcia for the win, jefe.”

  “What do you got?”

  “Wooden footbridge, up about fifty meters. Perfect.”

  I put my topo map away. “Let’s go check it out.”

  Garcia takes point, Borozan is in the middle, and I bring up the rear, and in the falling snow, something else is tickling at the back of my neck. I don’t know why, but something is bothering me, though I’m not seeing anything out of place. When you’re in deep woods, that something can be anything that doesn’t match, or a straight line—like a weapon. Nature doesn’t work in straight lines.

  The riverbank drops down, and as Garcia promised, there it is. A wooden footbridge, spanning the river. Perfect. I catch a scent of fresh wood and move up some, to look upstream.