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  Ernest Dempsey

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  Out of the Fire

  A Dak Harper Thriller

  Ernest Dempsey

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  One

  Hamrin Mountains, Iraq, 2015

  Dak stared through the night vision goggles at the terrorist camp on the opposite ridge. He and his team had been sitting there for over an hour, waiting until it was dark enough to move without being easily detected. Their window was short due to the cycle of the moon. In thirty minutes, the earth’s satellite would start climbing into the sky and cast its eerie glow onto the desert mountains. It would still be dark enough to carry out the operation, but the light of the moon would make Dak and his team much easier to spot as they navigated up the slope toward the terrorist’s camp.

  “How many you count, Haus?” a man named Bo Taylor asked crouching next to Dak. He was about the same height as Dak, around two inches past six feet, but his hair was blond, cut short in the military fashion, but his tanned face was wrapped by a thick beard. Four of the six men on their team had grown beards during their time in the northeastern mountains of Iraq. The only two that didn’t sport beards were Carson and Luis. Carson, a black man from the Bronx, had worn a beard for years before joining the military and eventually Delta Force. But he cut it off when he signed up and never grew it back. No one was sure if Luis could even grow a beard or not.

  “Hard to tell which ones are going in and out, or if it’s others who were already inside,” Dak answered after several seconds of watching the entrance into the cave. “Details like that aren’t as easy to make out from this range.”

  “I’m having the same issue,” Bo confessed. “But if you had to guess?”

  “Fourteen. Not counting any that might be inside we haven’t seen yet. I’d go ahead and plan on double.”

  “Twenty-eight targets?”

  “Better to plan on too many than not enough.”

  Bo snorted. “I guess. Sounds pessimistic to me.”

  Dak didn’t reply, instead tightening his focus on the camp.

  Several canvas tents dotted the top of the hill around the cave’s entrance. Fires burned outside of some, where men tended them while doing their best to keep warm. Taking watch at night in the Hamrin Mountains was a cold, thankless task, and one that the men in Dak’s sights didn’t seem to be diligent in performing.

  “I like those odds,” Carson quipped from Dak’s left.

  Carson Williams, a tall, muscular black man, was about one inch taller than Dak. His head was shaved clean, same as his face, and he spoke with a deep baritone.

  “I bet you do, weirdo,” Luis said. His voice contrasted the big man’s with a tinny, higher pitch. He was the shortest of the group, around five feet and nine inches. His thick, black hair fluttered in the chilly mountain breeze. Luis Martinez may have been lacking in the physical size department, but the man was resourceful, cunning, and a bulldog in a fight.

  Billy Trask and Nathan Collier rounded out the remaining members of the six-man team. They were in a back position, about fifteen yards up the hill from the other four. Billy, a gangly sniper from Western Kentucky, was in a ditch with his MK 21 ASR rifle propped up on a tripod. Nathan squatted next to him, an M249 aimed into the darkness toward the terrorist camp. The light machine gun was better suited for covering fire in this situation, where the sniper rifle would provide accurate elimination of enemies.

  Billy had used this very model of the weapon to take down targets from twice as far away, so to say he was comfortable shooting from this distance was an understatement.

  “Always better to be safe than sorry,” Billy said into the radio upon hearing Dak’s comment.

  Dak Harper had a reputation for doing things by the book, but he also wasn’t afraid to go with his gut when the instance called for it.

  He knew that, based on their surveillance of the enemy camp, things would settle down about this time, which made their entire operation a waiting game until the word go.

  Nathan said nothing. He was always the quiet one, sometimes in a disturbing way. There had been more than a few occasions where Dak found the bulky man sharpening the twin knives he always kept on his belt. The way he went about honing the blades was disconcerting. Dak witnessed him sliding the weapons back and forth, watching them like he might a dancer with ribbons floating and twirling around her body. Dak never mentioned it, though he’d considered many times asking about the fascination with knives. Husky and built like a tank, Nathan was the heaviest of the group. He could carry more than anyone else, which was why he was assigned to the light machine gun, though the term “light” didn’t accurately describe it in terms of weight.

  “Looks like all the hens are home to roost,” Dak said as he watched two guards disappear into the cave entrance two-thirds of the way up the other hillside.

  “I still see four guards stationed outside of the tents above the cave,” Bo said.

  “We eliminate them first,” Dak answered. “Then we go in. Everyone ready?”

  “Yes, sir,” the group answered as one.

  “Okay, then. Let’s do it.”

  Two

  Hamrin Mountains

  The group maneuvered silently up the hillside, split into two groups to flank the encampment at the top of the hill. Billy remained in his sniper nest, while Nathan pushed up the center, heading down into the ravine and then making the exhausting trek upward toward the shrouded entrance of the cave, covered by desert camouflage nets to keep it out of view of the spy drones that constantly scoured the mountain range for extremist camps and training facilities.

  Dak and Bo took the right flank and reached the top of the ridge first, nearly a minute before the left flanking pair of Carson and Luis reached their spot.

  “We’re in position,” Carson breathed into the radio.

  “I have one target acquired at the front of the cave,” Billy said.

  “Keep him in your sights,” Dak ordered. “Take him out on my command.”

  “Ten-four, driver.”

  “Team two, you ready?” Dak asked.

  “Ready when you are,” Carson said.

  “Take out the guards. Use your knives and keep it quiet. We don’t want all Hades breaking loose before we get a chance to look around the cave.”

  “Roger that,” Luis said.

  The four men moved as a single, precise instrument of death. Dak maneuvered to his right toward a guard standing by a fire pit outside of two tents. The other three moved similarly to him, each taking the enemy nearest them.

  The unit moved with deadly precision and the guards never stood a chance. Dak reached his target without so much as a twig snapping. The terrorist guard stood by the fire, staring into the bright orange flames. The mans hands were out in front of him, fingers covered in tattered gloves. His AK-47 hung around one shoulder from a strap, dangling low by his hip.

  He never had a chance.

  Dak stepped out of the shadows and inserted the sharp tip of the knife into the base of the man’s neck and drove it up into his brain, severing the spinal cord in the process before scrambling vital organ with a quick twist. Death came instantly for the guard. The most the man felt was a sharp sting on the back of his neck before succumbing to the sudden darkness.

  Dak felt the guard grow instantly heavy as his legs gave out,
forcing Dak to hold him tight with one arm around the dead man’s chest as he dragged him back into folds of the rocks and scraggly bushes just behind the tent.

  “Target down,” Dak said into his radio.

  “What took you so long?” Bo asked with chagrin. “Mine’s down.”

  “Target three down,” Carson’s voice entered the conversation.

  No one said anything for a long moment, and for several seconds, Dak wondered what was taking Luis so long. He maintained silence until the radio crackled and Luis spoke.

  “My guy is down, though I’m not sure why I got the biggest one.”

  “Enough chatter,” Dak said, a hint of chastisement in his voice. “Eagle one, what do you see at the entrance?”

  “Same two targets as before, sir. Ready to eliminate them on your order.”

  “Into breach position,” Dak ordered the others.

  The men moved silently through the dark and met at the top of the ledge that hung over the cave’s entrance. The camouflage netting hung with stakes hammered into the hard ground. The fabric stretched out over the landing below and dropped over the next ledge, held in place on the lower side by large rocks.

  From the air, the covering probably looked like nothing more than a dusty slope on the edge of the hillside.

  It was nearly the perfect cover, but not so perfect that Dak and his team couldn’t find it. These terrorists were the ones responsible for an attack on a village about twenty clicks away. They’d murdered innocent people for the meager resources the villagers possessed. The only survivors were those who’d escaped or been out in the hills with their flocks of goats and witnessed the attack go down from a distance.

  Their village wasn’t the only one hit.

  This band of brigands was responsible for at least six such attacks on small, outlying, defenseless villages over the last month. And it was time to shut them down for good.

  Dak knew that it was an endless battle. Even when everyone inside the cave was dead, another terrorist cell would pop up somewhere else in the next few weeks and the deadly game would start all over again.

  There was no time to think about such matters. Dak and his team had a job to do. He inched his way forward, crouching low. He stopped when he reached the edge of the cave entrance roof. The camo fabric at his feet would do nothing to stop the high-velocity rounds from Billy’s weapon.

  “Nathan?” Dak spoke just above a whisper into the radio.

  “In position and ready to lay them out if anyone comes out of the cave.”

  “Light ‘em up, Billy.”

  Billy stared through his thermal scope at the two figures standing on either side of the cave door. He selected the man on the right first. Billy always waited for a target to turn their head when there was a choice of two. The one who moved and took their attention away from the field of vision with the other in it would be the one who lived longer, albeit only a few seconds.

  The guard on the left had taken a step away from the opening into the mountain and was looking off into the ravine. Billy lined up the target, having already compensated for wind, distance, and drop.

  He squeezed the trigger as he exhaled and the colorful figure in his scope dropped as a red splatter escaped through the back of the man’s skull.

  Predictably, the other guard spun around quickly at the sound. He’d no sooner laid eyes on his dead compatriot when a bullet cracked through the back quarter of his head and ejected out of the front left corner.

  The man dropped instantly in a heap.

  “Clear,” Billy said. “Targets down.”

  Dak motioned to the other three, and the four men descended onto the cave entrance.

  Three

  Hamrin Mountains

  Bo took the point, leading the other three into the cave. Nathan remained outside, a safe distance from the entrance, but with his machine gun ready to take out any reinforcements if the terrorists were clever enough to have people in reserve.

  The four Delta Force men opted for their pistols in the tight quarters of the cave corridor. While the M1s offered more firepower, they were bigger and less maneuverable in the confines of cave passages. All of their weapons were equipped with suppressors to give them every edge they could muster on the mission.

  Bo’s muzzle popped from up ahead. A thump followed the sound as the body of another guard hit the floor.

  A moment later, Dak stepped over the dead man as he followed Bo into the dim passage.

  The cave was lit with ancient lightbulbs dangling from the walls, held up by old concrete screws with the wires wrapped around once before continuing down the wall to the next bulb. The terrorists usually got their electricity from generators, which was inefficient, but necessary so far from civilization.

  Carson and Luis brought up the rear, checking behind often to make sure no one slipped past Nathan’s guard at the entrance.

  The cave corridor narrowed before it reached the first switchback where it curved to the right and then back to the left again, going deeper into the mountain. At the second bend, the path gradually angled down and Dak could see a brighter light shining off of the wall below. He heard voices too, men barking in gruff tones—either in Arabic or a close relative to it.

  Dak understood some of it, though the individual words were difficult to hear from where he stood. He and the others in his group spoke the language fluently. One of his early assignments had been flying around in a helicopter on night missions over the city of Baghdad, listening for potential insurgents’ conversations.

  He and Bo crept down the passage until they could see where it opened up to the left, expanding into a huge underground chamber.

  The voices echoed through the tunnels now and it was easy to hear what the men were saying. Several of them were joking about having their way with some of the women in the village before killing them in front of their husbands.

  Dak glanced at Bo and saw the man’s reaction. Fury burned in Bo’s eyes. Dak had seen the look before and knew the man’s temper was getting the best of him. No amount of elite training could burn that out. They had constructed it long ago, and nothing would tear it down now. The only way it was altered was by fueling it, and these extremists had just done that.

  Dak shook his head silently at his partner, but he already knew it was too late. Fortunately for Dak, Bo’s directed his anger at the bad guys.

  “Go,” Dak said, unleashing the reins.

  The two men holstered their pistols and raised the M1s. They stepped around the corner with the weapons raised, and took aim at the first targets they spotted, lining up the terrorists with the holosights fixed to the guns’ rails.

  Their weapons popped with every squeeze of the trigger as Dak and Bo stepped into the room, one going left and the other two the right.

  Luis and Carson moved in next, taking the center of the room and eliminating panicked extremists as their comrades fell to the barrage of hot metal the soldiers unleashed.

  Four, six, ten men died within the first five seconds. The ones in the back of the cave heard the commotion, the gunfire, and tried to rally to their arms that were carelessly lying around on top of crates or leaning against the wall.

  The room filled with a fog of gun smoke and the bitter scent that came with it. Some terrorists screamed in anger as they desperately tried to defend themselves. Others begged for mercy, putting up their hands as they yelled in broken English at the Americans descending upon them.

  They would have no mercy this night.

  Bo took out at least seven of the terrorists while the rest of the team mopped up the others.

  The gunfight took less than a minute. When it was all over, two dozen bodies lay strewn around the room. Some of the dead were heaped on top of one another, the men dying in piles as they fell under the hail of bullets.

  Bo looked around through the smoke and gave a satisfied grin. He nodded over at Dak who was also sweeping the area to make sure they had missed no one.

  Dak return
ed the look and then spoke into the radio. “All clear. Tangos down.”

  He moved deeper into the cave’s room, spotting something in the back corner in a wooden crate. Five crates sat there, all sealed except for the one on the floor with the lid propped up against it. Something glimmered from within the box. Dak drew to it like a moth to the flame and he cocked his head curiously when he reached the crate and saw what was inside.

  He lowered his weapon and stared blankly at the contents. There, packed inside loose bits of straw and paper, was a two-foot-long, golden statue.

  “What in the world?” Dak said out loud.

  Four

  Hamrin Mountains

  He turned in time to see Bo sidle up next to him, his eyes also fixed on the crate. "Looks like we hit the jackpot this time," Bo huffed. Pride beamed from his eyes.

  "What?" Dak asked.

  The other two joined them by the pile of wooden boxes and gazed into the open one.

  "Wonder what's in the other four," Luis said.

  “More loot," Bo answered confidently.

  "You guys know we can't keep any of this, right?" Dak informed. "This stuff is probably stolen from a museum or a dig site. These artifacts are probably pretty valuable."

  "No kidding," Bo said. "And now it's time for us to get a nice little bonus to our measly paychecks."

  Dak chuckled. "Yeah, sure."

  "Why not?" Bo asked. He met Dak's eyes with sincerity. "No one knows this stuff is here. There was nothing about it in the reports, the mission briefing, the objectives. We completed the mission, Dak. And it looks like we just got lucky."

  Dak didn't like where this was going. "You know that's against the rules. Our job was to eliminate the cell and call in the cavalry to assess the situation. That's it."