Fortress Doctrine (Maelstrom Rising Book 5) Page 4

  “We just came from the Doogan house,” he explained, stepping forward. She was still eyeing his silhouette nervously, the shotgun not quite pointed at him, but still awfully close. “They’re all dead. We had to check on you.”

  “What?” She must not have heard anything as the Doogans had been murdered. Given the impression he’d gotten of the Graus over the last few weeks, that honestly didn’t surprise Hank that much.

  “They’re dead. Now, if you’re not going to shoot us, we’ve got a fight to get to.” He was about out of patience. He wouldn’t shoot her unless she gave him absolutely no choice, but he couldn’t very well turn his back on a shotgun in considerably less than steady or trustworthy hands, either. “Before a lot more people end up the way they did.” He was glad that the murderers hadn’t gone to the Grau house; it meant that they weren’t making a clean sweep of it. They had a specific set of targets in mind. And even as he turned to get LaForce moving again, he thought he knew just what the plan was.

  Especially given the absence of the Doogan boys’ “friends.”

  He got LaForce’s attention and pointed northwest, over the next hill. He didn’t think that they’d made for the next house overlooking the golf course if they weren’t aiming at taking out the entirety of the defenses. They’d penetrated through the Doogan place, and given the lay of the land…

  They didn’t go right over the hill. That would have meant skylining themselves, and Hank had practiced this long enough that he knew that even without NVGs, a human silhouette against the night sky would be all too visible.

  Instead, he picked out Fernandez and one of the new guys, Evans, and pointed them to the crest to set up a base of fire. Meanwhile, he and the rest would circle around to the south and approach up the draw that pointed to the Treviño house.

  As they worked their way down, careful to use the terrain to conceal their movement as much as possible, Hank’s suspicions were confirmed. Gunfire thundered from the front of the house. Given the fact that Treviño had never been eager to help the militia—in fact, he’d been downright hostile, if passive-aggressively—that told him all he needed to know.

  They were moving carefully but not slowly. In minutes, they were rising out of the draw and closing in on Treviño’s front porch.

  He’d almost expected the bad guys to be waiting for them, but apparently, their professionalism didn’t match their viciousness. The gunfire was coming from the back of the house, aimed across the road at the apartments that had been a hotel, just across from the lodge.

  LaForce beat him to the door by a heartbeat. The two of them paused for a fraction of a second, then LaForce turned his back to the wall and donkey-kicked the door.

  It didn’t budge. Apparently, for all his public scoffing at the security concerns inherent in living right on the Mexican border, Treviño still had a solid front door with multiple-point locks.

  Worse, now that they’d tried kicking the door in and failed, the bad guys inside would be alerted to their presence.

  Hank hadn’t trained his section to sit around and hem and haw under fire, though. LaForce turned to the nearest window, punched the glass out with his suppressor, swept the sill, and held security while Hank moved forward, his own weapon leveled, and scrambled inside, glad that he’d made it a habit to wear gloves.

  He hadn’t been in Treviño’s house more than once, so he really didn’t have the interior layout memorized. Which didn’t make it all that surprising when he tripped over an end table set under the window, almost went sprawling, caught himself, and staggered out of the line of the window as he almost overbalanced. At least it put him out of the way when LaForce followed him through. The shorter, thicker man came through the window more slowly, while Huntsman covered him.

  Hank had found himself in a combined entryway/living room, currently abandoned. The rapid gunfire from upstairs explained why they weren’t already under attack; the bad guys probably hadn’t heard the window breaking.

  He moved away from the window, staying against the wall and closing in on the door to the hallway that also opened up on the stairs leading up to the second floor. It appeared that the ground floor was deserted; the enemy must have taken Treviño with them. He lived alone.

  As soon as Huntsman joined him, Hank started up the stairs, letting LaForce and Vega, another one of the new guys, flow past them into the kitchen.

  He mounted the stairs carefully, keeping his weapon high, searching for the shooter who might be watching the stairs. He could hear yells in Spanish in between gunshots.

  The upstairs hallway was empty. The shooting was coming from the far room. The other doors were open, but he scanned them over his rifle muzzle as he moved down the hall, his boots soundless on the carpet, shifting to the next visible threat as Huntsman took over each doorway from him.

  The far door was only partly ajar, keeping him from seeing into the room. But with each of the other rooms empty, that was their target.

  He didn’t even pause. A savage snap-kick slammed the door open and he was going through, his red dot already settling on the figure directly in front of him as he registered the weapon in the young man’s hands, brass flying from the receiver as he fired down at the old hotel. He fired twice, the suppressed report still shockingly loud in the enclosed room, and the young man was slammed violently against the window frame, sliding down onto the floor and leaving a swathe of red on the whitewashed wall.

  Huntsman had followed him in and gone right as he rode the door, coming up short against the closet and finding himself still in the fatal funnel of the doorway as he tracked toward the next target. The kid—who couldn’t have been much more than sixteen—had already been covered in blood before Hank blew his brains out with a single round to the temple. A stark, clinical part of his mind noted that detail. He was pretty sure he knew whose blood it was.

  By the time he reached the third target, Huntsman had already slammed two bullets into each of the other two who were on their feet. Hank’s sights settled just in time for him to see the last man bounce off the window frame, his head hitting with an audible thock before he collapsed, twitching, onto the floor.

  Movement drew his eye, and his rifle snapped toward it. He kept his finger off the trigger, though, when he saw that it was Treviño himself, down on his stomach, his hands behind his head, shaking.

  “Clear.”

  “Clear,” Huntsman echoed.

  “One-One, Actual. Status?” He had to take his hand off his rifle to key the radio, but none of the four in the room were getting up any time soon, and Treviño looked like he might have learned his lesson.

  “Ground floor secure,” LaForce reported. “Ready to move when you are.”

  “Mike Actual, Tango India Actual. We are in Treviño’s residence, getting ready to move to the old hotel.”

  “Copy,” Grant replied. He was out of breath and his voice sounded strained. Even as he sent it, Hank looked out the window and saw figures spilling across the road from the lodge, firing back toward it. “We’re falling back to the old hotel, ourselves. We can’t hold the lodge.”

  “Roger. We’ll handle that. Oscar Mike.”

  Chapter 4

  “One-Two, bring the gun trucks up to Comanche Hill,” Hank called over the radio, while he led the way out the front door again. It sounded like the militia were getting the worst of it out there, but he still had to make sure they moved carefully and fought smart. They didn’t have the numbers or the firepower to get sloppy. “One Charlie, collapse on me.”

  They had to move carefully, but that didn’t mean slowly. As soon as they were out the door and had the crest of the hill between them and the old hotel, the Triarii started hustling down the draw. Hank had no intention of going to the old hotel and getting pinned down with the militia. That would only buy them some time.

  He intended to break the attack and win this.

  They hustled down the draw toward the golf course, where a strip of heavier brush led along the base
of the hill, aimed toward the resort itself.

  Coming out of the draw, he could see vehicles moving up the road on the south side of the resort, moving up to flank the old hotel. The three vics were surprisingly similar to the Triarii setup; two pickups were led by an old up-armored HMMWV, with an M2 .50 cal in the turret.

  That Hummer was going to be the biggest problem, but only if they thought to have the combat locks engaged.

  “One-Two, Actual. Watch your left flank; three gun trucks coming up from the resort.” He got a prompt acknowledgment from Faris, and promptly directed LaForce to head down through the brush toward the edge of the golf course itself, giving them some extra cover until they could get up alongside the road.

  Speed and stealth would have to be their security.

  As they crept through the brush, Hank found himself once again cussing the intransigence that had kept him from thoroughly booby-trapping the roads and other approaches from the ford. He could have stopped this cold if he’d had IEDs set in on the road; all three of the bad guys’ gun trucks would be funeral pyres already.

  Hell, it didn’t even have to be IEDs. We could have set in all sorts of other nasty surprises. But noooo…

  He signaled the element to spread out along the side of the road, staying low and moving as slowly as necessary. Time was of the essence, but he’d drilled it into the section since before things had gone pear shaped to “make haste slowly.” Fast movement drew the eye, and patience often became the deciding factor between winning and dying.

  He was almost down on all fours as he got closer to the road. They had to act soon; the three vehicles were slow-rolling toward the beleaguered militia’s flank, their engines idling and the gravel crunching under their tires. He could just hear chatter in Spanish between the gunners; they sounded downright jovial.

  It made his blood boil, especially when he thought about what they’d found back in the Doogan house.

  He could see the Humvee moving just ahead. They had to halt that one before it got closer and opened the other two’s fields of fire toward the old hotel. Unfortunately, their options were fairly limited. The vehicle probably had run-flats, and he doubted that their 7.62 rounds would be able to damage the engine enough to stop it.

  But there was only so much time they could squat in the brush and try to plan things out. This had already gone too far for that. He leveled his rifle, picking up the red dot in his NVGs, and put three suppressed rounds into the gunner.

  The Humvee hadn’t mounted a full armored turret; aside from the splinter shield around the M2, the gunner was completely exposed. The rounds tore through him and he dropped, getting caught up on the M2’s grips and the turret ring, his corpse hanging partway out on the roof.

  LaForce had already opened fire next to Hank, hammering more rounds into the front tires. They apparently weren’t run-flats, as they immediately collapsed as the driver stomped on the gas, making the vehicle swerve off the road and onto the softer shoulder.

  To the other two enemy gunners’ credit, they reacted quickly. Machineguns swiveled toward the golf course and roared, spitting fire and red tracers over the Triarii’s heads.

  Fortunately, they didn’t know where the fire had come from, and were shooting far too high. The bullets crackled as they flew overhead, sailing out over the golf course and back toward the curve of the river beyond.

  Unfortunately for them, they weren’t watching their six. And those other two trucks weren’t armored.

  Suppressed gunfire tore through the gunner and the cab of the rear vehicle before any of the narcos knew what had happened. The paired HK-21s’ roar had drowned out the softer cracks of the suppressed 7.62 M5s. The rear machinegun falling silent was the only warning the second gunner got.

  As the middle gunner started to swivel back toward the rear, a single shot from up on the hill behind Hank tore through his torso. He lurched, seemed to grasp at air for a second, then bounced off the HK-21’s receiver and collapsed into the bed of the truck.

  Hank was already moving, LaForce and Vega on his heels. The Humvee driver was trying to get off the X, but he’d run the flat tire into the dirt, and was spinning the rear wheel. But he’d be out in another second.

  Vega reached the passenger side door first, yanking it open and stepping out of the way as the man in the right seat opened fire with a short-barreled rifle, spraying bullets into the dark. LaForce hit the ground with a thud, and only long-cultivated discipline kept Hank from reacting to what sounded a lot like his former 2nd Squad Leader’s death.

  Hank, for his part, had already moved around toward the rear of the vehicle, and was approaching from that quarter, out of line of sight from the door. He closed in fast, just as LaForce opened fire from the ground, his bullets thudding into the man in the right seat with an awful finality. The SBR fell out onto the ground with a clatter.

  Not dead. Thank you, God.

  He took the last couple of steps toward the rear door, his combat glide turning into a sprint as the Humvee started to break free from the soft ground. He grabbed the door handle just in time, yanking it open and firing almost blind into the interior.

  Armored vehicle full of narcos or the close equivalent. No good guys or innocent bystanders inside there.

  Cries of pain and panic filled the cab, and the wounded driver stomped on the gas as he flinched away from the bullets that had just chopped into his side. The Humvee surged away from Hank, who jumped back before he got clipped and dragged along. But the driver had turned the wheel, both trying to get out of the rut he’d run into, and as he’d flinched away from the gunfire.

  The vehicle surged across the road, went through the brush and over a low stone wall, and went grille-first into the decorative pond behind the gazebo.

  More suppressed gunshots cracked off to his left, as the rest of the maneuver element finished off what was left in the two unarmored pickups. Hank, Vega, and LaForce, who had picked himself up off the ground, advanced on the Humvee as the Triarii gun trucks came around the shoulder of the hill to the east, their mounted Mk 48s opening fire on the vehicles to the north of the lodge.

  The tide was turning, at least for the moment.

  Keeping an eye on the lodge, the three Triarii scrambled down the slope toward the water. The driver’s side rear door came open, and a figure scrambled out, splashing through the pond toward the gazebo, head ducked and hands empty. Hank sprinted around the edge and slammed into the man, ramming him into the side of the gazebo.

  The air blasted out of the narco with a whoof at the impact, but Hank didn’t let up. Slinging his rifle on his back, he waded in, hitting the man twice more in the solar plexus, then knocking his head halfway around with an elbow.

  He wanted this one alive.

  With a swift kick, he swept the dazed man’s legs out from under him and slammed him onto his face in the dirt. Dropping a knee into his back, he whipped out the pair of hasty flex-cuffs from his dump pouch and quickly and cruelly bound the man’s hands behind his back.

  Then he was back up, sweeping his rifle back to the front, as Vega, LaForce, and the rest of the maneuver element joined him, spread out and moving toward the lodge.

  More machinegun fire rattled off to his right. The gun trucks were moving up, sweeping ahead of the old hotel. Which told him something of what was happening, even before his earpiece crackled with Faris’s voice.

  “Actual, One-Two. Vehicles to the north appear to be falling back.”

  Hank replied with a double squelch break. He was breathing hard, his heart pounding in his chest. He forced himself to breathe slower, in through his nose, out through his mouth. His throat already felt as dry as the Big Bend desert itself.

  A wide, open park stretched between the gazebo and the lodge itself. He wasn’t inclined to go straight across it; it would be a killing ground if the enemy was inside the lodge and remotely alert. He stayed at the gazebo for a moment, scanning the ground while he calmed his breathing and heart rate, and considered t
heir next move.

  “Down to the low ground and around toward the southwest building, next to the parking lot.” He kept his voice low, but still loud enough that LaForce and Vega could hear, and LaForce could pass it along. Once the first shot had been fired, some would say that staying quiet was pointless, but while the enemy might know they were there, they didn’t necessarily know exactly where.

  You take what advantages you can get or create in combat.

  They started moving back, across the road and back into the brush below it. Fernandez had taken the lead, and the massive Triarius was still a barely visible shadow slipping from bush to bush as they passed the bullet-riddled gun trucks.

  The gunfire had noticeably slackened. A few potshots rang out through the night, and a couple more long bursts roared out from belt-feds on gun trucks. But it sounded like the fight was winding down.

  Not that Hank was going to relax. They would still need to sweep the lodge, room by room, and then the rest of the town, making sure there weren’t any holdouts left.

  “Tango India Actual, Mike Actual.” Grant sounded even more smoked than Hank felt. “The remaining vehicles are heading back toward the river. Do we pursue?”

  “Negative.” Under different circumstances, Hank would have said hell yes, but he wasn’t sure that was such a good idea at the moment. The militia in Lajitas was still dealing with some teething problems that meant he wasn’t that confident in leaving them to go hunting across the line. He knew it was going to have to come to that, but at this phase, he figured that they still needed their Triarii big brothers close. “We need to make sure the town’s secure first.”

  That wasn’t the only factor, either; he was still thinking about the scene in the Doogan house, and putting some pieces together. And they weren’t forming a pretty picture.