Don Pendleton - Rogue Elements

Namzi bowed back. The soldier took his tray and sat at the team table. When the team looked at him expectantly, Bolan shrugged. “Do we have a job? I spent all my money buying Sifu knives and beer and soap. I need to get paid.”

The entire table burst out laughing. Big Abe rolled his eyes. “I’ll give you this, Blue. You and Sifu’s stories match up.”

“Lying.” Bolan shrugged again. “Too much to remember. But I’ll tell you this.”

Ketch spoke for the first time. “What’s that?”

“It wasn’t good.”

The table went quiet and hung on Bolan’s words.

“As a matter of fact, it got really sketchy back there in Salalah, and local thugs don’t usually bring hand grenades.”

“What are you saying, brah?” Abe asked.

“That’s all I’m saying. Do we have a job?”

“Yeah, we got a job.” Big Abe nodded. “A freighter going right up the Gulf of Aden, pirate alley, right past Somalia, and Yemen is at war.”

“Destination?”

“Yanbu, Saudi.”

“You know, I’m new, but I had a bad feeling in Salalah, and I’m having one now.”

“So what are you saying, brah?” Abe repeated.

“Just what everyone already knows. I’m thinking we need to mind our Ps and Qs, watch each other’s asses, and watch the horizon, 360, 24/7.”

Sifuentes grinned. He was totally ready to roll with Bolan again. He held up his hand and his fingers curled for the fist bump. “Fuckin ay’, Blue! Me and you! Let’s get stabby!”

Bolan fist bumped and looked around the table. “Do we have guns?”

Ibarra shook her head. “Kind of.”

Chapter Three

Bolan took up his weapon. “Cool.”

“Cool?” Ibarra sneered. “Screw you, cool breeze. Rampart gets the latest German technology. Everything is all HK and gleaming. Viking gets this surplus, Italian, Saving Private Ryan shit. Rumor I heard is the Italians were going to donate it to the Kurds fighting ISIS, and even they didn’t want it. It’s like they’re setting us up to fail.”

Bolan examined his Beretta Model 1959 rifle. It was missing significant amounts of finish. The wooden stock had a crack in the forearm, and it did indeed look a lot like a prop from an American World War II movie except that it took a twenty-round magazine and had a muzzle brake the size of a cigar for launching rifle grenades. Bolan raised an eyebrow, a hopeful note in his voice. “Do we have grenades?”

Big Abe kicked a crate in disgust. “We have bayonets.”

“Cool.” Sifuentes got happy. “Have I told you what Blue does with blades? I’ll take two!”

Bolan nodded at a crate with Italian words on it, and numbers that implied ammo. “Do we get any trigger time, or is that strictly for the job?”

“That’s the good news.” Abe took a bayonet and popped the top of the nailed ammunition crate with shocking hand and wrist strength. “We got two thousand rounds of ammo.”

“Pistols?” Bolan inquired.

“I told you!” Abe growled. “This shit! And bayonets!”

Bolan wasn’t entirely displeased. If the battle was ship to ship, he preferred something with some reach and penetration, and when targets were swarming you there was something very focusing about telling your team to fix bayonets. “We got cleaning kits?”

“Yeah, and web gear.” Big Abe kicked another crate. “Like any of it is going to fit me...”

Bolan sat cross-legged on the deck and fieldstripped, cleaned and lubricated his rifle as if his drill sergeant were timing him.

“Wow,” Big Abe grudgingly opined. The team watched, rapt, as Bolan reassembled the weapon and loaded a magazine.

He rose. “Need a target.”

Big Abe took up the empty rifle crate and hurled it into the ship’s wake. “There you go.”

Bolan watched the aged yellow pine box bobble and churn in the turbulence.

“Yo, Blue.” Big Abe’s features set into scowl mode. “Anytime.”

Bolan would have preferred an optic, but the Beretta’s iron sights were a clone of the WWII Garand rifle’s. Connoisseurs considered them the greatest battle sight of all time. Bolan watched the crate leave the ship’s wake and gently bob on the surface. Ibarra raised a pair of range-finding binoculars. “You’re at three hundred meters, Blue.”

Bolan nodded and gave the sight-adjustment drum a couple more clicks.

“Four hundred meters.”

Bolan waited as the ship sailed away from the crate.

“Five hundred meters.”

Bolan waited. He allowed himself that he was on a ship in motion on the ocean and armed with a rifle he had never shot before. He decided to cut himself some slack. He dropped to one knee. “Tell me when we get to eight hundred.”

Murmurs broke out on the bow.

Ketch gaped. “Holy shit.”

“Bullshit,” Abe declared.

Ibarra lowered her optics in shock and then brought them back up to her eyes. The Viking team collectively held its breath.

“Eight hundred meters.”

Bolan fired.

Ibarra got excited. “You’re about five meters in front of it! Raise you aim and—”

Bolan fired and fired again. The rifle crate spun, bobbed and spit splinters as bullets tore into it. Bolan fired on methodically. Sifuentes jumped up and down waving his arms. “Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!”

The rifle locked open, oozing smoke out the chamber. The crate had been reduced to swiftly dispersing kindling. Sifuentes strutted like a peacock. “My mad, bad, big brother Blue! That’s what I’m talking about! Anyone doubting us now?”

Ketch slowly shook his head. “No.”

Big Abe stared. “That’s fucked up.”

Mendez stroked his beard like a sage. “That was some shooting.”

Bolan nodded modestly. “Thank you.”

Sifuentes was giddy. “He could have done it throwing his knives!”

Mono stepped up eagerly and handed Bolan a fresh magazine. “Teach me!”

“Maybe.”

“You know,” Ibarra said with deadly seriousness, “I just might sleep with you.”

Bolan reloaded his rifle. “Cool.”

* * *

Bolan sipped an ice-cold Stella Artois beer. The team’s mood had visibly improved. Alcohol was strictly controlled on arsenal ships. They were filled with soldiers of all nations, bored out of their minds as they proceeded to proverbially hurry up and wait for their job slots as freighters sailed across the vast oceans at a snail’s pace. However, Team Viking had a job in the morning, and each member had been issued two beers. Another way to relieve bored, disgruntled fighters was to give them trigger time, and the team had burned a thousand rounds at floating targets while Bolan had walked the firing line on the bow and given tips and adjusted sights.

It helped that the cook had a thing for Bolan and had weezed each team member an extra beer and a couple of shots of Indonesian tuak palm wine from the pantry. Sifuentes had been convinced to take a break from his usual death metal, and was playing Mexican club music out of a phone dock and attached mini speakers. There was a lot of laughing and telling tales that kept getting taller. Ibarra seemed incapable of keeping her body from moving to the music even when seated. Bolan idly considered asking her to dance, but he didn’t want to make Abe jealous. Ibarra had noticed Bolan noticing her, and her smile got wider with every drink.

His eyes flicked to the door to the mess.

A second later a huge black man walked in. “Well, looky, looky here.”

Everyone except Bolan jumped in his or her seat. Sifuentes lunged to punch the music off. Mendez and Mono made sad attempts to hide their tuak shots. The man was as tall as Bolan but built like Big Abe. The most startling thing about him were his almost honey-colored amber eyes. They literally seemed to have the power to smolder even while he smiled, and the smile was not friendly. Bolan noted the man was wearing a Rampart Group black baseball hat and openly carrying a Glock holstered on his thigh. The man turned his unfriendly smile on Big Abe. “Abraham.”