Chapter 7: Nightfall
March 21st, 2014/
Markaz, Iran,
7:30 P.M, Iran Daylight Time.
Log # fuckall,
Well, it’s been one hell of a week.
The quake, the PLR, the fucking Russians and now this rainbow haired pegasus from a friggin’ child’s television show that the enemy used a fucking hostage, out of all thoughts. Why not? God smite me, I’m going insane. This shit keeps up; I might just pull the pin and relieve us from this god-forsaken place.
I keep telling the CO, ‘I’ve been through a lot, and I don’t want to go through this operation.’
But fuck you! He says, ‘Orders from HQ, I’m afraid you can’t decline the mission.’ I heard him say sorry, but what fucking difference does that make, asshole? Just call in the F-22s, the Tomahawks, maybe even a fucking ICBM and blow Iran off the map, fucking sand raiders.
I’m just betting my money on a dead deal, that we’ll get out fine, handy dandy in less than a month. Let’s say, hundred grand? I don’t know. It’s been weeks since I last saw my dollars.
Mariam, stay safe. I’ll be back for the kids, I promise. And for the kids, Daddy might have a surprise for all of you!
If I come back in one piece and not sewn up, I hope.
Scott put down the pen and sighed, looking out the windows of the Humvee as the night progressed. Now that he and his motley crew of Marines, two tank operators and two pilots had set up base camp in a split shopping mall aptly named the ‘Supernova Center’, the USMC Engineer had all the time in the world to think about his family.
“Oh, Mariam,” he spoke into the cold, night breeze as he spotted a still functioning street light not far away. “I hope the kids are doing well in school.”
“I hope they are,” a familiar British accent responded, and Scott saw Garrett walking over to the Humvee. “I too have a family.”
“We all have,” Scott responded. “Except for that pegasus, not sure whether she even has one.”
“I’m not even sure if she’s real,” Garrett said, tapping his head to signify what he meant to the Canadian. “Still having a hard time accepting the fact that she’s here.”
“I’m still doing that,” Scott said. “Just in the next part of the puzzle, which is why the hell did she get here?”
“Must be some kind of fancy dancy magic these ponies always do.” Garrett had earned the cold stare of the grizzled Engineer, and he gulped. He had only served with him for two weeks, and he knew his mood quite well. It was like reading scripts, except the scripts called for unearned, pissed off stares that will penetrate your soul like a speeding fifty caliber.
“Okay, I admit.”
“What?”
“I watch the show,” Garrett said, somehow managing to stay calm. But the Engineer might interrogate him, so he quickly changed the topic. “So um, do you listen to Pink Floyd?”
“Yes, and tell me all you know about that flying lightshow,” Scott growled, wanting to scrounge some information out of the intimidated Brit. “I’m having a feeling she’s quite the fuck-up.”
“Err,” Garrett muttered, scratching his balaclava and looked behind for a split second to briefly admire the wrecked but tranquil scenery. “That’s a yes, unfortunately.”
“Anything else?” For some extremely misunderstood reason, the sniper now had the blade of the Canadian's knife on his throat.
“Whoa!” He said, backing away from the driver’s door of the Humvee. “Sheath that damn thing! I’m sure your kids don’t need to know you killed a friendly!”
“I’m not going to kill you,” Scott said, arms folded on the wound down window of the vehicle, his personal combat knife hanging. “I’m just getting some information out of you.”
“Jeez,” Garrett said, shifting to another, more relaxed and childish mood that was totally the opposite of his extremely focused attitude. “Get some sleep, I’m sure we had enough for one day.”
“Sleep?” Scott said, letting out a yawn just as he said that. “Maybe that’s a good idea.”
“Yeah,” Garrett replied. “Get some, I’ll stay awake.”
“Alrighty,” Scott said, putting his legs up on the dashboard of the Humvee and reclining his chair. “Have fun on night patrol.”
“Will do, sir,” the sniper mockingly responded, before hurrying away into the moderately lit streets of shattered Iran with his low on ammunition M82 slung around his body and his Grach holstered.
"He's really starting to grind my nerves, that Canadian.”
As he strolled on the streets, he felt a little paranoid as the creeping darkness approached. Only a handful of lights remained, and even then they were on their last stretches of electricity. If they went out, he would have a hard time sniping loose ends with the fifty-caliber rifle. Staying alert, he continued to follow the unending street, looking at various graffiti and stalls in the mean time.
Then he heard muttering from behind, and quickly spun to face his would-be assassins. He only saw the shadow of the Humvee, the Abrams and the towering but ripped apart mall. “Probably just the wind, but I think that’s a movie thing.”
After the brief session with the ghosts, he heard the all too familiar sound of flak, the roaring of jet engines and propellers. Looking up to the sky, his eyes were in for a treat; PLR anti-aircraft cannons trying to take down what seemed to be a squadron of F-18s, or A-10s, dropping some HARM bombs, causing a multitude of controlled but visible detonations that destroyed the PLRs’ ground forces beyond Markaz.
The usual, ever since they left Camp Foxtrot.
The sound of propellers was the odd one out, and he noticed a big shadow on the top right corner of his eye. It was a cargo plane, no doubt, but there were lots of cargo planes in the world. C-130s, A-400Ms, and a whole lot more.
He might’ve been a sniper, but that didn’t stop him from learning a lot about aeronautics and aerodynamics.
Curious, he unslung his M82 and knelt down. Looking through the scope, he grunted as he could hardly make anything out of the sky. The silhouette looked familiar, and his mind jogged to find out what this mystery turboprop plane was.
Then he heard something again, and immediately changed focus to the matter.
Pulling his eyes off the scope, he looked behind to seemingly find nothing in the flickering lights or the shattered windows that reflected the sky of Tehran. But something was definitely here, and he needed to check it out.
Grunting, he slung the M82 and kept his hand firmly on the grip of his Grach as he left the sound of flak and explosions and entered silence, other than just crickets chirping away. Remembering the time in boot camp, Bristol, he knew not to trust the growing silence but kept silent in order to maintain his cover.
Then the muttering returned, and this time he managed to catch the words. They were in Kurdish, and it seemed that a woman was the culprit. Not that he was sexist, but he didn’t trust women all that well. Not even his wife, and this situation called for extreme care; she might be a decoy for some dastardly plot cooked up by-
Nope, don’t think anymore, he said to himself.
He advanced forward, and the voices increased in volume, among them the voices of… a young boy.
“Shit…” He cursed to himself in an inaudible volume. “Why kids? Why the hell out here?” His other hand was itching to grab the radio and inform the rest, but his mind told him that he needed to settle this alone.
Then he stepped on something that made a loud crunch, and froze.
The voices ceased, and the streets were silent save for the occasional thumping of anti-air, and the odd whirring of plane propellers. He also noted that the F-18s had disappeared from the skies and were hopefully on their way back to the aircraft carrier in the Gulf, also hoping they would come back with a bigger force.
Cover blown, he needed to communicate. “Hello?”
He garnered a response, in the form of more hushed whispering. Then a woman came out from the holed out residence in front of him, hands high in the air.
“Please… do not shoot us!”
“Calm down, madam,” Garrett replied, letting his grip go off the handgun and withdrawing it back into its holster, his other hand up in the air to calm the lady down. “I’m not PLR.”
“Good, I’d hate to see one of those filthy dogs around here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind,” the woman said, now more relaxed and more visible to Garrett’s slowly adjusting eyes. She appeared to be dressed in a greyish V-neck, cargo pants and wore a cap that had ‘Michigan Wolverines” and “42” stitched into it, before Garrett noticed she was staring at him with rich, blue eyes. “Don’t look surprised, I can speak English quite well.”
“I kinda got that,” Garrett said, approaching the woman. She looked quite capable, and wondered how she got that cap of hers. “Mind wondering where you got that cap?”
“Oh,” She said, coughing halfway. “I got it from some souvenir store in America, before I came back to Tehran.”
“Americans,” Garrett said, eyes focused on the mall instead of the woman. “Brawns over brains.”
“That seemed to be everyone I met there,” she said, her tone lightening up as the British stopped. “Oh, sorry for being so disdained. My name is Diana.”
“Garrett Barker,” he said politely, sticking his hand out to offer a courteous handshake to the Kurdish woman. “SAS designated marksman, an ex-SAS soldier to be precise.”
“Oh,” she said, responding with a firm shake. “Never seen an SAS operative this close before, I’m sure Jordan would be excited.”
“Jordan?” He said, tilting his head. “Your son?”
“No, no, no,” she said, pulling out her sling bag and opening up. Taking a quick sip of water from a canteen, she put it back inside and continued speaking. “My nephew, it’s an unfortunate thing he’s here…”
Then a boy, in his adolescent years, emerged from the same corner that Diana came from. She looked back and asked him to get closer, hugging the woman's arms after that with a blank face. “Jordan, meet Mister Barker.”
“Hi, Uncle Barker.”
He was not sure what to say. “Umm… hi?”
In all his life, he had never heard anyone call him uncle. They just called him Big Brother, because he didn’t look that old to be qualified as uncle.
“So anyway Miss Diana, I think you two should be safer inside the mall.”
“Oh…” she trailed off. “The mall, we were taking refuge inside there for about a day until we heard the rumblings this evening.”
“Tremors?”
“No, you know, heavy metal rumbling? Like, heavy, heavy metal?”
“Ah,” Garrett replied. “That was out tank, we were looking for a place to set up base camp after we had a little…mishap in downtown Markaz.”
“Well, I guess that explains a lot,” Diana said and looked at Jordan, who was twiddling with his gloves and ignoring a minor pain that had sprung up because of an unnoticed gunshot wound that had been roughly patched up. She quickly went through her mind and pondered on what to do now. She couldn’t afford to stay out in the ruins with her nephew for long lest she wants to get captured by the PLR, and they certainly could get unlikely extraction from the Marines that occasionally patrolled from their helicopters by here.
She was fully aware of the flak fire, and was concerned about it. “Do you think your men would take us in?”
“Sure, why not?” He said. “The LT’s fine around kids, but I still don’t know about that pegasus.”
“Pegasus?” Diana asked, curious on what he just blurted out. He recoiled and shook his head, his razor green eyes the first thing that caught Diana's own from his balaclava.
“It’s nothing,” Garrett assured. “Nothing at all.”
“Okay,” Diana replied, looking down at Jordan again who began to yawn. They hadn’t had sleep since three p.m., and it was in the best of her interests to get back into the mall, safe from the PLR and hopefully in the protection of the Marines.
Garrett took the initiative and began walking back to the mall. “Come on, we’re going to be meat if we stay out here with the PLR still around.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Diana said as she clutched her nephew’s hand and followed the British marksman. Garrett then wondered whether taking this strange Kurdish woman and her nephew in was a good idea.
“Wait,” Garrett suddenly said out loud, having remembered something that he learnt from first hand experience. Diana and Jordan stopped dead in their tracks, and wondered what the British had in further store for them.
“Do you have any…weapons?”
She kept quiet.
His hand slowly arced back for his Grach, getting ready for an almost certain backstabbing attempt, his paranoia shooting up like no tomorrow. Justified, he'd been through many hells before and it was almost part of his nature to begin doubting when confronted with such a situation.
“Yes,” Diana reluctantly said, reaching her hand into her sling bag after seeing the marksman react so adversely to civilians possessing weapons. Pulling out a revolver, Garrett turned and saw it; a relatively well kept revolver. His fingers were still gripped on the grip of his pistol, thoughts racing through his head again on that exquisite piece of military gear.
“Don’t worry,” she said, pulling the forward barrel forward and ejecting all of its ammunition into her free hand. Her nephew just stood there, waiting for something to happen. “I won’t shoot, you offered us a place to stay anyway.”
“One question’s first,” Garrett said, cocking his head. “Where did you get it? It’s not easy getting a bloody revolver out in the wastes, or whatever counts as a ghost city anymore.”
She looked guilty for a second, before shaking her head and confessing whatever horrible crime she did. “I… I killed a PLR soldier. No, no, no, I mean…”
“I killed PLR soldiers.”
“...How?” Garrett continued, going on as if it was normal for a citizen to simply kill rowdy, fanatical militants, while actually feeling a little scared of this strange woman that just appeared from the dust. She didn't look no different that a regular woman, but still it was biting him hard, the fact that she mentioned having killed ragtag soldiers.
“Slit his throat while he slept,” she said with no tinge of remorse for what she did, for she had no other option and that help was all but available, “He kept us prisoners in our own home and threatened us with... what people threaten nowadays. Then his damned friends came about just at the same time and we both had to run.”
She lifted up the revolver. “Bagged three of those bastards with this, they nearly killed Jordon. I made sure the bullets didn’t miss. ”
“Ugh,” Garrett responded, thinking about how this… this civilian can take down three militants without getting scratched. It might’ve been the injected adrenaline, instinctual reaction or something, but still, it was unnerving for the ex-SAS marksman.
Paranoia was settling him, and even Diana could accurately spot his slight jittering. “You’re frightened, aren’t you?”
“Huh?” Garrett responded, cocking his head again. “Oh, sorry, didn’t notice that.”
“It’s okay,” she replied, folding her arms. “I’m also a part-time psychologist, studied it in an Egyptian university.”
“Good to know,” Garrett responded as they began to trek back to the mall, the thoughts about Dash suddenly coming into his mind for no apparent reason. “Maybe you can help all of us out with war issues.”
“If only,” Diana sleepily responded, putting back the Rex into her bag and straightened up. Garrett was now too focused on the thoughts about Dash, and how he had to deal with her the coming day, or even tonight.
He had a notion that they were going to be on the front seat to something pretty much out of this world.
Then came that sinking feeling that he had just royally fucked up on something, and felt like a hippy, for hippies are the worst even in Europe.
Garrett looked behind his shoulders, and thought that he should probably keep Rainbow a secret then, otherwise they might freak out.
“Yep, better keep it a secret,” he muttered lowly, hoping that Diana and Jordan wouldn’t hear him as they continued walking towards the mall.
A distance away, the trio had failed to notice a small group of shadows muttering behind them, their arsenal of weapons locked and loaded, having spotted them and reinforcements on the way.
They planned to make this night hell, for human and pegasus alike.
Meanwhile,
“Shit.”
Wherever Ivan was, he was definitely not a happy camper, and his limbs ached as if he just finished the Olympic running event, not helped by the occasional pricking of broken wood. “How the fuck did I end up here?”
“Ivan!” the radio sounded from its holder as he grunted to stretch out his hand and retrieve the sling of his A-91 carbine, which dangled precariously on a sturdy twig by its sling, the GRU agent having lost grip of it throughout the close booms of anti-aircraft shells. “Where are you? I can’t see you!”
“The only reason you can’t see me,” Ivan said. “Is because I’m fucking stuck on a tree, and that it’s fucking seven at night!”
All he could do was sit there and wait for something to happen, as he looked below him, the hard tiles of the path greeting him and the row of undamaged streetlights illuminating him like a beacon throughout the foliage. All he had to do to escape this tacky situation was to pull out his ‘box cutter’ knife, cut the straps of the tangled parachute and get down.
The only problem in all of this was that almost a dozen of armed PLR soldiers were looking up at him, murder glinting in their eyes and their AKs aimed upwards towards his crotch.
Reznov was lucky this time around; Ivan had seen his parachute land not far away into an open car park, with his PKP Pecheneg intact and armed, if he wasn’t delayed enough as he usually was.
Using some of his vented up frustration, he shouted to the world, flailing like a rabid dog at the same time.
“For fucks' sakes, I fucking hate HALO jumps and I hate all of you chertovski minetu iranskoy fashistskikh ublyudkov penu svin'ya!”
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Well, I've been waiting for an update for quite some time.
Glad it's back.
is that bit at the end even russian? I tried Google translating it and nothing happened and a Google search just gave me a link to this chapter :S
2936127
You won't get anything from Google translate since it isn't written in Russian.
2940551i was using the detect language function and wasn't getting anything, I assumed it was Russian because I'm almost certain the character shouting (who's name eludes me right now) was one of the Russian guys shown in one of the earlier chapters
About time, fraulein.
Also, I kinda left Black Ops II to collect dust and started playing Battlefield again, I went up like 20 levels and mastered Sniper Rifles, Handguns and PDW's on the way.
I've noticed this throughout all your chapters, but I'm fairly certain it's tank "treads" not "threads".
Anyways, so far so good.
Bf4 will have a better campaign than bf3, and thst means... FANFICS!
must... have...MOAR!!!!!!!!
must... have...MOAR!!!!!!!!
must... have...MOAR!!!!!!!!