Conflict at the Border

Disclaimer: Same as before.

Eternity – Thanks for the reviews. Don't worry, I'll get back into the Vincent Van Ghoul abduction in a bit.

~ ~ ~ ~

As we drive along in the cab, we're making good time. After all we've had nothing but clear roads. Thanks to Budnick's map reading we're about ten kilometers from the Suez. All we have to do is cross it and we're home free.

"Anybody got that sign?" I ask as I read a road sign in Arabic.

"Disco will never die." Stoney remarks.

The lot of us in the cab laugh. Link's smoking a cigarette as we drive along right into a VCP (Vehicle Check Point). It's manned by a bunch of those cult guys, who are checking the various civilian vehicles to see if any of them contain fugitives. A sentry is approaching our vehicle. They're gonna figure out who we are in about sixty seconds.

"Do we stay or do we go?" Budnick asks.

"We're going for that ridge on the west." I reply.

"As soon as he pings us," Budnick begins. Silently I nod as Budnick aims his 206 toward the window. I hear doors unlocking behind me.

The sentry shines his flashlight into the car only to have a 10mm bullet pierce the glass and his forehead. "Go! Go! Go!" Budnick shouts.

Aggressively we burst from the cab, weapons at the ready and firing on any hostiles we sight. There are two trucks full of them ahead of us. I see Link, Budnick, and Shorty take down a couple more enemy soldiers.

Budnick is shooting out the lights and into the cab of one truck. "Coming through!" I shout.

A truck with a bunch of enemy soldiers in it is in our way. Stoney lets them have it with his Wiraway and I shoot a full magazine on full auto into the back of the truck for good measure.

Link's firing blows up a gas vane somewhere, killing three more cult members. "On me! On me! One!" I shout as Link passes by.

"Two!" I shout as Budnick goes by.

"Three!" I shout as Shorty runs by.

"Four!" Finally, Stoney runs by.

Much later we've reached the ridge and evaded our pursuit. Under cover of darkness the five of us make our way to the ferry landing in the Suez. If need be we'll swim it, but it's not something I'm interested in doing.

"That the border?" Stoney asks.

"That's it." I reply. I don't like what I see through my night vision binoculars. What I'm saying is reflecting what I see, "Sentries. Heavy machineguns. Trucks. They've got a whole army there."

Suddenly we're illuminated by searchlights. "Shit!" I shout. The heavy machinegun opens up on us just as swiftly.

Stoney and I are firing towards a group of enemy approaching us, and I can see Budnick off in the distance with Link engaging the machinegun nest. Link is using his Wiraway to lay a base of fire down while Budnick shoots of a 206 bomb into the sandbag bunker, blowing the occupants to fragments.

With sustained Wiraway fire, Stoney chews up a squad's worth of cult members charging from around the back of a truck. "Go! Go! Go!" I shout.

Shorty is isolated away from us, and he's making his way towards the border, firing short bursts from his Wiraway all the while, fighting off various groups of enemy soldiers. He just got separated from Link and Budnick. None of us can help him, and we watch as Short leads the enemy force away from us. At least a platoon is chasing him around.

I aim my 206 at a truck and fire off a 40mm grenade that disables the vehicle. I see two soldiers running away from it and I fire another grenade their way. Stoney's shooting steadily, killing three more enemy soldiers with his Wiraway.

Still five kilometers from the border, in all the confusion we've lost Shorty, Budnick, and Link. It's taken us the better part of the night to get through enemy positions. We're low on ammo and soon our only weapon will be darkness and that's fading fast.

I've crawled under a wire fence, across the front of a truck and motioned for Stoney to cross. He does and one of his pouches on his belt kit rubs against the wire, making a distinct metallic click. An enemy soldier pops up from behind the truck and I shoot him dead with three rounds. I hear shouts coming from the back of the truck and then I lob a phosphorous grenade into the bed.

Phosphorous burns white hot and anyone hit by a phosphorous grenade is liable to be suffering third degree burns if not instant death. I hear several more shouts and enemy soldiers are advancing our way.

Both me and Stoney drop down to engage them, behind the burnt out truck. Stoney's firing his Wiraway in short bursts and I'm firing single shots, killing two enemy soldiers. I change magazines in time to see a large group bearing down on us. I say to hell with conserving ammo and switch to full auto fire and fire short controlled bursts downrange, killing or wounding enemy soldiers, until my last clip runs dry. Three seconds later Stoney goes dry. We abandon our weapons and run for the border. We're not entirely defenseless. If we jump an enemy soldier we can steal his weapon, but I'd rather evade fighting for now.

Two grenades explode behind us as we run and I go and duck behind a tangle of brush. I don't see Stoney behind me. "Stoney!" I shout as loudly as I dare.

I hear shouts and gunfire. And running footsteps. And a scream. "Stoney?"

I fear the worst, a man dead. I think of the damage a 20mm round can do to a human body, and imagine that Stoney's been hit. To hell with this. I've gotta cut my losses, and I run through the night. As I do, I imagine the losses of the patrol. Arnot, Jack, and Dave, are missing and possibly dead; Stoney, confirmed dead; Link, Budnick, and Shorty also missing. For all I know, I, Sergeant Hiram George Becker am the only survivor.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Oh God..." Kate moaned, Bogel just came in with some grim news. So far, a member of a Special Forces patrol had been killed. Thanks to both ghosts infiltrating Cogsworth's office, she was getting minute by minute information.

"Who was he?" Kate asked, "Please...?"

Weerd saw tears in her eyes and said, "It wasn't Hiram...I know it wasn't. He promised you he'd come back. And we know Hiram doesn't break promises."

"Kate?" Scott said.

"Shit." Weerd said as he vanished.

"Are you alright?" Scott said.

"I'm fine Scott, I'm just worried..." Kate replied.

"About Hiram?" Scott said, "Look Kate, I'm sorry, I wish I could go make sure he's alive right now. But don't you realize Special Forces is a dangerous field."

"I know." Kate replied, "But remember South America..."

"Kate, you know I love you, but you can't worry so much about that. There's nothing you can do." Scott replied, "You know sometimes I wonder if you're really in love with me? I mean you worried so much about Hiram every time he deployed, but if I went overseas it didn't cause worry."

"Scott." Kate said, offended, "That's because I knew you weren't patrolling through hostile territory with only three other guys and a radio."

"I know." Scott said, "But travel's just as dangerous. Sometimes I thought you were in love with him..."

"Scott!" Kate said, offended, "Are you implying that I had an affair with Hiram..."

"Sometimes it sounds as if you did." Scott replied, the look on his face showed he wanted to apologize and regretted his words.

"Scott, right now I don't want an apology. Please, just leave me alone, will you." Kate said, tears appearing in her eyes.

"Alright honey." Scott said, "If you need me, I'll be in the next room."

After he left, Kate buried her face in her hands and cried.

~ ~ ~ ~

"No decent maps. Bad intelligence. A bloody goat herd. I hate goats..." the lone figure walking across the desert road said to himself.

"Can't even get the weather right." The man continued as he lumbered across the desert, in broad daylight, his 206 carried tucked under his right arm. He was filthy, his hair covered crusted in dirt and dried blood from a small cut below his Gerbigsjager field cap. He appeared to be a lone survivor of a patrol that had been dispersed by bad weather and firefights.

Arnot was definitely in shit state as he walked across the border area and ran into a couple of Egyptian Territorials (Army reservists from Egypt), who promptly took him off to safety.

~ ~ ~ ~

Still two kilos from the border, by now I'm sure Stoney's dead. I can't speak for Shorty, Budnick, and Link, but I heard Stoney screaming off in the distance last night. I hear what sounds like vehicles coming, very close.

Shit! They've seen me. I duck into a culvert in the road. I'm unarmed; save for the knife at my belt, there's a vehicle convoy coming this way. As the vehicles pass over, I recognize them as Land Rovers and see a couple motorcycles. It looks like a Regiment mobility column.

"Contact!" I hear and bullets whiz past my head. It sounded like Pinsky, part of the rescue force.

"It's Becker! You fucking assholes..." I shout.

"Becker, is that you?" I hear a shout, it sounds like Gates.

"Yeah, it's me sir." I reply.

"Where's everyone else?" Gates asks me.

"I don't know sir." I say soberly. Am I it? Am I the only guy that survived? Are seven of my fellow troopers rotting in the desert?

"We'll rendezvous with the refueling convoy." Ug says, "We'll drop of Becker and search for the others."

"Sir, request permission to remain with the convoy?" I reply.

"Negative sergeant," Gates says, "You're in a bad state, you just survived a long journey across hostile territory. You look like a bag of shit in terms of physical condition. It's amazing you didn't pass out."

As much as I hate to admit it, Gates is right. I've walked or run the equivalent of three and a half marathons, carrying 210 pounds of gear before we jettisoned our packs, carrying only our twenty-seven pound belt kits. I engaged in several gunfights, had little proper sleep, and hijacked a taxi, all of this without any proper rest. As soon as I take a seat in the back of the Land Rover I collapse into the back into a damn near stupor.

~ ~ ~ ~

Cairo, Egypt; four days later: "Hiram!" Kate says, I see tears in her eyes as I throw my arms around her.

She's come to the hospital to visit me on a military flight. She had to use the fact that she was a general's daughter to get a seat on the plane to Egypt. She managed to find out what hospital Hiram and four other survivors of patrol Kilo Two Zero were billeted in. Thankfully the fact that she was a general's kid got her in.

She's a welcomed if unexpected sight, and I gently brush her tears away with my own hands. She can tell by the look on my face that I've lost men under my command. It was the same look I had after '43 in South America.

"How many?" Kate asks.

"Three." I reply. Kate throws her arms around me again and I gratefully accept her warm embrace.

"Ms. Barnes." The Egyptian medical officer says, "Visiting hours are over."

Kate smiles at me, "I'll see you tomorrow before I go back home."

"I'd like that." I smile despite myself.

I look at the four other men in hospital beds near mine. Link, Dave, Arnot, and Stoney are all suffering ill effects from several days on the run. I've lost twenty six pounds in the days of running gunfights. Arnot lost thirty-six from seven days and six nights of walking across a hundred and eighty miles of desert. Stoney had taken a 20mm round to the ankle on the night we got separated.

Our three missing men are all dead. Jack got separated from Dave and Arnot less than a day after they separated from us. As that day wore on, Dave and Arnot encountered a supposedly friendly villager who was going to summon a truck to take them to the Suez. Dave accompanied him, armed with only his Wiraway. It turned out the villager summoned a group of cult members and after a brief gunfight Dave was captured.

Thankfully another Mobility Troop patrol from A Squadron ambushed Dave's captors and rescued him. Arnot continued on by himself after the third day after being separated from us.

On the night the five of us in the cab were ambushed at the border we heard of what happened to Shorty. After he had separated from the unit, he headed for the border, leading a large number of enemy soldiers away from us. He held them off for over half an hour until his ammunition ran out. When asked to identify the remains, I saw several bullet wounds. All of them in front, meaning Shorty faced death like a US Marine, staring it in the eyes and spitting into its face.

After our gunfight at the border, Budnick and Link tried to cross the Suez Canal by swimming. Budnick found a Styrofoam box and stuffed pieces of it into the empty pouches on their belt kits. By tying their weapons to these crude floats they were able to swim across. But the worst was to come. By the time they reached the opposite bank, Budnick was shivering uncontrollably. Hypothermia. Link heated a cup of water with a small, portable stove. Budnick was in a shit state, he slapped the cup away. Link wrapped his smock and shirt around Budnick and went to search for help. But by the time he reached the concrete shed where he left Budnick, it was too late. Bobby Budnick was already dead.

"That's all of us?" Dave asks me.

"That's all of us." I reply grimly.

Arnot blinks and hoarsely starts to sing, "J'avais un camerade..."

We all follow this well known tradition from South America. We're singing for our three departed members of B Squadron. Jack Falstaff, this was supposed to have been his last op before retirement. It was his last anyway. Shorty, the Filipino-Australian with the big heart, never to try to hit on tall women ever again. Bobby Budnick, who died leaving behind a wife and an infant son.

I know I only want one thing. Revenge. I want to kick the living shit out of the guys that killed three of my men. As soon as I get out of the hospital that's the first thing I'm gonna do. Four more days...

~ ~ ~ ~

TBC