Chapter LVI: Magadheera
1500hrs, 20 December 2013, Manyata Tech Park, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
"No Indian ever went outside his own country on a warlike expedition, so righteous were they." Anabasis Alexandri
"O Warrior! I can't hold myself anymore. Come and unite with Me, O braveheart, an adventurer par excellence, come and rule over me, O my king…" Dheera Dheera Dheera, from Magadheera.
"I hate flying," Mina griped to Amy. They were just arriving at the tech park where the PMC and Jadeite were besieged. From their perspective, it was still 0430hrs in the United States, but the flight plus the stress of combat was severely taking its toll on the two of them.
"Hey, they gave free wine on the trip," Amy pointed out.
"Only because they had commandeered by the US government to fly us here," Mina retorted. "But it was good wine."
"Madame," the driver said to the two of them. "We're almost here." He lingered his gaze on Mina for a second, before going back to driving. Their choice of clothing wasn't very good; they had to ditch most of their winter clothing back in the US, and all they had were some T-shirts and jeans. No local clothing, and certainly no military type dress.
"Thanks."
"Who are we supposed to meet?" Mina asked Amy.
"Uh…let me check." Amy pulled out her tablet computer from her duffel bag and took a look at the intelligence that had been supplied to them.
"Looks like a Colonel Shanti Krishnan and a Major Elizabeth John, of our good friends, the 108th South Indian Defence Force. Defence, with a 'c', by the way."
"I thought that's how Defence was supposed to be spelled," Mina said.
"That's British English," Amy pointed out. "I learned the American way, with an 'S'. So Defense."
"Whatever. Two nations separated by a common language," Mina commented with a smile. "I wonder if these people will remember us from the last time?"
"Probably…since they kept going on about your blonde hair."
Mina blushed at that.
"Ma'am, we're here," the driver said to the two of them.
"Alright, time to move," Amy said to Mina, opening the car door.
"Oh look," Prasad said to Shetty, nudging her and making her spill a little bit of her chai. "Remember those guys?"
Shetty turned and saw Amy and Mina getting out of the Mahindra Xylo that had taken them from the airport.
"Blonde and blue…hair…I knew those two weren't tourists!" Shetty exclaimed.
"Right…" Prasad said, pushing her French braid back behind her shoulders and readjusted her beret. Shetty could be so dense sometimes.
"So, how was Tirupathi?" Shetty asked Prasad, changing the subject.
"Like you said…it was crowded. I haven't that many people in one place before." And this was coming from a person who lived in one of the most populated countries in the world.
"My feet hurt after the third hill. I didn't realize how long I had to walk to get to the temple," Prasad sighed.
Shetty nodded at that statement. "Did you donate your hair too?"
Prasad shook her head. "Nah. I like my hair, thank you very much."
"Well, did you donate ANYTHING?" Shetty accused, mockingly.
"Yeah, I gave 500 rupees at the Hundhi."
"At least you did something," Shetty said back, smiling widely. "Glad you liked it."
"Meh." Prasad and Shetty continued to watch the two other girls they had rescued so long ago talk to the other officers before setting down their tea cups and getting back the assault being planned.
The siege had begun when Central Industrial Security Force units had tried to secure the Nakanishi Asia (India) HQ, and had been beaten back in a five hour shootout resulting in five dead and ten wounded on the CISF side, and an unknown amount on the PMC side.
Mina and Amy walked over to a command post that had been set up by near the IBM India HQ
"Colonel Krishnan?" Amy asked to several officers around a table.
"Well hello again," Krishnan said to her, not even looking up from her maps. "Odd that you should be here, I thought you were just tourists."
"About that…" Mina said, embarrassed about the entire reunion. "As you might have noticed…"
"…you work for the Japanese government," Lt. Iyer pointed out. "The Chief Minister told us."
"Yes, we work for the Japanese government, and we have significant experience taking down, let's say, Chief Operating Officers of the Nakanishi Group."
"And how does one become experienced in such matters?" another darker skinned woman near Col. Krishnan asked. She had short, dark brown hair and looked to be in her mid-thirties. The nametag on her MARPAT uniform said "John."
"Uh…we killed one of them," Amy replied, matter-of-factly.
"Did you now?" Colonel Krishnan said, almost unimpressed. She turned over a map, studying it in detail.
"Yes, we did," Mina shot back, irritated at Krishnan's almost flippant attitude toward them. "Many good people died because of his actions in North America."
"Of course. I never said I didn't believe you, Miss Mina." Mina was surprised that she remembered her name, but it seemed that she was the type of person who once seeing a person, would never forget their name. "Major John, Lieutenant Iyer, please brief these two ladies on the current situation."
"Right away." John took them over to a building that was several meters away, with Lt. Iyer in tow. Mina gave Amy a look; what were these guys up to anyway? Major John stopped by a support pillar and motioned for Mina and Amy to join her behind the pillar.
"The HQ for the Nakanishi Group is located in the old Cognizant HQ building on the far side of the tech park." She leaned around the corner and pointed it out of Amy and Mina. Several shots snapped past, and the report from a large weapon echoed soon thereafter. Major John stepped back, perfectly aware of the situation she was in.
"As you can tell, there are several snipers with large caliber weapons that have already inflicted several deaths and casualties amongst the police force and our own unit."
Mina would have pulled the hapless Major back and admonished her for exposing herself to enemy fire like that, but that wouldn't have gone down very well.
"How many so far?" Amy asked, just as shocked as Mina.
"I can't say for the police force, but three of our own soldiers have died so far."
"I'm sorry," Amy said.
"Don't be. It was their job, and their sacrifice won't be in vain." John and Lt. Iyer took them back to the command post, which was a scant several meters away from the fighting.
"Was that necessary?" Mina whispered.
"I guess she just wanted us to appreciate the situation," Amy said back. They went back to the table where Colonel Krishnan was looking at the maps, per the usual.
"What's their strength?" Amy asked the officers there. She got out her tablet computer in preparation to take notes.
"From what we can tell," Lt. Iyer said, looking at a memo pad that she carried around, "There's about fifty or so people in the building. There are no civilians in the building, as far as we can tell."
"What type of weapons are they using?" Mina inquired. "It sounds like they were using .50 caliber sniper rifles, maybe Barrett M82s?"
"Correct," Major John said. "It's a mixture of Western and Eastern equipment. Some of the PMC soldiers are using AKMs and AK101s, but others have been seen with SLRs, G3s, and M16s. Other than the sniper rifles, they have a Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun, and several PKMs. They have thrown back several assaults on the facility by police and our units. With your help, perhaps we can finally resolve this conflict."
"What kind of weapons does your unit…?" Mina started to ask, but was interrupted by Amy showing her the information on her tablet computer. Mina looked at it, somewhat confused.
"Why are you using mostly Western made equipment?"
"Ironically," Colonel Krishnan said, finally looking up from her maps. "This PMC was one of several companies that trained us in Western style counter-terrorism and tactics. They supplied us with M16s, MG4s, and other equipment. The INSAS was deemed to be too unreliable, and the other locally produced weapons were of…"
"Dubious quality," Iyer bluntly stated.
"Yes, their quality was in question," Krishnan tactfully rephrased.
"I wouldn't say they were that dubious," another voice came behind them.
"Staff Sergeant Chowdary," Krishnan noted.
"Please, call me Savitha," Chowdary said to Mina and Amy. Her English was perfect, helped along by an American accent, medium height, slender build, and bit fairer skinned than the rest of the officers gathered around. Instead of wearing the MARPAT uniform that most of the other soldiers wore, she wore a khaki slacks and blouse, and a black beret with the emblem of the 108th SIDF on it. She looked more like a Bollywood/Tollywood/Kollywood star than a soldier.
"Yes, Savitha-bhabhi," Lt. Iyer dryly said to her.
"Iyer, please," Krishnan interrupted. "SSgt Chowdary is in charge of our requisitions department. She can provide you with whatever equipment and weapons that you need."
"Sure can," she said with a chirpy voice.
"Moving onto the building itself, it's an average sized office building, with about fifteen floors," Major John and Lt. Iyer unrolled several blueprints of the building onto the table in front of Colonel Krishnan. "As you can see here, there is a very large foyer at the entrance. All fifteen floors are exposed to this foyer, with bridges connecting the second, fifth, tenth, and fourteenth floors. All of these floors can be accessed by elevators."
Amy and Mina studied the map for a second, with Mina looking it over with her HUD, and Amy gathering the data from her onto her tablet computer. "What's this large area here?" Mina asked.
"It's the call center," Major John replied. It's very big, taking up the rest of the space on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floors. It's completely open, with skylights and windows looking outward to the rest of the tech park."
"There's no cafeteria?" Amy asked.
"The canteen is located elsewhere on campus," John said.
That would at least cut down on the big area that they would have to fight in, Amy thought. "Any hostages?"
"Not that we can determine," Lt. Iyer replied. "If there were…then it would be highly unlikely that they would be alive."
"Anyway, now that you've seen the situation here, do you have a plan of action?" Colonel Krishnan asked inquisitively.
Amy was quickly tapping away on her tablet computer while Mina stared dumbly on. "I don't have much to add," she said, trying to break the awkward silence. The other officers just kept looking on as well, unsure of how to proceed.
"Nice hair," Chowdary finally replied, looking at Mina. "Wish I could have hair like that."
"Ah…err…thanks."
"And how did you get blue hair?" she asked Amy, who had finally finished tapping away at the computer. Everyone shot her a look, but at least she asked the question that everyone wanted to know.
"Long story," Amy tersely answered.
Not that it helped very much.
"Okay, I've come up with a plan that will include the police, your unit, and us." Amy held up her tablet computer up to the rest of the officers.
"We will be infiltrating from the call center, on the east side of the building," she said, pointing to the blueprints on both the table and on her computer. At the same time, the police and your unit will begin their attack from both the entrance to the building,
"Alright, that sounds a bit risky," Colonel Krishnan noted, "But we've unable to penetrate their defenses, though weakened by constant attacks. Perhaps this will be the final one after all."
"We'll probably need two more people to go with us," Mina added.
"Lt. Iyer? What about Sgt. Prasad and Cpl. Shetty?"
"They don't speak English all that well," Iyer replied. "But they're some of the better soldiers that we have."
"Perhaps SSgt. Chowdary could go with them?" John suggested.
"Chowdary doesn't have all that much combat experience," Lt. Iyer stated.
"And you need to be here to coordinate the combat operations," Major John added.
"How do you think that would work out?" Krishnan asked Amy and Mina.
"I think that would probably be for the best," Amy said back. "We can take care of ourselves, and I'm sure that the rest of them can do just fine."
"What about the rest of the 108th, then?" Major John asked.
"How many soldiers do you have?" Amy asked.
"About three platoons, or about 150 soldiers. The police units nearby total about two hundred, from the traffic police, the armed reserve, special branch, and regular patrol units."
"They don't have a SWAT team or anything like that?" Mina asked.
"We are the special response unit," Colonel Krishnan replied, somewhat incredulous that Mina would think that anyone else would take their job.
"Sorry about that," Amy replied. "The 108th will launch a diversionary attack against the front of the building, backed up by the police. I know that the police here aren't very well armed, but if your unit can support them, their older rifles might be able to provide longer range support and keep some of the PMC soldiers pinned down."
"So, let me get this straight," Major John said, taking in Amy's plan. "While we're doing that, you and three of our soldiers will sneak around and do…?"
"We will make our way through the call center and attempt to locate Jadeite. Do you know where he is?"
"Negative, we know for a fact he's in there, but where, we don't know."
"Well, we're just going to have to wing it when it comes to going in there," Amy stated, making note on her tablet computer. "Continuing on after our infiltration, if we manage to eliminate most of the PMC, your unit will move in and secure the building, clearing the different floors unit Jadeite is found and all PMC units neutralized."
"So, that's it then?" Lt. Iyer's eyes narrowed at the plan that was coming together.
"If we make it more complex, the more things might go wrong," Amy replied. "This way, we can successfully utilize our abilities, your manpower and the police's ability to cordon off the area."
"Okay," Colonel Krishnan stated, nodding her approval of the plan. "I'm confident in this operation. We move out in an hour. The meeting point for your team is by those police cars over there, by the interchange."
She pointed to a gaggle of police SUVs that were congregated there. "SSgt Chowdary!"
"Yes Ma'am?"
"Get these soldiers some weapons and equipment," she said. "I'm sorry, but I don't think fighting in T-shirts and jeans is…appropriate."
"Of course," Mina replied. They were escorted by Chowdary and started to walk over to several SUVs parked about a hundred meters away, safely tucked away in a corner.
"Jadeite, we're not getting help," the PMC commander said to him. "Beryl's abandoned us, and you know it." Several shots snapped overhead, fired from snipers in the IBM buildings across from them. Two of their snipers fired back, their .50 Caliber M82 Barrett rifles booming their reply.
"Goddammit," he hissed.
"We can take as many of them down with us, if you want, but it's going to end up with the same results, just with more bodies."
"Are you suggesting surrender?" Jadeite snapped at the PMC commander.
"No, sir. But as the situation goes…"
"You can surrender all you want," Jadeite shot back. "I'm going out on my terms."
The PMC Commander sighed. Jesus, this guy was something else. "Alright, we're staying. But it's not going to end well."
There were about fifty of the PMC troops remaining, out of a group of a hundred that had started the siege. It was a bad idea, firing at those police officers. It didn't matter if they were poorly trained, poorly equipped, and poorly led. They had managed to push them back, but all that did was buy time for the better trained soldiers to come up and start attacking them. Again, they had pushed those back as well, but at a high price in terms of manpower and ammunition. Most of the Nakanishi PMC people in this region were from the internal security services, such as the FSB, the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the Pakistani ISI and Indian Research and Analysis Wing (they didn't get along well, but the lure of money made previous enemies work together, as the PMC soon found out), and could not hold their own in a balls-to-the-wall assault that they had been going through. They could, of course, trail a target, eliminate him quietly, plan a small ambush, and even hold their own against a platoon or so. But spying and intelligence was a completely different game than actual soldiering.
Jadeite cradled his AKS74U, a compact version of the AK74, against his chest. The stamped metal was cool; he hadn't fired it for a couple of hours at least. His job was to lead, not to shoot at people.
But things had gone downhill so fast, ever since the attacks had begun on the 17th of December. First, the initial assault across India and Asia that was supposed to turn the area into chaos had completely collapsed with the SAILOR team destabilizing their efforts. Then they decided to shoot their way out, thinking that they could get out without too much of a fuss. Then Beryl effectively abandoned them to their fate.
Speaking of Beryl, she had barely made it out of Yamada's house in Japan before the SAILOR team struck their HQ. Radio intercepts from them had tipped them off only minutes before the attack, and she had escaped in a helicopter from Yamada's house. There had been no time to inform the people at the HQ about the SAILOR team; that had been a massive mistake on their part. From there, things had quickly spun out of control. Now here he was, out of options, out of time, and almost out of ammunition.
He would go down with a fight however. Jadeite shuffled over to his laptop computer sitting on a desk (that hadn't been destroyed yet) and pulled up some files. He smiled bitterly, knowing that this was an act of a desperate man, and that he would only resort to such chicanery if he was cornered.
"Okay, what weapons do you want?" Chowdary asked both of them. She was standing by one of the Toyota Qualises that the 108th SIDF used. Instead of carrying troops however, it was jam-packed full of guns, ammo, and other equipment. Amy noted that everyone stood very well clear of the vehicle; she couldn't blame them, if that thing went up, well…
"We have our sidearms," Mina pointed out.
"What kind?" Chowdary inquired.
"Um, Glock 26s."
"Wow, that's cool," she replied, an impressed look on her face. "Why don't you have the version in .40 S&W though?"
"I…uh…" Mina was slightly taken aback by Chowdary's question. "They just issued the 9mm version to us. But if I were to guess, the 9mm is more common than .40 S&W, a bit more compact, and therefore more concealable."
"Well, with the proliferation of body armor, I would think that .40 S&W would be a better choice, but whatever." Chowdary picked up a thermos nearby and poured a cup of tea. She offered some to Amy and Mina, who refused.
"Anyway, you are not going in there with just sidearms," Chowdary insisted. "I've got battle rifles, assault rifles, submachine guns, you name it, I have it."
"What type of SMGs do you have?" Mina had a nice flashback to the gun shop in Atlanta, with that shop owner. What was his name again…Billy Bob? Whatever.
"Ah…let's see. SMGs, SMGs…here!"
She pulled out a pair of ancient looking Sterling SMGs.
"Um…no thanks," Mina stared. She couldn't think about using those type of guns.
"Haha! Just kidding, you should have seen the look on your face!" She put the Sterlings away and got some more modern MP5ks, MP5 PDWs, and MP5A6s. Some of them just had iron sights, while others had red dot ones.
"Why would you need red dot sights on that MP5k right there?" Amy asked suspiciously.
"Oh, I forgot to take that one off after some cover-ops mission we did awhile back. It really helped out in CQB situation."
"I'll take that MP5 PDW right there," Amy pointed.
"Are you sure? I mean, those guys might have body armor and I don't think that 9mm bullet is going to penetrate that! It'll be like that one shootout they had in Mumbai, and it took a bajillion bullets to take all seven of those gangsters down! What about the battle rifles?! I mean, they pack a punch, and they're a bit difficult to maneuver, but you won't have to deal with body armor all that stuff! "
"Just give me the PDW," Amy said, exasperated.
"Oh. Okay." Chowdary sadly replied, passing the weapon to Amy, who checked it. Chowdary passed her some ammo and magazines as well.
"What about you, blondie?" she said to Mina, regaining her chipper attitude.
Thanks for that, Mina thought to herself. "You had assault rifles right?"
"Uh-huh!" She pulled out some M16A4s. While a good weapon, it was going to be kind of tough to maneuver around in the office building.
"Do you have anything else…?"
"Yeah, I guess. There are some M4s, some AKMs, and some Tavor rifles. I had to ditch some of the carbines back at base to make room for those MG4s over there. Most of the line soldiers use the M16A4 along with the M203 launcher."
"That's all?"
"Well, sorry, I've only got two SUVs to carry them in!"
"What about those battle rifles?"
"Er, I have some SLRs, and some AG3-F1s that we got surplus from the Norwegian government. They've got some rail sights on them, and they're pretty compact for a battle rifle." Chowdary took the smaller battle rifle out; it had a foregrip and a reflex sight it.
"Well, I'll take that one then."
"Very good!"
She handed the battle rifle over to her.
"And about your clothes…here." She handed them some MARPAT camouflage uniforms, two Class III tactical vests, and some helmets.
"Er, got any Class II vests? We move pretty light," Mina said to her. Taking lighter body armor might seem counterintuitive to some people, but most special forces units actually forgo body armor during operations, instead loading up on ammo and other gear that they might need. At least these two SAILOR team members had the option to wear some.
"Ah…sure." She got the vests out and handed them to them.
"How do find room in there?" Mina asked, wondering how the hell everything fit in those SUVs.
"I find room," Chowdary smiled.
"That's really helpful," Amy replied dryly.
"I try. Anyway, you can go change…"
Mina and Amy put their weapons to the side, and took the MARPAT uniforms that Chowdary had given them, and they simply stripped down in front of everyone.
"Guys, guys! You can't do that!" Chowdary panicky yelled, trying to get in front of them and obscure the view. The male officers immediately started staring because of the sight in front of them, and the female officers started staring because that was completely against cultural norms. Actually, that was against a lot of cultural norms in a lot of different places, so at least they had all the bases covered when it came to embarrassing people.
"Oh, it's alright," Mina said, quickly putting on the uniform. "See? No problem at all."
Both of them were dressed in record time, but much to the embarrassment of all the onlookers.
"Right…well, let me get my armor and stuff, and then I can join you for the fight," Chowdary said to the two of them. She grabbed a Tavor TAR-21, a P226, some body armor and a helmet, and put that on over her khaki uniform. "Much better," she said.
"The attack is slated to begin soon," Amy said, looking at her HUD on the tactical eyepiece she had just put on.
"Whoa, what's that thing?" Chowdary blurted out. She had seen it before at the briefing, and was meaning to ask Amy about it.
"Please stop asking questions," Amy groaned, trying to ignore the mile-a-minute conversation that SSgt. Chowdary was having with her.
"But it looks all shiny and future-y, like in that one film, Robot!"
Amy and Mina sighed collectively. Did she mean, "I, Robot," or the Tamil film?
"Chowdary, just stick near us and try not to talk as much," Amy said to her. "Let's walk over to the start-off point by the police cars over there."
Shetty and Prasad at the starting point, near some police cars. They had been standing there ever since Lt. Iyer had pulled them from their squads for a "special mission".
"Oh shit, why is SSgt. Chowdary with us?" Shetty asked Prasad.
"I think that they need her to translate for us," Prasad said, hefting her M16A4 off of the ground and cradling it in her arms.
"That's just great," Shetty complained. "In the middle of battle, we're going to go through a translator to fight properly." She fidgeted with her MG4, toying with the safety until Prasad glared at her to cut that shit out. It was not good form to do that sort of thing.
"Hi you two!" Chowdary yelled cheerfully at the two soldiers there, running ahead of Amy and Mina. Her Telugu left something to be desired, but it wasn't all that bad.
"SSgt. Chowdary," Prasad said, saluting her. "You're joining us on this mission?"
"Of course," she replied back.
"But I thought you mostly stayed behind and worked with the weapons," Shetty asked. She wondered if she had any more sex with random guys…what was it called? A one night stand? She really didn't get the entire point of that.
"Oh, we're going with those two over there," Chowdary pointed out. Amy and Mina were slowly walking over to them, talking about something. "We'll just follow them and they'll give us orders. It'll all be good."
"You know, those two really make me uncomfortable," Shetty said, glancing at the two of them.
"Why is that? They seem pretty nice," Chowdary fiddled with her helmet straps.
"Well, you don't know the entire story with them we had, right?" Shetty had a faraway look in her eye, which was somewhat unusual, given her more extraverted nature.
Chowdary stopped fiddling with the straps. "What story?"
"Me and Prasad ran into them back in that housing project over there behind the Nakanishi HQ," Shetty said, continuing on.
That perked Chowdary's interest. "Go on…"
"And so, we got into a huge shootout with some goons there, and those two were caught in the crossfire. They claimed that they were just some tourists from America, but as you can see…"
"Hey, we're ready," Amy stated, walking up to them. Chowdary just nodded and continued on with her conversation with Prasad and Shetty, much to Amy's irritation.
"That's really strange," Chowdary said back to them, in Telugu. "Well, there's nothing we can do about it now."
"I just don't like it when I have to deal with those type of shifty people. I mean, like the bankers back home in Zahirabad. Now those were some bad folks."
"Okay, we're ready to go," Amy repeated.
"Sorry, we'll continue this later," Chowdary said to the two of them. "I'm sorry about that, Mina, Amy." They readied their weapons, and got ready for the upcoming fight.
"What do you think they were saying? Can't the HUD translate that?" Mina whispered to Amy as they walked off toward the back of the Nakanishi HQ.
"These things are still in beta," Amy replied. "And if they could translate spoken language in real time, why would we need a translator?" She inserted a magazine from her tactical vest into the MP5PDW and slapped the charging handle down. Mina did the same, putting a magazine into the AG3 and racking the charging handle back.
At 1630hrs, the diversionary attack began.
"Okay, Sgt. Pillai, Cpl. Thomas, get your squads moving by the sign over there," Chowdary heard over her radio.
"They're starting," Prasad noted.
The five person squad got down on their hands and knees, crawling toward the back of the building. They had some three hundred meters to crawl. Behind the Nakanishi HQ building, there was a half-finished…something or the other. The construction equipment was still up, and some building materials gave plenty of cover from the Nakanishi HQ.
A loud report from a sniper rifle, followed by a chorus of automatic weaponry filled the air as the police and the 108th SIDF started their diversionary attack. Amy could see more and more of the PMC units in the rear of the building start to pull out in order to engage most of the supposed main attack.
"Looks like they're taking the bait," Chowdary noted to Amy and Mina.
"Sure does," Mina replied.
"Hey, what are they saying?" Prasad interrupted.
"They're saying that the plan is working." Chowdary's translation was almost drowned out by the sound of a Browning .50 cal opening up.
"We'd better hurry, ah…Chalo!" Amy said. That movie on cricket kind of helped on the way over…
"Did she just speak in Hindi?" Prasad said to Shetty.
"Let's not get that started again," Shetty groaned. "Last week…"
"You two, be quiet!" Amy hissed. "Honestly, do you people talk this much?!"
"Hey, we're doing our jobs here," Chowdary snapped back.
"Guys, just keep cool," Mina intervened. "We're almost there, and then you can take it out on the enemy. Alright?"
Amy and Chowdary glared at each other for a moment, then resumed their crawling toward the Nakanishi HQ.
"Sir, they've begun another attack," the PMC commander said to him.
"Well, let's make it a good one then," Jadeite said, readying his AKS74U. He had just finished his composition on the remaining laptop computer, and set it onto its destination.
"Hope this does some damage," he muttered. The PMC commander saw him send whatever information that he had on that computer to what looked like a US government email account, but he couldn't quite be sure about it.
"The call center is right over there," Chowdary whispered. They were all in position, looking at the hubbub of activity inside. Several of the PMC soldiers ran to and fro, bringing ammunition, reinforcing weak points, and keeping a lookout for intruders.
"Okay, here's the plan. Chowdary, and…you two, cover us as we go in. Once we clear out the call center, we'll motion you over."
Chowdary quickly translated the plan, and the two other soldiers nodded. Amy and Mina checked the scene one last time, and then made a dash for a door that lead to the call center.
"Damn, they can move really fast," Prasad noted to Shetty, looking at the two girls run quickly over to the door.
"Yeah, you're too fat to move that fast," Shetty retorted.
"Oh ha ha, jokes at my expense." Prasad rolled her eyes and kept her M16A4 trained at the building.
Amy and Mina approached the door. Mina tried the handle; it was open.
"Better make sure it's not booby trapped." Mina grabbed the handle ever so slightly, and pushed.
"It's a pull." Amy pointed at the door hinge.
"Thanks for that." Mina pulled ever so slightly, and Amy scanned with HUD for traps.
"Yep, there's a claymore right there. Give me a second." Amy bent down and looked for the wire that would set the APM off. It was connected to the door handle, and the mine proper was sitting on a desk some five meters away.
"Okay…here goes nothing." Amy got out a small Swiss army knife and opened it up to the scissors. She slowly snipped the tripwire, and the wire fell to the floor, the claymore not knowing any better.
"Phew. That could have been really bad," Mina whispered. She looked around the door for any more traps. There were none.
"Let's move." Amy and Mina stacked up and went in, their weapons at the ready. Inside, there were rows and rows of low-walled cubicles, with an observation station on the second floor attached to a walkway. Presumably, it was used by the bosses to oversee their drones…er, workers. Right now however, there were several more soldiers inside of the station, using it for a forward CP.
"You see that?"
"Yeah, I count about seven guys in there. Should have taken that grenade launcher."
"Perhaps not." Amy gingerly picked up the Claymore and slowly turned it around.
"Oh…"
"You might want to get out of the line of fire," Amy said. She continued to turn it around until it faced the CP.
"Ready?"
"Yeah." Mina crotched behind her, ready for the detonation.
"Fire in the hole." Amy tugged on the remaining length of tripwire and the Claymore detonated. The ball-bearings inside flew out, completely blanketing the entire call center, destroying computers, chairs, TV screens, everything that was standing in there, basically. The CP was hit hard, the glass screen shattered into a thousand bits, adding to the carnage. Five of the soldiers went down instantly, while two others barely managed to escape the carnage scrambling to find cover where there was none in the exposed CP.
"Kingfisher Three, intruders in the call center!" one of them shouted into the radio. "Need backup ASAP!" They got back up and started firing down at Amy and Mina.
"Roger Kingfisher Three, Hanuman Five, get down to the call center and repel the assault," the PMC commander ordered.
"Shit, they're probably bringing reinforcements," Amy cursed, ducking behind a cubicle. "Mina, call the other team in here!"
"They look like they're in trouble," Prasad said, looking at the fire team storm into the call center and engage Amy and Mina.
"We'd better help," Chowdary ordered. "Let's go." The three of them got up from their positions and
"Chowdary, we need your help!" Mina screamed in the radio, bullets flying around her.
"We're already on the way!" Chowdary, Prasad and Shetty stacked up on the door and prepared to enter.
"Shetty, you go in first and try to pin down that fire team with the machine gun," Chowdary said.
"Thanks, but I was going to do that already," Shetty mumbled back.
"Well, then do it!"
Shetty went in and opened up with the MG4, blazing away at the fire team that had just entered the call center. The hail of bullets hit one of them and set the rest running for cover. Chowdary and Prasad were in next, and they engaged the two remaining soldiers on the CP, with Prasad firing her M203 and finishing them off, a loud explosion echoing in the call center. The fire team fell back, shooting as they went.
"They're on the run!" Shetty cheered. She fired her machine gun at the retreating soldiers. "Get some!"
"You're not in the Marines," Prasad groaned.
"Thanks for the assist," Amy said to the three of them as they approached their position.
"Not a problem," Chowdary replied, reloading her rifle. "What's next?"
"Maybe we can get something that'll tell where Jadeite is," Mina said, still scanning the area for hostiles. The enemy fire team still hadn't regrouped.
"Snag one of those soldiers over there?" Chowdary pointed to where the fire team had run off.
"If we can pull it off." Amy didn't like that plan, since it might put everyone else at risk for getting shot. Of course, this entire mission consisted of getting shot at, it just increased the risk even more. "What do those two think?" She gestured at Prasad and Shetty.
"Let me ask them." Chowdary translated the plan for the two of them.
"Sounds kind of risky, but if it ends this mission faster, then I'm all for it," Prasad replied.
"Yeah, same with me," Shetty added. Chowdary translated the responses back to Amy, who nodded in approval.
"Okay then, let's go capture a bad guy then."
Around the corner, near the men's bathroom, Hanuman Five was regrouping for their next attack.
"Dammit, they got Santosh!" one of them hissed to the team leader. "That was our machine gunner!" They were reloading their weapons, AKMs and SLRs.
"Calm down," the team leader said back to them. "Okay, are we ready? Let's go get these bastards."
"Yeah, you do that." The team leader turned around to find five guns trained on their position.
"Throw down your weapons and surrender!" Chowdary ordered in Telugu.
"What did she say?"
"Ah…I think they want us to surrender," the Team Leader replied.
"Like hell we will," the other one said, bringing his weapon to bear.
"No, wait!" It was too late for that though. The soldier had already raised his SLR, and the other soldier in the squad did so as well. The team leader, however, did not, and avoided being killed by the hail of gunfire that killed the other two soldiers in an instant.
"Goddammit," Mina muttered. "Always the hard way."
"Okay, keep your fucking hands were I can see them!" Chowdary yelled out, very pissed off.
"Y-y-y-y….yes," the team leader responded, keeping his hands in the air.
"Prasad, Shetty! Take him!" The two ran forward and subdued the man, flexcuffing him and dragging him back to Amy and Mina.
"You speak English?" Amy asked him. He just stared at her, wondering how someone got blue…
"Hey, do you speak English?" Chowdary repeated, just this time in Telugu.
"No, I don't," was the curt reply.
"He doesn't."
"Right, tell him that we just want the location of Jadeite and we'll let him go," Amy said to the Staff Sergeant.
"Hey, uh, what's your name?"
He glared at Chowdary until she poked him in the ribs.
"Vijay."
"Okay, Vijay, this is what we want. Just tell us where that guy…er…Jade…Jade…"
"Jadeite?" the TL said out loud and immediately regretted shooting his mouth off like that.
"Yeah, that's the one. Tell us where he is."
"Look, he's somewhere up on the tenth floor or something like that." The team leader was not going to die over something like this. Hopefully, his friends in the RAW would get him out of jail, and he could go work for somebody else.
"The tenth floor? You sure?" Chowdary poked.
"Yeah, I'm sure. Now let me go!"
"Where on the tenth floor exactly?"
"I don't fucking know, okay?!"
"Uh-huh. Give me a second, will you?" Chowdary stood back up and looked at Amy.
"Well, this guy says that he's on the tenth floor. Where exactly, he doesn't know, but he says the tenth floor."
"Tenth floor it is," Amy said. "You two, toss him in the bathroom and we're out of here."
"Shetty, Prasad…"
"Yeah yeah, I get it." Shetty and Prasad groaned, but there wasn't much they could do about their predicament. They hefted the EPW up and lead him into the bathroom, flexcuffed him some more to a stall, and left him there.
"We're back," Shetty said to the rest of them.
"Let's get moving then." Amy shouldered her weapon and started for the stairs.
The group of five soldiers snaked their way up some stairs to the second floor, and observed several more PMC soldiers firing at the 108th and the police outside of the building. Mina saw one of them go down, felled by a hail of SLR bullets.
"We should take them out," Chowdary urged.
Amy shook her head. "No, our objective is to get Jadeite. If we run into heavy weaponry, like that .50 cal, then we can take it out. These guys seem like they're on the losing end anyway." Amy saw another soldier went down.
"Fine." The group of soldiers continued up the flight of stairs.
Luckily for them, there were only fifty PMC soldiers left, and that number was dwindling rapidly as the final assault took its toll on them. There was no opposition as they moved up the floors, stopping only to let some soldiers on the seventh floor run past to make a last ditch stand somewhere.
"What's with me and stairs?" Shetty gasped to Prasad.
"And you said I was the fat one," Prasad shot back. Shetty just rolled her eyes and kept moving up with them toward their target.
A loud thumping from a large caliber weapon interrupted their easy ascent up the building.
"Sounds like that .50 cal is on floor above us," Amy noted. "We should take it out." Quickly moving, the five of them moved up the stairs to the eighth floor.
"Hold up." Amy raised her hand, stopping the squad. She peeked around the corner, and saw a fortified position built into an office area. "Five hostiles. One .50 cal machine gun. Shetty, Prasad, on point and pin them down. We'll move in for the kill." Chowdary quickly whispered the translated orders.
Prasad and Shetty moved up, her machine gun and the M203 ready to roll.
"Okay, light em' up." Amy tapped Prasad on the shoulder, and nodded for her to start.
Prasad launched a grenade in the direction of the machine gun, arcing it over the sandbagged shelter and exploding it right on top of the machine gun. The crew never knew what hit them.
At the same time, Shetty opened up with her MG4 and killed one of the remaining soldiers, while the other one ducked behind a support column, trying to avoid the onslaught of fire.
"Grenade out!" Mina yelled. She took a frag grenade from her vest, unpinned it, and tossed it in the direction of the soldier. It detonated a second later, tossing the soldier aside and eliminating the threat completely.
"Back to the stairs, guys."
Amy and Mina turned to go back up the winding flight of stairs, with Chowdary giving a thumbs up to Prasad and Shetty.
"No wonder those idiots at the housing complex were having trouble," Prasad mentioned to Shetty as they started back up the stairs.
"You're telling me."
"Keep it moving!" Amy was very tense, and was not going to let these motormouths get in the way.
"Fine, fine." Both of them ran a bit more quickly to catch up with her.
As the five of them got up to the tenth floor, they were sent scattering by a long burst of gunfire that rippled around them.
"Shit!" Mina said, diving behind a support pillar. "There's a machine gun across that bridge there!"
Amy cursed her luck. They were on the opposite side of the building, and the only way to get across to the tenth floor without going back down was to cross that bridge…which had an PKM firing across it. There was no way they'd get across that without being killed first. The bridge itself was fairly sturdy, about five meters across and thirty long, but using explosives would more than certainly damage the structural integrity, and that could lead to a complete cascade failure, bringing down all the bridges below them.
"You two!" Amy still hadn't learned Prasad and Shetty's names. "Lay down covering fire!"
"What?!" Prasad yelled back, in Kannada.
"She said to lay down suppressing fire!" Chowdary screamed over the din of gunfire. There were at least five or six more soldiers on the other side that were firing their weapons, in addition to the machine gunner.
Amy was about to add, "Don't use the grenades," when Prasad launched a 40mm grenade across to the other side, detonating it behind the bridge but too close for comfort. At least that spooked the machine gunner, who picked up his weapon and shifted to another firing position. Amy, still a little bit irritated, saw the opportunity to get across however.
"Cover us! Mina, on me! Move!"
Mina and Amy charged across the bridge, firing their weapons from the hip and taking up cover near some overturned furniture. It looked like they were on the verge of wiping out all the resistance on the floor.
"Look, it's Jadeite!" Mina pointed to a figure darting in a cubical farm about fifteen meters away.
"Guys, move up!" Amy shouted to Chowdary. The three soldiers ran across the bridge and formed up on Amy and Mina.
"On three, we into that office space there. Okay?"
Chowdary, Shetty and Prasad nodded.
"One…two…three!"
"Jadeite, they're right on top of us!" the PMC commander yelled, right before he was hit with several bullets. He flopped down at his feet, dead.
Jadeite saw the figures of several soldiers approaching, all in MARPAT uniforms except for one of them, who was dressed in a khaki uniform. He ducked down behind a desk, hoping that he could at least get the drop on one of them.
"Jadeite, come out and surrender!" one of them yelled out. "Beryl's abandoned you, and you know it!"
Yeah, tell me something that I don't know already. Well, time to go out with a bang at least.
Jadeite slowly leaned around the cubicle that he was hiding behind and targeted the group.
"There he is!" Prasad yelled out. Six guns trained on his position.
Jadeite shot first. He didn't even aim, he just held down the trigger and swept back and forth, hoping to take down as many of them as he possibly could.
"Ow! Fuck!" Chowdary slipped and fell, a bullet passing through her calf.
The gun clicked empty as he ran out of bullets.
Well, this is the end. Some place to die in.
He died in a barrage of bullets that riddled his body, sending him to the ground in a bloody, disfigured heap of flesh and bone. There was no more head anymore, just a bloody pulp, and most of his extremities had been ripped off as well.
"Ow…ow, fuck." Chowdary was on the ground, holding her leg and trying to apply pressure to the wound.
"Hold on! Mina, check him!" Amy applied a bandage from a small first aid kit to the wound, which was indeed painful, but not life threatening.
Amy then pulled out a small tube.
"What's that stuff?" Chowdary winced.
"It'll heal you right up," was the response.
"What's that supposed…" Chowdary was amazed to see the gel immediately go to work, healing her wound up and repairing the damaged muscle. Amy then applied some more to the other side of the wound, where the bullet had come out.
"That's better," she said, standing up and offering her hand to Chowdary. She took it, and stood up, albeit gingerly and a bit stiffly. The wound was not exactly healed all the way, and seeking more professional medical attention was highly advised.
"Wow…just…wow."
"How does it feel?" Amy asked. She had seen the stuff work on Mina, but she didn't know how it would work on other people. They had been exposed to the fluid…gel…stuff for a while, but Chowdary hadn't.
"I'm a bit stiff, but that's…where did you get that stuff?"
"Courtesy of our friends here," Amy said. "Mina, how's Jadeite?"
Mina shook her head. "He's very dead. Looks like his face got shot to bits as well."
"Heh, serves him right. Glad he's dead." Amy got up from treating Chowdary and walked over to her position. "Huh. He was working on something…" She noted a laptop computer nearby, but in the firefight, it had been completely destroyed. Even the best software recovery programs wouldn't be able to recover data if the physical medium had been ruined. She sighed, lamenting the lost opportunity. Oh well.
"Hey, you two." Amy waved to the two soldiers for them to come over to her. They had been poking at the body of Jadeite and making faces at the deceased. "What are your names?"
"Ninna hesaru yenu?" Chowdary translated.
"Neela Prasad."
"Shruthi Shetty."
"You…you are Amy," Prasad slowly said. "And you…you are Mina."
Mina was certainly impressed by her attempt to at least try to communicate with her. "Yes, how did you remember?"
"I pick up from you, ah…er…speak..." Prasad's English was still bad, but at least she could get some of the point across.
Mina nodded in her approval of Prasad trying to speak English. "Well, thanks for helping us out. What's 'thanks' in…"
Chowdary didn't bother trying to explain the complexities of South Indian languages. "Just say, 'Dhanyawaadagalu'."
"What…?" That was certainly very confusing.
"Dan-ya-wa-da-ga-lu," Chowdary spelled out.
"Dan-ya-wa-da-ga-lu." Amy and Mina both bowed politely to them.
Prasad and Shetty both gave a toothy smile in appreciation.
"Nice work out there," Colonel Krishnan was standing outside the Nakanishi HQ, along with the five of them. The Nakanishi HQ (Asia-India) building had mostly remained intact, although there was some smoke billowing out lazily from the eighth and tenth floors, and most of the windows had been shattered in the gunfight. "How is your leg, SSgt. Chowdary?"
She nodded cheerfully, although she winced in pain as she leaned against a police SUV. "It's better, with this…healing…thingy that they had in there. I'm still going to have a doctor look at it."
"That's good." She turned her attention to Amy and Mina. "Well, thanks for helping us out with that situation. I'm sure we could have done it ourselves, but it would have certainly involved more deaths on our side."
"How many did we capture?"
"About twenty five of them. The rest were killed off, and we're going to spend a good while here just collecting information from the files and databases here."
"Did you suffer any more causalities?" Amy asked.
"Three dead, ten wounded. I'm not quite sure about the police."
"I see," Amy replied.
"What do you think is going to happen to all their employees?" Chowdary asked. "I know some people that work or worked for them, and they're not responsible for all of this…"
"More than likely, they're going to be laid off, but I think that most people will be amendable…" Krishnan wished that she was speaking the truth on that one, but experience told her that when once associated with a bad thing, people would not be as forgiving as they should be. She knew that many a Nakanishi employee, having nothing to do with this series of unfortunate events, would be unfairly blamed. And there was nothing she could do about it.
"Um…" Poor Prasad and Shetty had been completely left out of the loop, since they didn't speak much English. It sounded more like gibberish, with a couple of familiar words occurring only every once in a while.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Prasad, Shetty." Colonel Krishnan quickly switched to Kannada to help them out. "We were just saying…" She quickly went over the conversation again.
"Yeah…thanks," Prasad said, quickly regretting her decision to butt into the conversation. Most of that stuff went completely over her head.
"Well, I think we can certainly get some more funding after this little incident," Krishnan said. "Pay raises and bonuses might be up and coming for everyone, I think."
That got Shetty, Prasad and Chowdary smiling.
"What are you smiling about?" Amy asked.
"We might get a raise," Chowdary said back.
"Hmm."
"Well, it was nice working with you all, but we have a lot more work to get done," Mina announced to them. "Is there any way that we can get back to the airport?"
"I will be more than willing to provide some more transport back to the airport," Krishnan nodded to her. She motioned to Major John and Lt. Iyer and yelled something out to them, presumably to get a driver and a car. "You can return your weapons to Chowdary."
"Sure thing."
"And please…"
Amy and Mina looked at her.
"Change somewhere else."
The President of the United States of America was beyond exhausted when she finally sat down to her desk in Cheyenne Mountain to answer some emails. She had been getting thousands by the hour, and while the staff and the spam filters had been good about weeding them out, some strange ones still managed to get through. More of the time, they were random death threats, conspiracy theories, and the occasional lost email in cyberspace. The one she got today wasn't any different. All it read was "Madame President: Please Read." She noted it was from a Nakanishi email account and wanted nothing to do with that already. If she needed to know something about the developing situation around Socotra, she would ask for help. Otherwise, it might be a trap or something like that. Either way, in her tiredness and irritation, she marked it as read, and moved on, not even bothering to delete it. There wasn't even time for that before her COS announced to her that she had yet another round of meetings. She groaned, and put the computer to sleep, getting up from her desk and walking out of the office.