Obstacles Read online

  “Yes sir, I’m good, give me just a couple minutes to get my shit together, and I’ll be ready,” he replied as he moved toward his ruck. Don and Talon followed him. Talon could tell Don wasn’t very excited about Mat going out there alone, but he was the youngest and fastest.

  “Mat, I’m going to ask again, you ok with this?” Talon asked, more for Don’s sake.

  Don spoke before Mat could answer, “Son, you don’t have to do this.”

  Mat looked from Don to Talon and said, “No, I do have to do this. Talon is right, we are pinned down here and need to get out of here as quick as we can. I’m the best suited for this, and I’m going to do it.” He held Don’s stare for about five seconds before Don dropped his eyes away from Mat’s. Don quickly embraced Mat and told him to get ready.

  It only took Mat a couple of minutes to shed his extra gear and take a long drink from his Camel Bak, which was still attached to his ammo vest. They all duck walked back to the shore end of the ferry, and everyone turned and looked at Talon. “Ok, first, we kill all the lawyers and then move on to the politicians,” Talon said deadpan. This was met with confused looks from the younger members and a frown by Don. Talon continued, “Sorry, bad joke. Everyone make sure they have their radio on. Second, Don grab that broom and unscrew the handle. Now when I say so and after Ben and I are in position, Don, take your hat and stick it on the end of the broom handle. When I say go, just barely stick it above the sideboard and walk it back to the other end of the ferry. I don’t think this would work with an American, but we are dealing with an Iranian here. From his voice, I think we are dealing with one of the younger terrorists, and he should jump at the next target we preset. His firing again should reveal his position and allow us to pin him down, allowing Mat to make his move,” Talon paused, “Don when I say go, begin your walk. Ben, you wait to pop up to shoot after I fire my fourth burst of fire, you will be able to see where I’m firing. I want you to concentrate on shooting into whatever cover he is using. That .308 will punch through most anything he is hiding behind. Mat, you wait until after my second burst to go. Don, you wait to fire after Ben has fired five or six rounds, giving me time to reload. Is everyone ready?” Getting head nods from everyone, Talon laid down on the ferry deck and began creeping forward to where the starboard bulkhead met the deck and the loading ramp.

  Pushing his mic button, Talon told Don to begin his walk. Peeking out around the bulkhead, he did not see any movement at first, but then he saw the muzzle flash come from what looked like a pile of wood pallets stacked to the side of the workshop’s sliding doors.

  Shoving his M4 around the bulkhead corner, Talon began to slow fire three-round bursts into the stack of wooden pallets. He paused briefly after his second burst of three rounds as Mat took off down the ramp. As soon as Mat was clear of his firing lane, Talon continued to fire bursts into the center, left, then right sides of the pallet stack. Talon felt more than heard Ben’s .308 begin firing. As Ben joined in, Talon switched to single fire until his magazine ran dry. Quickly ejecting the empty and ramming home a fresh mag with 28 rounds, he heard the sharp report of Don’s M4 firing from the front of the ferry. He waited for Don to run dry before he let the bolt go home on a fresh round and picked up the fire while Don changed magazines.

  When Talon fired his second burst, Mat sprinted as hard as he could down the ramp and towards the cover of the river bank. He covered the fifty or so yards in just a few seconds and began to slow down when he realized he was under the lip of the river bank. Pausing to catch his breath, he pushed the transmit button on his radio to let Talon (really Don) know he was safely under cover and moving west up the river.

  Back on the ferry, Don moved down the ferry until he was next to Talon and asked, “How do we know there are only one of the terrorists left?”

  Talon looked blankly at Don for several seconds before reaching for the transmit button on his radio, “Mat, be super careful, we are not sure there is only one tango left. If there is more than one, let me know before you shoot any of them. Let us know the second you spot anything, over.”

  Mat immediately came back on the radio with, “Roger that, I’ll be careful.”

  Turning back to Don, Talon raised an eyebrow and said, “You know sometimes I can be dumber than a box of rocks. I really do believe there is only one of them left, but that is just my gut feeling. I’m going to see if I can get this guy talking to us again. That should give Mat the time he needs to get eyes on this guy.”

  Duck walking to the rear of the ferry, Talon called out, “Hey, are you still out there? We really don’t want to have to kill you. Why don’t you just leave us alone and we will leave you alone.” For several seconds there was just silence against the background of the burning building, and Talon was beginning to think maybe they had gotten lucky and hit him during their ploy.

  But that thought vanished as a voice called back, “All of you will die for what you have done here today. Khuda will strike you down. Your doom will be arriving here soon, and they will take your heads for what you have done. The Great Satan is dying.”

  Talon turned back to look at Don questionably and mouthed the word “soon?” Don shrugged his shoulders in response.

  Leaning back towards the ramp, Talon called out, “Keep thinking like that and you are going to die tired and lonely. Why don’t you just lay down your weapon, and let's talk about this? At least let me know who you think is coming to kill us and save you?”

  The terrorist yelled back, “Many of the faithful are on their way to send your souls to burn in ….”

  The statement was cut short by the flat boom of a high powered rifle, followed by Mat’s voice coming over everyone’s radios, “Talon, there was only one of them, he is down and not moving.”

  Keying his radio, Talon said, “Stay where you are and keep scanning the area. Stay sharp; I’m on my way. Do not shoot me.” Turning to Don, “I’m going to go check this guy out. Start trying to get the pulley enclosures off, I won’t be gone long.”

  Swapping out his partial empty magazine for a full one, Talon moved quickly down the ramp and to the closest large tree. While Talon was pretty sure there had been only one terrorist left, he reminded himself that he had been pretty sure there were no terrorists left after the surrender at the ferry building. That is until this one popped up shooting. Keeping close to the larger trees, Talon moved as quickly as he could towards Mat’s position. Talon knew they needed to get across the river as soon as they could and before someone showed up to investigate what all the shooting and explosions were about. For some reason, he could not shake off the feeling that something nasty was heading their way.

  Finally making his way through the trees, Talon spotted Mat as he raised from a prone position to his knees. Talon motioned him back down and to stay in place with a hand gesture. He then pointed to his own eyes and then pointed at Mat, telling him to keep his eyes open and watch the area as he moved to check out the last terrorist.

  Mat pointed towards the pile of pallets to indicate where the terrorist was. After a quick look around with his binoculars, Talon moved toward the body. Talon keyed his radio to let Mat know he was moving out into the open area between the two buildings and for him to watch the road to the north, not what he was doing. Talon moved at a double-time to cross the open area as fast as he could. Bringing his M4 up into the ready position, he moved to the edge of the stack of pallets. Pausing briefly, he took a quick peek around the corner of the pallets. Seeing no movement, but keeping his M4 in the ready position, he moved around the pallets. His first thought was how young the guy was. He could not have been over twelve or thirteen at the most, much more youthful than any of the guys in their group. It was really hard to tell exactly as Mat’s bullet had entered the kid’s temple and pretty much exploded the kid’s face and left side of his skull. The older terrorists must have sent him away while they were brutalizing the ferry owner and his wife.

  The next thing Talon noticed was the satellite p
hone lying next to the kid. Picking the phone up, Talon recognized the phone as an Iridium satellite phone, and more importantly, the screen was lit up, indicating the phone had power and most likely worked. Talon’s mind was still in a blur, thinking of the possibilities when the phone began to vibrate in his hand.

  Without really thinking about it, Talon punched the accept button and spoke into the phone, “You have reached the home of the great Satan, where bacon rules and terrorists drool. How can I help you on this fine day?” There was a long pause, where no one was talking to him, but he could hear several voices in the background speaking in rapid Farsi. After about a minute of this, an individual speaking English with a distinct British accent came on the line.

  “Sir, may I ask to whom I am speaking,” the voice asked.

  Talon answered with, “No one of importance, just ran across your guys that were over here chasing around the goats and wanting to have sex with them, and we decided to punch their tickets. Figured we shouldn’t let trash like that run around our country, so we pretty much killed all of them.” There was another long pause, while another conversation took place in the background.

  After about 30 seconds, the guy was back, “Are you with the United States Government?” the guy asked.

  Now it was Talon’s turn to pause. How should he play this, wondered Talon. Hopefully, our guys at the agency would still be monitoring and would pick up on this conversation. Maybe they will, but it probably wouldn’t make any difference for his team. So Talon decided to jump in with both feet, “So I presume you are with the Iranian Government. Let’s not play games; it is way past that point. I just took out four of your teams without so much as messing up my hair, that you had been tasked with attacking the Washington D.C. water supply. I have already informed my government of this action and got confirmation of their identities. I’m sure my government will have some demonstration of our displeasure headed your way very soon.”

  The guy came back on, “Oh, we doubt very much that you have been in contact with your government. In fact, we have already dispatched more than enough teams your way to remedy this situation, so you will not interfere with our plans for much longer. What do you think about that?”

  Talon smiled coldly, “Send them on, the more, the merrier. The local feral hogs will feast well tonight, and if you are sending more, well, I have plenty of ammo, send them on.” And with that, Talon cut the connection. His mind was running a thousand miles an hour, but the main thing was to get his team across the river and out of the damn area before no telling how many Iranian hit teams showed up. Talon smiled, congratulating himself for the line about the feral hogs. Of course, there were not any wild hogs in this area of Maryland, but the buzzards would feast tomorrow, and that would have to be good enough.

  Talon pulled the battery off the phone and stuffed both parts into his chest rig before turning to the body of the young man. Talon quickly frisked him and took everything from his pockets. He would exam everything later when he had the time.

  Keying his radio mic, “Don, how are you coming on those pulley assemblies?”

  The response was immediate, “We have both of them down to just a couple turns of a wrench. Just waiting for you and Mat.”

  Talon replied, “On our way, be there in two mics.” Standing, he yelled at Mat, “Mat, get over here; it is time to go.”

  Bending over, Talon stripped the ammo belt from the corpse and picked up the AK lying on the ground. Hearing Mat’s footsteps, Talon attempted to step into the line of sight to block Mat from seeing the ruined half of the young terrorist’s head, but he was too late. Mat arrived slightly out of breath, and as he looked down, he saw what his rifle round had done to the young man, a kid really, lying at his feet. Talon had seen his fair share of projectile vomiting, but he was impressed with Mat’s attempt to break the world record. Talon was careful to keep his expression firm and solemn because he did not want to disrespect what Mat had done. The taking of any life is hard, but he would learn that shooting bad guys was not worth losing a meal over.

  Not saying anything, Talon reached over and handed Mat his drinking tube to wash out his mouth with. Talon told him, “Just take a minute and get your breath back. Then we really need to get back to the boat and get out of here. There is a chance some more bad guys are on their way to us right now.”

  That got Mat’s attention, and he turned and began running towards the ferry landing.

  Chapter Two

  Getting everyone back onto the ferry, Talon asked Mat and Ben to get the ferry’s ramp secured. Walking over to Don, he asked, “Don, what does it look like?”

  Don looked at Talon, pulled his hat off, and wiped the sweat off his brow before answering, “I have all, but one of the bolts pulled on the aft and mid-section starboard pulley assemblies. As soon as you say so, I can begin pulling the remaining bolts. I will say there is a lot of strain on those remaining bolts; don’t know how long they will hold.”

  “Let’s go ahead and get this show on the road,” Talon said so everyone could hear him, then lowing his voice, he moved closer to Don. “We might have some trouble coming our way. We really need to get across the river and then find a place to hole up for the day.”

  “Ok, then let's get to it,” Don said and grabbed the wrench he had been using. Walking back to the first pulley set, we both stood and watched for just a second. The pressure on the pulley tensioner was apparent, and Talon motioned Don to give him the wrench. Slipping on his eye pro, Talon hesitantly approached the last nut in the aft pulley system. Appling the wrench, he didn’t make it through one complete turn before there was a loud pinging sound as the nut stripped off and shot across the compartment as the tensioner tore away from the side of the ferry. Talon first thought that the jerk would rip the other two pulley tensioners off, but both of them held. Moving down to the middle pulley tensioner, he again applied the wrench, and when this one let go, it ripped the forward tensioner off the side of the ferry.

  Yelling out to Ben, Talon said, “Ben, get your butt up into the conning tower and turn the wheel hard to port.” Ben reacted immediately, leaping into the conning tower chair and spun the wheel as hard as he could. The ferry responded instantly with the aft of the boat swinging fast to the middle of the river. The only problem was it was the wrong way. He yelled again at Ben, “Your other port! Turn the wheel as far as it will go the other way!”

  Ben quickly corrected his steering, and the ferry instantly began to move across the river, slowly at first, but then it began to pick up a little speed. This elicited a whoop of joy from Ben. With the front right (starboard) pulley assembly still attached to the ferry and the current of the river pushing against the starboard side, the energy propelled the ferry to slide along the cable. It is complicated to envision, but it has worked for centuries at ferry crossings around the world.

  “Ben,” Talon yelled as he ran over to the conning tower and mounted the steps up to the tower door, “Slowly back off the wheel to bring us in slow. Don’t lose all your momentum, or we will be stuck 20 or 30 feet from the bank, but we don’t want to try and dock at ramming speed.” Facing forward, Talon yelled, “Brace for impact, we might be coming in a little fast.”

  “Ben, when I say so, try and straighten us out, so we come straight in.” Ben nodded and threw Talon an, “Aye, Aye Captain,” with a shit-eating grin. Well, he was obviously having fun with it, but Talon was still worried about the docking part of it. By this time, they were over halfway across and moving steadily along the cable. Talon had worried that the cable might be too heavy for this method to work, but it seemed to be working ok. Turning back to Ben, “So if I’m right, once you bring us hard to port that will slow us down and we should be ok. Watch for me to signal you. I’m going forward to help tie us up once we do hit the other side. You good with this?”

  “I’m good, just let me know when to turn this thing,” Ben replied.

  Talon jumped down and headed forward to where Don and Mat were nervously
watching the far bank get closer and closer. “You guys ready for this,” he asked.

  Don turned to Talon, “Honestly, I had my doubts that this would work, now I’m wondering if it is working too well.”

  Mat jumped in, “So how do we slow it down, it seems we are moving way too fast.”

  Giving them both a palms down motion, Talon smiled and replied, “Have a little faith, we hopefully will slow down when I have Ben turn straight into the dock. If not, I fairly confident the dock will stop us.”

  Don laughed nervously, “What do you mean hopefully?”

  “Well, as I have never actually done this before, I can only hope for the best. I’m sure it will be fine, although we might want to get down, so we are not thrown off our feet when we crash into the dock,” Talon said with a laugh. Turning, he raised his arm to signal Ben.

  As the ferry got within about 75 feet of the riverbank, Talon signaled Ben to bring the control wheel to the 45-degree point; this allowed the back of the boat to swing back upriver. The timing was close, not perfect, but close. The ferry staggered as the starboard bow impacted with a crunch against the old tires hung from the tie-up pylons, but the ferry’s momentum carried it into the docking chute and grounded it on the cement boat ramp. No one would have called the landing smooth as everyone was braced for the sudden stop. Most people might have called it closer to a crash landing, but you know what they say, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. Although the front three or four feet of the ferry was now grounded on the cement ramp, the current didn’t waste any time in trying to swing the ferry parallel with the river bank. Jumping to their feet, Mat, Don, and Talon attempted to loop the tie-down lines around the docking chute pylons. Mat was successful on his first attempt and managed to get his line snugged down before coming over to assist Talon. With his help, Talon was finally able to get the one and a half-inch rope around the pylon and get it snugged down. Calling over to Don, who was still struggling with his rope, Talon told him to forget it, that two ropes should hold it long enough for them to get the hell off this accursed boat.