Axis Files: Operation Badger - Chapter 3

Sean shuffled behind one of the pallet stacks and set down his tactical bag. His fingers moved to the zippers at the top and he quickly peeled open the compartment containing two frag grenades and two flashbangs.

The plan of attack was just formulating in his mind when he felt the presence of someone hovering over him. He’d not heard the footsteps. All the noise from the forklifts and the workers just thirty yards away blocked out any detailed sound from nearby.

“What are you doing?” A deep, manly voice asked from behind in Russian.

Sean barely turned his head, keeping the hood over the left side of his face to conceal his identity.

“I found this,” he answered in Russian, motioning to the bag. “It looks like military. Did one of our patrols drop it? Doesn’t look like our issue.”

The shadow draped over Sean’s form shifted, and the man came into view on his left. The other guard was easily five inches taller than Sean, and probably thirty pounds heavier with tough, sinewy muscles practically ripping through his tight raincoat. His black beard was perfectly shaped, which Sean figured must have taken the guy way too much time a couple of times a week.

The man picked through the contents of the bag, discovering the grenades, full magazines, two knives, and a collection of other gadgets.

“You don’t know who this belongs to?” the man asked.

“No,” Sean lied. “As I said, I was returning from my patrol and found it.”

The bearded guard glowered at Sean, though Sean only noticed out of the corner of his eye, still maintaining a sense of disguise.

“I will take it to Nikolai. Perhaps he knows who it belongs to.” The man bent forward to zip up the flaps and caught a flash of movement.

Sean slid the black knife’s edge across the man’s throat, cutting deeply into his flesh.

The Russian gasped and fell backward onto his tailbone, grabbing at the wide gash as it gushed blood through his fingers and onto the muddy ground.

Sean slung a leg over the man’s torso and with the weight of his leg and the force of his hand shoved the dying man into a puddle face first until his struggle against death was lost.

Someone would notice that guy’s absence before too long. As if Sean didn’t already need to work faster.

He zipped up the bag, grabbed the flashlight, and sauntered away from the pallet stack toward a metal shipping container on the broadside of both moving vans. He panned the flashlight slowly around the grounds, shining it up toward a stack of containers as if he were one of the patrol guards.

Again, the ruse worked, and none of the loading workers seemed to pay any attention to him.

Once on the backside of the shipping container, Sean knelt down, placed the pack at his feet, and grabbed the first of the two grenades.

Everything would have to be timed perfectly. A quick scan over his shoulder to make sure no one was behind him, and he was ready.

Sean pulled the pin on the first grenade, leaned out from behind the container, and launched it at a low trajectory toward the first van. He rapidly repeated the process for the second ordnance and rolled it hard across the loading area.

He tucked back behind the steel container and waited, counting in his mind until he heard the first blast. Two heartbeats later, he heard the second explosion.

Another larger boom rocked the entire shipping yard, shaking the ground like heavy thunder.

Shouts from panic-stricken men filled the air. The voice of one man screaming in pain shrieked through the night.

Sean dipped into the pack and removed a flashbang. He peeked around the corner of the container and saw that the first grenade had done massive damage to the front van, but the second truck had only lost tires and displayed minimal cosmetic damage to the side. Still, both trucks were disabled, and the first one had caught on fire, sending black smoke up into the rainy night.

Two men rolled around behind the second truck. A third didn’t move at all.

Sean lobbed the first of the flashbangs toward the scrambling crowd of men who were confusedly trying to reorganize into a defensive position with submachine guns brandished and waiving in all directions.

The flashbang landed at the feet of a cluster of gunmen. A second later, a searing white light flashed through the loading area, burning the vision of everyone in the group.

Sean stepped out from his hiding spot and raised his rifle. He fired mercilessly at the blinded men, picking them off with well-placed shots as he unloaded the contents of his magazine into the group. The Russian mobsters fell like insects to bug spray. Some managed to fire a few shots randomly into the air, but no one came close to hitting the man taking their lives from them.

All told, Sean eliminated a dozen men within twenty seconds.

The rest, realizing they’d been caught by surprise, had retreated to the stronghold of the warehouse, taking up positions within the building. It was easy to see the ones who chose windows to shoot from. Two huddled behind concrete barriers just outside the door.

A gunman appeared around the front of the second van and raised a pistol. The man’s leg was bleeding badly, blackened from the explosion, and pierced with shrapnel. Sean caught the movement out of his left eye and twitched to the side, squeezed the trigger, and sent a round through the man’s heart.

As the gunman fell backward into the wet gravel, he managed one random shot into the black sky before he died.

Sean returned his focus to the main building where the rest of the gunmen held out. He scooped up his bag on the run and sprinted behind a steel shipping container with Russian lettering on the side. Bullets pinged off the dense metal as the enemy finally managed to put together a cohesive attack.

The rattle of gunfire sounded strange in the night, echoing through the rain and dampened by the overcast sky above. Then, as suddenly as it began, the barrage stopped. Sean knew what was coming next. The enemy would either emerge from their fortress and flank both sides of the container, or they would lob some explosives to his side and try to blow him out from behind it.

Uncertain Pushnaya’s men had those kinds of weapons, Sean planned on the first line of attack.

He dipped his left hand into his bag and removed a small, olive-green satchel. He placed the little bag on the gravel and flipped a switch on the side of a panel inside it. Then, keeping his line straight, he ran directly away from the shipping container, sprinting for another pair of stacks twenty yards away. He didn’t risk looking back until he slid along the gravel, skidding to a stop to slide around the corner of the first two containers.

Sean took a knee on the wet ground and aimed through the scope at the place where he’d been before. He saw the satchel still there, but no sign of enemy gunmen. The window at the top of the warehouse was in view, though, and Sean saw someone moving frantically inside. If he wasn’t mistaken, he’d have sworn it looked like someone hurrying to collect their things to make their escape.

Pushnaya, Sean realized. He couldn’t let the man get away, but he also couldn’t make a hard push to the building until the path was clear.

Sean knew he had the option to go around to the backside which was probably the best move, but he needed to thin the herd. With probably half of the gunrunner’s forces eliminated, Sean knew he was rapidly gaining the advantage, even though he was still outnumbered.

He breathed calmly, forcing himself to remain patient just as he’d learned during his training, and as he’d practiced when under duress throughout life.

“Let them come to you,” Sean whispered.

Rain dripped off of the suppressor at the end of his barrel. More rain dribbled around his eyes and down his cheeks. He didn’t let it affect him, remaining focused on the satchel and both ends of the shipping container twenty yards away.

Then, as he figured, two groups of three men each appeared abruptly on either end. They rushed around the container’s edges with submachine guns raised, ready to cut down the attacker. Instead, they found nothing but gravel and a small satchel.

Two of the men swiveled around, scouring the yard for the magician who’d simply vanished. The other four closed in on the satchel.

Sean flipped up a flap on one of the utility pockets on his belt. Then he pried open the plastic button cover and held his thumb over it, waiting while the four men neared the satchel. It would be nice if the other two were closer, but four would be enough.

When the curious gunmen were within two yards of the oddly placed bag, Sean pressed the button.

He winced as the explosion rumbled the ground underfoot and consumed the four men in a ball of orange fire. The other two were thrown off their feet, sent sprawling through the air.

One struck a pile of pallets and landed on the ground. The other wasn’t so lucky. He flew twenty feet through the air and landed on a spike of rebar that jutted from a K-rail, impaling him through the chest. He kicked his feet for several seconds. Then the kicking slowed until it stopped with his death.

Sean aimed at the first man who struggled to get to his feet. One shot through the top of the gunman’s skull sent him back down to the gravel for good.

Most of Pushnaya’s forces had been decimated in minutes, but Sean knew the hardest part still waited for him.

He looked up to the office window again and found no movement. The boss was gone, at least from that part of the facility.

If Sean didn’t act quickly, Pushnaya would escape, and there might not be another chance like this to get him.