Target Deck - 02 by Jack Murphy Read Free Book Online

Colombians were probably catching up on some sleep before making the voyage back home. Now the men of Samruk International just had to act fast enough to exploit the opportunity.
    “I want that submarine,” Deckard whispered to Fedorchenko. “We can use something like that.”
    “Deep sea fishing?”
    “You are from a land locked country, what do you know about deep sea fishing?”
    “I have dreams you know.”
    “Alright, let's get the boys down that embankment and have them start taking cover behind these crates. It looks like they are loaded full of cocaine. White powder sandbags should be able to stop a few bullets once the shooting kicks off.”
    “Da.”
    Deckard maintained eyes on the objective, monitoring the guard as he absentmindedly paced the docks until a shift change that would never come for him. Fedorchenko glided back up the embankment and through the hole in the camouflage canvas that hung over the sub pen. A minute later, the assaulters began filtering down into the pallet yard. One by one they took up positions behind the crates, training their weapons on the guard and the living quarters.
    Positioned on the extreme right hand side of their assault line was a machine gunner with an Mk48 . An assistant gunner moved with him, carrying additional belts of 7.62 ammunition. The Mk48 was the size of a light machine gun such as the M249 SAW but packed the 7.62 punch of a larger general purpose machine gun such as the M240B. The Belgium made weapon was a gift from another merc outfit that Samruk hand tangled with in the recent past. The Kazakh soldiers were finding the Mk48 to be plenty effective for immediate support by fire.
    Deckard's only concern was that one of the cargo containers that served as living quarters was situated behind the other. In the restricted confines of the submarine pen, it was impossible to get any kind of flanking fire. The second container was outside of their cone of fire and there wasn't much they could do about it at the moment.
    Nodding at Fedorchenko, he acquired the lone guard in the holographic reticule of his rifle sight. The Kazakh Sergeant was in charge of his platoon and would be the one to initiate the raid. Easing his safety from safe to semi-automatic carefully as not to compromise their position by the loud distinctive click that Kalashnikov selectors make, he gently squeezed the trigger.
    The guard seemed to react a moment before the rifle barked a stream of fire.
    Before he could turn around, the Mexican triggerman was thrown backwards as if tugged off balance by invisible puppet strings. Propelled backward, he slipped off the edge of the dock and fell into the water with a belly flop. Deckard sent two more shots just as Fedorchenko fired but they proved redundant, the shots passing just over the guard as he collapsed into the sea.
    Thirty audible clicks sounded as one. The Kazakh mercenaries were ready to get some. Deckard made a quick mental note to teach them how to wrap the selector switch in electrical tape to prevent the clicking sound, something he'd picked up on another battlefield in one of his previous lives.
    The Mk48 went cyclic, the gunner holding down the trigger for fully automatic fire.
    The Samruk mercenaries turned their guns on the living quarters, giving the enemy the wakeup call of a lifetime. 7.62 bullets sparked as they punched through the flimsy metal walls of the connex containers, the Mk48 sweeping fire from one side to the other as the gunner traversed the gun on its bipod legs. Several bloodied cartel members stumbled out of the container in their boxer shorts. The mercenaries made short work of them, each sprawled on the ground in seconds.
    Then someone threw a grenade, just to prove that no good plan survives first contact with the enemy.
    The explosion ripped through the docks, sending splinters of wood into the air. Several of the 55-gallon drums in the fuel yard exploded, the burning heat singeing the hair on Deckard's arm where he