Peel hated guard-duty

He squinted towards the bright lights of the distant prison camp, mentally cursing the Texas government. While he was at it he cursed his immediate superior, Lieutenant Zuiden, and the prison camp commandant, Vladimir Kaplinsky. For good measure he added President Ashton, and life in general.

Four more months, he told himself.

Four more months and he could kiss the damn Army goodbye. His compulsory two-year enlistment would be up and he would finally be free to return to civilian life. He'd be free once again to wear whatever clothing he wanted, free to allow his hair to grow if he choose to, free to stay out all night if he desired without having an officer or a non-com standing over his bunk and bellowing for him to get his lazy, worthless butt out of the rack if he decided to sleep 'til noon he would. And he would be free to spend more time with his girlfriend.

Oh, sweet freedom!

Peel smiled at the thought of his honourable discharge, and the added benefits he would be entitled to because of it, and turned his attention back to the stark, barren landscape. The floodlit walls of the Mt Sherman Maximum Security Camp stood oddly ominous, silhouetted as they were against the distant horizon. Even at a distance of twenty-five miles the camp still gave him the willies. He recalled many a night hearing the horror stories about the savagery, the beatings, the cannibalism, and the gladiatorial death matches that took place, and wondered how some of the inmates had survived as long as they had in such squalor and filth.

He gripped the strap of the M-16 slung over his left shoulder with his left hand and rested his right arm on top rail of the gat blocking off the Mt Sherman Freeway, the only road to directly link the township of Mt Sherman with the prison. Sweat beaded across his brow and caked his sides under his fatigue shirt. He longed for a cold beer, or two, and a cool shower. In four hours, at midnight, he would finally be off duty, and he could hardly wait to strip off his uncomfortable uniform and sit back with a cold beer at the Alamo bar.

'Daydreaming again, junior?'

Peel started momentarily at the familiar guttural voice and turned to his right to see Lieutenant Zuiden emerging from the white guard shack at the side of the road. 'No,' he blurted out, a little harsher than he had intended.

What's with you, Peel?' Lieutenant Zuiden asked, and grinned. 'Why are you so damn jumpy?'

Peel stared at his commanding officer for several seconds, the smile on his face reminding him of a Great White Shark. 'Guess I'm just itching for some action,' he replied, as Zuiden made his way across the road towards his position.

I wouldn't get your hopes up,' Zuiden commented, flicking ash from the end of his cigarette. 'Most of the action will be going on up there.' he finished, pointing his chin in the direction of the prison. The two men were about to return to the relative coolness of the guard shack when a noise of the far side of the road caught their attention.

'What the hell?' Peel exclaimed, unslinging his M-16 and racking back the slide to chamber the first round. 'Do we check it out?'

You know better,' Lieutenant Zuiden, replied, his hand resting on the butt of the Beretta M9 semi automatic strapped to his right hip. 'We stay put.'

Peel listened with bated breath, the short hairs on the nape of his neck tingling with anticipation. Between the gate and the distant prison stretched a semi arid field brush and scrub trees in which nothing moved. 'I don't see anything,' he commented, scanning the field.

'Keep your eyes peeled, junior,' Zuiden directed. 'I'm gonna go call this in.'

A drop of sweat trickled down onto Peel's right eyelid, and he mopped his brow with the back of his hand, feeling annoyed at himself for his excessive nervousness and sweating. Was his mind playing tricks on him, or was it trying to warm him of some impending peril. Unsure of what he was feeling he took a deep breath to steady himself.

He licked his lips and scanned the field to his right. A flicker of movement, about a hundred yards from the gate suddenly drawing his attention. His brown eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, raising the M-16 to his shoulder and sighted on the centre of the thicket, which was now shaking violently.

He hoped that a coyote or a jackrabbit was responsible for causing the shaking coming from the bush.

Less than thirty meters away from the two soldiers, David Loren, his body shrouded in a hand-made ghillie suit, lay completely motionless, his senses finally tuned into the nuances of his surroundings. Even his rifle, a Canadian-manufactured Diemaco C7A1 assault rifle and the foot long sound suppressor attached to the weapon's threaded barrel were covered in masking tapes and rags to help break up their shape.

It had taken him almost an hour to get into this position. Slowly he had inched his way forward. Careful not to make any sudden movements that may inadvertently give himself away. His original plan had called for the two soldiers to be eliminated from preselected firing positions located in a culvert just over a hundred meters from the main road. However, like the best laid plans, Loren had decided to try and get closer in any effort to garnish further information on what was going on at the prison, or what the troop strength would be at the barracks further down the road.

Now, after having been watching for the last hour, it was clear that the taller of the two soldiers was the leader of tonight's guard assignment. His scarred features made it clear that he had seen active service before. However it was his close-cropped blonde hair and his guttural Afrikaans accent that marked him as the officer on duty tonight. He was clearly one of the South African soldiers of fortune that had been recruited, along with other mercs from around the world, to reinforce security at the various maximum security prison camps scattered throughout Texas.

Realizing that even the slightest of noises could travel over a long distance, Loren used hand signals to indicate that he would take out the South African. Five meters to his right, partially concealed by a growth- studded shrub, Loren's backup sniper, a tall African-American woman, dressed and armed identically to himself, nodded her understanding and got ready to take her shot.

For the next several seconds Loren focused almost solely on controlling his breathing. As if there was an invisible wire linking the barrel of his rifle with his target, Loren watched over the open sights of his weapon, not wanting to activate the laser-aiming device attached to the underside of the Diemaco's barrel for fear it would reveal his position. He watched as the mercenary began pacing in small circles up and down the road. Occasionally he would stop, look at his watch, and survey the surrounding landscape, focusing most of his attention in the direction of the Mt Sherman Township.

Was he waiting for something? Loren thought. Or perhaps someone? According to the information that had been smuggled to Loren from a contact within the township, the two men manning this particular security point were not due to be relieved until midnight. So why did the Afrikaans keep looking back in that direction.

There was no need to chamber a round into his rifle, or remove the safety, producing that tell tale click that more often than not lead to the death of many a careless sniper. Old habits die hard he thought. The old excitement he had had felt in his youth was gone, but his pulse was still up and he welcomed the rise. His senses felt sharper than they had in years.

Shoot now! A part of him cried - it was the Loren of old. And without conscious thought his finger had slid inside the trigger guard and began tightening on the trigger. The resulting three round burst, sounding no louder than a muffled cough, hitting the mercenary in the upper chest and neck, dropping him instantly. Instinctively he swung his weapon toward the second soldier, only to see him collapse to the ground, half his face torn away by a trio of 5.56mm rounds.

Rising to their feet, and with their weapons held high, SEAL-style - the stocks of their rifles pressed firmly against their shoulders, their eyes looking straight down the barrel of their weapons, as they approached their now prone targets.

Within moment of confirming their kills Loren, having used a silenced small caliber semiautomatic to fire a double tap into the soldier’s chest, signaled for the remainder of his men to move forward. Whilst they waited the two snipers stripped of their ghillie suits, dumping them in the guards’ shack, before searching for, and removing any weapons from the bodies of their targets.

Stage one of their assault was now completed.

With the checkpoint eliminated, it took only a few minutes to reach their next target area. The mercenary barracks just outside of Mt Sherman. Having driven the trucks as close as he dare, Loren ordered them hidden and for two men to remain with them.

Now on their final approach, the sixteen-militia commandos, having reached the blessed cover of a small wooded area overlooking the barracks compound used by the mercenary guards, began moving toward the pre-assigned firing positions. Loren and the other sniper, now armed with the dead soldiers M-16 as well as her own rifle, took up their own firing positions at either end of the skirmish, having checked that each person was in position and ready for action.

Armed with a mixture of both semi-automatic and full-automatic weapons the militia members would fire down onto the barracks, and the thirty or so remaining mercenaries below hopefully killing everybody before any reinforcements could be called in. In doing so they hoped to send an unmistakable message to those in power that foreign troops were no longer welcome anywhere in Texas. To assist in their task two of the militia members carried South African manufactured Vektor Commando 60mm M$ Patrol Mortar Systems. It was the assignment of those manning the mortars to eliminate the small guard shack at the far end of the compound, and the sandbagged machinegun emplacement adjacent to the main barracks building. Once they were eliminated the remainder of the militia force would open fire on the barracks themselves.

'Cover your ears,' the mortar firer closest to Loren whispered, giving those closest to him pre-warning that he was about to open fire.

With that he dropped the first of his high-explosive fragmentation rounds into the barrel. A second later the super-charge filled ballistite B150 propellant charge fired, sending the mortar shell in a graceful arc toward the compound. Even though he had been expecting it Loren still recoiled slightly from the noise. No sooner was his first round in the air and the militia member was dropping a second round into the weapon, followed quickly by a third. He kept the remaining two rounds in reserve as ordered, to help cover their retreat, if necessary. The smell of cordite and smoke soon became heavy in the confined spaces of their firing positions. Then bright flashes began to appear in the middle distance.

Franz Luben, a French born mercenary, was just stepping out of the guard shack for a cigarette when the first mortar round reached the peak of its flight path. 'Fuck them,' he thought raising his Zippo lighter to the tip of his cigarette. At least out here I can stretch my legs he told himself as he thrust the tip of his cigarette into the orange flame of the lighter. In the shack there was barely enough room to swing a cat, and he had been there to witness it when one of the Afrikaans had tried to do just that to prove a point.

The mortar bomb was designed as a 'top attack' weapon; to be used by ground troops is support against enemy and command vehicles. It was specifically designed to penetrate the softest part of an enemy vehicle, the roof. It penetrated the roof of the shack as though it were slicing through tissue paper, slamming into the concrete floor, before detonating. The pressure caused by the detonation blew the shack outwards, the explosion of the second mortar bomb helping to propel molten shrapnel scything through the air in every direction. The third mortar, caught by the thermal winds of the first two detonations, alleviated slightly off course and struck a two ton transport vehicle parked near the mainly entrance of the barracks itself. A burning tire, torn from the front axle, hurled itself through the front windscreen of a nearby pick-up, setting the vehicle ablaze.

A maelstrom, caused by the secondary explosions of the vehicle's fuel tanks, erupted across the compound. Pillars of read and yellow flames, intermingled with thick black smoke, reflected off the darkened sky. Shrapnel penetrated the compounds fuel dump causing a cataclysmic explosion that incinerated everything around it. Ripple firecracker detonations erupted from the rise overlooking the barracks as the militiamen opened fire.

The whole incident was over in less than ten minutes. Acrid smoke and the pungent smell of cordite and burning flesh hung heavily in the air, burning Loren's eyes as he took in the damage below. The destruction of the Mt Sherman barracks would all but eliminate the chances of reinforcements being sent up to the prison camp, therefore allowing the final stage of his plan to proceed uninterrupted.

Finally satisfied with the job that they had done, Loren and his militia gunmen gathered up their weapons and disappeared like wraiths into the darkness.