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    Echo Six: Black Ops 4
    Echo Six: Black Ops 4
    Echo Six: Black Ops 4
    Ebook343 pages6 hours

    Echo Six: Black Ops 4

    By Eric Meyer

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    About this ebook

    The North Koreans have new allies in their quest to unleash a nuclear fireball on their hated neighbors. And this time, they are about to succeed. Chechen rebels possess the prize the North Koreans desire more than anything else; Nuclear warheads.

    The deal is done and the weapons are loaded on board a train. But this is no ordinary train. The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest railroad in the world. Destination Pyongyang. The window of opportunity to stop one of the greatest threats to the world is closing by the minute.

    The men of Echo Six are sent to ambush the train and seize the warheads. But the action that follows is violent and bloody, stretching across Siberia and into North Korea itself. A thriller that mixes blazing action with the politics of deceit and betrayal. A story that is full of explosive twists and turns. Echo Six: Black Ops 4 is a worthy, action packed sequel to the three best selling Echo Six – Black Ops novels.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSwordworks Books
    Release dateJun 21, 2013
    ISBN9781909149243
    Echo Six: Black Ops 4
    Author

    Eric Meyer

    An internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards, Eric has been working on the web since late 1993. He is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, a co-founder of the microformats movement, and co-founder (with Jeffrey Zeldman) of An Event Apart, the design conference series for people who make web sites. Beginning in early 1994, Eric was the campus Web coordinator for Case Western Reserve University, where he authored a widely acclaimed series of three HTML tutorials and was project lead for the online version of the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History combined with the Dictionary of Cleveland Biography, the first example of an encyclopedia of urban history being fully and freely published on the Web.

    Read more from Eric Meyer

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      Book preview

      Echo Six - Eric Meyer

      ECHO SIX: BLACK OPS 4

      By Eric Meyer

      First Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © 2013 Eric Meyer

      Published by Swordworks Books

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      Chapter One

      Make it fast, I hear something. He's coming back.

      Gimme a couple of minutes, try and distract him. I'm almost there.

      Captain Ed Silva, US Marine Corps, watched as his fellow prisoner worked feverishly on the blade. There was almost no light; only a feeble candle flickered, failing to drive away the gloom. It was all they were allowed in the dark, dank cave that was their cell. And may one day be their tomb. They were never allowed to leave. By the feeble flame of the candle, the Taliban guards forced them to work and to eat; when there was food to eat. Rock walls, roughly hewn out of the mountain, ran with damp, and dark patches of mold. It was their home, the filthy, cold, clammy cave that held them in cruel isolation from the outside world. The foul stench added to their misery, human wastes, rotting food, and stale, unwashed bodies.

      The cave had been their prison for eighteen months, since the five men were imprisoned in the dank hellhole after their capture. Forced to work for sixteen hours a day, their grinding, mind-numbing task was to chip away at the rock walls, enlarging the cave system and driving it deeper into the mountain. Each morning the guard arrived, unlocked the cell door, and entered. They only assumed it was morning, for their watches and possessions had all been stolen long before. With no access to the outside, to the sky, it was impossible to gage the time of day or even the season.

      The guard brought them a bag of tools, five hammers, together with five crude, blunted, worn out chisels; tools with which they had to hack at the iron-hard rock for every waking moment of every day of their lives. Sometimes, not always, a second guard brought them food. Stale bread, and a bowl of rice containing lumps of stringy lamb, on good days. There was not always lamb. At the end of their shift, the guards came back to collect the tools. Stealing a chisel to fashion a weapon was out of the question. They'd made it clear to the prisoners; the penalty for a single missing tool was the death sentence. One prisoner would be brutally killed.

      A few days ago, one of the guards made a mistake. When they took out the tools to start work, the guards had missed a broken steel chisel hidden at the base of the bag. Rusty, blunted, and with part of the handle missing, it was nonethless a gift from the gods. A hunk of steel they could turn into a weapon. Ever since, Sergeant Colin Chapman, a Brit from the 1st Battalion, Coldstream Guards, had been working at the metal night and day, using pieces of rock that lay all around them to sharpen and shape the blade. When it was finished, they would use it to threaten a guard, seize his weapon, and break out. It was their only chance; the poor diet, overwork, and lack of sunlight or fresh air were slowly killing them. If they got out, they knew their chances would be poor.

      Their best guess was they were being held in a cave system in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan. Once the hiding place of Osama bin Laden, the caves had been largely ignored by NATO since the famous battle when the primary target, the architect of the 911 attacks, escaped across the border into Pakistan. Since then, the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies had cut new entrances and passages into the cave system, turning it into a literal fortress; a fortress to use in their so-called 'holy war' against the ISAF forces and the Karzai government.

      For the prisoners, it was a bitter pill to swallow, knowing they were helping their enemies, but when their only choice was to work or to die, the options were somewhat limited.

      He's outside the door, Silva hissed, Put it away, now!

      Chapman hurriedly stuffed the blade into a cleft in the rock and covered it with a piece of stone that fitted the hole exactly. He threw himself to the floor as the door opened. Rashid Jahani peered inside, his black beard jutting forward, and his eyes alight with suspicion, as they always were. He was dressed in Afghan pants, the baggy garment tight at the ankles, with canvas jump boots like the Brits used. For a coat, he wore an American combat jacket with a heavy leather belt around the waist, a long, Afghan shirt underneath, and on his head a black turban. He always carried a folding stock AKM assault rifle slung over his back, and a pistol tucked into an open holster; ready to draw in an instant, ready to slay the infidels.

      Jahani was the Taliban second-in-command of the cave complex, an embittered fighter with a long history of slaughter. He'd traded shots with the Soviet invaders, the Afghan Northern Alliance, and NATO, when they arrived to pacify the beleaguered country. He was elderly for an Afghan, in his mid-forties. But he seemed to thrive on his hatred of all things Western, and they'd learned to be careful when he was around. He’d made it clear he considered he should have been appointed commander of the complex, and his failure to win promotion added to his fury. He took out his anger and frustration on the prisoners, visiting them most days to inspect the work, and to look for any excuse to punish them still further.

      This time, he saw nothing out of order and tossed the canvas sack with their tools to the floor. One of his men stood behind him, with an AK-47 assault rifle cocked and ready to fire. Jahani barked an order, and Silva picked up the bag and retreated to the far end of the cave. Satisfied, he drew his pistol to swap roles with the other guard.

      They'd already noted the weapon was a Chinese copy of the Russian Makarov 9mm, a pistol that could help them break out, if only they could snatch it from him. Each man eyed the big automatic hungrily, always waiting for a chance to make a grab for it, but that chance never came. He was too careful. He nodded to the other guard, who shouldered his assault rifle and picked up two rusty and encrusted buckets from the floor. Protected by the pistol, he stepped into the cell and dumped them on the floor, their food and water for the next twenty-four hours. Barely enough water to drink, some of it already spilled on the bare rocks. Washing was a forgotten luxury. The prisoners never grew accustomed to the stink, although strangely the Afghans didn’t seemed to notice it. At another command from Jahani, the man lifted their shit pail, deliberately spilling some of its contents, and placed it outside the door. He tossed an empty pail into the cell. They were finished. But Jahani wasn't satisfied, not yet, not until he'd vented his fury.

      You are too slow! he shouted, his voice shrill like a girl’s. He spoke broken English with a mangled accent. The last man to find it amusing was buried out on the mountainside under a pile of rocks. You work faster, or you not get food.

      Captain Silva, the senior man in the cell, stepped forward. Jahani eyed him warily.

      We don't have enough food as it is, he pointed out. If you cut our food, we'll do less work.

      Without a word, the Afghan moved toward him, his pistol raised, and his hard, pockmarked face contorted in anger. Silva knew better than to move, and he waited while Jahani slashed down with the heavy blued barrel of the gun. The front sight ripped through the skin of his face, and blood poured from the gaping wound, but Silva stayed motionless. He'd seen it before. They all had. Any attempt to move away from Jahani's furious attacks would result in a more severe beating.

      You keep quiet! You not speak, you work. No work, no food! Then you die!

      He gave the dimly lit cell a final sweep, then turned and stomped out. The heavy steel-reinforced timber door slammed shut, and they heard the bolts sliding across. Once more, they were entombed in their fetid prison, suffocating in the damp, stinking, and airless atmosphere. They started toward the bag and took out the tools. If the guards didn't hear them hammering at the rock, it would mean more punishment; another lesson they'd learned. While three of the men hammered, Corporal Chas Baker, US 91st MP Battalion, ran across to Ed Silva and began wiping away the blood from his wound.

      We don't have much in the way of dressings, Cap, but the real problem is infection. I'll have to use some of the water to clean it.

      We need that water to stay alive, Silva reminded him.

      We'll manage, the Corporal ignored the objection. I've enough of that old shirt to wipe clean the wound. You'll have to hold it down hard until the blood congeals.

      Silva didn't reply. The shirt had belonged to a prisoner who'd been beaten to death several weeks before. When they dragged his body away, all that was left was the ragged, filthy garment. As Baker worked, he glanced around the dark cave and shuddered. They were dying. All of them were too thin, much too thin and emaciated, like the archive photos he'd seen of Holocaust victims. If they shaved off their facial hair, which had grown wild in the months they'd been imprisoned, they'd look much worse. Rags of uniform hung off their skeletal bodies, and their hair hung down long and unkempt. Lice were their constant companions, and despite Sergeant Chapman's heroic efforts to fashion a knife out of the chisel to use in an escape attempt, he knew their chances of survival were almost zero. Baker seemed to sense his despair.

      Don't you worry, Captain. When that knife's ready, we'll break out.

      He didn't remind the Corporal there were only five men left to break out; himself, Baker, Guards Sergeant Colin Chapman, Second Lieutenant Jesse Whitefeather USMC, a Native American with Apache blood in his veins. Whitefeather was a first class sniper, and Silva knew he’d been considered one of the best in the entire US Military by his Marine Corps General.

      Marines are like that, he thought to himself.

      He’d be lucky to survive the coming weeks and months, let alone fix a hostile target in the crosshairs. Then there was a Frenchman, Legionnaire 1st Class Francois Durand of the French Foreign Legion, hard and tough, at least when he’d come in here. He’d quickly lost his Frenchman’s arrogance that they’d get out of there and beat the Taliban monkeys at their game. He corrected himself; they weren’t five men, not anymore; five scarecrows, each unrecognizable from the other. Walking corpses, living out their limited time until starvation, disease, and overwork finished them off. There'd been eleven of them when he was first imprisoned. Once, a bunch of drunken Al Qaeda fighters had entered the cell, looking to slake their thirst for blood. When they left, they'd dragged out two more corpses with them. He nodded absently to the MP Corporal.

      Sure we will, but we better start hammering at the rock. If they don't hear five of us working, they'll be back.

      He didn't say what he was thinking.

      No matter what we do, in the end, it will end the same way. We’re all going to die in this stinking hole. The cave will become our tomb.

      Absently, he noticed the marine, Jesse Whitefeather, had his head cocked to one side.

      Strange.

      What is it, Jesse? Hear something?

      The brown, implacable face turned toward him, the expression neutral as ever. He was a full-blood member of the Apache tribe; a man who’d demonstrated time and time again his strength. Especially his inner strength when men began to lose heart and lose hope. Jesse would always be there, helping, encouraging, cajoling. He was a big man, over six feet tall, and when he arrived in the caves, he was immensely fit and strong. Despite their starvation rations and overwork, something still flared in his eyes. A light that came from inside and never went out. He had a quiet confidence, a sure knowledge of what he was doing and where he was going. It helped to keep the rest of them going.

      Sometimes, they kidded him he had magical powers or maybe had knowledge of old Indian tricks. Whitefeather just nodded and stared back with that calm, confident neutral gaze. Silva had no doubt the marine would be formidable in action. If ever they got the chance.

      No.

      No? What is it? You looked as if, I mean…

      The marine held up a hand for silence, and they waited for long moments. Finally, his head turned to face them.

      Someone is coming.

      I can’t hear anything, Jesse. You sure?

      He stared at Silva. Not hear. Feel. I feel it.

      The Captain nodded.

      Humor the guy.

      Okay, you could be right. Let’s make sure that knife is well hidden. They could be here any minute.

      Jesus Christ, it’s got to him, the incarceration. I didn’t think Jesse Whitefeather would lose it, not before the others.

      Captain, it is not the guards. Our people are coming.

      The other men were silent, tense and anxious, knowing that the toughest amongst them was having delusions. If it happened to Whitefeather, it wouldn’t be long for the rest of them. Finally, Corporal Baker tried to calm the atmosphere.

      Hey, Lt, you gotta take it easy. There ain’t no one coming, not after all this time. You’re just dreaming, imagining things. Why don’t you sit down, and drink some water? I’ll handle your work for a coupla hours.

      The Indian nodded his thanks but ignored the offer, picked up his tools, and went to start work. The other men looked at each other.

      Dear God, we’re all going crazy.

      * * *

      Red light is on, five minutes.

      Talley acknowledged the jumpmaster. Normal conversation was impossible, thanks to the roar of the four huge turbofans outside on the wings; the noise in no way diminished by the thin fuselage. The big military aircraft was designed to carry cargo. Passengers forced to travel on the big Boeing had to endure a wide range of discomforts, from extreme cold to deafening noise. They'd taken off from Bagram and followed a standard commercial flight path, due south, out over the Arabian Sea. Normal routine was to make a starboard turn and head for Allied territory over the Gulf of Oman, into Saudi Arabia or maybe Kuwait. Sandland. It was something of a dogleg, but the direct route would take NATO aircraft over the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not the healthiest country to overfly, not for the sworn enemies of the Islamic Republic, the nations of the Western Alliance. This time had been different. When they were over Pakistan, they'd turned back to the mountains of the Hindu Kush, and back into Afghanistan. The mission was classified 'NATO Top Secret', for if the enemy got word of what they were planning, it would spell disaster, no question. It all started several days ago.

      A team carrying out a routine seismic survey of the area around Tora Bora had heard tapping sounds. They called in advanced listening equipment, and there was no doubt. The enemy was back, working to rebuild their cave stronghold, burrowing like moles to carve new tunnels into the rock. And then the intel guys in Bagram had a stroke of luck. They’d tasked a drone to keep station over the area, watching and listening. The equipment picked up a tiny fragment of a radio transmission, mere seconds in length. The decrypt had astonished them all. Nothing less than an Al Qaeda fighter boasting of their captured soldiers, bragging how they'd made them their slaves, and they would serve their Islamic masters until such time as they died a tortured, agonized death. Allah be praised.

      He hadn't expected they'd call in Echo Six so soon. They were still under a cloud after fallout from the North Korean operation. A defector they'd brought back to the South had gone rogue and slaughtered a bunch of American military personnel on their base just outside Seoul. They weren’t just any personnel. Army nurses, young females, coming off shift after a long, hard night tending to sick soldiers in the base hospital at Yongsan. The North Korean was attending the hospital for psych-eval tests. Everyone assumed he was a genuine defector until he’d seized the assault rifle of the trooper escorting him. He shot the soldier and rushed out into the parking area to find a vehicle and make his escape. The unfortunate nurses were in his way, and Talley recalled seeing the CCTV footage. The North Korean stood for a moment making a calm assessment, and then shot them, dead. All of them, firing a series of short, accurate bursts. Eight young women, serving their country, serving the sick, shot dead in a matter of moments. Echo Six had been stood down while the investigation was underway. At times, Talley felt like resigning his commission, throwing it all in. Before the Inquiry was halfway finished, the report had come in about suspected NATO prisoners in Afghanistan. Within hours, the order came down, and Echo Six flew out to Bagram. It wasn't a reprieve, just that the military needed them. When they returned, they’d have to face up to what had gone wrong, and he’d take the blame. He was the guy in charge. The buck stopped with him, even if it kicked him like an angry mule with a three-day hangover. But even when he accepted their conclusions, the nightmare would still haunt him. Every night, the vision of eight young women in their crisp, white uniforms, drenched in their own blood.

      They were military personnel, sure, paid to take risks. But they were also unarmed nurses, and that sick bastard ignored every single shred of human decency and morality when he chopped them down like targets in a shooting range.

      He'd made a promise to himself, to settle accounts with the killer one day, if he ever had the chance. In the meantime, he'd triple underlined the ROEs, the Rules of Engagement, to his unit. War was for soldiers, not innocent civilians, nor for young nurses, little more than girls.

      Let's be clear, no one, and I mean no one, he'd given the German, Buchmann, a meaningful look. No one shoots if there's the slightest chance of hitting a non-combatant. I find you doing it, and I'll kill you myself.

      Afterward, he hated himself for threatening them. It was just a measure of his grief for the young women gunned down by the North Korean, the man he himself had brought back. In his head, he knew it was no good giving the men a hard time. He was responsible. It happened on his watch, even if his boss tried to let him down lightly. The black, fireplug of a man who personally supervised and guided the teams of Special Forces operatives, Vice Admiral Carl Brooks, the man who headed up NATO's elite NATFOR outfit, of which Echo Six was its most experienced team.

      I don't blame you, Talley, and you shouldn’t blame yourself. Those NKs are all lunatics, and there's no way of knowing which way they'll jump. The Inquiry won't find you guilty either. They're just going through the procedures.

      I appreciate that, Admiral. The problem is, I brought that bastard back, and I blame myself. It's on me.

      I can see why you feel that way, but let it lie, just for now. Maybe you'll get a chance to put things right later.

      Sure, but it won't bring those young nurses back, will it?

      Brooks hadn't replied. Within twenty-four hours, Echo Six was flown in from Seoul and landed at Bagram Airfield. Their task, to locate the entrance to the cave system, release the prisoners, and destroy the newly built Taliban fortress, including any fighters who had the bad luck to be inside at the time.

      Two minutes. Lowering ramp.

      Talley acknowledged. They'd already completed the final checks, but a last visual inspection was always worthwhile. His number two, Guy Welland, glanced over Talley's equipment, and he did the same for him. They'd been together since the formation of Echo Six. Formerly of 22 SAS Regiment, the elite UK outfit, Welland was in his late twenties. He was medium build, with wide shoulders like granite shelves jutting out either side of his head; made even larger by his armored vest. Everything else about him was compact and neat. The determined jaw, jet-black hair hidden beneath his half-helmet, and deep, dark eyes behind the lenses of his jump goggles, seemingly relaxed and uncaring. When he concentrated on a task, then they focused like twin lasers. Guy was both competent and very, very hard, the essence of a British SAS trooper, a hard fighter and a skilled killer. An expert. Despite opposition, Talley had made him his number two, over the heads of members of his unit who were more senior. So far, Guy had done nothing to suggest it was a bad decision.

      A bitter cold gale howled inside the fuselage, and in spite of their thick clothing, it was freezing cold in the unheated fuselage of the C-17 Globemaster. The roar of the wind was louder, hitting them like hundreds of tiny knives, searching out their thick clothing for a way to penetrate the skin beneath. They clustered around the edge of the ramp, and even though jumping into the unknown, no man showed any sign of tension. They'd done hundred of night jumps, and this was as familiar as the daily commuter run on the Washington Beltway for those people who kept the heart of the Capital beating; although maybe not quite so dangerous as that crowded and notorious stretch of highway. He made a last second adjustment to the fit of his oxygen mask.

      Green light. Go.

      Almost as one man, they stepped off into the night sky and felt the exhilaration of high-level free flight. The jump was HAHO, high altitude, high opening. A method often employed when dropping on an enemy who was not equipped with radar or sensitive monitoring equipment. Talley toggled the cord and felt the jerk as his chute deployed, and he began making adjustments for the long glide into the target. He kept referring to his wrist-mounted GPS, to make sure he was on course.

      Loose rocks, shale, and clefts deep enough for a man to vanish inside surrounded the LZ; the planners had pinpointed the only piece of ground that was flat and level, with just a few obstructions. But if anyone missed it, all bets were off. He squinted around him, seeing the ghostly loom of the Hindu Kush in the near distance, the mountain range separating Pakistan from Afghanistan. The countryside was remote, and yet as he glided lower, he began to see the lights of remote villages. There was also the occasional vehicle picking its way slowly along the tracks that crisscrossed the primitive, undeveloped country.

      He dropped lower and checked his altimeter. He was almost there. A final check, a last second adjustment, and he hit the ground, keeping upright, pulling in his chute and clearing the LZ in a smooth, automatic motion. With twenty men dropping into the same small space, the risk of collision and injury could not be ignored. Guy Welland almost startled him, dropping close by and bundling his chute using neat, economical motions, like a housewife folding her bed sheets. The rest of the men landed around them, and he allowed himself to relax slightly.

      All down, no casualties.

      He checked his wristwatch, 2330 hours. They had six and a half hours to complete the mission before the first rays of dawn's early light exposed them to the Taliban watchers, who were known to keep a close eye on the area. He nodded to Guy.

      Time to head out. Put Virgil on point. I want Domenico to take the rear. I'd prefer the snipers to cover our flanks, but I doubt the going will allow us that luxury. We have to follow the narrow pathway we saw on the overheads, and as far as I can tell, the only living things that could cover our flanks would be a pair of mountain goats.

      Copy that, Guy acknowledged. I'll do the best I can with the snipers. If the ground opens out further along, maybe there'll be room for them to spread out.

      He heard Guy give the order over the commo and saw Virgil race forward. Everything was ready. It was time to hit the target.

      Move out.

      The terrain was harsh and unforgiving. The wind beat at them, sharp gusts that made the going even harder as it battered them with its unremitting power, sapping their energy with its chill, elemental ferocity. Every man was thankful they only had two klicks to travel. Any more and they’d be exhausted before they even closed with the enemy. They all wore NV goggles, the peculiar three lens devices that made each of them look like alien monsters. But the vision was superb, and they were able to trek along what was little more than a broken moonscape at a normal pace, avoiding the worst of the potholes and crevices. Virgil's voice came over the commo, just a whisper.

      Sentry. I'd guess eighty meters. I got this.

      Every man froze. Talley stared ahead, but in spite of the superb optics, he couldn't see the hostile.

      Do the enemy have NV gear? I guess we'll soon find out.

      He saw a movement. It was Virgil inching forward, moving from rock to rock, and closing the distance between him and the target. Still no sign of the sentry. Virgil disappeared, becoming one with the rocky terrain. Then he saw the hostile. At first, it was the weapon standing out

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