Black OPS XXL: Beyond the Call of Duty

Prologue

Shit we got company!

Don’t worry about 'em, we've got their radar jammed past the range between us! They're just over a thousand miles out right now—nothing to worry about yet! Pilot Hawkeye shouted, referring to the blips on the radar screen

Four SU-27s fully loaded with air-to-air missiles! Captain Moe replied. Plus, we intercepted their course ten minutes ago, but I didn’t even bother to flag it!

Just then, Sergeant Heron and Nat walked out into the cockpit of the plane to check the team’s eta status.

How long has it been since you flew one of these birds, sergeant? asked Nat.

Sergeant Heron grinned. Shit, since I was a kid my dad would always take me up in his crop duster, and put me right on top of his lap while he was flying.

Fuck—they changed course! Captain Moe cursed. "Two of 'em broke off their flight pattern and banked a G-9!

What’s their speed? asked Heron.

Shit, they're up high enough to be a problem—and they're picking up speed fast!

The sergeant looked grim. I think you’d better call 'em in now.

We can’t be on their radar screen yet, with the AWAC dish jamming the signals! We’re at stealth right now!

Send 'em something pretty while there still out there over the ocean, before the fire ball can be seen down there.

Sure but it won’t be stealth! Captain Moe agreed. They’ll be able to calculate the missile's exact origin, and get here right away if it misses the target.

"Then don’t miss!" demanded Heron.

Shit they’ll pick us up soon as the weapons guidance system acquires a lock on target! Copilot Moe looked directly at the pilot waiting for the word.

"Take em!" Hawkeye shouted.

And there it was. A red cross-hair on the radar screens, weapons-guidance system, locked on the target and started blinking red.

Got 'em! said the copilot. With a flip of two switches on his instruments, he had the weapons locked and popped off three missiles.

He fired Russian R77s, so there would be absolutely no evidence America had a fire fight in the Middle East. But the Sukhoi had R77s also. R77s traveled at Mach 3—twenty one hundred miles an hour.

Suddenly the radar screen indicated a direct hit on one target, then a second direct hit! But there was still one more plane on its way because the missile missed its intended third target. Yet it did hit a cold target—just not the intended threat.

But the cold target went hot, banked a G-9, and headed straight for them, now that the Hawkeye had given their location away.

"Shit, we’ve been locked!" Hawkeye shouted.

Copilot Moe activated counter measures, to confuse the incoming heat seekers, locked and fired three more missiles on the two targets on his screen—direct hits on both targets—before the sukhoi could even get a shot off.

They were invisible to the sukhoi because of the AWAC jamming their radar systems. The sky was clear again without the solders in the passenger bay ever knowing of the potential danger.

In the bay, the Navy Seals readied themselves for action. Here Gazzama, start sucking it slow! yelled Staff Sergeant Mazunda. He tossed a oxygen canister up into the air, above Marine Gazzama's head.

Every other marine in the modified E2C began strapping on their own oxygen funnel over their faces, inhaling one hundred percent pure oxygen—pushing the nitrogen out of their bloodstreams.

Any nitrogen left in their blood would bubble up, triggered by the sudden air pressure drop from the high altitude jump. It would kill them slow and painfully.

After forty five minutes, each of them stood up and started helping each other strap on their sky diving equipment, artillery, communications, electrical technology, oxygen tanks and parachute attachments.

After that, they put on their own helmets and oxygen mask. They were just clearing the ocean from forty thousand feet up, and about to coast over Lebanon.

Inside the plane, the light on the wall of the passenger bay went from red to yellow. They looked at the altitude indicators on their wrist watches, then up at each others' positions, then back at the signal light on the wall, which had just turned green. Gazzama jumped first... Mazzunda, Brandon, Michelle, Kenneth, Kevin, Mickey and Arthur followed—free falling from the plane from forty thousand feet over Lebanon.

If the planes AWAC radar jamming dish was scrambling surrounding frequencies effectively, nobody on the ground would be firing at them on the way down.

The AWAC dish virtually greased the plane, so that radar signals would slide off rather than bounce a bleep back from outside the plane. At fifty degrees below freezing, with the only oxygen available flowing from their tanks, they were free falling from high above the clouds at close to three hundred kilometers an hour and picking up speed fast...

Descending on their bellies with their arms stretched out like eagle wings and with their knees bent, calves pulled back—free falling. Eight navy seals torpedoed down, plunging from miles in the thick of the night with tactical gear packed and knapsacks strapped across their chest.

The plane they just jumped from had no illuminated running lights, and was already almost out of sight. It was already virtually invisible to the seals and totally invisible to radar.

Nobody knew they were coming.

Each of the floating seals looked around, making positive eye contact with one another, gave one another the thumbs up signal then straightened their bodies out to propel themselves straight down through the air like spears.

An anti-freezing agent that coated their helmets kept their face visors from freezing up, while an experimental battery-operated heating system kept the seals' skydiving suits warm and toasty during their descent through a fifty below degrees plunge.

Arthur pulled his arm back in and took a look at the altimeter built into the wrist of his glove. They’d already dropped down five thousand feet at one hundred eighty miles per hour. Now they were free falling through the clouds and could see various lights spread out over the approaching ground. Another twenty five thousand feet, and it would be time to open up their parachutes.

Until then, the seals would be virtual sitting ducks if spotted because the Russian and Chinese surface-to-air missile launchers mounted, and mobile launched explosive projectiles capable of traveling four miles in five seconds.

After they lit up the sky with flares, anti-aircraft machine guns could cut them right out of the air like paper machete figures—mincing them into confetti.

There were scattered lights across the ground below, but nothing spelling out exactly where the drop zone was at. They'd intentionally counter-estimated their drop against the slight wind, jumped out exactly over their target and let the gravity drag them straight down, while the drift wind helped position their course.

Arthur pulled his detachable night vision attachment down over his eyes, before he looked at his altimeter again and checked the altitude. He pulled the cord for his first parachute at five thousand feet over the ground.

Woo fume! The chute exploded out of his back pack, and caught a tremendous gulp of air—breaking the one hundred twenty five mile an hour descent. Each of the other seals pulled cords on their own chutes to brake their falls, at the exact synchronized moment Arthur opened his. The jolt was enough to snap an unsuspecting victim’s neck. And sometimes injured even the trained jumper.

But each of the eight navy seals was wearing a specially designed wing suit material built into their skydiving suits. Material webbed across the space between their legs and from each of their arms attached to their suits, webbing that gave them stopping power and gliding if need be—like flying squirrels.

They'd also adjusted their night-vision goggles and could see exactly what the sun would have revealed. And actually things were a lot closer than normal to their magnified telescopic lenses capability. This was the most dangerous moment because the opening of the chute was not totally silent.

Then the second and last chute popped out automatically. The glider canopy parachute had handle attachments, and could be maneuvered to glide the team exactly where they needed to land. Gazzama pulled his handles and cut his chute into the wind leading the team like a mother hawk, straight toward the drop zone.

The clouds overshadowed the moonlight, leaving the sky pitch black, but their night-vision goggles lit up the darkness like daylight. Everything was in green, yet totally visible.

Other than the fuzzy orange thermal images of heat, the city was totally green. A specific rooftop had been laser tagged from a satellite and the digital indications inside their visors led them straight down to their drop zone.

Gazzama hit the rooftop first, then Michelle. The rest of the team quietly landed on the building adjacent to their target. They wouldn’t risk landing directly on top of the terrorists' rooftop and alerting the actual target with a loud clumsy landing.

Gazzama and Michelle were the first to sling their weapons up off their chests, surveying the area through night-vision telescopic lenses, while unstrapping themselves from their parachute harnesses.

While the others did the same, armed with semi to fully automatic MP5, sub-machine guns with silencers and flash suppressors. Two at a time the team looked over the rooftop down at the ground and across the perimeter.

The others stripped off their flight suits, and unpacked their combat technology. Intel had described the house they'd landed on as totally empty.

But Kevin was the only one who actually landed on top of the targeted house. Because he was the lightest—he only weighed ninety pounds and would land the softest without additional gear.

His flight suit had been attached to Arthur’s suit just to get him down at the same speed as the others, although the rest of the team landed with heavier technology.

Kevin threw his nylon rope from one rooftop to the other. Arthur caught it and tied it down to the smoke stack, as Kevin did the same on his end.

Arthur motioned his hand towards Michelle, and she handed him an instrument similar to a pair of binoculars. He focused it toward the building Kevin was standing on top of, and made a hand signal to Kevin using four fingers... then one and four...then four fingers... then two and three.

Arthur's signal meant there were four people on the fourth floor, and six people on the third floor. Mickey was the first on the nylon rope scaling across to the opposite building; then Kevin, once Mickey made it to the opposite side.

Mickey tied a pulley to the rope strapped around the smoke stack, and Arthur threw across another nylon rope. Using this technique, they got gear from one rooftop to the other, rather than putting the entire weight of the equipment on one rope at once.

After they'd all made it across the ropes, onto the rooftop, it was show time. Just as Intel stated the roof door was unlocked from the inside—jarred open by force to look like it had been pushed open from the outside.

There were discarded tools scattered on the rooftop just outside the door. Geared up with night vision and weapons, the team swung the door open...nice and slow.

Each member of the team had their own niche of expertise. Arthur had tacked up a curtain around the doorway, to prevent any sudden wind from blowing inside and flickering the candlelight flames. This was one of the early warning systems that alerted marks of intruders in the past.

Michelle was wearing a customized belt around her waist, up her belly and across her breasts, which held close to fifty miniature throwing knives saturated with an Asian poison that immediately paralyzed the central nervous system.

Michelle, knowledgeable in the practices of the ninja, had also come armed with a blow pipe and poisonous darts—depending on her mood she could administer death quick and painless.

Mickey's specialty was Japanese martial arts. He also was a silent killer, but his victims silently screamed in agonizing pain while their air was choked off and esophagus crushed.

Kevin was a global navigator, his expertise and pin point accuracy was getting the team to and from point A to point B—including calculating the field mission itself.

Mickey was the biggest and first one through the doorway, blocking out any chance of breeze or moonlight. It was the threshold of a kitchen, with the aroma of stewed goat with onions, peppers and pilaf bread lingering in theair.

Arthur glanced up at the open sky window, then towards the archway to the adjoining room, where Michelle was slicing a blade across someone’s throat while they slept. It was a soldier propped up in a chair.

He was wearing beige desert camouflage, and propped up against the wall on two legs of a chair. She’d cuffed her hand over his mouth, before cutting his throat.

Kevin quickly grabbed the AK47 resting on the corpse's lap—preventing it from making any noise when it hit the floor.

Mickey startled a soldier coming through the door, because Arthur's calculations were wrong. Arthur had anticipated the two solders, based on their thermal images through the wall, to be sleeping in their seats—but one of them had merely been sitting on a toilet bowl.

Thut! Thut! And just that fast Mickey squeezed off two silent bursts into the soldier's forehead. Mickey lunged forward and grabbed the front of the solders uniform before he loudly fell on his face.

Arthur put his hand on the door knob, then turned back towards the rest of the team— making eye contact to be sure everyone was ready for action. He put up two fingers and motioned them to come closer to him; then four plus one finger, and pointed down a set of stairs. Kevin, Ken, Michelle and Gazzama, the lightest of the team, started tip toeing down the stairs.

The first step Kevin took down the stairs, screeched a squeak and he stopped dead in his tracks.

"Abdula!" they heard someone whisper.

Gazzama motioned Kevin to keep going, then he rapidly squeezed his trigger finger back and forth twice, motioning to Ken to be ready to shoot. And that’s exactly what Kevin wanted to do, because he lived for the kill.

Intel had informed the team that there were three cars parked in front of the house with Syrian solders. Two in each car. Just one sound of a struggle and they wouldn’t hesitate to come in guns blazing.

Under the cover of darkness, Kevin trotted down the stairs to get the first shots off. He'd figured the soldier wouldn’t be able to make him out in his black nylon cat suit.

But Kevin figured wrong, because the enemy was also equipped with their own night-vision goggles. Yet before they could activate their night- vision apparatus, Kevin had aligned his weapon on them, aimed and started firing into their faces.

Fett! Fett! Fett! Fett! Fett! Fett! On fully automatic he held his weapon, sweeping right to left, firing steady into the solders heads.

But a third shooter swept his machine gunfire across Kevin’s legs—dropping him on his buttocks— before Ken popped the shooter's face full of holes.

The shooter's sound suppressor didn’t totally silence his shots, before Gazzama put his lights out with rapid fire. Kevin was propped down on the steps: gritting back the pain, but alive.

Two shells had grazed his right leg and one had penetrated his left thigh. Ken squatted down next to Kevin, sweeping his weapon back and forth in the darkness, which was all green through his night- vision goggles.

There were four thermal heat images slumped over. Ken reached down, and Kevin threw one of his arms up over Ken's shoulder and raised him up onto his feet.

But Arthur held his weapon steady on a thermal image, curled up silently under the cover...trying its hardest not to move. Arthur could see the thermal heat image just under the blanket.

Suddenly, the individual thrust their arm out from under the covers, and grabbed an AK47 lying on top of the blanket. Pop! Pop! Pop! Arthur took the individual's fingers right off of the hand. Then someone hollered:

Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! in a heavy Lebanese accent.

Arthur reached down and snatched the blanket off the bed. It was a middle aged man with a full beard.

That’s him, said Mickey aiming his infrared beam dead on the individual’s forehead.

Michelle's infrared beam was positioned just slightly below Mickey’s aim and lined up right between the individual’s eyeballs. And Brandon stood just besides Mickey, fondling a P39 with a silencer attachment in one hand, and a digital voice verification instrument in his other.

We’re here for the plutonium, said Arthur, as if the man hadn’t already figured it out. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, he added, speaking in Arabic. Arthur grinned unpleasantly. And I like the hard way better.

Khadir was a nuclear physicist working in Pakistan on a reactor, who'd managed to manufacture, conceal and steal seventy five pounds of enriched plutonium-235.

Intel had verified that within two hours, Russian technicians would arrive with additional components and manufacture two nuclear warheads for the president of Syria. Uranium and plutonium were the only two elements known to man capable of creating nuclear fusion.

Brandon put an instrument up against Khadir forehead. Khadir closed his eyes tight and began begging for his life in Arabic. Brandon cuffed his hand over Khadir’s mouth and spoke in Arabic, demanding that he open his eyes.

When Khadir fluttered his eyelids open, the soldier captured his retinal identity verification from the instrument.

That’s him, said Brandon.

Arthur pulled a knife out of the sheath on his leg, smiled and took a step closer to Khadir. The skin around Khadir's throat tightened up and his Adams apple moved up and down like a toilet bowl tachometer as he swallowed. Arthur stroked his blade under Khadir’s eye, drawing blood from the cut just above his cheek.

Just pop it right out, said Michelle, grinning unpleasantly.

Brandon knelt down beside the bed, and started tying one of Khadir’s wrists to the bedpost while Mickey held the other arm down. Michelle held both Khadir’s legs down while gripping her weapon in her right hand.

Then she pulled a dry blade from off her belt and sliced a crisp X in between Khadir’s breast. He didn’t even flinch when blood spurted from the incision in his chest.

For no more then ninety thousand dollars a year you risk your own life, for what? To kill me? said Khadir, without so much as a tremor of pain in his voice.

Not for the money, sneered Arthur. To keep weapons out of you motherfuckers' hands, I’ll torture you all fucking day.

"What eight of you? Soon Russian attack choppers will fill the sky, and they’ll be no way for you to get out of Lebanon alive! You’ve committed suicide—all of you!" Khadir hissed.

"Just kill him now! And get it over with! said Michelle, reaching down between Khadir’s legs and pulling his sack of testicles out of his tight white underwear. What you gonna do with forty virgins without no nuts, Akmed?"

Khadir had made a secret deal of his own with the Russians, which neither Lebanon or Syria knew anything about. Lebanon authorities had three cars parked outside of Khadir’s house to protect their own investment: him, anuclear physicist.

They had no idea Khadir had managed to steal and enrich plutonium from the Pakistani nuclear reactor.

When the choppers came it would be speculated as a friendly surprise visit from allies—or worst an attempted kidnapping; nothing more. But there would be no engagement of military weapons on the helicopter from the Lebanese solders. Khadir’s expertise was essential for Pakistan’s reactor. And he was essential to Lebanon until they acquired their own reactor.

Just make it easier on yourself, and you won’t have to die slow and painfully. A quick and painless death is a gift, said Brandon.

It doesn't make a difference anymore, said Mickey, while sweeping an instrument across the wall until he got a radioactive reading on his equipment.

Mickey was scanning the wall with a digital instrument the size of a dictionary. The digital lights were jumping up and down the manual hands on the meter —flying back and forth. It was similar to a metal detector but it only registered the presence of radioactive activity.

Open up the wall! He’s probably got the whole place fucking rigged! Michelle hissed.

Fifty million dollars and you let me live! Khadir pleaded.

"So you live and Americans die?" Kevin snarled. "Fuck you! Die slow!"

I’ll tell you how to get the plutonium out of the wall safely, and how to get out of here alive if you let me live!

I’d rather die knowing you were coming with me, and the nuclear explosion stays here! said Brandon.

Arthur eyed Khadir suspiciously. Where’s the money?

All seven of the United States Navy Seals took their eyes off Khadir at that instant, and turned to look at Arthur. They couldn’t believe what they'd just heard come out of his mouth!

Even if we can get Kevin to the beach, how’s he gonna swim out without legs?

Leave me, Kevin whispered.

Open up the mattress, said Khadir. Brandon stabbed his dagger straight down into the mattress. "Be careful. Khadir warned. Take the door off the hinges then remove the hinges and gently pull five canisters out of the wall."

While Brandon dismantled the door to search for the canisters Arthur ripped two black duffel bags from under the pillow top mattress between Khadir’s legs. Arthur carefully zipped open one of the black bags and hesitated for a moment... gazing down at the vacuum pack, sealed loaves of hundred