Termination Order: A Team Reaper Thriller Read online

  Termination Order

  A Team Reaper Thriller

  Brent Towns

  Termination Order is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Brent Towns

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Wolfpack Publishing, Las Vegas.

  Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Avenue

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  wolfpackpublishing.com

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-64119-593-5

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-64119-594-2

  Contents

  Get your FREE copy of Eugowa Gold: An Action Adventure Short Story

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  A Look At: Blood Rush

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  About the Author

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  This one is for Sam and Jacob.

  And for Ryan Fowler who has been there from the beginning.

  From the Central Intelligence Agency World Fact Book:

  United States: World's largest consumer of cocaine (shipped from Colombia through Mexico and the Caribbean), Colombian heroin, and Mexican heroin and marijuana; major consumer of ecstasy and Mexican methamphetamine.

  Latvia: Transshipment and destination point for cocaine, synthetic drugs, opiates, and cannabis from Southwest Asia, Western Europe, Latin America, and neighboring Baltic countries

  Poland: A major illicit producer of synthetic drugs for the international market; minor transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin and Latin American cocaine to Western Europe.

  Termination Order

  Chapter 1

  Hell Town

  Mojave Desert

  Kane was in a whole world of hurt. So much so, he was already bleeding. Grinder stepped back from him and asked the question again. “Is your name John Kane? Are you some kind of law?”

  “Are you going to keep pushing this guy’s fist around with your face, Reaper, or do you want me to fix the issue?” Axel ‘Axe’ Burton’s voice rang in Kane’s ear.

  John ‘Reaper’ Kane, ex-recon marine, 6-foot-4 of solid muscle, broad shoulders, and black hair, ignored the question. Instead, he stared at the biker gang leader and smiled, exposing blood-stained teeth. “Hi, have we met before?”

  Grinder’s fist lashed out again, delivering a solid blow. “We can do this, one of two ways, pig. Guess which way this is?”

  Kane had been undercover for two months with the biker gang known as The Devils. The Worldwide Drug Initiative, the name for those he worked for and with, had been trying to put Grinder’s bastards out of business since a request for assistance had come in from the DEA. Hell Town was their town. A place of streets lined with rundown buildings made from adobe and wood. A burning furnace out in the desert where their word was law.

  So far, the mission had been all about gathering intelligence on suppliers and distributors, but it had quickly turned to being about life and death.

  The Devils trafficked in drugs, women, and firearms. They also had known links to the cartels in Mexico and the Russian Mafia. But they didn’t work for them; they dealt with them. The Devils were a breed of their own, vicious and brutal in their dealings, and they backed away from no one.

  After several months, Kane had finally been accepted into the untrusting society. He’d gotten tattoos, albeit fake, except for the one of the Grim Reaper on his back, beaten people so bad they were hospitalized, ran drugs interstate, and been involved in an armored car heist in Utah. He’d put his life on the line for his team, and now he needed them.

  He was surrounded. Thirty foul-smelling, hairy assed, tattooed thugs led by a large gorilla of a man everyone called Grinder. He too was covered in tattoos and had a large, dirty beard which hung down his chest.

  Kane had somehow been betrayed. Unable to work out by whom or why, he only knew that someone had told Grinder about him.

  Grinder hit him again, and he staggered across the tight circle to be grabbed by Tiny. The man mountain punched him in the face, and Kane’s head swam.

  Blood flowed freely from several points on his face, including a cut above his left eye, one on his cheek, a split lip, and he was sure his nose was broken.

  He lurched to the right and came face to face with a toothless moll.

  She kneed Kane in his balls, and he dropped to the pavement and threw up.

  Reaper clawed his way to his feet and swayed as he tried to steady himself. Looking about him at all the menacing faces, his stare fell on Iona.

  He’d shared her bed many times over the past couple of months. Now the blonde-haired, lithe-bodied woman with the ice-blue eyes looked like the rest of them.

  A rough-looking biker with the handle Wrench stepped forward. “Let me do it, Grinder. I been wanting to cap this fucker for a long time.”

  You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out why. Due to the fact that Kane had been screwing Iona, and Wrench had been passed over for him, his ego had taken a massive hit.

  Grinder looked thoughtfully at him and nodded. “All right. Do it.”

  Wrench smiled, and the scar on the left side of his face puckered. Stepping forward, eager to get rid of his main rival for Iona’s affections, he reached behind his back and drew an FN Five-Seven handgun. Raising it in a massive paw, he placed the black weapon against Kane’s forehead.

  The condemned man raised his right hand and said, “Wait. Hold on. Tell me how you knew.”

  “Does it matter?” Grinder asked from behind him.

  “It does to me.”

  Grinder shrugged.

  “Who?”

  “No, sir. You don’t get to know. Kill him, Wrench.”

  Wrench gave Kane a mirthless smile. “With pleasure.”

  The biker’s finger started to tighten on the trigger when a sound from further along the pot-holed street reached their ears. Kane looked around Grinder and saw a red Jeep Wrangler coming towards them. It stopped, and two women stood up on the front seats, revealing short shorts and bikini tops. The driver, an athletically-built woman in her early forties with dark hair, gave them all a huge smile. She said, “Hi, guys, want to party?”

  A trickle of sweat rolled down Kane’s right cheek as he waited for Wrench to pull the trigger. It mixed with the partially-dried blood and formed a pale pink rivulet which continued down the side of his neck.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Grinder snarled.

  “I can make all your dreams come true, Sugar,” Mary Thurston told him seductively. “Both me and my friend.”

  Had anyone moved around behind the Jeep, they might have had more reason for concern than they showed. For tucked in the back of the women’s cut-off s
horts were two Sig Sauer M17 handguns.

  Axe’s voice filled Kane’s ear, the opposite one to which Wrench had his FN pointed. “Just so you know, good buddy, Carlos and Brick are at the south end of town in a DPV.”

  “The gang’s all here,” Kane murmured.

  “What did you say, shithead?” Wrench growled, dragging his gaze away from the eye candy that had just driven into town. He rapped the weapon in his hand over Kane’s head in a painful blow.

  “Just say the word, Reaper, and I’ll put a 7.62 slug in the fucker’s head,” Axe said without taking his eye from the scope atop the M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System.

  “What’s going on?” Grinder growled, taking his attention away from Thurston and Cara.

  “Nothing,” Wrench assured him. “Just a friendly chat.”

  “What did he do?” Cara asked.

  Grinder turned and stared at her. Cara Billings was in her mid-thirties. She was slim but not thin, her body was that of a professional trainer, toned. Her hair was dark, face tanned like the rest of her, and she wore aviator sunglasses. In her life, she’d been a marine lieutenant and a deputy sheriff. Right now, she was second in charge of a field team designated ‘Team Reaper’. The lady beside her, an ex-ranger, also a general in the U.S. military, was the overall commander of both teams ‘Reaper’ and ‘Bravo’.

  “What he did don’t concern you, missy,” Grinder snapped. “So, how about you both just turn around and get the hell out of here.”

  They stared at each other in silence. The uncanny way these women seemed so calm actually unnerved the Devil’s leader.

  “I have a creeper at the back of the crowd,” Axe’s voice came over comms. “He looks to be carrying an MP7.”

  “Where do they get these damned weapons from?” Ferrero asked no one in particular, talking about the German made Heckler and Koch Maschinenpistole 7.

  “Hey, boss, you’re back online,” Axe observed.

  Luis Ferrero, former DEA agent, now in charge of operations under Thurston, along with Brooke Reynolds, Pete Teller, and Sam Swift, were in a secure location in Los Angeles where the team had been based out of since the commencement of the operation. He was in his late forties with graying hair, and solidly built.

  “Not sure for how long, Reaper Three. Bravo, our electronics are still playing up, so we expect to lose comms again soon. I’ve dispatched a Black Hawk to assist. ETA ten minutes.”

  Thurston knew five minutes was too late, let alone ten. This shit was going down now whether they liked it or not. She whispered, “Reaper, call it when you’re ready.”

  “Check that,” Axe said again. “I now have four other tangos with a mix of Mac-11s and what looks to be M4s. They are all at the back of the crowd.”

  Kane knew he was in a bad spot. And there was every chance that he could die before the situation played out. But he was damned if it was going to be without a fight. “Axe, I’ve had enough of this shit.”

  “Copy. Sending.”

  Axe squeezed the trigger on the M110, and it slammed back into his shoulder. The shot was perhaps seven-hundred meters, give or take. The 7.62mm bullet exploded from the barrel at seven-hundred and eighty-three meters per second. Which meant it took just under that second of flight time before punching into the biker’s skull, the man dropping the MP7 he was packing.

  The distraction was all Kane needed to save his life, and he took full advantage.

  Wrench’s reaction was quick and automatic. He heard the gunshot and swung his head toward the noise.

  Kane moved with blinding speed. Bringing his hands up, he grabbed Wrench’s Five-Seven and twisted with savage intent. Hearing the wrist bones give, and the biker cry out in pain, Kane felt the man loosen his grasp on the gun, and he pulled the weapon free. Reversing it, he changed it over to his right hand and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet punched into Wrench’s skull just between and slightly above his two surprised, wide eyes, and his head snapped back. The .224 caliber round blew out the back in a bright spray of blood, gore, and bone, coating the toothless moll’s face and chest in the ghastly substance. She screamed in disgust and wiped it from her eyes.

  Without hesitation, Kane swiveled and brought the weapon into line with Grinder who’d turned at the sound of the first shot. BLAM! BLAM! Two in his barrel chest and the Devil’s leader was down and bleeding out.

  For a big man, Tiny was agile and moved fast. Before Kane knew it and could turn to face the big man’s advance, he was too slow, and the man was upon him, strong hands wrapping around his throat in a vice-like grip, lifting him from the pavement. Then came the crushing pressure which threatened to cut off his air.

  Bright lights flashed in front of his eyes, and his face turned purple. Kane drove the Five-Seven into the big biker’s middle and squeezed the trigger three times. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

  Tiny released him and staggered back, pressing his hands to his own bloodied middle and then raising them in front of his face. Horrified and disbelieving the sight of the blood- covered appendages, he returned his gaze to his shooter, and a howl of rage escaped his throat as he lumbered forward.

  Still gasping for breath, Kane wasn’t in the best position to ward off the renewed and frenzied attack. The Five-Seven started to come up. The big man reached out with bloody hands to finish what he’d started.

  BLAM!

  A third eye appeared above the bridge of his nose as the slug did its job, and Tiny dropped like a stone.

  Kane turned and stared gratefully at Thurston who was standing in the back of the Jeep, M17 drawn and level from where she’d fired.

  Suddenly, Hoover burst from the stunned crowd, a knife held above her still blood-spattered head and shoulders, the blade flickering in the sunlight. She screeched. High-pitched, chilling.

  BLAM!

  Cut short.

  Kane had one shot left. He thought. Maybe.

  Turning in a circle, the gun moved with him. “Which one of you pricks is next?” he asked, his voice thick through his battered lips. He spit on the street.

  Settling his gaze on Iona, she smiled at him, seemingly impressed by what she’d just seen. She disappeared from the crowd.

  “Reaper!” Cara shouted. He turned and saw the HK416 sailing through the air toward him. He dropped the FN and deftly caught the carbine then brought it around and saw an ugly biker with a MAC-11, pushing through to the front of the crowd.

  Kane squeezed the trigger, and the 416 roared. Because the fire selector was set to semi-auto, it only fired once. The 5.56mm bullet hammered into the biker’s chest, spinning him around.

  His brain’s final impulse sent a signal to his right-hand trigger finger which tightened on the MAC-11’s trigger and held it all the way back. The weapon burned through the thirty-round magazine in a heartbeat, every one of its .380 ACP slugs flying wildly through the air. Most failed to find flesh, however, some didn’t. One female biker went down with lead in her throat and lay there gurgling in her own dark, thick blood. Two stitched across the naked chest of a biker called T-Rex, while another smashed into the center of Vomit’s face, turning the ugly façade into a gruesome mush.

  Kane lurched forward in a shuffling run and found shelter behind the Jeep with Thurston and Cara. The latter stared at him and said, “You look like shit.”

  “I don’t feel much better.”

  Axe’s voice came over the comms with its usual calm-under-fire tone. “Guys, we may have a problem. I can see four black SUVs coming in from the west.”

  There was a crack from the M110, and then Axe said, “Make that five. I say again, there are five SUVs coming in from the west.”

  Thurston’s handgun barked, and a shot intended for a biker missed and caused the would-be shooter to duck and run for cover. She cursed under her breath and then said, “Do you have eyes on, Zero?”

  “Wait one, Bravo.”

  Thurston and Cara had both discarded their M17s and were using HK416s. The general’s second shot didn’t miss
her target, and a large tattooed man with an FN Five-Seven was kicked sideways and sprawled onto the asphalt.

  Bullets spanged off the Jeep’s exterior and ricocheted away.

  With a loud roar, the DPV (Desert Patrol Vehicle) emerged from a side street. Carlos Arenas, ex-Mexican special forces commander was behind the wheel. In the passenger seat was Richard ‘Brick’ Peters. He was the team’s combat medic. An ex-SEAL, Brick had come on board after his security team had been ambushed in Mexico while escorting the U.S. Ambassador to an opening ceremony, and most of them getting killed by cartel soldiers. He was a big man with a shaved head and tattoos on his arms.

  In Brick’s hands was an M249 Light Machinegun. No sooner had the DPV skidded to a stop, the M249 rattled to life. Armed bikers jerked and fell with multiple gunshot wounds. Arenas came clear of the vehicle and opened up on a biker with an M4 pointed in the direction of the Jeep. The man dropped and went still, three fast rounds from the 416 had stopped him cold.

  And suddenly it was over. Those of The Devils who weren't dead had scattered, their hierarchy cut down. Their town fortress conquered by a much smaller force.

  “Bravo, our friends have arrived,” Axe warned. “I don’t like the look of this.”

  “Zero,” said Thurston. “Have you got anything?”

  “If I had to guess, Bravo,” Ferrero said, “I’d say CIA.”