Contract Free Arulco: The Bitch Must Die!

Day One: Omerta Arrival

Sara was the first one to fast-rope out of the Huey. Upon impact her thighs absorbed energy from her controlled fall as they flexed into a squatting motion. Dropping to her left knee, Sara pulled her Glock into a modified kneeling Weaver Stance, looking for the expected trouble. One by one, a ‘clear’ was heard from each of the operators. Looking up Sara saw the helicopter disregard the single rope all seven mercenaries used to illegally enter the sovereign nation of Arulco and the rope dropped to the ground ten feet from where the operators were staging in a circle.

Scope went to take charge when gunshots rang out. “We got company! Spread out; Gillie, get behind that building on the left. Big Al, get in behind those sand bags over there on the left. Kilroy and Terror, hit that building on the right. Sierra and Robber, we are on that building in front.

Omerta was just as the recon photos had shown; bombed out. The rebels used Omerta as their base of operations and after fifteen years, the Queen finally had enough and ordered the village burned and blasted. The rebels were seasoned guerilla fighters and when the Queen’s tanks rolled through Omerta, the rebels died trying to defend their home and ideals. It was the Omerta disaster a month past which lead to the former democratic leader of Arulco, Enrique Chivadori, who was living in Paris in secret exile, to contact AIM and send this crew to liberate his homeland.

Not a single building escaped the storm of destruction the Queen had visited on Omerta. Sara did not see a single inhabitant of the village, dead or alive; she was thankful for the former. But somewhere out there was representatives of the Queen; her personal army. Half of the Arulcan army was natives, pressed into military service; Intel said these were poorly armed and trained. The other half of the army was not so easily dismissed. They were mercenaries like her, but they were the unsavory kind; the kind that AIM did not like to use.

From her brief experience with AIM, Sara knew that AIM had hired unsavory characters before. Many did not stick and those that did found themselves constantly on probation. AIM’s probation policy didn’t seem right to Sara when she first read their rules, taking away a large percentage of the wage you should of earned until she met Fidel and it was explained how viable his skills with explosives was. Not many people wanted to play with explosives, Sara didn’t, and most of those few who did, wasn’t very good. Fidel was. Gus called him a necessary evil because he would rather Fidel be on his side then be on someone else’s, someone like the self-proclaimed Queen of Arulco who would have no qualms unleashing Fidel and his love of making bombs on her own populace.

Sara reached the back of the blasted house, slamming herself against the wall where she saw Scope not stop her momentum at the wall and squirreled herself onto the flat roof. She nodded at Robber, indicating he should go into the house and she would go right, between this house and the one Terror and Kilroy were going around. She took one step and stopped, Terror squealed over their shared headset communications array, “Contact, Army!” The two buildings were in a row and Sara could see both Terror and Kilroy, Terror was next to wall at the corner but before she could raise her MPK5A4, Kilroy raised hers and fired twice.

“Enemy down.”

“Right-y-ho” came next from Scope above Sara; followed immediately by the bark of the PSG-1, “Enemy down.”

Between the two houses, Sara saw nothing except the burnt out house in front of her, to her right she saw Kilroy stick her head out of the door of the building she was in and Terror run to a tree on the other side of the house. Robber was doing the same as Kilroy and was sticking his head out of the doorway to his occupied house. Nodding to both, Sara ran across the street to the next house, again slamming herself against the wall. Looking left and right, she saw nothing except Kilroy and Robber covering her. Above Robber, Scope was standing while quickly surveying the village with the 7x Battlescope attached to her PSG-1. The rifle quit swinging and again it barked.

“Enemy down.”

For long tense moments, Kilroy, Robber and Sara leap-frogged the houses trying to find the rest of the army patrol. At the third house, Sara heard movement and when she raised her Glock 18 at the sound behind a blown out door, she nearly pissed her pants. Looking down the sights of her firearm, Sara was aiming at a boy no more than six years old.

“Mommee!”

“Paco” came from behind Sara, turning she saw a matronly woman whom the little boy rushed to. The woman didn’t give up her home to the Queen’s army and she wasn’t going to do it to Sara.

“Who are you and why did you attack the Queen’s patrol?”

Sara didn’t like being in the dark and knew this woman could be a source of information. “Do you know how many is in the patrol? Is there any more patrols stationed here in Omerta?”

“There were four.”

“Were?”

“Yes, three went towards the way you came from and one circled around that way. I saw a man walk up and shoot the soldier in the back of the head. His gun made no noise.”

A gun making no noise to Sara, none of them had a…”Gillie, did you take out a tango?”

Sara heard a click in reply. “Scope, Sierra, I have met a native, she said the patrol only had four. Looks like we got them.”

“Roger that, we will continue to sweep the area, you find out what you can.”

“Affirmative.” Looking at the woman holding her young child, “Is there more patrols stationed in Omerta? There is another portion of the town to the East, is there a patrol there?”

The woman eyed Sara, still wondering what a foreigner; an armed foreigner who was fighting the Queen’s army was doing in her small country. “No, there are no patrols to the east. That patrol you wiped out only comes to town scavenging. Now who are you and what do you want here in Arulco?”

Scope had given Sara a sealed letter from their benefactor that contained information only he would know to be used as an icebreaker with the natives, vouching for the good intention of the mercenaries. But that letter was supposed to be given to a Miguel Cordova.

“I have a letter for a Miguel Cordova, leader of the rebels from an Enrique Chivaldori explaining why we are here.”

The mother was not swayed, “what you say makes no sense; everyone knows that Enrique Chivaldori was killed fifteen years ago when the Queen took over the government.”

“Do you know where Miguel is? I need to see him. I need to give him the letter.”

“Then your trip here is wasted. Miguel died a month ago, driven over by a tank.”

“Then do you know who the leader of the rebels is? Who should we contact?”

“I do not. The rebellion died with Omerta a month ago.”

There was something about the woman that Sara did not like; she was too defiant, not just proud of her dead village. If Miguel and the rebellion were dead, was their contract void? Sara was about to call Scope for assistance when she saw the woman send her son off with a silent wave of her fingers, like she wanted him to go tell somebody something. Sara gambled that there was more to this woman than she was admitting. “Here, maybe you should read this. Maybe it has a name or something in it that you recognize, someone who is still alive.” Sara held out the sealed letter and the woman looked at Sara like she was trying to hand her the plague.

“Please, take the letter. All you have to do is read it. If you don’t read anything there of importance, we will be on our way.” Where they would go, Sara wasn’t so sure about.

The woman tentatively reached for the letter, but once she held it in her hand she did not open it instead her right thumb flicked repeatedly against the seal while she held a grimace on her face. Sara was sure she recognized the wax seal on the back of the letter. Hesitantly, the seal was broken and the letter removed from its sheath. As she read the grimace slowly faded and her head started shaking back and forth. “This can’t be right” was repeated by the woman over and over as she read; when Sara was sure that the woman was rereading the letter, she was sure her hunch was right. This woman did know something or someone!

The woman looked up to Sara with determination in her eyes, “you, all of you will come with me, now!”

As Sara exited the building she called the rest of her fellow operators. “Bingo, contact has been made, everyone form up on me, and the lady is taking us to who we have to meet!”

“Miguel”, came Scope’s counter.

“Negative, he was eaten by a tank. The lady isn’t saying.”

“Roger that. Robber and Big Al, you form on Sierra. Kilroy, you take her left flank, Terror the right, Gillie take up the rear, I will be on overwatch.” Everyone but Gillie and Terror responded in the affirmative with those two giving single click each of acknowledgment.

The woman, who finally told Sara that her name was Fatima walked to the eastern side of Omerta before turning north. The eastern side of Omerta was equally bombed out as the western side. At the village edge began a crop of pine tree; the pine tree went all the way up the side of the small mountain that represented the northern border of Arulco with Tracona. Sara laughed to herself as she thought for the hundredth time, Arulco and Tracona sounded like oil conglomerates and not small nations on an island in the Caribbean. Arulco while being a poor nation at least had its silver mines for some source of income, Tracona had no natural resources.

After climbing for fifteen minutes through the woods, Fatima lead the hired adventurers to a small, non-descript shack that looked deserted. Scope had ordered everyone closer together so as not to get lost or separated in the woods but once Fatima started to approach the shack, she signaled for Terror and Gillie to disperse again.

“WOMAN WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!”

Sara and everyone else spun to see a tall man stand up behind the large rock that had hidden him east of the shack. A pistol the size of a hand cannon was aimed directly at Fatima. Sara no longer saw Gillie or Terror but she joined along with Big Al, Robber and Kilroy in aiming her weapon at the newcomer. Scope, Sara saw, stood at the ready, but not aiming the PSG-1. From what Sara had seen of the marksman, even from that pose, she was sure the marksman could take aim, acquire her target and fire a head shoot before Sara could fire and hit with her already aimed pistol.

“Dimitri, these soldiers are from Enrique Chivaldori! They are here to help and they brought proof!”

“Enrique is dead, killed by his evil foreigner wife.”

“No, he is not, Miguel can attest to this!”

“Miguel, I thought you said Miguel was run over by a tank.” Sara couldn’t help but blurt. Fatima ignored her.

“Dimitri, on my husband’s blood, Enrique is alive and Miguel knows this. These people are here to see Miguel! Please let me take them to him. Let me show Miguel the proof.”

The fire went out of Dimitri’s eyes as he began to ponder the implications. He finally nodded his head. “On the honor of your husband, I will stay here with your guest, you take your proof to Miguel, let him decide if he wants to meet with these foreigners.” Behind Dimitri Sara saw Gillie stop in his final position and take aim at the back of Dimitri’s head, his pistol did have a silencer on it. Where did Gillie get that is what Sara wanted to know.

When Fatima left, Scope planted herself on the ground, the PSG-1 laying across her lap while she leaned against a small rock, chewing on one of her energy bars. Each member carried enough rations to last three days; the water was in a backpack harness with a sipper nozzle clipped to the front of their field jackets.

It took ten minutes before Sara heard a noise from the shack Fatima entered, if she had to guess, somewhere in there was an underground entrance. When Sara looked back behind Dimitri, Gillie was gone and Terror had not shown her face yet.

“Don’t move and no one will get hurt!” This from a shorter Arulcoan wielding a Mini-14 semi automatic carbine coming out of the woods to the west of the shack, almost opposite of Dimitri. A second rebel came up behind Dimitri wielding an older Czech SMG. From the shack came two females; Fatima and another armed with a .38 snub nose revolver. Behind them emerged a heavily bandaged man Sara immediately guessed to be Miguel Cordova, the bandages on half of his face wasn’t helping with her guess. The AKM he wielded did not have any bandages on it and looked oiled and clean.

“I have read your letter of introduction and the proof it contained that you are from Enrique Chivaldori. Your help would have been more beneficial a month of ago, why is it now that Enrique finally sends you here?”

Scope stood up and hung the PSG-1 on her shoulder with its strap before moving towards Miguel. “I do not know why Mr. Chivaldori waited until now to hire us. Maybe he thought you had everything under control and that you would be hesitant to accept help from foreigners to oust a foreign dictator. Maybe. I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that we have been hired to take this country from her starting today. We were hired to help you, the rebels to do that. And if you will have us, that is exactly what we will do.”

“How are the five of you supposed to stop the Queen’s army, when after 15 years of guerilla warfare, we could not?”

“Miguel, five? There was seven of them on the trip up here!”

“Seven Fatima? I only see five.”

“That is correct Miguel, if Dimitri and that gentlemen over there with the Mini-14 would turn around, I think they would find a surprise waiting for them.” Miguel quickly looked at his two men on the left and the one on the right and saw no one else. Before he could say something to Scope, Scope nodded and Gillie and Terror both stood up and moved from behind trees that hid them, their weapons drawn but pointed down.

“I see, maybe you are not without skills after all. But I have to tell you, the rebellion is dead. Other than woman and children what you see here is what remains of my force, we lost 36 men and women at Omerta and four more in the month since then. I also have not fully recovered from my injuries suffered in Omerta.”

“Well then we will go on without you, we will attack the Queen’s army. Would you say the people would support us?”

“Most, yes. But many fear having another Omerta if they join; that they would be an easy target for the Queen’s Army.”

“Well then we will just have to keep the Queen’s army busy, now won’t we?”

Miguel eyed Scope with his one good eye. Sizing her small frame, “You will do this, will you not?”

“Yes and no.” Her answer confused Miguel but he was patient. “My contract is for only 24 hours. I am to lead this crew to Drassen where we are to take the airport. Then I will leave Sierra in charge. She knows what to do.”

Scope’s statement hit Sara like a sledgehammer in the back, she suddenly felt dizzy and light headed, her body threatening to fall over. She had no clue what to do next!