The Mean Team
Jordan Carmel completed basic training at the top of his class at the Counter-Terror institution, a group formed shortly after the London Bombings in the US to prevent world-wide terror. A group that would use gorilla tactics to combat and defeat terrorists at their own game, these elite soldiers branded themselves as the solution to terrorism, “Counter-Terrorists,” a group devoted to the ideal of wiping out the idea of terrorism.
Training was rigorous; after completing SEAL training, Carmel was recommended to the CT program, blazing a trail in the live fire exorcises, setting time records. The one course he particularly excelled at took place in a vacant warehouse; he was given a team of five other CTs, some green, some vets, to lead in and free a group of hostages in the back room. The warehouse was large, vacant, except for a few cargo containers. There was a small, concrete ramp in the back that led to the one-time office, now “Terrorist” headquarters.
Carmel was the only recruit to have completed the exorcise losing only one soldier, a young man named Williamson, to the jitters before the mission even began. Carmel completed the course one man down, keeping all of his men active and sharp.
Fredericksburg, an ex-general turned White-House official led the program, and he made sure during graduation, to let Carmel know that it wasn’t always going to be that easy. No, once in the field, things would be quite different; the CTs for each operation were chosen from a pool of only 25, as more were constantly dying in the field and more were brought in.
“It’s very rare,” Fredericksburg said, puffing out a smoke ring from his genuine Cuban, “That any Counter-Terrorist will survive to retirement. You’re signing your life away, you know.”
Carmel nodded, half-smiling at the old coot sitting behind a desk puffing on contraband. “With all due respect sir,” Carmel stood at ease, “No program has ever had me before.”
“But there have been people like you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the first cock-sure student to pass through this hall; take another look on the way out. On the wall, you’ll see pictures of other young men that stepped into this office and never stepped in again. Our very first recruit, Eric Chavez, was gunned down the other week during a routine train-yard search. There is no such thing as job security when you work for us.”
“If I wanted Job Security, I would have joined the Red Cross.”
Fredericksburg laughed, sending a foul stench into the air. Carmel held back a cough, disguising his repulsion with a chuckle.
“Get the hell out of my office, Carmel. You’re going to be bunking with the C-crew.”
Carmel nodded and stepped out of the office. He walked past the pictures of the young men, staring down with their innocent, judgmental eyes without raising his head. Under each picture sat a date, a date of birth, and a date of death.
-
The C-crew bunk light was off when Carmel stepped inside, dropping his bag at his side. The shapes in the bunks sat breathing in synch, each chest moving up and down. There were three beds in the building, two occupied. Such limited resources for the group, considering the small number.
He made his way in the dark to the small corner of the room where his bunk sat, lying down under the scratchy blanket and dreaming about the missions to come.
-
It was a rude awakening; four other men standing over his bed staring down at him. They were discussing something that seemed to be him intermittently, and none of them seemed to notice that he was awake.
“We have to take this little **** with us? He can’t be more than twenty two.”
“Yeah, well, Fredericksburg said he was made for this kind of game.”
“Search and rescue is hardly a game, Fowler.”
“Oh, God, I hate working with you.”
“They don’t group us together because of personality. Let’s get him up and to the chopper.”
Carmel sat up. “I’m already awake.”
The man whom Carmel could only assume was Fowler, turned on his light, shining it in Carmel’s face. “Good. Get suited up; we move out in ten minutes. The weapons are on the chopper.”
Carmel frowned; a little more time would have been a little better, and the rude awakening he could have done without. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, standing up and staring at the man holding the light.
“I’m twenty three, by the way.”
One of the soldiers in the back cracked up. The light swung across the room. “Shut it, Freak.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Carmel walked across the misty field to the helicopter; a Pave Low III special operations helicopter. The front end covered in rust, the propellers bending at an odd angle, and the windshield darkened to an alarming degree. The two missile docks were empty; in their place were two stationary chain-guns, each on an independent swivel.
It was during this short walk that Carmel saw the men he would be working with for the first time. Fowler looked like he sounded; he walked almost bow-legged to the bird, his nose hooked and his brow furrowed. His hair was short; buzzed, but his face disappeared under a ski-mask. To his left was Freak, a young, short man with thick horn-rimmed glasses. How he made it past training, Carmel mused, was anyone’s guess. He walked with a slight limp in his left leg; nothing too noticeable, but –
“Oh, I see you see my limp, Carmel.”
Carmel could only smile. “Yeah.”
“I got shot in the leg. With a gun. It hurt like hell.”
“I can imagine.”
“Jesus,” Fowler said, turning, “Will someone shut him up? There’s a reason he’s never with the group.”
“It’s because,” Freak said, pushing his glasses up, “I’m an excellent sniper.”
“Just keep telling yourself that, Freak… They call you that for a reason, you know.”
The man leading up the rear spoke up, his voice sharp. “You two knock that ****in’ **** off right now or I’m sending you back for Peck and Gregor. Do you want the hostages to die?”
“Sorry, Q-bert.”
Carmel fell to the back, next to man. His hair was longer, almost graying. His eyes were almost too close together to be real, but he was walking next to Carmel. He had politely trimmed facial hair, a tight beard that conformed to his face.
“So, I get that he’s Fowler cause of his nose –“
“**** you!”
“And he’s Freak because… Well, you know. Why are you Q-bert?”
“Because I kill ****.”
“What?”
“When you kill ****, you get to pick a better nick-name for yourself.”
The final voice piped up, small and mousey, from the front of the group. “And he’s group leader. You listen to him, or else you’re probably going to get left behind.”
“What’s your handle?” Carmel poked.
“Pip.”
“Yeah, yeah. So, when do I get a nick-name?”
The group froze. They all turned to face him, forming a square.
“Well,” Q-bert said, clapping him on the shoulder, “When you kill someone. Come on, Pip, let’s get that chopper moving.”
-
In the helicopter, Q-bert handed a dossier over to Carmel. There was an office complex in Utah that had been taken over by a small terrorist faction; they were demanding the freedom of one of their leaders or they would start to kill off the hostages one by one. Although the dossier failed to reveal the information about what exactly the office was used for, when Carmel brought the point up to Q-bert, he simply said, “That was need to know information.”
It was a thirty minute ride in the chopper; Carmel had thought it might have taken longer, but the vessel was short-range. “We take a jet whenever we have to go somewhere outside of the US. Besides, this baby can go a little faster then you would think.”
One by one, the soldiers moved to the weapons crate, digging around the rifles and machine guns, arming themselves. Freak reached into the crate, removing one of the largest rifles that Carmel had ever seen.
“It’s the Arctic Warfare Rifle; a cute little ditty I picked up in Russia. These babies can fire at temperatures as low as -40 Celsius, baby. They de-ice themselves. This is where it’s at, if you want to fight from far away.”
“I think I’ll stick with the M4, thanks,” Carmel said removing the gun and two spare mags from the box. From a smaller box, Q-bert began removing pistols, the indentions in the foam overstaying their welcome.
“M9, you’re familiar with it. Love it, use it when you have to,” he said, moving to the final, smaller box. “And suppressors. More than six shots in a row will melt these. But you dip****s know that.”
Carmel grinned, sliding the gun into his side-holster, the suppressor on the barrel of the gun.
“We’re going to be dropped in a parking complex three klicks south. Pip is going to stay with the chopper; Fowler, Carmel and I are going to go in through a parking complex. Freak, you head to the adjacent building and find a good spot, but be careful… The terrorists may have spread.”
The chopper landed on top of the parking garage, sending snow in ever direction. Carmel jumped from the chopper, gun drawn, moving in synch with the team. They moved in their blue uniforms down the various ramps and stairs out of the complex, setting a brisk pace as they moved to the south. Freak broke away as the three made an approach, stopping at the police barricade for only a second before the wooden blocks were moved out of the way.
“They’re here just for show; when it comes to terrorists, it comes to us,” Q-bert said over his radio. There was a cackle from Freak’s end.
“Freak, in position. I see three of them in the eastern most room with two hostages. I do not have a clear shot. Repeat; no clear shot.”
“When do you ever have a clear shot,” Fowler snarled over the radio.
“Cool it, you two,” Q-bert commanded. Carmel slid against the brick wall as Q-bert moved over to a control panel. With a few swift button presses, the garage door slid open quickly. The parking-lot was covered with snow, an open courtyard. At the far end, Carmel spied a single hostile through a window who stared right back at him.
“Q-bert, we’ve been spotted. Someone –“
Fowler’s M4 was already at his shoulder, suppressor attached. He fired three shots, puncturing the window but not shattering it. The terrorist dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks inside the building as Q-bert moved to a door on the left side of the building. He turned the handle and quietly opened the door, sliding inside and motioning for the other two to follow.
“Nice shot,” Carmel whispered. “I don’t have a suppressor on –“
“Shut it, Green-boy.”
The door had opened into a short hallway; to the right were a set of concrete stairs that led to the perp that Fowler had just dropped. Q-bert motioned for Fowler to take point, heading up the stairs. Through a frosted glass window, Carmel saw the broken glass ahead, right around the corner. Their feet hit carpet and Q-bert ran ahead, dragging the body back to the stairs, a thin trail of blood on the floor.
“Freak, when we get in position… You know what to do.”
The trio moved through one hallway, stopping at the filing cabinets, which had been knocked over to provide cover in the initial struggle for the building. The hallway continued to another window, but there was a small room to the right. Q-bert led the team into the supply closet, which opened at both ends. The other door led to a copy room, which led to the conference room.
“You said the eastern-most room. Is it a conference room?”
“Roger that. There’s an over-head projector.”
“I’m tossing one,” Q-bert said, removing a small puck from his back-pack, “I suggest you look away, Freak.” Q-bert slid it around the corner.
There were a few brief cries before a loud explosion and burst of light. The three charged the room; the window shattered and one of the terrorists dropped to the ground, a large hole in his head. Fowler raised his small-arm and fired three shots into the other, dropping him to the ground.
“Come with me,” Q-bert was busy talking to the hostages, “I know a way out of here.
“Freak, provide support. Fowler and Carmel are going to sweep the other third of the building and then we’re getting the hell out of here.”
Q-bert led the hostages out of the room as Fowler took point, stepping out into the hallway. They moved slowly to another split, sticking to the wall and sliding down the right side of the building. They moved in and out of the cubicles like snakes, sliding in-between computers and chairs, until they reached the west side of the building. There was a single door, but a voice could be heard inside, speaking in a middle-eastern dialect.
“I’ll toss the door,” Fowler whispered, nodding, “And you get your first kill and name-change.”
The next set of events were a blur. Fowler threw the door and Carmel fired at the terrorist, who dropped to the ground. The hostage was shaking in his boots when Carmel heard another shot from behind. Fowler crumpled as Carmel turned, pulling his M4 up to his shoulder and firing three times, melting the skull of the sunglasses wielding terrorist.
Fowler writhed on the ground. “Jesus Christ, it still hurts like hell when they shoot you with body-armor! FREAK! Where were you?!”
“He came out of nowhere, man! And you think if I took the shot and hit you, you would still be standing there? You knew about him when I knew about him.”
Carmel moved over to Fowler, extending a hand. Fowler tried to stand on his own, but the pain in his lower back was too much; he reached up, taking Carmel’s hand.
“Thanks and ****. **** off.”
The building secured, Q-bert put a call into HQ, a simple “Mission Accomplished.”
On the way out of the building, Carmel stopped in one of the offices. The hostage had insisted on gathering a few important items before being taken away and debriefed. Fowler stood in the hall while Carmel escorted him to his office. On his desk sat a picture of his family, to the left, a filing cabinet.
“So, what is it that you all do here?”
“Record US arms transactions.”
“Jesus, really?”
The man nodded. “Didn’t they tell you?”
“No. Why the **** would a terrorist cell break into here to free one of their leaders?”
“Maybe it was a lucky guess.”
It could have been, but Carmel didn’t think so. When he asked Q-bert, Q-bert told him “Need to know meant NEED to KNOW, and that you don’t need to know. You ever break a prime directive again, and you’re out.”
It didn’t set right with Carmel, but he didn’t press the issue…
Until the issue pressed him.
AUTHORS NOTE: Yeah, yeah, a CS story? It could be called anything else, but I'm too lazy to come up with a title and I like the settings. Also, I usually play under the handle "Caramello." Oh yeah. Gay.
Training was rigorous; after completing SEAL training, Carmel was recommended to the CT program, blazing a trail in the live fire exorcises, setting time records. The one course he particularly excelled at took place in a vacant warehouse; he was given a team of five other CTs, some green, some vets, to lead in and free a group of hostages in the back room. The warehouse was large, vacant, except for a few cargo containers. There was a small, concrete ramp in the back that led to the one-time office, now “Terrorist” headquarters.
Carmel was the only recruit to have completed the exorcise losing only one soldier, a young man named Williamson, to the jitters before the mission even began. Carmel completed the course one man down, keeping all of his men active and sharp.
Fredericksburg, an ex-general turned White-House official led the program, and he made sure during graduation, to let Carmel know that it wasn’t always going to be that easy. No, once in the field, things would be quite different; the CTs for each operation were chosen from a pool of only 25, as more were constantly dying in the field and more were brought in.
“It’s very rare,” Fredericksburg said, puffing out a smoke ring from his genuine Cuban, “That any Counter-Terrorist will survive to retirement. You’re signing your life away, you know.”
Carmel nodded, half-smiling at the old coot sitting behind a desk puffing on contraband. “With all due respect sir,” Carmel stood at ease, “No program has ever had me before.”
“But there have been people like you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the first cock-sure student to pass through this hall; take another look on the way out. On the wall, you’ll see pictures of other young men that stepped into this office and never stepped in again. Our very first recruit, Eric Chavez, was gunned down the other week during a routine train-yard search. There is no such thing as job security when you work for us.”
“If I wanted Job Security, I would have joined the Red Cross.”
Fredericksburg laughed, sending a foul stench into the air. Carmel held back a cough, disguising his repulsion with a chuckle.
“Get the hell out of my office, Carmel. You’re going to be bunking with the C-crew.”
Carmel nodded and stepped out of the office. He walked past the pictures of the young men, staring down with their innocent, judgmental eyes without raising his head. Under each picture sat a date, a date of birth, and a date of death.
-
The C-crew bunk light was off when Carmel stepped inside, dropping his bag at his side. The shapes in the bunks sat breathing in synch, each chest moving up and down. There were three beds in the building, two occupied. Such limited resources for the group, considering the small number.
He made his way in the dark to the small corner of the room where his bunk sat, lying down under the scratchy blanket and dreaming about the missions to come.
-
It was a rude awakening; four other men standing over his bed staring down at him. They were discussing something that seemed to be him intermittently, and none of them seemed to notice that he was awake.
“We have to take this little **** with us? He can’t be more than twenty two.”
“Yeah, well, Fredericksburg said he was made for this kind of game.”
“Search and rescue is hardly a game, Fowler.”
“Oh, God, I hate working with you.”
“They don’t group us together because of personality. Let’s get him up and to the chopper.”
Carmel sat up. “I’m already awake.”
The man whom Carmel could only assume was Fowler, turned on his light, shining it in Carmel’s face. “Good. Get suited up; we move out in ten minutes. The weapons are on the chopper.”
Carmel frowned; a little more time would have been a little better, and the rude awakening he could have done without. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, standing up and staring at the man holding the light.
“I’m twenty three, by the way.”
One of the soldiers in the back cracked up. The light swung across the room. “Shut it, Freak.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Carmel walked across the misty field to the helicopter; a Pave Low III special operations helicopter. The front end covered in rust, the propellers bending at an odd angle, and the windshield darkened to an alarming degree. The two missile docks were empty; in their place were two stationary chain-guns, each on an independent swivel.
It was during this short walk that Carmel saw the men he would be working with for the first time. Fowler looked like he sounded; he walked almost bow-legged to the bird, his nose hooked and his brow furrowed. His hair was short; buzzed, but his face disappeared under a ski-mask. To his left was Freak, a young, short man with thick horn-rimmed glasses. How he made it past training, Carmel mused, was anyone’s guess. He walked with a slight limp in his left leg; nothing too noticeable, but –
“Oh, I see you see my limp, Carmel.”
Carmel could only smile. “Yeah.”
“I got shot in the leg. With a gun. It hurt like hell.”
“I can imagine.”
“Jesus,” Fowler said, turning, “Will someone shut him up? There’s a reason he’s never with the group.”
“It’s because,” Freak said, pushing his glasses up, “I’m an excellent sniper.”
“Just keep telling yourself that, Freak… They call you that for a reason, you know.”
The man leading up the rear spoke up, his voice sharp. “You two knock that ****in’ **** off right now or I’m sending you back for Peck and Gregor. Do you want the hostages to die?”
“Sorry, Q-bert.”
Carmel fell to the back, next to man. His hair was longer, almost graying. His eyes were almost too close together to be real, but he was walking next to Carmel. He had politely trimmed facial hair, a tight beard that conformed to his face.
“So, I get that he’s Fowler cause of his nose –“
“**** you!”
“And he’s Freak because… Well, you know. Why are you Q-bert?”
“Because I kill ****.”
“What?”
“When you kill ****, you get to pick a better nick-name for yourself.”
The final voice piped up, small and mousey, from the front of the group. “And he’s group leader. You listen to him, or else you’re probably going to get left behind.”
“What’s your handle?” Carmel poked.
“Pip.”
“Yeah, yeah. So, when do I get a nick-name?”
The group froze. They all turned to face him, forming a square.
“Well,” Q-bert said, clapping him on the shoulder, “When you kill someone. Come on, Pip, let’s get that chopper moving.”
-
In the helicopter, Q-bert handed a dossier over to Carmel. There was an office complex in Utah that had been taken over by a small terrorist faction; they were demanding the freedom of one of their leaders or they would start to kill off the hostages one by one. Although the dossier failed to reveal the information about what exactly the office was used for, when Carmel brought the point up to Q-bert, he simply said, “That was need to know information.”
It was a thirty minute ride in the chopper; Carmel had thought it might have taken longer, but the vessel was short-range. “We take a jet whenever we have to go somewhere outside of the US. Besides, this baby can go a little faster then you would think.”
One by one, the soldiers moved to the weapons crate, digging around the rifles and machine guns, arming themselves. Freak reached into the crate, removing one of the largest rifles that Carmel had ever seen.
“It’s the Arctic Warfare Rifle; a cute little ditty I picked up in Russia. These babies can fire at temperatures as low as -40 Celsius, baby. They de-ice themselves. This is where it’s at, if you want to fight from far away.”
“I think I’ll stick with the M4, thanks,” Carmel said removing the gun and two spare mags from the box. From a smaller box, Q-bert began removing pistols, the indentions in the foam overstaying their welcome.
“M9, you’re familiar with it. Love it, use it when you have to,” he said, moving to the final, smaller box. “And suppressors. More than six shots in a row will melt these. But you dip****s know that.”
Carmel grinned, sliding the gun into his side-holster, the suppressor on the barrel of the gun.
“We’re going to be dropped in a parking complex three klicks south. Pip is going to stay with the chopper; Fowler, Carmel and I are going to go in through a parking complex. Freak, you head to the adjacent building and find a good spot, but be careful… The terrorists may have spread.”
The chopper landed on top of the parking garage, sending snow in ever direction. Carmel jumped from the chopper, gun drawn, moving in synch with the team. They moved in their blue uniforms down the various ramps and stairs out of the complex, setting a brisk pace as they moved to the south. Freak broke away as the three made an approach, stopping at the police barricade for only a second before the wooden blocks were moved out of the way.
“They’re here just for show; when it comes to terrorists, it comes to us,” Q-bert said over his radio. There was a cackle from Freak’s end.
“Freak, in position. I see three of them in the eastern most room with two hostages. I do not have a clear shot. Repeat; no clear shot.”
“When do you ever have a clear shot,” Fowler snarled over the radio.
“Cool it, you two,” Q-bert commanded. Carmel slid against the brick wall as Q-bert moved over to a control panel. With a few swift button presses, the garage door slid open quickly. The parking-lot was covered with snow, an open courtyard. At the far end, Carmel spied a single hostile through a window who stared right back at him.
“Q-bert, we’ve been spotted. Someone –“
Fowler’s M4 was already at his shoulder, suppressor attached. He fired three shots, puncturing the window but not shattering it. The terrorist dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks inside the building as Q-bert moved to a door on the left side of the building. He turned the handle and quietly opened the door, sliding inside and motioning for the other two to follow.
“Nice shot,” Carmel whispered. “I don’t have a suppressor on –“
“Shut it, Green-boy.”
The door had opened into a short hallway; to the right were a set of concrete stairs that led to the perp that Fowler had just dropped. Q-bert motioned for Fowler to take point, heading up the stairs. Through a frosted glass window, Carmel saw the broken glass ahead, right around the corner. Their feet hit carpet and Q-bert ran ahead, dragging the body back to the stairs, a thin trail of blood on the floor.
“Freak, when we get in position… You know what to do.”
The trio moved through one hallway, stopping at the filing cabinets, which had been knocked over to provide cover in the initial struggle for the building. The hallway continued to another window, but there was a small room to the right. Q-bert led the team into the supply closet, which opened at both ends. The other door led to a copy room, which led to the conference room.
“You said the eastern-most room. Is it a conference room?”
“Roger that. There’s an over-head projector.”
“I’m tossing one,” Q-bert said, removing a small puck from his back-pack, “I suggest you look away, Freak.” Q-bert slid it around the corner.
There were a few brief cries before a loud explosion and burst of light. The three charged the room; the window shattered and one of the terrorists dropped to the ground, a large hole in his head. Fowler raised his small-arm and fired three shots into the other, dropping him to the ground.
“Come with me,” Q-bert was busy talking to the hostages, “I know a way out of here.
“Freak, provide support. Fowler and Carmel are going to sweep the other third of the building and then we’re getting the hell out of here.”
Q-bert led the hostages out of the room as Fowler took point, stepping out into the hallway. They moved slowly to another split, sticking to the wall and sliding down the right side of the building. They moved in and out of the cubicles like snakes, sliding in-between computers and chairs, until they reached the west side of the building. There was a single door, but a voice could be heard inside, speaking in a middle-eastern dialect.
“I’ll toss the door,” Fowler whispered, nodding, “And you get your first kill and name-change.”
The next set of events were a blur. Fowler threw the door and Carmel fired at the terrorist, who dropped to the ground. The hostage was shaking in his boots when Carmel heard another shot from behind. Fowler crumpled as Carmel turned, pulling his M4 up to his shoulder and firing three times, melting the skull of the sunglasses wielding terrorist.
Fowler writhed on the ground. “Jesus Christ, it still hurts like hell when they shoot you with body-armor! FREAK! Where were you?!”
“He came out of nowhere, man! And you think if I took the shot and hit you, you would still be standing there? You knew about him when I knew about him.”
Carmel moved over to Fowler, extending a hand. Fowler tried to stand on his own, but the pain in his lower back was too much; he reached up, taking Carmel’s hand.
“Thanks and ****. **** off.”
The building secured, Q-bert put a call into HQ, a simple “Mission Accomplished.”
On the way out of the building, Carmel stopped in one of the offices. The hostage had insisted on gathering a few important items before being taken away and debriefed. Fowler stood in the hall while Carmel escorted him to his office. On his desk sat a picture of his family, to the left, a filing cabinet.
“So, what is it that you all do here?”
“Record US arms transactions.”
“Jesus, really?”
The man nodded. “Didn’t they tell you?”
“No. Why the **** would a terrorist cell break into here to free one of their leaders?”
“Maybe it was a lucky guess.”
It could have been, but Carmel didn’t think so. When he asked Q-bert, Q-bert told him “Need to know meant NEED to KNOW, and that you don’t need to know. You ever break a prime directive again, and you’re out.”
It didn’t set right with Carmel, but he didn’t press the issue…
Until the issue pressed him.
AUTHORS NOTE: Yeah, yeah, a CS story? It could be called anything else, but I'm too lazy to come up with a title and I like the settings. Also, I usually play under the handle "Caramello." Oh yeah. Gay.
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