“Overlord this is Cypher Actual,” said Miller into the microphone headset that wrapped around his throat, “I’ve got a visual on six possible hostiles in a house about 700 metres north of my position.”
“Roger that Cypher Actual. Can you identify any of the hostiles?”
Miller scanned back and forth with his sniper scope, straining his eyes to get a look at the faces inside.
“Negative, all I’ve got is chests and legs.” It had begun to snow lightly now, and Miller’s gloved hands were coated in a glossy white, crystalline layer. He looked up from his scope to rest his eyes and took in his surroundings. He was perched atop a crest in a snow capped mountain, an expanse of white-tipped forest spreading out in front of him.
In the middle of this emerald and crystal sea was a small recess where no trees stood. Instead there sat an ugly squat house, painted a sickly shade of yellow.
“You are weapons free Cypher Actual. I repeat, you are weapons free, fire when ready.”
Miller looked at his spotter, Daniels, and nodded. They worked as a two man fire-team, Daniels marking targets and calculating distances and wind speed while Miller took the shots.
“First target,” said Daniels as he looked through he spotters scope, “Second floor, first window from the left.”
“Mark,” said Miller as the man in the red parka came in the centre of his crosshairs.
“Fire.”
“Away.”
The supressed ESR sniper rifle whispered in the wind as it discharged its first payload. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the window Miller was aiming at exploded in a shower of glass and wood. The man behind it was flung backwards, rolling over onto his front where he remained still.
“Down,” said Daniels, “Movement, bottom floor, both windows. Three tangos.”
“Adjusting,” said Miller, aiming at one man who had grabbed an assault rifle and was looking through the trees for the shooter.
“Fire.”
“Away.”
Again, the rifle hissed in the snow and flakes were thrown up around the two soldiers. The bullet shredded through the window and threw the man back against the table behind him were he slumped again did not move.
Inside the house, intense pandemonium had taken hold.
One man yelled to another in French, “Where the hell is the shooter!”
“The south! The south!” called another, “He’s hitting own south-facing windows!”
As Miller began to adjust and take another shot, a spray of automatic gunfire sent two twin geysers of snow and dirt up in front of him. He rolled to the side to escape the incoming fire.
“We’re blown!” he called to Daniels.
“You take the right flank, I’ll take the left, meet you at the back door!”
“Got it!” Miller abandoned his sniper in the snow and slid the MP7A1 submachine gun off his back. He extended the collapsible stock and un-safed the weapon, selecting the three-round burst fire mode. Miller dropped into a sideways slide and descended the slope, leaving a lingering mist behind him as he went. All the while the chatter of automatic weapons filled the hillside as the men inside the house frantically fired at his last position.
Miller hit level ground and moved quickly in a crouched run. He came to the edge of the woods and examined the house before him. The gunfire had stopped so he decided to move into the open, standing into a full sprint until he reached the side of the house. Inside he could hear yelling, men speaking French.
With laboured breath and sweat saturating his combat fatigues, Miller edged around the corner of the house to the rear wall. Daniels was already there, crouched over a man still gripping an AK-47. The man’s shirt was quickly deepening with the colour of his own blood.
“That leaves three inside,” said Miller, “I’ll take point. Watch your corners.” Daniels nodded and the pair moved inside the open door. Inside the house everything was silent aside from the muffled wails of the wind outside. Miller was swimming in his own sweat now, tracing back and forth with the red-dot sight on his MP7A1.
He heard a click, like a door being pulled shut softly, and jabbed a finger up in the air. Daniels darted left and climbed the stairs, catlike, without a sound. As Miller came up to the alcove to enter the kitchen, he stopped. He was looking into someone’s eyes, his eyes, in the reflection of one of the windows. Also in the reflection was one of the men, hiding behind the alcove with a large knife.
Miller stood up, shouldered his weapon, and fired a supressed burst through the drywall. A mix of plaster and blood sprayed out the other side and the man collapsed into the ground, his knife sliding away across the tiles.
He heard the prat-tat-tat of silenced gunfire from upstairs as Daniels fired two bursts of his own. Miller keyed his throat mike.
“I got one,” he said.
“Same here,” came Daniels’ reply. Miller moved towards the stairs and began to climb when he reached the top looked around.
“Daniels?” he said. Only silenced answered him bitterly.
Suddenly there was a scream and a hand lashed out at Miller’s throat. He gagged at the contact and dropped his weapon which clattered across the floor. His assailant struck him again, this time in the chest, and took the wind out of him.
The attacker went for a right hook but Miller caught him, arm-barred his punching hand and swung him into the wall with a thud that broke the plaster. The man gripped Miller at the top of the shoulder and pivoted his hips for leverage before throwing him ass over tea kettle into the stairs.
Miller rolled and bounced back down the stairs, slamming hard into the wall and the landing halfway down. The man advanced on him, drawing a screwdriver from behind his back. Miller reached for his M9 pistol, fumbled at the holster and couldn’t get it out. The man saw the gun and lunged.
The man’s head exploded sideways, sheered almost clean off by a triple-burst from Daniels’ MP7A1. Daniels stood at the top of the stairwell, leaning on the handrail and breathing heavily.
“Where’d you go?” asked Miller, standing up before climbing the stairs and retrieving his weapon.
“There were seven of them,” he said between breaths, “One jumped me, but I got him.”
The two men looked at each other for a brief moment, their minds and bodies not knowing what to do with the remaining adrenaline that coursed through their veins.
“Let’s look around,” said Miller.
The pair split up and Miller went downstairs, stepping over the man on the landing. He moved toward a room that neither had been inside before and pushed the door open. Snow had drifted in from outside and soft white specks dotted the floorboards. A desk sat flush against the far wall, covered in folders and papers. Miller walked over and took a seat at the desk, pushing his combat helmet from his head.
A black laptop computer was in the centre of all the papers and Miller eased it open and powered it on. As he waited for the computer to boot up he looked through the papers. Most were either in French or Austrian and none made any sense.
The computer booted up and asked for a password. Miller swore underneath his breath and typed the first thing that came to his head.
Username: admin
Password: password
Password: password
The screen went all blue for a moment before playing the logon sound. Miller chuckled to himself, armed men hidden away in the Austrian wilderness and they don’t secure something simple like a computer. It was funny to see that simple seclusion from society gave people such a false sense of ultimate security.
Miller searched the desktop for something of substance before setting the mouse on a file. It read: Investments2015.xls. He double clicked and a spread sheet full of names and numbers expanded on the screen. Daniels came into the room behind him, his helmet in his hand as he ruffled his hair.
“Anything?”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Miller as he scrolled down the columns. One was titled ‘Investor’ and was followed by a list of names, some French looking, others German, and others English. The other columns were titled, ‘Investment Value’, ‘Expected Return’ and ‘Expected Date of Return’.
“What is this?” Miller said as he looked at the sheet. Some of the investment values were in excess of six-million dollars. Some of the expected payout dates were long overdue, but Miller couldn’t find a shred of evidence that suggested any money had actually been paid back.
“Grab the computer and call in for evac,’ said Daniels, “Let the techies take care of it.”
“It doesn’t make sense. Why would there be ‘expected returns’? Do you think they never intended to pay the investors back? There’s over fifty-million dollars’ worth of investments here, where was the money going?” Miller’s inquisitions were falling on deaf ears, Daniels was ready to go.
“Overlord this is Cypher Actual, house is clear and we have secured intel. Ready for pick up.”
“Roger that Cypher Actual, we’re coming in.”
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