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  Devil’s Haircut

  Copyright © 2018 by Sam Sisavath

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Road to Babylon Media LLC

  www.roadtobabylon.com

  Edited by Jennifer Jensen & Wendy Chan

  Cover Art by Deranged Doctor Design

  Contents

  Books in the Road to Babylon Series

  Also by Sam Sisavath

  About Devil’s Haircut

  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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Books in the Road to Babylon Series

  Glory Box

  Bombtrack

  Rooster

  Devil’s Haircut

  Also by Sam Sisavath

  The Purge of Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

  The Purge of Babylon: A Novel of Survival

  The Gates of Byzantium

  The Stones of Angkor

  The Walls of Lemuria Collection (Keo Prequel)

  The Fires of Atlantis

  The Ashes of Pompeii

  The Isles of Elysium

  The Spears of Laconia

  The Horns of Avalon

  The Bones of Valhalla

  Mason’s War (A Purge of Babylon Story)

  The After the Purge Post-Apocalyptic Series

  Requiem

  Tokens

  The Allie Krycek Vigilante Series

  Hunter/Prey

  Saint/Sinner

  Finders/Keepers

  The Red Sky Conspiracy Series

  Most Wanted

  The Devil You Know

  About Devil’s Haircut

  THE DEVIL ALWAYS GETS HIS DUE.

  Keo has tried to stay out of it, but five years in the wild have only led him back to the one place he dreaded most—alongside a woman from his past and fighting someone else’s cause. Except this is one war he can’t turn his back on. What’s a reformed mercenary to do?

  Lara didn’t want this. Not another war to fight. She’s been struggling to bring order to chaos since The Walk Out and doing it with as little bloodshed as possible. But Fenton is forcing her hand, and sometimes you have to get a little bloody, whether you want to or not.

  What is happening in Fenton? Despite attempts to answer that question, the mystery behind the former collaborator town remains hidden. What is Buck planning, and why has he done the unthinkable and joined forces with a blue-eyed ghoul? What is their ultimate endgame?

  Those are questions Lara must answer before she commits forces to putting an end to Fenton’s rampage. To do that, she’ll need to rely on people she can trust to help her expose the enemy’s secrets to the light of the day.

  In Devil’s Haircut, Book 4 in the Road to Babylon series, a mission behind enemy lines will set the stage for a battle that will shape the lives of everyone involved…and beyond.

  One

  The first subsonic round zipped! past Keo’s head about half a dozen inches from taking off his left ear. It would have gone directly into his forehead had the shooter been aiming for him and not poor Chang, who was walking to Keo’s left and had been since they hopped off the helo and inserted into the woods. They were still more than ten miles from Fenton’s perimeter, and there shouldn’t have been any sentries this far out, never mind a shooter lying in wait.

  Except there was, and that mistake cost Chang his life.

  Chang was a big man—a beefy six-two, which made him the ideal candidate to carry the belt-fed M249 light machine gun by himself. His buddy, Banner, was carrying the spare ammo for the MG and walking two feet behind Chang when the bullet entered the machine gunner’s right temple and exited the back of his skull, his brains spraying the smaller Banner in the face less than half a heartbeat later.

  Keo instinctively flicked the fire selector on his MP5SD to full auto and shouted as loud as he could, “Sniper! Take cover! Take cover!” and pulled the trigger.

  In the brief second or two he had turned his head with the incoming sniper bullet, he saw the round go through the front and exit the back of Chang’s head at almost the same angle, which meant the shooter was on the ground and somewhere in front of them.

  Somewhere in front of them wasn’t exactly the most specific target, but it did give Keo a direction to shoot in. This was one of those times when he wished the submachine gun didn’t have a built-in suppressor that, true to its purpose, suppressed his shots. He was used to the pfft-pfft-pfft! sound, barely louder than the audible cycling of the weapon’s parts as it spat one 9mm round after 9mm round, but the loud crackle of gunfire would have been preferable to get everyone moving, moving, moving.

  Thank God the men Lara had given him weren’t total idiots, and he could hear them jumping into action behind him even before he got the final cover out. Out of the corner of one eye, he glimpsed them darting for cover behind trees—

  Zip!

  Jesus! Keo’s mind screamed as a silent second round almost took his head off. Like the first one, this shot missed by inches, and Keo spun to his left just in time to see Banner, who had for some reason reached for Chang’s fallen MG, stumble as blood spurted out of his chest and sprayed the knee-high grass around him.

  Banner had refused to let go of the M249 even after being shot and was somehow still clinging to it, trying to line it up for a return volley despite the fact he was much smaller than Chang and there was no way—

  A red mist formed in front of Banner’s face—like a mystical puff of cloud appearing from nowhere—and the man dropped the weapon and collapsed over Chang’s unmoving form.

  Shit shit shit!

  Keo spun and ran toward the closest tree. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t nearly close enough.

  Five meters.

  Four.

  Three—

  Another subsonic round buzzed his head as it missed him—but not Springer, who was running toward Banner and Chang. The bullet caught the blond in the shoulder and spun him like a top while he was still halfway to his target.

  Idiot! Keo thought, then, And so am I! as he turned and ran back to Springer.

  Keo hadn’t gotten more than two steps toward the fallen man when someone shouted “Covering fire!” and the forest erupted in thunderous gunfire as seemingly every weapon in existence opened up.

  Definitely not total idiots!

  Springer had somehow managed to get back up on his knees and was also firing into the trees in front of them. But like Keo earlier, Springer and the others didn’t know where to put their rounds and only had a general direction to go by. The truth was, the shooter could have already moved. Assuming there was just a shooter and not shooters.

  “We’re putting you guys ten miles from the target. That should give you plenty of space to hump your way toward the objective without alerting anyone.”

  Keo
laughed to himself now.

  Not “plenty of space” enough, I guess!

  But of course there was nothing to laugh at, especially with the hellacious barrage drowning out every single other noise in the woods around him for miles. If there were more than just the shooter out there (He’s trying to nail me right now, isn’t he? Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be? I’m the dummy running back into the open when everyone else is already behind cover!), they would surely be converging on them right now.

  More good news! Swell!

  Springer saw Keo running back to him and attempted to get up even while fumbling to reload his M4 rifle.

  “Stay down, you idiot!” Keo shouted, but he was pretty sure Springer couldn’t hear him over the roar of automatic rifle fire. The others were pouring it on, and if Keo could spare a second to glance right toward where the shooter would be, he would see leaves and branches and tree trunks disintegrating against the onslaught. But he didn’t have that second to waste, and he didn’t have to anyway because he could smell all the green burning as hot rounds sliced through them in a sea of spitting lead.

  Keo was (somehow!) still alive when he reached Springer, who was desperately trying to find his legs in the midst of reloading. He was failing miserably with the first but did manage to get the magazine in, if just barely. Before he could work the charging handle, Keo grabbed him by the shoulders from behind—Springer screamed in pain, but Keo ignored it—and began dragging him backward as if he were a helpless dummy.

  “Over here!” a voice shouted. It was soft, barely audible, but that was just because the others were still shooting, the pop-pop-pop of their weapons easily drowning out everything else capable of making noise.

  Keo shot a quick glance over his shoulder, in the direction where the voice had come from. An oval-shaped face poked out from behind a massive elm tree while a hand waved him over. Rita, all five-three and one hundred and twenty pounds of her, had slung her MP5 and had her Mk 14 braced against the side of the tree that she was currently well-hidden behind.

  Keo pulled Springer, stumbling in front of him like a toddler just learning how to use his legs, over to his team’s sniper. Rita had returned her eyes to her scope when Keo dragged Springer behind the tree and dumped him unceremoniously on the ground.

  “Jesus!” Springer shouted.

  “Stay down!” Keo shouted back before moving over to Rita and leaning against the tree trunk next to her.

  The knife!

  He reached behind his back to make sure it was still there and hadn’t fallen during all the chaos. The rubber handle of the knife fastened to his waist by his belt was slightly warm to the touch. It was nothing special—ten inches long, the five inches that made up the bladed portion composed entirely of silver—but it was supposed to bring him good luck. Right now it was doing a pretty bad job of it.

  Any second now, good luck charm. Any second now…

  The others had stopped shooting as soon as Keo and Springer made cover. They were now reloading, the clack-clack of magazines inserting and charging handles snapping back and letting go ringing around the suddenly very quiet woods.

  Rita hadn’t said a word since his arrival and was moving her rifle around, trying to find the shooter. He didn’t interrupt her or break her concentration, and instead focused on the others.

  Gholston was about ten meters to his right, using a tree half the size of his own. But Gholston could afford the smaller shield since there was just him. The lanky Georgian, the lower half of his face covered by a Lynyrd Skynyrd bandana, glanced over and nodded even as he fiddled with the optic on top of his heavily modified AR rifle.

  On the other side of Gholston, and about a meter in front of him, were Rudolph and Wells. They were sharing a tree. Rudolph was calmly chewing gum and loading shells into his M1014 shotgun while the much younger Wells crouched on one knee next to him, wiping at beads of sweat dripping from his face. Like Gholston, neither man looked wounded, but just to be sure, Keo caught Rudolph’s and Wells’s eyes and got back reassured nods.

  There was a haunting silence to the woods around them. Even the animals had ceased moving or making any sounds. Keo swore he could hear every heartbeat at the moment with, possibly, the exception of Rita’s. He wouldn’t know if the sniper was breathing next to him if he couldn’t see her with his eyes.

  Keo glanced back at Springer, who had taken out a field first-aid kit and was wrapping up his shoulder. Blood covered the gauze and ran down his sleeve.

  “You good?” Keo asked.

  “Fuck no,” Springer said, clenching his teeth. “But I’ll live.”

  “Good enough.” He turned back to Rita. She hadn’t taken her eye off her scope. “What do you see?”

  “There’s just one shooter,” Rita said. “I saw him backtracking.”

  “Did you get him?”

  “I had him in my sights before Springer stood up and blocked my shot.”

  “What?” Springer said from behind them.

  “I lost him after that,” Rita said, ignoring Springer. “He’s hiding and he’s good. I haven’t been able to find him again.”

  “What about Chang and Banner?” Springer asked.

  “They’re dead,” Keo said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Keo said, but he peeked around the tree and toward the two bodies just in case. He had seen men survive head shots before, but…

  Neither Banner nor Chang were moving.

  Keo pulled completely back behind cover. “They’re dead.”

  “Shit,” Springer said.

  “You see him, Rita?” Gholston asked from the next tree over.

  Rita shook her head. “I lost him.”

  “Shit.”

  “That seems to be the consensus.” She kept her eye on the scope while moving the rifle around. Searching, searching… “What now, boss?”

  “Boss?” Keo said.

  “She put you in charge, didn’t she? So what now, boss?”

  Keo sighed. He hadn’t wanted the position for precisely this reason. He looked around the tree at Chang and Banner again. Then there was Springer behind him, trying to catch his breath and not bleed to death.

  An eight-man team on a recon mission. Inserted ten miles well beyond the range of Fenton’s perimeter. The walk over to the town itself should have been tedious and uneventful. Supposedly, anyway.

  I guess we weren’t “beyond” enough.

  Keo glanced over at Wells, with that bulky pack slung behind him, housing the radio. They weren’t scheduled to report in to Black Tide for another five hours—exactly at noon. He resisted the urge to make use of the communications device now and call Lara, tell her just how FUBAR everything had gotten, then wait for the order to retreat because the mission was blown. If the pooch wasn’t screwed when the sniper put the first bullet through Chang, and it still wasn’t when Banner bought the farm, it was now after they’d unloaded a few hundred rounds and alerted just about every Bucky for miles.

  Definitely weren’t “beyond” enough.

  “Well, boss?” Rita asked. “What’s the order?”

  “He’s got us pinned,” Keo said. “We’re not going forward. By now he’ll have radioed in for reinforcements. If there aren’t Fenton patrols on their way now, they’ll be soon enough.” He met Gholston’s waiting gaze over the short distance. “Get ready to move.”

  Gholston nodded over at Springer. “What about him?”

  Keo looked over. “Can you walk?”

  “Yeah,” Springer said, and pushed himself back up to his feet, grimacing the entire way. “I can walk.”

  “Make sure he doesn’t fall down,” Keo said to Gholston.

  “I’m not gonna fall down,” Springer said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Gholston said. “Just let out a warning shout first if you’re gonna, pretty boy.”

  Springer grunted back.

  Keo turned to Rita. “You got anything yet?”

  “Nothing. He’s being a v
ery, very small mouse,” Rita said.

  “Could he be trying to flank us? Get a better angle for a shot?”

  “I don’t think so. I only lost him for a second. There’s no way he could be moving out there.” She shook her head, her eye never leaving her rifle’s scope. “No. He’s hunkered down, boss. All that covering fire would have ripped him apart if he’d tried anything. He’s still there. Waiting.”

  “Hey,” Gholston said. Then, when Keo looked over, “You want me to try to draw him out?”

  Keo stared at him.

  “I’m serious,” Gholston said. “You want me to draw him out? Give Rita a shot?”

  “Jesus Christ, this redneck idiot,” Rita muttered under her breath.

  “What did you say?” Gholston said. “I didn’t catch that.”

  “She said that’s a stupid idea,” Keo said. “He’s using a suppressed rifle. You wouldn’t even hear the shot when he kills you and we’d still be guessing where he’s firing from.”

  “Oh,” Gholston said.

  Keo glanced past Gholston and at Rudolph, standing over Wells while giving him a “So are we going or what?” look. Then again, Keo could have been reading the man wrong and he was just thinking about a new pack of gum. He did have a thick red beard, and it wasn’t always easy to read someone with that much facial hair—

  “Keo!” a voice shouted.

  What the hell?

  It was coming from in front of them.

  It was the sniper.

  “What the hell?” Rita whispered out loud next to him.