Chapter 6

Chris’s Narrative continues:

The following new character appears in the next several chapters:

Jim

Army Lieutenant, Ranger student, 5’-11’’ tall, 165 pounds, 28 years old, brown hair, blue eyes

On Thursday the 23 of November, our fourth day on the FTX, our platoon was tasked to hit an aggressor camp that evening. Roy was the one who had been selected by the RI as the platoon leader for the raid. A number of Army students were added to our platoon to increase our strength for this raid. We would have thirty people to accomplish the task. Following Roy being given the assignment by the RI, he took all of us, including the new guys, over under some trees to do the planning.

The maps came out, and our present position was located on the maps, and then the enemy’s position was located before we were given the pertinent data.

“The attack is to be launched at 1930 hrs this evening. I have also been given the following information,” Roy told us and started reading from his notes, “Sundown is at 1730 hrs and moon-rise was at 1314 hrs. Today is also the first quarter moon, so there should be some light to see by. Moon set won’t occur until after midnight.”

“It looks like it’s a good five miles from here to the camp,” Chuck offered on looking at the distance between the two Xs on the map.

“It’s probably more like seven or eight miles over those hills,” one of the Army guys observed in a disgusted voice.

“There is an easier way, but it may be just as long,” Carry said in a quiet voice.

“Where?” Roy asked as the others paid more attention to the map now.

“Along this ridge, down that swale and then along this second ridge,” Carry told them while pointing out where she was talking about on the map. “It will put us right above their camp.”

“Yes, and part of the platoon can take this other ridge to get behind them. Then we have them from two sides, and their only line of escape is down the valley,” I pointed out.

“A good idea. If we had more people, we could block that end of the valley and wipe them out,” Roy observed.

“We aren’t likely to get more people,” the Army guy, a Lieutenant, pointed out.

“If we don’t ask, we won’t,” Chuck added.

“All right, I’ll ask the RI about more personnel. Carry, you and Chris leave now and scout out the routes that you saw on the maps. We’ll follow you after we get positions and responsibilities assigned. We’ll meet you right here,” Roy told us putting his finger on the map near the swale on this ridge. “Be back by 1700 hrs.”

“Right! I’ve got 1330 hrs,” I told him looking at my watch before Carry and I gathered our rucks and weapons, and headed out.

We moved up the trail somewhat slowly. With rucks weighing eighty-five pounds or more, and only having gotten about two hours of sleep last night, we weren’t as chipper as we had been the first day. We had finally crossed the swale which was a bit deeper than it appeared to be on the map, and were on the second ridge and ready to move toward the enemy camp when two shots rang out nearly together. Our bubbles had formed just before we heard the shots or felt the bullets impact on them. We both hit the dirt and lay there quietly for a few seconds.

On another ridge above the swale and some two hundred yards behind the sisters, two men in camouflage clothing rose from their prone firing positions and worked the actions of their .338 Winchester Magnum rifles, chambering another round before setting the safety on each rifle.

“That should take care of them,” the bigger man said in satisfaction.

“I told you that watching them would be worthwhile,” the second man said gleefully. “Otherwise we would never have figured out that they would choose this way to reach the camp. Most of those idiots go over the mountains.”

“You two had better get down there and make sure that they are dead,” the third man on the commo equipment told them. “That’s what Diamond One just told me,” he finished.

“Tell him to hold on while we glass the area to be sure that they weren’t followed,” the second man replied, as he raised his binoculars to sweep the surrounding area.

“Diamond One says that he is watching by satellite, and the closest people are three or four miles away,” the commo guy told them.

“Yeah, yeah! Tell him that we are on our way,” the first guy said, as he slung his rifle on his shoulder, and the two of them set out.

“You okay?” I asked Carry after a few seconds on the ground.

“Yes!” she answered in a testy voice. “This damn ruck had me over balanced and I wound up on my face inside my bubble. What the hell were they using?” she asked in a disgusted voice.

“Don’t know, but something powerful from the sound of it. Think they will come to check?” I asked.

“Let’s crawl over into the trees where we can hide better than out here on this ridge before we go invisible,” Carry answered. We both crawled for the trees before getting up, calling our bubbles back up around us, and turning invisible.

“Shotguns?” Carry asked when we couldn’t be seen.

“No! No one else here is using shotguns, and when they are found, it would point directly to us,” I told her.

“Some of the locals are using shotguns. I’ve heard their distinct ‘boom’ while out here,” Carry told me. I had heard them also, but not that many.

“Pistols will be better, there are a lot of nine millimeters around,” I reminded her. We didn’t need to wait long before two men in camouflage clothing appeared with large rifles.

“Where the hell are they?” the shorter man asked.

“Looks like they crawled into the trees,” the larger man said, as he removed the slung rifle from his shoulder. “But they couldn’t have gone far,” he added, as they started into the trees. They went right past us and were about twenty feet in front of us when Carry and I canceled our invisibility, but not our bubbles.

“Looking for us, boys?” we both asked in our sexiest voices. They both whirled around bringing up their rifles, and we all fired at the same instant.

Their large heavy bullets smacked into our bubbles and shoved us and the bubbles back several feet as they ricocheted off of them. Our hollow-point bullets struck both men between their eyes and splattered part of their brains out the back of their heads. They were dead before they hit the ground.

“Always go for the head shot with a pistol,” we both said as the adrenaline from this encounter began to wear off. It had been one of our father’s favorite mantras.

“Do you suppose they were wearing bullet proof vests?” Carry asked out of curiosity.

“We can check. Also let’s collect their wallets, IDs, money, and cell phones,” I reminded her as we moved toward the bodies. There were no bullet proof vests under their camouflage clothing, and We went through their clothing quickly.

“Army guys!” I said in surprise looking at their military IDs a few minutes later.

“And loaded!” Carry added holding up the thick wad of greenbacks we had taken from their pockets along with two very expensive cell phones.

“Anything else on your guy?” I asked her as I finished searching mine.

“Just some keys to a vehicle,” she said, holding them up.

“Leave the keys, we’ll keep the wallets, IDs and the money. We can dump the phones later but far from here,” I told her.

“What about their guns?” she asked.

“Leave them here, let anyone who finds them wonder what happened,” I answered.

“Do you suppose they had any backup?” I asked following that.

“Only one way to find out,” she answered, as we turned and left the concealment of the trees. We were invisible before we hit the sunlight.

It was fairly easy to follow their back trail, since they had done nothing to hide it. We were careful to leave as little evidence of following it as possible. We were soon able to hear a man talking to someone. We carefully approached his position which was well back from the top edge of the ridge where the men had fired from. From a short distance away, we could see an average size man in camouflage clothing talking into the mike of a radio.

“No, they aren’t back yet, Diamond One. There were two more shots a number of minutes ago. They were probably finishing off the two women, and should be back shortly,” the man said into the mike just before Carry and I both shot him.

In a small operations center at Agency Headquarters in Virginia, the man in a gray suit was surrounded by screens showing several different locations, one of which was a forested ridge in Lumpkin County, Georgia.

“Diamond Two, what was that noise as you finished your last transmission?” Gray suit demanded in an agitated voice, but he received no reply after a number of seconds.

“Diamond Two, Diamond Two, this is Diamond One. I repeat, what was that noise? Over.” He still received no answer and after a number of seconds turned to one of the technicians there.

“Do we still have them?” he demanded angrily.

“We still have their carrier wave,” the technician assured him after checking and just before the frequency came back to life.

“Diamond One, Diamond Two can’t hear you from where he is now. Neither can his friends. All of them were very sloppy, but you won’t need to worry about that, since they won’t ever be sloppy again. Out,” the female voice purred from the speaker before the frequency went dead. Gray suit man stared at the speakers in shock before turning to stare at the picture of the ridge on the monitor. A picture that showed no one visible anywhere on the ridge or its surroundings.

“Check that guy’s pockets while I get rid of this radio equipment,” Carry told me. “We still need to finish this recon and get back to the platoon,” she added, as she began moving the equipment. I checked his pockets and found his wallet, ID, money, and phone. I also found the food that they had there. We set out to finish the recon on the enemy camp following that. Our real enemies were now dead behind us.

“You take this ridge, and I’ll take the one on the back side of the camp. That will save us time,” I told Carry, as we came to where the ridge diverged. We both then moved down the backside of the ridges from the enemy camp using our invisibility.

Over an hour later, we met back at the separation point. We were both tired and hungry, because using our invisibility requires a lot of energy.

“Here, eat this,” I said shoving a hand full of food toward Carry.

“Where did you find this?” she asked in surprise.

“Diamond Two had it, but I figured that we needed it more than he did,” I answered.

“Thanks, sis,” Carry said with a full mouth. “Lets get back to the rendezvous point.”

“Yes,” I agreed, but we finished eating before starting back.

“You’re late!” Roy said as we joined them on the first ridge just above the swale sometime later.

“We ran into a bear,” I told him.

“Bear?”

“Yeah, you know, a big black animal, lots of fur and claws, and about three hundred and fifty pounds or so of bad attitude,” Carry told him.

“Where is ... was he?” Chuck asked.

“IT was on the other ridge behind the camp,” Carry told him.

“What did you locate?” Roy demanded to bring us back to the reason that we were out here. Carry went first and drew the camp in the dirt and described it from the front ridge. I followed with my observations of it from the back ridge. The entire platoon was listening to what was said, and what we pointed out on the map of the camp.

“Did you get any extra people?” I asked, as I finished.

“No, the RI said not to worry about it,” Roy answered, but didn’t sound happy.

“I think they are expecting us tonight,” I told them when everything was finished.

“What makes you think that?” Chuck asked.

“Just a feeling and some recent tracks on top of the ridge. It appeared that someone had been up there checking it out,” Carry told him.

“Okay, we move now and get in position early. Does everyone remember where the rendezvous point is if we run into trouble?” Roy asked. Everyone nodded in agreement but Carry and me.