Chapter 19

Chuck

Monday

John and I put our harnesses on before shouldering our packs; we then jumped up and down. No noise, so we were ready. I handed John the .308 case while I shouldered the fifty and we both looked at the Marshal. He said, "Okay, let's go."

Out in the hallway, one of the fatigues from yesterday was there and led us to a cart that drove us through a tunnel, and ended up in the hangar where my Learjet was. It was good to see it. It didn't look as if anyone had touched the plane since I parked it.

There was a strange Huey over by the doors that was making a whooshing noise. There was a slight thump, thump, thump of blades, but it was hardly noticeable. The Marshal shook our hands as a guy waved from the door of the helicopter.

As soon as we climbed into the helicopter, the guy in the door set what looked like a modern M-60 in a mount, laid some ammo in the breech and locked it before pulling the lever back and chambering a round.

I noticed the big hangar doors opening and felt the Huey lifting off. The engine was louder than the blades. Eerie!

We never gained much altitude, probably around four or five hundred feet, but we gained a lot of speed. This bird could move. We were soon in forested, more mountainous terrain, rushing through valleys and barely raising over hilltops. Another guy in fatigues opened up a map and pointed at our LZ and said loudly, as it was noisy inside the cabin area, "We're just about to your drop off point. Take this map so you have two. You each have a compass and the handheld GPS unit, so you should be able to navigate. Good luck. When we set down, we'll let you get away from the bird before we lift off. We'll spin and go back the way we came. Good luck and give us a call."

Just as he stopped talking, we were settling on a flat spot. John and I climbed down from the helicopter and moved away. We were clear of the rotor wash when it lifted off and spun around to head back the other way, barely raising up a hundred feet. I was amazed at how quiet it was.

John and I pulled and shifted, settling our packs on our shoulders, and then John pointed in the direction we would be going and said quietly, "I'll take point first. We have about a mile to where our best look out is. If we have enough time, we might want to check out the other observation points while it's still dark. It looks like we have about two hours before first light.

The terrain wasn't too bad. There weren't a lot of rocks for me to have to dodge. I was impressed as John started out pretty noisy, but in a matter of less than fifty yards, we were quietly moving through the heavy forest.

It took us about thirty minutes to make the mile and a half. We checked our position and John used his scope to sight in the target area. He said, "Looks like right at seven hundred forty yards from this location. There's another a little closer, let's check it out next."

We walked to the next location and saw that it was about two hundred yards closer, but sighting was limited. There was a decent hole but not very wide. It might be difficult if we had to do more than just a single target.

Because we were high, we could see the border area, which was just a low fence with tire path roads on each side. John was looking at the map and pointed out toward the east, "There's a tower out that way that is supposed to pick up human movement in the area on both sides of the fence. We're far enough back they shouldn't be able to note our movement. Let's check on the one other ops point before we make up our mind."

We walked down through a gully, then back up a steep hill to find a spot within a bunch of trees. There had been a human here before. There were cigarette butts on the ground. It looked like someone had buried them, but a critter had dug them up. You could see signs of a fairly recent visitor here. John said, "If this is from our people, we need to teach them how to hide their trail. We're seeing this just as someone else watching our target would see it. Let's clean this up and go to our best location."

When we were back at our first location, I said, "Give me the collapsible bucket and I'll get some water from the stream. We can make some coffee and wait for light."

I went down to the fast moving stream, constantly looking for any sign of traffic in the area. I didn't see any, but wondered about the site where we had seen previous traffic.

Back at the site, John had his scope out and set up on a low tripod, checking the buildings. After a bit, he said, "I see a light in what looks like a bunkhouse. There's no light coming from the house yet. I think we should get an idea of how many people are there at a time. It could be important. We're almost a half mile from the house, but if some of their people are fast, they could reach here in five to eight minutes, even in this terrain. We won't have a lot of time to get out."

I nodded, heating the coffee in the special pouch. We enjoyed our cup of coffee then got busy setting up. I opened both cases and pulled the .308 out to see where I would lay or sit to fire. There was a perfect log that let me brace the rifle across it. I clicked the sights to reflect the slightly more that seven hundred yards, then sighted in. As the sun rose to our east, I checked to make sure no sunlight would reflect on the scopes. John had a hood over his scope so he was able to use it freely.

I set the fifty case next to me on my left, loaded a round in it, but then had a second thought. I took the first round out and loaded an explosive round in it. I sighted it in at what was probably the max distance for me to use the big gun, but it was ready anyway.

I picked the .308 back up and began viewing each building, finally settling on the barn. The door was slightly open and I said, "John, look at that barn door. Just look at it and tell me what you see on the other side, or at least what you think is on the other side."

"Shit, helicopter. They didn't say anything about a helicopter on site," John said.

"They can't see us from above where we are right now. We're well hidden, better than the other two positions. We have a heavy canopy over us and good brush all around. I didn't make a path to the stream, so we're fairly invisible."

John said, "You know, we should have checked out a couple of rifles. All we have are the target weapons and our sidearms. We didn't think about this very well."

"I guess we'll have to play the game with what we have. Look, there's a light on in the house. The curtain, in what must be a kitchen, moved and there's a dog in the yard." I was looking at the house, watching for any movement.

A man opened the door and walked toward what we thought might be a bunkhouse. John said, "That's a secondary, check out the brown shirt with the white collar."

A woman walked out of the house, carrying a little dog. She let it down and it ran to where the bigger dog was and the two looked to be playing. The lady walked along the house, looking at the flowers planted there.

Two men, one the guy with the brown shirt with white collar, walked back toward the house. The lady looked like she was calling the dogs and both ran toward the door. Everyone went inside.

From the supposed bunkhouse two men came out and opened the barn door. Yep, that was a helicopter. They pulled a car out of the barn and pulled it up near the house. John said, "Seven twenty to the vehicle."

I was sighting in on that, but swung over to see the two guys doing something with the helicopter. I said, "They're refueling the helicopter down there. If we make the target, I'm going to use one of the explosive fifties on that thing. It should go up in a big bang."

John said, "If you can get the JP-4 or Jet A to burn then it will be a boom. Remember though, our primary is first. We might get lucky as there does seem to be activity down there."

We were talking very quietly, almost a whisper when we heard, "Clump, crash, crackle, crunch."

John turned, pulling his sidearm as I swung around, pulling mine. I reached into my pack and pulled the two suppressors out and handed one to John. We screwed them into place and kept watch, as the noise headed toward the place we had seen that had previous activity. I said to John, "I'm going to scout this out and see what we have. This is too much of a coincidence."

I slid through the forest until I could see the position that we had gone to and cleaned up. There was a man there with some kind of rifle. I looked at him through my scope and could see what looked like an SKS with a scope. This wasn't an experienced person using that rifle at this distance. He was really noisy and had already lit a cigarette.

I went back to John to tell him what I saw and he asked, "How close do you have to get to neutralize him? He could screw up the mission."

"With a sidearm, I need to get within fifty yards max to ensure a good hit. I'll only get one shot before the guy starts firing, making a lot of noise."

He asked, "Can you get that close?"

I nodded, "I can but I have to go down and around. There's too much open area on the way up to his position. I'm worried about how he got here. There might be someone else waiting for him or covering him."

John said, "Following how the guy got in won't be a problem. Let's split, you take care of that problem, and I'll follow his path for a mile or so and see what's up. He could have used a four wheel drive near the stream."

"This sucks, John. We need a bigger team."

"I know, but this is what we have. Let's do it."

I said, "If you get in trouble, use the radio. I'll put my ear-piece in."

Going down the hill was a bitch, then climbing up the backside without making any noise, was an equal bitch. It took me a precious thirty minutes to get to where I had a clear shot. The guy was chain smoking and I could smell him long before I saw him. He was standing out at the side of his position taking a leak. If someone from the house had binoculars they could have seen him.

I let the guy get back into position. He was still smoking, but pulled a thermos and poured himself some coffee. He would look through his scope every once in a while, then take a puff and have a sip.

Leveling off across a heavy limb, I brought the Glock up to aim at his head and squeezed the trigger. The man threw his hands up sending the lit cigarette and coffee flying. He then lay forward onto the log in front of him.

I picked up my brass and moved as quickly as possible to the target. I found the cigarette, then gathered his other butts and put them into the thermos and screwed the top back on. After wiping my prints from everything, I saw the guy had rubber gloves on. I pulled them off his hands and put them on. I rolled him over cleaning out his pockets. He had a bunch of stuff. I pushed him down on the side of the log then covered him with old dead brush until he was invisible. I picked up the SKS and the extra thirty round magazine he had, and began heading back to our position.

About halfway back, I sensed someone else and lay on the side of hill, hidden by the brush. John came slipping up the hill about twenty feet from me. As he got a little closer, he looked back around then quietly said, "I know you're here, I can smell the cigarettes on your hands."

I raised my hands, still in gloves, and he smiled. "Thank goodness we're careful. There's a beat up jeep down there, and it doesn't look like anyone got out of the other side of it."

We went up to our position and immediately began checking our target area. The car was still in front of the house and the helicopter was still in the barn.

I told John what I had done with the target at the other position. I said, "I left the place clean, so it should be okay. When that guy starts smelling, then there will be a problem."

John said, "If we are clean on this one, or we have to stay overnight, we'll bury him and cover that jeep up. I didn't take time to cover it now. Probably should have, but I didn't want to take the time."

Time crawled by. Someone would come out of the house do something then go back in. Someone would come from one of the outbuildings and go into the house, then come back out.

Right at one in the afternoon, two Mercedes sedans pulled up in front of the house. About six men got out and stood around talking. Our target came out of the house and spoke with the men. I kept trying to acquire a clear target, but someone was constantly in front of him. They all went into the house. I said to John, "There were two secondary targets in that group."

John said, "I got them. Now if we can get a clear target."

We stayed put and didn't move around a lot. About four, a man came from the barn with a big bloodhound. He walked down the road then a little later he came walking up the fence line on the Mexican side. He must have walked about the same distance that way, as he was walking back toward the barn about five.

Light was fading, so we both began getting ready for available light. The distance was going to be really iffy. If there was enough light in the target area, no sweat, but if it was dark, the distance would make acquiring a target really tough.

It got dark. Around seven, the barn was closed up and lights were on in the bunkhouse. There were lights in the house, but no yard light around the cars or the main yard. John said, "Looks like we get to spend the night. Come on, let's bury that guy and make it neat. We'll go cover the jeep too."

It took us three hours to dig a deep enough hole to bury the guy and make the area look like no one had ever been there.