Chapter 237: the Elegant Plan Goes Slightly Wrong

I looked toward the airstrip check point. The two guards were still sleeping, while in a sitting position. There was some kind of trick to it, I was quite sure. To this very day, I have not learned it. I can nod out, but I can not sleep soundly in that position. At least not so soundly that when the man next to me has his head explode, I wouldn't react in some way. Even when that happened the second one didn't even stir. It is true that except for the fire cracker sound of the .22 Magnum, nothing broke the calm of the night.

I was a bit surprised, as I always was, by the amount of damage the small round could do. The small bullet traveled at a very high rate of speed, then when it hit a hard object it spread taking on the shape of a tiny mushroom. With that velocity, that shape, and the Teflon coating, it made short work of anything, or anyone in it's path.

The killing ability of the round was limited only by the placement of it. The rifle I fired held true to the scope. The scope was simplicity itself it could not be adjusted without a screw driver. It was a simple bore sighted scope. Ihad personally zeroed in at fifty yards. I needed no up and down or side to side adjustments ... It was up to me, the shooter, to make the mental adjustments necessary to dial it in for the variables of the current situation facing me.

The first round's adjustment from dead zero was pure guesswork. Since the rifle, and the bullet, would make very little noise, I would be impossible to spot from that first shot, even if it was a complete miss. It most likely would not wake either of them. Therefore I was willing to risk sighting it in on the target. I put the target's nose dead center in the cross hair and fired. With a larger rifle, I would have fired at the center body mass. With a 30.06 or most any other conventional sniper rifle, a miss would have brought the wrath of god down on me, so the center body mass would not only be a kill shot, it would be safer than a head shot.

For a change my luck was excellent. The round drifted low a bit, but it drilled the sleeping man in the throat. He might have gurgled a few times, as he drowned in his own blood, but it wasn't enough to wake his companion. His companion died from the second round that traveled from the clip fed bolt action .22 magnum rifle. It was a close combat killing machine. The second man died as the round penetrated his brain. His death was instantaneous. If I have to die, at the hands of a man with a gun, I hope that he is as good a shot, as I was that night.

"Your turn sweetie," I said to Eve. Her first LAW was aimed for the several metal gas cans stacked by the shack. It appeared that she missed as the smoke and fire from the rocket engine went over the top of the cans. "Try again," I said quietly, even though there was no need to whisper.

Her second round went into the cans and created a huge fire ball. Eve had just pulled the trigger on the operation. I smiled. I watched as she fired a third missile at the beautiful Gulf Stream Jet aircraft. Her first round struck its fuselage and ripped a very large hole in it.

"Do it till it burns." Before she could fire again a flare came from the sky and there was the sound of a screaming jet engine overhead. "Fire that rocket," I said.

Her second shot at the Gulf Stream causing a secondary explosion. She turned her attention to the shack without being told. It became firewood with the very first rocket. The plane made two more flare runs at the air strip before I called him.

"Jack go for the villa," I said. Eve and I heard the explosions from the villa and knew that the others had it under attack. Since there was only one gate to drive out of the villa's courtyard, I figured we would know if anyone was headed for the airstrip.

"Vlad anybody headed my way?" I asked over the tiny communications net.

"I'm a little busy, but you are good so far." he said.

"I'm going to abandon this position and move on to the next one." I waited a minute to watch the light show before I moved on. Smiling Jack was doing himself proud. There were screams of jet engines and trails of non existent rockets coming from the air. Once in awhile a law rocket was mixed in. I knew that only because Jack told me he was planning to do it that way. I heard rockets pretty regularly at that point.

Then all of a sudden there was another, larger rocket trail in the sky and ground shook when the warhead exploded. Somebody had authorized a Hellfire missile without telling us. Our plan got Estavante out in the open, that missile might change the whole game plan.

"What the fuck was that?" I asked as I moved through the jungle. I was still headed for the road.

"I'm not sure," Martin said. "It looks like it took out a big ass chunk of the Villa. I have no idea if it was meant to reinforce the 'under attack' scenario, or to kill Estavante, but they are piling into the SUVs."

"We are waiting for them." I said. The killing field was not far from the villa or the town. so it would be an interesting fight. A lot of it was going to based on everybody's reactions to the noise and confusion. To add to that noise and confusion somewhere a huge amplifier played hard rock music. I was going to kiss Smiling Jack, if and when I got back.

When the first SUV hit the killing field, I tripped the detonator and a tree fell almost on top of it. Just for safe measure Eve hit it with a LAW. The little Missile picked the SUV us and then dropped it on the road. It didn't explode but it wasn't going anywhere either. The next couple of seconds were critical. A well trained group would have known that when the second and third trees came down, they were in deep shit.