Chapter 26

Zeus

Monday, Memorial Day – Morning

I slept like a log. A log that had burning memories of the last complicated mission I'd gone on. The mobile phone woke me at 0430. I heard sounds of breakfast being prepared from the front of the camper.

"G'morning, Artemis," I said as I was getting dressed. She'd already seen me naked, so I didn't close the door. She didn't look.

"Hi, Zeus. I hope you got more sleep than I did."

"Yep. Slept like a baby. I was wet and hungry every two hours." It was an old joke in the unit.

"Good morning, Zeus and Martinez," said Io from the laptop's speakers. "I have some tentative information about the financier of the overall attack."

"Anything bearing on the mission to take them down?" I only wanted information that I needed this morning. "If not, give it to Arti later."

"Okay, Zeus. I will hold it until after H hour."

Arti had her spotter's equipment plus the false license and ID papers for the two of us, neatly on the table in small piles.

"The main thing this morning is not to get too excited. You get a shot of adrenaline too soon, and you're useless for a while. So stay calm," I said.

Arti was wearing black jeans, a black short-sleeved 'golf'-type shirt, and a Kevlar vest. She sat down at the table to eat. "I'm n-n-not n-n-nervous, what m-m-makes you th-th-think th-th-that?"

I looked up at her. She had a broad grin, and was staring back at me with mischievous eyes. "Just wanted to m-m-make sure," I said. "Where'd you get the vest?"

"Back on the res. They sell all kinds of stuff out there. They're their own nation, so they can pretty much sell what they want," she explained. "I figured this'd be good camouflage for getting out, when a big alert was on. All the cops will be wearing them, and I'm going to be a cop. I got one for you, but I don't think it will work too well underwater. I got a silencer for the Glock, too."

Arti raised an old objection again, "Zeus, you sure you want to swim all that way to Reedy Lake? Don't want to ride with me in the H2?"

"We've been over this, Arti. First of all, it's a little less than four miles, not all that far. Shouldn't take me more than two or three hours, even through the swampy water. Second and most important, is to get the rifle out of the car. If the H2 gets stopped and they find a rifle we're finished. And third, on the eve of a mission is no time to change plans."

"I'd make it four or five hours, L.T.," chipped in Martinez in my head. "You're not the swimmer you once were – okay, you never were, either," he said, and laughed.

"So why am I picking you up six hours after H hour?" God, but she was relentless.

"Because nothing works like it's planned. Murphy is always in there, pitching for the bad guys. Besides, I may need to rest a bit. I'm the lard ass who is out of shape, remember?"

"You swam farther on Friday."

"Yes, and I collapsed at the end. I'm not going to do that this time."

"I'll be at the pickup spot from 0400 on, I don't care what the plan was."

"Four in the morning?"

"Uhm ... no. Four in the afternoon. 1600 hours, I guess ... and every ninety minutes thereafter. You can get there anytime, and I'll be there to pick you up. And feel free to call me if you're in between pickup times. Nobody is going to be listening to our phones, thanks to Io." That was the end of that discussion as far as she was concerned.

"Okay. Pickup anytime after 1600."

When faced with an intractable foe who has a dug-in position, sometimes a tactical concession is called for. – Sun Tzu.

"That'd be the same ol' bullshit-Sun-Tzu like you quoted back in the unit?" Martinez asked.

The very same, I answered.

"Time to go, folks. Let's change the license plates while it's still dark."

We did that, and we loaded the rifle and spotting gear into the car. I was wearing a pair of black jeans, and a black turtle neck shirt. Admittedly, it was not the tuxedo that 007 would wear, but I didn't have a special effects team on standby, in case my tie was askew. This was my 'look like a DEA agent' costume. My swim gear was in the rear footwell. This time I didn't forget the greasepaint, the watch, or the mobile phone.

We rolled out of the campgrounds at 0515. The only thing we needed now was some squirrels to hunt. Sonny, our 'drug sniffing canine officer, ' hopped into the back.

Getting through Disney control was easy. We showed our false ID, claimed we were DEA, and Arti said, "We got a tip. Gonna check it out." And we rolled on past the guard who was not really interested, onto the north end of Bear Island Road. There was no traffic in these predawn hours.

I had Arti stop once we were out of sight of the guard station. I went over to a tree, climbed it for a few feet, jumped down and ran over to another tree and climbed that one too.

Artemis looked at me like I had gone nuts. I explained.

"I hope the dogs won't even catch my scent, if they do, this will give them something else to follow."

Arti had her quiet talk-to-herself voice in full operation. "Right. Dogs. Of course, the police will have dogs. Cripes! I never thought of that."

We made a couple of similar stops along the way to the canal.

Turning in off Bear Island Road, onto the unpaved track that led along the canal, I checked my watch: 0548. We had some time to wait. Arti cut the lights and we ghosted along, staying to the tree side of the dry track. No sense driving into the canal at this point.

As the sun was coming up, we found a spot that had some tree cover but still gave us a straight view to the access road that we hoped – okay, we knew – the terrorists were going to use. We were completely out of sight from Bear Island Road, the source of the only traffic we'd likely encounter.