“Gonna see a grizzly, eh?” Freeman asked Prince, who remained incommunicado as he basked in the extended chin scratch the general was giving him and the back scratch that, now that the turbulence had subsided, Choir was lavishing on him.
“Grizzly?” put in Aussie. “I certainly hope not. Terrorists are one thing, grizzly bears are something else.”
“Then,” Freeman told the team, “you’d better check your weapons, guys. Make sure you’re loaded for bear as well as scumbags.”
Salvini had selected a 22.1-pound, 49.2-inch Belgian general-purpose machine gun, or GPMG, a weapon that could fire fifty-round belts of the big 7.62 mm slugs over an effective killing range of three-quarters of a mile, should a “long punch” firefight break out.
For his part, Choir had chosen the German-made Heckler Koch general-purpose MG36, which was a lighter and shorter machine gun. The MG36, with folding stock and carrying handle, had a transparent thirty-round magazine, fired standard NATO 5.56 mm-caliber rounds, and had a kill reach of more than a third of a mile. In his pre-op briefing at Fairchild, the general had told the other seven men in his eight-man team that while the trail would most likely lead them through thick bush and forest, there would also be open alpine meadows at the higher elevations of the Bitterroot Mountains. In such places, the shorter-range Heckler Koch’s famous MP55.6-pound submachine gun was favored by most others in the team. The general’s weapon of choice was an AK-74, an updated AK-47 which he’d chosen for its relatively light weight—7.5 pounds — easy maintenance, and greater range than the Heckler Koch MP5. The general had had his AK-74’s original folding metal frame stock replaced with wood so that it could be used as a “door opener” or “skull crusher,” should the occasion arise.
As usual in the group, the general had allowed each member of the team, with the exception of Aussie, to select his own weapon. Lieutenant Johnny Lee, the multi-linguist, Gomez, and Eddie Mervyn liked the Heckler Koch MP5 navy version. With its closed bolt action, unlike its open bolt cousin that begins firing when the bolt is “triggered” forward, the navy version fires with the bolt already forward, reducing any aim-altering shoulder bump. And, while weighing only 7.7 pounds, it has an effective kill range of 328 feet firing 9 mm ammo.
It was left to Aussie Lewis, at the general’s request, to tote a standard Heckler Koch G36 assault rifle fitted with an under-barrel launcher that could fire up to ten 40 mm grenades a minute to a distance of approximately 300 yards. The eighth member of the team, Tony Ruth, an ex-Ranger who had stayed in the kind of top physical condition Freeman always demanded of his team members, came along at Aussie’s invitation. Tony Ruth had met Aussie Lewis in Iraq, in Karbala. His favorite weapon was an Italian Franchi eight-round SPAS — sporting purpose automatic shotgun.
No, Tony Ruth had told the other members of the SpecWar squad, and anyone who ever challenged him — and a lot of people had — he wasn’t any relation to Babe Ruth. Yes, he had played in the minors, and worked one game in the majors. Then Iraq came a year before his retirement. Yes, he sure did intend to go back to North Carolina and play ball, but the example of Pat Tillman, the twenty-seven-year-old offensive lineman for the Arizona Cardinals who had walked away from a $3.6-million, three-year contract in the NFL because he believed it was time to serve his country and who was killed in action in a blue-on-blue in Afghanistan in June 2003, had had a great influence on Tony Ruth, as it had on a lot of other Americans, and he’d met Douglas Freeman through Aussie not long after the SpecWar team lost a member on a SpecWar op off the “Hermit Kingdom”—the North Korean coast.
“Hey, Tony,” Aussie called out, pointing to the Franchi shotgun, “why not haul a Mossberg instead of taking that old Italian job? Holds nine rounds instead of eight. You never know when that extra cartridge—”
“Yeah—” riposted Tony. “But if you’ve already had to fire eight rounds of buckshot or door-bashing slugs, you’re in so much trouble you don’t need an extra round, you need a medic. Fast.”
“Ah-ha!” said Salvini. “He’s got you there, Aussie.”
“Oh, shut your face, wop! I’d still bet on a Mossberg.”
“You’d bet on anything,” said Sal.
“Sal’s right,” Choir Williams told Tony Ruth. “Last mission we were on, Aussie was sound asleep aboard the transport until he heard someone mention a ‘bet.’”
“That is correct,” chimed in Freeman, always happy to see such good morale en route to a mission that his gut instinct told him would stress the nerves and physical fitness of his seven fellow commandos to the max. “Aussie could hear the word ‘bet,’” Freeman said, “even if it was whispered at a rock concert.”
“I don’t go to rock concerts,” said Aussie, sniffing. “I’m more cultured than you bastards.”
“Oh,” said Sal. “How about that cultural movie we saw the other night? That blonde with the big—”
“A question of good photography,” said Aussie, affecting a high-minded, dismissive air. “It wasn’t the young lady’s cleavage that interested me. It was the interpretive angle of the shot and the — ah — subtle arrangement of her wardrobe I was viewing.”
“What are you talking about?” said Salvini. “She was naked!”
“Nevertheless,” Aussie began, then paused. “Oh, you peasants wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh?” joshed Ruth. “Well, tell me, professor, what would your wife say if she’d seen you ‘viewing’?”
“Well,” Aussie answered slowly, “I think, Mr. Ruth, that she would cut me off for a month!”
Everyone laughed, though Freeman’s mirth was restrained by recalling how he might still be in the proverbial doghouse for having to leave his wife so abruptly on the mission, especially so soon after their donnybrook vis-à-vis Marte Price.
As the general reached forward to pat Prince once more, he felt the one-shot pen in his pocket. This time it wasn’t loaded with a rubber stun bullet but a lethal round. He hoped that all the other equipment in the team’s “goodies” packs, provided by DARPA, and the other off-the-shelf wares of war would be as efficient.
“Two minutes!” announced the Chinook’s loadmaster as the amber light began flashing.
“Brace!” and each of the eight commandos readied themselves for a hard landing. Choir held Prince to his chest, the dog, now strapped into his Velcro-hitched hagvar vest, happily licking Choir’s face as the Chinook’s rear wheels touched down in what sounded like a hailstorm as gravel and sand kicked up by the rotors’ fierce downdraft struck the Chinook’s fuselage.
Within a minute every man, with his pack, and Prince were on the hard ground of the DARPA base, and Freeman was being greeted by a somber-looking sheriff from Sandpoint, the wilderness resort area of about five thousand souls at the top of the lake twenty-seven miles north of the naval research station.
“Bad business,” said the sheriff glumly.
“It is,” said Freeman. “First thing I need to do is talk to the staff here at DARPA.” Away from the exhaust and dust, the general could breathe more deeply, taking in the damp coolness of the mountain lake. Prince had already been doing this, his tongue lolling expectantly, a distinct smile on his face. He loved tracking, though at the moment all he could smell was baking soda, the result of a standing order from Freeman for his men to eschew any deodorant to combat the sweating in armpit and groin. The soda, unlike deodorants, including those that commercials boasted were unscented, was neutral and would help absorb the smell of their perspiration.