“Oui?”
“Wake up, General. We’re in trouble and I need the service of a team of your elite Force d’Action Rapide. I might be getting paranoid, but we just lost contact with three of my men minutes after their deployment. There is a chance Stone might have reached his people. We can’t afford to take a chance with the launch thirty minute away.”
“You’re right, monsieur. I’ll give the order immediately under the pretext of a possible terrorist attack on the facility.”
“That will be perfect.”
Crowe kept his height just ten feet above the green-tinted waves at a comfortable 150 knots. He watched the KC-95 tanker disappear in the night to his north as it headed back to Howard. He eyed the fuel gauges and estimated he had roughly two hours of flying time. Just enough to go in, pick up his load, and get back to Blue Ridge before all hell broke loose.
He frowned. Not only was he wired out of his mind from the several cups of coffee he’d had before leaving, bus his Sea Stallion was essentially unarmed. His helicopter was strictly a rescue craft, not a light infantry division air-support aircraft like the Sikorsky UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter or so many other support machines. All he had to protect his helo were the two armed Marines in the back. They could use their M-60 machine guns to give the ground troops some level of cover during extraction. Besides that his bird was vulnerable. Crowe was relying on the night and his proficient flying and combat experience to get him and the ground troops out of this one alive.
He eyed the radar altimeter and noticed it inching upward a bit. He couldn’t afford to go above fifty feet or risk being spotted. Although it was nighttime, the NVG provided Crowe with a clear image of the ocean’s surface. He lowered the collective and applied forward cyclic pressure. The Stallion dropped back down to a radar-safe altitude.
He looked to his starboard, to Stallion Two, also flying a few feet over the waves. A couple of good sticks, he reflected. Inexperienced but good.
The coastal lights became visible. He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes to rendezvous time. Right on time.
Ortiz was the first to spot the ten-foot-tall chain-link fence surrounding the compound. He noticed that most of the compound appeared to have been created by filling in the swamp.
The edge of the swamp ended roughly fifty feet from the fence. Ortiz could not have been more relieved than he was the moment he stepped out of the muddy waters onto solid ground. He dropped to the ground and hid behind several palm trees, obviously brought there from the coast to isolate the compound from the stark surroundings. Zimmer crawled next to him. Both removed their night goggles.
“What do you think, Tito?” he barely whispered.
Ortiz pointed to his right. Zimmer looked in that direction and slowly nodded. Ortiz then pointed to the left. Same thing.
Zimmer looked at Ortiz, who held up his hand holding out two fingers. Zimmer nodded once more and then slowly rolled to the left, Ortiz to the right. They allowed a twenty-foot gap before stopping and rising to a crouch. There were two sentries, also spaced by twenty feet. They stood guard on the outside of the fence facing Ortiz’s direction. Less than thirty feet from where Ortiz was hidden in the trees, the guard was brilliantly backlit by the powerful halogens that bathed the large rocket a few hundred feet away on the other side of the fence. The lights gave Ortiz an advantage. Ortiz could see the guard but the guard couldn’t see him.
Crawling on his knees and elbows over the sandy terrain, Ortiz twisted his body as he sneaked through the trees. He stopped every few feet and remained still for a minute. The guard gave no sign of alert. Fifteen feet. Ortiz removed the hunting knife from the sheath and held it by the blade between his right thumb and index fingers, preparing to execute another often-practiced Special Forces technique.
Ten feet.
Ortiz slowly rose to a crouch, hiding behind the light undergrowth at the edge of the gravel road that surrounded the compound. He shifted is gaze to Zimmer, who was already waiting for him. Ortiz clicked his radio once, twice, thrice, giving the signal. He raised the knife above his head and threw it with all his might. The knife left the darkness and briefly reflected the halogen lights as it streaked across the air and plunged itself into the guard’s chest.
Ortiz lunged, closing the gap in a few seconds. The guard looked down in disbelief. He was about to scream for help when Ortiz jammed his left hand over the guard’s mouth and drove his right knee into the guard’s groin. His right-hand palm struck the knife’s handle, driving it deeper into the sentry’s chest. The knife stopped on something. A rib maybe. Ortiz struck it again. This time the knife went all the way in.
His gaze locked with the sentry’s eyes until Ortiz saw there was no life left in them. He yanked the knife out and jumped to the side as blood jetted from the wound and the body fell to the ground face-first. Ortiz dragged the corpse back to the jungle and hid it in the undergrowth. Zimmer did the same with the body of the other guard.
Ortiz reached for the radio. They had achieved a “beach-head.”
Vanderhoff turned his swivel chair and looked at the Athena V rocket. The restraining tower slowly moved to the side. T minus five minutes. Just a little while longer, he thought.
Ortiz and Zimmer helped get the raft past the palm trees and through the light undergrowth as the rest of Mambo took defensive positions near the fence. Siegel deployed his men efficiently — three teams with five men each. Siegel, Ortiz, Zimmer, and two others would remain with the Javelins. They would be Mambo One. Mambo Two would take a defensive position fifty feet up the gravel road. Mambo Three was fifty feet in the other direction. As a backup, Siegel had selected a spot near the landing zone as their emergency fallback position in case things went sour.
“All right, Tito. It’s your show now,” Siegel said.
Ortiz nodded and leaned over the raft. “Say, Tommy. Gimme a hand, would ya?”
Zimmer walked next to him.
“Help me take the plastic off these missiles.”
The weapon of choice was the British-made Javelin instead of the commonly used Stinger for the simple reason that the Stinger was a heat-seeker, which meant there was a possibility of the missile going for the wrong target during launch, since the hottest point of the rocket’s exhaust lay several feet below the nozzle. The Javelin, on the other hand, could be manually guided to the target.
Ortiz took the shoulder-launched aiming unit and removed the protective plastic. He then grabbed the first missile-canister combination and clipped it on to the aiming unit. “There. I’m ready anytime.”
Zimmer gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean? That’s it?”
“Yep. That’s all there is to it.”
Siegel approached them. “You guys about—”
His words were cut short by the fast rattle of several automatic weapons. Ortiz jumped back when three bullets erupted from Siegel’s chest, propelling him against Zimmer. Both landed on the ground. Siegel lay convulsing.
“Jesus Christ, man! They hit Siegel. Siegel’s been hit!” Zimmer screamed as he tried to drag Siegel to safety.
Ortiz grabbed Zimmer by the shoulder, pulled him away from the raft, and glanced back at Siegel, who lay still on his side, facing them. His wide-open eyes told Ortiz all he needed to know. There was nothing they could do for him. As platoon sergeant, second in command, Ortiz was now in charge.
The entire world appeared to erupt around them as bullets showered the gravel road and sandy terrain. Ortiz went into a roll. He rolled as hard as he possibly could. The sky and sand changed places as he gained momentum with every roll. He had to reach the safety of the palm trees. He continued rolling. He would know when to stop. Soon, he thought, estimating he covered three or four feet with every roll. Rocks and other ground debris bruised him. He slammed hard against the wide trunk of a palm tree. It hurt but was expected. Ortiz knew what to do next.