Choke Point

ELEVEN

Ross and Pepper were tucked so tightly into the tangled roots and thickets of the mangroves that their optical camouflage could remain off.

Recon time.

En route to this position, they had encountered two trip wires and had quietly avoided them while marking the surrounding trees with tiny, LED-lit sensors that transmitted each trip wire’s location via the Cross-Coms. Those coordinates were placed on the team’s operational map. They had then spotted a series of planks creating a path through the jungle, one assumedly used by the drug gangs, but Ross and Pepper kept about three meters to the left, sticking to the mud, noting and marking yet three more trip wires at ankle height, above the aforementioned path. Several more calls came over the Cross-Com, with more booby traps IDed and avoided, and then, each team called in to report they were in their recon positions.

Their approach had gone down by the numbers — and while that should have comforted Ross, it didn’t.

The dry dock warehouses were situated on the north side of the river, about ten meters from the shoreline, and they must have been there for some time. The vines, shrubs and other aggressive weeds had moved up along their walls and were spreading across their roofs like a dark green rash, while other vines hanging down from the trees and draping across the warehouses helped disguise their man-made angles. Ross was certain that the FARC and Los Rastrojos troops had given Mother Nature a helping hand, shifting foliage so that it would help with the overall effect, and the outcome was impressive. You had to stare hard to discern the buildings.

Opposite the warehouses stood a rickety-looking dock, about a meter wide and ten meters long, with a few of the pilings leaning unnervingly to the right. The narcosub, whose hull was painted a flat olive drab, sat moored to the dock, bobbing as the wind whipped waves up to her sail.

Ross switched to night vision, and the lens mounted on his helmet turned his Cross-Com’s HUD to phosphorescent green. He confirmed the locations of the four guards standing at the larger dry dock, and the two others huddling beneath a small awning near the second.

The rain was magic and had driven a larger contingent of the Rastrojos and FARC troops inside, seeking cover, and if they’d moved the package into the submarine, there was no clear evidence. Ross deployed a sensor, noting more than twenty individuals inside the structures. The sub was here. The package was most likely here …

So what the hell had they been waiting for?

His answer came in the next breath.

Two late-model SUVs appeared from another trail leading down from the north, and they rolled up alongside the warehouses, the beams of their headlights filled with rain.

‘Well, look at that,’ muttered Pepper. ‘It’s a real party now.’

Ross called the team: ‘All right, everybody, listen up. Two vehicles just arrived. Hold your positions.’

A storm would hardly delay the departure of a submarine; in fact, the sub captains preferred to launch at night, with no moon, and in bad weather to help cloak their exit. While it was true that high seas could wreak havoc once the sub hit open water, the real reason for the delay became unsurprisingly clear:

The drivers of the SUVs jumped out, ran around to the backs of their vehicles, lifted the tailgates, and after a loud whistle, they were joined by about a dozen men from the warehouses. These men formed two lines and began moving plastic milk crates stacked with bricks of cocaine from one man to the next, a ‘brick brigade’ to deliver the cocaine from the trucks and across the dock, where the gunman from the submarine had jumped down to receive each crate and hand it back to another man standing in the sail. The bricks themselves were about the size of a trade paperback book, and the crates were square and small enough to squeeze through the sub’s tight hatch.

‘They’re killing two birds,’ said Pepper. ‘Figured they’d move their hostage along with their drugs, but they were waiting on these guys.’

‘And waiting for the second storm to move in,’ said Ross. ‘Bad move all around.’

Pepper snorted. ‘Yeah, it’s almost Biblical. Greed gets you every time.’

‘Amen,’ said Ross. He took in a deep breath to clear his thoughts. ‘Okay, we gotta move now. If he’s in the warehouse, they’ll bring him out as soon as they finish.’

‘No doubt,’ said Pepper.

Ross called the team and the AFEUR troops: ‘This is it, guys. Point team is moving out. Get into your secondaries.’

The river’s surface was alive with a billion dimples from the falling rain as he and Pepper drifted out from the gnarled roots and submerged. With their heads just a few inches beneath the surface, Ross suspected they were already well hidden. Being in the water felt perfect, natural, and holding his breath was a skill he’d honed for more than twenty years, beginning with the old drownproofing test during his BUD/S training. Hands bound behind your back, they tossed you into a pool, and the fun began. No reason to panic, right? He’d done well. Some of his colleagues couldn’t make it that far, had freaked out, and had rung the bell to drop.

For his part now, Ross took the lead, and the muddy river bottom quickly fell away. He kicked hard, and they headed toward the opposite shoreline, some forty meters away and about fifteen meters east of the dock and warehouses. Their target was an especially thick section of roots that offered ample cover and allowed a breather.

If all was going well, then Jiménez had divided his group into four teams, with two spreading out to the narrower flanks to ford the river and move in from the north, with another pair, the captain included, remaining on the south side, closer to the narcosub. From these secondary positions the men would launch their ambush.

Ross tried to relax as he swam, fighting against the obvious and gut-wrenching fear that any one of those men could make a simple but grave error. Any one of them, like that sniper had during their last raid, could allow himself to be caught and/or killed.

No, he told himself. Not this time. They would attack swiftly, with audacity and purpose, standing on the shoulders of all the SF operators who’d come before them. No fears now. Only the mission. Moving … communicating …

On target.

The rain was cooling the river’s surface, but farther below, the water still felt warm, and his boots began dragging through the silt and finally pushing deeper into the mud. He reached out and felt a thick root, and then he slowed, sensing Pepper’s hand on his boot, and together they rose up within some lily pads, clearing their eyes and noses, but keeping their chins beneath the surface.

Ross glanced up at movement in the canopy. No, he wouldn’t tell Pepper about the coral snake up there, highly venomous to be sure. It slithered beneath two branches and was surrounded by a cloud of mosquitoes, trying to hide from the storm.

In the next second, shouts from the dry docks and flashing lights near them cut through the downpour and seemed to be right there, right there … a breath away.

He gave Pepper the signal and they scaled the roots, shifting behind the trees and settling down along the brush opposite the larger building, where two guards were posted on this, the west side.

‘I’m the bait,’ he whispered to Pepper.

‘Roger that.’

Ross activated his camouflage and ran out of the tree line, directly toward the two guards. He dropped down to his haunches and waited as they noticed something weird in front of them, a strange fluctuating silhouette, as though an extraterrestrial had dropped from the roof and was about to confront them. They both frowned, aimed their guns at Ross, who just stood there, the rain playing havoc with the camouflage’s system, flickering and shimmering.

And then, another apparition appeared behind one guard, and an arm that looked as though it were made of water came around the man’s torso and plunged a knife into his heart.

As the second guard turned, bringing his rifle to bear on Pepper, Ross put his Cold Steel SRK knife to work, driving the black, Tuff-Ex — coated blade into the hollow between the man’s collarbone and the top of his sternum. Using the collarbone as a lever, Ross worked the blade in a circular motion, shredding everything inside.

Neither of these men would die instantaneously, as it took several knife wounds to produce results you only saw in movies; instead, Ross and Pepper dragged their victims back behind some trees, where both were zipper cuffed, their socks removed and forced into their mouths, their lips taped shut. The operation took less than sixty seconds.

‘And this is why I still bring a knife to a gunfight,’ said Pepper with a wink.

Ross dragged the flat sides of his SRK along his hip, cleaning the blade. He resheathed the knife, than gave Pepper a nod. ‘Clear to move in.’