Choke Point

SIXTY-ONE

The storm hit by 1830 hours, the sky gone to soot, the thunderheads finally upon them, and they huddled in their tiny bivouac, waiting it out, while Ross kept in close contact with Mitchell and with the LCS’s skipper.

What wasn’t wet already was about to get wet, and Ross wished they could just get on with it instead of waiting around, getting waterlogged. Story of your life in the military: Hurry up and wait. That it stopped raining forty minutes later offered only a brief respite. They still had to hold there for another four hours before Mitchell finally gave them the signal to move out, and Ross’s ankles cracked as he got to his feet.

Pepper and Kozak headed off south along the railroad tracks, with Ross and 30K taking the northern route, each two-man team tasked with reconnoitering the outpost one more time as three Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs) carrying a Marine platoon of nearly forty were deployed from the LCS.

Ross noted immediately that the Penguin missile launcher they’d spotted earlier was no longer there and had been moved farther north, perhaps as far as ten or fifteen miles away, well out of their reach to conduct a demolition operation, and Mitchell called to confirm that the second diesel and launcher had been moved again as well. Hamid wasn’t taking any chances with his most valuable weapons, keeping them rolling and well guarded, especially at night when he probably (and rightly) suspected he might be attacked.

Wagner on board the LCS reported that no boats had approached or left the island, and no aircraft had been spotted on the Sea GIRAFFE radar, just the routine shipping traffic passing through the strait. He’d assured everyone that the system could detect small targets like sea skimmers, anti-radiation missiles, mortars, and even RHIBs from his position approximately one hundred kilometers southeast of the island. The LCS was now speeding their way.

30K blazed a trail like a relentless cyborg, leading Ross to the outpost’s perimeter bunkers on its northwest side. He found the first set of trip wires and placed a marker there, then pointed for Ross to step carefully over the wires, while the men in the bunkers saw nothing.

They advanced to the lean-tos where the APCs were parked, and once there, they glanced at each other and bit back their expletives. The trucks were gone. Ross reminded himself that two of those Pumas were the patrol variant, six-man crew, fitted with a protected cupola with 360-degree traverse that carried either a 12.7 or 14.5mm heavy machine gun.

The other two APCs were the basic armored variant, carrying crews of ten and fitted with two exterior-mounted light machine guns and eleven shooting ports so the crew could fire their personal weapons from within the vehicle. Ross strained to hear their engines in the distance, assuming they were on patrol, rolling up and down the island along the beach or on that narrow dirt road they’d crossed.

Well, plan A was shot to shit. Ross and 30K were supposed to place their blocks of C-4 between the APCs and take them out the easy way. They moved inside the empty lean-tos, and Ross whispered into his boom mike: ‘Guardian, Delta Dragon. APCs are out and on patrol. We’ll need the Seahawks to take them out.’

‘Roger that, Delta Dragon.’

The LCS’s two Seahawk helicopters were each armed with eight AGM-114 Hellfire Missiles, single 7.62mm pintle-mounted machine guns, and equipped with an AN/AAS-44 Infrared Laser Detecting/Ranging/Tracking set.

Despite the choppers’ offensive capabilities, the ship’s skipper and the Seahawk pilots and crew would not be thrilled by this news because while they could stand off and fire beyond the range of enemy surface-to-air missiles, they were also needed to provide Close Air Support for Ross and his men. The Seahawks were tolerant to small arms fire and medium-caliber high-explosive projectiles, but Hamid and his troops did indeed possess those Grinch SA-24s, and any one of them could lift a launcher to his shoulder, get off a shot, and send one of the Seahawks exploding across the sky.

30K signaled to Ross: They would leave the lean-to now and head toward the forward bunkers past the tree line.

Ross understood what 30K wanted to do now, and he nodded.

If they couldn’t blow up the APCs, they’d take out some bunkers for the Marines. That C-4 was, after all, burning a hole in their pockets.

The Eurocopter EC275 Caracel transport/cargo chopper sat in the dirt clearing where it had landed the morning before, after dropping off Hamid.

At the edge of the clearing, facing the beach, sat two bunkers about ten meters apart, each manned by two guards equipped with night-vision goggles (NVGs). There were no men posted near the chopper itself, so if Kozak and Pepper made it past the bunkers, they were home free to plant their charges and withdraw toward the jungle behind the bird.

Kozak reminded himself that this was a no-brainer — nothing to be worried about. Create a diversion. Cut off your enemy’s lines of escape. Celebrate with beer and rock ’n’ roll. All in a night’s work. What could possibly go wrong?

Shit. He shouldn’t have considered that question.

They each clutched a block of C-4 with remote detonator, but damn, from their position they had no choice but to move in the wide open, right between the bunkers to reach the chopper. Active camouflage or not, this was pucker-up time.

Pepper signaled that he would go first. Hell, yeah, he would. No argument from Kozak. Taking long, deliberate strides, Pepper advanced several meters, then stopped and crouched down, allowing his camouflage to catch up with the surroundings. The NVGs worn by the guards would make it even more difficult to spot Pepper, but he remained vigilant, his footfalls light, his movements slow and practiced. By the time he reached the helicopter, Kozak gasped. He’d been holding his breath the entire time.

Pepper, whose outline stood in sharp juxtaposition in Kozak’s HUD, waved him over.

Walk and stop. Walk and stop. Swift and silent. Once he was between both bunkers, Kozak stole a look to the left, a look to the right. The guards were just sitting there, one of them cleaning his .50-caliber machine gun, the other staring out across the strait. At the other bunker, practically the same thing. And then a shout in Spanish:

‘Hey, you got one of those snacks?’

‘Yes, come over and get it.’

One man climbed up a small ladder and on to the beach, marching a few meters behind Kozak to the opposite bunker. As he neared his comrade, Kozak took a deep breath and started off, reaching the chopper precisely two seconds before his heart exploded. Or at least it felt so.

They planted their charges fore and aft, then retreated to the shadows of the forest, where Kozak issued his report: ‘Ghost Lead, we’re set over here.’

‘Roger that. The Marines are about twenty minutes out. Shift to your secondary and stand by.’

‘On our way.’