“Boy, this would have been useful in Eye-Corps back when I was a kid,” John breathed. Each of the Rainbow troopers had a GPS locator built into his personal radio transceiver, and these, also, reported to the computer, giving Noonan and Clark exact locations for their own people, and locations also on those in the building to their left.
“Yeah, that’s why I got excited about this puppy,” the FBI agent noted. “I can’t tell you what floor they’re on, but look, they’ve all started moving. I guess somebody woke them up.”
“Command, this is Bear,” Clark’s radio crackled.
“Bear, Command. Where are you?”
“Five minutes out. Where do you want me to make my delivery?”
“Same place as before. Let’s keep you out of the line of fire. Tell Vega and the rest that we are on the north side of the runway. My command post is a hundred meters north of the treeline. We’ll talk them in from there.”
“Roger that, Command. Bear out.”
“This must be an elevator,” Noonan said, pointing at the screen. Six blips converged on a single point, stayed together for half a minute or so, then diverged. A number of blips were gathering in one place, probably a lobby of some sort. Then they started moving north and converged again.
“I like this one,” Dave Dawson said, hefting his G3 rifle. The black German-made weapon had fine balance and excellent sights. He’d been the site-security chief in Kansas, another true believer who didn’t relish the idea of flying back to America in federal custody and spending the rest of his life at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary-apart of Kansas for which he had little love. “What do we do now, Bill?”
“Okay, we split into pairs. Everybody gets one of these.” Henriksen started passing over handheld radios. “Think. Don’t shoot until we tell you to. Use your heads.”
“Okay, Bill. I’ll show these bastards what a hunter can do,” Killgore observed, liking the feel of his rifle as well and pairing off with Kirk Maclean.
“These, too.” Henriksen opened another door, revealing camouflage jackets and pants for them to wear.
“What can we do to protect ourselves, Bill?” Steve Berg asked.
“We can kill the fuckers!” Killgore replied. “They’re not cops, they’re not here to arrest us, are they, Bill?”
“Well, no, and they haven’t identified themselves, and so the law is-the law is unclear on this one, guys.”
“And we’re in a foreign country anyway. So those guys are probably breaking the fucking law to be here, and it’ people want to attack us with guns we can defend ourselves, right?” Ben Farmer asked.
“You know what you’re doing?” Berg asked Farmer.
“Ex-Marine, baby. Light weapons, line-grunt, yeah, I know what’s happening out there.” Farmer looked confident, and was as angry as the rest of them at the upset of their plans.”Okay, people, I am in command, okay?” Henriksen said to them. He had thirty armed men now. That would have to be enough. “We make them come to us. If you see somebody advancing toward you with a weapon, you take the bastard out. But be patient! Let them in close. Don’t waste ammo. Let’s see if we can discourage them. They can’t stay here long without supplies, and they only- have one helicopter to-
“Look!” Maclean said. A mile and a half away, the black helo landed at the far end of the runway. Three or four people ran from it into the woods.
“Okay, be careful, people, and think before you act.”
“Let’s do it,” Killgore said aggressively, waving to Maclean to follow him out the door.
“They’re leaving the building,” Noonan said. “Looks like thirty or so.” He looked up to orient himself on the terrain. “They’re heading into the woods-figuring to ambush us, maybe?”
“We’ll see about that. Team-2, this is Command,” Clark said into his tactical radio.
“-2 Lead here, Command,” Chavez replied. I can see people running out of the building. They appear to be armed with shoulder weapons.”
“Roger that. Okay, Ding, we will proceed as briefed.”
“Understood, Command. Let me get organized here.” Team-2 was intact, except for the absence of Julio Vega, who’d just arrived on the second helicopter delivery. Chavez got onto his radio and paired his people off with their normal partners, extending his line northward into the forest, and keeping himself at the hinge point on the southern end of the line. The Team-1 people would be the operational reserve, assigned directly to John Clark at the command post.
Noonan watched the Team-2 shooters move. Each friendly blip was identified by a letter so that he’d know them by name. “John,” he asked, “when do we go weapons free?”
“Patience, Tim,” Six replied.
Noonan was kneeling on the damp ground, with his laptop computer sitting on a fallen tree. The battery was supposed to be good for five hours, and he had two spares in his pack.
Pierce and Loiselle took the lead, heading half a kilometer into the jungle. It wasn’t a first for either of them.
Mike Pierce had worked in Peru twice, and Loiselle had been to Africa three separate times. The familiarity with the environmental conditions was not the same thing as comfort. Both worried about snakes as much as the armed people heading their way, sure that this forest was replete with them, either poisonous or willing to eat them whole. The temperature was rising, and both soldiers were sweating under their camo makeup. After ten minutes, they found a nice spot, with a standing tree and a fallen one next to it, with a decent field of fire.
“They’ve got radios,” Noonan reported. “Want me to take them away?” He had his jammer set up already.
Clark shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s listen in to the for a while.”
“Fair enough.” The FBI agent flipped the radio scanner to the speaker setting.
“This is some place,” one voice said. “Look at these trees, man.”
“Yeah, big, ain’t they?”
“What kind of trees?” a third asked.
“The kind somebody can hide behind and shoot your ass from!” a more serious voice pointed out. “Killgore and Maclean, keep moving north about half a mile, find a place, and sit still there!”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, Bill,” the third voice agreed.
“Listen up everybody,” “Bill’s” voice told them. “Don’t clutter up these radios, okay? Report in when I call you or when you see something important. Otherwise keep them clear!”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“You say so, Bill.”
“Roger.”
“I can’t see shit,” a fifth responded.
“Then find a place where you can!” another helpful voice suggested.
“They’re in pairs, moving close together, most of ’em,” Noonan said, staring down at his screen. “This pair is heading right for Mike and Louis.”
Clark looked down at the screen. “Pierce and Loiselle, this is Command. You have two targets approaching you from the south, distance about two-fifty meters.”
“Roger, Command. Pierce copies.”Sergeant Pierce settled into his spot, looking south, letting his eyes sweep back and forth through a ninety-degree arc. Six feet away, Loiselle did the same, starting to relax as far as the environment was concerned, and tensing with the approach of enemies.
Dr. John Killgore knew the woods and knew hunting. He moved slowly and carefully now, with every step looking down to assure quiet footing, then up and around to examine the landscape for a human shape. They’d be coming in to get us, he thought, and so he and Maclean would find good spots to shoot them from, just like hunting deer, picking a place in the shadows where you could belly up and wait for the game to come. Another couple of hundred yards, he thought, would be about right.
Three hundred meters away, Clark used the computer screen and the radios to get his people moving to good spots. This new capability was incredible. Like radar, he could spot people long before he or anyone else could see or hear them. This new electronic toy would be an astounding blessing to every soldier who ever made use of it…
“Here we go,” Noonan said quietly, like a commentator at a golf tournament, tapping the screen.
“Pierce and Loiselle, this is Command, you have two approaching targets just east of south, approaching at about two hundred meters.”
“Roger, Command. Can we engage?” Pierce asked. At his perch, Loiselle was looking at him instead of his direct front.
“Affirmative,” Clark replied. Then: “Rainbow, this is Six. Weapons-free. I repeat, we are weapons-free at this time.”
“Roger that, I copy weapons-free.” Pierce acknowledged.
“Let’s wait till we can get both of ’em, Louis,” Pierce whispered.
“D’accord, ” Sergeant Loiselle agreed. Both men look,, to their south, eyes sharp and ears listening for the first snapped twig.
This wasn’t so bad, Killgore thought.He’d hunted in worse country, far noisier country. There were no pine needles here to make that annoying swishing sound that deer could hear from half a time zone away. Plenty of shadows, little in the way of direct sunlight. Except for the bugs, he might have even been comfortable here. But the bugs were murder. The next time he came out, he’d try to spray some repellent, the physician thought, as he moved forward slowly. The branch of a bush was in his way. He used his left hand to move it, lest he make noise by walking through it.