Ortiz moved toward the source of the noise, on the other side of a line of bushes beyond the narrow field of tall grass to his right. Ortiz floated through it, moving only when he felt the light breeze swirling down the hill. He stopped as the breeze died down, and moved forward with the next gust.
He reached the bushes a minute later, and slowly moved a branch with the Colt’s muzzle. He spotted four guards standing about twenty feet away from him, all facing in the opposite direction.
These guys should be awarded the Pendejo of the Year award for stupidity, he thought. If you’re going to stand in the middle of a clearing, at least form a circle so that you can cover all directions.
Ortiz smiled. He quietly extended the telescopic butt of the Colt and pressed it against his right shoulder as he lined up the closest guard in the cross hairs.
Then he fired twice. The Colt responded with a barely audible blip as the laser beam zeroed in on the remote sensors attached to the yellow vest of the guard. The vest’s sensors picked up the beam and closed an electric circuit, powering up an array of red and yellow LEDs. The guard instantly lit up like a Christmas tree. Without waiting for a reaction, Ortiz switched targets and fired again. Another hit. He swiftly changed targets twice more. Four quick kills. The episode had taken less than six seconds.
“Dammit! Someone got us!”
“You’re all gone, amigos. Better roll over ‘n’ learn how to play dead.”
“Is that you, Tito?” asked one of the soldiers, calling Ortiz by his nickname.
“That’s right, amigo. Just smoked you all.” He approached them.
“Shit.”
“Start walkin’. You’re Mambo’s prisoners.”
Three other members of Mambo came out from the tree line and escorted their prisoners. One of them was Mambo’s platoon leader, Lieutenant Mark Siegel.
“Good job, Tito. You really surprised those four.”
“Gracias, jefe. They weren’t too happy about it either. Looks like I caught ‘em off guard.” Siegel was a fair leader. A little new, but fair. Ortiz knew Siegel was trying to learn as much as possible from him and the other more experienced soldiers in Mambo. At the same time, Siegel tried to earn their respect. A tough position to be in, reflected Ortiz, who had already decided in his mind that the lieutenant was good, but lacked some of the innate qualities necessary for jungle warfare survival.
“Well, they got off easy, Tito. If these would have been the real thing…”
“Si, jefe. I know.”
Siegel turned around and talked into the radio.
“Coordinator, Mambo here, over.”
“Mambo, Coordinator, SitRep, over.” Coordinator was asking for a situation report.
“Just captured the last of the yellow team. War game complete. Mark forty-five minutes. No casualties our team.”
“That’s a new record. Congratulations, Mambo. Proceed to rendezvous point for airlift.”
“Roger.”
Ortiz reached the large concrete ramp at the edge of the exercise zone, where they were to meet the helicopter back to Howard Air Force base for a well-deserved rest. He frowned. The helo hadn’t arrived yet. He sat down and simply stared at the sky. The sun was high overhead. Ortiz closed his eyes.
His mind filled with memories of his endless, bloody years in the barrio. Memories of gang wars, of his explosive youth. He had been careless back then. His life had belonged to his gang. He did what they did, behaved like they behaved. So many of his friends had fallen victim to pointless wars fought to prove one gang’s machismo over another’s. To prove that the Rebeldes were better than the Lobos. Or perhaps that the Pumas were superior to the Sangrientos. Or to claim a piece of land, which no one really owned in the formal sense of the word. It was a way to show everyone else that a gang controlled that section of the neighborhood and was willing to fight for it. Nothing else mattered. Sometimes a gang would grow in numbers and attempt to expand, which usually meant cutting into someone else’s territory. Then wars would break out. Wars in the conventional sense of the word, with automatic weapons, grenades, and homemade bombs. Long gone were the baseball bats, chains, and knives. Gang wars were so feared by the police that at times the police department would stall on purpose before attempting to break them up, to avoid too much involvement in the actual confrontation. The police were mainly there to make a report of the incident, count the dead, and settle the last few fights with an overkill of manpower. That minimized the exposure of police officers to most of the danger, and allowed the gangs to do what they wanted to do in the first place: kill each other. It made sense, Ortiz decided. In the eyes of the police, gang members were criminals anyway, so gang wars did the police department the favor of exterminating criminals. Plain and simple.
Ortiz had spent almost four years with a gang after he’d tired of his father’s constant beatings. He didn’t want to take it anymore. Older and able to take care of himself, Ortiz lived on the street, learning the ways of the world. He also learned about human nature, friendships, blood oaths, treason…death. Ortiz experienced them all, until the day reality struck home. Ortiz came to terms with the fact that he was a survivor, and there just weren’t any survivors within the gangs. No true winners. Most were destined to die or go to prison. Ortiz had seen many of his friends go both routes.
That was when he had left the streets. He’d left his beloved barrio and searched for another place to use his only skills. One day he’d walked into an Army recruiting office, and his life had taken a turn for the better. He had survived the barrio.
“Hey, Tito!”
Ortiz looked up to his right at Tommy Zimmer, another member of Mambo, also wearing a set of jungle-warfare-colored fatigues and black boots. Zimmer wore the fatigues a bit differently, though. He couldn’t take the excessive heat and humidity of the tropical hell their superiors called Panama, and had cut off the sleeves. Ortiz liked Zimmer, a young kid from the Bronx, a smart kid. Ortiz had met him at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They’d become instant friends. Although they shared a common bond. They were ghetto survivors.
“Yeah, hermano. What’s up?”
“We’re moving out, man! Would you believe that shit? Our platoon’s movin’ out. We just got the order.”
Ortiz leaned forward. “Movin’ out? What are you talkin’ about? We just finished bustin’ our asses in this exercise. Where are we goin’?”
“Some place in South America. Don’t know where. All I know is that some CIA honchos are gonna brief us. C’mon. The LT wants to talk to all of us before that.”
Ortiz stood up, wondering what in the world was going on. This side of the hemisphere was supposed to be quiet.
“Mierda! I don’t like the smell of it, Tommy.”
“Why not, man? Better than just stickin’ ‘round here doin’ nothin’.”
“CIA means secret mission. And secret mission means that if we fuck up inside enemy territory chances are no one will acknowledge us.”
“What are you sayin’?” Zimmer asked, lowering his eyebrows in a mix of curiosity and concern.
“That if we fuck up we’re as good as dead and no one will come to our rescue. That’s what it means.”
“How do you know it’s gonna be secret?”
“Well, CIA usually means that,” Ortiz responded. “But I don’t wanna scare you. Let’s go and see what the LT’s gotta say.”
Ortiz heard the low whup-whup sound of the transport helicopter. They picked up their gear and joined the rest of the men standing by the LZ.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GAME PLAN
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS
Hunter stepped up to the array of microphones. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the mission was going as planned. He cleared his throat and began to read the short statement on the status of Lightning.
“Good afternoon
, ladies and gentlemen of the press. First of all, I would like to say on behalf of NASA that we appreciate your patience while waiting here these last two hours. We apologize. The Lightning crew will be awakening from their rest period in another three hours, at which time we’ll be able to provide you with live coverage of the interior of the orbiter. I would like to state at this point that Lightning will be joined shortly by Atlantis for an emergency drill. NASA’s current plan—assuming Congress approves our budget—is to have all modules of Freedom ferried into space and fully operational before the end of the decade. This means far more frequent shuttle flights than ever before, which also means we must be better prepared and trained to handle emergencies in outer space if one should occur. Ladies and gentlemen of the press, the Lightning-Atlantis joint mission is to prove that we can indeed send an orbiter up in space at a moment’s notice for whatever reason. We at NASA decided that a simulated emergency would be best. That’s the end of my statement. I will take questions now.”
Almost instantly three reporters raised their hands.
“Yes, the lady in the back?”
“Mr. Hunter, Ellen Nunez, AP. Why the secrecy? Why wait until now to tell us this?”
Hunter slowly shook his head and smiled thinly. “We are conducting a training mission in emergency procedures, Ms. Nunez. It would hardly be effective if there were advance warnings. Therefore it was essential that it remain secret until the very last minute.”
“So, this is a drill then?” she asked.
“That’s correct, and in the process, the astronauts in Lightning will check out the orbiter for commercial use.”
“Is Atlantis carrying any commercial or military payloads?”
“Atlantis is still carrying its scheduled payload.”
Hunter inhaled deeply and forced his face to remain relaxed as he scanned the room and noticed several hands up in the air. He had lied to the world, and could only hope it would not come back to haunt him someday.
HOWARD AIR FORCE BASE, PANAMA
The hum of the air-conditioning unit disturbed Ortiz as he sat next to Zimmer in the brightly lit briefing room. Siegel kept checking his watch every minute or so as he continued to pace back and forth in the front of the room. The entire platoon had been waiting for the CIA officials to arrive for the past hour, but still saw no sign of them. Outside the brick building, each man’s gear sat neatly packed in a row next to the entrance. They were ready, Ortiz felt. Day or night, he truly believed Mambo could handle anything.
“They’re pretty late, hermano,” he whispered to Zimmer, who had his eyes closed. The Bronx native opened his eyes, turned his head, and shrugged.
“Figures,” he responded. “The grunts are always th’ ones that gotta wait.”
Ortiz rubbed his hand over his short-cropped black hair and felt a scar he’d gotten during a fight many years ago. Hair had never grown back on that particular spot of his skull. He thought of it as a constant reminder of his past.
Siegel’s short barracks briefing an hour ago had been vague. All he knew was that they would be heading south of there, that it would involve jungle warfare, and that the operation would last up to twenty-four hours. Nothing else. No idea on what they were going after, no information on the size of the opposition’s force, or on their weapons. Was it a rescue mission? Had a guerrilla group kidnapped someone the CIA deemed important enough to go in and rescue? Or was it an assassination mission of some sort?
Ortiz shook his head. Too many questions. He checked his watch. The CIA guys were really late.
Suddenly the door in the back of the room flew open. Several heads turned. Ortiz spotted the base’s commanding officer, General Jack Olson, followed by two men and a woman. All three wore civilian clothes; Ortiz had never seen them before.
“Ten-hut!” Siegel called out.
The entire platoon jumped to attention.
“At ease, men,” Olson said as he walked ahead of the three civilians, who Ortiz suspected were the CIA officials. One of the two men was much older than the other. The older one was a large-framed man with thin, brownish hair. The second was a bit shorter and thinner but muscular. The woman seemed to be her late thirties, but very attractive.
“All right people, sit down and listen up,” Olson began. “The following information is highly classified. Lieutenant Siegel’s platoon has been selected for a very critical mission of great national interest. I want all to provide your platoon leader with your fullest support and listen carefully to what Mr. Thomas Pruett has to say. He is Head of Clandestine Services, CIA. The gentleman to his left is Mr. Cameron Stone. He is the CIA field officer that uncovered the criminal activity that will be the subject of this briefing. Next to him is Mrs. Marie Guilloux. She has visited the target area and might help answer some of your questions. I want to remind all of you that you belong to the 7th Special Forces Detachment Delta, and thus all of the information you are about to hear is confidential. With that, I’ll turn it over to you, sir.” Olson stepped to the side. Pruett and Stone took a few large black-and-white photographs from a briefcase and began pinning them to the corkboard while Marie looked on.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Pruett began. “I’ll be brief since we don’t have much time. I’ll go over the basics of the operation here, and then I’ll cover all the details and be more than happy to answer questions when we’re in the air.”
He walked over to the board and pointed at the first photograph. “In exactly six hours and twenty minutes, a rocket containing what is supposed to be a commercial satellite will be launched from this facility located in the city of Kourou, French Guiana.” He circled the small city with his index finger. “Our intelligence data tells us that the actual purpose of that rocket is not to deploy a satellite in space, but to deploy a drone, a satellite lookalike, that is intended to collide with the space shuttle Lightning.”
Ortiz was stunned. He could hardly believe something like this was actually happening. Before anyone could say anything, Pruett continued.
“A C-145 StarLifter is scheduled to depart this base in ten minutes, gentlemen. It will take you to French Guiana, where you will parachute down in the jungle, destroy the rocket before it is launched, and quickly retreat to a rendezvous point, where a helicopter from the U.S.S. Blue Ridge, currently sailing near the Venezuelan coast, will be waiting for you. We’ll cover mission specifics on the way over. We’re short on time.”
Olson walked back to the front of the room. “Men, this is a covert operation, and as such, we cannot force you to go along. The mission poses certain dangers, since you might run into some degree of opposition. How much? We have not been able to determine that exactly as of just yet—perhaps Mrs. Guilloux might be able to give you some details on the way—but there will be some resistance at the launch site for sure. I’m telling it to you like it is, men. Most of you have heard of me. I’m not going to stand here and blow sunshine up your ass, but I will say that you’re one of the Armed Force’s elite fighting units. This is what you have been trained for, but given the circumstances, if any of you wants out, you can simply walk to your barracks instead of to the plane. There will be no dishonor in it.
“Lieutenant Siegel tells me that all your paperwork has already been filed. Your selected beneficiaries will receive the proceeds from a CIA life insurance policy equal to your military policy, in case some of you don’t make it back. For those of you who do choose to go, you will be temporarily removed from the Armed Forces’ records until you get back. As far as the outside world is concerned you do not exist. As far as the U.S. Government is concerned you do not exist. Any questions?” He paused. “All right. Carry on, Lieutenant.”
“All right, people!” Siegel said. “You heard the general! Everyone outside. Those of you who are coming along line up behind your gear. The rest back to the barracks. Fall out!”
Ortiz and the others got up and headed outside. As
he reached for his Ray-Ban Wayfarers he noticed that every single member of Mambo stood at attention behind his packed gear. Ortiz’s chest swelled and he raised his chin. He was Mambo, the best of the 7th U.S. Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta. He snapped to attention next to Zimmer as Siegel and Olson came outside followed by the civilians. Olson looked at Siegel and then eyed the troops.
“Make us proud. Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir,” responded Siegel as he did an about-face and scanned the platoon. “Let’s move it. Fall out! Everyone grab your gear and get in that truck. Move it!”
Ortiz followed the line of soldiers walking across the tarmac to a waiting truck. Things were happening too fast. He felt carried away by the emotion of the moment, by the possibility of combat. He’d always heard that when the call came, there was hardly any time to react, hardly any time to think. Trained instincts, honed to a fine edge by Mambo, took over. He now understood the reason behind the exhaustive drills, the constant hell he and his fellow soldiers were exposed to daily in the inhospitable jungles of Panama. It had prepared him for this moment, for what his country now needed him to do. Ortiz smiled. He felt ready, capable, qualified to do the job, but the smile quickly vanished from his face. Although his instincts told him he was prepared, his logical side told him to beware of overconfidence, not to underestimate the enemy. Ortiz had learned two important lessons in the barrio. First, never underestimate the enemy. Always expect the unexpected. Second, do the unexpected, surprise the enemy, avoid predictability. Anyone who consistently followed his credo increased his or her chances of survival tenfold.
Ortiz jumped last into the back of the truck, pulling the tailgate up behind him. The truck started and headed down to the ramp. The trip took less than a minute. Ortiz didn’t even have time to get comfortable.
Siege of Lightning Page 18
