Project Reaper
Page 20
He was aware of who had just made the request, since they boarded; the word had spread amongst the crew that the OSC had arrived and that the aft end deck below the flight deck, was out of bounds.
A few minutes later, he returned with the weapon and placed it on the table, “Sir; the M-249 SAW, weight twenty-two pounds loaded, takes the 5.56x45 mm NATO
Cartridge. Rate of fire 750-1,000 rounds per minute with a Muzzle velocity 3,000 feet per second. Effective range
1,000 yards.”
Max picked up the weapon; he had fired one on the
range and recalled the master Sergeants words from the gunnery range, “Due to the lack of automatic firepower in small units, this gun provides infantry squads with the heavy volume of fire of a machine gun combined with accuracy and portability approaching that of a rifle.”
Max handed the weapon over to Roy, “would you be happy with this Roy?”
“Certainly sir would have been my first choice.”
Roy handed it back to the Sergeant.
Max spoke to the Sergeant, “I’ll have two of my team collect them in an hour Sergeant.”
“Yes sir; how much ammo would you need?”
“Remind me Sergeant; how many rounds in an ammunition belt for this weapon?”
“Two hundred sir.”
“Then we will take six hundred rounds per weapon Sergeant.”
“They will be ready for when you men come down Sir.”
“Thank you sergeant that will be all.”
With that, Max and Roy left the room...
Toledo Verdugo’s Warehouse
Rio Negro Twenty miles North of Bucaramanga
Lat = 7 degrees, 15.8 minutes North
Long = 73 degrees, 8.6 minutes West
Wednesday 4th January 1989
Nineteen forty-five hour’s local time
Five hours behind GMT
Juan Manuel Alvarez and his men had arrived at the warehouse five minutes ago, the men had found a room to use in building number one and Juan had just found Ramón in building number two talking to a man.
Juan waited at the door entrance until Ramón had finished; Ramón noticed him and walked over to greet him, “Juan it is good that you have arrived, come outside.”
“Ramón; what is this talk of a British military unit about to raid our warehouses?”
Ramón spent the next few minutes apprising him about the Professor, “so now you see why the British are involved Juan.”
“What do we know about their numbers,” replied Juan.
“Unfortunately; that is one answer we do not have, I
would guess anywhere between ten to twenty troops.”
“So my friend; just like the old days we plan our best and expect the worst,” Juan replied.
“Juan; the Professor will be taken from here by me; back to Senior Verdugo’s hacienda in the next ten minutes, you will have control of the operation here, along with your men you have another twenty to use, any questions?”
“Leave everything with me Ramón,” replied Juan.
Both men shook hands and Ramón walked back into number two building and called over to the Professor, “Professor it is time for us to go.”
Ramón’s conversation a few minutes earlier had indicated to the Professor they would be leaving in ten minutes back to the hacienda because Senior Verdugo wanted to see him.
Professor Hooke followed Ramón out and over to one of the parked vehicles, the professor noticed a lot of activity and there appeared to be more men around than normal.
He climbed into the passenger seat and spoke to Ramón, “seems a lot of activity going on Ramón; looks like something is going on.”
“Nothing to concern you Professor!”
Ramón started the vehicle up and quickly drove over to and out the exit, turning right onto the road.
Verdugo Hacienda
Bucaramanga Colombia
Lat = 7 degrees, 8.3 minutes North
Long = 73 degrees, 6.1 minutes West
Wednesday 4th January 1989
Twenty forty three hour’s local time.
Five hours behind GMT
The journey from San Negro had been mainly quiet, on the few times Professor Hooke had tried to engage Ramón in conversation; he had either ignored him or cut him off.
They were approaching the Hacienda up the long driveway; nonetheless, the building was clearly visible with all the surrounding lights on.
As they pulled up at the main entrance one of Verdugo’s servants came out to greet them, and led them into the Hacienda.
Professor Hooke and Ramón entered the main room where Verdugo was sat eating a meal with his wife and two children, he looked up and spoke, “come join us Professor, you to Ramón.
The table had two spare place settings waiting, the
Professor and Ramón sat down and were quickly attended to, with food and drink.
Professor Hooke spoke first aware that Verdugo’s wife and children were present, “Senior Verdugo; I appreciate your hospitality; however I thought the work you wanted me to prepare was important?”
Toledo Verdugo quickly recognised the Professor’s tactful approach, “Professor; let us eat first and we will talk later.”
Toledo Verdugo’s Warehouse
Rio Negro Twenty miles North of Bucaramanga
Lat = 7 degrees, 15.8 minutes North
Long = 73 degrees, 8.6 minutes West
Wednesday 4th January 1989
Twenty fifty hour’s local time
Five hours behind GMT
Juan Manuel Alvarez had no formal military experience, however he had been in enough firefights to understand one thing, surprise was the key ingredient that would increase your chances of a successful outcome.
The British force would be more in tune with this, so he needed an ace to play and an idea began to formulate.
Working on the proviso that they would be coming to rescue the Professor, they would be focused on this, and would have some information as to which building he was being kept in.
Therefore, building two would be their prime target; he looked over at his men and called Pedro over.
Pedro ran over to him, he was a small wiry man only five feet one inches in height; he had worked in the mines as
an explosive engineer, until he was injured preventing him from working down the mines again. “Si Senior Alvarez.”
“Pedro have we any explosives?”
“There is some C-4 in the store room in building four along with claymore mines Senior.”
“Okay Pedro this is what I want you to do.”
HMS Ark Royal
Lago de Maracaibo
Venezuela
Lat = 9 degrees, 48.1 minutes North
Long = 71 degrees, 31.5 minutes West
Wednesday 4th January 1989
Twenty one hundred hours and fifteen minutes
Five hours behind GMT
Max was giving the final briefing to the teams, “the only thing that has changed since the earlier briefing, is that the warehouses in Rio Negro has had reinforcements, an extra eleven men have arrived.”
Max paused before continuing, “we have to presume that they may be expecting us, therefore we have some extra firepower from the M-249 SAW’s. Teams two and four will deploy the M-249’s alongside the snipers; okay everyone time to board our transport.”
The teams moved to the flight deck where two Sea King helicopters were waiting, halfway down the flight deck two Sea Harrier FRS1’s were being prepped.
Roy Smith and his team quickly boarded the Sea King, call
sign Zulu-Alpha 309.
Max and the three other teams were on board the other Sea King call
sign Zulu Alpha 312 a few minutes later.
Five minutes later, both Sea Kings were cleared for take-off, lifting into the clear night sky and taking an initial heading of two hundred and ten degrees southwest. Both navigators calculated their respective flight times with a speed of 120mph and altitude of eight thousand feet.
Zulu Alpha 309 would arrive at the insertion point to the southeast of the Hacienda in one hour twenty minutes and Zulu Alpha 312 would reach its IP north of the warehouses in one hour and twenty-six minutes.
Insertion Point
One mile southeast of Verdugo’s Hacienda
Bucaramanga Colombia
Lat = 7 degrees, 8.0 minutes North
Long = 73 degrees, 5.6 minutes West
Wednesday 4th January 1989
Twenty-three twenty hour’s local time.
Five hours behind GMT
Zulu Alpha 309 had made good time to the IP, the night sky with the half-moon offered the pilot enough light to make his landing comfortably.
The starboard door was opened and Roy Smith led his six-man team out into the darkness.
Roy pulled out his map of the area and quickly took his bearings with his compass, and plotted their route to the Hacienda, Roy estimated the ETA as twenty minutes maximum, and he checked his watch, twenty three twenty-two hours.
The satellite Intel had shown there were no other properties or signs of life in that area, therefore Zulu Alpha 309 was going to wait at the IP and would be ready to move to the Hacienda should it be required.
The one-mile trek was easy going for the team, although some cloud had begun to appear, the level of light was good.
Roy made several small course alterations on route, and twenty minutes later, they were now looking down at the Hacienda from a nearby hill, festooned with bushes.
Roy pulled his binoculars from one of his tunic’s pouches and began to scan the Hacienda.
It was exactly as Max had drawn it, there appeared to be no signs around the hacienda or its grounds, a ground floor light was illuminated from a large window to the right of the main door, and there was one vehicle a pickup style at the front of the building.
Roy operated his Comms, “Eagle four to ICIS over.”
GAIL’s voice responded, “Hello four; what can I do for you?”
“I need a satellite update on the Hacienda and surrounding grounds over.”
GAIL replied, “Wait one.”
Several seconds later GAIL spoke, “Eagle four, the satellite shows no movement or heat signatures on the external ground parts of the target area, there are three heat signatures on the outside of the main building; I have located you three hundred yards to the south of the target, over.”
“Copy that GAIL, please advise if you detect any changes, we are moving in now.”
Insertion Point
one mile north of Toledo Verdugo’s warehouse
Rio Negro Twenty miles North of Bucaramanga
Lat = 7 degrees, 16.1 minutes North
Long = 73 degrees, 8.5 minutes West
Wednesday 4th January 1989
Twenty-three twenty nine hour’s local time.
Five hours behind GMT
Zulu Alpha 312 was a few minutes behind schedule arriving at the IP, as the helicopter remained hovering two team’s abseiled down to the ground and immediately fanned out weapons aimed up to cover the area.
Zulu Alpha 312 quickly accelerated away heading south, southeast taking the team four to the Final rendezvous point FRV.
Manny Gall quickly took point; fifty yards ahead of the team two whom kept a ten-yard spread between each team member.
The reaming team along with Max followed fifteen seconds later reciprocating the ten yards spread.
This was done to reduce the teams being caught in a group as well as if any landmines exploded this would
minimise casualties to the team.
Manny swiftly began looking for signs of fresh spoor on the dirt track, his head up looking about ten feet in front and walking to the side of the dirt track so as not obliterate any signs of spoor.
Spoor falls into two main categories ground and
aerial spoor, halfway down the track Manny stopped and raised his left arm with his hand clenched into a fist; the following team member spotted the signal and replicated it.
The signal went down the line and all members came to a stop, moved to the edge of the dirt track, and assumed a crouched position with weapons ready.
Max spoke into his Comms, “eagle three to eagle seven what have you got over?”
Manny paused before replying, he was looking at very fresh ground spoor in the form of several boot prints, “seven to three, I have some fresh footprints no more than an hour old; standby over.”
Max replied, “Copy that seven, all teams stand by.”
Max beckoned Corporal Hardwick over, “what have you got on your instrument there?”
Corporal Hardwick had been continually receiving updates on the PCDL from GAIL at ICIS, he showed Max the display, “This is us here sir, there are no signs of
anyone between us and the buildings.”
Max looked at the screen that was showing a luminous green and black image with red heat signatures at their location, “three to seven; there are no heat signatures between us and the warehouses over.”
“Copy that three give me a few minutes, something is not right down here.”
Although Max could see that no other heat signatures were near them, he trusted Manny’s tracking skills and sixth sense.
Manny was looking at four sets of prints with a heavy boot pattern, they appeared to have been carrying something heavy as the depth of the indentions were deep and the length of stride was short, the prints indicated that the four men had stopped there and then retraced their steps for several yards.
Manny followed these prints and noticed they split, two sets went to the left and the other two went to the right, into scrubland either side of the track.
Manny had seen this type of ploy before, he lay down and crawled slowly forward along the track, along with his exceptional good eyesight and the cloud above thinning out; he spotted what he was looking for, two trip wires.
Manny followed the one set of trip wires that lead to
the east side of the track and found what he expected; a claymore mine.
The claymore mine is a directional anti-personnel mine
its inventor, Norman A. MacLeod, named it after the large Scottish sword.
The Claymore fires around 700, 1/8 inch steel balls, out to about 100 meters within a 60° arc in front of the device. It is used primarily in ambushes and as an anti-infiltration device against enemy infantry.
Many could make out the typical wording on the front of the mine, Front towards enemy; he moved to the rear of it, he found a twig to hold down the trip wire on the firing mechanism and clipped the wire, disarming the device.
Manny followed the other trip wire to the other side of the track and repeated the process.
“Eagle seven to three over.”
Max replied “go ahead seven.”
“It looks like we are expected sir, found and disarmed two claymore mines on the track.”
“Good work seven, are we safe to proceed?”
“Standby on that sir, I’ll continue down the track to within a hundred yards of the warehouses and call you back.”
“Copy that seven, standing by.”
It took Manny fifteen minutes to reconnoitre the
remainder of the track.
He was now crouched down one hundred yards from the four warehouses, “Eagle seven to three it is safe to proceed down the track to my location over.”
“Roger that seven we are on our way, out.”
&
nbsp; With that, the teams moved silently down the track joining Manny several minutes later.
Max spoke into his Comms, “Eagle three to team four give me a SITREP over.”
Colin Bishop and his team had deployed at the road entrance to the warehouses, “Eagle three we are in position over.”
“Copy that six standby, out.”
Max gave the order for team two to deploy, the sniper and the trooper with the M-249 SAW deployed immediately to the west side of the track, Manny Gall led two of the team over to prepare for the diversionary tactic.
The team had brought a jerry can half filled with fuel and they would detonate it using a piece of rag stuffed into the open top and lighting it.
Corporal Hardwick had been continuously monitoring the area on the PCDL, as the group was deploying, he had a clear image showing a cluster of heat signatures to the southwest quadrant strung along the road perimeter to the
first building.
He spoke into his Comms, “sir, you need to see this.”
Max responded, “All units wait, I repeat all units wait.”
Max moved across to Corporal Hardwick, “what have you got
Corporal?”
Corporal Hardwick showed Max the images on the PCDL, “this is us here and that is the team four there, this large cluster must be the enemy sir.”
Max was looking at the cluster of heat signatures, “Can this show any heat signatures in the buildings corporal?”
“I will need GAIL to reconfigure the settings sir.”
With that, Corporal Hardwick typed in a request and within a minute, GAIL had reconfigured the satellites cameras to produce heat signatures through the buildings.
Corporal Hardwick showed Max the device, “no heat signatures showing sir.”
“That’s interesting Corporal, if this piece of equipment is correct there are no people in any of the warehouses, and this lot over here are all obviously out for a midnight stroll.”
Corporal Hardwick could detect the dry humour in Max’s voice.
Max spoke into his Comms, “eagle seven can you discreetly check out building two over.”