by Tom Clancy
“Ryan, you hear me?” Johns asked.
Jack reached down to the mike button. “Yeah, Colonel.”
“Your guy on the ground wants us to do something different.”
“Like what?”
PJ told him. “It means another tanking, but otherwise we can hack it. Your call.”
“You sure?”
“Special ops is what they pay us for.”
“Okay, then. We want that bastard.”
“Roger. Sergeant Zimmer, we’ll be feet-dry in one minute. Systems check.”
The flight engineer looked down his panel. “Roger that, PJ. Everything looks pretty solid to me, sir. Everything’s green.”
“Okay. First stop is Team OMEN. ETA is two-zero minutes. Ryan, you’d better grab hold of something. We’re going to start nap-of-the-earth. I have to talk to our backup.”
Jack didn’t know what that meant. He found out as soon as they crossed the first range of coastal mountains. The Pave Low leapt up like a mad elevator, then the bottom dropped out as it cleared the summit. The helicopter was on computer-assisted-flight mode, taking a six-degree slope—it felt much worse than that—up and down the terrain features, and skimmed over the ground with bare feet of clearance. The aircraft was made to be safe, not comfortable. Ryan didn’t feel much of either.
“First LZ in three minutes,” Colonel Johns announced half an eternity later. “Let’s go hot, Buck.”
“Roger.” Zimmer reached down on his console and flipped a toggle switch. “Switches hot. Guns are hot.”
“Gunners, stand to. That means you, Ryan,” PJ added.
“Thanks.” Jack gasped without toggling his mike. He took position on the left side of the aircraft and hit the activation switch for the minigun, which started turning at once.
“ETA one minute,” the copilot said. “I got a good strobe at eleven o’clock. Okay. OMEN, this is CAESAR, do you copy, over?”
Jack heard only one side of the conversation, but mentally thanked the flight crew for letting the guys in back know something.
“Roger, OMEN, say again your situation.... Roger that, we’re coming in. Good strobe light. Thirty seconds. Get ready in back,” Captain Willis told Ryan and the rest. “Safe guns, safe guns.”
Jack held his thumbs clear of the switch and elevated the minigun at the sky. The helicopter took a big nose-up attitude as it came down. It stopped and hovered a foot off the ground, not quite touching.
“Buck, tell the captain to come forward immediately.”
“Roger, PJ.” Behind him, Ryan heard Zimmer run aft, then, through the soles of his feet, felt the troops race aboard. He kept his eyes outboard, looking over the rotating barrels of his gun until the helicopter took off, and even then he trained the mini down at the ground.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Colonel Johns observed as he brought the aircraft back to a southerly heading. “Hell, I don’t even know why they pay us for this. Where’s that ground-pounder?”
“Hooking him up now, sir,” Zimmer replied. “Got ’em all aboard. All clean, no casualties.”
“Captain ... ?”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“We got a job for your team if you think you’re up to it.”
“Let’s hear it, sir.”
The MC-130E Combat Talon was orbiting over Colombian territory, which made the crew a little nervous, since they didn’t have permission. The main job now was to relay communications, and even with the sophisticated gear aboard the four-engine support aircraft, they couldn’t handle it from over the ocean.
What they really needed was a good radar. The Pave Low/Combat Talon team was supposed to operate under supervision of an AWACS which, however, they hadn’t brought along. Instead a lieutenant and a few NCOs were writing on maps and talking over secure radio circuits at the same time.
“CAESAR, say your fuel state,” Captain Montaigne called.
“Looking good, CLAW. We’re staying down in the valleys. Estimate we’ll tank again in eight-zero minutes.”
“Roger eight-zero minutes. Be advised negative hostile radio traffic at this time.”
“Acknowledged.” That was one possible problem. What if the Cartel had somebody in the Colombian Air Force? Sophisticated as both American aircraft were, a P-51 left over from the Second World War could easily kill both of them.
Clark was waiting for them. With two vehicles. Vega had stolen a farm truck big enough for their needs. It turned out that he was quite adept at rewiring ignition systems, a skill about whose acquisition he was vague. The helicopter touched down and the men ran out toward the strobe light that Chavez still had. Clark got their officer and briefed him quickly. The helicopter took off and headed north, helped by the twenty-knot wind blowing down the valley. Then it looped west, heading for the MC-130 and another midair refueling.
The Microvan and the truck drove back toward the farmhouse. Clark’s mind was still racing. A really smart guy would have run the operation from inside the village, which would have been far tougher to approach. Cortez wanted to be far from anyone’s view, but failed to consider his physical security requirements in military terms. Cortez was thinking like a spy, for whom security was secrecy, and not a line-animal, for whom security was a lot of guns and a clear field of fire. Everyone, he figured, had his limitations. Clark rode the back of the farm truck with the OMEN team group around him and his hand-drawn diagram of the objective. It was just like the old days, Clark thought, running missions on zero-minute notice. He hoped that these young light-fighters were as good as the animals in 3rd SOG. Even Clark, however, had limitations. The animals of 3rd SOG had been young then, too.
“Ten minutes, then,” he concluded.
“All right,” the captain agreed. “We haven’t had much contact. We have all the weapons and ammo we need.”
“So?” Escobedo asked.
“So we killed ten norteamericanos last night and we will kill ten more tonight.”
“But the losses!” LaTorre objected.
“We are fighting highly skilled professional soldiers. Our men wiped them out, but the enemy fought bravely and well. Only one survived,” Cortez said. “I have his body in the next room. He died here soon after they brought him in.”
“How do you know that they are not close by?” Escobedo demanded. The idea of physical danger was something he’d allowed himself to forget.
“I know the location of every enemy group. They are waiting to be extracted by their helicopter support. They do not know that their helicopter has been withdrawn.”
“How did you manage that?” LaTorre wondered aloud.
“Please permit me my methods. You hired me for my expertise. You should not be surprised when I demonstrate it.”
“And now?”
“Our assault group—nearly two hundred men this time—should now be approaching the second American group. This one’s code name is Team FEATURE,” Félix added. “Our next question, of course, is which elements of the Cartel leadership are taking advantage of this—or perhaps I should say, which members are working with the Americans, using them for their own ends. As is often the case in such operations, both sides appear to be using the other.”
“Oh?” It was Escobedo this time.
“Sí, jefe. And it should not surprise either of you that I have been able to identify those who have betrayed their comrades.” He looked at both men, a thin smile on his lips.
There were only two road guards. Clark was back in the VW Microvan while OMEN raced through the woods to get to the objective. Vega and León had removed a side window, and now Vega, also in back, held it in place with his hand.
“Everybody ready?” Clark asked.
“Go!” Chavez replied.
“Here we go.” Clark took the last turn in the road and slowed, taking the car right up to the two guards. They took their weapons off sling and assumed a more aggressive stance as he slowed the vehicle. “Excuse me, I am lost.”
That was Vega’s cue
to let go of the glass. As it dropped, Chavez and León came up to their knees and aimed their MP-5s at the guards. Both took bursts in the head without warning, and both fell without a sound. Strangely, the submachine guns sounded awfully loud within the confines of the vehicle.
“Nicely done,” Clark said. Before proceeding, he lifted his radio.
“This is SNAKE. OMEN, report in.”
“SNAKE, this is OMEN Six. In position. Say again, we are in position.”
“Roger, stand by. CAESAR, this is SNAKE.”
“SNAKE, this is CAESAR, ready to copy.”
“Position check.”
“We are holding at five miles out.”
“Roger that, CAESAR, continue to hold at five miles. Be advised we are moving in.”
Clark killed the lights and drove the van a hundred yards down the driveway. He selected a spot where the road twisted. Here he stopped the van and maneuvered it to block the road.
“Give me one of your frags,” he said, stepping out and leaving the keys in the ignition. First he loosened the cotter pin on the grenade. Next he wired the body of the grenade to the door handle and ran another wire from the pin to the accelerator pedal. It took under a minute. The next person who opened that door was in for a nasty surprise. “Okay, come on.”
“Tricky, Mr. Clark,” Chavez observed.
“Kid, I was a Ninja before it became fashionable. Now shut up and do your jobs.” No smile now, no time for banter. It was like the return of his youth, but while that feeling was a welcome one, it would have been more so if his youth had not been spent doing things best unremembered. The pure exhilaration of leading men into battle, however, was something that his memory had not lied about. It was terrible. It was dangerous. It was also something at which he excelled, and knew it. For the moment he was not Mr. Clark. He was, again, The Snake, the man whose footsteps no one had ever heard. It took five minutes to get to their jump-off point.
The NVA were smarter opponents than these. All the security troops were near the house. He took Vega’s night scope and counted them, sweeping the grounds to check for strays, but there were none.
“OMEN Six, this is SNAKE. Say your position.”
“We are in the treeline north of the objective.”
“Toss your strobe to mark your position.”
“Okay, done.”
Clark turned his head and the goggles showed the infrared strobe blinking on the open ground, thirty feet from the treeline. Chavez, listening on the same radio circuit, did the same.
“Okay, stand by. CAESAR, this is SNAKE. We are in position on the east side of the objective where the driveway comes through the trees. OMEN is on the north side. We have two good strobes to mark friendly positions. Acknowledge.”
“Roger, copy, you are in the treeline at the road, east side of the objective. Say again, east of the objective, with OMEN to the north. Copy strobes to mark friendly positions. We are standing by at five miles,” PJ replied in his best computer voice.
“Roger, come on in. It’s show time. I repeat, come on in.”
“Roger, copy, CAESAR is turning in with hot guns.”
“OMEN, this is SNAKE. Commence firing, commence firing.”
Cortez had them both at a disadvantage, though neither knew the whole reason for it. LaTorre, after all, had talked to Félix the previous day and been told that Escobedo was the traitor in their midst. Because of that, he had his pistol out first.
“What is this?” Escobedo demanded.
“The ambush was very clever, jefe, but I saw through your ploy,” Cortez said.
“What are you talking about?”
Before Cortez could give his preplanned answer, several rifles started firing north of the house. Félix wasn’t a total fool. His first reaction was to extinguish the lights in the house. LaTorre still had his gun aimed at Escobedo, and Cortez dashed to the window, a pistol in his hand, to see what was happening. Just as he got there, he realized that he was being foolish, and dropped to his knees, peering around the frame. The house was of block construction and should stop a bullet, he told himself, though the windows certainly would not.
The fire was light and sporadic, just a few people, just an annoyance, and he had people to deal with that. Cortez’s own men, assisted by the bodyguards for Escobedo and LaTorre, returned fire at once. Félix watched his men move like soldiers, spreading out into two fire teams, dropping at once into the usual infantry drill of fire and movement. Whatever annoyance this was, they’d soon take care of things. The Cartel bodyguards, as usual, were brave but oafish. Two of them were already down.
Yes, he saw, it was already working. The gunfire from the trees was diminishing. Some bandits, perhaps, who’d been late realizing that they’d bitten off more than—
The sound was like nothing he’d ever heard.
“Target in sight,” Jack heard over the intercom phones. Ryan was looking the wrong way, of course. Though he was standing at a gun, Colonel Johns had not mistaken him for a gunner, not a real one. Sergeant Zimmer was on the right-side gun, the one that corresponded to the pilot’s seat. They’d come skimming in so low that Ryan felt—knew that he could reach out and touch some treetops. Then the aircraft pivoted. The sound and vibration assaulted Jack through all the protective gear, and the flash that accompanied the sound cast a shadow of the aircraft before Jack’s eyes as he looked for other targets.
It looked like a huge, curving tube of yellow neon, Cortez’s mind told him. Wherever it touched the ground, dust rose in a great cloud. It swept up and down the field between the house and the trees. Then it stopped after what could have been only a few seconds. Cortez couldn’t see anything in the dust, and it took a second to realize that he should have been able to see something, the flashes of his men’s rifles at the very least. Then there were flashes, but those were from farther away, in the treeline, and there were more now.
“CAESAR: Check fire, check fire!”
“Roger,” the radio replied. Overhead, the horrible noise stopped. Clark hadn’t heard it in a very long time. Another sound from his youth, it was as fearful now as it had been then.
“Heads up, OMEN, we’re moving now, SNAKE is moving. Acknowledge.”
“OMEN, this is Six, cease fire, cease fire!” The shooting from the treeline stopped. “SNAKE: Go!”
“Come on!” It was stupid to lead them with only a silenced pistol in his hand, Clark knew, but he was in command, and the good commanders led from the front. They covered the two hundred yards to the house in thirty seconds.
“Door!” Clark said to Vega, who used his AK to blast off the hinges, then kicked it down. Clark dove through low, rolling when he hit, looking and seeing one man in the room. He had an AK, and fired it, but shot high. Clark dropped him with a silenced round in the face, then another as he fell. There was a doorway but no door to the next room. He gestured to Chavez, who tossed a CS grenade into it. They waited for it to go off, then both rushed the room, again diving in low.
There were three men. One, holding a pistol, took a step toward them. Clark and Chavez hit him in the chest and head. The other armed man, kneeling by the window, tried to turn about, but couldn’t do it on his knees, and fell onto his side. Chavez was there in an instant, smashing his buttstock onto his forehead. Clark rushed the third man, slamming him against the block wall. León and Vega came in next, leapfrogging to the final door. That room was empty.
“Building is clear!” Vega shouted. “Hey, I—”
“Come on!” Clark dragged his man out the front. Chavez did the same, covered by León. Vega was slow in moving. They didn’t know why until they were all outside.
Clark was already on his radio. “CAESAR, this is SNAKE. We got ’em. Let’s get the fuck outa here.”
“León,” Vega said. “Look here.”
“Tony,” the sergeant said. The only other survivor from Ninja Hill had been a BANNER man. Leon walked over to Escobedo, who was still conscious. “Motherfucker! You’re fuckin’ dea
d!” León screamed, bringing his gun down.
“Stop!” Clark yelled at him. That almost didn’t work, but Clark knocked him down, which did. “You’re a soldier, goddammit, act like one! You and Vega—carry your friend on the chopper.”
Team OMEN worked its way across the field. Several men, remarkably enough, weren’t quite dead yet. That aberration was corrected with single rifle shots. The captain got his men together and counted them off with his finger.
“Good work,” Clark told him. “You got everybody?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, here’s comes our ride.”
The Pave Low swept in from the west this time, and again didn’t quite touch the ground. Just like the old days, Clark. A helicopter that touched the ground could set off a mine. Not likely here, but PJ hadn’t gotten old enough to be a colonel by overlooking any chances at all. He grabbed Escobedo—he’d gotten a good enough look by now to identify him—by the arm and propelled him to the ramp. One of the chopper crew met them there, did his count, and before Clark was sitting down with his charge, the MH-53J was moving up and north. He assigned a soldier to look after Señor Escobedo and went forward.
Sweet Jesus, Ryan thought. He’d counted eight bodies, and they’d just been the ones close to the helicopter. Jack switched off his gun motor and relaxed—and really did this time. Relaxation was a relative thing, he’d just learned. Being shot at really was worse than flying in the back of a goddamned helicopter. Amazing, he thought. A hand grabbed his shoulder.
“We got Cortez and Escobedo alive!” Clark shouted at him.
“Escobedo? What the hell was he—”
“You complaining?”
“What the hell can we do with him?” Jack asked.
