by Andrew Watts
Chase looked at the gunnery sergeant. “Sounds like it would be pretty hard for us to get access to that.”
“I agree,” said the gunny.
“What were they hoping to get in there?”
Chase said, “An important piece of hardware.”
Captain Calhoun said, “When do you want to move?”
Chase said, “The longer we wait, the better their fortifications are going to get.”
Gunnery Sergeant Darby said, “And to be clear—if we can get you into the communications center, would you know what you’re looking for?”
Chase nodded. “Yes. They gave me training on how to identify it and remove it.” He patted a zipped pouch near his waist. “They gave me something that looks like a bottle opener to unlock it. And I’ve got wire cutters.”
“How often do they change out personnel in the comm center?” Chase asked the Marine who had been watching the base.
“About every six hours. Something like that. I’ve got it written down.”
“And how many are in there?”
“Just two at a time.”
“So for watch turnover, when the door gets opened, we’ve got four to worry about.”
The gunny gave him a look. “And anybody who sees us walk up to it. Remember, you got a couple of bunkers down there. Those guys have got nothing better to do than look around and see what’s out of place.”
Chase said, “Then we’ll need a distraction.”
“We’re Marines,” the gunny said. “We’d always be happy to blow something up for you.”
Chase smiled. “I appreciate that.” He frowned. “Do we still have access to the drone?”
“Yeah, but they told us not to use it. Too risky.”
Chase rubbed his chin. “You know, maybe I do want you to blow something up after all.”
The gunny smiled. “Now you’re talking.”
They waited until the next night. The day was spent pulling in extra help from the remaining Marines in the Raider unit and carefully watching the patterns of the base.
There were two valuable bits of work that any reconnaissance unit performed. One was to report precisely what they saw. How many enemy troops? What type of vehicles? Pictures and video were even better. It allowed the experienced analysts at the DIA, CIA, and other agencies to extract information that the untrained eye would miss.
The other important thing recon units did was to take note of patterns. How many hours between aircraft arrivals? What times were the watch turnovers? How long did the watch turnovers take? Were there different numbers of guards at night versus during the daytime?
Since the Blackout attacks of a few weeks ago, military communications had been severely hampered. That meant that there were no pictures or video being instantly streamed back to the collection and analyst teams.
This was why the CIA had sent Chase down here to participate in this operation. He had been trained on what to look for. And based on what he witnessed, he had been briefed on what action to take.
The Marines in this unit were excellent observers. Chase suspected they had a lot of experience over in the sandbox doing just this.
Captain Calhoun had placed two of his Marines near the extraction landing zone to the north. He moved the rest to the top of their observation mountain. From there, they had access to a nearby dirt road that lead to the base. This would be where the small group would get dropped off after stealing the crypto key.
The MARSOC team also had the option of humping it down the other side of the ridgeline and sprinting to the extraction LZ in about an hour if things got too dicey.
Four men infiltrated the Manta base. What could have been a thirty-minute journey took seven hours. Chase, Gunnery Sergeant Darby, and two of the other Marine Raiders walked, crawled, and slid down from their elevated observation point through the jungle brush. Once down the mountain, they stayed concealed while following a stream that ran around the airfield.
It was a balmy eighty-two degrees. The light mist that covered the top of the ridge now grew thicker. This would reduce visibility between the Marines on top of the mountain and Chase’s small team of infiltrators. Chase silently cursed himself. As was often the case, the weather would negatively impact their plans.
They didn’t speak over radios. If the adversary had been a third-world military unit or some wannabe ISIS group, they might have used headsets and encrypted comms, but the Chinese were a different story. Any radio communications, whether encrypted or not, might alert the Chinese communications personnel that a military unit was operating in close proximity. And that could signal doom.
So they synced their watches and agreed on a timeline. If Calhoun saw that Chase had infiltrated the communications center without any trouble, then he didn’t need to do a thing. Just wait for the team of four to make it back, and then they would all head to the extraction point. The four Chinese communications personnel would hopefully not be found until the Raider unit was loaded onto the Blackhawk and headed north to safety. That was the best-case scenario.
If, however, either Calhoun couldn’t see Chase’s progress, or the time was after 2300 local and Chase hadn’t entered the comm center, Calhoun was to use the drone for its special purpose.
Crawling through the tall grass next to the stream was painfully slow. The sun had set around 1830. That had helped. But there were freaking Chinese and Ecuadorian military all over the place.
Chase’s team had made gradual progress once they had gotten near the airfield. If they moved too fast, they risked being spotted. If they moved too slowly, they wouldn’t make the timeline.
He looked at his watch. It was 2240. They still had about a one-hundred-yard crawl through the brush until they got close enough to the comm center. From the right angle, they could make it to the communications trailer without being seen by the watch team. The Chinese communication center’s duty section turnover the past few nights had been at 2250 local time, plus or minus a few minutes.
The gunny risked a whisper. “We’re gonna have to pick up the pace. If we don’t make their watch turnover, it will be a lot harder to get inside.”
Chase nodded.
They could hear the faint echo of voices in the distance. Laughter. Probably some of the soldiers shooting the shit while on the night shift.
They reached the edge of the jungle brush, to where it fed into the grass cutout of the air base. A few hundred yards away stood the communications center. The building was nothing more than a trailer on cinder blocks. A coil of razor wire about three feet high surrounded the structure. Dozens of antennae and a few dishes protruded up from its roof.
Two Chinese soldiers caught Chase’s eye. They spoke in a loud, casual tone and headed for the communications trailer. He looked at his watch. Time: 2251. He glanced up at the ridge. The glare of base lighting made it hard for him to see anything but darkness now. He looked through his observation scope, but its night vision revealed only the layer of mist returning green and black twinkles of scintillation. Chase had no idea if Captain Calhoun was able to monitor their progress. Shit. Unless they hurried, Calhoun was going to switch to plan B no matter what. If the “distraction” occurred too early, that would make it much harder for Chase and the men.
The two Chinese soldiers approached the entrance of the communications center.
Chase whispered, “Let’s go.”
The four men rose up from the brush. Each of them carried an MP-7, fitted with a suppressor and a forty-round magazine. Chase and the gunny had their MP-7s secured, however. They brandished suppressed shotguns that were specially designed for the use of US special operations.
The group of four walked up silently behind the two unsuspecting Chinese men who were now knocking on the door of the mobile communications center. Chase and team timed their approach so that they were just behind them at the moment that the door opened.
The Chinese soldier who opened the door saw the two Chinese men who were about to relieve him and his
comrade. He also saw four men in dark tactical uniforms jogging towards them, each holding black weapons pointed in his direction.
In the split second before the shotguns began firing, a confused look appeared on his face.
The suppressed shotguns barely made any noise while firing. The silencers were modular units, which added about ten inches to the end of the weapon. They were bulky, but not heavy. The rounds were subsonic. But the quietness of these shotguns wasn’t the reason that Chase and gunny Darby were using them. It was the ammunition.
The ammunition was a type of Taser, developed from an earlier prototype called the Wireless Extended Range Electro-Muscular Projectile (XREP). Taser International created the XREP to be fired from a twelve-gauge shotgun at ranges beyond twenty-five meters.
Chase and Gunnery Sergeant Darby fired their suppressed weapons from less than three meters away. The two oncoming watch standers each took two projectile rounds in the back, while the man who had opened the door took two in the chest.
The shotgun-like shells delivered a powerful blunt impact as their small metal prongs dug into the flesh and triggered the release of electronic energy. The three men’s muscles locked up, and they fell to the ground twitching as thousands of volts of electricity ran through their body.
Darby hopped over the man in the doorway, careful not to touch him, and found the fourth man walking towards them inside the trailer, saying something unintelligible. Darby fired two more wireless Taser rounds and the man hit the floor, shaking. Behind him, Chase and the Marines were dragging the incapacitated bodies of the men into the communications center, using special rubber gloves to remove the Taser rounds.
The trailer had a single walkway, wide enough for one person to move at a time. Chase quickly worked his way over the rows of electronics, communications equipment, and displays. Dials and knobs, all labeled in Chinese characters.
“There.” Chase found the section he was looking for. The crypto key was a large rectangular box made of dark green metal, the size and shape of a DVD player. He took out his tools and began removing it as the Marines bound and gagged the Chinese men on the floor.
Chase checked his watch once more: 2304 local time. Calhoun’s diversion could be any moment now.
Captain Calhoun looked through his observation scope once more, knowing he wouldn’t see anything useful but hoping he would be surprised.
The fog had become so thick that it robbed him of his ability to see the base below. It would take too long and be too risky to move to a lower elevation. And it would take away the Marines’ ability to make it down to the road, which the plan stipulated they must maintain access to.
He looked at his man holding the drone. “Launch it.”
One of his Marines flipped the switch to turn on the small propeller and then hurled the drone like it was a giant football. The RQ-11B buzzed off into the night, a pound of C-4 strapped to its undercarriage.
They had pre-programmed its flight path. It would travel at five hundred feet above ground level and then make its way down to the runway. The C-4’s detonator was set to go off on impact.
Calhoun sighed. “Alright, let’s hope this works.”
Chase had just finished placing the crypto keys in his pack when they heard the explosion. The comm center had no windows, but the radio chatter increased dramatically.
Darby said, “Was that it?”
“Yeah. Must have been.”
“What should we do?”
“Look out the door window. Do you see a supply truck nearby?”
“I don’t see shit.”
Chase walked over to the door and cracked it open, looking around. There was no sign of any vehicle waiting for them like the CIA briefer had promised.
Chase stared down at the Chinese troops. They had all regained their ability to move, but the restraints, gags, and blindfolds kept them docile. He looked up at the gunny. “What do you think?”
“I say we go right back the way we came.”
“In the bush? Back up the hill?”
“We’ll have about five seconds of vulnerability. If they see us, we can make a run for them jeeps. They’re fifty meters away, and one of my Marines here can hotwire it if he has to. But that’s not a good option. You know it.”
“Crawling up through the brush and jungle while they’re alerted doesn’t sound great either.”
The gunny looked at the men. “You sure we shouldn’t…”
Chase shook his head. “ROE. No shooting unless it’s in self-defense.” He frowned. “Hold on, I’ve got something we can use.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a small case with a syringe. It took him about two minutes to inject each man in the ass with a dose of the stuff. The men’s eyes began to flutter and close shut.
The gunny said, “What is that?”
“It’s enough drugs to keep them out of it for several hours. That should buy us time.”
The four men stood at the door, ready with their weapons. Chase said, “Just walk normal until we get into the brush. If we move fast, it’ll catch more attention. Walk normal, and anyone who sees us might not get a good view and overlook us.”
They opened the door and walked through the opening in the razor-wire coil, then around the trailer and back into the long grass. As they crouched down into the prone position, Chase looked out over the runway. A fire truck sprayed water onto the flames. About a dozen men stood around it, staring. He could see the Chinese troops in the nearest anti-aircraft bunker. There were three of them, each watching the flaming wreckage on the runway.
“Psst. Hey.”
A short Hispanic man stood near the trees, outside the illumination near the mobile communications trailer.
The man whispered, “You guys looking for a ride?”
Chase nodded, “Yes, where is it?”
“Come.” He waved. The four men followed him around the group of trees. In the darkness, Chase hadn’t seen it. But there, parked in grass, was a small covered pickup truck, bags of laundry in the rear.
“Please. We go right now.”
The four men piled in back.
“Put the bags on top. They won’t check us on the way out. The Chinese are not guarding the gates. Only the Ecuadorians. They don’t look at us when we leave. But we must go now.”
A minute later, the four men lay in the back of the pickup truck, bouncing as the truck drove through the base, big white laundry bags covering them.
“Okay, we’re off the base now. I will drop you off in a few minutes. There is a road up here that will take us near the mountains. That is where I am to leave you. Will that be okay?”
Chase said, “Yes. Thanks.”
Ten minutes later, they were once again in the jungle, heading up the mountain. The sound of the truck fading in the distance.
Chase couldn’t believe their luck. The distraction had worked perfectly. No one was looking for attackers after the explosion. There were no alarms. People were just watching the flames, curious. Like they didn’t know that they were about to be at war…
15
The following morning, two battalions of Chinese Special Forces soldiers stood at attention on the flight line outside the Manta base hangar. The Leishen Commandos looked like statues, Lena thought. Strong, tall and disciplined. Everything that a warrior should be.
A company of Ecuadorian regular Army stood at attention next to the Chinese. Behind them all, a few hundred of the new Chinese Junxun recruits rounded out the audience.
A small platform stood in front of them. If not for the investigative team around the drone wreckage, one might mistake this for a parade or decoration ceremony.
It was Lena’s idea.
There were a few important lessons that Lena had learned from what happened the night before. One of which, was that the soldiers on the base were woefully unprepared for the conflict that lay ahead. That needed to be remedied.
The Chinese base commander had no question as to who was in charge when Lena showed up. Hi
s leadership had given him strict orders to do whatever she said. He had wanted to disperse his men immediately and begin looking for the team that raided the communications compound.
But the Ecuadorian general had intervened. He wanted an investigation completed first. Lena had been in the field, training with the Leishen Commandos. They had sent for her immediately, but it was hours before she arrived back at the base. Hours of lost time.
She needed to contact Jinshan, and inform him of the lost crypto key. She needed to track down the Americans—she assumed it was the Americans—and attempt to retrieve the stolen equipment. But first, she needed to send a message to the soldiers on this base.
Lena walked up to Natesh. “Are the swarm drones ready?”
“They arrived yesterday afternoon. We’re working to unload them now.”
She looked in the hangar. Captain Lin was there, overseeing some of the logistics personnel as they unpacked the cargo. He stared back at her, a suspicious look on his face. A part of her wanted to walk over there and take care of him right now. But he was not a priority.
The base commander walked up to her and Natesh. “Ms. Chou, I don’t think we have time for this gathering. We need to go after the men who raided our base.”
She raised her hand. “Please be patient, Colonel. We will.”
“But they stole our cryptologic key. We must gain it back. If that got into the wrong hands—”
“Colonel, have you heard any aircraft? Have your radars picked up any aircraft?”
“No.”
“Then they are on foot, and we have the advantage. We will find them, but first I need to make a statement to the men.”
Two jeeps screeched through the gate and came to a halt just off the platform. The Ecuadorian general and his staff got out. He was fuming, screaming and swearing as he looked at Lena and the colonel.
Lena just watched him, a serious expression on her face. Perfect timing.
“What is the meaning of this? Who called my men here like this? You do not give orders to my men. First you crash an airplane on the runway last night, and now you have…what is this, an award ceremony?”
