by C. L. Jones
CHAPTER FOUR:
GOING TO CHURCH
Pops woke up before the crack of dawn. There was not a sliver of light. It was still pitch dark out, dark as tar. He checked his watch and realized there had been a time zone change. Still a little groggy he didn’t understand why his built in alarm had awakened him so early. Tossing and turning he at first tried to go back to sleep but sleep would not come. So he lay there thinking about everything that had happened so far and concluded that waking early in the dark could be to his advantage.
He looked though the darkness at the vague outline of the man sleeping on the other side of the room as he sat up on the side of the bed. He slipped on his pants and shoes and worked his way towards the door. He stepped out on the porch and looked around. His eyes didn’t need much time to adjust.
Knowing no one would think anything about it if he needed to go to the latrine, he did his best to look and act normal as he walked towards the building that he’d seen earlier marked latrine. It had a red light over the door that was hooded so it could not be seen from above. On his way to the latrine he could smell aroma of food coming from the mess hall carried through the crisp damp morning mountain air. The cooks were up as normal getting started. When Pops looked in the direction of the mess hall it was apparent that the windows were covered for blackout conditions. After taking care of morning business he headed back to his assigned hooch. It wasn’t much but he had just gotten a small piece of information that he would store away for future reference. He slipped back in the hooch and laid down on his bunk and waited.
He’d been laying in his bunk for what seemed to be a long time. He was scanning the door and everything he could see through the window from where he was resting. The sun was closer to rising and the room was getting some light now. Pops could hear others in the compound, the sounds of them moving around and talking.
The aroma of cooked food was getting stronger. Now he could see the shower house and a group of men with towels over their shoulders or tied around their waists. They were carrying shaving kits and wearing flip-flops as they moved in the direction of the showers. Pops got out of his bunk and picked up his towel when it occurred to him that if there was going to be a test this could be the best time and place. It was early morning, food was cooking and a hot shower was awaiting the men. Everyone was just waking up and half dressed at best, with their minds on everything except the reason they had been sent all the way out here.
Still in his hooch, Pops made a quick check of his weapon and ammo, armed himself and slipped out the door. Looking quickly around, he headed to the tree line and worked his way around the grassy area until he was on a rise behind the parade ground platform. He was just far enough back in the trees to be out of sight but close enough to the clearing to see most of the compound. His position was about as good as it was going to get. From here he could see just about everything below. Falling into a long and well-used mode of action he quickly camouflaged himself with the nearby undergrowth, all the time being as quiet as possible.
He sat with his back against a tree and started the well-rehearsed, tried and true game of surveillance. It was early enough in whatever game was unfolding that at this point in the morning he wouldn’t be missed unless they conducted a head count. Patience was a way of life for anyone in the business. Waiting on a target had taught him to sit back, listen, watch and wait. Most people he knew did not have the patience or a good reason to sit, watch and wait.
For the next thirty to forty minutes he watched the people below who seemed to be aimlessly wondering from their hooches to the shower house and to the mess hall. Then he heard sounds of someone walking toward his location maybe fifty yards to his left. He hunkered down blending in to the underbrush and waited, hoping to see who it was and what they were up to do. He thought, hey maybe it was just someone like him who could turn out to be a new ally. Pops flattened himself out on the ground and tried to look as much a part of the area as he could. He remembered other similar situations when he’d tried to wish himself to be invisible. Those not in his line of business would think trying to become invisible was crazy but Pops thought why bother to hide in the first place if you didn’t try to be invisible.
Slowly someone came into view. The guy was wearing camouflage to the hilt. Pops noticed the weapon he was carrying was a rifle outfitted with a sniper scope. As Pops looked at this man’s weapon he couldn’t spot the red screw on the gun that covered the flash suppressor at the end of the barrel. The screw allowed the weapon to shoot blanks so he knew that if the gun was loaded then this gunman was using live ammo. Pops concluded that this was either a hit using live ammunition or a rehearsal arranging for a hit. The gunman moved to about eight or ten feet from where Pops was laying. It was obvious that he was so focused on what was in front of him in the compound that he never even checked in Pops’ direction. In fact the gunman’s focus was probably so intense that the rest of the world had disappeared to him. Pops wondered what he should do. Was this one big dust off (hit)? Was this a way to get rid of a bunch of guys like him with no one ever knowing the difference? So what if something happened to a few guys from a bunch of little towns scattered across America? Or was this all done for one lousy hit on Pops or another one of the people milling around below in the compound. None of these thoughts made much sense. After all a hit on Pops could have just as easily been done as he was driving back home where he lived and made to look like any other accident.
Pops continued speculating as he watched the gunman. Was this part of some training? Was this a live action fire exercise? Could it be that sitting in front of him was an unsanctioned take down? Pops considered his options as the gunman now moved slightly to the left and settled in. Not moving an inch, he just lay there watching the back of the gunman’s head who was now Pops’ potential target. The man didn’t even know that whatever he had planned might not happen depending on what Pops decided.
Most of the men below had finished showering and were headed to the mess hall. Pops watched as the gunman lay down in a prone position and pulled out a small bipod and attached it to the muzzle of his weapon. He reached into his pant leg cargo pocket and pulled out an ammo clip that had a second ammo clip attached with duct tape in the reversed direction. This would double his firepower. Pops could see a bulge in the gunman’s other cargo pockets that looked like more clips. The gunman slapped his clip into his weapon and moved his gun back and forth in a sweeping motion checking out the targets in the open area below.
Pops didn’t have a set plan in place but nevertheless moved closer to the gunman. The gunman was so zoned in on his mission and on his targets that he didn’t hear the unintentional sounds that Pops made. This was fast becoming a deadly game to Pops, but it was a game he had trained for and enjoyed playing when he was in a certain frame of mind. There before him was a man with a gun who apparently would have no problem taking someone down. With his heart pounding in his ears and the juices starting to flow Pops moved in closer and closer. He stopped right behind the gunman and watched the back of his head as he slowly rose up and looked over the gunman’s prone body. He waited and watched as the gunman started to move and twist around and Pops knew this meant the gunman’s first target was coming into his view. The gunman dropped the sights in the direction of one of the new men coming into range. Pops recognized that the gunman’s target was the man who had sat across the aisle from him on the plane ride.
It was time to act. In an almost playful manner Pops tapped the gunman on his head and said in a hushed voice, “No, not that one!”
The gunman’s response was like a reflex action. He turned his head in a quick jerking motion and as he turned the butt of Pops’ weapon came crashing down on him. The gunman lay sprawled out next to his rifle with a large stream of blood running down his forehead and into the hollow of his closed eyes. The butt of Pops’ weapon would be the last thing the gunman would see for awhile.
Pops looked at the man for a few seconds and considered
whether he ought to drag this guy back to the compound to show everyone that they’d just avoided a catastrophe. As proof he could show them the camouflaged gunman, the gunman’s loaded weapon with a sniper scope and an abundance of live ammo. The downside in this approach was that it would surely alert everyone to Pops presence as well as the fact that Pops was a step ahead of everyone else. He couldn’t just leave the gunman there like that although he laughed to himself when he thought about tying the gunman to a tree and leaving him. Ultimately Pops wanted everyone to know that there was something on the treacherous side going on.
Twenty minutes had passed since the gunman was invited to take a nature nap and Pops noticed almost by accident that there were two men below at the edge of the parade ground in the compound area. It was clear that they were trying hard not to been seen. Pops knew from where he was positioned that he was far enough away that the two men could not see him. He kept a low profile but the two men kept looking in the direction of his location. Pops was trying to decide what he was going to do about his predicament when the men slipped into the tree line and quickly disappeared. Pops thought that this may have been a setup and here he was with the unconscious gunman laying at his feet and two men who were probably approaching. With one of their own out cold and Pops being the only one around he thought it best if he vacated the premises.
Shifting into full combat mode he reached down and snatched up the weapon the man had been carrying. It was in the M4 series and was half the weight of his old M16. Glancing around he moved quickly away from the still unconscious body to take up a position in a new location. Within seconds Pops found the perfect new place where he could reestablish his surveillance and play the waiting game. Again making use of the natural vegetation he camouflaged himself and settled in to see what if anything would happen. It turned out his wait was short-lived when after a few seconds he saw movement coming from the same direction that the first gunman had came from. The two men appeared and eventually found the still unconscious gunman.
For years Pops had been trained to control his reactions and emotions but in this case it was difficult for him to keep from bursting out in laughter. In the short time that the two men had disappeared into the trees to when they appeared near the unconscious gunman, Pops had undressed the guy and taken his clothes with him to his new position. He now watched as the two men found their dumb ass comrade who was not wearing any trousers, socks or boots. What Pops was seeing was something right out of an old 1930s weekly ten-cent Laurel and Hardy movie. One man was holding the gunman’s head up and the other was trying to wake him. Still having fun, Pops quietly rose from where he’d been hiding and simply started walking towards the men. He got right up behind them without being noticed and listened to their chatter and watched how worried they were as they tried to revive their friend.
Still enjoying the moment and wanting to indulge himself in a little self humor, he bent forward and in a little more than a whisper he said to the two inept fools, “Okay boys don’t turn around it’s party time. Now lie down and don’t give me any shit.”
Contrary to what he’d just said the two men’s natural reaction was to spin around. They looked back at Pops who was now wearing a homemade mask that he’d cut out of the gunman’s clothing. The men looked at each other showing both their inexperience and total fear as they laid down on the ground flat on their bellies. Pops stood over them and jacked the action back on his weapon, as if he was chambering a round. Hearing this, one of the men started waving his arms around, “Hey, hey, hey! Don’t shoot bro, this was just a wakeup call, you know a test.” Then he quickly followed it with, “We’re just following orders you know, like you.”
Pops knew he wasn’t going to kill the three dumb-asses. Hell what was the game in that? After giving them enough time to ponder their situation and build up a little more gut wrenching worry he said, “Okay boys, then I guess you failed the test. He’d said you would. He’d said you were weak so now you have to be punished. Take off your clothes, and I mean everything.”
Pops left the tree dumb asses half naked in the forest. Dumping what was left of their uniforms and stashing the weapons where he could retrieve them later if needed, he worked his way back around the tree line and back to his hooch acting like nothing had happened. Now all he had to do was slip in and out of the shower and grab a bite without being noticed and he would be good to go.
He’d just stepped out of the shower house when he heard people in the compound laughing and talking. He stepped around the corner of the house and looked across the large green field where he saw what everyone was making such a fuss about. The three nude dumb asses were tied together by pieces of what had been their camouflaged uniforms. They were facing each other, stumbling into the grassy area with homemade hoods over two of their heads, courtesy of Pops, and the hoods had no eyeholes. The hood of one of them had been loose enough so the guy could get it off and then do his best to direct the other two. Pops thought how that must have been a real sight and that maybe he should have stayed out there someplace and watched. Upon hearing the commotion some of the compound’s cadre or so called greeters came out to see what was going on. When they saw the nude threesome, they ran to their buddies’ aid, helped get them free and shuffled them away like they were bodyguards around three celebrities.
Pops headed back to his hooch to dress after his shower. He made his bed and cleaned up his half of the room not so much out of good old fashion military training but because he wanted it to look like he’d been there the whole time. Being clean shaven and showered and having his area tight would help cast any suspicion away from him. He’d missed breakfast but that wasn’t much of a problem for him since he usually traveled with a few breakfast bars tucked away. Slamming a breakfast bar down and drinking a large cup of water he was headed to the trashcan when he heard a whistle, the kind that a drill sergeant or football coach uses. One of the compound’s greeters yelled, “Okay everyone, to the chapel for a briefing, now.”
The man who shared Pops’ hooch ran back and entered their hooch. After a few minutes he came out with a tablet and a couple of pencils. Excited he nodded at Pops and said that he was going to the morning briefing and then scurried off like a kid headed for recess. Pops watched the way this man acted thinking maybe he’d been in the game too long and maybe the younger guys were a little different. But in the end he had to conclude that this guy could not be an agent.
Pops walked to the door of the hooch and gazed across the whole compound focusing mostly on the other people. It struck him just how beautiful this place was. It was the kind of place where he’d love to get away with Mary for a week or so, sleeping in, reading and of course fishing. With a half ass smile on his face he thought that maybe someday he and his loved one could have a special moment in a quiet mountain getaway like this.
As he stood at the door taking in the beauty and daydreaming about a vacation he was brought back to reality when he noticed a man leaning against the mess hall picking his teeth with a toothpick. Like Pops, the guy was watching the activities of the others. It turned out that the toothpick wielding man was the same big baldheaded, muscled forty something idiot that been watching him in the dining area the night before. Pops slid inside his hooch just out of sight and watched the baldheaded man. Pops labeled the guy “Baldy” in his mind while he noted that the top of Baldy’s head had a ridge down the center from front to back like a knife blade. Baldy was trying to be casual and not draw any attention to himself. He moved away from the side of the mess hall and found a new spot by the side door where the cook staff kept a mop rack. Almost everyone had made it to the chapel when Baldy pushed away from the mop rack and started that way.
Pops continued to watch Baldy for a few seconds while still checking out the rest of the compound area. As he’d done for years he trusted his instinct and headed toward the chapel himself. He hadn’t gone far when he saw that Baldy had noticed him and was slowing down his pace. Pops could see they would meet s
omewhere along the path and from the look of it long before they were anywhere near the chapel. Pops pretended that he had not seen Baldy. With his hand in his pockets and a slight shuffle in his step he moved along as if he were taking a Sunday morning stroll to the corner market for a newspaper. The whole time he kept an eye on old Baldy and just stayed his course.
As their paths were about to intersect Baldy spoke two words to Pops, “Hey bud,” Pops kept walking as if he hadn’t heard him. “Hey bud!” came again but this time more forceful.
Pops stopped in place and spun around with a sharp military turn ready to give an old military line back to Baldy. If you called an old sergeant, “bud”, you’d usually get an answer something along the lines of, “who the hell you calling bud”. But he knew there was a point to the meeting so he just responded, “You talking to me?”
Baldy gave a twisted smile and said “Who are you, De Niro?” Pops knew full well the De Niro line “you talking to me” was from the movie Taxi Driver so it was clear that Baldy was referring to the character in Taxi Driver.
