We’d better start looking, Nico agreed.
You two move clockwise. I’ll go counterclockwise. Be back here in fifteen.
Sam nodded. Fifteen minutes, check.
Jonas pushed his way out of the jungle. “Hey, where are you heading?”
Kadan spun around, relief on his face. What the fuck, Jonas. Where the hell have you been?
We were about to go looking for you, Sam said. Your fucking radio broken?
Jonas flashed a small self-deprecating grin. Yeah, actually it is. I tripped on a tree root and broke the battery case. The batteries won’t stay in now. I can fix it once we get into a hide.
Kadan let out his breath. Well, glad you’re good. I was afraid we’d have to hump your gear and your dead ass out of here.
Jonas indicated back into the jungle. The creek that’s set as the meet point isn’t far from here. I set my claymores up in case we need to “pop smoke.”
To pop smoke was to leave quickly, and given the circumstances, Sam was very much afraid that was exactly what they’d have to do.
The claymores are set on the edges of the creek. The first two are about three meters this side of where we expect the face-to-face to be. They can be popped as the team moves. I’ve got the detonator on remote. If needed, there’s a second set ten meters farther, on a time delay. Stop, pull the ring, and haul ass.
Kadan flashed a small smile, the only indication that Jonas was forgiven for taking ten years off his life. Okay. Good. Did you find an over watch position?
Jonas nodded. Yes, there’s a small hill about twenty meters to the south. I think we should have adequate visibility from there.
Kadan nodded his approval. Good. We found a hide. Let’s move. Fix your radio, genius. We’ll call for the second team’s insertion and then we’ll settle in for some rack time. One of us on guard at all times. Everybody good with an hour rotation? He didn’t wait for an answer. Good.
Once settled in their hide position, Sam made the call. “Valhalla … Valhalla, this is Reaper One.”
“Reaper One, this is Valhalla. Good signal. Ready to copy, over.”
The voice at the other end of the radio always gave Sam a sense of being connected. “Valhalla, Reaper One … mission is a go, over.”
“Copy. We have a green light for Team Two’s insertion. Valhalla out.”
Sam never had a problem sleeping anywhere, anytime. One got used to taking every opportunity because often, you could go days without a safe place to catch a few minutes of sleep, but this time, when he closed his eyes, he saw his foster father’s face. The general was genuinely at a loss as to who was selling him out and why. He couldn’t conceive of such treacherous behavior as burning a single soldier, let alone an entire team.
Sam looked up at the branches swaying high up in the canopy, the movement soft and subtle. As a rule he would let the gentle wind lull him into at least drifting so his brain would slow down and relax, but it was impossible. He knew the president had been asked for aid—to send a covert unit into the rebel held territory to wreak havoc and hopefully break the back of the rebel army by destroying munitions and vehicles as well as targeting the two men who vied for leadership of the ragtag rebels.
Someone knew of those orders and had sent the plea to Whitney. Whitney had his own agenda and had someone in his pocket in the CIA with enough clout to make a deal with one of the rebel leaders. The deal was to put Ekabela in power in exchange for the diamond. Along with a clear path to leading the rebels, Ekabela wanted a GhostWalker to pay for his brother’s death. Whitney had selected Sam and in doing so, had tipped off the team that there was a double cross coming.
Had Whitney chosen Sam with the idea it would alert the team prior to the mission? It was entirely possible. He liked to play games. And if so, how far would he go? If the CIA was in charge of the operation and was deliberating operating out of Fort Bragg, what would they do when the team followed their orders to the letter and destroyed everyone, taking the package instead of turning it over to Whitney’s man in the field?
Sam tasted anger in his mouth. They’d get burned. No doubt about it and they’d be left in hostile territory, a hell of a long way from home after stirring up a hornet’s nest. He linked his fingers behind his head. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.
He must have fallen asleep after all because he jerked awake when the radio came alive.
“Reaper One … Reaper One, this is Reaper Two.”
Tucker’s voice had never sounded so good. “Reaper Two, this is Reaper One, go,” he answered.
“Reaper One, we’re twenty mikes to TOT, over.”
The team was twenty minutes to time over the target. “Roger that, Reaper Two, you are twenty mikes out from TOT. DZ will be marked with IR strobe, over.” The drop zone would be marked with an infrared strobe.
“Reaper Two copies DZ marked with IR strobe.”
“Happy landings,” Sam said. “Reaper One out.”
Ten minutes later Kadan addressed them in his hushed voice over the com. “All right, boys, team two will be here shortly. Is everyone in position?”
“In position,” Jonas affirmed.
“See, Boss,” Sam said, laughter in his voice. “I told you he’d get that piece of shit fixed. I’m in position. IR strobe is active.”
“I’m looking at him, Bishop, right through my scope,” Nico said, “and he looks like he’s falling back asleep. I’m in position.”
“All right, girls,” Kadan said, “cut the chitchat and keep your ears and eyes peeled.”
Tucker’s voice broke into their coms. “Good evening, kiddies. How are we tonight? Warm, I hope. I still can’t feel my damn toes. We’re coming in from the south, southeast. I have the strobe in sight. We’re at two thousand feet. See you in a second.”
Kadan answered. “I’m at your seven o’clock. Knight is at your ten o’clock, Nico, your three o’clock, and Smoke at your five.”
“Roger, we’re on the ground. Rally at strobe,” Ryland ordered.
“Glad everyone made it in one piece,” Kadan said when all four men were down. “Let’s get to the hide.”
Chutes were buried and they moved quickly back to their hide, where Tucker called Fort Bragg.
“Valhalla … Valhalla, this is Reaper Two.”
“Reaper Two, this is Valhalla, over.” The disembodied voice came over the radio.
“Valhalla, we are in play and one hundred percent up.” They let Joint Special Operations Command know they were ready to carry out their mission and everyone had made it into the field.
Kadan took over immediately in his no-nonsense way. “Okay, everyone, around the map. The creek is here.” He jabbed the spot with his finger. “The expected meet site there. Here, about ten meters from the meet site, and here, another fifteen meters, we’ve set up claymores. The first two are on remote. The other two are on a time-delay fuse.”
He indicated another spot with his finger. “There is a hill here that we’ll be on for over watch.” He hesitated a moment and then looked directly at Ryland. “I can go in with Sam, Rye.”
Sam winced for him. Kadan was treading on thin ground asking, but Ryland had a bad habit of placing himself in the hottest spot.
Ryland’s gray gaze settled on Kadan’s face. “Are you implying I’m slowing down with old age setting in?” His voice was mild, but there was nothing mild about those steel gray eyes.
“No, sir,” Kadan said.
“We’ll stick to the original plan. Keep going.”
Kadan knew better than to sigh. “Ryland and Sam will make the face-to-face about here. Move up the creek to this spot. You should be able to see where they make their stand. The rest of you will be concealed in the tree line here. If ‘Murphy’”—of Murphy’s Law fame—“shows up, you’ll come up on line and engage the hostiles. At that point we will have fire on them from different points. That should be enough to help Sam and Rye, making the meet, break contact and get the hell out of there. At that
point, we each pop white smoke and meet up here at the hide.”
Ryland nodded his head. “Looks good to me. Before we leave for the meet, we’ll have to set up to draw them back to the hide. Where you do you have the ambush planned?”
Kadan circled the site on the map. “Right here, sir. We will set claymores along this line here and here, using the terrain to bottleneck them into this funnel of claymores.”
“If we don’t need them, we pull them out when we move out,” Ryland ordered. “Ground anything you don’t need so we can move fast and quiet. Unless anyone has any questions, we leave in thirty minutes. Over watch, you leave now.”
Sam and Ryland and the rest of the team made their way through the tangled vines and tall fronds to the creek.
“Over watch in position,” Kadan reported.
“We’re at staging point in the creek,” Ryland answered. “We’re splitting up here. Sam and I will slip up on them using the water for concealment.”
Tucker, Kyle, and Gator melted into the jungle silently.
“In support position,” Tucker announced first.
Kyle and Gator echoed him in seconds.
“Heads up,” Nico said. “They are accompanied by twenty armed men. All have rifles and sidearms. I see no packs, no other equipment.”
“We copy,” Ryland said.
“Copy twenty,” Tucker said.
“All right, they set up right where we wanted them to. We are moving out. Sam, let’s get this done.”
They both slipped into the water, wading downstream, going into the deep, faster-moving stream, until they were fully immersed.
Ryland came up out of the water just at Ekabela’s feet. He rose fast, a dark ghost, covered in black paint and dripping water as he caught the man in a tight grip, knife to his throat. He grinned savagely at the CIA operative who had orchestrated the double cross.
“I’m here for the package,” he said, keeping his voice pitched low.
Ekabela had barely caught a glimpse of the dark shadow before his head was jerked backward, putting him off balance and exposing his throat to the very large, sharp blade sitting on his skin. Breathing, swallowing, any movement at all would result in the blade drawing blood.
The man in jeans and a light sports jacket raised his hand as if he could ward Ryland off. “Whoa, soldier. Stand down. I was supposed to meet you upriver and guide you here.”
Ryland stayed perfectly still, letting his cold gray eyes say it all for him.
“I’m Duncan Forbes,” the man from the CIA tried again. “Ekabela has the package for you. There’s no problem whatsoever. Just put down the knife and we’ll discuss this. We were told Sam Johnson would be picking it up. You’re clearly not Sam.”
“I am,” Sam whispered from behind Forbes. “Don’t move, sir. I wouldn’t want to accidentally shove this knife through your kidney.”
Forbes felt the tip of the blade stinging through his clothing. “There’s no need for this.”
“Just taking care, sir,” Sam said. “We wouldn’t want anything to go wrong like it did the last time one of us came into contact with an Ekabela. Give me the package and we’ll complete the rest of the mission quietly. No one will know we were ever here.”
“Your orders were to wait for me to guide Sam Johnson, and only Sam Johnson, to the rendezvous location,” Duncan hissed. “You can’t treat an important ally like this. I’ll have you two brought up on charges. Put down your weapons. That’s an order. Shit, you’ve messed up everything.”
“Sorry, sir,” Sam said. “I take orders from him.” He brought his free hand sweeping past Forbes to indicate Ryland. “Give me the package. When it’s secure, we’ll go our way.”
Forbes jumped a little, his eyes following the hand that pointed to the man holding Ekabela so still.
In the absolute silence of the jungle, the constant drone of cicadas and crickets returned full force. Sam felt exposed, his back to the creek, knowing Ekabela’s men were ready to cut them down the moment Ekabela was released from Ryland’s grip. He could feel them, more, smell their sweaty bodies as they crept into position, having been forced to shift to better protect their leader.
Ekabela was sweating and slippery, his eyes conveying both outrage and fear. He kept looking out to the jungle, trying to convey silently to his men to stay back. Forbes slowly nodded his head. Ekabela’s hand crept toward his jacket.
“Be very careful,” Ryland advised. “You bring your hand out of that jacket with anything but the package, you’ll be the first to die.”
Ekabela let out his breath in a kind of angry rush, but his hand was very steady as he reached into his coat and withdrew a small, brown paper– wrapped object. He slowly extended his palm. The package was small, no bigger than five inches in length.
“Please take that, Mr. Forbes, but be very careful,” Sam advised. “You don’t want to reach for a weapon and blow it at this stage of the game. That will get you both killed.”
Duncan Forbes’s face twisted into a mask of anger. He stepped forward and took the package from Ekebela. “Now what?”
“Open it and make certain it’s what it’s supposed to be,” Sam instructed. He had stepped forward with Forbes as the man moved, knife tip still pressed tight against his kidney.
Forbes didn’t dare turn around, or look over his shoulder; instead he glared hard at Ryland. “This is absolutely preposterous. Both of you will be court-martialed for this.”
“Do what you have to do, sir. We’re just following orders.” Sam’s voice came from behind him, low, close to his ear, and the blade never so much as trembled or moved from Forbes’s kidney. “But you open that package now.”
Swearing, Duncan tore open the brown paper. Sam could see a large chunk of what looked like an uncut diamond. It was quite large and thick, maybe three inches in diameter. Keeping the knife pressed close to Duncan’s kidney, he held out his palm. Duncan dropped the half-opened paper with the diamond into Sam’s hand. He closed his fist around it and slid it inside his jacket.
Package secure, sir. He used telepathy.
Ryland gave the smallest of nods.
Sam stepped even closer to Duncan Forbes. “Do you have a vehicle close, sir?” he whispered.
Forbes nodded.
“I suggest you run to it and get the hell out of here fast. This is going to get ugly.” That was all the warning Forbes was going to get. Sam released Duncan and slowly backed away.
Ryland drove his knife into the base of Ekabela’s skull, severing the spine and killing him instantly. He held the body upright for an instant, his gaze drilling into Forbes.
“Geez. Oh, God.” Duncan backed away from him, turning white under his skin, sweat beading on his forehead. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
Ryland’s eyes met Sam’s. Sam was very aware of the jungle around him, as if the world was still right, the sounds of the jungle, the constant shifting above their heads, the continual drone of the cicadas, the calls of the frogs, a cry of a monkey. His heart thundered in his ears.
Ryland let Ekabela’s body fall to the ground, and just as if he’d triggered a bomb, the world erupted into hell around them. Duncan Forbes turned and ran for his life. Bullets tore bark off trees and vines, hissing through the air and spitting bark and splinters at them. Ryland and Sam both fired an entire magazine on full automatic, bullets spraying the jungle, driving the soldiers away from them.
Tucker, Kyle, and Gator had all gone to one knee and began to eliminate preselected targets. Simultaneously, Nico, Kadan, and Jonas on the hill in the over watch did the same. Smoke and red-hot streaks sizzled through the roar and shock of the guns, accompanied by high-pitched screams and explosions. Rock and wood chips rained down. Dirt flew around them as shrapnel hit everywhere.
Sam could tell how close the bullets were by the various sounds they made. The snapping sound was ominous, three feet or closer. The scent of cordite from the gunpowder grew strong. The distinctive smell of burned composition �
��B” from the grenades was heavy in the air.
Reloading. Bounding. Ryland called out telepathically to the others indicating he and Sam were moving and someone had to cover their targets.
Sam and Ryland retreated five meters, reloading as they ran. At five meters they both went down to one knee to place covering fire—rapidly aimed shots—at the swarming army of angry soldiers, giving the other two teams a chance to pull back. Once in line, they naturally became two teams and began to alternate covering fire.
The fighting was intense, an explosion of violence, and Sam just held on to one thing. He would go home to Azami. He was not buying it out here in the jungle.
Reloading. Bounding. The words were repeated often as one team would retreat toward their destination while the other provided cover.
The ragtag army didn’t seem to have leadership, following in anger more than with any strategy. Clearly they felt they were a superior force, but they were scattered, not as well trained as the rebels Ekabela had had months earlier.
All clear of the danger range? Ryland asked as they continued moving into the trap, drawing the rebels into the funnel.
All members of both teams had to be a good twenty-five meters away from the first of the claymores.
Clear, the men responded one by one, using the telepathic link Ryland formed.
“Claymore,” Kadan yelled as he detonated the first two antipersonnel mines.
Simultaneously Jonas pulled the igniter rings. The claymores had a range of fifty yards. Anyone inside that sixty degree horizontal fan was going to die or wish they were dead. As the claymores went off, the team hightailed it out of the war zone, back toward the hide.
Moving fast in their standard formation, cover and run, they made it past their second defense, the next line of claymores. Any combatants following would get caught in the next set of mines, and aside from taking out most of the rebels Ekabela had recruited, another devastating blow definitely would take the fight out of most that were left.
At the hide, Team One recovered gear while Team Two stayed on guard. They switched, working fast in silence while Team Two retrieved the rest of their gear.
GW10 Samurai Game Page 35
