by Bob Blanton
Marc looked at Catie and shook his head, “Kal assures me that the Oryx will be safe, so you can fly it. But I want you to install lasers on it before you do. I don’t want to find out that Victor has a shoulder-mounted, anti-aircraft missile launcher that we haven’t heard about.”
Catie nodded her appreciation to her father but decided not to push her luck by saying anything.
“Blake, any comments?” Marc asked.
“I’ll watch the rehearsals,” Blake said, “but Kal’s the expert here. We have to follow his lead.”
“Kal, keep us informed. Call a meeting if you need to, but you’re in charge from here on out.”
◆ ◆ ◆
On Sunday, Victor agreed to send his son to Delphi Station; he made it clear that he would start a personal war against Delphi if anything happened to the boy. Liz flew to Guatemala City in a Lynx to pick Enrique up and take him to the station. After they left, Victor headed back to his ranch outside of Escuintla. With that out of the way, Kal set the date for the mission for Wednesday at 0300, two hours after the moon set for the night.
Tue Nov 17th – 2300 CST
Cristina was getting cold. It was late, and she still had two checkpoints to tag. “Hola Fernando, tienes luz?” she called out as she approached the guard, brandishing a cigarette in need of a light.
“Si, Cristina, I always have one for you,” Fernando called back as he pulled out his lighter and flicked it on.
“Gracias,” Cristina leaned in to let him light the cigarette and get a nice look down the front of her blouse. She leaned against the wall while she smoked. As usual, Fernando took up position next to her, where he could continue to sneak peeks down her blouse while they smoked. “You’re a good friend,” Cristina said as she patted Fernando on the shoulder, surreptitiously placing a beacon on his shirt; it would allow the snipers to locate him quickly once they started to take out the checkpoints.
The other two guards soon drifted over to get a light, and a quick peek; Cristina had no problem placing beacons on them. “Adiós amigos.” Cristina waved goodbye as she moved toward her last checkpoint “Dios mío, I can’t wait until we start shooting these pendejos. I’m tired of being eye candy,” Cristina said to herself.
Wed Nov 18th – 0350 CST
“Hace frío,” Barry said as he walked onto the roof. He walked over to the alcove where he usually smoked; there he found Jacobo hanging out. It was the one location on the roof that provided some shelter from the wind. There wasn’t much wind, but at 0400, it didn’t take much wind to chill you. Unfortunately, not only did it provide shelter from the wind, it blocked any line of sight for the snipers.
“Un cigarro?” Jacobo asked, bumming a cigarette off of Barry like he usually did.
“Sí,” Barry said. As he was lighting their cigarettes, José walked over.
“Un cigarro?”
“Sí,” Barry said as he produced another cigarette. “Shit, what is he doing over here. Did he and Jacobo make up?” Barry thought.
Barry waited while José smoked his cigarette; he assumed that once he finished the cigarette, he would head back over to his position on the other side of the roof. No such luck. It seemed that he and Jacobo had become best of buddies. They were talking about a señorita they had met the other day in the local cantina. Each was assuring the other that the señorita would be warming their bed in just a couple more days.
“This was supposed to be easy, just knife one idiot and let the snipers take care of the others,” Barry thought. “Well, time’s a wasting.” Barry flicked his knife down from the sheath on his wrist; the black polysteel blade didn’t reflect any light, making it almost invisible. “Good thing I borrowed Graciela’s toy, even if she said I’d be singing soprano if I didn’t give it back to her.”
Barry leaned over toward Jacobo as if to tell him something, “Aloha,” he said as he plunged the knife under Jacobo’s ribcage, up into his heart while extending his other hand behind Jacobo’s back. He fired Graciela’s silenced .22, hitting José right in his temple.
“That’s the signal,” Kal announced. He needn’t have bothered. As soon as Barry said aloha, the two snipers who had targets, had fired and killed the other two guards on the roof.
“We’re good!” Ramsey announced.
Catie immediately shifted the Oryx over until it was hovering over the roof of the hospital.
Kal watched as the team of rappelers tossed the ropes out of the back of the Oryx; they were fastened to the top of the cargo hatch. Then four by four, they snapped onto the lines and jumped out of the cargo hold – each group giving the previous one five seconds. Ten seconds after the last group jumped, he got the all-clear from the team.
“Time to head to the apartments,” he announced to Catie while the next team was pulling the lines back into the hold.
Barry gave a quick nod to the team leader and took the silenced .22 being offered. He wanted to hand Graciela’s back to her at the first possible moment. He opened the door to the stairwell and headed back down, the team following quietly behind him. Each of them was watching the video feed from the clinic via their HUD. As he exited the stairwell, he saw Graciela positioned next to the receptionist. Barry nodded at her, and she grabbed the receptionist, placing a hand over her mouth so she couldn’t scream, and injected her with a fast-acting sedative. Barry returned her .22, “Thanks for the loan.”
“No problem,” Graciela whispered as she followed Barry toward the waiting room. As usual, the four guards were watching TV in there. Barry and Graciela started chatting, Graciela doing most of the talking as they continued to approach. Two of the commandos were creeping along the wall, one on each side of the door. As Barry and Graciela entered the room, they waved at the guards watching TV. Barry used his HUD to switch the TV off. The guards cursed, trying to turn the TV back on with the remote. When that didn’t work, one of them got up to figure out what was wrong with it. Graciela quietly put a bullet into the back of the head of the guard closest to her, then calmly leaned down to whisper something to another guard as she shot him. Barry quickly dispatched the third guard, then walked over toward the TV and shot the guard who was still standing there, examining the power cord.
Barry used his HUD to inform the four Paraxean nurses who were staffing the clinic for the night that the guards were taken care of. He let them know that they should avoid the waiting room, and just keep their patients quiet and comfortable until the morning. “Leave two Marines here to cover for the staircase. Graciela and I will take the elevator down; have your teams take the two stairwells,” he instructed the team leader.
He and Graciela entered the elevator after checking each other for any signs of blood. When the elevator reached the ground floor, Graciela was screaming at Barry – yelling that the place where he had taken her to dinner was a dump and that he needed to make up for it if he ever wanted her to sleep with him again. As per the plan, the altercation got the two guards to start laughing at Barry’s plight and move toward them to get a better view of the fight. They never saw the .22s in Barry’s and Graciela’s hands, two shots into each of their heads made sure they would never see anything again. Barry and Graciela changed the clips in their guns, while Graciela continued to harangue Barry. They started to make their way toward the emergency room.
The Delphinean commandos reached the ground floor via the two stairwells. They could hear Graciela screaming at Barry. They started laughing under their breaths as they checked out their HUDs to locate the guards at the outside exit of their stairwell. On both stairwells, the guards had entered the hospital so they could better hear the fight and were leaning against the wall next to the door to the interior; it was a simple matter to take them out from behind. At each end, two commandos took up position so they could guard the exterior doors while the others entered the hospital and made their way toward the emergency room where the eight enemy targets were guarding the big entrance.
As the three teams were converging on the emergency
room, an ambulance was backing into the dock. It had just arrived at the hospital with its light and siren blaring. The back door opened, and the EMT got out and pulled the gurney out of the ambulance. He turned it and started to push it into the hospital; a woman was lying on the gurney, her face covered in blood.
Immediately three of the guards came over to inspect them, the one who seemed to be in charge signaling the EMT to stop while they searched the gurney. The EMT reached under the pad on the gurney and pulled a silenced .22 out and shot him in the face. At the same time, the woman on the gurney pulled out two .22s, one in each hand, and shot the other two.
Barry and Graciela, with Graciela still yelling, shot two guards that were at the intake desk, while the two teams took out the remaining guards.
“Castro, get off your ass,” Barry barked, “we have bad guys to kill.”
“Right behind you, boss,” Cristina said as she hopped off the gurney and holstered one of the .22s. She took a moment to wipe her face clean, then went to the ambulance and grabbed the body armor; she handed a set each to Barry and Graciela, before she started to put hers on. After she finished suiting up, the team headed out of the hospital into the night.
Wed Nov 18th – 0420 CST
The Oryx was now hovering off the apartment building to give the snipers an angle on the two guards stationed on its roof. Unluckily for them, they were both smoking, standing next to each other. The snipers made quick work of them. Catie moved the Oryx over the roof so that the insertion team could rappel down.
As soon as the team hit the roof, they ran for the stairway door. They formed up outside it before opening it and making their way down to the top floor of the apartment building. It was only two floors; the Paraxeans had most of the apartments on the top floor, so the plan was to move them to the roof as quickly as possible. They broke up into eight teams of two and proceeded to the apartments occupied by Victor’s men. Each team had a master key and a handheld laser to cut any security chains, or if necessary, to cut through the door’s hinges.
Timing their entry via their Comms, each team entered the apartment they were targeting at the same time. In every case, they found Victor’s men asleep in their beds, not always alone. They quickly dispatched the men, informed the women that if they wanted to live, they needed to be quiet and hang out in the apartment until the next day. Within ten minutes, the top floor and the roof were secure. They alerted the Paraxeans, via their HUDs, to wake up and make their way to the roof where they would be met by members of Delphi’s security force and escorted to safety.
Leaving two Marines behind, the rest made their way down to the first floor. Barry had a team waiting outside to deal with the security around the building once they were in position and could afford the risk of an errant shot giving them away.
“Emilio, you’re good to engage!”
Emilio’s team was waiting; they had already positioned themselves as close to the guard positions as they could risk. As soon as they got the word, they brought up their M4s equipped with suppressors. Two shots from each of the six Marines in his team took care of all the outside security in thirty seconds.
“We’re clear out here,” Emilio announced.
“Okay, all’s quiet here, we’re going to clear these last ten rooms, then we’ll join you guys and take out the patrols.”
“Roger that!”
When Catie heard the all-clear, she lowered the Oryx down to the roof. Kal guided her until the rear door was resting on the roof. The Paraxeans were just coming out of the stairwell and onto the roof when they set down. Three crew from the Oryx helped the Paraxeans doctors and nurses onto the Oryx. In less than thirty minutes from when they started, Catie was climbing back to four hundred meters with the Paraxeans safely inside the Oryx. The Paraxeans crowded into the crew section in front of the cargo hold, while the snipers took up position on the lowered cargo door.
“Our first checkpoint is five kilometers to the west,” Kal told Catie. “You should have the exact location on your HUD.”
“Got it,” Catie said. “Moving into place now.” She had the Oryx drift over to the location specified. She stopped it two hundred meters south of the position as they had done in the enumerable drills Kal had put them through. “In position and holding.”
“Sniper team two, you’re now clear to engage,” Kal informed the team on the hospital roof.
“Clear to engage, roger.”
The snipers on the Oryx quickly located the three men at the checkpoint. Cristina and the other two women in Barry’s unit had managed to put a beacon on every one of the enemy guards that were currently standing watch at the checkpoints.
“On three, . . . one . . . two . . . three.” The three snipers fired their rifles within a tenth of a second of each other; the three enemy guards dropped to the ground, a shot through each of their heads.
“Next checkpoint,” Ramsey said.
“Mariana, don’t enjoy yourself too much,” Kal told Ramsey.
“It’s like shooting fish in a barrel,” she replied. “Not much of a challenge, but I’ll take it.”
Catie flew the Oryx to each of the eight checkpoints; they paused for one minute to allow the snipers to take out the men standing guard before moving on.
It was at the last checkpoint as the snipers were lining up their sights that the first sound of gunfire erupted. Since all of Kal’s Marines were using suppressors, that meant that Victor’s men had finally realized they were being taken out. It took another minute before the guards at the last checkpoint settled down long enough for the snipers to take them out.
“Okay, we’re done,” Ramsey said. “Do you want to take us over by that firefight to see if we can help out?”
“I’ve got it located. It’s Beta team engaging the first patrol,” Kal said. “Catie, I’ve sent you the coordinates.”
“On it,” Catie said. She moved the Oryx toward the coordinates, flying backward so that the cargo door was facing the area where the conflict was going on.
“Move two hundred meters at eighty-five degrees,” Kal ordered.
Catie moved the Oryx as instructed. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“You fly, we’ll fight,” Kal replied.
Catie was stung by the sharpness of the reply, but bit back her resentment; they had too many things to worry about to keep her updated. She was cut out of the Comm channel that they were using between teams, only having access to Kal’s Comm. It made sense, but it also left her feeling isolated.
“Take the easy shots,” Ramsey said. “They know we’re here, so just knock ‘em down.”
“What’s the situation on the ground?” Kal demanded.
“We’re caught in a crossfire between two of their patrols,” Sergeant Walker replied. “We came out of the park and engaged the first patrol, but the second one caught us from behind. We’re pinned down; they’ve got shooters up on a house to our southeast.”
“Not anymore,” Ramsey said. “We’ve taken out the shooters.”
“You copy that, Walker?” Kal asked.
“Roger, we can now move and cover our flank. Thanks for the assist.”
“We’ll stick around for a bit and see if we can pick a few more off for you; do you have any locations we should focus on?”
“The main force of the second patrol is one hundred meters to the northeast,” Walker said.
“We see them,” Ramsey said. “We’ll thin them out for you.”
“Sniper team Alpha, what’s your status?” Kal asked.
“The hospital area is secure; we’re now engaging the patrols when we can see them; it’s a bit of a turkey shoot.”
“They’re running for cover,” Ramsey reported. “I think Barry’s team is engaging another patrol. I hear fire coming from the north.”
“Walker, any casualties?” Kal asked.
“We have two down, percussion injuries, they’ll be okay in a day,” Walker reported. “The rest of us are good.”
“Roger
, we’re off then,” Kal said.
“Good hunting.”
Wed Nov 18th – 1000 CST
“What’s your status?” Marc asked Kal.
“We’re still mopping up; mostly body removal, but there are a few of Victor’s men still trying to get out of the area.”
“Casualty report?”
“Eight injured, one fatality, everyone’s tired,” Kal said.
“What caused the fatality? Did the armor fail?” Marc asked.
“No, got knocked over by enemy fire, hit his head on a wall, and broke his neck,” Kal said. “Freak series of events.”
“Do you have any prisoners?” Samantha asked.
“Ten,” Kal replied.
“Out of over two hundred combatants, you only captured ten?” Samantha scoffed.
“They’re the only ones that showed up at the hospital with their hands in the air,” Kal said. “We didn’t spend any time asking people who had weapons if they wanted to surrender.”
“Final count on the enemy?” Blake asked.
“We have one hundred seventy-five confirmed kills,” Kal said. “We have the ten prisoners, we believe there are approximately twelve in various locations in the city outside our control perimeter, and three holding hostages in a house. We’ll take care of them tonight.”
“Make sure your people do not identify themselves as from Delphi,” Samantha said. “I think the President of Guatemala wants to take credit for the action, and we’re happy to give it to him.”
“Do you need anything?” Marc asked.
“We’re good. The locals are feeding us, we’ve negotiated for a few houses for our people to camp in,” Kal said. “We brought plenty of ammo.”
“Okay, don’t hesitate to ask,” Marc said. “Catie, are you good with hanging out there, or do you want us to send another pilot to fly the Oryx?”
“I’m good. I’m just hanging out at the hospital, and I’m staying in the same apartments with the Paraxeans so Kal can keep an eye on me,” Catie said, giving Kal a glare. She wasn’t happy about the restrictions on her movements. She understood the need, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
