by Vince Milam
Esma didn’t have that issue. Well, better late than never, although high odds the lead vehicle had rolled past the last dynamite plant and was now hauling it toward their camp. Bad news.
My miscalculation on their travel separation didn’t help either. Once the debris had stopped raining down and the dust cleared enough to see, I got on my knees and sought the tail end Charlie. It sat at a skewed position on the trail, headlights still on. The blast had affected it, blown it sideways, and no doubt shaken up the occupants. But they hadn’t entered the kill zone and weren’t dead, evidenced when the front passenger door opened, and a merc stumbled out. Two other doors opened, and two more spilled out. Son of a bitch.
They were stunned, I wasn’t, and the immediate move was attack. I scrambled through brush at full speed, halting twenty paces away and raising my rifle. The one who’d bailed from the side of the Sherpa facing me had retrieved his weapon and, on unsteady legs, brought it to his shoulder. It was too late for him as I sent two shots into his chest. He collapsed, dead before he hit dirt.
The other two had exited from the opposite side, and I started a mad dash around the vehicle’s front, still twenty paces away. Big mistake. I passed through the headlight beams, assuming they were too shaken for a fight. A rip of automatic fire proved me wrong. The bullets thwacked nearby dirt and chased me as I continued flying. One of the newly created craters, three feet deep and ten across, became my objective. Any port in a storm.
I dove in, my two adversaries way too close for comfort. Bullets bee-buzzed overhead, others kicked up dirt at the crater’s rim. Both mercs fired on full automatic, which didn’t help their aim but sure as hell put a lot of lead into my general area.
When they halted firing for a moment, one slamming home a fresh magazine, I returned the favor. Single shots popped through the open driver door window. One man yelped—wounded but not down. They both pulled a three-pace tactical retreat toward the rear of their vehicle and ripped off another series of automatic fire while I pressed into the crater. Their headlights joined moonlight and lit up the tiny battle area. Not good. Visibility into my hole was at the bottom of my wish list.
These were trained mercs, and their next move was a given. One would circle the Sherpa’s rear and obtain a better firing angle. The next rip of automatic fire confirmed it. The bullets whipped across my back side, inches above me, and slammed into the crater’s dirt wall. The shooter who’d stayed put continued firing at the crater’s rim.
Another brief firing pause triggered me to peek my head up and return fire. Before I could, unmistakable sounds entered the battle area. Sharp metal penetrating flesh and a mortally wounded scream. The first noise was a deep, gouging penetration, a violent squish and crunch, followed with slashes to flesh. The Bolivians. They’d taken on the shooter who’d maintained his position, his back facing the uphill slope. His back toward them.
The remaining merc shifted footing and whipped around, focused on the violence at the vehicle’s other side. Big mistake. He’d exposed his body, and I sent two bullets into him. As he staggered, I slowed my aim time and sent another into his head. Just to be sure.
I leapt from the crater, aware more mercs at my back could have survived the blast. I shouldered the rifle and captured an otherworldly moonlit scene. For over a hundred dim yards, scattered and smoldering vehicle remnants ruled the sight. Chassis with fractured auto bodies laid on their sides. Multiple small fires flickered, highlighting debris everywhere. Weaving among the hellscape were Esma and the other Bolivians. They worked their way along the cratered track, sidestepping debris, hunting survivors. Esma’s pistol blasted twice, then a third time. Other crippled survivors fell to pickaxes and shovels and machetes. I never heard Chambers fire.
Circling the intact Sherpa near me, I saw two Bolivians. While one stood with a dripping machete, the other placed a sandaled foot against his victim’s back, struggling to retrieve his pickax. He had embedded it to the hilt as the pick’s narrow steel tip protruded from the dead man’s chest. I pulled out my radio and asked for a status. There was no reply from Peterman. Esma was busy putting a bullet into the head of anything that moved or moaned. Chambers responded.
“All is good here, with one minor hitch. The lead vehicle made it, I’m afraid. I would expect they are creating a defensive position as we speak.”
“Any survivors on your end?”
“There were, and I emphasize past tense. A handful of our Bolivian chaps descended upon them as dry-land piranhas on fresh meat. I never fired.” There was a brief pause, and Chambers keyed his radio’s mic again. “Or rather, I never busted a cap. I believe you people are quite fond of that expression these days.”
The MI6 agent’s gibes were all good at the moment. A hardened professional and cool as a cucumber, I’d need him for whatever came next.
The single shots ceased, the wet metal-on-flesh sounds tapered off. The collective adrenaline meter for our group, redlined once the explosion kicked things off, abated. We gathered in the crater-filled track. I asked the Bolivians to extinguish the small fires scattered throughout the explosion’s football-field-sized area. Peterman made his way downhill and joined us.
“I am so sorry. So sorry,” he said. “When it came time, I just could not do it. I am so sorry.”
“No worries. You had a partner up there who was willing,” I said, nodding toward Esma. We still might need Peterman, and there was no point hammering him over his hesitancy.
Esma was fired up, her return nod toward me tight and quick, eager for the next phase.
“What is next?” Esma asked.
“Allow me to suggest, Lee, that whatever your next step plans were,” Chambers said, filling his pipe from the leather tobacco pouch, “they are now in the proverbial shitter.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“How many do you think are left?” Esma asked me.
“Five or six when you add in the ones left at the camp.”
“That is not so many,” she said.
“Five or six on high alert with full automatic weapons. Our side has one semiautomatic rifle. And lots of machetes.”
Calling it quits now wouldn’t alter the larger picture. The gravel runway adjacent to KDB’s camp would handle more fly-in mercs in a matter of days. The vengeance would be horrible. A given. The lone option, the only definitive action that had a chance of pulling the plug on KDB’s Bolivian operations was to go Roman on their asses. Kill them all, burn it to the ground, scatter the stones, and salt the earth. That’s a hard reality for the general public, but the small crowd standing around me understood it all too well.
“Alright,” I said. “Let’s start with intel. We won’t do jack until we know exactly what we’re up against. First, I’ll pull a recon and assess the situation. Chambers, you up for that?”
“Ready and willing. Let us venture forward, the night is young, and we are wedded to calamity.”
“Shakespeare?”
“Good for you, sport.”
“What’s not good is those sons of bitches will be waiting for us.”
Chambers fired his pipe and said, “Then let’s not disappoint them.”
Chapter 14
We hiked deep into the thicket and piled into our two vehicles. I reminded Peterman that no-headlights was mandatory. I led, Chambers beside me, Esma and two Bolivians in the back. Progress was slow as we weaved among the brush and trees, but our next parking spot was only a half-mile away. Using the mountain ridgeline as a guide, we stopped near where the dirt track would have turned and headed down the ridge’s north side, toward KDB’s camp.
The handheld radios were line-of-sight communication devices, so I asked Peterman to stand in his pickup’s bed and contact the two Bolivians who’d stationed near the camp checkpoint. He did.
“What an explosion!” was the initial reply when he contacted them. “We were certain you could not survive such a blast! How many of you were killed?”
“None of us were killed. Were
there any men at the checkpoint when you arrived?”
“None of you were killed? We felt it in our feet. The noise was terrible. Terrible.”
“Were there any men at the checkpoint when you arrived?” he asked again.
“It is a miracle it killed none of you. That is the only explanation. A miracle.”
There was a brief pause as the two Bolivians absorbed the news. Then they responded to Peterman’s question.
“There was no one here when we arrived.”
“And after the explosion?”
“A single vehicle, traveling very fast, went past us and toward their camp.”
I joined Peterman in the pickup’s bed, instructing him. The Bolivians knew his radio voice, and responding would be second nature. If I spoke with them, it would alter their responses, and we required honest assessments.
“Ask them if they can see any activity at the camp,” I said.
It was a long shot as the checkpoint was a good quarter-mile from their operations. But I didn’t know how high on the mountain these two men were when they established their observation post.
“No, we cannot see the camp. Once the army vehicle passed us, it was not long before all the lights at the camp were turned off.”
Smart move on their part. Equipped with night-vision scopes on their weapons, they’d hunker down and scan the cleared-ground perimeter. No one at the camp’s edge could see with any clarity into their world. A half-moon and starlight wouldn’t do the trick.
“Instruct them to wait there until you arrive,” I said.
He did, they agreed, and another radio’s crackle came through, garbled beyond understanding. It was the large group of villagers, positioned in the brush near the camp. They must have overheard half our conversation from the two at the checkpoint.
“Tell them to tell the larger group to be silent and continue waiting. Tell them you will arrive soon. Tell them not to use the radios again until you arrive.”
He did, and there were no more radio communications. I jumped to the ground, retrieved a penlight from my rucksack, broke off a brush limb, and drew a map in the dirt. Their camp had once been an exploratory mining site, and they had cleared all brush for several hundred yards in every direction, leaving bare dirt. Not the best environment for sneaking up on the bastards. To the camp’s south, the brush line started at the base of the mountain ridge. Where a couple hundred villagers hid. To the north, the gravel runway for aircraft. Alongside the runway, a helicopter mechanic shed and the parked chopper.
“Alright. Esma, you and Peterman and these eight Bolivians head west. When you hit the dirt track, cross it and work uphill. Hike side hill until you find the two at the checkpoint. Collect them and all of you move along the hillside, staying concealed and quiet, until you meet up with the larger group. Got that?”
“I understand. But what will you and Chambers do?”
“We’ll head off in a different direction and communicate via radio. With you. That reminds me, Peterman. Collect all the radios. All of them. You keep one and Esma keeps one. Otherwise, no crosstalk, no chatter. None. Do you understand?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “And no foul-ups on my part this time. I promise.”
“There is a problem,” Esma said. “I am going with you two.”
“No, you’re not.”
Even in the dim moonlight I could see her face and recognized hardheaded to the extreme.
“Look, Esma. We have to have a leader among the Bolivians. No offense, Peterman, but when it gets crazy ugly, and it will, I’ve got to have someone on the camp’s other side who maintains control. That would be you, Esma.”
We had our five-second staredown. Then her shoulders relaxed.
“What I dislike is being left out of the plan. The overall plan.”
“I’m not leaving you out. At all. Right now, the overall plan is half-assed at best. We’ll communicate with you once we establish something more definitive. Okay?”
She agreed, and they gathered themselves, prepared to sneak off into the night. The Bolivians with us snatched up all the pickaxes. They couldn’t be dissuaded to leave them behind. Fair enough. As they prepped for departure, I pulled Esma aside.
“I’m counting on you. I’m counting on your help keeping me and Chambers from getting killed. I don’t know what that looks like right now, but it will happen. Are we clear on that?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“I’m also counting on you to keep the Bolivians safe. Peterman will help with that.”
“We will be fine.”
“You may not be. When you and Peterman arrive at the large group, and there are hundreds of them, your first job is moving them into the uphill rocky area. We both know that they’re huddled in the brush near the camp. Move them uphill where there are boulders and rocks. Brush won’t stop bullets. And keep them quiet. Absolute silence unless you hear otherwise from me.”
She nodded, grim and determined, and stepped close. Her hug was tight, and I returned the same. She whispered in my ear.
“We are depending on you, Case Lee.”
“And I’m depending on you, Esma.”
They were off, leaving Chambers and I standing alone. The Chaco stood quiet, the breeze minimal, dust and bitter dry-land vegetation smells filling the air.
“It is a long way from New Guinea,” he said.
“Yeah, it is.”
We both stood stock-still and quiet, absorbing the moment and the job ahead. There were no nighttime bird flickers, no nocturnal animals rustling in the brush. A falling star flashed briefly across the dark horizon.
“This is a bloody lonely place to die,” Chambers said. “Let’s do our levelheaded best and ensure that doesn’t happen.”
“I’m with you, bud.” Another lengthy silent pause. “Alright. Let’s gear up and head out.”
“I am geared up, Lee. Me and my 9mm Walther. Should I grab a pickax?”
I opened the SUV’s back hatch and retrieved the sawed-off shotgun.
“Grab this instead.”
He stared for a moment, took the weapon, cracked it open, and exposed the two twelve-gauge shells.
“Your blunderbuss isn’t available?”
“Funny. Here, take these.”
I handed him two extra shotgun shells, then reloaded my half-empty rifle magazine. My light daypack was less-than-stuffed with the extra magazines, a penlight, and not much else. The Taurus pistol and radio remained in my front pockets. Man, for an assault against an entrenched enemy, it was slim pickings in the things-that-go-bang bucket.
I gave Peterman’s truck a once-over. There were several extra handheld radios scattered on the front dashboard, a water bottle, and a can of air freshener. I started closing the truck’s door when an all-too-rare revelation hit me. I reached back into the truck, removed an extra radio, and pulled its cover off. A nine-volt battery stared back, nestled inside. Necessity might well be the mother of invention, but desperation came in a damn close second. I slid the battery into my pocket.
The truck’s bed contained the two remaining dynamite sticks and several hundred-meter two-strand wire rolls. I took two rolls and shoved them into the daypack along with the dynamite.
“It would appear you have formulated some Ramboesque plan,” Chambers said. “Would it not be easier to simply call in your B-2 bombers?”
“I would, but they’re busy. Britain is threatening to invade Washington, DC.”
“Hardly. Our forces have insufficient hazmat suits for such an endeavor.”
“Grab two blasting caps from my SUV. You carry those. Safety first.”
“Quite right. Would you care to share your grand design?”
“Leave the Grey Goose bottle alone, but grab the binoculars from my rucksack. I’ve got the scope.”
“Apparently your secret plan is just that. Very hush-hush.”
“Look. The enemy is hunkered down. The Bolivians said they’ve eliminated all camp lighting. They have night-vision sc
opes on their weapons. I’ve seen them. So they can see us, and we have damn poor odds seeing them. Let’s at least level the visibility playing field.”
“With dynamite.”
“With dynamite. There are two large fuel bladders near the chopper and mechanic’s shop. Those are situated alongside the runway. Two big bangs, and we’ve got plenty of fuel-induced light across the battlefield.”
“And once the rockets’ red glare perform their duty, what might be next?”
I shouldered the daypack.
“Hell if I know. Let’s move.”
Chapter 15
We hiked at a moderate pace, easing through the brush, headed north. I wasn’t in any rush for engagement. Let the bastards stew for a while. I thought about the Esma-led group working along the slope above the camp, joining forces with the large Santa Ana group. And I wondered if they could pull off a silent shift uphill without drawing fire. The mountain ridge again provided a navigation landmark as it loomed, moonlit and stark.
An hour later, I angled toward the enemy. We approached their large cleared camp area and halted inside the brush line. We stood near the end of the gravel runway. There were no lights at the camp, as reported. I could make out large, vague tent shapes but nothing more. There was no discernible movement, and the area remained quiet. Esma must have shifted the Santa Ana troops uphill without a ruckus.
“Alright,” I whispered. “Let’s circle north and west and have a look at where they parked the chopper.”
Chambers and I headed off again, moving with caution deep in the brush. The tent cluster was several hundred yards away but the sharp crack of a stepped-on brittle limb might have carried through the still night.
Thirty minutes later, we hand-and-knee crawled through brush and lay belly-flat at the vegetation’s edge. The runway, its gravel displaying a darker color than the surrounding bare dirt, was ten paces away. We were situated mid-runway and directly across from the chopper and maintenance shed. And the two fuel bladders. I scoped with the rifle; Chambers peered through the binoculars.