Lethal Authority (Wade Hanna Series Book 2)

by Joseph D'Antoni

  Wade’s new team member was an experienced spotter by the name of Max Yeoman. Max had just returned from his first tour of duty in Vietnam and had applied for Special Forces training. The two men bonded, and by the end of the long-range exercise they had scores high enough to have gone into battle as a sniper team. The tight groupings on the long range target by both men showed what a coordinated effort between experienced spotter and shooter could produce.

  During the long range exercise, Wade looked around periodically for Yari, but his vision was blocked by the number of bodies and curvature of the range. After the long-range session ended, the class went over to a group of buildings for a small arms close combat exercise. Team members were switched again, and Yari was assigned to yet another team. Wade worried about Yari in unknown hands, but there was no way to protect him.

  On the next team, Wade was blessed again with another good spotter and teammate by the name of Charlie Moorefield. This exercise finished with Wade scoring a tight grouping of nine shots in the rapid fire exercise. Again Wade looked for Yari, but only saw him once entering one of the simulation buildings with an automatic pistol in hand.

  The sight of Yari entering the combat training building caused Wade to remember he hadn’t given him much in the way of safety instruction. He hoped Yari knew to keep the pistol pointed away from himself or anyone else. Wade wondered if the instructors would pick up on Yari’s inexperience. They might do him a favor and kick him out of the class, or worse, there would be a weapons accident. Wade feared for instructors and other innocent people who might be in the exercise with him.

  It wasn’t until late that afternoon when the men returned to the barracks that Wade had a chance to speak to Yari again. Asking Yari how things had gone didn’t get much response. Yari thanked Wade for helping him, but he clearly didn’t want to talk. At the mess hall that evening, Wade finally got Yari talking a little about his day. None of what he said seemed encouraging.

  “My assigned team members after you just laughed at me, calling me an asshole.”

  That wasn’t the whole story. Yari wanted to let the conversation drop, and Wade didn’t push, but waited until Yari was able to continue.

  “The NSA never explained to me what I was getting into here. I would never consider shooting anyone or even at anyone. I don’t even like guns.”

  In Yari’s world, the outer limits of aggressive combat was decoding encrypted messages or hacking into someone else’s computer. Coming to terms with his predicament was good, but Wade wasn’t sure what alternatives were still open to him. He was registered in the system for the class. To have a drop-out on his record now might negatively impact his career. It was time to have a serious discussion with Yari about leaving the class before they started the live exercise.

  “The next several days will be spent in the woods and swamp, having to navigate unfamiliar terrain and carry out surveillance against other designated enemy teams. In the next round, we’ll have to evade teams seeking us out as targets.”

  An expression of bewilderment, or even defeat, covered Yari’s face. Trying to put on the best spin possible, Wade pointed out, “It’s still very early in the training session. You might want to consider opting out of the class by calling your NSA director or explaining your situation to the training commander here.”

  By that time, Yari had become sullen and unresponsive.

  “Sleep on it tonight. You can make your decision before going in the field tomorrow. There’s no disgrace in opting out of a class you never intended to take.”

  He wondered if Yari would be paired with him for the next exercise. For all his weird tendencies, he had grown on Wade. He was becoming like a kid brother, and Wade didn’t want to see him expelled from an exercise or physically harmed. And Wade knew some of the hostile Special Forces guys and the instructors would have little mercy on him.

  The next morning the men attended a briefing about the upcoming field exercise. Yari said nothing at breakfast about dropping out of the class, but was clearly discouraged and moody.

  Only a few moments remained before he could drop the class. Once the exercise started, there would be no way to quit or change teams. Unless Yari was on Wade’s team, he would be in the woods on his own. Wade felt the exercise would break Yari if he became isolated or was part of a hostile group.

  The cache, as it was called, was a no-weapons exercise, but still dangerous, as teams were buried in isolation throughout the 180,000 acres of Fort Benning. It was easy to get lost or injured. Wade visualized disgruntled Special Forces soldiers running Yari in circles for their own amusement. But the two had already had their discussion about Yari dropping out the previous evening, and Wade didn’t feel he could push the subject further.

  At the end of the briefing, pairs of four-member teams were assigned to face each other in the cache exercise. Much to Wade’s surprise, his team included himself, Max, Charlie, and Yari. Upon hearing the team make-up, each glanced at the others before turning to hear the instructor recite the rules of engagement.

  Yari seemed excited, and Wade felt somewhat relieved. After the briefing, the team assembled. Wade was quickly elected by the other men to lead Red Team in the exercise.

  It didn’t take long before Wade gave his first directive. “I want to go around and have each of us briefly describe our combat and surveillance experience. Let’s start with Charlie.”

  “I was on several night raids and recon missions in ’Nam, where my team navigated hostile terrain and known enemy positions.”

  Max was quiet and reserved. He didn’t like talking about Vietnam, but had a great deal of combat experience that would serve this team well. “I served as a lead in my unit and was on point for a lot of recon missions in ’Nam. I also headed several of what we called live-fire missions.”

  Charlie inquired for clarification, “What are ‘live-fire’ missions?”

  “We adopted the enemy’s tactic of hiding along well-traveled trails in ambush. We usually wiped out entire teams of Vietcong before they knew what hit them. I was also on several sniper kill missions.”

  Wade added to Max’s comment. “Didn’t you also get accepted for Special Forces training?”

  Max was holding his head down, avoiding Wade’s gaze. “Yes.”

  Everyone turned to look at Yari. He was pale and in awe of his team’s experience. “I don’t have any experience in either combat or surveillance.”

  The next morning each man received an envelope containing maps, training objectives, and rules of engagement. Red Team’s opponent was Blue Team, who was assigned the defensive position. Wade’s team was on offense, which meant they had to capture the caches without being caught by Blue Team.

  Rules of engagement seemed simple, on the surface. The winner on offense was the team that obtained the most caches before getting caught by the opposing team. The defensive team’s goal was to capture the offensive team before they completed their mission. The winner on defense was the team that captured the offensive team with the fewest number of caches in hand.

  However, the simple instructions didn’t reveal much about the complex strategy needed to successfully deploy offensive and defensive team tactics.

  Pairs of opposing teams were spread over a wide area to reduce the chance of contact with other groups in the exercise. Multiple quadrants within the Fort Benning territory were laid out on the map as boundaries. Crossing a boundary meant team disqualification, which would appear on one’s training record. The five caches were spread out within the assigned territory boundaries.

  Defensive teams were provided with the general area of the cache, but not the cache’s specific location. Offensive teams, on the other hand, knew the exact location of the hidden cache, but didn’t know where the defensive team would deploy their observers. The only way to know was to conduct recon missions.

  Red Team’s first recon mission produced a sighting of only one Blue Team member, which was disconcerting to Wade.

  “We h
ave to do this again and expand our search area. We know too little about where Blue Team is deployed. We can’t approach the caches until we know where the other team is positioned.”

  With maps in hand, Wade broke their boundary down into numbered sections based on the location of the caches and the location of the single Blue Team member sighting.

  The search area started with the cache located farthest away from Red Team base camp. The second mission for Red Team proved more productive, identifying all but one member of Blue Team. As the sun began to set over Red Team’s base camp, the men marked the map locations of all the sightings from the second mission.

  A circle of gathered rocks enclosed a small fire, offering both light and warmth against the chilly night air. Wade summarized the second recon mission findings.

  “Blue Team’s deployment tells us they’ve assumed that we’ll approach the caches in a certain order. So if, we pursue the caches in a different order, some should be available for the picking. But we have to be careful Blue Team doesn’t change their observation postings.”

  A discussion of a plan to counter Blue Team’s positions continued among the group. Pointing to the newly marked map, Max summarized his observations.

  “Stations 3 and 4 each have two men. They’re leaving Stations 1 and 5 open, but you have to cross the exposed dirt road to get past Station 3 to reach Station 1. They’re almost daring us to take that route. We have to get to Station 1 or 3 a different way.”

  Pointing to an open area between Station 3 and 4, Wade suggested an alternative. “If we create a diversion in this location, it might draw Blue Team off their stations.” The approach needed more thought to avoid being captured. Late that afternoon, Wade’s team discovered that two caches remained unmanned, and they could be easily obtained without being seen. Wade called the team together to review their next strategy.

  “We have to assume Blue Team believes that all three caches are still in place. If they believe any one is missing, they’ll redouble their lookouts to cover the remaining ones.”

  “Why do you think they still believe all caches are in play?”

  “Because they have a man covering a spot where the cache has already been taken. We have to assume the worst case scenario in our planning until we get confirming recon information.”

  The small campfire helped take the chill out of the night air. It was after midnight on the second day of the exercise. Red Team joked and relaxed, in high spirits, recapping their day after having achieved four of their five objectives - capturing caches without getting caught by Blue Team.

  Wade was concentrating hard on getting to cache 5 undetected. Everyone except Yari was sitting or lying on the ground, unwinding from the past two days’ events. Wade was sitting with his back against a large tree, making small notes on their area map.

  Yari was the only one still standing, leaning against the trunk of a tree and still going on about what life was like growing up in Indiana. None of the other men were interested in listening to Yari’s stories or his newfound energy. They just wanted to shut the day off.

  Yari’s vocal recital accompanied the setting of the sun. His sullen demeanor during the day changed to non-stop talking as the sun disappeared below the horizon. However, after more than an hour of listening to Yari, everyone had simply tuned him out. Wade was the closest one to Yari, but was only listening with one ear to Yari’s white background noise.

  As was the case for so many computer analysts, most of Yari’s work was done at night, when his brain seemed to function better than most. Storytelling compensated for the absence of computers in the field, but his only interested audience was night owls and tree branches.

  The other men were half asleep, soaking up whatever warmth the dwindling fire provided. The low drone of Yari’s background noise didn’t keep anyone from going to sleep in his face, but neither did he seem bothered by the fact that no one was listening.

  Charlie, lying with his head on his hand, glimpsed bright stars in spaces between fast-moving dark clouds. Max turned quietly to his side with his eyes closed. Wade, concentrating on the team’s next move, had his eyes focused on some mysterious point in the dark forest. He knew sleep would soon overtake him as he readjusted his position, nestling a few inches lower onto his rucksack. Yari went on speaking to himself, which didn’t seem to bother him.

  With one eye half open Wade heard Yari mention something about the beauty of Indiana girls. He opened the other eye to catch the rest of the sentence, and that was when he heard the familiar sound of a pop followed by a sharp crack. Wade instantly realized that a high speed projectile had invaded the camp’s perimeter in a no-weapons space.

  Wade looked up to see a small piece of bark fly off the tree branch a few inches from Yari’s head. It was like a light just went on. He put the two incongruous sights and sounds together and yelled, “Get down!”

  Still oblivious to what had just happened, Yari turned to Wade and asked, “What?”

  Wade grabbed Yari’s shirt and pulled him to the ground, repeating, “Down!”

  Wade immediately knew that what came through their camp was a high velocity silenced round – that had just been fired at Yari’s head.

  Jolted by Wade’s pull, Yari lay on the ground and asked, “What’s going on?”

  Wade responded, “You were fired on. Roll.” And he pointed across the clearing to where the other men were lying.

  In an instant, Max was on full alert in a prone position tucked against the thick bushes that surrounded the encampment. Charlie instinctively rolled twelve feet from Max and stayed tight to the bushes lining the camp area.

  Everyone except Yari reacted with alertness and instinctively moved closer to the outer perimeter of the campsite. All eyes were on Wade.

  Yari was still asking, “What happened?”

  Charlie, who was next to Yari, turned and said, “We were fired on.”

  “What?”

  Wade rolled over next to Max and spoke quietly. “We took a round about three inches from Yari’s head.” He pointed to the barren piece of branch next to where Yari’s head had been.

  By now they were all awake and attentive, their backs tightly pressed against bushes lining the edge of the clearing.

  “Stay as flat to the ground as you can,” Wade ordered.

  Whispering and using hand signals, Wade explained what happened and indicated the direction from which he thought the shot originated. “I’m pretty sure it was a silenced M-21. I heard the round hit a branch on its way in.” For Yari’s benefit, Wade once again pointed to the branch with the missing bark, so everyone was aware of the projectile’s direction.

  Wade turned to Max and said in a low whisper, “I think the shooter is about seventy yards out.”

  Wade drew a pictogram in the soft dirt: two semi circles and a straight line. Max knew exactly what Wade was thinking. Now that everyone was flush to the ground and safe for the moment, Wade explained what he wanted to do.

  The campsite was higher than the ground around them and buttressed by a thick stand of large trees and bushes. Lots of dried twigs and leaves covered the ground for fifty yards around the campsite, making it difficult for anyone to approach without being heard.

  Wade whispered to Max that he was going to roll to the other side of the clearing and suggested that he and Max begin a flanking movement in a semi-circle toward the shooter. He directed Max to stay low and referenced his diagram in the dirt for the pattern he wanted Max to follow. Wade’s impromptu plan would have them approaching the shooter from two different angles, meeting at the apex where the two semi-circles crossed, about seventy yards out. Max immediately understood Wade’s plan and signaled that he was ready.

  Before giving the signal to Max, Wade wanted to think a moment more to ensure that he was making the right decision. He and Max would be approaching an armed sniper with nothing more than a field knife. If they tried to run or stay in place, the shooter could instantly pick them off one-by-one. They ha
d the cover of a dark night with fog rolling in; maybe if they could get close to the shooter from two positions, he might get unsettled and leave the area. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all he could come up with at the moment.

  There were really no other options. He wasn’t going to sit still and remain a target. He had to move. After all, a trained sniper who already had them in his scope was repositioning for his next shot.

  Chapter 8

  Wade turned to Max looking for confirmation of his plan. “We have the cover of a very dark, overcast night on our side.”

  As a seasoned sniper, Max anticipated Wade’s thought process. “A frontal flanking approach should give us maximum effect, assuming the shooter can’t get a clear shot at us.”

  “That’s right. We’ll have to make sure he doesn’t get that shot. Remember the shooter probably has PVS 2 night vision goggles or a Starlight scope. Hug the ground like a snake. Keep obstacles between you and the shooter. Don’t let him get a clear shot.”

  Max agreed and was ready to deploy. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “I’m going to roll back to the other side. Move out when ready.”

  “Copy.”

  Wade rolled to the other side of the clearing to give final instructions to Charlie and Yari.

  Still stunned by everything that happened, Yari asked, “This may be a dumb question, but why would you go after an armed sniper in the middle of the night with nothing more than your field knife? Am I missing something here?”

  “It’s our only chance. Otherwise, he’ll pick us off one at a time.”

  Trying to make logical sense of Wade’s last statement, Yari couldn’t think of a decent follow-up question.

  “You and Charlie stick together,” Wade continued. “I’m putting Charlie in charge of your team. Stay flat on the ground for thirty minutes to give us time to draw the shooter’s attention. After that, belly crawl 100 yards to the south. There’s another clearing. Wait there flat on the ground, preferably with trees between you and the direction of the shooter until we return. Understand?”