by C. L. Jones
Pops again tried to remember, was it now blue team seven and red team eight? Then he thought if that’s right it would mean a little better odds.
Indy continued with the plans for the competition. He reached into his pocket, took out a small white rock and pulled a wooden bedside table in front of his knees where they extended over the edge of his bunk. Bending down he used the rock to draw on the table and started to explain his ideas to the team. “This is our camp and this is the red flag where we started our course yesterday. I’m sure you all recognize the punji pit, the crevasse bridged by the fallen tree and the river gorge that I will call the valley of death.” Indy looked up at the team to make sure everyone was with him so far. He went on, “At some point the red team’s course will converge with the blue team’s course. Any time we meet the blue team on the course, we are to defend ourselves.” Looking around again he continued, “The first team to clear each obstacle will plant a flag and defend that position. Then on Friday at twelve hundred hours the team with their flags standing on the most obstacle positions will win. There is a flag for each of the obstacles and one for the base camp. We must defend our flagged positions any way we can. Seeing as we only have seven men and four positions, there will be some long hard days and nights. Do you all understand what I’m saying?”
Cowboy interrupted by asking, “What the hell happened to the best five of each team running the course?”
Indy just replied, “That has all changed, it is team against team.” He acted a little pissed off by Cowboy’s interruption and sharply said, “Now getting back to what I was saying, we will decide who defends what position as we take them, okay?” No one answered, the team just sat there in silence. In the silence Indy sensed something was happening in the room and possibly his authority could be questioned. He didn’t want to give anyone time to ask questions so he quickly concluded with his little dictator routine, “Okay boys, go back to your hooches and get some good sleep. Tomorrow we’ll start kicking ass.”
The team got up and one by one shuffled out and headed back toward their hooches, or so they wanted everyone to believe. Pops went in the front door and out the back door of his hooch on a full run. He checked the area and saw no one behind his hooch so he ran to his stash and retrieved the ammo, satchel and the C-4. He ran back to his hooch pausing just inside the door to catch his breath. He lit a small candle, stashed the retrieved gear under his bunk and sat by the door in the dim light waiting for the team.
Each man came in the back door, nodded to each other and found a seat on an empty bunk and waited. Pops did not say a word to any of them. The full team minus Indy had assembled as he got up and to their surprise started handing out the extra clips of ammo to Surfer, Rocky, Tracker, and Roadside. He acted like he gave a clip to Cowboy but palmed it since Cowboy had already received his. Then Pops said, “We’re in this together. We can win the money and go home from this place. I’m not sure what will happen to the losers.” He was worried about his next statement but knew he had no choice. He leaned over and looked out the hooch windows at the darkened compound, then said, “I’m not sure of Indy so don’t tell him about the extra ammo or anything. Let’s all just watch him for a while. I don’t know why but I don’t trust him any further then I can throw a bull elephant. Okay?” Pops looked at the men sitting in the candle light and then said, “Okay, no betrayals or we consider you the same as the blue team.”
Cowboy got up and held out his hand like he, Surfer and Pops had done earlier. The rest of the men added their fists to the center of the circle touching Pops’, Surfer’s and Cowboy’s hands. They looked at Pops, nodded their heads and turned and left one at a time without speaking.
Alone again in his hooch, Pops went to his bed and crawled in thinking that after all these years he would have to depend on others. But he reaffirmed to himself that he wouldn’t let down his guard or compromise his own safety. As he dropped off to sleep he tried to think about everything that could or might go wrong.
Like a screeching echoing crow on your open window the first thing in the morning the sound of Indy’s voice came all too soon. Indy was going door to door yelling for everyone to roll out and hit the shower and mess hall. He stomped around like he thought he was important while yelling over and over at the top of his lungs, “Formation in one hour.” Pops got out of bed and thought, what the hell, is this? I’m not back in the army.
As was his every day morning habit, he once again picked up his things and headed to the shower house. After his shower he went to the mess hall to eat. In the mess hall the two teams were seated back to back, half on each side of the room. He checked his normal favorite eating place in the corner and it was there waiting for him. After filling two trays, he picked up his coffee and went back to the table, sitting with his back to everyone like always. He finished the food on his first tray along with his first cup of coffee. So he got up for a second cup, walking through the rows of divided tables checking the other team over and taking a headcount. He filled his cup and walked back through the tables taking mental notes of his adversaries. He did his best to look relaxed and unaffected as he finished eating while considering what he saw of the blue team during his jaunt from the mess and coffee lines to his table. He finished and took his tray to the kitchen window, scraped it off and handed it to the guy behind the window. Then he decided to have one more cup of that worldwide great and famous U.S. mess hall coffee.
Thinking he would be pushed for time later in the morning Pops left the mess hall and headed back to his hooch to get the explosives. He placed the explosives in a belt and carefully wrapped the belt around his waist. Since he’d eaten a lot he decided to hike around the compound to let the food settle plus he could take the opportunity to give everything a quick once-over. He was heading back to his hooch when he saw Indy holding red marker flags at the starting line of the red team course. The rest of the team had already gathered around and were acting very impatient. As Pops walked toward the red team he saw the blue team gathering around their leader at their flag.
Startled, Pops felt like someone had backhanded him. He’d never seen the blue team leader anywhere in the compound or anywhere else before. Out of habit he counted the members on the blue team. Then he recounted. There were nine members on the other team. Did someone add a player or had this been a hidden ringer all along? Or had Pops just lost count along the way?
He walked to the red team gathering and saw some of his team members trying to draw his attention to the blue team. Pops went up to Indy and furiously asked, “What the hell is going on with that?” Indy gave Pops an angry look and didn’t say a word back until some of the other men on the team started to bitch.
“Okay, okay, I’ll find out what is up,” Indy said as he turned and walked to the area where the colonel and captain were standing watching over the entire ongoing events.
As soon as Indy walked away from the red team Pops assumed command, “Okay here it is. We let the blue team take the obstacles first and we let them be sitting targets. Why fight over a position that will be easier to take away from one or two sitting targets?” He had the team’s attention and wanted to finish before Indy returned, so after looking in Indy’s direction he continued, “The punji pit is about a half hour out. When we start, we get out of sight of the compound and then wait for a while. If we do it right the blue team will be trying to figure out what’s going on and maybe they’ll think that the silly old red team got lost. They will be all too happy to get pumped up and think they are better than us. We will give them a little time.”
Just then Surfer lowered his head, cleared his throat and said, “The prick is coming back.” There was no need to say anything more.
Everyone stopped talking and waited to hear what kind of explanation Indy would provide. Indy entered the circle of red team members and without hesitation started to explain, “Okay boys listen up, here’s how it is. The blue team has had some bad luck the last few days so the colonel decided to let one
of the cadre members fill in as the blue team leader. The guy was brought in yesterday from the outside. The colonel said that this cadre member isn’t familiar with the course at all but he’ll be treated like any other blue team member.” Indy looked at the team then finished, “The colonel said it’s his decision and he doesn’t want to hear any bitching about it so live with it.”
Cowboy popped off in a kind of joking manner, “I can work with that, oh wait maybe I should say I can live with that. Anyway, if he’s on the blue team then he’s just another target to me.”
Indy, thinking he’d answered the question told the men, “Okay let’s get ready, we don’t have much time.” As a group, the red team turned toward the blue team and watched every move the blue team made. The added scrutiny by the red team seemed to be having an effect on the blue team who now looked unsure and uncomfortable. They made little jittery movements as they prepared to begin. All of this was just what the red team wanted.
It wasn’t long before the men on the blue team began making dumb-ass remarks to the red team to compensate for their nervousness. The remarks escalated into shouting out little digging insults and when this had no effect on the red team, the blue team just got plain old barnyard dog mad. Their new leader tried to refocus them but a couple of the blue team guys had worked themselves into a frenzy and were acting very much like imaginary players they may have seen in a video game. It was plain to Pops and Cowboy that the blue team members were not acting like anyone who’d been working for the organization for any amount of time. They were definitely inexperienced. Hell, it appeared that they hadn’t even been through the organization’s training farm.
Pops took mental note of their faces filing their appearance away in his back pocket in case he needed it during the competition. Pops was also aware that the blue team craziness could be a deception instigated by a couple of experienced professional agents who were undercover in the blue team. If not careful it could be easy for the red team to walk right into a trap.
The training captain and the colonel were standing next to each other. The captain blew his whistle and the colonel yelled, “Okay gentleman, it’s game time.” When he had everyone’s attention he bellowed out, “From this point on you are on your own. You will hold your ground at all cost and you will not get help from us in any way. The only thing you will get from us for the rest of this exercise are meals in the mess halls at both compounds. The compounds will be in full operation.” The colonel continued, “At the end of the exercise the team holding the most positions and with the most team members standing will win.”
Everyone was looking at each other and at the opposing team. Some were chomping at the bit to get going and some were very nervous, but the nervous ones looked to be mostly on the blue team. Pops watched the excitement build and thought that warrior mentality and rebel blood seemed to live in some people forever. The warrior mentality and rebel blood had been around since the birth of the United States and always would be.
Regaining the attention of the two teams, the training captain held up a silver whistle and yelled, “Okay gentlemen, in about five minutes I’ll blow this whistle and at that time the blue team will start on their course. Then ten minutes later I’ll blow the whistle again and the red team will take off.”
At that point the blue team seemed to perk up and the red team started bitching under their breath. From the back of the red team’s line Cowboy cleared his throat loudly and asked a general question, “It’ll be an easy ambush on us guys. You think maybe we’ve been the clay pigeons all along?”
Indy spun around and snarled at him, “Knock it off.”
Cowboy had had about all he wanted from the half-ass nincompoop so he yelled back, “Hey Indy, fuck you.” The look on Indy’s face was like the look on your mother’s face the first time she heard you use that word.
“Okay, okay,” yelled the training captain. Then he yelled out, “Blue team, get ready.” He held his right hand in the air and was looking at a stopwatch in his left hand. Then he blew the whistle and dropped his hand at the same time as a sign to go. The blue team took off and in no time disappeared into the woods.
There was complete silence as the red team watched the tree line where the blue team had disappeared. Pops thought it looked as if his team wanted some kind of x-ray vision to see what was going on behind the brush and trees. The guys on the red team knew this could be a big ambush set up. All were concerned for their safety and those who had families were worried about not coming home. At this point there was little anyone could do except play the game and compete for their honor and of course the money. They weren’t worrying about the competition rules because who said anything about following any rules? Others were concerned because they’d heard stories about agents who went against the organization and their whole families had disappeared. Sometimes the families disappeared for good or until the agent learned a lesson. If families were returned the agents became well behaved puppies of the organization.
Rocky turned to Pops and simply asked, “What do you think?”
Indy turned to Rocky, “What do you mean, what does he think? I’ll be doing the thinking around here.”
That was the last straw for Cowboy. He went ballistic but kept control and looked at Indy. He kept his voice very low voice and with his teeth clinched together, growled at Indy, “Don’t mess with us bud, or else.”
Indy growled back, “Oh yeah, or else what?”
Without missing a beat Cowboy said, “Or else you’ll be one of the assholes that just stays out there in the woods.” He stepped right in front of Indy and stared into Indy’s eyes. The two stood face to face like two old gun fighters ready to go at it.
The captain blew his whistle again and yelled, “Okay red team, go.” No one on the team moved. Everyone on the team just stood there watching Indy and Cowboy. The training captain yelled again, “Hey you guys get going.”
Finally Rocky and Roadside forcefully stepped between the two men and Roadside said, “Enough, we need to be one team now. You two can take care of this later.”
The training captain began walking toward the red team when Indy stepped back and said, “Okay later.” He waved his finger in Cowboy’s face which just about started the whole thing over again.
With a big old country boy grin Cowboy just replied, “Yeah later.”
Indy turned and took off on the course with each team member following; Roadside, Rocky, Surfer, Tracker, Pops and Cowboy took the drag.
Indy was going along ahead of the rest of the red team when Roadside stopped. He turned and held up his hand for them to stop. The expression on his face indicated that it must be important. Except for Indy the team came up one by one and gathered around Roadside. Since Indy had been out front and had not seen Roadside’s signal, he’d kept on running. As Surfer came alongside Roadside he asked, “What’s wrong?”
With a quick glance over his shoulder in the direction that Indy had been running, Roadside said with the look of dread on his face, “It’s a trap.” The team looked at him, then at Indy still running into the woods.
Cowboy and Pops heard Roadside’s remark as they approached. Cowboy glanced down the path that Indy was on and looked back at the team and said, “I vote to lose him.” He pointed in Indy’s direction then back at Pops and said, “Let’s make Pops the team leader. The leadership said it was up to each team to vote on the team leader. As far as I can remember we never voted on anyone.” The team silently agreed.
Not wanting to waste any time Pops said, “We can talk about it later, but right now let’s go with Roadside’s gut.” Then telling the team to quickly take cover in the woods along the path, he told them, “Zigzag cover, stay out of sight, we’ll bide our time.”
Pops motioned for the team to spread out and stay low. In no time the team was completely concealed in the surrounding forest using the green foliage to cover their positions. Cowboy headed back to the original path and used a branch that had fallen off of a pine tre
e to sweep away traces on the original path where the team had been and where they had left the path to find their hiding places. Then Cowboy jogged back and rejoined the rest of the team.
A few minutes after they were concealed Pops spotted Indy returning on the original path. He was slowly working his way down the trail looking in the forest and down at the path for any sign of his missing team. He would rise up on his toes then shade his eyes with one of his hands and continue ducking and weaving around looking for any clues that might lead him to the team. A worried look came over his face that soon changed to one that looked more like a frightened mouse who was in the open with no place to go.
Indy stopped about a hundred yards past where he’d last seen the team. Still holding the red marker flags he continued searching the ground and then scanning the trees. He walked off the path into the brush but not far enough to get near Pops or any of the other team’s hiding places. Indy walked back and forth looking more dumfounded at each pass. The guys on the team kept their heads lowered to the point where they could see each other and still stay out of sight of Indy.
Suddenly Indy stood fully erect with his back so ridged that it appeared someone had jammed a stick up his rear. He stood in this position and stared into the forest for some time. Pops thought he must have spotted one of the team but then as if struck by lightning Indy spun around and headed off down the trail back toward the compound still carrying the red flags.