by Jack Murphy
The mission had been green lit.
UAVs could do a lot of reconnaissance work, but nothing beat having actual recce operators getting eyes on the objective.
Kurt Jager and Gomez, his Zapatista partner lay on their bellies in the thick growth next to the airfield trying to ignore the mosquitoes buzzing in their ears.
They didn't have to wait long. In minutes the Dakota was roaring overhead, coming in low and a slow on a heading parallel with the muddy jungle airstrip.
Pat stepped out into the darkness, the scorching hot exhaust from the airplane and smell of burning fuel stinging his eyes for a nano-second before gravity whipped him down and away. His T-10Charlie parachute was snapped into a static line running the length of the inside of the Dakota aircraft so that when the line was extended, it caught and yanked his parachute out as he fell.
As the round parachute deployed, the straps dug tight into his thighs and shoulders. Rocking from side to side by the suspension lines, he reached down and released his assault pack, lowering it on a nylon line below him. The former Delta Force operator couldn't see the ground through the darkness but he wasn't taking any chances, he had a bad experience jumping from an airplane not all that long ago.
Everything was quiet for one single moment as he drifted down through the night. Hearing his assault pack make contact with the ground, he prepared to land by pulling an overhand slip and tugging down on the main lift webbing of the parachute. Keeping his feet and knees together, Pat rolled to the side as his boots hit the ground.
Laying in the dirt, he breathed a sigh of relief as the parachute deflated around him.
As jumpmaster, had been the last out of the aircraft and was now able to see that they had successfully landed on the jungle airstrip. The surrounding terrain was rough mountain highlands and would have been a death warrant had they drifted off the drop zone.
Moving with urgency, he quickly shrugged out of the parachute harness. He had to establish a Control Point with Sergeant Major Korgan while the assault elements had to move out to their objectives. They were only a platoon strong and needed as much of an element of surprise as they could get. Cartel guards were probably already waking up the rest of the camp.
Pat reached into his M-1950 canvas gun case and secured his Kalashnikov and then grabbed his assault pack. He wore his chest rig with additional magazines for the rifle under his parachute rigging for the jump so he would have it close by when he needed it. The Kazakhs were coming off the runway, some of the them limping, a couple were being carried by their buddies.
Their first parachute insertion had taken place after only a few hours of instruction and then they were jumping out of a plane at only five hundred feet and at night. They knew that they would take a few casualties on the drop but it was a calculated risk. They could treat a few broken ankles and use the injured for static security when they got back to the compound. It all had to be weighed against the casualties that they would take if the 100-man para-military force engaged them in direct combat, on their terms, and with the home field advantage in Mexico.
Better to sort these fuckers out here and now, Pat thought to himself.
Gunfire was already breaking out, the odd green colored tracer round soaring through the night sky when Pat got his long whip antenna up and broke squelch.
“OP-One this is Alpha-One,” he said into the hand mic.
“This is OP-One,” Kurt Jager's voice came over the command net.
“Our boys are hitting their RV and will be moving out shortly. Are there any complications we should know about?”
“Just one,” Kurt said from his Observation Point somewhere nearby. “We have spotted the ingress route to the camp. It isn't wide enough to get vehicles up but looks like a footpath.”
Pat was the Ground Force Commander and ultimately in charge of the entire mission with Deckard out of the picture.
“We are already light on personnel after the jump,” Pat told him. “Can your element break down the OP and lay in an ambush along the trail?”
“Give us a couple minutes. We'll link up with our MSS and get it done.”
“Good copy. Alpha-One out.”
Reaching down, he turned a knob on the radio in his assault pack to change to the channel over to the assault net.
“Zulu-One this is Alpha-One.”
A burst of static came over the net.
“Alpha-One, this is Zulu-One.”
It was Sergeant Fedorchenko, the platoon Sergeant who would actually be leading the assault on the nearby training camp.”
“Are you a Min-Force with men, weapons, and equipment?”
Minimum Force was the minimum number of personnel that they had determined in planning would be needed to destroy the camp. Pat suspected they had already lost a few to injuries during the jump.
“Yes, we are up,” Fedorchenko said. He spoke in heavily accented English, but his voice had plenty of enthusiasm in it.
“You are cleared hot to take the primary objective.”
“Roger, out.”
Technically, Pat was the one that should be saying out since he initiated the conversation but he had better things to worry about. Just then, Sergeant Major Korgan shuffled up to his position with a Samruk trooper slung over his shoulder.
“Three men with foot and leg injuries,” Korgan reported. “None of them are able to walk.”
Pat checked three men off in his head.
“Let's get the other two pulled over here and they can pull security.”
Corporal Abykeyev led his element forward. He guided the squad through the camp's one hundred meter flat range and then passed their obstacle course where various high beams and monkey bars had been arranged for physical training. The Kazakh mercenary had committed the layout of the camp to memory after studying the overhead photography he had been given during their hasty planning session.
The Corporal was a veteran of The Lions, called Arystan in his native language, they were Kazakhstan's elite commando force. When Samruk International opened for business in Astana he was among the initial recruits. Since that time he had seen action with the Private Military Company working as a mercenary in Afghanistan, Burma, Mexico, and now Guatemala. He could also add a combat jump to his list of professional accomplishments. In just a few months he had seen more action than he had during nearly a decade of service in the military. The Corporal was unmarried and had no family to speak of. Soldiering was what he did, it was what he was good at and he had no interest in any other profession.
He was now the senior Squad Leader in Fedorchenko's platoon, in charge of Weapons Squad. In addition to the four countries they had fought in, there was another mission that none of them talked about. They were the survivors and had no desire to relive the operation that had nearly killed them to a man. Samruk had been a battalion sized unit. Now they were just a couple platoons. However, the unit had absorbed many different weapons, recovered from dead enemies during that mission such as the three Mk48 machine guns he had in Weapons Squad.
There was a large berm line at the edge of the shooting range that was supposed to stop bullets during training. It was the last covered and concealed position before they spotted the actual living area and planning bays that the para-militaries used for class rooms.
Using hand and arm signals, he got his squad on line with each other, the three machine gunners distributed evenly down the line. To the left of each gunner were the assistant gunner and an ammunition bearer.
Signaling forward, the squad moved as one over the berm to establish a Support By Fire line.
Sergeant Fedorchenko had his three rifle squads moving in their own assault line as they crept towards the camp from a different angle than the Weapons Squad with their machine guns. They had heard a few pop shots since the Dakota blasted over the runway to drop them off. Those shots were just warnings from guards posted somewhere else in the area to alert the camp.
The first effective fire they took came as the assaulters
rose over a hill and came into view of the large tents and cadre huts. There were five large military tents in a semi-circle that could fit about twenty men in each. Three large huts made out of plywood served as hootches for the instructors and probably supply sheds for additional weapons and training ammunition.
Flashes lit up the camp ahead of them like miniature firecrackers, popping off left and right. The mercenaries hit the ground as the enemy gunfire kicked up dirt to their front, other shots cracking over their heads. With a skirmish line of twenty four riflemen, they immediately returned fire.
Suddenly, the entire camp lit up with muzzle flashes, gunfire searching through the night.
Fedorchenko was about to order his men to bound forward when the Support By Fire line opened up. Three 7.62 Mk48 machine guns went cyclic, chewing through four hundred round metal link belts of ammunition in seconds. The machine gunners directed their fire into the camp and traversed from side to side to rake the enemy positions.
“First Squad!” the Platoon Sergeant yelled. “Bound!”
While second and third squad continued to fire at suspected enemy positions, First Squad picked up and each man rushed forward for several seconds before dropping back down to prone.
“Second Squad, bound!”
Second Squad replicated the maneuver, moving up alongside First Squad. Meanwhile, Weapons Squad was drenching the cartel base camp with hot lead, pouring into the tents and huts. Without warning, one of the huts exploded in a brilliant flash. Several cartel men jumped up from their firing position with their backs lit on fire. They flailed around in a panic like giant human torches for a few seconds before the Samruk mercenaries made short work of them.
From the much smaller secondary explosions, Fedorchenko had his suspicions confirmed. They were storing ammunition inside.
“Third Squad, bound!”
The Platoon Sergeant moved with Third Squad, hanging to the rear where he could best see and direct his platoon.
Fedorchenko continued to bound his men up squad by squad. Cordite hung heavy in the air, the disgusting sweet smell of gun powder seeping into their sinuses while sweat streaked down their faces. They were almost ready to clear over the camp itself when all hell broke loose.
The flash from each shot was bright enough that it lit up the trees around the camp around the machine gun nest. The .50 caliber M2HB hammered into the assault line as Second Squad was bounding up to the camp. Fedorchenko watched helplessly as one of his men had his head taken clean off by the heavy machine gun.
The sneaky bastard had kept the gun quiet, waiting until the mercenaries were right on top of them before firing where it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. The .50 caliber rounds chewed up the assault line. All three Mk48s back at the Support By Fire line fixated on the enemy machine gunner, their triple stream of fire sweeping across the wall of sandbags around the gun.
One of the mercenaries hurled a fragmentation grenade. It landed on the wall of sandbags and exploded, shredding the fortification but the .50 cal kept shooting. Finally, the Mk48 gunners walked their automatic gunfire over the enemy position one final time and the heavy caliber gun went silent.
“Get on line!” the Platoon Sergeant ordered.
Some of the men needed a quick boot in the ass to get them back up and moving again after the onslaught. Squad Leaders enthusiastically provided one. They needed to secure the objective fast, before the enemy could mount a counter-attack to repel the mercenaries. Reaching into a pouch in his plate carrier, Fedorchenko palmed a pen flare gun and thumbed down the spring loaded trigger before firing a single red flare into the sky. It was the signal to the Support By Fire line to shift off the objective to prevent friendly fire.
The assault line got to their feet in one single element and all three squads crossed through the camp with their rifles pointed forward. What they discovered there was a massacre of death and mayhem. Bodies were strewn across the ground in whichever undignified position they had fallen. There were dozens of them, some with neat and tidy holes in their chest, but most had been machine gunned into ground beef.
Sergeant Fedorchenko halted the assault line so that smaller, four man elements could clear each tent and the two remaining huts. A single shot sounded in the night. The teams reported back that they had found one of the para-military trainees attempting to hide under a bed. They'd shot and killed him when they saw a pistol in his hand. The other structures in the camp were declared clear of any living enemy presence.
Barking at his men, the Squad Leaders pushed the assault line forward until their Platoon Sergeant declared that they had reached the Limit Of Advance, an imaginary line just past the objective and out of hand grenade range. From there the Squad Leaders began to inspect their men and Fedorchenko began calling forward men who had been prearranged into special teams. The Aid and Litter team came forward to treat friendly casualties.
They had to backtrack to where the .50 cal had opened up on them. As the Platoon Sergeant had suspected, all three were KIA. Each .50 caliber bullet was about the size of a human finger, if you got hit with one of those you probably were not going to survive. The bodies were collected in one place to be taken off the objective when the platoon moved out.
Next, the search teams were called forward. The Kazakhs worked in two man teams to search the enemy dead. One would provide security while the other carefully lifted the body to check and make sure that they had not pulled the pin on a hand grenade and left it under their body with the spoon depressed. It was a grisly business. The mercenaries had to hold their noses in many cases. If the cartel member had a jumper in the door when he was killed, he would shit his pants as his muscles relaxed. With this task completed they would search through pockets and pouches. It went fast since many were only half dressed, Samruk's unexpected airborne jump having woken them from their sleep.
The tents and huts were also searched over, although no one could even get close to the ammo dump which was still crackling with pops as ammunition cooked off in the fire. The scorched human bodies created by the explosion were left in place.
Maxim, one of the Squad Leaders approached Fedorchenko.
“We have three killed but are otherwise up on men, weapons, and equipment,” he reported. “But we can hear some of the enemy who tried to escape. They are hidden in the brush and we can hear some of them groaning and struggling to breathe.”
“Very well,” the Platoon Sergeant replied. “I will stay here and prep the demolition. Take the assault line forward of the LOA and secure prisoners if possible.”
Fedorchenko went into his assault pack, pawing through the C4 explosives he had brought along for the task, his mind already thinking about the best way to destroy what was left of the training camp when gunfire broke out behind him.
“That can't be good,” Deckard said looking at the Predator UAV feed projected in their Operations Center.
The circling UAV captured the scene below in gray and black thermal vision. They had watched the assault on the camp nearly stall for a moment before Fedorchenko pulled the men together and got them moving again.
On the opposite side of the flat range, they could see ten heat signatures running along a path through the bush and up to the range itself. From there the cartel gunmen would be behind the actual assault element. Who knew how many friendlies they would be able to take out before the platoon could re-orient itself, displace the Mk48 machine guns to a new firing position, and assault through the new enemy force.
Deckard had no doubt that they could and would do it, but taken by surprise like that, he might have a single squad coming home rather than a platoon.
The cartel men must have been stationed down below the hills as look outs along one of the major roads so they could warn the base camp of any Guatemalan military presence. They had not expected a combat jump on their compound and now the gunmen were rushing back to reinforce a camp that they didn't realize was already wiped out. If they did, they probably would have beat feet
all the way back to Mexico and called it a day.
Suddenly, the reinforcements stopped in their tracks. Through the thermal camera on the UAV, Deckard could see specs of black flying off the human forms. It was a black hot camera, which meant everything in black was something hot. It picked up on the infrared light given off by human body heat. What this meant in practical terms was that Deckard was watching small bits of flesh being stripped off one gunmen's body as they were ambushed.
“Looks like Kurt has it under control,” Frank said, spitting another wad of dip into his cup.
The Zapatista's didn't lack anything in courage, but Kurt knew from previous experience that their marksmanship left much to be desired. This was why he watched in shock as one of the cartel gunmen spun around in a macabre dance of death as Gomez launched a fully automatic stream of gunfire from his AK-47 into their adversary.
Kurt Jager zeroed in, taking single precise shots that dropped the cartel men one by one. Bullets sliced through the foliage above his head as one gunman attempted to return fire.
Thinking quickly, Kurt had his four man element occupy an ambush site once he had found an elbow in the trail leading to the airfield. He and Gomez lay in the prone looking down the long axis of the trail while Pascal and his Mexican counterpart occupied the short end. The result was a deadly L-shaped ambush. The two Zapatistas were instructed to fire on full auto in order to keep the enemy's heads down more than to effectively engage. This would be done by the two former Special Operations soldiers who would shoot with their rifles on semi-automatic.
The tree that the German had taken cover behind provided more concealment than cover as it was so thin, but it was all that was available and even that was being shredded. It was a frantic several seconds of both parties yanking on triggers and searching for targets. The Mexicans were shooting at muzzle flashes in the night, if they even had the chance to fire at all. The joint mercenary and Zapatista force fired on one gunman after the next until nobody was left standing.