by Peter Nealen
Once we were sure we had everybody, at least minus the three driving the car bombs, we drove around the long inlet to the south of Mazatlan, turned off Highway 17, abandoned the vehicles, and humped the rest of our gear through the palm trees to the abandoned beach. We were about five miles south of the Isla de La Piedra, and could see a few of the lights on the tip of the peninsula, though the bulk of Mazatlan's glow was being blocked off by the hill that dominated the Isla.
Staying in the shadows of the palm trees, though they didn't offer a lot of concealment, I pulled a set of PVS-15s out of my kitbag and scanned out to sea. It took a couple of moments, but I finally spotted the boats moving in.
There were only four of the inflatable rubber boats; that was about all that could be fit on the Frontier Rose along with all the other shit she carried, including all the support for the two utility helicopters she kept on a camouflaged helipad on her main deck. Still, with two guys KIA and three men still out, even with the gear and the addition of Raoul and Mia, we'd make it out in one trip, easily.
I flashed the NVGs' IR light three times, and got an answering two in reply from out beyond the surf zone. Then the boats were moving in, their motors' puttering barely audible over the wash of the waves on the shore.
They beached smoothly; Summers' crew had practiced this shit constantly. After all, they hadn't had a lot to actually do in support of our operations besides circle the ocean, maintain the gear, run drills, and collect exorbitant paychecks in the three years or so since we'd raided the terrorist meeting outside of Aden, Yemen. The ship and crew were a steady drain on company accounts, but they presented enough of an additional capability that none of us were willing to do without them.
It was short work getting the boats loaded, turned around, and back out into the surf. Jim, Eddie, Herman, and I were the last aboard, having checked to make sure nothing got left behind, as well as holding security on the approaches to the landing site.
A short, calm transit later, we were coming alongside the red-and-green hull of the Frontier Rose, hooking up to the crane, and getting lifted up on deck, one boat at a time. The cover was off the helipads, and the two helos were getting prepped to fly. Sam was still Stateside with the DC-3, so Phil was taking lead pilot aboard the ship for the moment. I got my gear off the boat as soon as we were on deck, and went over to talk to him.
Phil was a cheerful-looking guy, who, with his snow-white hair and beard looked like he was pushing sixty or seventy. Truthfully, he was only in his early forties, and he laughingly referred to his Santa Claus beard as “camouflage.” He shook my hand as I walked over, still adjusting to the swaying of the deck underfoot.
“Good to see you, Jeff,” he said. “I heard about Mike and Chad, damn, I'm sorry, man.”
I acknowledged the loss with a tight-lipped nod. That was going to sting for a while. Fortunately, I had an imminent mission to concentrate on. “How soon can you be in the air?”
“As soon as you guys are loaded up,” he replied. “I've been preflighting all afternoon.” He grinned. “Several times, as a matter of fact. It's been a boring trip.”
“Well, expect it to get un-boring here shortly,” I told him. “We hopefully drew off the bulk of the security, but there's no way they're leaving any of their assets entirely unguarded after the last couple weeks.”
“Don't worry, Jeff,” he assured me. “We've been keeping the edge sharp. We'll be ready when you are.”
Almost three hours later, I was sitting in the door of the Iroquois, kitted up in plates, belt kit, helmet, and NVGs, my rifle across my knees, looking down at what had once been a storage unit just outside Mazatlan. The Fusang Group had bought it, and the amount of security on it screamed “valuable target” to us. The fact that there was no Fusang signage or any other indication as to what was stored there suggested further that it was part and parcel of their illegitimate activities in Mazatlan.
Unfortunately, the target was in a valley; there was only really one option for an landing zone, and even that wasn't much of one. There was a gravel pit just to the south of the storage unit, that was just large enough for one of the helos to hover and let the shooters off.
As we circled, I spotted three SUVs parked near the storage unit. I couldn't quite tell through NVGs, but it kind of looked like at least two of them might have been the same Yukons that Xi Shang's convoy had been riding in. There wasn't much movement on the target compound itself. I saw the thermal outline of one guy looking up curiously at the pair of helicopters circling above, but they just looked like civilian jobs, and so far we hadn't used helos at all on this job, so they must not have made the connection yet. They would in a moment.
“Let's go,” I called to Phil over the radio. “We'll go in first, then Dash Two can come in after us. I want overhead cover on the target site and the approaches for as long as possible.”
“Roger,” Phil answered. We banked and swooped in on the gravel pit. It was a rush I hadn't experienced in a while, riding a helo in on a raid.
Dust, grit, and pieces of gravel flew up in a small tempest as Phil flared the Iroquois mere feet above the ground, and brought it to a hover with the skids almost touching the roadway. The bird was still rocking a little as we piled off, sprinting for the cover of the smaller compound right next to the gravel pit. Seconds later, the helicopter's nose tipped forward and Phil was pulling for altitude.
Not a moment too soon, either. Apparently somebody on-site had woken up to the fact that helicopters circling overhead wasn't exactly normal, and somebody started shooting up at the birds. The response was immediate and devastating.
While we hadn't modded either helicopter as a gunship, at least not like we had the other Iroquois that Alek still had in Kurdistan, each one did have a couple of M60E6s mounted on swing-arms that could be used to provide fire support. Even as the 407 dipped toward the LZ, Phil's crew chief opened fire, raking the compound with 7.62 rain, the rattling roar of the machinegun echoing across the narrow valley.
I couldn't see any of it, aside from the flickering muzzle flash from above, and even that was muted by the cloud of dust and grit that still hadn't settled from our dismount, never mind the second bird coming down to drop off more shooters. I could sort of see the gravel lane leading up to the next small compound and then the target compound, the hill looming over us on the left, and the target itself, vaguely.
As Jim and his section came out of the murk, I pointed to the next small compound. We didn't think they were being used by the opposition, but leaving un-cleared compounds behind you is rarely a good idea, even when you've got air cover. We had to balance caution and speed, but shortcuts generally result in dead teammates.
Jim saw my signal, and without a word or other sign, shifted his rush to that compound. Meanwhile, I turned my attention to the nearer one.
The wall was about eight feet tall, cinder-block, and, strangely enough for this part of Mexico, it wasn't topped with barbed wire. That would make it easy. The only regular entrance was in front, and we weren't going to circle around that far. We didn't need to. Ben and Eric both put their backs to the wall, in a seated stance, and cupped their hands. Nick and I slung our rifles, drew pistols, put our boots in the “stirrups,” and hoisted ourselves up onto the wall.
Hauling myself up into a sort of prone position on the top of the wall, I covered the inside of the compound while Nick dropped down. Once he was set, his rifle up and ready, I reached down, grabbed Eric's hand, and hauled him up as I dropped down the inside of the wall. He'd do the same for Ben. It was a technique we'd perfected in Iraq; as long as there wasn't an obstacle on top of the wall, like broken glass or barbed wire, it got us into walled compounds relatively quickly without having to haul along a caving ladder. We had enough breaching tools with us that a ladder would have just been a step too far, weight-wise.
We kept together and flowed through the compound. There wasn't much to it; there were two sheds, a couple of storage tanks, and some assorted junk. Th
ere wasn't anyone there. Ben found a ladder, so we propped it up against the opposite wall from the one we'd climbed over, and got out that way. It was quicker.
Both helicopters were circling the target compound like vultures now, though they were only putting the occasional sporadic burst of machinegun fire into the walled collection of storage units. Apparently, whoever had been shooting at them had gone to ground rather than face that punishment from the sky. Smart of them.
My element raced past the second compound just as Jim and the rest of the team worked their way back out. We were aiming first for the big warehouse on the south end, partially detached from the walled storage compound itself.
There were a pair of roll-up doors at the back, with a bare dirt track leading up to them. We stopped just short, Ben and Nick taking security to either side, while Eric and I got our little surprises ready.
The roll-ups weren't like regular storage unit doors; they'd take more than a couple of guys hauling on them to get them open. Even if they weren't latched shut, we'd be vulnerable while they went up. Which was why we had a couple of rolls worth of det-cord, set up on tape strips, already all but primed.
Peeling the backing off the tape, we quickly slapped the strips of det-cord up on the door, in a roughly square arrangement that would make a hole easily big enough for three of us to go through abreast. We'd all had enough experience with narrow doors that if we had a chance to make a big hole to run through, we would. Not to mention the fact that the edges of this hole weren't exactly going to be neat.
Priming the shock tube leading to the charge, I stepped back around the corner, drawing Nick with me, who was still focused on the far corner, his rifle up and waiting for anybody to stick their head out so he could blow it off. I got him behind the corner, then yanked the igniter.
With a tooth-rattling wham, a roughly square section of the roll-up door was blasted inside. We were seconds behind it.
As soon as we cleared the still-smoking hole in the door, NVGs up and weapon lights flashing in the darkened warehouse, the first thing we registered was three figures wearing kit and carrying bullpup rifles, about halfway across the open space of the warehouse. Semi-open, anyway; there were a lot of crates and cases stacked inside. Apparently they had been moving toward the door at the noise we'd made slapping the charges on it, but had just about gotten a section of corrugated tin in the face for their troubles.
They reacted quickly, I'll grant them that. Their rifles hammered at us, even as we spread out from the hole in the door and returned fire. I heard Nick grunt and stumble, even as I smashed the leftmost shooter to the ground with a rapid series of five shots. He was still moving when I pinned him in my light after moving another six feet to my left, so I took the extra half-second to line up his head and splashed his brains. The rest of the team had accounted for the other two in a two-second storm of strobing lights, muzzle flashes, and painfully loud thunderclaps in the high-ceilinged warehouse.
“Key-Lock, you okay?” I asked, already moving toward the next door I could see.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice tight and a little pained. “Took a pair to the plate.”
There was another roll-up door and a regular personnel door at the far end of the warehouse. As we flowed toward it, I took a moment to look at the crates and packing cases surrounding us.
“This shit look like ordnance to anyone else?” I asked.
“Pretty sure it is,” Jim replied. He was toward the front, almost to the door already. “We done hit the jackpot here, boys.”
The next door led to a narrow hallway between the warehouse and the office building beyond it. I didn't like the look of it one bit.
“Hold up,” I hissed. “If they're even a little competent, they'll have that door covered, and the first guy through gets fucked.”
“Not many other options,” Jim pointed out. We had the warehouse secured, so we could afford to take a moment to regroup. “We didn't see any sign of any other doors on the west side.”
“But there is one on the south,” Eric pointed out. “Long way around, but they'll be expecting us to come from the west for now.”
“Do it,” I said. “Around to the south side.”
We hustled out, flowing back through the hole in the roll-up door, just as the door gunner on one of the birds opened up almost directly overhead, showering us with hot brass. “You've got company trying to come at you from the north,” Phil said over the radio as the Iroquois roared overhead. “At least six foot-mobiles; we got at least three, no eyes on the rest.”
“Roger,” I replied. Damn, it felt good to have air cover again.
We sprinted for the door to the office building, set in a sort of extension off the end of the building. Eric and Little Bob took security in each direction, while Larry practically ripped the flimsy door off its hinges and tossed a flashbang inside.
We charged in through the roiling gray smoke the distraction device had left hanging in the air. The building wasn't set up so much as separate offices as it was a grid of cubicles. There wasn't really anything to provide actual cover in the big, long room.
My hunch had been right; there were four shooters in a rough L-shape around the periphery of the room, focused on the door we'd almost come through. Two were right on either side of the door we'd just flashbanged, and had caught the brunt of the blast and flash. The other two were only slightly visible, partially obscured by the cubicles.
It wasn't the most precise shooting we'd ever done, I'll say that much. Given how fast those three in the warehouse had reacted, I don't think any of us were taking chances; we put as much lead into them and their vicinity as we could as fast as we could, before they could get their shit together after the bang. The two in the corners were already dead by the time I got through the door, hardly even knowing what had happened, and I dumped a mag through a couple cubicle walls at the guy who I could sort of see. He'd risen up enough to reveal his helmeted head and his rifle, but the storm of bullets smashed him back out of sight.
The roar of gunfire stilled as suddenly as it had started. I didn't know if any of the opposition had gotten a shot off. “Anybody hit?” I asked, rocking a fresh magazine into my rifle before moving forward to check each cubicle. The guy I'd shot was lying in a welter of shredded fiber and blood, staring, unseeing, at the ceiling. His plates had stopped a few of my rounds, but certainly not all of them.
“I got clipped,” Ben announced. I glanced over to see him holding a gloved hand to his ear. Blood glistened in the dim light from the remaining fluorescent lamp overhead. The other one had been shattered by the flashbang blast.
Eric stepped over to check him. “Well, you're never going to be able to get that ear gauge you've been wanting,” he said, examining Ben's mangled earlobe, “but it doesn't look too bad.” He quickly swept Ben's limbs and torso for any more blood. “I think you're good.”
There was one more door, leading to the next warehouse, or at least the building we'd tentatively identified as a warehouse. Without much further waiting, Little Bob donkey-kicked it open, smashing the jamb in the process, Nick flashbanged the doorway, and we went in.
It was another warehouse, this one about half full of more crates and cases. A fast clear revealed there was nobody in it, however. “Once the place is secured, we're wiring this shit to blow,” I said, unnecessarily. “Let's keep moving.”
“Hillbilly, this is Dirt,” Phil called. “We've got some movement at the north side of the compound; we've taken some fire from there, but we're keeping them boxed in. Nothing on the south side.”
“Roger, Dirt,” I responded. “We're moving to the main compound now.”
I kind of wanted to backtrack and go over the wall rather than make the run along the road to the main gate, but the gate was going to be faster, and the birds had us covered. So we went out the double barn doors at the front of the warehouse at a run, making for the gate.
The gate was locked, but Little Bob's sledgehammer, that he'd been ca
rrying hanging from a pair of nylon loops on the back of his vest, made short work of the chain and padlock, and we were through, moving fast to what cover we could find in the open yard of the storage compound, even as Larry and Ben stormed into the little office tower right next to the gate. Eric and Little Bob headed for the brick shed just beyond it, while the rest of us focused on the warehouse connected to the north side of the compound, where Phil had said he'd seen movement and taken fire.
Whoever was holed up there, they weren't showing themselves. For several minutes, the only sound was the buzzing roar of the birds overhead and our own breathing. Larry, Ben, Eric, and Little Bob rejoined us. I'd heard no shots. The buildings had been empty.
I signaled how we would proceed. Jim took his element west, sprinting to the wall and working around that way toward the door to the last warehouse. I took mine along the east wall.
The door looked like it was a recent addition; part of the wall had been knocked out and a sheet steel door had been put in place. The door was partially closed, angled away from us into the next compound and the warehouse.
Jim and I ended up at the door at the same time, facing each other across the opening. We looked at each other, and Jim pulled a flashbang out of a pouch. I nodded. He yanked out the pin, half-turned, kicked the door, and tossed the flashbang inside. It wouldn't have the same effect it would have in an enclosed space, but it would provide some distraction.
I charged through, shouldering aside the shuddering steel door. The door had slammed into a shooter, who had fallen backwards, and there was another one right behind him, already bringing his rifle up. The few feet he'd moved to stay clear of his falling comrade saved my life and cost him his. I squeezed the trigger just as his rifle muzzle swung toward my head. I barely aimed. My own barrel was about two feet from his nose. His face disappeared into the two feet of flame that roared from the muzzle, and his head snapped back, the bullet hitting the back of his helmet and almost breaking the chinstrap. He fell on his ass, his rifle clattering to the ground in front of him.