“Snake you take that tunnel, see where it goes and if there is anything we can use. I’ll take the other.” With flashlight beams bouncing off the man improved cave walls, they began a careful exploration of the insurgent lair. About two hours later, they both reappeared in the main room that contained the sleeping captain.
“You won’t believe what I found back there. They have enough C-4 to set up their own factory.” Snake was saying.
“Got you beat.” Came Scorpion’s reply. “Come back here with me. You won’t believe this.” Taking a quick look outside to ensure that no one was arriving early, and then a quick check on Captain Poole showed he was sleeping peacefully, they proceeded down the tunnel.
“Holy… What… My…” Snake was trying to say. “What in the world did you find?” He said looking at row after row of stacked cardboard boxes.
Bending next to a cardboard box, he had previously opened. “As near as I can tell, there is about two million dollars in each box. I made a quick count, in this box, and it appears to have bundles of 100, one hundred dollar bills. A total of ten thousand dollars per packet. They put twenty packets per row, and stacked them ten packets high.”
Snake was standing open mouthed at the discovery finally said, “That is two million dollars per box! How many boxes have you counted?”
If I didn’t miscount, it looks like there are 200 boxes. You know, I’m not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but that figures out to about 400 million dollars.
“Where do you think it came from?” Snake exclaimed.
“You remember when we were trying to get rid of Saddam?
“Yeah, so.”
“If you remember, rumor has it, his boys took several semi’s to the bank and had them filled with hundreds of millions of dollars, euro’s, dinar’s and other currencies. I’m thinking this may be part of that, or it could be we stumbled onto tango’s drug money. That’s the one I’m really leaning toward.”
“Do you suppose those clowns we took out had any idea what they were sitting on?”
“It’s doubtful. They are real good at doing what they are told, not being overly curious.”
“With your agreement Snake, we’ll put as many boxes as we can load in the pickup. Cover it with a cover of some sort. Then you, me, and the Captain will head for the good guys, if this turns out to be Iraqi money, then the Iraqis get it back. If it is drug money, it's ours. What do you think?”
“How can we pull this off? I mean if it is drug money.”
“I don’t really know, hope one of us has a great idea before this is over. Here, put this in your pockets, at least we can be wealthy for a little while.” Scorpion said handing Snake ten packets of the money, then placing five packets of the bills in the two cargo pockets on his uniform. Laughing, they returned to the main room.
“Snake, how about an explosive that would bring down enough rubble to conceal the money room?”
“Piece of cake, that room I found is full of C-4.”
“OK, let’s wire the one room and set enough to bring down the entrance to the main room. I have GPS coordinates of this place, so we will always be able to find it on a return trip.”
Another hour of careful planting of C-4 and loading the pickup, the two men returned to the main room. “OK Captain, it is time to go.”
“Where are we going?" The Captain looked around bewildered. Then with a swollen lopsided grin. "Oh, yeah, I remember. Sorry guys, I was gone for awhile, but I'm back.”
“No problem, you may not have heard all our conversation, but his place is not a good defensive position. The tango’s knows this place and we don’t have the firepower to defend it. One RPG in the front door, and it would be curtains for us. We found another location that is better suited for us to ambush the bad guys and wait for the good guys.”
Making a thorough search of the emplacement, Snake took all documents and maps that he could find. He quickly scanned the documents as he sealed them in a zip lock plastic bag to protect them against moisture.
Loading into the pickup, the three men drove to the new site. On the way, Scorpion outlined to Snake as to what they would do with the money they had taken from the cave. Scorpion was telling Snake. “You ever do a mission with Striker?”
“Yeah, a couple a few years back.”
“Then you heard how he was messed up by an IED last month.”
“Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember. Didn’t the explosion put him in a wheelchair?”
“He can walk, but not without pain and great difficulty. When we signed on with this outfit, we got a fantastic contract. You remember, our retirement is whatever we make now. A five million dollar life insurance policy is no slouch either. So Striker will be taken care of. Not like that poor grunt in 2nd platoon of that unit we worked with a while back. He got mangled. The best he can hope for is one hundred percent disability. You can starve on that. There are some foundations out there that try to help. A foundation called 'Wounded Warrior' or something like that has been helping him out with counseling. They are setting it up where his kids will be able to go to college and hopefully avoid doing this for a living.”
“So what are we going to do, as if I didn’t already know.”
“Your right, we are going to make a large contribution in Strikers name to that foundation.” Scorpion said, patting his cargo pockets. “If we can get the boxes out of country, that too, will be sent to them.”
“Scorpion, you got my support one hundred percent. I was sort of thinking you were going to suggest we drink it up in one sitting. Oh, by the way, have you looked in a mirror lately? You sure look like a raccoon with both eyes blacked.”
“They may be black, but I can still out shoot you any day of the week, big boy.” Scorpion replied, with a grin on his raccoon looking face.
Snake turned and spoke to Captain Poole, “The bad thing about it, he isn’t kidding. I have never seen a better shot from one hundred meters to 1500 meters.”
“I don’t mean to be nosy, but the benefits you two were talking about aren’t military. What are you two?” Poole asked.
“Well Captain, If we tell you, then we would have to kill you. I can tell you, we are military under very special conditions.”
About that time they arrived at the new shooting location, and pulled in behind a large boulder which would adequately hide their presence from all but the closest scrutiny. “Get as comfortable as possible; we might be here for awhile.”
“Snake. I’ll take the first watch. Get some sleep and I will wake you in a couple of hours.
Picking up the radio microphone, he keyed it saying "Mother Goose, this is Scorpion, over."
The reply was instant. "Scorpion, this is Mother Goose, over."
"The goose is in the bag." was his reply.
“Roger that. Can you Charlie Mike?”
“Roger, as long as it is local, we have limited transportation.”
“We have learned the interrogator is a high value target, we want you to take him out.” Can you develop field expedient plan?”
After a long pause. “Affirmative, have equipment, any idea of the time frame for arrival here and mode? A suitable plan can be built around time and mode.”
“Will get back to you in one zero mikes on alternate freq.”
“Roger, standing by.”
"Out" was the answer over the radio.
A few minutes later, the radio crackled into life.
Waiting for the timeframe to unfold, Scorpion busied himself a piece of brush, removing the faint tire tracks that might give away their presence, then letting the slight wind cover the faint scratch marks. Satisfied there was nothing more he could do to better the present position, he returned to his hide and began building his rifle rest for the upcoming mission.
Chapter 8