Chapter 26
At four o’clock the next afternoon, David returned to the room with a camouflage-patterned canvas rucksack. He unzipped it and extracted two MTAR-21 compact assault rifles and placed them on the table. Jet picked one up and methodically field-stripped the weapon down to its component parts, and then inspected it carefully, eying the integrated silencer with a practiced eye. Satisfied, she did the same with the second before re-assembling them both. She removed eight thirty-round magazines from the bag and put them on the table.
Next came the pistols. SIG Sauer P226 Tactical 9mm pistols with custom suppresors and three twenty-round magazines for each weapon. She broke down the guns as she had the rifles and scrutinized them, nodding.
“The pistols are good, not great, but they’ll do. Looks like they’ve had a decent level of care, but they’re showing signs of wear. The MTARs are almost new. They’ve got the laser and infra-red pointers, and are also 9mm.”
“They’re Honduran special forces. I presume Tom has a contact in their armory who ‘loses’ them when he has an order.”
Jet raised an eyebrow. “I wonder how many of these go lost every year out of Honduras and Guatemala and the surrounding countries?”
“Probably a lot. No wonder the Mexican cartels have no problem arming themselves with state-of-the-art weapons.”
She extracted six grenades.
“That’ll work.”
David hefted a folding Hornet II combat knife and opened it, inspecting the razor-sharp edge, then pulled out a pair of head-mounted LUCIE night vision goggles and placed them on the table next to boxes of 9mm rounds. Jet reached into the sack and extracted a handheld GPS unit and batteries, and after rooting around some more, a combat first aid kit.
“It’s all here. I’d say with this amount of gear we should be able to handle whatever is waiting for us out in the jungle.”
“Rule number one of field work, I was told by my control years ago, is to never get over-confident.”
“Good rule,” David acknowledged. “I seem to remember something about that.”
They spent a half hour familiarizing themselves with the weapons, cleaning and loading them, and then David tossed a small package to her.
“I hope they had my size,” she commented, unpacking the black coveralls and holding them up.
“I’m sure you’ll be the best-dressed woman in the bush.”
Once the weapons were replaced in the bag, they grabbed bottles of water and then moved their arsenal out to the Jeep. Jet started the vehicle and pulled out of the dirt lot onto the road.
“The compound is six kilometers from the border,” David said, “deep in the jungle. Only one road, so we’ll be doing some hiking to get there. Let’s hope they don’t have anything too sophisticated set up on the perimeter.”
“I can deal with anything they’re likely to have deployed. Just stay behind me.”
David frowned, and she caught his look.
“Sweetheart, when we’re in the field, I’m the one with the most experience, so you need to get comfortable with the idea that I’m in charge there, okay? It’s not a power thing. It’s a survival thing. You still have the biggest equipment in this car…” she said with a smile.
“I get it. I’ll just carry your gear and stay quiet.”
“Try to look pretty for me, too, would you?”
They approached the waypoint she had plugged into the GPS and pulled off the dirt track. She continued until the dense vegetation blocked their way, and then killed the engine.
“Quarter mile to the south. Time to earn our keep.”
They donned the overalls and grabbed their weapons, Jet loading her backpack with the bulk of the grenades before handing him two, which he stuffed into his pockets. They set off into the brush, listening for any sounds, but only heard the usual jungle calls of birds and small animals. It would be dark in a few hours, but Jet had wanted to get a feel for the lay of the land before night fell – it would be easier to spot any surveillance equipment during the day.
After fifteen minutes, they were both covered with sweat, and she stopped, using a hand signal to indicate it was time for a break. They’d agreed on no conversation once they were on approach, and Jet was deadly serious about it. After five minutes rehydrating, they set off again, she peering occasionally at the GPS before advancing stealthily through the thick undergrowth, David following her with his MTAR at the ready.
She stopped abruptly and pointed a few feet ahead of them at a barely visible wire strung at calf height between two trees. David couldn’t make it out at first, and then nodded. They approached the tripwire carefully, and she moved to one side, flipping open her combat knife as she did so. She was back in two minutes and gave him a curt nod. She’d de-activated the triggering mechanism – standard Russian special forces issue, and one she was more than passingly familiar with.
An hour later, they were lying in the tall grass, peering at the camp, which was composed of a large mess tent, two bunk areas and a latrine. A diesel generator clamored off to one side, providing power for the buildings, which were temporary structures obviously erected in the previous week.
They lay motionless, conserving their energy as they waited for the sun to set. Mosquitoes buzzed everywhere as dusk approached, and they were glad they’d sprayed themselves with copious quantities of insect repellent before setting out. Malaria was a regular visitor in the jungles of Central America, a joy that they would both rather avoid.
An occasional shout or exclamation of hoarse laughter floated from the camp as the men gathered for dinner; Jet counted sixteen in all. One man was clearly in charge, and she watched as the men deferred to him, two of them sitting at his table studying a map.
Darkness came slowly, and when it finally arrived, the surroundings were pitch black, as only the jungle can be. The lights from the camp, powered by the generator, stood out against the inky backdrop. They would wait until they were extinguished and the men were asleep before making a move.
Only two sentries remained outside on patrol when the rest of the group moved into the buildings for the night. They strolled around the clearing with assault rifles, clearly not expecting any trouble, which was an advantage for David and Jet. At sixteen to two odds, they would need every break they could get.
One hour rolled by, then another, and then the lights went off, except for two low-wattage bulbs mounted atop poles at either end of the grounds. The Russians were confident there were no threats, she could tell, and the sentries were sloppy, not paying attention. After all, they were in the middle of nowhere, and they were the predators.
David and Jet moved together, separating at the tree line and moving in a crouch to the perimeter. She saw him dart behind one of the parked vehicles out of the corner of her eye, and then focused on the task at hand – disabling the sentries without alerting the rest of the camp.
Her man moved nearer, twenty yards away, as she crouched by the generator, waiting for her opportunity. The noise from the motor would conceal the sound of a silenced shot, but she preferred not to chance it. A knife was better for this sort of work.
The guard tapped a cigarette out of a worn pack and was lighting it when she struck, sprinting in a flash and gripping one black-gloved hand over his head as she drove the point of her blade just below the base of his skull. Blood ran down her arm as he convulsed and then dropped, dead weight, his spinal cord severed. His weapon, an American M4 rifle, fell softly onto the grass beside him.
She spun when a cry from near David’s location pierced the night, and she cursed inwardly. After a few seconds, he came running, but the damage had been done. A light went on in one of the two buildings. She bolted to the generator and pulled the pin on a grenade. With a final glance at the building she tossed it next to the fuel tank and darted back behind the SUV where David was waiting.
The explosion shattered the night, and the compound went dark. She flipped her night vision goggles down and switched them on.
David did the same.
“What happened?” she hissed.
“I was right on top of him, and he turned. Something alerted him – he must have sensed me. I’m sorry.”
“Remember. We take the leader alive,” she whispered. “Move over there. Let’s not make this too easy for them.” She pointed at another vehicle, then spun and trotted back to the smoldering wreckage of the generator.
The door of the first building burst open and men poured out, guns sweeping wildly in search of threats. After pausing for a brief second, she sighted with her pistol and squeezed off three silenced rounds. Two of the men collapsed, tripping two others behind them whose momentum had carried them forward. The second building’s door exploded outward with gunmen, and she saw the distinctive shape of night vision equipment on at least three of their heads. Those were the priority targets.
She heard David’s MTAR spit from behind the truck and saw the first of the men slam backward. Jet joined him in the fray, slipping her pistol into her belt before swinging the assault rifle into play, carefully squeezing off bursts. The second night vision-equipped man’s head burst apart, and he sank to the ground in a heap. Several of the Russians had taken cover behind crates or barrels, and now bullets slammed into the metal of the generator housing as they returned fire. She counted a few beats and loosed another burst, then another. More men fell, their weapons dropping uselessly by their sides.
The night vision goggles were the deciding factor. Only a few of the gunmen had them, and once they’d been taken out, the only option the remaining men had was to fire at Jet and David’s muzzle flashes – a less than ideal scenario. One by one, the Russians fell to the MTARs, the deadly rain of lead devastating them as they struggled to defend themselves.
More slugs thumped against the generator. Jet steeled herself, drew a deep breath, and then scurried to the nearest truck, rolling behind an oversized tire as she blasted at the remaining shooters. The trick now was to keep moving. All of the night vision-equipped targets had been neutralized, so the surviving men were almost blind in the black of the night. She considered tossing a grenade at them and finishing it, but that was too messy – and they needed to take at least one of them alive.
The firefight lasted another two minutes, and then the camp went silent except for the sound of men dying. She caught a glimpse of David by one of the far vehicles. He gave her a thumbs-up. Thank God, he was fine. She shouldn’t have been worried – he’d seen more than his fair share of action before moving behind the scenes, but years of desk work could dull even the most field-honed reflexes.
Motion at the back of the building caught her eye, and she spun. A survivor was running for the tree line, a pistol clenched in one hand.
She instantly leapt to her feet and raced toward him, her steps muffled against the moist ground. He seemed to sense her pursuit at the last minute and turned, pistol pointing vaguely in her direction. Without night vision gear, he was blind, she knew, but even so, as she moved closer, he could get lucky. She dropped into a crouch and gripped her SIG Sauer with both hands and fired a single shot. His leg went out from under him, and he staggered with a grunt, then squeezed off four rounds, their impact tearing at the ground around her. She fired again, and he spun, struck in the chest, and collapsed to the ground. She waited a moment. Another. Then she edged closer, wary of another shot from him.
He was moving, struggling to raise the pistol. She darted nearer, zigzagging to present a more difficult target, and then was on top of him, kicking the weapon away. She heard the distinctive sound of bones cracking, and he screamed, his hand ruined.
David reached them twenty seconds later. Jet was kneeling over the man, watching the bloodstain spread on his shirt over his left pectoral muscle. She looked up at David.
“We need the first aid kit.”
He grunted assent then turned to retrieve it.
Jet returned her attention to her captive.
“It’s over,” she said in fluent Russian, and then he passed out.