Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [158]
Captain Ramirez appeared, without much in the way of warning this time, even to Chavez, whose woodcraft skills were a matter of considerable pride. He rationalized to himself that the captain had learned from watching him.
"Hey, Cap'n," Vega greeted their officer.
"Anything going on?" Ramirez asked.
Chavez answered from behind his binoculars. "Well, our two friends are enjoying their morning siesta." There would be another in the afternoon, of course. He was pulled away from the lenses by the captain's next statement.
"I hope they like it. It's their last one."
"Say again, Cap'n?" Vega asked.
"The chopper's coming in to pick us up tonight. That's the LZ right there, troops." Ramirez pointed to the airstrip. "We waste this place before we leave."
Chavez evaluated that statement briefly. He'd never liked druggies. Having to sit here and watch the lazy bastards go about their business as matter-of-factly as a man on a golf course hadn't mitigated his feelings a dot.
Ding nodded. "Okay, Cap'n. How we gonna do it, sir?"
"Soon as it's dark, you and me circle around the north side. Rest of the squad forms up in two fire teams to provide fire support in case we need it. Vega, you and your SAW stay here. The other one goes down about four hundred meters. After we do the two guards, we booby-trap the fuel drums in the shack, just as a farewell present. The chopper'll pick us up at the far end at twenty-three hundred. We bring the bodies out with us, probably dump 'em at sea."
Well, how about that, Chavez thought. "We'll need like thirty-forty minutes to get around to them, just to play it safe and all, but the way those two fuckers been actin', no sweat, sir." The sergeant knew that the killing would be his job. He had the silenced weapon.
"You're supposed to ask me if this is for-real," Captain Ramirez pointed out. He had done just that over the satellite radio.
"Sir, you say do it, I figure it's for-real. It don't bother me none," Staff Sergeant Domingo Chavez assured his commander.
"Okay - we'll move out as soon as it's dark."
"Yes, sir."
The captain patted both men on the shoulder and withdrew to the rally point. Chavez watched him leave, then pulled out his canteen. He unscrewed the plastic top and took a long pull before looking over at Vega.
"Fuck!" the machine-gunner observed quietly.
"Whoever's runnin' this party musta grown a pair o' balls," Ding agreed.
"Be nice to get back to a place with showers and air conditioning," Vega said next. That two people would have to die to make that possible was, once it was decided, a matter of small consequence. It bemused both men somewhat that after years of uniformed service they were finally being told to do the very thing for which they'd trained endlessly. The moral issue never occurred to them. They were soldiers of their country. Their country had decided that those two dozing men a few hundred meters away were enemies worthy of death. That was that, though both men wondered what it would actually be like to do it.
"Let's plan this one out," Chavez said, getting back to his binoculars. "I want you to be careful with that SAW, Oso."
Vega considered the situation. "I won't fire to the left of the shack unless you call in."
"Yeah, okay. I'll come in from the direction of that big-ass tree. Shouldn't be no big deal," he thought aloud.
"Nah, shouldn't be."
Except that this time it was all real. Chavez stayed on the glasses, examining the men whom he would kill in a few hours.
Colonel Johns got his stand-to order at roughly the same time as all of the field teams, along with a whole new set of tactical maps that were for further study. He and Captain Willis went over the plan for this night in the privacy of their room. There was a snatch-and-grab tonight. The troops they'd inserted were coming back out far earlier than scheduled.