Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [327]
"Yeah. Make it to the Embassy in Bogotá?"
"That violates about a dozen different orders, sir," Guerra pointed out.
"First time for everything," Captain Ramirez observed. "Have everybody eat their last rations, rest up as best they can. We stand-to in two hours, and stay alert all night. I want Chavez and León to patrol down the hill, say two klicks' worth." Ramirez didn't have to say what he was worried about. As unlikely as intellect told them it had to be, he and Guerra were on the same wavelength.
"It's cool, Cap'n," the sergeant assured him. "We're going to be all right, just as soon as those REMFs get their shit together."
The mission briefing took fifteen minutes. The men were angry and restive at the losses they had taken, not fully appreciative of the danger that lay ahead, only of their rage at what had already happened to their numbers. Such bravado, Cortez thought, such machismo. The fools.
The first target was only thirty kilometers away - for the obvious reasons he wanted to deal with the nearest one first - and twenty-two of them could be covered by truck. They had to wait for darkness, of course, but sixteen trucks rolled out, each with fifteen or so men aboard. Cortez watched them depart, muttering to one another as they pulled out of sight. His own people stayed behind, of course. He had so far recruited ten men, and their loyalty was to him alone. He'd recruited well, of course. No nonsense about who their parents were or how faithfully they had killed. He'd selected them for their skills. Most were dropouts from M-19 and PARC, men for whom five years of playing at guerrilla warfare had been enough. Some had received training in Cuba or Nicaragua and had basic soldier skills - actually terrorist skills, but that put them ahead of the "soldiers" of the Cartel, most of whom had never received formal training at all. They were mercenaries. Their only interest in Cortez was in the money he'd paid them, but he'd also promised them more. More to the point, there was nowhere else for them to go. The Colombian government had no use for them. The Cartel would not have trusted them. And they had forsworn their loyalty to the two Marxist groups which were so politically bankrupt that they allowed themselves to be hired out by the Cartel. That left Cortez. He was the man they would kill for. He hadn't confided in them, since he didn't yet trust them to do any more than that, but all great movements began with small groups of people whose methods were as murky as their objectives, who knew only loyalty to a single man. At least that's what Cortez had been taught. He didn't fully believe that himself, but it was enough for the moment. He had no illusions about leading a revolution. He was merely executing - what was it called? A hostile takeover. Yes, that was right. Cortez chuckled to himself as he walked back inside and started looking at his maps.
"Good thing neither one of us is a smoker," Larson said as the wheels came up. In the cabin behind them was an auxiliary fuel tank. They had a two-hour flight down to their patrol area, and two hours back, with three hours of loiter time on station. "You suppose this is going to work?"
"If it doesn't, somebody's going to pay," Clark replied. "What about the weather?"
"We'll sneak back in ahead of it. Don't make any bets on tomorrow, though."
Chavez and León were two kilometers away from the team's farthest listening post. Both carried silenced weapons. León hadn't been the point scout for BANNER, but had woodcraft skills that Chavez liked. The best news of all was that they found nothing. Captain Ramirez had briefed them on what he was worried about. So far they hadn't detected it, which was fine with the two sergeants. They'd gone down to the north initially, then gradually come south while covering an arc of several kilometers, looking for signs, listening for noise. They were just turning for the climb back to the LZ when Chavez stopped and turned.
It was a metallic sound. He waved for León to freeze and pivoted his head around, hoping - what?