Trial By Fire (69 page)

While Guajardo was interested in the administrative building, where Delapos would be asleep, Cerro’s attention was riveted on the tool shed and garage on the northern side of the base camp. It was in these buildings, according to Lefleur, that the American hostages had been put.

Cerro’s task, during the recon, was to confirm that. If he could, it would make life so much easier when Kozak and her platoon came tearing into the camp. Perhaps, Cerro thought, with a little luck, some of Kozak’s people could even secure the hostages before the shooting began. In that case, it would be a simple matter of putting Kozak’s platoon in a line abreast and marching them into the bandito base, shooting everyone in front of them as they went.

Upon reaching the rear of the cantina, the four men flattened themselves against the wall and crouched to catch their breath and listen for the movement of any guards. After waiting a minute, Guajardo turned to Cerro. “Well, my young companion, this is where we must part.”

Even in the dark shadow of the cantina, Guajardo could see the shocked expression on Cerro’s face. It was only with the greatest effort that Cerro kept his voice down. ‘“What do you mean?”

“I am, my young friend, after their leader. I cannot take the chance that we will be able to find him and keep him alive once your lovely lieutenant and her men begin shooting. So, I am taking our guide and leaving to find and secure Senior Delapos, for safekeeping. You understand, of course.”

Cerro couldn’t believe it. The colonel, he realized, had been planning this the entire time. The bastard. The fucking bastard. Well, Cerro thought, two can play hardball. “No, I do not. That was not the plan.

You, Colonel, must understand that if you go jerking around in the dark, on your own, I cannot be responsible for your safety. When the shooting starts, I cannot guarantee that you, your guide, and your hostage won’t be hit by friendly fire.”

Guajardo nodded. “I understand. But I am sure you will do your best. Vaya con Dios.”

Without another word, Guajardo grabbed Lefleur by the collar and pushed him ahead of him out into the open and toward the rear of the storage building. Fast Eddie, who hadn’t heard the conversation between Cerro and Guajardo, leaned forward and whispered in Cerro’s ear,

“Where they goin’, sir?”

Disgusted, tired, and momentarily flustered, Cerro mumbled a curse Fast Eddie didn’t hear, then over his shoulder, he whispered, “They’re off playing,cowboys.”

When Cerro turned his attention back to his front, Fast Eddie thought about Cerro’s response. He had no idea what the captain meant. He didn’t remember anyone mentioning anything about the Mexican doing his own recon. Not that it mattered. Fast Eddie reminded himself that he was, after all, only a grunt. Nobody ever told him anything. All he was expected to do was carry the radio and follow the captain.

2 kilometers southeast of bandito base east, mexico 0420 hours, 20 September

They were late. As Kozak looked at her watch, she realized that they still had two kilometers to go. If everything had gone well with Captain Cerro’s recon, and she had no reason to suspect that it hadn’t, he would be waiting for her and her platoon, at that moment, at the designated jumpoff point just east of the enemy base camp. Unless they did something soon, there was no way that they could make it to the jumpoff point, get Cerro’s briefing on the layout of the camp, and attack before dawn.

A decision had to be made. Another one of those one-time-only, guesswrong-and-die decisions.

Throwing her right hand up over her shoulder, palm out, she signaled her platoon to halt. Like a ripple, starting with the man behind her, every man repeated the motion, then squatted, watching to either the left or right as he waited for further instructions. Only Staff Sergeant Maupin, the platoon sergeant, kept going. Turning to the man following him and telling him to stay, Maupin worked his way up the file of men to where Kozak, at the head of the column, stood looking to the north and west.

When he reached her, he looked around in the same directions, then leaned over and whispered, “What’s up, LT?”

Looking toward the base camp, its buildings barely visible in the distance, she sighed. “We’re late.”

Maupin looked at his watch. “Took longer than the captain thought.

He’s probably late too.”

Kozak shook her head. “Can’t count on that. If we don’t get moving fast, we’ll never be in place and ready to attack before dawn.”

Maupin was about to ask what she intended to do, but he realized that she was already considering her options. So he stood next to her and waited.

He thought about offering her his advice, but decided not to. Ever since their deployment from Fort Hood south to the Mexican border, she had called everything right. Even Rivera had been surprised how well she had done, commenting to Maupin after the incident in Nuevo Laredo that second lieutenants just didn’t come any better. So Maupin simply watched her and waited.

Seeing no signs of anything that looked like an outpost between them and the base camp, and remembering the French mercenary’s comment that most of their attention was oriented to the north and west, Kozak decided to take a chance, a big one. She turned to Maupin. “Okay, Sergeant Maupin. We’re getting out of this ditch and double-time down to the jump-off point. Wedge formation once we’re in the open. First Squad in the center, 2nd Squad on the left, 3rd to the right. Place one machine gun each with both 2nd and 3rd squads. I’ll lead, you take up drag. Pass the word.”

Without hesitation, Maupin turned and prepared to move back down the column to relay Kozak’s order to the squad leaders, when Kozak reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “And Sergeant Maupin, pass the word. Fix bayonets.”

Bandito Base East, Mexico

0422 hours, 20 September

When they finally reached the rear of the administrative building, both Guajardo and Lefleur paused to catch their breath. After he had done so, Lefleur, twisting his head around, whispered over his shoulder to Gua jardo, “This is the rear door. Inside, a corridor runs through the building to the front. Two rooms on each side of the corridor. Delapos uses the second one to the right as an office. He also sleeps in there.” Lefleur turned his head back and waited. He had, he knew, fulfilled his end of their bargain. He had led Guajardo to where Delapos was. Now, he waited for the Mexican to let him go, as he had said he would.

What he would do, once .freed and a safe distance from the Mexican, was a good question, one that Lefleur had been pondering all night. The Mexican, with an HK-53 submachine gun, which he carried slung across his back, as well as the 9mm pistol he had held at Lefleur’s back as they moved to the admin building, was too well armed to take on. At least, right away. No, Lefleur thought, it would be pointless to risk his life right there, in such an uneven fight. He would wait. And, he thought, if a chance to take out the Mexican didn’t come, it was no loss. He had, after all, been paid in advance.

The gleam of a blade flashing in front of his face caught Lefleur’s attention just as Guajardo’s left hand came around and clamped down on his mouth. In a single, smooth motion, Guajardo jerked Lefleur’s head back and onto his left shoulder as he brought the bayonet in his right hand across in front of Lefleur’s face. Pressing the bayonet against the skin just under Lefleur’s left ear, Guajardo jerked to the right, using all of his strength to rip Lefleur’s throat open, just above the wind pipe, from ear to ear. The only sound Lefleur made was a gurgling sound as blood from his severed artery mixed with the air escaping his lungs through the slit in his neck. For an instant, Lefleur’s body jerked, then stiffened in shock and surprise. When he finally went limp, Guajardo removed his hand from Lefleur’s mouth, allowing the body to fall in a heap at his” feet.

After looking around to see if his action had attracted any unwanted attention, Guajardo bent over Lefleur’s body. Pulling Lefleur’s shirttail out of his pants, Guajardo first used it to wipe the blood from his bayonet before returning the.bayonet to its scabbard. Then he wiped Lefleur’s blood off his hands as best he could. He looked around again as he unslung his submachine gun and pulled the bolt of his weapon back.

Ready, he stepped over Lefleur’s body and entered the administrative building.

Once inside, Guajardo paused, flattening himself against the wall to his left while he allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the building’s interior. Within seconds, he could make out the four doors Lefleur had spoken of. At the end of the corridor, under the door of the room that Lefleur had indicated Delapos used for his office, there was light coming out. Guajardo could see something blocking the light under the door every now and then. Someone was up and moving around in the room.

Keeping his back against the wall and his submachine gun trained on Delapos’s door, Guajardo began to move down the corridor. As he passed a door behind him, he glanced back for a split second, then returned his attention to the door where the light was coming from. When he was finally standing across from it, he steadied his submachine gun in his right hand while he slowly reached across the corridor for the doorknob with his left. Once he had a firm grip on it, he slowly began to turn the doorknob, listening for any sound and watching the light under the door.

When it would turn no more, he froze and listened a little longer. Taking several deep breaths, he prepared to go in.

Delapos was bent over, reaching down to pull up his trousers, when the door to his room flew open. Looking up, he was startled to see a tall soldier, dressed in tiger-striped camouflage fatigues and training a submachine gun on him, standing in the doorway. Like a statue, Delapos froze, watching the man with the submachine gun as he took a quick step into the room, then a step to the right, closing the door with his left hand and holding the submachine gun in his right. Easing himself back so that he was leaning against the wall, the man with the submachine gun brought his left hand up to the front hand guard of the weapon before he motioned for Delapos to stand up by wiggling the barrel of the gun up and down.

Standing upright, and recovered from his initial shock, Delapos studied the man’s face for several seconds before he realized that he was looking at Colonel Alfredo Guajardo, minister of defense, member of the Council of 13, “the Dark One.” The revelation only served to heighten Delapos’s sense of shock and panic. If he, the Dark One, was standing there, in his own office, Delapos thought, then it was all over. Everything was lost.

Everything, including his life, was finished.

Behind the cantina, Bandito Base East, Mexico 0424 hours, 20 September

After circling the outside of the buildings, and seeing what he thought to be the hostages where the French mercenary had said they should be, Cerro and Fast Eddie prepared to head back to the jumpoff point. For a moment, Cerro glanced back at the tool shed as he reconsidered his decision to leave without freeing the hostages. It wouldn’t, he thought, take that long. Five minutes tops. With the hostages out of the way, the rest of the operation would be a piece of cake, a real breeze. But going in like that, with only Fast Eddie as backup, was a big risk, a risk that he wasn’t ready to take. At this stage of the game, there was no need to take any more chances. He’d do just like he’d briefed, go back, brief Kozak’s platoon, lead them forward, position them, and then, when everything was ready, start the attack. Doing all that would take time. But in the end, Cerro knew, it was the smart thing to do.

Just as Cerro and Fast Eddie stood up and prepared to leave the shelter of the cantina, the door of the storage building facing into the center of the compound opened. Dropping down, Cerro and Fast Eddie froze in place as they watched three mercenaries leave the building and head for a pickup truck parked in front of the storage building. All three carried weapons, but they had them in one hand while hauling bundles of gear in the other. Cerro heaved a sigh of relief, realizing that he and Eddie had not been spotted.

His relief didn’t last long. After dropping their gear into the open bed of the pickup truck, one man, the shortest of the three, opened the door on the driver’s side while the other two shuffled across to the garage where Cerro believed some of the hostages were. When they entered the garage, the mercenary wearing a green camouflage shirt turned on the garage’s outside and inside lights, just as the short one in the pickup truck flipped on the headlights. The whole open area in the center of the compound was now illuminated by the light coming from the garage and the pickup. The odds of anyone being asleep in the mining compound were now less than remote and getting worse by the minute.

Pulling back into the dark shadows of the cantina, Cerro watched as the mercenary in the green camouflage shirt came out of the garage. With his rifle slung over his shoulder, he was pushing one of the male hostages in front of him as he dragged another behind him. Both hostages, their hands bound in front of them, came out reluctantly. The mercenaries were, Cerro thought, about to move the hostages.

Turning to Fast Eddie, Cerro took a grenade off a loop of his web belt.

“Can you manage to get a grenade into the back of the pickup in one try?”

Eddie leaned over and looked past Cerro at the pickup. “Sure thing.

Why?”

The mercenary in the camouflage shirt, instead of taking his charges over to the pickup, put them up against the front wall of the garage.

Walking away from them, he was joined in the center of the open area by the short mercenary, who had turned on the lights of the pickup. As they stood there together, the mercenary in the camouflage shirt took his rifle off his shoulder and pulled the bolt back, looking at the two hostages.

Cerro looked at Fast Eddie, the mercenaries in the open area, then at Fast Eddie again, tossing him the grenade. ” ‘Cause I said so. When I say go, chuck the grenade in the truck. After it goes off, you head for the garage.

Get the hostages back inside and stay in there. I’m going after the woman in the tool shed. Got that?”