Marcus stopped mid-motion and stood there staring at her, unable to move.
“What?” she asked.
Marcus’s expression softened, but only for a moment, then the iciness crackled back across his face. He snapped out of his temporary paralysis and handed her the papers.“Nothing.” Marcus turned aside, then continued, “They said something vague about how when they complete their mission, they want to get into the slave trade business. Then Nikola smiled and told me he was going to cut my balls off and sell me as a eunuch on the slave market in Yemen. He obviously didn’t know I understood him, and I didn’t let on.”
“What was your impression of them?” she asked. “Your military impression?”
“They are terrorists,” he said flatly. “They’re up to no good, and I expect you are going to find out what.”
“That’s what we are working on.”
“Well, if that answers your questions, I have some work to do. So you need to leave.” He walked to the door, grasped the handle, and pulled it open.
“Look, Marcus.” She let out a sigh. “This was not my idea, me coming out here, that is. I know there are a lot of issues we need to work out, and ….I … uh…”
Several vehicles crunched across the snow of Marcus’s front yard, interrupting Lonnie mid-sentence.
“Now is not the time,” Marcus said as he motioned her out the door.
They stepped outside to see three large, white Ford F350 crew cab pickup trucks, each hauling a trailer with two snowmobiles. A dozen men got out of the trucks, all wearing white smocks over their clothing. Chief Wasner and Staff Sergeant Beckwith approached Marcus and Lonnie.
“Okay, Mojo, what next?” Chief Wasner asked. “Is the trooper coming with us? She doesn’t exactly seem to be dressed for it.”
“No, she’s not. She’s not involved in this.”
Lonnie looked at Marcus. “What is going on?”
“You need to go.”
She glanced over to the men at the trucks. They were unloading equipment. Several of the men took assault weapons from duffle bags they had lifted from the backs of the trucks. The men quickly checked the weapons, then strapped them around their bodies.
“No, I’m not leaving!” Lonnie insisted. “These men are armed with assault weapons! What in the hell is going on here, Marcus? Who are these men?”
“Trooper Wyatt, these men are old friends of mine from Spec Ops. I offered my house as a staging ground for an exercise they’re having up on Eielson. That’s all this is.”
Lonnie looked back up at him. “Mr. Johnson, you are one poor liar. You had better let me in on what is going on here. Or…”
“Or what?” Marcus growled. “You’ll arrest more than a dozen men armed with machine guns and take us in for questioning? I have work to do. Trust me. When the time is right, I will tell you what’s going on. For now, just believe me when I say that it’s in your best interest not to know yet. Now unless you have a warrant, you’d better get in your car and go.”
In the light of the headlamps, she could see some of the faces of the men present. They were hard-looking faces. Their eyes bore the cold glare of the professionally violent.
“Is this related to the two men I showed you?” she asked, regaining her professional tone.
“That’s what we are going to find out,” Marcus answered. “I’ll let you know when I get back. In the meantime, just trust me.” He paused and looked straight into her eyes. “I have never let you down.”
The words stung like a hot needle piercing her heart. She was at once furious that he would hurl such barb at her when she could not defend herself, and racked with guilt at the truth of his statement. He had always kept his word to her. It was she who hurt him. She was the guilty one.
Lonnie walked quickly to her patrol car and got in. She had to get out of here before her emotions boiled over and she made a fool of herself in front of all these men.
As Trooper Wyatt drove away, the group of Navy SEALS returned to their preparations.
“Seems like you know her pretty well,” Wasner said.
“Yeah, I used to. We’re old acquaintances,” Marcus replied.
“Yeah, right. Old acquaintances, my big hairy gluteus maximus. You sounded like ex-marrieds to me.”
Marcus’s face was hard and angry. He abruptly turned and walked back toward the cabin, ignoring Wasner’s comment. “I’m going to get my gear. Let’s get moving.”
As he walked away, Beckwith said, “Wow, Chief, sounds like you touched a nerve on that one.”
“Hmmm.” The chief scratched his head. “I never knew old Mojo had been married. Imagine that.”
Ten minutes later, Marcus came out of the house, dressed in over-whites like the other men. He crossed the yard to where his snowmobile was parked beside the house, mounted it, and started its engine. The machine’s high-performance engine fired right away and Marcus slowly turned it around, driving up to where the others stood.
As the last of them loaded their gear, they mounted their snowmobiles and started the engines. The sound produced by the mass of suppressed snowmobiles was an eerily quiet rumble, like a gang of other-worldly beasts, a deep hunger growling in their throats as they crouched in the snow, preparing to leap up and devour their unsuspecting prey.
The band of warriors took off down the trail next to the road. Wasner’s SEALS rode two to a sled. The man in back held his weapon at the ready in the event of danger. They drove with no headlights.
Every man wore the latest 5th generation full-field, color night vision goggles which allowed them a complete field of view in near total darkness. The goggles looked like large wrap-around sunglasses with thick lenses. Rather than rest on the tops of their ears, the night vision glasses were held on by a custom-fitted, over-the-head strap that contained micro-technology to translate the slightest light waves and heat signatures into visible objects. They were equipped with anti-flash technology that registered unexpected bright flashes, such as vehicle headlamps and gunfire, and instantly suppressed the area of the lens where the flash occurred to avoid eye damage. In the light of tonight’s three-quarter moon, the visibility was as good as if it were noon on a sunny day.
They gunned the machines quickly up Johnson Road to the trail Marcus had taken earlier. Without having to stop to check traps, it would take less than an hour to get to the spot where Marcus had earlier taken his lunch. Silently, they stalked through the night in an eerie, snow-covered replay of the Ride of the Valkyrie.
Chapter 15
The men sat quietly around the tarmac, awaiting the final preparations of the C130 crew that would transport them, with the assistance of two in-flight refuelings, to a wide jungle airstrip four miles outside the village. They would be inserted via a touch and go maneuver wherein the aircraft descends to the runway, slows enough for the men to run out the back ramp, then ten seconds later is pulling up again and leaving the area.
This maneuver, while being highly effective, is also quite dangerous. The pilots have to work within the constraint of a minimum runway length of 5000 feet. The airfield the Royal Marines would be using for this operation was exactly that long, according to intelligence records. Just in case, the C-130 they were flying in was equipped with JATO, or Jet Assisted Take Off, propulsion tanks. These fuel-filled canisters reduced the minimum runway length to less than 4000 feet, as long as the Marines disembarked without incident.