Maddock leaned in close to Bones while he eyed the heap of a dozen packs along with the other ten men lined up next to them. “I need every advantage I can get. This is more your kind of country than mine.”
Bones frowned in his direction while Maddock shifted his gaze to watch a golden eagle soar overhead. “The Cherokee tribe is from the southeast, genius.”
“Yeah, but some of you relocated to the west, didn’t you?”
“Not my family. We hid in the woods and built a casino.”
Once again the commander’s voice boomed. “Look at the exercise theater. A target asset to be recovered has been hidden somewhere within these boulders.” He spread his arms wide as the SEAL team collectively groaned at the expansive rockscape spread out before them. It was thick with boulders large and small, and even a rock face towering perhaps six stories from the top of the stone heap. It was a geologist’s dream but a field operator’s nightmare.
“The twelve of you have been divided into three teams, denoted by your uniform color. None of the three colors confer a camouflage advantage over the others in this terrain.” Maddock looked around the group and saw that this was true. None of them wore desert camo or even khaki or tan. He and Maddock each wore olive drab fatigues, while some of their fellow SEALs wore black, and the third squad dressed in navy blue, all of them of little use from a tactical standpoint in this part of the arid desert.
The commander continued. “The asset itself is small enough to fit in your packs or to be carried by one able-bodied man. It does not move and does not in and of itself pose any danger to you.” He grinned devilishly at the looks of hopelessness on the soldiers’ faces. Clearly they had been hoping the target was large, perhaps a structure of some sort, not something that could be carried.
“Like finding a needle in a haystack, right?” Maddock said quietly to Bones.
“More like finding your mom in the strip club. Wait, she’s probably easy to find. She’s the one with a body like the Michelin man.”
By this point in their military careers Maddock had grown accustomed to Bones’ wisecracking at often inappropriate moments, but that didn’t mean he was okay with it. He was about to return the insult in kind when the commander’s voice rang out.
“Green Team, you have earned yourselves a three-minute handicap. That’s one hundred eighty seconds for those of you who failed grammar school mathematics.” He shot a dark look at Bones. “After the Go signal, you can park your carcasses right there until I give you the word.”
Maddock instantly became aware of the withering stares shot his way by their two other Green Team squad mates: one stood four men down to their left, a dark-skinned African-American with a clean-shaven head almost as tall and broad of shoulder as Bones, and three down to their right, a Caucasian similar in stature to Maddock.
“Sorry, Willis,” Bones said to the black man, Willis Sanders, who only narrowed his eyes in return.
“Got your back, Prof,” he offered to their other teammate, whose name was in fact Pete Chapman, but who was known as Professor due to his affinity for trivia as well as his general intelligence. He, too, had no verbal reply for Bones.
“Gear up and standby!”
“Hooyah!” The SEALs bolted for the mound of bags at their commander’s order. Maddock, Bones, Willis, and Professor each donned one of the packs along with their fellow SEAL competitors. The megaphone sounded again as the commander looked at his watch.
“All teams ready except for Green! Mission starts in three… two… one… go!”
Maddock, Bones, Willis and Professor watched dejectedly as Black Team and Blue Team fanned out and ran for the boulder field. After a few seconds Maddock knelt and began going through the contents of his pack. He noted that none of the other teams had taken the time to do this, and they had nothing better to do while they waited out the three minutes.
“Comm check,” Maddock said holding up a handheld radio he pulled from his pack. All four of them turned their units on and found them to be on different channels. They agreed on one that they would use and then Maddock set his to scan mode to search the frequencies for radio traffic so that they might hear the other teams’ comm traffic later.
Meanwhile, Bones had his firearm out of the pack, a Sig Sauer P226 pistol. “Paint rounds, dudes, ours are bright green.” He raised the weapon and traced a member of Blue Team through the sights as he reached the rocks. “Time?” he inquired as he followed the special warfare operator’s progress up into the boulders with his pistol.
“Two minutes until you may engage!” the commander answered him.
Professor and Willis both narrowed their eyes. The implications Bones had raised were clear.
Professor eyed Bones, who still sighted through the P226. “If you have a shot then they’re going to have a shot, too. They all know we’re just sitting ducks out here. We’re going to have to spread out just as soon as we can.”
“I still think I can take at least one out.” Bones didn’t look up from his gun.
Maddock, now coiling a length of rope and clipping it to his belt, looked out on the boulder field. “Professor’s right, Bones. All any of us has are pistols, so there’s no real sniper threat, but a guy on the edge of the rocks could take out all four of us pretty easy.”
“Thanks again for getting us into this mess, Bones. I always wanted to know what a fish in a barrel feels like.” Willis voiced his opinion.
“Help me out, would you Willis? I need a steady platform. Just kneel down in front of me, I’ll rest this little paint shooter on your shoulder, and it should give me steady enough aim to take this guy down.”
“You crazy?” Willis took a step closer to Bones, staring at him as he looked down his gun sights. “We need to be ready to move, man!”
“Relax. They’re probably all scrambling around looking for the asset. No one’s even opened a pack yet that I can see.” Bones continued tracing the man as the member of Blue Team ducked in and out of various nooks and crannies.
“One minute to engage!”
Maddock shouldered his pack and looked out at the rocks. “If we play our cards right, Bones can take out one or two guys and we can spread out quick.” He pointed to a central rock spire, by far the most salient feature of the playing field. It consisted of three individual monoliths, each rising perhaps six stories vertically until they touched together at the top. The base was surrounded by an intimidating array of huge rocks haphazardly arranged. “A lot of guys will assume the asset is up there,” he finished.
“It could be up there,” Professor added.
“Time-consuming climb, and easy to pick climbers off that high wall if you’re close enough,” Maddock said.
“Hopefully the other teams eliminate a few of their own with cross-fighting before we get there.” This from Professor. “Thirty seconds. What’s our plan?”
“I still got this guy.” Bones looked at Willis. “C’mon, Willis. I need support here.” The big African-American muttered a choice curse under his breath and knelt in front of Bones, facing away from him. Bones rested the barrel of the pistol on his rock steady shoulder and took aim at the soldier on the edge of the rock field. Other men were visible farther away, very difficult targets for a pistol at this distance.
Maddock shouldered his pack and addressed the team. “Two reasons taking the top of that spire is worth doing: the asset could be there, and even if it’s not, it’ll provide a bird’s eye view that could help us locate the asset.”