There were enough grins to tell me that Company C was ready for some payback. They were so sick and tired of sneaking north that an assault on a narco airfield sounded enjoyable to them. We crept to the edge of the airfield and waited for darkness to give us cover.
The airstrip itself was maybe a couple thousand feet long, mostly grass and gravel. Whatever flew in and out of here wasn’t very big. There were a couple of ramshackle buildings, one of which looked like an empty hangar. The other had a light on in it. We could hear a generator running from somewhere over by the hangar. The pickup truck was sitting next to the lighted building. The barrels were stacked with several others off to the side. Security seemed nonexistent, but somebody must have turned on that light, maybe the truck driver.
As soon as it was dark enough to be hidden, I ordered Briscoe and a few men to the right and Janos with a couple of men to the left. I sent another group forward, towards the barrels, and I limped along after them. I couldn’t crawl very well, but the barrels gave us some cover. I tapped one of the barrels, and then twisted off one of the bung caps. “What is it, sir?” asked Private Guillermo.
I sniffed. It was some form of petroleum product, kerosene or diesel fuel or something like that. “Fuel or diesel, something along those lines. Let’s get away from here.” I didn’t want to be hiding in the fuel dump if a firefight started!
I motioned my men forward, towards the lighted building. We stopped at the flatbed truck. We found Sergeant Briscoe and his little group already there. “All clear, sir. Three men inside. Nobody else around. There’s a plane inside the hangar. Janos is over on the other side,” he whispered to us.
“What are they doing? Are they armed?”
“Yes, sir, AKs, but we haven’t seen anything else. They’re drinking, and at least one of them is smoking something and I don’t think it’s tobacco.”
“Narcos!”
“Most likely, Captain.”
I just nodded. That was both good and bad. Narcos, drug runners or guards, were very likely to have limited skills and discipline. That was also the bad part, since they were just as likely to get drunk or stoned and wander outside to shoot up the place for the sheer hell of it.
“Let’s get them out of there. Cut off the generator. That should stir the pot,” I said.
Briscoe smiled and nodded. He pointed to two of the men and ordered them over towards the hangar. Two minutes later the hum of the generator died and the light went off in the shack.
There was some immediate cursing inside the shack, and a moment later the door to the shack slammed open and one of the men inside stumbled out. There was just enough moonlight to find his way over to the other building and go towards the rear. The men who had turned off the generator would take him down. Guillermo was at my side and whispering a running translation of what was being said inside the shack. It was basically cursing about how stupid Morales was and what the fuck was he up to? Another light came on, from a lantern it looked like, and another man came out and headed towards the hangar.
That left one man inside the shack. We watched the hangar, and after another minute, the light went out. Two down, one to go. The last guy was going to start wondering what was happening, and getting nervous. Nervous people do stupid stuff. We didn’t have any flash-bang grenades to stun and disorient anybody. I ordered Guillermo to toss a frag grenade against the back wall from outside, and see if anybody bolted.
Guillermo nodded and moved away, Briscoe and a couple of privates slipped up to either side of the door. When the grenade blew, the shack shook like an earthquake had hit it, and the windows popped out and busted. Two men came flying out the door. One was grabbed by Briscoe, but the other struggled and got the butt of an M-16 to the back of his head for his troubles. He folded up and collapsed to the ground.
“Two men, sergeant?” I whispered to him.
He put his lips to my ear. “Sorry about that, sir. He must have been sleeping. We missed him.”
I waved it off. It was unimportant. We had captured or killed everybody and the airfield was in our hands, and nobody knew it was the Americans who had done it.
Well, not until Lieutenant Fairfax bounced up and loudly asked, “Now, what, sir?”
The wounded narco looked up at that, and said, “Americanos!”
“So much for secrecy, Lieutenant. Weren’t you there when we talked about the need to speak only in Spanish?” I asked him.
“Sir? I thought that was for the assault teams.” What an idiot!
I turned my back on the fool and ordered Briscoe to bring the other two prisoners up, and to get the generator going. Thompson and I went into the shack and found a table and set up the radio. The generator came on, but the lights had all been blown, so we used our remaining chemlights and reconned the area. There were a couple of bottles of something on the floor, along with some cases of beer in the corner. Some of the bottles had been broken, but there was still some beer and liquor. A couple of the men eyed the booze, and that was all I needed to worry about!
“Sergeant! Secure the booze and beer until further notice!”
“Yes, sir!” He pointed at a couple of the privates. “Sit on it. Even look funny at it and I’ll have your asses!” Then he turned back to me. “You need to see this, sir.”
I followed him out the door, towards the hangar. There was a light glowing inside the hangar. A small single engine plane was inside, and in the back was a load of white bricks of some sort, probably cocaine being transshipped through the airfield. “Abandoned airfield, my ass!” I commented.
“There’s some more over here in the corner,” said one of the privates.
“Sir, it’s time to call home,” commented Briscoe.
I hobbled back over to the shack and sat down in just about the only decent chair left. Thompson got the radio running and Whiskey Zulu called home. Three Hueys were scheduled to arrive at 0300 at five minute intervals, with a fourth in reserve in case something happened to one of the first three. That worked out to six or seven men per helo, which was about right for a Huey. I called Briscoe and Fairfax over.
“Three birds are coming in at 0300. Lieutenant, you go out in the first bird with Donovan, Masurski, Smith, Doc, and Gonzalez.” I glanced at Briscoe.
“You should go too, sir. Your leg.”
“My leg will still be there ten minutes later. Sergeant you go out on the second bird with another six men. I’ll take the last one with the rest. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Briscoe.
Fairfax simply nodded and looked sullen. He wanted to get the hell out of there, but he wanted to go last, heroically. If I left him behind, I’d never see him or the men again. He could screw up a Girl Scout cake bake!
I looked over at the two privates guarding the booze, and smiled. “Gentlemen, everybody gets one beer each.”
You’d have thought I was handing out diamonds. Everybody’s face lit up, and the two soldiers hopped up and grabbed some beers, and took them outside to the others. Briscoe set a couple down on the table for me and Thompson, and then handed one to Fairfax. Fairfax gave a disgusted look at the thought of drinking on a mission, but Briscoe just shrugged and drank it himself. “Now what, sir?”
I ignored him for a moment, as I poured about half the bottle down my throat. It was warm donkey piss, and it was the best tasting thing I had ever had! I belched loudly, smacked my lips, and smiled. “I needed that, sergeant!” I got a room full of laughs for that. “Sergeant, collect up whatever we have in the way of demo gear, explosives, detonators, whatever, anything you can find or finagle. I want to rig this whole fucking place to blow when we leave here.”