"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? he asked himself. Hoping that he'd really heard something? Hoping that he'd imagined it? He switched his goggles and scanned downhill. There was a road down there somewhere. If somebody came calling, it would be from that direction.
It was hard to tell at first. There was thick overhead cover here, and the relative absence of light forced him to turn the brightness control to the maximum. That made the picture fuzzy, like a pre-cable TV signal from a distant city, and what he was looking for was far off-at least five hundred meters, which was as far as he could see down a thinned-out area of the forest. The tension only made him more alert, but that made his imagination work all the harder, and he had to guard against seeing things that weren't there.
But something was there. He could feel it even before the noise returned. There were no more metallic sounds, but there was… there was the over-loud whisper of leaves, and then it was a calm night again in the lee of the mountain. Chavez looked over to León, who also had his goggles on, was also looking that way, a green image on the tube. The goggled face turned toward Chavez and nodded. There was no emotion in the gesture, just the professional communication of an unpleasant thought. Chavez knelt to activate his radio.
"Six, this is Point," Ding called.
"Six here."
"We're at the turn-back point. We got movement down here, about half a klick below us. We're gonna wait to see what it is."
"Roger. Be careful, Sergeant," Ramirez said.
"Will do. Out." León came over to join him.
"How d'you want to play this?" 'Berto asked.
"Let's stay close, try not to move too much till we see what they're up to."
"You got it. Better cover about fifty meters uphill."
"Go ahead, I'll be right behind you." Chavez took one more look downhill before following his comrade up to a stand of thick trees. Still nothing he could really identify on the speckled screen. Two minutes later he was at the new perch.
'Berto saw it first and pointed down a trail. The moving specks were larger than the noise generated by the viewing system. Heads. Four or five hundred meters off. Coming straight up the hill.
Okay, Chavez said to himself. Let's get a count. He felt himself relaxing. This was business. He'd done it all before. The great unknown was now behind him. There would be a fight. He knew how to do that.
"Six, this is Point, estimate company strength, heading right up to you."
"Anything else?"
"They're moving kinda slow. Careful, like."
"How long can you stay there?"
"Maybe a couple minutes."
"Stay as long as it's safe, then move. Try to pace them for another klick or so. We want to get as many as possible into the sack."
"Roger."
"These numbers suck, man," León whispered.
"We sure as hell want to whittle 'em down some 'fore we run, don't we?" Chavez returned his eyes to the advancing enemy. He saw no obvious organization. They were taking their time, moving slowly up the hill, though he could easily hear them now. They moved in little bands of three or four, probably groups of friends, he thought, like street gangs did. You wanted a friend at your back.
Street gang, he thought. They didn't bother with colors down here like in his barrio, just those damned AK-47s. No real plan, no fire and maneuver teams. He wondered if they had radios to coordinate with. Probably not. He realized, a little late, that they did know where they were going. He didn't understand how they knew, but it only meant that they were heading into one hell of an ambush. But there were still a lot of 'em. An awful lot.
"Time to move," Ding told 'Berto.
They raced uphill, or went as fast as their training allowed, choosing one good observation point after another and keeping their command posted on their position and the enemy's. Ahead of them, up the hill, the squad had nearly two hours to reorient itself and prepare its ambush. Chavez and León copied his radio message on their own sets. The squad was moving forward to meet the attackers well in front of the primary defensive line. It was set between two particularly steep sections, anchored at those points with the SAWs, covering an approach route less than three hundred meters wide. If the enemy was dumb enough to come through there, well, that was their problem, wasn't it? So far they had taken a direct route to the LZ. Maybe they'd been told that KNIFE probably was there, not certainly, Chavez thought, as he and León picked their spot, just below one of the SAWs.
"Six, this is Point, we are in position. Enemy is three hundred meters below us."
Click-click
"I see 'em," another voice called over the radio net. "Grenade One sees 'em."
"Medic has 'em."
"SAW One has 'em."
"Grenade Two. We got 'em."
"KNIFE, this is Six. Let's everybody be cool," Ramirez said calmly. "Looks like they're coming right in the front door. Remember the signal, people…"
It took another ten minutes. Chavez switched off his scope both to save batteries and to get his eyes back to normal. His mind played and replayed the squad fire-plan. He and León had specific areas of responsibility. Each soldier was supposed to limit his fire to an individual arc. All the arcs interlocked and overlapped somewhat, but they were supposed to hunt in their own little patch and not hose down the entire area. Even the two SAWs on line were so limited. The third was well behind the firing line with the small reserve force, ready to support the squad as it pulled back or to react to something unexpected.
They were within a hundred meters of the line now. The front rank of the advancing enemy was perhaps eighteen or twenty men, with others struggling behind to keep up. They moved slowly, careful of their footing, weapons held at port across their chests. Chavez counted three in his area of responsibility. León kept watch downhill as he brought his weapon up.
In the old days it was done with volley fire. Napoleonic infantry formed up shoulder-to-shoulder in ranks of two or four, leveling their muskets on command and firing on one another in one dreadful blast of power and ball. The purpose was shock. The purpose still is. Shock to unsettle those enemies fortunate enough to escape instant death, shock to tell them that this was not a place they wanted to be, shock to interfere with their performance, to stop them, to confuse them. It is no longer done with massed columns of muskets. Today it is done by letting them get very, very close, but the impact remains as much psychological as physical.