Nichols checked his webbing and what he'd hung on it. He could probably have done die whole job himself, with what he was carrying. He had an Alice over his back with a SADEM-Special Atomic Demolition Emergency Munition - that would end any argument, except how he'd come by it He had every electronic gizmo Welch could come up with. He had a det cord bracelet around his wrist and a high-pressure chemical delivery system next to die survival knife in his boot.
Recon had a tendency to turn into more than that, every now and again, and Nichols wanted to be ready.
Crouched among bushes bending violently with the chopper's take-off (even Achilles couldn't alter physics), Nichols checked his weapons-belt-front-line kit was ninety rounds of 7.62 NATO in life, and that was what Nichols took with him on a mission like this, whenever he had a choice.
Then he started scuttling through the bushes on the slope, beyond which he could see the caravan making camp. Get in there without being seen, find Tamara, make sure she didn't have a problem she couldn't handle, and give her Welch's message that she was to maneuver one of the two Sumerians to the pick-up sight and bring the OD onboard, nothing more.
Welch didn't see any reason to kill the two Old Dead, probably because Achilles was so intent on just that. So it had become a command decision, an internecine struggle on which command authority in the field depended.
Personally, Nichols didn't think you could teach Achilles nothin'; he didn't even see a reason to try. Nichols could get the Huey back to New Hell, if the one lesson Achilles might possibly understand became appropriate. Hand on his
M14, Nichols prowled, pumping himself up for a covert entry where there was no night or cover to shield him and plenty of nervous sentries around a caravan expecting to pick up a fortune's worth of drugs.
He had a suppressor on his customized auto-rifle, because that was the way you did this sort of mission, and he kept checking it as he scrambled down the rocky slope. He also had a button in his ear and a mike on his collar, so that he could voice-actuate communications with the chopper.
The odd sky, here where Paradise seemed skewered in place among clouds too dense and too low not to generate ground fog, threw him back in time and place, among the lush fauna of this volcanic, mountainous shore.
Jungle it wasn't, not the real sort, but it was close enough and Nichols had been Sniper Research, despite inter-departmental hassles, for a while when he'd been alive.
He was trembling with chemical hype from his nervous system by the time he reached the edge of the caravan, stopping on an overhang spawning a waterfall that generated some serious white noise, this close. Stopping to take a look-see, wriggling on his belly over rocks and past rocks and over lush grass, getting closer...
"Yo, Nichols!"
The sudden sputter of Achilles' voice in his ear-piece made Nichols flinch.
His foot dislodged a rock, which hit another that tumbled down toward the water and fell over the falls...
"Not now, droolface," Nichols muttered into his collar, where his mike was.
Idiot or spoiler, Nichols was going to kill this guy, no matter what it cost him, and get Achilles reassigned somewhere where bugs were the only things that flew.
Below, the stone, cascading down the waterfall, then bouncing, had flushed something unexpected. Short guys in black outfits came running out from under the falls, gesticulating, chattering to each other.
Damned monkeys, or worse ... no wonder this place sent his mind echoes of Ho Chi Minh trail. Bunch of Asiatics, hiding behind the waterfall...
Nichols looked again, with all the acuity his trained eye could muster and this time the waterfall didn't look natural. But it sure was convenient, and well engineered. Nichols would give Mao's boys that.
Recon meant you were supposed to get back alive to detail enemy troop strength, he reminded himself as two parts of his being conflicted.
Sniper Research meant that you shot whatever you found out there, so that you could do your damned research uninterrupted.
Head count, in this situation, was approximate, but Nichols was willing to bet that behind the waterfall he'd find lots more ChiCom troops-smugglers for the sake of the Revolution, in this case-and a tunnel entrance that would explain why no previous unit with this assignment had been able to find the transship route that Mao was using.
Whistling soundlessly, Nichols rolled over onto his back and very carefully, scanning the terrain around him, wiggled his arse until he'd gotten upstream far enough that he wouldn't kick any more stones into the water.
Then he began unwinding the del cord bracelet on his wrist, combining it with other necessaries from his kit until he had a time-detonated explosive device that ought to block the tunnel entrance, as well as stop the flow of water, when it blew.
He sat there a few seconds, considering his handiwork. You had to use the faults in the rock strata, judge it just right... Deciding it was right enough, if nobody messed with it, he fixed his little trap to blow if a careless foot stumbled onto the det cord, which had enough RDX in it to be trouble by itself, and went on his way.
He'd known he'd find a use for all this stuff he was packing. You don't deplane with ninety pounds on your back and haul it over enemy terrain for nothing. He'd cannibalized one of Welch's black boxes, but Welch wouldn't mind.
It was going to be such a nice, satisfying bang. If the ensuing explosion didn't stop the drug traffic from Mao's fortress in Dog City, it was going to slow things up: rerouting, redeployment of personnel, rebasing ... all these things took time, men, resources.
Content that he could give Welch what the officer needed to report a successful mission, with or without Tanya and the Sumerians - and without setting up a semi-permanent staging area here which they'd have to man - Nichols scrambled down the slope and headed west.
He had no intention of getting caught in the act, or anywhere near here. What he'd left behind was more important than what remained for him to do: score one for on-site decision making.
It took the better part of two hours to circle the camp, find Tamara Burke's wagon, and sup over to it from the rear. He knew he should have reported what he'd done, called in and let Welch know. But then Achilles would know. And he didn't trust Achilles worth a damn. Or the corn line he checked in on.
Welch, who didn't like "excess" casualties, might have given him an argument, Nichols knew.
Welch had a message for Tanya that underscored that forgivable, but very real, flaw in the Harvard man's nature.
The camp was easy enough to negotiate-nobody here asked questions when strangers came around, especially strangers with backpacks in unfamiliar, non-standard, camouflage.
Finding Tamara's wagon was no problem-they'd scrounged it for her; there wasn't another like it in the caravan. Tapping on it with the butt of his survival knife, Nichols had a moment to worry.
He didn't like those sort of moments, wherein possible problems that might never occur popped up like phantoms and scared him witless. But he sat out the flash of anxiety stolidly-he knew how to manage field jitters. You just kept telling yourself, "So what?" and they passed.
Because there was no answer to that question, beyond the simple answer: you handled whatever came your way.
It was taking her too long to respond, and he risked a low, "Hey, Burke, you in there?"
From somewhere, a desperate scramble became a barking dog, launching itself at him.
Reflexively, Nichol's service pistol came to hand. The dog was big, brindle, a decent target.
Deciding, as he watched it bound toward him in a slow motion his adrenalin-prodded physiology provided, that a two-shot burst would beat a headshot in this situation, he drew a bead. Then the gold silk of the wagon parted hurriedly and Tanya Burke said, "Don't you dare, you bastard." And: