A pair of hands immediately grabbed him. Marzan pointed him in the right direction and he quickly came up next to Partusi. Ensuring that he had all six team members, Riley gave the signal to move out and they continued their trek.
In planning, Riley had allowed the team four hours to reach the target. In actuality it took only three. The team moved steadily and without any further interruptions through the unpopulated swampland until the men finally reached their destination at the observation point on the edge of the small dirt runway.
The team settled into a tight security perimeter. Riley dropped his ruck and lay down next to Lane. He scanned the compound seventy-five meters away on the far side of the airstrip using the special night-vision telescope Lane had carried in for the Haskins sniper rifle. The scope not only enhanced the ambient light like the goggles but also gave him a ten-power magnification. He could see two guards walking about the four ramshackle buildings that made up the laboratory. The sentinels were a good sign. It meant there was still something here to guard. One of their greatest concerns had been that the factory had moved.
Riley could also see barrels stacked around the buildings. Heavy plastic sheeting covered the doors and windows of the largest shed, which, according to their briefing, was where the actual processing was done. Another shack appeared to be a storage area, and the last two were probably living quarters. From what he was seeing, Riley was confident that this was indeed one of the major labs.
The guards were armed with Ml6s and walked about the camp in a random manner. Riley had a feeling there were probably more than just the two guards on duty. He continued scanning. After thirty minutes, he spotted two more. These two "gave themselves away by lighting cigarettes, which showed up in the night-vision scope as if they had fired off a flare. One was just off the airstrip that abutted the compound, only fifty meters from Riley's present location. That guard appeared to be armed with an M60 machine gun. The other was on the far side of the compound, adjacent to the dirt trail that pointed toward Cartagena and the north.
Having seen what he needed to see, Riley handed the scope to Lane, who remounted it on the Haskins. Riley pointed out the four guards and whispered instructions to Lane. Then he slid back farther into the woods, to where the rest of the team was waiting.
Gathering the other four team members around him, Riley proceeded, in a hoarse whisper, to update them on the situation. "We've got four buildings just like the imagery showed. All the signs are there that this is a currently working laboratory — ether in barrels and plastic sheeting around the largest building. So I'm going to call in a go on this target.
"There are four guards — two walking around the camp armed with Ml6s, one stationary just off the dirt road leading out of the camp. That guy has what looks like an AK-47. Then they have a fourth guy hidden on this side of the camp overwatching the airstrip with an M60. He's only about fifty meters from where I left Lane.
"Here's what I propose." Riley reached out and tapped a team member. "Frank, you lase the target at 0425 as we coordinated. When the first round from Spectre impacts, Dan, you take out the guy closest to us with your AK. Lane will hit the guy on the far side of the camp and keep that way out under surveillance. He'll shoot anyone trying to leave by the road. I'm figuring the two guys on guard in the camp will get wasted by Spectre. If not, then, Dan, you take them down." Riley looked at Powers. "How's that sound?"
The team sergeant gave a ghostly smile in the dark. "Sounds good to me."
"Additionally, the small plane we saw in the imagery isn't there anymore, so we don't have to worry about that. If anything tries to come in during the hit, we'll let Spectre deal with it." He turned to Marzan. "Hosea, go ahead and get the radio set up."
"Right, Chief."
Marzan opened his rucksack and pulled out the PSC-3 satellite communications radio and its small dish antenna. Hooking the two together, he pointed the antenna at the proper azimuth and elevation. Then he hooked the Vinson voice scrambler into the radio. He turned the radio on and checked it by getting a bounce back off the designated satellite. "She's all set."
Riley picked up the handset and pushed the send. "Moonbeam, this is Eyes One. Over."
He waited a second. The signal pulsed from his radio up to the satellite and then was relayed to its target. The radio softly crackled with a reply. "Eyes One, this is Moonbeam. We read you Lima Charlie. How do you read us? Over."
"We read you Lima Charlie. The mission is a go. I say again, the mission is a go as planned. Over."
"Roger. We read mission is a go. Will relay message. Over."
"Roger. Out." Riley broke contact with the AWACS plane that was circling somewhere over the ocean to the north. He looked at the men gathered around. "All right. Let's move on up so we can see what's going on."
The Colombians had switched their guards at 0300. The new guards were in the same positions as the old ones. Riley glanced at his watch. Ten minutes till show time. He whispered into the headset: "Hammer, this is Eyes One. Over."
The reply was immediate. "This is Hammer. Over."
"Roger. Everything's still a go. We will illuminate the target in ten mikes. Over."
"Roger. We'll be in position in five mikes. Over."
"Roger. Out."
The AC-130 pulled into its counterclockwise racetrack and banked to the left. The modified C-130 cargo plane started circling, with its left side pointing down. Inside, the fire control officer sat looking at a low light level television (LLLTV) screen. Swiveling the external camera, he scanned the countryside. He could make out some vehicles moving along a road far to the south. He wanted to see if he could find the camp without the aid of the laser.
Along the left side of the aircraft the gun crews were prepared. Mostly their job consisted of clearing away the expended brass from the guns. The guns themselves were automatic — aimed and fired by the fire control officer. From front to back, Spectre boasted two 40mm automatic guns, two 20mm automatic cannons, and, poking its snout out farthest back in the cargo bay, a 105mm howitzer. With the five guns, the ship could put out over ten thousand rounds a minute.
The fire control officer adjusted the focus on his night camera and found the small airstrip. He matched it against the imagery clipped to the bulkhead next to his seat. Pushing the intercom button he called up front to the pilot to adjust the racetrack slightly. Leaning forward in his seat, the fire control officer fiddled with his knobs, adjusting the cross hairs on his screen.
The AC-130 Spectre was the most modern in the line of air force gunships, a descendant of the well known Puff the Magic Dragon of Vietnam-era fame. Members of the crew of this particular ship had participated in most of the military actions of the past decade, including the invasions of Grenada and Panama. The gunship was devastating against ground targets but relatively helpless if attacked by air interceptors or by a sophisticated missile defense that could reach up high enough to hit the aircraft. Against the present target it was almost like playing a video game as the fire control officer watched his screen. He reached and flipped open the cover on his arming switch.
"Arming," he warned over the intercom, and after a second delay he threw the switch, sending power to all five guns. He then adjusted the computer program that would fire the guns. The two 20mm Vulcans were fixed and would fire along the path of the aircraft. The two 40mm guns and the howitzer were each separately controlled by the computer. The fire control computer was capable of resolving all inputs on targets to within one milirad, which translated to an accuracy of 1/1,000th of the slant range to the target. The slant range for this mission was seventy-five hundred meters, which was at the far end of the range of the Vulcans; this translated to a ground accuracy of within seven and a half meters of the aiming point for each gun system.