It was both a modern and no frills, functional, construction for carrying a two lane highway as well as an effective barrier preventing anything more substantial than a large motor launch from progressing downriver beyond that point.
Ten prefabricated concrete supports had been sunk into the riverbed to carry the highway. Li guessed that a minimum of three spans would need to be dropped for it to hinder a determined engineer beyond a week. Ideally those supports should be destroyed too but they were substantial and solidly built. It would require the services of a demolitions expert and more time and explosives than they possessed.
As for sentries, Li saw a shape midway across in a rain slick waterproof cape slowly pacing about; head down in the manner of the truly bored and thoroughly miserable. He looked slightly hunchbacked on account of his weapon hanging by its sling off one shoulder beneath the cape to keep it dry, the muzzle pointing downwards and of no immediate offensive use to man nor beast.
This was not what he expected of one of the vaunted legionnaire jungle fighters of 3e Régiment étranger d'infanterie. This must be either a student from the jungle warfare school or one of the local reservists
As Li watched the soldier suddenly leaned back against the guardrail and sat down heavily upon the bridges tarmac surface. He did not move again.
Two more figures appeared from the north end of the bridge, and in contrast to the sentry the butts of their weapons were in the shoulder and they were up in the aim. Bulky sound suppressors panned from side to side as they moved rapidly in that odd gait that keeps the upper body and shoulders level and stable, the knees seemingly joined together. They did not pause on drawing level with the slumped figure, they did not tarry to feel for a pulse or to offer aid, the nearest of his SF detachment briefly lowered his aim and Li saw two flashes at the muzzle as he double tapped his victim in the head, just to be certain.
They continued on across the bridge, walking rapidly and looking for further targets as they disappeared from his view.
Two minutes later they returned at the jog but this time they did stop at the supine figure. One stood guard as the other stooped, getting a good hold before straightening up with his arms under the sentry’s armpits and draping him over the guard rail. He bent again to grasp the ankles and upended the body into the river. The splash of it hitting the water was followed by others with the forms of eager caiman sliding down the southern bank. Long tails propelled them swiftly through the water in a race to claim their supper.
On the road bridge, the Chinese trooper peered over the side at his victim before looking up and into the darkness, directly at the otherwise invisible shape of the Juliett’s conning tower. He raised a hand to give a little cavalier salute to the submarine and then both jogged back the way they had come.
Li looked away from the bridge and what was about to be the disquieting sight of large reptiles feeding on a human corpse.
“Open main seawater valves… vent ballast, blow one and two.”
High pressure air displaced the water in her ballast tanks, forcing it out into the river and Dai’s casing rose up out of the muddy brown waters.
The sound of a car engine swiftly drew all eyes back to the dock in time to see a police car, ‘Gendarmerie’ emblazoned on its side, approach the jetty, flashing its headlights rapidly.
“Captain?” asked the rating on the 23mm cannon, again in the aim.
“It’s okay, just two of our supercargo arriving in borrowed transport.”
The car halted on the jetty beside the freighter. Two special forces troopers exited the vehicle.
Li depressed the transmit button on the microphone, updating his executive officer before getting busy putting the Dai alongside the jetty fuel valves, one of which was connected to a storage tank a high grade diesel.
“All back dead slow…get the sea duty and the security details topside.”
The Dai moved past the Fliterland again, with the sea duty linesmen taking post as Li skilfully backed them up against the jetty behind the freighter’s looming stern.
Lines were thrown to the two troopers who made the lines fast, securing the Dai to the side of the jetty.
An extending ladder was brought up from below and laid against the jetty’s side, and the dockside security party hurriedly climbed it and hustled away to form a perimeter.
The senior NCO commanding those SF troops re-boarded and reported that all was going to plan at their end. The dock was secure; the logging company’s Chinook at Kourou’s small airfield was being booby trapped even as they spoke and the other two detachments were ashore without incident and approaching their targets.
At the bridge, ropes were being tossed over the sides as a preliminary to wiring the road sections for demolition and the rain stopped as suddenly as if someone had turned off a tap.
“Fasser’s topside and begin fuelling operations…oh, and make to Bao, ‘Come and join the party’.”
As the fuelling crew appeared on the casing he shook his head in wonderment and spoke aloud to no one in particular.
“Damn me, but I think this could actually work.”
There is a road that runs from Brownsville USA, going south along the Atlantic coast all the way until it ends suddenly on the shore of the Beagle Channel at Tierra del Fuego. Pretty much as far as you can drive on continental America, clocking up thirteen thousand miles on that twisting and turning road from Texas. It follows the coastline for all but a twenty mile section where the original road runs straight through the cluster of rocket launch pads on the equator.
A newer section, a wide sweeping detour now cuts through the rainforest keeping traffic far away from the ESA and Soyuz sites. The no-longer-public section was renamed Route de l’Espace and came to represent the single most valuable item in the entire country.
Low lying and low profile reinforced concrete pill boxes at the side of the road command the approaches to the launch pads, each with five sets of twin thirty calibre machine guns spaced to provide 360° of overlapping coverage. The guns were set to fire at shin height, and anyone hit would then fall into the thirty calibre stream. It was a method first devised by the German Imperial Army way back in 1912 as the most effective method of despatching multiple attackers, rather than leaving some wounded, and still a threat.
At the southern entrance to the complex a rattrap gate allowed one vehicle at a time into a controlled search area with optical underside scanning built into the roadbed and ESA security staff checking for vehicle borne IEDs, weapons and stowaways. The exit gate could not open whilst the entry gate was closed.
Concrete lined drainage ditches had a dual anti-vehicle role, and outside the entry point a concrete blockhouse/Guardroom controlled access.
Captain Jie Huaiqing and his nine troopers moved along the roadway in Indian- file with its staggered spacing making fire from the flanks less likely to take out pairs of troops. It was basic fieldcraft.
They held to the roadway, not avoiding the occasional approaching vehicle. Trucks, cars and vans splashed past, adding a little more to their already soaked camouflage uniforms as the tropical deluge had not relented.
It suited Jie’s purpose, bad weather was better in his chosen line of work.
They moved with deliberateness and they moved as if they belonged, leaning forward slightly at the waist as that best allowed them to balance themselves under the burden of the 15 kilo cratering charges each carried.