“Why?” DeWitt asked. “They couldn’t know that we’re here. Half of them must be over at the big fire.” They could still see where the mansion burned. It was really roaring now, with fire out the windows on the third floor. A fire engine had responded, but it was far too little and too late.
“We have twelve minutes to the first charge at the vats,” Canzoneri said. The twin floodlights snapped off. Lam lifted his binoculars and watched the area. Three minutes later, the same lights flashed on.
Lam chuckled. “Some kind of a stray dog is wandering around up there,” Lam said. “It’s an intrusion sensor picking up the dog and turning on the light.”
“So we’ll have to shoot them out before we go in,” Dobler said. He shifted his weight so it would be on his good leg. His right thigh still hurt where the bullet had gone through, but it was coming along. He could live with it. Usually he didn’t even notice it. He figured it might slow him down half a step in a fast forty-yard sprint.
“How close is the dog?” Murdock asked.
“He activates the lights at about fifty feet. It’s set for a wide pattern. Silenced shots would be best.” He paused. “Oh, damn. That little dog has some company, two full-grown Doberman pinschers with studded collars. Guard dogs running as a team. Problem is, I don’t see any fence to keep the dogs in.”
Dobler snorted. “The best-trained guard dog knows his limits. He won’t go outside the area he’s been trained to protect, and he won’t let anyone inside that boundary. Must be damned good dogs.”
“Too bad about them,” Murdock said. “We have a silenced sniper rifle?”
“Yeah,” Quinley said. “I got stuck with Fernandez’s gun.”
“Bring it up,” Murdock said. “You and Lam move up. Lam, take out the dogs on their next pass with your silenced MP-5. As soon as they go down, Quinley, kill those lights. Go.”
Well behind the SEALs the first of the processing tank charges went off, followed quickly by eleven more. They lit up the landscape for a few seconds with each blast. When the last finished, they heard a siren and could see headlights bumping across the land toward the tanks.
Quinley and Lam scurried toward the target, keeping low and hitting the dirt at about forty yards. A minute later, the lights came on and showed two Dobermans. Murdock could hear the cough of the MP-5 on three-round bursts. There were two of them, and the dogs went down whining, then quieted.
As the dogs died, Murdock moved his platoon forward. An instant later, Quinley killed the first light but took two shots to get the second.
The SEALs ran into the darkness around the building. The big truck door was down at the dug-in ramp. At the far side, they found a door with a padlock. Two silenced rounds slammed it open, and Murdock and Dobler darted inside. Murdock brought down his NVGs. Cumbersome, heavy, but damned useful. He scanned the forty-foot-square building, then saw a shed leading off this one.
There he found long tables, scales, sheets of heavy plastic on rolls, wrapping tables, and at the far end a large stack of kilo-sized packages of ready-to-transport cocaine.
The other SEALs came in behind them. Dim lights around the inside of the big room gave off an eerie half-light.
“No fire hose,” Jaybird said.
“Look for any kind of plumbing and a faucet we can use,” Murdock said on the net.
“Let’s go to work on those packages. We slash them open with our KA-BARs. It’s going to be work. Wish the damn stuff would burn better.”
Mahanani found a hose and faucet halfway back on the building. There was enough hose to reach the first part of the stack of coke neatly arranged on pallet boards.
“Ronson, guard us out that side door. Watch just outside for any activity. Hope most of them are still at the fire.”
Murdock took his turn slashing the kilos until his arm ached. Jaybird worked the hose, spraying the powdered cocaine, creating a pool in the middle of the stack to further the melting. There were ten pallet boards each loaded with carefully stacked kilos four feet high.
Ostercamp found another hose at the back of the room, and this one was larger. It evidently was a fire hose. It kicked out an inch stream of water. The melting went much faster then. They slashed and sprayed and before long, all of the SEALs had white spray all over their cammies.
“Company,” Ronson said on his radio.
“How many?” Murdock asked.
“Looks like two truckloads heading this way. No way we can know if they’ll stop here.”
“Franklin, Ed, Lampedusa, Ching, get out there and hit them with the twenties with the laser if they come closer than five hundred yards. Use the airbursts, and knock them out before they get here.”
“How about six hundred yards, Cap?” Ronson asked.
“Go.”
The four men rushed out the side door and set up. DeWitt watched the trucks. They were on a road that led directly to the packaging facility. Ed had his Bull Pup on the target with the laser. The other four men did as well.
“Let’s do it,” Ed said and fired. He got the laser back on the target just as his round exploded over it. The rig teetered on the edge of the road but kept coming. Four more rounds went off in airbursts over the truck at almost the same time, and the truck veered off the road and tipped over.
They fired at the second truck now at five hundred yards. Ed didn’t use the laser this time and saw his next two rounds explode on impact with the front of the truck. One round must have gone through the windshield; the other blew apart the radiator and part of the engine. The truck died in place, and the men bailed out just in time to greet three airbursts that riddled them with shrapnel and sent them screaming to the rear.
“If you see anyone out there move,” DeWitt said, “pick a target and laser him for an airburst.”
All was quiet for a minute, then two of the Bull Pups barked, and the airbursts shattered the stillness.
“Love this damn Bull Pup,” Ed DeWitt screeched on the mike. “The bad guys are running back home.”
“We need another fifteen minutes in here,” Murdock said. “We’ve smashed the scales, slashed all of the plastic, and when we leave, we’ll put some charges around just for good measure.”
“How many you want, Cap?” Canzoneri asked.
“Don’t waste them. We still have some ether to take out. Two should do this place.”
“More company, Commander,” Jaybird said. “Three big trucks coming around the back side. Too close for the laser. We need some help with the twenties, and we need it damn fast!”
24
Six SEALs charged out a back man-sized door and saw the problem. Murdock heard Jaybird firing already. He went prone and lifted his Bull Pup. Yeah, too close. The trucks were within two hundred yards of them. He aimed and tracked the first truck and fired a 20mm round.
“Thirty dollars’ worth,” he whispered.
The round hit the side of the truck and exploded. The rest of the twenty rounds were hitting now. One truck took a direct hit in the engine, and fire gushed from the hood as it veered to the left and ground to a stop.
The second truck kept coming. Somebody put a round into the right front tire, and when the tire blew, the truck careened in a sudden turn to that side, lifted high on those side wheels, and then settled back to the roadway and spun around to a stop.
Murdock watched the third truck try to turn away from the slaughter. It took two twenties at the same time, one penetrating the windshield before it exploded in the cab and the other one hitting one of the wooden bows holding up the canvas top and exploding with the shattering spray of shrapnel that cut down half the men riding in the back of the rig. The truck kept rolling with no one alive behind the wheel. Then it slowed and stopped.