Weapons of choice were H&K 9mm subguns, and H&K tactical pistols. They had considered using the 5.65mm OICW, with the 20mm grenade launcher. The bullpup-stocked weapon had an outstanding bracketing/tracking target laser, and it could drop an explosive round into a trench where you couldn't even see an enemy, but Howard didn't completely trust it. Too many bells and whistles with the cameras and computers, and besides, they didn't want anything blowing up on this operation, not even a little bit. Bad enough that the SIPEsuit radios went out every time a thunderstorm passed within a parsec, or that the tactical comps sometimes got confused and had to be reset on the fly.
Howard himself carried a much more unofficial weapon, a 1928 Thompson.45-caliber submachine gun that had belonged to his grandfather. The vintage gun wore a loaded fifty-round drum and had the gangster front grip and sight-through-the-top bolt-slot. He almost never carried the beast, since it weighed about fifteen pounds and was a bear to haul around, but somehow it had felt like the right thing to do on this operation. Normally, he'd be using a.30-caliber assault rifle, or a 7.62, but like the S&W revolver strapped to his right hip, the tommygun was a good-luck piece — an old, but still functional, good-luck piece.
His antique revolver and Chicago typewriter notwithstanding, whoever these camo clowns were, they didn't have the state-of-the-art combat gear that Net Force had.
Howard would be going in his Humvee, which also wore a radar-slipping shell. He glanced over at his ride and saw Fernandez grinning back at him from the driver's seat, camo paint darkening his face below the SIPEsuit's helmet.
In war, sooner or later, this was what it came down to: troops going in against troops. The Air Force could drop tons of bombs or smart missiles, the Navy could shell or hard-rain rocket a target from fifty miles offshore, but in the end, it was the infantry that had to go in, to take and hold the ground.
Next to Howard, Commander Michaels said, "I would say I'd like to go with you, Colonel, but that wouldn't be true. I'm a lousy soldier. I'd trip over something and get in somebody's way."
Howard grinned. "Yes, sir, and that is why you pay us the big bucks. I expect that Assistant Commander Fiorella would have my family jewels if I allowed you to go along anyhow."
Michaels smiled.
Howard looked at his watch. "The transport plane will be entering the drop zone in thirty-three minutes. It's running whisper-props, but even so, out here, sound carries. It won't slow down and even if the terrorists do hear it, they'll be listening for a change in the engine sound, which they won't hear. If we work it right, our assault teams should be flashing puke-and-dizzy lights hot and hard to distract the guards as our four sappers float into the compound on their parawings. I've got a man standing by who will simultaneously cut the power line to the ranch. They've got backup power next to the storage shed, a little gas or diesel generator, but it won't kick on automatically, somebody will have to go out there and start it. Time that happens, he'll have company waiting for him.
"We've had a series of spysats providing continual footprints of the area, so we pretty much know where every terrorist is. We'll have continual coverage through the expected duration of the attack, and a little longer too, just in case things don't go quite as planned. There are three guards posted, two at the front, one at the rear, and if it goes as planned, they will be taken out by the time the two vehicles reach the fence. The main gate is to the front, but there are two smaller gates to the rear, at the north and south corners. Alpha Team will hit the main building with flashbangs, while Beta Team covers the rear of the house, the barn, and the storage shed. Delta Team will patrol outside what's left of the fence in case anybody slips past us. With any luck at all, we'll have them rounded up before they can get their pants on.
"Of course, it's said that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, so we'll just have to go and see."
Michaels nodded.
Howard glanced at his watch again. "All right, people, this is it. Let's roll!"
"Good luck, Colonel. Give ‘em hell."
"Thank you, sir. We will."
Howard hurried to the Humvee. They had gotten an exact distance from the compound to this location from the foot-printing satellite. They'd be running on spookeyes without lights, but the terrain was mostly flat with a little scrub, and they had a route mapped, so they should be able to calculate their speed and distance and nail it to the second.
"Drive, Sergeant. And switch off the brake lights. I don't want the yahoos to see us flashing red because you stopped for a lizard in our path."
"Already done, sir. I've been down this road before."
Fernandez slid his helmet visor down and clicked his spook-eyes on, then cranked the engine and moved out. Howard picked his computerized helmet up from the floor by his feet and slipped it on, put the visor down, and lit his own night-vision scope. He buckled his three-point seat belt into place, snapping the black steel latch shut with a hard clack!
The landscape seemed to light up in that eerie, washed-out green that the starlight amplifiers traded for the seemingly opaque darkness. Then the suit's computer kicked in, adding false colors to give a more realistic image, and it was almost like driving in a somewhat dim and hazy afternoon.
"You don't think this pointy-nose plastic stuff is really going to hide us from radar, do you?" Fernandez said. "Seems like a shame to ruin a perfectly good truck by hanging all this crap on it."
Howard said, "I don't think the boys in the ranch had time to set up a full-scale HQ. They only had a day and some to plan the attack. I'd be surprised if they had a mobile field unit roll into this location with radar or doppler."
"Would you look at that," Fernandez said. "Bugs Bunny!"
A jackrabbit angled across their path, then cut sharply back and stopped as the Humvee rolled past. It sat there watching as the cruisers also zipped past, turning its head to track them. Howard looked over his shoulder at the small creature.
I wonder what a rabbit thinks when he sees four black vehicles with pointy-nose plastic crap hanging all over them rumble past his burrow at two in the morning.
"There's something you don't see every day," Fernandez said.
"Excuse me?"
"Probably what the rabbit was thinking."
Howard smiled. They'd been serving together for a long time. Must be a little telepathic spillage.
He was pumped, but even so, there was this… weary feeling, as if he could stretch out and take a long nap, could sleep for a week, and still not wake up feeling refreshed. What was this all about, this lethargy? It was worrisome. Well. He'd have to deal with it later. He had business to take care of just now. Serious business.
Alex Michaels walked back to the AWD car they'd given him, a little Subaru Outback. The strike team was out of sight in the darkness, heading for a rendezvous with the bad guys ten miles away. He should have stayed at the tent HQ back at the Texaco truck stop in Tonopah, but even if he wasn't a frontline soldier, he had wanted to come at least this far. By the time he got back to the tent, Howard's attack would be in full swing, maybe even over. All things going well.
He started the car, then headed back to the dirt road a mile or so away that would take him to the highway a couple miles past that.