Chase turned to the briefer. “I thought we talked about this. It can’t be a delayed extraction. It puts us all at unnecessary risk. And the timing might be off.”
The CIA briefer sighed. Chase could tell that he didn’t like giving him this information. Don’t shoot the messenger.
He said, “Mr. Manning, we looked at every option. In this situation, the enemy has air superiority and is likely able to prohibit air and water extraction in the immediate area. As long as you’re able to accomplish the mission undetected to begin with, you’ll still enjoy the jungle terrain’s cover and concealment. You and your team are to travel back up the mountain, undetected, and reconnect with the rest of the MARSOC unit. You’ll then travel on foot to an LZ that’s a safe distance away. It will be out of range and hidden by terrain — so the anti-aircraft batteries they have at Manta won’t be able to shoot down the helicopters.”
“What if they get on foot and chase us? And maybe bring some RPGs? Or MANPADS?” said Captain Calhoun, using the term for shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missiles.
Chase said, “And you said we’ve got… what, four days before the codes are switched on this thing, right? This plan kills a lot of that time. I’m sorry, but this seems too risky. Who the hell thought this up?”
The CIA briefer said, “You’ll have ninety-six hours to get it to us once you remove the crypto key. After that, we don’t think the data will be usable, as the codes will reset. Gentlemen, the JSOC planners have been over all the options. This is the best we’ve got. You’ll have to stay undetected and move fast. We did the calculations and expect you to travel on foot for approximately eight hours. The air extraction process will then get you to Panama City three hours later. It should be enough time.”
Calhoun looked at Chase. “We’ll have to come up with something to help with escape and evasion if we run into resistance. Let’s talk offline.” He didn’t look happy.
A few hours later, Chase left his hotel and spotted Darby waiting for him across the street. Darby leaned casually against the black metal streetlight pole. A light grey hoodie covered his shaved head, and he had his hands in his pockets. Wraparound sunglasses. Khaki shorts and hiking boots.
As Chase walked outside his hotel lobby, Darby locked eyes with him and gave a slight nod. They joined up in silence and began walking down the street.
“Gunny.”
“Mr. Manning.”
“You ready?”
“Yup. One of my guys is parked around the block. He’ll take us to the airport. We’ve got a small plane that’ll fly us down the coast.”
“Sounds good.”
It was a two-hour plane ride south, into Colombia. Darby slept the whole way. Calhoun looked like he was going over things in his head. They landed on a tiny little dirt strip in the middle of the night. Glow sticks lined the runway.
The three men got out of the aircraft, and it immediately turned around and took back off, its engine noise fading into the night. They walked through long grass to the end of the makeshift runway. Four Chevy SUVs were parked in a column. The windows were rolled down. It was December, but still a humid seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit in this part of the world.
There were about four men in each vehicle. Chase could see that they all wore jungle camouflage. In the moonlight, he could tell that most had on camo face paint. White eyes stared at Chase.
“Gunny, you guys can change over here.” One of the men pointed to the lead vehicle, its rear hatch open. “We’ve got his stuff ready too.”
Someone took one of the glow sticks off the runway and placed it in the trunk of the lead vehicle so they could see their gear better.
“You need boots?” Darby asked.
“No thanks.” He had learned the hard way never to break in a pair of unused boots when on a mission. It was the one article of clothing he had on that wasn’t really civilian attire. Darby and Chase hurriedly threw on their gear. Then Chase got in the same vehicle as Darby, and the convoy began rolling.
It was bumpy, mountainous terrain. The car smelled of mint chew. Dip. Every few seconds he could hear someone spitting into an empty plastic bottle.
Darby said, “Mr. Manning, you want some of this?” He held up his tin.
Chase shook his head. “No. Thanks anyway.”
Darby shrugged.
“How long until we get there?” Chase asked.
“Shouldn’t take us more than an hour to get to where the helo will pick us up,” Darby said. “About an hour in the air after that. They’ll drop us off in some pretty thick rainforest. It’ll be another day’s hike after they drop us off. Don’t want to get too close, you know.”
The vehicles came to a halt. An H-60 was spinning in the field about one hundred yards away. The other Marines got out of their SUVs. They threw on their gear and marched in a column toward the aircraft.
Two days later, Chase saw the Y-20s with his own eyes.
“Goddamn, those things are big.”
One of them was on a slow final approach. Dark grey, wings sloped downward. Four engines and a T tail, just like the C-17. Its flight path took it about even in altitude with their mountain location. Chase’s chest reverberated as the jet engines drowned out all other noise. The freaking thing was a monster.
They lay in thick jungle brush, watching the airfield from a mountain several miles to the north. Everything was wet, and a light mist hovered above the trees. The sounds of jungle birds and bugs filled the air.
Chase looked through a sniper spotting scope, examining the base. The two Marines who had been serving as the recon team on the hill for the past week lay next to Chase and Gunnery Sergeant Darby. The other dozen men on the MARSOC team were spread out in the forest around them, forming a defensive perimeter.
One of the Marines said to Chase, “Two days ago they started putting up sandbag pillboxes stationed at all four corners of the base. Today was the first time we saw them place anti-aircraft weapons inside. The SAM units were unprotected before that.”
Chase looked at each of the pillboxes. “Looks like they’ve got two 35mm twin guns on the eastern side. And I don’t see anything on the western pillboxes. Just personnel.”
“MANPADS.”
“Got it.”
“Saw them doing training on them earlier. My guess is once they unload some of these recent cargo arrivals, they might put something in there more sophisticated.”
Chase said, “Alright, thanks. What else?”
“Take a look about a mile to the east of the airfield. You’ll see bulldozers and a tent city going up. They’ve got a few semipermanent structures, but most of it’s pretty mobile.”
“Strength?”
“That’s where they all are. About fifteen hundred, I’d say. But they go out in groups into the fields and forest farther over to the east. Lot of training, that’s for sure. We hear small-arms fire about round the clock right now. Three days ago they even were firing off mortars.”
“How much participation from the Ecuadorians?”
“Oh, they’re there alright. They got some general or something who has a nice car and an entourage.”
“Communications center?”
“Just south of the airfield. About three hundred yards from the runway.”