“He’s not going to shoot you when you’re leaving, Sawyer. Out.”
Rios-Parkinson looked over at one of the two team members near him. It was obvious that Collins’s screams had shaken them.
“I told you he was a professional,” Larsen said. “He stayed behind to delay us.”
“Your professional only wounded Collins,” protested Rios-Parkinson dismissively.
“He wanted to wound him. Now we’re down Collins and the two guys carrying him out, and the rest of our men are pissing themselves!” Larsen returned to scanning the ridgeline.
Rios-Parkinson frowned, but said nothing. What could he say? He had no idea what to do. But he could not defer to Larsen. He was the Director.
“Get them moving,” Rios-Parkinson hissed.
Larsen stared back, the patience draining from his face, but he keyed the mic.
“Bravo, I want you to take two men and move slowly – slowly – to that spot under the crest where they were holed up. Everyone else, provide overwatch. Watch for movement, especially on the crest. If he tries to go over it will silhouette him and you take him down. All copy? “This is Bravo team leader, copy, over.”
Rios-Parkinson watched as two black clad team members began moving forward in short rushes, then falling and taking up concealment behind bushes or rocks every few steps, at which point his partner moved out. They were heading straight up the middle. The rest of the force scanned the face of the ridge with their optics, looking for movement, a shadow, a shaking branch – anything that would reveal their enemy’s position.
“Those two will clear that rest position they were in and see if anyone is still there. From that position they can dominate north and south along the ridge,” Larsen explained.
“Yes,” Rios-Parkinson said, as if he fully understood.
Larsen halted the two men about 10 meters from the rest position, telling them to look and listen. After a couple of tense minutes, they called back that they saw nothing.
Larsen had them hold fast but remain vigilant. Then he used the radio to order the rest of the team to move rapidly forward toward the ridgeline.
“Come on,” he told Rios-Parkinson, who staggered to his feet and tumbled forward behind Larsen, waving his SIG pistol uselessly in his right hand. For his part, Larsen moved quickly and confidently, staying up no more than three to five seconds, then falling behind whatever stunted tree or large rock was closest, M4 up and ready.
Rios-Parkinson stumbled along behind, his throat parched, reluctant to fall fully on the ground like Larsen, instead crouching and panting between rushes. Larsen took his final position some 40 to 50 yards east of where their quarry had holed up, covering the ridgeline with his carbine. After thirty seconds, Rios-Parkinson caught up and collapsed beside him, panting. He had no canteen; instead, he had stuffed a plastic one liter bottle of French sparking water into his cargo pocket. Lying there panting, he pulled it out and opened the twist top; the pressurized mineral water, shaken by his exertions, sprayed it all over him and Larsen.
Rios-Parkinson threw the damned bottle away with all his strength; it flew a dozen feet and the contents spilled out on the desert floor. His mouth was still parched. Larsen said nothing, returning to his observations.
They waited, at least five minutes, until Rios-Parkinson finally spoke.
“They could be getting away. We must move.”
“But the tracker says they are right over the crest, maybe 35 meters east on the other side. They are not moving.”
“Tell the men to go forward now.”
“If you go too fast, people die. There is a professional out there. He is waiting for us to make a mistake.”
“He is waiting for the rest of his group to escape with my hard drive,” Rios-Parkinson said. “He is a professional, but there are nine of us. Get them moving now.”
Larsen looked down at the dirt, considering, but a split-second before his pause could have been considered defiance, he relented. He keyed his mic.
“Bravo, you two, slowly, move forward and occupy that rest position. If anyone’s still there, take him or her out, over.”
“Look for any gear, anything they abandoned,” Rios-Parkinson said. “Tell them.”
“And look for anything they left behind. Out.”
The two PBI troopers advanced, first one moving ahead five yards, then the next, always with the other in overwatch. Ahead, behind the clump of bushes where the trackers said their quarry had rested, there was no movement. At the edge of the bushes, the pair came on line, and silently counted down from three. On zero, they burst through the vegetation into the small clearing, sweeping it with their weapons.
No people, but lots of tracks and disrupted dirt. They had been here. And a small brown backpack was leaning against a shrub.
“We got a day pack here,” said the team leader, advancing.
Rios-Parkinson keyed his radio first. “What is inside?”
The PBI officer picked it up. There was something in it, something heavy, and there was resistance, but he tugged hard and the resistance suddenly disappeared.
Larsen’s hand flashed to his mic, desperately shouting. “Don’t touch…!”
The pack came free and the PBI officer saw that two 18 inch lengths of OD green 550 cord were tied to the trunk of the shrub. At the other end of each were tied two round metal rings that were now falling to the ground out of the underside of the backpack.
The two frag grenades detonated about a foot from the first tactical team member and about three feet from the second. Their respective distances were immaterial; both were blown apart.
Rios-Parkinson and Larsen watched slack-jawed as the clump of brush detonated, showering them with dirt, rocks, bits of vegetation and, likely, their two former companions.
“Fucking idiots,” Larsen spat. He turned to Rios-Parkinson. “He’s waiting over there for us, just waiting for us to come over. So the way we get him – the only way – is to hit him from the side and front simultaneously. So I am going down there” – he pointed south – “and I am going to slip over and come at him from his flank.”
Rios-Parkinson stared, confused.
“His side. I’ll come at him from the side and when I radio you, you send the other five guys over the crest spraying full auto. He’ll get one or two of them, but the others can pin him down and then I’ll be able to close in and take him out. Do you understand?”
Rios-Parkinson nodded.
“Tell me, what are you going to do?” Larsen said, no respect at all in his voice.
“I – you, you are going to go down there and sneak over and come at him from the side. When you call me, I send them all over firing automatic. They pin him down and you close in and finish him.”
Larsen nodded. “When I call, the second I call, you send them all over.”
Rios-Parkinson nodded again, a cold fury welling up inside him at the insolence, the lack of deference, the contempt in his deputy’s voice and manner. If Larsen survived this encounter, there was no assurance that he would survive the one coming once they returned home.
Larsen bolted toward the south, and Rios-Parkinson called over the surviving members of his team to give them their new mission.
Turnbull had kept Amanda’s backpack and now he took a knife and cut two small slits in the back. Next, he cut two lengths of the OD green 550 parachute cord and tied the ends to the trunk of a bush. He took out two of his M67 hand grenades and unbent and straightened the pins so they would pull out smoothly. Then he ran each 550 parachute cord line through a hole, slid the grenades inside the pack, and tied the ends of the cords to the metal rings. Carefully, he zipped up the bag and leaned it back against the bush, ensuring the 550 cord remained hidden.