They were late. As Kozak looked at her watch, she realized that they still had two kilometers to go. If everything had gone well with Captain Cerro's recon, and she had no reason to suspect that it hadn't, he would be waiting for her and her platoon, at that moment, at the designated jumpoff point just east of the enemy base camp. Unless they did something soon, there was no way that they could make it to the jumpoff point, get Cerro's briefing on the layout of the camp, and attack before dawn.
A decision had to be made. Another one of those one-time-only, guesswrong-and-die decisions.
Throwing her right hand up over her shoulder, palm out, she signaled her platoon to halt. Like a ripple, starting with the man behind her, every man repeated the motion, then squatted, watching to either the left or right as he waited for further instructions. Only Staff Sergeant Maupin, the platoon sergeant, kept going. Turning to the man following him and telling him to stay, Maupin worked his way up the file of men to where Kozak, at the head of the column, stood looking to the north and west.
When he reached her, he looked around in the same directions, then leaned over and whispered, "What's up, LT?"
Looking toward the base camp, its buildings barely visible in the distance, she sighed. "We're late."
Maupin looked at his watch. "Took longer than the captain thought.
He's probably late too."
Kozak shook her head. "Can't count on that. If we don't get moving fast, we'll never be in place and ready to attack before dawn."
Maupin was about to ask what she intended to do, but he realized that she was already considering her options. So he stood next to her and waited.
He thought about offering her his advice, but decided not to. Ever since their deployment from Fort Hood south to the Mexican border, she had called everything right. Even Rivera had been surprised how well she had done, commenting to Maupin after the incident in Nuevo Laredo that second lieutenants just didn't come any better. So Maupin simply watched her and waited.
Seeing no signs of anything that looked like an outpost between them and the base camp, and remembering the French mercenary's comment that most of their attention was oriented to the north and west, Kozak decided to take a chance, a big one. She turned to Maupin. "Okay, Sergeant Maupin. We're getting out of this ditch and double-time down to the jump-off point. Wedge formation once we're in the open. First Squad in the center, 2nd Squad on the left, 3rd to the right. Place one machine gun each with both 2nd and 3rd squads. I'll lead, you take up drag. Pass the word."
Without hesitation, Maupin turned and prepared to move back down the column to relay Kozak's order to the squad leaders, when Kozak reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "And Sergeant Maupin, pass the word. Fix bayonets."
When they finally reached the rear of the administrative building, both Guajardo and Lefleur paused to catch their breath. After he had done so, Lefleur, twisting his head around, whispered over his shoulder to Gua jardo, "This is the rear door. Inside, a corridor runs through the building to the front. Two rooms on each side of the corridor. Delapos uses the second one to the right as an office. He also sleeps in there." Lefleur turned his head back and waited. He had, he knew, fulfilled his end of their bargain. He had led Guajardo to where Delapos was. Now, he waited for the Mexican to let him go, as he had said he would.
What he would do, once.freed and a safe distance from the Mexican, was a good question, one that Lefleur had been pondering all night. The Mexican, with an HK-53 submachine gun, which he carried slung across his back, as well as the 9mm pistol he had held at Lefleur's back as they moved to the admin building, was too well armed to take on. At least, right away. No, Lefleur thought, it would be pointless to risk his life right there, in such an uneven fight. He would wait. And, he thought, if a chance to take out the Mexican didn't come, it was no loss. He had, after all, been paid in advance.
The gleam of a blade flashing in front of his face caught Lefleur's attention just as Guajardo's left hand came around and clamped down on his mouth. In a single, smooth motion, Guajardo jerked Lefleur's head back and onto his left shoulder as he brought the bayonet in his right hand across in front of Lefleur's face. Pressing the bayonet against the skin just under Lefleur's left ear, Guajardo jerked to the right, using all of his strength to rip Lefleur's throat open, just above the wind pipe, from ear to ear. The only sound Lefleur made was a gurgling sound as blood from his severed artery mixed with the air escaping his lungs through the slit in his neck. For an instant, Lefleur's body jerked, then stiffened in shock and surprise. When he finally went limp, Guajardo removed his hand from Lefleur's mouth, allowing the body to fall in a heap at his" feet.
After looking around to see if his action had attracted any unwanted attention, Guajardo bent over Lefleur's body. Pulling Lefleur's shirttail out of his pants, Guajardo first used it to wipe the blood from his bayonet before returning the.bayonet to its scabbard. Then he wiped Lefleur's blood off his hands as best he could. He looked around again as he unslung his submachine gun and pulled the bolt of his weapon back.
Ready, he stepped over Lefleur's body and entered the administrative building.
Once inside, Guajardo paused, flattening himself against the wall to his left while he allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the building's interior. Within seconds, he could make out the four doors Lefleur had spoken of. At the end of the corridor, under the door of the room that Lefleur had indicated Delapos used for his office, there was light coming out. Guajardo could see something blocking the light under the door every now and then. Someone was up and moving around in the room.
Keeping his back against the wall and his submachine gun trained on Delapos's door, Guajardo began to move down the corridor. As he passed a door behind him, he glanced back for a split second, then returned his attention to the door where the light was coming from. When he was finally standing across from it, he steadied his submachine gun in his right hand while he slowly reached across the corridor for the doorknob with his left. Once he had a firm grip on it, he slowly began to turn the doorknob, listening for any sound and watching the light under the door.
When it would turn no more, he froze and listened a little longer. Taking several deep breaths, he prepared to go in.
Delapos was bent over, reaching down to pull up his trousers, when the door to his room flew open. Looking up, he was startled to see a tall soldier, dressed in tiger-striped camouflage fatigues and training a submachine gun on him, standing in the doorway. Like a statue, Delapos froze, watching the man with the submachine gun as he took a quick step into the room, then a step to the right, closing the door with his left hand and holding the submachine gun in his right. Easing himself back so that he was leaning against the wall, the man with the submachine gun brought his left hand up to the front hand guard of the weapon before he motioned for Delapos to stand up by wiggling the barrel of the gun up and down.
Standing upright, and recovered from his initial shock, Delapos studied the man's face for several seconds before he realized that he was looking at Colonel Alfredo Guajardo, minister of defense, member of the Council of 13, "the Dark One." The revelation only served to heighten Delapos's sense of shock and panic. If he, the Dark One, was standing there, in his own office, Delapos thought, then it was all over. Everything was lost.
Everything, including his life, was finished.
After circling the outside of the buildings, and seeing what he thought to be the hostages where the French mercenary had said they should be, Cerro and Fast Eddie prepared to head back to the jumpoff point. For a moment, Cerro glanced back at the tool shed as he reconsidered his decision to leave without freeing the hostages. It wouldn't, he thought, take that long. Five minutes tops. With the hostages out of the way, the rest of the operation would be a piece of cake, a real breeze. But going in like that, with only Fast Eddie as backup, was a big risk, a risk that he wasn't ready to take. At this stage of the game, there was no need to take any more chances. He'd do just like he'd briefed, go back, brief Kozak's platoon, lead them forward, position them, and then, when everything was ready, start the attack. Doing all that would take time. But in the end, Cerro knew, it was the smart thing to do.