David clasped his free hand on her shoulder and slid it back and paused. “Nothing to worry you about, I’m sure your husband has this all under control.”
It was quite clear that Mr. Martinez did not like David to put his hands on her as he came up and took her arm and turned her away from him, speaking Spanish as he did.
Micah didn’t speak more than a few words of Spanish, but David was fluent.
They walked out of the office building and headed for the waiting helicopter. Micah and David boarded as the group watched nervously. The blades came slowly to life, but soon enough they had lifted off and were swooping over the city.
“Did you have any problems getting it off your palm?” Micah asked as they sat in the privacy of the cabin.
“No. I overheard some of the murmurings by the guards that she had arrived and I figured she was a more reliable person to pin it on. How about you?”
“It locked tight on to the sleeve of his jacket.” Micah pulled out a silver brief case and opened it up, removing a piece of electronic equipment. He turned it on and watched the small blips on the screen.
“I’d really like to know how the hell the information about us coming down here leaked to Martinez.” David growled. “It was beginning to feel like we were setup.”
“True, and believe me, I’ll be grilling D’Angelo on how that happened, but, for now, it looks like everything is going according to plan.”
“Jimenez has twenty of his least valuable men going on the attack. When Martinez realizes we were correct, and that Jimenez is gunning for him, I’m sure he’ll take his group into hiding until the guards take care of the insurgence. As soon as we see them on the move, we’ll have him and then we can finish this job and get the hell out of here.”
Within an hour, David and Micah transferred from the helicopter to a Land Cruiser and were following the tracking signals from the devices they slipped onto Martinez and his wife. The attack happened right on schedule as the guards open fire on the inexperienced fighters.
David captured the radio signals as they informed Martinez the attack happened as the American’s predicted. His guard was being mobilized for an air attack. What the fighting forces didn’t know was that Jimenez, with the help of a pair of Americans, had already sabotaged their aircraft and a terrible accident was waiting to befall them.
Martinez, his wife and their two sons, the deputy chief and two other officials were on the move with ten of his closest, heavily armed guards. They were going to the bunker until the battle was over and Jimenez and his men had been taught a lesson, again. Unfortunately, Martinez had no idea that he and his wife were bringing the enemy to their door step.
They followed the signal to a village on the outskirts of Bogota and watched from a distance as the group entered a small and seemingly unfortified home nestled against the hillside. Micah was putting grenades in his flak jacket and grabbing the SAG-30 grenade launcher, ready to move from the vehicle when David stopped him.
“They’re not in there bro,” he said confidently.
“You just tracked them,” Micah began, but looked over at the screen. The green blips were on the move; David was right they weren’t inside the house. The house was against the hill, so there was no rear exit.
They watched with the slightest amount of amazement as the green flashes continued moving at a semi-fast pace to the left of the screen.
“It’s a cave entrance,” Micah stated as he pulled his topographical maps up on his computer, “wow, a big cave system, too. We’ll have to keep tracking and see if they come out at another house or if they’re bunking inside the cave. They must have some type of transport because they’re moving too fast to be on foot.”
“Nothing gas powered I’m sure. Most likely they have an electric golf cart they use to move everyone quickly.” David paused and looked at Micah. “I don’t like spelunking, bro. And, we didn’t bring the right equipment for going into caves.”
“We aren’t giving up. We’ll give them a little longer and then start driving through the village and see if they come out at another house.”
Micah removed the trappings of his jacket and placed it on the floor as they began moving slowly through the town. Several houses were easy to eliminate due to the fact that they didn’t rest against the mountain. The blips continued to move as David and Micah looked for what might be a likely exit from the cave. The road turned to the north as it began a gradual rise up the mountain.
“Wait,” Micah said, “They’re right underneath us. The cave travels under the road and crosses to that…” He was looking up the side of the mountain and could see what appeared to be a large deserted house wedged into the rocks. “I think we just found our bunker.”
David drove cautiously down to a small gully to the east as they loaded their gear on their backs and began the careful trek up to the house, ever vigilant for guards that might be hidden along the way. It was becoming apparent that Martinez had felt this house was so obscure that extra guards were unnecessary-a deadly mistake.
When they reached the building, they split up, David traveling up and over to the opposite side as Micah began looking for weaknesses on his side. He found the perfect place to watch through a small window. Within minutes, a door inside the back of the living room opened and the guards emerged cautiously inspecting the house and then motioning Martinez and his officials and family that it was safe to enter.
Micah could tell they were confident in the security of their hideaway as they relaxed and began to move about the house. He felt the soft vibration in his pocket as David signaled he was in place and ready for the invasion whenever Micah signaled back he was ready to attack. He had two options; pull his scoped pistol and take off Martinez’s head and be satisfied with making the original target, or use the impact grenade in the launcher and aim for the roof support to the cave opening, effectively collapsing the exit and then cutting down everyone inside. One signal to David would mean making one target. Two signals would mean David should be ready to move inside the house right after the explosion.
Micah didn’t respond immediately as he watched Martinez’s wife and two young sons move closer to where he was hidden and watching. He placed the impact grenade into the launcher and moved to a place where he could get the best possible shot. His hand went to the button on his phone, as he softly clicked the button once and then again. He steadied his aim and suddenly the quiet hillside reverberated with the explosion in the house.
Micah heard a woman’s scream as he vaulted through the window, he drew his fully automatic Glock-18’s. He had the special 33 round clips loaded into each gun, but he knew if he wasn’t careful he could unload the rounds in a blink of an eye and then would have to pause long enough to draw his two additional Glocks. But that wasn’t Micah’s style, fully automatic or not, his reactions were so precise that he would control the release of bullets by fractions of seconds. Even under tremendous pressure, he was deadly.
His first priority was the guards. Two were already down from the flying debris from the explosion and collapse and eight more fell to his guns in under two seconds. David was coming in from the other side of the room, taking out the deputy chief and another official. Martinez’s hands rose defensively as Micah approached, but they offered no protection as the last of the rounds emptied into him and the remaining man. It had been less than eight seconds and dead men littered the floor.
Micah moved to the bedroom, a fresh Glock in his hand as he looked at the woman trying to cover her children with her body in a corner of the room. He felt the touch of David’s hand as he raised his gun.
“We don’t have to get this bloody, bro-no women and children today.”
He could feel the emptiness draining and a little humanness returning; he didn’t want to kill them, but it was an automatic response inside him-responses were something he was going to have to learn to keep under better control. He nodded to David and the gun was re-holstered. He moved to where Martinez’s body was laying, grabbing the dead diplomat by the collar and dragging the body out the front door and down the hillside. He was so overloaded on adrenaline and testosterone that it didn’t take him long to get to the Land Cruiser. David was already in the driver’s seat as Micah threw the body into the back of the vehicle.