Authors: Jack Murphy
Cody displayed Google Earth on the projector screen, zooming on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca. The section displayed was completely barren.
“So he was bullshitting us,” Deckard said.
“NO, WAIT, HOLD ON.”
“It sounds right,” Pat said, his arms crossed in front of him. They stood in the OPCEN, pouring over what little data they had, trying to substantiate the information that Samantha had pried out of their prisoner. “The Colombian military captured a couple narco-subs last year. They were built up-river, deep in the jungle-”
“I bought this new imagery from a private intelligence firm,” Cody interrupted, a little more subdued. Deckard had to admit, the kid was in the zone around computers.
“Here is the latest satellite photography,” Cody said bringing it up on the projector.
“Still nothing,” Pat sighed.
“I will keep looking,” Cody said.
“Hold on,” Deckard stopped him. “Zoom in on the Southeastern part of the grid square.”
Cody enhanced the image, showing a close up of an empty coast line.
“Now go back to the previous imagery.”
Going back to the older image, Deckard walked in front of the projector, tracing the coastline with a finger.
“Now back to the new one again.”
The image flickered over Deckard and he began tracing the coast again.
“Son of a bitch,” Pat cursed.
“The coast is different,” Cody exclaimed.
“It's this cove right here,” Deckard announced. “You can see the cove just fine on the old imagery, but on the new pictures it has completely disappeared. Someone camouflaged the entire cove and now it is blending in with the surrounding terrain.”
“The perfect covert submarine pen,” Pat finished for him.
“Get First Platoon in here and we will do a quick brief. We have to capitalize on this intelligence before the opportunity is lost. I want to be rolling out of the gate within the hour.”
10
“VDO, VDO,” Deckard announced over the radio net. The convoy of assault vehicles slowed to a stop. The VDO or Vehicle Drop Off, was where the assault element would depart on foot and begin marching towards their objective.
That it had been a long night was an understatement. They had pushed off in the early morning hours, driving overland across bumpy terrain on dirt roads, going off road altogether at times to take short cuts, avoiding the main avenues as much as possible. It was a long drive that had threatened to rattle the fillings out of their teeth but they had made it to the VDO just before dawn.
As commander, Deckard had allowed his men to doze off in their seats as long as one troop stayed awake per vehicle. It was always possible, if unlikely, that another ambush was out there waiting for them somewhere. It was a tactical decision, he needed his men as fresh as possible when lead started to fly, even allowing himself to nod off for a few minutes until the rough terrain shook him awake.
While the PKM gunners in the turrets and drivers would remain with the vehicles, the rest of First Platoon jumped off the vehicles and gathered around Deckard. Unfolding a topographical map, Deckard illuminated it with a small, red lens flashlight.
“This is our current location,” Deckard said using a twig to pinpoint their location for his men. The mercenaries were mostly of Kazakh extraction, members of a Private Military Company that he had inherited from his former employers. There were a number of American and European troops thrown into the mix, Special Operations soldiers he had brought on as instructors who had stayed around after the initial contract.
“We will move by foot from here on out to our objective here,” he said, pointed out the cove. “We suspect that this area here is a camouflaged base for submarines that the Jimenez cartel is using to smuggle drugs from Colombia up the Pacific coast and eventually into the United States. We could be wrong, it could be a dry hole in which case we'll turn back around and high tail it back to the compound. Once we get into position we will search the area but it should be pretty clear, there is either a hidden cove tucked inside the coast or there isn't. Search and destroy. Any questions?”
Deckard's Russian had improved to the point that he could struggle through a mission brief.
“Good. You've got five minutes for final Pre-Combat Inspections.”
The mercenaries quickly applied gun oil to their AK-103 rifles, checked magazines, refilled hydration bladders from five gallon water cans on the trucks, and made ready to initiate movement to the objective.
“Cody, this is Six,” Deckard spoke into his radio. “Radio check, over.”
“I READ YOU LIMA-CHARLIE.”
The kid was smart but it would take some time for him to get used to Cody's halting use of the English language.
A hint of daylight was just beginning to break on the horizon when Deckard put the men into a single file and they began marching towards the distant sounds of ocean waves breaking on the shore. The smell of sea salt clung to the breeze, a welcome relief from the stifling summer heat.
Leaving behind the low lying shrub land, the mercenaries had to break bush. Moving single file, Deckard eventually found a game trail to walk on and pushed through. Weaving through the jungle foliage and interspersed palm trees, they covered as much ground as they could, moving about a kilometer. Checking the Garmin GPS device that he wore on his wrist like a watch, Deckard could see that they were about halfway to the objective.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as he led the mercenaries through the jungle. He had thirty two assaulters total which should be enough for the kind of attack he had in mind. He hoped.
Driving on, they crept forward until the jungle opened up at an outcropping of smooth gray rock. Looking over his shoulder, he motioned the Kazakh assault element forward. In the jungle, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to maneuver if they came under fire and he was glad to be out of it.
Staying low, he leopard crawled over the rocks, eyes scanning in the early morning light. Blinking, his senses were not, in fact, deceiving him. The terrain in front of him was perfectly uniform other than a slight sagging in the middle.
“So that's how you make an ocean bay disappear,” he said under his breath.
A massive tarp had been stretched from the rocky cliffs all the way across the cove. Large metal pickets had been hammered into the dirt or metal hard points drilled into the rock itself where the ends of the tarp were secured with thick metal rings. The fabric itself had a photo realistic printing etched across its length and width showing a beach front. The cartel obviously had it done professionally by one of the defense firms that printed up special camouflage sheets to hide military vehicles and facilities.
“Six this is Frank,” his OPCEN leader crackled over the radio in complete disregard for the correct verbiage that was supposed to be used on the assault net. “What's your progress, over?”
“We just arrived at the target,” Deckard whispered into the microphone attached to the headset he wore. “It looks like the bay we are looking for has been camouflaged over. I'm going to get in close to do a leader's recon before the assault.”
“Roger, Frank out.”
Turning around, Deckard crept back to his men waiting in a skirmish line right where the jungle receded from the rocky area. His Russian had improved in leaps and bounds since he first took command of Samruk International but it still left a lot to be desired. Repeating himself for clarification a few times, he got his point across. The assaulters would maintain their security position while he and Sergeant Fedorchenko did a leader's recon.
Whenever a maneuver element knew it was going to perform a raid on an enemy target it was important to be as deliberate as possible and plan out each phase of the operation. In this case they were dealing with an irregular target, it wasn't as simple as an enemy compound or camp. No one knew what they were really facing at this point.
They needed a close recce to confirm what their prisoner had told Samantha. The prisoner that Nikita had brought back had described a secret submarine base commanded by a cartel boss that they called Captain Nemo.
Fedorchenko was one of his best men which was why he had been promoted to Platoon Sergeant after Samruk hit a black site in the middle of the Pacific a while back. When the leadership in his platoon had been killed off during the hit, he had manned up, taken control of the other men, and defeated the enemy. They had pulled off the impossible, if at a heavy price.
Deckard gritted his teeth as he freed his
Ka-Bar
fighting knife from its sheath and began to cut through the heavy tarp that concealed the bay from overhead observation.
Here we go again
.
Cutting a Y-shaped slit through the fabric, he put the blade away, and quietly swung through the hole feet first. Setting down on a slope, he let go of the tarp and half stepped, half slid down the embankment, making as little noise as he possibly could. Slowing himself, he put two gloved hands up in front of him to stop his forward movement before he slammed into a wooden crate at the bottom.
The tarp bounced overhead, making a slight whipping sound as the sea breeze rolled across it. Underneath the covering, half of the bay had been boarded over to create a dry dock. Wooden pylons jutted from the water, connecting a somewhat haphazard boardwalk of floating dock segments. Crates and pallets were scattered everywhere. A lone guard patrolled the pallet yard in the distance.
Ducking down behind cover, Fedorchenko was already at his side.
Keeping their Kalashnikov rifles at the ready, their trained eyes swept the enemy hardsite, identifying key targets. At the far side of the dock they could make out the mast of the narco-submarine that Nikita's prisoner had described. It was bigger than Deckard had expected, about the size of an old Japanese midget submarine straight out of the WWII.
On the south side of the dockyard were a couple dozen 55-gallon drums. Besides a place to off load contraband, the sub pen also served as a fuel depot where the midget subs would refuel before heading back to Colombia. Deckard sized up the operation in moment. There were no roads into or out of the remote hidden cartel base.
The Colombian farmers would grow the coca plants and sell them to the cartels, who would refine the product in drug labs deep in the jungle. From there the cocaine would be loaded onto the locally constructed submarines and clandestinely transported north to southern Mexico. The subs would bring the drugs, off load them in the sub pen, then head home. The drugs would then be loaded onto boats to be taken to yet another location in southern Mexico for distribution where they would then be taken overland across the US border for sale.
The sub pen was a site known as a “trampoline” by the cartels. The term normally referred to a way station between where the drugs originated, in Colombia and Bolivia, and the United States that was utilized by aircraft being flown by smugglers. Their small airplanes would need to stop somewhere to refuel on the way to Florida. The days of sky pirates were mostly over now, the Coast Guard having shut those corridors down years ago.
Now the cartels had evolved by using submarines instead. The voyage all the way to the United States would be too taxing for the small submarines so instead they would have to sell the drugs to the Mexican cartels and let them take responsibility for moving the product to market.
A clever set up, Deckard had to admit.
At the north end of the dock were several connex shipping containers that had been converted into living quarters for the staff that worked at the submarine base. With the sun now hanging in the early morning sky, he knew that the staff and the rest of the base's security would be waking soon. They had arrived just in time, the night guard would be exhausted and ready for a shift change. The Colombians were probably catching up on some sleep before making the voyage back home. Now the men of Samruk International just had to act fast enough to exploit the opportunity.