staging some sort of minor diversion elsewhere. Nothing big enough to alarm folks, but enough to cause everyone’s attention to be elsewhere for a few minutes.
Hathaway turned away. “Scotty, when you wire the water tower, can you cause one of the legs to partially buckle without collapsing, and then wire a second charge to bring it down separately so it looks more like a natural collapse?”
The demolitions man nodded. “No sweat. I had a look at it a few minutes ago. Pretty flimsy construction. Very small charges will work. Minimal noise or flash.”
Scotty, Stoner and Ripper had still been in the Middle East debriefing a civilian woman who’d helped them nab a notorious terrorist last fall when John had gotten the call to take the rest of the team over to Afghanistan. To die, as it turned out. Pure luck had saved the three of them from the same fate that had met the rest of their team. Memory of the carnage threatened to surface again.
John forced the images away. Now was not the time to indulge in agonizing flashbacks. Mel was counting on him.
Hathaway came up over John’s headset. “Everyone say status. Final checkoff before we move.”
Which was to say, this was everyone’s last chance to add any information to the battle plan that might cause it to be tweaked. The checkoff went quickly, and no one had anything to add or clarify. They all knew what they were supposed to do. The plan called for a combination of stealth, diversion and positioning for a frontal assault, should it become necessary.
At the end of the roll call, Hathaway said, “Time hack on my count. The time is ten forty-two local time in… three…two…one…hack.”
John’s watch was two seconds fast. He made a note of the disparity to make corrections as needed later, and said a silent prayer that this night’s work would not come down to two-second anythings.
Hathaway said briskly, “Let’s move out, men.”
Chapter 17
Melina looked up from the worktable in the lab at the pesky guard. “What do you mean, come with you? I’m not going anywhere! I’ve barely had time to look at this facility, let alone check if the equipment I’ll need is here.”
Huayar’s man shrugged and gestured more insistently for her to come along. She was really getting tired of being treated like a dog.
She said more forcefully, “I have work to do if Huayar wants me to make his drug for him.”
“Change of plans,” the guy growled.
“What change?” she demanded. “I want to talk to Huayar. Right now. I appreciate that he’s used to being in charge, but if he and I are going to work together, he’s got to keep me in the loop. He can start getting used to that right now.”
“Fine. He said to bring you to his quarters anyway. You can talk to him when we get there.”
She subsided, a little sheepish after her big speech. Without further protest, she followed him toward one of the more solid-looking sleeping huts. “I thought he lived in that building over there.” She pointed at the building John had identified as Huayar’s headquarters, the one where she’d visited her family.
“Nah. That’s the ammo dump.”
She wanted to shout a warning up at the trees and the man they hid, but she dared not. If he was going to save her family, she couldn’t in any way give away his presence out there. She had to keep up the charade that she’d parted ways with him.
For the moment, she had arrived at a truce with Huayar, and as long as he thought she was here alone, and ultimately at his mercy, he would remain confident that she’d eventually cough up the formula. Thankfully, he was willing to play nice for now. Well, relatively nice. She reached up absently to rub her aching jaw. But who knew how long that would hold up. She had to get her family away from this monster.
“Snipers, report.” Hathaway ordered over the radio.
John listened in as the four shooters reported being in position around the camp and eyes-on-target. They were going to play hell with any kind of armed response Huayar tried to mount to their infiltration. There was something supremely demoralizing, not to mention chaos-causing, about death raining down from points unknown. He should know. He’d been the fish in a barrel before, and as Brady had so succinctly put it, it sucked.
Hathaway made a series of complicated clicks over the radio, signaling him and the other rescue team to move in on the camp. John would come in from the south and try to snag Melina, since he recognized her on sight and more importantly, she recognized him on sight. Four other men would make for Mel’s family and try to sneak them out of the camp. And just in case it all went to hell, the rest of Hathaway’s men would position themselves for a firefight.
John gripped his weapon tightly, startled to realize his palms were sweating. The thought of being caught out in the middle of another gun battle made his skin crawl. He and Melina seriously needed to clear the camp’s perimeter before any bullets starting flying.
Brady had mentioned that the Peruvian government had not okayed a military action on its soil, which was diplomatic speak for Hathaway and company weren’t supposed to get into a shootout with Huayar. No surprise. The drug lord must have a ton of Peruvian politicians in his pocket to have survived this long. Not only would they be well-paid to protect him, but they also wouldn’t be thrilled to have their source of extracurricular income cut off if Huayar was killed.
However, Uncle Sam wasn’t going to shed a tear over any stray bullets that happened to fly in Huayar’s direction. Hathaway had deployed his troops in anticipation of a major shooting engagement, and John was frankly going to be surprised if it didn’t come to one. But in the meantime, he was praying the stealth approach to finding and freeing Melina and her family would work. Once lead started flying, the odds of innocents dying went up astronomically.
Hathaway hadn’t initially wanted to send him in on this extraction. He said John was too close to Melina, still healing from his ordeal. Nice turn of phrase. Healing. Maybe he’d quit bleeding, but that hardly constituted healing. He’d argued with Hathaway that Melina would be least likely to freak out and give away the op if he materialized in front of her without warning instead of one of the other guys. When that hadn’t swayed Brady, he’d resorted to begging. It hadn’t been pretty. But the boss-man had relented. Thank God. He’d be damned if he was going to sit on the sidelines chewing his fingernails while Bravo Squad went and got his girl.
He’d forecasted to Hathaway that she’d refuse to leave until her family went, too. As a result, Hathaway had adjusted the timetable to give the other rescue team a head start. John wouldn’t move in to grab her until the first team was nearly finished with its task.
Hathaway clicked the command for Rescue Team One to move at will. John couldn’t see them, but they’d be leapfrogging their way from hiding spot to hiding spot right now, working their way down the same heavily forested slope he’d descended earlier. One of Bravo Squad’s spotters had been continuously watching the earth-bermed building Melina had gone into and left earlier, and so far, no other hostages had come out of the structure.
John and Hathaway had reasoned that she’d refuse to do anything for Huayar until she saw her family. Given that it was the first building she’d been taken to after Huayar initially smacked her around, and she’d only stayed inside about five minutes, he and Hathaway shared a high level of confidence that it was where her family was being held.
It figured. The hostages always were located in the most inconvenient spot for a rescue. They couldn’t be out in one of the nice, flimsy sleeping shacks. Nope. Had to be holed up in the lone building built liked a damned ammo bunker.
He crested the last ridge and caught a glimpse of flickering light through the trees. Huayar’s camp. He
