He chuckled as he pulled her away from the corner. “I’ll let my beard grow out longer then.” He raised a brow at her. “Sounds like the more of my face I cover up, the better you like me.”
She laughed as she patted his cheek. “Just cover my six, big guy.”
Near Quitman, TX
Mauk stiffened when he felt the first charge blow. He didn’t really hear it until a few moments later and even then, it sounded like muffled gunshots.
“And so it begins.”
He pressed his back to the wall, near the intersection of the tunnels. He could hear the men approaching, their soft murmurs sounded muffled in the rock tunnels. He waited, forcing himself not to look to see how close they were.
He heard excitement on their end and knew that they had found the trip wire. A slow smile crept across his face as he waited. He knew that one of them would try to render the charge safe. He was probably digging for a pair of pliers to cut the metallic wire.
He held his breath and closed his eyes, trying to see their actions in his mind.
He waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“What the…” curiosity got the better of him and he chanced a quick glance into the tunnel.
They were nearly on him.
The men noticed the movement and gunfire erupted, blasting bits of sandstone from the corner. He slapped at his tactical vest, searching for the transmitter that would blow the secondary charge while the men yelled excitedly just around the corner.
He flipped the cover switch and triggered the toggle, just as the first man emerged from the tunnel. The resulting blast sent the man, and limbs of others, past him and farther down the main corridor. The bits of rock and sand that pelted his face had him squeezing his eyes shut and firing blindly into the murk.
He wasn’t certain, but he thought he might have felt a secondary explosion, as if the initial claymore had also gone off. Perhaps the men had simply stepped over the trip wire and the blast knocked one of them back into it, triggering the device? He couldn’t know and he definitely couldn’t see to find out.
He turned and made his way back down the tunnel, his hand sliding along the wall to help guide him.
He made it about twenty feet before he remembered the charges he had set between his position and the staging area. He froze and felt his throat go dry. With a sigh he forced his eyes open and tried to peer past the dust in the air.
“Fuck me…” he groaned.
Near Quitman, TX
DJ pressed his back tighter to the wall as the second explosion sounded. He barely felt the first one, but the second? It caused enough of a pressure differential that his ears popped.
He could hear the excited voices near the tunnel exit and the men seemed to be disorganized, they paused, unsure what to do next. Slowly edging closer to the rough cut corner, he bent low and chanced a glance down the long tunnel.
The daylight from the open steel door silhouetted the men as they mingled close to the stairs. “Fucking cowards,” he grumbled as he came back to his feet.
He slid the barrel of the carbine around the corner and sprayed their area with an entire magazine. The corner exploded with returned rounds as he quickly changed magazines and charged the weapon again. “Come and get me, you burrito eating cocksuckers!” he yelled as loud as he could then ducked further into the connecting tunnel.
The shooting died down and the men’s voices grew louder, the muffled sound of their boots tromping on the clay covered sandstone floor growing more prominent as they advanced.
He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers into his ears as the claymore sent pieces of drug dealers flying in all directions. He couldn’t help but smile as the concussion blew bits of sand and debris into the adjoining tunnel, covering him a fine layer of dirt.
He spun around the corner and leveled his rifle, unable to see where the men were as the cloud of dirt hung in the air. “Well, that’s not cool.”
Bullets gouged the walls of the tunnel around him and he dove back to the safety of the adjoining corridor as survivors of the blast returned fire.
DJ rolled to his side and brought his carbine up, pointing it at the junction. “Hey! I was only kidding about the burrito thing!” he yelled. The men continued to shoot blindly and DJ scooted away from the intersection. “You’re still cocksuckers though!”
He shimmied farther from the intersection as the yelling intensified. He kept the barrel of his carbine pointed at where he felt they would show up and wasn’t disappointed when the first man appeared.
DJ held the trigger as the steel jacketed bullets caught the man in the crotch and a neat row of impacts rose up his body to his chin. He rolled to his side and slid his feet under him, coming to a kneeling position. He leveled the barrel on the intersection and when the next man came around the corner, he squeezed the trigger again, planting three rounds into the man’s chest.
He rolled again and came up to a sprinter’s starting position. With a hard push he was on his feet and running down the rock-lined tunnel. His eye caught the bright yellow marking near the floor, indicating where he’d planted his other charge.
Time seemed to slow down for him as his eye scanned for the device buried near the base of the wall. He saw the top of the explosive just as the ground in front of him erupted into sprays of dirt.
With one quick motion, he brought the butt of his carbine up and smashed the light hanging closest to the charge then dove for the other side of the tunnel as bullets gouged the wall
