He snatched up an ammo can and a handful of Galil magazines and got to loading. They needed to be ready when Flanagan and Cruz returned.
Chapter 9
Flanagan and Cruz were both wearing old tiger stripe camouflage—perhaps not the end-all, be-all of camouflage patterns, but it had been what Cruz had had on hand. It actually worked really well in the Colombian jungle—the play of light and shadow, not to mention all the thick vegetation, meant that they almost disappeared whenever they got far enough away from each other.
The sweat was threatening to cut through the camouflage face paint that he’d carefully applied before they’d stepped off, but so long as they stayed deep in the weeds, they should be okay, even if some of it wore off.
Both men were carrying Galil SARs and had three-day rucks on. They didn’t plan on being out there that long, but sometimes it paid to be prepared.
Cruz was on point. He knew the area far better than Flanagan could hope to figure out just from studying the map, and the map was probably more than a little off in the first place. That was always a problem with jungle terrain—there was a lot on the ground that the map makers simply couldn’t see.
Flanagan watched Cruz move through the bush carefully. The other man was a veteran, but he wasn’t quite as good in the weeds as Flanagan. That said, he was still pretty good. There wasn’t a lot of open-source information on the AFEAU, but rumor had it that they’d gone into the mountains after FARC, ELN, and various other guerrilla and narco groups more than once. They were supposed to be good, and if Cruz was representative of the unit as a whole, Flanagan believed it.
Cruz slowed, holding up a hand to signal a halt, then sank down to a knee behind a screen of thick bushes and trees. Flanagan moved up to join him, placing each step carefully to avoid making noise, and then took a knee beside the other man, turning to check their six and scan the woods around them before he did so.
They were still deep in the woods. Nothing but the jungle met his eyes, and he heard nothing but the birds, insects, and various other wildlife moving through the bush. He wasn’t sure why they’d stopped, but he had to trust Cruz.
The two of them stayed put for a while, silent and listening. Flanagan was used to security halts on patrol—they’d already stopped several times since they’d left Cruz’s truck and started their seven-kilometer hike through the hills to the southwest of San Tabal. But this one went on longer than any others they’d done.
He’d been doing his best to keep track of their general route, direction, and distance. It was difficult—pace counts got sketchy on mountainous terrain, and he’d had to keep checking his compass to be sure which direction they were going in the thick vegetation. It was possible that they were closer to their objective than he’d thought, but when he peered ahead of them, the slope of the mountain just kept going up, disappearing into the trees and the undergrowth, with no brighter light where the crest might be.
Finally, Cruz seemed satisfied. “We are about three hundred meters from our observation point.” His voice was a low murmur, barely audible even from a couple feet away. “We need to be very careful from here on out. My sources tell me that the Green Shirts have been stepping up their patrols around the city, moving a lot farther out than they were just after the coup.”
“How professional are they in the bush?”
“Not very. From what I’ve heard, the FARC and ELN are better. But even thugs can still kill us if they catch us, and they only have to get lucky once.” Cruz hauled himself to his feet. “We will have to move more slowly and halt more often.”
Flanagan just nodded. Not my first rodeo, buddy. But Cruz didn’t know him any more than he knew Cruz, so it paid for both of them to communicate as carefully as possible. They were in enemy territory. Ego had no place here.
They kept climbing, moving with ever more caution. Each step was planted deliberately, testing for dead branches or loose rocks underfoot before putting weight down. Scanning was constant, and not only for the enemy. Flanagan had already seen more than a few snakes in the trees that he didn’t want to tangle with, and he could have sworn he’d heard a jaguar all too close for comfort.
I preferred the woods in Azerbaijan. To hell with the jungle.
It took a long time to finish that last three hundred meters. The terrain, the vegetation, and the need for stealth slowed their advance to a crawl. But Flanagan was a hunter. Patience was something he’d cultivated since he’d been a kid.
Finally, they reached the crest, the slope falling away below them, so steep that any attempt to go down without ropes would probably lead to a nasty fall. The valley opened up beneath as they moved into position under a towering brazil nut tree, careful to keep to the shadows and the deeper undergrowth. They were most of a kilometer from their objective, but a trained observer could still pick them out if they exposed themselves.
They settled in, once again waiting, watching, and listening for several minutes to make sure that they were alone and unlikely to be stumbled upon by any Green Shirt patrols. Flanagan stayed still and sweated, as
