He settled in behind the Negev and waited for Brannigan to open the ball.
***
Brannigan and Pacheco came up from the south, with Wade, Javakhishvili, and Hank in tow. The rest were either finishing off the outer security up ahead or getting into position up above.
They moved to the edge of the fields and spotted a small IR light ahead, shielded by the trees from the house. They hadn’t seen any evidence that the Green Shirts had night vision, but it never paid to get overconfident and sloppy.
Flanagan was down on a knee behind the tree, his Galil leveled at the two Green Shirts on the porch. Additional tiny gleams of IR light to the right and left pointed out Burgess and Gomez. They’d moved in toward the central assault lane after eliminating their sentries.
Brannigan would have preferred to take all of the outer security down before moving in, but that wasn’t practical with the numbers they had, never mind the timing. Opening a hole that they could drive through to get to the house—where most of the Green Shirts were apparently sleeping—was the best they could do.
Brannigan got down next to Flanagan, sighting in on the man leaning against the M60 machinegun mounted in the back of one of the pickups stationed around the house. The others found their own firing positions, mostly kneeling. They’d have to move fast once the first shot was fired.
He let out his breath, flipping the selector lever to “R” as he slipped his finger inside the trigger guard.
The shot echoed across the valley, the shock of it almost seeming louder than the actual sound of the report and the crack of the bullet. The bullet hit the gunner in the shoulder or side of the chest, spinning him halfway around as it knocked him away from the machinegun—which he hadn’t been holding onto.
Under other circumstances, the stoned and/or drunk Green Shirts might have stared in shock at the man groaning in the bed of the truck, or else immediately started blazing away at the jungle in reaction. But they didn’t have the chance.
Both Negevs opened fire from uphill, glowing red tracers reaching out toward the technicals. The first rounds missed, one gun’s going over, the other landing short. But the tracers quickly corrected, walking into the armed pickups and hammering holes through sheet metal, glass, fiberglass, and human flesh.
The assault element was already up and moving as the machinegun fire tore the dazed gunners to shreds. Bianco lifted his fire as they moved up toward the porch. They pushed past the bullet-riddled pickup trucks, the shattered glass and holed bodies splashed with blood, weapons up and searching for targets.
The two Green Shirts on the porch were staring at the carnage, and probably didn’t even see the dark figures coming out of the shadows beyond the trucks before they died. Each one got at least six rounds as the wedge of Blackhearts closed in and hammered them off their feet before they could even make a move for the weapons they’d left just out of reach.
None of the Blackhearts bothered to kick the weapons away from twitching fingers. Both men had taken at least two rounds each to the skull from about ten yards away. Blood and brains dripped slowly down the plastered wall as Wade moved up and, almost without pausing, kicked in the door.
He went left, riding the door, as Flanagan went right. Brannigan had been a half a step behind his second, so he followed Wade.
They spread out into the living room, which was still lit by several propane lanterns. Half a dozen Green Shirts were trying to scramble for weapons, but they were far too slow and far too late. They had clearly already gotten deep into the liquor bottles and marijuana, judging by the sickly-sweet smoke that filled the room.
Six Galils thundered and spat flame in the confines of the house, bullets tearing through flesh and bone and spattering blood and less wholesome debris across the furniture and the detritus of their partying.
It was all over very quickly.
Without a word, the Blackhearts spread out, clearing the dead spaces and checking the bodies, while Brannigan and Wade moved to the next door to continue clearing the house. It wasn’t really over until they’d accounted for every Green Shirt and found Fuentes and his family.
***
The house was large for a Colombian farmhouse out in the sticks, but it wasn’t so large that it took a long time to clear. After only a few minutes, they were back in the living room with Fuentes, his family huddled in the kitchen. The only Green Shirts in the house had been drinking and smoking in the living room, and they were all now rapidly assuming room temperature.
Fuentes was white as a sheet. “What have you done?” He wrung his hands as he stared at the corpses. “Do you have any idea what they will do now? How many people they will kill in retaliation? They’ve shot and hanged people just to send a message! They hanged Raul Jimenez as a spy, for nothing! Now…”
“That alone should tell you that you can’t stay on the sidelines anymore, Fuentes.” Pacheco’s voice was cold. He stood next to the door, his Galil cradled in his hands, leaning against the wall. “The longer you bow to these people, the more they will take, and torture, and kill. There is no end to it. There is no ‘enough’ for them. Just like the FARC.”
“There’s a peace deal with the FARC!” Fuentes’s eyes were wide, and
