Though he knew the pilots and gunners were good, and the Apaches had dynamite thermal sights, Cerro also knew that people, in the weird green and black image created by a thermal sight, all look the same. In the daylight the Apache gunners would be able to use their daylight sights and look before they shot. At least, he hoped they would. There was, Cerro knew, no way of predicting what the rotorheads would do.
Ready to leave the cover of the gully they had been crawling in for the past thirty minutes, Cerro looked back at Colonel Guajardo and nodded.
It was time for Guajardo and his 'guide' to take the lead.
Pulling the tape from Lefleur's mouth, Guajardo looked at him and whispered his warning again, just in case Lefleur had forgotten. 'Cooperate, and you will see the sun. Cross me, and you are a dead man. Do we understand each other?'
Lefleur, wiping his mouth, nodded.
Removing his pistol from its holster, Guajardo pointed toward the base camp. 'After you, my friend.'
With Lefleur in the lead, followed by Guajardo, then Cerro, and finally, Fast Eddie, the four men rose up out of the gully and began to move toward the rear of the building that Lefleur had identified as a cantina. Located on the eastern side of what everyone called Bandito Base East, the cantina was used as a mess hall for the mercenaries. On the south side of the camp, a large storage shed and machine shop served as billets for most of the mercenaries. An administrative building, on the western side of camp, was used by their leader, Delapos, as a headquarters as well as for additional billeting space.
While Guajardo was interested in the administrative building, where Delapos would be asleep, Cerro's attention was riveted on the tool shed and garage on the northern side of the base camp. It was in these buildings, according to Lefleur, that the American hostages had been put.
Cerro's task, during the recon, was to confirm that. If he could, it would make life so much easier when Kozak and her platoon came tearing into the camp. Perhaps, Cerro thought, with a little luck, some of Kozak's people could even secure the hostages before the shooting began. In that case, it would be a simple matter of putting Kozak's platoon in a line abreast and marching them into the bandito base, shooting everyone in front of them as they went.
Upon reaching the rear of the cantina, the four men flattened themselves against the wall and crouched to catch their breath and listen for the movement of any guards. After waiting a minute, Guajardo turned to Cerro. 'Well, my young companion, this is where we must part.'
Even in the dark shadow of the cantina, Guajardo could see the shocked expression on Cerro's face. It was only with the greatest effort that Cerro kept his voice down. ''What do you mean?'
'I am, my young friend, after their leader. I cannot take the chance that we will be able to find him and keep him alive once your lovely lieutenant and her men begin shooting. So, I am taking our guide and leaving to find and secure Senior Delapos, for safekeeping. You understand, of course.'
Cerro couldn't believe it. The colonel, he realized, had been planning this the entire time. The bastard. The fucking bastard. Well, Cerro thought, two can play hardball. 'No, I do not. That was not the plan.
You, Colonel, must understand that if you go jerking around in the dark, on your own, I cannot be responsible for your safety. When the shooting starts, I cannot guarantee that you, your guide, and your hostage won't be hit by friendly fire.'
Guajardo nodded. 'I understand. But I am sure you will do your best. Vaya con Dios.'
Without another word, Guajardo grabbed Lefleur by the collar and pushed him ahead of him out into the open and toward the rear of the storage building. Fast Eddie, who hadn't heard the conversation between Cerro and Guajardo, leaned forward and whispered in Cerro's ear,
'Where they goin', sir?'
Disgusted, tired, and momentarily flustered, Cerro mumbled a curse Fast Eddie didn't hear, then over his shoulder, he whispered, 'They're off playing,cowboys.'
When Cerro turned his attention back to his front, Fast Eddie thought about Cerro's response. He had no idea what the captain meant. He didn't remember anyone mentioning anything about the Mexican doing his own recon. Not that it mattered. Fast Eddie reminded himself that he was, after all, only a grunt. Nobody ever told him anything. All he was expected to do was carry the radio and follow the captain.
They were late. As Kozak looked at her watch, she realized that they still had two kilometers to go. If everything had gone well with Captain Cerro's recon, and she had no reason to suspect that it hadn't, he would be waiting for her and her platoon, at that moment, at the designated jumpoff point just east of the enemy base camp. Unless they did something soon, there was no way that they could make it to the jumpoff point, get Cerro's briefing on the layout of the camp, and attack before dawn.
A decision had to be made. Another one of those one-time-only, guesswrong-and-die decisions.
Throwing her right hand up over her shoulder, palm out, she signaled her platoon to halt. Like a ripple, starting with the man behind her, every man repeated the motion, then squatted, watching to either the left or right as he waited for further instructions. Only Staff Sergeant Maupin, the platoon sergeant, kept going. Turning to the man following him and telling him to stay, Maupin worked his way up the file of men to where Kozak, at the head of the column, stood looking to the north and west.
When he reached her, he looked around in the same directions, then leaned over and whispered, 'What's up, LT?'
Looking toward the base camp, its buildings barely visible in the distance, she sighed. 'We're late.'
Maupin looked at his watch. 'Took longer than the captain thought.
He's probably late too.'
Kozak shook her head. 'Can't count on that. If we don't get moving fast, we'll never be in place and ready to attack before dawn.'
Maupin was about to ask what she intended to do, but he realized that she was already considering her options. So he stood next to her and waited.
He thought about offering her his advice, but decided not to. Ever since their deployment from Fort Hood south to the Mexican border, she had called everything right. Even Rivera had been surprised how well she had done, commenting to Maupin after the incident in Nuevo Laredo that second lieutenants just didn't come any better. So Maupin simply watched her and waited.
Seeing no signs of anything that looked like an outpost between them and the base camp, and remembering the French mercenary's comment that most of their attention was oriented to the north and west, Kozak decided to take a chance, a big one. She turned to Maupin. 'Okay, Sergeant Maupin. We're getting out of this ditch and double-time down to the jump-off point. Wedge formation once we're in the open. First Squad in the center, 2nd Squad on the left, 3rd to the right. Place one machine gun each with both 2nd and 3rd squads. I'll lead, you take up drag. Pass the word.'
Without hesitation, Maupin turned and prepared to move back down the column to relay Kozak's order to the squad leaders, when Kozak reached out and grabbed his shoulder. 'And Sergeant Maupin, pass the word. Fix bayonets.'
When they finally reached the rear of the administrative building, both Guajardo and Lefleur paused to catch their breath. After he had done so, Lefleur, twisting his head around, whispered over his shoulder to Gua jardo, 'This is the rear door. Inside, a corridor runs through the building to the front. Two rooms on each side of the corridor. Delapos uses the second one to the right as an office. He also sleeps in there.' Lefleur turned his head back and waited. He had, he knew, fulfilled his end of their bargain. He had led Guajardo to where Delapos was. Now, he waited for the Mexican to let him go, as he had said he would.
What he would do, once.freed and a safe distance from the Mexican, was a good question, one that Lefleur had been pondering all night. The Mexican, with an HK-53 submachine gun, which he carried slung across his back, as well as the 9mm pistol he had held at Lefleur's back as they moved to the admin building, was too well armed to take on. At least, right away. No, Lefleur thought, it would be pointless to risk his life right there, in such an uneven fight. He would wait. And, he thought, if a chance to take out the Mexican didn't come, it was no loss. He had, after all, been paid in advance.
