sat, on the side of a small mound just south of the eastern camp, Delapos could see his men scurrying about as they came out of the rear of the storage building and ran to take up positions in the machine shop and to reinforce the people in the admin building. A few, running over to the cantina, he knew, would not make it. For out of the darkness, coming from the east, he could see the forms of more soldiers emerging from the darkness. It would be over as soon as those soldiers hit the camp.
What happened there, however, no longer mattered to him. That Guajardo wanted something from him was obvious. Otherwise, Delapos knew, he would have been dead already. Though he suspected he knew the reason he was being kept alive, he wanted to confirm it. He didn't take his eyes off of the unfolding battle three hundred meters away when he began to question Guajardo. 'What do you intend to do with me?'
Standing behind Delapos, his feet spread at shoulder width and his submachine gun at the ready, Guajardo heard Delapos's question but did not answer him immediately. He, too, was watching Kozak's platoon, rifles held at the ready, bayonets fixed, as it rushed to join the fight already in progress. Although he had no idea why the young American captain had started the firefight on his own, Guajardo didn't care. He had been right to leave the American cowboys to their games and take what he had come for. Even if every one of the American hostages died in the next few minutes, Guajardo knew they had achieved a great victory.
Looking down at Delapos, Guajardo smiled. 'Whether you live or die, my friend, makes no difference to me. Your life, in the scheme of things, is not important. What you can do for me, in exchange for that life, is.
The choice will be yours. I trust that when the time comes, you will choose wisely.' Looking back at the compound, Guajardo watched Kozak's platoon join the fight. Though he couldn't tell which of the running figures was Kozak, he could hear the female's high-pitched voice over the rifle fire as she issued her final orders. 'Until then, my friend, sit back and enjoy the show.'
While they were still approaching the compound, Kozak turned and issued her orders, trotting backward as she did so. 'Sergeant Strange, take your squad to the right and secure the tool shed and garage. Watch for the hostages. Sergeant Kaszynski, you clear the cantina. Sergeant Zeigler, set your machine gun up to sweep the open area in the compound while your squad clears the storage building. Sergeant Maupin, go with 3rd Squad, I'll stay with 1st.'
For a few seconds, Kozak watched as the 2nd and 3rd squads split off and headed for the buildings she had indicated to them. Satisfied, she turned around. 'Okay, Kaszynski, let's go.' Picking up the pace, Kozak closed the last few meters of open ground.
Just as she was passing between the cantina and the storage building, a figure jumped out from the front of the cantina and began running toward the storage building. Though he was silhouetted against the burning pickup, Kozak couldn't tell, at first, if he was friend or enemy. Only after the figure heard the tramping of Kozak's people coming up behind him did he turn away from the firefight in the compound and toward her. When he did, Kozak saw that his weapon and clothing weren't American.
Bringing her rifle down, Kozak attempted to fire from the hip, but got no response. Desperately she tried a second time, but the trigger wouldn't budge. There was no time to find out what was wrong. In another second she would either be on top of the figure or he would recognize the threat she presented and fire on her. Leveling her rifle, she thrust it out in front of her, locked her elbows and arms stiff, aimed for the figure's midsection, and charged.
Surprised by the sudden appearance of armed soldiers out of the darkness, the mercenary stopped and threw down his rifle as he prepared to surrender. Kozak's forward momentum, however, carried her through.
As soon as she felt her bayonet enter the mercenary just above his groin, she began to pull the front of her rifle up with all of her might while pushing the mercenary over to her left. Screaming, the mercenary grabbed for Kozak's rifle as he toppled over.
From 'behind, Maupin saw that his platoon leader was in trouble.
Picking up his pace, he rushed forward, yelling, first to the right, then to the left, so that everyone could hear: 'Mark your targets and fire at will.
Mark your targets and fire at will.' Although it was terminology better suited for a rifle range, the soldiers of 2nd Platoon understood what he meant and began to go to work.
Reaching the corner of the cantina, Sergeant Strange and 3rd Squad were greeted by a large-caliber machine gun firing down into the compound from a position on the hill to their right. Going to ground, it took them several seconds to figure out that whoever was manning the machine gun I had not observed them yet. Instead, the machine gun's fire was wild and unaimed. Directing the crew of his M-60 to set up in the lee of the cantina, Strange ordered them to engage the enemy machine gun with a plunging fire. Though he doubted that his gun crew would actually be able, to put the machine gun on the hill out of action, at least his crew would be able to suppress it while the rest of 3rd Squad cleared the tool shed and garage.
Happy to have the chance finally to use the large machine gun and boxes of ammo that they had been hauling around all night, Strange's gun crew was ready to fire in a matter of seconds. When they were set, they waited a few more seconds, watching for the enemy gun's muzzle flash.
When they were sure they had it pinpointed, they began to fire bursts of fifteen to twenty rounds, adjusting their aim by walking their gun's tracer rounds into the enemy position. Once the gunner was satisfied, he began to fire longer bursts.
Satisfied with the effectiveness of his own gun's fire on the enemy position, Strange pushed himself off the ground, yelling to his squad to follow as he headed for the tool shed.
Though they knew that someone was close when the machine guns began to exchange fire, the sudden banging on the east side of the tool shed, followed by a booming voice, still caused Jan to jump and Joe Bob to turn the M-16 he had picked up off the floor at the source of the noise. 'Captain Cerro, Eddie, you in there? It's Sergeant Strange!'
Recovered from her shock, Jan answered first. 'Captain Cerro's in here, but he's hit bad.'
The voice on the other side responded, 'Okay, lady, hang on, we're comin' through.'
Looking at each other, Jan asked Joe Bob what they meant. 'Are they going to use explosives to blow a hole in the wall?''
Joe Bob shrugged, looking about the small confines of the tool shed.
'Shit, I hope not.'
Instead of C-4, however, Strange had two of his men take the bayonets off their rifles and pry a loose sheet of metal off the shed. When it was off, Strange sent a rifleman, followed by a medic, through the hole. Before Strange left, he yelled to Jan through the hole, 'Stay put, lady. I'm goin' over to the garage.'
When Strange was gone, and while Jan held a flashlight for the medic working on Cerro, Joe Bob looked over at the rifleman who had joined him at the door facing into the compound. 'Exactly where in the hell does your sergeant think me and the little lady are going to go, especially at this time of night?'
Rolling into a tight turn, Blasio aimed the nose of his helicopter due west at the eastern mercenary camp. Once the camp was in sight, Blasio straightened out his aircraft, bringing it down as low as he comfortably could while increasing his speed. Though he had no idea what had gone wrong with the plan, he knew that his colonel, as well as the prisoner he was after, were down there somewhere, in the middle of the firefight, waiting to be picked up. When his co-pilot asked how he knew that, Blasio, in a rather offhand manner, responded that Colonel Guajardo wouldn't have it any other way. Though the co-pilot really didn't understand, he did as Blasio instructed.
To the right, from the hills, Blasio could see tracers streaking down into the compound from the .50-caliber machine-gun positions that the American colonel had mentioned in his briefing. Though his speed and altitude would give those guns little opportunity to hit his aircraft with more than one or two aimed bursts of fire, Blasio didn't want to take the chance. After all, he was on the right side and it took only one .50caliber round to kill a man, aimed or not. Easing his joystick over to the left and down slightly, Blasio decided to fly to the south of the camp, using the buildings to shield his helicopter from the enemy guns to the north.
They had no sooner made that correction than the commander of the American Apaches came on the air, announcing that his four gunships were in position south of Bandito Base East and ready to engage. If that was true, and they began engaging, Blasio's present course, while pro tecting him from the mercenaries to the north, would place him, his crew, and his aircraft right in the American gunships' line of fire.
Realizing the danger, the co-pilot began to yell over to Blasio that they had to break off and go around, looking for another approach. Blasio, however, did not respond to his co-pilot's warning. Instead, he took a deep breath, twisted the throttle on the collective a little more to increase their speed, and fixed his attention straight
