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The air crew chief got out, extending his hand into the cargo bay for her. Lauren grabbed it, crouched over, shuffling forward, the gear she carried heavy and bulky. Once out of the bird and on the ground, she thanked him, shook his hand and then, breathed a sigh of relief, pulling up her safety goggles and putting them over her eyes. She stepped aside, allowing Alex to get out. She couldn’t see anything yet. Her NVG’s were in her pocket. As soon as they cleared this bird, she’d swap them out in place of her safety goggles to see where the hell they were going.
Alex guided her away from the Hawk and they crouched and ran, the gusts from the blades still slapping at their backs, making them weave and struggle to stay upright. Finally, they were well away from the idling Black Hawk. Keeping her back to the helo, Lauren removed her safety goggles and pulled on her NVG’s and flicked them on. She turned just in time to see the helo lifting off. The rotor wash was brutal and she turned away, dirt, rocks, tree limbs and gravel flying up and brutally striking her from head to toe. Finally, the bird rose high enough into the sky and the chaos stopped. The thick, chopping sounds disappeared rapidly as it headed down the slope to a lower altitude, heading back to Cusco.
“Are you all right?” Alex asked, concerned. With his NVG’s on, he could not tell if she was pale or not.
“Yeah, just a little headache. Nothing to write home about. We need to hook up with those spec ops boys.”
Alex keyed his mic near his lips. “Dusty One, this is Tower One. Over.”
“Dusty One, read you loud and clear. You see our chem-light at twelve o’clock? Over?”
Squinting, Lauren spotted it. The spec ops boys were supposed to be hiding inside the wall of the jungle. The Hawk had dropped them off in what appeared to be a plowed field about two miles wide. There was no moon. Just clouds all around. “I see them,” she told Alex.
“We’re coming your way, Dusty One. Out,” Alex said, clicking off his radio.
The ruts and furrows were huge and Lauren labored. Alex slipped his hand beneath her elbow, steadying her. It took them twenty minutes to reach the jungle. In the distance, Lauren could see a grayish light growing between the peaks of the Andes. The mountain range looked like a sharp, jutting spine rising out of the earth to the east of them. Dawn was coming. She saw three men melt out of the darkness, their weapons in hand, faces painted, big heavy rucks hanging from their broad shoulders. They were the Special Forces team that would support this sniper op.
Lauren stepped forward, extending her hand to a man who was almost as tall and broad as Alex. “Lauren Parker,” she said, gripping his gloved hand.
“Sergeant Mason Kilmer, ma’am.”
“This is Alex Kazak, my partner and spotter.”
Mace released her hand and shook the extended one of the tall Ukrainian. “Seems we’ve met before, Kazak? In that Quechua village? About five months ago? You were wounded in the left calf? Beat all to shit? Left for dead. Right?”
Alex grinned, eyes fixed on the rugged face of the Special Forces sergeant who was the leader of the three-man team. “Yes, I was. Same person. Thank you, again, for saving my life.”
Mace grinned; his teeth white against the camouflage paint of his face. “A good man is hard to keep down, Kazak. Both of you, follow us. We have a little camp deep inside this twisted jungle of theirs…”
Alex urged Lauren ahead of him. She didn’t seem strong. He pulled her to a stop. “I’ll carry your gear.”
“No…”
He patiently began to pull the thick nylon strap off her shoulder. “I’m your partner. When I am strong, let me help?”
Nodding, Lauren reluctantly gave him the sixty-five-pound weapons bag. “Thanks…” She saw how easily Alex hoisted the strap over his free shoulder, now balanced with both bags. Together, that was a hundred and thirty pounds. “I’m a little dizzy.”
“I could tell,” he told her dryly. “Probably a bit of a concussion when you hit your head on that door.”
“Yeah,” Lauren muttered, “wouldn’t surprise me. I’ll be okay,” and she turned, following the narrow path between the twisted, wooden vines that climbed eight feet above them on each side. At twelve-thousand five-hundred feet, the jungle, if it could be called that, looked more like a Chinese puzzle of vines twisting, tangling, and looping in among one another. There was little vegetation on the ground at this altitude. They followed the three-man team downward on a steep path for nearly an hour. Lauren sipped water from her CamelBak to remain hydrated. The Special Forces men set a blistering pace and she kept up with it, thanks to Alex who was doing the heavy lifting.
Finally, as gray light filtered through the jungle from the dawn, the vegetation thickening, Lauren realized she was breathing easier. In an hour, they’d probably walked three miles down in elevation. Lauren figured they were at around nine thousand feet. Her legs ached and she knew she was dehydrating, forcing herself to drink more water to stave it off. The high walls and shadows were deep and, without NVG’s, she wouldn’t have been able to see the thin path between the vine walls. Everyone was quiet. She heard monkeys screaming in the dawn light. Tropical birds were waking up as well, calling back and forth. The humidity was high, her clothes were damp.
Mace Killmer called a halt as they entered a clearing that had been hacked out over time with a lot of brute manpower and machetes. The sergeant pushed his NVG’s up onto the rail of his helmet and waited for everyone to gather around him. He relaxed, slinging the strap of his rifle, barrel down, across his left shoulder. “Welcome to our little jungle retreat,” he told them with a grin, gesturing toward five huts that had been built out of the available wood, grass and large, flat leaves of the trees above them.
Alex pushed up his NVG’s, marveling at the womb-like oval clearing. “You did this?” he asked Killmer.
“Nah. This is a known drug-route rest point,” he told them. “We’ve been timing the crews who come through here.” He wiped the sweat off his face with his gloved hand. “No one’s coming through here for six days. I imagine you’re pretty whipped. Nate here, will make us some breakfast over a fire built in a hole in the ground. Real eggs,” he said proudly. “Thanks to the good people of this region who sell them to us.”
“Yeah,” Sergeant Cale Merrill added, “Mace traded a bunch of our MRE’s to a chief and his wife in a neighboring village for an ongoing supply of hens’ eggs. Works out real well for us. I don’t know what they find appetizing about those MRE’s, though. We got the better end of the deal.”
“You guys were always scroungers of the first order,” Lauren said, amazed at the well-hidden meadow carved out of a jungle that nothing or no one could ever traverse through.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Mace said, grinning down at her. “We understand you’re our sniper?”
“I am.”
“Where’d you pick up that little art?” Mace asked casually, leading them toward the huts. He put his rifle down near one hut and took off his helmet and removed his earpiece and radio mic.
