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“Yeah, inquiring minds want to know,” Bacon added. “Feels like we’re ramping up toward something big.”
“They haven’t told me anything definitive.” Dustin made eye contact with Bacon instead of Wes. “Besides, I couldn’t say. You know that. But we’ll all know something soon, I think.”
“Good.” Bacon nodded. “All this training makes me antsy. Can’t wait to get back out there.”
“Amen to that.” Wes leaned back, more relaxed than Dustin had seen. He was settling in, maybe. “But someone tell Curly his girl’s not coming with.”
Everyone in earshot laughed, including Dustin. Good. Good for Wes, doing the sort of banter that the enlisted guys all seemed to revel in. Dustin didn’t know what was with this weird emptiness in his chest as he watched Wes. It had been several days since their last—and it better be last—online conversation, and Dustin still hated how his whole body had thrummed at the message from Wes, how badly he’d wanted to flip on the camera, just to see Wes’s face, how much he’d wanted to keep Wes chatting, and how powerless he was in the face of his own wanting. It had taken everything he had to close the chat window.
The remainder of the ride, he hung back, listening to the others giving Curly a hard time about his girlfriend and pumping Wes up for his role taking point on the explosives that day.
As they exited the chopper, the LT called them to gather around. The bombing range was a desolate stretch of desert, far from anything approaching civilization, rugged terrain as far as the eye could see. “All right. We’ve got two shipping containers to find, remove a target package from, and destroy. We’re looking for a nice, controlled destruction of the containers and contents.”
He further outlined the plan, which was a lot more complicated than “Make big things go boom,” and would take a full day’s action. First, they had to find the shipping containers, and scout the area, because it wouldn’t be the first time the training ops folks included some “hostiles” for them to find and disarm. Their ammo wasn’t live rounds, but the explosives they’d use were—later the training ops folks would come back to the site, clean it, and recycle all the debris.
Sure enough, when they found the two containers, they were being guarded by two “rebels,” who were undoubtedly two marines having a fun day in the desert sun. Marines. Dustin had to make himself concentrate on the mission at hand, not his lies and half-truths to Wes. Their last conversation, Dustin would have given an awful lot to be a marine grunt, someone who was able to have a...something with Wes. Maybe not a relationship, but something more than this awful missing him and what they’d shared.
“You be sure to double-check Lowe’s work today,” the LT said to Dustin as the team moved into position to neutralize the guards. “I don’t want any hitches.”
“Got it.” While not the absolute expert Wes was, Dustin was cross-trained in explosives.
The first step of the operation was to take out the guards. With the full team like this, an ambush would be relatively easy, but that wasn’t how they usually rolled as that kind of unpredictability got people killed out in the field. The better plan was to let their recon and sniper guys do their work first. Bacon and the rest of those men had specially outfitted guns with laser sensors that would register a “hit” on the clothing of the marines. The training ops people would be looking for quick, clean shots and no return fire.
The recon group assessed the situation, then, needing to draw the guards away from the container, a small controlled explosion was used as a diversion so Bacon could take the “hostiles” out with two shots. Bang. Bang. Exactly like they wanted it.
With the guards neutralized, then came the hard work of searching the contents of the containers. They were filled with all sorts of refuse, recycled machinery parts, sand bags, and other surprises for them to sift through to find the target packages. Once located, the fun work of destruction could begin. The midday sun beat down on them with no hiding from it on the desert bomb range.
Wes and their other explosives guys set out the charges and coordinated their movements like they’d done this a dozen times together, which was what Dustin wanted to see. They’d be out in the field soon, on a mission a lot like this if his intuition was correct, and he needed his men working well together. As requested, he double-checked the work, but it was pretty spotless.
“Are we a go?” Wes asked, eyes meeting Dustin’s for the first time all day as they raced away from the blast zone.
“On the LT’s orders,” Dustin said, trying not to lace any extra pride or approval in his words or expression, which was hard because Wes’s competence on this mission was pretty darn impressive.
