Direct Action - 03 (18 page)

Among the supplies lying around the team house, Deckard found an elastic bungee cord that he hooked around the wire shoulder stock of the sub-machine gun. The other end of the bungee he looped around the chest strap on his parachute. Next, he screwed the suppressor on the MAC-10 and routed a rubber band under his waist strap, looping it over the suppressor to hold the MAC-10 in place diagonally across his body.

This kept the weapon secured while being able to quickly bring it into play when he hit the ground simply by snapping the rubber band when he yanked on the gun. The others saw what he did and began rigging their weapons in a similar manner. Even Rick was kitting up on orders from Bill. If one of them got hurt, got sick, or got dead between now and the hit time, then Rick would be taken off the bench and put back into the game.

Meanwhile, Bill and Ramon sat in front of an open laptop. Ramon's remote devices were still running off batteries and would be for the duration of the mission as they kept an unblinking eye on overwatch on their objective.

The apartment was situated in the middle of the rooftop, a penthouse that included a pool and party area outside. Sometimes De Jesus' security people patrolled the pool area, but usually, they stayed inside unless they came out to have a smoke. A couple times a week De Jesus would send a few body guards down to Air Force One to pick up some girls, and they would throw a massive rooftop party. Bill was adamant that they not infil on one of those nights, it just added to the number of things that could go wrong.

The good news was, from spying through the glass windows in the apartment from two separate angles, it did not appear that De Jesus had a safe room. Liquid Sky would bring explosives anyway, just in case.

One by one, they found their way to the kitchen to find something to eat. The preparations went on deep into the night. With Bill's permission, they each went outside and popped off a few suppressed rounds through their MAC-10's into a dirt mound to make sure everything was kosher.

Zach dug into the explosives cache that Ramon had secured for them. It was mostly industrial explosives that had probably been stolen from a mining site before they turned up on the black market. That was sketchy as hell. He could test the time fuse, but they were too close to civilization to do a test shot of the detonation cord and plastic explosives. Worst case, they would shoot through the windows and enter the apartment that way. They also had a half dozen hand grenades that they could use to breach if need be.

As they laid their kit out one last time before donning it the following night, the Liquid Sky members joked with each other, pretending they weren't scared of smashing into a building at 120 miles per hour.

“Shit dude, we could be the biggest bugs on the world's largest windshield if we fuck this up,” Paul said, his respectable-sized Taliban beard shaking as he chuckled to himself.

“Unfortunately, this mission doesn't come with any fringe benefits,” Zach complained.

“Oh, you mean like that pile of pirate's treasure we pulled out of Abottabad?” Paul asked.

“Right now I think Rick has the pirate's treasure,” Paul joked while curling his shoulders in. “The sunken chest!”

“Don't forget to lick my balls while you're down there,” Rick said as he got red in the face.

“What do you think, Nadeesha?” Zach asked. She hadn't said a word all night.

“Suck my dick.”

The room exploded with laughter until Bill told them to shut up.

Deckard saw his opening.

“You guys were on the Abbottabad mission?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Zach answered. “Got a large haul off that one.”

“Intel?”

“Fuck no. The Agency has been playing that angle up. We hardly got anything. Old boy hadn't been operational in years. We got a big haul of gold though,” Paul told him.

“He had a stockpile of gold?”

“Yeah. Spanish, French, and Italian intelligence services had been paying the Taliban in bullion for years and years not to attack their troops, so there was an influx of gold bullion in Afghanistan, which eventually filters into Pakistan.”

“The Europeans pay off the enemy because casualties would upset their shaky coalition governments, and you rake up the fruits when you hit the targets.”

“Fucking A,” Zach answered. “The CIA has been paying their Taliban informants with blue pills, unfortunately, so they are not helping us out at all.”

“How do you get all that gold back?”

“Teeny Weeny Airlines. Dev has their own aircraft.”

“Shit, sounds like a good deal. And old boy goes into the ocean on the flight home, huh?”

Zach smiled.

“You really think we just dumped his body in the ocean, dude?”

Deckard frowned.

“Then where is it?”

“Somewhere in the United States.”

They lay down as the sun was coming up, and got up eight hours later. No one had slept particularly well.

Their pilot pounded down some chow, threw on his sunglasses, and walked over to the airfield to start preparing the Twin Otter for the night's flight. The others loaded all their gear into the van. Ramon and Bill made some last-minute inspections of the objective using the remote cameras. Ramon would be able to access the cameras via a 3G connection on his tablet, so he could update Bill in real time as they made their infil.

The sky was turning a hazy yellow. It was time.

Liquid Sky boarded the van and drove back to the airfield. They spent over an hour just kitting up and getting their gear exactly where they wanted it, then checked each other over just to make sure. Each team member going on the objective carried a half brick of C4 and an initiation system.

Rick and Ramon would be securing the second drop zone down on the ground, their exfil point. When Ramon walked into the hangar with his concealable plate carrier on and MAC-10 slung over his shoulder, Deckard noticed a curved knife the former Special Forces soldier had sheathed on his belt. It was the same Filipino karambit fighting knife he had seen him with in Afghanistan.

Images from Pakistan flickered in front of his eyes. One of the Pakistanis he had seen in the hospital in Karachi had a series of deep, defensive knife wounds on his body. Now he knew that he had witnessed Ramon's work.

They didn't bother rehearsing actions in the air. After the training jumps and unending hours in the simulator, they either knew their shit at this point or they didn't. They took off their helmets and propped them behind their parachutes to lean back on as they sat on the floor of the hangar.

Ramon and Rick got in the van and drove off to the exfil site where they would be waiting to pick up the Liquid Sky team.

The wait began. They drank bottled water and waddled off occasionally to take a piss in the grass.

Deckard turned and caught Nadeesha's eye for just a moment. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her trigger hand lay over the MAC-10 tied down across her chest. She turned away from him, breaking eye contact.

Ramon called Bill on an encrypted cell phone. They were in place in Manila and had their tablet up, watching the camera feeds. They had positively identified De Jesus when he stepped outside to make a phone call by the pool. It was almost ten at night. Bill stood.

It was their green light.

The pilot fired up the Twin Otter and Liquid Sky filed through the door.

Deckard felt oddly relaxed as the aircraft lifted off and he clipped his pro-tec helmet on under his chin. He had decided that he was going to make it to the rooftop.

They gained altitude as the pilot took them north, over the lagoon towards Manila. Bill opened the door and began spotting for their jump. It would be a short trip, as the pilot flew on a flight plan that took them just east of the city. Zach, Deckard, Paul, and Nadeesha stood up to be on standby for the jump. The airplane rocked under their feet, forcing them to hold on to the seats for balance.

Sweat rolled down Deckard's face as he steadied himself, burdened under all of his equipment. The wing suit, the parachute, the weapons, explosives, and helmet made it awkward to move around to say the least. Without thinking about it, the jumpers began closing on each other, getting nut to butt as they inched towards the door.

As they flew along the edge of the city, Deckard saw that Manila was lit up as brilliantly as any other major metropolitan city with hues of gold, blue, and yellow. They would have no problem identifying landmarks as they navigated around the city. The only problem was that, unlike land navigation, there was no doubling back.

Bill had his head stuck out the door looking for their release point. It was a flood gate on the outskirts of the city. The Liquid Sky team leader turned to look inside the aircraft. He held one finger in the air telling them that they were one minute out. Then he turned to look back outside.

The other four jumpers were now right on top of each other, almost as if they were going to push Bill out the door if he didn't get out of the way. Bill leaned inside again, holding his thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart. Thirty seconds out.

Deckard swallowed. Everything seemed surreal, he could hardly hear anything with the turbo props going and his helmet covering his ears.

Finally, Bill gave a follow-me motion and dived out of the door. One by one, Zach, Paul, Deckard, and Nadeesha spilled out into the night.

Following Bill's lead, they glided behind him heading west, into the city. Settling into position, Deckard noted the golf course passing on his left as they continued towards the river. They had six miles to cover before reaching their target. Manila looked like a painting from their vantage point, pin pricks of gold light shone through windows, larger street lamps and signs made big blotches of star shaped light. Wind whistled in Deckard's ears as Liquid Sky glided deeper into the city.

Their next landmark was coming up, the river that weaved through the center of Manila. Bill adjusted his attack angle slightly, shifting left and pointing directly into the metro area where buildings jutted into the night sky like jagged teeth. The rest of Liquid Sky followed his lead as they assumed a file formation, one jumper after the other. Bill was first in line, Deckard second. The other three were stacked up behind him.

It didn't look like it did in the simulator, but close enough. As he dumped altitude, Deckard could make out more details on the ground and see cars driving on the streets, the pedestrians below completely oblivious to what was happening above them.

Deckard soared over the Rockwell building and knew he was getting close. He could see the soles of Bill's boots has he shifted his weight again, trying to acquire the perfect angle. Deckard ignored what was going on below and focused straight ahead. He flew silently over seven more city blocks and then cleared the top of the Roxas building. It seemed like he was picking up speed, but the reality was, he had just gotten lower to the ground and his eyes could now judge how fast he was really going.

He steered carefully, making minute corrections as he blasted through the city. The Petron Mega-Plaza towered over him on his right flank.