CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Coming up on the ángeles camp made all the men stop in their tracks. Although their team was around one-hundred men, there must have been five-hundred in the camp below.
“Fuck me,” growled Ham.
“They’re tired,” said Gator. “Look at them. They look hungry, frustrated and tired. I’m going to guess they’re being held here until a signal is given.”
Cowboy raised his binoculars, searching the faces as Brooks did the same. Neither man saw the face they were looking for. It was hard to scan all the faces but Bora would have placed himself in a position of prominence.
“He’s not here,” said Brooks with frustration.
“No, he’s not,” said Cowboy. He turned to Ham and the others. “What do you want to do?”
“Team decision,” said Gator. “We can take them out in one swoop or we walk away and let them live.”
“Fuck that,” said Rush. “We’ve been traipsing through this fucking jungle for days now. Those bastards are everything we are against. Just because they don’t have what we want right this minute, you and I both know if we let them go they’ll be selling drugs, women, and kids tomorrow.”
“Does everyone feel the same?” asked Ham staring at all the faces. Every man nodded, one small jerk of their head.
“Alright. We drop explosives via the drones. No one on our team gets injured, no one is in the line of fire. We might have a few that attempt to scatter but they won’t get far. Form a perimeter around the camp, hide, and wait for the boom-boom.”
The perimeter was vast. The space the ángeles was occupying was the equivalent of two football fields. Every man on the Shadow Warriors team knew that there were at least three-hundred more, somewhere in South America, that would want revenge.
But for today, in this moment, they would handle those in front of them. Fifteen men stood with drones ready to deploy carrying enough explosives to create a crater the size of Detroit in the jungle. It would be visible from the air and people would ask questions.
Or, they might not.
When they’d walked through it all five or six times, played out every possible outcome and scenario in their minds. Although they knew that the men below them in the valley were trained in guerilla style warfare, many would be using the very drugs they sold.
“Gator? Cowboy? Look at the dude standing around the fire in front of the main tent. Look familiar?” asked Ham.
“Is it Bora?” asked Brooks.
“No,” frowned Gator. “Justin Carroll.”
“Who is that?” asked Mitchell.
“A former Army Ranger instructor. Beside him is a former MARSOC instructor, Billy Yellin. Those fuckers are training the enemy,” said Cowboy.
“They are. Which makes them the enemy,” said Ham. “Put the drones in the air. We end this part of our little saga.”
The men stood back watching as the drone experts lifted the birds and sent them silently on their way. The usual low whirring sound that a drone would make was masked by the stealth technology of G.R.I.P. Each drone carried enough explosives to level an average home.
Below them were no homes. Only tents, drugs, and men intent on ill-will. Something they couldn’t tolerate.
“Drones ready?” asked Cowboy. The reply came in unison.
“Roger that. Drones ready.”
“Deploy drones,” he said.
They watched from behind the trees as the explosives were dropped in unison. Men looked up, a fraction of second before the unusual package hit the earth, shattering the calm of the jungle.
Birds screeched and howled, animals fled from the space, although most had been warned by Oscar and his slithery friends. Trees, foliage, plants, and grass scattered, leaving nothing in their place.
When the dust settled, the men slowly made their way down into the valley, stopping to see the mass destruction. Hearing a moan, Brooks and Cowboy turned, weapons ready.
“Fucking asshole,” said Billy.
“I’d say the same about you, Billy,” said Cowboy. “Friends with traffickers and drug dealers? That seems against your code. Our code.”
“Aren’t you sick of them getting it all, Cowboy? Aren’t you tired of making shit money and getting nothing? I am. I was,” he said with his last breath.
It took them several hours to ensure that the men were dead, the drugs gone, and no one had gotten away. But with the explosion, others would know and would certainly tell Bora.
“What now?” asked Brooks. Ham nodded at the younger man.
“Now, we find Bora and Margarita and it sounds like he might be chasing her down. Let’s get to her before he does.”