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  “Fixed-wing landings on carriers are tough, but I’d be willing to bet that landing a helicopter on a missile frigate that’s rolling and pitching is just as difficult, maybe even harder.”

  “No argument here,” Nathan said. “It’s incredible they do it at night on blacked-out ships. Squid aviators are a rare breed.”

  They fell silent a moment. Some of the forest’s sound had returned, mostly insect buzzing. The birds and amphibians would take a little longer to feel secure again.

  “I’ll take point,” said Nathan. “You ready to go?”

  “Not really, but we’re a little short on options. Let’s just make sure we get to our extraction point on time. I don’t relish spending more than one night down here.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Nathan and Harv had been hiking for nearly three hours, and both were soaked, though not from rain. This northern area of the central region didn’t have enough elevation to get them above the heat. In neighboring Honduras, it got plain cold in cloud forests. According to Harv’s GPS reading, they’d traveled slightly more than three miles. The device supplied their current location along with a vector to their destination. It also calculated the remaining straight-line distance.

  Four hundred yards up a fairly steep slope, Nathan pivoted and issued a low warbling whistle. He couldn’t see Harv, but gave the form-up hand signal. His friend would be along shortly. Thirty seconds later, Harv seemed to materialize out of the undergrowth. He’s still got the touch, Nathan thought, impressed with Harv’s stealthy approach. They were nearly certain their insertion hadn’t been detected; otherwise they would’ve been intercepted by now. Still, they never spoke above whispers.

  “Let’s take a breather and drink more water,” Nathan said.

  “Sounds good. We should chow down a couple of energy bars. This is a serious calorie burn.”

  “Listen to it, Harv. It’s incredible.”

  “I think it’s noisier at night.”

  “It definitely is.” Nathan knew this jungle was teeming with life with a common goal: to reproduce itself. The combined drone from hundreds of frogs, buzzing insects, and high-pitched bird calls created an eerie sonata. Adding to the mood, a musty rotting odor hung in the air. Nathan didn’t care for jungles much. Even though desert temperature changes could be extreme, Nathan preferred them over jungles. He also liked conifer forests. This place was beautiful in its own way, but its randomly entangled environment didn’t suit him. It seemed like organic chaos.

  Harv looked around and shook his head. “I keep thinking about Jesse Ventura’s line from Predator. ‘This place makes Cambodia look like Kansas.’”

  “Amen to that.”

  “The going’s a little easier under the canopied areas where the ground vegetation is thinner. So far, we haven’t had to make many significant detours. I’ve noticed a lot more cleared areas that weren’t here before. Think it’s from illegal logging?”

  Nathan peeled the wrapper from an energy bar. “Probably. It makes our slog a little easier in places, but it’s a shame to see.”

  “Enforcement of preservation is probably spotty at best. I wouldn’t imagine Nicaragua has a large budget for forest rangers.”

  “It definitely doesn’t. Sadly, it’s the honor system out here. I’m no expert on the subject, but I imagine Nicaragua has the same problem as many other parts of the world. People need wood for cooking.”

  “That was a beautiful stream we crossed down there with the waterfall into the pool and all the moss-covered rocks. There must be hundreds of places like that in these mountains.”

  “No doubt there are.”

  “How’re you doing?” Harv asked.

  “I’m okay. You?”

  “I keep flashing back to carrying you through two miles of this stuff. I don’t think I’d ever been so exhausted.”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  “You were mostly unconscious and damned close to dying.” Harv grinned. “You told me you loved me . . . several times.”

  “Don’t ever repeat that, or you’ll die slowly . . . It’s true, though.”

  “I know,” Harv said.

  “You want to take point for a spell?”

  Harv took another bite from his energy bar. “No problem. Alpha is just beyond this next ridgeline. At the top, we’ll take a few minutes to look the area over, but I doubt we’ll see anything.”

  “I keep wondering who we’ll find up there.”

  “We might find no one.”

  “We’re outta here then,” Nathan said. “We aren’t hanging around. We’ll make the best possible speed back to the extraction point.”

  “Let’s do another TI and RF sweep.”

  Nathan removed the handheld thermal imager from Harv’s pack and placed its rubber flange tight on his face before powering it on. He conducted a slow 360-degree sweep of their immediate area. It wasn’t supereffective in this environment because of all the layered plant life, but it confirmed there weren’t any warm human forms within its reach.

  Nathan untied Harv’s ghillie suit coat and draped it over his friend’s head. The thick shaggy garment would block the illumination on Harv’s face from the radio frequency detector’s small LCD screen. Even though the brightness had been adjusted to its lowest setting, it could be easily detected by a night-vision device. Nathan waited for Harv to give him the okay before removing the ghillie top.

  “We’re good,” Harv said. “Just to be on the safe side, I’m setting it to vibrate and leaving it on.” Harv tucked the device into his thigh pocket with the LCD screen facing in, toward his thigh. Third generation night-vision scopes were so sensitive, they could pick up invisible light bleeding through fabric. Even with the device facing inward, its bleed light could still be detected but not as brightly. “Okay, I’m on point. Let’s close it up to a ten-yard separation until we reach the ridgeline.”

  Nathan waited until Harv moved out before following. Harv was a good point man. Like Nathan, he knew to avoid stepping on certain types of exposed roots because of their softer skin. They weren’t overly concerned about leaving footprints, because no one was following them. Every one hundred yards or so, Harv would pause and hold up a closed fist. It was standard practice to stop and check for human presence, but the unbelievable din of the forest drowned out a lot of sound. It took a practiced ear to hear something that didn’t belong. Jungle stalking was a double-edged sword. It was easy to conceal yourself, but equally difficult to spot someone with the same intent.

  They arrived at the top of the ridgeline twenty minutes later and had to move laterally to get a clear line of sight through the trees to the south. Across a thousand-yard canyon, scatter point alpha wasn’t more than a bump in the next ridgeline, but it had a distinctive shape, like a bowling pin lying on its side.

  “There’s alpha,” Harv said.

  “If anyone’s waiting for us over there, we’ll never see them unless they want to be seen.”

  “I’ll take a look with the field glasses anyway. Our half-moon is getting low on the horizon. We’ll use NV from here on. At the bottom of the canyon, we’ll put on our ghillies for the ascent.”

  “I hate to admit it, but I’m kinda hoping no one’s there.”

  Harv nodded. “Yeah, me too. It wouldn’t break my heart to beat feet outta this place.”

  As predicted, Harv didn’t detect any human presence. All was quiet. On par with the weather report the Navy had given them, patchy clouds were moving in, but they didn’t look heavy enough to produce rain.

  Harv took point again, and they started down the slope. Although they could’ve gone faster, they maintained a slow pace, careful not to make any discernible noise. Nathan felt as though they were being watched from across the canyon but dismissed the thought as paranoia. No one should be able to see them through all the undergrowth. Up ahead, Harv diverted to the
west to avoid a dangerously steep section left over from an old landslide.

  At the bottom of the canyon, they found a stream flowing to the northeast that would ultimately join the Rio Coco. The trickle of its water had a soothing sound, but neither of them felt especially relaxed. If there was going to be an ambush, it would likely occur up at alpha.

  After slipping into their two-part ghillie suits, they looked each other over, making sure their coats weren’t snagged on their backpacks or waist packs. Their jacket hoods wouldn’t completely conceal their NV goggles without hampering their use, but only the last inch or so of their dual scopes would be visible. Using black elastic straps they’d sewn to the inside tops of their hoods, they secured the straps under their chins to keep their hoods from being pulled back by brambles and low-hanging branches.

  “We’ll make the ascent in parallel formation,” Nathan said. “I’ll take the left. Thirty-yard separation. Harv, we aren’t being taken prisoner.”

  “Understood.” His friend pulled his Sig and deployed out to the right.

  Nathan mirrored the move to the left, envisioning himself as a wraith, slowly moving in for the kill. He used this mindset to keep his senses focused and sharp. In nature, most predators employed some form of stealth, and this situation was no different. They didn’t plan on killing anyone tonight, but they wouldn’t hesitate if the situation required it.

  After fifteen minutes of climbing, it was impossible to determine how close to the ridgeline they were—the canopy prevented them from seeing its dark outline. The sound of the jungle was slightly less pronounced up here, but it didn’t concern Nathan. It was always noisier in basins and canyons near water.

  Taking steps every three or four seconds, they climbed for another five minutes. It was a tediously slow pace, but it prevented a potential enemy from detecting their movement. Nathan kept looking up, hoping for a glimpse of the summit.

  Then he stopped cold, frozen by the sudden sound of a helicopter.

  CHAPTER 10

  Nathan looked for Harv, but saw no sign of him.

  The unmistakable thumping of a main rotor echoed in from the northeast. And it was definitely getting louder.

  Nathan felt his entire body tighten, and he forced himself to think before moving. He looked through the treetops, hoping to catch the flashing beacon of a commercial bird but saw nothing.

  Without warning, the noise tripled in intensity. The helo was flying low, and it must’ve just cleared the ridge they’d traversed.

  Abandoning all stealth, Nathan hustled over to a massive tree and put its trunk between himself and the threat. He unslung his rifle, thumbed the safety, and steeled himself for a fight.

  If the helicopter were merely passing through, he’d have his answer within the next fifteen seconds. He pressed his chest against the tree, hoping it wasn’t crawling with ants. Fighting two battles didn’t seem fair. Time seemed to stretch as the whooping slaps of the helo’s main rotor pulsed up the canyon.

  Nathan breathed a sigh of relief when the noise quickly faded. From what he could surmise, the helo had been on a westerly course, and it had just ducked behind the ridge they were climbing.

  If that had been a military bird, he knew they wouldn’t have been spotted by night vision, but a thermal imager might’ve nailed them. It was impossible to know why it had crossed the area, but the Honduran border wasn’t more than six or seven miles away, so it could’ve been a routine patrol. Their current location was only an hour’s flight from Managua. The Rescue Hawk had flown well under the radar, and even if it had been seen, a Nicaraguan patrol bird should’ve scoured the area hours ago.

  He looked for Harv and saw his friend standing on the south side of a tree, also in an effort to visually screen himself from the helicopter’s line of sight. Nathan issued a closed fist and then spread his fingers. Harv acknowledged with an okay gesture. They’d sit tight for five minutes to make sure the helo didn’t return. The NV-capable weapon sight on his M40 was zeroed for three hundred yards, so if the helicopter reappeared and things turned ugly, Nathan was more than capable of accurately shooting at its crew or engine compartment. If the bird was one of the Nicaraguan air force’s Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters, Nathan knew the Hinds employed armor plating to protect their vital areas, which meant he’d have little chance of shooting it down. The best he could hope for would be a wounding shot to make it withdraw. He felt fairly confident it hadn’t been a transport; its rotor noise hadn’t been throaty enough.

  There was no sense in speculating further, but he wasn’t convinced the helo’s passage across the canyon wasn’t connected to them. Hearing several helicopters at the same time could’ve meant serious trouble, because each Hind had the capacity to carry eight combat troops and all their gear.

  He didn’t deny his previous ordeal down here made him edgy, but it was prudent to hold their position for a spell. They had time. If all went well, they’d have alpha thoroughly scouted before their mysterious messenger arrived, but he suspected the reverse was true. If their messenger possessed formal Echo training, he would’ve arrived by now to secure the area himself. And he might not be alone—there could be more than one person up there.

  Before five minutes had elapsed, Nathan gave Harv the form-up gesture, and they moved laterally toward each other.

  “Talk about a pucker factor,” Harv said.

  “Yeah, no kidding. Think it was a Hind?”

  “Probably. It didn’t sound like a transport, and it was definitely a single rotor. Its noise was never constant, so I don’t think it hovered and deployed troops. If it did, we could be facing a squad-sized force.”

  “Quit trying to cheer me up.” Nathan looked toward the west where the helicopter had disappeared. “We’ll stay a little longer.”

  “The helo could’ve spooked our messenger. He might bug out thinking he’s been blown.”

  “If we don’t find anyone up there, I suspect it would only delay the inevitable. I’d like to solve this mystery tonight and be done with it.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Did your RF detector vibrate?” Nathan asked.

  “No, I didn’t feel anything. You’re thinking if it saw us, it would’ve radioed our location. If it did, the detector should’ve picked up its transmission. Nate, we can’t rule out the possibility it rappelled troops on the north side of that ridge we just came from and then blew through the canyon to deceive us. To make matters worse, Raven could be with them.”

  “How long would that have taken?”

  “If they’re seasoned combat troops, less than twenty seconds.”

  “How much time do we have if that’s the case?”

  “If they take a direct route over the summit like we just did, thirty minutes to an hour, depending on how stealthy they want to be. It would take them considerably longer to traverse the mountain to the east or west.”

  Nathan didn’t respond.

  “Do you want to leave?”

  “I think we’re okay. Like you said, its noise never sounded constant from a hover. Just because it was dark, doesn’t make it a Nicaraguan air force bird. It could’ve been a drug runner or a private ship.”

  “That’s true.”

  “We have several options, but all of them terminate with two possible outcomes. We either complete the mission as planned and meet with the messenger, or we don’t. Cantrell won’t second-guess us either way. A helicopter’s passage through the area doesn’t seem like a strong enough reason to scrub the mission. I think we should hunker down right here and see if anyone shows up. We can’t worry about meeting our messenger until we’re certain we’re not being pursued.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  They separated again to give themselves the best chance of detecting intruders. The next thirty minutes seemed to stretch into thirty hours. Nathan didn’t like being immobile, but it was the right th
ing to do given their situation. Sometimes no action was the best action.

  Nathan tapped his memory of the mission briefing Bill Stafford had given them. The Nicaraguan air force had several Mi-8 Hip military transport helicopters and at least five Mi-24 Hind attack birds in its arsenal. With skilled pilots, the Hinds were capable ships, and Nathan had no desire to engage one of them. If a Hind had bored down on them, they would’ve had little chance of surviving, even with all the cover. Trees were no match for rockets and large-caliber machine guns. There was an outright terror associated with being hunted by a helicopter, especially a Russian-made gunship.

  With five minutes to spare, he looked over at Harv’s position, issued the form-up signal, and started in that direction.

  “I think we’re good,” Harv said. “If anyone’s tracking—” His friend stopped midsentence. “Someone’s talking. The RF detector just vibrated.”

  Nathan pulled his Sig and crouched. Harv followed suit. Were they blown? How? And who was it?

  “Nate, it’s going off again.”

  “Shit.”

  The next thing they heard was a voice from somewhere above. It had a Southern drawl.

  “US Marines, one-one.”

  CHAPTER 11

  What the hell? Nathan exchanged a stunned glance with Harv and quickly considered their options. He needed verification in a big hurry. That voice could belong to anyone.

  He called out a question. “Where’re you stationed?”

  “Pendleton.”

  “Where did one-one see its first major campaign?”

  “Guadalcanal.”

  “What’s great about Sports Illustrated?”

  There was a brief pause. “The swimsuit issue.”

  “What cities have the Raiders played in?”

  “Oakland and Los Angeles.”