Weekend Special; Short Tales; California Series 2.1 Chapter 4

4.

Sean Cannes had not moved from the spot where he had lain there when he saw the army personnel marched into the path he had planned the ambush. He was to provide the fire cover as the sniper but chose to remain out of it. He saw the ambush was sprung too early and the Columbian squad had taken cover. He watched the battle and saw the grenade explosion. He knew then that his ambush had failed. He picked up the binoculars and magnified his view.

“An outsider,” Sean muttered to himself. He magnified the view and saw the uniform. “You could not stay away huh, Master Gunner. I knew it was when you will come here.”

Sean then backed out of his hideout when he saw Master Gunner and the other officer had taken the trail towards the hacienda. He picked up his rifle and camouflage netting. He held the M30A5 rifle adopted by the later preferred rifle by the Marines. The bolt action rifle held the ten rounds in the removable magazine and its barrel was twenty-four inches in length. He used Leupold Telescopic Scope for better accuracy. On the waist belt was the holster GLOCK 17 with nine rounds.

Sean took off on the parallel trail with the two soldiers. He moved in stealth with the pace maintained as taught to him by his trainers before. The way to move in the jungle was not to go against the obstacles there.

“Every blade of grass, every twig you stepped on, the stone you had upturned will leave your trail to be seen by the pursuers,” Sean recalled those words. He had ‘planned his trail with each step he took was the same ones he took. When he reached the small stream, he was careful to step on the stones at the bank and then into the water without moving the pebbles. He took to upriver for a distance and then he stepped out to rejoin the trail.

“The softer the ground, the lighter your steps.”

Sean avoided the exposed ground and tried to use the tree roots to step on.

It was not the same for Master Gunner and the Lieutenant. They ran past the trees leaving a trail for they had a limited time to reach their objective. As Master Gunner had said to the Lieutenant that their presence was known and it makes no difference if there are spotted.

“It’s the last hundred yards when we go incognito.”

At the hacienda named Hotel California; it was a three levels curved structure with about fifty rooms, a dance hall, and dining area for fifty guests, a lobby with the reception table, and the basement where the armory and storage of supplies. The ground in the rear of the hotel was the Olympic pool, the sauna and mini zoo with the assorted reptiles kept there. The front was the ten vehicles garage and the mini-golf circuit. The structure was situated on flat terrain. At the outer boundary were the spaced-out ten guard towers with the manned machine guns and missile launchers.

At a distance of two hundred yards to the left of the structure was the subterranean cocaine lab below the layer of thin soil and grass. The lab was rectangular in design which measured over ten thousand feet where thirty lab technicians were named. They were working on the long tables with the equipment to convert the raw coca leaves into fine cocaine. The subterranean lab was ventilated by the chimneys that were seen protruding from the ground to ventilate the air inside. It was mechanically controlled by the generator housed at the side of the main structure. The coca farm was a distance of five hundred yards to the left of the lab. It covered the area of ten acres.

 “Have you raised the ambush team?” Michael ‘Pancho’ Teja stood by the window proof at the room on the third level. The room was furnished to be the office of the head of the Cartel there, with the carved wooden desk and the huge thirty feet length aquarium with the reinforced glass to house the twenty feet anaconda in the half-submerged tank.

“I have no new confirmation, Jefe.” The operator seated at the console was adjusting the bands to get the ambush team on the band. The operator was trained by the military and besides the communication skill was a marksman with the rifle.

“Get me the gringo.” Michael called out. He was dressed in the colored shirt with the top buttons opened, and the loose white pants with the sandals on his feet.

“Jefe, the gringo does not answer when he is in the jungle. It’s his nature to remain radio dead.”    

“Puta..” Michael disliked being left out of the situation. He paced the room with glances towards the jungle. It could be seen a distance away from the elevation he was on.

“Shall I call on the other Guerreros?” Michael had with him the hired guards and mercenaries of over thirty men. He had added on Sean a month ago, and the latter had proven his worth with the notched kills.

“Michael Teja, you are a marked man by the DEA. Their last attempt on you had failed when I thwart their officers with the cover fire while you escaped.” Sean had met Michael after the shootout at the nearby town. Michael was ambushed and barely with his life. His five bodyguards from the two vehicles had covered for him before they were shot by the enforcement officers. He had thought the end was imminent but the sniper shots diverted the enforcement officers. He sneaked off during the diversion.

“This should explain it all.” Michael was shown the video on the shootout from an elevated angle. “I was there.”

It was a week later that Sean showed his skills with a headshot on the Colonel who called the attack on Michael and sealed the contract of works for the Cartel.

“Michael, the word is out that they are sending in the units to get you here,” Sean told him that a week ago. “I would suggest you reinforced your hotel.”                    

Three attempts by the gringo’ have failed then  Sean took care of it.

“Once failed and twice shy but three was not giving up. If there was a three, there will be a fourth.” Sean told Michael. That fourth intel came with the confirmation.

“The fourth team is on the route. The Head of the gringo is in there.”