Chapter 40

40

The first timed city training module went about as Juan expected given the lack of unit cohesion. Four of the six “hostages” were killed and five enemy targets weren’t even located. After the targets were repositioned, Plata ran a second timed run. Both numbers were halved—a good improvement. On the third attempt, no hostages died and all of the enemy targets were found and taken out before the timer alarmed. The team was definitely gelling together.

Juan and Linc held up their end. Linc scored several kills with his big .50-cal Barrett rifle, assisted by Juan’s sharp eyes and the crystal clear glass on his spotter’s scope.

After a short food and water break, the team marched into the jungle for the next cover-and-move module. Three enemy targets high in the trees were missed on the first go, but no hostages were killed. A second try took out all enemy targets and no hostages—a phenomenal result. Plata praised them to high heaven. The squads moved with precision and speed, their combat skills reflecting their high levels of training and experience. Plata and Drăguș offered a few helpful comments and suggestions, but canceled the third run.

Plata checked his watch. “It’s getting late.”

The tired men exhaled a collective sigh of relief. It had been a long day.

The big Guatemalan smiled. “Time to head to the mines.”

An audible groan rippled through the team.

“And be sure to watch your step down there,” Drăguș said. “It could be your last.”

Plata led the way into the mouth of the coal mine. The shafts got shorter and narrower, the air cooler, the farther down they went.

They passed abandoned carts, shovels, picks, and other mining gear. The only lights they had were attached to their rifles. The chances of ricochets and “blue-on-blue” accidents in the dangerously enclosed and confined spaces were enormous. To avoid such a catastrophe, Plata swapped out all of their personal weapons for specialized M4 carbines and Glock 17 pistols designed to fire Simunition ammo—essentially, regular gunpowder cartridges that fired nonlethal “paintball” rounds, but with real-world recoil effects.

Walking in a near crouch beneath the solid ceiling of rock above their heads, they finally reached their staging point and halted. Juan calculated they were down six hundred feet at least. The silence at the moment they stopped was absolute—the kind of silence you only heard in a forest blanketed by heavy snow, he thought. There were six different branch tunnels leading off in several directions.

One of the far walls was partially damp. It was also notably cooler, even cold. No doubt they were now below the surface of the surrounding ocean.

Juan glanced over to a nearby side tunnel. The dark was total—a complete and utter absence of any kind of light. Having spent years in deep water, Juan wasn’t nearly as affected by the prospect of being six hundred feet below the surface. But judging by the shallow breathing and constant upward glances of several others, he assumed their vivid imaginations suffered the terror of thousands of tons of rock crashing down on them at any moment.

For Juan it wasn’t the prospect of a violent death as much as it was the idea of one’s pulverized remains never being found—utterly disappeared from the face of the earth. The line from a mournful Patty Loveless ballad suddenly echoed in his head. “And you spend your life diggin’ coal from the bottom of your grave.”

“Gentlemen, welcome to the gates of hell,” Plata began. A few drops of water fell from the ceiling.

“You know the setup. Kill the enemies, not the hostages.” He hit the timer on his watch. “Now we’ll see what you’re really made of.”

They ran two timed runs, racing off into the separate tunnels without much success. The beams of their swinging gun lights slashed through clouds of choking coal dust and crumbling rock that spattered their bump helmets. Fatigue and fear slowed their steps and dulled their vision. Targets were wedged in alcoves, hidden behind wood supports, or standing on the other side of sudden bends in the tunnels. Most of them remained untouched.

Linc had never felt so cramped and confined in a combat scenario, and even Juan began to sense the suffocating terror of claustrophobia wrapping its icy fingers around his heart.

Plata launched a third and final assault, but it was clear before it began it would fare no better. The four squads had decided to proceed down an unexplored tunnel together in single file, partly because it was wider and taller than the others, partly because they sought the unspoken comfort of other bodies nearby. Mangin, the Frenchman, took the point; Juan and Linc were next in line. The three men were far ahead of the others, whose spirits flagged with each step.

After what seemed like an eternity, Plata blew a shrill whistle in the far distance behind them. The exercise was over. The twelve-man team turned wordlessly on its collective heel and quick-stepped its way back up to the staging point.

Linc could barely make out the light of the man ahead of him. Juan was right behind his friend.

“You okay up there, big man?” Juan whispered.

“Hope they have a hot tub back at camp. Or maybe an ice tub. Maybe both. My back is killing me.”

“Maybe champagne and foie gras, too.”

The sound of cracking rock behind them sent shudders down their spines. They all feared a tunnel collapse more than anything.

But instead of running, Juan and Linc froze in their tracks. Juan whipped around. He flashed his gun light backward.

Mangin was gone.

Juan and Linc looked at each other, then back up the tunnel toward the surface. Everything in Juan wanted to run before disaster buried them alive. Only sheer force of will turned him around.

Juan rushed back, his central nervous system on fire and on high alert. Ten steps back he saw the hole that had opened up and swallowed the Frenchman. He glanced down at the ground beneath his boots, wondering if it was about to give way as well. He threw up a hand behind him.

“Stay back.”

“What’s the play?” Linc asked.

Juan remembered a large coil of rope they had passed on the way down. He pushed past Linc, ran ahead and grabbed it, and jogged back a minute later. He tied one end to his waist and tossed the rest to Linc.

Juan edged toward the gaping hole as Linc secured the line around his body and in his massive hands.

“Easy, boss.”

“Don’t you know it.”

Juan glanced over the lip of the hole. Down below, the Frenchman lay unconscious on the floor of another tunnel, face down in a puddle of water, his body illumined by his weapon light.

Juan looked back at Linc. Let’s do it.

Linc nodded in agreement.

“How far down?” the big African American said.

“Twelve, maybe thirteen feet. We need to hurry.”

Juan stepped over the crumbling edge and lowered down, hoping he wasn’t too late.

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★Twenty minutes later, Plata and Drăguș appeared out of the gloom, huffing with exhaustion. The big Guatemalan was about to cuss a blue streak at the laggards for holding everyone up until he saw Juan and Linc marching toward the surface with the body of the muddied, unconscious man stretched between them.

The five men made their way back up to the staging area. The two Poles pulled out a fabric stretcher and loaded the Frenchman onto it. Over the course of the next half hour, several men took turns ferrying him back up to the surface.

It terms of combat performance the entire exercise was a bust. But in terms of unit cohesion, Plata couldn’t have planned it any better. As far as he was concerned, they were ready.

McGuire had warned Plata earlier about the big Black American fighter. The cagey Irishman smelled something fishy about him on the trip from the airport. But Davis and the Mexican had proven their mettle today both in combat and in the rescue of the former French commando.

Come to think of it, Plata mused, the selfless act was quite unusual given the sordid histories of both men.

Perhaps McGuire was on to something after all.