~ * * ~
“No, dammit, push the stick forward, Valdez,” the instructor barked in frustration. “Oh forget it…it’s too late. You and your passengers are dead.”
“Hey!” he objected defensively “we go down, I pull up.”
“Yeah well pull your ass up out of that seat and get lost,” the instructor ordered sourly.
Valdez stomped angrily out of the trailer muttering in Spanish, leaving me alone with Agent Krantz.
“Well Knight, I guess you’re it,” Krantz sighed. “Ready or not, we go up in a real plane in an hour.”
I didn’t reply, knowing there was nothing to say. We’d been working on the flight simulator non-stop since the wee hours of the morning, even having our meals brought in, and one by one all of the others had been kicked out until I was the only one left.
Although I’d crashed numerous times while attempting to land, apparently I was the best out of a poor lot. I hoped our ultimate survival wasn’t going to rest on my flying skills. If so, we were all in deep trouble.
“Meet me in the hangar in an hour,” he ordered, turning away and shutting down the equipment “we don’t have much daylight left.
I began gathering my gear as Garrett walked in. His swift encompassing glance took in the empty trailer and came to rest on me.
“Knight is the only one left?” he asked in disgust.
Krantz shrugged “If the point is to arrive with as few injuries or fatalities as possible then yeah, Knight is your only hope. Unlike Valdez, he doesn’t panic and do the exact opposite of the right thing and Montez and Hondo couldn’t have cared less. We go up in an hour. Take-off won’t be a problem, but we need more time than you’re allowing in order to work on the landings.”
“I’ve given you all the time I can,” Garrett said heavily. “Just do your best. In an emergency, he simply needs to be able to get it off the ground and back down again. It doesn’t have to be pretty. You have the rest of today,” he ignored Krantz’s snort of sarcasm at his overwhelming generosity, continuing “and until noon tomorrow; the others will be in the chopper simulator and he’ll need to play catch up quickly. I have to get both simulators back before anyone misses them and starts poking around asking awkward questions.”
Garrett turned to me and said irritably “Get moving, we don’t have all day.”
The training he’d pushed us through over the past few days were nothing like boot camp—no yelling, no drill, and no formality…the total opposite in fact—everything had been done with very little sleep and a lot of intense instruction expecting us to master skills in a day which usually required weeks, months, and sometimes years to acquire.
Originally there were five of us and my fellow Marines were all, as Garrett had implied when we’d first met, hardened seasoned veterans who no doubt had seen action in Vietnam and were a lot less…structured…than what I was accustomed to.
The barracks where we were all housed wasn’t exactly a pig sty, but with the lack of discipline running rampant, by no means measured up to Marine standards and with the exception of Stockingdale, who was no longer with us, having suffered an accident on the heavy artillery range, all of them smoked…heavily.
We’d all been thoroughly searched after arriving and, from the displeased language, I suspected that unlike me, having come straight from boot camp without my ten-day customary leave, the rest had been forced to surrender a few personal items. Although no one batted an eye at cigarettes, alcohol and drugs were a huge no-no and a couple of the men were a bit upset at losing their favorite beverage flask. Not that anyone had spare time for recreational or medicinal imbibing…free time was non-existent.
From the first day we’d hit the ground running. We’d already been through the explosives course, spending hours in a field attempting to find every dummy mine buried there. Most of us, including me, theoretically lost a limb or two in the process. By the end of the exercise, Hondo was the only one completely intact.
Apparently, the mines used in the part of South America where we were heading—we were still in the dark about our final destination—looked nothing like the land mines used in Vietnam and none of the others, with the exception of Hondo, knew any more about it than I did.
We were then versed in the delicate art of diffusing bombs.
Hondo was lean and mean of indeterminate age and a perpetual chain smoker with the inevitable cigarette hanging out of his mouth even when handling bombs, and he didn’t seem to be on a first name basis with either a razor or a comb. I didn’t know Hondo’s first name, or maybe Hondo was his first name, but he wasn’t the type anyone would dare to ask.
The instructor, for lack of a better description, came unglued at Hondo as soon as he saw the cigarette, but Hondo simply said “Ain’t stupid, it ain’t lit” and left it where it was. The youthful ‘expert’ met Hondo’s eyes for all of two seconds before quickly turning away and beginning instruction. I wasn’t sure what he read in them, but whatever it was convinced him that a strategic retreat was in order.
After the first couple of hours of handling ‘bombs’, Hondo and I were the only ones left, the others sent off to begin the next section…heavy artillery…after ‘blowing themselves up’ repeatedly with the fake bombs.
The tremendously loud bangs assaulting my ears and shaking the old deserted hangar where we were housed the whole time I was working with the dummy bombs as the other three practiced with the artillery had me jumping at every explosion, but Hondo was apparently oblivious to it all and never even so much as flinched. Either that or he was totally deaf. I envied his nerves of steel and attempted to mimic his monolithic calm, but failed miserably.
Five hours later, Hondo had taught me everything he thought relevant, and finally allowed me to get some shut-eye before moving to the next phase. Apparently Hondo’s knowledge of things that go boom was on a much higher, more useful plane than the kid not much older than I was who was ironically supposed to be instructing him. The instructor hadn’t even attempted to stop him from taking over my education.
I was rather concerned that someone might have slipped up and given me a live bomb to diffuse and the next explosion I would hear would be me scattering into millions of pieces into the earth’s atmosphere, so I was greatly relieved when that part of the training was over and glad Hondo, the resident expert, would be along on the op.
There was no way Garrett would be cutting him. If there were bombs or land mines involved, Hondo would be the most important person to the success of the mission.
The next morning it was obvious that Valdez, a short stocky Hispanic whose primary language was not English, had developed an affinity for the tank the previous day while I was attempting to learn how not to blow myself and everyone in the immediate vicinity up…not driving it, we hadn’t made it to that part of the instruction yet, but firing from it.
He seemed to derive great satisfaction from destroying the landscaping, which admittedly was not much to look at anyway being barren of any signs of life, but his aim left a lot to be desired. Although, I had to admit, what he lacked in precision he more than made up for in enthusiasm, pounding everything in sight.
The artillery instructor had to forcibly eject him in order to allow the rest of us a ‘shot’ at it.
Hondo had simply shrugged and walked away, totally uninterested in the proceedings, more concerned with finding a comfortable place to light up after being smokeless for hours.
Montez, the oldest and by far the calmest, most even tempered of our bunch of misfits, volunteered his turn to Stockingdale since he was already well versed in heavy artillery and even had to help out the artillery instructor by gently correcting his mistakes.
Stockingdale, not the most coordinated of the bunch, was attempting to climb onto the tank when the accident occurred. Somehow he must have lost his footing and the loud crack as he fell to the ground landing awkwardly on his left leg, was painful to hear. I had no idea how someone with
his lack of coordination had actually managed to make it through Marine boot camp, but my guess was…minimally.
The agent in charge of our instruction had apparently slept through his first aid class, if he’d even had one, and Montez took over, ordering the rest of us to find something to splint the leg so we could carry him back to the base.
Garrett had informed us from the start that no one would be allowed to enter or leave the base unless it was an emergency and, even then, they would be taken by one of the agents to an undisclosed location to be treated, but not released until Garrett deemed it safe to do so without endangering the mission.
Calling up an ambulance or chopper to transport Stockingdale was out of the question and we, against every rule in the first aid book, had to carry him a mile back to the base in order to put him in a vehicle and get him to whatever Garrett’s idea of a medical facility was.
The ‘base’ where we were undergoing the training was in reality no more than an old abandoned airfield that had been cordoned off and was so tightly secured that no one could enter or leave without Garrett and his agents knowing about it. We didn’t even know where we were as we had been blindfolded for the flight in, so all we could do was guess at our location.
I hoped Stockingdale’s unavoidably rough treatment wouldn’t cause him any permanent injury or he’d be out of the Corps. I wasn’t sure at that point whether the Corps wouldn’t be better of without him, but I had no idea then exactly why he’d been chosen for what was obviously a dangerous and physically exacting mission.
I wasn’t sure where Garrett had dug up his ‘expert instructors’, but I was losing confidence in most of them and beginning to think that he had just taken a bunch of his agents and ordered them to read up on things and then attempt to teach us. Thankfully, so far, we had our own experts and wouldn’t have to rely on what they were teaching us in order to survive.
After suffering through days of inexpert experts, I suspected that had been Garrett’s plan all along.
So far, Krantz was the only agent for which I had any respect. He was a pilot and knew exactly what he was doing—although taking me up in a plane and allowing me to fly it with only basic instruction and a few hours on a simulator didn’t seem to me to be the wisest decision he’d ever made—but I knew that Garrett had given him no choice. I got the distinct impression that with Garrett there were only two ways…his way or the highway.
It took me a few days to realize that each of us had been selected for a specific reason—we all had a skill Garrett required—but he wasn’t putting all of his eggs in one basket and was trying to give us all a basic understanding of every skill in case one of us didn’t make it. I was also finally beginning to get an inkling of what General McKie meant when he’d informed me that the mission was dangerous. In my naïveté, I’d possessed no concept of what that actually meant, but it was becoming clearer by the hour.
Hondo was an explosives expert, Montez had forgotten more about heavy artillery than the agent who had been attempting to train us ever knew, Stockingdale, we found out after his injury had taken him out of the game, was an electronics/communications expert—that training day was still to come—and I guessed I was there because of my hand to hand combat skills.
That was the only thing that made sense. Very few people would be able to stand up against Mr. Suzuki’s training.
As I headed towards the hangar where Krantz was waiting, I pondered the Valdez thing wondering what he could possibly be bringing to the table that was necessary for the success of the mission. So far he didn’t seem to possess any outstanding skills.
He was a Marine so he possessed higher-level skills than average, but so did hundreds of other Marines.
Although he was older than I was, he was younger than anyone else in the squad and, personally, I worried that his lack of maturity would end up getting us all killed. He seemed to think it was playtime, like with the tank, and had yet to master anything that the agents had thrown at us.
Oh well, I shrugged to myself as I entered the hangar, I’ll find out soon enough I’m sure.
I spent the rest of that day and the next morning flying…and I loved it. Although my take-offs weren’t anywhere close to perfect and my landings where…just barely passable…I could tell Krantz was pleased, telling me I was a natural. Krantz regretted to see me go almost as much as I regretted having to leave.
“Go catch up with the rest of them,” he urged me as soon as I’d finally bounced us through a passable landing “I believe they’re in the chopper simulator. If they’re as sorry a bunch with that as they were with me, you will be sorely needed.”
I idly wondered, as I made my way to the trailer, whether choppers were Valdez’s thing.
An hour later, I knew better.
Per Garrett’s instructions, the instructor had allowed part of the previous day and all that morning for them to demonstrate any aptitude in the helicopter simulator, but by the time lunch had arrived, Agent Ferris was done with Valdez. He was the first one kicked out of the trailer. Montez and Hondo had apparently been biding their time until then and as soon as Valdez was gone, they followed in short order and I arrived at the simulator to find the instructor alone. He eyed me without much hope and then glumly began my tutorial.
After a couple of hours, Agent Ferris left the trailer and returned with Garrett.
“Knight again,” Garrett noted sourly.
“Yep,” Ferris grinned.
“Ferris only has today and as we’re running out of time he wants to go ahead and take you up now,” Garrett eyed me thoughtfully. “You’ll have to dig up some chow when you can because we haven’t been able to locate a…suitable…replacement for Stockingdale so tonight you’ll be working with our communications expert to bring you up to speed on the equipment you’ll be taking.”
“Great,” Ferris enthused. “Let’s go.”
We worked for hours and I didn’t do as well with the chopper take-offs or landings as I had with the plane, although both my plane and my helicopter skills were admittedly lacking in any type of finesse, but in my defense I hadn’t had as much time in the helicopter simulator since I’d been out flying a plane all morning.
Ferris assured me that the main thing was getting airborne. If for some reason I had to get us out of there by air, it would only be because things had gone horribly wrong and our planned extraction was no longer an option, so having a rudimentary knowledge and skill level would suffice.
By the time Agent Murdock, the communications expert who was reminiscent of Stockingdale in some indefinable way although physically they looked nothing alike, had finished regaling me with the ins and outs of receivers and transmitters and homing beacons and radars, it was 0 dark thirty, everyone else was asleep, and I was brain-dead tired.
I was rudely awakened at oh five hundred the next morning by an impatient Valdez urging me to get up.
“Vamonos…we jump!”
“Jump…?” I blearily asked the air, as Valdez was already out the door.
I could hear the other two stirring as I pulled on my pants and shrugged my arms into my sleeves moving towards the head wearily, shaking my head to rid it of the strange humming noise in my ears and acknowledging the fact that I was getting as careless as the others about my appearance as well as my rack. None of us bothered to make them anymore, although I had been the last hold out to the never-ending amusement of my barrack mates who delighted in calling me their own special ‘house mouse’.
Hondo, scowling fiercely, pushed past me as I came out and even Montez was grumbling as he tumbled out of his rack.
“What’s with Valdez?”
Although Montez was far from pleased, Hondo was totally unapproachable when in the type of foul mood I’d seen clearly displayed on his face.
“Ever used a parachute, Kid?” Montez asked indifferently as he stood and stretched.
“No.”
“Well, after today you won’t be able to say that,” h
e grinned wickedly and moved past me towards the head as Hondo came out glowering at us both.
“Sadistic bastard,” he pronounced grimly.
“Who…?”
“Garrett,” he spat the name in disgust. “That son of a bitch kept the parachuting part to himself.”
“Have you never…?”
“Once,” he growled and then was silent leaving me to assume his ‘once’ hadn’t gone well.
Montez and I followed Hondo, giving him plenty of space, to the hangar where a C-130 was waiting…obviously, the hum I’d detected earlier.
“…just have to squeeze his training in before he jumps,” Garrett was telling Valdez. “The C-130 has to be back to base by tomorrow morning so we only get today. He’ll be fine.”
Garrett turned away abruptly and entered the hangar behind him, ignoring Hondo’s hostile stare.
Valdez shrugged and turned towards us, eyes shining in anticipation, motioning us all onto the aircraft.
My stomach plummeted to my feet as I realized Garrett had been talking about me. I was apparently the only one who had never parachuted from a plane and I was going to have to make the jump without any practice. Hondo had been right…Garrett was a sadistic bastard.
I listened intently to Valdez—suggesting he speak in Spanish as all of us appeared to be well versed in the language and his English skills left a lot to be desired, which made sense as our ultimate destination was somewhere in South America—and tried to grasp everything he was spouting about static lines, emergency chutes, five points of contact, and which direction to fall plus the correct body positioning, but how I survived that day was a mystery to me as we were forced to practice ground landings over and over again.
Unlike the other two, I hadn’t had anytime to practice—Valdez drilled them for hours the previous day while I was otherwise occupied—and I desperately tried to visualize the sequence in my mind, but it was nearly impossible even with Valdez mimicking the movements, standing on the empty crates in the plane and then stepping off to demonstrate how to fall.
I was as panicked as I’d ever been in my life as I’d never even been up in a plane until the previous day, much less jumped from one.
We suited up and as we approached the drop zone, the crew members strapped us in and hooked us up to what was apparently the static line Valdez had mentioned telling me not to worry, the chute would open by itself. Small comfort…I knew it was the end and that everything I’d learned up to then had been a waste because after my body lay crushed and mangled on the ground, my brain would be useless unless they decided to transplant it into someone else’s head.
First Montez and then Hondo were shoved out of the plane, and I made one last valiant attempt to get a grip on myself, forcing calming breaths into my lungs, but it was all for naught as I felt myself propelled out into space and then violently jerked upwards, my chute thankfully opening on its own.
The descent might have been enjoyable, I had an unparalleled view of the surrounding area and I normally would have been curious about where we were, but I knew that would have to wait as one part of my brain absently surveyed the greening countryside while the rest of it was furiously repeating…legs together, knees slightly bent, toes pointed, okay, I’m okay, I can do it…relax…relax…relax…yeah right…relax…hands on the toggles…don’t look straight down…45 degree angle…don’t look down…idiot, I said don’t do that…and as the ground rapidly approached and I fought to keep my feet together, not succeeding as well as I’d hoped…I began chanting feet…calf…thigh…butt…back…over and over as if that was going to help me.
On a positive note, I hit the ground on the balls of my feet and I did collapse, but I don’t remember anything after that because by the time I ended up on my back I was tangled in the lines, the wind totally knocked out of me.
Thankfully, Valdez was there to help me out of my predicament, laughingly telling me not to worry; assuring me that I would do better the next time.
Next time!
I was never doing that again. I quit…I didn’t care what they did to me…they could beat me, hang me, starve me…well I’d rather they didn’t starve me…shoot me, draw and quarter me…it didn’t matter…I was done. I’d drag Garrett up there and drop him out of the plane without the benefit of a chute.
My sympathies lie totally with Hondo.
But jump again, I did…over and over and over and just when I was beginning to feel I might survive the initial part of the mission, Valdez gleefully informed us that we would be attempting to land on a shoreline, but we could possibly end up in the water and we needed to practice steering away from it.
The water landing techniques were supposedly the same as land with the exception of releasing our chutes as soon as we’d completed the five steps and oh by the way, while we were at it, we needed to keep our heads and not panic, maintain the air pocket in our helmets to prevent us from suffocating, refrain from jettisoning any of our gear except for the chute, and try to roll over onto our backs to swim.
I desperately prayed that I could avoid the water.
Of course, the one who ended up in the drink was Hondo. His lugubrious expression did not bode well for someone. Although Valdez was his closest victim, I suspected it was Garrett who was the true target of his murderous imagination—if the gleeful glint in his eye was anything to go by—and I could almost bring myself to feel sorry for Garrett…almost.
Just when we thought we were finished, Valdez announced our last jump, the piece de resistance; we were to parachute onto the beach…in the dark.
Garrett’s life was forfeit. If Hondo didn’t finish him off…I would.
Surprisingly none of us ended up in the water, although Montez came close, and it looked as if Garrett might actually live to torture another day.
We all fell into our rack 0 dark thirty so bruised and battered that even our bruises had bruises.
The next morning, I had reason to change my mind…Garrett had to go.
Once again, Valdez had permission to rout us out of bed at five in the morning, the excited gleam in his eye not boding well for the rest of us.
We were loaded in the back of the same paneled van that had been used the previous day to pick us up after each jump, driven what felt like approximately 15 klicks, and dumped onto the same beach we had parachuted into the day before. There was a raft and a pile of what appeared to be diving gear.
It was official…Garrett was determined to kill us off.
“Vamonos…we dive,” Valdez grinned widely, his teeth startlingly white against his dark skin.
“Of course we do,” Montez sighed in resignation.
Apparently, no one but Valdez had known about the diving.
Hondo gloweringly fell into step with us as we followed Valdez towards his play toys. It was becoming clear to all of us that Valdez was some sort of adrenaline junkie with no fear, but I comforted myself with the thought that he had known exactly what to do with the parachuting so odds were fairly even that he knew how to scuba dive.
As we piled into the raft and headed out to sea, I couldn’t help but compare the different expressions on the faces of my companions.
Valdez was in his element, looking towards the open sea with such anticipation it would have been pointless to try to disguise it, which he had no intention of doing. Montez was starring wistfully back at the shore, no doubt yearning to have his feet on dry land again. Hondo cast longing glances towards Valdez, no doubt wishing he was Garrett, and picturing the nasty tortures he had in store for him.
I simply watched the faces of the others wondering if we would all make it back to base…alive.
We’d already pushed out luck to the limits. The odds weren’t in our favor.
1978
April
“Get me the hell outta here!” Hondo’s irritated voice floated clearly across the span of water. “Nobody said nothin’ ’bout no damn sharks!”
Neither Montez nor I bothered to rep
ly, climbing doggedly towards the crate, which had predictably landed on the highest point of the small rock Garrett had generously termed an island. Below us, Valdez spouted instructions to Hondo in Spanish.
“Island my ass,” the normally placid Montez mumbled as his foot lost its hold on the rock face and he slid down five feet.
I reached the top and offered a hand to Montez who accepted it gratefully.
“I’m getting too old for this crap,” he grumbled as I eyed the crate—still fully intact—noting the precariousness of its positioning as a third of it hung over the edge of the precipice. “Thought Garrett said the damn thing would bust open.”
“Unlike us…the crate apparently isn’t required to follow Garrett’s orders,” I replied wryly adding ironically “Don’t happen to have a crowbar on you I suppose,” as I pulled my knife out of its scabbard and cut the lines of the chute.
“Knowing Garrett, there’s probably one in the crate,” he responded morosely “Sadistic bastard.”
“Wonder how diving cylinders react to being dropped from a cliff without a parachute?”
“I dunno, but I doubt the gasoline’s gonna care much for it.”
“I hope there’s a lot of cushioning in there,” I shrugged as I leaned my shoulder into the side of the crate, Montez joining me immediately, and heaved it over the edge.
By the time we reached what passed for level ground, Valdez had fished a thoroughly soaked and violently cursing Hondo out of the water and was enthusiastically pulling equipment out of what was left of the smashed crate.
We joined him and the three of us managed to unpack the fortunately well-padded and waterproofed supplies as Hondo stripped off his wet jump suit muttering a constant string of epithets interspersed frequently with the word ‘shark’ and the name ‘Garrett’.
I didn’t want to know.
Although, unlike Hondo, I managed to touch down on solid surface, I’d landed on one of the jutting precipices and had barely been able to keep from sliding off into the water myself. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to release my chute and miraculously find a small protrusion to grab onto, grateful for the gloves protecting my hands.
Montez had fared much better…at first…landing on a lower level with more flat real estate, but his momentum had carried him into a solid rock wall and the loud crack of his helmet on the unyielding surface had been painful to hear. By the time I’d climbed down from my unintentional perch, however, he’d shrugged it off and insisted that he join me in the climb for the crate.
I could see why Garret had chosen Montez…they didn’t come any tougher.
Valdez, the obvious resident expert on all things water and sky related, made a textbook landing much to the disgust of Hondo who, of course, ended up in the drink, and then promptly proceeded to rescue Hondo from his own parachuting incompetence.
Needless to say, Hondo was not in a good mood.
Valdez checked the cylinders as the rest of us pulled on the wetsuits he had produced from the deep recesses of the crate, and while he was donning his, Montez and I moved the raft to the water and inflated it, tying the mooring lines around our waists, having no place to secure them and understandably loath to lose our only means of transportation off the desolate rock on which we found ourselves.
Coaxing Hondo into helping, Valdez managed to get the hundred and seventy-five horsepower outboard motor down into the raft. I handed an extremely disgruntled Hondo my mooring lines and moved swiftly back and forth from the crate loading our weapons, equipment, and supplies making sure the gasoline and oil were first so Valdez could get us mobile as quickly as possible.
According to Garrett, who had laid out a strict schedule for us, we had until 0600 to dispose of any and all evidence of our temporary occupation of the island and withdraw from the inhospitable rock that had been our landing site.
Between the inconvenient positioning of the crate and Hondo’s unfortunate dunking, we were cutting it close.
We were good to go by 0615, but because our orders were to maintain radio silence until we met up with Franklin, we all just shrugged it off as close enough. As far as most of us were concerned, Garrett was lucky we were alive and in one piece.
As the raft pulled away from the uninviting rock, which appeared to have suffered no damage from our temporary occupation—I was sure it would continue its unruffled existence long after we were all dead—Valdez took charge of the motor and the compass while I manned the portable radar and Montez and Hondo hunkered down to catch some shut-eye.
Garrett expected us to be able to make thirty to forty knots—my best guess was closer to thirty—but even at that speed we were taking a beating with the swells and I had no idea how the two of them expected to sleep.
Somehow they managed it, because fifteen minutes into the trip, after finally getting the radar up and running, I glanced over, surprised to note that both of them were out like a light.
I put it down to the fact that none of us had gotten even so much as a catnap in over twenty-four hours, adrenaline and coffee our mainstays and the only reason we weren’t all dead on our feet, but those only lasted so long.
Instead of allowing us any sleep, Garrett had used that time to brief us on the mission, insisting that we memorize every detail of the insertion and extraction plus the various maps involved, as well as squeezing in one more training session for me…something he ordered me to keep to myself.
Valdez was in his element, so I left it to him and turned my exclusive attention to the radar, watching for blips.
Garrett had warned us that we would have to be ever vigilant in order to remain undetected and had allowed us a calculated amount of extra time to make the mainland, which was approximately three hundred and fifty klicks from our touchdown site, in case we had to take unexpected detours to avoid any watercraft that might be in the area.
Our radar was top of the line. Garrett assured us that we would be able to see before being seen and have plenty of time for evasive maneuvers.
I wondered who would be missing it, noting that Garrett had a penchant for ‘borrowing’ things that didn’t belong to him.
Of course, Garrett had also told us that parachuting onto that ‘island’ was a piece of cake and that the crate would burst open upon landing, so he was already 0 for 2.
I wouldn’t be taking his word for anything else any time soon, and I had the distinct impression none of the others, with possibly the exception of Valdez who didn’t have a suspicious bone in his body, were planning on trusting his judgment calls either.
The way I saw it there were two possibilities concerning Garret: either number one…he was a complete idiot—I didn’t believe that for a second—or number two…he made a practice of lying about everything on general principles. I suspected the latter. He certainly liked to play his cards close to the chest, spreading vital information out over all of us without telling any of us everything.
About midday, I relieved Valdez at the helm so he could get some sleep, Montez took radar duty, and Hondo snored on, none of us willing to take our lives into our own hands by attempting to rouse him.
Hours later, I was practically asleep at the helm. We had to stop to refuel and although Valdez had explained it to me, I was too fuzzy from lack of sleep to trust myself with flammable liquid so I shook Valdez mumbling “Your turn” and promptly crashed.
I awoke to darkness and silence, Montez leaning over me.
“It’s time,” Montez informed me gloomily, sitting back and eyeing Valdez’s attempts to ready Hondo towards the rear of the raft with trepidation.
“You okay?”
The antipathy Montez had developed towards scuba diving rivaled Hondo’s aversion to sky diving and then some. I suspected Montez was claustrophobic. That would certainly explain why he had no idea how to drive a tank, but was an expert gunner. I hoped we wouldn’t be expected to live in caves.
“I’ll live,” he shrugged philosophically.
As I nodd
ed silently, I hoped that would apply to all of us.
Valdez worked quietly and efficiently which was highly unusual for him—the quiet part anyway—but as Garrett had succinctly pointed out before we left, noise carried over water. Since we were less than ten klicks from land and had no intention of announcing our arrival, silence and stealth were our only hope of remaining undetected…and alive.
We were loaded down with the necessary waterproofed weapons, equipment, and supplies, and in the water, knives drawn all inside of twenty minutes. As we slashed our raft, relieving it of buoyancy, I felt a momentary twinge of panic realizing that we were burning our last bridge, there was no way back until we had completed our mission or died trying.
As the motor drug the raft downward into the water, I comforted myself with the thought that Garrett would have a hard time explaining how an expensive piece of radar equipment managed to end up at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
One by one, we moved away from the bubbling water, Montez the last to leave as we—donning our masks and securing our mouthpieces—turned toward the coastline and our mission.
Valdez eagerly led the way as we silently sank below the surface.