Die for You

Chapter 76

Z-Hour – 2 hours and counting...

One o'clock in the morning brought me an overcast, moonless night and with that in place all we had to do was put the final stages of the plan into action. The atmosphere inside the safe house was so thick you would have needed a chainsaw to cut through it, and tensions were high.

"Right guys," I said as I slipped on my body armor and shrugged it into position, "twenty minutes till we're due the next contact with James. Let's get everything checked, double checked and packed away before he reports in. I want us to be ready to go at short notice just in case"

There was the usual bustle of activity as weapons were checked and locked down, vests and magazine pouches closed and made silent and camouflage paint applied to faces, hands and anywhere else that could catch the light as we made our approach. This wasn't going to be a smash and grab mission, at least not at first and the silencers that were fixed our assault rifles were testament to that.

Despite all the complex preparations, the plan was simple enough, though James had questioned it originally. We were going to insert onto the target from a small fishing boat that Rahim had organized and was going to pilot for us; working our way along the lakeside as slowly and quietly as we could. From my point of view, an attack from the water had the best likelihood of success; believing as I did that they'd be more likely to guard the road side approaches, especially at night.

The first report from James and Tom supported my view, three guards being seen patrolling the landward side of the compound, and only two being seen anywhere near the lakeside, and one of them seemed to spend most of his time in the small boathouse that we'd planned to use as our entry point.

There was no way in hell that Rahim could get us right up to the compound though; even the heavily soundproofed engine would be a dead giveaway across the silent waters of the inlet. So to be able to approach without being observed, we were going to be dropped off at the entrance to the inlet and we'd swim our way in; using the small diving tanks that Chris has sourced for us to make the final approach completely underwater.

We needed to get into the boathouse unseen so we could get ready for the main assault; our rifles and comms' gear packed away into waterproof bags to protect the electronics from the prolonged submersion. Still I believed it was a risk worth taking, I'd rather face one maybe two guards, than three or four.

"Yo, anybody there?"

James' voice came in over the scrambled comms system, interrupting our cleansing of the site. We were packing everything away ready to be placed into the vehicles for the exfil', time would be of the essence as we ran for the border and we didn't want to leave anything behind that could be used to identify us.

"Receiving over," Simon, our designated radio officer, responded to James' more casual contact.

"All quiet here, guys," he whispered reassuringly, "these fuckers are so casual it's untrue."

"What's the situation like?" I asked, wishing he'd explain himself without us having to force it out of him.

"We've got five bad guys on guard right now, one at the main entrance, one in the boathouse, one on the roof and two patrolling the grounds. They don't look that serious about it though."

"How so?" I asked started to get frustrated with him.

"The guy on the main entrance are sitting around and smoking, I think the guy on the roof is asleep and the patrols are just wandering around, that's when they don't stop to have a smoke as well."

"Anything else? What about the guy in the boathouse?"

"Haven't seen him since our last report, personally I think he's asleep."