CHAPTER TWO – THE RETURN

In the jungles of Colombia, Jonas, Mack and the men of Alpha Company set explosive charges throughout the coca lab. They carefully concealed the charges and withdrew from the lab. This one hadn't been in use for a few months. The drug lord had probably shut it down knowing it had been compromised from their earlier visit but eventually they'd move their drug operation back to it. The drug producers never stayed in the same location very long. They'd just switched their primary location the day the men arrived in country. What at first seemed another frustrating set back turned into a boon when their informant learned the cartel didn't know of their arrival; it had been a routine change of the lab they were using in attempt to avoid exposure. This time the team had been inserted via zodiac boats snaking up a river under the cover of night. Observation photos taken by satellite helped them detect the new drug processing location. Together with Bravo team, they would be taking out three dormant labs and the newly activated one.

Now wrapping up its eighth day with at least another day ahead of them due to the additional lab, the men were tired, dirty and already sick of eating MREs. Charlie and Mack had caught several fish that afternoon and cooked them over Sterno cans. Jonas hoped this mission ended more successfully than on their last visit here. They had two teams on the mission this time and getting out would be the tricky part again. Once they were certain that the labs had been destroyed, they had to make it several miles to the river where Zodiac boats would be waiting. Hopefully they could just disappear into the night and into Ecuador for extraction while the Cartel's hired thugs still searched the jungle.

"You take the first watch. Wake me at zero hundred hours," Jonas ordered Charlie. The men had trekked southwest arriving near dusk at the active lab. They'd broken off into pairs and set up a perimeter in the heavy undergrowth of the jungle around the lab. They'd observe activity throughout the night to finalize planning the attack the following night.

While the temperatures were fairly moderate and they had plenty of shade, the humidity and bugs left them all uncomfortable. At their observation point, Mack staked the small tent hoping for some shelter from the mosquitoes and other insects. Frogs, birds and howling monkeys all lent their voices to the night making it difficult to sleep. Mack turned to his side, trying to get comfortable on the ground using his pack to raise his head. He'd sleep better when he got home, in his own bed, knowing what this mission had put a major hurting on the coca production and amount of cocaine flowing into the states. Realistically, he knew that the hired workers at the lab would pay a higher price than the cartel leaders who only stood to lose money and already had millions stashed. They were the ones who profited from the poison they produced.

Waking a little before midnight, Mack wiggled out of the tent. Bob turned his head to verify the sound of movement. Mack nodded to him, glad to see him still alert. He scanned the area then stepped over to a tree to relieve himself. Donning his own pair of night vision goggles, he settled into position next to Bob.

"Anything going on?"

"Think they run this place twenty four, seven."

"Probably," Mack confirmed. "Usually have two shifts and sleeping barracks."

This lab had been built into the side of a hill instead of completely underground. That seemed to give them a false sense of security based on the number of men they had guarding the entrance. They also may be lax considering they had just established this location and didn't think they could have been discovered yet.

"They seem to have a pattern to guard changes?"

"Every two hours straight up. After the first hour they tend to get bored."

"Good."

"And most chain smoke so they're easy to keep up with."

"Anything else I need to know."

"Yeah. There's a damn ant hill three feet that way."

"I'll remember that. Thanks. Get some sleep. See ya at four."

Bob slowly rose and stretched out stiff muscles. He took a long swig from his canteen then visited the same tree Mack had before edging into the tent.

Charlie and Mack listened carefully as Jonas and Dale, the Bravo Team leader, compared notes from what the teams had observed. Once they outlined all the pertinent information, the men began brainstorming. Standard Army protocol for mission planning didn't apply to Delta units. All the men threw out ideas. Sometimes they were ridiculed or called each other names. Profanity spewed and on occasion they nearly came to blows. Most soldiers couldn't operate this way but the men of Delta didn't think or operate like regular Army units. They were above the typical bureaucracy and politics and respected each other and their abilities.

It took nearly an hour to rough out the plan for this mission then start polishing the details and assignments. The men consumed MREs while a few questions were asked, details rehashed and modifications made. Finally, they broke to continue observation and rest up.

At precisely three twenty one in the morning local time, the perimeter guards were taken out by the advance teams. The guards never heard a thing. In the next twenty minutes, explosives were placed surrounding the lab; more than enough to destroy the lab three times over. They would be set off in two stages. The first would inflict some damage designed to lure the workers out of the lab. Mack pitied anyone who failed to exit in the two minutes after the initial explosion.

It took less than twenty minutes to get to the elevated hill where they could safely monitor their handy work. They turned off their night vision goggles as they began the countdown to the first blast so as not to be temporarily blinded.

"…three, two, one, ka-boom," Charlie counted down as the men were rewarded with the flash of the simultaneous explosions. The sound reached them a few seconds later. Using night vision binoculars, Mack and Bob watched as workers began streaming from the lab, smoke rolling out around them. Chaos ensued and men with automatic rifles began to fan out around the lab. Bob grunted as one of the gunmen open fired on several lab workers retreating through the jungle.

Charlie, the explosives expert in Alpha Company, took a couple of steps back. He held up his cell phone and waited to snap a picture of the men of Alpha and Bravo Company silhouetted against the flames of the second explosion lighting up the night sky. Honors for placing the calls that would trigger the remote detonators at the other labs went to Jonas, Mack and Dale. An observation plane had launched from a US Naval ship off the coast and would record the destruction of the other labs.

"Renegade two three, this is Wiley Coyote. Roger that confirmation. Proceeding to pick up. Out." Jonas gave the hand signal telling the men to move out after receiving the transmission from the Navy observation plane.

Charlie took point and the men immediately fell into line and began the trek south. They barely made it across a hard packed dirt road before hearing the rumbling of trucks which roared pass moments later. They could make out over a dozen armed men riding in the back of the truck. Reaching the river a half hour later, the men rendezvoused with the other members of the team that were waiting with the zodiac boats. The men piled into the boats and got underway. For two hours they snaked down the Putumayo River. Lined by heavy jungle most of the way and being the middle of the night, they didn't encounter anyone during the trip and beached the boats just before dawn.

The men began the work of repacking the boats and equipment before bathing themselves in the water, careful to remove all traces of camouflage paint from their faces, necks and hands. Changing into civilian work clothes, they set off through the jungle to the small airport just three clicks from the river.

The sole gate agent at the airport regarded the arrival of the Gulfstream jet with suspicion. The pilots took care of paying for more fuel and came in to file their return flight plan.

The pilot's business card said they flew for Buchanan Oil Industries out of Galveston, Texas. While the pilots fixed themselves a fresh pot of coffee, the agent stepped into the small office and called the number listed on the card. Hearing a series of clicks as the international call connected, the voice answering the line confirmed he'd reached Buchanan Oil. Regardless, he called his contact at the airport in Puerto Asis, Colombia back to tell him of the plane's arrival. Considering the amount of cash that had been offered for information regarding the lab explosions hours earlier, making a phone call and delaying the men's departure as long as possible seemed the least he could do.

About half an hour later, a ragged looking group of men arrived further raising his suspicions. The men left several large canvas bags near the tarmac before making their way into the airport. The agent watched as a man who stood at least six foot three shook hands and spoke to the pilots who then headed out to run a preflight check on the aircraft. Jonas then strode to the counter.

"Necesito ver sus pasaportes," he informed Jonas.

Jonas looked to Charlie to translate, pretending not to understand.

"He needs to see our passports."

"No problemo." Jonas agreeably handed over his passport.

The man seemed edgy as he examined the document with an entry date four months prior from their arrival for the failed mission.

"He asked if we've been here four months," Charlie again translated with the merest hint of a grin.

"Yeah, and I'm ready to get home to my wife," Jonas smiled calmly at the man.

Jonas listened as Charlie told the man the purpose of their visit had been to do maintenance work on some oil rigs for a subsidiary company.

The man hesitated, eyeing the group. All seemed in order as he took in their unshaved faces, dirt under their nails, worn khaki and denim pants but his eye brows raised when he noticed most of the men wore similar military style boots. He raised his eyes to meet Jonas's gaze and noticed a cold glint in eyes that drilled into him.

Without stamping the passport, he held it out to Jonas.

"Is there a problemo?" Jonas's voice had dropped even deeper, to a threatening level. He figured the man could understand at least some English.

The man swallowed as he glanced around seeing the eyes of the men all on him. Fear set in. He couldn't possibly stop these men on his own and trying to delay them could only lead to them killing him or ending up in the middle of a fire fight between them and the cartel thugs.

"No. No, problemo, Señor." He stamped the passport, knowing whether he did so or not was actually irrelevant. One at a time the men handed him their passports. His hands shook slightly as he handed them back, having no clue that most of the stamps in the passports where forgeries.

Two of the men hung back keeping an eye on him while the others loaded their packs and the large bags into the plane's cargo hold. He waited until the two men exited the airport lobby to board the aircraft to call and report that the suspicious plane only belonged to an oil company and had checked out. He figured it better to continue to be poor than dead.

Settling into the seats, the men buckled up as the pilots wasted no time in taxiing and getting the aircraft airborne. They took a route west over Ecuador keeping them out of Colombian air space and heading toward Texas. They banked northeast over the Yucatan peninsula skirting Cuba and headed home.