A Dangerous Mission

Another short from my past

            The thin smile of the moon had just slipped behind the dark thunderheads that were rolling in. Jake, my partner lifted the rusted barbed wire and let me pass underneath. I reached the other side and returned the favor. A small grouping of trees covered our hasty entrance into enemy territory. Advancing quietly to the tree line, I flipped the safety of my gun into the off position. I looked to Jake who was also preparing for the most dangerous part of our mission.

             Our mission objective was clear. Sneak into the enemy’s camp and get visual confirmation that their commander was there. If the opportunity presented itself take him out. If not, we were to assess their security detail and return for further instructions. By no means were we allowed to let ourselves to be captured. We were given a map of the area although in the dark it was utterly useless, we would have to rely on our memory. Surrounded by a wooded forest they had set their camp in a clearing. To the northwest was a small house which we had taken over and where the rest of our team stayed to provide backup if needed. Between the forest and the camp was almost a hundred yards of field. This was the dangerous part.

              I took a deep breath and looked at Jake. I could only see the whites of his eyes. We were dressed in black from head to toe, our cargo pants, turtle necks and stocking caps matched our grease painted faces. We opted to leave our vests behind as they would just make moving around all the harder. Jake moved to his belly and began to crawl into the field. Giving it a ten count I mimicked his movements. Moving forward for a two count and watching while holding still for ten. It was a slow process, but we ran the chance of running into the security detail if we moved faster. Any gun shot or warning and our mission was a bust.

            About ten minutes into our snail like crawl towards the main camp Jake held up his fist motioning me to stop. Pointing to his eyes with his index and middle finger and then to a shadowy figure ahead to our right, we froze. We ran into our first guard. This is what we trained for. Luckily the guard seemed to be asleep, so quietly we crept past trying to avoid setting off any alarms. We looked towards the camp and continued.

             We came to the outer edges of the camp after what seemed like hours with no incident. We squatted behind a livestock feeding trough and surveyed the enemy’s camp. They were in blackout conditions, not a single light was on, and there was very little movement. Jake pointed at me and then pointed at the ground. I was to stay here. He then pointed to himself and then with his index and middle finger pointed to his eyes, then the camp, and then moved them in a circle. He was going to go look around in the camp. I was to cover him incase of any mistakes. He slowly rose into a half squat position and stepped around the feeding trough into the camp. I soon lost him among the shadows.

            After about five minutes he returned. He pointed at me and motioned me to follow. We both headed into the camp. We both had our semi automatic weapons ready to fire at any moment. I also took out my handgun and cocked it. As we moved silently through the camp, I was amazed to see that almost all were asleep. We moved into position. Jake pointed to an enemy with his back to us, eating. Jake looked at me and held up three fingers. He wanted us to do the deed on the count of three.

 

His first finger went up. My heart was pounding.

 

            His second flew to attention. I could feel the sweat on my forhead.

The third finger flew into position among the other two. We stood abruptly and began unloading into the enemy. Jake let out an evil laugh as he held down the trigger.

 

Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! Thwump!

 

            The enemy moved a few feet letting out a snort before falling still. Jake laughed and handed me a camera, “Gabe, take a picture of me next to our Technicolor cow.”

            Laughing I looked through the digital camera, I set it to night vision, “Um Jake… why don’t we just get out of here.” Dogs had begun to bark in the distance. The farmer probably wouldn’t enjoy us being here.

            “Just take the picture and then we’ll go.” He put his arm on the cow’s a*s.

            “Jake you might not….” I ran.

            “Just take the damn….” Jake turned and looked at his trophy as it turned around. “Holy s**t.” Jake ran in the same direction.

 

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            Our mission had been a success. We had infiltrated the enemy camp undetected and we managed to eliminate our target. My losses were minimal, one box of fifty paintballs and one good pair of airwalks (I stepped in enemy fire). Jake however suffered a greater loss. Hours later, while I told all of our friends about our adventure, Jake had the joy of explaining to the rather cute emergency nurse how a bull had gored him in his a*s, while he got thirteen stitches. I never did get a really good picture of Jake with his trophy, but from the safe side of the fence I got a trophy of my own, a picture of Jake trying to jump the fence while a bull stuck a horn in his a*s.