Samurai Game (Ghostwalkers, #10)(113)

He must have fallen asleep after all because he jerked awake when the radio came alive.

“Reaper One . . . Reaper One, this is Reaper Two.”

Tucker’s voice had never sounded so good. “Reaper Two, this is Reaper One, go,” he answered.

“Reaper One, we’re twenty mikes to TOT, over.”

The team was twenty minutes to time over the target. “Roger that, Reaper Two, you are twenty mikes out from TOT. DZ will be marked with IR strobe, over.” The drop zone would be marked with an infrared strobe.

“Reaper Two copies DZ marked with IR strobe.”

“Happy landings,” Sam said. “Reaper One out.”

Ten minutes later Kadan addressed them in his hushed voice over the com. “All right, boys, team two will be here shortly. Is everyone in position?”

“In position,” Jonas affirmed.

“See, Boss,” Sam said, laughter in his voice. “I told you he’d get that piece of shit fixed. I’m in position. IR strobe is active.”

“I’m looking at him, Bishop, right through my scope,” Nico said, “and he looks like he’s falling back asleep. I’m in position.”

“All right, girls,” Kadan said, “cut the chitchat and keep your ears and eyes peeled.”

Tucker’s voice broke into their coms. “Good evening, kiddies. How are we tonight? Warm, I hope. I still can’t feel my damn toes. We’re coming in from the south, southeast. I have the strobe in sight. We’re at two thousand feet. See you in a second.”

Kadan answered. “I’m at your seven o’clock. Knight is at your ten o’clock, Nico, your three o’clock, and Smoke at your five.”

“Roger, we’re on the ground. Rally at strobe,” Ryland ordered.

“Glad everyone made it in one piece,” Kadan said when all four men were down. “Let’s get to the hide.”

Chutes were buried and they moved quickly back to their hide, where Tucker called Fort Bragg.

“Valhalla . . . Valhalla, this is Reaper Two.”

“Reaper Two, this is Valhalla, over.” The disembodied voice came over the radio.

“Valhalla, we are in play and one hundred percent up.” They let Joint Special Operations Command know they were ready to carry out their mission and everyone had made it into the field.

Kadan took over immediately in his no-nonsense way. “Okay, everyone, around the map. The creek is here.” He jabbed the spot with his finger. “The expected meet site there. Here, about ten meters from the meet site, and here, another fifteen meters, we’ve set up claymores. The first two are on remote. The other two are on a time-delay fuse.”

He indicated another spot with his finger. “There is a hill here that we’ll be on for over watch.” He hesitated a moment and then looked directly at Ryland. “I can go in with Sam, Rye.”

Sam winced for him. Kadan was treading on thin ground asking, but Ryland had a bad habit of placing himself in the hottest spot.

Ryland’s gray gaze settled on Kadan’s face. “Are you implying I’m slowing down with old age setting in?” His voice was mild, but there was nothing mild about those steel gray eyes.

“No, sir,” Kadan said.

“We’ll stick to the original plan. Keep going.”

Kadan knew better than to sigh. “Ryland and Sam will make the face-to-face about here. Move up the creek to this spot. You should be able to see where they make their stand. The rest of you will be concealed in the tree line here. If ‘Murphy’”—of Murphy’s Law fame—“shows up, you’ll come up on line and engage the hostiles. At that point we will have fire on them from different points. That should be enough to help Sam and Rye, making the meet, break contact and get the hell out of there. At that point, we each pop white smoke and meet up here at the hide.”

Ryland nodded his head. “Looks good to me. Before we leave for the meet, we’ll have to set up to draw them back to the hide. Where you do you have the ambush planned?”

Kadan circled the site on the map. “Right here, sir. We will set claymores along this line here and here, using the terrain to bottleneck them into this funnel of claymores.”

“If we don’t need them, we pull them out when we move out,” Ryland ordered. “Ground anything you don’t need so we can move fast and quiet. Unless anyone has any questions, we leave in thirty minutes. Over watch, you leave now.”

Sam and Ryland and the rest of the team made their way through the tangled vines and tall fronds to the creek.

“Over watch in position,” Kadan reported.

“We’re at staging point in the creek,” Ryland answered. “We’re splitting up here. Sam and I will slip up on them using the water for concealment.”

Tucker, Kyle, and Gator melted into the jungle silently.

“In support position,” Tucker announced first.

Kyle and Gator echoed him in seconds.

“Heads up,” Nico said. “They are accompanied by twenty armed men. All have rifles and sidearms. I see no packs, no other equipment.”

“We copy,” Ryland said.

“Copy twenty,” Tucker said.

“All right, they set up right where we wanted them to. We are moving out. Sam, let’s get this done.”