![]() The Calm was overtaking me, pushing aside emotion. The excitement and the fear melted into the background. In that moment, my heart rate began to slow. Weapons raised, we moved from the treeline toward the house. People in the yard scattered and sought cover as the three of us closed in on the house. The loud roar of Tower’s M60 began to echo through the forest, as his rounds tore up the truck full of contraband. Skunky’s M14 barked once, and the sentry in on the third floor balcony fell. “Execute execute execute!” Ramirez said, his voice harsh over the radio. ![]() Stand by.” We’d hit the house from the south while Ramirez’ team would hit it from the north. Judging from the movement in the target building, there’s probably twenty guys in there.” There’ll be heavier resistance than expected. “Be advised,” Tailor said, “we’re at the treeline on the south side. It sounded like he’d double-timed it to get into position in a hurry. “In position,” Ramirez said over our radios. To its right was a large garage door, but it was closed. If one of us fell, we’d go rolling down the steep ridge, making all kinds of racket, and that would be bad.Īfter a few minutes, we were crouched in the treeline, about twenty-five meters from the south door of the house. ![]() Very slowly, we crept down the ridge, being careful not to rustle to many leaves or step on too many twigs. “C’mon,” Tailor whispered, making his way around the log. Hiking through the woods with all of this crap had left me almost worn out. My right thigh wore a sub-load with two more FAL magazines, in individual pouches, and my SRK fighting knife. My Smith & Wesson revolver was in a holster on my left thigh. 44, a medical kit, a radio, a flashlight, and miscellaneous equipment. My MOLLE armor vest was laden with magazines for my FAL, speedloaders for my. I looked down to do one last check of my gear. He swiveled the gun down toward the truck that was being loaded. Val, Harper, you two follow me.” Tower moved forward, resting his M60E4 machine gun on the log next to Skunky. You’re going to distract them while we move in. Both of you move in when I give the signal. Skunky, you stay here and provide overwatch. “As soon as we get the order to go, light up that truck. “Lots of movement in the windows,” I said. “Five more guys are loading stuff into that truck. “Looks like two more on the front door,” Skunky said. “I see him,” Tailor said, looking through small binoculars. “We’ve got one guy with a rifle on the third-floor balcony.” I looked through the ACOG on my FAL, but its lower 3.5X magnification made it harder to see targets clearly in the darkness. With his left hand, he twisted the magnification dial on his scope, zooming the Nikon optic to 10X. Skunky moved forward, slowly, so as not to make too much noise by rustling leaves and breaking twigs, and rested his M14 rifle on a log. “Skunky, where are the sentries?” Tailor asked. Smugglers now had to use boats to move their contraband from the Communist North China to “Democratic” South China, and vice-versa. The two bridges in the city of Yibin had been destroyed in the near-decade of on-again, off-again fighting that had made up the bulk of the Second Chinese Civil War. “See that big truck down there? They haul contraband down from the river to the house, sort it, load it on trucks, and then ship it off.” As if to drive the point home, a large, covered truck started its engine, and slowly made its way down the road. “Yeah, this is it,” Tailor said, consulting his GPS. “Are we in the right place?” Skunky asked. The moon was shining brightly in the sky, and the night air was cold. A few vehicles were parked around the building. We were on a ridge, looking down on the house from the southeast side. Our target building was little more than a large house, hidden in the forest, a few hundred meters from the southern bank of the Yangtze River. “I told you we didn’t need to go that fast.” We’d hiked on foot, several miles through the forest, to get to our location. Alpha Team is still moving into position. “Six-Bravo, this is Six-Alpha,” Ramirez replied. Crouched beside him, I could hear him speak in person and over the radio, simultaneously. We’re in position, over,” Tailor said, in hushed tones, into his radio. “Switchblade-Six-Alpha, this is Switchblade-Six-Bravo. So enjoy this bit from the rough draft by Mike Kupari.ġ0 kilometers west of Yibin, South Sichuan Province In this series, history has unfolded a little differently. I recently posted a bit from mine (Sweothi City, from a few weeks back) so Mike wanted to post a bit from his end of things. As regular readers know, I’m writing one half from one character’s first person point of view, while Mike Kupari is writing the other half from a different character’s POV.
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