“Copy,” I replied, relieved that we’d nearly made it. “Take us all the way in.”
I spent the remaining distance scanning the surrounding landscape. Without any significant hills to place between us and our objective, I’d instead chosen the stopping point more or less arbitrarily based on its distance one kilometer from the target. If I was going to call an audible and shift that position based on the ground-level view, it would have to be in the next few minutes.
But I was satisfied to find us in a thick swath of vegetation, complete with a semicircle of thorn bushes to the west that would prevent anyone from approaching from that direction. There were no water sources nearby and we were far from any natural lines of terrain drift that the enemy would be likely to follow, and I deemed this as good a stopping point as any other. I even spotted a sharp depression in the ground that would save us some digging time, though my decision was hastened by the fact that within half an hour or so, our night vision would be useless until sunset arrived.
Keying my mic, I said, “All right, this is our MSS.”
While the purported enemy camp was a thousand meters ahead, a sufficiently distanced MSS, or mission support site, was a key prerequisite for any reconnaissance effort. This would be the command hub from which Ian and I would piece together a complete picture of the objective based on the surveillance teams’ observations, while maintaining the standoff required to send that information to Duchess without alerting any enemy on target.
I tried not to relish in the fact that the foot movement had come to an end for me and Ian. The other three men would still have to cloverleaf around the objective to establish their surveillance sites, and that entailed a lot more foot movement under considerably greater risk.
But first we all had to don our homemade ghillie outfits, a reality spoken by Cancer a moment later.
“All right, boys,” he transmitted, “time to put on the old Sasquatch suits.”
13
Reilly took another step, pausing as Worthy halted in place to listen before taking his next tentative footfall. If patrolling with a heavy ruck was agony, then shouldering the same pack while taking three or four steps per minute multiplied the effect by a factor of ten.
Still, they had no choice; they were now moving without cover of darkness, the forest’s depths unfolding before them in a mix of murky shadows penetrated by occasional beams of blinding sunlight. It had taken the two men well over three hours to complete a semicircular route to the east of the objective, and they were now headed straight toward it at the conclusion of their initial cloverleaf maneuver. Every step now brought them closer to a possible enemy stronghold, and they had slowed their pace in favor of stealth.
Meanwhile, the air temperature had seemingly leapt from the seventies to the nineties in a five-minute span. It was as if the moment the African sun had sufficiently cleared the horizon, it began beating the entire continent into submission.
And of course, the fucking suits didn’t help. Reilly had never worn a ghillie suit, and after the last few hours of painstaking foot patrol, he desperately hoped he’d never have to again.
Heat retention was only the first problem—unsurprisingly, being draped in overlapping strands of burlap fibers was about as serene as walking with a king-sized comforter set over your head. Second, and debatably worse at present, was the sheer weight.
His fatigue jacket and pants alone were burdened with somewhere around eight pounds of burlap, and that was before he took into account the hoods covering his boonie cap and rucksack. And given the fact that the latter was already packed to the bursting point with food and water, Reilly was actually grateful they hadn’t been able to weigh the complete setup. He felt better off not knowing.
Even so, the medic had to admit the ghillie suits served their purpose remarkably well. On a typical daylight patrol through the woods, losing sight of the nearest man in formation was almost impossible.
But with his silhouette now obscured by piles of draped material, Worthy had practically transformed into a bush with legs. The effect was amplified by them taking the time to pluck leaves and lengths of dry grass along the way, supplementing the ghillie suits with vegetation that would have to be replaced when it wilted. All Reilly could make out at times was the point man’s movement, the vague shifting of a shape in the forest to his front. And if Worthy suddenly stopped moving when Reilly’s eyes weren’t fixed upon him, as had occurred on two occasions so far, the medic actually had to scan closely to see where he was.
Worthy stopped again and glanced back at him, tapping his ear and then pointing forward. Reilly nodded, listening intently through the scattered bird calls until he could hear it too: human voices.
They sounded like they were at least twenty or thirty meters ahead through the forest, and all he could make out were the occasional snippets of emphasized words or a short burst of laughter. Reilly noted two things distinctly: first, they were close, and therefore he’d soon be able to get this rucksack off his back. Which was a good thing, because at this point he felt like there was no fluid in his body left to sweat out.
And second, the voices sounded relaxed, more like men at a backyard barbeque than bloodthirsty terrorist lunatics. Reilly hadn’t expected that, feeling somewhat reassured that they weren’t expecting a team of Americans to show up at their doorstep.
Worthy unslung his ruck from one shoulder, lowering himself to the prone before setting it down completely. Reilly closed the distance to him and followed suit, careful to set down his pack as gently as he could to avoid making noise.
He watched his point man make the final adjustments to his ghillie suit, ensuring the burlap strands from his boonie hat were sufficiently draped around his shoulders. Then Worthy looked back to the medic for a buddy check of his camouflage, and Reilly had to suppress a laugh.
Worthy looked like some kind of swamp monster that had risen up from the depths, the visible portions of his face caked with dried mud that had partially washed away from rivulets of sweat. Reilly looked no better, he supposed. Camouflage face paint looked great in the movies, but the team hadn’t anticipated a need for it in Nigeria. Since that wasn’t the type of thing you could easily acquire in a city like Abuja, they’d opted for the next best thing—mixing water with dirt to form a mud paste, then smearing it over every patch of exposed skin.
The men both smiled at the ridiculousness of the other, and without speaking, freshened up their appearance in tandem.