David replied a moment later, “Copy Hostage One—I can hear motorcycles approaching Objective Central, stand by.”
His next transmission came within thirty seconds, and Reilly felt his heart thudding dully as he awaited word on the fate of the final American captive. If she was alive, this exchange might actually play out more or less as they anticipated, but if not, the Nigerian Army forces tasked with securing Gwoza could just as easily end up in a shootout with the arriving Boko Haram teams.
David said, “Objective Central is in business, seven fighters and six motorcycles headed for the Emir’s Palace exchange point along with Hostage Two. The Nigerian birds are wheels-down at this time. Will transmit updates from Duchess as I receive them, we are weapons hold until I get confirmation that all hostages are safely aboard the helicopters and en route to Abuja.”
Reilly keyed his mic and replied, “Objective North copies, weapons hold.”
A moment later Cancer responded, “Objective South, weapons hold—but we better not be for long.”
The team leader answered with a single admonition.
“Patience, boys. This one is all about patience.”
Sure, Reilly thought, unless they all died of heatstroke before the enemy made their return trip through the hills.
For the second time in Nigeria, the team was making good use of their ghillie suits, and while Reilly was grateful for the concealment they afforded at this range from the target area, the effect on comfort in this near-equatorial heat was devastating.
It didn’t help that they’d been in position since roughly midnight, and were going on eight consecutive hours of lying in wait. Nor was killing Usman as simple as a unified team ambush—because Boko Haram hadn’t transmitted the final exchange grids until the three helicopters transporting their soon-to-be-freed leaders were in flight toward Gwoza, there was no way of knowing which helicopter would land where. That meant Usman could be arriving at any of the exchange points, forcing the team to divide into three elements in an attempt to kill him shortly after his release.
That much would have been nigh impossible to consider, save for their captured ISWAP hardware. As it turned out, David’s decision to confiscate the most casualty-producing weapons opened up a broad range of possibilities for ingenious ambushes, and the team would be making full use of them.
The background noise of idling helicopters at the base of the mountains rose in volume, and Reilly could hear the throttle increasing as the sound shifted upward: they were taking off now, though David had yet to relay any insight on the proceedings from Duchess, who was in turn monitoring the Nigerian air frequencies.
But the team leader came over the net then, speaking quickly.
“All hostages have been exchanged, the birds are now wheels-up and headed home. Do not engage targets unless you have positive identification of Usman at your objective—he’s worse than both of the other leaders combined. If either of the other primaries passes through your kill zone, let them go unless you’ve heard one of the other split teams clack off their ambush. That audible will serve as the all-clear for everyone to engage as able. Until then, straight from Duchess: we are cleared hot, I say again, cleared hot.”
With a thin smile forming at his lips, Reilly reached down to pull aside the sheet of burlap before him. Beneath it was the long steel PK machinegun.
Reilly had disassembled the weapon and inspected each component alongside Worthy, Cancer, and David. All had deemed them free of defects, and after thoroughly cleaning and reassembling the machinegun, it had passed a full functions check with flying colors.
That much was no surprise—these Soviet bloc weapons were designed to perform in the worst possible conditions with minimal maintenance, and while precision machinery it was not, the machinegun had probably been rolling around Africa inflicting terror for the past 20 years, and would have been for another 20 years if the team hadn’t interdicted it.
They’d ended up spending almost as much time cleaning the ammunition belts as the weapon itself, using toothbrushes and gun oil to scrub the links and remove every trace of rust. A malfunction at this late stage in the game could be worse than the machinegun not functioning in the first place, and he was confident they’d done everything possible to mitigate the chances of that happening.
Still, the real test lay ahead, and with that moment of truth rapidly approaching, Reilly glanced left to ensure Ian was ready for his role in the proceedings.
The intelligence operative was positioned before an ammo bag where close to three thousand rounds of 7.62 by 54mm bullets were linked in an S-folded belt. Ian propped the belt aloft to form a slight dip before the rounds vanished beneath the feed tray cover of the enormous machinegun. Once the shooting began, Ian’s only role was to extract the remaining ammo belt from the bag, section by section, and keep the rounds feeding into the weapon that would send them into the kill zone at a rate of ten bullets per second.
But for now Ian used his free hand to perform the same action Reilly did, lifting his binoculars to get a view of their target area.
The ensuing wait was only a minute and a half, perhaps two, although it seemed to span a veritable eternity for the medic. Reilly saw the first motorcycle appear, a single rider with his face still covered by a balaclava now heading up the trail, followed by a second dirt bike with two men aboard.
He feverishly scanned the motorcycles that followed for any indication of a newly-released Boko Haram leader, finding with delight that identification was the easy part—he was in a blue prison jumpsuit that stuck out like dog balls among the camouflage fatigues of his comrades, operating a motorcycle whose previous driver was now a passenger on one of the other bikes. The leader also had a rifle slung, which explained why one of the men had carried two weapons on the way to the exchange.
But the real problem turned out to be determining which leader he was. Two of these fuckers looked virtually identical, and the team couldn’t afford any mistakes in making a positive identification of Usman lest they reveal their hand too soon. To make matters worse, this particular leader wore a scarf that partially obscured his face.
Ian whispered, “I can’t make PID from here.”
In the final second, Reilly’s thoughts turned to the implications of letting Usman slip through the ambush unhindered, and then he convinced himself that the man before him was, in fact, their primary target.
“It’s Usman,” Reilly replied, tossing down his binoculars and lifting the PK buttstock onto his shoulder. “Get ready.”
The intelligence operative didn’t question him, ditching his own binoculars to lift the ammunition belt in preparation for a seamless feed.