David Dun - Overfall

Directly to the front of the compound was a sheer, soil-covered, near-vertical embankment that could not safely be climbed in the night without ropes. To the left side of the compound, where a wealthy American had a large home, ran a less-maintained dirt trail partially overgrown with palms, breadfruit, taro plants, and creeping vines with huge leaves that lay like a carpet.

T.J.’s group came up on the left, Sam’s on the right. Halfway up the hill Sam whispered to T.J.

“In place at station one. Sanford’s up.”

“Roger that,” T.J. said.

T.J.’s group would now be pausing halfway up the hill, waiting for Sam’s forward man to locate and dispatch two Dobermans with two dart guns. The dogs were vicious, not big barkers, well trained, and would attack unknown intruders in the night. Or at least Aussie had assumed they would. Certainly they charged the fence well enough.

Sam crept up the hill after Sanford, hoping the dogs would attack without a lot of racket. At the head of the trail a locked gate stood in the six-foot fence.

Sanford used heavy sheers to clip most of the links in a two-foot-square section of the fence. He bent back a corner, creating a hole large enough to comfortably aim the dart gun. After three minutes they’d still seen no sign of the dogs.

Sanford rattled the fence. Still nothing. Sam exhaled impatiently. The first little problem. The gardens were lush enough inside the compound that his men could hide, especially by night, but not if they were going to be jumped by Dobermans.

A single long wispy cloud had draped itself across the sliver of a moon, making fewer shadows. There were no lights illuminating the gardens save two lights a hundred feet distant and mostly obscured on the main veranda dining area. Sanford rattled the fence again. Still nothing. Sam knew the others would be nervous about this development. It was imperative that the compound be alerted only when the team was ready and only by the distraction that Sam had planned.

It was impossible to know where Jason would be staying. According to Aussie, they moved him from one burre to another as a precaution. Most of the time he was kept in what had been the Honeymoon Burre near the cliff edge.

The plan was to create a distraction that would draw the guards out of the burres. Given Jason’s propensity for working without regard to his environment, especially into the wee hours, he would likely be housed in whichever burre did not immediately have its front door flung open. In order to watch every burre, the men would need to be widely dispersed. They would then have to move quickly and coordinate without a hitch. Otherwise someone might die.

It had been nearly five minutes of quiet fence rattling and no dogs. They took out the chunk of fence.

Sam sneaked up the hill and motioned Sanford forward.

“No joy yet. T.J., move to the perimeter,” Sam whispered.

Then they were through the fence and Sam’s blood started pumping. With his goggles he would see infrared beams, but not necessarily trip wires or motion sensors or night-vision-equipped cameras. Aussie believed there were none, and that would have to be good enough.

They stayed along the edge of the lawn, following the garden beds. The fear was that someone would throw a switch, blind them with light, and shoot them before they could react.

Sam’s heart pounded a few beats faster. He reminded himself that success came to the player who got more deliberate and more determined with each bit of added stress.

Fifty feet inside they stopped, and just in time. Two black shadows streaked across the lawn, no fence to slow them. Sanford took careful aim. Sam doubted he could hit both animals. There was a pop and the lead dog tumbled and began whirling and nipping at its chest. The dart itself was heavy enough to pack a wallop. The second dog came on and just before he leaped for Sam, a second pop came from the pistol.

When Sam saw the animal’s jaws open, he dropped and kicked the dog in the throat. There was a yelp and the dog went over him, but came back like a demon. Sam charged the dog with total concentration, leading with a combat knife. As he plunged the knife in to the hilt, frothy lung blood burst from the wound all over Sam’s arm. As the animal went down, Sam strangled the remaining life.

“Shit,” Sanford muttered when it was over. “I missed.”

“Yeah.” Sam hated killing dogs but would not let himself think of it again until this was over.

“We have joy,” Sam whispered into the microphone. For a few minutes they lay absolutely still, waiting to see if there would be any response. They couldn’t afford an ambush. Sam already knew the dogs had a habit of charging the fences, so it wouldn’t necessarily bring the sentries.

Everything remained quiet. They moved forward another hundred feet until they were near the main building.

There were two guards sitting on the dining veranda at the lodge, drinking something he hoped was alcoholic.

Sam and T.J. sneaked to the right of the veranda and headed toward the far right side of the lodge and the planted gardens. Once in good cover, they came back toward the sentries to a narrow pathway between a burre and the edge of the veranda. One man was large, almost fat, the other slender, not more than 160 pounds. Only one weapon in sight-leaning up against a nearby table. Their security procedure evidenced an ease and lack of concern that Sam found hopeful.

They were in some kind of conversation, speaking French, fairly animated. Sam spoke some French, but it was hard to hear them and they were talking rapidly.

One of them seemed to pick his nose incessantly. The other scratched and picked at a bald spot on his head. Sam and T.J. quickly devised a plan.

Sam removed his boots and socks. T.J. went into a planting bed next to the building and made sounds of rustling, gradually escalating in intensity. Finally one of the guards rose and walked to the end of the veranda-fortunately without the firearm.

“Okay,” Sam whispered.

The guard continued walking down the three steps off the veranda.

“Shoo am yaamil hal kalb halloa?” he called. Clearly Arabic. An unwelcome surprise.

“C’est seulement quelque genre de fidjien gaufre — probablement.”

French from the other man. Sam guessed they were speculating that the dog was chasing some kind of Fijian gopher. The fatter guard rose to watch the first.

Sam rose and sprinted alongside the lodge around to the front, and then looked back through the double-wide entry doors and beyond through a bar and sitting area and saw the large guard some hundred feet distant, still on the veranda and seemingly absorbed in his partner’s explorations. Sam drew the silenced pistol and trotted on tiptoe straight at the guard with his gun leveled at the man. As the first sentry reached the edge of the thick foliage, he leaned forward and peered through the bamboo. More rustling. The man began making a guttural sort of “shooing” sound, and then quite suddenly disappeared in the foliage.

T.J. was taking him down. Sam took two more long steps and delivered a powerful blow to the base of the other man’s skull.

“Okay,” T.J. said.

“Okay,” Sam responded, dragging the heavy man to the garden to join the first. Taking no chances, they administered hypodermics to the carotids of both men that would have them unconscious for enough time to finish their business. Sam and T.J. retreated to the initial staging point just beyond the fence.

“Team one,” Sam said. His team crept forward one at a time. As each came, Sam tapped his shoulder and sent him to his predetermined ambush point. Coming from the sea and heading inland past the lodge, four of the eight burres lay in a row along a large entry garden that was a good part lawn. At the inland edge of the entry garden was the driveway, and beyond that the public roadway. Also to the landward side of the lodge and on the left of the entry garden stood one burre and a two-story house.