W. Griffin: The shooters

The M134D-with six rotating barrels like the original Gatling, but ones electrically powered rather than hand-cranked-on Red Riding Hood One was fed by a 4,400-round magazine that could empty in just over sixty seconds.

In the ten seconds the weapon did fire, it sent from Red Riding Hood One almost seven hundred 168-grain bullets into a corrugated steel shed that contained a nearly new Cummins diesel-powered one-hundred-fifty-kilowatt generator. This caused the generator to malfunction-and the lights in the compound to go black.

A moment later, the diesel fuel in the tank behind the shed burst into flame.

Several moments after that, the electric lights of the compound flickered back on as an automatic system fired up the backup generator, an identical Cummins.

This coincided with the arrival of Red Riding Hood Two from the north at M-Minute plus five seconds.

And again there was an orange ribbon coming from the sky.

And again somewhere around seven hundred bullets flowed down, these striking the shed housing the backup generator-and causing the generator to malfunction, its fuel supply to ignite, and the lights in the compound to go out again.

As Red Riding Hood Two left the immediate area, Red Riding Hood Three and Big Bad Wolf appeared from the south.

Red Riding Hood was going to go in as low as possible to the ground and train its M134D on the corrugated steel building that the satellite imagery interpreters believed to be the compound headquarters-lots of people and a rather powerful shortwave radio station had been detected-and a motor pool behind that building.

Big Bad Wolf was going to land in the compound as soon as Red Riding Hood Three fired at the headquarters building, then off-load three shooters. The shooters would rush to the pole where DEA Special Agent Timmons and the two gendarmes had been chained, free them, and load them onto Big Bad Wolf, which would then immediately take off, under cover of Red Riding Hood One and Two, which by then would have returned to lay down covering fire.

Red Riding Hood Three by then would be seeing what it could do to facilitate the passage of the gendarmes from the highway to the compound, conducting what is known as "reconnaissance by fire."

Everything went as planned until Red Riding Hood Three picked up a little altitude to give it a better shot at the motor pool.

The pilot of Big Bad Wolf, the copilot, and Castillo-who was kneeling on the deck just behind them-almost simultaneously said, "Oh, shit!"

"Fuck, he hit a wire," the copilot said. "It cut the fucking blade!"

Red Riding Hood Three, which was tilted to the left, straightened out for a moment, looked as if it was trying to turn, then tilted back left, and was almost upside down when it crashed into the motor pool.

The pilot looked at Castillo for orders.

Castillo gestured impatiently at the ground.

"As soon as you're down, turn it around so we can take off the way we came in," Castillo ordered.

"Big Bad Wolf. Three is down. Repeat, Three is down. Two, go cover the gate. One, give us some covering fire."

"One on you, Big Bad Wolf."

"See what you can do for the guys on Three, Colin," Castillo ordered. "I'm going to get Timmons. Give me your chain-cutters."

Leverette gave him a thumbs-up and jumped off the helicopter.

Castillo turned to the two shooters.

"You go with Mr. Leverette," Castillo said to one, then to the other said, "And you come with me."

There was also a former Green Beret and a Chicago police officer on the helicopter, the latter grasping a snub-nosed.38 Smith amp; Wesson revolver.

"You stay on the chopper," Castillo ordered them.

"He's my brother-in-law," Mullroney protested.

Shit. That's why we brought him along in the first place.

Castillo looked at Lorimer and shouted, "I don't want him hurt, Pegleg. Got it?"

Lorimer nodded.

Castillo turned to Bradley.

"Lester, cover my back."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Special Agent Timmons was sitting with his back resting against the pole to which he had been chained. He was looking with confused eyes at what was going on. The two gendarmes were asleep.

"Hey, Charley," he said with slurred speech, dimly recognizing his brother-in-law and smiling. "What's up?"

Mullroney and Lorimer worked as a team to hold and cut through the chain. Castillo then hoisted the freed Timmons over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. He started trotting toward Big Bad Wolf. Mullroney and Lorimer quickly snipped the chains on the gendarmes, then followed Castillo back toward the helo.

Halfway there, Castillo suddenly felt as if somebody had hit him with a baseball bat in the leg, and then, a moment later, in the buttocks.

He felt himself falling.

"Oh, shit!"

He heard a burst from a CAR-4, then his lights went out.

"It's okay, kid, we've got him."

"Don't you call me kid, you oversized sonofabitch!"

"Goddamn, Charley, didn't you hear me when I said to remember to duck?"

"Where's Timmons?"

"You took a couple of hits-one in the ass, one in the leg-from what I'd say was that short Russian round, the 5.45?39. Not too much tissue damage, but you lost a lot of blood."

"Where's Timmons?"

"You want a shot? Or the happy pill?"

"I don't want either. Where the fuck is Timmons?"

"Not your choice, Charley, the one you took in the leg broke it. It's going to start hurting bad right about now."

"I don't want to go out, goddamn you!"

He didn't remember a needle prick, or any sense of being drugged, or even of feeling dizzy.

One moment, he was fighting with Colin Leverette.

The next moment, nothing.

[TWO]

Room 142

Hospital Britanico

Avenida Italia 2420

Montevideo, Uruguay 1035 24 September 2005 "I shudder to think how you're going to answer the calls of nature in that apparatus, Colonel," Chief Warrant Officer Five Colin Leverette said to Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo from the door of the room.

Castillo was suspended over-not in-his hospital bed. His left leg was encased in plaster from above the knee. Stainless steel cables attached to small D-rings in the plaster held the leg six inches over the mattress. This was necessary to keep the leg straight, this in turn being necessary to accommodate a cradle under Colonel Castillo's buttocks, which allowed his left buttock to hang free, which was also suspended from stainless steel cables attached to a frame above the bed.

Colonel Castillo gave Mr. Leverette the finger with his right hand. His left hand held a long black cigar.

"I don't think you're supposed to be smoking," Leverette said.

Castillo gave him the finger again.

"Where am I, and what am doing here?"

"You're in the British Hospital in Montevideo, Uruguay. I think the term is 'recuperating.' You apparently were involved in a firearms accident while hunting feral swine in the north."

"And Timmons?"

"Special Agent Timmons is undergoing drug detoxification in Saint Albans Hospital in Washington, D.C. Sergeant Mullroney is also in Saint Albans, recovering from minor injuries he suffered while shooting feral hogs with you."

"Anybody else get hit?"

Leverette shook his head.

"Amazing. They were waiting for us, Charley. A lot of them."

"What I remember is Three hitting an antenna cable and going in-"

"What it hit was a fucking cable, one of a bunch of fucking cables, strung across every area in that compound large enough to land a chopper. I don't see why everybody didn't hit one."

"But just Three did?"

Leverette nodded.

"And?"

"Bruises and contusions, one broken arm. We brought him here, too. They set the arm and put him on an American Airlines flight last night for Miami."

"Why here?"

"You lost a lot of blood, Charley, and your leg was a mess. Delchamps took one look at you in Formosa and decided you were in no shape for a ten-hour flight to the States. So he flew you here."