Me, The Mentor: Chapter 13

“Let’s go to your room,” I said to Willa as we exit­ed the ele­va­tor on the sec­ond floor. 

I was car­ry­ing the pack­age with both hands and would have had some dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting to my room key. As we entered, I noticed that room ser­vice had already been there. 

“Better put the secu­ri­ty bolt in place, just in case room ser­vice comes back,” I suggested. 

We were going to be open­ing the pack­age, which con­tained the two guns I had request­ed and I didn’t want unex­pect­ed guests drop­ping in.  Using the small pock­et knife I usu­al­ly car­ry with me, I slit the tape hold­ing the pack­age togeth­er and extract­ed the two Heckler & Koch auto­mat­ic rifles.  The weapons are only about twen­ty inch­es long with their stocks fold­ed, and each weighs just over six pounds.  There were four one-hun­dred-round mag­a­zines includ­ed, each weigh­ing just over three pounds, so the total weight of the pack­age was about twen­ty-five pounds, includ­ing the two bags that were includ­ed so we could move the weapons out of the hotel with­out draw­ing atten­tion.  Good think­ing, L.T.!

When it came time for the mis­sion, we would be load­ing our vehi­cle with those two bags, anoth­er con­tain­ing the .308 and one with a change of clothes.  We couldn’t very well walk through the lob­by wear­ing black cov­er­alls and have any­one believe that we were going to set up a seminar.

Also in the pack­age was the NVD-760‑P night vision tele­scop­ic sight, which would be attached to the .308.  I knew that suck­er cost near­ly five grand, but it’s among the best avail­able and well-suit­ed for our mis­sion.  I vowed to myself that I would try to get it back to L.T. fol­low­ing the oper­a­tion … even though it would be nice to add it to my collection.

We checked and cleaned each of the weapons to ensure they were in good oper­at­ing con­di­tion and then placed every­thing in the bags we would be leav­ing with, ready for tomor­row night.

I pulled up Google Earth on the lap­top and focused in on the area near Shaddoe’s ranch.  I had spot­ted a small hillock in the field oppo­site his place, and there was no fence or gate lead­ing to the field.  About thir­ty meters beyond the hillock began a grove of trees inter­spersed with bush­es.  The hillock itself was only about two meters high and six or eight meters long, cov­ered with scrub grass.  The top of it was suf­fi­cient­ly flat that it would pro­vide an accept­able plat­form for the rifle’s bipod, and the grass would con­ceal the rifle and any­one behind it. It would be dark when the oper­a­tion got under­way, so detec­tion was unlike­ly anyway.

The plan was to dri­ve the vehi­cle into the tree grove for con­ceal­ment while Willa would take up posi­tion at the hillock and I would work my way to the ranch house.  We would have to get the vehi­cle into the grove with­out lights, so before we were to reach the spot where we would exit the road, I would use black­out tape to cov­er the brake lights, and the head­lights would be switched off before we got in sight of the ranch.  I just had to hope that we would not encounter any oth­er traf­fic on the road before we made the turn.  Once in the field, Willa would take over the dri­ving, and I would walk in front to guide her to the trees.  With both of us wear­ing night vision gog­gles, light would not be necessary.

“Okay, Wil, let’s go over it one more time.

“We’ll be arriv­ing at the site after dark.  L.T. has sent the nec­es­sary mes­sages to get Shaddoe’s peo­ple to the ranch about that time as well.  We want to get things start­ed soon after they arrive so they won’t have much chance to start ask­ing ques­tions of one anoth­er and find out that none of them actu­al­ly set up the meeting.

“While you’re get­ting set up behind the hillock, I’ll be mak­ing my way onto the ranch.  The dis­tance from the hillock to the house is less than four hun­dred meters, so you should have some easy shots.  With the sup­pres­sor, no one is going to hear the shots, so when each tar­get goes down, the oth­ers like­ly won’t know it. Unless one is stand­ing near­by, in which case you’re going to have to get off two shots in quick suc­ces­sion.  We can expect about three of Shaddoe’s goons to be patrolling around the house.  Your job is to take them out by the time I get to the house.  Once inside, I’m going to clean the crock while you get back to the car, load up and come join me.

“By the time you get there, it should all be over, but keep an eye out for any wan­der­ing peo­ple, either more bad guys or ser­vants.  Whatever.  Don’t get trig­ger-hap­py.  We don’t want to kill any inno­cents if there are any about.

“Questions?  Comments?”

“Nope,” was Willa’s terse reply.

We had been over the plans numer­ous times.  Each time pro­duced some minor adjust­ment, and there would undoubt­ed­ly be more once things were under­way.  An oper­a­tion nev­er goes the way it’s planned, and mod­i­fi­ca­tions have to be made on the spot.  I expect­ed noth­ing dif­fer­ent this time.

“Okay, take the rest of the day off.  Relax.  Do what­ev­er you want.  Give me a ring or come by if you think of any­thing that might need chang­ing.  I’ll do the same.  We’ll have all of tomor­row as well, so just take it easy.  We’ll meet tonight for dinner.”

“I may take anoth­er dip in the pool.  You plan­ning on going out this afternoon?”

“Un uh, why?”

“Could I have the car keys?  I might decide to go out shop­ping this after­noon if I get too bored.”

“I guess I should have expect­ed that shop­ping would be part of your agen­da,” I said, hand­ing over the keys.

“Well, I am a woman, after all.”

“That hasn’t escaped me.”

She smiled some­what coquet­tish­ly as I left the room.