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The Company
Time: Friday, October 12, 2012 (mid afternoon).
Place: Guerrilla camp near Rwanda-DRC border.
Last Event: Sneaking into the armory.
As Lev, Paul, Qoqa, and Vinnie stealthily seize control of the guerrillas' armory, Wen leads Anabel, Klas, and Zhang to the fuel dump. In the concealment afforded by the two large fuel trucks parked there, Wen plans her demolition job. It's immediately apparent that the tankers are being used mainly for their pumps. Heavy hoses lead from them to a "tree" of valves, and from there various pipes run off into the camp. The setup is messy and improvised, but Wen is able to deduce the presence of three buried storage tanks full of gasoline and diesel.
With a plan in mind, Wen explains that she'll need Zhang to help her lug the loose explosives over to the "tree." After exchanging their heavier gear for Anabel and Klas' share of the dynamite, Zhang and Wen start crawling through the mud toward their objective. Klas and Anabel keep watch from the shadows. All goes well, and before long Wen and Zhang are safely out of sight among the pipes and valves. Wen asks Zhang to leave his boomers with her and rejoin the others, just in case. Zhang does so, sneaking back to the tankers without raising the alarm.
Working as quickly and quietly as she can, Wen uses her knife to excavate around the pipes leading down into the ground. She discovers that the fuel tanks aren't buried deeply at all. It proves straightforward to place breaching charges directly against the walls of the reservoirs and then bury them with just the blasting wire protruding. The remaining dynamite goes out of sight under and behind the above-ground valves and lines. Once that's done, Wen gangs everything together on a single circuit and positions the wireless receiver where it should be able to get a clear firing signal without being too obvious.
Throughout all this, guerrilla patrols stroll dangerously close a couple of times, at one point passing a scant seven metres from Wen's position! However, between the overcast, drizzly weather and the excellent concealment provided by the trucks and mazy pipes, the Agents aren't spotted. Wen eventually crawls back to the rest of her squad and confirms that the job is done. Then she, Anabel, Klas, and Zhang carefully and quietly redistribute their loads – lighter by 50 lbs. of explosives – and await a signal from Vinnie's crew.
While Wen is hard at work outside, the four Agents in the armory are busy as well. An instant after they knife the guerrillas in there, Lev ducks out the back door to help Paul carry in the explosives. Vinnie heads to the front of the structure and barricades the main entrance; he sabotages the locks and then bars everything for good measure. Qoqa conceals the bodies of the three dead men among the crates and racks, just in case.
As soon as all the dynamite is inside, Vinnie sets Lev and Paul to the task of taking stock of the munitions while he prepares his charges. By the time Vinnie is ready to wire the place to blow, Paul and Lev have located large quantities of grenades, mines, and mortar bombs. Vinnie has Lev and Paul unscrew shipping plugs and expose fuze wells on as much of the ordnance as possible, and then follows behind them with his explosives, rigging them as initiators. Once that's done, Vinnie neatly bundles the leads together and spends a few minutes closing up crates and tucking his handiwork out of sight.
While Lev, Paul, and Vinnie tinker with explosives, Qoqa cleans. Using chemicals found stashed beneath a small armorer's bench, she scrubs away the blood from the dead guerrillas. Then she tidies up behind the others, collecting telltale bits of wire insulation and leftover shipping plugs. By the time the demolition charges are set, the place looks almost as if the Agents had never visited. Once everything else is done, Vinnie connects his setup to the wireless receiver, which he rigs with a trap circuit as extra insurance and then positions up high, the antenna wire trailing out a vent to ensure that the hut won't block the firing signal.
Like Wen's crew, Vinnie's people complete their task without interruption. With more than half of the guerrillas out of the camp and the remainder avoiding the unpleasant weather, patrols are light – and of course the Agents do their impressive best to stay hidden and work quietly. Lev, Paul, Qoqa, and Vinnie eventually slip out the back door undetected. Vinnie locks up behind them and then snaps off a blank key in the lock for extra security. After that, the four of them steal over to the fuel dump.
The two squads link up without difficulty and discuss their next move. The decision is to use the six satchel charges to mine the road into the camp. This would go faster with a shovel – and fortunately, Wen spots one leaning against a nearby shack. After grabbing this, the Agents creep toward the perimeter fence, where they leave the same way they got in: by crawling under the wire. From there, the group reaches the bush unchallenged.
The Agents skirt the camp slowly and silently, concealed by dense vegetation. They eventually reach the edge of the muddy lane, which they follow until they round a bend that puts them out of sight of the sentries at the gate. This enables the whole group to work openly and quickly. Wen supervises the placement of the satchel charges in such a way that they'll crater as much of the road as possible. She has Klas and Zhang dig holes, Vinnie plant the explosives and run antenna wires into the brush, and Qoqa bury and carefully conceal the work. Anabel, Lev, and Paul stand watch, but nobody shows up.
After that, it's time to leave the area. Zhang takes point and leads the group back to Jili's position on the ridge. Wen brings up the rear, doing her best to hide the trail. All goes well, and before long the whole team is out of sight on high ground.
At the observation post, Jili explains that her souped-up repeater should make it possible to detonate the explosives from the jeeps, if necessary. There doesn't seem to be any pressing reason to move out, however. Watching through binoculars, the Agents see no indication that anybody in the camp suspects anything – there's no commotion around the armory or the fuel dump, and no sign of patrols being dispatched into the bush. Thus, they opt to sit tight. Dusk comes uneventfully, darkness falling quickly thanks to the cloud cover and waning crescent moon.
At around 18:10, everybody sees headlights approaching the camp along the access road. Wen switches on the blasting transmitter and prepares to unleash hell. Working from the number of vehicles that left the guerrilla base, she waits until she believes the center of the convoy is right on top of the mines. Then she mashes the button that will blow all of the charges.
The armory explodes with a brilliant flash even as the fuel dump erupts into a sky-high inferno. Barely audible in the earsplitting roar are fainter blasts as the mines tear the road apart beneath the convoy. This terrifying spectacle is followed an instant later by the booming of scattered grenades and shells, and then the crash of falling debris. That soon dies back to the steady sizzling and crackling of licking flames, punctuated by the staccato sound of cartridges cooking off.
Through rifle scopes, Klas and Wen scan the devastation for signs of life, and in particular for anyone who seems to be taking charge. However, between the smoke and fire emanating from the camp, the airborne mud kicked up by the explosion, the rain, and the waning light, this proves fruitless. It's simply impossible to see the guerrillas' reaction or even properly gauge the extent of the damage.
With their deadly work done, the Agents decide to move out. Given the darkness and the possibility of pursuit by enraged guerrillas, they opt to prioritize stealth over speed. Klas takes point, navigating back toward the concealed jeeps, while Wen once again brings up the rear to cover the trail. At their slow, careful pace, the group reaches the vehicles at 00:30 on October 13.
Between Wen's efforts to hide the trail, the group's scent-masked battledress, and the camouflaged tents and vehicles, the Agents suspect that being tracked, found, and attacked is less likely than coming to grief driving cross-country over wooded hills in the dark. Lying low and waiting for daylight seems like the safest bet. With that decided, Klas supervises camp setup while Vinnie prepares a meal for everyone. Then watches are posted and it's time to get some shuteye.
Klas and Lev pull the first shift, Wen and Zhang get the second, and Paul and Qoqa volunteer for the last one. The first two watches pass quietly, but the third brings trouble: Just before dawn, Qoqa and Paul both hear the distinctive sound of men moving through the brush. Qoqa immediately starts waking people up, while Paul slinks forward for a better look.
In the breaking daylight, Paul picks out a dozen armed men moving in single file. Based on their direction of travel, they almost certainly crossed the border from the DRC and could easily have come from the guerrilla camp. They're walking slowly and deliberately, carefully maintaining a fixed spacing. Paul sees the point man stop to examine the ground and then gesture for his team to head in the general direction of the Agents' camp. As far as Paul can tell, they're too far out to have spotted anything yet.
Paul does his stealthy best to return to camp, figuring that he might be able to buy his allies a one-minute advantage if he's fast enough. By the time he gets there, the others are already armed and armored, and Wen is handing out grenades. Paul hurriedly reports what he saw. On hearing this, Lev figures that there's time to set a hasty ambush if the group moves out at once. Zhang, being by far the team's best stalker, gets the job of scouting ahead. Lev sets up the others in a line, taking care to position everyone so that neither outgoing nor incoming fire is likely to hit the jeeps.
Mere seconds after the Agents are in position, the men that Paul saw come into sight. Realizing that giving his people a few extra heartbeats to take careful aim may well mean letting the opposition get close enough to detect the ambush, Lev gives the order to fire. Everybody shoots on full auto, focusing on crippling leg shots. Half of the enemy patrol is cut down at once, and a couple more are grazed. The opposition reacts quickly, returning fire in the right direction. However, by now they're outgunned and an instant later they're gunned down.
As soon as the gunfire stops, Lev shouts for a casualty report. Qoqa grumbles back that she has been hit in the leg. It looks pretty bad, but she's calmly applying pressure to the wound and fumbling for a cigarette. Vinnie says that he was hit in the chest but his trauma plate ate the round; all he has to show for it is a bruise. Everybody else is fine.