Читать книгу China Rising - Alexander Scipio - Страница 11

400 miles north of Lima, Peru

Thursday, 11 April, 11:03 hours GMT (06:03 Local)

Captain Bill Knarr, 20^th Special Forces Group, US Army Special Forces Command (Airborne), out of Birmingham, Alabama, lay hidden and silent in the green jungle froth of a mountainside while watching a small clearing on the south bank of the Rio Marañon.

The Rio Marañon rises in the central Peruvian Andes about 100 miles from the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of over 11,000 feet. The river flows northwest across Peru’s highlands, then drops fast and turns eastward in north-central Peru. By the time it reaches this mid-course change of direction, the Marañon has fallen, rushed and carved its way down to an altitude of only 575 feet in only a few miles of non-navigable falls, cascades and chasms.

One-half mile upriver from Capt. Knarr’s location the Rio Huallaga joins the Marañon. 75 miles downriver the Marañon joins a third river, the Ucayali. Together these three large rivers and many hundreds of smaller tributaries create the Amazon River, the largest in the world.

Knarr’s objective, a training camp of the Maoist guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, sat 1,017 meters before and below him, per the laser range-finder built in to the scope on his Barrett M-82, .50-caliber sniper rifle. The Shining Path generally was held responsible for the deaths of about half of the 69,000 civilians killed in operations by and against the guerrillas, the remaining having been killed by the Peruvian Army in sloppy suppression attempts.

1,017 meters was a long but do-able rifle-shot away. In Afghanistan, Knarr had killed men at half-again this distance on three occasions and at approximately this distance five additional times. The air was certainly thicker and more humid here, but he could adjust for that.

The temperature at Knarr’s location already was heading toward the ninety-degree mark, and the humidity sat at its normal 100%.

Hidden behind and around him lay three other damp members of his team. One klick away the other two-thirds of his eleven-man Special Forces Operational Detachment-A, ‘A-Team’, operators were in camp resting, trying vainly to dry out, and remaining out of sight.

These four men had the morning watch. They had risen at 0415 hours, one hour before the nominal sunrise at 0519. Knarr’s standard procedure was to get situated and under cover before the sun began lighting and heating the day.

His small team had arrived at their Observation Post at 0515 hours, having traveled slowly and silently across the wet, steep mountainous terrain from their hidden camp to the OP above the terrorists and their Chinese advisors. Arriving, they relieved the graveyard shift, who silently retraced the route to camp.

The Peoples Liberation Army had eight Special Forces Operators down there, training 48 terrorists in marksmanship, chemical bombs, hand-to-hand fighting, communications, and in living and fighting in the field.

Knarr’s team arrived at the OP in the mountainous terrain north of Lima two weeks earlier and reported their observations daily. Whether his government would do anything about the terrorists down there was, Knarr knew, a decision captive to American politics and relations with Peru. The job of his team was to get and provide the intelligence necessary to make those decisions. And to act if ordered.

Now that they had hard evidence of PRC advisors, relations with China also would be considered. This meant, of course, that nothing at all would happen, and they might as well all go home to their families.

As the team leader, Capt. Knarr was taking two of the three daily watches, rotating his shifts. Today he had the first and second, tomorrow the second and third, the next day the third and first. In this way he was aware of the rhythms of the camp and his men at all times of the day and night.

Knarr slowly moved a hand up to his face to wipe the sweat and a few bugs from his brow, careful not to make any quick movements that might be seen from below. So far as they knew they had not been observed by any outlying perimeter guards or scouts, but he didn’t plan on a bullet through his head being the first indication of exposure.

Knarr slowly looked left and right, confirming that he could not see any of his hidden men. He clicked once on his transmitter. In sequence, each of the members of his patrol responded with their assigned number of clicks. All were in-place and still awake, lying in the hot morning jungle. The same as the hot afternoon jungle, he thought to himself.

The PLA trainers below began to stir. They left their tents and moved around, beginning their daily routine. Two small tents housed these PLA trainers, one at each end of the clearing, tactically separated from the other tents by about 20 meters. Between them were four larger tents separated by only about two meters, each holding a dozen terrorist trainees. A large communal tent sat in the middle of the clearing. Judging from its comings-and-going, it was used for meals and classes.

The separation of the PLA tents intrigued Knarr; it was almost as though they didn’t really trust the terrorists they were training. Smart.

As he watched, the PLA men slowly exited their tents. Another day of training was about to begin.

Knarr settled-in to another day of silent observation.