Enemy Contact - Mike Maden

1

PARTIDO DE BAHÍA BLANCA, ARGENTINA

He was a Scorpion.

First Ensign Salvio was never more proud of that fact than now. He checked his watch.

Three minutes to target.

Like his men, he was kitted out in body armor, a leg-holstered Glock 17 pistol, an M4A1 carbine, and a ballistic ATE Kevlar helmet with night-vision goggles.

The noise of the whining twin turboshafts of the EC145 Eurocopter filled the dimly lit cabin. His platoon of special operators of Grupo Alacrán—Scorpion Group—was the best unit in the Gendarmería Nacional Argentina. Maybe the whole country.

Grupo Alacrán was Argentina’s primary antiterror weapon. Like Israel’s Yamam—the elite police unit with whom Salvio’s team had trained in the Ayalon Valley—his men were the bleeding tip of the spear.

Salvio flashed three fingers to his trusted number two, Sergeant-Adjutant Acuña, who acknowledged with a nod and a feral grin. The two of them cut their teeth fighting armed Mafia gangs and Islamic radicals in La Triple Frontera, the border region where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina collided. Long a bastion of drugs, guns, and human trafficking by international and indigenous gangs, the region’s violence and crime grew worse each year. The Lebanon civil war drove tens of thousands of Lebanese to the region, and with them, Hezbollah.

And with Hezbollah came Iran.

Hell, even Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheik Mohammed had visited La Triple Frontera years ago.

His government couldn’t root them out. Couldn’t even stem the tide. But after OBL appeared on scene, American money and technology flooded in and brought the war on terror to La Triple Frontera. Kept the cancer contained for a few years. But then the Americans turned their attention elsewhere and now Hezbollah was on the move again. South.

Tonight’s mission was proof of that.

GNA intelligence had spotted a Lebanese Hezbollah commander two days ago, and CIA confirmed. But the CIA confirmation yesterday of an actual Iranian Quds Force commander on the ground near the coastal city of Bahía Blanca put blood in their mouths.

Against his government’s protests, a gathering of Hasidic youth in Bahía Blanca was scheduled for next week. Hundreds of young Jewish people from all over the country would attend. A perfect target.

And an Iranian Quds Force commander to lead the attack.

Hezbollah had killed in his country before. More than a hundred Jews in two separate bombing attacks in the nineties.

And they’d promised to do it again.

The two terrorists were holed up at a small abandoned horse ranch just twenty-six kilometers north of the city. “Capture them—alive” was his only order, straight from the mouth of the comandante mayor. A chance to finally break the Hezbollah network, he said. And to knock the bastard Iranians back on their heels.

So they saddled up at their base in Ciudad Evita, loading out three helicopters with twenty-three of his best troopers. The three Eurocopters took three different flight vectors, avoiding direct routes from the base to the target. He was pushing the EC145 range limit to the maximum but there was no point in making it easy for any shoulder-fired MANPADS the tangos might have with them. His aircraft would need a refuel for the flight back for sure.

“Two minutes out,” the pilot said in Salvio’s headset. He glanced around the cabin. Tarabini, Gallardo, Zanetti, Crispo, Birkner, Hermann. His boys were young but well trained, good shooters and duros. They met his eyes with confident smiles. They were like hungry wolves in a pack.

His pack.

“Kill the lights,” he told the pilot. The dim red bulbs extinguished.

Salvio switched his comms channel. “Bravo One, this is Alpha One. Sitrep.”

His sniper team—a shooter and spotter posted a kilometer away in the flat, open field surrounding the ranch—replied. “Eyes on. No movement. Lights out. Good to go, sir.”

“ETA ninety seconds,” Salvio said, adding in English, “Stay frosty!” He logged off. Like every other Argentinian man his age, he grew up on American movies, but it was his Black Hat jump instructor at Fort Benning who’d first barked that order at him.

Time to rock ’n’ roll.

* * *

Based on drone surveillance photos shot the day before, Salvio ordered the pilots to put down in a NATO “Y” formation at twelve, four, and eight o’clock relative to the broken-down main house. The only trees in the area were a few dense mesquites surrounding the house, partially blocking the view of the windows. Fence rails were down in several places, and a few ramshackle outbuildings were scattered around the now horseless ranch that had seen better days.

Each Eurocopter flared in near perfect sync to just a meter above

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