Cold Zero: Inside the FBI Hostage Rescue Team by Whitcomb Christopher

Author:Whitcomb, Christopher [Whitcomb, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO000000
ISBN: 9780446551212
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

Once we left the road, the terrain went from potato field to mountain within the space of a few steps. I carried a bare bones load that would sustain me for no more than a few hours. The first team always goes in light for a short shift. The “down” team finishes making camp and prepares for a longer stay in position once the perimeter has been established. Based on BR-1’s initial briefing, I figured we’d be back by dark.

Reynolds led a single-file column quietly up the mountain. We followed the trail for a time but eventually broke from it into the uncut forest of larch and pine and blazed back and forth across the slope. It was a tortuous terrain marked with sheer cliffs of open rock and talus. The rain had turned the moss- and leaf-covered ground into a slick obstacle course. I slipped several times and felt the polypropylene underwear squish like a sponge soaked with sweat and rainwater. Steam rose off my chest as I opened the layers to let the cold air cool me.

The terrain looked so much like the New Hampshire mountains of my youth, I sometimes flashed back as if a few friends and I had just set out for a weekend sojourn. But then the long dirty strands of ghillie would fall into my eyes and the top of my rifle would bang off the back of my head. This was no casual hike.

We moved quickly, scanning left and right in alternating order for possible ambush. The Grand Canyon mission had taught me the value of proper patrolling techniques, and I took my assignment seriously. None of us expected anything during the first half-hour or so, but after a time, there was no mistaking the fact that this was Weaver’s turf. He lived in these woods year round, without the comforts that soften ordinary people. He had no television. He had no electricity. He killed most of what he ate and grew the rest. As vast and wild as these woods seemed, they were his backyard. If he wanted to find us, we likely would have been easy enough to find.

After more than two hours of hiking, Reynolds stopped. He crouched at the base of an enormous boulder and signaled that we had arrived. All around us, huge rocks stood like resolute sentinels at the top of a fortress wall. I looked back out the way we had just come and saw nothing but forest and fog. The trail we had just blazed faded below us into a creeping mist and that incessant, chattering rain.

Word came back down the line in whispered fragments. This was the end of the trail for Reynolds. The Weaver cabin was less than 200 yards to our left, beyond the boulders and across a deep ravine. I craned my neck, trying to maintain cover, looking to prove what I had been told. Once Reynolds left, we would move up above the cabin, along a stubbly ridge, dropping two-man sniper/observer teams as we went.

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