Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. Doctors in the Shadows 14 Rebels in Transit to Loubono Airport The heavy rain pelted Oyinloye's lead vehicle, a 5 year old Land Rover as the rebel force moved but at a slower pace along the valley headed west. Now only 13 men and one political guru who was huddled over a map in the backseat with Oyinloye made up the force. The rebel leader didn't like raiding with barely one rifle squad at his disposal. It meant hitting the Loubono food stores without the 3 to 1 odds he normally enjoyed. The rebel leader and his political minder were also bothered by their lack of comm. He was getting no information from his network of spies in eastern Congo and Cabinda. As result he didn't know an allied convoy was approaching Loubono with CA troops supported by French air cover. Also he had no knowledge of who his Cuban prisoner really was since his radios had failed almost 18 hours ago. Oyinloye expected only 8 CA soldiers and perhaps 4 French military customs officers with side arms. Neither the politico nor the rebel leader had given thought to the failure of their radios and how it could possibly be more than coincidence. All his men carried some variation of the Russian Ak-47. So in the politico's mind they were more than sufficiently armed to defeat the CA soldiers and Customs Gendarmeries at the Airport. But they were only able now to do barely 10-15 mph as visibility worsened in the downpour...and the time was ebbing. The traction in the rebel vehicles was poor as only Oyinloye's Land Rover had 4 wheel drive ability. Approaching Loubono Airport and Warehouse Complex Dr. Pordelini had returned from showering and changing clothes after her tryst with Hollande. It was approaching 3:00pm. Technically she only needed to be in the clinic another hour. She decided to stay in clinic until either the storm hit or the convoy arrived. At roughly 3:20pm, Lt Toma, the platoon leader for the CA troops at the airport called from the command tent at the airfield. He informed the worried doctor he had just got radio contact with the convoy. They were barely forty-five minutes away. At 3:37pm not quite 20 miles from the airport a literal squall descended on the valley with gushes of tropical rain pelted the rebels with wind gusting to 20 mph with a barometric pressure of 29.87. Oyinloye cursed loudly in Congolese from the back seat of his vehicle and halted his driver. It was impossible to go forward until the rain let up, this he well knew. If one of his vehicles should get stuck or crash he'd be in worst shape tactically for the raid. To occupy himself during the halt the politico fiddled with the radio which now only gave a scratchy warble and was useless. Lt Toma was at an observation post on the west perimeter inspecting a CA soldier's weapon and range card when he first heard then saw the serpentine file of Convoy vehicles exit off the N1 road. The rumble of the vehicles down shifting could be heard in the damp air as they started their descent down to the airport. The road-tainted vehicles some olive green others white eased off a municipal road onto the airfield access feeder road and were met by warm rain drops. The leading showers of the approaching thunderstorms were now pelting the airport. Toma immediately broadcast on the open airport frequency to the control tower, "Bastille, Bastille!" the code word for safe conclusion of the convoy. Every NGO and allied entity based at Loubono knew they were safely inside the wire. East of Loubono in Nigari Valley The 10 rebels and two politicos guarding Velma languished in their vehicles as the heavy thunder pounded the valley floor. Their vehicles sat in a loose semi-circle where they periodically ran their engines in order to get air conditioned comfort. Under the darkened sky everyone's mood suffered. The pretty Cuban woman was not even an afterthought any longer. The rebels had no commo with their leaders for nearly 24 hours. They had been ordered by Oyinloye to stay put until the raid was completed. The untrained and poorly educated minions were clueless as to why their Russian radios no longer worked. After the allied embassies learned the missing Cuban was really Castro's niece, they spared no expense at trying to aid in the woman's rescue or recovery. Through Laurent's coordination with COMNAVFORSWA many assets were mobilized to try and find the Cuban. A second CH 53 Super Sea Stallion copter, Olympus 24 had been launched to back up Brushfire 66. In the last 18 hours the Contractor "Ben" had set a plan in motion and in addition to fixed airborne jamming of unfriendly radios in the region another asset saved the day. The Brushfire 66 helicopter was diverted from its covert operations and returned to the Guadalcanal for refuel and outfitted with a ground surveillance radar (GSR) first used in the 60s during the Vietnam conflict. The J-3 had assigned Brushfire 66 to fly a huge racetrack shaped course over Congo and Cabinda to drop hundreds of the little GSR sensors roughly the size of cans of shaving cream from the huge copters into the bush. The GSR units, LAT-21s were developed by an obscure little company in Lincoln County Nevada. A lab study in 1966 at the Vietnam Wars height had proved the little radars could detect people and vehicles moving through dense jungle growth. After "Ben" had gotten several pings to his on board equipment, "Ben" and his crew had jammed all other radios in the area of ops which did not return proper electric signatures to his monitoring gear on board Brushfire 66. At roughly 4:30pm the cramped and disheveled Cuban woman informed her captors she needed to use "el banjo, rapido/the bathroom quickly." To which the politicos looked on glumly and with a jerk of their head toward the youngest rebel in the second vehicle sent him out to take her into the storm for her toilet. The young rebel dismounted wearily and wrapping himself in his worn brown poncho stepped to the lift gate and raised it for the woman to extend her shapely but now cramped legs to exit the vehicle. Velma had not had her feet hobbled since the last time they were in a hideout during the recon of Loubono. Even now she only had her hands tied in front of her and not too tight as it were with parcel cord. The dispirited rebel yanked her by her left elbow and marched her about 50 feet off the trail they were on. The woman wore only a too tight Ankara dress in orange and gold. She was wet to the bone immediately yet stumbled off the trail and luckily stayed on her feet as she still wore some cheap sneakers Oyinloye had forced her to wear several days ago. The lanky 18-year-old rebel kept glancing back toward the trio of parked vehicle with longing as he wished for the woman to finish so they could both return to the warmth and comfort of the SUV they were in. Velma Nunez squatted and with no help of the rebel, shimmied the skirt portion of her dress up her hips a few inches and simply reached her bound right hand into her crotch pulling her panties to the side and pissed as she was drenched with the pounding rain. The rebel saw the foaming gush of her pungent piss and chuckled wickedly before glancing back at the vehicles once more. Velma picked that very second to raise from her squat, hitch her dress to her waist, and lit out running due west roughly 270 degrees from their position off the trail. In six short strides the woman had disappeared into heavy brush. The Cuban woman ran on somewhat unsteady legs but all she wanted to do was put distance between her and the rebel who had guarded her. In horror the young rebel's placid face scrunched up when he turned his full attention back to where she had been squatting. Frozen in fear and indecision the soaked man fumbled first to get his safety off his weapon, and the weapon off his shoulder and into the air to fire two signaling shots to the other rebels. In the pounding thunderstorm it was almost a full twenty seconds later that the others heard the reports of the shots reverberate across the valley. Disheveled and tired the woman ran the distance of two laps around a school track roughly a half mile in the pounding rain. When she finally stopped, she braced her tied wrists on an African oak and manipulated it up and down until it snapped. Bent at the waist her lungs gasping for air, and her hands now free Velma made a brief sign of the cross and took off once again at a stumbled trot. At approximately 1650 hours, 5000 feet over the Nigari Valley, a radar alarm sounded from a Lat-21 as Velma stumbled up a slight incline and Brushfire 66 orbited 5000 over the valley. Ben and his assistant scrambled to plot the azimuth direction and range of the radar hit so they could relay it to Olympus 24 which was approximately a 100 miles away. Ben immediately wanted to descend and run the leads to ground, but the Joint Chiefs were technically running this op and decisions were being made in Embassies in Africa and a room in the Pentagon. The Pentagon nor the White House wanted any CIA fingerprints on this rescue and recovery of Castro's niece. Orders had been given that Olympus 24 and its Marine infantry unit would deploy if the hits gave good information. The disclosure of a CIA paramilitary team on the ground in Congo or Angola would complicate lots of things. Loubono Airport and Warehouse Complex The Customs Officers of Capt Hollande's team made short work of the administrative paperwork for food supplies. Dr. Peeters and his medical team trouped over to the MSD Clinic where it was announced that orders from Brazzaville had directed the entire convoy remain overnight and not return to Pointe Noir for 24 hours. As the laborers unloaded the trucks, Lt Toma and Dume organized a post and mess relief for the CA troops. Lt Toma let his men get fed first and then when all the troops were fed, he increased the staffing in his perimeter posts and walking patrols around the airport. There were no guest quarters at the airport, Dr. Pordelini and Dani decided to just double bunk their respective staffs on the airport compound versus going to a boarding flat off the airport that would create security issues. The rain was coming harder now, CA soldiers posted on the airfield perimeter could barely see a 100 meters out, let alone the maximum effective range of their FN/FAL 7.62 rifles made in Belgium. The rain did not finally abate until roughly 5:45pm and Lt Toma decided to allow the convoy troops under Dume to go into rest and reserve status. Nigari Valley Bush East of Loubono The rain pounded and the frightened niece of the Cuban dictator continued to trek up the grade climbing the out of the valley. Velma's shoulder length reddish blonde hair was soaked and hung like seaweeds on coastal rocks. But the shapely woman let nothing stop her from moving away from the vicious rebels. Back along her escape route she paused for a brief rest, knelt, gathered the hem of her dress and tore it with her teeth. This shortened it considerable but enabled Velma to make longer strides through the brush. Her shapely thighs and ass were explicitly emphasized in the wet material as she trotted along. The head politico from the reserve rebels guarding the woman was really not concerned about her escape. The bigger goal for the rebel movement was the setback the raid on Loubono would cause the allies and Congo government forces. Five of the rebels including the young guard, fanned out and traversed in a ragged line about 400 yards into the brush attempting to pick up the Cuban's trail. In the downpour it was impossible. The rebels slunk back to the vehicle rally area and gave their report to the political boss. Unbeknownst to Velma as she continued to scrabble through what was now elephant grass, the Lat-21 GSR units were beaming signals of her movement to a big dark American helicopter coming closer to her location with every stroke of its powerful Pratt and Whitney engines. TO BE CONTINUED.