A Star With No Name

     The coca leaves of the field glistened under the morning sun. A diluted mixture of water and ammonium nitrate sprayed out the back of a canister trailer, grudging dragged by my tractor. Occasionally the wind would grab the spray, forming arching chemical rainbows around me. Gossamer phantoms superimposed over a sea of emerald, something truly beautiful in this land of the walking dead.

   The crop was an experimental patch, genetically engineered to withstand Agent Orange dustings from the US mercenaries. I knew that if the test was a success the American contractors would just resort to dropping napalm over the fields, doing whatever means necessary to fill their blaze quota. However my current bosses don’t pay for my insight, just my talents.

     I wonder if they still call it a blaze quota, they did last time I was in Langley, years ago. Back then I was one of the secret army, one of the good guys Uncle Sam paid to harass the Drug Lords.

I was the best.

I jumped out of helicopters, torched the fields, and assassinated whoever the current Kingpin was, making room for the next ones bloody rise to power.

In short, I was the best.

But things have changed; now I get two paychecks, one to kill Americans for the Cartels, and one to kill Americans for the CIA.

The Church Bell rang… Not long now…

     If I died today, a star with no name would be hung on a white wall, a silent reminder to how I died in service to my countries more nefarious acts. I try not to think about it, but somehow it always creeps up.

     The test field was directly outside of the small town of Zamora, a mountain village centered around its church, surviving any way it can. In a few minutes a Columbian military convoy will transverse Zamora, on route to their primary objective. My job is to stop this from happening.

I am using stealth.

    The Sombrero on my head conceals my Next-Tel communication gear, my poncho covers Kevlar body armor, which covers a crudely hand made crucifix, payment by a little girl for some generous act I’ve since forgotten. At my feet was a burlap sack covering my real tools, my tools of murder.

     The cone shaped rounds of my RPG 7 normally reflected like mirrors, since a small flash of light could signal the enemy and mean my death, I had to dull them. Using a crude past of glue and oatmeal, I shellacked various pages from the book of psalms around their exterior. There may be no atheist in a fox hole, but I know from experience that there are no men of god on a battlefield.

     Soon the words of John, Luke, and Paul, would launch at over 4 times the speed of sound into the 3 inch armor plating of the last APC in the convoy. The dozen or so national guards men inside would experience a shower of molten aluminum hotter than the surface of the sun.

In case anyone survived, they would be blind, burned, and mangled.

In case anyone survived, I would launch a second round.

Someone inside the town would take out the lead vehicle, leaving the convoy trapped between two dead heaps, in a narrow street. Rocket propelled grenades would then rain down from rooftops, and upper story windows.

No one would survive.

The Church Bell Rang… I can hear the engines in the distance…