by Fritz Galt
Lying on his side and still moving, he realized that he was still clinging to the handle of his car door. He struggled to keep his head and limbs away from the ground as he slid down the road and spun to a halt.
He lay in the sudden quiet, eyes closed, waiting for the car or van to explode.
It never happened.
“Hey there,” a voice said.
He felt a foot nudging him in the side.
“You okay? Get up.”
He opened hi eyes.
A group of teenage boys was standing over him.
“No problem,” one said. “You okay now.”
Where was he? In the hospital? How much time had elapsed?
He looked around him.
He had slaughtered animals and chopped meat his entire life, but he had never seen anything as gruesome as the scene before him. Bodies lay torn apart and strewn across the road. Rifles lay on the pavement, hand grenades rolled to a stop and vehicle parts were distributed up and down the road.
He had survived a collision with a van loaded with weapons.
“It’s okay, mister,” the boy repeated. “You can get up now.”
These people sure had a whoopsy-daisy attitude toward automobile accidents. He pulled himself into a seated position. To his amazement, his head felt clear. He checked out his clothes for blood. He hadn’t sustained a single injury. How could he have emerged from the disaster unscathed? Was this a miracle?
He rose to his feet and wiped off his bare knees. Even that was unnecessary.
Meanwhile, the two guards from his car lay prone on the road, and one of the heavily armed mercenaries sat up in the grass, rubbing his shaggy black beard.
The shockwave hit first, sending Hiram flying to the ground. Then the sound reached his ears. The mercenaries’ van exploded in all directions, sending a fireball upward, and bullets screaming past him.
The heat struck next, singeing Hiram’s shorts, shirt and curly black hair. He clutched the ground as several large mortar shells exploded and rocked the ground. He squeezed his eyes tight and uttered a series of Hail Marys. All he could think of was Tiffany.
He prayed that she wasn’t watching this.
Then he heard other voices, like a chattering flock of birds. They were near him, warbling away.
He opened one eye.
Bathed in the orange glow of the nearby fire, the Purang boys had fallen by his side and, like him, were praying. “Allah have mercy on me.”
The heat dissipated quickly, but Hiram slapped his clothes to make sure he was not on fire. Several boys had to roll in the dirt to put out flames on their clothing. The air smelled like a barbeque gone wrong.
The mercenary in the weeds lay prone on his back, his face transformed to cinders.
Gritting his teeth in anger, Hiram rose to his feet. He was standing in a giant pit of devastation carved into the beautiful, lush island. He was the only man alive in a heap of weapons.
The guard had effectively taken out the white van. But they had yet to save the day, for he had seen two other vans on the beach. The armed invaders were on the march elsewhere on the island.
And that made him very angry.
The brave guards were mutilated chunks of severed limbs. He had to turn to the boys for help. He sucked in his breath, a feeling of omnipotence coursing through his veins.
“There are more soldiers on this heah island. Which of you wants to help me get the bastards?” he asked.
They brushed off their hands and knees and got to their feet.
Hiram picked up a pair of assault rifles that lay nearby. He threw one to the nearest boy, who caught it and looked it over, clearly never having seen such a weapon before.
Hiram threw the other rifle to the next boy, and one to each of the other four.
He had himself an army.
Pocketing the unexploded hand grenades, a small regiment was taking shape. The oldest was their leader, and Hiram became their supreme commander.
“Which way to town?” he asked, disoriented.
The oldest boy pointed ahead of them, and they began their silent march toward town.
On the horizon, Hiram made out a plume of black smoke trailing skyward. Then he saw another. Shortly thereafter came a loud thud of exploding ordinance followed by the chatter of machine gun fire.
Chapter 20
Sean found himself in a pitched battle the moment the two vans came to a halt in town.
With terrifying ferocity, the terrorists flung the van’s back doors wide open and jumped to the street, guns ablaze. They poured hot lead into a three-story stucco building. From the sandstone embellishments on the façade, it looked like some sort of local palace, which was rapidly being chipped away by bullets.
There was some weak resistance by single-shot pistols and semi-automatic weapons, but soon hostile fire ceased returning from the place, and it didn’t take long for the terrorists to seize the building.
Hauling him into the courtyard, the skipper proclaimed, “Purang is ours!”
Just then a submachine gun rattled in the far corner of the courtyard. A last holdout.
Sean bolted behind a wall.
One terrorist hurled a hand grenade at the source of the shots. The explosion resounded around the walls of the courtyard then inside Sean’s ears. God, he was nearly deaf.
He peered around the corner. A guard had fallen off the wall into the middle of the courtyard. Behind him, black smoke billowed from an exploded arms cache.
He turned away from the corpse. Death was no stranger to him, but it bothered him viscerally. He sank to the tiles underfoot and leaned a cheek against a cold wall that glistened with dampness.
There came another cry, sounding distant and muffled in his damaged ears. He barely reacted when another huge explosion rocked the building.
Nothing about war was good.
He thought for a moment of shooting his way out of the building and throwing himself on the mercy of the natives. But they no longer controlled their own island.
An unsuccessful attempt to escape from the terrorists might land him in even more trouble.
But damn it, he wasn’t going to take part in the incursion.
Then, as he saw the terrorists stealthily infiltrate the higher stories of the building, a thought occurred to him. He was in a unique position to foil their plans.
Shaped like a scorpion with its two sets of rotating blades, the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter transferred its weight from its landing gear to its rotating blades and grudgingly lifted off the USS Stuart. Gunnery Sergeant Hank Rove noted that it was 1200 hours, a mere five minutes after they had received orders to find the Ariana and take out the terrorists and Sean Cooper.
Seated around him, the twelve-man unit of Marines was strapping themselves back into the transport chopper, each armed for hand-to-hand combat. Fully refueled, the chopper spun midair and began her swift journey across the cobalt sea.
Hank reflected that they were defended only by him and the other aerial gunner sitting back to back, chained to their machine gun mounts. A transport helicopter was hardly the proper equipment to gash a hole in the hull of a freighter. They would have to assault the ship by hand.
But first he would spray the terrorist ship with gunfire to cover his unit as they boarded her. There was no stopping a determined band of Marines. As he examined his ammo supply inside the closed fuselage cargo compartment, he speculated about how big the catch would be that day.
Every strike against terrorists offered a chance at bringing down one of the top al-Qaeda leaders. Boy, could he use the reward money for bin Laden. After a year hunting down fleeting ghosts across southern Afghanistan, he was ready for a target that sat still. And there was nothing more vulnerable than a ship at sea. And nobody as merciless as he was that moment.
He wanted the strike to go well, and then he wanted to go home. A yearlong deployment under hostile fire had been more than any soldier should be forced to handle. And now his return flight through J
apan to the U.S. had been diverted for a maritime escapade. It had better pay off.
“Fan out and capture all government figures,” the skipper ordered.
His men bashed doors open and scrambled up staircases.
Sean fingered the trigger of his gun as he followed the skipper to the upper floors. The man’s back kept spinning about as he turned at staircase landings. The skipper’s boots echoed farther and farther ahead in the muffled deadness of his ears.
Finally Sean came to an open door. He stepped through and came across an office with a ceiling fan and dusty file cabinets. The skipper wasn’t there. Crouching and ready to attack the skipper, he crept past a council room and what looked like guards’ quarters, but those rooms were also unoccupied. The skipper was gone.
Then a hand reached from behind him and ripped the AK-47 from his grip. What the hell? Sean hadn’t heard anyone approach from behind. He rose and turned around.
The skipper seemed disappointed as he raised Sean’s gun between them.
“I wasn’t trying anything,” Sean protested.
The skipper’s hand tightened around the trigger.
“Honest, I wasn’t,” he said, images of summary executions passing through his mind.
The muzzle rose deep and dark, level with Sean’s eyes. Beyond that, he saw the skipper’s trigger finger pull.
He closed his eyes. Kate!
A metallic click echoed down the empty chamber.
He opened his eyes, puzzled.
The skipper laughed as he tossed the assault rifle away.
“We gave you one with an empty clip,” he said, with a derisive laugh.
Okay, Sean could take a little humiliation. He could swallow his pride.
“How could we have miscalculated?” the skipper wondered aloud, and turned to face the bare rooms. “There’s nobody here. If we don’t jail their government, we’ll risk an uprising.”
Sean was still in the process of letting out his breath, and wasn’t ready to help the skipper just yet.
“I certainly wouldn’t resist you guys,” he offered.
It seemed like a small, happy country. The government didn’t bother to show up for work in the middle of the week, they didn’t seem to have touched their filing cabinets in months, and their people walked around in festive clothing. Had he stumbled upon the Shangri-la of the South Pacific, where everybody was content, and there was no political strife? If so, the skipper’s full-armored assault seemed a tad excessive.
“Aren’t the people supposed to greet you with sweets and flowers?” Sean asked a bit sarcastically.
“That’s the theory,” the skipper said. “But you never can tell.”
Sean was still trying to get over his near-death experience. He limped over to the president’s leather office chair. There, he spun the globe that sat on the desk. Were the terrorists playing Russian roulette with countries? When the globe came to a stop, he stared at the first country he saw, the U.S.S.R. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wasn’t still intact. Nor was Yugoslavia. Hadn’t Zaire changed its name, and hadn’t Hong Kong turned red like China?
The Purang flag was priceless, a single palm tree against a blue field. It looked like a child’s drawing.
And the note left on the president’s desk could hardly have been serious. “Remember to call the pool boy for Friday. Love, Rennie.”
Then he realized that his smile didn’t derive from ridicule. Rather, it stemmed from a desire he had long since forgotten he had. He wanted the world to be simple again.
The Marine helicopter circled behind the cargo ship, steering well away from its freight crane, tower and twin funnels.
Hank made out the name on the stern, just below the Liberian flag. “Lost Horizon.”
“That’s not the Ariana,” came the pilot’s voice over the headset. “I’ll radio the Endorse.”
They circled closer while the pilot made his report. Hank didn’t see a soul onboard. It was just a rusty tub, the paint on its deck having peeled away in large, dark spots.
Then something caught his eye on the horizon.
“Smoke at two o’clock!” he shouted over his mouthpiece.
The chopper shuddered and straightened. They changed course and headed across the waves toward land. From his new angle, Hank lost sight of the twin pillars of black smoke.
“Looks like there’s a battle underway,” the pilot reported. “Prepare your combat gear. We’re going in.”
Hank made sure that his seat belt was firmly fastened, then kicked open the cargo door. In the rush of air sucked out of the belly of the chopper, he held on tight to his mounted gun and swiveled it out over the yellow fields dotted with orange-blossomed flame trees. From the air, it looked like a sleepy place.
But you could never be sure.
He flicked off the safety and began to seek out targets.
It didn’t take long for Hiram to put together what was happening around the government palace.
He and his armed squad of local boys stepped off the island’s single bus and took up positions across the street from the building. Smoke still rose from its roof. Gunmen in military fatigues, the same men he had seen land on the beach, hung out of several windows, aiming their weapons down at the street.
The palace seemed to have two entrances. One was an office entrance, and the other was an arched entryway leading to an inner courtyard. He watched in horror as two gunmen carried out the limp remains of two guards and heaved them onto the street where they settled in a cloud of dust.
It was high noon in Purang, and Hiram felt strangely out of place. He had never served in the military. He’d never held a gun in his hand. Now, suddenly, he was forced into a role he had only seen in the occasional movie.
What would they have done in The Dirty Dozen?
He trained his assault rifle on the back of one of the terrorists as he wiped his hands and turned to reenter the palace.
Staring through the very precise scope, he found a spot right between the man’s shoulders.
He curled an index finger around the trigger and waited for his heart to stop pounding. He timed the man’s stride, then gently squeezed.
Nothing happened.
He tried again. Nothing. This was a submachine gun. Maybe he had to hold down the trigger.
Through his other eye, he caught a glimpse of someone reaching under the stock of his gun. It was a tiny hand, from one of his Army boys. He felt a switch flip.
Suddenly, the gun went off, firing several volleys under his hands, pounding repeatedly against the top of his shoulder. The barrel rose involuntarily, spraying the front of the palace with bullets, shattering glass that showered the street.
He removed his finger from the trigger, and the firing stopped.
Ouch. He lowered the gun and rubbed his throbbing shoulder. He hadn’t expected such a violent recoil. Ahead of him, the two terrorists ran back into the courtyard unharmed.
Several of the other boys opened fire next, their guns exploding from behind cars parked on the street. Some of their bullets entered the blown-out windows. Others bounced off the sides of the building, flecking off pieces of white plaster.
Then flashes of light signaled bursts of machine gun fire from inside the building. Windows shattered around him. The bastards were returning fire.
Hiram spun around and threw himself into the nearest shop. Meat was swinging against his shoulders, beating at him. He came to a stop and found himself face to face with a pig’s head, its dead eyes locked on his.
He wrenched his attention back to the shop. His hand had landed on a butcher’s block. On it lay a meat cleaver and several carving knives with stout wooden handles. He picked one up, pig blood still dripping from its blade, and hefted it expertly in the palm of his hand.
He was an expert with the knife and suddenly, he knew what he had to do.
The moment his office window shattered, Sean hit the floor. And with the breaking of glass came the shattering of his illusion tha
t Purang was a peaceful place, a place that would offer no violent resistance.
The president’s office was ripped apart by erratic gunfire. The national flag toppled and landed on his head.
He let the fabric cover him as glass splinters sailed across the room, their jagged edges potentially more harmful than the bullets.
He lay whimpering under the banner, his eyes squeezed tight.
Why me? What on earth had he done to deserve all this? Now, he would surely die, holed up in a government building like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He wasn’t even trying to take over the government.
All he wanted was to find his family and get on with his life.
Gunfire erupted sporadically from several directions. The building was surrounded. Even if he wanted to shoot his way out of the building, there were no bullets in his gun.
And how could the terrorists hold out forever against such full-scale resistance? Where did Purang get such a professional army?
Then a whistling, whirling sound flew through the broken window. He peered from under the flag in time to see a butcher’s knife spinning through the air, coming right at him and embedding itself in the president’s bulletin board just above his head.
The skipper sprang to the window and responded with rifle fire. The mechanical chattering sound seemed increasingly distant to Sean. Then he felt liquid splatter on his forehead.
He reached up and wiped off droplets of blood. Looking up, he found its source. Animal blood still dripped from the handle of the butcher’s knife.
He needed that knife!
He lifted a hand and reached toward the bulletin board where the blade still quivered. He gripped the wet handle and pulled the knife free.
Unnoticed by the skipper, he slipped the knife under the flag and hid it there. It was his only weapon. His only way of breaking free.
The terrorists truly were in a desperate situation. Could they make it back to the ship? Perhaps they could slink away into the watery wasteland, never to be seen again, only to emerge months later as a Kuwaiti-flagged merchant ship in Norway.