Girl Rides the Wind

by Jacques Antoine

  “The Admiral wants this to be your operation,” he said, and Emily nodded.

  “That means it’s yours to screw up,” Perry said.

  “I won’t let you down.”

  “It also means you’ll be exposed, you know, in case Diao is looking for an opportunity,” Theo said. “Let your squad have your back on this one.”

  “Yeah,” Perry said, echoing that sentiment. “This isn’t the moment for individual achievement.”

  “Right, whatever,” she said. “I know how to take care of myself… and my men.”

  “No heroics, you got me?” Theo said. “That’s an order. You leave that shit to Tarot and Racket. They’re not targets like you are.”

  Emily grunted and glowered at them, and turned back to her men.

  “Martinovich will be ready to ferry them over at oh-two-hundred,” Perry said. “That gives her ninety minutes.”

  “That’ll be plenty. She’s got the same satellite imagery the rest of the teams do. All she needs to do is choose their spots and get them dug in.”

  “The first incursion leaves at oh-four-thirty. She’s gonna have to get those meatheads moving.”

  “At least she’s not limping anymore. She was like the walking wounded when we met with the Admiral.”

  “Do you think he noticed?” Perry asked.

  “How could he not?”

  “Well… he didn’t let on, that’s for sure.”

  “He’s known her as long as we have. Maybe he’s just used to her ways. I take it you talked to her men…”

  “Yup,” Perry said. “Their minds are in the right place now.”

  * * *

  It took less arm-twisting than she expected, but Martinovich lifted off with her squad and equipment on board, and Billy Baca in the co-pilot’s seat of a CH-46E at zero-one-thirty. They touched down thirty minutes later on the north end of Pagan Island.

  One of the largest of the Northern Marianas islands, Pagan is really more like two islands formed by the peaks of two strato-volcanoes, connected by a narrow strip of land. Like several of the islands at the northern end of the chain, volcanic eruptions forced evacuations of all residents, leaving them uninhabited, though Admiral Crichton was convinced a few homesteaders had returned to occupy the southern end of Pagan and insisted on steering clear of them.

  Complex negotiations with the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, lasting several years in the face of substantial public demonstrations in Guam and Saipan, had delayed the Navy’s access to the northernmost islands, and sensitivities were still high.

  “You know what to do?” Emily asked, yelling over the rotor noise as Tarot and Racket hauled two large packs off the back ramp.

  “You bet, LT,” Colón replied. “We set up a decoy camp near the upper lake, and then hot-foot it down the east face, leaving a trail to the southern escarpment.”

  “Do you have the flares?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Farah replied. “We got this. You don’t need to worry about us.”

  Emily nodded and stepped off the Phrog’s back ramp onto a black sand beach on the western edge of Mount Pagan. Martinovich eased the bird back into the sky and roared off toward the northern slope, and Emily indicated a lagoon on the far end of the beach, cut off from the ocean by a narrow spit of land and filled with a mixture of rainfall and storm wash-over.

  “Over there, in the heights above the water. We’ll build the first one there.”

  “That’s gotta be five hundred feet up,” Tarot said.

  “We don’t have much time. Let’s get moving.”

  “No way, LT,” Racket said, inserting himself between Emily and one of the smaller packs. “We got this.”

  “What are you doing?” Tarot whispered at him.

  “We need you to clear a path for us, LT.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Whatever. Give me the big torch.”

  Jungle foliage partially covered the slopes, though large open patches where the volcanic soil seemed to have discouraged any growth made finding a path easy, especially under a bright moon. The three of them picked their way around the southern edge of the lagoon, ducking under palm fronds and stepping through tall grass. Higher up, the palm foliage gave way to Australian scrub pines, until they cleared the volcanic tree line.

  “See,” she said. “It’s like we thought. From the sea it looks forested, but up here it’s barren, which means we’ll be able to move much more quickly than they’ll expect.”

  “How’s this spot?” Tarot asked. “It’s not fully concealed.”

  “Yup. You know what to do.”

  Racket set to work building an impromptu shelter from fallen trees and larger limbs, while Tarot dragged logs down the slope above them to form a low barricade. A thin, straight branch, eight or nine feet long, wedged among the logs formed a sort of flagpole, to which he attached a red cloth.

  “Set it up so the smokers go off in an hour,” Racket said.

  “This isn’t rocket science, you know,” Tarot said. “They’ll go off when they go off. How’s your fire-pit coming along?”

  Emily called down from a ridge a hundred feet above them. “We’re running short of time, guys. Let’s get moving.”

  They shouldered the now-somewhat-lighter packs and scrambled up to her position, but she had already moved on, the beam from her flashlight showing them where she’d gone. Behind the ridge a second forested area had grown up since the most recent eruption, and barren hollows, some as deep as fifty feet, had formed in places where the lava flows must have collapsed. Emily’s path along the ridgeline was easy to follow, since it was still devoid of any foliage, though Tarot and Racket weren’t able to close the gap running with their packs.

  “You guys are so slow,” she called back to them, finally turning to wait. “See what all that pumping iron gets you – heavy legs and slow feet.”

  “This from the only one here not carrying a pack,” Tarot said.

  “There, at the other end of that depression, that’s the beginning of the escarpment. That’s where Colón and Farah should be, if they’re still on schedule.”

  Another twenty minutes, and stopping here and there to give Tarot a moment to catch his breath, and they met up with the other half of the squad. The escarpment was really just the leading edge of a much larger and older depression formed in the mountainside, a sheer cliff-face oriented toward the peak, with rock formations suggesting that it was much older than the most recent eruptions, perhaps centuries older.

  “Did you let our freak-flag fly?” Emily asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ve got smokers set to go off by the upper lake in twenty.”

  “We better get started on this camp,” Farah said. “Unless they totally screw up, they should be here in an hour or so.”

  “… and we don’t resist, right?” Racket asked.

  “No, not today,” Emily said. “But once we spot them, probably on that ridge, we bug out and see if they can mount a coordinated pursuit.”

  “False trails?”

  “Good idea. Why don’t you and Tarot create one heading down that way, toward that rocky point south-southeast…”

  “… and our actual escape route?” Farah asked.

  “How about we rappel down the cliff once they make top of the ridge?” Colón said.

  “Not bad,” Emily said. “The footing’s pretty good down there. We can lead them on a merry chase and double back toward the lagoon. Maybe let ’em catch up to us down there. I’ll set up the ropes while you two finish the camp.”

  In the end, an amphibious assault successfully overran the ‘terrorist’ camp. The smoke grenades went off more or less on schedule, and the various flags and trails they’d left led all the teams to converge at the last camp on the escarpment. Actually managing to capture the target squad proved a bit more difficult, but no friendly-fire situations were created, and comms functioned adequately.

  A second exercise the next day, this time on Asuncion island, required helo-drops
and fast-rope insertions, since the slopes of the central peak terminate on all sides in cliffs at the water’s edge. The simpler terrain of Asuncion made this an endurance challenge – no packs to carry, and minimal advance-prep – Emily meant to make them think on the run. In this case, the plan was to zigzag up the gentler southern slope, keeping cover in the coconut palm forest that dominates the lower elevations, and then to circle around through the sword grass on the north slope. Smoke grenades were deployed no longer as clues, but as offensive weapons, of a sort, making pursuit difficult and covering their movements. A ravine on the west side allowed the squad to double-back down to the lower cover of the palm forest, where they could be captured with relative ease.

  The final exercise took place at night on Agrihan, an island formed from the top of an undersea volcano. The cone had blown off the top of the mountain in a major eruption a century earlier, leaving a flat top and an elliptical caldera over fifteen-hundred feet deep. The remnants of that eruption were still visible in the lava flows at the bottom of the caldera. Another endurance test, Emily’s squad led the coalition forces through the palm forests on the east side of the mountain. Taking advantage of the darkness, they returned to trap a portion of the Philippine contingent, including Capt Ongpin and Cpl Iwatani, in a ravine where the sword grass was tall enough to conceal her squad even in daylight. Emily set off flares to end the exercise once they’d completed the ‘capture’.

  * * *

  “Good work, Lance Corporal,” Durant said. “You guys really showed our coalition partners what a Marine can do.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tarot replied. He glanced over at Lt ‘Ninja’ and turned quickly away.

  “You should have seen these two chasing after LT,” Colón said. “It was like their lives depended on it.”

  “It may well have,” Durant said. “But at least you guys exposed a weakness in the Philippine and Chinese units.”

  “Yeah, those guys were practically doubled over by the time we let ’em ‘capture’ us.”

  “Funny, you’d think all that pounding with 2x4s would have built up better stamina in them.”

  The smell of roast meat wafted across the black-sand beach at the southwestern tip of Agrihan one of the few relatively level spots anywhere on the island. The Admiral had ordered a day off to celebrate a successful exercise, and maybe build some sense of community among the participants. Two huge grills had been constructed for the purpose, one devoted to steaks and burgers, the other to skewered and spiced chicken and fish, in an effort to cater to as many tastes as possible. In the end, though, the grilled steaks proved to be the most popular item on the menu.

  A few Frisbees, a couple of beach balls, a volleyball with no net, and two American-style footballs exhausted the recreational equipment to be found on board the Bonhomme Richard. Lance Corporal Khaled Farah, whose parents had emigrated to the States before he was born, organized an Ultimate Frisbee match the rules of which puzzled almost everyone there – “You mean we can’t run after we catch it?” – even though he’d won some sort of national award in the sport. Throwing the football, and catching it, turned out to exercise a peculiar fascination on almost everyone there.

  “We can get a game up,” Perry said. “The beach is plenty wide enough.”

  “What are the rules?” Diao asked, and Durant offered to explain.

  “Each side tries to get the ball across the line at one end of the field or the other.”

  “Can you throw it over the heads of your opponents?”

  “Yes, and run with it if you catch it.”

  “What happens if you drop the ball?” Cpl Iwatani asked.

  “Play stops if you drop a thrown ball,” Perry said.

  “But if you drop it while you’re running with it, then anyone can grab it and try to score,” Durant added.

  “How do you stop someone who is running with the ball?” Diao asked.

  “Someone has to touch the runner with both hands.”

  Deliberations continued for a few more minutes, and Tarot and Racket soon lost interest in arcane explanations of a game they understood almost instinctively. Spying Emily sitting in the shade of a palm tree at the edge of the forest, Tarot signaled to Racket to join him next to her.

  “What’s not to get?” Racket said. “You see the ball, you grab it.”

  “And if you see someone with the ball, you grab him,” Tarot added. “It’s the simplest game in the world.”

  “Aren’t you guys gonna play?” Emily asked, with poorly concealed impatience. “I mean, you could show them how it’s done.”

  “What about you, LT? Are you gonna play.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Colón is trying to get up a soccer game at the far end,” Racket said. “You gonna join them?”

  “No thanks, guys. I think I’m just gonna go for a run, while there’s still light.”

  “What, like along the beach?”

  Emily smiled at the two of them, searching their faces for the meaning of their interest. Tarot shrunk back and looked down at his feet, uncomfortable with the probing nature of her gaze.

  “I’ll probably just head up that ridge, you know, the one we tricked Ongpin and his men into, maybe see if I can make it all the way up to the caldera.”

  “Jeez, LT, that’s gotta be over three thousand feet,” Tarot said.

  “What do you care? It’s not like I’m asking you to come along.” With that, she shook the sand out of her running shoes and strapped them back on her feet, before jogging off along the edge of the forest.

  “It’s not our fault, LC,” Racket said, once they’d located Perry, standing on the edge of the football game.

  “What’s not your fault?”

  “She just ran off, you know… Lt Tenno, and there’s like no way we can keep up.” Tarot cringed slightly as he said this.

  “Ran off where?”

  “Up there.” He turned and pointed to a ridge that plunged into the waves at the north end of the beach. Her head was intermittently visible, bobbing above the palm fronds. “She says she’s going up to the caldera.”

  “Crap.” Perry scrambled over to a large piece of driftwood where all the shoes had been left in a pile, and rummaged through to find his own. A moment later, he hopped and skipped along the edge of the beach, trying to tie his shoes as he ran. “Keep her in sight as long as you can,” he called over his shoulder.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Durant demanded, when he noticed them standing in the surf, staring at the mountain.

  “It’s the LC,” Tarot said, pointing over the sergeant’s head. “He’s trying to follow her up the ridge.”

  “Follow who?”

  “Ninja. Who do you think?” Racket said.

  Durant scanned the beach at these words. “Put your goddamn arms down. I don’t want anyone else going up there. Get your asses over to the base of the ridge and make sure no one else even thinks of following them.”

  Just then, Lt Otani approached them, looking completely bored and confused.

  “I haven’t seen Tenno-san in over an hour, Sergeant Durant-u-san. Did she return to the ship?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I left her sitting over there, and now she’s gone.”

  “I think she went for a run,” Racket said. When Durant glowered at him, he shrugged his shoulders.

  “You have your orders,” Durant said, looking for a way to end this line of inquiry. “Move it, Marines.”

  As they ran off toward the ridge, Tarot watched over his shoulder as Durant deflected the Lieutenant’s questions with more aplomb than he would have been able to muster in deceiving a superior officer. He also saw that their movements hadn’t escaped the notice of Capt Diao, who turned to watch them in the midst of the game swirling around him.

  * * *

  “You found me,” Emily said. She lay on her side in the middle of a circle of flattened sword grass, supporting her head in one hand. “I bet that wasn’t easy.”


  “Not as hard as you might think. I followed the ridgeline, and then the path you left in the grass. I’m just surprised you stopped here. It’s only a couple hundred yards further to the lip of the caldera.”

  “I was up there already. It can get pretty smoky, and the sulfur smell… well, let’s just say I could do without that.”

  Perry sat down next to her and gazed down at the water, the beach being obscured by the shallowing of the slope below them. The water shimmered in the afternoon sun, light flickering off the waves and leaving a trail that pointed west to the eventual point on the horizon where the sun would set.

  “Beautiful view”

  “Is that what brings you up here… some casual sightseeing?”

  “I also had a feeling you’d be up here.”

  “You lying sack of horse manure… you knew exactly where I’d be.” Perry shrunk back at the tone in her voice as she called him up short. “You got Tarot and Racket to report on me, didn’t you? What the hell did you say to them?”

  “What did you expect me to do… nothing? After the bruises they laid on you…”

  “Let me guess. You told them to watch out for me. Is that it?”

  “Well, yeah… sort of… I guess.”

  “And where the hell does that leave me? How can I ever give them an order… or get any respect from those guys, if you’re always meddling behind my back?”

  “Respect? You’ve got to be kidding me. Those muscleheads are so cowed by you, I can’t think of an order you could give that they wouldn’t follow… and you’re not even their commanding officer.”

  She seemed mollified by that response, or at least not quite as pissed off as she’d been a moment earlier. She rolled onto her back and contemplated the sky, as a cloud scudded in front of the sun.

  “It’s not as simple as that, and you know it. I don’t want them just to be afraid of me, or of you through me.” She paused for a moment, turning to look at his eyes. “Plus, I was trying to teach them something, you know, something important.”

  “What is so important that you have to let them beat you bloody for them to understand?”