Dragonflies The Duncan Peters Files

by Fontien, Samantha

  Urgent! My group has been kidnapped. We have been taken across sea, southwards over two hundred + km. Jungle compound, heavily guarded automatic weapons, x1 dead so far I’m with 5 other Brits. Send help ASAP. Nichols.

  The red light blinked frantically, he pressed send, and with that the battery died and the green screen dulled. His hand dropped to his side, the phone still clutched in it. He stared, at the worthless piece of junk, which he had concealed between his butt cheeks; it was now a useless piece of metal that had cost over eight hundred pounds. He could only hope the message had been sent before the power went.

  20.

  Glory & Gore..

  Duncan and Rubin were sitting in their meeting room with one of the senior partners from ‘Blackcard’. The man had explained what had happened and the need for the urgency. It was Duncan that took charge of the situation, as he took the folder from the partners hand and started to read through it. Rubin stepped forward and read over Duncan’s shoulder.

  “What we want is a straight forward extraction,” said the well-presented man.

  “This isn’t going to be a straightforward extraction,” Rubin looked up at him as he spoke. “No extractions are straightforward,” he shook his head at the man. “Have they sent out any ransom demands yet?” The man shook his head.

  “There have been no demands as yet. We have only been alerted due to Mr. Nichols having texted the office. His secretary Beverley brought this to our attention immediately. She had been trying to contact Mr. Nichols for the last number of days, but to no avail.” Rubin nodded, and returned his attention back to the report. “We have tried to contact the resort, but it seems there is no answer on the islands phone lines. Do you know what to make of this, could this be true?” he asked puzzled. “Is there any of this kind of intelligence out there? There seems to be a media blackout on this kind of thing. Surely we would have heard about kidnappings if they were happening. Nichols wouldn’t have gone there, he researches things like this. It’s absurd.”

  “Yes I’m afraid so. There seems to be a lot of guerrilla warfare within the Philippine region. It is quite possible that Mr. Nichols has been taken. If you had consulted us first, we would have been able to provide you with the information of where to go, where is safe and so on. In future I suggest you consult us before you make plans. ” He rose up from his seat, excusing himself, leaving Rubin to small talk the bamboozled ‘Blackcard’ senior partner, and headed out of the door to the smart glass walled workshop, that Rizzo called her office.

  He pushed the glass door open and walked up to Rizzo, who was sitting in her swivel chair. She was listening to some techno music that was bursting out through the DJ style headphones on her ears as she moved her head in time to the tune that was thundering loudly in her ears. He placed his hand on her shoulder, which made her jump. She pulled the earphones off, and was just about to drop a few ‘f-bombs’ when she saw the seriousness of his face, and it made her think better of it.

  “What’s up boss man?” She placed the circuit board, which she had been soldering, down onto the work bench beside her headphones, still thundering out the bass tune she had been bobbing her head to.

  “I need you to triangulate some co-ordinates for me, patch into that sneaky beaky we put into the telecoms company and bring up the number’s locations for me. It’s a satellite unit, give me as much Intel as you can, and let me know when you have it, I need everything pronto.”

  “No worries. Leave it with me boss man,” she smiled up pivoting her chair around and moved towards her desk and her fingers started to rumble across the keyboard as her screen sprang to life with various windows’ appearing on the wall of screens in front of her.

  Duncan watched her momentarily, before he turned and walked back into the office to Rubin and their client. Around five minutes later, Rizzo emerged from her office and caught Duncan’s attention as she waved like a loony much to his amusement. He made his excuses again, and left the room, heading again to Rizzo’s office.

  “So what have you got for me?” he asked as he made his way to her desk.

  “I’ve got this,” and she hit a button on the keyboard and a window sprang to life, with ‘infra-red heat images’.

  “Where did you get these?” he smiled, eyes transfixed on the images he was seeing.

  “I’m going to go for the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell response’,” she smiled mischievously twirling a pen in the corner of her mouth, pleased to see his reaction of the infra-red images on her screens.

  Duncan smiled, amused by her answer, and then back to the screen. “Good girl Rizzo.” He walked out to the corridor and caught Rubin’s attention, and then walked back into Rizzo’s office to where he had been standing only moments earlier. A minute or two later, Rubin was standing with them watching the images Rizzo had now up on her various computer screens displays.

  “Are you serious?” Rubin looked at the screen. “I suppose we’re going in then?” Duncan nodded his head silently, his arms folded across his chest. “So I suppose we better get a team together,” Duncan nodded his head again. “So when do you want to go in?” He asked.

  “In reality, we need to do some info gathering, it would be utter madness to go in blind. We need a strong team. Looking at where the last transmission came from, it looks like it’s a jungle terrain, plus there are mountains. We need to figure good extraction points.” He sighed deeply. “We could be looking at moving out within four days. Rizzo I need you to collate the info you have and.”

  “Already on it boss man,” she interjected, and started to work her magic on her keyboard.

  “I also need an amphibious seaplane that can carry about seventeen to nineteen people.”

  “Got one,” she laughed. “I have a de Havilland DHC6 within the region,” she hit a few more keys. “Right, I’m sorting that too, leave it with me,” she tapped again, as she started to speak into her headset.

  The two men headed back into the meeting room, where Beth was sitting talking to the senior partner whilst pouring him another cup of tea. She smiled as she dismissed herself and left the office, while the men all watched her bottom as she walked out of the door and closed it behind her with another smile.

  “Right,” Duncan said as he approached the partner snapping him out of the dream like state he was still in having watched the lovely Beth leave. “It looks like we can ship out within four days or so. We need to look at resources; there’s a lot of planning to do here.” He turned to look at the worried man. “Don’t worry, this isn’t our first rodeo. We will be in contact, and keep you informed of the situation.”

  Over the course of the next day, Duncan and Rubin had put together an extraction team, who were ready to go at a moment’s notice. Transportation was arranged, a plan was formulated for entering and the actual extraction itself. Rizzo had been monitoring the heat sensor images of the compound they had found with the co-ordinates of the last point of contact from Mr. Nichols phone. From what they could see, there was an isolated area where five images seemed huddled together. On the second day, the images had been reduced to a four person heat count. Of course Rizzo reported this immediately to the ‘Boy’s’. From what they could see, the situation as far as they knew it, had worsened. What they could see, to them, it looked like someone had disappeared. They of course thought the worse. An hour later, Rizzo and her amazing skills picked up a fast moving image. Both men looked at each other, Rizzo caught them.

  “What’s the look for?” she enquired puzzled.

  “Well, it looks like someone has escaped, and is hot tailing it out of the jungle. That means one thing only.” Rizzo looked between the two men, then back to Duncan.

  “What? What does it mean?” she asked impatiently.

  “It simply means, that some numpty has escaped, which causes major problems for us. We now have a situation where they possibly will increase the armed guards. They will also be highly irritated, and there is a good chance they will take it out on the remaining h
ostages, and possibly make an example of someone.” He breathed deep, shaking his head. “This is not good, not good at all.”

  “I’ll call the lads, and move up our date of departure then,” and Rubin left the room, mobile phone to his ear.

  *****

  Duncan, Rubin, and their ground team of eight men, which excluded the two pilots who were also under the employment of the ‘Boy’s’, where sitting in the de Havilland Twin Otters DHC-6 seaplane fitted with amphibious floats, that Rubin had obtained by calling in a huge favour, for this operation as the owner refused to make the deal with Rizzo, and wanted to only deal with either of the ‘Boys’ after finding out ‘who’ had wanted to hire his plane. He had served with them back in ‘Desert Storm’ and saw it at a chance of catching up which was promised on their return. They were doing a high altitude jump into the sea. There was no way they could get close to the island without detection. The noise of an aircraft or speedboat would have alerted lookouts or such to their presence before they could have got to shore leaving them as sitting ducks.

  They sat there listening to the twin engines humming. The atmosphere was jovial in the confines of the cabin with the banter, as Rubin walked around checking everyone’s gear, as he spoke;

  “Right men; in and out, you know what we have to do. You know who our primary extraction is? We have four bodies that we know of. Let’s get in and out in one piece,” he looked around at his men, and smiled, his tongue in the corner of his mouth. “Last one back on the plane buys the drinks you bastards and mines a double,” he laughed as he moved towards the door.

  He twisted the handle and the door pulled back into him, instantly, the cabin became full of the forces of nature as the windswept around them. Steadily, the black seal skinned men in their breathing apparatus rose to their feet; gun’s in hand, filed to the doorway where Rubin threw out three bulky items, instantly a man stepped forward and received his slap on the back. Each man received one as they stepped out through the door, hurtling and free-falling towards the Sulu Sea. Duncan approached Rubin with a devilish smile.

  “See you down there Gem,” he winked as he put his mask on, and received his pat on the back from Rubin as he stepped out into the dark nothingness.

  He had already pulled his zip cord when he saw Rubin; he zoomed past him, as his parachute burst into a mushroom plume, and he fired back up into the air. It was a good clean drop, as he hit the water, he pulled his clips releasing his silks, moments later he heard a splash, and a small familiar ching, he knew Rubin had touched down and had started swimming towards him. They both swam to the inflatable black raft and pulled themselves into it with great ease. The men were divided up into the rafts and in perfect formation they paddled like the guy’s out of ‘Hawaii five O’. They reached the shoreline. The beach was only illuminated by the half-moon that bounced off the white sands, except for that, there was only darkness. They would have preferred a cloudy night as during a night raid, it would have been the perfect conditions with utter darkness. They dragged the rafts onto the beach and to the scrub which they used to conceal them, along with their dive gear.

  Duncan and Rubin stood looking at the parameter of the thick black ominous looking mangrove. They looked at each other before drawing out their machetes and fixing their night vision goggles, with a nod; they headed into the abyss of the jungle followed by their men.

  An hour later they approached the compound, guns ready for fire in their hands. They had known they were near, as they could smell the numerous camp fires that were burning. They slowly approached in stealth mode, using hand signals as their only means of communication. They were on complete radio silence, even though they had voice boxes to record the mission like a black box. Duncan led the way, as he edged towards the compounds parameter. He scanned his chaps, who had started to move slowly in formation. In a few swift moves necks were broken, and an arrow or two from the crossbows were silently fired in the direction of the armed men patrolling the ten foot high walls. With the exception of the occasional expelling of air and a slight “Ahh” and a body dropping, all was quiet. A grappling hook was propelled into the air, followed by a black figured body which scaled the wall with the greatest of ease. Moments later it was followed by two others with black fatigues scaling the walls.

  Duncan and Rubin threw their grappling hooks and also ascended the wall like they were born on ropes. Seconds later they were on a wooden platform that looked down into the huge square of the court yard. The men looked to Duncan and Rubin, who gave them the signal to move, as each man sprang into action.

  There were exchanges of rapid fire, and flashes of light, as stun grenades were thrown with precision. In less than two minutes the men were at the huge wooden doors of the building in the compound. Surprisingly it wasn’t locked as one of the team pushed it ajar and preceded in with caution, his automatic weapon at the ready, flanked by a colleague. They moved through the building with great ease, meeting little or no résistance. The guerrilla’s hadn’t expected a thing, and due to the time of night, the compound seemed to be undermanned which was a good thing for the ‘Boys’. They had only just over an hour of darkness left, before the beautiful Philippine sun would come bursting over the horizon thanks to the thick undergrowth of the jungle. Time was of the essence, as they still had to locate Nichols. In two man teams, they moved swiftly opening doors as they went.

  Finally Duncan and Rubin encountered a locked door bolted with a primitive lock. Rubin laughed as he pulled the bolt back, and pushed the door open. Inside, huddled on the floor, were a group of four men quivering in the corner at the sight of the black fatigued men with night vision goggles armed with automatic guns in hands.

  “Nichols?” Came a familiar, rugged Scottish voice.

  “I’m here,” came a feeble voice as an arm was raised in the air. “I’m here,” as he tried to stand using the corners of the wall to steady himself. “Thank God, its okay everyone, they’re here to save us,” he proclaimed.

  The three others who were still crouching on the floor, started to rise unsteadily to their feet. Duncan and Rubin looked at each other, as one of the men started asking about his wife, who was then joined by the father and son, who they later found out was Bill Phillips and his son Michael.

  “My wife, Maureen and Andrew, my son he’s only thirteen?” He looked at the two men. “Do you know anything about my wife and son? Please tell me.”

  “Yeah, my brother Andrew ran, they had us out picking bananas, and he saw an opportunity and made a run for it.”

  They looked at the teenage boy, who had an array of bruises and cuts, no doubt in retaliation to his younger brother’s great escape. He looked well enough to travel, as they ushered the men out of the small confined room.

  “I’m not going anywhere until I know where my wife and son are,” and Bill stood there his arms folded across his belly stubbornly.

  Rubin looked at Duncan, who threw his eyes up to the heavens, and gave him a look of ‘just tell him’.

  “Your son is very safe, he escaped to a populated area, and is safe and well with the British embassy, your wife I’m afraid I don’t know where...” He was just about to finish when two of their team, came around a corner with two dishevelled looking women.

  “Bill, Michael”, one cried, as she and Michael ran to each other, he into her open arms. After she finished hugging him she turned to Bill. “Where’s Andrew?”

  It was Rubin’s turn to throw his eyes up to the heavens, as he grabbed them shoving them in the direction of the door.

  “Your husband will explain everything to you while we get out of this hell hole,” and he and Duncan lead the way out of the compound.

  Once back in the court yard, the guns were readied for firing; they made their way to the huge log doors that stood between them and the dense tropical rain forest. In formations, they entered the jungle and hurriedly made their way through the thick habitation. Mr. Nichols and the men and women, in general were weak from lack of care,
as the team fed them their contents from their drinks canisters and some ration packs while they moved quickly through the jungle. Dawn was coming, and they still had only half an hour before they would make it to the beach, where the de Havilland seaplane would be waiting for them. As she was fitted with amphibious floats, she would be floating and taking off from the water for a quick escape. Rubin had called in a few favours to acquire her for their mission and had to have her back later that day.

  Duncan looked at Rubin with a worried look on his face, he shook his head knowingly, and there was no way they were all going to make it with everyone straggling like they were. Certain members of the group weren’t able to move with the speed they needed. The team took turns at helping people, at certain points they were semi carried. It was a hard slog for all of them; they must have been only ten minutes away from the beach when they heard the familiar sound of semi automatic’s being fired. Time was running out, and fast, and the rapid fire was coming closer and closer with each second.

  The team picked up the pace, when they heard more gunshots coming from another direction to the right of them, and they were closing in on them fast. They could hear them shouting to each other in their local dialect. The elder of the two women started to panic, instantly losing her breath, and momentum.

  “I can’t, I can’t move anymore, just leave me, go on, save yourselves,” she wailed and she went to sit down, exhausted by her plight.

  Before she even bent down, Rubin swooped down shoulder facing her as he swept in and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and continued to press on through the undergrowth in quick step. By the time they had reached the beach, the sun had started to rise, causing a blood red orange glow that flooded the sky, which reflected off the open tranquil sea. The gun fire was quickly approaching and would be on them in a matter of minutes, they had to hurry or they would be sitting targets on the exposed beach.