It took half an hour, and when it did show up it made enough din to start an avalanche, roaring above them heading south, its search sensors out in front, missing them completely. The trouble was a second helicopter was coming the other way, and its search sensors, seeking heat, could hardly miss them. Nor did it. It hesitated right over their lair, hovered, and then edged away, looking for a landing spot right in the middle of the bowl, not three hundred yards from them.
"Stay still, but get that machine gun ready," snapped Rick. "Dallas, Mike, come with me. We'll try and divert them."
The three soldiers set off, running up through the rocks along the western edge of the valley. They were still able to see the big Puma, now on the ground, its blades whirring. But what they next saw was very bad news indeed. Three heavily armed soldiers had disembarked, and they were hanging on to three big, black-and-brown Doberman pinschers, straining at their leashes. Rick could see their hideous pointed ears from where he stood. He did not have to imagine their salivating mouths.
"Fuckit," he muttered. "Let's keep going."
But then he heard the dogs bark, and realized they were loose, running on ahead of their handlers, searching for the scent. Rick, Dallas, and Mike Hook climbed higher, but they could not make it high enough, and the first dog was around the corner of the rock, its long powerful paws skidding, its breath coming in short eager bursts, a low growl of anticipation in its throat, as it spotted the SEAL Commander. The Doberman instantly adjusted course to the higher ground, and charged straight at him, barking now, fast as a racing greyhound, teeth barred, ready to tear Rick Hunter apart.
The SEAL chief, off balance, trying to hang on to the rock face, tried desperately to draw his pistol, struggling to get a bullet away, in any direction, just to slow the raging beast down.
But it was too late. For the dog, that is. Captain Doug Jarvis blew it away with his standard issue CAR-15, the bullets smashing into its head. And as he did so, the other two came charging up the stony hill, and Dougy felt obliged to treat all dogs equally. "Fucking things," he muttered. "Anyway, I always preferred Labradors."
However, the machine-gun fire that had wiped out the dog pack had attracted everyone, and now the three Argentinian troopers were racing after the dogs, light machine guns held before them.
Back in the crevasse, Don Smith had heard the gunfire but could not make out who was alive and who wasn't. But he could see the pursuing Argentinians, and he opened up with a withering burst from the big M60 machine gun, cutting all three down on these cold remote southern mountains of their homeland.
Dallas never missed a beat. He could see the chopper still revved up on the ground with just the pilot remaining inside. He ran toward it from the blind side, right on the pilot's seven o'clock…200 yards…150 yards…100 yards…he still kept running…only eighty feet now…"First base!" he yelled.
And he hurled his grenade, underarm, hard, low and straight, a real frozen rope, clean through the open door. And he heard it smack into the instrument panel, breaking glass. A split second later it exploded with a massive echoing roar around the valley, obliterating both helicopter and driver. "I shoulda played for the Braves," he muttered. "This stuff is getting fucking crazy."
The question was, where was the first helicopter, which seemed to have gone? Commander Hunter had no idea, but he thought it might be making another search line out to the right.
"Anyway," he told the troops, "if our luck holds, the damned thing will return to base, and they might not work out the other one's…er…crashed, at least for an hour or so, by when it'll be just about dark…we better put a few miles between us and this burning wreck…then we'll stop and eat and get the communications fired up…I don't think the Args will conduct a rescue operation until it's light."
And so they pushed on, weary now, taking turns carrying the gun and the satellite system through the valley, then climbing some more, up through the snowy passes. For leadership at these heights Rick handed over to the unerring instincts of the mountain man, SAS Captain Jarvis, a man who could follow the contours of the slopes and peaks, picking his way through the lower gaps, trying to restrict their climbing, staying east where the escarpments were less formidable, going for the Atlantic end of the giant Lake Fagnano.
By 1930 the GPS was telling them they had covered fifty-four miles in eighteen hours, a superhuman feat of endurance and stamina through this kind of terrain. And right now they were enjoying two real slices of luck. One, it had been an unusually mild autumn, with snow not so bad as it might have been, even up here; and two, the Args seemed to have gone home for the night.
Thus Rick Hunter's tired band of warriors found a dry spot under the lee of a rocky hill, unpacked their rucksacks, lit the Primus, and fired up the communications system. Mike Hook had sent their message away in a fast satellite burst while they were waiting for Commander Hunter on the airfield, and now he was recording a new one.
This would give their current GPS position—54.30S, 67.25W. Have come under attack from Arg helos, anticipate further action first light. Heading Beagle Channel as per last signal. Staying east Mount Cornu. Rescue 54.51S, 67.20W, app 1100. Our course 180.
Chief Hook projected the signal into space, praying it would reach Coronado off the satellite. Which it did, and the ops room immediately signaled the ops room at the Chilean naval base at Puerto Williams, right on the south shore of the Beagle Channel, eleven miles away from the rescue point. Parked right here was one F/A-18F Boeing Super Hornet strike bomber, primed with its AIM-9 can't-miss guided missiles, heavily loaded 20mm Vulcan cannon, and prepared for takeoff at a moment's notice.
The pilot, Lt. Commander Alan Ross, wore the sinister patch of VFA-151 Vigilantes, a red-eyed skull with a dagger in its teeth. He had been in residence for just a few hours, having flown off a diverted U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific, and arrived via refuel stops at Santiago and Punta Arenas.
That Hornet 18F was all that stood between the SEAL team and certain death. Because even graduates from Coronado could not fight an entire country's national defense system, not if that country was determined to hunt you down on its own territory.
And no one was more concerned than Commander Rick Hunter that after traveling so far, he and his team were still on Argentinian soil.
Nonetheless, they cooked the last of their food, baked beans, ham, three steaks sealed in foil. They finished the bread with the rest of the cheese, drew straws for first watch and camped out for five hours, after which they would once more head south, through the light shallow snow that, at this medium level, barely covered any part of the mountains.
Sleep came easily, and the watch keepers found it hard to stay awake. But the danger up here was minimal, and they were all rested when Chief Bland summoned them back to duty. He had already made coffee, and with some reluctance they crawled out of their sleeping bags, in the dark, and began to pack, pulling on their boots. Dallas found a couple of packs of ginger cookies he had been hoarding, and they shared these before picking up the machine gun and the radio and setting off south over relatively flat ground, with Dallas out in the lead. Still munching boldly.
They had five hours marching through the darkness, and much of it was surprisingly easy going, because the ground began to slope downward as the mountain began its long dip down to the channel. The first fifteen miles went by before they could see the dawn breaking, way out to the left. And as it did so each man began to feel the tension of impending attack.
Because, as Commander Hunter told them, "There are two possibilities for us. The Args either believe they lost us, and that Puma simply crashed into the mountain. Or they have found out that it did not crash, and that we probably hit it."
At this point Lt. Banfield lapsed into deep Mississippi. "In the first case, our worries are over and we're just gonna be walking in t-a-a-a-ll cotton. In the latter case, them boys gonna come lookin'."
Dallas and Doug Jarvis chuckled, even though they knew it wasn't funny. And they pu
lled down their hats and kept going, and no one said anything as they tried to walk home across this freezing territory right down here at the end of the Western world.
Two miles farther on, the mountain seemed to come to an end. In front of them was a long green downward slope, still thick grass, with some copses of trees, and a broad area of woodland at the bottom. Beyond that, out by the horizon, maybe seven miles from where they stood, was the thin, shiny ribbon of the Beagle Channel. Except that it would not be thin when they arrived there. Five miles never looks all that thin, even across water.
"Well, this bit should be pretty easy," said Brian Harrison. But the Commander stood and stared down the hill, frowning. "Not too easy if they decide to come after us in the next hour, while we're walking over that exposed ground. What time is it?"
"0930, sir."
"Okay, let's get another message off, Mike, before we get going. Give 'em our GPS position, and tell him we may come under attack. And that if we do we will fire in a short SOS burst to the satellite, and then use our little TACBE to try and guide help in. If there is any."
"Okay, sir. I'll prepare the SOS so we can wing it off in seconds."
"Good boy. Let's hope we don't have to."
Three minutes later, they were on their way, still walking through enemy territory, albeit deserted, still carrying the big machine gun and the comms system. The wind was getting up a little as they made fast progress down the hill, but it came out of the south, bitterly cold, obscuring the sounds from the mountains — obscuring the sounds of two Argentinian military helicopters that suddenly appeared, flying high and slow, way above the peaks, plainly searching.
The SEAL team had traveled almost three miles downward, with perhaps four hundred yards still in front of them before the long beech wood, when they finally heard one of the choppers swoop in low, maybe a thousand yards behind them. There was no point hitting the ground, not here. Their only chance was to run for the woods.
Rick's voice rang out in the lonely grasses. "Go, boys, go!!! Run for your lives…Take the gun and the radio, but run…For fuck's sake, run…"
They charged toward the wood, racing over the flat sloping ground. Out in front they could see the leading helicopter making a wide turn right over the trees, and then banking hard in a tight starboard turn, coming back in, behind them now.
The Puma swooped low, and now it was on them, raking the ground with its mounted machine gun, the bullets spitting into the soft ground, making lines in the grass. The second burst seemed only yards away as the SEALs pounded over the ground, and suddenly there was a terrible cry from Lt. Commander Dallas MacPherson. The most dreaded cry in the Navy SEALs' vocabulary. The leader's hit.
"Jesus Christ…Sunray's down! Stop! Oh, Jesus…Sweet Jesus…the CO's down…"
Dallas ran back, and he could see Rick, facedown, blood pouring down his camouflage trousers. He couldn't tell if the boss had been hit in the stomach or the leg, but there was a lot of blood.
He looked up to see where the helicopter was, couldn't find it, and yelled to Mike Hook to get to the wood and send the SOS message, and to open up the TACBE. He told Don Smith, "Run, but leave the gun!"
Out on the horizon they could see the Argentinian helicopters, flying together now, making a long circle. They were plainly on their way back. And Dallas banged a new ammunition belt into the machine gun, cranked open the tripod, then swung around, lying in the grass, adjusting the sights for the approach of the choppers. Dallas was trained, and he was ready to face the enemy.
Doug Jarvis tried to lift Rick to check the injury but could not do so. And within one minute the Arg helicopters were on them again, streaking in low over the grass, both firing now, and Douglas Jarvis flung himself over Rick Hunter to take the impact of the bullets himself.
Dallas hammered back at the Args with the machine gun, aiming every one of the two hundred 7.62mm bullets in the belt straight at the nearest cockpit. And as they overflew the embattled SEALs in the grass, Dallas rolled right around, swiveling the gun with him. Somehow he kept on firing, scarcely realizing he had already smashed the entire windshield of the lead helicopter with the sustained fire from the SEALs' most trusted weapon.
The pilot, unsighted, too low, plummeted into the ground in a fireball, and Dallas leaped to his feet, only now seeing the blood streaming out of Douglas Jarvis's jacket as he crouched over their Team Leader.
Dallas roared in fury. And a thousand memories stood before him, memories of how he and the CO had fought together before. And he stood upright, trembling with rage, shaking his right fist, tears streaming down his face as he screamed without reason at the retreating helicopter, "You bastards!! You bastards!! Well, come and get us…Come and fucking get us!!!"
Unhappily, that was precisely what they were doing, and the surviving Argentinian helicopter, with its deadly machine gun, swung around for yet another attack. Worse yet, there was a new helicopter lifting up over the mountaintop, and briefly it joined the first one, and they flew together some five miles east of the SEALs.
Captain Jarvis was hit, but not badly, high up on his right arm, which was pouring blood but had only been lacerated by the shell. He climbed to his feet and temporarily left the CO on the ground. They were totally exposed, effectively facing two incoming helicopter gunships. But for the moment the Argentinians seemed to be taking their time, hovering out above the snowy foothills. But then they made up their minds and started in again toward the stricken Rick Hunter and his men.
Rick had just opened his eyes when Dallas spotted another aircraft, plainly a fighter-bomber, in the sky, bearing down at high speed from the western range out by Mount Olivia. "Jesus," he said, "now we're in real trouble. They got half the fucking Air Force here."
And this one was not hesitating. It was traveling like a bat out of hell, racing low along the foothills of the mountains.
"Jesus Christ!" yelled Douglas. "I think they're going to bomb us…"
"Hit the deck now!" shouted Dallas. "Heads down…For Christ's sake, heads down!"
But neither Dallas nor Doug Jarvis knew this aircraft was not on a bombing mission. Its attack was more precise than that, and Lt. Commander Alan Ross, from Springfield, Massachusetts, had his finger right next to the missile button. The SEALs, peeping up through the grass, gazed in astonishment as the Hornet 18F came racing in at five hundred knots and fired its first AIM-9 missile.
They saw the bright, unmistakable winged dart shape glinting in the morning light, fizzing in at just below supersonic speed, low over the mountain, and then slamming into the newly arrived helicopter, blowing it in half. Two sudden fireballs roared toward the ground.
"It's ours," bawled Mike Hook. "The fucker's ours!!"
And they stood up, Douglas helping Rick to a sitting position, to watch the split-second bright fire in the sky that signaled the second missile was on its way, lasering over the foothills, a fiery trail behind it.
They couldn't see Lt. Commander Ross's fist clench in triumph as he banked the U.S. Navy strike fighter hard to the southeast, but they saw the missile streaking over the grassland, swerving at the last second, and then smashing into the first helicopter with such thumping force it spun the aircraft right over before detonating like a thunderbolt, high over those lonely pastures.
"You little darling," bellowed Lt. Banfield. "You tight-assed, French-fried little darling!!"
And now they could see Brian Harrison charging out from the wood to help. And, half running, half walking, and laughing, they manhandled Rick Hunter into the safety of the trees. In the distance they could see the Hornet way over the wood, slowed down, somewhere out over the Beagle Channel.
But that was not their immediate concern. What mattered now was the amount of blood their leader was losing, and the obvious pain he was in. With the three Argentinian helicopters all destroyed, and the cover of the trees, they probably had a half hour to get organized.
They wrapped two field dressings on Douglas Jarvis's arm, which in th
e end might need stitches. But Doug himself took charge of Rick Hunter, resting him down on a sleeping bag, with another one covering him, trying to stop the violent trembling that had set in.
He and Brian cut away the trousers to try and see the extent of the wound, and to Doug's great relief there was no further injury. The Commander had been hit in his right thigh, not in his stomach. The bullet was probably still in there, but the wound was toward the outside, and it had missed the main artery — the one that always kills matadors when the horn of the bull rips it open.
Nevertheless, the leg was bleeding heavily, and Douglas stripped off his jacket, pullover, and shirt, ripping up the shirt to make a tourniquet, which he bound around the Commander's upper leg. He then injected morphine into Rick's arm, and dressed the gaping wound as well as he could with a combination of field dressings and the rest of his shirt.
It looked as if the blood might have stopped, but it may have still been bleeding inside. Doug knew they had to get help, fast; and he told Mike to record a new satellite message, giving the precise GPS at the point where they would reach the wide Beagle Channel. Staring at their chart, using his small ruler, Doug called it…"54.52N 67.22W…Tell 'em we'll be there in two hours, and we'll have the TACBE turned on…"
Dallas MacPherson also knew they would either be there at that time or they would no longer be alive. It just depended on whether the Argentinians realized there had been a minor battle out here in these desolate lands, and that the foreign assault group they were seeking was still on the loose, heading for the channel.
In the considered view of Dallas, there was a very good chance the Argentinians might not realize what was happening, because there had not been a fourth helicopter, and the destruction of the three searching choppers had been so sudden they almost certainly had made no report back to base. At least not one that stated categorically they were being wiped out by a mad groundhog with a machine gun, and a fighter plane they wrongly assumed was Argentinian.
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