He controlled his breathing. Next to him, Spikey shook his head as he looked out the window. Turning to Mac he said, ‘Looks like Basilan. Holy shit!’
‘That’s enough, Spike,’ came Sawtell’s voice over the headset.
The other soldiers might have heard about Basilan Island – the Abu Sayyaf fortress – but they hadn’t fought there. They were new to this. Sawtell had told Mac what the Basilan campaign had been like and it had sounded like a cross between hell and purgatory: snipers in trees, Claymore mines strung across water sources, poisoned dams, bear traps, hit-and-run guerrillas, and all of that while fi ghting blind against people who knew every inch of the place.
Now they were back to do it again, with Mac along for the ride.
Acid stirred in his stomach as he sensed Abu Sabaya waiting, smiling.
It was going to be a long, long night.
The Hainan Star looked intact and under wraps as they swept over it and aimed up the valley leading away from the wharf. Sawtell spoke with the Marines commander at the ship. They were waiting for the SEALs to come in. Waiting for the Twentieth to start their search.
Mac watched Sawtell point his pilot up the valley, thought he saw a glint of excitement. It was funny the way different people were strong, thought Mac. Sawtell had fallen apart in the face of child slaves. But he was the guy you’d follow into a direct confrontation.
His courage was infectious.
Mac craned his neck around, saw Paul up and about, stretching, looking out the window in the sliding door, looking down at the terrain. Then he walked to the cockpit bulkhead, shoved his head between the pilot and co-pilot, turned to speak with Sawtell and came back to Mac, kneeling in front of him.
‘Only one road up here, mate,’ shouted Paul.
Mac gave thumbs-up, and the sweat came down cold and sticky from his forehead. There wasn’t going to be any screwing about. One road, one valley, one mine entrance and one Green Berets captain with a glint in his eye.
Sawtell had a set of binos at his eyes as he mouthed something to the pilot, or maybe to Don back in the Chinook. The soldiers around Mac were tuned in to their leader, legs jiggling up and down, thumb-shakes starting along with small whoops, little regimental chants.
Mac concentrated on his breathing.
The Black Hawk gained height as they got closer to the head of the valley. Remembering the thing about SAMs and heavy machine gun fi re, Mac realised if there was an anticipated hot zone on this island, Sawtell and the pilot thought they were pretty close to it.
Mac burned inside, desperate to be on the ground – to stand, get running, get his bearings.
The Black Hawk suddenly banked away in a massive loop, like a dipper on a roller coaster. They fl ew up the other side of the loop by banking in the opposite direction, moving around the peak of the valley to another valley.
Finally they set down. Sawtell roused the troops, checking lists, giving orders, yelling instructions into his mouthpiece to the Black Hawk behind them.
The door slid open to reveal a clearing with jungle rising wherever he looked. Everything around them was fl attened by the helo’s downwash. Mac hauled his lightweight Army bergen on, tightened it as Paul slapped him on the shoulder and leapt out onto the grass.
The noise was deafening as Mac raced behind Paul to an RV by the ringing trees, keeping his head bowed and stowing his M4 with both hands, his US Army helmet bouncing slightly on his head.
The troopers assembled and Spikey counted heads. Sawtell was the last across, arriving as the two Black Hawks rose into the afternoon sky.
Spikey gave the head-count to Sawtell, then the troopers checked guns, grenade launchers, grenades, rat packs, water and radios. They cammed-up, pissed, took a shit. Some vomited and some prayed. Did what they had to do.
Sawtell pulled the team into a huddle, kneeling in the middle and spelling it out. He looked into faces, zapped people with courage, reminded his boys they were professionals.
He caught Mac’s eye, winked, and then said to everyone, ‘No heroes on my watch. Okay, ladies?’
The team walked in two groups to create a less-concentrated target.
Mac walked with Sawtell in the middle of the fi rst group. The ‘jockey’ they called Fitzy took point, Spikey swept. Mac felt in good hands.
Sawtell’s boys had been one of the fi rst special forces outfi ts into Kandahar in ‘02, but their real specialty was jungles like Mindanao and Basilan. Tough environments where tiny mistakes were the difference between everyone living and everyone dying.
They moved quickly around the spur towards the head of the valley and the mine entry. Sawtell wanted to do the jungle transit during daylight. Mac liked that, and he liked the way Sawtell’s boys maintained total silence while moving really fast. Not quite a jog but more than a march.
Around Mac the men managed to clock the tree tops at the same time as watching where their feet were treading. It was a particularly hazardous assignment for the guy on point. The Sabaya MO – as Sawtell had reminded everyone at the briefi ng – was to mine and booby trap the approaches to his hide-outs. Fitzy was trying to fi nd a path through the jungle as well as check for Claymores and triplines.
They came into a clearing after twenty minutes, panting, staying low, staying silent. Some drank from water bottles.
When the other team caught up, Sawtell conferred with their team leader, a fi rst lieutenant called Gordie.
Sawtell came over to Mac, got in his ear. ‘That’s the mine entrance, about half a click at our two o’clock. We’re going over the top of it, take out any sentries. Copy?’
Mac nodded.
‘You, Paul, Fitzy and Jansen take the ridge right up to the top and check for air ducts or escape routes. Don’t engage. Only recce.
Copy?’
Mac nodded.
Sawtell gave an RV for six pm, then moved away.
Mac turned to Paul. ‘Hear that?’
Paul nodded. Mac beckoned Jansen and Fitzy over. ‘Know the mission, guys?’
They gave thumbs-up.
‘Fitzy takes point,’ said Mac.
‘And Jansen can sweep,’ said Paul.
The Green Berets nodded. If they hadn’t been asked, they would have suggested.
They lined up a point about four hundred metres above the mine entrance and then climbed straight up the spur, making good time.
The jungle was less dense than the valley they’d come through, with visibility through the trees as much as one hundred metres in places.
They stuck to the Green Beret MO and maintained silence. Mac’s advanced hand signals had deteriorated since the Royal Marines but he still had the basics.
They got to a false summit after half an hour and stopped on the ridge. Mac slugged water and looked around. The area was like a small plateau – strangely fl at for a piece of ground on a hillside in this sort of country. He did a three-sixty, his M4 already a part of his hands, looking for a chimney-like structure that would alert them to an air vent for the mine. Sixty years ago the dirt was probably excavated and spread around, hence the fl at area. Trees had grown up through it and a thick carpet of leaves covered the earth. But it still felt fl at, out of place. Maybe.
Paul had the same idea. ‘This is the go, right here, I reckon.’
The area was about the size of a basketball court and the vent should have been noticeable. They wandered around the area but no luck.
Mac came back to Paul, who had been doing his own recce, and pointed up the hill. Paul gave thumbs-up – there was a cracking sound and then he disappeared. Vanished.
Mac threw himself to the ground, wondering where the sniper had shot from. Paul groaned quietly, out of sight. Carefully, Mac scanned the fl at area and the trees, looking for the shooter.
Fitzy had a sheltered position on the edge of the clearing and Mac could see him looking everywhere at once, pointing his rifl e, trying to pick the sniper amongst all the leaves. Facing the other way, with his back to Fitzy’s back,
Jansen was scoping the ground and trees with ninety-degree arcs.
There were no more shots and Mac’s breathing was now ragged.
Jansen crawled to Mac on his elbows and they crawled to Paul together, Mac thinking, Being hit twice in two days – what are the chances?
Stopping where Paul had gone down, there was no sign of a body.
Mac was almost hyperventilating. He had no idea where Paul was, had no idea where the shooter was hiding, had no idea if these were his last seconds.
He cast about, looked at Jansen. Jansen leaned further over and almost disappeared himself, yelping slightly.
Mac heard an echo, grabbed Jansen by the bergen and pulled him back. They moved leaves aside with their M4s. A two-and-a-half-foot tunnel disappeared perpendicular into the ground. Sitting about fi ve feet down was Paul, his right leg jammed into an iron ladder rung, his left leg dangled down into the tunnel, his body wedged against the far side of the tube.
Great if you were into yoga, thought Mac.
Paul was in agony. The painkillers he’d been taking for yesterday’s gunshot wound would not be strong enough for the contortion.
Mac dropped his rifl e, pulled the bergen off and eased down onto the top rung of the built-in ladder. Putting his hand down, he gripped around Paul’s wrist and heaved. After three tries Paul came up like a cork out of a bottle. Jumping onto solid ground and limping around the clearing, he checked his right leg, mouthing the word fuck twenty or thirty times but saying nothing aloud. The slightest human noise in that vent would amplify many times over by the time it echoed into the main tunnel below.
They knelt around the hole and let Paul walk off the twisted ankle.
He was in agony.
Mac put his fi ngers to his eyes, Jansen nodded. They crawled to the hole, dragging leaves away from it so nothing fell down. Leaning over, they stuck their heads in. A breeze came up thick and strong, indicating the mine had some part of it open. But they couldn’t see anything; it was completely dark.
It would require patience to hear sounds, evidence of people.
Jansen and Mac got comfy and listened while Paul and Fitzy stood guard.
Mac was just about to call it quits when there was a faint clanking sound. Jansen looked up at Mac, then listened again. More clanks, a male voice.
Mac and Jansen crawled into the cover of the trees where they joined Paul and Fitzy. Mac keyed the radio.
Sawtell came on, grumpy with someone breaking radio silence.
‘Thought you might like to stealth this?’ said Mac.
‘Better than storming a steel door,’ replied Sawtell.
‘We’ve found the vent. Right up the spur, where you said it was.’
‘How long?’
‘Take you twenty minutes.’
‘See you then. Out.’
Mac and Paul locked eyes. Time to fi nish this.
CHAPTER 49
Sawtell wanted a man to stay at the tunnel entrance while Fitzy, the tunnel rat, went down fi rst. He wanted Spikey in second for any tricky locks or doors and he wanted complete radio silence.
The men slapped pockets, tucked boot laces into the tops and turned watches inward.
Mac suggested Paul sit this one out, what with the ribs, the face and the ankle. Paul just smiled and downed another handful of painkillers.
The tunnel was steel-lined so the soldiers wrapped M4s in their BDU shirts, tying them over their shoulders like a swag to stop them knocking and echoing. Mac and Paul couldn’t use a shirt so they’d need to stick especially tight to the ladder.
Mac was fourth down, Paul after him. They dipped into the tunnel and moved down the rungs. Mac kept looking up to reassure himself there was light above, but after fi ve minutes, he forced himself to look down to make his eyes adjust to the murk.
They made their way further and further into the tunnel. It got so cold the sweat on the back of Mac’s ovies started turning icy. The only sound was muffl ed boots on rungs, shallow breaths. Eleven adult men in a narrow steel tube. Almost one living organism operating to its own rhythm. And it was almost totally silent.
At one point Mac heard a muttered ‘fuck’ as one of the guys knocked his G-Shock and it lit up.
They travelled like that for what seemed like an eternity, the tension high. All it would take was one tango at the bottom with an assault rifl e and they’d all be dead.
Unless Fitzy drilled him fi rst.
Mac didn’t know how the US Army Special Forces did it, but in the Royal Marines and the SBS, your designated tunnel rat usually went on ahead. He’d have good night eyes and would be at the bottom of a tube like this, assessing the dangers and opportunities. In the SBS, the jockeys like Fitzy were a special breed. They were also the ones who liked the wet work – the close-in stuff with knives and garrottes.
Mac hoped Fitzy was down there and safe, hoped his night eyes were working better than Mac’s.
At last Mac felt a tap on his back – the sign that he was about to touch ground. He eased onto what felt like concrete, put his hand up and touched Paul on the back as he came down. Mac’s guide then pulled him back one step by the ovies. Mac pulled Paul back one step. And so it went.
They stood in blackness. Unable to see their hands in front of them. When the entire conga line was down, they pulled each other round in a laager, face in, then knelt down as their eyes adjusted to a low-light environment.
Mac got the feeling they were in a side tunnel. It looked to be curved on the ceiling, running at right angles to how the main mine should run.
‘First we fi nd the main shaft,’ said Sawtell, almost whispering.
The men pulled their shirts off their backs, unravelled their M4s and put their BDU tops back on. All in silence.
Mac had quelled his nerves to some extent but he was still uncertain about where they were going and how they’d fi nd the VX.
He fought the panic urge, breathed it through and looked over at Paul, who was strangely serene.
Without noise, Fitzy arrived back and hand-signalled to Sawtell.
Sawtell nodded and they slipped through the blackness behind Fitzy.
After ten minutes they stopped and formed the laager again.
Sawtell tapped Spikey who joined Fitzy at a wall. Mac saw there was an iron door set in the concrete side.
Spikey removed his mini-bergen and leaned against the wall while he assembled something. Mac couldn’t make it out even though Spikey was only two paces away.
The men breathed gently, excited but patient. Spikey seemed to be cranking something. Mac squinted, strained his neck. Paul whispered,
‘Auger.’
The grinding lasted fi fteen minutes, the troop dead silent. Then Spikey knelt at the bag and did something with what looked like a texta. He brought a box out of the bag. Fitzy put his hands near the hole Spikey had augered and Spikey fl icked a switch. A small black and white monitor sprang to life, so bright that hands went up to eyes. In the glow Mac could see that the tunnel was indeed curved, was about nine feet at its highest point, and had the long lines and grooves indicating where the boards had been all those decades ago when the concrete was poured in – probably by slaves.
The light also showed the door, which was iron, about fi ve-foot tall and much like a hatchway on a ship, with a locking wheel in the centre.
Mac saw an image come up on Spikey’s box. They’d put fi bre optic through the wall. Spikey looked over his shoulder at Sawtell who stood, knees creaking, and took the box. By the look of the monitor, there were lights on behind that wall. Mac felt his heart rate picking up. Spikey looked at the captain’s face, not at the monitor, looking for a sign that they were going to get it on. Do what they’d been trained for, fi nish Sabaya, grab the VX, get out of Dodge.
Sawtell didn’t fl inch, his face a mix of concentration, confi dence and professional reticence. He went over and over the same stretch of tunnel then looked over his shoulder at Gordie, a big, red-headed, freckly bloke with a Texan accent. G
ordie was given the box and he shifted the picture back and forth too. Sawtell whispered in his ear, gestured with his hand. Mac got the impression Sawtell wanted more escape routes. Wanted better odds, rather than just throwing themselves into that lit tunnel and then trying to work out what to do.
Mac liked that.
Mac also had an idea.
He signalled Sawtell and whispered to him away from the hatchway door.
‘You sure about this?’ asked Sawtell.
‘No,’ Mac whispered.
Sawtell put his hands on his hips.
‘Mate, all I’m saying is that I think that’s a blast door. Get behind it if there’s blasting down the main tunnel,’ said Mac. ‘So logically, the blast tunnel follows the main tunnel all the way down.’
‘You saying that’s not the only door?’ asked Sawtell.
‘I’m pretty sure.’
‘You want to go with Fitzy, check?’
Mac gulped, said, ‘Okay.’
Sawtell chuckled. ‘I’m joking, McQueen. You look like a rabbit caught on the road.’
Fitzy now moved with a Maglite. The knowledge that there was a concrete wall between the main tunnel and the blast tunnel had eased the caution and they moved quickly, semi-jogging, assault rifl es stowed in the almost ready position, past the blast doors that seemed to be spaced two hundred feet apart.
The group moved deeper into the hillside, the cold and damp increasing with every step. Mac sniffl ed, noticed others were too. The dribbles of water of fi fteen minutes before were now running streams down the sides of the blast tunnel. It was getting eerie.
Fitzy suddenly stopped, his hand over the light so it cast a faint glow rather than a beam. Human voices were coming from the other side of the nearest blast door. Sounded like Tagalog.
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