by Carl Bowen
Cross gave Walker a quick grateful nod and split the cell into two fireteams. He took Yamashita and Williams in one direction.
Walker led Brighton and Larssen in the other direction. He and his men crossed the underside of the helipad to a metal ladder on the far side. The three of them climbed until Walker reached the top and stopped. Carefully, he peered over the edge to take stock of the situation.
Twenty or so miserable-looking Chinese and Cuban hostages sat huddled in the center of the helipad. They were leaning against each other for warmth, or shivering with their arms wrapped around themselves. None of them spoke to each other or to their captors. To Walker’s eyes, none of them appeared to be injured or otherwise suffering, but it would be Williams’s job to say for sure.
Walker scanned for mercenaries. Two of them had been left to guard the hostages. Like the man down on the catwalk, the guards wore ballistic vests and carried submachine guns. One of them stood at the edge of the helipad looking out over the ocean, holding a writhing, pitiful Chinese crewman by his neck. The other guard stood by the group of hostages in the center. The second guard was laughing as the hostage in the mercenary’s grasp squirmed.
“What’s the matter?” the mercenary demanded of his terrified prisoner. “You don’t have to use the bathroom anymore? Don’t be shy, we’re all guys here. Go ahead, do your business.”
Walker clenched his teeth, struggling to repress the urge to aim his M4 one-handed and drop the thug where he stood. Yet, as satisfying as that might be, he couldn’t be sure that the man wouldn’t knock the prisoner overboard. And Walker didn’t want to get into the habit of shooting people just because they were bullies.
The waterproof canalphone in Walker’s right ear activated. Walker scanned across the helipad for Cross’s fireteam. He could just make out Cross crouching at the top of the stairway leading onto the helipad on the other side of the platform.
Walker tapped his canalphone twice, returning Cross’s signal. Cross took aim at the mercenary who was standing near the bulk of the hostages. Walker tensed on the ladder, preparing to move on the hostile who was harassing the captured crewman. He glanced back at Brighton, and held up three fingers. Then two. Then one . . .
The men launched into action, performing a variation on a set of maneuvers they had practiced many times in training. Cross stood up into full view of both guards and actually whistled to get their attention. It was just the kind of grandstanding that Walker found most annoying about Cross. However, it was undeniably effective: both guards turned to look at Cross in stunned surprise. That was when Walker mounted the helipad deck from the ladder.
Cross fired a single round. The guard folded up in the middle and sank to his knees. The hostages scrambled back away from him, parting for Cross as he rushed over to the downed mercenary.
A moment after Cross fired, the Hardwall mercenary by the edge of the helipad reacted with predictable cowardice. He yanked his gasping Chinese prisoner around in a half circle, clutching him from behind as a human shield. The mercenary brought his submachine gun up one-handed over the hostage’s shoulder and pointed it at Cross.
Walker momentarily considered blasting the submachine gun out of the mercenary’s hand. Instead, he aimed down at the mercenary’s right thigh and fired. The bullet drilled right through his leg. The mercenary yelped and collapsed as his leg buckled, giving his human shield a chance to dash over to his huddled coworkers.
That’s good at least, Walker thought. However, the wounded mercenary was aware of him now, and he was still perfectly capable of firing his weapon. As the merc flopped onto his back, he started to raise his gun with one hand.
“Drop it!” Walker demanded, reluctant to shoot an American citizen. “Now!”
Whether the man would have complied or not, Walker would never know. No sooner had Walker shouted his warning when Lieutenant Commander Cross raised his M4 and put the issue to rest, squeezing off a shot that caught the mercenary’s MP5 right above the trigger. Hot metal shrapnel burst from the weapon as it flew out of the man’s hand.
When the ruined submachine gun clattered to the deck, Cross shot it again. The weapon skittered over the side of the helipad and into the ocean.
Walker glanced at Cross, knowingly glaring at the man who’d potentially just saved his life. Cross flicked Walker a salute and a smirk.
Walker just shook his head and turned away. He wasn’t going to begrudge Cross for taking the shot, but did the man have to show off when he did it?
Brighton and Larssen had climbed up onto the helipad behind Walker. They moved past him to zip-cuff the wounded mercenary. They pulled off his Bluetooth headset, bound his hands behind his back, and then treated his nonfatal leg wound.
Walker let the man lie and joined Cross. He was just finishing zip-cuffing the other mercenary. The Hardwall man lay on his stomach gasping for air, trying to recover from being struck by Cross’s first shot. The bullet had been stopped by the ballistic vest, sparing his life, but knocking the wind out of him.
The hostages milled around, staring at the American soldiers with every imaginable variety of dumbfounded shock. Two incapacitated guards and no deaths. Walker had to admit that Cross did well. Really well.
Cross looked over at Walker and mouthed the word, “Clear?” Walker nodded. Williams came over at the same time, leaving Yamashita to keep a lookout for the rest of the hostiles. For the moment, none of the three remaining Hardwall mercs were anywhere to be seen. So Williams walked among the skittish hostages, looking for obvious signs of trauma and asking quiet questions.
Walker approached the hostage whom the second mercenary had tried to use as a human shield. “Are you hurt?” he whispered in Chinese.
The hostage’s glassy, confused eyes slowly came back into focus. He shook his head. “They didn’t hurt us,” the man said in a soft, breathless voice.
“Do you know how many guards are left?” Walker asked.
“Four,” the hostage answered. “One is on the catwalk below.”
Walker nodded. That one was no longer a problem. “Where are the rest?” he asked.
“Operations control, with the station chief,” the hostage said, pointing up toward the highest point of the facility. “They’re talking to my government.”
Walker relayed that information to Cross as Brighton and Larssen dragged the wounded mercenary over to them. The hostages backed off again. The mercenary moaned and tried to clutch at his leg with his zip-cuffed hands, cursing and yelling at them.
“Can we give this guy something to shut him up?” Brighton whispered in annoyance to Cross and Williams. “He’s going to give our position away.”
“I’ve got something for him,” Cross said, stepping next to the wounded man. The mercenary looked up just as Cross slammed the butt of his carbine square into the merc’s forehead. He lost consciousness instantly.
“Oh!” Brighton said, flinching and hiding his mouth behind his hand. Then, with a huge grin, he crouched over the unconscious mercenary. “You all right, man?” Brighton joked. “Walk it off, buddy.”
“Shh!” Walker hissed, giving Brighton the noise-discipline signal. The combat controller snapped back to his feet, his grin not completely gone.
“All right, form up,” Cross said softly, calling his men together. “We’ve got three hostiles remaining. They are in or around the operations center at the top of the facility.” He addressed Williams. “Stay here and give the hostages a once-over.” Then he looked at Larssen. “Watch his back, and keep an eye on the injured mercenaries.”
“Sir,” Williams and Larssen said together.
“You three are with me,” Cross said to Walker, Yamashita, and Brighton. “Let’s go sew this one up.”
“Sir,” Yamashita and Brighton said. Walker only gave a curt nod.
The fireteam joined Cross and left the helipad. With eyes and gun barrels swee
ping back and forth and up and down, the men moved up a metal stairway to the platform’s upper levels. The stairway wrapped around the outside of the platform and led into a narrow exterior walkway with pipes, valves, and gauges on both sides.
From there, the team passed through a wire-strewn computer center, a sparse recreation room with a television and ping-pong table, and the kitchen and dining area. Each room was messy and cluttered, evidence suggesting that the Hardwall men had rousted the crew in the middle of the workday. But there was no sign of more hostiles.
After clearing the rooms on that level, the team emerged onto another walkway. It wrapped around the other side of the structure, leading to another stairway to the topmost levels. Before the fireteam reached the stairs, Cross suddenly gave the stop signal. He looked over the rail at the helipad below. Walker looked down as well, trying to figure out what had caught the lieutenant commander’s attention.
Walker saw that the hostages had grouped up at the edge of the helipad closest to the center of the platform. Williams moved among them, making sure everyone was in good health. Larssen was finishing zip-cuffing the two mercenaries to a stair railing. Faint smears of blood shone in the lights, indicating where Larssen had dragged the unconscious, wounded mercenary over to the rail.
“Lieutenants,” Cross said, tapping his canalphone. “Did either of you call for medical evac?”
“Negative,” Larssen and Williams answered, confusion evident in their voices.
Walker shared their confusion for a moment until he heard what Cross had already noticed: the sound of a helicopter chopping through the night air. The Navy had a Seahawk on standby in case of emergencies. But this helicopter wasn’t coming from the right direction.
All too quickly, the aircraft roared up out of the darkness. It threw blinding halogen spotlights onto the helipad. One light played over the frightened hostages. The other spotlight illuminated Larssen, who was just crossing the helipad to rejoin Williams.
Cross and Walker both recognized the make of the helicopter as it rose into view. It was a Russian-made Mil Mi-8 — a troop transport and fast-attack gunship employed by both the Chinese and the Cuban militaries. The hostages’ countrymen had come to rescue them at last. And now, in a huddled mass of terrified hostages, they had spotted an armed soldier standing over them.
The chopper turned its broadside toward the landing pad. A door in the side slid open. “Get out of there!” Walker and Cross called, hitting their canalphones simultaneously. Their warning was too late.
Machine guns flared to life as bullets drew a crisscrossing line across the concrete right toward Larssen. He had already started running away from the hostages and toward cover, but he wasn’t fast enough. Larssen’s body jerked, spun, and fell — all in the blink of an eye. He landed only a few yards short of safety.
The helicopter lowered toward the pad, preparing to offload soldiers. Cross pointed toward the helicopter. “Yamashita,” he said through clenched teeth. “Tail rotor.”
“Sir,” Yamashita said without even a hint of emotion in his voice.
As one, Yamashita and Cross raised their weapons and fired in the helicopter’s direction.
Walker had to admit his commanding officer was one of the best shots he had ever seen. Cross managed to squeeze off two three-round bursts that dug into the helicopter’s hull just below the spinning main rotor. A third burst followed, raising a thick plume of white smoke. The helicopter’s engine squealed like a wounded animal.
As good a shot as Cross was, however, Yamashita was even better. Firing one bullet at a time, he punched a line of holes in the helicopter’s narrow tail, damaging the mechanism of the stabilizing rotor on the rear. The chopper bucked suddenly in the air and swerved wildly to one side. The pilot fought the spin and just barely managed to keep it from slamming into the edge of the helipad and crashing into the ocean below.
“Cease fire,” Cross ordered. He and Yamashita lowered their weapons.
Walker saw the gunmen inside clinging to the handholds for dear life. They were unable to even find where the shots were coming from, much less return fire.
Barely able to control the aircraft, the pilot veered away from the Black Anchor and raced back the way he’d come. The helicopter fishtailed across the sky like a car swerving on an icy road.
Walker assumed the craft had launched from one of the vessels keeping watch on the water. He wondered if it would be able to make it back and land in one piece.
“Williams!” Cross barked, pointing over the rail toward where Larssen lay bleeding. It was technically a breach of operational protocol to refer to any of the team members by name while engaged in the field, but Walker could hardly fault the slip.
“Got him,” came Williams’s response over the canalphone. The corpsman rushed across the helipad and crouched over Larssen. He broke out the first-aid kit he hadn’t yet needed for the hostages. A moment later, Williams said, “He’s alive, Commander — barely. We need our evac chopper.”
Cross had already produced a waterproof radio from one of his cargo pockets. He keyed in the emergency frequency. “Angel, this is Preacher,” he called, mostly concealing the distress in his voice. “Man down. We need an airlift.”
“Preacher, this is Angel,” the pilot of the standby chopper called back. “Roger that, Preacher. ETA is five minutes.”
Cross signed off. Then he tapped his canalphone and said, “Five minutes, Williams.”
Williams sighed. “Sir.”
“I’ll gather our dive gear,” Brighton said, turning as if to head back down below.
“Leave it,” Cross said, stowing the radio. “You heard the man, we’ve only got five minutes.”
“Sir?” Brighton said.
“Three hostiles left,” Cross said, “and one hostage.”
The distress from seeing Larssen down, and possibly dying, was absent from Cross’s face now. In its place was a cold, grim anger. “Let’s move,” Cross barked.
“What about the SDV?” Brighton asked.
“The Navy can send a SEAL team if they want it back,” Cross replied. “Now move out.”
Brighton opened his mouth to say something else, but was silenced by the chattering of submachine gun fire. Bullets roared from ahead and above, ringing off the walls and the metal catwalk. Walker saw where the shots came from and realized what must have happened. The hostiles, unaware of Shadow Squadron’s arrival, had heard the chopper open fire. The sudden departure of the helicopter had undoubtedly surprised them, but now they’d spotted Cross’s fireteam, realizing they were still under siege. Fortunately, rather than move in for the kill or spread out to coordinate a crossfire, they’d simply opened fire from where they stood.
Two mercenaries were shooting from the catwalk one level up. Most of their shots were wild and panicked, though one glanced off Cross’s helmet and another grazed Brighton across the shoulder blade.
The fireteam took cover. Walker had the clearest line of sight on the gunmen. He threw a line of fire up toward them, sending them diving backward for cover. Cross angrily signaled the team to move up and take the stairway, unwilling to let up on the mercenaries now that they’d engaged. Walker laid down cover fire to keep the mercenaries’ heads down.
Hissing in pain from the wound on his back, Brighton rushed to a position at the foot of the steps and fired a few rounds up over the men’s heads. Yamashita backtracked and scrambled up a ladder, looking for a level field of fire. One of the mercenaries saw him climbing and fired off what was left in his clip, but Walker drove him back with another stream of suppressing fire. The other mercenary fired back, forcing Yamashita to roll around a corner.
For a moment, no one moved and no one fired. The Hardwall men couldn’t come down, and Yamashita had a firing line on their only avenue of escape. However, the mercs had clear lanes of fire on the only route the fireteam could take to reach th
em.
They were at a stalemate. Time was running out.
Suddenly, Lieutenant Commander Cross stood up. With his back to a wall, he moved toward a position directly beneath where the two mercenaries were holed up together. Then he signaled Walker to join Brighton at the base of the stairs and for the two of them to get ready to move.
Walker frowned. Yamashita wasn’t in a position to provide covering fire. He only had a line on the mercenaries’ escape route. If Brighton and Walker went up the stairs, the mercenaries would have a nice, narrow lane of fire to cut them down.
What is Cross thinking? Walker wondered.
Reading the expression on Walker’s face, Cross winked, then gave him the think spherically sign. He reached into his belt and drew an M84 flashbang grenade, then nodded at the walkway overhead.
Walker still wasn’t sure exactly what Cross had in mind, but he got ready to move just the same. Cross pulled the pin but held the spoon and started counting down from five on his free hand. At two, he let go of the spoon but held onto the grenade, letting its fuse cook off in his hand. At zero, he signaled for Walker and Brighton to go, and the two men immediately rushed up the stairs together, staring down the long stretch of walkway between themselves and the mercs.
Hearing their approach, the mercs leaned around with their weapons. At the same moment, Cross took one step out from under the catwalk and threw his flashbang straight up in the air. It popped up over the rail right next to the mercenaries.
The flare and the concussion knocked the mercs off their feet, giving Walker and Brighton all the time they needed to close in and disarm them.
Cross and Yamashita quickly joined them. Walker signaled for Brighton to keep an eye out for the last mercenary. Then Walker went to work zip-cuffing the mercenaries to the catwalk.