by A. J Tata
As Colonel Mosconi poked and prodded Captain Garrett, Fraley came rambling down the dimly lit hall, rays of sunlight jumping from each office doorway and highlighting Fraley’s cumbersome gait. Rockingham spotted him and angrily moved to meet Fraley in the hallway.
“You, fat son of a bitch!” Rockingham screamed at Fraley, whose eyes bulged wide as Rockingham grabbed him by the lapels and slammed him against the porcelain tile wall in the corridor.
“Get your hands off me, Lieutenant!” Fraley snapped back, his voice muffled by the shirt gathered around his mouth.
“You listen to me,” Rockingham said, grabbing with one hand the bloodstained dressing from Sergeant Spencer, who looked on in amazement.
“You’re gonna fry for this, Lieutenant, you hear me,” Fraley said, sounding like he had a harelip.
“You see this,” he said, holding the bloody dressing, “you did this.” He had lowered his voice, sounding calmer. Although Fraley was large, he was no match for Rockingham’s powerful frame as Rock lowered the man to the floor.
“I want you to have our blood on your face,” he said, wiping the bloodstained bandage across Fraley’s cheeks, “because you’ve already got it on your hands.”
Fraley quickly picked himself off the floor, brushing his green jungle fatigues, and screamed, “MPs!” Then he added, “Listen here, I’m calling your division commander to tell him to throw your ass in the brig at Pearl Harbor so little boys can screw you up your black ass.”
“Like hell you are,” Sergeant Spencer said, moving in front of Rockingham. Spencer, taller than Rockingham, looked to Fraley like an aboriginal warrior.
“Stay out of this, Spence,” Rockingham said, “this is between me and Fraley.” Spencer moved out of the way, giving Rockingham a supportive glance.
“You’ve got to get past me first,” Rockingham said. He was angry. Mostly he was mad about the abuse they had been taking from Fraley. But part of his rage was that he had not been with his company when they needed him.
“Back off, sir,” Spencer said, placing a hand on Rockingham’s chest. “This guy ain’t shit. He’s already pissed his pants. Let him go do whatever he’s got to do. We’ve got four eyewitnesses here that heard him threaten you and say you had a black ass. Now, really, what’s he gonna do?”
Rockingham backed off, glaring at Fraley with catlike eyes. True to Spencer’s prediction, Fraley turned and walked toward the back door, in the direction of his quarters.
The doctor heard the commotion in the hallway, but knowing it centered on Fraley and that the men had been in a firefight all morning, he let it ride, as did Major Hewit, standing by his side. At one time or another, they had all wanted to do and say the things that Lieutenant Rockingham had. Hewit watched out of the corner of his eye as the two scuffled and wondered if it could get much worse.
“Zachary Garrett. My name’s Zachary Garrett.”
The troops snapped their heads back, watching as their commander awoke.
“Zachary,” the doctor said, “how old are you?”
“Thirty-six,” Garrett said, weakly, eyes trying to open, but mostly fluttering.
“Good. What is your job?”
“Commander. Commander of the best troops in the Army.”
With the last comment, the soldiers knew their commander was going to be fine. They let out a collective “hooah” and gathered around him, where he still lay on the plywood.
“Not so fast, guys,” the doctor said, equally happy that Garrett was coherent. “Zachary, I’m taking off your boot and socks, can you feel any-thing?”
The pregnant pause seemed eternal, casting a dreadful silence over the room. “Zachary?” the doctor asked again, this time pricking his foot with the top of his pen.
“I feel something, Doc,” Zachary said hazily, “but I’m not sure.” The doctor loosened the strap around Zachary’s leg that had been securing him to the plywood. “Maybe this will help,” the doctor said, massaging his leg, then returning to the chore of stabbing his foot.
“Oh yeah,” Zachary said, to a collective sigh of relief.
“The combination of a pinched nerve and the tight strap deadened your senses down there. I think basically all we’ve got here is a decent head wound that’ll heal nicely and a concussion that we can’t do anything about except keep you awake for the next few hours.”
No problem, Zachary thought, I’ve got a ton of stuff to do.
“Hey, XO, good to see you. Sure could have used you this morning,” Zachary said at the first sight of him since he had left with Fraley. Then he realized his comment was like salt in an open wound for the XO.
“Don’t remind me, sir,” Rockingham said, looking at the floor.
“Don’t feel bad. Your lieutenants did great. So did the rest of the company. You should have seen Quinones and Kurtz,” Zachary said, shaking his head in disbelief, then stopping at the pain. It was some consolation to Rockingham that the lieutenants had performed well. Being the senior lieutenant in the company, he had taken the three “newbies” under his wing and personally guided them through the nuances of junior officership. But still, he felt remorse for not being at his commander’s side during the attack.
The doctor cleaned and dressed the wound on Zachary’s head after shaving the left side of his scalp. “Might as well get the other side while you’re at it,” he joked to the doctor, who laughed and complied with Zachary’s request. After that, he worked on Sergeant Cartwright’s leg, a more complicated wound than he had originally thought. Nonetheless, he thoroughly cleaned the deep cut, put in a few stitches, and properly bandaged it. Digging through a cabinet full of pharmaceuticals, he gave each of the wounded soldiers a full bottle of antibiotics.
After about an hour, the delegation was prepared to return to what the troops had already affection-ately labeled “Garrett’s Gulch.”
Captain Garrett, the XO, Sergeant Spencer, Sergeant Cartwright, and the other three soldiers collected their personal gear and weapons and began to make their way up the stairs to the helicopter. They straggled, with the healthy soldiers helping the wounded, all with thankful expressions on their faces. It could have been a scene out of the Red Badge of Courage, the wounded men limping slowly, arms wrapped around the healthy ones. Uniforms ripped and shredded in places, bloodstained.
They heard a commotion toward the front of the building, followed by several shots fired. Having had their fill for the day, they continued up the stairs, finally reaching the roof, where the medevac helicopter started its engine with the high-pitched whine of the turbines, blades turning slowly and awkwardly at first, then beating and chopping to full speed. The body of the aircraft fought the tremens-dous torque and bounced on its wheels.
As they left the air-conditioned building, the Philippine sun blasted their faces with moist heat. Out of instinct, they all checked their canteens. The group hobbled toward the helicopter.
The gunshots grew louder. Automatic-weapons fire. The helicopter pilot was waving his arm at them, beckoning them forward. As the intensity of firing grew, three men and two women came running toward the helicopter from the embassy side of the compound, about one hundred meters from their position by the embassy.
The fleeing men and women were dressed in business suits and dresses that did not facilitate a rapid escape. The door swung open wide again, this time spewing Filipino rebels with blue and red bandannas. They knelt to fire at the fleeing American diplomats without noticing the straggling American soldiers.
“Spence, you go left, I’ll go right,” Rockingham said, grabbing one soldier, leaving the other two for Sergeant Spencer, who moved rapidly around the hovering aircraft. The pilot looked nervously at the armed Filipinos and had a moral decision to make. Did he save his own hide, or did he try to save them all? His hand started to pull back on the cyclic and collective controls, then released as he reasoned otherwise.
The five American civilians were running toward Sergeant Spencer’s team near the rear of the aircraft
. Spencer waved his arms rapidly at the group, most of whom were too scared to notice the whirring, invisible tail rotor of the UH-60. They could not hear Spencer’s cries of warning above the gunfire and chopping of the helicopter.
“Get down! Watch out!” Spencer yelled as he watched a young blonde sprint toward them, eyes wide and hair tumbling across her face just enough to distort the fact that she was headed directly into the path of the rotor.
The ambassador realized his secretary’s mistake and reached toward her, straining to grasp her as a hail of bullets chewed the cement behind him. Spencer watched as the young woman’s face splattered against the aircraft and parts of her arms and torso were tossed about the landing pad, looking like some grisly artwork display.
The ambassador rolled underneath the blades, and the rest of his team avoided them as well. They joined Sergeant Spencer’s team of three soldiers as they rounded the aircraft. Spencer told the civilians to get down on the cement when he heard the XO’s rifle open fire. The five insurgents were caught by surprise, reeling under the withering fire brought forth by the XO’s two-man team and Sergeant Spencer’s team from the opposite side of the helicopter.
Meanwhile, Captain Garrett helped Sergeant Cartwright onto the helicopter, then pulled out his 9mm Beretta. Noticing the civilians, he hurried them next to Cartwright in time to turn around and see the door open from the JUSMAG section of the compound. It was Fraley.
“They got Doc and Hewit!” he screamed above the roar of the UH-60 blades as he ran from the door. Zachary, his back to the helicopter, saw three rebels spring from the doorway, chasing Fraley. It was Zachary who had the moral decision.
He was a decent man, so there was no real hesitation. He crouched in a good firing position and fired past Fraley’s wide eyes at the three insurgents. Fraley rambled past Zachary and joined the increasing population on the helicopter. Zachary fired without hesitation, first selecting a target, then squeezing the trigger. He killed the rebels, who, like their countrymen across the heliport, were surprised by the armed opposition on the roof.
The soldiers quickly boarded the helicopter, their weight exceeding the load limit of the aircraft. The pilot gingerly adjusted the controls so the aircraft slowly lifted off the heliport, obviously straining under the excessive weight. He pitched the nose forward and climbed slowly into the air.
The door from the JUSMAG opened with a slam. Colonel Mosconi, the Air Force doctor, fell forward onto the hot cement. He was bleeding badly from his left shoulder and held a pistol in his right hand. He crawled on all fours, craning his neck to see the helicopter. The cement burned his hands and the pistol smashed his fingers each time he slapped his hand forward to move another centimeter toward the helicopter.
“Cover me!” Rockingham yelled, jumping from the barely airborne aircraft.
Fraley reached across the aircraft, grabbing Rockingham, and screamed, “No! Leave him, or we’ll never make it!”
Rockingham punched Fraley in the face, smash-ing his nose and knocking him out.
Sprinting to Mosconi, the XO slid under him and lifted him into a fireman’s carry, feeling Mosconi’s blood oozing down his back. He took long, heavy steps back toward the aircraft, as more rebels began spilling onto the rooftop. Flipping Mosconi onto the commander’s lap, Rockingham winced in pain as the Black Hawk pulled away. He held on to a metal tube that served as a seat frame, his legs hanging out of the aircraft.
Zachary had both arms around Mosconi, who lay unconscious and maybe dead. With one hand, he grabbed Rockingham’s arm to give him support.
Rockingham looked at him with the blank eyes of a wounded deer. He knew then that the XO had been hit in the back with a bullet. Bullets zipped past and into the frame of the laboring aircraft. Sergeant Spencer grabbed Rockingham’s other arm. Soon, both arms went limp, and Rockingham’s eyes retreated into a world where there would be no pain. His body became deadweight against the pull of Zachary and Spencer.
With sudden alarm and shock, they realized their friend was dead. Hanging on, Spencer and Garrett looked at each other, trying to hold back their emotions. But they were only human.
Uncertainly, the pilot banked the machine hard to the left, diving below the level of the building to avoid the fire, and sped low along Roxas Boulevard with too much weight and too little time. They headed to the only safe place for an American in the Philippines—Garrett’s Gulch.
CHAPTER 41
Mindanao Island, Philippines
Chuck Ramsey and his Special Forces team had been on the run for four days. The steep, jagged mountains had proved both a blessing and an enemy. Even these hardened men were having problems sustaining the rate of march necessary to elude Talbosa’s Abu Sayyaf cell.
Ramsey stopped and looked down into the steep ravine. Can we make it? A few days ago, he would not have doubted it. Today, his men standing in single file behind him, panting, he was unsure.
“Take five, men,” Ramsey told them. Despite their exhaustion, they moved to either side of their route and turned outward, each man taking a knee. They pulled their canteens out of their pouches and drank heavily. Every man was dehydrated. The heat had intensified during the last four days. The only respite was a gully washer, as Ramsey had called it. The near-monsoon-level rains had drenched his team and the Japanese man for hours, making them cold and miserable through the night. But the next day had brought forth the same burning, searing sun, and soon they were longing for the cool rain again. They needed water badly.
Ramsey knew he had to find a river for his men to refill their canteens. They still had plenty of water purification tablets to make the river water acceptable. More importantly, though, they needed to find a way to establish communications. He felt like he was carrying a deep secret that the world needed to know. He had the key to something, he was not quite sure what. While he had grown to tolerate Abe, he seriously doubted the man’s story. Although it was plausible that the United States would be rearming the Armed Forces of the Philip-pines, he doubted that they would fund Japanese factories to do so. He had to make contact with somebody who could relay the message.
Anybody!
Kneeling on both knees, he leaned back, stretching his weary back muscles. His sixty-pound ruck was beginning to feel like an appendage to his body. He didn’t bother to take it off. To put the weight back on again would somehow be demoral-izing.
He gazed over some scrub. The ravine was about a sixty-degree drop with no trails. High tropical trees gave way to dense undergrowth and rocks. The terrain pitched deep into a narrow bottom that ran east toward the ocean.
Ramsey grabbed his two-quart canteen and took a long pull. The water was warm. Must be a hundred degrees out here. He was right. As he drank, he could feel his body rehydrate. Immediately his pores spewed forth sweat in an attempt to cool his scorching skin, only to have the beaming sun lick the moisture away.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw Benson turning his canteen up to the Japanese man’s mouth. Water spilled over the edges of his dry, chapped lips as he gulped. Earlier, he had his men remove the tape from Abe’s eyes and mouth. It only made sense. He was a healthy, but gentle man. He would do them no harm and would not last a day in the jungle if he escaped.
Abe’s story was unbelievable. Ramsey asked him repeatedly if they really were manufacturing tanks and helicopters in the plant. He always responded that they were indeed. Abe insisted that the American government was footing the bill, as they had done for Japan’s defense needs for so many years.
But the rub, according to Abe—an obviously bright man—was that America was doing this because they needed help in the Global War on Terror and wanted Japan to maintain stronger defenses. To Ramsey, it made no sense. Tanks and helicopters were not the best tools of the trade in fighting an idea such as radical Islam. The question Ramsey considered was, Why would the Japanese be building and stockpiling weapons on Mindanao?
In the Philippines?
Ramsey looked at Abe, kneeling in the
thick jungle vines, looking exhausted with his eyes fixed on the ground at his feet. He had kind eyes and a smooth face. His hands were not the hands of a warrior. Rather, they were soft and delicate like those of a lawyer or executive. Ramsey had made him burn the orange jump suit and given him one of his own extra uniforms. It was a bit large, but served the purpose. Abe, in his running shoes and camouflaged jungle fatigues, reminded him of a soldier with some sort of foot ailment who had received a “no physical training profile” from the doctor. But Abe had proven to be in excellent condition. His stamina was lacking, but he could keep up with the group.
From the rear of the patrol, Benson came slithering through the elephant grass quickly. He carried a concerned look in his eyes.
“Sir, we’ve got movement to our rear,” he said. Immediately, the team fanned into an L- shaped ambush, with Ramsey at the corner so he could control any engagement. Crouching low in the two-meter-high elephant grass, he could still see nearly a hundred meters along the path they had bored through the dense rain forest.
He saw it. There was movement toward them, following the trail they had inadvertently made. Ramsey could see no one but Eddie, who was kneeling and watching next to him. He peered through his binoculars, seeing only the undergrowth move. As his rising adrenaline level made his stomach twist into a knot, he felt a dry copper taste in the back of his mouth. He was tired. He was hungry. Perversely, he thought of all of the Vietnam movies he had seen in which soldiers shot at water buffalo thinking they were enemy. While he did not expect any water buffalo that high in the rain forest, nothing could really have surprised him.
Eddie motioned to him for the binoculars. He had grown quite confident and comfortable with the group. He wanted to make a contribution and had done so on many occasions. While Chuck still painfully mourned the loss of his best friend, Ron Peterson, he was glad that Eddie had happened along. He handed the glasses to Eddie, who placed them to his eyes.