Sudden Threat

by A. J Tata

  Barker’s men had enough of a problem carrying the bodies of Rockingham and Teller the three kilometers to the airfield. The platoon members had constructed two stretchers using rain ponchos and ten-centimeter by three-and-a-half-meter mahogany branches. By snapping two ponchos together, then folding them, they slid the sturdy branches through either side. But it was not so much the physical aspect of carrying their deceased comrades away, but the mental vision of two of their own, brutally slaughtered in a war they never expected. Surprised, shaken, unnerved, his men had handled themselves exceptionally well. He feared though that their adrenaline had been blocking their emotions, and soon fear and unrest might set in. He needed to counter that if it occurred.

  He watched as Barker slipped past him in the twilight, moving his men and his “cargo” to a rally point. Zachary saw him coordinate with Kurtz, whose lines he would be passing through. Kurtz had marked a single passage lane and designated his best squad leader to serve as the guide through that lane. Each man in Barker’s platoon had popped an IR chemical light and placed it in the camouflage band of his Kevlar.

  Barker’s platoon moved quietly through the center of the patrol base. The other men watched as they saw the civilians, Fraley, Mosconi, and Sergeant Cartwright hobble past. Cartwright made one last plea to the commander to stay, but Garrett told him no. His fever had risen in the last twenty-four hours, and the hot dust always found its way to the most remote parts of the body. Zachary feared infection. He would hate for Cartwright to lose a leg.

  Zachary handed the good sergeant two envelopes and told him to get them to the addressees. Cartwright limped back into the growing mob near Kurtz’s position. Soldiers were casually hugging and conversing with Cartwright, who was torn between wanting to stay with the unit and wanting the medical attention that he needed.

  Then Fraley came forward in the darkness. Zachary could make out his rotund outline carved against the crazy array of the jungle.

  “I just want to apologize,” Fraley said, his head hanging low. Zach figured that it had finally occurred to him that he was dealing with a professional combat unit. They had saved his life, despite his poor treatment of them. During the night in the jungle, alone, apart from his world of Filipino concubines and whiskey, Zach surmised that fat Fraley had suffered “cold turkey” and got some religion. Tough shit. That won’t bring back Teller or Rockingham.

  He presumed that Fraley had forgotten that regardless of his position or duty, there was always a soldier out there somewhere, on the ground, holding a weapon, looking through the sight, wondering, waiting, hoping, and praying that someone above him had made the correct call. That someone cared.

  Fraley had not. He had gone native, so far removed from supervision or the “real” Army, whatever that was. Zach knew that Fraley had believed he could collect a paycheck, have an adult fantasy every night, and laugh all the way to retirement.

  But he had been wrong. Zachary looked over Fraley’s shoulder as Barker’s platoon hoisted the bodies of Rockingham and Teller past him, carrying them into the darkness like a medieval funeral procession. Out of the corner of his eye, he heard Slick mutter, “Son of a bitch,” and saw him turn away.

  “Don’t tell me,” Zachary said, staring into Fraley’s eyes. Fraley looked away, down toward the ground. “Tell the families of those two men.”

  With that, Zachary walked away and spit into the ground. No way was he going to ease Fraley’s conscience. The whole fiasco might have been avoided had Fraley done his job. But it was too late to think about that.

  Barker moved his platoon through the jungle. They had reconnoitered and marked a route to the linkup location during the day. It was a simple matter of following the pre-positioned IR chemical lights.

  Barker met with X-Ray, a large man dressed in khaki civilian attire. Barker thought the man looked like a safari hunter, but he had answered the challenge properly and spoke with authority. X-Ray stood at least a foot taller than Barker.

  He had a HMMWV with cargo space in the back. The high tarp on the back made it look rather conspicuous, but still concealed the cargo.

  “This’ll make everybody but the three hostages,” the man said. Barker looked at him through his glasses with surprise. “They should be here tomorrow morning.”

  “What three hostages?” he queried.

  “Some guy named Rathburn, a DoD bigwig, and two of his staffers,” X-Ray said, intentionally concealing the fact that he knew Matt Garrett was a hostage for fear of compromising his negotiated release. “Terrorists blew up a DoD plane with a bunch of women on it.”

  “No shit,” Barker said, trying to be cool. It was out of character for him, and he seemed awkward saying it.

  “You guys did a kick-ass job. That’s what the president says anyway,” X-Ray told Barker. “Now get out of here.” He patted Barker on the shoulder, hopped into the truck, and pulled away, disappearing behind a jagged rise in the extinct volcano.

  Barker could not wait to get the message back to his commander. A compliment from the president. That would lift morale. Popping his chest out, he moved his platoon back through Kurtz’s lines, conducting the proper far-and-near recognition symbols with the IR flashlight.

  “Way to go, Stan,” Kurtz said, offering a high five. Barker responded awkwardly, but finally felt as though he had contributed to the operation.

  “Sitrep,” Garrett said, emerging from the darkness behind Kurtz.

  Barker first gave his platoon sergeant instructions to re-form his portion of the patrol base.

  “Sir, X-Ray correctly responded to the challenge, and he fit the description you provided. We success-fully transferred all personnel and the … uh,”—he found it hard to say, the reality of Rockingham’s and Teller’s deaths just now sinking in—“along with Rock and Teller, sir.”

  “Anything else?” Zachary said, picking up on Barker’s discomfort.

  “Well, sir, X-Ray sent a message from the presi-dent.”

  “As in president of the United States?” Zachary queried.

  “Yes, sir,” Barker proudly responded as the sole possessor of the information. It occurred to him that knowledge really did equate to power.

  “No shit!” Kurtz said with much more authority than Barker could ever dream.

  “He said we, and I quote, ‘did a kick-ass job.’”

  “Son of a bitch,” Kurtz said.

  “No shit?” Zachary asked.

  “No shit, sir,” he responded.

  Zachary immediately had Taylor and the first sergeant move to the command-post area. The CP was located beside a huge mahogany tree. Slick had set up the SCAMP and aimed its antenna to the northeast. Other communications gear surrounded the tree in a weirdly organized fashion. In the darkness, only the white casing of the SCAMP stood out.

  Zachary sat in the dirt, facing his three lieutenants and first sergeant. Slick and a couple of the other headquarters platoon soldiers naturally acted like they had something to do near the meeting and listened intently. There was a certain amount of pride associated with hearing the fresh scoop from the commander before anyone else did. Later, they would be able to take the inevitable rumors back down to ground zero and assert that they “were there.”

  “Guys, we’ve lost two of our own. I know nothing will ever bring back Rock or Teller. I was closer to both of those guys than any of you will ever know,” Zachary began.

  A monkey screamed in agreement from high in a tree off in the distance, adding an eerie quality to Zachary’s gathering. He noticed the dark outline of Slick’s head turn in the direction of the noise, which was followed by another. It sounded like a wounded banshee, lost in the dense jungle.

  “It hurt me bad to watch Stan’s guys haul their bodies away. The envelopes I gave Sergeant Cartwright were letters of sympathy. I handwrote them today when I knew he was going back. One was to Pat Teller, and the other to Glenda Rockingham.” The lieutenants knew both of the wives. Glenda was a major force in the company, organizing even
ts, and Pat had seemed eager to contribute to platoon events even though she was new and pregnant. They were great Americans and had paid the greatest sacrifice—the loss of a loved one in combat.

  “I have to tell you, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” It was important for Zachary to share that moment with his men. They needed to understand that he was human and felt the loss. They needed to know that if one of them was killed, he would handle the situation with the same compassion.

  “We held off a large, unexpected attack with minimal loss of life. We safely evacuated the frigging ambassador and his staff from the embassy. And now we have successfully put those people plus Cartwright and Rock and Teller onto an airplane to fly home.

  “We performed those missions well. In fact, Stan’s contact gave us a message from the president that I want you all to convey to your soldiers. I want you to do it personally, walking from position to position.

  “The president said, and I quote from Stan, that we ‘did a kick-ass job.’ We’re a good company, probably the best I’ve ever seen,” he said, intentionally mixing his feelings with the president’s quote. “But we’ve got more missions. Probably tough missions. There’s a reason we did not fly out on those planes tonight, I guarantee you that.

  “Now I want you to go talk to your men. Comfort them. But keep them alert. The fat lady ain’t singing, yet. That’s all.”

  The men departed and did as their commander said. After an hour, the word in the company was that the president of the United States had person-ally called the commander over the tacsat radio and told him that they kicked serious ass, had absolutely the best unit in the Army, and would receive the Presidential Unit Citation when they returned. The United States infantryman was the undisputed master of creating rumors and talking bullshit.

  Zachary smiled in the darkness when Slick informed him with a grin of the transformation of “the word,” as soldiers commonly referred to commanders’ edicts.

  He sat near the Mahogany tree, looking west into the ocean 550 meters below their position, pitching his K-Bar knife into the dirt and pulling it out only to toss it down again. He shook his head at the contrast. Only two weeks ago, he had been looking at a similar sight in the Kahuku training area after his platoon leaders had botched a night raid. They’ve come a long way. No better test than the real thing. But he knew with due modesty that it was his training that had molded the lieutenants.

  Zachary thought about Glenda Rockingham and Pat Teller and how they might react. They would be crushed, he was sure. On the thought, he pounded the knife into the ground, venting some anger. He wondered if he had failed. Could he have done something different? What if he had not gathered his men on that first morning? What if he had carried his own radio? Then maybe Teller would still be alive.

  But he would be the dead one, and where would that have left his men? He reconciled his doubts in his own mind. Still, he thought about Amanda, his daughter, and whether she would ever get to know him outside the image of him created for her by others. What if he were killed? She’d live the rest of her life thinking he had abandoned her. On that note, he simply decided that he would not die there in the Philippines. Exhausted, he lay back in the tall grass and closed his eyes.

  His rest was short. Barker reappeared from the darkness. He thought he heard the commander sniff. Strange that he would catch cold in this heat, he said to himself.

  “Sir, I forgot to tell you something,” Barker said.

  “What’s that,” Zachary responded, wiping his face before he sat up. Good thing it’s dark.

  “X-Ray said that they had extracted all of the Americans except three hostages. Seems the Abu Sayyaf blew up an American plane, but three had already gotten off.”

  “Oh yeah. Maybe that’s our follow-on mission,” Zachary said, thinking aloud.

  “I never thought of that, sir, but he said they were three Defense guys.”

  “Department of Defense,” Zachary said.

  “Some guy named Rathburn and two of his assistants.”

  “More bureaucrats to save,” Zachary grunted.

  “Sir! First Platoon says they’ve got gooks in the wire!” Slick exclaimed, holding the telephone to his ear.

  CHAPTER 69

  “What?” Zachary grabbed his radio handset. Taylor’s voice was on the other end, finishing a sentence. No way, this shit has gone too far.

  “—four to five personnel, over.”

  “Andy, what’s happening?”

  “Sir,” Taylor said, recognizing his voice, “I’ve got five personnel to my front signaling my forward observation post with an IR flashlight. My guys challenged them, and they came back with the proper response. But I told them not to let them pass. They’re just lying there in the grass.”

  Zachary’s mind raced quickly, making the quantum leap from familial worry to steadfast concern for the men the president had entrusted to him. Had they lost the encryption codes and a radio? No, the first sergeant had done a sensitive-items check earlier. Did he have any patrols out? No. The next patrol didn’t go out until midnight. Who could they be? He thought back to his call from the division operations officer. He gave him an exact grid coordinate of his unit’s location. Had that transmission been intercepted?

  The embassy! The embassy had been taken over by Abu Sayyaf. They had all the call signs and secure-encryption variables. He had Slick call the other two platoons using the field phone. Then he decided to inspect the situation personally.

  “Get back to your platoon, go to one hundred percent security,” he told Barker, who split like a scared rabbit.

  Zachary hurried down the hill the hundred meters to Taylor’s position using his night-vision goggles. In the darkness, he passed the clear-cut area where the Black Hawk helicopter had once sat idle.

  Moving beyond the clear-cut, he immediately picked up on the lieutenant and his platoon sergeant kneeling next to the platoon CP area. They were wearing their goggles as well.

  “Where are they?”

  “Down there, sir,” Taylor said, pointing to the northwest. Zachary looked and decided to move forward. He walked, high-stepping the roots and bushes that made for tough going. Taylor followed, the platoon sergeant stayed at the CP. Approaching the two soldiers he noticed they were nervous. One had his night-vision laser sight trained on the individuals lying in the grass only ten meters away. The other soldier was scanning for more intruders.

  “Sitrep?” Zachary asked, assuming the prone position next to the private.

  “Sir, these gooks got our codes. They know our shit,” he responded, continuing to look through his sight. Zachary pulled his Beretta pistol out of its holster and went to one knee.

  “Carnival!” Zachary yelled across to the group lying in the grass. His goggles picked up five bodies with rucksacks lying side by side.

  “Saloon!” a Boston accent responded with the proper password.

  Zachary listened carefully to the voice. It was American, he was sure. Not only that, he recog-nized it.

  “McAllister?” Zachary asked.

  “Garrett?” the voice responded.

  It was too good to be true. Bob McAllister was the A company commander from his battalion.

  “Bob McAllister, the dateless wonder?”

  “Since you left, not the case my friend. Riley and her sister say hello,” McAllister said, not moving.

  “Ease off, guys,” Zachary said to the young privates. They did so warily. Their wires were strung tightly. They kept trained eyes on the five men as they passed. Then they saw their commander and Captain McAllister hug each other.

  “I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I would be glad to see your ugly ass here,” Zachary said.

  “Well, you’ve got a lot more than my ass to deal with. The whole stinkin’ battalion just landed about twelve klicks northwest of here. Pave Lows flew us in. I’m the lead. Got any hot chow?” McAllister said.

  “Yeah, right. Take out the ‘hot’ part, and you’d have a goo
d question,” Zachary strained.

  “Yeah, that’s what we’ve heard. You guys kicked ass, though, man. Whole division’s talking about you like you’re Rambo or some shit,” McAllister said.

  McAllister was a ROTC officer, commissioned from the University of Massachusetts. He was cocky but always backed up his bullshit with proper action. He had knotty red hair that sometimes looked too long. Freckles splashed across his face in asymmetrical disarray. He was average height and looked like a ruffian, which he was.

  “I’d love to stay and bullshit, but we’ve got to call back to the Buckster and let him know we found you weenies,” McAllister said, kneeling and grabbing his radio microphone from his RTO. He radioed the battalion commander and informed him that he had affected linkup. Buck seemed beside himself in his response, as if he never expected it to happen. He delivered an order to proceed as planned, and McAllister handed the handset back to his radio operator.

  “The Buckster, you gotta love him,” he said, shaking his head with a huge grin. “Hey,” Mc-Allister said, “did you know Riley and her sister each has a mole underneath her left breast. Talk about genetic symmetry—”

  “Not a good time for the sex jokes, McAllister. Now move out before we get fired up. This is the real thing, dickhead,” Zachary said, half-joking, half-serious.

  “Trying to lighten you up a little. You’re gonna need it when you find out our next mission. Here,” McAllister said, handing him a stack of letters. “She sends her love and misses you.” Zachary rifled through the stack; nothing from Amanda.