Dangerous Ground: The Team Book Five

by David M. Salkin

  “There!” The bosun altered his course slightly and sped to the downed jet. As he got closer, he slowed down and began focusing the lights near the wings. Dropping down lower, he cruised past the right wing and saw no sign of a diver. He moved around to the other side of the aircraft and dropped lower still.

  “Bingo,” said the chief. “Hold there.”

  The chief panned his camera around and zoomed in. “Up two feet and move closer so I can see his face.”

  The bosun moved the UUV up and around, and sure enough, the bright lights showed the face of a man inside his large helmet, squinting at them. Decker used the controls to wag the wings of the UUV at their downed diver. He smiled and pursed his lips, blowing them a kiss.

  The bosun and chief both laughed out loud. “At least he still has his sense of humor,” said the chief.

  “Yeah, I’m not sure I’d manage to be so calm in his shoes.”

  The chief zoomed back and panned around. “Take me around, Charlie. Let’s see how we’re going to get him the hell out of there.”

  For the next thirty minutes, the UUV moved around the wreck examining the aircraft and how it was pinning their man.

  “I don’t think it’s lying on top of him with a lot of weight, it’s just that damn suit. It’s so hard to move in those things. We get our mini-sub to him, I gear up with my suit, and I think I can drag him out.”

  “We have the inflatable jacks, too,” reminded Charlie.

  “Not a bad idea. We’ll bring them, too.” The inflatable jacks were similar to the ones firemen and first responders used. They were wedged under an object and deployed, filling with air from a compression tank and lifting the object like a car jack.

  “You ever dive six hundred, chief?” asked Charlie.

  “First time for everything, Charlie.”

  “I’ll go. I volunteer,” he said.

  Chief White patted his shoulder. “Thanks, brother, but you’ll be steering the mini-sub. If you get wet, we have a serious problem.”

  Chief White hustled through the crowded sub back to the bridge, where he met with Commander Norman to go over the details. They discussed the mission, the location of the Chinese subs, and the hanging nuclear weapons, and put together a timetable that needed to happen immediately.

  A few hundred yards from where they discussed the plan, Jon Cohen lie in the dark, his body now shaking uncontrollably, as he recited the twenty-third psalm.

  Chapter 38

  Jungle near Kampong Aht

  Val and Kevin had run nonstop for fifteen minutes, hoping they were headed the right way. They stopped when they had cramped up so badly they simply couldn’t run any further. They stood doubled-over with their hands on their knees, trying to catch their breath.

  “They just fucking murdered them. I can’t believe it,” said Val.

  “Insane. But that’s an ISIS flag, Val. One hundred percent sure. ISIS. We need to get this video to the authorities, yeah?”

  “Yes, of course. Do you think it’s safe to stop here?”

  “I’d feel better if we were further away. We’ll catch our breath and go as far and fast as we can. God I hope the key’s in the boat.”

  Val looked around. “Is this even the right way? I mean, I think it’s the way we came. But are you sure?”

  Kevin tried to fight the panic in his stomach. “I don’t know. I think so. It feels like the same way, yeah?

  Valerie wiped a tear. “I say we just keep going this way. It feels right to me. Do you think they know we’re here?”

  “I don’t know. If they questioned Wie with a gun in his face, I reckon he’d tell them. But maybe they just killed him too fast to ask him. Damn. I don’t know. Let’s just go!”

  The two of them started running again, heading back in the direction they thought they’d come from. After twenty more minutes of running, they stopped for water.

  “Kevin? Are we lost?” asked Val.

  His eyes were showing tears. “I don’t know.” He shrugged, trying to hold it together, but panicking in his chest. “Let me see if I can get a signal.” He pulled his satellite phone and camera and turned them both back on. The satellite phone connected to the Garuda 1 satellite thousands of miles over his head, which provided satellite phone coverage for almost all of Southeast Asia. After a minute, he had a connection. The last call he had made on that phone was to the ranger station where he had met Wie. He hit redial and it just rang and rang.

  “No one else is at the ranger station. I guess that was all of them.”

  Valerie shook her head and tried not to get upset thinking about the other six that didn’t make it back. “When Wie called in to report it, he called the interior minister’s office. Maybe we can reach someone there.”

  “Good thinking. The guy’s name was Ali. Abdul Ali! That’s it! Abdul Ali, Minister of the Interior. Let me search for a number!” Kevin spent a few minutes on his phone searching the Internet until he found the number for the interior minister’s office. It took a few minutes of being transferred, insisting it was a national emergency, before he was finally put through to the minister’s secretary, and finally to the minister himself.

  “Minister Ali? Thank God! Listen, we have an emergency in Labi Park!”

  The minister spoke perfect English. “Oh? What sort of emergency?”

  “Did you get the message from the ranger station? A ranger named Wie?”

  “I haven’t spoken to him yet. I was told to call his office. I’ve been busy with other matters of state.”

  “Wie is dead! You have to listen to me, Minister Ali! There’s an ISIS training camp or something out here!”

  “ISIS? Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, trying not to sound rattled. If the sultan found out that the camp had been discovered, the sultan might make him the fall guy. He was suddenly very nervous.

  “I’m not making this up! We saw the black ISIS flag! We saw the men with guns! They murdered three of your park rangers and three villagers who lived out here! We need help!”

  “This is quite a story,” said the minister, stalling as he panicked and tried to quickly come up with a plan.

  “Listen to me! We’re journalists, okay? I have everything on video! Give me an e-mail address and I’ll send you the proof!”

  “Video?” he blurted out. It came out sounding much louder than he intended.

  “Yes! You need to call in the army or something! We’re out here in the jungle and we need help!”

  “How many of you are out there?”

  “My girlfriend and me, that’s it. They killed everyone else!”

  Abdul was panicking. They had video. This could be a disaster. “Listen to me carefully. I’m going to try and get you some help, but I need to know where you are.”

  “We don’t know where we are. We’re lost I think. I know we’re near Kampong Aht, and that’s where the ISIS camp is now. They killed all of the villagers and your rangers, and they’ll kill us, too.” His voice cracked, and he took a deep breath, trying to be brave for his Valerie Jean, who looked every bit as terrified as he felt.

  “Give me your cell number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can get you some help.”

  “Please, hurry,” said Kevin. He gave the minister the number for his satellite phone and hung up. “What are you doing?” he asked Val, who was looking at her iPhone, which didn’t have a phone signal out in the jungle.

  “I have a compass on here. My phone doesn’t work, but this does. Can you open a map on your satellite phone? Maybe we can figure out how we got here and backtrack.”

  Kevin squatted down in the ferns and pulled her down with him. “Okay, good idea. But we’ve got to be careful and really quiet. These buggers could be anywhere, yeah?”

  “God, I wish I was in Auckland right now,” said Val, fighting back tears.

  “Y
eah, me too. But we’re not. So let’s stay alive and use your compass idea. The minister’s going to call back. Maybe they can send a helicopter or some troops or something.”

  “What about the Australian Navy? They always have ships out here. Or the Americans? What if we can get to a real army?”

  “And how do you think we’re going to do that? Just call the governor-general or something and ask her to send in the Royal Marines?”

  “The video. Send that video to every news network on the planet. Hell! Let’s do a live broadcast right now! Right here!”

  “Jesus, Val . . .”

  “I’m serious! Get that camera on live feed to the mailbox. We’ll do it in one take, no editing, then shoot that film to every news agency we can think of. I’ll beg for help. Someone will come!”

  Kevin stared at her. It wasn’t that crazy of an idea. What did they have to lose? He set up his equipment and took a quick scan around the area, which appeared desolate. The birds and monkeys were loud, which seemed to be a good sign.

  “Quietly, yeah?” He pointed at her.

  Val looked into the camera with tear-filled big blue eyes and began her broadcast, describing the mass murder at Kampong Aht, the capture and murders of their guides and rangers, and the proof that it was an ISIS camp, flag and all. She gave their approximate location and begged for help from anyone that could get to them. By the time she was finished, both she and Kevin were fighting back tears.

  She closed the broadcast with, “Please . . . anyone who can see me. My cameraman and I are photojournalists from New Zealand. We don’t want to die out here. There are hundreds of ISIS soldiers after us. Please. We’re begging you. We need your help immediately! This is Valerie Jean Kozak, with Kevin Israel, in Brunei, signing off.”

  Kevin lowered the camera and gave her a long hug. “You were bloody fantastic. You might have just saved our lives.”

  “No—you are going to save our lives! Get that to every news agency on the planet.”

  Kevin sat on the wet ground and went through all of his professional contacts, sending the video clip they had just recorded. The heading of his e-mail said URGENT-LIFE AND DEATH. Someone somewhere should open that. Maybe?

  “Now what?” he asked Val, having finished the upload.

  “Now we get the fuck out of here,” she said calmly.

  The two of them stood up and began walking north following Val’s compass, wondering if an army of terrorists was right behind them and if the river and their boat was in front of them.

  Chapter 39

  Oil Platform Sunrise

  The mini-sub held its position over Jon Cohen. Chief White put on his heavy dive suit and full helmet. It wasn’t an ADS 2000 like Jon’s, but with a special gas mix that was piped in from the mini-sub via hose, he could stay at this extreme depth for almost an hour.

  The mini-sub was pressurized and acted like a diving bell. The bottom hatch was opened inward, but the air pressure inside the sub kept it from flooding. In this fashion, Karl could drop into the ocean from the bottom of the sub. At six hundred feet, every procedure had to be executed precisely. There was no margin for error. Any mistake could kill all of them instantly.

  Karl grabbed the nylon bag with the small pony tank attached to it and stood still while the other crew members checked and rechecked all of his gear. They gave him the “okay” sign, which he returned, and then he slowly dropped out of the sub. Once outside, he turned on the powerful lights and began swimming toward the lights of Jon’s helmet.

  ***

  The team stood together on the bottom deck of the platform, huddled around the video monitor wired to the ADS 2000. The sun was setting on a beautiful night in the South China Sea, with a warm breeze gently blowing. Although Jon couldn’t see his friends six hundred feet above him, he could hear them. And although the team couldn’t hear Jon, they could see him.

  For almost ten hours, the team had taken turns telling dirty jokes to Jon, and when they could occasionally make him laugh, it was cause for major celebration on deck. Having run out of jokes, they decided to sing to Jon. None of them knew the complete lyrics for any songs, so they downloaded music videos from the Internet and did a horrendous karaoke on the deck. They found it much more entertaining than Jon, who was silently begging them to stop torturing him, but genuinely appreciated what they were trying to do for him.

  They were in the middle of a Stones song when McCoy started screaming at them over the radio from the command center of the ship, where he was also watching the monitors. He was paying closer attention than they were down below while singing their brains out, and saw a difference in the amount of light on his screen.

  “Hey! Shut the fuck up! Look! There’s lights down there!” McCoy screamed into his radio.

  Moose stopped singing and took a knee at the monitor. “Quiet!” he barked, as the team went silent and looked closer at the screen.

  “Jon, you see anything? We see lights, we think.”

  Jon blinked twice and made a huge smile.

  “Thank God,” sighed Moose. “You see navy divers? A sub?”

  Jon blinked twice again.

  “Okay, listen. We can’t see anything but your face. The other video feed went down with your lights. We’re right here, though, brother. You’re going to be okay. They’re going to get you out.”

  Jon gave two long blinks and mouthed “thank you” with a smile.

  For several minutes, they all sat in silence, quietly praying that the navy divers could save their friend.

  ***

  When Karl made it over to Jon, he put his face directly over Jon’s face and gave him a big smile while wiggling his eyebrows. Jon almost cried. He’d never been so happy to see another human being. He was cold, exhausted, and famished, and had never been so thirsty outside of desert training. The diver made a show of an imaginary watch and the “okay” sign, which Jon understood to mean, “Just give me a little time and everything will be okay.”

  He disappeared from view as he swam under the wing and set the jack near the wing tip, about fifteen feet from where Jon was pinned. He pulled the cord, and with an explosive burst, the jack inflated and raised the wing almost two feet on that side. That was the good news. The bad news was the jet started sliding in the downward direction, which meant it would slide off the jack in a moment. Karl quickly swam back to Jon and stood on the sand bottom. He squatted down and grabbed Jon by the straps near his helmet and, using every ounce of strength, began pulling a very heavy suit.

  When Jon realized the diver was behind him and was trying to pull him, Jon used his arms to help. He shoved his claws into the sand bottom for traction and pushed as hard as he could. Over his head, the wing was sliding down toward his oversized boots, and he worried they’d get stuck. He pushed as hard as he could, no longer remembering he was exhausted or cold—he just wanted to live.

  With Karl pulling and Jon pushing, they managed to clear the jet before it picked up speed and slid off the inflatable jack. The jet continued its journey after it cleared the jack and slid down the slope of the sand plateau until hit the edge and vanished, making its last flight to two thousand feet below sea level.

  Jon lay on his back, laughing and crying in exhaustion and relief. The crew above had no ideas what was happening, but based on Jon’s face, they were very excited that something good was happening down there.

  Karl swam around in front of Jon and smiled, then motioned to him that he was going to get him to stand up—easier said than done. Karl, with Jon’s help, managed to roll Jon slightly to his side. Once there, Karl did a squat near his upper body, grabbed Jon by the helmet, and stood up. Jon used his aching arms to push off the bottom, and between the two of them, they managed to get him back into a standing position.

  The two men looked at each other and smiled in disbelief. Jon mouthed “thank you” and the other diver retur
ned the smile with a “you’re welcome.” The original thought had been to bring Jon into their mini-sub, but with Jon clear and standing up, he could be returned to the surface if the winch was working.

  Jon mouthed “up” to the other diver, who gave him a thumbs-up. At the surface, the team saw Jon’s mouth say “up.” His face was brightly lit from the other diver’s lights, and they knew he’d been saved.

  “Jon, did you say up? You ready to come up?” asked Moose.

  Jon blinked twice and smiled.

  “Up! You’re coming up!” screamed Moose. “Okay, let’s get our boy!”

  Ryan and Ray ran to the winch and pressed the button that retrieved the six hundred feet of cable to the spool. Jon slowly began ascending. Karl swam up with him, escorting him to five hundred feet, and then, seeing he was okay, waved goodbye and returned to his sub. Karl passed the two giant nuclear bombs suspended mid-water on straps and cables on his way back to the sub. All he could think was “holy shit” as he swam past them.

  Karl swam up the bottom of the mini-sub and was pulled inside by the crew. After the hatch was sealed and pressure adjusted, Karl began the process of decompressing in his suit as they adjusted the gas from the sub’s controls.

  “Outstanding,” said Charlie as he guided the mini-sub back to the John Warner. He now had the delicate task of reentering the bay from which they had deployed. Space was tight on a submarine, and his entrance had to be perfect to slip inside the mother ship. There was total silence as he “parked the car in the garage.”

  Chapter 40

  Sunset on the Sunrise

  The team stood on the deck by the ADS 2000 retrieval system with their adrenaline pumping. Ray operated the winch, and the team leaned over the deck, staring at the ocean’s silvery surface in the setting sun. The metal cable ran through the water as it re-spooled, and the team was yelling at Jon, even though he couldn’t hear them from below the surface.