Dangerous Ground: The Team Book Five

by David M. Salkin

  Carl leapt into the waist-deep water below the catwalk, remaining on his feet as he splashed and fired after the canoe. Although the canoe drifted with the current, the water was still shallow and slow, and Carl managed to catch up to it. When he was alongside, he fired another two rounds into Mohammed’s head. The man was quite dead.

  Carl splashed back out of the water at a full run, weapon at the ready as he scanned for more enemy soldiers. There were none. They had killed everyone in the camp. He ran back and found Apo kneeling next to Bruce. When Apo saw him, he shook his head. Bruce was gone.

  Carl climbed quickly back up the bamboo ladder to the command hut. He searched around and grabbed a laptop and two satellite phones, then called in on his radio.

  “Rescue Two to Eagle Two. Request immediate evac from Aht, over.”

  “Rescue Two, we are inbound, fifteen minutes. Will advise when to pop smoke. Out.”

  Chapter 56

  Langley

  CIA Director Wallace Holstrum entered the conference room and was greeted with a standing ovation. He smiled, looking weary. He glanced around at the people in the room and took a deep breath.

  “I don’t really know where to begin, other than to just say a heartfelt thank-you. To think we live in a time where the politics of this country have sunk to this level is more than alarming. Apparently, there’s no limit to any of this. I could have been accused of almost anything else and wouldn’t have given a shit—but this? It was beyond upsetting. My wife didn’t sleep for a week. Mr. Dennis’s arrest only makes me feel slightly better.”

  Wallace looked at Darren and Dex. “I know a few of you worked very hard to get me cleared, and I appreciate it with all my heart. And now, it’s time for me to get back to work. I’ve had several briefings already, but I want to know what’s going on with Brunei. Darren?”

  “Yes, sir. First, welcome back. I’m sure as the criminal case on Jeff Dennis unfolds, other parties will be named, which should offer you more satisfaction. Regarding Brunei, the mission is ongoing. Yesterday, one of our teams hit Kampong Aht and eliminated two high-value targets. Mohammed bin Awad and Hamdi Fazil are confirmed dead. The rest of the fighters at the camp were also eliminated. Unfortunately, we lost one of our own, Wang Wei. The elements of the ISIS group that were en route to their target were also almost completely eliminated. We lost one team member, Ryan O’Connor, and have one wounded, on his way home. Ray Jensen. The rest of the team is aboard the Ronald Reagan, awaiting intel and orders. We believe two groups of ISIS fighters survived our contact on the river. One is upstream somewhere, maybe headed back to Aht, and one made it north to the port. Bruce was able to gather two important pieces of information before being killed. First, we know the target is Singapore, and second, we know the ISIS contact is the Bruneian interior minister, Abdul Ali.”

  Wallace listened to every word. He’d been out of the loop for almost a week, and his morning had been insanely busy trying to catch up on fifty different situations around the globe.

  “We have Carl and Apo attached to the team?” asked Wallace.

  “Yes, sir. Everyone was brought to the Reagan together,” said Darren.

  Wallace drummed his fingers on the table. “Apo met with the Bruneians to set up the oil deal, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Maybe he can meet with Abdul Ali. Maybe squeeze a little information out of him?”

  Darren made a face. “They’d have to do it in Brunei. Getting in wouldn’t be hard; getting out might be.”

  Wallace kept drumming on the table. “I’ll call Apo myself and have a chat. If even a few of them made it past our team, they can still hit Singapore.”

  “Yes, sir. One last thing, some good news for a change—our team rescued two New Zealanders, journalists, from the jungle outside Aht.”

  Wallace grinned slightly and nodded. Good news never made the paper, but at least it offered them something at a time when he had just learned about two of their own not making it home.

  They finished their briefing and headed off to their offices. Dex looked at Darren. “He’s going to send Apo in to talk to Ali in Ali’s office? That’s a suicide mission. I don’t like it, Darren. How the hell is Apo supposed to get anything out of the minister without getting grabbed?”

  Darren shrugged. “It’s Apo. He’ll come up with something. Besides, Bruce and Ryan deserve some payback.”

  “Payback, yeah. Another dead agent—no.”

  Darren patted Dex’s shoulder as he walked away to his own office. “Let’s just wait and see . . .”

  Chapter 57

  Labi Forest

  The eight ISIS fighters that had survived the ambush were almost back to Kampong Aht when Mohammed ordered them to turn around. While they were prepared for martyrdom in a dramatic attack on Singapore, being lost in the jungle was nothing short of terrifying. All eight of the men had grown up in Syria and Iraq—desert locations, not jungle. Their time at Kampong Aht had been physically miserable, with humidity, animal sounds, and mosquitos that were relentless. After Mohammed’s threat to kill them if they returned, they were embarrassed and dejected. Their leader was right, of course—they might lead those same commandos to their base camp. They had panicked and fled, and now felt humiliated. They had turned back around after being reprimanded, and headed north again. They’d gotten one kilometer when their outboard motor ran out of gas.

  The eight of them managed to pull the boat to the side of the river, into the mud and tall cogon grass which sliced their skin. Once they had gotten out of the boat, they looked at each other, unsure of what to do. Ahmet, their commander, tried to show some leadership.

  “We can’t return to base, it’s too risky. We need to hide this boat and continue back north along the river. If the ship is still there at the port when we get there, we can join the others.”

  “It will take days to get there on foot in this jungle!” complained one of the men.

  “Perhaps you’d like to ignore Mohammed’s orders and return to camp by yourself? Go on! Go! We’re heading north to complete our mission, God willing.” Ahmet began walking without looking back.

  Behind him, the men exchanged glances and then quickly fell into single-file line. The man who had complained took the last position in the line of march, sulking. It was already so hot they were drenched, and they had very little water and no food. The weight of their exploding vests added to their hot misery.

  ***

  Invisible.

  It was how the Penan people had trained their young men to be from the time they were old enough to play in the jungle. The group of Penan warriors had seen Kampong Aht and knew the fate of their friend Zyy. They tracked the eight men who marched along so noisily in the forest.

  The group of warriors wore only loincloths and carried blowguns, primitive stone knives, and bows and arrows. They watched their enemies walk with heavier clothes and guns that weighed them down, and waited patiently. With each step in the heavy mud, the bearded men grew wearier and complained more. The distance between the men grew longer as they fought to keep up with each other in the sauna that was the thick jungle air.

  ***

  After three hours of walking, the last man in the column stopped and doubled over, his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. When he stood back up, he thought he was stung by a wasp. The pain in his neck was immediate, followed by two more stings in the back of his legs. He stumbled forward, trying to call out to his comrades, but no sound would come out of his paralyzed vocal chords. After three more steps, his legs stopped working and he just stood in the trail confused and unable to will his legs forward. As he tried to make his lungs breathe, a small man ran up behind him and grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head back. With a quick slice from a stone knife, the man’s throat opened and blood poured out down his chest. Four more men appeared for a second and carried him of
f the trail silently.

  It was like he was never there.

  By the time they had repeated the process for the fifth time, the remaining three men realized something was wrong. They had become stretched out along the trail because of fatigue, and were simply too tired and thirsty to chat as they walked, but now, as they called out to their friends, they knew something was wrong.

  “Maybe they got lost,” said one of the men.

  “More likely, they’re cowards! They returned to Kampong Aht against orders. Hamdi will gut them like sheep,” sneered Ahmet.

  The other two called out to their friends again. They started to feel panicked.

  “Ahmet, it’s just us! Only us three! Where did they all go?”

  Ahmet hid his fear. “I told you, they’re cowards. We continue north!”

  Ahmet started walking again. The two men behind him stood an extra second, feeling terror build inside them. They turned to catch up to Ahmet, and felt themselves attacked by a swarm of wasps. As they tried to understand what was happening, arrows buzzed louder through the air than the small darts had, and found their targets with deadly accuracy. The men spent their last moment on earth gurgling and choking to death on their own poisoned blood.

  Ahmet heard something strange. He turned around just in time to see his two men flailing on the ground. He squinted in disbelief. Arrows? Were those arrows sticking out of his men? His face showed his horror, and he turned around to run north, as far and as fast as his legs would take him. He found himself looking into the faces of five small brown men holding up long bamboo tubes.

  Phhhht Phhhht Phhhht Phhhht Phhhht

  The tiny darts hit him all over his exposed chest where he had opened his vest, and he dropped to his knees as his chest tightened and breathing became difficult. He pulled the darts off that had hit him between his open vest and watched the strange men draw arrows into short bows. Breathing was difficult, he began praying. He reached for his cord. He would die a martyr and take these men with him—but his arms refused to move. He coughed, white foam coming up out of his poisoned lungs. He barely felt the arrows that killed him.

  The Penan tribesmen had never killed humans before. They normally only killed what they would eat. These intruders weren’t food for their kampong. No. These would feed the wild pigs.

  Chapter 58

  USS Ronald Reagan

  The team had arranged for the transport of Ryan O’Connor and Bruce Wang back to the United States through Dover, Delaware, where they would be treated as fallen heroes and returned to their families. Ray Jensen was in the ship’s sickbay undergoing surgery, but his injury wasn’t career ending.

  After seeing off the plane carrying the bodies of Bruce and Ray, the rest of the team left the flight deck and showered and changed into clean clothes. They ate in silence and went to a small ready room provided by the ship’s commander, who had treated them like VIPs.

  Apo called into Langley and was patched through to Wallace Holstrum, who was fast asleep, twelve hours behind the team. He spoke to the director about Brunei’s minister of the interior and guaranteed he would personally have a conversation with the man. Apo asked that the director speak to the ship’s commander about giving them carte blanche to do whatever needed to be done. It would be Wallace’s next conversation.

  ***

  The minister of the interior, Abdul Ali, was a very busy man and didn’t have time for Interglobe Oil. But after the third call and the mention of billions of dollars’ worth of oil, and a request for the minister to come out to the Sunrise oil platform immediately for a very special briefing, he finally agreed to it. Perhaps if he could tell the sultan about a new oil field worth billions, it would lessen any fallout from the problems with the arrangement with ISIS.

  That was supposed to have been a simple deal. Instead, two reporters from New Zealand had told the entire world they had seen ISIS terrorists and an ISIS flag flying in a camp in Brunei. Their reports had gone viral, and the sultan was getting calls from around the world asking for more information. To make matters worse, only one of the boats had made it to the port for transportation to Singapore. The report Abdul had gotten from his men at the port was that the rest of them had been ambushed, but by whom, it was unclear. All he knew was that he had arranged for enough trucks for sixty men to bring them from the river to the port to board a ship for Singapore, and instead, eight men showed up in one truck.

  When he had tried to call Mohammed’s sat phone, he got no answer. It was infuriating. Mohammed had told Ali that he was moving camp—okay, fine. But answer the damn phone and explain what the hell was going on! Abdul Ali was pacing around his office, praying the sultan wouldn’t call on him before he had a chance to visit the oil platform and get some great news to deliver. The ISIS story would blow over. Having a new oil field worth billions would make him a hero. He just needed to be able to deliver the news personally to the sultan.

  Abdul Ali would take two of his men and fly out by royal helicopter to the oil platform Sunrise.

  ***

  The team was supplied with matching orange jumpsuits and hard hats by the Reagan. All insignias were sanitized from the uniforms, and they could easily pass as a crew of oilmen on the rig. Most oilmen didn’t have their weapons and training, however.

  The same Sea Hawk helicopter that had brought them in and out of Brunei would be flying them back to the Sunrise. The pilot watched the team cross the flight deck of the Reagan and climb into his bird. He was well aware that the size of their team was smaller than the first time he had seen them, and he snapped a sharp salute.

  They flew off the flattop and headed northwest back to the oil platform—a place none of them thought they’d ever see again. They touched down on the helipad and hopped out with weapons hot, unsure whether anyone else had boarded their rig. The Sea Hawk lifted back off and roared over the mirrorlike ocean back to the carrier. The team split up and searched the entire ship until they were satisfied they were alone, and then got back down to business.

  Apo and Carl would be doing the talking. The rest of the men would be stationed around looking busy. They had no idea how many men the minister would be bringing with him, but they’d be ready for whatever happened.

  Hodges had his sniper rifle slung over his shoulder and was ready to start his long climb up into the tower of the rig. He spoke to Moose before heading up into the metal tower.

  “Skipper, what about the pilot? Rules of engagement?”

  “Pilot’s just some poor shmuck taking orders. Probably the same deal with the rest of these guys other than the minister. We’ll hold them as long as we need to, but I’d rather not kill them. Don’t shoot unless they threaten anyone.”

  Hodges said “Aye, aye” and headed off to climb the tower. Moose looked out at the beautiful ocean and blue sky and hoped it wouldn’t be another firefight. Ripper caught his expression.

  “What’s the matter, skipper?”

  “Nothing. Getting old, I guess. Make sure everyone’s good to go. Bird should be here soon enough.” Moose pulled the walkie-talkie off of his belt. “Attention on deck. Stay frosty but do not engage unless fired upon. Apo and Carl, you all set?”

  “Roger that, skipper,” said Apo. “We’ll be up here in the conference room acting like hotshots.”

  “Okay, I’ll bring the shitbird up personally. Out.”

  Now it was time to wait.

  ***

  The interior minister had been extremely fortunate. While the broadcasts from the two New Zealanders had hit international airwaves, all of the calls to the sultan had been sitting with secretaries unable to reach their leader. The sultan was too busy.

  As was his habit, the sultan had flown in a dozen women from around the world for one of his “parties.” While activities such as drinking alcohol, having sex while not married, and listening to nonreligious music were banned in Brunei,
that didn’t apply to the sultan. He had a lavish apartment set up for himself and a few high-ranking friends and family members for the sole purpose of “entertaining guests.” These guests were paid as much as ten thousand dollars each for their “contributions” to the party. Basically, the world’s finest call girls spent a weekend at a drunken orgy.

  Because the sultan had been drunk for three days straight and was busy trying to have sex with as many strangers as possible, he was completely unaware of what had transpired with his ISIS guests. No one dared interrupt his party with something so trivial as a news story that might not even be true. The story would never appear on Bruneian television, of course, which was run by the state, but it did make it online for the few in the country who would dare to view such a story. Even so, speaking against the sultan was punishable by death, and no citizen would ever risk speaking about the rumors in public.

  With the sultan busy, Abdul Ali was free from having to face him with the current catastrophe, and the minister hoped it would sort itself out. In the meantime, he and his two assistants got into their royal helicopter and headed out to sea to the new oil platform.

  As they flew out to the Sunrise, the minister could see their artificial island under construction in the distance. The island was needed, of course, to counter the aggression of the Chinese, who thought that the entire South China Sea belonged to them. Even the Vietnamese were building islands nearby. Having ISIS attack Singapore was only the beginning. Mainland China would be next.