Area Denial (Maelstrom Rising Book 7)

by Peter Nealen

  Durand slashed his hand down, and Hank killed the outboard, hauling the propulsor out of the water and leaning back to drag the weight up until it locked into the elevated position. His timing was good; the engine had already stopped before the propulsor had cleared the surface. Navarro was already beaching the second boat only a few yards away, his engine similarly elevated.

  They’d had to practice this a lot during the workup. There’d been a few Recon Marines and even a couple of SEALs in the sections picked for this operation, but every other Triarius had needed to learn how to operate the boats from scratch. A few engines had come screaming out of the water before they’d been stopped during training. Hank was just glad that it hadn’t happened this time.

  As soon as the keel scraped on the sand, all but Hank were out, splashing into the mid-calf water, grabbing the drag handles and pulling the boat higher up on the beach. Hank followed a moment later, and they hauled the heavy rubber raiding craft out of the water and across the beach, into the jungle only a few yards in. Only then did they stop and take a knee, carefully listening and watching for any sign of the enemy. Any enemy. The Philippines, it was clear, had a plethora of security problems, any one of which could prove hostile to a Triarii infantry squad attempting to land covertly in the middle of the night.

  This was a little more covert than many of them were used to, but Santiago had insisted—and Wallace had reinforced—that this operation was going to require that every man be able to act as a special operator, not just a trigger puller. That had meant hours and days of drilling on the boats, on patrolling, stalking, and other skills. It seemed to be paying off now that they were on the ground, and Hank was gratified to see that the training hadn’t appreciably eroded from the two months plus they’d spent afloat to get to the Philippines.

  For a long few minutes, they stayed motionless, watching the darkness of the jungle around them and listening carefully. Finally, Hank was satisfied that they were alone and unobserved. He looked over at Navarro, who noticed after a moment and nodded. He’d reached the same conclusion.

  Hank looked down at the boat next to him for a moment, debating with himself. The right thing to do would be to conceal the boats before moving inland. If someone stumbled across them while walking the beach, or they couldn’t get off the island before sunrise, they’d be compromised. That wouldn’t just potentially expose their presence to the Chinese and their New People’s Army allies. It would potentially burn down the fragile alliance they’d just started to build with the local security forces through Habu.

  But time was pressing. And they still had most of a mile of jungle to get through to reach their objective.

  In the end, tactical best practice won out. Hank hadn’t survived as long as he had by cutting corners when he didn’t absolutely have to. It was possible that the bad guys might finish their business and disappear before they could reach a good observation point. That was tonight. There would be other nights. He had to remind himself that one of the imperatives Santiago had pressed into his leadership was that this wasn’t the modern US military anymore. “The days of operational ADD are behind you. What matters is winning, not timetables, not efficiency reports, not ‘the mission as briefed’ if the situation has changed.”

  So, using hand signals to coordinate everything, he got half the squad that wasn’t on security to work covering the boats with palm leaves and fallen branches.

  They’d gotten pretty good at that in training, too. In less than ten minutes, both boats were little more than heaps of fallen vegetation. The camouflage wouldn’t hold up to close scrutiny, but it should keep any casual observer from noticing anything.

  Navarro took a knee next to Hank, pulling the cuff back from his watch. “They should have landed about twenty minutes ago. If they’re offloading…”

  “Hopefully, it takes them a while.” Hank pointed to Rossiter, then into the jungle. “Let’s not screw this up by getting in too much of a hurry. Pace counts and azimuth checks.”

  Navarro nodded as he stood up. Rossiter was already moving into the darkness, after pulling his compass out and shooting an azimuth. At night, in thick vegetation like this, the movement would have to be based on pure dead reckoning.

  Hank let Navarro get a few paces in front of him, then followed.

  ***

  They hadn’t gone far before they had to close in to where they were practically touching. The infantry sections’ PVS-14s were the newest Gen 3+ models, but even those high-end monoculars needed ambient light to magnify. And very little starlight was getting through the canopy above. All they could see was a dark, grainy picture that barely illuminated the couple of yards around them. And even that got cut off by the undergrowth more often than not.

  It was slow, painstaking, and brutal. The heat hadn’t lessened with the coming of darkness. The jungle trapped the heat and humidity under the boughs above, and each man had already been sweating before they’d even stepped off. Now, after only a few paces, they were all completely drenched.

  Every couple dozen paces, Rossiter had to stop and check his compass again. In the pitch dark, it was vital to make sure they hadn’t gotten turned around. It would have been entirely too easy, especially when stepping around a tree—of which there were plenty—to slowly drift off azimuth, until they were walking back toward the beach they’d come from. It slowed them down, but better a slow, painstaking movement than getting lost on a recon patrol.

  Of course, the vegetation slowed them almost as much, if not more so. It seemed like Rossiter was getting tangled in vines or other growth almost as often as he was having to stop to check his azimuth. It was a nightmare. The terrain itself wasn’t making things easy, either. They were fighting their way uphill for what felt like quite a while before they finally crested the hill, after over an hour. A moment later, Rossiter slowed and lifted a hand to signal a halt. Navarro and Hank both moved up to join him, straining their eyes through their NVGs to see what had made him stop.

  There. Faint light glimmered through the trees ahead and below. Hank sank to a knee below a tree, but then he couldn’t see, so he stood up again, trying to make out the scene.

  There was a lot of veg in the way, but he slowly began to pick out details. After a moment, he shouldered out of the small assault pack he’d brought and fished out the D790 Magnus. Technically, it was supposed to be a weapon sight, but it worked pretty well as a six-power night vision spotting scope. Letting his rifle hang, he braced the scope against the tree trunk and started to scan the lagoon below them.

  The big trawler was still a couple hundred yards out in the bay. A couple of small craft were moving away from her and toward shore. That was probably the saving grace that had let the Triarii get into position to observe what was going on. Several of the smaller fishing boats were much closer in.

  He could just barely make out a small section of the beach through a gap in the trees below. On the other side of his tree, Navarro was already snapping pictures, using a night vision-equipped camera and magnifying lens. It was a good thing they’d brought that.

  Hank couldn’t recognize faces at that distance, even at six power. Not that he would have known any of the individuals standing on the beach in the first place. But the rest of what was happening was pretty plain.

  There’s an unmistakable profile to weapons crates, especially when they’re carrying things like RPGs, machineguns, and Surface to Air Missiles. The boxes and cases being brought down out of the small craft and stacked next to the trailer-equipped ATVs lined up at the top of the beach were definitely weapons and munitions.

  “See if you can get a picture of that big trawler out there,” Hank whispered without taking his eye from the scope. “Hell, any of them will do. As long as we can identify them later.” He had zero doubt that this was PAFMM, but it would pay in the long run to have documentation. Especially if they needed to hand intel over to the Filipinos.

  “I’ve got a hull number on that mid-size one about fifty yar
ds offshore.” Navarro was busily taking pictures of everything he could. Hank turned his scope back to the beach, as two of the slightly smaller figures took a long crate from two of the Chinese on a small dinghy and hauled it up toward the trailers.

  There were two figures standing on the beach, talking, not taking part in the unloading. Hank focused on them for a moment. One was wearing dark trousers and a polo shirt, but had a QBZ-95 rifle slung in front of a chest rig. The bullpup rifle’s distinctive profile was obvious, even at that distance, in the dark.

  The other was wearing what looked like a Mao jacket and cap, with an M16 slung over his shoulder. That had to be NPA.

  “Tell me you got those two on the beach.”

  “Got ‘em.” Navarro was still taking pictures, gathering as much intel as possible. “They were the first ones I snapped.”

  There was no telling how much materiel had already been unloaded, but from the looks of things, the Chinese had brought in enough weapons and munitions to arm a short battalion, if not more. They were serious about destabilizing the situation on Palawan. Hank was sure that some of those weapons were going to go to the other islands where the NPA was operating, but that wasn’t going to be much consolation to the people on Palawan who got shot or blown up for the sake of the so-called “People’s War.”

  And the Chinese sure wouldn’t shed a tear about any collateral damage, either.

  For a brief moment, he was sorely tempted to just go ahead and go loud. They’d need to get closer, and his one slightly reinforced squad—Doc Travis had ridden with Navarro in the number two boat, and was now crouched barely two yards away—was badly outnumbered by the Chinese militia and Philippine guerrillas on the beach, but speed, surprise, and violence of action could be force multipliers all by themselves.

  He forced the temptation back. Not only was it a hell of a risk, but he had to remind himself once again that unilateral action on Philippine soil was not going to contribute to mission success at this juncture. The Triarii had gotten quite used to taking unilateral action on American soil, and, from reports, to some degree in Europe, but those were entirely different circumstances.

  No, they’d have to call this in to the Tiradores and let them sort it out.

  Except that they nearly had that decision taken out of their hands in the next couple of moments.

  A hissed warning came from the left, where the Nakato brothers had set up flank security as soon as they’d halted. A fallen branch cracked under a boot, and faint voices filtered through the trees.

  Almost as one, the entire squad got down on their bellies. Lights were flickering through the trees now, as what could only be a security patrol, out to make sure the Philippine Army or Police didn’t come near the rendezvous, worked their way up the slope toward them.

  Well, looks like we might be going loud, after all. Hank swore silently, knowing just what the consequences would be. But the enemy always gets a vote and sometimes the best laid plans just turn out to be a list of shit that ain’t gonna happen.

  He couldn’t see them anymore, and he almost stood up to check on their advance anyway. It took every bit of self-discipline he had to stay down on his belly in the rotting leaves and the weeds, not moving, barely breathing. He had every bit of faith that if it came down to it, the Nakato brothers would smoke the patrol before they were walked on. They’d spotted the enemy first. Sometimes that was all that it took.

  He also knew—and knew that his boys knew—that sometimes it’s possible for an enemy to walk right past you in the jungle at night without ever knowing you’re there, provided you stay completely still and silent. He’d grown up on stories like that from Vietnam, and they’d even tested it out in training during the workup. The swamps of the Gulf Coast weren’t quite the same as the Philippine jungles, but if anything, they had more concealment here in the Philippines.

  The faint voices were getting louder. Hank found himself praying that they’d go away, just so his mission wasn’t compromised. He wasn’t ordinarily much of a praying man, but right then it seemed appropriate.

  A light flickered in front of him. He shifted his head ever so slightly so that he could look toward it, as a footstep crunched in the vegetation. A voice cracked a joke in Tagalog, and was answered with a chuckle.

  He could finally see the patrol, though it was only a glimpse as they passed by a gap in the foliage just down the slope from him. They looked like little more than kids, weighed down by rifles that looked too big for them and chest rigs with only a couple of magazines. They could still be a deadly threat if they realized who was lying in the dirt only a few yards away, watching and listening.

  But they passed by without incident, and continued down and away, apparently patrolling in a big semicircle around the bay.

  Hank let out a long breath, gave it a few minutes, then slowly and carefully stood up until he could find his window through the veg again. The two small craft that he’d seen coming from the big trawler had apparently finished offloading, and now they were heading back out again. The NPA commissar, or whatever he was, shook hands with the man carrying the QBZ-95, and turned back toward the jungle.

  Transfer’s over. We need to report to Habu. As much as he’d like to take care of this situation himself, the Tiradores would probably be in a better position. They’d have air assets, for one thing. They might be able to hunt down the NPA before they could reach a bolt-hole.

  But first, the Triarii needed to get off the objective and somewhere reasonably secure where they could report back via the Jacqueline Q without being potentially overheard by enemy patrols. Then they could see about tracking the Chinese “fishing vessels” while the Tiradores took care of the NPA.

  With a brief pass of signals, the squad was moving back over the ridge and toward their beach landing site a few moments later.

  Chapter 8

  They moved fast as soon as they were back over the crest of the hill, heading down toward the beach and the concealed boats. In fact, Rossiter apparently had gotten in a little too much of a hurry.

  He stopped suddenly, pulling out his compass and taking a knee as he put up a hand. It was quiet enough, despite the chorus of night noises in the jungle, that Hank could hear him cursing under his breath. Navarro had already moved up, and Hank took a few extra paces to join them.

  “How far off are we?” Navarro’s voice was low and unhurried. He was keeping his cool, despite the fact that Rossiter seemed to be close to full freak-out. He was probably keeping that calm because Rossiter seemed to be getting close to full freak-out. That was no bueno when on the ground in hostile territory. And there was nothing about their current situation that made this part of Palawan anything but hostile territory. Even if the Tiradores showed up in the next few minutes.

  “I don’t know!” Rossiter hissed. He was still fumbling with the compass, but if he’d lost his bearings, knowing which way was north might not be that useful.

  Hank bit back his immediate angry reaction. It wouldn’t help. They needed to stay calm, figure this out, and do it as quietly and quickly as possible.

  “Calm down.” He kept his own voice low and even, trying to get that fatherly manner that he’d nearly perfected as a Company Gunny. “Think this through for a second. Did we go downhill at all on the way to the OP?”

  “No.” Rossiter still sounded a little ragged, but he was breathing a bit more normally.

  “Then as long as we’re going downhill and roughly west, we should hit the beach shortly. From there, we can figure out where we are, and which direction we’ve got to go to hit the boats.” He hadn’t expected to have to teach a Triarius land nav at night, on an op, but then, Rossiter was young, on his first op with the Triarii, and had probably—probably—just gotten a little too wound up. Once he settled down, he should be fine. Navarro wouldn’t have picked him for point, otherwise.

  Rossiter nodded slowly. It was too dark to make out his expression, but something about his body language told Hank that he’d gotte
n over his initial panic at being lost just enough to be chagrined that he hadn’t thought about that. Of course, even if he had, he’d still have faced the problem of coming out of the jungle at the wrong part of the beach, if he hadn’t tried to correct.

  Hank stood up and squeezed his shoulder, even though he felt a bit more like thrashing the snot bubbles out of the younger man. “Mistakes happen. Nobody’s dead, the op’s still not blown. Learn from it and drive on.” In the field in the pitch dark wasn’t usually the place he’d think appropriate for mentoring, but right at the moment, the kid seemed to need it, and they weren’t in contact.

  Rossiter nodded again as he got up, got his azimuth, and headed downhill. Hank glanced at Navarro, but it was too dark to see much more than a silhouette. He did see that Navarro was looking at him, probably wondering what his newest section leader was going to say later.

  That was for later. For now, they needed to get out of the jungle and back out to sea.

  Rossiter seemed to have gotten his equilibrium back, though, so they got moving again. Having figured out Hank’s solution, they moved much faster, now limited only by the dark and the vegetation. A certain degree of care and stealth was still necessary, but speed was security right then. They weren’t sneaking up on the NPA anymore. They were getting out of Dodge.

  A few minutes later, Rossiter slowed again, and after a few moments, Hank could see the faint light of the night sky through the trees ahead and hear the wash of the waves on the beach.

  Rossiter took a moment to get his bearings, and then turned sharply left. A dozen paces later, he sank to a knee next to the mound of branches and palm fronds that was one of the concealed boats. They hadn’t gotten that far off, after all.

  It took only a few minutes to get the boats uncovered, turned around, and dragged down to the water. Hank got on his radio, peering out toward the horizon, where he thought he could just see the outline of a ship. “Juliet Quebec, this is Tango India Six Four.”