Area Denial (Maelstrom Rising Book 7)

by Peter Nealen

  “Hopefully the pleasantries are out of the way, because I have a lot to do yet today.” Hank suppressed the sigh that Chan didn’t, as Tormont plopped her laptop down on the table next to the TV and stared at Hank. “You’re in my seat.”

  Hank suppressed a powerful urge to tell her to stand. Yielding would probably only make the Triarii as a whole lose face in front of Liwanag. The Philippines had gotten a lot less “liberated” over the last ten years or so, and letting this dumpy, wide-eyed woman push him around—especially as a shooter—probably wasn’t going to go over well.

  But then, neither would a scene in a hotel room, in the middle of what was supposed to be a quiet meet with a local partner to exchange information and discuss future plans. So, against his better judgement, he grudgingly stood up, looming over her for a second, and moved.

  He took his chair with him.

  Tormont clearly noticed, and was just as obviously miffed about it, but even she had the good sense not to make an issue out of it in front of Liwanag. With a bit of a huff, she unfolded her laptop, pulled an HDMI cable out of her bag, and plugged the laptop into the TV.

  “The Chinese have jumped into the information warfare arena quickly following the strikes on Gaven and Mischief Reefs.” She brought up a video clip from China Central TV. The audio was in Mandarin, but the subtitles were in English.

  Chinese interests in the South China Sea have come under attack once again over the last few days. Pirates, doubtless supported by those who would try to trick the international community into siding against China’s historic claim to the Nine-Dash-Line, conducted terrorist attacks against civilian contractors peacefully fishing and supporting maritime security and trade in the Spratly Islands. As we speak, Defense Minister Sun Longmin has ordered additional security forces to the South China Sea, to defend Chinese citizens and Chinese interests against these terrorists and thieves.

  “Like I said, they moved fast. But it still took them a little too long to figure out their narrative, which is still too vague to really be convincing.” Tormont may as well have been talking to herself; she didn’t look up at anyone else in the room as she shifted to a series of video clips and social media posts.

  “Fortunately, we did get video of the missiles in flight from Gaven Reef.” She brought up a clip of fiery trails rising off the artificial island, the video enhanced enough to make it clear what was happening. It was a view from about ten thousand feet up, and clearly showed the “fire” on the island and the missiles curving away. “We haven’t flat-out said that Chinese incompetence led to a terrible accident that somehow resulted in an unplanned launch of their own missiles, causing untold damage to their own naval forces. That would be a little too obvious—even though we’ve been using plenty of anon and bot accounts—and nobody’s really going to buy the ‘accident’ explanation, anyway. What we’ve been doing instead is casting doubts on the official story. Asking how likely it is that pirates could launch an entire battery of the PLAN’s own missiles. Surely, no one really thinks the PLAN is that incompetent? Stuff like that.”

  She brought up another slide. Hank’s eyes were glazing over a little. He knew the value of propaganda and information operations as well as anyone, but he wasn’t sure what it had to do with his part of the operation.

  “Now, we’ve started trying to feed stories to the local Philippine news outlets, as well…” Hank got a glimpse of the column of slides she had set up and stifled a groan. Fortunately, Vetter interrupted at that point.

  “We get the gist, Mara.” He looked over at Liwanag. “We’re hoping that at the very least, the ambiguity can be useful to your associates in not only obscuring any Philippine involvement, but also making the Chinese lose face among their supporters here.” He folded his arms. “Hopefully, it provides some additional help in getting Chinese influence off your backs.”

  “I will welcome the full presentation.” Liwanag’s words made Tormont shoot Vetter a disdainful look, as if to say that he never should have interrupted her, but Vetter ignored her. So did Liwanag, for that matter. “It could very well prove useful in controlling the narrative going forward.”

  Hank kept his face carefully neutral, and he could see Chan visibly struggling to control his own expression. Controlling the narrative. In their world, that was largely a euphemism for lying to get what you want. Hank hated it, even while he could recognize the occasional necessity.

  Still, when the truth inevitably came out, it eroded even victory a little more every time.

  “The important thing that I got out of that Chinese propaganda piece, though, is that the PLAN is coming south with more ships, and probably more aircraft,” Benavides pointed out. “We’ve hurt them, but I think things are about to get a lot more interesting out there. They’re not going to walk away from the Spratlys without a fight.”

  Almost as if to punctuate his words, the building shook with a terrific boom that rolled across Puerto Princesa like thunder.

  Chapter 30

  One of Liwanag’s security men beat Hank to the window, pulling the curtain aside and peering outside, but there was nothing to see but the street and the palm trees. Even as Hank turned away from the window, though, another explosion thundered nearby, and he was pretty sure he could hear small arms fire.

  Vetter was already on the radio, and as Hank reached for his own, Vetter turned his speaker up.

  “We can’t see anything from the docks, but the local nets are going wild. Sounds like at least two attack sites.” Hank didn’t recognize the voice on the radio, but there were a lot of Triarii out in the Western Pacific at the moment.

  Liwanag’s security were on their own radios, talking quickly in Tagalog, and one of them had already gotten their principal down on the floor. Both had their weapons out. The Triarii had left their weapons holstered for the moment. Every one of them was fast enough on the draw to respond with lethal speed if anyone tried to storm the room, and there was no reason to get Liwanag’s detail even more stirred up. Besides, it still sounded like the violence was some distance away.

  “Hank.” Vetter had looked up from the radio. With the exception of Tormont, who had already packed up her gear and was ready to move, her hand on her sidearm unlike the shooters, the Triarii had moved to where they could quickly cover the door and the window. They were doing what they could to keep Liwanag’s security from freaking out, but they were all on their feet and ready for action. “Get on the horn with Habu. See if we can coordinate and help out.”

  Hank nodded, shoving the radio back in his back pocket and fishing the burner phone out of his jeans. It took a second to start up, but they’d deliberately gone with “dumb” phones—which were still available, at least in the Philippines—so in short order he had it to his ear, listening to it ring.

  When it went to voicemail, he shut the call down and shook his head. The LRC commander was probably too busy, and a voicemail message would be far too late.

  Vetter had seen the shake of his head. “Damn it. We don’t want to go running into this with guns without local coordination.” But the words were barely out of his mouth when the phone buzzed in Hank’s hand.

  “Where are you?” Habu got right to the point. Hank thought he could hear gunfire in the distance.

  “We’ve got four sections on the docks. I’m at the Skyline with Vetter and Chan as we speak.” Hank stepped back as Liwanag was ushered quickly out of the room, he and Vetter exchanging equally quick farewells and promises of future support. Liwanag’s eyes were wide, but he didn’t look like he was panicking.

  Which was more than Hank could say for a lot of the politicians he’d been around.

  “A bomb went off at the SM City supermarket, and then another at the airport,” Habu reported. “Terrorists are now holding hostages in part of the supermarket, and another group is attempting to seize the airport.” He paused, barking into a radio in Tagalog, then resumed. “The police are trying to contain the situation at the supermarket, but the airport
is the most important target. I will have Viper meet you at the docks and escort you to our staging area.” Hank could almost hear the wolfish grin in the LRC commander’s voice. “Since you are on contract to train and assist, we’ll take whatever assistance you can provide.”

  “We’ll be there.” Hank hung up and looked at Vetter. The Triarii were now the only ones in the room. “Viper’s heading to the docks to link up. We need to move.”

  Vetter just nodded, and the Triarii headed for the door.

  ***

  Smoke was rising above the rooftops, and Hank could hear more bursts of small arms fire in the distance when they got back to the docks. Vetter and his section leaders were barely a few seconds ahead of the convoy of KM-450 trucks, painted in Philippine Army camouflage. The rest of the Triarii infantry were already on the pier beside the trawlers, in greens and geared up, weapons at hand.

  Viper, a wiry man whom they’d met before, swung out of the passenger seat of the lead KM-450, similarly geared up and armed, as Hank, Vetter, and Chan accepted their own plate carriers, helmets, and weapons from their assistant section leaders. There wasn’t time to worry about getting back into greens. They’d be in gear and civilian clothes for this one.

  “Ready to go?” Viper seemed downright cheerful, his helmet off, a balaclava covering his face, and his M4 slung in front of him.

  Hank finished buckling his helmet strap. The rest were already starting to board the trucks. “Where do you need us?”

  “I’ll brief on the way.” Viper’s English was almost flawless. Hank knew nothing about the man, but at Vetter’s nod, he clambered into the LRC officer’s truck along with the rest of the section leaders.

  Viper was already talking as the trucks pulled away from the wharf. “The bomb went off in front of the terminal, but the main push has been coming from the neighborhood to the west. They have cells dug into several houses, with machineguns, and they’re keeping the security forces from getting in closer to try to eliminate the attackers. So far, the police have held the line inside the airport, but there are reports that terrorists have gotten inside the perimeter, and that they might have taken over a few of the outbuildings.”

  “NPA?” From the tone of Vetter’s voice, he wasn’t so much asking as he was looking for confirmation.

  “We believe so.” Viper sounded almost dismissive. “We’ll find out for sure once they’re dead or captured.” Which was probably something of a healthy outlook in the moment. It didn’t matter to the Tiradores officer who he was fighting while the fight was going on. Someone had tried to bomb and seize the airport. That was the problem at hand. He could worry about the strategic details later.

  “Most of the unit is up north right at the moment. I was down here with a team for some R&R between ops.” Hank raised an eyebrow at that. If Habu wasn’t in Puerto Princesa, then there was more going on elsewhere on the island. He was pretty sure he’d heard gunfire in the background over the phone.

  Which meant this was a full-court press by the NPA. Doubtless at Beijing’s instigation. Hank suspected that they were beginning to see the PRC’s response to the hit on Gaven and Mischief Reefs.

  But that was a concern for another time. In that respect, Viper’s diffidence was a good model.

  “The police are handling most of the front-line defense, but they’re outgunned. Most of my team still had all of our gear, though we don’t have any belt-feds with us.” Viper had turned around in his seat, holding up a tablet with overhead imagery of the city and the airport. “We are going to move around to the south, here, link up with the police to avoid friendly fire, and then start to work our way in, clearing out the strongpoints so that the police can move on the assaulters.”

  That didn’t sound like fun. That was going to be house-to-house, close quarters fighting across—Hank checked—a good twenty to thirty structures. Yes, they had the better part of a hundred men, between Triarii and Tiradores, but it was still a big chunk of some of the most dangerous fighting there is.

  But he had little doubt that the Triarii and the Tiradores were probably far more qualified to do it than the police.

  “Let’s get it done, then.” Vetter seemed completely unruffled. Granted, this sort of thing had been his bread and butter for years, as a Delta operator. But he’d also trained his Triarii hard. And they’d seen combat already. So had Hank’s section, those who had survived. That experience might have also colored Hank’s own vague reluctance to go in, though he’d still do it.

  The memories of San Diego still hung on, though, and while he didn’t shake, his mouth sure was dry.

  ***

  Going around to the south of the airport entailed driving all the way around the end of the runway, alongside the eastern shore. That required getting onto the airport itself, which almost turned into a cluster as the airport security stopped the convoy, and only Viper, still masked up but with the right paperwork, got them through. Even then, it wasn’t without plenty of argument. Then they’d had to get on the naval station, in order to get across the length of the airport without having to go even farther north.

  Finally, they linked up with the police at the airport’s main entrance, right in front of the Mercado San Miguel. The street was empty except for the Cadillac Gage Commando armored personnel carrier, painted in digital green and brown camouflage, and the two police Hiluxes behind it. Special Action Force officers in the same green and brown digital cammies as the APC, wearing tan plate carriers and brown balaclavas, were set in behind the vehicles and along the street, backed up by several more police in more conventional blue and black.

  Sporadic gunfire still rattled from the direction of the airport, still obscured by trees and undergrowth. Even the houses where the guerrillas had set in were out of sight. Hank saw that he wasn’t the only one glancing a little nervously at the gas station right next to the Commando APC. He knew that this wasn’t a video game, where a single bullet could turn a gas station into a fireball, but it still wasn’t a comfortable place to be.

  Several of the police stepped out into the street as the convoy of Tiradores and Triarii approached. The trucks slowed, then stopped, and Viper stepped out almost before the lead vehicle had stopped rolling, his M4 slung in front of him, already speaking rapidly to the cops. After a moment, one of them waved at him to follow and headed for the Commando, and Viper held a hand up to tell the others to wait.

  Hank got out anyway, though he stayed close to the vehicle, trying to gather as much information by sight and sound as he could. That long, ripping burst was a PKM, he was pretty sure. The other shots were mostly AKs. The sounds were pretty distinct.

  He wasn’t hearing much 5.56 fire, which was odd. What were the bad guys shooting at?

  Then Viper was coming back with one of the Special Action Force guys trailing behind him. “Okay, we have clearance, and the police will cover us.” The cop didn’t look all that enthused about letting the Tiradores and a bunch of Americans go in and clear out what he probably thought should be his responsibility, but Viper—or Habu—must have been pulling some strings.

  Coming back to the hood of the vehicle, Viper put the tablet down and started to point to houses in the overhead imagery. “We know they are here, here, and here, for sure. I would suggest that my team goes in along this main entrance, and your men go around the Hyundai dealership, begin with these two houses, and then clear these.” He pointed to each house in turn, being quite specific about targets. He added as much detail as he could, and the Triarii section leaders listened carefully. He had quite a detailed brief to go over, that he must have been working up in his head as they’d been driving around the airport. “That way we are clearing distinct corridors and not getting in each other’s way, or risking friendly fire.” He looked around at the Triarii and his subordinate Tiradores. “Are you ready?”

  Vetter was just standing there, calm and collected, already in his gear and carrying his weapon. There was no bravado, no bolt racking, no motivational chest th
umping. He just nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 31

  Vetter’s section went in first. Vetter took one squad to the right, down the muddy open alley and into the gated compound surrounding a large, expensive, two-story house. Viper hadn’t identified any NPA fighters in there, but the place provided good overwatch, so if there were NPA in that house, then they could either engage the Triarii as they moved toward the known target houses, or they could warn their compatriots. Either way, that house had to be taken.

  The other two squads went left after getting through the patch of trees and undergrowth between the Hyundai dealership and the Duty-Free Philippines shop. That way was a warren of small shops and sheds, and the Triarii had to clear each one carefully.

  Hank moved across the somewhat empty lot next to the compound with Lovell’s team, though while there was no house on it, there was a fenced in garden and plenty of vegetation. The uneven, muddy ground underfoot slowed their progress still more, as the tussocks in the mud and the rocks didn’t make for good footing.

  More gunfire roared not far away. Carrington didn’t flinch, but kept moving steadily across the lot as Vetter announced over the radio, “First objective secured. Six Four Actual, we’re seeing some movement in the bushes to your front right.”

  Muzzles and eyes turned, but a moment later a young boy darted through the vegetation, barefoot and dragging his little sister with him, apparently trying to get away from the gunfire. More eyes quickly assessed him, making sure that he didn’t have a weapon in his hands, or a bomb belt around his waist.

  He was a kid, but bitter experience and dead comrades had made the double check a necessity. Most of them didn’t even think about it anymore.

  Then they were moving to the first target, a tiny, plaster-walled hut with a corrugated metal roof. It sounded like all the gunfire was coming from somewhere beyond it, but in house-to-house fighting, bypassing and leaving a strong point behind you is rarely a good idea.