by James Rosone
“Sir, that’s a whole lot of pain headed our way; it looks like their rate of march is about fifteen kilometers per hour. We can’t stay put or they’ll be on us in less than twenty minutes.”
“Copy that. Let’s get back inside the perimeter. But before we bug out, I want to try and slow them down a bit. Let’s see if the Champ can’t send them a little American lovin’.”
“Splinter, we’re going to call in a strike from the Navy. Why don’t you bug out now and head back to the base? We’ll follow shortly behind you. Out.”
Stank and Walker plotted some coordinates for the Navy to hit and asked them to wait at least ten minutes. They wanted a bit of time to break down their hide and get on the move before the fireworks started. This way they could egress out of the area under the cover of artillery.
Despite the rainy season having ended a week ago, Mother Nature wasn’t done providing Cuba her fill of water. The area Stank and Walker were slogging through was almost a swamp. It was a great hide in that no one would come looking for them in it, but damn if it didn’t suck to try and move around inside of it.
The humidity had played havoc with their bodies and equipment as well. Stank’s ODA had toured some crappy places over the years, but Cuba was quickly ascending to the top of his private list of places he’d rather not come back to.
Traveling through the jungle in the evening presented its own set of problems. They only had a short distance to move to get to their lines, yet Stank felt anxious to get back. He had to remind himself to move slow and steady. He gave the hand signal to form into a traveling overwatch, and his team dispersed accordingly.
As they slogged along, Walker kept looking at Stank. They were clearly both thinking the same thing.
Something isn’t right. We’re being watched.
*******
Commando Tropas Especiales (CTE)
Outside Gitmo
Sargento de Primera Antón Sandoval of the Commando Tropas Especiales, or Special Commando Troops, was covered in moss, as was his Chinese-made QBZ-191 battle rifle. Only his head and weapon were above the water as his eyes scanned the area in front of him.
His team of ten commandos had been stalking the Americans since they’d left their base. They had missed an opportunity to ambush them earlier when they were setting up their hide site, so they’d decided to hit them when they eventually left to head back to their base.
So far, they’d observed them for the past two days as they sat in their patrol base, oblivious to the fact that they were being watched. Sandoval knew they were probably calling artillery strikes on his fellow comrades, and it pissed him off that he couldn’t do anything about it, at least not until they left their hide position. His superiors were not going to waste even a few artillery rounds on a small group of American soldiers when they were trying to pound Guantanamo into the Stone Age. So his team sat there and waited patiently for the right time to strike.
Once the Americans started to break down their position, Sandoval knew they would be returning right into their ambush. Their time to strike and take this group of foreign invaders had finally arrived. His ambush position was set in a slight draw, not easily observable from the fence line of the base. The American patrol would cross right in front of them and directly into their kill box.
Sandoval had personally seen to his squads’ camouflage in preparation for this ambush. It was so good that if he hadn’t placed his team personally, he would have sworn he was all alone. He had been waiting for this opportunity to fight the American Special Forces his entire career. He and his men had known they were American commandos as soon as they’d laid eyes on them; from their state-of-the-art weapons and equipment to the way they patrolled with ease through the terrain to the speed with which they had set up their equipment, they were true professionals, apex predators in the jungle.
But this was their jungle, their home these Americans were invading. Soon, they’d learn the Cubans weren’t a motley force of peasants that could be easily defeated.
*******
ODA 7426
Outside Gitmo
Stank had passed the signal that someone had eyes on the team. His men knew the drill and they had all “clicked safety” off on their weapons, senses, and minds. The operators knew they were still deep in Indian country; they were weapons-free should they bump into something.
Stealthily pushing his right foot in front of him in the thick swampy water, Stank inched forward at an incredibly slow speed. The operators creeping behind him were doing the same, trying to make their way through the swampy jungle muck they found themselves in without being detected.
As much as Stank wanted to rush towards the fence line and the perceived safety of the American lines, he knew several things were about to happen. A naval artillery bombardment was going to plaster the enemy a few miles away in two minutes, and the likelihood of enemy patrols nearby was high. His team was faced with the difficult choice of either speed or safety. On the one hand, they were six hundred and fifty meters from the fence line and the relative safety of the base. On the other, Stank intuitively knew that the faster they moved, the more noise they’d make and the higher the likelihood they’d miss seeing a threat before it was too late.
Just wait until the bombardment starts…then you can pick up the pace, he kept telling himself as the seconds moved like a snail on a salt lick.
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast, he thought. Keep your head on a swivel and stay alive…
Suddenly, a memory from Ranger school flashed through Stank’s mind. During the final phase of Ranger school, the swamp phase, his group had been conducting a crossing of a danger area. He’d thought he had seen a snake slither past him, but the still, small voice inside him had told him it was something more. When he’d investigated further, he’d observed the slightest movement by someone roughly twenty feet in front of him, and he’d signaled the rest of his squad that something wasn’t right and they might be walking into an ambush.
In that instance, his quick thinking had saved the patrol he was leading. Unbeknownst to them, their Ranger instructors had set up an ambush to try and take advantage of the starving and exhausted students as they neared the end of the training. Stank wasn’t having any of that. He quickly organized a counter-ambush, launching a wild and deliberate assault on their instructors’ positions.
That flashback triggered an instinct that had lain dormant in Stank since that day in Florida. Somewhere in his lizard brain, he’d seen something. With the slightest movement of his head, his eyes slowly panned left, then slowly back to the right.
Quickness is the essence of the war.
Stank was about to take a step when he saw it—a clump of moss on the water’s surface that was several inches higher than its surroundings. Protruding from the odd shape was a straight line of moss that extended a short distance beyond it. Given there are no straight lines in nature, Stank moved his trigger finger from the rifle trigger to the grenade trigger a few inches forward of his magazine and fired. In a millisecond, his highly trained military mind had calculated the distance to the target and the probability that the grenade would have enough time to arm itself. A fraction of a second later, his men all shouted, “Contact left!” as all hell broke loose.
*******
Commando Tropas Especiales (CTE)
Outside Gitmo
Sandoval watched as the first four Americans passed in front of them. He would wait for the middle element to enter the kill box before initiating the ambush. As the second element entered his view, he noticed one of the soldiers slow his pace. He seemed to be fixated on something; his movements became preternatural.
As he focused on the American, Sandoval noticed the man’s head turn slightly towards him. He was concealed and felt really good about his cover, but it felt as if the man was looking right at him. No, the man was looking at him.
Squinting his left eye as he looked through his optics, Sandoval saw the man move his hand from the trigger guard o
n his rifle to something else.
He’s spotted us.
Without hesitating, Sandoval switched his rifle from safe to fire and pulled his trigger at the exact same instant as the American.
*******
ODA 7426
Outside Gitmo
The second Stank fired his grenade and felt it leave the launcher, a sledgehammer slammed into his chest, throwing him backwards in an uncontrolled heap into the swampy muck behind him. For the briefest moment, he saw stars. The edges of his vision turned red and almost tunneled, like he was about to pass out. But Stank fought against that sensation, that yearning to just fall into the embrace of that black abyss.
Instead, he did a quick assessment of himself. As Stank’s vision returned, so did his senses. Whatever had hit him, it had slammed squarely into the center plate of his body armor. For a few seconds, it felt like his mind and body had gone underwater; everything around him was quiet and calm. But the moment his mind returned from whatever momentary fog it had been in, he became acutely aware of the intense firefight taking place around him.
Stank sat upright; he was glad he’d gotten shot here and not ten meters further back. He was at the edge of the swamp now, and it wasn’t nearly as deep as it had been just a little bit ago. Looking to his right and left, he took a brief second to assess the battle happening around him. He was glad to see his men were giving as good as they got.
Walker was shouting commands and pointing as he took charge of the situation. Stank appreciated him doing that. He expected nothing less, but it was time for him to get back into the fight.
Moving to a kneeling position, Stank brought his weapon to bear on the closest muzzle flash he saw and fired a three-round burst. The figure he’d just shot fell to the side and into the murky water.
“Everyone, get online! I want some frags on those enemy positions now!” shouted Stank. He wanted to make sure everyone knew he might have been hit, but he wasn’t out of this fight.
The twelve members of ODA 7426 had moved themselves into a firing line, unleashing holy hell on their attackers. Two of the grenadiers on the team fired 40mm grenades into the attackers. A couple more threw fragmentation grenades into the enemy lines. The sound of grenades going off and men screaming and the relentless chattering of machine-gun fire reverberated through the swampy marsh area.
The roaring sound of the naval gunfire sailed over their heads as the dozens of 155mm artillery rounds impacted the enemy armor and vehicles a few miles away.
To Stank’s immediate right was his team’s weapons sergeant, Staff Sergeant Terry “Jammer” Baskins. The man was slinging massive amounts of lead downrange at the enemy with the team’s new General Dynamics lightweight medium machine gun or LWMMG, otherwise known as “the Pig.” The new crew-served weapon was an absolute beast with its .338 Norma Magnum rounds—absolutely shredding everything in front of them.
Now that Stank saw that his team had finally come abreast of each other, he shouted, “Everyone, forward!” He stood and advanced towards the enemy, shooting the whole time.
The operators that could move jumped up from their covered positions and advanced as a single unit. The team members swept their weapons from left to right in cones of interlocking fields of fire as they charged into the ambush, overwhelming the remaining attackers. In less than thirty seconds, they’d assaulted through the enemy position, wiping them out. In an even more miraculous feat, they’d only taken three minor casualties.
Spotting the guy who had initially shot him, Stank walked toward the Commando who’d managed to put a 5.8mm round in his chest plate, damn near killing him.
As Stank approached him, he saw the man was half-submerged in the water. The part of his face he could see was covered in blood. Ironically, floating on a pile of moss next to the man was Stank’s 40mm grenade. It hadn’t had the distance to arm itself, but it had hit the man directly in the head.
Reaching down, Stank picked up the man’s QBZ-191 and slung it over his shoulder. He wasn’t totally sure why he’d grabbed it, but some part of him wanted to take the weapon that had almost killed him.
Before they could verify all the Cubans were dead, they heard movement to their right. The operators swung their weapons in the direction of the noise, ready to unleash a wall of lead.
“Loblolly!” shouted a Navy Seabee, who was visibly out of breath from the short run near the fence line to Stank’s team. There was an almost instantaneous reply to this challenge word from Walker: “Jolly Roger!” These code words kept them from firing on their comrades.
With the naval artillery still raining down on the Cubans not too far away, Stank gave the order for the team to get out of there and head back to base. They needed to put some distance between themselves and this mess before more Cuban units tried to see what had happened.
As Stank passed by the Seabees, who’d done their best to come bail them out, he smiled. “Thanks for coming to get us, Chief, we’re good. Let’s get back to base; there’s a whole lot of trouble headed our way.”
The Seabees looked at the carnage in disbelief and nodded. They turned and followed the ODA team back to the cut in the fence line, glad as hell the Snake Eaters were on their side.
*******
Sargento de Primera Antón Sandoval wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but when he came to, his face felt like it had been hit with a hammer. Realizing his head was half in the water, Sandoval slowly rolled himself over onto his back. As he tried to open his eyes, it felt like someone had plunged a knife into his left eye.
He raised his hand up slowly to touch that side of his face, and as he moved it towards his eye, he knew it was gone. He felt a flap of skin that should have covered his left cheekbone. Touching it sent shock waves of pain through his body, causing him to practically black out again.
When the pain finally subsided, Sandoval called out for his team. There was no response. Starting to panic, he searched for his rifle, but it was gone too. He let out a sigh and knew he should probably look around the area and see if he could find it or at least locate another one.
First things first. I need to patch up my face, he told himself.
His Special Forces training kicked in. Reaching for his first aid pouch, Sandoval unbuttoned it and pulled the sealed package towards the right side of his face so he could see it. He opened it up and pulled the gauze pad out. He placed it on the left side of his face, covering his exposed cheek and his left eye socket; then he began to wrap it around his head to hold it in place.
Once he was done, he slowly tried to sit up. Looking around him, he saw the carnage left in the wake of what was supposed to be a textbook ambush.
Why am I still alive?
Walking over to one of his dead comrades, Sandoval unfastened the rifle from his body armor. He made sure there was a fresh magazine seated and a bullet in the chamber. As he surveyed the scene, it became obvious the rest of his team was dead. No one was moving or calling out for help. Their bodies lay in twisted heaps or facedown in the swamping muck. Somehow, someway, he was the only one left alive.
Then he saw it—only a few feet away on the ground near where he’d been hiding. That damned American had shot him in the face with a 40mm grenade. Why hadn’t it gone off?
His rage nearly boiled over as he stumbled about, collecting the dog tags of his comrades—men he’d spent years training with, men their Chinese advisors had mentored and taught. They were supposed to be the best Special Forces in the Cuban Army.
How did we screw up? he kept asking himself. As he fumbled with one of the guys’ tags, Sandoval heard a whistling noise. As he tried to raise his rifle, the dizziness from his injury overcame him and he nearly fell. When he looked up, he saw a fellow Cuban soldier approaching him. When the lone figure drew near, all he could make out was their ghillie suit, which meant they were likely a scout or sniper. Then the soldier removed the face covering, revealing she was a woman. She smiled softly at him, glad someone was still alive. She shouldered he
r rifle and helped him to his feet without a word.
“Come, we have to go. The Army is coming. The attack is to start very soon. Let’s get you to an aid station.”
He draped his arm around her, and they walked toward their link-up point with their group commander. Glancing one final time over his shoulder towards Gitmo, he cursed under his breath and swore to avenge his brothers.
Chapter Seven
Operation Tricorne
II MEF
USS Mount Whitney
306 Nautical Miles South-Southeast of Gitmo
Marine Lieutenant General David Gilbert was not in a good mood. From the very start of this mission, he’d been behind schedule. First it was delays with the staging of his forces; then he had to switch command ships. Finally, he’d had to wait for the Mount Whitney to transit the Atlantic to Florida.
Every aspect of this operation had been delayed and screwed up from the word go. Marines, his Marines, were slugging it out at Gitmo, and every hour he was getting reports from Task Force Khe Sanh of killed and wounded. He thanked God the ChiComs were more worried about dealing with the Army on the western end of the island near Havana than they were about taking Gitmo. To them, Gitmo was an annoyance that could wait. Luckily, they’d only thrown ill-equipped Cuban militias at Bonwit’s task force, but it was anyone’s guess how long that would last.
He looked at a wall display of the ships containing the Marines and sailors of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force. That damn Cat 1 hurricane had thrown a wrench into the entire operation—from delaying their ability to reinforce the base, to preventing them from opening up a second front and securing a port, to making it completely impossible to launch aircraft during the storm. Sure, they could likely throw planes off the carrier deck, but the challenge was recovering them after they’d delivered their payload. If they had a friendly air base nearby that could handle the additional aircraft, Gilbert would have told the CAG to launch his fighters and land them on a shore base, but there wasn’t one.