Murdock held up his hand. “So when we move, we go slow and easy. If we run into any enemy, we reduce them with the EAR if possible to keep from giving away our position. Then hope to squeeze through their dragnet and move up the trail toward the village. How far will we need to move north before we’re out of the danger zone?”
Jaybird looked up. “They want us bad, Skipper. I’d say they’ll have troops out at least fifteen miles.”
“Mahanani, how are our two tenderfeet?” the commander asked.
Mahanani slapped Stroh on the back. “This gung-ho, shit-kicking CIA desk man who never thought he’d be in the field has actually fired a few shots in anger. Him and his trusty AK-47. He’s now a genuine, imitation, ersatz SEAL. He’ll make it fine if he doesn’t try to be a hero and learns to keep his head down.
“Our other man could be a problem. He’s showing some signs of stress. His pace has slowed, but there doesn’t seem to be any physical impairment, except one small limp. Hey, damn big word for me. I don’t think we’ll get to the point where we have to carry him. I’ve thought about a horse cart if Sandari could scare up one. Most of the trails are good for another five miles before they close in. One of those motorcycles would have been great. I’d suggest the cart if possible, and that would give him a rest, and then maybe we can put him on the horse for the last ten miles.”
“Can you saddle a cart horse?” Jaybird asked.
“Most horses over here would probably go either way,” JG Gardner said.
“To find a horse and a cart, we’ll need a village,” Murdock said.
“Lam told me he smelled cooking fires a while ago,” Jaybird said. “He figured there was a small village about a mile ahead. We’re downwind.”
Ten minutes later Lam and Sandari came back. Both were sweating from the run back down the trail.
“We found a trail looks good,” Lam said. “No sign of any military.”
“How close are we to a village?” Murdock asked Sandari. “We hope to buy, rent, or steal a horse and a cart that the Vice President can ride in.”
“Half mile straight ahead to a village,” Sandari said. “For cash dagnars I can find a renter.”
“Go now and meet us on the trail. We’ll be moving ahead at once.”
He took the stack of bills Murdock gave him and left.
“Lam, take the point. We’re walking, and keep it reasonable so the Veep can stay with us. Let’s keep five yards apart. Move out.”
The Vice President was hurting. He had developed a slight limp, and now it became worse. It took them ten minutes to do the half mile to the village, Murdock realized. He was glad when he saw a cart with cushions in it and a sturdy-looking horse hitched to it.
“I don’t need no stinking horse cart,” Adams shrilled when Murdock asked him to step on board.
“You might not need it, Mr. Vice President, but the rest of us do so we can make better time. The quicker we get out of the danger zone out about fifteen miles, the better off we’ll be. Doesn’t that make sense?”
Adams wilted as he stepped onto the cart and settled into the cushions. “Yeah, you’re right, Murdock. I’m being bitchy. Sorry. I want my AK-47 back just in case. Hell, I can still shoot.”
After that they made better time. Murdock put the horse cart in the middle of the line of march, and Lam had them at a seven-miles-an-hour pace. It was an easy jog that they could keep up for miles. Even the horse liked it at somewhere between a walk and a canter. One of the SEALs led the horse by a line.
They had hiked another three miles before Lam used the Motorola. “Better hold it in place, troops. We have a small problem up here.”
It was the simplest kind of roadblock Murdock and Gardner saw as they worked their way up to take a look through the murky night air.
“Damn log across the trail. We can get over it easy, but the cart will have trouble.”
“Anybody defending behind it?” Gardner asked Lam.
“I smelled some cigarette smoke but it’s gone now. Not sure if it came from there or some nearby village.” Lam shrugged. “Odds are there’s at least a squad behind the log. They must have cut down a tree to get it in place.”
Murdock called up Rafii. “That leg wound hurt your knife-throwing arm?”
“Not a bit, Skipper.”
“Good. We may have visitors up front. I want you, Lam, and the JG to work up on the right-hand side of the trail. Go through the brush and vines and be as quiet as Lam is. If it’s only two or three, see if you can get them with thrown knives. Any more, Lam, take the rest out with silenced shots. Take MP-5s.”
The three men faded into the jungle, and Murdock tried to hear them moving forward but he couldn’t. He was sure Lam was showing the others how to get through, around, under, or over the vines and trees and plants that luxuriated in the tropical rain forest.
Murdock tried to watch ahead. The platoon had moved up to within thirty yards of the roadblock. They couldn’t hear anything. Murdock watched, but saw no flare of a match that might be used to light a smoke. They waited. Twice Murdock thought he heard the short grunt of a silenced shot, but he wasn’t sure.
* * *
Lam led the two men, showing them how to move without making noise. They penetrated ten yards into the thickets away from the trail, then moved forward paralleling it for thirty yards. Then Lam headed them back to the trail. They stopped just behind the fallen tree. The top of it extended far into the jungle, where it had created a sweeping path as it came down. Lam eased through the brush until he could see along the heavy trunk lying on the ground. Nothing.
He closed his eyes and concentrated. When he opened them he sectionalized the area, looking at one small section at a time, before moving on. He had left the other two men ten yards behind him. In the third section he found a cammy-clad soldier holding a weapon and leaning against the tree. He could be sleeping. Lam kept looking. He found the second man three feet behind the log lying on the edge of the trail. Also could be sleeping. At last Lam found the third man, sitting upright against the two-foot-thick tree trunk, rifle in his hands, peering over the top of the log.
Lam clicked his Motorola twice, and the two men behind him worked up silently. He pointed out the alert soldier, and Rafii nodded. He worked closer until he was ten feet away, then lifted up and his right hand came down sharply. Lam couldn’t see the knife flying through the air, but he heard the groan from the man it hit. He fell forward and moaned as he rolled over. He tried to shout, but the sound came out as a gurgle. The noise was enough to awaken both the other men. They waved their rifles. Lam shot one of them with his silenced MP-5, and Gardner nailed the other one with a three-shot burst. Then all was quiet.
Lam motioned for the others to stay put, and he worked ahead without a sound to check on the three and see if there were any more defenders. He paused at the edge of the trail. He couldn’t see or hear anyone down the trail. The three bodies in front of him hadn’t moved since the attack. He surged out and checked all three. Lam touched his Motorola.
“We’ve got a clear field here, Skipper. Three down and out. But the damn tree is a problem.”
The rest of the platoon came up, and Sandari grinned. “No big worry,” he said. “Trees fall down over trails all the time. We unhitch the cart and ten men lift it over the log and put it down. Then I talk to the horse and lead him around the end of the log through the trees. Happens all the time.”
Fifteen minutes later the Vice President was back in the cart, and they moved up the trail, which was becoming increasingly rough and narrow.
They stopped after a half hour of marching. The trail was too narrow now for the horse cart.
“Mr. Vice President, have you ever ridden a horse?”
“You’re kidding. This plow horse can be ridden?”
“We’re going to find out. That knee of yours isn’t going to hold up for eight or ten more miles. Sandari is getting on the horse’s back now to see how he performs. My guess he’s as gentle as a puppy
.”
He was, Murdock was glad to see. They boosted the Vice President onto the horse, where one of the cart pillows served as a make-do saddle. Then they moved again. Sandari told Murdock it was not more than eight miles to the village. He would be surprised if the federal troops were out this far.
“I’ll believe that when we hit the Loyalist outposts,” Lam said.
Ten minutes later, Lam put the platoon down. “Skipper, up here, quickly. I don’t know what the hell is going on. Sounds like a bunch is having late chow or early chow. I smell cooking fires and meat and all sorts of food up here. Noise like it’s the Fourth of July.”
Murdock, Jaybird, and Gardner hurried up the trail to where Lam lay in the brush at the edge of the path. They all heard the noise.
“How far off our route?” Gardner asked.
“Must be a clearing up there. Maybe fifty yards ahead and off the trail by not more than a dozen yards. No way we can get past them and not be seen.”
“Then let’s hold a celebration in their honor,” Murdock said. “We move up as close as we can to get open fields of fire and we test out those new 20mm rounds to see how well they work.”
25
Lam came back from his scouting mission. “Oh, yeah, Skipper. They are just starting to chow down. I counted twenty of them and what looks like a field kitchen. I couldn’t tell if any of them were officers. We’ve got some good fields of fire. It’s near a small stream that goes toward the river. They’re on this side of it in a small field somebody has carved out of the jungle. Those farmers must spend half their time beating back the growth of vines and small trees.”
“Can we get all of our Bull Pups on line?” Gardner asked.
“Plenty of space.”
Murdock left Mahanani with the horse and the Vice President, and took the rest of the men forward. Lam edged into the heavy growth beside the trail and worked across to the other side of the opening that spread out to the left. They would have forty feet of space in the edge of the jungle to set up. It took five minutes to get the fifteen men placed. Then Murdock used his Motorola.
“If you have airburst rounds left, use them. First shots from the twenties, then everyone open up. Twenties go to 5.56 after the first round. No reason to be quiet on this one. Check it out. Twenties we fire in ten seconds.” He waited, then counted down from four. At one the Bull Pups roared and at once the rounds exploded. Two were airbursts, and the others hit the field kitchen and the line of soldiers. More than half went down with the first rounds. Then the rest of the weapons fired, picking off the survivors and those trying to escape. In twenty seconds it was all over. Two men crawled toward the jungle. They were quickly nailed with two rounds each. All else was quiet.
“Gardner and Rafii, go in and make sure everyone is down,” Murdock said.
The two men sprinted for the death scene. Murdock heard one round fired, then all was quiet.
“Their weapons are the newer AK-74’s,” Gardner said. “We better scoop up all of them we can find. I need four more men in here.”
Murdock pointed to four men near him, and they ran into the carnage and retrieved weapons and ammo. Each man brought back four of the big rifles. They spread them out among the men. Then Murdock brought up the horse and they headed up the trail. Lam and Sandari were out ahead a quarter of a mile. Murdock expected no more federals. Those out on patrol must have reported back for a late midnight supper. Or their last supper, however you looked at it.
Mahanani pulled up beside Murdock and fell in step with him. “The Veep is looking better. He was so tired before he could hardly spit. Now he’s going to make it okay.”
“Good. We’ve got maybe two hours left. We should hit some of the Loyalists’ outposts before long.”
Jaybird used the Motorola. “Hey, Skipper, we haven’t heard or seen anything of Mojombo and his men. Where in hell are they?”
“My guess they swung deeper into the jungle, farther away from the river to get away from any federal troops. He’ll probably beat us back to the village.”
* * *
It was dawn before Murdock and his platoon hiked into Tinglat. Mojombo welcomed them.
“You found them. Great. We came up empty at the station, but we took it down and wasted a lot of their soldiers. They had a bomb they had rigged as a booby trap just outside the station. We watched them setting it up after we got there. It was no problem. We caught the same message you did from the pilot. We found him, and left half of our men there to give him some security for the rest of the night. With daylight there are supposed to be F-18’s flying air cover for him, and three choppers bringing in repair parts and mechanics and twenty-five Marines for a perimeter defense. The pilot had been in touch with the carrier on his radio. He estimated an hour of work before he’d be ready to fly out. He’s going back to the carrier, and they’ll leave one of the Skyhawks for us to use here. Does Washington, D.C., know about the men being rescued?”
“We just got here. I’ll let Stroh do his own reporting to his friends in Washington. As for me and the men and the Vice President, it’s sack time.”
Stroh had gone directly to his tent. He took out the SATCOM and adjusted the antenna, then made his call.
“Right, Chief,” he said. “We’re both free, out of there, and hale and hearty. Well, the Vice President has a bit of a limp, but outside of that…”
“Get him on a chopper and out to the carrier as soon as possible. We’ve been sweating branding irons back here. When can you get a chopper in?”
“One is supposed to come to replace the one that got shot up after it dropped us off. Maybe a couple of hours.”
“If it doesn’t come, you call the carrier and have them get another one in there. That’s the carrier captain’s primary mission, to rescue the Vice President. He better do it as quickly as possible.”
“Chief, I’d think a call from the CNO would be more productive. He can get the captain on line in minutes.”
“Yes, all right, I’ll tell the CNO to do that. Now that the important stuff is out of the way, how are you?”
“Just tired as hell after hiking for about thirty miles. I’m finding my cot and cutting you off and getting some sleep time.”
“Good night, Stroh.”
“Yeah, good night, Chief.”
Stroh went over to the Vice President’s tent, and saw the second-highest official in the U.S. government snoring away peacefully. Stroh woke him up.
“Mr. Adams, sorry to wake you, but I just wanted you to know that a helicopter will be coming in soon and you will be put on board for a flight back to the carrier. President’s orders, nothing I can do about it. Are you about ready to head back?”
“Oh, hell, yes. I’ve seen enough now to really twist some tails when I get back to Washington. That chopper can’t get here too soon to suit me. Thanks, Stroh, you’ve been a real help to me. I won’t forget it.”
“Good to be able to help, Mr. Vice President. Now I’m going to find my bunk.”
* * *
The Skyhawk sliding into the soccer field an hour later awoke Murdock and half the camp. He remembered the edict about getting the Veep out to the carrier. He hoped the Vice President didn’t give them a hard time.
Marshall Adams was the first man to the chopper after it landed. He shook hands with the pilot, told him who he was, and the pilot nearly fell down trying to find a good place for the Vice President to sit on the trip. At last he found some packing blankets and made a seat on the floor.
Murdock, Stroh, and Mojombo all stood in the doorway as the pilot radioed the carrier and told them he had his package and was about to take off.
“You’re not coming, Mr. Stroh?” Adams asked.
“Not yet. We have a couple more things to take care of here.”
“Good. Try not to get shot.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Stroh said. “I better have Mahanani take a look at this arm.” He held up his left forearm, which had a bloody bandage around it about halfway
up.
“You’re shot,” Murdock said. “Why didn’t you tell somebody?”
“We had bigger worries about then,” Stroh said. “Besides, it builds up my macho image.”
Murdock grabbed him by his good arm and pulled him away from the chopper as the pilot wound up the engine. “Come on, you desk jockey, you’ve yet to experience the wonders of field first aid.”
* * *
By noon that day Mojombo had set up a screen of sentries, guard posts, and clusters of twenty-man emergency forces on all the major trails down five miles below the village. That still left ten miles on down to the ten-mile boat dock as no-man’s-land.
“We’re controlling everything north of that line,” Mojombo said when Murdock wandered up to his tent about 1300. “If federals want to come north of that, they have to fight their way in.”
“How’s your campaign to enlist the other villages going?” Murdock asked.
“My top lieutenant made calls on three villages yesterday and we have their support. There are about twenty villages up here beyond the city. We want them all. Then we can move downstream.”
An hour later they heard a burst of rifle fire to the south. “About a mile away, maybe less,” Murdock said. Mojombo sent a runner to see what the firefight was about. He came back quickly with a man with his hands tied in front of him. He wore the cammies and the billed cap of a federal soldier.
They hurried the prisoner to the commander’s tent, and he stood ramrod straight, and would have saluted except for the tied wrists.
“Sir, I am Second Lieutenant Rozolo with a message for you from Colonel Ronald Amosa.”
Mojombo frowned. “Is that the same Amosa who is commander of a regiment?”
“Yes, sir. The message is not written down. I memorized it on the colonel’s orders.”
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