Chavez was outside the perimeter at a listening/observation post which gave him a good view of the most likely avenue of approach to the rest of the squad, and a covert path back to it, should he have to move. Guerra, the operations sergeant, was with him. Ramirez wanted both SAWs in close.
"Maybe they'll just go away," Ding thought aloud--in a whisper, really.
Guerra snorted. "I think maybe we yanked their tail one time too many, man. What we need right now's a deep hole."
"Sounds like they stopped off for lunch. Wonder how long?"
"Also sounds like they're sweeping up and down like they think they're a fucking broom. If I guess right, we'll see them over on that point, then they'll come down that little draw and head back up right in front of us."
"You may be right, Paco."
"We oughta be movin'."
"Better to do it at night," Ding replied. "Now we know what they're doing, we can keep out of their way."
"Maybe. Looks like rain, Ding. You suppose maybe they'll go home 'steada gettin' wet like us fools?"
"We'll know in an hour or two."
"It's going to blow visibility to shit, too."
"Roger that."
"There!" Guerra pointed.
"Got 'em." Chavez put his glasses on the distant treeline. He saw two of them at once, joined by six more in less than a minute. Even from a few miles away it was obvious that they were huffing and puffing. One man stopped and took a drink from a bottle--beer? Ding wondered--right out in the open, standing up like he wanted to be a target. Who were these scum? They wore ordinary clothing with no thought of camouflage, but had web gear just like Chavez. The rifles were demonstrably AK-47s, mainly folding-stock.
"Six, this is Point, over."
"Six here."
"I got eight--no, ten people carrying AKs, half a klick east and downhill of the top of hill two-zero-one. They're not doin' much of anything at the moment, just standing there, over."
"Where are they looking, over."
"Just jerkin' off, sir. Over."
"Keep me posted," Captain Ramirez ordered.
"Roger. Out." Chavez went back to his glasses. One of them waved toward the top. Three others headed that way with a marked lack of enthusiasm.
"Wassa matta, wittle baby don wanna cwime da widdle fucking hill?" Ding asked. Though Guerra didn't know it, he was quoting his first platoon sergeant from Korea. "I think they're gettin' tired, Paco."
"Good. Maybe they'll go home."
They were tired, all right. The three took their own sweet time going up. Once there, they shouted down that they hadn't seen anyone. Below them, the others stood mostly in the clearing, just stood there like fools, Ding noted in some surprise. Confidence was a good thing in a soldier, but that wasn't confidence, and those weren't soldiers. About the time the three climbers were halfway down, clouds blotted out the sun. Almost immediately thereafter rain started to fall. A major tropical thunderstorm had built up on the western side of the mountain. Two minutes behind the rain came lightning. One bolt struck the summit, right where the climbers had been. It hung there for a surprisingly long fraction of a second like the finger of an angry god. Then others started hitting everywhere, and the rain started falling in earnest. What had been unrestricted visibility was now a radius of four hundred meters at most, expanding and contracting with the march of the opaque, wet curtains. Chavez and Guerra traded a concerned look. Their mission was look-and-listen, but now they couldn't see very far and could hear less. Worse, even after the storm passed, the ground around them would be wet. Leaves and twigs wouldn't crackle when people stepped on them. Humidity in the air would absorb sound. The inept clowns they'd been watching could therefore approach much closer to the outpost without notice. On the other hand, if the squad had to move, it could move faster with a lower risk of detection, for the same reasons. As always, the environment was neutral, giving advantage only to those who knew how to take it, and sometimes imposing the same handicaps on both sides.
The storm lasted all afternoon, dropping several inches of rain. Lightning touched down within a hundred yards of the sergeants, an experience new to both and as frightening as an artillery barrage, with its sudden burst of light and noise. After that it was just wet, cold, and miserable as the temperature dropped into the upper fifties.
"Ding, look left front," Guerra whispered urgently.
"Oh, fuck!" Chavez didn't have to ask aloud how they'd gotten this close. With their hearing still affected by the thunder, and the whole mountain sodden, there were two men, not two hundred meters away.
"Six, this is Point, we got a pair of gomers two hundred meters southeast of us," Guerra reported to his captain. "Stand by. Over."
"Roger, standing by," Ramirez answered. "Be cool, Paco."
Guerra keyed his transmit switch by way of reply.
Chavez moved very slowly, bringing his weapon closer to a firing position, making sure the safety was on but leaving his thumb on the lever. He knew that they were the nearest thing to invisible, well concealed in ground cover and sapling trees. Each man had his war paint on, and even from fifty feet away they would look like part of the environment. They had to keep still, since the human eye is very effective at detecting movement, but as long as they did, they were invisible. This was a very practical demonstration of why the Army trained people to be disciplined. Both sergeants wished they had their camouflage fatigues, but it was a little late to worry about that, and the khaki cloth was brown with rain and mud anyway. By unspoken agreement, each man watched a discrete sector so that they wouldn't have to turn their heads very much. They knew that they could speak if they did so in whispers, but they would do so only for really important information.
"I hear something behind us," Chavez said ten minutes later.
"Better look," Guerra answered.
Ding had to take his time, over thirty seconds to rotate his body and head.
"Uh-oh." There were several men putting bedrolls down on the ground. "Stayin' for the night."
It was clear what had happened. The people they'd been watching had continued their patrol routine and ended up straddling the observation post with their night camp. They could now see or hear over twenty men.
"This is gonna be a fun night," Guerra whispered.
"Yeah, and I gotta take a leak, too." It was a feeble attempt at a joke. Ding looked up at the sky. The rainfall was down to sprinkles now, but the clouds were just as thick. It would be dark a little early, maybe in two hours.
The enemy was spread out in three groups, which wasn't entirely stupid, but each group built fires for cooking, which was. They were also noisy, talking as though they were sitting down for a meal in some village cantina. That was good news for Chavez and Guerra. It allowed them to use their radio again.
"Six, this is Point, over."
"Six here."
"Six, uh ..." Chavez hesitated. "The bad guys have set up their camp all around us. They don't know we're here."
"Tell me what you want to do."
"Nothin' right now. I think maybe we can walk on out when it gets dark. We'll let you know when."
"Roger. Out."
"Walk on out?" Guerra whispered.
"No sense gettin' him all worried, Paco."
"Hey, 'mano, I'm fucking worried."
"Bein' worried don't help."
There were still no answers. Ryan left his office after what appeared to have been a normal day's work of catching up on correspondence and reports. Not much work had actually been accomplished, however. There were too many distractions that simply hadn't gone away.
He told his driver to head for Bethesda. He hadn't called ahead, but going there would not seem to be too much out of the ordinary. The security watch on the VIP suite was as strong as ever, but they all knew Ryan. The one by the door gave him a sorrowful shake of the head as he reached for the door. Ryan caught that signal clearly enough. He stopped and composed himself before going in. Greer didn't need to see shock on the
faces of his visitors. But shock was what Jack felt.
He was barely a hundred pounds now, a scarecrow that had once been a man, a professional naval officer who'd commanded ships and led men in the service of their country. Fifty years of government service lay wasting away on the hospital bed. It was more than the death of a man. It was the death of an age, of a standard of behavior. Fifty years of experience and wisdom and judgment were slipping away. Jack took his seat next to the bed and waved the security officer out of the room.
"Hey, boss."
His eyes opened.
Now what do I say? How are you feeling? There's something to say to a dying man!
"How was the trip, Jack?" The voice was weak.
"Belgium was okay. Everybody sends regards. Friday I got to brief Fowler, like you did the last time."
"What do you think of him?"
"I think he needs some help on foreign policy."
A smile: "So do I. Gives a nice speech, though."
"I didn't exactly hit it off with one of his aides, Elliot, the gal from Bennington. Obnoxious as hell. If her man wins, she says, I retire." That was really the wrong thing to say. Greer tried to move but couldn't.
"Then you find her, and kiss and make up. If you have to kiss her ass at noon on the Bennington quad, you do that. When are you going to learn to bend that stiff Irish neck of yours? Ask Basil sometime how much he likes the people he has to work for. Your duty is to serve the country, Jack, not just the people you happen to like." A blow from a professional boxer could not have stung worse.
"Yes, sir. You're right. I still have a lot to learn."
"Learn fast, boy. I haven't got many lessons left."
"Don't say that, Admiral." The line was delivered like the plea of a child.
"It's my time, Jack. Some men I served with died off Savo Island fifty years ago, or at Leyte, or lots of other parts of ocean. I've been a lot luckier than they were, but it's my time. And it's your turn to take over for me. I want you to take my place, Jack."
"I do need some advice, Admiral."
"Colombia?"
"I could ask how you know, but I won't."
"When a man like Arthur Moore won't look you in the eye, you know that something is wrong. He was in here Saturday and he wouldn't look me in the eye."
"He lied to me today." Ryan explained on for five minutes, outlining what he knew, what he suspected, and what he feared.
"And you want to know what to do?" Greer asked.
"I could sure use a little guidance, Admiral."
"You don't need guidance, Jack. You're smart enough. You have all the contacts you need. And you know what's right."
"But what about--"
"Politics? All that shit?" Greer almost laughed. "Jack, you know, when you lay here like this, you know what you think about? You think about all the things you'd like another chance at, all the mistakes, all the people you might have treated better, and you thank God that it wasn't worse. Jack, you will never regret honesty, even if it hurts people. When they made you a Marine lieutenant you swore an oath before God. I understand why we do that now. It's a help, not a threat. It's something to remind you how important words are. Ideas are important. Principles are important. Words are important. Your word is the most important of all. Your word is who you are. That's the last lesson, Jack. You have to carry on from here." He paused, and Jack could see the pain coming through the heavy medications. "You have a family, Jack. Go home to them. Give 'em my love and tell them that I think their daddy is a pretty good guy, and they ought to be proud of him. Good night, Jack." Greer drifted off to sleep.
Jack didn't get up for several minutes. It took that long for him to regain control of himself. He dried his eyes and walked out of the room. The doctor was on his way in. Jack stopped him and identified himself.
"Not much longer. Less than a week. I'm sorry, but there never was much hope."
"Keep him comfortable," Ryan said quietly. Another plea.
"We are," the oncologist replied. "That's why he's out most of the time. He's still quite lucid when he's awake. I've had some nice talks with him. I like him, too." The doctor was used to losing patients, but had never grown to enjoy it. "In a few years, we might have saved him. Progress isn't fast enough."
"Never is. Thanks for trying, doc. Thanks for caring." Ryan took the elevator back down to ground level and told the driver to take him home. On the way they passed the Mormon temple again, the marble lit with floodlights. Jack still didn't know exactly what he'd do, but now he was certain of what he had to accomplish. He'd made his silent promise to a dying man, and no promise could be more important than that.
The clouds were breaking up and there would be moonlight soon. It was time. The enemy had sentries out. They paced around the same as the ones who'd guarded the processing sites. The fires were still burning, but conversation had died off as weary men fell asleep.
"Just walk out together," Chavez said. "They see us creep or crawl, they know we're bad guys. They see us walkin', we're some of them."
"Makes sense," Guerra agreed.
Both men slung their weapons across their chests. The profile of each would be distinctively wrong to the enemy, but close up against their bodies the outlines would be obscured and the weapons could still be ready for immediate use. Ding could depend on his MP5 SD2 to kill quietly if the necessity arose. Guerra took out his machete. The metal blade was black-anodized, of course, and the only shiny part was the razor-sharp edge itself. Guerra was especially good with edged weapons, and was ever sharpening his steel. He was also ambidextrous, and held it loosely in his left hand while his right was on the pistol grip of his M-16.
The squad had already moved to a line roughly a hundred meters from the camp past which they'd be walking, ready to provide support if it were needed. It would be a tricky exercise at best, and everyone hoped that it wouldn't be necessary.
" 'kay, Ding, you lead off." Guerra actually ranked Chavez, but this was a situation where expertise counted for more than seniority.
Chavez headed down the hill, keeping to cover as long as he could, then angling left and north toward safety. His low-light goggles were in his rucksack, back at the squad's hideout because he was supposed to have been relieved before nightfall. Ding missed the night scope. A lot.
The two men moved as quietly as they could, and the soaked ground helped, but the cover got very thick along the path they took. It was only three or four hundred meters to safety, but this time it was too far.
They didn't use paths, of course, but they couldn't entirely avoid them, and one of the paths twisted around. Just as Chavez and Guerra crossed it, two men appeared a mere ten feet away.
"What are you doing out?" one asked. Chavez just waved in a friendly sort of way, hoping that the gesture would stop him, but he approached, trying to see who it was, his companion at his side. About the time he noticed that Ding was carrying the wrong sort of weapon it was too late for everyone.
Chavez had both hands back on his submachine gun, and swiveled it around on the double-looped sling, delivering a single round under the man's chin that exploded out the top of his head. Guerra turned and brought his machete around, and just like in the movies, the whole head came off. Both he and Chavez leaped to catch both victims before they made too much noise.
Shit! Ding thought. Now they'd know that somebody was here. There wasn't time to remove the bodies to a hiding place--they might bump into someone else. If that was true, he reasoned, better to get full value from the kills. He found the loose head and set it on the chest of Guerra's victim, held in both lifeless hands. The message was a clear one: Don't fuck with us!
Guerra nodded approval and Ding led off again. It took ten more minutes before they heard a spitting sound just to the right.
"I been watchin' ya' half of forever," Oso said.
"You okay?" Ramirez whispered.
"Met two guys. They're dead," Guerra said.
"Let's get moving before they find 'em
."
That was not to be. A moment later they heard the thud of a falling body, followed by a shout, followed by a scream, followed by a wild burst of AK-47 fire. It went in the wrong direction, but it sufficed to awaken any sleeping soul within a couple of klicks. The squad members activated their low-light gear, the better to pick their way through the cover as quickly as possible while the camp behind them exploded with noise and shouts and curses aimed in all directions. They didn't stop for two hours. It was as official as orders off their satellite net: they were now the hunted.
It had happened with unaccustomed rapidity, one hundred miles from the Cape Verde Islands. The satellite cameras had been watching for some days now, scanning the storm on several different light frequencies. The photos were downlinked to anyone with the right equipment, and already ships were altering course to get clear of it. Very hot, dry air had spilled off the West African desert in what was already a near-record summer and, driven by the easterly trade winds, combined with moist ocean air to form towering thunderheads, hundreds of them that had begun to merge. The clouds reached down into the warm surface water, drawing additional heat upward into the air to add that energy to what the clouds already contained. When some critical mass of heat and rain and cloud was reached, the storm began to organize itself. The people at the National Hurricane Center still didn't understand why it happened--or why, given the circumstances, it happened so seldom--but it was happening now. The chief scientist manipulated his computer controls to fast-forward the satellite photos, rewind, and fast-forward again. He could see it clearly. The clouds had begun their counterclockwise orbit around a single point in space. It was becoming an organized storm, using its circular motion to increase its own coherence and power as though it knew that such activity would give it life. It wasn't the earliest that such a storm had begun, but conditions were unusually "good" this year for their formation. How lovely they appeared on the satellite photographs, like some kind of modern art, feathery pinwheels of gossamer cloud. Or, the chief scientist thought, that's how they would look if they didn't kill so many people. When you got down to it, the reason they gave the storms names was that it was unseemly for hundreds or thousands of human lives to be ended by a number. This one would be such a storm, the meteorologist thought. For the moment they'd call it a tropical depression, but if it kept growing in size and power, it would change to a tropical storm. At that point they'd start calling it Adele.
Clear and Present Danger (1989) Page 61