Joint Task Force #1: Liberia (28 page)

Artimecy reached up and patted her on the head. “Now, now, honey. We gonna get you to yore momma. You just hang in there.”

“What happened?” Jamal asked.

“We gotta get that shirt off him,” Artimecy said, opening a nearby bag and pulling out a pair of scissors.

She leaned forward and quickly cut away the shirt while Victoria leaned on the compress.

“Not sure what happened,” Joel offered as the two women worked. “This man and another soldier must have stumbled onto the group that may have raided our farms. There may have been more in the gunfight, because there were several trees across the road. We found a body in the ditch on the far side. He’d been shot. It wasn’t until we started back we heard moaning and found this one, still alive. Looked as if he had crawled into the bushes in an attempt to hide.”

The man’s eyes opened. “Kingsville,” he mumbled weakly. “Got to warn them. Got to warn the armory.”

“What’d he say?” Joel asked.

“Something about Kingsville and the armory,” Artimecy replied.

Parker put his hand on the trailer and leaned across the wounded man. “What have we got to warn them about, son?”

The man lifted his arm for a moment. It fell, coming to rest against Parker’s arm. The man’s eyes opened. He lifted his
head slightly, a weak grip holding Parker’s arm. “My wife. My kids. Tell them I love them.”

“Sure we will, son, but you gonna be able to tell them yourself.”

The man’s head rocked back and forth weakly. “No—you got to get to the armory in Kingsville and—” He coughed several times, and a string of blood ran out of his mouth and down his chin.

“You need to rest. We’re going to get you to a doctor.”

The man shook his head again. “Listen, please. Tell General Thomaston they’re coming. You’ve got to warn him. They don’t know,” the soldier mumbled, and his head fell to the side. A long escape of air followed.

“Is he dead?” Mimy asked.

Victoria pressed down on the compress and with one hand put a couple of fingers against his neck. “No, he’s still alive, but barely.” She looked at Joel. “What are we going to do?”

Parker stepped back from the trailer.

“I guess we’re going to cross the road to the other side,” Joel answered with a lack of conviction.

“That is exactly what we’re going to do,” Parker said, spitting to the side. “We are going to get on the old road and keep going. What we have to do while Joel is driving is keep this young man as comfortable as possible and hope he lives until we reach Kingsville.”

“Another ten kilometers should do it,” Joel said.

“And it ain’t getting any closer us standing here talking about it. The good news is the armory is on this side of town, so it ain’t like we have to go through town to get to it.”

“Yeah, if this road holds out and doesn’t change direction.”

“If, if, if. If it doesn’t, then we’ll face that when it happens; meanwhile, it’s headed in the right direction and I can’t see it heading south. Too much swamp and marsh thataway.”

Joel grabbed his shotgun and climbed up into the driver’s seat. He braced it alongside the controls of the tractor. “It’s past midnight now. We don’t know how this road is on the other side. This is as far as Parker, me, and Cannon have ever come.”

“I’ll walk out front,” George said.

“We must try,” Victoria said.

“Well, you ain’t asking, but I’ll tell you. I would feel a hell of a lot safer with a bunch of armed Americans around me.” He pointed to Joel. “Now, if you can make a couple of kilometers an hour, then we can be there about daybreak and let whoever is holed up in the armory know what this man told us.”

“We can do it,” Victoria said. She shifted her hand slightly on the compress, and then looked toward Joel. “Please, we have to try. They’re in danger and we’re the only ones who know it.”

“I think Uncle Nathan told them they were in danger,” Jamal added.

“He did, but it looks as if danger is creeping closer.”

Joel gave a quick nod. “We’re going to try. I want everyone to understand that if we arrive and trouble is already there, I’m not going to risk my family. We’ll go around and continue on to Ivory Coast.”

“No, we aren’t going to risk our families, but we need to do what we can to warn those in Kingsville,” Artimecy said.

“If they’re fighting when we get there, the warning will be a slight too late, Mrs. Swafford,” Joel said.

“I’ll ride on the trailer and help the soldier,” Victoria said.

“Not by yourself, you won’t,” Artimecy added. “I may not know much about medicine, but I know enough about men.” She crawled up and pulled one of the boxes over to lean on. She ripped another swatch of cloth from the torn tablecloth, opened a canteen, and poured some water on it. She then wiped the wounded man’s forehead.

“Arty, you be careful,” Parker said, a trace of emotion in his voice. “And don’t fall off that contraption.”

“You watch yourself, Parker Swafford,” she replied softly. “I can take care of myself and this wounded man. You just help Joel get us to Kingsville and we’ll all be all right. And you be careful. I’m too old to have to train a new husband.”

“You boys, bring up the rear,” George said. “If anything happens, you skedaddle into the brush and fight from there. Worst case, you run as fast as you can. You survive anyway you can, but you survive.”

Jamal nodded. He and Cannon walked to the rear of the trailer and waited for it to start. Selma had not moved. She sat
stiff with both hands still over her eyes. Everyone ignored her. What could they do anyway? he thought. As long as she was quiet and stayed where she was, she’d be all right. He wondered briefly if she would ever be the little sister he remembered. Jamal looked around, taking in where each person stood or sat. He never thought he would ever want to have his sister be the same as she was two days ago. It went dark. Someone had turned off the lantern.

Two minutes later, the tractor inched down the hill toward the highway. Starlight lit the way. The sounds of the jungle had returned sometime in the past few minutes, but the tractor drowned out most of them. So far, Joel had turned on the headlights only once on their trek, and that was a few miles back when a swath of overgrowth hid the road where a small stream broke the surface.

The critical time would be the minutes exposed when they crossed the open highway. Several yards from where the old road exited the pine trees, Joel gave Benitez his shotgun and sent him forward to the other side. Instead of dashing across the road, Benitez stopped in the middle of the highway, laid the shotgun down, and put his ear to the paved road. Seconds, which seemed minutes, later, the man stood and waved to the group.

“Come!” he shouted. “No one come.”

“What’d he say?” Artimecy asked as she ran the damp cloth around the man’s face. “I, for the life of me, cannot understand a word that man says.”

Everyone involuntarily crouched as if expecting gunfire at any moment. When seconds passed and nothing happened, Joel accepted the stranger’s assessment. He reached forward and shoved the gear into low. The wounded man moaned. Victoria lifted the compress slightly to check on the bleeding. It had slowed.

Jamal saw the dark stain on the bottom of the compress. He wondered, if the bleeding had stopped, would it be because of the compress or because the man was running out of blood? He wondered briefly if the bullet was still inside the young soldier, and figured it had to be there. He recalled Uncle Nathan once saying how bullets made small holes going into a person, but blasted huge holes when they left. More
information than a twelve-year-old wanted to know at the time.

With the engine revving, the tractor moved down the last few yards to the highway. It tilted slightly as it pulled up the side of the grassy incline to the road, and then tilted the other way when it went down the other side a half minute later. Within three minutes, the procession was across the highway. This ragtag band of survivors disappeared into the jungle, leaving behind the empty sliver of a road they had just crossed.

Jamal thought of his father and mother, and he hoped they had made it to Kingsville. He shut his eyes for a quick prayer, promising all kinds of things to God if they were safe. When he opened his eyes, Selma looked as if she was peeping between her fingers. The night sounds of the jungle seemed to emerge simultaneously in a cacophony of screeches, light roars, and crashing of bushes. Jamal shivered involuntarily. What was going to happen to Selma and him? He had promised his parents he would watch after her. Tears flowed silently, drawing lines through his dust-covered face, to drip off his chin onto his shirt. Look at her now. They’d blame him for it.

CHAPTER 11

“GENERAL THOMASTON, DICK HOLMAN HERE. I THOUGHT
you’d be in Abidjan by now,” Admiral Holman said. He released the push-to-talk button in the center of the black handset.

“No, sir, Admiral. Can’t tell yo—” came Thomaston’s voice through the speaker above the captain’s chair in the Combat Information Center spaces. A burst of static garbled the radio transmission.

Dick pushed the earpiece closer hoping to hear the retired lieutenant general over the static that disrupted the communications. The crackling rose and fell with moments of clear voice breaking through.

“—closed the border. Refused to recognize our American passports, saying we were Liberians now, so we needed to stay in Liberia. That closes the east to us and”—a new wave of static burst over the general’s words for a few seconds—“here in Kingsville. Can’t go south because of marsh and jungle. Passable, but we’d have a lot who wouldn’t make it. Everyone’s been moved into the armory. Suspect by morning the rebel force will be—”

The static this time rose in intensity, until the general ceased transmitting.

“General, Dick Holman!” he shouted. “I guess the good news is the French, through their Ivory Coast lackeys also refused us harbor permission, so we’re still off the Liberian coast. The bad news is the French don’t want us to conduct an evacuation.”

“What the hell do the French have to do with this?” Thomaston broadcast angrily.

“What the hell do the French have to do with anything that has America in it?” Holman responded. “I said they didn’t want us to do an evacuation. I didn’t say we weren’t going to come to you.”

“Sorry, your broadcast was broken up. Say—”

Holman tossed the handset into its cradle and turned to Lieutenant Commander Rachel Grande, the ship’s Communications Officer. “What the hell is wrong with this?” he asked, pointing at the handset.

“Sir, it’s the best we can do. They’re using VHF communications, which is usually line of sight. It’s dawn, sir. This sunspot activity is not only hurting our HF communications, but unless we are within direct line of sight of each other, we won’t be able to use VHF or UHF comms.”

“Admiral, you still there?” came General Thomaston’s voice from the speaker. It was a clear transmission.

Holman lifted the handset. “General, I am still here. My COMMO tells me when daylight breaks, this atrocious communications link is going to be nil heard between us. Can you go to HF?”

A few seconds passed, and those in CIC heard the familiar static announcing someone transmitting on the frequency. “It will take some time, Admiral. We’re in the armory and Beaucoup, our radioman, moved his VHF and UHF radios with him, but the HF transmitter and the large antenna is across town. I don’t think we’ll have time to move it before the rebels get here.” As he talked, the static reduced in intensity, and by the time he reached the end of the transmission the words were clear. “It’s already daylight here.”

Holman turned to Grande. “Good job, Rachel.”

She looked at Captain Leo Upmann, the Chief of Staff, and shrugged her shoulders. How do you explain electromagnetic phenomena to a warfighter? To them, it was magic. Times like
this reminded her of the scene in
Patton
when George C. Scott ordered the chaplain to write a prayer for good weather, and when it happened gave the chaplain credit for it.

“General, what’s the situation?” Holman asked. It was the first question he had asked when the two began talking thirty minutes ago. Unfortunately, communications were so bad, he wasn’t sure of anything other than Thomaston and his people were barricaded and waiting for Holman to come to the rescue.

“Admiral, hasn’t changed since what I first told you. Rebel forces are moving on Kingsville. They could be in the surrounding hills, rain forest, and jungle now. All of the refugees and Kingsville citizens are cramped into the armory. We’ve limited small arms and ammunition, but should be able to hold until you arrive—if you come today,” he repeated, his voice rising in inflection.

“Understand, General,” Holman acknowledged, releasing the transmit button for a moment.

“Admiral?” Thomaston asked. “You still there?”

Holman pushed the transmit button. “General, we’ll be there. I cannot give you an exact time, but this is one group of sailors and Marines that will not stand by and wait for you to fight your way out. You prepare your people for evacuation.” Leo Upmann touched the admiral on the shoulder and held up one finger. “Wait one, General,” Holman broadcast. He released the transmit button.

“What is it, Leo?”

“Sir, we need to shift the joint task force south and close the coast to fifteen miles.”

Holman’s eyebrows arched.

“Otherwise, Admiral, we’ll have to refuel the helicopters in flight, and we don’t have an aerial refueling capability.” He stopped for a moment and then continued. “Ask the general if they have aviation fuel available.”

Holman nodded, keyed the transmit button, and asked.

“Sure we have some, but it’s at the airport about three kilometers from the armory. I don’t have the personnel to secure the airport and defend the armory. Do you need that fuel to conduct your evacuation?”

Holman looked at Upmann and Captain Buford Green, the Joint Task Force Operations Officer, who stood to the left of
Upmann. Captain Green leaned forward. “Admiral, if we do what Leo suggests, we can do the evacuation without the fuel constraints provided it’s a straight in-and-out operation and you keep moving south to reduce the flight time.”

“Means General Thomaston will have to have his people ready to board when the helicopters put down,” Upmann added.

“That’s right. Time on the ground should be minimal, and if we’re going to carry a full load, then they need to discard everything but the bare essentials.”

Holman nodded and keyed the transmitter. “General, we’re going to sail closer so we don’t have to depend on your fuel as a resource. Means we have to more closer. That will take us a couple of hours before we can launch.”

“Add another couple of hours of flight time,” Thomaston said.

“That’s right. We’re talking late morning earliest before we can get there. Can you hold out?” Holman asked, knowing this would probably be their last transmission until he got his Marines airborne toward Kingsville. If Thomaston didn’t think he could hold out, then Holman could dispatch a company of Devil Dogs on a one-way trip to Kingsville to help until they changed position.

Several seconds passed before the static preceding a transmission erupted from the speaker. “I think we can,” Thomaston replied. “Our last contact with the enemy was four hours ago, and if they run true to form, they’ll stop, assess the situation, debate it among themselves, pray to whatever God is in vogue, and eventually move forward. We’ll be ready when you arrive.”

“Okay, General. If you want, I can dispatch some forces your way until we get there, but if we do, it’ll reduce the number of helicopters available for evacuating. That means taking longer to get your people out.”

“I would think—” Thomaston started. A burst of static erupted, so loud it hurt Holman’s ear, causing him to move the handset away. “Christ! Admiral, we’re—” And a loud noise drowned out Thomaston’s words before the speaker went silent.

“That sounded like an explosion,” Green offered.

“Probably just morning static, Captain,” Grande said.

Upmann looked from the Operations Officer to the Communications Officer. “I’m not sure what it was, but it definitely drowned out whatever he was saying.”

“Rachel, take this and reestablish contact,” Holman said, holding the handset near his ear.

She looked at the handset in her hand and at the admiral staring at her as if expecting her to fix the static. “Sir, I can try, but unless they get HF up, it will be impossible until we get something airborne that can relay their signals. HF is the only frequency band we can reach them without satellite communications—”

“And he did say the HF radio was across town from where they were holed up in the armory.”

“That may be, Buford,” Upmann said to Captain Green. “But surely he can send someone over there and turn it on.”

“What do you think?” Holman asked Upmann, Green, and Captain Jeremiah Hudson, the commanding officer of the USS
Boxer
.

“I think he was saying they could hold out until we got there,” Hudson offered.

“He did say that,” Green said, “But for what it’s worth, that last transmission didn’t sound like static to me. It sounded like an explosion.”

“What do you think, Jerry?” Holman asked the skipper.

The captain of the
Boxer
jerked his thumb toward Green. “I disagree. I don’t think it was an explosion. I agree with the COMMO, but if I was where enemy forces were closing me and had no idea how many or when, I would opt for the Marines.”

Holman nodded, biting his lower lip slightly, as he weighed the advice being given. “Leo, get everyone together. I want two plans. One for sending a company of Marines now, and another for holding off and sending them as part of the evacuation operation. Whichever, I want the rescue op to commence in two hours.”

“If we send a company of Marines and they land in the middle of combat, we risk losing them and a helicopter. If they arrive before the enemy does, we stand a chance of losing
a helicopter and a loss of a helicopter means a longer evacuation,” Upmann offered.

Holman nodded. “I know, Leo. Get those two plans worked out.”

“I’ll work with Colonel Battersby,” Green offered, referring to the commander of the landing force.

“Admiral, with your permission, I’ll turn the joint task force southeast to close their position,” Captain Hudson said.

“Yes, do it, Jerry.” Holman looked at his Chief of Staff. “Leo, tell Mary I want an updated intel estimate as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir, Admiral,” Leo said. “What about the French?”

Holman bit his lower lip, his eyebrows arched inward as his brow wrinkled. Time to remove them from the equation? “Right now, we don’t know if Thomaston is being attacked or not,” Holman said, ignoring Leo’s question. “That being said, if the terrorists and rebels or whatever you want to call them aren’t already in or around the town, they will be shortly.”

“We can dispatch Marines within a couple of hours,” Green offered.

Holman nodded. “Yes, we can. But Leo’s right. We need to know how far the French are willing to go with their thinly veiled threat to interfere with any evacuation attempt.” Holman turned to Rachel Grande again. “Commander, have we received a reply to my PERSONAL FOR to Commander, European Command?”

She shook her head. “No, sir, we haven’t. I can tweak them, sir, but my only link is via the communicators in Naples, Italy. They would have to call Stuttgart, Germany, to see what the status is of the message. We know it was delivered—I don’t have the exact time, but the duty officer in Naples said it was delivered to her counterpart in Stuttgart within a half hour of its release.”

He nodded. “It was delivered.” His lips tightened as his mind turned to the mission at hand. “Thanks, Rachel. Go back to the radio shack and tweak them. When the reply arrives from EUCOM or from the Joint Chiefs of Staff or anyone who purports to know . . . sorry, anyone senior to me, bring me the message ASAP.”

Upmann spoke. “Admiral, I think we should go ahead and dispatch some Marines now.”

“Thanks, Leo. But I can’t have a helo full of Marines airborne with a bunch of shaky Frenchmen flying fighters around us.”

“I don’t think he’ll do anything.”

“If I was him, I wouldn’t either, but I’m not him. I’m me. One thing we learned on September 11, 2001 is to accept every threat at face value. A threat made is one responded to. If they say it, then assume they mean it and act accordingly.”

“But why are the French doing this?”

“If I knew, Leo, I’d probably be in Washington.”

Admiral Holman moved away from the ventilation above his head to the other side of the captain’s chair in the center of the Combat Information Center. The hundred-plus degree of heat outside would feel good when he went topside again. A minute later, he turned, a huge smile across his face, which grew broader when he saw the confused expression of his Chief of Staff.
Score another one for the brown shoes.

“Seems to me, Leo, it’s time for what you SWOs do best—a little operational deception.”

“Admiral, makes me nervous when you say it’s something us surface-warfare officers do best. Deceive them? I suspect you have a plan, sir?”

“Oh, Leo, ye of little faith. Let’s play on the national paranoia of France. I have an idea. What I need is help in fattening it out. If we do it right, we’ll have the Marines ashore in Kingsville by this afternoon without the French bothering us.”

“Sure, Admiral. Whatever you say,” Leo said, his voice betraying his lack of optimism.

Holman chuckled, tilted his head, and winked. “Come on, Leo. Have confidence. Didn’t I once take an entire carrier battle group through a minefield without a single loss?”

“Yes, sir, you did. The difference is that was a trick against technology and this involves humans—”