Sudden Threat (10 page)

As he entered the backwash area of the propellers, he was blasted with salt water and hot air. He grabbed his ruck and rifle and pulled himself up onto the float plane’s landing gear well, which on that aircraft, was perpendicular to the fuselage as opposed to underneath it.

He released the Bangka boat, and it blew onto the beach. Matt could still see the Zodiac making its way to the starboard side of the aircraft, so in one deft movement, he leapt inside the port cargo door and rolled to the floor. He brought his weapon up to eye level but only saw the darkened hull of an airplane and an open cockpit door.

In his periphery, he saw the Zodiac approach. In the rear of the plane he found two pallets of combat rations, behind which he hid.

The tall man with the pearl-handled revolver boarded and strode to the cockpit, where he entered and took a seat.

Matt saw the man’s head swing around and stare at the rear of the airplane, directly at him. Matt tensed as he watched the Japanese man step out of the cockpit and walk toward him. The man pulled a long knife from a sheath opposite his holster as Matt cradled the SIG SAUER, his trigger finger firmly in place.

The two pallets were about five feet high, filled with tan boxes of rations and other supplies. As Matt pressed his body into the back of the pallet, trying to make himself as small and invisible as possible, he noticed that flexible white binding straps secured each box. He was unable to see the man now, save for the toe of a cowboy boot that was pointing in his direction.

Matt felt the pallet tug and heard a “pop” followed by some rustling noises. Soon the boot toe turned in the opposite direction and he heard both cargo doors close on either side of the airplane.

Confident that the man had not seen him, Matt peered around the corner and saw him stepping into the cockpit holding a combat ration in one hand.

Soon thereafter, they were speeding along the smooth waters of Cateel Bay until they were finally airborne.

To God knows where.

CHAPTER 13

The climb through the treacherous mountains had nearly killed Abe. The only thing keeping him alive, he knew, was his physical-conditioning regimen for the past six months. The same path that had led to his capture had prepared him to survive the kidnapping.

Upon waking, Abe sensed he was still bound and gagged, his back smarting from the fall and the tips of his fingers bloody and sore. He had heard of such Islamic extremists, and how they were capable of such actions, but never expected anything to happen to him. He was sure he could reason with them. A Filipino voice spoke to him in broken English, occasionally mixing in a couple of Japanese words. A hand tore off the gag and placed a cup of water to his lips. Abe thanked the provider, using slightly better English. The Filipino asked him questions, and he responded. Still blindfolded, Abe had the sense that others were around him, listening.

“What you doing here?” the voice asked him.

“I manufacture,” he replied. “You Abu Sayyaf?” Abe’s weak voice asked.

“Abu Sayyaf! I spit on Abu Sayyaf!” the man said. He sensed the man move, as if to elevate, perhaps preparing to strike him.

“What make?”

Abe told him that they were making helicopters and tanks for the Filipinos so they could achieve independence from foreign powers and fight the insurgency.

“Traitor!” the Filipino screamed, slapping him across the face.

Abe felt others move quietly around his questioner, perhaps pulling him back.

The man regained his composure, though, and continued questioning.

“Japanese?”

“Yes. Japanese,” Abe responded.

“Other Japanese with you?” Again Abe responded affirmative.

“Name?”

“Abe. Mister Kanishi Abe,” he said slowly.

The questioning continued, and Abe gladly told them everything. He mentioned the number of Japanese in his plant and the number of plants, as well as how long the facility had been operating. One plant produced small arms, such as rifles and pistols, he believed, while his and two others made tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and attack helicopters. He kept reiterating that the weapons had been ordered by the recognized government of the Philippines. At least that is what Mr. Takishi had told him.

Abe simply did not understand what all of the confusion was about. Needless to say, he was scared. Despite his fear, he realized that his situation was definitely good material for a poem; something to do with the blinded man groping for reason.

The images of his family tumbled through his mind as a wave of sadness settled over him. He was tired, hungry, and had no quarrel with his captors. It would be so simple to let him go. The hand placed a bowl of rice in his lap, and he ate voraciously but awkwardly, with his hands still cuffed.

“Let him eat,” a voice said.

“I think he’s telling the truth,” another spoke.

“Agree, but keep him tied up.”

Abe heard the new voices. They were Americans.

What were Americans doing kidnapping him from his main battle tank production plant on Mindanao? The Americans, he knew, had authorized and paid for much of the construction.

At least that’s what Mr. Takishi had told him.

Believing that they
had stumbled onto something significant, Ramsey had Jones set up the satellite communications antenna, so that he could call in the information to Okinawa. They only had one satellite radio remaining, as the other was packed in Ron Peterson’s rucksack. Watching Jones play with the antenna brought images of Peterson rushing back through his mind, but he stopped the onslaught, erecting a barrier in his mind, telling himself,
Not now, save it for later.

“Son of a bitch,” Jones said in his distinct Boston accent, toying with the radio and repositioning the antenna. What had been a consistently reliable means of communication failed him for the first time. It was not that he didn’t expect it to happen, because it always did; but the timing could not have been worse. Ramsey thought it might be something about their new position, but Jones kept insisting that everything was functioning properly until he remembered that Abe had fallen on him. Quietly he looked at the bound and blindfolded man, wanting to be mad, but knew it was not his fault. “Son of a bitch.”

“What do you think it is?” Ramsey asked.

“Don’t know. I’m getting power, but I can’t reach anybody. Last time I used it was to keep comms with your fox mike when you captured this guy,” Jones said, pointing at the captive and referring to standard “frequency modulation” radio communications. With a flip of a switch, the tactical satellite radio was capable of performing routine FM short-distance communications or long-range satellite communications.

“When he fell on me, I landed on my ruck. Sounded like the radio took the blow, but I’m getting a signal. Can’t figure it out. Son of a bitch!” Jones exclaimed, pained at the failure of his equipment.

Sending his men to perimeter positions in the triple-canopy jungle, Ramsey began to think of a way to communicate.

There had to be a way.

CHAPTER 14

Palau, South Pacific Ocean

Matt was surprised first when he heard the landing gear of the aircraft come down. He was expecting another water landing. Second, he was surprised at how soon the landing gear had been extended—maybe three hours.

The pearl-handled-revolver man had mentioned something about needing to refuel, so Matt surmised that was why they had landed. Then, inspecting “the fleet.” What fleet?

During the flight, Matt had begun to have serious reservations about his decision. He was a passionate, driven decision maker, yet a calculating man. Most importantly, perhaps, everyone worked for someone, and he had a handler who was no doubt furious right about now.

For certain, he had little to no chance of making contact after his satellite communications had been disabled. Most likely, his cell phone would not work until he got to Davao City.

But Matt had sensed that they were flying east. They had taken off straight out of the bay, he was sure of that much, and he had felt very little banking in one direction or another until he felt the landing gear deploy.

He gathered himself and his equipment as they were leveling off for the landing, which came suddenly with a loud report and bounce. Obviously the pilot was more adept at water landings than runway approaches.

As the aircraft taxied and began to slow, Matt worked his way toward the cargo door, which he opened and leapt from. He conducted a combat roll as if he were performing a parachute landing fall. The concrete runway smacked his rib cage, and his head bounced slightly off the tarmac.

He stood and quickly assessed his surroundings, as the plane braked about fifty meters away, and began running.

He saw a warehouse, a fuel pump, and what looked like an old dump truck etched against the night sky. There appeared to be a single Gulfstream jet parked on the tarmac at the terminal. He was moving too fast to determine the origin of the Gulfstream, but noticed that on either side of the runway was low brush, such as he had just seen near the beach in the Philippines.

Could they have taken the long way around to Davao? He didn’t think so.

Guam? Too far; they could not have made it in under three hours.

Luzon? He didn’t believe that option either, as they had not banked hard enough.

He heard a voice call out to him in Japanese.

“Yamete!”
Stop
.

Opening the cargo door while the plane was moving had obviously triggered an alarm in the cockpit, but he had chosen getting out over being cornered in the airplane.

He ran across the runway and threw his bag over the chain-link fence that abutted the length of the airfield. He heard several shots above the din of the propellers, and his luck didn’t hold.

As he flipped over the fence, a bullet ricocheted off the top post and grazed his shoulder. A few centimeters to the right, and the lead would have caught him square in the face.

Despite the pain, he kept moving into what he thought looked like scrub oaks. Unfortunately, they weren’t large enough to provide cover or sufficiently conceal his movement. Nonetheless, no more shots came close, and he continued to run like a tailback with no blockers, ducking, weaving, spinning, and lunging.

His plan was first to survive … then cycle back and ask some questions of whomever he found.

He found a dirt road, which he followed to its end, then sprinted into the woods, which were again sparsely populated with scrub oaks. Soon he found himself standing on a blacktop road from which he could see the faint outline of lights to the north. He jogged in the direction of the lights and rounded a bend, stopping when he saw buildings less than a half a kilometer away.

There was something familiar about this place; either that, or he was experiencing déjà vu, which, with his wound clearly more serious than he originally thought, was a possibility. But as he studied the terrain and the buildings, he quickly recognized that he was on the island of Palau, about nine hundred kilometers due east of Mindanao.

Further, he knew that he was on the road to the Airai View Hotel, where American diplomats sometimes lay over on their way to Australia or other Pacific Rim nations. Matt recognized the road and the bright lights from the hotel because he had on occasion used a safe house in the small village near the airport.

He remembered that the contact’s name was Pino, and he moved in the direction of the swank resort hotel, despite the fact that his bleeding was worsening, he smelled like a stable hand, looked like an assassin, and clutched the dog tags of a dead American soldier in his right hand.

If he could find Pino, he could make contact with his handler and alert him to everything he had witnessed in Mindanao.

Even though he wasn’t exactly sure what he had seen.

CHAPTER 15

As Taiku Takishi stood at the fence line where the stowaway had climbed over, the spot of damp blood he could see on the top rail convinced him that one of the four bullets he had fired had wounded the fleeing man.

Who was it? Was it just some local seeking a better life outside of Cateel Bay, or was the man in some fashion connected to the two security breaches at the plant? Although Takishi’s instincts told him that the man was not some ordinary stowaway, he had business to do and time lines to keep.

He retrieved his satellite phone from his pocket and dialed a number.

“Do you have anyone snooping around Mindanao?”

“Well, hello, to you, also,” the voice replied.

“Answer my question, please, because we’ve had two breaches in one day, and I just had an uninvited passenger on my airplane,” Takishi said. He turned and watched the refueling truck pull up to his Shin Meiwa. Next to his aircraft he saw two men walking around a U.S. government Gulfstream jet.

“Don’t get terse with me, Charlie. We’ve given you everything you’ve asked for. That was Matt Garrett gathering frequent flyer miles with you.”

Garrett? That’s not possible
.

“Slippery little bastard,” Takishi said. He did a superb job of hiding his surprise … and shock.

“I told you. The real question is, what did he see?”

That was tricky territory for Takishi. First, he didn’t know what Garrett had seen, but he had definitely seen something. And if he’d caught sight of, for example, the main battle tanks on the railhead, then there were problems. The Rolling Stones had been led to believe that they had purchased a small-arms-manufacturing facility.

They didn’t know that Takishi and Prime Minister Mizuzawa had taken the funds and, with true Japanese efficiency, created the facilities to make tanks and helicopters. That would, Takishi determined, come as a bit of a surprise to his musician buddies.