Sudden Threat (27 page)

“We’ll try. What’s your location?”

“Mindanao. We’re near a place called Cateel City. If he can just fly above the shore north of Cateel City, we’ll guide him to our location.”

“I’ll talk to the pilot and see what he says. Christ, what are you doing in Mindanao?” Zachary asked.

“Zach, this is Chuck,” Ramsey said, hesitating before he played the card and violated operational security over the radio.

The first bullet hit Jones in the right shoulder, knocking him back against a tall pine. The second pierced his neck, spraying red blood onto the bark. He stood for a second, wide-eyed, then said in his Boston accent, “Bastards.” His back sliding down the tree, he died.

Ramsey saw Jones get hit before he heard the gunshot. Soon his team was returning fire. They had been surprised, totally. The enemy fire was coming from across the ravine. Ramsey’s battle-hardened mind went into gear immediately.
At least they have to cross the river to maneuver against me. That may save us.

Then he remembered. The message.
I’ve got to get the message to Bravo six—Zachary Garrett
. He knew he was carrying the glass slipper. These rebels would not have been hot on his trail if the Japanese man had not been right about what he had said.

A bullet blew the bark off the tree next to his head, spraying chips of wood into his eyes. Temporarily blinded, he crouched low and made the decision that he had to be alive to send the message, and he needed radio equipment as well. He picked up the radio and antenna, and moved behind a tree. The enemy was obviously trying to knock out his communications equipment as the concentration of fire seemed greatest near him. But then again, it always seemed that way in a firefight. He grabbed his ruck and stuffed the radio and antenna inside. He had eaten all of his chow and had plenty of room for the comms equipment. Another bullet stuck in the wood next to his ear. They seemed to be everywhere.

He could see Benson and Eddie returning fire with vigor. Abe lay frozen next to him. The other men had coalesced into groups that could conduct independent fire and maneuver.

He grabbed Abe, laid him next to his rucksack, and told him not to move. The volume of fire was unlike any he had ever heard before. Grabbing his M4, he moved north and linked up with Sid Bullings. They moved along the ravine, out of the hail of bullets. He could see enemy soldiers across the river, looking as if they were going to cross at any moment. It would be a long process on their part, getting down the steep bank and back up the far side. Looking back at his men, conducting fire and maneuver, he saw Benson and Lonnie White running down the line, doing something he could not quite identify.

He flipped his M4 selector switch to semi-automatic. He had eight thirty-round magazines. Bullings was his security man. He looked through his telescopic sight and could see his weapon’s noise suppressor with his open left eye. They took cover behind a rock, and Ramsey began to fire single shots that left the muzzle of his weapon silently and violently struck their targets.

He watched as a subsonic round struck an unsuspecting enemy, tumbling through his body like a bowling pin, ripping his insides to shreds. The lower-than-usual velocity gave the round a chance for more destruction once it struck its target. He picked another target, then a third.

Suddenly, the enemy rose en masse. There were more than two hundred. At least there had been. His team was holding them off momentarily. But they stood, like some confederate charge in the American Civil War, screaming and climbing down the near side of the ravine. Hand over hand, they scaled down the rocks and would have to do the same coming up the other side.

Ramsey continued to fire, killing every man he shot.

He looked along the ravine. The enemy fell into the increasingly red waters below. Benson had ignited a series of claymore mines, killing at least sixty who had tried to enter the ravine. Ramsey saw a man with an Australian bush hat running up and down the line, screaming loudly. He laid the sight on his head, but the man kept moving through the elephant grass, never presenting a stationary target. He fired.

Missed.

CHAPTER 46

Talbosa turned and looked, but did not see who had shot at him, feeling only the jet wash of the errant shot and listening as the bullet whacked its way through the jungle canopy. He was now certain that it was either Australians or Americans his men were fighting. He hoped they were Americans.
We will be like Vietnam
, Talbosa thought.
We will have started a war with the Americans and will destroy the most powerful country in the world!

But he was trying to get the confusion under control. He had ordered his men to open fire once they made contact. His point man had misunder-stood the directive and fired when he saw the enemy across the ravine. Talbosa would have preferred to circle around and come at them from the north, driving them into the ravine to their deaths.

He had issued instructions to kill the Japanese man as well. Takishi had told him that Abe might inform the world that the Japanese were making weapons for Abu Sayyaf’s use, and that would effectively cut off their supply. He could not have that. Running through the elephant grass, avoiding bullets that whizzed around him, he began to get control of his men. He pulled them back, having them cease fire, or at least cover their retreat. They would stop and move into Cateel City, then move north of the river, swinging wide, and slam into the enemy. 

The firing stopped. Ramsey continued to pick off retreating soldiers with his deadly accuracy. The team kept up its volume of fire into the elephant grass until they could see no more enemy soldiers. Each man knew that the Abu Sayyaf would come again and that they would need their ammunition. They were also equally aware that there were no helicopters coming to save them.

He organized his team quickly. Moving back to his rucksack, he looked down at Abe, who was shivering. He had pissed his pants and probably defecated, or so it smelled. Snatching Abe by the arm, Ramsey rallied his team, and they moved. Benson slung Jones’s body over his rucksack, adding another 150 pounds to his load. He would switch often, but it would slow their move considerably. When they found a safe place, they could bury his body, write down the grid coordinates, discreetly mark the location, and return another day for their fallen comrade.

Ramsey walked hurriedly through the increasingly dense jungle. He looked over his shoulder and saw Benson struggling with Jones. His mind filled with rage. First Peterson killed, and now Jones. He took both deaths personally. When they come again, they will come from the northeast.
We will be ready to kill every last son of a bitch.

Like a zephyr, Major Ramsey and his beleaguered A team vanished to the northwest.

CHAPTER 47

Subic Bay, Luzon Island, Philippines

Ramsey. That was Chuck Ramsey.

Captain Zachary Garrett looked at the micro-phone. He had heard a shot and knew immediately that his classmate and his soldiers were in trouble.

But so was he.

As night fell on this incredible day, he rallied his men, as Chuck Ramsey had gathered his. The division commander, General Zater, had personally spoken to him on the radio, telling him that they were sending assistance immediately. He gave Zachary the authority to do whatever he felt necessary to further protect the lives of his men. When Zachary tried to brief him on the plan, the general cut him off, saying, “I have confidence in you. Don’t risk compromising your plan. We’ve been watching CNN all day. You’re the one who’s been squeezing the trigger.” The general’s confidence in him had made him feel good momentarily, but then the weight of his burden sank in even further.

The Navy supply ship was not due in until tomorrow, but he was not going to wait for it. Another night in the same location would surely make his company an easy target. They could be attacked from practically all directions, and they had little cover from indirect fire. Sure, their ticket to safety would be the ship, but waiting for it might be their ticket home—maybe in body bags. Zachary had his men pilfer the ammunition stockpile, then had his forklift driver dump the rest off the pier and into the water. He would be damned if he was going to let American ammunition kill his men. They gathered claymore mines, JAVELIN medium anti-armor missiles, all of the 5.56mm ammunition they could carry, smoke grenades, high-explosive gre-nades, tear gas, star clusters, parachute flares, trip wires, antitank weapons and 60mm mortar rounds, even though they had not deployed with any mortars.

After gathering the ammunition and waiting for nightfall, his platoons spread into a large formation of successive Vs with the point of the Vs aiming in their direction of travel. Each man wearing night-vision goggles, they walked slowly at first, then more steadily as they once again became familiar with moving at night.

He had placed the bodies of Teller and Rock-ingham in body bags, one of those items in the supply room he’d never planned on using. Then he had Sergeant Spencer’s squad load the bodies on the helicopter. He gave grid coordinates to the helicopter pilot and told him to meet his company there after doing some false insertions in other places. They were only moving about five kilometers, but the terrain was eminently more defensible than the valley where the naval base was situated. Zachary had his men lock their duffel bags in one of the Quonset huts, expecting they would never see the clothes or
Playboy
magazines again.

He made the civilians walk, despite much protest. Fraley and the ambassador had argued, but Zachary was in no mood for their bullshit. Zachary sat the ambassador down and told him that he was the commander of the unit, and he was more than welcome to stay there.

“You guys hosed me over, and you hosed over Chuck Ramsey, who is fighting for his life, I’m sure,” Zach had said.

He wanted nothing to do with the ambassador, the other civilians, and especially Fraley.

“Either you let me make the decisions,” Zachary said, “or you can go hump yourself. And the way I see it, if you can’t help Ramsey, you can’t help me. And that makes you useless.” With that, he walked out of the white Quonset hut near the tire pile, threw his ruck on, and led his men into the jungle that rose above Subic Bay.
We will be safer there.

As they walked, a sliver of the moon smiled wickedly at them from above.

Phase III:
The Beltway Shuffle

CHAPTER 48

Pentagon, Washington, DC

Colonel Lionel Thompson ran from the National Military Command Center, through a small tunnel of a hallway into the Pentagon E-ring, and burst into the secretary of defense’s outer office. The administrative aide stood immediately. Thompson convinced her that he had to talk to the secretary in person and privately immediately. Stone was standing at the door.

“What seems to be the problem, Lionel?” Stone asked his assistant. Thompson was a “fast mover” in the Army and had been assigned as an aide to the secretary of defense. An armor officer, he hated the Pentagon duty but knew that it would add that much more grease to an already-oiled career.

“Sir, we’ve just gotten word there’s been a revolution in the Philippines.”

“Come in,” he said, putting his arm around Lionel. “What are you telling me? Wait just a second.” He picked up his phone, buzzed Fox, and said, “You might want to get in here.”

In less than a minute, both Diamond and Fox appeared from a side door into Stone’s office. Wordless, they sat in the two leather high-backed chairs as if they were spectators at the theater.

“Sir. Gentlemen,” Thompson said, looking at Stone, then at Fox and Diamond. “The Abu Sayyaf rose up across the islands to overthrow the government. It appears they were successful. They have control of the Presidential Palace and the television and radio stations. President Cordero is now in jail. The news on our side is worse, however.” Stone’s eyes cut sharply upward.

“Sir. First off, Assistant Secretary Rathburn and a CIA operator, Matt Garrett, have been taken hostage, along with one of the pilots.”

“Christ,” Stone said, sliding into his chair and placing his face in his hands. He was sitting at his desk and looked out the window. “What else?”

“It gets worse, sir. A stinger missile or some rocket-propelled grenades hit the DC Guard Gulfstream. It blew up, with …”—he hesitated, almost unable to say it—“with the DACOWITS committee on it.”

Stone looked at Thompson. He had known almost every one of the women on the committee. All of them were women who had fought the barriers of discrimination and had been representing their country on a mission to help improve the lot of women in the military. Their loss was unfathomable to him. “Say what?”

“Yes, sir. There’s more.” Thompson knew that bad news was unlike wine, in that it got worse with age. There was no way to soften the blow of the news. He just had to say it. He looked down at his Army trousers, hanging perfectly atop his shoes. His light green shirt conformed to his muscular frame. His eyes searched Stone’s to determine when he was ready for the next salvo. It was never easy being the messenger, who usually got shot, but he had learned to recognize when to talk and when to let the moment happen. Stone looked up at him from behind his glasses.

“The embassy has been overrun. Abu Sayyaf insurgents killed five of our people there, four military and one civilian.”

Stone grimaced. “Berryman?”

“Sir, Ambassador Berryman flew to safety on the medical evacuation helicopter with four other embassy personnel and two officers from the embassy. We have an infantry rifle company at Subic doing an ammunition guard mission, and apparently they had some men at the embassy being treated for wounds from the attack on their position this morning.”