by Ted Bell
He saw black faces bobbing all around him, white teeth smiling at him. He heard a whoosh as the IBS partially inflated. One man would stay offshore with the rubberized inflatable. His main problem would be staying out of the path of the Cuban patrol boat.
“You’re a bit late,” one of the faces said.
“Sorry, Fitz,” Alex said. “Minor equipment problem.”
“I noticed. Good recovery,” Fitz said. “We got lucky. We just missed landing on the fooking roof of a Cuban patrol boat. He’s gone round that point now, but he’ll be back.”
Fitz did a quick head count. Every man in Alpha had made it to the LZ. It was time to don the Draeger oxygen rebreathers and start swimming. They were a half mile from shore. Hawke could see breakers on the white sand and a dark stand of palm trees Fitz had designated as their next rendezvous point.
Before he pulled the swim mask down over his face he did a full 360.
Finca Telaraña, General Manso de Herreras’s massive, grandiose home, sat on a spit of land jutting into the sea. It was a dark, hulking structure, bathed in the pale blue light of a scattering of stars. Hawke said a silent prayer that two men from his distant past were sleeping somewhere inside. But the finca was not their first objective. First they would launch a surprise raid on the building where Vicky was being held.
“Go,” Fitz said simply, and all eight men dove under the surface and started kicking for shore.
Little more than half a mile to the west, Boomer and his Bravo team were just entering the narrow shoals of the La Costa river. The flashing red and green navigational lights at either end of the jetties were unseen by the squad, which was swimming at a depth of twelve feet.
This is where the Draeger rebreathers were critical. Not a single bubble revealed the presence of seven powerful swimmers moving up the black channel. There were sure to be a lot more guards where Bravo was going than the empty stretch of beach Alpha was headed for.
Hawke emerged from the surf and saw two of his men sprinting for cover into the stand of palms. There was still no moon, but the ambient light of stars and white sand made him feel all too vulnerable. He flicked his HK to full fire and headed for the trees, knees pumping.
He found Fitz and the team already gathered and sorting out their weapons and gear. Each man was being given a Motorola headset and lip mike. There would be instant and silent communication among all the men in Alpha. Fitz’s squad would also monitor Boomer’s transmissions and vice versa. That way, the two teams would know each other’s every move.
Hawke noticed Fitz was wearing a big smile. He had a cigarette hanging from the left side of his mouth, unlit.
“What is it, Fitz?” he whispered. “You seem altogether too jolly.”
“I just had a happy thought on the swim in,” Fitz said. “Does anyone know today’s date?”
“May first!” one of the squad members said. It sounded like Froggy.
“May Day in Commieland!” another commando said.
“Fooking right it is.” Fitz beamed. “Which means our little buddies have been partying all day and all night. It’s 0230 hours. I should think most of them would be snug in their little beds by now.”
“With all ze Stoli and rich Cubano cigars,” Froggy said, “zey might be a little sluggish waking up, mais non?”
“A bit like Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas Eve, surprising the British at Trenton,” Hawke said, smiling. “Bloody bastard.”
“May Day,” Fitz said with a grin. “Christmastime for Commies.”
“Bravo, you copy?” Fitz said into his mike.
“Copy,” Boomer said.
“Anything?”
“Just came up to take a look. Halfway up the river.”
“Tangos?”
“Six or seven, guarding the entrance, don’t look like they’re expecting company. No problem.”
“Twenty minutes to hostage site rendezvous, Boomer. Go.”
Tangos, or T’s, Hawke knew, was SEAL-speak for terrorists. It’s what they labeled all bad guys around the world. He felt his adrenaline surge. It had been a while since he’d found himself in a foreign locale, surrounded by so many men who would like to do him serious harm.
“Froggy,” Fitz said, “get your NV gear on and see if they’ve got pickets out here.”
“Aye, aye,” Froggy said. Hawke watched the wide little Frenchman strap the night-vision equipment on his head and then slip out of the stand of trees. He darted across the beach, staying low, for about two hundred yards. Then he checked up and ducked behind some large scrub palms and bushes.
“Two tangos in a parked ATV,” Froggy said. “Shucking and jiving, mon ami.”
“Have you got a head shot? A clear plink?”
“Aye on both.”
“Make that hush puppy bark softly and wax ’em, Froggy,” Fitz said. “We’re moving up right behind you.”
Hawke barely heard the whump of the two deadly 9mm whispers in the dark.
“Two deceased tangos,” he heard Froggy say in his headset.
Then Fitz turned to Hawke. “The Frogman is our medic,” he said, “on the off chance anybody gets hurt. He’s also the platoon’s best shooter, which is saying something, believe me.”
Fitz then held up his hand and motioned the squad forward. The Finca Telaraña lay ahead, sleeping in the darkness. They would leave it in peace for a while. Alpha’s first stop would be the large building at the rear of the compound where Hawke believed they’d find Vicky.
If she was still alive.
53
Hawke was breathing hard.
They’d covered the last thousand yards of thick jungle at a dead run. With all his gear, cradling the HK MP5 submachine gun, it had been an effort. It wasn’t that he didn’t keep himself in very good shape. The fact was, of the whole team, he alone was unaccustomed to twenty-mile jungle runs every other day.
Alpha squad had encountered a total of six sentries. All six had been dispatched quietly and efficiently. Four by squeezed-off head shots they never saw coming. Two had their throats slit from behind before they could sound a warning. So far, there was no sign of alarm anywhere within the compound.
So far, in other words, so good. Everything was proceeding according to plan. An entirely dangerous state of affairs, as Hawke knew from long experience.
They were all crouched at the base of a towering banyan tree when he pulled up, wheezing a bit. Fitz was studying a crayon drawing he’d made of the compound. A tiny red penlight moved over the surface of the map he’d created based on the sat photo analysis. The men huddled close around him, peering at the drawing.
“We’re here,” he said. “Fifty feet from the sand road. The target building stands there, in a large clearing five hundred yards in that direction. It appears to be surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence topped with concertina wire. The last two days of thermals indicate a pair of perimeter guards walking the fenceline. Cosmo, got your clippers?”
“Aye, sir,” said one of the Gurkhas. Perhaps one of the smallest, and easily the toughest, men on the squad.
“Go make us a nice large hole, lad,” Fitz said, pointing the penlight at an X marked on the map. “Right, I believe, there.” He spit one dead cigarette out of his mouth and stuck another one in the corner of his mouth. He didn’t light it.
“Don’t smoke ’em if you got ’em,” Fitz whispered. “These woods could be crawling with tangos.”
The little commando instantly slithered into the underbrush and was gone. Fitz looked at his men. “It should come as no surprise that the fence may have electronic sensors. If it does, we’ll all know soon enough. Get ready to blow through the hole if all the fooking bells and whistles go off.”
Hawke saw all the men flick their HK MP5 machine guns to full fire.
“Bravo?” Fitz said into his mike.
“Set,” Hawke heard Boomer say.
“We’re cutting wire. Give us two minutes.”
“I’ve got Cosmo in my NV,
” Boomer said. “We just waxed two guards and are moving along the fenceline toward him now.”
The two squads would rejoin at the predesignated fence opening. Once through, Alpha would go left to the western side of the building, Bravo would go right to the eastern entrance. This would be the hard part, the hundred yards of open ground they’d have to cover once inside the fence.
“You see any other tangos outside or inside the building, Boom?”
“Negative. Building is dark.”
“Could be a trap.”
“I don’t smell one, Fitz.”
“Good enough for me,” Fitz said quietly. In the Mekong, Boomer could smell VC traps literally a couple of klicks away.
The men waited in tense silence for the sound of alarms and the harsh glare of floodlights. For Hawke, it was the most agonizing minute of the mission. If they were detected early, the guards would surely kill Vicky before he had any chance of reaching her.
“Okay, we got us a hole here you could drive a half-tonner through, Chief,” they all heard Cosmo say in their phones.
“Bravo, go,” Fitz said, at the same time raising his hand and motioning Alpha squad forward.
Three minutes later, Hawke and the rest of Alpha emerged from the jungle at the fenceline. He saw Cosmo, Boomer, and his men already there. Boomer smiled at him.
“Fun and games, sir?” Boomer whispered.
“Just like the good old days,” Hawke replied.
The three-story rectangular building was dark, just like Boomer had said. There was a dirt road leading around to the rear. Three or four vehicles were parked in the front, two half-ton trucks and a couple of WWII vintage Jeeps.
“Somebody check those vehicles for keys on the way in,” Fitz said. “We may just need them. No keys, be ready to hot-wire. Alex?”
“Right here,” Hawke said, sliding forward to crouch next to Fitz. Fitz pulled out his drawing of the building.
“If we got her code correctly, top floor, backside left, Vicky’s room should be right here. Last door on the right at the top of the stairs. We go four-through-the-door and clear the room. You, Froggy, and Cosmo come in on our heels. Clear?”
“Damn it, Fitz, I’m the only one who knows her on sight. I told you before, I should be in the front four.”
Fitz regarded him for a hard second. He saw he was unlikely to change Hawke’s mind.
“Christ,” he said. “All right, it’s your ass. We go in low. Acquire and shoot. No fancy head shots. We’re firing heavy loads. A hit anywhere will take the tango down.”
“Aye,” Hawke said, a grin spreading across his face. He’d known he’d get his way.
Fitz looked at his digital watch. “Twenty seconds,” he said. The men all pulled their black balaclava hoods down over their faces.
“We blow the east and west doors simultaneously. Clear the stairways and get to the top floor fast. Smoke grenades, stun grenades, and frags. Good hunting, lads. Let’s go hop and pop!”
Fourteen men snaked single file through Cosmo’s tear in the fence. A hundred yards to go and the large building was still dark, save a yellow light burning over each entrance. Alpha went left; Bravo went right. Anybody looking out a window would spot them immediately. Alex was in a low sprint right behind Fitz. He was expecting the sound of automatic weapons fire at any second.
It didn’t happen.
When they reached the entrance, every man stood aside as Cosmo placed a small explosive-packed battering ram against the heavy wooden door. No door could withstand its impact.
At the opposite end of the building, Bravo squad was preparing the same dramatic entrance. Everybody strapped his night-vision gear on. It would give them a huge advantage over the tangos inside.
“Blow their goddamn doors off!” Fitz said into his lip mike, and, with a loud bang, the two wooden doors at each end of the building breached inward.
Alpha squad was inside the building instantly, hurling flash-bang and smoke grenades into the dimly lit interior. The distinctive sound of AK-47s, the tangos’ automatic weapons, erupted as the opaque white fog of the smoke grenades began filling the room. Stun grenades were popping at the rear of the room. The white fog was rolling his way, but Alex saw a set of stone steps leading up just in time.
“Fitz!” Hawke cried, spraying his HK at four figures advancing toward him. “Stairs on the right! I’m going up.” The four tangos who’d been there a second ago had crumpled to the floor under the withering fire of Hawke’s 9mm submachine gun.
The firefight was intense now. Hawke knew the hostage guards on the top floor would be dazed but already awake. He took the steps three at a time.
“Top of the stairs, Hawke,” he heard Fitz say, and then the muffled brrrrp of Fitz’s HK submachine gun was exploding inches from his right ear. Lead from the tangos above was whistling by his head.
“Down!” Fitz shouted, and Hawke went prone on the steps, putting the sights of his own HK on a mass of figures at the top of the steps. Fitz propped his gun on Hawke’s shoulder and emptied a whole mag, obliterating the rush of tangos down the stairs.
“Behind us!” Fitz shouted as he reloaded. “Coming up the steps!” Concrete and other debris was raining down on them as rounds tore up the wall and the stairs above them.
Hawke’s submachine gun had gotten trapped under his body. He reached behind him and grabbed a frag grenade off his web belt, pulled the pin, and let it bounce down the stone steps.
“Adios, muchachos!” he shouted. The tangos saw the grenade coming and started to retreat in a jumble back down the steps. By then Hawke had his Sig Sauer 9mm pistol on them and was firing into them. The heavy loads were incredibly effective. Men just crumpled at the bottom of the steps. Then the frag exploded and nobody was moving.
“Let’s move!” Fitz said, and he and Hawke scrambled up two more flights of stairs to the top floor, firing heavily at anything that moved. The heavy fire was returned, and huge chunks of concrete and tile exploded from the walls just above Hawke’s head. He saw two twinkling yellow muzzle flames in the smoke and emptied his mag in that direction. The firing stopped.
There was smoke up here, too, which was good. It meant Froggy or Cosmo had already made it this far and detonated smoke grenades. At the other end of the hallway, he saw shadowy figures. The loud exchange of automatic weapons fire meant Bravo squad was hard at work. As long as Vicky was alive, he didn’t care who found her. He saw Fitz in the haze, motioning him forward.
Mounting the final step, he saw that Fitz was standing in front of a plain door and that Froggy and Cosmo were there, too, crouched on one knee.
There was shouting coming from behind the door. He heard Vicky cry out. He didn’t wait for Fitz’s command, he just lashed out at the door with all the strength he had in his right leg. The door splintered inward.
Hawke, Fitz, Cosmo, and Froggy were through the door low, firing even as they rolled across the floor to either side of the door. Three men, one woman, Hawke made out, as he dove for the floor.
“It’s her!” Hawke yelled, “She’s on the bed! Vicky, don’t move!”
A gaunt, hollow-eyed man with long greasy hair bent over the bed holding Vicky by the throat with one hand, a gun in the other. Another man, fat and sweating, stood bare-chested at the foot of the bed, desperately trying to fasten his trousers, his plans rudely interrupted. Hawke recognized the two Russians instantly. Rasputin now had the .45 at Vicky’s temple, while the fat man, Golgolkin, had pulled his little automatic out of his pocket.
When he heard Alex call Vicky’s name, Rasputin turned and aimed his .45 directly at Hawke’s head. Alex, in the act of getting to his feet, fired so quickly that he’d pumped half a dozen shots into the skeletal man before he knew he’d squeezed the trigger.
He saw the heavy loads blow Rasputin against the wall, several dark stains beginning to bloom on his chest and abdomen. He was already going white, gone. He collapsed behind the bed as Alex turned his weapon on the fat one, the one named Golgolk
in, and emptied it into his naked, sweating torso. He’d taken the two Russians out, just as he’d promised Gloria.
“Vicky, get on the floor!” Alex shouted as Golgolkin crumpled, dead before he hit the floor.
His clip expended, Alex ejected it, pulled a spare from the mag-holder strapped to his forearm, and slammed it into the grip of his Sig.
“Alex! Watch out!” he heard Fitz cry. He whirled as the bathroom door flew open and a tall, skinny boy dressed only in his jockeys opened up with an AK-47. The staccato noise of the weapon lasted but a second. Froggy, still on the floor, his Beretta in a two-handed grip, had put a small neat hole right between the boy’s eyes.
Alex climbed to his feet. Three down. He whirled around looking for someone else to shoot.
He saw two other bodies lying at Fitz’s feet. Somehow, he’d missed all that. He looked at the bed. Vicky was gone. He ripped the bed away from the wall and saw her, half-hidden by the first Russian Alex had killed. She’d done just as he said and rolled to the floor.
He bent down and pulled her up into his arms. Her hair and face were matted with blood but he soon determined it wasn’t her own.
“Alex—” she started, but he cut her off. Her eyes were wide, naked with fear, but there was definitely recognition.
“No time,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here. Can you walk?”
“No, but I can run,” Vicky said with a feeble smile.
As he helped her to her feet, Fitz’s voice was in his headphones.
“Hostage is clear,” Fitz said. “Alive and well. How about it, Bravo?”
“Clear,” he heard Boomer say.
“Anybody down?”
“Nobody but bad guys,” Stoke said.
“Yeah, same,” Boomer echoed.
“Then let’s fooking get out of here,” Fitz said.
54
Having cleared two rooms, Stoke, Boomer, and the two Gurkha Bravo guys burst into a third. It had only one guard.
When Stoke kicked the door open, they saw the guard had dropped his AK-47 on the floor and was standing flat against the far wall with his hands in the air, red-eyed and white-faced with fear.
