“Don’t wonder, just hurry outside with me. Come on.”
In the darkness of the men’s tent they stumbled, and the governor came out of a troubled sleep.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“Just us chickens, Governor. I have the key to your padlock. You’ll have to pick the right one. Let’s get out of here.”
“What about Lieutenant Hing?”
“Don’t ask. We can talk later. Get your lock undone.”
The others awoke. The governor got his cuff off and gave the key to Vince Yamamoto, who did the same. Harry Chung’s lock needed a different key. Each of the two aides took one of the pistols.
“Where’s Karl?” Chung asked.
“I heard him slip out about an hour or so ago,” the governor said. “He opened the lock on his cuffs.”
The five moved to the door and waited while the governor looked out.
“Looks clear. Where do we go?”
“Straight over there into the brush and trees, and then we hike for two hundred yards downhill so they can’t find us,” Chung said. They moved quickly across the thirty yards of cleared space to the nearest vegetation, and walked into it.
Once there, Sara told them what happened at the tent to the lieutenant.
The governor took one of the weapons, checked it for a load, and pushed on the safety. “Are you sure about the lieutenant?” he asked her softly so the others couldn’t hear.
“He’s dead. Now we should move farther from the camp.”
They did.
* * *
Murdock could see some of the muzzle flashes blossoming in front of him. He had about ten seconds to decide. Did he cut and run and live to fight another day? Or did he use the twenty and see how much he could discourage the fifty Chinese troopers who were said to be storming toward his position?
There couldn’t be fifty, but even twenty would be too many. Also, he didn’t know where Lam and the Marine were. He might be firing right into them.
Something sounded beside him and he looked over at Ron Holt, who lifted the EAR weapon over the side of the bunker and fired at the muzzle flashes from the Chinese ahead of them.
Yes. That would help, might do the trick. Another of the familiar whooshing sounds came from the other machine-gun pit. Then Holt fired again. The gun flashes had been cut in half.
“Yes, Holt, do them again.”
When the ten-second recharge turned the firing light red, Holt had his target and fired. Six more muzzle flashes ceased in front of them, and the gunners evidently went to ground.
The earpiece spoke to Murdock. “That old EAR job did the trick, Skipper. Looks like about a dozen of them left and they are moving back. Oh, yeah, now they’re running.”
“We used six shots. Any close to you guys?”
“No, we were well clear. Karl, the Marine, says looks like the Chinese bastards are heading for their bivouac. That could mean a hasty retreat.”
“Stay with them. What about the hostages? You anywhere near the tents?”
“Another fifty yards. I can see lights in two of them. No, just one. Must be a candle. We’ll check them out if we get that far.”
“Roger that. Keep us up to date.” Murdock nodded and whacked Holt on the shoulder.
“Nice shooting, radioman. I’d be Chinese stir-fry if you hadn’t used that EAR. No way I could risk the twenties with Lam and Grant out in front. Tell the rest of the platoon to get their lazy asses up here. Nobody can push us off now. I’m going to do a little recon on my own.” He stopped. “Right after I tie up this damn round through my leg.” He used the kerchief he’d worn around his neck all day. When he had the blood stopped and the wrap tight, he moved.
Murdock lifted over the lip of the bunker and ran low and fast to the edge of the brush out thirty feet. Then he worked through it toward the west and where the hostages had to be.
A few minutes later he came on the Chinese bodies. They sprawled on the ground, all unconscious. Yes, he saw the argument that non-lethal weapons like the EAR could be used both ways. Knock them out and then execute them when you rolled over them. But not this time. There would be hours to take care of the silent ones later.
He moved toward the tents that he could see now. They showed only as a row of dark shadows in the dusky moonlight. All except one, where a flickering light stood out like a firefly at midnight. Now that he was closer, he watched for guards. There must be several around the captives.
“Skip, we might have some trouble over here.”
It was Lam. “What and where?”
“We’re near the Chinese bivouac. Looks like the soldiers are clearing out everything of value. My guess is that they’re getting ready to make a permanent move.”
“Which means we’d have all sorts of hell trying to find them in the heavily forested sections below.”
“Right. Damn near impossible. I’ve got the twenty and Karl picked up another of the H & K 53’s. Want us to nail all of them we can from here?”
“Impact on the twenties to keep them away from the tents?”
“Karl says we’re more than seventy-five yards from the tent tops.”
“I’m at the bodies. Where do I go from here to lend a hand?”
“We’re about a hundred yards ahead of you and bear to the left around the side of the clearing. Can’t miss us. I have my weapons free.”
“Fire at will, sweetheart.”
Murdock lifted up and ran hard forward as he spoke into the mike. “Holt, where the hell are the rest of the troops? We could use some more firepower up here.”
“Jefferson and Ostercamp are here, Skip. We’ll move up now at the firing. Rest of them are almost to the top.”
“Move it, you three. Hang to the left of the clearing and do it in a sprint.”
“We’re gone, Skipper.” The three SEALs lifted their weapons, charged in rounds, and ran flat out toward the men ahead of them.
Lam’s first impact-round twenty hit a heavy tree trunk ten feet over the heads of the Chinese infantry. The splash of the shrapnel was deadly. It sliced open two soldiers nearby, put hot steel in four more, and killed three of them.
Karl opened up with the submachine gun firing the 5.56 rounds on full auto. He soon mastered the art of the six-round burst, and put the rest of the Chinese on the ground ducking behind trees and any other cover they could find.
Lam fired three more times with the twenty, the rounds exploding in the trees working almost like airbursts. Between rounds, four of the Chinese lifted up and raced into the brush on the near side of their small camp. They all carried weapons, and Lam heard harsh Chinese commands. Somebody in charge had rescued the few men he could from the shootout.
Karl emptied one magazine after the quartet, but missed them. He jammed in a fresh twenty-five-round supply, and watched through the murky night air to see if anyone else moved. One man rolled from one cover to a log. Karl moved his sights to the far end of the log, only twenty feet from the dense woods. He tracked halfway to the brush and waited.
His eyes almost closed, and then he snapped them open. Movement. Yes, there he went. Karl tracked the Chinese as he came away from the log in a sprint. Karl fired six rounds. Three of them spread to the left, the other three powered into the victim’s side and back, killing him before he could roll into the ground cover less than five feet from the end of the log.
Murdock ran up and dove into the ground three feet from Lam, his Bull Pup ready to fire.
“Party is all over, but we lost four of them into the brush,” Lam said.
“Man, you should have seen this guy blasting them Chinese with his twenty,” Karl said. “I want one of them to play with.”
“Let’s check on the rest of the Chinese and make sure,” Murdock said. He told Karl to stay and cover them. They darted ahead to the killing field. Three gunshots sounded as they made sure there were no wounded to care for. SEALs take no prisoners, and leave no wounded.
Murdock thought about that as he and L
am waved Karl forward and then ran for the tents. About time they checked in with the governor and his staff.
They were halfway across the open space when a 53 opened up on them from the shadows beyond the tents. Murdock took an immediate hit on the top of his right shoulder and went down. He rolled and tried to bring up his Bull Pup, but his right arm didn’t work.
Lam dove to the ground and returned fire at the muzzle flash. He ripped twelve 5.56 rounds into the area, then emptied the magazine and jammed in another one. He picked up Murdock and dragged him out of the moonlight into the shadows.
“Bastard,” Murdock exploded. “You nail him?”
“I think so, or I scared the shit out of him and he’s running through the brush hoping to swim back to China. Let me look at that shoulder.”
“Up high somewhere. My fucking arm doesn’t work right. Does Mahanani still have the med kit?”
“Far as I know. Yeah, you caught a good one up there, Skipper. You stay put and I’ll get Doc up here to paste you together.”
He made the radio call. The medic had just hit the machine-gun pits, and swore he’d come right up and find Murdock.
Karl knelt down beside the commander. “You heading for the tents?” Karl asked. Murdock nodded, some of the pain in his shoulder burning like a seared finger on a barbecue.
“Hey, I’ll back up Lam,” Karl said. “The tents are just over there. That first one with the light is the one the lieutenant in charge used.”
“Go,” Murdock said.
They went in spurts of ten yards at a time, but drew no more enemy fire. They edged up to the platform and the screen door slowly. Then, when both were in position, Karl pulled open the screen door and Lam surged inside the tent frame.
“Clear first tent,” he said in the mike. Karl stepped inside and swore.
“Look at that bastard. Got himself a few shots in his chest. Wonder if Sara did it.” He told Lam about the officer dragging Sara out of the next tent as she screamed up a battle cry.
“So who is leading their troops?” Lam asked.
“There were two sergeants. One of them must have taken over. Let’s check the other tents.”
They took the candle with them after blowing it out. They lit it in the next tent, which was empty. Karl motioned them down to the next-to-last tent.
“The women were in here. Patricia Combs should be here.”
Nobody was in the tent. The padlocks had been unlocked. They checked the men’s tent and found the same thing, along with a ring of keys on the floor.
Lam used the net. “Skipper, the two women and three men hostages are gone. A lieutenant in charge is dead of chest wounds. Looks like the hostages might have escaped. What the hell can we do now?”
Before he finished talking, the snarl of the 53 submachine gun sounded down the clearing to the right. Lam and Karl ran that way, their weapons up and with fingers on the triggers.
24
Red Hill
Maui, Hawaii
Vince Yamamoto, Governor Itashi’s press secretary and a former Army sergeant, led the hostages into the woodlands. They stopped about five hundred yards down the hill in a clump of cedar trees.
“Governor, I suggest we stay here for the rest of the night. Then I’ll slip back up to the camp and see if I can find out what’s going on. The Chinese there came under attack by someone. Maybe Marines or Army troops. They should be able to rout them now that the Chinese have lost their commander.”
“Sounds good, Vince. Tell the others. We’ll try to stay warm as best we can. This ten-thousand-foot altitude seems a lot colder out here in the open. Is there any way we can have a fire?”
Harry Chung, the governor’s executive assistant, heard them talking and stepped up with a small cigarette lighter. “Our Chinese friends missed this in my shirt pocket when they searched us that first day,” he said. “I’ll find some firewood and shield the flames from the top so no one will be able to see it.”
Ten minutes later Chung had a small fire going, and they took turns at warming themselves. He made the fire larger gradually, until they could use three sides of it for warmth.
They didn’t talk about the Chinese. Sara had told them that she had surprised Lieutenant Hing and stabbed him with her hat pin, then grabbed his pistol and shot him. After that, the subject was closed. Chung had cleaned and bandaged the governor’s leg wound. It would need medical attention soon.
The governor warmed his hands over the fire. They hadn’t taken time to grab the jackets they had brought to the camp. Most of them were in shirts and blouses.
“Hey, people,” the governor said. “We’ll be all right now. Harry’s fire has saved the day. This was supposed to be a rugged, challenging experience. I didn’t plan on it being this tough. In the morning, Vince will slip back up the hill and find out what’s going on. If the Marines landed and have whipped the Chinese, we’ll chopper out of here within two hours.
“Hey, it’s a little after one A.M., which means we have only half the night to go. We can do this standing on our heads.”
The others murmured their agreement. Sara shivered. She wanted to run to the governor and hug him until he gave up and kissed her. She had been wanting him for so long. They had touched, and twice he had given her shoulder hugs for a job well done.
Each time she had been so thrilled she couldn’t talk. All of her tough professionalism had melted into sticky goo in twenty seconds. She looked at him and saw he had been watching her. She moved around the fire and wedged in beside him.
“Can I share some of your fire?”
“We have plenty. Help yourself.”
As she edged in, her hip touched his and neither of them moved. No one noticed it in the firelight. Sara felt a surge of emotion she had difficulty holding in. She looked up at him, and he was watching her.
“Yes, Sara, stay close,” he whispered so no one else could hear. His smile deepened. He went on in the whisper. “We’re all so proud of you. We know it must have been tremendously difficult… with the gun. I’m so proud of you I could kiss you.”
She wanted to whisper right back to him something witty like: “I’ll take a rain check,” or maybe: “Hey, kiss me once and kiss me twice and kiss me once again,” like the song. She only pressed her hip harder against his and nodded, her eyes brimming with tears of wonder and joy. Why couldn’t he tell she was in love with him? Watching him now and feeling the wonder of the fire’s heat, she thought that maybe he did but he didn’t want any Clintonesque problems. Oh, damn.
“Governor, I’ll take a rain check on that kiss until after we’re rescued and I’m warm enough to enjoy it.” She had whispered it up at him so only he could hear.
Surprise flooded his face, and then his marvelous grin came. Oh, but how she loved that grin. “A deal,” he whispered back. Then he put both hands out to the warmth of the fire.
Somewhere above they heard rifle and other small-arms fire.
“Machine guns,” Vince said. “Somebody up there is getting the hell shot out of them.”
“Let’s hope it’s our side doing the shooting,” the governor said.
* * *
Murdock grimaced through the pain. Hell of a time to get hit. Almost had the bastards nailed to the wall. He heard the firing and tried to track it to the left. The escaped Chinese might have circled around and hit them.
Mahanani slid to the ground beside Murdock.
“Shoulder, I hear?”
Murdock nodded.
“Not the best, Skipper. Can you raise your arm?”
“Yeah, some.”
“How high?”
“Got it almost to my shoulder once.”
The machine guns rattled again. Mahanani dropped down on top of Murdock as the slugs went zinging over their heads. He got up and pulled Murdock by the left arm farther into the shadows of some brush.
“DeWitt, where are you?” Murdock asked his lip mike.
“At the Chinese bodies. Have them all tied up. Heard the au
tomatic fire. We’ll come up in the brush fringe on the north. How is the shoulder?”
“Not good. You’ve got the con. The attackers might be the two we flushed into the brush before.”
“We’ll get them. You take it easy.”
Lam and Karl ran past where Murdock and Mahanani lay, then dove into the edge of the brush. All firing had stopped.
“Lam, can you find me?” DeWitt asked.
“We’re on the north side brush, forty yards from the tents. The bodies are about sixty yards east of us.”
“Hang there, we’re moving up,” DeWitt said.
Five minutes later the SEALs had joined up.
“Some Chinkos over on the right fired again,” Lam said. “The hostages are out of the tent, so no worry on the twenties. I’d suggest a few rounds into that area, JG.”
DeWitt nodded in the pale moonlight. “Give us a twenty burst to sight in on,” the JG said.
Lam sent one round into the trees where he figured the Chinese might be.
At once he took small-arms fire from fifty feet farther to the right. Six SEAL weapons opened up on the new firing point. Four twenty rounds burst in the trees and brush, and the other weapons riddled the area with two hundred rounds.
“Hold fire,” DeWitt bellowed.
“I’ll check them out,” Lam said.
“No,” DeWitt countered. “You’ve been on point too much tonight. Canzoneri and Train, work up there but stay out of our sight lines. See what you can find. We’ll cover you if they fire.”
Canzoneri and Train vanished into the brush and worked forward.
“Mahanani, how is our leader?” DeWitt asked on the Motorola.
“Took a serious hit on the top front of his shoulder. Might have broken some bones or at least cut up some tendons and muscle. He won’t be shooting much the rest of the night.”
“Get him in a safe place.”
“Chrissakes, I can talk, JG. Just a little shoulder ding. Yeah, we’re moving over into the woods out of sight at least. I’m kicking the sawbones back to you. He stopped the bleeding and bandaged my damn arm so I can barely move it. I think he wants to be a veterinarian.”
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