Armstrong saw the tree line of the island blocking the stars near the horizon. Butch Winter saw it at the same time. He pointed. The helmsman slowed the lead Mirage. Nothing but trees. The helmsman reduced his throttle at the prebriefed point and the Mirages coasted to a stop two thousand yards off the beach. The SEALs sprang into action and dragged the G470 Zodiacs into the water. A SEAL went to the bow of the Mirage and scanned the island through his night-vision scope for sentries. The boat crew swept the island with their FLIR and thermal imager. Clear. The SEALs climbed noiselessly into the rubber boats, started the small outboard engines, and headed quickly toward the shore. Hughes’ platoon matched their movements, fifty yards behind in their own G470s.
The quarter moon broke out from behind the clouds. It cast barely enough light to pick out the white water on the beach and the shape of the small bay. The trees came down to the water line. They could smell the low tide, the smell not of the sea, but of the death of vegetation and marine life where the ocean touched the land. They didn’t want to go in at low tide, but this attack was driven by timing in Washington, not timing of the tides. As soon as Washington and his group learned that the satellite photograph of this island showing what they thought was Mrs. Heidel being carried off in a bag had been seen by the world during the President’s testimony, they would be off the island as if they were on fire. The Americans didn’t want to give them that chance.
The first two Zodiacs slowed at a thousand yards and four SEALs eased themselves over the side. They were the lead swim pairs; one observer and one sniper. They swam carefully and steadily away from the SEALs and the other Zodiacs waiting offshore. The water was choppy but short of white caps. It made swimming harder, but not impossible. They could see the white line where the sand touched the ocean. As they broke the surface of the water at the beach, the four SEALs lay motionless. They slid their masks down around their necks and put on their night-vision monocles. After making sure it was clear, they crawled up into the jungle. The two snipers unzipped their watertight cases, which held their M-14 rifles with thermal scopes. They checked their position by GPS, placed stakes in the sand where the corridor started, and headed straight into the jungle, directly toward the compound less than a mile inland. The four SEALs patrolled cautiously. Their throat mikes put them in immediate radio contact with all the other SEALs by encrypted UHF. To anyone listening, it would sound like brief squelches, never long enough to get any position on them.
They moved slowly through the jungle checking every direction for people, booby traps, or indications of any life. They followed a straight path, guided by the arrow on the GPS receiver. When they reached their prebriefed positions, they set up their sentry and sniper posts, scanning the jungle in every direction once more. It was clear.
“Tango Oscar in place, all clear.”
Jody Armstrong received the transmission and immediately directed his Zodiacs to the beach. They surfed down the waves and beached in between the two stakes set out by the swimmers. The SEALs leaped from the Zodiacs with their weapons ready and fanned out on the beach, immediately kneeling into a crouch. Two of the men wore night-vision goggles. When they were all on the beach, the Zodiacs were pulled into the jungle. Armstrong signaled and the SEALs filed into two lines proceeding up the corridor cleared by the sentries. They moved in two single-file lines exactly where the two sentries had previously walked, patrolling with weapons out, alert to any threat.
As they reached the two sentries, Dan Hughes and his team landed on the beach and acknowledged the two SEALs waiting for them. The boats hit the sand, and the SEALs jumped out and pulled the boats into the jungle. Hughes’s SEALs fanned out in a defensive perimeter identical to Armstrong’s, waiting for the signal. When all was clear, Hughes ordered them into the same corridor through the jungle that Armstrong’s team had just passed.
Jody Armstrong acknowledged the sentries who were waiting for him. One of the sentries’ arms suddenly shot up. Armstrong turned his monocular night-vision goggles toward the compound and saw what the sentry had seen. Two men were patrolling the jungle with AK-47s and coming directly at them two hundred yards away. Every SEAL, including those in Lieutenant Hughes’s platoon behind them, heard Armstrong’s brief transmission, “Hold posit.” The SEALs crouched where they were and looked for other terrorists. The two snipers raised their M-14s slowly and squinted through the thermal sights. They could see the sentries clearly, their body heat making them green and luminescent in the sights.
The two sentries spoke to each other curtly.
“Clear shot left.”
“Clear shot right.”
“Three, two, one.”
The sentries pulled their triggers simultaneously and their M-14 rifles with the long sound-suppressors kicked. They held the thermal sights on their targets and watched their green chests explode from the hits. The men dropped to the ground and lay motionless. The SEAL sniper-sentry teams moved forward, patrolling as they went looking for other sentries. They reached the men lying on the ground. “Two Delta Tangos,” the lead sentry said. Two dead terrorists.
Armstrong clicked his microphone twice, then passed the visual signal to move the mark of the defensive perimeter up to the new sentry location. The SEALs advanced through the jungle in visual range of each other in the darkness and increased the size of the fan-shaped defensive perimeter, setting up a large semicircle protecting the approach to the compound.
Hughes and his men continued to advance behind them. In spite of their training, Hughes’s group had butterflies in their stomachs. Only two of the group had ever fired a shot at anyone. The number of SEALs or any other Navy personnel who had ever been in combat was a small and diminishing number. The last Medal of Honor winner in the Navy had retired in 1992.
Hughes’s group walked silently through the jungle up the corridor cleared by Armstrong’s platoon. Armstrong stood next to the snipers and the two Delta Tangos. Hughes and Armstrong knelt in the jungle. Hughes glanced at his GPS receiver and his watch and pointed straight ahead between the two sentries who were standing next to them. Armstrong checked the position of the men in his platoon who were there to protect and support Hughes and his men as they went into CQB in the compound.
Hughes’s men moved carefully, silently, and quickly to the compound. McGowan was right behind Hughes with his shotgun and his sledgehammer hanging on his back. Hughes was apprehensive. He didn’t know what they were walking into. It should be a compound of twenty or so bad guys with no hostages. But he learned a long time ago that things were never as you expected even though they had the most current intelligence available—satellite photography, infrared photography, electronic signals monitoring everything.
Their only limitation was that they had to conduct the mission in accordance with the newly issued Rules of Capture that Congress had passed and the President had signed only hours ago. Their mission was now a law—to capture or kill the murderers of the Americans from the Pacific Flyer, as well as Dan Heidel and possibly his wife. If they could bring them back to the United States, fine. If they resisted, the sentence would simply be executed more swiftly. He wasn’t planning on reading anyone his Miranda rights. That was McGowan’s job. Hughes just hoped he didn’t get bogged down in it.
The rules were vague enough so that if there was any resistance they were authorized to use whatever force was necessary to subdue it. Including lethal force. A police term. He liked lethal, and he liked force. Hughes’s men advanced past the perimeter set up by Armstrong. From this point they would proceed on their own into the compound and conduct the CQB, the Close Quarter Battle. They listened to the night jungle sounds. There were no other sentries. They thought that was odd. Two sentries, together. It’s good to have a team, it’s wrong to have only one team. There had to be others. It also might mean they had not yet been alerted.
Everyone else in the world knew the Rules of Capture had been passed. Why didn’t they have the word yet? They had radios. They probably didn’t thi
nk the Navy could act so fast. It would be at least a couple of days.
Hughes put up his hand as they approached the opening in the jungle where the compound started. He could make out the three dark buildings, exactly as they had been on San Clemente. They had even practiced the approach from this specific angle on more than one occasion. His platoon immediately broke up into three, his group headed for the middle and largest hut, and the other two groups moved toward the smaller huts. They crouched in the dim moonlight and searched the area over and over again with thermal sights and night-vision goggles. There was nothing. The huts were generating sufficient warmth. There were probably people inside, but Hughes couldn’t tell how many. The platoon crept through the darkness in total silence. Armstrong’s men had advanced to a hundred yards behind them and continued to head through the jungle, clearing it of any sentry posts. There were none.
Hughes turned to McGowan, who signaled to him. They were twenty yards from the buildings. They continued to advance until they were immediately in front of each hut. The main building had two steps and a porch. The smaller two buildings opened directly onto the dirt in front of them. Hughes backed up and let McGowan stand right in front of the steps. McGowan put his shotgun in a holster on his back and pulled out his sledgehammer. Chief Smith was immediately behind him with his M4 assault rifle ready and night-vision goggles in place. Hughes saw that the other teams were ready to break into the buildings and brought his hand down smartly on McGowan’s shoulder. McGowan charged up the steps and swung his sledgehammer in one motion, smashing the door on the hinged side. The door caved in and fell to the floor in front of him. “Surrender! U.S. Navy!” McGowan yelled in Indonesian over and over again. He knelt down on the floor as Smith held his M4 rifle over McGowan’s shoulder. The SEALs followed Hughes through the door alternating sides and crouching with their weapons ready. One man directly across from the door had leaped out of bed when the door crashed in. He reached toward the head of his bed for his AK-47. He grabbed it and rolled out of bed in one fluid motion. He brought it up and pointed it at McGowan. Smith pulled the trigger and a short burst from his M4 threw the man against the wall.
All hell broke loose. Several other men jumped out of their racks and reached for their weapons. Suddenly a panicked woman’s voice pierced the furious sounds of the firefight, “No! Don’t shoot!”
The shooting continued. Hughes moved to the left of Smith and crouched as he headed toward the voice. He could hear McGowan continuing to yell behind him. “Surrender! U.S. Navy!” in Indonesian.
Hughes felt a bullet whip by his ear. He turned in that direction in time to see an automatic assault rifle aimed at him. He fell to the floor quickly and activated the laser sight unit on his SOF handgun. He crouched and moved quickly to his left. He raised his handgun and aimed. “No!” a woman screamed. Another shot rang out from behind her. To his right Hughes could see SEALs shooting at the other men in the cabin from as close as three feet. It was pandemonium with smoke and noise everywhere.
From the muzzle flashes Hughes could see that there was a man backed into the distant corner of the room holding Connie Heidel as a shield. He had his left arm under her arms and around her chest, holding his AK-47 with his right. The fighting raged around them. Hughes concentrated on the man in the corner. Hughes realized the man was yelling something, but it clearly wasn’t English. “Let her go!” Hughes shouted. Then to the woman, “Don’t move. Stay still!”
The man raised his AK again and fired at the SEALs in the room who hadn’t yet seen him. Hughes couldn’t wait. He raised his SOF handgun with its laser sight unit engaged. The man was almost entirely hidden by Connie Heidel. Hughes placed the red aiming dot on the man’s forehead and quickly squeezed the trigger. The bullet smashed through the man’s cheek and threw him back from Connie. She broke free and fell to the floor.
Hughes turned. There were bodies all over the room. Other than SEALs, there were only two men left firing, and they were quickly silenced by disciplined automatic fire from the SEALs. They jerked as their bodies were riddled with bullets. The room fell silent. “Clear!” Hughes announced through the radio. “Sections two and three, check in,” he said as he began to examine the dead in the room while he held his handgun on them.
“Two’s clear.”
“Three’s clear.”
“Anybody hurt?” he asked. Nobody responded. “Check the Delta Tangos and rendezvous outside,” he demanded. “Chief Smith, confirm the status of every man down. If you find a live one, tell McGowan so he can interrogate him.”
He crossed to the comer where Connie still lay on the floor. He knelt down and touched her shoulder. “You all right?”
She sat up. “Yes. I’m okay. Who are you guys?”
“Navy SEALs, ma’am.”
“Thank you for coming. You saved my life.”
“We thought you were already dead. Can you stand up?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Hughes said. He escorted her past the carnage in the room outside into the fresh air. She held his arm for support and stumbled slightly as they went down the two stairs.
The rest of the SEALs gathered around him, holding their weapons cautiously. McGowan stood to his left holding his shotgun and Michaels faced the main building, checking for any signs of life.
“Eight or ten dead in our building.”
“Four,” Michaels said.
“Four,” Robertson said, the petty officer in charge of the attack on the smallest hut.
“Sixteen total. Can’t be all of them,” Hughes said, thinking out loud. He looked at Connie. “We had a satellite photo of what we thought was them carrying your body out in a tarp or net of some kind.”
“They never let me go anywhere. If I was out of the building, they put me in that net thing and carried me around. It was horrible.”
“Did they hurt you?” Hughes asked, looking at her carefully for the first time, her filthy white nightgown illuminated by the faint moon.
“No,” she said, starting to shake. “Not really. They threatened me a lot, and slapped me a couple of times.”
Armstrong walked up to Hughes. “Didn’t want to surrender, huh.”
“No,” Hughes said. “There were about sixteen of them.”
Armstrong and Hughes exchanged glances. They were thinking the same thing. Armstrong said it. “Where are the rest of them?”
“Don’t know,” Hughes said. “No attic, no basement, no tunnel, no other doors. Eight in the main building. Twenty beds.”
Armstrong looked at Connie. “I’m glad you’re still alive. We weren’t sure.”
“I heard,” she replied.
“I’m Jody Armstrong.”
“Connie Heidel.”
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Were there more?” he asked.
“They left about an hour before you came.”
“Shit,” Hughes said. “Where’d they go?”
Connie couldn’t stand anymore. She saw the two steps into the building. She walked over and sat down.
Hughes could see dirt clumped on her legs. “Do you know?”
“No. I just know the head guy left with his people an hour ago.”
“Who are these guys if they’re not his?”
“They are his, just not the ones who go around with him. The others are a kind of elite, I think. They all dress the same. All black. They talk to those guys, but it’s different. You can tell who are the ones with the head guy.”
“If they got off the island in the last hour we would have seen it one way or the other,” Armstrong said.
“Then where the hell are they?” Hughes said. “You have no idea?” he asked Connie.
“No.”
“How many were in this elite group?”
“I don’t know. I never saw them altogether. I would guess thirty or so.”
“I think we’d better start looking,” Armstrong said. “They’re still somewhere on this isl
and.”
She put her hand on Hughes’s arm. “Thanks for coming for me. I had almost given—” She drew in a ragged breath. “Are my children okay?” she asked, tears not far away.
“They’re fine,” Armstrong replied. “I saw them on television two hours ago.”
“What were they doing on television?”
“It’s a long story. We’ll tell you tonight on the ship. First, we’ve got to find the rest of them, or we may as well not go back.”
Hughes stood beside Armstrong, who was deciding what to do. “What time is it?” he said.
Armstrong checked and said, “Oh four hundred.”
“Dew should be setting in,” Hughes said, pulling out his infrared flashlight. He put on infrared goggles and scanned the jungle, illuminating it with his light.
“What are you doing?” Armstrong asked.
“Looking for where the dew isn’t.”
Hughes stopped and walked slowly toward the jungle. Armstrong followed. “This way,” Hughes said. The dew was evenly dispersed except for one spot behind the buildings. People had gone down this path since the dew had begun settling on the leaves and the ground. Their passage had left a disturbance so that Hughes could just make out the path. He hoped he was right. “This is it.” He stopped at the edge of the clearing and spoke to Armstrong. “I say we send two men with Connie back to the boats, the rest come with us.”
The Price Of Power Page 49
