His radio operator hurried up to him. “Sir, it’s Lieutenant Winter on the Mirage. He says they’re getting a shitload of transmissions in encrypted UHF.”
“Where?” Hughes demanded.
“West side.”
“Where’s our cryppie?”
“He’s coming, sir. He’s getting the same thing.”
Hughes looked at Armstrong. “They’re making a break for it. They’ve got some way off this island over there. They’d never take this risk with hot radio comm if they weren’t going to be gone in minutes.”
The cryppie with the SOF SIGINT Manpack came around the building. “We’ve got them, sir,” he said to Hughes. “The signals match. We’ve compared our bearing with the Mirage Privateer bearing.” He took out his map of the island and showed them the location of the strobes and where they crossed. There was a small bay on the west side of the island. The bearings met at the top of the bay.
“Shit!” Hughes exclaimed. “They’re getting away! They had to have gone down this path. Jody, I say we take this path, and get the Mirages to meet us there.”
Armstrong agreed. He turned to the radioman. “Tell Lieutenant Winter to meet us at that west side bay. Watch for any vessels coming out. They’re clear to go active on radar or whatever else they need. Chief, get everybody that’s not taking Mrs. Heidel back to the coast. We need to hoof it. Now.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The SEALs headed down the narrow path through the jungle as quickly as they could go. The western shore was only a mile and a half away. The night sounds of the jungle were all around them. Their senses tried to evaluate every sound and smell, but there were too many with which they were unfamiliar for their senses to help much. Somewhere on this island was a group the same size as theirs who would like nothing better than to ambush a bunch of SEALs. Hughes carefully followed the nearly invisible footpath through the jungle leading westward toward the shore. After twenty minutes of tense patrolling through the jungle, they began to hear the surf from the north shore of the island. A cover for human activity, the surf drowned out everything. Armstrong and Hughes signaled for the others to stand fast. Armstrong, Hughes, and four others proceeded quickly toward the shore. As they approached the beach, they began crawling. They crawled slowly over a slight berm of tropical thick-bladed grass that turned into sand at the top.
Cautious of presenting a profile as they crested the small berm, they hugged the grass and tried to make as little movement as possible. Armstrong slid his night scope over the berm and looked slowly to his left and then to his right. His frustration mounted as he saw nothing out of the ordinary. He swept the scope all the way to the right. He thought he saw a slight movement, but wasn’t sure. He crawled up higher onto the berm and slid down the other side. He was on flat sand. He looked again to his right. The shoreline curved away from them. At the point where it started to bend, someone moved. He was sure.
Armstrong pointed to the bend to his right and the four SEALs moved back inland over the berm and crawled down the inland side. They rose and walked two hundred yards to their right. As they approached the curve in the shore, they went to the top of the berm again and Hughes peered over. The green and black night vision image startled him. He saw twenty to thirty men standing waist-deep in the ocean pulling three large, fast boats out of a cave. It was the perfect place to hide a boat. The water went into a cave that was ten feet high at the opening, carved out of the rock in the side of the hill. No radar or IR was ever going to see those boats until they were ready to leave.
“Boats,” Armstrong transmitted for everyone to hear. He could see four men standing guard facing away from the beach. “Chief Smith, get on the radio and get the Mirages around to this bay right now!”
They slid back down the inland side of the berm again. Armstrong signaled to the other SEALs to spread out. They moved quickly and silently to form a semicircle around the small bay. When they were all in place, half of them crawled over the berm as one. Hughes, McGowan, and three others with him rose to a crouch and began working their way quickly down the sand toward the group now climbing into the speedboats. The four guards were still on the beach watching the jungle in the direction of the other SEALs, but not toward Hughes coming down the beach.
Armstrong gave the signal for illumination and the SEAL farthest to the right fired a white flare behind the sentries approaching Hughes. They immediately turned to see what had caused the light and Hughes and McGowan were able to get within two hundred yards of them. “Surrender! U.S. Navy!” McGowan shouted in Indonesian. They turned and raised their rifles to their shoulders. The two SEALs on the outside of Hughes and McGowan fired and two of the guards fell immediately to the sand.
The two remaining guards started firing at Hughes and McGowan, who were now prone on the sand, returning fire. The guards were hit immediately and crumpled in the dark.
The SEALs stopped firing and moved into position quickly. The terrorists clambering into the boats knew they had been found. They began working furiously to get the boats underway. Armstrong strained to see into the overhung cavern to determine if there were any more boats or people in there. The men on the boats saw several shadows on the beach where they expected only four. They began firing. The firing was wild and dangerous. The SEALs retreated to the other side of the berm and began returning fire.
The engines on the Cigarette boats roared to life. Bullets and tracers flew across the bay as the men on the boats shot at their unseen enemy.
The SEALs on the berm carefully trained their rifles on the boats. Single shots rang out and men inside the boats fell back. Bullets clanged off the motor housings on the back of the boats and through the windshields. One boat roared toward the mouth of the bay at high speed while a second began wild fast turns inside the bay, either preparing to make its way out or having lost its steering. The firing increased. Bullets ripped through the leaves in the jungle behind the SEALs. Four SEALs near Hughes fired at the turning boat only two hundred yards away.
A grenade from one of the SEAL’s grenade launchers slammed into the stern of the nearest boat, which had just gotten up to speed. The grenade exploded and the boat jerked left and headed toward the beach at full speed, directly at Hughes, then turned sharply again. He and the other three SEALs near him ran from the oncoming boat as it careened toward them, its stern ablaze. The first boat continued to pull away from the beach toward the open ocean as bullets slammed into its hull. It reached fifty or sixty knots before it was out of range of the SEALs’ rifles and headed out to sea. The third boat continued its furious turns, then straightened out and followed the first. Bullets peppered the boat’s cabin as it pulled out of range.
The Mirages suddenly appeared as a pair on the dark horizon as they tore around the point and entered the mouth of the bay from the open ocean doing fifty knots. Their hulls thumped against the small waves as they searched for the Cigarette boats. Butch Winter in the lead Mirage immediately saw the two Cigarette boats heading directly toward him trying to escape. The Cigarette boats split left and right. Winter turned hard starboard and headed toward the closest boat. He put the Cigarette boat on his bow and accelerated slightly. The Mirage continued in its hard right turn to bring its weapons to bear. The two boat’s gunners manning the weapons opened fire at maximum range. The tracers from the .50-cal machine gun looked like red water from an angry fire hose as the bullets fell short of the Cigarette boat but they walked toward it. The Cigarette boat could see the bullets too, and broke to its left away from the opening at the mouth of the bay. They knew they were trapped. They hoped to pull the Mirages away so the other Cigarette boat could break out to the ocean. The Mirages fell in behind the Cigarette boat closest to them and began closing the range. The machine guns were now well within their accurate range and the SEALs were firing effectively. The red trail of bullets disappeared into the hull of the dark Cigarette boat like a nighttime rainbow. The throttleman slowed the Mirage as the boat they were chasing blew up di
rectly in front of them. He threw the helm over hard to port and the Mirage turned to find the other Cigarette boat with the second Mirage matching every move.
The second Cigarette boat was at the mouth of the bay just breaking into the open ocean. The Mirages accelerated over the smooth night water. Within two minutes they were also at the mouth of the bay, slamming into the choppier ocean waves. The helmsmen pushed the boats forward. They bounced over the wave tops, getting airborne every five seconds. Their hulls slammed into the ocean and were rocketed off the top of another wave as the throttlemen expertly controlled the throttles for maximum sustainable speed.
The Italian-made Cigarette boat was no match for the heavier Mirage in the ocean. The SEALs’ boats closed on the Cigarette boat, which was quickly within range of the Mirages’s deadly fire. The machine guns let loose again. The horribly beautiful red tracer lines reached the stern of the frantically fleeing Cigarette boat. The grenade launcher on the other side pumped out its shells at an amazing rate. The Cigarette boat was hit. It did an awkward hard turn at top speed. The bow caught the top of a wave and the stern came up over the bow. The red tracers followed the stern up and the boat burst into flames as it flipped twice in the air disintegrating, its pieces settling onto the dark ocean. The tracers from the Mirages stopped as the boats turned hard and headed back toward the bay to support the SEALs ashore.
The first Cigarette boat that had been hit after turning wildly inside the bay straightened up suddenly and headed directly toward the beach, its stern still on fire. Hughes saw it coming and pulled back to the berm. The boat’s engine screamed at full power as it ran up on the beach, tearing a rut into the sand and scraping to a stop as it burst into flames. Four black-clad men jumped over the side and waded out of the shallow water. They split into two groups of two and ran in both directions on the beach. The two coming straight toward Hughes and the other three SEALs did not see them even though their boat was in a raging conflagration behind them lighting the beach for hundreds of yards in both directions. Weaponless, they ran recklessly down the beach. Hughes and Smith waited flat on the sand until the two men closed. At exactly the right moment they jumped in front of the two men. They grabbed them and slammed them toward the sand. Hughes jammed his silenced MP-5 in the side of one man’s face. Hughes jerked his head up at the sound of firing. He saw the two who had gone in the other direction, firing their AK-47s at shadows from the flickering flames. But the SEALs had seen them. Each of the terrorists was hit with a hail of bullets almost simultaneously. The force knocked them back and off their feet as they fell on the sand and lay still.
The remaining SEALs came over the berm down on the sand and checked out the entire length of the beach. Four went into the water and began swimming into the cavern to check for any remaining boats or people. The speedboat burned wildly in the tree line, where it had lodged after screaming up on the beach. The flames continued to cooperate and illuminated the entire area, including the two men lying facedown in the sand where Hughes and Smith had their knees in their backs and their guns to their heads. They stood up and pulled the two smaller men to their feet. Hughes spun them around and put his weapon under one man’s chin. “Do you speak English?”
“Yes,” the man said, looking directly into his eyes.
Hughes looked at him with some recognition. Hughes smiled. “Are you in charge?”
“Don’t know what you mean. I’m fisherman.”
“Then why do you have thirty men with speedboats and rifles?”
“Pirates, they always try and steal our fish.”
“Where did you get speedboats?”
“Bought them.”
“Right.” Hughes looked at the one that Smith had by the throat. “You speak English?”
The man shook his head quickly.
McGowan trained his shotgun on his two prisoners. He said to Hughes, “Let’s walk them down the beach and get the other guys together.” As they headed down the beach, the four swimmers came out from under the cavern and up onto the beach. Nothing in the cavern.
The platoon, intact and uninjured, gathered in a group at the edge of the beach with four sentries pointed outward. The two remaining terrorists stood with their heads down as the lead Mirage coasted into the sand near the burning Cigarette boat. Hughes gave Butch a thumbs-up.
A SEAL with a radio approached Hughes. “H-46 inbound, sir.” Hughes turned to the terrorist he had knocked down. “Hey. Come here.”
The man’s face was filled with hatred. Hughes met his eyes. “How come you guys didn’t surrender?”
There was no response.
Hughes said, “Now you’re going to get to go back to the good old U.S. of A., get tried, convicted, and executed. Do you know about the new federal laws that allow capital punishment for these kinds of crimes?”
He still didn’t reply.
McGowan watched, making sure Hughes didn’t go too far. He studied the man’s face more closely. He knew the face. A drawing. “Aren’t you that George Washington character?”
The man averted his gaze.
Hughes bent over to scrutinize his face and the man turned away. He pulled out his Mag-lite, shining it on the man. “Aren’t you him, you mother—?”
“You will never win,” the man spat at Hughes. “There are hundreds more like me! You don’t even know who I am!” He suddenly winced in pain and leaned over to feel his knee, as if to massage a wound. Then, with lightning speed, he reached underneath his baggy black pants leg and pulled out a knife that had been strapped to his calf. He came up toward Hughes holding the knife.
Hughes saw the quick movement but didn’t realize what was happening. He held his MP-5 submachine gun in his right hand. The man’s arm came forward swiftly. Hughes put out his right arm and weapon to block the thrust, his brain racing to catch up with what was happening. Hughes missed the block, but hit the man’s arm. The knife blade plunged through the underside of Hughes’s forearm and out through the top. Hughes screamed. He stared at the silver blade protruding from his arm. The MP-5 fell out of his hand to the sand. McGowan brought up his shotgun and aimed at the terrorist. Just as he pulled the trigger, the terrorist reached for Hughes’s MP-5 in the sand. The shotgun blast caught him directly in the face and threw him backward like a rag doll.
The other terrorist went for Smith. But he wasn’t as fast and Smith had seen Hughes get caught off-guard. As soon as his knife blade showed, Robertson shot him with not even an instant’s hesitation. The man was dead instantly.
Armstrong came running down the beach. “Dan!” He stood next to Hughes and looked around for additional threats. “You okay?”
Hughes nodded as he knelt on the sand.
The SEALs stared at the dead men on the beach lit by the flickering Cigarette boat burning in the trees. Hughes grimaced. The pain was worse than he could have ever imagined. He stood slowly and looked at the man lying on the sand, the light flickering on his face.
“What happened to him?” Armstrong asked, pointing to the terrorist lying next to Hughes.
“Went for Dan’s gun. I had to take him out.”
“Shit. Now we’ll never ID him. You melted his damn face.” Armstrong pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket and studied it with his flashlight. It was the artist’s rendition of George Washington that had been done for Clay Bonham. They were all familiar with it. Armstrong shone his flashlight on it and then on the dead man. His face had been obliterated by the near simultaneous entry of hundreds of shotgun pellets. He looked up at the other SEALs who had gathered, then down at the dead man.
“It’s him,” Hughes said through the pain with his eyes closed.
Armstrong spoke to Hughes. “Don’t even think about pulling that knife out of your arm.”
Hughes tried to breathe slowly but was fighting the excruciating pain. “I know.”
Armstrong instructed Smith. “Get on the radio. Tell them to bring a med-evac in here and that we’re ready for pickup. No prisoners.”
“Roger that, sir.” He grabbed the radio from the other petty officer.
“Clean slate one, this is chalkboard four. Ready for pickup. Negative prisoners. One for med-evac.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dillon sat with his back toward the door of the busy restaurant hoping that no one would recognize him. Molly felt sufficiently anonymous to risk seeing those coming in. The entire restaurant was buzzing from the day’s events. People spoke of nothing else. Darkness had settled around Washington. The candlelight made Dillon’s face look less tired than it was.
“What do you think Manchester is going to do?”
“Probably nothing,” Molly said. “He’ll probably convince himself he was the winner in all of this. But you need to stop thinking about him. Start thinking about yourself. Enjoy your dinner!”
“I am enjoying it. It’s the first meal I’ve had in days that I didn’t expect to throw up an hour later.”
She watched him finish.
“Did he surprise you?” Dillon asked.
“Manchester? I just said you should stop—”
“What do you think, though?”
She sighed, continuing reluctantly. “I never thought he was a pacifist. But what I couldn’t figure out was why he didn’t just say so.”
“He wanted to make his speech. Convince everybody the country had to take time now and then to consider the justification for what we do, especially for war.”
“Can’t really argue with that.”
“Maybe. But there are a lot easier ways—”
“He was just making his point.”
“He didn’t go about it very well.”
“I thought it was kind of masterful. Especially the Michelangelo—”
“It sounded prepared.”
“He would have had the whole country with him if you hadn’t cornered him. The photo, the kids, the Rules of Capture, how’d you come up with that?”
“Ever since I saw the photo, I thought it would be the one thing he’d have to explain to the country. I was going to show it no matter what.”
The Price Of Power Page 50
