Strike Force Bravo

by Mack Maloney

  And it was very hard to outrun a typhoon.

  It was late afternoon when they spotted the Bangtang Channel. The lights were already on throughout Luzon to the south. The streetlights of Manila were coloring the horizon in an odd pinkish glow.

  No light was coming from their destination, though. The Bangtang Channel ran deep red in the rays of the departing sun. The swift waters were giving off a glow that was strangely phosphorescent. Lots of coral lying beneath, no doubt. But Fuggu itself was absolutely dark.

  That this was would be their first landfall was not due to anything any search planes had found. In fact, there were no U.S. search planes looking for the missing spy bomber. The number of people in the world who even knew of the B-2F’s existence could fit inside a small room. Fewer than one-third of them knew it had gone down. To mount a huge air-sea search effort would have set off alarms that the deep operations command at the Pentagon did not want set off, for many reasons. That’s why this thing had to be done quickly.

  They were about ten miles out from Fuggu when the weather suddenly changed. The dark clouds to their north began blowing south. Black and churning mightily, they’d been whipped up by heat from the Chinese mainland and the energy of moving over the open water. At that moment reaching critical mass, the bank of clouds turned into a huge storm right before their eyes. High winds began to swirl; rain, torrential in sheets, exploded from its inner regions. A waterspout began forming below. And this hellish mix was now heading right for the Kai.

  Ryder and Gallant stayed cool. They’d seen worse. They started climbing, quickly, to 2,500 feet. Using hand gestures, they indicated to Fox what was happening. Fox went pale; he couldn’t believe a storm could build that fast. Martinez, too, stood briefly at his seat, just long enough to see the gigantic plume of clouds coming at them.

  “Damn, we don’t need this!” someone cried. No sooner were the words out than the Kai was hit by the concussion wave traveling before the storm. The big plane was pushed violently to the left and then to the right. The nose suddenly dropped. Ryder and Gallant fought to get it level again. They succeeded, but then the nose started to wildly go up. They fought mightily to bring it back down.

  The rain came next. Very quick, very heavy. Soon they could not see out the cockpit’s windshield. Ryder and Gallant remained calm; they worked together to keep the airplane straight. The people in back weren’t so cool. The sudden departure from level flight knocked many to the floor of the cabin. Now that the plane was bouncing all over the sky, both Delta guys and SEALs were being tossed about like rag dolls. Their equipment was flying around, too, unguided missiles ricocheting off the unpadded walls. Only the SDS guards were able to stay in their seats; in fact, their hair was barely mussed. They’d thought to tie their gear down before takeoff and had their seat belts fastened throughout the flight.

  The plane’s nose dropped again. Suddenly they were heading straight for the drink. Yelps from the back, cursing from Fox. A voice-activated warning signal began addressing them in Japanese. Slowly, though, Ryder and Gallant pulled the plane back level again. They stayed this way…for about three seconds. Then they were hit with a massive blow of turbulence on their port side. The plane almost went completely over; only because Ryder quickly applied more power did they gain control of it again. The center of the birthing storm was just a mile away and they were being sucked right into it. Ryder and Gallant immediately put the plane halfway up on its left wing. They had to try to skim the edge of the gigantic front. The people in back didn’t appreciate it, as they continued being pummeled. But the two pilots had saved their lives at least twice already.

  They collided with the worst part of the storm a moment later; it was all the pilots could do to keep the wings tipped up. The smell of burnt plastic flooded into the cockpit. All those microprocessors were overheating as the two pilots struggled to keep the big flying boat in the air. It was black as night all around them now. The wind was screaming and the rain so heavy, it was like they were flying through a car wash. Everyone finally got tied down in back, but the sheer horror of being thrown all over the sky in such a huge airplane was something even the battle-hardened spy teams had trouble containing.

  But then, suddenly, they broke through. One moment it felt like the plane would finally come apart at the seams; the next, they were looking down on the strangely colored water of the Bangtang Channel.

  Directly below, enshrouded in rain and fog, was Fuggu Island.

  It took them five minutes to turn the big plane back to the west, the direction they had to land in.

  They slowly brought the Kai back down to the wave tops again, this time at full flaps and with the engines backing off on the power.

  There was a tiny inlet right in the knuckle of the island’s crook finger. This was where Fox wanted them to go. The waters around the island had been churned up by the locomotive that had just swept through. Instead of landing atop of glasslike surface, as would normally have been the case, they were about to set down in eight-to-ten-foot waves.

  Ryder and Gallant didn’t care. They hit the water hard and fast. The huge flying boat went straight up into the air, only to be slammed back down again and again. This seemed like it would go on for an eternity, but gradually the flying boat settled down. They made the outer reaches of the inlet, and here the water did indeed turn to glass. Suddenly they were riding smooth. There was practically a prayer meeting going on in the back, so many people were whispering thanks to the Lord. The Nipponese engineering had come through. The Kai looked ugly, but it was tough as well.

  The flying boat slowed, and a calm came over the airplane. It had been one of the roughest 10 minutes Ryder had ever been through—and he tested experimental planes for a living. He looked over his shoulder to see many ashen faces staring back at him. Half the Delta guys looked like they wanted to hug him for getting them down safely; the other half wanted to kill him for putting them through such an ordeal. At the far end of the cabin, the SEALs were still in their duck and cover positions. Only the SDS guys still looked composed.

  Fox, too, was just recovering his equilibrium. He came up on Ryder’s shoulder as the pilot shut down the plane’s outer engines.

  “Please tell me we are where we are supposed to be….” He was holding a GPS readout of Fuggu Island.

  “Close enough,” Gallant said.

  All Ryder could see was jungle, and it was getting closer. He checked his depth gauge. They were quickly being drawn into shallow water. He searched the control panel, looking for the land-gear set-down switch. He was sure it was here someplace. The Kai was a true amphibian; it had the ability to come out of the water and roll onto land. But they would have to put the wheels down quick for that to happen.

  Gallant joined the search for the magic button even as the big plane drifted dangerously close to shore. Finally they found a control just below the throttles. Gallant gave it a push. The plane shuddered as a set of tricycle wheels came out from the bottom. Wielding more control now, Ryder eased the big plane toward the shore. Small waves helped carry them in even closer. Finally came a huge thump! The Kai’s wheels had met the sand. Ryder gave the throttles another goose and the plane crawled up out of the sea and onto the land.

  “Thank you, Mr. Darwin,” Gallant deadpanned.

  There was a grove of overgrown rubber trees just twenty feet off the beach. Ryder headed straight for it. The hanging branches parted ways and allowed them to hide the Kai beneath. Ryder and Gallant quickly shut down everything; they even killed all power from the generators. Then came the silence. They all just sat there, for more than a minute, catching their breath, collecting their thoughts. Becoming one with their stomachs again.

  Then Fox bellowed, “Time to rock! We’ve only got a few hours to do what we have to do—so let’s get to it….”

  He gathered the team around him in the hold of the plane for one last briefing before they set out. Standing on an ammunition box, he looked like a college football coach addres
sing his players minutes before the big game. The Pentagon had precious few clues as to where the secret bomber may have gone down, he told them. No one was even sure it went down in the Bangtang Channel. However, he did have an image from an NSA Keyhole satellite, an orbital package that was designed to look for nuclear explosions, as in nuclear testing, or nuclear missile launchings. The satellite’s imagers were light-sensitive. One of them picked up a speck of light in this area just about the time the B-2 went missing. That speck of light occurred just a mile east of here. Maybe it was the B-2, maybe it wasn’t, Fox said. But if it was, the telemetry indicated something might be sitting right about the center of Fuggu’s middle knuckle. Even though subsequent satellite images had shown nothing, this was where they would look first.

  Fox asked if there were any questions. Barney, the chief SEAL, raised his hand.

  “Any chance this bomber was carrying a nuclear weapon?” he asked.

  The usually unflappable Fox hesitated a moment. Did spy bombers carry nukes? It was a good question but it was never addressed before Fox’s hasty departure for the Pacific. The DSA officer really didn’t know and said as much to those assembled.

  From that moment on, though, most of the team members were convinced they were out here looking for a nuke.

  They climbed out of the flying boat and onto the tiny beach. It was past dusk and the last light was fading fast. They contemplated the jungle before them.

  It was heavily overgrown and looked antediluvian, prehistoric even. The trees seemed much taller than what would be expected in a tropical jungle, much thicker and darker, too. Running throughout them were vines upon vines, covered in green moss, a massive spiderweb that looked like thousands of years in the making.

  “Jesuzz Christmas,” Fox said, startled by the forbidding jungle up close. “Haven’t I seen this in a movie before?”

  The sun had disappeared for good by now, just as they were standing there. Not two seconds after the last ray faded into darkness, a symphony of strange and disturbing noises erupted from the thick Asian forest. Hoots, cries, caws. Roars. Screams…. Not all of them were coming from birds.

  “Yeah, I saw that movie, too,” Ryder finally replied. “This place looks like Kong Island. All we need now is the big monkey.”

  Two of the SDS guys would stay with the Kai; they were equipped with a .50-caliber machine gun and a cell phone. This was such a remote location, it seemed impossible for another human to be anywhere close by. But no one on the team was naive enough to believe that.

  “I think I might even smell him,” Gallant said to Ryder as they checked their weapons. He was talking not about King Kong but Kazeel, the man they’d been enticed out here to capture—and kill. According to Fox, the terrorist mastermind was in the Philippines and might have even been spotted in this area just a couple days ago. Though the thickly jungled island seemed a long way from the sands of the Middle East, Ryder replied: “If he’s out here, we’ll find him.”

  Like the Delta guys, Ryder and Gallant were carrying M16/15s, the special ops version of the famous M16 combat rifle. This model had a shortened stock, an oversized bullet clip, and extra gear that allowed its user to fire grenades, flares, and even shotgun shells. Most had laser-aiming devices on their muzzles; a thin line of red light would tell the bullets where to go. The Delta guys were all wearing night-vision goggles as well. The SEALs were carrying their standard assortment of weapons, waterproof M16s mostly, with a couple shotguns as backups. The SDS guys were all sporting Uzis, including Fox. Only Martinez was unarmed.

  Fox also had an unusual communication device connected to his Fritz helmet. About the size of a Nokia cell phone, with tiny headphones and a microphone built in right above his chin strap, it was called a UPX, for a universal personal communicator. The UPX was a highly classified piece of equipment. It could contact anyone, anytime, anywhere on the planet by either phone, high-band radio, E-mail, or even instant messaging. It could send and receive digital photo images. It could send and receive voice mail. It also served as a GPS device. It was obvious to the team that Fox was the type of guy who had to be plugged in at all times. His UPX would see plenty of action in the hours to come.

  Ryder and Gallant found a narrow pathway leading into the jungle. Putting down their night-vision goggles, they plunged right in. This was very thick undergrowth around them: bean leaf plants, azore vines, and kantaki, a small thorn-covered bush that grew just about everywhere in the Philippines. Martinez and Fox went in right behind them. The Delta operators came next. Behind them the SDS guards, still a little too well dressed for the terrain but plowing forward, jaws tight, shades in place, even at night. Bringing up the rear were the half-dozen SEALs. Soon enough they found themselves having trouble keeping up.

  The team moved swiftly, Ryder and Gallant setting the pace. The prospect of finding Kazeel and getting home was too much for them to go anything but full-out. The island was about six miles long but just three miles wide. It was about two miles to the center of the knuckle, their first and they hoped, only destination. The jungle was exactly the green hell it appeared to be from the beach, though. The terrain was a nightmare; nothing was flat or straight. The path, centuries old perhaps, turned into an obstacle course of fallen trees, sinkholes, and narrow but rapidly rushing rivers. The jungle canopy overhead was as thick as anything they put on top of their containership, the Ocean Voyager; it was a true horror as viewed through the night scopes. Every once in a while they would see birds the size of pterodactyls glide over their heads. Screeches that seemed to be coming from other Jurassic-type creatures also shook the night.

  It took them all of an hour, but finally they reached a small clearing just about in the center of the island. The team finally stopped and caught its collective breath, all except Fox, who was talking into his UPX device. He’d been using it continually throughout the dash to this place, keeping those on the other end apprised of the team’s progress, though always doing so out of earshot. Even now, Fox moved a good distance away from the others to have his hushed conversation.

  Ryder and Gallant finally stepped into the clearing, Martinez a few paces behind. They began sniffing the air. They got a noseful of jungle stink in return but detected something else, too. Burnt rubber, seared metal, the unmistakable odor of aviation fuel. It told them one thing: an airplane had crashed nearby.

  A thick ring of dwarfed rubber trees lay beyond the clearing. Behind them was a ridgeline, which in turn led to the base of a thickly covered mountain. Mist was spouting from its peak; it almost looked like a volcano.

  Ryder and Gallant followed their noses, Martinez and now Fox were close behind. They made their way across the clearing, through the stunted rubber trees, down into a shallow gully, and then up the side of the ridge. It was maybe 50 feet high. Ryder and Gallant were the first to reach the top. They crawled up to its peak and looked over the other side.

  The first thing they saw was a large black metal wing, horribly twisted and sticking nearly straight up in the air. There was a long thin stream of black smoke rising above it. Directly below the wing were the guts of a cockpit, turned inside out and smashed almost beyond recognition. Nearby, was another twisted, misshapen wing. More smoke was rising above it.

  “We’re not this lucky, are we?” Gallant asked.

  “Why not?” Ryder replied. The site seemed to match exactly the telemetry followed from the location of the bright flash on Fox’s satellite photo. But as soon as Ryder said those words, he knew he was wrong. Adjusting his night-vision goggles, he saw large pieces of external-style jet engines, two good-sized cargo doors, and the remains of a very large tail section. Much of this was covered in charred white paint.

  “Damn…” Ryder whispered.

  This was not the B-2. It was the wreckage of the KC-10 tanker.

  Even its refueling probe was still intact, though it was melted into the shape of a pretzel. But something was strange here. While the wreckage was strewn over an area the size of a footb
all field, with most of it scattered haphazardly amid a grove of ink-plant trees, some of the pieces were stacked neatly in piles around the periphery of the crash site.

  Fox finally joined them up on the ridgeline. He quickly realized that this was not their primary prize—but declared it a valuable discovery nonetheless. Without another word, the DSA officer went over the top and started scrambling down the other side of the slope, sliding toward the wreckage.

  But at the same moment, Ryder noticed something moving in the rubble. Just beyond the smashed cockpit, a glint of metal against the dark sky. A man stood up, alerted by the sound of Fox dropping down the hill. This man was dressed in a black uniform, with a red bandanna wrapped around his head. He was holding an AK-47 assault rifle.

  “It’s one of those Aboo assholes,” Gallant whispered urgently to Ryder. “The Filipino Al Qaeda….”

  No sooner had this man stood up, than another, dressed the same way, emerged from under the bent right wing. Then another appeared near the tail. Then another, and another. And another. Many gunmen were popping up at the bottom of the ridge itself. So the Americans were not the first to discover the tanker’s crash site. The terrorists had made it here before them.

  If these gunmen had been sleeping when the team came upon them, they were quick to break out of their stupor. All of them turned their guns on Fox, who was just now reaching the bottom of the slope. Ryder raised his weapon; Gallant did, too. But it was too late. The Aboos had spotted Fox and were taking aim at him. Ryder couldn’t believe he was about to see the peanut butter sandwich guy get killed. Yet there wasn’t even time to shout out a warning to the unsuspecting DSA officer. Disaster seemed inevitable.

  But then came an explosion of gunfire from somewhere over Ryder’s head. A dozen streams of green tracers combined to hit the terrorists like a tidal wave. The gunmen danced in grotesque slow motion as they were unmercifully riddled with bullets. No sooner had it begun than it was over. Ten Aboos were dead, and Fox was scared shitless. But he was still alive.