Nobody laughed. Everybody knew we would have to cross the bar again to get home.
I told Dave to contact Fairfax County and let them know we were in. I listened as he intoned, “Long Bow, this is Garfish. Susan, over.” He flashed a thumbs-up as the ship rogered our transmission.
We headed southwest, toward the middle of the bay. Three miles passed before we caught sight of the scattered lights of Puerto Lempira, another two miles due south across the water. The rain came and went, but the night remained exceedingly black. Confident we were not visible from shore, in the middle of the bay, we turned southeast toward the landing site.
As we motored slowly along, Dave heaved a lead line from the bow of our boat, testing the depth of the water. We rode a shoal contour for a while; eventually, we veered south and found deeper soundings. This was the channel our landing craft would follow to the beach site.
We dropped a buoy and a fifty-pound anchor. The buoy was a translucent plastic milk jug into which we stuffed five infrared light sticks. The chemlights could be seen only with night-vision goggles. In daylight the buoys would be visible to the landing craft. We marked and followed the channel southeast.
Even though we had located the channel, finding the landing site was a bitch. I had to be sure of our location by hugging the shore and counting the two cove openings to the west of our beach. Using NVGs, we finally located the small, low point of land adjacent to the beach-landing site. We dropped a second buoy.
I idled back the engine. Dave and Tim slipped over the side and swam quietly toward shore. They were swimmer scouts, and would make sure the area was unoccupied before we brought the boat or the rest of the team any closer. For reasons of security, our reconnaissance mission had not been coordinated with the detachment of Honduran infantry stationed at Puerto Lempira. The Hondurans had no radio equipment that could receive coded traffic. It was decided to conduct all of the prelanding operations “in obscura” rather than to radio the plan on an open frequency. Not a bad idea, since we were right on the Nicaraguan border.
Swimmer scouts were also a good idea. Though it was likely that the Hondurans were tucked safely in their barracks, an unexpected encounter with one of their patrols might lead to a serious misunderstanding.
Half an hour passed, and we waited, pressed down as low as possible in the boat. I scanned the shoreline with my night-vision goggles. Finally, the signal came: five flashes from an infrared strobe. I put the engine in gear and motored toward the beach.
The water inside the cove was flat calm, and we glided silently against a stand of mangrove next to a broad white crescent of beach. I killed the motor. We pulled a camouflage net over the boat and moored as close in to the mangrove as we could. I broke an infrared chemlight and placed it on the boat. If we needed to extract in a hurry, I didn’t want to have to crash around in a pitch-black mangrove thicket looking for our ride.
We split into two elements. Tim, Bubba, and Stan formed a swimmer line and swam three passes up and down the beach. They used their lead lines to sound the offshore area and wrote depth readings on swimmer slates attached to their wrists. Dave and I shot a compass bearing as a baseline for the swimmer element, and when they had finished, we patrolled inland a hundred meters, sketching the terrain and beach exits and taking soil samples. We rendezvoused back at the mangrove. The entire operation took less than thirty minutes and went off without a hitch.
We radioed the brevity code Katherine, indicating that we had completed our survey. We transmitted twice but got no response from Fairfax County. We didn’t force the communication window. We’d try again when we reached the mouth of the channel and the radio would have a better shot at reaching the ship. It was time to get out of Dodge.
The camo net was pulled back and stowed, and I started the engine. The moon was out now, and the clouds appeared to be breaking up. Going back the way we came, down the middle of the bay, was no longer an option. I headed north along the eastern side of the lagoon. The shore along this part of the Laguna was uninhabited mangrove and impassable swamp. This inhospitable terrain extended south all the way to the Coco River and the border with Nicaragua.
Even though the coast was deserted, I kept the boat two hundred yards offshore, motoring north, then turning west at the top of the bay. The return trip was longer, but it validated a fundamental precept of naval special warfare—never go out the way you came in. As we puttered quietly along the shore, we couldn’t know that the route we had chosen would save our lives.
The rain started and stopped, and finally, the moon set behind the trees, no longer a factor. We’d been wet and in the wind for over nine hours; the adrenaline was wearing off, and we were getting cold. I figured we would make our exit without further adventure when Dave nudged me. He was scanning the water south of us with his NVGs.
“I don’t see the buoys,” he said.
“Look harder.”
“They’re gone.”
I throttled back, letting the Zodiac drift. I looked through my NVGs, panning south and then west, every place I would logically expect to see the green glow of the chemlights. There was nothing.
I turned the NVGs off, then turned them on again, listening to the soft whine as they warmed back up. When they were functional, I looked behind us. What I saw nearly stopped my heart.
Glowing green in the night was a huge spotlight.
I peered over the top of my goggles. There was no light visible to the naked eye. I looked again. The NVGs showed it plainly: a powerful spotlight sweeping the water behind the point to our right. Someone else was out in the bay—someone with an infrared searchlight.
“You copy that light?” I asked.
“Fuckin’ A. Somebody’s got a goddamn IR spotlight.”
But who?
“Let’s get into the weeds!” I said.
I opened up the engine and headed directly north toward the shore. The Zodiac skittered over the three-hundred-yard distance quickly. I throttled back at the last second, and the boat rode up on its wake as we bumped against the half-submerged roots of a dense stand of mangrove.
“Get us in as deep as you can,” I said.
We yanked at the branches and roots, pulling the Zodiac as far into the trees as we could. We quickly spread the camo net over the boat and ourselves. I killed the engine. We pointed our weapons out into the bay.
Silence.
I looked through my NVGs and saw nothing. Could I have been wrong? No. Dave had seen it, too. There was something, someone, out there, shining an IR searchlight.
Then the light came again, this time closer and brighter; still behind the point to the east, but now under 150 yards away. We could not see the vessel or person, but we plainly saw the IR beam panning out across the bay.
“Fuck,” Stan said.
Then we saw it. The infrared light played down on the water and reflected up, silhouetting the source of the searchlight. It was a patrol boat, maybe sixty feet long. It was outlined perfectly as its IR light shone down close and outboard. Green on green, the outline of the vessel was plainly not American. The Hondurans didn’t have anything like it, either.
Lightning flashed in the sky, and through the NVGs, I got a good look. It was a Russian-made Zhuk-class patrol craft. Nicaraguan. I could see the two domes of its 14.5-millimeter machine guns, fore and aft. There were maybe half a dozen crewmen on deck. I had no idea how they failed to see us before we saw them. Seeing their IR searchlight was probably the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me.
What was a Nicaraguan PB doing in Honduran territorial waters? They weren’t just in Honduran territorial waters, they were miles inside Laguna de Caratasca, a nearly closed Honduran lake.
The PB turned in a broad circle away from us, moving slowly toward the beach we had just reconned. The IR light periodically swept out into the bay, but away from us. I could make out two glowing balls of infrared on the aft deck of the PB. They were our marker buoys.
We had big problems. We were no mat
ch for a sixty-foot patrol boat. They were faster than we were, had greater range, radar, IR capability, and outnumbered us. Their advantages would be magnified in daylight, when they could see us from farther away, run us down, and gun our brains out.
I looked at my watch. It was 0240, three hours until dawn and our rendezvous with Fairfax County.
The patrol boat couldn’t compete with the three-inch guns of the LST, but that didn’t help us in here. There was also the small matter of effecting an exit from the bay and crossing twenty miles of open ocean. At sea, and in the open reaches of the bay, the game was all theirs.
“Maybe we should call the ship,” Stan said.
“What are they gonna do, pray for us?” snorted Bubba.
“We gotta stay off the radio,” I said. Before the Sandinistas took over, Uncle Sam had pumped millions of dollars’ worth of equipment into Nicaragua. The radio we carried was a PRC-77. Nothing special—the standard-issue radio for American infantry units. It was certain to have been supplied to the pre-Sandinista army. Hooking a PRC-77 to a scanner was a no-brainer. If we used our radio, chances were the patrol boat would know it. If we talked long enough, they would pinpoint our location.
The only thing we could hope to do was stay in the mangrove and try to skulk out of the Laguna. My best guess was that we were seven miles from the mouth of the bay. It was twenty miles beyond that to our rendezvous point. My orders didn’t cover playing hide-and-seek with the Nicaraguan navy. Or starting a shooting war.
“Okay,” I said, “here’s the plan. We’re going to continue west across the top of the bay, staying as close in to the mangroves as possible.”
“What do you think he’s gonna do?” asked Dave.
“Search for us for a while. If he knows about the landings, he knows the amphibious ships will bottle him into the bay. He’ll have to try to get out of the bay before daylight.”
“So will we,” Tim said.
“Yeah,” I acknowledged, “so will we.”
We’d have to cross seventeen miles of “international waters” before we got back to the ship. Not that we’d be safe in the three miles of Honduran territorial water. I didn’t want to be anywhere around this guy in daylight—we were inflatable, and he was made out of steel.
“Give me some IR chemlights,” I said. I peeled the covers back, tied half a dozen together, and hung them low in the mangrove. I broke and shook each to activate it, then tore the foil covers all the way down.
I figured if this guy was constantly flashing around with his IR light, that was his primary search modality. He’d picked up our buoys, and he knew that the only things putting out IR light had to be gringo. The chemlights would be visible for a mile, at least. If he saw them, he’d be certain to investigate. And that would buy us time.
I started the engine and backed slowly out of the mangrove. Staying as close as possible to the trees, we moved west toward the mouth of the Laguna. About half the time we had sight of the PB, slashing light around maybe two miles south of us.
We had to cross a small cove backed by a stretch of beach. We’d enjoyed shadow and trees as a backdrop, and now the cover was fizzling out; the mangrove had temporarily ended. To make matters worse, the beach was light-colored, and we were black, a contrast that would be even more obvious with NVGs. The space we had to cross was about six hundred yards. It looked like the mangrove, or at least heavy tree cover, picked up on the other side.
I decided to run it wide open. We scooted past the bald spot at full speed. Though our outboard motors were “silenced”—all exhaust gases exited underwater, and the engine covers were lined with Kevlar and neoprene—they sounded loud as hell to me. We made it across, and the mangrove resumed, curving slightly into a point.
“There he is,” Dave said. He had the NVGs pointed aft. I lifted my goggles and saw it, too. The PB seemed to be crossing the bay. Then the light went out. I lost him for a second, then picked him up—this time his position was given away by our buoys, still carried on his fantail.
I was beginning to have some hope. This guy was no tactical genius.
I lost sight of the PB as we rounded the second point. The next cove presented the same problem: mangrove and cover on the fringes, white beach in the center. I scanned the water in front of us. There were several small frond-topped platforms clustered about fifty yards off the beach. Fishermen used them to dry their catch. The roofs were partially caved in, and they looked abandoned. I steered toward them.
There were flashes of light behind us. At first I thought they were lightning, but within a second or two came a farting sort of sound, but much louder, and it was grouped into a couple of short bursts. The PB was firing its machine guns.
I turned as a flare whooshed up into the sky above the first cove. They’d found our chemlights and opened fire. The flare ignited and drifted down. It lit us and the cove we were in, but the PB was around the point. There was no way they could see us. Yet. I knew the ruse of the chemlights wouldn’t keep them busy for long.
Behind us, the flare went out, and it was silent. No more shooting. It was dark, and seemed blacker because of the flare. We were playing a game, the Nicaraguan skipper and I. Now he knew that I knew he was after us. We needed to disappear.
I steered toward the platforms off the beach. I was going to jam the boat up under one of them and wait for the PB to pass. As we got closer, I could see hammocks hanging from the poles in one of the shacks. They were occupied. I steered toward the one with the hammocks, figuring it would be better to control anyone we met rather than have them jump into canoes and paddle away.
We came up, and I throttled back on the engine. “Buy us some time, Tim,” I said.
“Buenas noches,” Tim called to the shack.
“Hola,” came the reply.
“¿Usted tiene gasolina que poder comprar?” Tim asked. We had plenty of gas; he was just trying to get them to talk. The reply that came back surprised us.
“No habla,” the man said.
We were close enough now to see that the shack was occupied by a man of about forty and a ten-year-old boy. They were both still in their hammocks. Several dugout canoes were tied to the shack.
“They’re Indians,” Tim said.
I remembered a piece of trivia I’d read in a guidebook. “Parlez-vous français, monsieur?” I asked.
“Nous parlons français,” the man in the hammock said.
The Miskito Indians had been Christianized by Belgian monks. They spoke French, another factor besides race that served to marginalize them in the eyes of Hondurans and Nicaraguans.
I steered closer. “S’il vous plaît, monsieur, aucunes lumières,” I said, telling him not to turn on any lights.
“Qui sont vous?” the man asked.
“Nous sommes un equipe d’étude. Du service de la pêche.” A lie, and one definitely at the edge of my high school French. I had told him we were a survey team from the Department of Fisheries.
We pulled up to their shack. “Get us under,” I said to Tim. “We’re gonna hang here for a while.”
By now the man could see that we were armed and our faces were painted green. His son said something to him in Miskito.
I said evenly, “Nous n’allons pas vous blesser. Nous avons besoin d’information et aide.” We wouldn’t hurt him, we just needed some information and help. I asked if he had seen the big gray boat come into the lagoon. Yes, he said. It came in just after dark. It was Sandinista, he said, rather matter-of-factly. They’d come into the bay maybe two hours before us, probably at slack water, when the waves were down.
Any other boats in here? I asked.
No, he said. Just them and you.
Then the PB rounded the point behind us. Its IR light was out now; it was harder to see but still visible, maybe a mile and a half back.
We had pulled the Zodiac completely under the platform. We were difficult to see. I hoped that was good enough.
The PB kept coming. We had our guns pointed at i
t, for all the good that would do. We had M-16s. They had a pair of dual 14.5-millimeters in turrets, plus half a dozen crewmen on deck with AK-47s.
The man and the boy watched the PB get closer.
I don’t want any trouble tonight, I said in French.
“Je compris,” the man said.
Our luck held. The patrol boat passed the shacks without stopping. We were pressed behind pilings and as low into the Zodiac as we could get. When I heard the engines fade, I peeked up over the wooden deck. I could barely make out the stern of the boat, heading toward the mouth of the bay.
I lifted my NVGs. The PB had the infrared light trained on the shoreline. They’d scanned the shack and us but failed to see anything except a man and a boy in a pair of hammocks. I watched until the PB entered the channel and disappeared from view. I hoped he was headed back to Nicaragua.
“Thank you,” I said to the man in English.
He nodded. I pulled my knife and scabbard off my belt and handed them to him. “Merci mille froi.”
We pushed the Zodiac out from under the platform and started the engine. We continued toward the mouth of the bay slowly, staying close to the mangrove. I looked at my watch. It was now 0400; we had an hour and a half before daylight would become a factor. I had no idea if the patrol boat had made his exit, or if he was hanging around in the channel or in the offing. In either case, I did not intend to accidentally run into him.
One more finger of land lay between us and the right-hand turn into the channel. We pulled into the mangrove, and Dave and I waded ashore. We patrolled to the edge of the tree line, where we had a good view of the channel. Off the bar, the surf was still impressive.
I scanned the channel, and my heart sank.
“Son of a bitch,” Dave spat.
The PB was drifting in the channel, bow pointed landward, lolling in the outgoing tide.
I just kept telling myself, He can’t stay there forever. I could see men on deck, talking. Their voices came to us in snatches above the background of rolling surf.
Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL Page 15
