“You remember how to use one of these, I presume?”
Lee grimaced in pain, but still managed to slide the weapon back so that he could look to make sure a round had been chambered. Then he pulled out his old Colt automatic and held both weapons up so Everett could see.
“I should have given that to Alice so she could shoot your curiosity-driven ass,” Carl said. He reached down and patted Lee on the leg.
“Please. She wouldn’t have wasted the bullet, Captain. She would have pistol-whipped me with it. You don’t know how mean this woman really is.”
“Appropriate, I must say,” Niles said. He shook his head at the dying Lee.
“Well, Senator Lee, shall we go see what all the fuss was about back when you were a kid?” Everett said, his anger going the way of a wisp of smoke as he realized Lee was about to go on his final adventure.
“By all means, Captain,” Lee said, as he dipped his hat in Alice’s direction. “My dear Mrs. Hamilton, would you like to ride beside me and prop this old fool up before he falls out?”
Alice smiled and hopped quickly onto the flatbed. She placed her arm through Lee’s.
“I would love to.”
“I notice you didn’t protest my use of the words “old fool,” darling.”
Instead of answering, Alice just laid her head onto the broad shoulder of the man she had loved all of her adult life.
Everett directed the others to climb into the lead cart. Then Sebastian took another of the carts with Charlie, Appleby, and Franklyn Dubois—the German handed his weapon to Ellenshaw and took the wheel of the second cart.
“Don’t shoot me with that,” he said to Ellenshaw.
* * *
Jack watched the progress of the young SAS captain and his men as they weaved their way through cover that wasn’t thick enough to hide a raccoon, much less grown men. As the attack force neared the mortar positions, they began encountering fixed positions placed around the mortar crews. As they went as far as they could without being detected, Jack could hear on the radio as the Englishman gave instructions to the young Vietnamese sniper, who was well hidden on the upper tier of the ridgeline above his own position. As the SAS men and the Japanese soldiers waited, Jack watched as the sniper started tracking targets closest to the attack team.
“Come on, kid. Earn your pay for the month,” Collins mumbled while every eye on the ridge watched, hoping the covering mortar fire could be eliminated.
The binoculars in Jack’s hands told the story. He saw a group of pit defenders, as they were called by the SAS captain, start to fall. A group of six mercenaries in the first line guarded the mortar pit a hundred yards in front of the position. This was the extreme range of the sniper’s very old but very accurate M-14, a weapon the Vietnamese only had experience with from the early days of the Vietnam War, thirty-five years before this particular Vietnamese kid had been born.
Through the field glasses Jack saw Captain Whitlesey Mark-Patton raise his right hand and then he saw the extended fingers close into a fist. The first terrorist defender apparently saw movement to his front and made the mistake of raising his head. The fortuitous movement coincided with Vinh Tram’s line of fire. The first round from 1,200 yards caught the man in the top of his head, sending him backward. The next man in line saw his comrade fall and turned to see what the action was about when the second round caught him in the side of his head. Jack couldn’t see if it had been a kill shot because the man’s black baseball cap flew off and obscured his head until he sank out of sight. The friendly sniper didn’t wait to see if the shot had done its work before he fired four more times in rapid succession—hitting every one of his four targets. The nearest he came to missing was when the last man in the defense pit turned to run back to the mortar men he was tasked to guard. The last round caught the man just at the base of the skull and dropped him.
Whitlesey Mark-Patton never hesitated; he and his SAS team, with their tagalong Japanese contingent, ran forward with nothing between them and the mortar. The assault was ruthless. In just five seconds the SAS and Japanese had eliminated the entire mortar crew and then they were up and on to the next, the unguarded center mortar. They hit in the same fashion and then did the same to the third. They stayed long enough to trip fuses in the mortar rounds and drop them into their tubes. A few seconds later the tubes exploded, and then Whitlesey was headed to the next pit as he made his way back.
Jack saw the terrorist element maneuver in behind them, cutting off their retreat as the mortars blew up, outlining their avenue of retreat to the attackers. Whoever was leading these men knew what had happened and moved his chess pieces before Mark-Patton and his men could escape fully.
“Damn it!” Jack said, but even as he spoke the words he saw the men making up the flanking force start to drop.
“I’ll be damned,” the German next to him said. “That kid is an amazing shot!”
As they watched, the terrorists started dropping one at a time, each man never knowing where the shots were coming from. The young Vietnamese soldier, with the barest minimum of firepower and optical assistance, was making kill shot after kill shot from a distance of over fifteen hundred yards against an enemy partially concealed by trees and brush. Every time one of the enemies drew close to Mark-Patton and his team, that man would fall with one of Tram’s bullets in him.
Finally the SAS and Japanese element made it clear of the tree line and rejoined the defense. Captain Whitlesey Mark-Patton joined Jack before he followed his men to the ridge above. All three mortar crews had been eliminated without one attacker lost.
“Remind me to kiss that kid,” Captain Mark-Patton said breathlessly as he plopped against Collins.
“Good job, Captain. That should take away one of their shields when they come on,” Jack said as he watched the terrorist element start to move forward in earnest.
Mark-Patton was making ready to join his men when he turned back to Collins and smiled.
“If I don’t get the chance later, Colonel, tell that kid who saved our asses out there he can bloody well join my team any day.”
“Too late, Captain. I’m adopting him,” Jack said as he lowered the glasses. He held his hand out and shook with the SAS man.
“Here they come, Colonel,” the German lieutenant said, sighting on the first group of mercenaries to break cover.
Jack admired the discipline of the expert soldiers in his defense team. They held their fire without being told as the enemy broke. He also admired the attack strategy of whoever was leading the group of misguided men below. They came on in stages, not presenting a solid front for his men to concentrate fire upon. They came on in staggered waves, zigzagging their way up the hill toward their very limited defense.
Collins raised his M-16 and sighted. He saw one man in front of a group of thirty-five or so and targeted him since he was turning periodically and gesturing. A sure leader of men, Jack thought, as he fired the first round from the first line of defenders. The man fell. That was the signal for the defense of Columbus Ridge, as it would be known in many reports afterward, to begin.
The entire firing line opened up against the overwhelming force of terrorists.
* * *
As the three carts traveled further into the mine shaft, Everett could see the expense that was thrown into the mine itself. The German engineers had made a futuristic roadway complete with lighting and smooth macadam road. The further down they traveled, the smaller but more brightly lit the tunnel was. All eyes were watching for guards that may have ventured in ahead of them. Carl heard a shot from behind their electric car. When he stopped, he saw Sebastian lecturing Charlie Ellenshaw about weapons safety. Pete was actually smiling from his position in the flatbed behind Ellenshaw. Satisfied they weren’t in the midst of an ambush, Everett drove on. Every once in a while he would glance back at the senator and Alice. Lee was leaning heavily against her and unmoving. Alice would place her right hand against his cheek and rub it until Garrison looked up and
reassured her he was still among the living. Carl also noticed the medical bag opened at Alice’s side. Lee was being plied with plenty of painkillers for his ride into the bowels of the earth.
Suddenly Carl had to slam on the brakes as they came around a large bend in the lighted roadway. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Before them stood two giant doors, but that wasn’t the amazing sight. On both sides of the road were large kiosks, just like the ones you would find in any museum in the world. Decked out in bright red and black streamers covered in dust and dirt were what looked like gift shops. Inside were displayed Nazi flags and pictures of the mine shaft as it was being excavated. Everett shone a flashlight in one of the large plate glass windows and saw what looked like small models of spaceships that he recognized from his childhood.
“Buck Rogers,” Alice explained when she saw what Everett had illuminated.
“Ma’am?” Everett said.
“The spaceships are from an old movie serial of the thirties, Buck Rogers. Judging from the looks of things, the Nazis had designs on making this a tourist attraction after their triumph in the war.”
Carl shook his head as he climbed free of the small cab. He turned the light on the small gift shop and the equally small snack area opposite.
“I swear, when you think this job has topped out in strangeness, something comes along that makes you feel you’ll never see the end,” Everett said as he was joined by Sebastian and the others.
Sebastian chose to ignore the strange shops around them and looked up at the thick steel doors ahead. He read the words spelled out in German on those doors: Galerie Ein—Wohnkomplex.
“What does it say?” Everett asked Sebastian.
“The first line says Gallery One, Living Complex, and the second line says ‘No electric carts beyond this point and no one enters without SS escort.’” Sebastian looked over at Everett. “And before you ask, no, I do not qualify as one of those murdering bastards.”
“I never said a word, buddy. You’re not responsible for those cheery bastards. Shall we open it up and see what’s behind door number one?”
Sebastian just nodded his head and looked over at Niles, who had already found the breaker box for the door. The German dipped his head forward, giving the director the go-ahead.
The giant steel doors started to part. As the black breach expanded, they could see nothing but darkness beyond. Sebastian and Everett were struck with a breeze that chilled them as the doors slid apart. They brought their weapons up and waited. The doors stopped; beyond them both men felt like the vastness of space had opened up before them.
“Boss, see if you can find the light switch,” Carl said as the two were joined by Lee, Alice, Charlie, Appleby, and the MIT man, Franklyn Dubois.
Niles found the handle with the electrical symbol above it and threw the switch.
Suddenly the gallery beyond the doors flared into a glorious brightness. They were standing on the precipice of a massive stone ledge overlooking a giant cave system.
“This isn’t a mine, it’s a cave, a natural formation,” Ellenshaw said. He stepped forward and looked down at one of the most amazing sights he had ever seen. The others braved the heights and followed Ellenshaw’s lead out onto the ledge.
Far below, they saw a pathway that had been dredged out of solid rock leading down to the bowels of the cave system. Thousands of overhead lights had been installed by German workmen over seventy years before. Illuminated by these lights was what looked like the destroyed remains of an ancient city. The buildings were made up of material that looked like plastic, white and dull with dirt and dust. Some of the structures were upright, others crushed beneath stone and other debris that had fallen over the years. They could see that some of the strange material had actually petrified, indicating its age. They could also see very old German heavy equipment that had been used to excavate some of the strange buildings. Tractors, earth movers, and other construction elements littered the three-mile length of the dig.
“Look at those,” Niles Compton said as he joined the group looking out over the crushed and battered cave system below.
“What are they?” Appleby asked.
“Petrified trees,” Ellenshaw answered for Niles. “Thousands of them.”
“This site used to be aboveground, possibly before the formation of the mountains.”
The men and Alice looked at Niles as he continued to speculate.
“Millions of years ago these buildings were in the light of day, but a shift in the continental plates and a buckling of the crust created the Andes as continents collided with each other, forming the up-push that sent stone and dirt miles into the air, covering this site, this small village of visitors.”
“Visitors?” Alice asked.
“They had to be. Check out those geodesic domes. They look as though they were meant to be temporary structures, just like we would pitch tents in an unknown land. Can’t you feel it?”
Everett watched as Niles and the others visualized a group of explorers setting up a base on an inhospitable bit of land doomed to be crushed by the formation of a mountain range, all of this happening nearly a hundred million years before.
“We have to get down there,” Niles said, turning to looked at Everett.
“The path is this way,” he said. He looked at Lee. “Sebastian, I think we can break the rules your forebears warned of and take the carts down. If that heavy machinery made it, we can too.”
“I agree, Captain,” Sebastian said without looking at the ailing senator.
Lee was staring at the large and age-tattered streamers that bore the Nazi swastika. The flags and banners hung around the entire circumference of the rounded chamber below. This is what had led to the death of Alice’s husband Ben, and Lee for one was determined to find out what that death had been for, what the price was for the death of a good young man.
“For some reason, I think more than a global cataclysm struck this place,” Ellenshaw said. The others, save for Everett, made their way back to the electric cars.
“Come on, Doc. Let’s get down there,” Everett said.
* * *
The Mechanic, using field glasses, scanned the ridge in front of the mine and nodded as he took in the defense line of the Americans. The small force had been cut in half by his on-again, off-again assaults. He had witnessed three men go down in the last minute of battle from the front line of defense. As he adjusted the binoculars, he watched another team of his men run forward throwing grenades, only to be cut down by withering fire from the first and second ridgelines before them. Whoever was commanding those men up there had done a masterful job of concentrating fire on the most immediate threat. But time was running out for them. The attrition he was using his men up for was pushing the defense of the mine entrance to its limits.
He turned to the twenty men of his personal security team and told them to make ready to move forward with the special strike teams. He knew the defense line was soon going to falter and he didn’t want any remnants falling back into the mine, where they would have to be rooted out later at great expense in men and, more importantly, time. The pests had caused far more casualties than the Mechanic would have liked. They had killed his men at a rate of fifty to one and that was getting a bit expensive. He needed these men for the removal of the artifacts and the weaponry from the mine.
He lowered his field glasses and admonished his men to keep a low profile as they advanced because of the threat of the most amazing sniper he had ever come into contact with. Try as he might, he could not pinpoint where the shooter was, but he was taking a heavy toll on his men. The man must be running low on ammunition, because his rate of fire had slowed, even though targets of opportunity abounded in the tree line.
“Radio the assault teams to make ready for the final push. I want the Americans to be swept clean of that ridge. We are running out of time. We still have a force of close to two hundred—adequate for the job, but not if we hesitate. Tell them that—”
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br /> He never got to finish. A withering fire opened up from somewhere behind them. Men who were formed for the final attack were struck by automatic weapons fire and mortars from their rear. As the Mechanic swung around he saw an amazing sight. From the very positions they had held earlier, a large force of men in green camouflage was running and firing—stopping, adjusting their fire, and moving in relays toward his exposed men.
“Impossible!” he shouted. He was being inundated with fire from the attacking force.
His men were being shredded by a Special Operations unit that could not be Ecuadorian. These men were running toward them crazed but with purpose. They were taking aim and laying down a swath of destruction that would soon render his attack moot and assure his defeat. Before he even knew what was hitting him, he froze. Two jets streaked overhead and four explosions rocked the trees where his men were trying to take cover. As he scanned the sky with his glasses he was amazed to see the jet aircraft climb out of their dive and head back into the blue sky.
“F-18 Hornets!” Where did they come from?” he asked no one. Two more Hornets made a low-level strafing run with their twenty-millimeter cannon, decimating a large group of his men who had exposed themselves far in advance of his orders to do so. “Allah be merciful!”
“We have to leave this place or die here,” one of his men said as the group of attackers in the rear grew closer.
The Mechanic thought fast. He looked up at the ridgeline where the well-disciplined troops continued to fire instead of celebrating their rescue, and then he looked at the mine opening. He turned to the man on his right.
Legacy: An Event Group Thriller Page 43
