Ambush sts-15

by Keith Douglass

  Then it was time to load. The eighteen men stepped into the side doors of the forty-six and settled down.

  Murdock had assigned Lieutenant Ejercito to stay with Bravo Squad, and Sergeant Estrada would be with him and Alpha.

  “Call me Pedro,” the short sergeant said. “It’s quicker and I know you’re talking to me.”

  “Good, call me Murdock. Out here we don’t have any rate or rank. We’re all fighters. We’re a team. We fight together and we win together or we die together. It’s that tight. I expect you to blend right in. Every SEAL helps every other SEAL. We support, we protect, and we make the enemy pay.”

  Pedro grinned as the big bird lifted off. “Good to be with you, Murdock. I’ve chased these bastards for ten years.”

  Just after they’d arrived at the base, they’d had a briefing. The Island of Mindanao had for many years been settled mainly by Muslims. First there had been the Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighting for freedom for Mindanao as a separate nation. Later there was a Separatist Islamic Liberation Front that came to terms with the Philippine government and accepted many of the programs from the national groups to help train the people on the big island and lift them out of poverty.

  Just when things began to go better for the people on the big island, the Rebel Separatist Islamic Liberation Front mobilized and squeezed away from the traditional group that was cooperating with the federal government, and began attacking and kidnapping and agitating for more local control and eventual freedom. This had spawned the Chinese merchant kidnappings, and now the group was out for the pot of gold, six million dollars in ransom.

  Twenty of the twenty-four minutes slanted past quickly, and the crew chief turned on a red light over the rear hatch. “Gentlemen,” he shouted over the roar of the engines and the whine of the blades. “We have four minutes to touchdown. The pilot will be searching for a good LZ, so it could be two or three minutes longer. Suggest you get up, check your gear, and be sure to take everything with you.”

  “And thank you for flying Hedgehopping Hazardous Airlines,” Jaybird cracked.

  Most of the men were too busy to laugh. Another mission, another step into the unknown.

  “Just hope he finds a good LZ that won’t come alive with rifle fire,” Murdock said.

  Pedro grinned. “Good man, the captain. I’ve ridden with him before. He’ll set us down at the best spot.”

  They could see the ship coming in lower; then it stopped, moving forward, hovered, and settled gently to the ground. The red light turned to green.

  “Go, go, go,” Murdock shouted. One squad went out each side door, ran out of the rotor wash, and hit the ground in a defense parameter. Pedro was at Murdock’s elbow.

  “We go upstream,” the sergeant said. “So far, so good.” Murdock led off with his squad, Lam out in front by twenty yards in the thick jungle growth. Pedro had run ahead and guided Lam into an animal trail next to the river, and now they moved ahead at a slow walk, testing the air as they went for any enemy activity.

  Lam went down after four hundred yards. “Skipper, best to come up here with Pedro. Damn peculiar.”

  Murdock and Pedro ran up to where Lam stretched out behind a two-foot-thick log. They looked over the top. Murdock saw a village. It looked totally and completely deserted. One chicken scratched in the moonlight where it streamed through sixty-foot high lauan, or Philippine mahogany trees.

  The place had the feel of being recently inhabited. Lam made a dash for the first building, a hut made of native materials woven together. He went in and out and shook his head. Murdock used his NVG and watched the rest of the place. He saw no sign of life. In the middle of the set of twenty huts was a tree that had been stripped of its branches and leaves. Only one strong branch stretched out at right angles to the trunk. Hanging on the branch Murdock saw two bodies.

  “Let’s go in,” Murdock said. “Everyone move up, the place looks deserted.”

  He and Pedro hurried to the hanging tree. A man and a woman hung there. Their bodies could not have been dead more than a day. Each had a sign nailed into the chest. One read: “I was a spy for the President.” The other said, “I cooperated with the misdirected Moro Liberation Front.”

  “Nobody home,” Lam said on the Motorola.

  “Everyone up here. Search this place. See if you can find anything that might show where they went.”

  Lam vanished into the brush and trees.

  After twenty minutes, the SEALs had found nothing of value, nothing to indicate where the inhabitants went, or even if the hostages had been held here. Then Ostercamp saw something gleaming in the dust. He picked it up and frowned.

  Murdock looked at it and grinned. “The hostages were here, I’d bet my booty on it. This is a PEO pin. A half-inch-high five-pointed gold star with the black letters. My mother had one and I used to hide it, and then be a hero when I could find it just before she went to the meeting. It’s a Christian-related sorority of some kind. The meaning of the letters is a big secret. Chances are it was dropped by one of the American hostages.”

  Lam came back and talked to Murdock, Ejercito, and DeWitt. “I found their trail heading upstream. Looks like four or five off-road motorcycles and a bunch of wheeled carts and a whole bunch of footprints. Lots of bare feet, also a lot of shoe prints. No spike heels, but some low heels on women’s prints, and a number of men’s shoe prints. I’d say the hostages were hoofing it north.”

  Murdock tried to call the chopper, but had no response. “Gonzales said he would make ten-mile circles south of our LZ. Bradford, try to contact the chopper every five minutes.” He looked at the two bodies hanging in the moonlight.

  “Should we cut them down and bury them?”

  Juan shook his head. “No, then their relatives would never find them. Leave them up there. In two or three weeks the relatives will come back and do what they need to do for a Muslim funeral.”

  “Time to move,” Murdock said. “Lam, head us back downstream toward that LZ. We’ve got a chopper to catch.”

  They were halfway there when Bradford made contact with the bird.

  “Big Bird. Our mission is finished. Looking for a ride at the same LZ.”

  “Read you loud and clear. I’m five miles from the former LZ. See you there.”

  Thirty-two minutes later the forty-six chopper landed back at Davao. Murdock, Estrada, Ejercito, DeWitt, Sadler, and Lam all went into a debriefing.

  “Is there a woman’s organization called the PEO here in the Philippines?” Murdock asked the colonel.

  The man shook his head. “Never heard of it. I’ll ask our G-2 to check it out. What kind of a group is it?”

  “A Protestant woman’s group,” Murdock said. “Since this is a mostly Muslim country, the chances are low it would have chapters here. One of my men found this PEO pin in the deserted village. It’s our only evidence that the hostages were there.”

  There was a knock on the door; it opened, an aide came in, and gave the colonel a message. He read it and shook his head.

  “It’s an ultimatum from the rebels. They say they have already shot one of the hostages, an American woman. One more will be shot every day until the ransom is delivered to the point that was previously communicated to the Army. Also, they say the presence of United States Navy SEALs in the Philippines is unacceptable and they must be withdrawn at once.”

  Murdock scowled. “We’ve only been here twelve hours. How in hell do they know that we’re here?”

  7

  Colonel Alvarez shook his head. “We must have a leak in our organization somewhere.”

  Murdock scowled. “Colonel, no disrespect, but our lives are on the line here. I suggest that we work with only you and one man from your staff, Estrada and Ejercito, and my people. Nothing on paper, nothing on e-mail, no radio use, nothing over a phone line. Our missions and targets are top secret. If the rebels know in advance where we’re going, we’ll never find them.”

  “Agreed. I will be the only one from th
e Army besides your two liaison men. We have one more lead. They are calling themselves the Rebel Separatist Islamic Liberation Front, and they have been asking local villages to support them. We have heard about their calls. We have an area closer to us here where we think there may be one of the two GHQs of the rebels. How do you want to play it?”

  Jaybird spoke up first. “My suggestion, Colonel, is that we do the chopper assault again, only do it in the daytime, and bring one chopper in from both directions along the river. They’ll think we’re attacking from both ends, only we’ll have all our firepower in one chopper and take them out.”

  The colonel laughed and shook his head. “Good, yes, a good idea. I’m amazed that it comes from an enlisted man. If I suggested to my staff that we include corporals on our strategy planning sessions, they would hoot me out of the room.”

  “Several of my men have had three years of combat and actions like this on a nearly monthly basis, Colonel. We learn from experience, and rank has nothing to do with intelligence. Some of my men have been on thirty bloody combat missions similar to this one. Experience pays off.”

  Colonel Alvarez nodded. “I wholeheartedly agree. What about timing?”

  “We can get in a good sleep period and be ready to go at noon tomorrow.”

  Senior Chief Sadler frowned. “Skipper, what would you think about sending out a false signal. Say we were planning a night mission tomorrow at the first camp that was hit by the Lieutenant Ejercito and his group yesterday.”

  “A little misinformation,” Murdock said. “Colonel?”

  “Yes, good. I can have some memos written up and sent to you and to some other staffers, also one to Flight Ops and to Supply for a possible need for ammunition. It could help.”

  “With the colonel’s permission, it’s almost lights out for my troops.”

  “Yes. Dismissed. We’ll try to keep everything under wraps. I’ll send a messenger to alert the two chopper pilots and tell them not to tell anyone what they are doing or who they are flying or anything. If they get pinned down, they’ll say it’s a training flight.”

  “Thank you, Colonel.”

  The SEALs and the two Filipino Army men left the room.

  Murdock called to the two locals. “Gentlemen, not that I doubt your loyalty, but I want you both restricted to our SEAL quarters until we take off tomorrow noon.”

  DeWitt agreed. The Filipinos said that would be no problem. DeWitt still frowned. “Chow,” he said. “If we get special chow before we go it could tip off somebody. Let’s eat normal chow for breakfast, then draw some MREs, if they have any, to eat on the chopper for lunch.”

  “Done,” Sadler said. “I’ll do a walk-by at the mess tomorrow morning and bring back the goodies.” He turned to Lieutenant Ejercito. “You do have some kind of emergency field rations, don’t you.”

  “We do. We buy MREs from the States.” They all laughed.

  * * *

  In the morning, mess call came at 0730 and all the SEALs made it. They heaped extra food on their trays and ate it all. One of the local Filipinos assigned to the SEALs walked in front and one behind them to smooth out any problems in the mess line. Murdock and DeWitt ate along with the rest of the men.

  Back in their quarters, all of the SEALs gathered and went over what intel the colonel had given them. It was another small village on a different river. They guessed at about twenty reed houses and maybe a hundred people. If the rebels were there, there might be fifty men and some or all of the hostages. It was a big if, but it was all they had right then.

  “We need to develop some information on these rebels on our own,” Murdock said. “But I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  “What we need to do is to spot two men in the field, track the rebels, send out word where they are and what they’re doing,” DeWitt said.

  “Highly dangerous,” Lieutenant Ejercito said. “You saw what they did with the two spies they caught.”

  “Still, if we rely on the colonel’s intel, we might be here a year chasing our tails around in circles,” Murdock said.

  “Sounds like my meat,” Lampedusa said. “Only how would I get the intel out?”

  “SATCOM,” Bradford said. “You can use mine and we’ll get another one. Didn’t we bring a backup SATCOM?”

  “That we did, oh, wise one,” Sadler said.

  “Lam, you don’t know the turf,” Murdock said.

  “So send along somebody who does.”

  “I’ll go,” Ejercito said. “I’ve been going crazy sitting around here. I’m better in the field.”

  Murdock scowled and stared at the two men. “Two problems. Would it work? Could you get close enough to them to do any good? Could you even find them? From what I hear they could be anywhere over there within a fifty-square-mile area.”

  Ejercito nodded. “Yes, Commander. If they are at this village we’re going to tomorrow, Lam and I simply stay behind after we hit them. We track them and dig out intel, grab a prisoner and question him for more intel, get everything we can and zap it out to you every night on the SATCOM. I’ve seen them work. We have something similar on different frequencies.”

  Murdock looked at Lam.

  “Hell, yes, with a local native guide we should be able to ace them right up their assholes and they’ll never know we’re there,” Lam said. “Packing the damn SATCOM will be a pain, but no way we can keep within five miles of a chopper with a Motorola. Yeah, we can do it.”

  Murdock put a big X on a sheet of paper. “Okay, let’s say it’s workable, you can do the job. The next big problem as I see it is can you stay alive and get back out without getting your heads turned into worm buckets and your hearts roasted over a campfire.”

  The Filipino Army lieutenant smiled. “I don’t think it will come to that, Commander. I’ve seen Lam working. He slipped up on me once when I was watching for him and I never saw or heard him. With his guts and skills, and my understanding of the local jungle and the people, we should survive.”

  Murdock looked at Lam. “This is above and beyond.”

  “Oh, hell, yes, way up there above. I like it out there. I won’t have Senior Chief Sadler yelling at me all the time.” He grinned. “Just kidding, Senior Chief. Yeah, Skipper. I want to go. Without it we’re fucking ourselves in public.”

  DeWitt walked across the room and came back. Everyone watched him, waiting. He was thinking. He’d done this many times before. “So, do we tell the colonel?” DeWitt asked. He answered himself. “Hell, no, not until he misses the lieutenant. I’m not overjoyed with the colonel and his security.”

  They looked at Lieutenant Ejercito. “You’re probably right,” he said. “I have no responsibility to tell him. I don’t report to him. I’d say go on our own. He’ll miss me sooner or later. Then maybe you’ll have to tell him. He’s going to wonder where we get new intel if you make strikes we set up for you from the field.”

  “We’ll tell him when we have to, probably before the first hit you zero us in on,” DeWitt said.

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Murdock said. “You two will need extra ammo and a duffel filled with ammo and emergency rations and clothes. You’ll need a cache somewhere. Senior Chief, work it out. The rest of you get some rest. We have a liftoff tomorrow at 1200.”

  * * *

  The next morning, preparations for the hit on the village went on schedule. Senior Chief Sadler arranged for extra emergency food and uniforms to be supplied by the Filipinos to be in the duffel for the two recon men. The pair decided to take only the H & K MP-5’s for close-in work. They wouldn’t do any attacking, and would use the weapons for defense if they were seen or chased.

  Both Lam and the lieutenant were checked out on the SATCOM, and a new battery was put in the one Lam would carry. Both men decided that they would stash their combat vests with the cache on site, and travel light and fast, keeping their MP-5’s across their backs. Lam figured out how to strap down the SATCOM on his back.

  “Damn, this is still a light
load,” he said when he tested the setup without the usual heavily loaded combat vest. They crawled on the chopper promptly at 1150 and dug into their favorite MREs. Both birds took off exactly at 1200. The flight time to target was thirty-two minutes. All eighteen men were in one chopper; the other one was empty. It would make the run from upstream from the camp, then down toward it, loiter in the area for five minutes, then return to the airfield. The first chopper would stay on the ground downstream at the LZ and wait for a possible return of the SEALs. If there was a need for evac birds for the hostages, the helicopter pilot on the ground would radio the field for the number of craft needed.

  Murdock stayed near the cabin as they came up to the river.

  “River Run Two, this is One, making my turn down the river from ten miles upstream your position,” the speaker radio said.

  “Roger that, One. We are about two miles from our LZ. Your timing is good. Continue run, then do it again, then bug out.”

  “That’s understood, Two. Continuing run. Good luck.”

  Murdock could see the landing zone ahead. It was a three-acre plot that had been cleared of brush and trees at a level spot near the river. It probably flooded each wet season, and now had been harvested. Probably rice. The area held a foot-high dike around it so it could be flooded to help the growing crop. The land was dry now as the bird settled down, the green lights came on at the open doors, and the SEALs darted out and charged to the cover of the trees at the edge of the river.

  Under the shade of the trees, Murdock took a radio check. All men reported in. “Upstream,” he said. “Lam out front by twenty. Regular patrol string but single file. Let’s move at a trot. We have about six hundred yards to the village. Any surprise we might have had is gone, and we hope they have panicked.”

  Five hundred yards later, Ejercito, Lam, and Murdock stared at the edges of the village past a heavy growth of trees. This one was not deserted.

  “Looks like a normal village,” Lam said. Murdock glanced at the Filipino. Ejercito shook his head. “No, it’s too normal. The choppers would alert them and they should be tense, afraid, wondering who would attack. And it gave time for any rebels to hide and wait for us.”