“That’s a roger, General. Open fire with the EARs now.”
He heard the whoosh of the EAR round, then ten seconds later a second. Glass smashed at the main house and at the barracks as the blasts of super-accelerated sound smashed inside the buildings. Murdock still didn’t understand exactly how they worked, but they sure did.
“Let’s do the twenties now,” Murdock said. The four twenties fired at the barracks windows, and quickly they heard the rounds exploding inside. Moments later a few half-dressed guards struggled out of the barracks, and the SEALs pounded them with searing streams of hot lead. Murdock heard firing from the other side as the general blasted the big house with the high-explosive 20mm rounds.
Counterfire came from behind the garage area, and two twenty-rounds there silenced those weapons.
“Cease fire on the twenties,” Murdock called. The weapons were silenced, with only an occasional shot coming from the compound.
Suddenly four rebels raced toward the hostages’ building. A 20mm round fired from Murdock’s left, and the round exploded just in front of the running men, cutting them all down into rag dolls bleeding on the grass.
All was quiet. “My men are going in the big house and clean up,” Domingo said. “Murdock, hold fire. We’re at the fence now and going over. We’ll work the big house first and clear it, then the garage, just to make sure, and the barracks last. We’re at the door and going in.”
Murdock and his men waited. They saw lights blink on in the big house. Murdock had heard it had fourteen rooms. The second-story lights snapped off and he heard rifle and submachine-gun fire. Then all was silent.
“Watch for any stragglers,” Murdock said. “If there are any, the sniper rifle is cleared to fire if the target is for sure a rebel.”
They saw none during the next five minutes.
It took an eternity to clear fourteen rooms. At last the earpieces came on.
“Big house cleared. We found six men and four local women. The men are dead. One woman is wounded. The women say there are no guards in the hostage building. We’ll move on to the barracks. We have two wounded, one serious. If we clear the area, we may call for a night evac.”
“Roger, still holding, covering.”
Murdock and the SEALs saw the Rangers move up on the barracks. Firing came from inside. The Rangers went flat against the outside of the building and threw grenades through the broken windows. Then two men forced open the doors and jumped to one side.
The rangers sprayed the inside with submachine-gun fire, then charged inside. Murdock heard only three shots; then lights flared inside the barracks and two more shots sounded.
“Barracks clear,” Domingo said on the Motorola. “We have four prisoners for interrogation.”
“We’ll move up and take over the hostage building,” Murdock said. They were halfway there across the sixty-foot-wide grassy area inside the fence when they saw a section of the lawn near the fence move aside. Two men in rebel green uniforms came out of the ground and sprinted for the fence, and were in the jungle before the SEALs could get off a shot.
“Lam and I, after them,” Murdock said on the net. “The rest of you occupy the hostage area. Go.”
Lam and Murdock charged into the jungle near where the two men had vanished. Just inside the curtain of green, they stopped and listened. Sounds to the left, crashing brush.
They ran that way, dodging around the trees, over vines and brush and a dozen flowering plants. Lam took the lead. He stopped again. For a moment there was no sound; then the steps came again, and the sound of trees and growth being slapped to the side during passage.
They were soon off the flat area near the Eagle’s Nest and charging along the side of the slope that towered over them.
“Gaining,” Lam said. They had their regular weapons again, Murdock his Bull Pup and Lam his Colt 4A1. They jogged through the growth toward the sounds. Lam knelt down again, listening.
No sounds.
He waited. A sound to the left. He pointed that way. Another to the right. They were being attacked. Lam made a down motion, and both dropped to the ground, slid behind trees, and waited.
Nothing happened for five minutes. Then Lam made some sounds, clanked his Carbine barrel against his KA-BAR and then cleared his throat.
Lam had indicated he would take the left. Murdock stared to the right into the jungle, desperately trying to see anything that looked like a green-clad man. The two men charged from different directions. Murdock blasted with the 5.56 Bull Pup on full auto, and saw his rounds nearly slice a man’s form in half. He slammed to the ground six feet from Murdock and never moved.
The second man started to charge, then dodged behind a tree just as Lam fired. The rounds missed. Neither man had fired a shot at the SEALs.
Again a wait. Often in combat the man with the most patience will win, Murdock knew. They waited another five minutes; then Murdock put a dozen rounds into and around the tree that Lam pointed to as the other man’s shelter. The rounds brought no response. Murdock crawled to the side behind cover of a log and some huge trees. Two minutes later he used the radio.
“The tree is bare, he’s slipped away. We lost him.”
They took the dead rebel’s submachine gun and ammo belt and walked back to the compound.
* * *
A hundred yards away, the lone survivor of the Eagle’s Nest heard the retreat of the two attackers and gave a sigh of relief. He had escaped them, he always would. He had no idea how the men had been able to attack him. He had double the guards out, and the roadblocks on the highway. He had not been told that both had been destroyed today.
Muhammad Al Hillah, the leader of all the Muslim rebels in Mindanao, leaned against a tree and sucked in air. He was out of shape. Only the tunnel had saved him. If it hadn’t been for that he would be dead or captured. Better dead than captured. He knew how the Army tortured prisoners to get information.
Now he had his fallback position, his number-two camp that almost none of the guards at the Eagle’s Nest knew about. Maybe one. He hoped that man had been killed in the fighting. Now he had a long walk. He couldn’t risk using the road. It would be a hike through the jungles to his new camp. He could go down near the road and walk along the flat country. That would be easier. He had many miles to go. Down past Lebak at least ten miles.
Muhammad shrugged. The night was young, he was strong, and he had his submachine gun. At Lebak he would grab any car he found and use it, without the owner’s approval. The quicker he could get to the secret camp, the better.
He still had negotiating power. He still had those twelve hostages and more than a million dollars in a solid Filipino bank in Davao under another name. Yes, he was down a little now, but with his men in the secret camp, he would survive, and he would win. It was just a matter of time.
23
Murdock and Lam came back to the compound at the Eagle’s Nest just as the mop-up finished. There were thirty-eight dead in the barracks, on the grounds, and in the house. The four prisoners had been questioned, and the most promising was questioned again by Juan.
The session had been brutal and direct. By the time Juan had sliced off the man’s second finger he’d told them all he knew, including where the hostages had been taken.
General Domingo called for two helicopters to come pick up the SEALs and Rangers and move them back to Lebak, where they would evaluate the rebel’s information and plan the next attack.
“Twelve hostages are still out there,” General Domingo said. “Our job is to go out and find them.”
The night landings, one at a time by the choppers, were tricky in the small LZ in back of the big house, but they came in. First loaded were the six women hostages, most in their forties and fifties. Then the SEALs went into the same bird and it took off. General Domingo and the Rangers followed in the second forty-six.
When they landed at Lebak, they learned that the general had arranged for the hostages to stay in the town’s only hotel and e
at there as well.
“Ladies, you will be flown by helicopter to Davao in the morning,” Murdock told them.
“That’s where our tour started from,” one of the ladies said as they were being driven from the improvised landing pad to the hotel.
“My name is Sadie Benjamin and I’m from Oregon. My first trip to the Philippines, and after this, it’s gonna be my last.”
“Sadie, you’re a spoilsport,” a little lady with blue-tinted white hair said. “Why, we haven’t even been to Manila yet. I’m going there and the tour company is going to pay for it.”
Murdock led them into the small hotel, and the manager met them at the front desk. Murdock waved and hurried back out the door.
He rode back to the landing pad, and met the CH-46 as it landed with the Rangers and General Domingo.
Mahanani had treated the wounded Ranger as best he could at the Eagle’s Nest. Now the Ranger was driven in a sedan to the only doctor in town. The rifle bullet had gone in his chest and hadn’t come out. There was considerable bleeding. Mahanani said he thought the slug must have shattered and had caused a lot of damage. The hospital corpsman gave the Ranger two shots of morphine and got the outside bleeding stopped, but he wondered about internal bleeding.
General Domingo stayed with the wounded Ranger, while Murdock got the men into bunks for the rest of the night. He kept Jaybird, Lam, Sadler, Juan, and DeWitt up to talk over what they had found out. The rebel had given them all he knew. The second hidden camp was south of Lebak about ten miles. It also was in the jungle off the road toward the mountains, but not up so high. The man guessed there were no more than ten or fifteen men there, but they had some of the new weapons. They included RPGs (rocket-powered grenades), a fifty-caliber machine gun, and an armored personnel carrier that they had captured months ago from the Army.
“Some heavy hitters there,” Jaybird squawked. “Where they get that kind of firepower?”
“Good old bin Laden,” Saddler said. “He dropped three million dollars on them. Buy a lot of firepower with that.”
“So how do we counter it?” Murdock asked.
“If we can’t take out the equipment and the firepower, we take out the men who run the weapons,” Lam said. “Without men the fucking fifty-caliber don’t shoot up nobody.”
“Amen to that, brother,” DeWitt said.
“This time they’ll be on the alert for anyone and everyone,” Murdock said. “And I’d bet my grandma’s petticoat that they will use the hostages as shields.”
General Domingo came into the warehouse they had turned into a barracks. He carried his hat and he slapped it against his leg.
“We lost him. Ranger Carlos Flores died on the doctor’s table. The bullet shattered into his lung and collapsed it and caused all sorts of hell. The doctor said Flores died of internal bleeding and there was no way he could stop it with a dike.”
“Sorry,” Murdock said. “Should be a medal for his family.”
“There will be. These are all volunteers I’ve got.” He shook his head, trying to get out of the downcast mood. He checked around the small operations table. “Any ideas where we’re going next?”
“Looks like we wait until daylight,” Sadler said. “Then we take both choppers up with ten sets of eyes and do a recon on any structures east of the highway and about ten miles south of Lebak.”
“What if he has a wilderness camp tucked in under a double canopy down there in the jungle?” DeWitt asked. “If he’s down there, there’s no way we could spot him.”
“Not a chance this man would have a primitive camp,” General Domingo said. “We learned his name. He’s Muhammad Al Hillah. I remember him. He was in the Army for three or four years. He was one of my sublieutenants. Always was a bit out of kilter. Something just not quite straight and true. He was a perfectionist. He also was the most creature-comfort guy I’d ever seen. He had to have the latest and best of everything. Roughing it for him was going from his air-conditioned sedan to his air-conditioned quarters.
“He’s a good tactician, good basic military mind, but he’s also an idealist. Right now he’s trying to create the Muslim state of Mindanao, and he’s been doing all he can to bring it about. We got the name of the man from the second prisoner Juan persuaded.”
“You think an air recon will work?” Lam asked.
“Yes,” Domingo said at once. “It’s all we have. We use both choppers with the best recon eyes we have. We’ll take off at daylight. Now let’s see about getting these men down for some sleep. We’ll get a re-issue of ammunition and supplies in the morning. I’m calling Davao for two more choppers to be landing here with first light. Then we’ll get the hostages on their way to Davao, and send Ranger Flores back to that town as well.” He nodded at them and headed for the door. “See you in the morning.”
* * *
Morning came too early for Murdock. He groaned as he slid out of the bunk and pulled on his pants. He was dressed two minutes later, with his combat harness, and took his Bull Pup as he went to the door. Sadler was rousting out the spotters they would take: Jaybird, Lam, Bradford, and Mahanani. DeWitt would be along, three SEALs in each chopper along with three Rangers.
It was just coming light as the six SEALs hiked two blocks to the improvised landing pad on a vacant area across from the city hall. General Domingo was already there with his team. He assigned three Rangers to the second chopper, accepted the three SEALs, and walked over for a conference with Murdock.
“About ten miles down, as that prisoner told us, really could be anywhere from three to fifteen. We’ll look sharp for any buildings and when we find one, even a house, we’ll buzz it and if needed, land and investigate. Just the idea that we might land should be enough to bring out some kind of attack from them. There will be some farmers in there, I think. I don’t know what else. Let’s take a look. Oh, I have one of the Motorolas for commo.”
Murdock nodded and climbed into the forty-six. He wondered how old it was. Did they buy it new or was it a retread from a U.S. surplus sale?
Five minutes later they had slowed to a crawl in the sky as they cruised over the jungle growth of the heavy rain area just off the highway south. They had seen only one building so far, a cabin in a small clearing that wouldn’t hold six people, let alone the hostages and a guard force.
The pilot did a gentle S-turn search pattern, so they had a good look at the area, some of it from two or three angles. A series of plowed fields showed with two terraces to extend the arable land farther up the slope of the mountain. At the far side of them were half a dozen buildings, but most were small, and some had nipa-thatched roofs and woven-reed sidewalls.
“Don’t think so,” Murdock said as the other chopper circled the buildings.
“Right, too small, too much in the open.”
They searched another five miles, working slowly along the widening plain, but found nothing.
At the ten-mile mark they found a road that angled off the main highway and arrowed into the jungle growth up the side of the first ridge.
“Could be interesting,” Murdock said. They followed the road, which often vanished under the canopy of trees. Twice they saw buildings along the road, but they too were too small. They came to the end of the road, found only more trees and the mountain extending upward, and retraced their pattern to the road.
Back at the highway, they moved south again, and checked out two more roads into the jungle and up the side of the steep ridge. Nothing.
By noon they had found no trace of any setup that looked as if it could be a hostage camp. They went back to Lebak, ate at an improvised chow hall, and met again over the planning table.
“What else did the rebel say when you questioned him?” Murdock asked Juan.
“Most of it I’ve told you. He said their leader talked to them every day to keep up their morale, to keep them fired up. He said one day Muhammad told them he was just like they were. While he wasn’t afraid to die for Allah, he’d just as soon serve h
im alive for another fifty years or so. Then he told them he could go to ground if he needed to. He didn’t always have to perch in the trees watching his enemies.”
Murdock frowned. “Go to ground? What could he mean by that?”
“I asked the rebel. He said he had no idea. Nobody in his group could figure it out. Their leader often said things they didn’t understand. They had learned not to question him about them.”
“To go into hiding,” Jaybird said.
“Yeah, but more than that,” Lam said. “He said he could come down out of the trees. That would be the Eagle’s Nest. Then he said he could go to ground. What the hell?”
DeWitt grinned. “Hey, go to ground means he’s hiding. What did a lot of guys do during World War II? They went underground. Some of them literally in caves.”
“General Domingo,” Sadler said. “Are there any caves around this area? Would some of the locals know?”
The general said they should. He nodded at Lieutenant Quezon. “Take ten men and canvas the town. Find out about local caves. Bring anybody back here who knows where caves are that are big enough to hold a couple dozen people.”
The young officer saluted and hurried outside.
For no good reason, Murdock thought about Don Stroh. He had really come through for them this time with his underhanded, back-room, devious methods to get Colonel Alvarez sacked. Great job. It was that or dump the whole project. Murdock should check in with Stroh, tell him about Tran. He could use the SATCOM.
“Bradford,” Murdock bellowed. The big guy who did marine oil paintings in his spare time looked up from his bunk and came jogging over.
“Yes, sir, Skipper.”
“Where the hell is our SATCOM? Why didn’t we have it when we hit the hill out there in that forty-six?”
“SATCOM, sir? You didn’t tell me to bring it. No specific instructions.”
Murdock covered his face and nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. I figured by now you knew that the SATCOM was like a part of your skin. You never go anywhere without it, unless specifically instructed. Like on a training swim. Otherwise, you keep that motherfucker in your hand, on your back, or in your pack at all goddamn times. Do you read me, Mr. Bradford?”
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