by Ian Slater
Brentwood slid the flashlight switch on and looked at the bulb, its light difficult to see in the flood of sunlight that, after the dreary world of fog, had revealed the Northwest wilderness in all its glory. He glanced up at the mountaintops, the sun so bright it hurt his eyes, the enormous rain-washed green apron that swept down to the coast one of such striking primeval beauty that he knew — if he survived — he would never forget it. And the smell rising from the moss — no longer that of bone-cold damp, but of reinvigorated life. He hated to leave it.
Aussie crawled into the darkness within the partially hollowed tree and, edging his way past the trapdoor that was flush with the earth — no booby trap — waited till David had descended into the shoulder-high shaft. Then he handed him the sonar location beeper, the flashlight, infrared goggles, canteen, knife, and David’s short-barreled Heckler & Koch 9mm self-loading Compact, its control lever easily switchable from left to right for left-handed shooters. “Good luck, mate!” Aussie said softly.
As David moved farther into the tunnel, not even the IR goggles helped. The only things he could see were the tiny wriggles of mice chewing at the base of what appeared to be a crude candle holder set into the tunnel wall, the walls and ceiling in the rain-soaked terrain supported by five-foot-high, four-by-four wooden joists, the rodents and residual warmth from the extinguished candle in the holder emitting just enough heat to be detected by the IR goggles. But beyond this, the tunnel was a black, disorientating unknown.
The air was foul and damp, his back only inches from the N-shaped tunnel. He could hear his heart banging against his chest, as he had in the Afghan cave, so loud that his fear, locked in battle with reason, was convincing him that anyone else in the Stygian darkness ahead must have heard him move in and was lying in wait. And to his train of fear, other terrors quickly attached themselves: the veterans’ stories of how the Viet Cong had booby-trapped the tunnels with pits of razor-sharp punji sticks hidden by thin, dirt-covered membranes of stretched cloth, and how captured U.S. claymore mines had been rigged in the tunnels’ side walls with invisible fish-line trip wires only a few centimeters above the floor. He was struggling to find a hope that he might get out alive.
Trying to make himself concentrate on how to get through, he recalled that a GI had gone down a tunnel, smelled another man coming toward him in the dark, and, rather than fire, had lain flat, “damn near melting into the earth,” his buddies had said. The VC had fired first, emptying an AK-47’s full thirty-round mag, its rounds whipping over the GI, no more than twenty feet away. The GI survived without a scratch, firing just once at the Kalashnikov’s flash, killing the VC. And he remembered how the tunnel rats who had survived said it had taken hours of painstaking work, probing gently every inch ahead with your knife for the little Russian-made “butterfly” mines that would blow your hand or foot off. And the kind of unbelievable pain in neck and elbows as you crawled ahead, the pain David Brentwood was starting to feel now. To reach the coast, where Freeman said the cave was, would take hours, and if the tunnel snaked, had security “double back” loops and sucker dead-end tributaries, it would take an eternity.
But then in the pitch-blackness of the stinking tunnel, David accepted the possibility that if Freeman was right that there was another sub, this tunnel might not be part of an underground complex like Cu Chi, which had held hundreds of fighters, living and working underground, with medical and kitchen antechambers, as well as weapons and ammunition storage. The man they called Mao didn’t live in the tunnel, after all. He lived in Port Angeles and used the tunnel solely as an underground supply road to the cave, an underground throughway to prevent their sub resupply line from being spotted by the infrared-equipped American satellites and UAVs such as Darkstar. The munitions, torpedoes, and mines could be stored deep in the cave, but food — even the American and Russian nuclear subs needed food supply — had been routinely transported in by Mao and his friends. And what better cover than a restaurant?
Had Freeman thought of this? he wondered. That if this was a supply tunnel, wouldn’t it be as straight as possible to the coast? And why bother booby-trapping it? The terrorists had dug the tunnel not as they had in Vietnam, as a conduit from which to attack American ground troops, but merely as a supply line. And why impede an escape route from the cave with dangerous booby traps?
The rushing of blood in David’s ears didn’t go away, but it subsided. He switched on the flashlight, and in that instant knew he was right.
Ahead, instead of narrowing, the tunnel widened to twice its width for about thirty feet, then dipped down and broadened into what seemed a holding area, about as big and high as a good-size delivery van. The dimensions of the excavation at once impressed and told him that in order to get rid of the dirt — always the tunneler’s big problem — the terrorists must have started digging from the sea cave, so they could pass the massive amounts of soil back and dump it into the ocean. That way, if seen from the air, it would have been attributable to the runoff of the 112-inches-a-year rainfall.
By the time David reached the “holding area,” his confidence was growing, and he sped up his pursuit of the escaping terrorists who Freeman hoped would lead them — via David’s sonar beeper — to a second lair.
Beyond the holding area, using his flashlight in quick on/off snatches, he saw flattened cardboard. The labeling in Japanese and Chinese told him nothing, but the manufacturers’ stamps, with their illustrated pictures of contents, indicated that the boxes had contained dried noodles, rice, and other such foodstuffs. He sat down, getting his breathing under control. He was so dehydrated from the strain, his initial freeze-up at the entrance to the tunnel, and the constant bent-over position required to negotiate the five-foot-high tunnel, that he wanted to gulp down all the water in his canteen. But warning himself not to drink too much, he rescrewed the cap and slid the canteen around his belt behind his back. Then he resumed his trek, walking slowly, moving his flashlight from side to side in rapid sweeps.
In fifteen minutes he had passed through what he estimated must have been a quarter mile of tunnel. This wasn’t a tunnel rat’s crawl, he thought, this was Nascar. He checked his beeper. It was working fine. He couldn’t stand up and his back was aching, but, his “dead” right hand notwithstanding, he was in reasonably good physical condition and anticipated that he would soon reach the cave or the branch-off that had to exist if Freeman’s theory of a second sub lair had any substance.
He heard a sound like a spit and the flashlight flew from his hand, flung somewhere behind him. He dropped to the floor and, through the IR glasses, saw a smudge of white — heat — in the tunnel, probably twenty feet away, and double tapped his compact’s trigger, the two rounds striking a human form that collapsed into an indistinguishable shape. He could hear someone moving, running, away. And then he was running too, the hunchbacked position slowing him more than he would have believed, the human diaphragm not built to sustain a sprinter long in such an unnatural position, the man fleeing from him obviously much shorter. Passing the stilled body, he saw it was a woman, her face no longer there. Two hundred feet farther he had to stop.
Sweat pouring off him, Choir Williams prodded Mao with the barrel of his HK, he, Freeman, and Aussie wearing full battle packs, not knowing what they might need if there was another sub lair, or what Freeman had begun calling a “branch plant” of the terrorists. They were close to the coast.
Aussie Lewis could hear the surf ahead. “We must be damn near the cave!” he said, looking over at Freeman.
The general heard him but refused to comment. Instead, he beckoned Mao with a gesture. “You led me on a wild goose chase, comrade,” he said. “This tunnel’s leading to the cave we already found. I told you what I’d do to Mommy, eh? Didn’t I?”
“I only know the cave tunnel,” said Mao. “We bring — we brought food to the cave. That is all. I swear. You kill my mother — you kill me — I can tell you no more. I only know this tunnel.”
Freeman be
lieved him, and saw that Choir, red-faced with exertion, also believed him. He thrust his gloved finger hard in the direction of a thick treeline that Aussie felt certain marked the high cliff’s edge. “There’s a—” he began, and had to stop for breath, which made him more irritated. “—a goddamn sub nearby. I know it.”
“Permission, sir?” said Choir, a rarely used formality in the team.
“Go on,” the general said.
“There is a sub nearby, sir,” said Choir. “It’s at the bottom of the bay. We sank it.”
Below them, the damp of the tunnel was penetrating David Brentwood’s uniform, his perspiration chilled now that he’d stopped. Ahead in the quick sweep of his flashlight he saw a wall of rubble blocking the tunnel, no doubt the effects of the hydrofoil sapper unit’s demolition of the cave. Suddenly, David was revisited by the ghosts of panic, of losing his squad in Afghanistan, in another cave. And now he’d just shot a woman to death. And where had the other two terrorists gone? A side chamber? Behind him? He started back then stopped, heart thumping again. How many had died in the tunnels? Sealed off. The air was fetid in the darkness, and he could smell the disgusting odor of decomposing bodies, probably buried in the demolition of the cave.
Then, through his infrared goggles, David saw a smudge of heat leaking from the rubble. A moment later he saw a sudden white blossom, then a thwack! punched him off his feet. He was being fired at — two of them. The first bullet struck his vest low left, the second cracking above him as he lay flat on his back, IR goggles knocked askew, as he returned fire in the direction of the flash. There were no ricochets, which confirmed his marksmanship, his double-tap rounds obviously having passed through what he now realized must be a narrow cleft between the demolition rubble and the left side wall of the tunnel, his initial panic evicted by the sheer concentration required if he had any hope of getting out alive.
Above him the SpecFor team and Mao had heard the faint, muffled shots. Choir noticed that Mao was smiling, and jabbed him with his HK. “Better not let the general see that, laddie.”
But Mao, the tunnel “mule,” as the load bearers were called in Vietnam, was grinning because he’d detected movement high in a tall cedar atop the cliff’s edge. The Americans were in for a surprise, and this time, unlike in the Humvee, Mao knew he could keep himself out of the line of fire.
In response to Choir’s warning, Mao nodded as if apologizing for a lapse in judgment, and waited anxiously for the party to move on. He selected a solid-looking log ten feet off to his right, a fir that would protect him from the Americans’ return fire if any of the three infidels were lucky enough to survive the sniper’s fire. The waiter resented the name “Mao”—he was no Communist, but a true believer, and now he prayed to Allah, blessed be His name, that the marksman’s aim would be sure.
“There must be at least two of them down there,” said Freeman. “That’s the way I read it. Dammit, I sent David down there thinking there was another—” He paused, then said, “I guess you guys were right. No second sub. We’re almost at the cliff’s edge above the cave.” He shoved the silent receiver into his vest pocket and moved forward.
The sniper’s first shot rang out, Freeman’s Fritz helmet literally spinning about his head as he fell. The second shot penetrated Aussie’s vest and left rib cage. The third shot never came, Choir’s 9mm parabellum cutting into the tall cedar, a clump of its branches breaking, plummeting down from what had been the sniper’s position. The figure fell, then abruptly jerked to a stop, the sniper’s safety line coming to its end, the body, arms out, dangling like an inverted cross. Choir then walked angrily over to the big fir log behind which Mao was cowering, his mud-caked face twitching, and clipped a full magazine into his HK. “You saw him up there, didn’t you, laddie?” he said. “You didn’t warn us.”
“No, no!” Mao pleaded, rolling over onto his back like a beaten dog, his hands still cuffed beneath him, pushing him closer into the protection of the log. “No, please—”
“We’ll make sure,” said Choir. Seeing Freeman with his bullet-scarred Fritz back on, the general stripping Aussie of his Kevlar vest and administering first aid, Choir raised his HK to his shoulder.
“No!” Mao screamed. “No, please, sir! I tell you about other cave! Okay? Other cave right nearby, around headland behind cliff vines. Yes, yes. I swear!”
Choir called out, “General, there’s another cave on this cliff face.” The Welsh American looked down at Mao. “How far around from the falls?” he asked sharply.
“Two, three hundred yards maybe from other cave. West — yes, west of other cave. Tunnel here going to chicken bone.”
“Chicken bone?”
“Finish him off!” yelled Aussie, more to mask his pain than to offer advice. “Give him a full fucking — oh, shit!”
“Don’t be a baby,” Freeman admonished, plunging in a vial of morphine. “This isn’t an inoculation.” It was an open team secret that the tough Australian had fainted when he’d gotten his two-in-one smallpox and cholera shot before Iraq.
“Finish him off, Choir!” repeated Aussie.
“I’ll finish him,” said Choir.
“Chicken bone—” Mao was frantic, licking his lips, rushing to explain. “Tunnel here!” He was pointing down. “Tunnel goes into—” He rolled over onto his stomach and made a Y shape with his arms and hands. “Chicken—”
“You mean the tunnel divides into two?” said Choir. “Two tunnels?”
“Yes, yes!” said Mao, his voice muffled by the mud and grass growing by the log.
With that, Choir raised his 9mm submachine gun and fired a long burst into the cedar tree, the hanging body jerking violently, emitting a scream. It sounded like a woman.
“Told you the whore was faking it,” said Aussie. “Would’ve dropped a grenade on us if we’d — Jesus, General! That hurt!”
Eyes closed, Mao awoke from his nightmare, first in utter surprise, then in delirious relief. “Thank you, thank you, sir. Thank you. I take you to cliff ledge near cave.”
“There a sub in the cave?” asked Choir.
“I never been in cave. Only know about ledge. I take you—”
“Shut your mouth!” It was Freeman, his baritone sounding extraordinarily stentorian. “And listen to me, you slimeball. You’re going to put on Aussie’s Fritz — his helmet — and his uniform and you’re going to lead us quietly through this grass and timber up to the cliff’s edge. And very quietly you’re going to be the first one down. As well as wearing Aussie’s helmet, you’re going to have duct tape around your mouth, and so goddamned tight, laddie, that if you try to take it off, you’ll fall from the rope right down to the fucking cliff.”
The general, though his line of sight was obscured by the wind-bent treeline along the cliff’s edge fifty yards away, was recalling the view of the falls and cliffs from the sea farther down the coast. “I’d say it’s about a hundred and fifty, two hundred feet down to the rocks,” he continued. “You take us right to this friggin’ ledge you’re talking about, and you make any noise—any fucking noise — and I’ll push you off myself! Then we’ll have Grandma join you, you traitorous son of a bitch. Go on, get up!” Freeman grabbed him by his collar. “We let you people come into this country and this is the way you repay us. Attacking America. By God, I ought to—” Freeman shoved him back, Mao falling and bashing his head against the fallen log, only the moss saving him from cracking his skull.
Choir helped him to his feet, color now flooding back into the man’s face.
“We forced to do this,” said Mao with unexpected passion. “Otherwise Li Kuan kill all our families in China, in Kazakhstan. Kill everyone.”
Freeman jabbed his finger hard into Mao’s chest. “You’re a terrorist. I’ll give you three minutes to get that gear on.” Freeman turned to Choir. “Cut him loose. I’ll rappel down the west side, you and Mao go down over there by that big arbutus.”
“Which one’s that?” asked Choir.
“Jes
us Christ, man! The red bark — twenty paces.”
Freeman had a parting comment for Mao. “If my boy down there is dead — which I think he is — I’ll cut your fucking throat!”
It had been only seven minutes since the sniper’s fire, and about ten since the beeper had died, but to Choir it seemed no more than two or three seconds, everything having happened so fast. He was about to ask the general whether it wouldn’t be better to call Fort Lewis in now when Freeman turned to Aussie. “You up to calling Fort Lewis? Get their airborne cav over here.”
“No sweat,” answered Aussie, dragging himself over to a small copse of cypress for good cover, now having only his Kevlar vest to keep him warm, his load vest as well as his helmet having been given to Mao.
“Maybe we should wait for them, General?” said Choir.
“Hell, no! By that time these bastards’ll have burned all their codes and vanished. Then,” he indicated Mao, “all we’ll have is this bag of shit. The cav can mop up.”
Choir was tugged by conflicting emotions. Freeman, whatever else you might think of him, was “guts personified,” and in SpecOps command that was the ultimate accolade. But the point-blank shooting of the young woman in the café, who might have already succumbed to her massive chest wound, was clear evidence that Freeman would have no hesitation killing Mao’s aged mother as well. There was a line, even for Special Forces, that Choir knew you didn’t cross. He recalled the SAS Brit who gave up his and his team’s position rather than shoot a little Iraqi shepherd boy who’d wandered into their hide. Freeman had surely crossed the line with his behavior in the restaurant, and, as Choir readied the nylon line for his and Mao’s rappel from the cliff’s top to the ledge that led across the face of the vine-curtained cave, the Welsh American found himself adopting a fatherly, almost friendly, tone with the terrorist as he gagged him with the duct tape.
“Now just calm down,” he said. “Breathe through your nose. Don’t panic. But I’m telling you, laddie, you make any noise, you do anything wrong, and he’ll …” Choir couldn’t bring himself to say it, so alien was it to all his experience fighting by the general’s side.
