Tom Clancy's Act of Valor

by Dick Couch

  FIVE

  All seven SEALs hit the same partially cultivated field within seconds of each other and in a tight group. That was the beauty of a free-fall insertion with steerable parachutes. The seven had formed up on Sonny after they left the MC-130H, fell three thousand feet, and opened their chutes at the same time. Then, under canopy, they followed him to the precise drop zone location he’d selected in planning the jump. Without a word, the squad rallied and moved into the shelter of an abandoned banana grove, stashed their parachutes, and began to quietly strap on their body armor, operational gear, and weapons. It was doubtful that they had been seen, but they were taking no chances. Once geared up, they went into a security perimeter and listened for five minutes in complete silence. Engel called Ray over to him. Ray passed him a handset that was on a coiled tether to his satellite radio.

  “Mother Goose, this is Blackbeard, over,” he said in a low voice.

  “This is Mother Goose, over.” Through the encryption and the space-borne relays, he could make out the controlled voice of the senior chief. And, Engel thought, perhaps a note of relief as well.

  “This is Blackbeard. We are at Point Alpha, how copy, over?”

  “Mother Goose. Copy you at Point Alpha, over.”

  “Blackbeard, roger, out.”

  While Engel called in their safe insertion, Chief Nolan began to work his way from man to man around the circle, making sure there were no issues from the jump.

  “Nicely done, Sonny,” Nolan said in a low voice when he came to the big SEAL. Nth hedth="1“Couldn’t have picked a better DZ.”

  When he got to A.J., “Ready?”

  “Ready, Chief. Target is two eight zero, about four clicks.”

  Finally, he made his way to Engel. “We’re up, Boss. A.J. has us about two and a half miles east of the target. Y’know what I really like about an operational jump?”

  Engel paused, rolled his eyes, knowing he would have to hear this.

  “You don’t have to hump your shit a mile or so off some big Army drop zone, and there’s no rigger standing by to give you crap about how you coiled up your chute.”

  Engel couldn’t help but grin. “Okay, Chief. Now that we’ve got that settled—let’s go to war.”

  Nolan turned and signaled to A.J., pumping his fist in the air. The Bandito point man turned, rose, and began to move. Without another word, seven dark forms filed out of the banana grove traveling east—A.J. on point followed by Engel, Ray, Sonny, Mikey, and Weimy, with Chief Nolan bringing up the rear. Periodically, A.J. would halt the patrol, and they would all listen and then move out again. Their drop zone was at one thousand feet elevation, just above the coastal mangrove that bordered the edge of a deciduous forest. As they descended to lower elevation, the ground became incrementally wetter. A.J. picked their way through small groves of ceiba and bamboo with an occasional fig or mango tree. The undergrowth was a mosaic of saw grass, low palms, ferns, and flowering shrubs. Had it been daylight, they would have been amazed at the variety, density, and coloring of the orchids. Since they had left the banana grove, they had encountered no sign of cultivation or any structures, but that was expected. They were making their way toward the marshy coastal lowlands. Apart from a dog barking in the distance and the occasional scurrying of an animal or a reptile, they moved in complete silence and solitude. They also moved quickly with the help of their night observation devices, or NODs, and a sliver of a moon that would not set until just before dawn. A.J. had planned their route well, keeping them on solid ground. Only as they approached the target did they begin to walk through marshy areas. At a security halt some four hundred meters from the target, Engel again turned to Ray, who was just behind him in the patrol. This time Ray took a pigtail from his satellite radio and plugged it into one on Engel’s combat harness.

  “Mother Goose, Blackbeard. You still with me, over?” he now spoke into his encrypted helmet mic.

  “Mother Goose, here, over.”

  “Roger, Mother Goose. Approaching target from the east per our planned route. Anything from Whiplash, over?”

  Miller paused a moment and then, “Whiplash is on the move and expects to be operational at his insertion point in ten minutes, over.”

  “Roger, ten mikes to his insertion. We are moving to the pre-assault position. Estimate forty mikes to beginni Ses iarng the assault, over.”

  “Copy forty mikes to the assault. Mother Goose, roger, out.”

  At a hundred meters from the camp, they smelled the damp smoke of a wood-burning stove. At sixty meters, they began to hear voices, but there was no alarm in them—mostly coughing, bursts of guttural Spanish, and an occasional laugh. Otherwise, there were only the normal jungle-swamp noises. A.J. halted the patrol forty meters from the encampment, and no one moved for ten minutes. Then he called Engel forward, and the two lay side by side. They could clearly see the long, low building that was the compound’s central structure, plus two outlying structures that were more distant and partially shrouded in the mist rising from the swampy ground. The area immediately in front of them was dark but for dim interior lighting in the main building. This was where they were holding Morales—if their intelligence was accurate. They could see what appeared to be security lights on poles on the other side of the camp, the side served by the main access road, but from their vantage they appeared only as distant and luminescent balls of cotton to the naked eye. In their night optics, they were fireballs. They knew there were other structures near the main access road, but they were lost in mist and mangrove. That there were lights but no generator sound meant there was electricity and perhaps even phone service. What was not shrouded in the rising mist they could see well with their night-vision devices. These were the latest generation of NODs, with low-ambient light and thermal capability. The huts were cheap wooden-framed constructions—cottage-like affairs with corrugated roofing. All were built a few feet off the ground on stilts. There were planks leading from the front and rear of the main building in deference to the muddy ground. Almost all the camp, except what lay directly before them, was protected by a crude eight-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Between the SEALs and the huts, there was twenty meters of a shallow estuary that joined the main river several hundred meters north of the compound. The SEALs had purposefully selected a route that would bring them in this way; it was the most difficult and therefore the least likely avenue of approach.

  The encampment was served by a dirt road that led from the far side of the camp due west toward the coast. A secondary road led north from the main building to the river some four hundred meters beyond. A.J. brought them to the eastern edge of the encampment exactly as planned. Engel squeezed him on the shoulder—good job. A.J. had secured his GPS receiver and continued to study the camp with his NOD.

  “Security?” Engel whispered.

  “I’ve seen two. One is on roving patrol, and the other is seated on a bench just outside the front door to the main building. And off to the right, about forty-five feet in the air, see it?”

  Engel did, easily. “Got him.” Both knew that the glow of a cigarette tip that high, which looked like a flare with the NODs, could only mean a sentry in a guard tower. Everything else, including a second guard tower on the far side of the camp, was obscured by a stand of mangrove and the night mist.

  The plan called for a predawn assault with an after-dawn extraction. Dawn was still an hour away, which meant they had ample time to scout the encampment and careful St ar a prly ease into position before moving on the target building. Engel moved back close to Ray.

  “Tell the senior chief we’re at the camp and have the target structure in sight. Proceeding according to plan.”

  Ray nodded and quietly called Mother Goose on his radio with their position and information. Then Engel keyed his tactical radio, speaking quietly into the boom mic from his helmet. Due to the marvels of technology, SEALs and other special operators all wore headphones that allowed them to hear radio traffic clearly, an
d they had only to whisper into their boom microphones to transmit. The headphones were also equipped with sound-canceling and enhancement features that blocked loud noises, like gunfire and explosions, but amplified all other sound. They could hear footfalls, quiet conversation, leaves rustling, and the buzz of the swamp sounds quite clearly. Engel carried two radios, one tuned to the frequency of his support net and the other to the frequency of his squad tactical net. He keyed his tactical net freq.

  “Okay, Banditos, radio check.” They answered in turn.

  “A.J. here.”

  “Ray here.”

  “Sonny here.”

  “Mikey with you.”

  “Weimy here.”

  “All present,” Nolan added.

  “Okay, guys,” Engel whispered into his mic, “we’re at the camp and at the jump-off point. Stand by to move to your pre-assault positions. Boss out.” Then he keyed his other radio, the one that connected him to his support net.

  “Whiplash, this is Blackbeard. You with us, over?”

  “Whiplash is standing by and in position. Laying up thirty mikes at a fast run from your primary extraction site, over.”

  A wave of relief swept over Engel. His boat support team was in place, according to plan and just as he had expected. Had it been otherwise, the senior chief would have told him. Still, it was comforting to know there were friends nearby.

  “Good to have you with us, Whiplash. We are on target and moving to our pre-assault positions. Our Raven airborne, over?”

  “The Raven is airborne and headed your way, and Whiplash is standing by. Good hunting, out.”

  Engel paused to take a deep breath, then keyed his tactical radio.

  “Chief, come up here.”

  “Roger, moving.”

  Nolan moved up the file, dropping to a knee between A.J. and his lieutenant. The three of them again studied what they could see across the short expanse of dirty water. For a security force, the water represented a barrier and security; for SEALs, it meant concealment and sanctuary. A few minutes earlier, A.J. had spotted another two sentries on roving patrol on the far side of the camp. That made a total of five. But to get across the water, the sentry in the guard tower would have to be dealt with. Engel bent close to his chief.

  “We’re a bit ahead of schedule. Believe we should bring the squad up online and hold here for another ten minutes or so, then begin working our way across the water toward the target hooch. There’s a shallow rise just a few meters to our right and just above the water. I can control from there, and it’s a good perch for Weimy.”

  Nolan studied the ground. “From the looks of the security on this side of the camp, there may be a few more Tangos than we bargained for.” Tangos, in the SEAL lexicon, were terrorists, but the term could be applied to any member of the opposition. “Might be we could use your gun in this fight.”

  Engel considered this. In a small-unit engagement, the platoon or squad leader needed to keep himself in a position where he had oversight of the ground action and could coordinate the supporting elements. His weapons were his radios. If he were in the fight, he could not do that as well. So, as was often the case, the leader positioned himself to control the fight, and his number two led the fight. Given what he was seeing across the canal in the way of security, another gun in the assault element would certainly help, maybe even be a game changer. But this assault might well turn into a melee, and he needed to stay above it.

  “That’s tempting, but I better be where I can control the action.” He glanced at his watch. Then, “Let’s get ’em online and do this thing. Let me know when you’re ready to cross.”

  Nolan nodded and keyed his tac radio. “Okay, guys, let’s go get this lady. Weimy, you’re with the Boss. The rest of you, on me.”

  The five SEALs moved as one across the short piece of open ground to the edge of the estuary, making good use of the palmetto growth at the water’s edge. Engel and Weimy moved off to their right to a gentle rise that afforded them a good view of the encampment and the main camp building. Weimy began to scan the camp through his Mk12 optic sight, noting targets for future attention and looking for others not yet found. Engel laid his M4 to one side and pulled a small case from his rucksack. Using the lid as a light shield, he flipped on the Toughbook laptop. It took a few moments for the device to find the satellite and bring up the preset program. Then the screen filled with an infrared presentation of a jungle canopy moving slowly from the top of the screen to the bottom. He keyed his radio on the support net.

  “Whiplash, this is Blackbeard. I’ll take control of the Raven now, over.”

  “Blackbeard, Whiplash. You have the Raven, over.”

  “Blackbeard, roger, out.”

  Engel typed in a set of GPS coordinates, and the presentation began to rotate as the little drone responded to new guidance. Within minutes, the camp came into view. Engel put the aircraft into an orbit over the target, brought it down to a thousand feet over the camp, and adjusted the camera zoom. He began to pick up details of the camp, the long central building, and finally the two guards on the ground, plus the third in the guard tower.

  Nolan came up on the tactical net. “Okay, Boss, we’re in position.”

  “Roger, stand by to move when I give you the word.”

  “Roger.”

  The delay before an assault, when everyone was in place, was important. It allowed the SEALs in the assault element to become oriented to the camp, the swamp sounds around them, and the target building. It allowed Engel and Weimy time to study the layout in front of them and become familiar with the movement of sentries. After close to ten minutes, Engel came up on the tac net.

  “Ready, Chief?”

  “Ready, Boss.”

  Engel leaned close to his sniper. “Okay, Weimy, he’s yours.”

  From his perch, Weimy could clearly see the guard in the tower a hundred meters away. Through his AN/PVS-4 low-light scope, it was as if the man was just twenty-five meters away in broad daylight. It was by no means a difficult shot, but he didn’t want the guard to fall from the tower and create a disturbance. The guard was no longer smoking, but he was leaning against the rail of the tower’s small elevated platform, an AK-47 held loosely in the crook of his arm. His head periodically bobbed as he fought going to sleep. Weimy centered the crosshairs as he went into his breathing cycle, then pressed the trigger.

  The guard dropped silently to the tower platform like a wet rag, but his canteen tumbled over the edge. Weimy and Engel winced, but there was no sound as it fell into the soft mud at the base of the tower. The only sound was the cough of the suppressed rifle and the audible snap of the bullet cracking the sound barrier on its way to the target. Following the shot, they all waited in silence for any reaction from the crack of the round. There was none.

  “Okay, Chief. You’re good to cross.”

  “Roger, we’re moving.”

  Each SEAL entered the water in turn, slowly moving from the bank until only their helmets and NODs were visible. They fanned out as they approached the other side, no noise and no ripples. This was something the SEALs had rehearsed dozens of times; this was their element. The estuary was not deep, yet only their heads crested the water. A.J., Mikey, and Ray slowly emerged on the far bank, crouching low as they moved to the cover of the mangrove and low palm growth. They then carefully dewatered their weapons and took up security positions, slightly flanking the building. Nolan, Sonny, and Mikey remained immersed.

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  “We’re set, ready to move on the target, over,” Nolan reported.

  Engel keyed his tactical radio. “Okay, Chief, give me a paint.”

  “Roger that. Coming on now . . . and off.”

  First Nolan, and then the other four SEALs in turn, activated their IR beacons so that Engel could identify them on the Raven presentation and Weimy could see them with his NOD. “Okay, guys, we can see all of you. Be advised, guard one is still seated at the front entrance, and guard two is on
the far side of the building. Two other guards that we can see are on the far side of the compound. Chief, you and Sonny are clear to move from where you are to the side of the main building. Everyone else hold fast.”

  Nolan rogered up and started to move from the water, then froze. Between Sonny and him was a small wooden platform stilted a few inches above the waterline. It was too small to be a dock but would serve as a small-boat tie-off and loading pier. The big SEAL and his chief were still shoulder deep in the dark water on either side of the structure. As they waited motionless, a sentry stepped from behind a tree and out onto the platform. It was always the one you didn’t see. As Engel, Nolan, and Sonny held their breath, Weimy sighted in.

  “I have him,” Weimy whispered over the tac net, and he did.

  The shot took him just over the heart on his left side, spinning him to his left and over backward toward Nolan. Nolan reached up and caught him before his body splashed the water, and eased him below the surface. Not yet dead, the guard jerked involuntarily as he inhaled water, but it did not last long. When he stopped moving, the chief released him and pushed him under the wooden pier.

  “Nicely done, you guys,” came Engel on the tac net.

  “Yeah, just like we rehearsed it,” Nolan replied. “You ready, Sonny?”

  “Ready, Chief,” and the two SEALs emerged from the water, carefully draining their primary weapons as they advanced on the target hooch.

  The plan called for them to move slowly and deliberately on the target, locate Morales, and, if possible, bring her out without alerting anyone. This meant inching forward and avoiding contact with the camp security force, or at least delaying any contact until they could find Morales and gain control of her. It’s said that most battle plans go out the window when the first shot is fired. On this night, it was the first scream.