“Where are we going?” Charlie asked.
“We’ll fly past St. George’s and let you off at Grand Bay. That’s where John and his marines are landing to relieve the Special Forces in St. George’s. There’s still resistance from Fort Rupert and the prison. A Delta Force team was working near Fort Frederick, which is next to the mental hospital. In the aftermath of the bombing of the hospital all hell broke loose. Those patients not killed in the blast escaped into St. George’s. A nurse approached the Delta team with three patients and told them they needed to care for them, then stomped away, leaving two large, black female inmates and one bearded, skinny male inmate in their care. The male is white and has an unmistakable likeness to your man.”
The lieutenant colonel pulled a grainy paper copy of the photo of Boiled Bob, Long Bill and Maynard from his shirt pocket and unfolded it. “This is the copy I got from John. We thought John had lost his mind, combining a personal mission with Operation Urgent Fury. But when word got out what you’d done to help us with intel…” He looked out the window of the helicopter, then back to Charlie and added, “…and your service to our country. Well, we, most of us anyway, decided to help you if we could.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” Charlie shouted. “He has no business in a mental hospital in Grenada. He was in Dominica two days ago and on St. John a couple of weeks ago. How the hell could he be in a mental hospital? Not that he doesn’t deserve to be there.”
The lieutenant colonel shrugged and said, “I can’t answer that, but our guys up there are pretty good at what they do and think it’s him.”
* * *
Boiled Bob knew as soon as he heard the man named Desmond tell Lisa that he couldn’t reach Charlie that nothing would happen to him until Charlie and the prick, Captain Jay, returned to the boat. When he heard the car leave he knew there were only two men on the boat guarding him, and they weren’t in the cabin. He just needed to find a tool to free himself, and then he could get off of the boat, off of the dock and onto the island, where he could blend in until he found a way to South America.
His hands were tied together and to a rail, but his feet were free, and his toes were nimble and dexterous. He looked around the wooden deck of the cabin and saw nothing that could help him escape. A cabinet below the countertop in the center of the cabin was tantalizingly close. By lying on his back and thrusting his hips upward, resting his body weight on his right shin, he could reach the thumb knob that held the cabinet door closed with his left foot. He used his left big toe and the longer toe next to it to turn the knob. The cabinet door opened toward him, blocking his view of the inside of the cabinet. Frustrated, he kicked the door, which slammed into the cabinet’s face frame and fell off the hinges. He froze and waited for his guards to come crashing into the cabin. They didn’t. He listened for a while and heard only the gentle sound of the sea lapping against the boat’s hull, interrupted by the distant thunder of bombs, the staccato of small arms fire and the chopping of helicopters as they flew through the skies just over the hill.
Boiled Bob felt around the inside of the cabinet with his toes and hit pay dirt. He found a screwdriver and pulled it toward him with his toes.
Now what? he thought.
* * *
Lieutenant Colonel Hegel’s Blackhawk helicopter flew off the coast and was passing St. George’s when three pings hit the helicopter. All on board instinctively looked around the craft for damage.
“Small arms fire,” the lieutenant colonel said. “Lucky hits. We’re too far for them to be effective.”
Arlan pulled his legs and arms close to his body, making as small a target as possible in case a shell made it into the interior. He noticed that the others were doing the same. Arlan looked toward St. George’s and saw plumes of black smoke rising from three different places in the city, all targets of smaller helicopters that had flown below them from the west.
“Cobra helicopters from the USS Independence,” the lieutenant colonel said. “The SEALs who are trying to rescue the governor-general are in a heavy firefight.”
The Blackhawk descended into a clearing next to the beach at Grand Mal. Arlan could see a long dock a hundred yards north of the clearing and a few dozen homes and shacks near the dock. The clearing itself appeared to be a makeshift soccer field. Three similar helicopters were on the field, and a half dozen troops had formed a loose security perimeter around the landing area. As the group disembarked from the Blackhawk they were greeted by Charlie’s friend, Colonel Faulkner, who stood with two other officers next to the helicopters.
“I heard you were mounting a beach landing here,” Charlie said to his friend while they shook hands. “Where are your troops?”
“They’ll be here shortly. We’re checking out the beaches to see where it’s best to land.”
Lieutenant Colonel Hegel smiled and said, “I thought you marines would have already stormed the beach by now.”
“We’ve been busy cleaning up the other airport,” John said.
The lieutenant colonel laughed and said, “Jesus, you marines think you’re so tough. We had a real army to contend with. You had to deal with some heavy surf and a few mangroves. I’m glad you could finally join the fight. But it looks so far like you’re doing nothing but entertaining the locals.” He laughed and nodded to the dock, where a couple of dozen locals stood, some cheering.
The lieutenant colonel said, “I need to get going. I’m here to do a little recon south of here before we move toward the campus tomorrow.”
“Don’t get shot,” Colonel Faulkner said with a smile.
The lieutenant colonel shook hands with everybody, wished them luck and walked back to his helicopter.
John said to Charlie, “You can stay here on the beach and spend the night with the mosquitoes or you can come with me to the Trenton, which is about five miles offshore. I understand the man you’ve been looking for is in St. George’s.”
Charlie shrugged and looked at the others for some input.
John said, “We can try to get you closer to the city, but I can’t guarantee your safety. We haven’t taken out all of their guns yet.”
“We could walk. St. George’s is just a mile or so over that hill,” Captain Jay said, pointing to a steep hill that separated them from the city. “From what we’ve seen so far, the locals seem to support the invasion. We’ll be all right.”
Charlie said, “Before we go on a wild goose chase I need to call Desmond to see if he’s seen Boiled Bob or Lisa return to the boat.”
Captain Jay said, “The son-of-bitch is in St. George’s, being held by a Special Forces team. Haven’t you been listenin’?”
“What if it’s not him? It doesn’t make sense that he was a patient in a mental hospital. He’s only been on the island a couple of days,” Charlie said and tried to reach Desmond on his radio. He couldn’t get through. He turned to the colonel and said, “My radio isn’t working. Can I use yours?”
The colonel handed his radio to Charlie and said, “We’ve been having problems with communications. They seem to be hit and miss.”
Charlie missed—again. He handed the radio back to the colonel and said, “Where in St. George’s does Delta have the man they think is Boiled Bob?”
“They’re hunkered down somewhere near the harbor, where we’re not bombing, and are going to stay there until we secure the city. I don’t have an exact location. I know they’ve hooked up with a SEAL team that took out the transmitter for Radio Free Grenada. Both teams are waiting for extraction.”
“I find it hard to believe the man the Delta guys have is our man,” Charlie said.
“I passed the photo you gave me on, and we have positive ID. I think you need to check it out.”
Charlie shrugged and looked toward the rest of the group and said, “I tend to agree. And I think Jay is right. We can find the harbor from here.” He pointed to a small cr
owd of locals who’d gathered on the dock. “We’ll be able to get a ride from a local who wants to make a few bucks.”
Nobody protested. Arlan wanted to say that he didn’t want to march into hostile territory but knew it would do nothing to change the inevitable.
* * *
Desmond drove back to the temporary command post at Point Salines to look for Charlie. When he arrived, he was told that Charlie and the rest of his group had gone with the lieutenant colonel to a beach north of St. George’s and, from there, they would enter the city to collect the man they’d been looking for—the boat thief.
“But dat is not possible,” Desmond told the officer. “We have him back on de boat.”
“Are you positive?” the officer asked.
“Yes. Tis him. We have de girl too. She’s safe.”
The officer tried to reach his boss on the radio and failed. He tried every five minutes for the next thirty minutes, finally reaching him on the seventh try. He explained the situation to the lieutenant colonel, who immediately broke communications with the officer at Point Salines to call Colonel Faulkner, whom he’d left on the beach with the group of American civilians an hour earlier. It took him four attempts before he reached the colonel.
“What?” Colonel Faulkner said. “I’m on my way back to the ship. Charlie and his group have gone into St. George’s on foot.”
“Shit.”
“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel Hagler—shit.”
“John, my radio is off and on. Can you call the command center from the Trenton? See if they can get a message to the Delta team?”
“Already on it. Out.”
The colonel’s helicopter landed on the Trenton ten minutes later. He rushed to the bridge and called the command center on the USS Independence and told the officer in charge what was going on. The officer relayed the message to his commander who shouted loud enough for the colonel to hear… “Tell that son-of-bitch we have a battle to win. We’re not in this to babysit some fool civilians looking for a fucking boat thief.”
“Did you get that?” the officer asked the colonel.
“Yes. The civilians are on a mission to rendezvous with our Special Forces to pick up the wrong man—and they’re on their own for a while.”
Chapter 17
DAY 13: OCT 26 (Morning)
Arlan could no longer take the pain in his shoulder and rolled onto his back. He hadn’t slept on a cot for many years and remembered in the middle of the night why. There was no way to be comfortable, unless you were unconscious.
“Jesus, Charlie. Was this the only place you could find where we could sleep for the night? If you call this sleep,” Captain Jay said as he rose from his cot and stretched. “Why’d we listen to that taxi driver anyway? This place is a shit hole.”
“His cousin owns this place and opened it up for us. Otherwise we’d have been on the streets. Everything else is closed,” Charlie said and rubbed his back while sitting on the edge of his cot. “I’ve slept on worse. We could have stayed on the beach and be bitten by mosquitoes all night.”
“Wh-what were those bugs b-biting me all n-night in here?” Tommy asked and nodded to the floor of the large room that was part of a youth hostel located in the center of St. George’s.
Rat-tat-tat! Boom! Boom!
“I guess there’s still a war going on,” Arlan said. “I didn’t hear much gunfire or shelling last night.”
“It’s a daytime war, Rookie. Made for TV. There’ll be a movie about this island brawl one day. Wait and see,” Captain Jay said with a snort.
“Grab your gear, and let’s find the Delta team,” Charlie said while tinkering with his radio, which still received nothing but hissing and crackling.
“Wh-what gear?”
Charlie ignored Tommy and said, “They’re somewhere near the harbor, and my guess is they’ll be as far away from the old forts as possible, which are getting hammered about now. I say we walk to the southernmost part of the harbor and move north until we find them, or they find us.”
Everybody agreed, and a few minutes later they walked on the narrow streets of St. George’s which was a typical Caribbean capital—wood and stone historic buildings, none more than three stories tall, many in disrepair, mixed with modern, but rundown, concrete structures, which were often government offices.
The air was humid, and the haze of exploded ordnance permeated the air. The sun shone through occasionally, but for the most part, the sky above the city was socked in by the repercussions of war. At least there were no military roadblocks and no fighting in the streets. US helicopter attacks and return gunfire was limited to Fort Rupert, at the harbor entrance, and Fort Fredrick and the prison, above the city on the steep hillsides.
Arlan would have thought that the city would be a ghost town. It wasn’t. The streets weren’t crowded, most residents choosing to stay inside while a war played on outside, but there were people milling around. They seemed concerned but kept their smiles and greeted each other warmly, while treating strangers with polite suspicion. The noises Arlan heard as they walked were as eclectic as the city—mufflers from passing vehicles, friendly shouts from the locals to each other, children playing soldier, the thumping sound of low-flying helicopters, shells exploding near the forts and return small arms fire, dogs barking and roosters crowing.
They’d walked a few blocks west to the harbor and then turned south and followed the warehouses, bars and funky West Indian shops that made up the harbor’s edge, where tourists would normally be seen. But they were gone.
Several blocks later they heard a whistle from a warehouse opposite the harbor. A man with a black and green painted face that matched his fatigues and a floppy bush hat stepped from the warehouse. He had a short assault rifle slung loosely around his shoulder but didn’t hold it in a threatening way.
“You guys lost?”
“N-no. We know exactly wh-where we are,” Tommy answered with a grin.
The soldier stared at Tommy for a moment, probably wondering if he’d confronted a drunken tourist.
Charlie said, “SEAL team?”
The soldier nodded, still looking at Tommy. He then asked, “Who are you?”
“We’re looking for someone. We’ve been told a Delta team has him,” Charlie said.
The SEAL nodded with recognition and pointed up the block. He said, “They’re up there holed up in a drugstore watching our asses, while we watch theirs from this end of the block.” The SEAL looked at the group and said, “You the guys chasing the band of rapists and murderers around the islands?”
Tommy said, “W-we don’t know about any r-rapists. There w-was a murderer, but he’s d-dead now.”
The SEAL frowned and looked to Charlie, who nodded. With a look of respect, the SEAL said, “We’ve heard of you.”
Three other SEALs stepped out of the dark warehouse opening. All were wearing floppy hats and had automatic weapons slung around their shoulders.
Another round of shells exploded across the bay at Ft. Frederick.
Charlie asked, “Are you trapped here?”
“Yes and no. We could get out of here, but we have a problem. We need to take out an anti-aircraft placement that our attack choppers can’t seem to locate.”
Charlie said, “We choppered in to Gran Mal Bay late yesterday with the Rangers and met with Colonel Faulkner on the beach. He’s on his way to get you and the Deltas out of here.”
“We figured as much, but our radio communication is shit,” the SEAL said and then shouted down the block. “Hey, ground pounders, we got a group coming your way for the crazy.” He then nodded up the block and said, “Your man’s up there. He’s crazy, though. Hope it’s him.”
Captain Jay said, “What do you mean?”
The SEAL waited a moment and said, “Listen. If those Delta guys thought he was your rapist, they’d have offed him ju
st to save you guys the trouble. We’d have done the same.” He paused and said, “He’s a dead ringer for the guy in the photo we were shown, but he’s crazy—like he’s been living in a nuthouse for a long time.” The SEAL shrugged and said, “You’ll see.”
The group walked down the block and was met by two Delta Force team members. They looked a lot like the SEALs as far as the weapons they carried were concerned, but they were dressed in civilian clothing and wore camouflaged floppy hats.
“I’m Master Sergeant Cummins. Call me Mark. Come on in,” the shorter of the two said, looking up at the rooftops and down the street in both directions and paying particular attention to a location two blocks farther down the road where two other Delta members were crouched behind an old truck, looking up and to their left. One had binoculars. The other turned and held up two fingers toward the Delta soldier who had invited Charlie’s group into the drugstore.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“That was close,” Arlan said as they walked into the store. Captain Jay frowned and nodded for Arlan to follow the others.
“That’s an anti-aircraft setup on a rooftop a few blocks from here. Must be well hidden up there. It’s already taken down two of our gunships. We’ve been trying to call in a strike, but our damn radios won’t work,” Mark said, holding the handheld radio out. “Come on. He’s back here. Won’t shut up. Driving us crazy.”
Arlan glanced around the store. A few items had fallen from shelves, but the store was intact. A pay phone hung on the wall near the cash register. As they walked toward the back of the store Arlan picked the phone up and heard a dial tone. He laughed and said to Captain Jay, who was just behind him, “It still works.”
Captain Jay didn’t laugh, or smile. He motioned for Arlan to follow the others.
They walked into a back room and saw two more Delta soldiers standing over a man sitting in a chair at a small table. The man wore a soiled, blue jumpsuit and had his head turned toward one of the soldiers. He was white, thin and had long, scraggly hair and a beard. He wore a camouflaged floppy hat, similar to those the soldiers wore.
A Fortnight of Fury Page 20
