Authors: Alan McDermott
Grant ran over to finish the gunner off
from close range but when he pointed the rifle over the side wall he saw just
the terrorist Dog had taken down. Before he had time to wonder where the
gunner was he took a punch to the right temple that floored him. It felt
like he’d been hit by a grizzly bear, and when he managed to look up his hazy
vision told him he wasn’t far wrong.
When the pick-up had hit the wall, Ox
had jumped over the other side and snuck around the back of the vehicle.
He now stood next to Grant and was reaching down for the M16 he had dropped.
Groggy, Grant pulled his knees up and
kicked Ox square in the chest, knocking him backwards. He rolled onto his
side to reach for the weapon but Ox was on him quickly and stamped on his arm.
He brought his other foot crashing down on Grant’s face, smashing his
nose. With blood pouring and tears in his eyes Grant struggled to get his
act together. He knew that if he didn’t move quickly he would be dead in
moments, and any action was much better than inaction.
He got up on one knee and launched
himself at the blurry figure in front of him, managing to get both hands around
Ox’s waist. He pumped his legs and lifted with all the strength he could
muster, hoping to catch the man off balance, but Ox grabbed his wrists and
easily managed to pull him off. A knee in the face followed and Grant
collapsed, spent. He was simply too dazed to put up any more resistance and Ox
could see it. He picked up the rifle and aimed it at Grant’s head, no
emotion on his face whatsoever. A volley of fire followed, and Grant’s
face was covered with blood.
It had come from Ox’s chest, ripped open
as Len put half a dozen rounds through his spine. Smart put his hand out
and helped Grant to his feet.
“Can you still handle a weapon in that
state?”
Grant wiped the blood — both his and
Ox’s — from his face and assured him he could. With the pick-up destroyed
the firing from the tree line had recommenced, pinning down the few remaining
defenders. It wasn’t long before he heard the faint sound of a mortar
shell leaving the tube and he braced for the impact, but the explosion came
from the tree line. Round after round crept along the edge of the jungle,
with a couple of RPGs adding to the pyrotechnic display. As a result, the
incoming fire petered out, giving Grant time to take stock of the
situation.
Less than a dozen men were left standing
in the camp, with scores of dead littering the area. Fires burned in the
majority of the buildings and not a single vehicle was left serviceable.
While others began tending to the
wounded, Grant gingerly helped Moore down from the pick-up. He had
suffered several gunshot wounds and was in shit state, but none of the injuries
seemed life-threatening. A couple had passed straight through his right
arm without hitting bone but one had lodged in his right femur.
“Lie still,” Grant said. “We’ll
get you to a hospital as soon as possible.”
“Is E.. Eddie o..o..
kay
?”
Moore asked, his breath staggered as shock set in and adrenalin pumped through
his body.
Grant got up and saw a couple of
soldiers at the pick-up on the runway. The way they cut his bindings and
caught him as he collapsed like a sack of potatoes told him the worst.
There was no way to sugar coat it.
“Sorry Robert…”
“Moore closed his eyes, taking in the
news. After a few moments they flashed open and he grabbed Grant’s arm.
“Abu Sa..Sayyaf,” he stammered.
“They
ha..have
more hos...hostages. Kids.”
A Filipino joined them and administered
morphine, then went to work with his supply of bandages taken from the remains
of the medical unit. They applied tourniquets and once Moore was stable
Grant left him in the soldier’s care.
He found Dog surveying the grisly scene
in the accommodation block.
“Why the hell did you let the soldiers
go off base when you knew we were about to face an attack?”
“It wasn’t my call,” Dog said. “I
shared your intel with the General but he dismissed it. He said Abu
Sayyaf are cowards and wouldn’t dare attack his base.”
Grant was about to comment on the
typical officer arrogance but thought it best not to offend the Colonel.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and found Sonny standing next to him.
“Damn, these boys are quick on the
draw!”
“We cowboys have a reputation to keep
up,” Harrison beamed.
“There I was staring down the launcher
of an RPG with my dick in my hand when Harrison whips out his SIG P226 and puts
a bullet between the man’s eyes from twenty-five yards.” He patted his
new best friend on the back. “We gave them a taste of their own mortars
and sent them packing.”
Len joined them and interrupted the
back-slapping session. “We gotta go.”
Grant looked at Dog. “Colonel?”
Dog shifted his focus from the dead to
those who had survived. Some went about their work like automatons while
others just stood and stared at the carnage, the shock of battle still to sink
in. There was no celebrating the fact that they had managed to repel the
attack; just the realisation that they’d evaded death’s reach by the narrowest
of margins.
“You guys saved a lot of lives today,”
he finally said. “Go. Get as far away as you can.”
“What will you say when they arrive to
pick us up?”
“I’ll tell them you’re missing, presumed
dead.”
Grant thanked him, but decided to push his
luck further. “We could do with some gear.”
“What do you need?”
With daylight only a few hours away
there wasn’t time to get the equipment Sonny and Len had stashed at the LUP.
He gave Dog a list, including hand guns, knives, ammo, three sets of NVGs
and some DPMs to replace his jeans and filthy sando.
“That tells me you’re not planning to
leave the island,” Dog said, letting his expression tell Grant what he thought
of the idea.
Grant didn’t try to deny it. “How
do you think the General is going to react when he gets here to find his base
has been destroyed? Colonel, you know him a lot better than I do, but
would I be far wrong if I said he’ll want to launch a retaliatory strike within
the next twenty-four hours?”
Grant took the lack of response as a
Yes. “They still have a female British hostage, and Moore told me they
are also holding some kids. If the local troops go in, they will all be
in real danger and you know it.”
Dog indeed knew. No matter how
much training he provided the local troops it was all forgotten the moment they
got a sniff of the enemy. The hostages would be stuck in the middle of
indiscriminate fire with no way to protect themselves, and casualties would be
a certainty.
“We got news of a raid at a small school
late yesterday evening. The nun and a guard were killed and nine kids
were snatched.” A father himself, Dog couldn’t bear to think what they
were going through. He certainly couldn’t let Callinag go in with all
guns blazing.
“What’s your plan?”
“Short version? Rescue the
hostages and kill any fucker who tries to stop us. We’ll work the rest of
the details out on the way.”
That brought a brief smile from Dog, but
it was tempered by the thought of just three men — no matter how well trained —
going up against a camp full of Abu Sayyaf. Sure, they’d taken losses
tonight, but there was no way of telling how many. There could still be
upwards of a hundred and fifty of them dug in, and with the advantage of the
high ground, too.
If his team hadn’t been handed a
non-combatant role as part of Operation Freedom Eagle, if they had been allowed
to do things their own way, he knew he wouldn’t be staring at a pile of bodies
right now. He also knew he wouldn’t get authorisation to launch a rescue
mission of his own, even if he did paint it as an attempt to capture Abdul
Mansour, and SOCPAC wouldn’t let him interfere with any action Callinag decided
to take.
Still, there was more than one way to
circumvent direct orders. He called his entire team and they were
standing before him within a minute. He introduced them to the
trio. Garcia, Harrison and Keane they already knew. Evans and Shaw
rounded off the SAD complement.
“You guys up for a hunt?” Dog asked his
men quietly.
Their reaction was exactly what he
expected, every one of them thrilled at the prospect of a proper mission for a
change. He spelled out his idea.
“Keane, take these three and get them
kitted out with whatever they need. Once they’re geared up tell them how
to get to the trail, then come running three minutes later to tell me they
escaped. I’ll order the five of you to go after them. We’ll do it
nice and loud so it squares things with Callinag when he asks where my team
is.”
Nods all round.
“Meet up at the mouth of the trail and Grant
will give you the details of the mission. He’s been inside the camp, so
listen to what he says.”
His men indicated that they had no
problem with that directive.
“They have kids in there,” Dog
said. “They are the priority. Other hostages second, Abdul Mansour
third.”
The thought of a group of kids in the
middle of a firefight cooled their bravado a little, if anything making their
mission that much more critical.
“What about afterwards?” Evans
asked. “I mean, what about these guys?”
Dog considered it for a moment.
“You didn’t find them. You were looking for them and came across the camp
where you were fired upon. You’re allowed to use deadly force in self
defence, so that’s how we’ll report it.”
No-one had any questions, so Keane led
the trio to the armoury to grab the equipment they needed. At least a
couple of shells had hit the building but fortunately none of the ammunition
had taken a direct hit. Grant selected a box of 9mm rounds for the
Heckler & Koch machine guns as well as two boxes of 5.56mm for those using
the M16s. After picking a SIG P226 for himself he told the others to look
for smoke and fragmentation grenades, which they found in a locked
cabinet. He also spotted a box of flares and some grenades for the under
slung M203s. He helped himself to a few of each.
“What about knives?” Grant asked.
“We’ll have to scavenge for the rest,
including your fatigues,” Keane told him. He led them to the SAD hut
which was separate from the National Guard accommodation. It too had
sustained damage, but Keane was able to find a spare set of clothes for Grant
in Harrison’s locker. He also raided the foot lockers and found a pair of
boots for Grant and two knives, which he gave to Len and Sonny.
“Shit!”
Keane’s NVGs had been damaged in the
raid, the delicate equipment not being able to stand up to the pounding they’d
taken. Another pair was completely smashed but they found two sets which
were functioning.
Grant finished changing and began
jotting down a note on a small piece of paper.
“The trail begins around five hundred
metres from the camp,” Keane told them. “Take a right out of the gate and
you’ll see it on your right hand side. It’s nothing more than a dirt
track, so keep your eyes peeled. Once you get into the trees, go on for
another fifty metres and we’ll meet you there soon.”
Grant handed him the slip of paper and
asked him to pass it to the Colonel, then the trio grabbed their gear and
jogged up the road, finding the track near where Keane had said it would
be. They followed it into the outer reaches of the jungle and occupied
their time by filling their magazines with the ammunition they’d brought along.
“I thought we were going to be heading
back to warn Carl and Jeff,” Len said, concerned that his friends in the U.K.
were still in danger and unaware of it.
“I asked the Colonel to call Timmy
Hughes in Singapore,” Grant said. “He’ll ask Timmy to give the boys the
heads-up and expect a call from us. If we make it out of here, that is.”
“Which brings me on to my next
question,” Len said. “Why exactly are we here? Is it the kids,
Abdul Mansour, or the girl?”
Grant had known these two men for too
long — and had been through too much with them — to even think about
lying. As a father who had lost his own son at a tender age, he couldn’t
in all conscience sit back and let those kids go through a major attack.
He also blamed Mansour for putting him in this position in the first
place. Without his interference, Grant would be a free man in his own
country rather than a fugitive. Without a doubt, though, the main driving
force was Vick Phillips, and he admitted as much.
“Do you still want to tag along?” he
asked them.
“Do bears shit themselves when they see
me in the woods? Of course I’m coming along!”
Sonny also agreed, and they continued
their preparation for another fifteen minutes until they caught sight of the
American team approaching.
“Sorry we’re late,” Harrison said in his
Texas drawl. “The General turned up just as we were ready to leave.
He brought a shit-storm along for good measure.”