Acts of Vengeance

CHAPTER FIFTEEN DELIVERANCE

The eastern ridgeline glowed orange in the approaching dawn. At exactly 0600, Gritti’s voice crackled over the PRC-112 transceiver.

“Runner One-one, do you read Boomer?”

“Go, Boomer.”

“Showtime, pal. Our train’s coming in.”

“Copy that. We’ve got our tickets ready.”

As he put down the radio, Maxwell heard the faraway beat of inbound helos. He saw that B.J. was awake now. She lay under the thermal blanket, regarding him with large, somber eyes. Her face was still blackened, and her short, dark hair lay in a mat on her head.

She was a good-looking girl, he observed, even with all the glop on her face. Funny that he had never noticed before.

She caught him studying her. “I look like a witch, don’t I?”

“More like a girl who’s been chased by guerillas in Yemen.”

She gave him a wan smile. “Are they going to pick us up?”

“They’re on the way.”

“Will the Sherji start shooting again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She slid the blanket aside and sat up. Her left arm was bound in the sling he had made for her. She winced when she tried to use the arm. “Owww, that really hurts.”

“Are you able to move? We have to find a clear spot for the pickup.”

“Don’t worry. Nothing is going to stop me from getting into that chopper.”

They gathered their equipment into the two satchels. With Maxwell in the lead, they started down the hillside. He didn’t want to risk traveling far, only to an open area with enough clearance for the helo crew to pick them up.

It would have to be a quick snatch. The Sherji would know about the helos as soon as they did. He carried the .45 with a refilled magazine in his right hand, just in case.

On a terraced hillside he found a clearing that looked suitable. Not too steep, not so open that it would be a shooting gallery. He motioned for B.J. to take cover in the bushes above the clearing. “When they get close, we’ll throw the smoke flare into the clearing. Don’t wait for them to land. Just run out and let the crew haul you aboard.”

She nodded. “Do you think it’s gonna work?”

“We’ll be okay.”

She looked at him for a moment. “Well, just in case, I wanted you to know…” Her voice trailed off.

“Wanted me to know what?”

She swallowed, then finished. “I mean, you know, I wanted to say… thanks.”

“You saved me first, remember?”

“Uh-huh.” She kept her eyes focused somewhere over his shoulder, avoiding his look. “That’s not really what I meant. Look, I have to say this, just get it out and then drop it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She blurted the rest. “I love you. That’s all. It’s crazy, I know, but I just had to say it and I promise I’ll never bring it up again, okay?”

She turned away and began furiously retying her bootlace.

Maxwell stared. He tried to think of something to say but nothing came out. He was still standing there, speechless, when the Sherji guns opened up.

The sounds of battle again spilled out of the hills.

The Whiskey Cobras came in low and fast, rockets blazing from their inboard pylons, streams of cannon fire spewing from the chin-mounted twenty millimeters. Behind them, approaching the marine perimeter, the big vulnerable CH-53E Super Stallions were already taking hits. The first cargo helicopter pulled up and made a hard turn away. Then the next. And the next. None were landing.

The Sherji gunners were getting the range on the helicopters.

“Abort, abort!” Maxwell heard Gritti calling on the SAR frequency. “Pull the Stallions back. It’s another fucking ambush.”

He heard the frustration in Gritti’s voice. The Cobras were dueling with the Sherji gunners, concealed in a line of scrub trees south of the marines’ perimeter. In the distance Maxwell heard the bullets pinging into the retreating Super Stallions.

Maxwell had already tossed his flare. Now a gush of orange smoke was wafting into the sky from the clearing where Maxwell and B.J. were huddled.

“Do you think the helicopters see us?” B.J. asked.

“I don’t know, but the Sherji definitely can.” He stashed the PRC-112 radio and yanked B.J. to her feet. “This is turning into another shooting gallery. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

“Wait,” she said. “They still might be able to—”

A nearby burst of gunfire cut her off. It was close, no more than a hundred yards. Without protest, she grabbed the satchel with her good arm and followed Maxwell down the hill.

Before they’d gone twenty yards, they heard the sudden racket of rotor blades. Maxwell turned to see a Cobra gunship pop over the ridgeline behind them. Directly behind the Cobra appeared a UH-1N Super Huey utility helicopter. While the Cobra flashed overhead, the Huey swept in over the clearing where Maxwell had thrown the smoke flare, kicking up a tornado of dirt and orange smoke.

A crewman in the three-man sling was descending from the hovering Huey. Maxwell and B.J. retraced their steps, running to where the crewman was just stepping to the ground.

He wore a cranial protector and goggles and a helmet-mounted radio. Blinking, coughing in the dirt and smoke, B.J. and Maxwell each slipped a loop of the sling around themselves as they had been trained. The crewman gave the sling a quick check, then flashed a thumbs-up to the man peering at them from the open hatch. With a lurch the sling yanked them off the ground, reeling them upward. While they were still clambering inside the cabin, the Huey’s nose tilted forward and accelerated.

They sat facing each other in the drafty cabin of the helicopter as they sped back southward. Neither spoke. B.J., still black-faced and wearing her sling, huddled in the corner, avoiding Maxwell’s eyes.

Out the open hatch he saw the column of Super Stallions following them. “How many did they pick up?” he asked the crewman, already knowing the answer.

He shook his head. “Just you, and that was blind-ass luck. The Cobra gunner spotted your smoke. Nobody could get inside the perimeter.”

B.J. gazed out the hatch at the empty cargo helicopters. “Al-Fasr knew they were coming, didn’t he?”

Maxwell nodded. “Yeah, he knew.”

“Surrender?” said Gritti. “He’s gotta be kidding.”

“No, sir,” said Captain Baldwin, the compactly built young officer Gritti had sent over the wire. “The guy was dead serious. Says we have one hour. Then they come into the perimeter with tanks and artillery and a force of infantry. If jets or helicopters show up before that, they’re gonna get shot down with missiles.”

“And if we surrender?”

“He says we’ll be fed and treated as guests, not prisoners.”

Gritti snorted. “Hostages, he means.”

Baldwin just nodded.

Gritti couldn’t remember when he had felt so lousy. He had been in this goddamned hellhole for… how long now? Eighteen hours? No, longer.

At least the heavy firing had ceased. For the past three hours there had been just this eerie silence. No mortars, no sniper fire.

Then, this afternoon, a white flag. Three hundred yards away, from the tree line where the Sherji were concealed, an emissary in fatigues and a brown kaffiyeh walked out into the open. He carried a megaphone. He announced that he wanted to talk to the marine commander.

Gritti had dispatched Baldwin to talk to the emissary. After ten minutes of discussion, the young captain returned.

Now, through his fatigue, Gritti was trying to make sense of the situation. “Tell me what you think, Captain.”

Baldwin glanced around, then said in a lowered voice, “I think it sucks. So do the rest of our marines. They want to know why we’re stuck here without support. Where the hell are our reinforcements?”

Gritti nodded southward. “Out there. On the Saipan and the Reagan. Waiting for someone to give the order.”

“Almost seems like they want us to be captured, doesn’t it, sir?”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“Are we going to surrender, Colonel?”

Gritti didn’t answer. For the third time that day, he called Warlord on the UHF/SAT channel. He had to speak quickly. The batteries were almost shot. Another shining example of America’s high-tech hardware turning to inert shit when it was most needed. Here they were, surrounded by third-world guerillas — whose equipment was more sophisticated than their own.

Gritti gave Vitale a quick version of the surrender demand. Let them chew on it, he decided. Let the brass earn their pay.

“We copy that,” said Vitale. “Stand by.”

Gritti knew what that meant. Fletcher and his staff were wringing their hands over the problem. Maybe even running it past JTF or someone in the Pentagon. It also meant, he had no doubt, that the civilian pissant, Babcock, was making the call.

“Boomer,” came Vitale’s voice again. “We have reason to think that this channel — all the channels on your field radio — might be compromised.”

“Good thinking. We figured that out yesterday.” He knew the sarcasm was spilling out, but he didn’t care. Navy dipshits.

“Your orders are unchanged, Boomer. Maintain your perimeter while the situation gets resolved diplomatically.”

“Listen!” Gritti exploded. “Before you people get the situation resolved diplomatically, the game will fucking be over. Do you understand that? When is someone going to get their thumb out of their ass and thump these guys?”

He laid down the microphone and took a deep breath. Okay, he thought, you’ve gone over the edge. That takes care of your career. But what the hell? If you live through this, you get to go fishing.

A long pause ensued. He thought maybe his batteries had finally expired.

The earphone crackled again. “Boomer, regarding the present situation, Warlord authorizes you to use your own discretion.”

Gritti stared at the radio. He felt a wave of depression descend over him. Use your own discretion. They were telling him he could keep fighting or surrender. He was on his own.

Al-Fasr paced the hard dirt outside his command bunker. When he reached the end of the path, he turned and retraced his steps. As he paced, he kept glancing at the sky, listening for the sounds of incoming aircraft.

Nothing. An hour had passed since he had sent the ultimatum to the marine commander.

No response.

Al-Fasr had monitored the radio exchange between the marine colonel and his commanders. He had heard them, with typical American military ineptitude, tell the colonel to “use his own discretion.” What did that mean? That he could surrender?

As if he had a choice.

Thinking about the incompetent commanders on the Reagan angered Al-Fasr. Why didn’t they order the marine to surrender? Where was Babcock? Why wasn’t he intervening? Babcock understood that the United States, more now than in recent times, had no stomach for casualties of war. They would vastly prefer seeing their soldiers held captive over being slaughtered like cattle.

Al-Fasr didn’t think they would deliver more air support. He had demonstrated that he could shoot down helicopters as if they were guinea fowl. The fighters were deadlier, but they had shown no further interest in using them after losing three of the outrageously expensive craft in action.

Al-Fasr himself had no need for more dead Americans. What he needed now was fifty live prisoners. Holding the marines as hostages would discourage any further thoughts by the Americans about invading Yemen or assaulting his complex.

It would buy him the time to complete his mission.

Al-Fasr stopped his pacing and peered again at his watch. Perhaps he should go himself, engage in a personal discussion with the marine officer. If the man understood how hopeless his situation was, how pointless it would be to suffer more casualties, he would acquiesce.

What if he refused?

Al-Fasr considered for a moment. Time was running out, as well as his patience. With each hour the danger was increasing that the enemy — the United States and its evil leaders — would launch an assault on his complex in Yemen.

It would be the end.

He could not allow his mission to be thwarted because of the obstinance of one blockheaded foot soldier. If the marines did not lay down their arms and surrender peacefully, he would take the perimeter by force. Quickly and without regard for life. If any survived, they would become his prisoners.

“Are we going to surrender?” asked Baldwin.

Gritti looked at the young officer. He didn’t have an answer. Not yet, anyway. He had been a marine for most of his adult life, but nothing had prepared him for this. Every fiber in his being told him to continue fighting, to tell Al-Fasr to go take a flying leap.

For what? So he and his young troops could prove that marines would rather die than surrender? What if they became hostages? If the military commanders running this operation were cynical enough to allow them to perish out here without throwing in massive quantities of firepower to support them, what the hell difference did it make? Better live hostages than dead marines.

The low point had come in the early morning, when the rescue helos had appeared — then turned back. He wondered what happened to the two downed Hornet pilots. They weren’t coming up anymore on the SAR channel. It meant they were either picked up or captured.

Conspicuously, no jets had swept in low as they did yesterday to strafe and bomb the Sherji. It occurred to Gritti that maybe Baldwin had it right. Perhaps the guys on the command ship really expected them to surrender.

The thought caused the anger to rise in Gritti again. At this very moment, he knew twelve hundred marines were poised on the Saipan to swarm into Yemen. Within six hours’ flying time, another two thousand could be on the ground here. In a day, an entire division could be airlifted from Europe.

Where the hell were they?

The fatigue was settling on him like a drug. Gritti let his mind wander for a moment. How would he be remembered after this episode? Marines had held their ground at Belleau Wood, at Iwo Jima, at Khe San. Of all the proud events marines celebrated in their long history, surrendering was not one of them.

He felt Baldwin’s eyes on him. “Are we going to surrender?” he said, repeating the captain’s question. “No, Captain, we are not.”

Baldwin gave him a curt nod. “Roger that, Colonel. What do you want me to tell Al-Fasr’s emissary?”

Gritti thought for a second. He didn’t know much Arabic, but he remembered something he’d learned in Riyadh. “Give him a little message from me. Tell him Manyouk.”

“Which means…?”

“Fuck you.”

Baldwin’s dirt-streaked face split in a grin. “Yes, sir. I’ll tell him it’s from all of us.”

“What the hell are we waiting for?” Boyce demanded. “Why aren’t we launching an alpha strike and a ground assault force now?”

Boyce’s strident tone alarmed Fletcher. Navy captains weren’t supposed to use that manner with admirals, particularly admirals who were their boss. The Air Wing Commander was coming close to insubordination.

“Because we follow orders in this battle group,” said Fletcher. “I take mine from OpNav and the Joint Chiefs and the Commander of the Joint Task Force. I’ll remind you that you take your orders from me. Lower your voice, Captain.”

Boyce acknowledged with a short nod. He jammed his cigar back in his mouth and resumed pacing back and forth in the flag plot compartment.

Fletcher wished Boyce would leave the meeting, go busy himself with some air wing matter. He was becoming Fletcher’s biggest headache.

Seated at the table in the flag conference compartment were Sticks Stickney, Guido Vitale, and Spook Morse. Watching from the far end of the room was Whitney Babcock, who had a telephone pressed to his ear.

Babcock hung up the phone and walked to the conference table. “That was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” he said. “The President and the National Security Council are fully apprised of the situation. They have authorized an amphibious assault to retrieve the marines—”

“About damn time!” Boyce interjected.

“—subject to the Battle Group Commander’s discretion,” Babcock went on. “The on-scene commander — that’s Admiral Fletcher — has been given a window of twenty-four hours to resolve the situation.”

Boyce’s eyes bulged. “Twenty-four hours? What for? We could launch the assault now — with full air cover.”

“Absolutely not,” said Babcock. “The marines are in no immediate danger. It is still possible that the situation can be resolved diplomatically. We don’t want to start a war in Yemen.”

At this Boyce exploded. “Excuse me, but this is a fucking war. What do you call it when you lose three jets and four helicopters and a dozen fighting men? We’re supposed to negotiate with that sonofabitch?”

“That’s enough, Captain!” snapped Fletcher, giving Boyce a fierce look.

“It’s okay,” said Babcock, his voice indulgent. He smiled at Boyce. “The President believes, as I do, that a diplomatic solution to this matter is preferable to a military one. We don’t want to lose any more troops saving the ones who are already on the ground.”

“This reminds me of Bosnia,” said Boyce. “When the Serbs took the U.N. peacekeepers hostage and tied them to the targets they thought we might bomb. For a while we actually let them get away with it. Looks like we’re doing it again.”

“This isn’t Bosnia,” said Babcock. “There’s much more at stake here than in Bosnia.”

“More at stake than the lives of fifty marines?”

Fletcher was giving Boyce the look again.

“Gentlemen,” said Babcock, “I suggest we adjourn while the admiral and his staff prepare the op plan. You’ll be notified of any new development.”

That was fine with Boyce. He crammed the stub of his cigar back into his face and stalked out of the compartment.

Farewell to Yemen, thought Claire. And good riddance.

From the window of the CH-53E Super Stallion, she watched the stuccoed buildings and the treeless landscape of San‘a drop away. With her in the cabin of the big helo were two dozen other civilians, mostly wives and children of embassy staffers.

“Where are we going?” she had asked the loadmaster back at the landing pad. He was a marine gunnery sergeant, wearing full combat gear.

“Can’t say, ma’am. Not until we’re out of country.”

The NEO — Noncombatant Evacuation Order — had come within two hours of her arrival at the embassy. The killing of Vince Maloney provided the final stimulus to remove the American presence from the troubled country.

She still had on the linen pantsuit she’d worn to the restaurant with Maloney. It was a mess — torn and soiled from falling in the street — but it was all she had. Everything she had brought to San‘a — luggage, clothing, toiletries, notebook computer — was back in the Al Qasmy hotel.

Oh, well. The computer, of course, she would miss. All her working notes, e-mail, and contacts were stored in its memory. Still, she had only to remember the dark-eyed killers in the streets of San‘a to be glad she was leaving, with or without a computer. She was alive, thanks to a Yemeni taxi driver whose name she never learned.

It took six CH-53Es, Marine aircraft from the Saipan, to retrieve the evacuees from San‘a. Another half dozen, she was told, were fetching Americans out of Aden.

The column of helicopters threaded its way through the mountains east of San‘a, then turned south and followed a valley to the sea. Claire was numb from fatigue and fear. She had dozed for no more than a couple of hours at the embassy, waking in a panic. Still vivid in her memory was the orange glare, the crackling heat from the funeral pyre of Vincent Maloney.

A wave of sadness passed over her again. Poor Vince. She had accused him of doing nothing, of protecting his job, and she was wrong. For all his sloppy habits and flawed character, he was a dedicated foreign service officer. Why did they kill him?

In a flash it came to her. It wasn’t just him. She was supposed to die in the car with him. That was why they chased her through the streets. They wanted her dead.

They hate us all.

She drew her arms around herself and shivered in the drafty cabin of the Super Stallion. It was too much to comprehend in her exhausted condition. All she knew was that she hated Yemen. She wanted out of this god-awful place. She wanted Sam Maxwell. For all she knew, he was dead too.

She felt the helicopter bank, and she sensed that they were about to land. Through the open hatch the gray silhouette of a ship came into view. Behind it glistened a wide, white wake, sparkling in the morning sun.

The helicopter tilted back, slowing as it passed over the ramp of the flight deck. Claire felt the wheels clunk down on the steel deck. The whopping rotor noise hushed.

The hatch swung open, and in the backdrop Claire could see the distinctive, antennae-covered superstructure. Parked on the deck was a swarm of sleek, swept-wing jets.

A man wearing a cranial protector and a float coat over his yellow jersey appeared in the hatch. “Hope you had a nice ride, folks,” he yelled over the engine noise. “Welcome to the USS Ronald Reagan.”