Ambush

9

A half hour after the chopper took off, Lam and Juan Ejercito lay in the brush watching the rebel Muslims pick up the pieces of the attack on the two buildings. They had left the duffel hidden and hiked back up to check out the blasted rebels.

“We really kicked the shit out of them,” Lam said.

The Filipino lieutenant grinned. He had told Lam to call him Juan, it would be easier. “We did. Those twenty-millimeters are astounding.”

They had counted twelve different men working around the building. The two motorcycles were totaled. They wouldn’t even be good for parts.

“Motorcycles are the elite transportation in here where there are no real roads,” Juan said. “Only the top men own them. Which means we may have wiped out some top brass in there.”

“Hope so. Are we through here, or what?”

“Thinking of grabbing one of the survivors and doing some gentle questioning.”

“Great idea. You see anybody with stripes on his green sleeves?”

“I don’t think they use any rank. Just leaders and followers. If you don’t know who is who, you don’t belong in the group and get yourself shot dead.”

“Tough outfit. We wait until dark to snatch one?” Lam asked.

“Best. Then we can take him into the brush, question him, and he won’t be missed until morning. By then we’ll be halfway to their new GHQ, or whatever location we get out of our friend.”

The rebels carried bodies out of the building.

“Laying them out in a row,” Lam said. “Must be going to have a mass Muslim funeral.”

“Never saw one,” Juan said.

They counted as the bodies came to the line. Juan saw the last one. “Twenty-eight,” he said. “That will put a big hole in their ranks. Three hours to dark, five or six until I can snatch a live one. Let’s take a sleep period. Can you wake up on demand?”

“Not usually.”

“I can. Back into the jungle a ways, and watch for snakes. They move around this time of day.”

At 2200, Juan roused Lam. “Time, Lam. We’ll move up about where we were before, but closer. You’ll cover me with the MP-5, but fire only if I’m in big trouble and can’t get out by myself. That means at least four of the bastards pointing guns at me. I’ll go in with my pistol and knife. Should be enough. No combat vest.”

Lam watched the soldier slip through the woods to the cleared area, then come upright and walk toward the old headquarters as if he belonged there. Two men passed him without a glance. It was dark enough that his uniform nearly matched that of the rebels. Here they all had green shirts and pants. There were few lights in the village. Candles and kerosene lamps, Lam guessed. None showed in the burned-out building, only one in the other structure.

Juan headed for it. He was only a dozen yards away when a man came out and hurried toward him. Juan said something and the man stopped. He motioned and as he did, Juan put the five-inch blade of his fighting knife into the man’s side so the point gouged in a quarter of an inch. Juan put his arm around the man’s shoulders, and they walked quickly toward the brush and the jungle.

Two minutes later they were in the cover and Juan had put a gag around the man’s mouth. They hiked farther into the jungle, past a swampy area and to a slight rise. Lam figured they were a mile from the village.

The prisoner looked young. Lam had given up trying to figure these men’s ages. He could have been sixteen, but was probably in his late twenties. Lam guessed he was five-five and maybe 120 pounds. A lightweight.

They were in a small rocky clearing. Juan jerked the gag off the man and spoke pleasantly to him a moment in Filipino. Then, with no warning, Juan slugged him hard on his jaw and knocked him down.

“Get up,” Juan roared.

The man struggled to his feet feeling his jaw.

“Now we get serious. How many rebels were killed today?”

“Six.”

Juan hit him with a jab that splattered his nose and brought a froth of blood that ran down and dripped off his chin. He staggered backward but kept his feet.

“How many?” Juan asked again.

“Twenty-eight.”

“That’s better. What’s your name?”

“Piang Miguel.”

“We make a deal, Piang. From now on you tell me the absolute truth and I won’t hit you. Agreed?”

“Yes.”

“Who rode the motorcycles, your leaders?”

“Yes.”

“Were they both killed?”

“Both, yes.”

“How many rebels were here before the attack?”

“About forty-five and some women rebels.”

“Where did your leaders go to report to their superiors?”

“Down the river almost to the coast. Near the town of Lebak, but inland about ten miles.”

“Is that where your leader stays?”

“Sometimes. He moves around a lot. He thinks the government is trying to kill him.”

“He’s probably right. What’s the next camp downstream from here?”

“Small one about ten miles down, then twenty-five miles or so to a big camp.”

“Piang, why is it so big?”

“Much training done there. I was there for two months learning how to shoot, to rig bombs, how to kidnap, and fighting with a knife.”

“Yet you didn’t fight me when I touched my knife to your side.”

“I am not a fighter. I am a clerk. I should have been in the office and killed with the others there. I was late getting back.”

“How many men at the training camp?”

“Sometimes two hundred. We are gaining in strength. This camp was mostly to recruit from the surrounding area. To get young men to come and fight for independence.”

“What’s the name of your top leader now?”

“He is called Muhammad Al Hillah.”

“Is he often at the training center?”

“Yes, often.”

“Good, Piang, you may sit down and relax. We’ll be here for a while.” Juan Ejercito walked into the woods, circled around, and came up behind the rebel so quietly not even Lam could hear him. Lam didn’t watch him. He looked away. A moment later a shot jolted into the stillness of the jungle. A dozen different insects and birds went silent at the sound.

Piang’s head slammed forward from the round that shattered the back of his skull and killed him immediately.

“Time we move south,” Juan said. “It looks like we have a thirty-five-mile hike ahead of us.”

They were about halfway to the second camp, near where they had left the duffel bag, when Juan stopped and turned to Lam.

“Did you disapprove of my execution of the rebel?”

Lam shook his head. “No, not at all. SEALs take no prisoners, and leave no wounded on an operation. Had to be done. We should be almost to that cleared field.”

Five minutes later they came to the field and to the spot where they had left the duffel. It was still there. They put on their combat vests, dug out the backpacks, and stowed most of the ammunition and clothes and food into them. Then they changed their minds and left all of the extra clothes.

“Better food than a clean shirt,” Lam said. When they finished packing, they had most of the gear. They stashed the duffel again and covered it up, then hiked south along the faint trail. Four miles downstream they came to the village where they had attacked earlier and killed two of the rebels. They skirted it, moving into the jungle, and then worked on past. There was nothing they could do there, and they didn’t want the locals to remember them moving south. Twice they saw and smelled smoke from cooking fires. They passed them, but did not see any sign of villages. Just before dusk they heard a strange sound from south on the trail.

“Dirt bike moving fast,” Lam said. “Let’s take him.”

They moved into the trees beside the trail and motioned for fields of fire. They both would fire down-trail when the biker was within twenty feet. They waited.

The sound grew louder, and then the bike came around a slight bend in the trail and headed for them. One rider with helmet and goggles. Both men lifted their MP-5’s and in sync leaned around the trees and fired two three-round bursts of the 9mm Parabellum. Eight of the twelve rounds hit the rider. He threw up his hands, and the bike slued to the left into a tree and the rider toppled off the back, sprawling on the ground, never knowing what hit him. Four of the rounds hit his chest, two his neck, and two his head. They pulled the body off the trail into the brush and checked his pockets. There was a folder inside his shirt that had four bullet holes in it, but also a dozen sheets of paper and writing, all in English.

Juan righted the cycle and put down the stand. He examined it, and found no damage other than a scraped front fender. The double seat looked inviting, but the front man would have to drop half the goods in his pack. Juan at once took off his pack and threw out the bulky MREs and three boxes of Parabellum rounds. He put it back on, and they tried both sitting on the machine.

“Yes,” Lam said. “We can do this. We have twenty-five miles and an hour of sunlight left. We should be able to do most of it.”

A half hour later, they realized that the average speed on the rough trail was about fifteen miles an hour. They settled for that.

By the time darkness swept in on them in a two-minute stretch, they were ready to find a spot to spend the night.

They rolled the bike well off the trail and found a place on a small rise where they could keep watch on the trail and still have good cover. Not even taking the SATCOM off his back reminded Lam that he was supposed to radio in every night at midnight. He checked his watch. 0200. Too late by then. The next night there would be lots more to tell Murdock. He eased his head onto his pack and went to sleep.

Lam woke up the next morning, and looked down to see a black and orange snake three feet long crawling over his legs.

“Don’t move,” Juan said from somewhere behind him. “He’s just out looking for breakfast and he decided you were too damn big.”

The snake took his time, his forked tongue tasting the air as he moved. He soon zeroed in on a clump of grass nearby. The snake moved forward slowly. Lam could not see any movement in the grass. Then, a moment later, the snake struck. Its head came out of the grass holding a six-inch-long ratlike rodent in its jaws. Its fangs were buried in the animal’s back and stomach.

“Breakfast,” Juan said. “Wait just a minute and he’ll slither away and start unhinging his jaws so he can swallow that critter whole.”

“Glad I’m not that size,” Lam said. “Poisonous?”

“Deadly on anything under a hundred pounds. On us it would be extremely painful and we’d take two days off and let the swelling go down. About the same as your rattlesnake.”

“Thanks for waking me up.”

“Best to let them move along. I usually don’t kill them. They have a right to live the same as I do.”

They ate MREs for breakfast, then loaded up and headed down the trail.

“Figure we covered fifteen miles last night,” Juan said. “Ten miles ahead we should find some friends.”

“We stash the bike at least two miles this side,” Lam said. “They probably will have security all over the place here as much for training as for security.”

Juan shook his head. “Not two miles. We’ll leave it and our packs out four miles. You estimate our distance as we motor along. I’ve got trouble enough dodging ruts, gullies, and tree roots.”

After twenty minutes Lam slapped Juan on the shoulder and he turned off into the jungle, drove the bike as far as he could, then they hid it behind some large trees and piled brush around it.

Lam went back along their trail and wiped it out as best he could, then did the same thing for a hundred yards back down the sometimes damp trail along the increasingly strong river. They left their packs with the bike and worked down the trail on foot.

“You kept the radio?” Juan asked.

“Glued to my skin,” Lam said.

A half mile down the trail they smelled cigarette smoke. Almost every Filipino Lam had seen had been smoking. It seemed to be a national craze. Big Tobacco in the U.S. must be chortling.

They went into the brush away from the river and moved through the jungle slower, but safer. The smokers were at a guard post astride the trail. No camouflage, just two big logs that it would take five grown men to move across the trail. The rebels in green shirts and civilian pants sat on the logs. Each one had a rifle. Lam couldn’t tell what kind they were, but they were all alike. He guessed they were AK- 47’s or maybe the new AK-74’s. Either one was deadly.

“We could take them all out before they got off a shot,” Juan said.

“Easy, Juan. We can come back and get them later. Let’s get some intel for Murdock. We want the whole package. Maybe they have the hostages here.”

“Yeah, right.”

They moved past the guards silently in the jungle, then worked back closer to the trail and kept it in sight as they slogged through the trees, vines, and an occasional swamp.

It was a half hour before they came on more men. This time they had a machine gun set up in a fortified position with sandbags draped around it and making a three-foot protective wall. Juan checked the weapon with binoculars and nodded.

“Yeah, it’s a NATO 7.62. Probably one they stole from the Army. Good weapon. I wonder how many they have.” The gun was was set up to fire directly down the trail and in an arc of about thirty degrees on each side. Four men were in and around the emplacement.

“Getting more interesting,” Lam said. “Like they have something to protect.”

“Like six million dollars worth of hostages.”

“Hopefully.”

The trail went through jungle again, past giant mahogany trees. Far ahead, Lam could see smoke and hear sounds. He couldn’t tell what they were.

They faded more into the jungle, wary of some outlying guard posts in the jungle well beyond the trail. The river was on the other side and gave protection there. By this time it was fifty yards across, racing downhill over some rapids, and swirling along darkly. It made an effective barrier from any attack on that side.

Now, for the first time, they could spot huts and small buildings along the trail. The edges of the village. They saw no rebels, and kept moving well inside the protection of the jungle growth.

Another half mile and the trail had become a fifteen-foot-wide road with ditches on each side. Buildings now sprouted all over the area and the place had the appearance of a real town. Slightly farther along they could see down a street, with what looked like businesses, and sidewalks. A whistle sounded, and a group of rebels marched around a corner and headed right at the two watchers. They were six abreast and at least ten deep. Sixty men, led by a sergeant or officer. They came toward the road, then turned left down another street and were gone.

“Damn, this is not a ragtag bunch of rebels,” Juan said. “They have the start of a real army here. If they get enough men and equipment, they could take over the whole island and have their independent nation.”

“We’ll work on that next. What about hostages? You see anywhere that they could be held?”

“Yes. Several of the buildings could be sealed and the people kept inside. They would have enough food here to feed them and keep them healthy for the big payoff.”

“There,” Lam said. “See that antenna on that three-story building? Looks like the biggest one in town. That could be their radio tower. I wonder how good their radios are.”

“Let’s find out,” Juan said. He took from his vest the small handheld radio he had taken at the checkpoint the day before. He turned it on and they listened. Soon a transmission came in Filipino. Lam looked at him.

“Someone asked a road checkpoint if they had seen anyone. A report has come through that the three men in checkpoint thirty-five have not reported in as required.”

“This place looks like there could be two or three thousand people living here. Mostly civilians. How do we attack a place like this?”

Juan waved one hand. “We get intel on where their headquarters are, where their barracks are, any other equipment they have, and then we come in at night and blow up those buildings and hose them down with hot lead.”

“Yeah, down and dirty. No air strike here. Looks like we have some work to do.”

Juan shook his head. “No, I have some work. First I get a green shirt that will fit me, then I go in and see all that I can and come back. You have a rough sketch of the place by that time in your notebook and I’ll fill in the facilities.”

“Can you find them all today?”

“I’ll try, do all of them I can locate. Should be enough to have a raid tomorrow night.”

“You’ll watch for any hostages?”

“You bet. That’s our primary mission. But while we’re here we can take out a few hundred rebels. The Army will be pleased.”

“Let’s set up a landmark to meet at.” Lam looked at the little town. “See that one building down there about a block away that’s painted?”

“Red, of all colors.”

“Let’s key on that. We can see it down this street, so we meet around here somewhere.”

“Good, I’ll leave some of my gear, my combat vest for sure. I should wait for dark to get a shirt off one of them, but I can persuade one of them to come through. I’ll have to be careful not to get any blood on it or a knife hole in it. That’s the toughest part.”

They put his combat vest and some equipment under a huge mahogany tree, and covered it all with brush. He slipped down to the trail, and walked casually across it and to the fringe of brush on the other side, then down the trail that led to the first street. No one bothered him. He vanished past the first building, and that was the last Lam saw of him that morning.

Lam went deeper into the jungle, found a spot with some sky showing overhead, and set up the SATCOM. He could do some transmitting on the chance the SEALs had their set on receive just in case he had anything to report. He tried four times sending out a message to Phil One. There was no response. He left the set on receive and waited around it for an hour. Then he turned it off and worked his way down the road along the rest of the town, making a sketch of everything he could see along the road. Marking in the streets that led off it and any buildings he could identify by shape or size.

Well beyond the town he saw where the valley spread out into a huge open plain that looked to be highly cultivated. He saw few buildings, but realized the farmers used all the land for growing, and lived in the jungle where nothing could be grown.

He sketched the rest of the streets and parts of the town he could see, and worked back to the “home” tree, where he had left the SATCOM with the other gear. Once more he tried the SATCOM in his transmission spot, and on the third try he had a response.

“Yes, Scout One, been waiting to hear from you.”

He kept the volume low on the speaker and replied.

“We have found what may be one of the major training camps and headquarters of the rebels. A prisoner said there were usually three to four hundred rebel soldiers here. Don’t know the name of the town yet, but Juan is inside now scouting out their GHQ, arms storage, barracks, any targets we can hit on a raid. Probably two thousand civilians here as well, so we’ll have to be selective. Over.”

“Good news. Wait for your call and your position. Colonel is furious with us for hitting the camp without authorization. He has come up with no new intel to give us a new target. We’re waiting for him. He doesn’t know about you recon guys yet. When he finds out he’ll blow sky-high. Stroh working on a general to outrank this man. None on base. He’s trying to get a new one assigned here to take over temporarily for the push against the rebels. More later. Make checks on radio every four hours. Out.”

Lam stashed the radio and moved down to where he could see the little town better. He wondered what Juan was doing over there. He could get in trouble, get himself killed, and never come back. Lam began making plans about what he would do if that happened. It wouldn’t, but he’d rather be ready. What the hell was taking so much time?