Ambush

19

Guns Franklin tooled the old Toyota along the dirt and gravel road down the mountain, taking it easy, stopping for a washout halfway down where mountain-caught water must have come roaring down after a hard rain. He eased the front wheels into the foot-deep gully on the road, gunned them up the far side, and let the rear wheels come across slowly. Once past that, there were three more miles to the beach road. It ran along the surf and had been blacktopped once, but didn’t look like it had been resurfaced for ten years.

“Not much traffic out this way, so they don’t bother fixing the road,” Domingo said.

There was no traffic at all. An occasional shack of boards and woven panels showed on the beach side at the end of dirt trails off the road. They saw no people.

After five miles the road was a little better, and that let Franklin gun the eight-year-old Toyota up to thirty miles an hour. They had just come down a short hill to a wash that was a hundred yards wide, and had started up the slope on the other side, when something cracked the windshield and slanted off into the brush and trees at the side of the road.

“Incoming,” General Domingo barked. “From the left. Stop and bail out the right-hand-side doors.”

Canzoneri, in the backseat, had his window open and the muzzle of the Bull Pup pushed out toward the mountain. When the round hit the car he automatically pumped three three-round bursts into the trees on the other side of the road. Then he bailed out and dove into the shallow ditch on the beach side of the road with the car between him and the shooters.

A dozen more rounds slammed into the Toyota, and the three men ducked as low as they could go.

“Sounds like two or three of them,” Franklin said. He held his sniper rifle in his hands and jacked a shell into the chamber.

General Domingo took over as if he was shot at every day.

“Franklin, you worm down the ditch past the rig and see if you can get a sighting on the shooters. Canzoneri and I’ll go up the other way. Everyone have a radio?”

He saw their nods. “Let’s move. If you get a target, fire away.”

Franklin crawled, toes and elbows, with his head down and the Colt 4A1 across his forearms. He went twenty feet, then pulled his floppy green hat low and eased up so he could peer over the roadway at the jungle growth.

The best spot for an ambush was a splash of trees about a hundred yards off the road with some rocky places in front. It would make cover for a dozen gunmen. He watched that area, and a minute later saw a glint of sunlight off metal. Franklin concentrated on the spot and saw a flash again. He lifted the Colt up and fired three three-round bursts into the greenery where he’d seen the flashes. At once he dropped down. The dirt over his head splattered on him as half a dozen rounds came back at him. He crawled ten feet on down the ditch, which became a little deeper, and waited.

From up the road he heard gunfire, and then the sound of a 20mm round going off. He darted up for a look, and came right back down. Shrapnel still flew in the same copse of trees he had fired at. There was no return fire. They waited ten minutes.

“Think we nailed all of them?” Franklin asked on the net.

“If we didn’t we scared them to death,” Canzoneri said. “I’m going up and take a look,” Domingo said.

“No,” Franklin barked. “Pardon me, General, but I’m senior SEAL here and I’m in command. Right here I outrank you. I’m moving back up to your position in a series of short runs. If there’s anybody there, they will try for me. If they do, put another twenty in the spot they fire from. You ready?”

“Ready,” Domingo said.

Franklin had never had a death wish. This was about as fucking close to it as he had come. His call. He sucked it up, surged out of the ditch, and ran toward the Toyota ten yards and dove into the sandy ditch.

No shots. He did another dash and was behind the Toyota. He opened the door and looked inside. It didn’t look hit too bad. If the engine was okay and the tires didn’t get flattened…

He made another dash, twenty yards this time, and saw the other two in the ditch. He dove into the dirt just behind them.

“So far, so good,” Franklin said.

“Yeah, you got to play hero,” Canzoneri said. “Now my turn. See that old log right over there? Like they had to bulldoze it aside to put down the road? I’m going over there. Put some cover fire into the trees for me. Then, from there I go to that brushy patch, and should have cover the rest of the way to that bunch of ambush trees. Ready?”

The other two nodded. “Oh, General,” Canzoneri said, “use the 5.56 on that slammer you have. I don’t want to get caught in a shrapnel bath up there.” Then he darted across the road as the two men fired into the trees. Canzoneri slid feet-first behind the three-foot-thick log like a quarterback trying to avoid being tackled. He came up and peered over the log. Nothing came from the spot of trees.

He made two more dashes, then used the Motorola and called off the covering fire. He was in the right bunch of trees a moment later, and found three dead bodies. One with a small round through the forehead, the other two cut up by shrapnel from the twenties.

“All down and out here, three of them. I’ll bring their AK-47’s and a pair of sub guns. Nothing else of value. No radio so nobody knows we’re coming.”

“I’m checking the Toyota,” Franklin said. “Hope to hell they didn’t shoot up the engine or the gas tank.”

Five minutes later, Franklin reported the rig was ready to travel. “One round cut a spark plug wire in half, but I pasted it back together again, good as new. We moving on down the road, or what?”

“Faster we get to Lebak, the quicker we get the hostages out of here,” Domingo said. He grinned. “Just a suggestion.”

“Let’s motor,” Canzoneri said.

They rolled along at over thirty miles per hour now, and the passing lush green of the island reminded Canzoneri of Hawaii. They saw two dirt roads leading off the blacktop going up toward the mountains, but didn’t see any houses or buildings up that way.

“Why is this area so undeveloped, isolated?” Franklin asked.

“We have lots of undeveloped areas,” Domingo said. “The loggers haven’t got into this area yet. It might be a federal preserve of some kind, I’m not sure. I didn’t realize there were so few people on this side of the island.”

“Well, we just passed the ten-mile mark from where we hit the main road,” Franklin said. “All is A-okay so far.”

“Makes me nervous when you say that,” Canzoneri said. “Why were the rebels back there on an outpost and why did they fire at us before they could possibly know who we were?”

“Orders,” Franklin said. “They were told no one would be driving the Toyota down this road. If anyone did, shoot them.”

“So, hotshot, are there any more surprises up this road. Like a block, or a tank, or some more shooters?”

“Probably,” Domingo said. “We better keep a sharp eye.”

Another mile down the track and right along the surf, they came around a corner and found a two-foot-thick log stretched across the road. There was no room on either end to drive around it, even by going into the shallow ditch. They stopped fifty yards away and studied it. Plenty of cover around for snipers. Was it an active block, or just a delaying tactic without any shooters involved?

“Ease up on it,” Canzoneri said.

The Toyota crawled forward, all three men evaluating everything they could see of the brush, vines, trees, and jungle that came down almost to the road on the mountainside.

“Could be booby-trapped,” Franklin said. He put on the emergency brake, shifted into neutral, and opened the car door. No shots came. He checked both sides of the log where it lay on the tarmac, and shrugged. He ran back, jumped in the Toyota, and backed up, then came at the left end of the log.

“Bumper height,” he said. “See the crown on the road? If I can push it enough to get it to roll, this end will keep rolling down and right off the side of the road without moving the other end more than two or three feet.”

The car spun its wheels a moment when the bumper touched the log. The other two men got out and pushed as the Toyota’s bumper shoved ahead with all the horsepower the little car had.

The log rocked, then rocked again. Both men pushed from the side near the end, and on the third try, the big log rolled over and then the top end rolled faster, and soon it was off the road and in the ditch.

“Yeah, let’s chogie,” Franklin shouted.

They drove along the scenic roadway with the crashing surf on one side and the emerald green on the other for four miles before they came up a slight grade and saw a roadblock ahead. It was more than a quarter of a mile away, but Franklin knew what it was.

“Hold off four hundred yards,” Domingo said. “I want to try this laser sighting.” He stepped out of the car and sighted on the truck that had been parked across both lanes of the road. To one side was a sedan, and they saw six or eight soldiers standing around waiting for them.

Domingo fired, then aimed and fired again. Both rounds were airbursts over the truck and car. The soldiers there melted to the ground, splattered with shrapnel from the two airbursts. One man ran behind the truck, which had had its fabric bow roof ripped to shreds. Domingo sighted in on the cab of the big truck. The fuel tank should be right under it. He fired the contact round and it hit on the cab door, blew it off, and exploded inside the cab. A moment later a secondary explosion rocked the quiet beach land as the gasoline tank detonated with a roar spraying burning fuel over the sedan and the last two rebels still alive. Domingo watched it burn for a minute. “I’ve got to get a thousand of these for my troops. We could wipe out every rebel stronghold in the whole Mindanao Island.”

They drove slowly up to the truck’s hulk. The burning sedan had been blasted halfway into the ditch. A gentle nudge by the Toyota bumper, and it continued into the shallow depression and left room for Franklin to drive through. They saw six bodies in the wreckage and no survivors. Franklin floored the sedan, and they raced down the road away from the smoking ruins.

“Why all this firepower, these roadblocks?” Franklin asked. He looked at Domingo.

“Do you know where the head man rebel has his headquarters?” Canzoneri asked Domingo.

“Not for sure. It’s a big secret even from most of the rebels. But I’m getting suspicious. He brought the hostages here. He has an ambush set up, then a log across a public road, then a military-type roadblock with rebel soldiers. This could be rebel country. He might own the countryside and the town. He could have his GHQ there in Lebak.”

“If so we’re really fucked,” Franklin said. “How will we get a phone line out to anywhere?”

“We can’t fight our way into town,” Domingo said. “If we need to do that, we’d be stopped short by a larger force. I’ve heard the rebels have bought heavier weapons lately. If it looks like the rebels control the town, we’ll have to recon, and maybe walk in and con somebody who has the phone system, or take over the building or at least one phone line. I’m sure they have phone service over here; maybe it’s microwave or satellite.”

“How big is Lebak?” Canzoneri asked.

“Never been there,” Domingo said. “Don’t see how it could be very big. No industry, no farming, no logging. What, maybe four or five hundred people? A little fishing, maybe.”

“This odometer is in miles and it shows we have done just over seventeen so far,” Franklin said. “If that town is twenty-five to thirty, we have a ways to go.”

“My guess is that with the increased amount of security and guards, the rebel leader’s GHQ must be nearby, but maybe not all the way to town.”

“So, the security should pick up the closer we come to the GHQ, and then once we break through that it would be less on the way into town?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Why else all this security out here in the wilderness?”

“So our job is to get through the last of the roadblocks and masses of rebels. Then we should be free to roll into Lebak?” Franklin asked.

“We hope,” Domingo said. “Let’s see what new surprises the rebels have for us.”

It came from the rear, and they didn’t know it was there until a machine gun mounted on a jeep chattered a dozen rounds at them, breaking out the rear window and puncturing one tire. Domingo had the Bull Pup up in a second, aimed out the blown-out rear glass, and fired a contact round at the jeep. The round hit the radiator, and exploded on contact, smashing the little rig off the road, rolling it three times, and sending the two live rebels in the vehicle flying through the air.

The Toyota slid across the road and wound up sideways in the wrong lane. Franklin shut it down.

“Casualty report,” Franklin said.

“Got some glass in the back of my head, but nothing serious,” Canzoneri said.

“Fine here,” Domingo said. “I love this twenty-millimeter.”

Franklin jerked open the door and checked the tire.

“Blown to hell,” he said. “Do we have a spare?”

“A car this old damn well better have one,” Canzoneri said. “Usually older cars have lousy rubber.”

They found the spare in the trunk, along with two submachine guns and a box of ammo. It took Franklin twelve minutes to change the tire with the bumper jack.

“I used to have contests changing tires,” he said. “I almost always won.”

Domingo had scraped most of the shattered glass from the rear seat of the car by the time they drove away from the wrecked jeep. They didn’t look for survivors.

At twenty miles from the hostage house, they found roads that went off from the highway every mile or so, usually one into the mountains and then one to the beach. All were plain dirt roads, some that had been graded up, some just tracks in the jungle and coastal grasses.

A few houses began to appear.

“If we don’t find a lot of rebel uniforms in town, how do we play it?” Franklin asked.

“If the rebels don’t control the town, there should be a police station. We’ll start there. If the town is under police control, we’ll have no trouble phoning out. I’ll use their phone.”

“Damn big ‘if,’ ” Franklin said.

Canzoneri, in the front seat, growled. “We have some trouble up ahead. Looks like another roadblock. This one has a truck in the middle of the road and a swing-up bar across the traffic lane.”

“Only two uniforms, they look different,” Franklin said.

“Could be Filipino Army men,” Domingo said. “Let’s ease up and stop and see what the situation is.”

“Too dangerous,” Franklin said. “I’m keeping one of them in my sights. Canzoneri, you aim for the second one. If it isn’t what it seems to be, we blast them and race on through.”

“I’m not sure of those uniforms,” Domingo said. “Not even sure that my Army would post any men out here. And if we did, why a roadblock?”

When the car came to within a hundred yards of the block, one soldier held up a submachine gun in both hands for them to stop. He was on the driver’s side. Another armed man stood on the passenger’s side. Both stood waiting.

Franklin stopped the car five feet from the guards, who swung up their weapons.

“Step out of the car, please,” one guard said in English. The other guard said something in Filipino.

Domingo frowned and said something back in Filipino.

“Not our men,” Domingo shouted. Franklin felt the first round from the guard’s submachine gun hit the Toyota.