Tom Clancy Presents: Act of Valor

FIVE

All seven SEALs hit the same partially cultivated field within seconds of each other and in a tight group. That was the beauty of a free-fall insertion with steerable parachutes. The seven had formed up on Sonny after they left the MC-130H, fell three thousand feet, and opened their chutes at the same time. Then, under canopy, they followed him to the precise drop zone location he’d selected in planning the jump. Without a word, the squad rallied and moved into the shelter of an abandoned banana grove, stashed their parachutes, and began to quietly strap on their body armor, operational gear, and weapons. It was doubtful that they had been seen, but they were taking no chances. Once geared up, they went into a security perimeter and listened for five minutes in complete silence. Engel called Ray over to him. Ray passed him a handset that was on a coiled tether to his satellite radio.

“Mother Goose, this is Blackbeard, over,” he said in a low voice.

“This is Mother Goose, over.” Through the encryption and the space-borne relays, he could make out the controlled voice of the senior chief. And, Engel thought, perhaps a note of relief as well.

“This is Blackbeard. We are at Point Alpha, how copy, over?”

“Mother Goose. Copy you at Point Alpha, over.”

“Blackbeard, roger, out.”

While Engel called in their safe insertion, Chief Nolan began to work his way from man to man around the circle, making sure there were no issues from the jump.

“Nicely done, Sonny,” Nolan said in a low voice when he came to the big SEAL. Nth hedth="1“Couldn’t have picked a better DZ.”

When he got to A.J., “Ready?”

“Ready, Chief. Target is two eight zero, about four clicks.”

Finally, he made his way to Engel. “We’re up, Boss. A.J. has us about two and a half miles east of the target. Y’know what I really like about an operational jump?”

Engel paused, rolled his eyes, knowing he would have to hear this.

“You don’t have to hump your shit a mile or so off some big Army drop zone, and there’s no rigger standing by to give you crap about how you coiled up your chute.”

Engel couldn’t help but grin. “Okay, Chief. Now that we’ve got that settled — let’s go to war.”

Nolan turned and signaled to A.J., pumping his fist in the air. The Bandito point man turned, rose, and began to move. Without another word, seven dark forms filed out of the banana grove traveling east — A.J. on point followed by Engel, Ray, Sonny, Mikey, and Weimy, with Chief Nolan bringing up the rear. Periodically, A.J. would halt the patrol, and they would all listen and then move out again. Their drop zone was at one thousand feet elevation, just above the coastal mangrove that bordered the edge of a deciduous forest. As they descended to lower elevation, the ground became incrementally wetter. A.J. picked their way through small groves of ceiba and bamboo with an occasional fig or mango tree. The undergrowth was a mosaic of saw grass, low palms, ferns, and flowering shrubs. Had it been daylight, they would have been amazed at the variety, density, and coloring of the orchids. Since they had left the banana grove, they had encountered no sign of cultivation or any structures, but that was expected. They were making their way toward the marshy coastal lowlands. Apart from a dog barking in the distance and the occasional scurrying of an animal or a reptile, they moved in complete silence and solitude. They also moved quickly with the help of their night observation devices, or NODs, and a sliver of a moon that would not set until just before dawn. A.J. had planned their route well, keeping them on solid ground. Only as they approached the target did they begin to walk through marshy areas. At a security halt some four hundred meters from the target, Engel again turned to Ray, who was just behind him in the patrol. This time Ray took a pigtail from his satellite radio and plugged it into one on Engel’s combat harness.

“Mother Goose, Blackbeard. You still with me, over?” he now spoke into his encrypted helmet mic.

“Mother Goose, here, over.”

“Roger, Mother Goose. Approaching target from the east per our planned route. Anything from Whiplash, over?”

Miller paused a moment and then, “Whiplash is on the move and expects to be operational at his insertion point in ten minutes, over.”

“Roger, ten mikes to his insertion. We are moving to the pre-assault position. Estimate forty mikes to beginni Ses iarng the assault, over.”

“Copy forty mikes to the assault. Mother Goose, roger, out.”

At a hundred meters from the camp, they smelled the damp smoke of a wood-burning stove. At sixty meters, they began to hear voices, but there was no alarm in them — mostly coughing, bursts of guttural Spanish, and an occasional laugh. Otherwise, there were only the normal jungle-swamp noises. A.J. halted the patrol forty meters from the encampment, and no one moved for ten minutes. Then he called Engel forward, and the two lay side by side. They could clearly see the long, low building that was the compound’s central structure, plus two outlying structures that were more distant and partially shrouded in the mist rising from the swampy ground. The area immediately in front of them was dark but for dim interior lighting in the main building. This was where they were holding Morales — if their intelligence was accurate. They could see what appeared to be security lights on poles on the other side of the camp, the side served by the main access road, but from their vantage they appeared only as distant and luminescent balls of cotton to the naked eye. In their night optics, they were fireballs. They knew there were other structures near the main access road, but they were lost in mist and mangrove. That there were lights but no generator sound meant there was electricity and perhaps even phone service. What was not shrouded in the rising mist they could see well with their night-vision devices. These were the latest generation of NODs, with low-ambient light and thermal capability. The huts were cheap wooden-framed constructions — cottage-like affairs with corrugated roofing. All were built a few feet off the ground on stilts. There were planks leading from the front and rear of the main building in deference to the muddy ground. Almost all the camp, except what lay directly before them, was protected by a crude eight-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Between the SEALs and the huts, there was twenty meters of a shallow estuary that joined the main river several hundred meters north of the compound. The SEALs had purposefully selected a route that would bring them in this way; it was the most difficult and therefore the least likely avenue of approach.

The encampment was served by a dirt road that led from the far side of the camp due west toward the coast. A secondary road led north from the main building to the river some four hundred meters beyond. A.J. brought them to the eastern edge of the encampment exactly as planned. Engel squeezed him on the shoulder — good job. A.J. had secured his GPS receiver and continued to study the camp with his NOD.

“Security?” Engel whispered.

“I’ve seen two. One is on roving patrol, and the other is seated on a bench just outside the front door to the main building. And off to the right, about forty-five feet in the air, see it?”

Engel did, easily. “Got him.” Both knew that the glow of a cigarette tip that high, which looked like a flare with the NODs, could only mean a sentry in a guard tower. Everything else, including a second guard tower on the far side of the camp, was obscured by a stand of mangrove and the night mist.

The plan called for a predawn assault with an after-dawn extraction. Dawn was still an hour away, which meant they had ample time to scout the encampment and careful St ar a prly ease into position before moving on the target building. Engel moved back close to Ray.

“Tell the senior chief we’re at the camp and have the target structure in sight. Proceeding according to plan.”

Ray nodded and quietly called Mother Goose on his radio with their position and information. Then Engel keyed his tactical radio, speaking quietly into the boom mic from his helmet. Due to the marvels of technology, SEALs and other special operators all wore headphones that allowed them to hear radio traffic clearly, and they had only to whisper into their boom microphones to transmit. The headphones were also equipped with sound-canceling and enhancement features that blocked loud noises, like gunfire and explosions, but amplified all other sound. They could hear footfalls, quiet conversation, leaves rustling, and the buzz of the swamp sounds quite clearly. Engel carried two radios, one tuned to the frequency of his support net and the other to the frequency of his squad tactical net. He keyed his tactical net freq.

“Okay, Banditos, radio check.” They answered in turn.

“A.J. here.”

“Ray here.”

“Sonny here.”

“Mikey with you.”

“Weimy here.”

“All present,” Nolan added.

“Okay, guys,” Engel whispered into his mic, “we’re at the camp and at the jump-off point. Stand by to move to your pre-assault positions. Boss out.” Then he keyed his other radio, the one that connected him to his support net.

“Whiplash, this is Blackbeard. You with us, over?”

“Whiplash is standing by and in position. Laying up thirty mikes at a fast run from your primary extraction site, over.”

A wave of relief swept over Engel. His boat support team was in place, according to plan and just as he had expected. Had it been otherwise, the senior chief would have told him. Still, it was comforting to know there were friends nearby.

“Good to have you with us, Whiplash. We are on target and moving to our pre-assault positions. Our Raven airborne, over?”

“The Raven is airborne and headed your way, and Whiplash is standing by. Good hunting, out.”

Engel paused to take a deep breath, then keyed his tactical radio.

“Chief, come up here.”

“Roger, moving.”

Nolan moved up the file, dropping to a knee between A.J. and his lieutenant. The three of them again studied what they could see across the short expanse of dirty water. For a security force, the water represented a barrier and security; for SEALs, it meant concealment and sanctuary. A few minutes earlier, A.J. had spotted another two sentries on roving patrol on the far side of the camp. That made a total of five. But to get across the water, the sentry in the guard tower would have to be dealt with. Engel bent close to his chief.

“We’re a bit ahead of schedule. Believe we should bring the squad up online and hold here for another ten minutes or so, then begin working our way across the water toward the target hooch. There’s a shallow rise just a few meters to our right and just above the water. I can control from there, and it’s a good perch for Weimy.”

Nolan studied the ground. “From the looks of the security on this side of the camp, there may be a few more Tangos than we bargained for.” Tangos, in the SEAL lexicon, were terrorists, but the term could be applied to any member of the opposition. “Might be we could use your gun in this fight.”

Engel considered this. In a small-unit engagement, the platoon or squad leader needed to keep himself in a position where he had oversight of the ground action and could coordinate the supporting elements. His weapons were his radios. If he were in the fight, he could not do that as well. So, as was often the case, the leader positioned himself to control the fight, and his number two led the fight. Given what he was seeing across the canal in the way of security, another gun in the assault element would certainly help, maybe even be a game changer. But this assault might well turn into a melee, and he needed to stay above it.

“That’s tempting, but I better be where I can control the action.” He glanced at his watch. Then, “Let’s get ’em online and do this thing. Let me know when you’re ready to cross.”

Nolan nodded and keyed his tac radio. “Okay, guys, let’s go get this lady. Weimy, you’re with the Boss. The rest of you, on me.”

The five SEALs moved as one across the short piece of open ground to the edge of the estuary, making good use of the palmetto growth at the water’s edge. Engel and Weimy moved off to their right to a gentle rise that afforded them a good view of the encampment and the main camp building. Weimy began to scan the camp through his Mk12 optic sight, noting targets for future attention and looking for others not yet found. Engel laid his M4 to one side and pulled a small case from his rucksack. Using the lid as a light shield, he flipped on the Toughbook laptop. It took a few moments for the device to find the satellite and bring up the preset program. Then the screen filled with an infrared presentation of a jungle canopy moving slowly from the top of the screen to the bottom. He keyed his radio on the support net.

“Whiplash, this is Blackbeard. I’ll take control of the Raven now, over.”

“Blackbeard, Whiplash. You have the Raven, over.”

“Blackbeard, roger, out.”

Engel typed in a set of GPS coordinates, and the presentation began to rotate as the little drone responded to new guidance. Within minutes, the camp came into view. Engel put the aircraft into an orbit over the target, brought it down to a thousand feet over the camp, and adjusted the camera zoom. He began to pick up details of the camp, the long central building, and finally the two guards on the ground, plus the third in the guard tower.

Nolan came up on the tactical net. “Okay, Boss, we’re in position.”

“Roger, stand by to move when I give you the word.”

“Roger.”

The delay before an assault, when everyone was in place, was important. It allowed the SEALs in the assault element to become oriented to the camp, the swamp sounds around them, and the target building. It allowed Engel and Weimy time to study the layout in front of them and become familiar with the movement of sentries. After close to ten minutes, Engel came up on the tac net.

“Ready, Chief?”

“Ready, Boss.”

Engel leaned close to his sniper. “Okay, Weimy, he’s yours.”

From his perch, Weimy could clearly see the guard in the tower a hundred meters away. Through his AN/PVS-4 low-light scope, it was as if the man was just twenty-five meters away in broad daylight. It was by no means a difficult shot, but he didn’t want the guard to fall from the tower and create a disturbance. The guard was no longer smoking, but he was leaning against the rail of the tower’s small elevated platform, an AK-47 held loosely in the crook of his arm. His head periodically bobbed as he fought going to sleep. Weimy centered the crosshairs as he went into his breathing cycle, then pressed the trigger.

The guard dropped silently to the tower platform like a wet rag, but his canteen tumbled over the edge. Weimy and Engel winced, but there was no sound as it fell into the soft mud at the base of the tower. The only sound was the cough of the suppressed rifle and the audible snap of the bullet cracking the sound barrier on its way to the target. Following the shot, they all waited in silence for any reaction from the crack of the round. There was none.

“Okay, Chief. You’re good to cross.”

“Roger, we’re moving.”

Each SEAL entered the water in turn, slowly moving from the bank until only their helmets and NODs were visible. They fanned out as they approached the other side, no noise and no ripples. This was something the SEALs had rehearsed dozens of times; this was their element. The estuary was not deep, yet only their heads crested the water. A.J., Mikey, and Ray slowly emerged on the far bank, crouching low as they moved to the cover of the mangrove and low palm growth. They then carefully dewatered their weapons and took up security positions, slightly flanking the building. Nolan, Sonny, and Mikey remained immersed.

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“We’re set, ready to move on the target, over,” Nolan reported.

Engel keyed his tactical radio. “Okay, Chief, give me a paint.”

“Roger that. Coming on now… and off.”

First Nolan, and then the other four SEALs in turn, activated their IR beacons so that Engel could identify them on the Raven presentation and Weimy could see them with his NOD. “Okay, guys, we can see all of you. Be advised, guard one is still seated at the front entrance, and guard two is on the far side of the building. Two other guards that we can see are on the far side of the compound. Chief, you and Sonny are clear to move from where you are to the side of the main building. Everyone else hold fast.”

Nolan rogered up and started to move from the water, then froze. Between Sonny and him was a small wooden platform stilted a few inches above the waterline. It was too small to be a dock but would serve as a small-boat tie-off and loading pier. The big SEAL and his chief were still shoulder deep in the dark water on either side of the structure. As they waited motionless, a sentry stepped from behind a tree and out onto the platform. It was always the one you didn’t see. As Engel, Nolan, and Sonny held their breath, Weimy sighted in.

“I have him,” Weimy whispered over the tac net, and he did.

The shot took him just over the heart on his left side, spinning him to his left and over backward toward Nolan. Nolan reached up and caught him before his body splashed the water, and eased him below the surface. Not yet dead, the guard jerked involuntarily as he inhaled water, but it did not last long. When he stopped moving, the chief released him and pushed him under the wooden pier.

“Nicely done, you guys,” came Engel on the tac net.

“Yeah, just like we rehearsed it,” Nolan replied. “You ready, Sonny?”

“Ready, Chief,” and the two SEALs emerged from the water, carefully draining their primary weapons as they advanced on the target hooch.

The plan called for them to move slowly and deliberately on the target, locate Morales, and, if possible, bring her out without alerting anyone. This meant inching forward and avoiding contact with the camp security force, or at least delaying any contact until they could find Morales and gain control of her. It’s said that most battle plans go out the window when the first shot is fired. On this night, it was the first scream.

The back room of the long, squalid hut had become a torture chamber. Heeding Christo’s instructions to keep her alive and not call back until she talked, Tommy did what he did best. He tortured the young doctor. Yet in doing so, he was careful to prolong Morales’s life. He had never let Christo down, and he didn’t intend to do so now. He knew the stakes and knew that if he failed, his life was w Sis He orthless. Christo would have him tortured and find someone else to extract what he wanted from Morales.

The look on Tommy’s face was one of determination laced with frustration. He had slowly increased the pressure on Morales, from slapping her face bloody to burning her flesh with a lit cigar to cutting her and rubbing salt into the wounds. Earlier that day, he had had her gang-raped by the camp sentries; he had applied electric shock to her breasts and genitals. Nothing had worked. Now, Tommy reached into his bag of sick tricks for what he was sure would finally bring her around. He’d only had to go this far with a hostage once before, a tough Costa Rican paramilitary officer, and the man had broken in less than five minutes. This… Yankee bitch wouldn’t hold out half that long. He permitted himself a smile; he was going to enjoy this.

Lisa Morales was chained to a sturdy wood table. The rusty metal dug into her wrists, which were made dark red from both dried and oozing blood. Her hands were splayed out on the table, the tops of them swollen and bruised. She hung from them, with her head just below the tabletop. Her feet, stretched out behind her and tied to ring bolts in the floor, were black and swollen from the stick beatings on her soles. Dozens of large flies buzzed around her, licking at the open wounds. She was naked save for her bloodstained bra and panties, and her face was so swollen from Tommy’s beatings that her mother would be hard-pressed to recognize her. Blood seeped from multiple cuts on her torso and legs. The table and floor about her were slick with blood, urine, and feces. It looked like a scene from the Spanish Inquisition.

“No mas… ” Morales moaned, the words almost unrecognizable as she struggled to form them through swollen lips. Her moans were drowned out by a high-pitched electrical whine.

“Por favor… no… por favor,” she moaned, barely audible.

Tommy stepped in front of Morales holding a power drill with a 1/16th-inch bit and leaned into the drill as it bit down and through Morales’s left hand.

“Arrrrrrrrrgh… ”

The shriek was not loud, but primal and guttural — a sound more animal than human. Her cries were so shrill and wrenching that Tommy raised up, extracting the drill bit from her hand. Enraged that he had let her cries interrupt the flow of his work, Tommy aimed the drill bit at the top of her right hand and shoved it through. Morales’s legs jerked uncontrollably and her head slammed into the top of the table, her body now in an uncontrollable seizure. The look on Tommy’s face had changed from determination and frustration to pure rage.

“Speak to me, you bitch! Diga me!”

From deep inside Morales, some small reservoir of adrenaline gave added strength to her voice, and she emitted a howl that pierced the thin walls of the building, spilling into the still night outside. The terrifying screams that echoed through the camp and the surrounding mangrove transfixed the SEALs, freezing them in place. Even the roving guards paused in their Ssed echoedlazy patrol routes and turned to listen. After a long moment of the unbearable, heart-wrenching cries, Chief Nolan came up on the tac net.

“Sir, we got to go.”

“Roger that. Everyone get ready to move, but hold where you are and wait for my command.” Then on his support net, “Whiplash, Blackbeard, over.”

“Whiplash here, over.” The two SOC-R craft were still nestled against the bank at the bend of the river, tied off on mangrove trees and virtually invisible in the low vegetation.

“This is Blackbeard. We are about to go hot. How soon can you get to my primary extraction site, priority one, over?”

“This is Whiplash. We can be at your primary extraction in thirty mikes, maybe a little sooner on priority one, over.”

Engel did some mental calculations. It did them no good to have Morales, and in all likelihood a small army of pursuers, if they had no extraction platform. Neither did it do them any good for the boats to arrive too soon. This was going to be close, one way or another.

“Roger, Whiplash. Start making your way here quietly, and stand by to respond at your best speed, over.”

“Understood, Blackbeard. We are moving toward primary extraction at slow speed, over.”

“Blackbeard, roger, out.” Then on the tac net, “Okay, guys, smooth is fast. Go get her, and call out the security as you see them.”

Some fourteen miles downriver, Chief Bautista had the order he’d been waiting for and switched to his tactical net.

“Two Boat, One Boat, we’re moving upriver at idle. Follow me at loose trail. Man-up on all weapons systems, and be ready to put the pedal to the metal. This extraction will most likely be a hot one.”

“Two Boat, roger.”

No more words needed to be exchanged between Bautista and Chief Tom Dial, the Two Boat’s captain and coxswain. The two SOC-R craft fired up their engines and eased out from the bank in unison. With the Yanmars purring at a soft growl, they began to work their way upstream toward the extraction site at a reasonably quiet five knots. They all felt it; they were headed for a fight. As Bautista and Dial held their craft in the current, each swick crewman at his individual station checked and rechecked his weapon and ammo supply.

As the two SOC-R craft worked their way upriver, Engel was now completely focused on visual presentation on his screen, shifting back and forth from low-light level color to infrared. The SEALs had all switched on their IR markers so he could track them easily as they advanced on the target building. The sounds now coming from the long low hut were moans punctuated by howls of pa Sy h asin and pure terror.

The assault element was now on the move in a modified skirmish line, with Chief Nolan walking point and two SEALs to either side, trailing and slightly behind — five silent forms rhythmically sweeping the area in front of them with the barrels of their weapons as they closed on the low silhouette of the main structure. On reaching the side of the building, they flattened against the plank siding with the now plaintive screams urging them forward. Nolan then moved to the van and led the file to the entrance end of the building. The others bunched closely behind him.

Lieutenant Engel brought the Raven even lower, optically sweeping the area around the SEAL squad. He then saw the roving sentry moving from behind the rear of the building toward the side where the SEALs were queued up by the front entrance. In another few steps, he would be sure to see them.

“Chief, hold up!” Nolan and the other SEALs froze.

“Got him?” Engel whispered.

“Got him,” Weimy echoed.

As the guard stepped from behind the building, he was caught mid-chest by a .556 round from Weimy’s Mk12. Again, there was only the spit of the rifle and the brief snap from the round’s sonic path. The Tango’s heart exploded from the impact of the round. He dropped to his knees and fell face forward into the mud.

“Okay, Chief, you’re clear.”

“Roger that. We’re moving.”

Nolan moved carefully around the corner of the building, looking over his rifle across the front porch and entryway. The guard, having been alerted by the sonic crack of the last shot, was now on his feet near the door, with his back to Nolan. If he turned, Nolan knew he’d have to shoot him, and that would alert the camp. “Uh, Weimy?” he whispered into his mic.

“No worries, Chief.” This time it was a head shot and the guard collapsed. Again, another sonic crack parted the silence, this time accompanied by the clatter of an AK-47 falling onto the hut’s wooden porch decking. This may or may not have alerted those in the building or other sentries. Nonetheless, Nolan and his teammates knew they had to act swiftly now. They quickly moved to a stack at the door. A.J. carefully tried the knob and, finding that it turned, pushed it carefully open. He led the file inside, unchallenged. They crept silently down a short, dimly lit hallway. As they entered, they flipped up their NODs; there was enough light to work without them. Ray remained at the door as rear security, leaving the others to press on.

On the rise outside the camp, Engel and Weimy could only watch as the SEALs disappeared into the building. Engel continued his eagle’s-eye survey of the surrounding buildings and Weimy looked for targets. He watched the two roving sentries on the far side of the compound but elected not to kill them. Double kills are sometimes difficult, and until something alerted the camp, he would do nothing to disturb things. For now, they weren’t a threat. The real con S Thand untilcern was that for every sentry they could see, there could be a dozen or more off duty nearby.

The four SEALs in the hut’s short hallway paused to listen. All they could hear were low moans coming from deeper inside the building. The interior walls were a combination of plywood and wallboard. The doors were cheap hollow-core wood. Nolan knew they had to get to Morales quickly, but they couldn’t advance without neutralizing any threat behind them. There were three doors at the end of the hallway. They smoothly set up at the left-hand door — standard room clearance. A.J., Sonny, and Mikey popped through the door and pried it out. Nothing but trash and two soiled mattresses. It was the same for the door on the right. The center door led to a larger room with dirty dishes on card tables and a half dozen rusted metal folding chairs. They cleared it quickly. Another door led to an adjacent room; Morales had to be behind that door. They moved quickly to the door and were about to make an entry when the door and wall in front of them exploded.

Nolan and the other SEALs dove for the floor as the automatic-weapons fire scythed back and forth, chewing up the wallboard, belt high. All made it safely except Mikey. A round caught him just under the lip of his helmet, snapping his head back. Blood immediately washed his face as he lay inert on his back in front of the door. Chief Nolan, seeing him go down, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the relative safety of the exterior side wall.

The gunner in the next room was relentless. After a quick magazine change, he again opened up, but this time he was clearly shooting high. Sonny low-crawled to the door, kicked it open, and rolled in a flash-bang grenade. Following the explosion, A.J. dashed through the door in an instant and double-tapped a Tango trying to work the bolt on an AK-47 that had jammed. But it was a small room, more of an anteroom, with yet another door behind it. A.J. and Sonny were now on their own, and both knew they had to keep moving. Stepping over the body, they paused for a fraction of a second. Then A.J. gave the door a strong kick.

Just before the shooting started, Tommy — having abandoned the drill and donned leather gloves — was about to give Morales yet another vicious backhand. She was now semiconscious and probably wouldn’t feel it, but he really did enjoy hitting women. Yet he knew he had to be careful. Fun was fun, but Christo wanted information, and he couldn’t take the chance of killing her — yet. But just one more backhand would probably be all right. Then the guard in the next room went full automatic with his AK-47. The sound through the thin walls was deafening. There was a brief silence and then more firing. There were two others there in the room to help Tommy with the interrogation. They were both cartel security retainers and stood by passively while he worked on Morales. When the firing started, they reacted much more quickly than Tommy did. Both turned in unison and bolted through the rear entrance. Tommy, not wanting to leave Morales, took up his Glock .45 and turned back to the sound of the shooting. A loud explosion followed by more shots caused him to hesitate, but then he put his eye to a crack in the door to try to see what was happening — at the precise moment A.J. kicked the door in from the other side.

Stunned, Tommy staggered back and tried to raise his pistol just as Sonny barreled through the door. The two crashed against the opposite wall chest to chest, too close for Sonny to get the barrel of his SAW level, but he Slev. T managed to block Tommy’s gun hand, forcing it up and away. Tommy was bigger than Sonny but not nearly as strong. Locked together, Sonny forced Tommy back against a wall and drew his Sig Sauer 9mm. He rammed the barrel of the automatic under Tommy’s chin, and while he was eyeball to eyeball with the big Chechen, he blew off the top of his head. A.J., having no angle to get off a shot, could only clear the rest of the room and watch.

“Clear,” A.J. shouted. Then turning to Morales, he keyed his radio. “Hey, Chief, I think we got her.”

Nolan quickly came back on the net. “Roger that. Ray, get in here. Mikey’s down and I need you with him.”

Ray raced through the building to where Nolan was tending to Mikey. He was unconscious and making incoherent sounds. But his airway was clear and he had a strong pulse. Mikey was the squad medic by training, but every SEAL is a medic through cross-training. Now those men Mikey had trained would have to try and save him.

“He’s bleeding but he’s breathing,” Nolan told Ray. “Do what you can to stabilize him and get him ready to travel.” Then he went to find Morales. Ray knew the drill — keep him breathing and keep the blood inside, and there was plenty of blood. He removed Mikey’s helmet and began to apply a pressure bandage.

An instant later, Nolan was at Morales’s side. She was semiconscious and could only mumble over and over, “Bastante — no mas.”

Nolan took her face in his hands, none too gently. “Miss Morales. We are Americans, and we are going to get you out of here.” He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a glimmer of recognition.

On the rise across the estuary, Engel and Weimy heard the shooting and saw the flash-bang, but there was little they could do. At the first burst of gunfire, Engel radioed Whiplash and requested they come at top speed. Both he and Weimy were on the tactical net, so they both knew that the team had Morales and that Mikey had been shot — neither knew how bad. Engel had been here before: There’s a fight, he has men down, and he’s tethered to his radios. But he knows Nolan and the others can do the job, and though he’s anxious to know what’s going on, he also knows Nolan will tell him when he’s able. All he could do now was to focus on the Raven presentation and look for threats. Then the two men bolted from the back door of the long hut.

“I got two squirters,” Weimy said on the net.

“Take ’em,” Nolan confirmed immediately.

Weimy sent a round between the shoulder blades of the first man, just missing his heart but collapsing a lung. He staggered on a few steps before a second round, two inches left of the first, severed his spinal cord, pitching him face forward to the ground. The second Tango made it to a beefy, extended-cab pickup truck and slipped behind the wheel. Before he could close the door or start the engine, Weimy took him through the rear window of the cab with a head shot, painting the inside of the windshield with bone fragments and brain tissue.

Inside, Nolan snatched a curtain from the wall and covered Morales’s bruised and battered body. She was bleeding from cuts and burns all over her torso and limbs, as well as from her nose and mouth. He took a scarf from his neck, wet it, and dabbed Morales’s dry, cracked lips. She was now weeping softly. “Okay, listen closely — this is important. What is your mother’s maiden name?”

“R-Rosales,” she whispered.

“What street did you grow up on?” She gave him a puzzled look. “Please, what street did you live on when you were a little girl?”

“Hot Springs.”

“Good girl.” He keyed his mic. “Boss, we have her and a positive ID, stand by.” Then he went over to where Ray was tending to Mikey. “How’s he doing?”

“Hard to tell, but I’ve slowed the bleeding. No way to tell how bad it is, but it’s not good. We need to get him help.” Ray had his head swathed in bandages. Mikey looked like a mummy.

Nolan again keyed his mic. “Okay, Boss, Mikey is down with a head wound — looks serious. We’re getting him and the package ready to move.”

“Roger, copy. Put a rush on it — we got company.”

“Say again.”

“I said we have company. There are two trucks inbound from the west on the main road. They appear to be loaded with Tangos. Get out of there, Chief. You’ve got five minutes at best.”

“Christ, the fun never stops.”

On the rise outside the camp, Engel could do nothing but watch on his computer screen as the quick-reaction force, a crew-cab pickup with eight or ten men in back and a Ford Explorer loaded with men, made their way down the access road toward the compound.

“Whiplash, this is Blackbeard, over.”

“This is Whiplash, over.”

“Whiplash, we have a QRF inbound, and I have wounded. How far out are you, over?”

“Blackbeard, I’m fifteen mikes from the primary. How many pax, over?”

“Six effectives, two wounded. Plan for a hot extraction, over.”

“Blackbeard, I copy six effectives and two wounded for a total of eight pax, and a hot extract, over.”

“Good copy, Whiplash. Blackbeard, out.”

“Two Boat,” Bautista said on their tac net, “you copy that?”

“Roger that, One,” Dial replied. “I’m right behind you.”

Ricardo Bautista had been a Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman since their small, tight-knit community was officially formed in 2000—back when he was a second-class petty officer and still new to the Special Boat Teams. He knew that as leader of a two-boat SOC-R element, it would all be on him. A hot extraction meant that his SEAL brothers would be running for their lives and that he and his boats’ gunners could mean the difference between getting them out safely and watching them perish. He had to stay cool, yet his excitement was palpable. Ten years of ground wars in the Middle East and Southwest Asia in landlocked places like Afghanistan generated few combat opportunities for his fellow swicks and their highly capable watercraft. Now, for better or for worse, they were in the mix.

The two SOC-Rs came up on step and leapt forward as Bautista and Dial slammed their respective throttles forward and the crafts’ twin 440 Yanmar Diesels responded at full power, thrusting each boat forward at their redline speed of forty-plus knots. It was showtime, and Bautista was both in charge and on the spot. The mission would succeed or fail, and men would be saved or would die, based on his decisions over the next few minutes. He had a good crew; he knew that — he’d trained them. But they were green. For most of them, this would be their first combat engagement.

“Okay, listen up. This is gonna be a hot extraction — damn hot,” Bautista said into his boom mic. “I want all weps-trained to starboard. We’re still,” he paused, glancing down at his Garmin 720 Marine Navigator, “about eight miles away from the primary extraction site. I want the Two Boat in loose trail until we get to where we’re going. Then, at the extraction point, I want us no more than ten yards offshore and ten yards bow to stern. Remember, get a clear field of fire for every weapon. Got it?”

“Yep, Chief… Got it, Skipper… No worries…” and other short replies told Bautista his crews were up on step, just like their boats. “Remember our creed, boys,” he said, referring to the six-paragraph SWCC Creed each of them knew by heart: “‘I will close and engage the enemy with the full combat power of my craft. I will never quit and I will leave no one behind.’”

The answering mic clicks told Bautista all he needed to know. The boat guys, his guys, were ready. What they had trained for, for most of their professional careers, was about to go down.

At Engel’s position on the shallow rise, the first hint of dawn was creeping into the eastern sky. All he could do for the moment was stare at the scope and watch the quick-reaction force close on the compound. Daylight would make their movement out of the camp easier, but they would also lose their night-vision advantage.

“Get out of there, Chief.”

“Working on it, Boss.”

Occasionally, there was the soft bark of the Mk12 as Weimy found a target. The Tango sentries on the far side of the camp who responded to the initial bursts of gunfire were quickly taken out. Several others appeared but soon went into hiding when they realized there was an accomplished sniper out there. They were content to remain hidden and alive, at least for now.

Sonny searched the room while A.J. did what he could to get Morales ready to travel. Suddenly Nolan was at his side. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s passed out, and there’s no way she can walk. How’s Mikey?”

“Not good. Sonny, we done here?”

“Yeah. I got a laptop, a cell phone, and two flash drives. That’s about it.”

“Bag it and go help Ray with Mikey. We got a QRF breathing down on us. I’ll take her, and we’ll go out the back door. A.J., take us out of here and make for the first rally point.”

“Hurry, Chief.” There was an urgency in Engel’s voice. “They’re closing fast.”

“Copy, Boss. We’re out the door now.”

Engel and Weimy watched as A.J. led them from the building toward the first rally point, a predetermined meeting place on the road that led north out of the camp toward the river. They left the building at a slow run, with Sonny carrying Mikey like a sleeping child and Nolan with Morales draped over his shoulder. A guard along their route saw an opportunity and moved from behind a tree. Before Engel could shout a warning, Weimy’s rifle spat a round and took him in the chest. He went down to all fours, and a second round knocked him flat.

“Good shooting. Now, we gotta get out of here.” Engel no longer needed the Raven display to track the QRF; he could hear them coming. He snapped the Toughbook computer shut and stowed it. Seconds later he and Weimy sprinted down the hill toward the rally point. Just outside the camp, this initial rally point was also only about a quarter mile from the river. If they could meet there and get into the bush before the QRF trucks were on them, they had a chance. If not, the trucks would run them down and that would be that.

Nolan and his team were moving at a jog trot at best, and he knew they were moving way too slow. But once clear of the building, he saw the truck with the dead guard slumped at the wheel.

“A.J.!” he shouted. “The truck!” but A.J. was already heading for it. He grabbed the dead Tango by the collar and jerked him from behind the wheel, dumping him unceremoniously into the mud. The keys were in the ignition. The engine turned over once, then twice, and finally caught. Nolan laid Morales into the truck bed as gently as he could and jumped in after her, followed by Ray. Sonny put Mikey in the rear seat of the extended cab and jumped in with him.

“Any time now!” Nolan yelled to A.J., who had just wiped away t S wito the he last of the blood and brains from the windshield. He jammed the truck into gear and mashed the gas. In a flurry of mud flying from all four tires, the truck slewed around and headed for the back road that would take them from the camp. As they cleared the compound, Nolan saw the two trucks from the QRF enter the compound on the main road and charge after them.

“Damn,” he said, to no one in particular, “we were almost home free.” He keyed his mic. “Hey, Boss, we’re clear of the camp en route to the rally point, but we got two Tango vehicles on our tail, and they look pissed. The good news is that we have wheels and should be at the rally point in less than a minute.”

Engel and Weimy got to the road and the rally point just ahead of the SEALs in the truck. Engel carried the squad’s one and only LAAW — a light anti-tank/assault weapon that was more than capable of dealing with a truck. He pulled the launcher over his head and discarded the carrying strap, slinging his M4 rifle in the LAAW’s place. He quickly extended the launching tube, removed the safety pin, and kneeled down with the rocket on his shoulder, just as A.J. and the SEAL truck rounded a bend in the road. They flashed past him and slowed to a halt.

Weimy was at Engel’s side with a hand on his other shoulder. They were both breathing hard from the dash to the rally point. “Steady, Boss. Sight picture and trigger squeeze.”

“Sight picture and trigger squeeze,” Engel repeated.

The pickup truck rounded the bend well ahead of the Explorer. It was a big Ford extended-cab 250, and its bed was crowded with armed men. Engel pressed the trigger detent and the rocket leapt from the tube. It took but a nanosecond for the missile to cover the thirty meters between the LAAW launcher and the grill of the Ford. The force of the blast pushed the engine back through the firewall and essentially buckled the frame from the dashboard forward, causing the truck to hinge, nose down. With the nose of the truck burrowing into the mud, the inertia of the vehicle generated a forward flip, with the truck bed careening over its front bumper, tossing close to a dozen stunned Tangos into the dirt in front of the two SEALs. Engel, momentarily frozen from the blast of the rocket, recovered in time to dodge a bouncing tire that almost took him out. Weimy calmly shot two of the shaken Tangos who tried to get to their feet. What was left of the pickup slid into the far ditch on its top.

“Today, gentlemen, if you don’t mind!” Nolan yelled at them. “There’s another fuckin’ truck coming!”

Weimy and Engel turned as if poked by a hot iron and ran for the truck. They dove into the bed, careful to avoid hitting Morales, who was curled into a fetal position. A.J. stomped the accelerator. With the other vehicle in pursuit, there was no time to unload everyone and carry their wounded through the bush to the primary extraction site; they had to keep moving. Engel keyed his support-net radio.

“Whiplash, Blackbeard, over.”

“This is Whiplash, go ahead, over.”

“Make for the secondary ext Ssecard, ovraction site — I say again, secondary extraction site, how copy, over?”

“Blackbeard, Whiplash. Understand secondary extraction, over.”

“Roger that, Whiplash. Blackbeard, out.”

Nolan put a hand on Engel’s shoulder. “Good show, Boss. Now what are you going to do with that?”

Engel glanced at the empty, now-worthless rocket-launcher tube. “Oh, yeah,” and tossed it from the truck. He then took his M4 from his shoulder and checked the action. “How’s Mikey?”

“He’s holding his own, but we got to get him some attention.”

On a straight stretch of road, the Explorer came into view. It was gaining on them. Several rounds pinged on the tailgate as Tangos leaned out the window to shoot at them. Nolan dropped onto the curled form of Morales to shield her from fire. Ray and Weimy began to return fire, with steady well-aimed rounds. A puff of smoke was emitted from the Explorer, and there were several spiderwebs in the windshield, but still they continued to come.

“A.J.,” Engel called over the tac net, “how far to the secondary?”

“Maybe five minutes, maybe less.”

A lifetime, Engel thought, wondering how A.J. could drive so well and still key his radio. “Drive on, brother. Smooth is fast.” Then switching radios, “Whiplash, Blackbeard, over.”

“Whiplash here, over.”

“We’ll be at secondary in four mikes, over.”

“Copy four minutes. See you there. Whiplash, out.”

The secondary extraction site was four miles downstream from the primary. While this meant four miles in the truck getting shot at, it also meant four fewer miles for the SOC-Rs to travel. At the secondary site, the road passed close to the bank of the river before veering away. Again, Engel reckoned it was going to be close.

The Explorer was still coming after them, but no one was leaning out the window shooting at them anymore. Ray and Weimy continued to fire — steady and measured, with each round finding the windshield or the grill of the vehicle. Then the Explorer slowed and began to drift back. Either the truck or the men inside, or both, had lost the will to continue. Nolan looked up from where he was shielding Morales and grinned.

“Guess we showed those assholes what they get for tailgating a bunch of SEALs.”

Weimy and Ray matched Nolan’s smile, each slumping into a corner of the truck bed at the tailgate. For Engel, it was a wave of relief, now that they had a clear shot to the secondary extraction site. Then, suddenly, a Dodge Ram crew cab swung in beh S swaveind them from a side road, and they were again under small-arms fire. If possible, there were even more Tangos in the Ram than in the first pickup.

“E-fuckin’-nuff already,” Weimy shouted as he and Ray began to return fire. There was no burst of fully automatic fire or even rapid fire. They both went back to steady, rhythmic shooting, making every round count. The truck dropped back momentarily in the face of this precise fire, but it was still coming. Behind the Ram, a stake truck appeared with a dozen or more Tangos. Suddenly, the back window of the SEAL pickup exploded, which for some unknown reason revived Mikey, who popped upright.

“Will someone get some goddamn suppressing fire on those fuckers, for Christ’s sake?”

As Sonny grabbed him and pulled him down in the seat, several more rounds came through the nonexistent rear window and stitched the windshield. A.J., in the act of a contortionist, kept his left foot on the gas and kicked out the spiderwebbed and brain-streaked windshield with his right. Nolan continued to shield Morales while Engel joined Ray and Weimy returning fire. They came to another straight stretch in the road, and someone in the bed of the Ram fired an RPG that whizzed just over their heads and exploded in a stand of trees well in front of them. First one rear tire, then the other, began to come apart from multiple bullet strikes. They slowed, and the pursuing trucks drew nearer. Engel dumped the rest of his magazine on full auto and keyed his mic.

“Whiplash, you with us, over?”

“Whiplash here. We’re thirty seconds from the secondary extraction, over.”

“So are we,” Engel replied, having no idea how close they were and not even sure they could last another thirty seconds in this wild chase, “and we are extremely hot, over.” He did a quick mag change and rejoined the fight.

A.J. felt the truck dying underneath him. At every bend in the road he expected to see the river, but each time he was disappointed. Then, suddenly, he saw it at the end of a long straight stretch. He stomped on the gas pedal even though it was already on the floor. He rammed the shift lever into low trying to gain more purchase on the muddy road. The engine screamed as the truck slewed side to side. The rear wheels were still shedding rubber and spitting mud — the front wheels were dragging the truck along. Suddenly he lost the right front and it was all he could do to keep the truck on the road.

“Come on, bitch!” he screamed. “Just a little farther.”

They were losing speed rapidly, but they were almost at the bank. He could see the shallow berm ahead on the right that separated the road from the river. “Hang on!” he yelled over his shoulder, both hands on the wheel, “we’re going in!” The road veered sharply to the left and there was a barrier straight ahead. Just before they got to the barrier, A.J. swerved to the right, never taking his foot off the gas. The truck climbed the berm, just missing the barrier, and nosed over into the slow-moving river.

In the rear seat, Sonny grabbed Mikey and he S Mihe ld his head to his chest for the impact. In the back, Chief Nolan wrapped his arms around Morales from behind, clamping her hips between his thighs. Engel, Ray, and Weimy knew what was coming, but they kept shooting until they were airborne. Just before Engel hit the water, he caught a glimpse of two shapes on the water about twenty meters from the shore and thirty meters downstream, gliding toward the extraction point. When his head broke the water after the dunking, he was wearing a grim smile. They’d been outmanned, outgunned, and running for their lives. Now all that was about to change.

Chief Bautista saw the SEAL pickup charging toward the river and the two Tango trucks in hot pursuit. He quickly grasped the situation. He turned the One Boat to port so that the Two Boat following closely in his wake would also have a good field of fire. Moments earlier they had cut their engines, come off step, and were now coasting toward the extraction site, pushing a large bow wave into the gentle current.

The men in the two pursuing trucks held on as their vehicles skidded to a stop right where the SEAL pickup had jumped the berm. They were suddenly and acutely aware of the two strange craft closing on their position. Some of the Tangos were training their guns on the heads that were popping up to the surface as the pickup began to drift and sink lower in the water. Others were turning their attention and their guns toward the two strange craft. For most of them, it would be their last conscious thought. As the two trucks slammed to a halt, Chief Bautista came up on his tactical net.

“Okay, boys, bring the pain.”

Simultaneously, four Dillon M134D electrically driven Gatling guns, often called mini-guns, opened up on the two trucks at a range of thirty yards. In the first five seconds of this one-sided encounter, the two trucks absorbed close to two thousand rounds of 7.65mm NATO standard coming at them at 2,800 feet per second. In those five terrible seconds, the two trucks received more than forty pounds of brass-encased steel in 150-grain increments. That was in the first five seconds, then there was another five seconds, and another five seconds after that. Incidental to the mini-guns were the four .50-calibers that contributed another two hundred rounds in focused bursts of fire during each of those five seconds. The .50s deal out far fewer rounds, but the armor-piercing, incendiary, and tracer slugs go through everything, save for the few rounds that found the engine blocks. The sound was deafening, and the carnage unimaginable. Trucks and Tangos shredded into an amalgam of blood, bone, mud, and metal.

In less than twenty seconds, it was over. The silence was deafening as the echoes from the gunfire reverberated from the foothills. While several gunners panned over the two steaming hulks, the boats and crews began to maneuver to pick up those in the water. The One Boat recovered Engel, Nolan, Morales, and Weimy. The Two Boat got the others. The corpsman/gunners on each boat quickly checked them all and then began to treat Morales and Mikey. The gunfire was quickly replaced by the roar of diesels and the boats sprung up on step, now running west with the current. Before Engel could ask, Chief Bautista was up on the support net to give him an update.

“Sir, we have all eight of you and are heading for an extraction site about nine miles downriver. I’ve alerted a MEDEVAC chopper and they’re already inbound. We’l Sbou fol have you airborne in about fifteen minutes. They’ll take you all back out to the Bonnie Dick. And my corpsman in the Two Boat says your wounded SEAL is now conscious. Good chance he’ll pull through.”

Engel paused to say something, but then realized normal speech was impossible with the roar of the engines. He keyed his support net. “Chief, what kind of premium whiskey do you drink?”

“Uh, I don’t drink, sir, but maybe a couple of bottles of Wild Turkey for the boys might be in order.”

“Done, and Bravo Zulu all around. You guys saved our asses.”

“Just another day in the Special Boat Teams, sir, but thanks.”

As he slumped back, Engel caught Nolan’s eye. Both men felt the overwhelming exhaustion that came after a sudden ultra-adrenaline high. Nolan would have given him a mock salute, but his arm was too heavy to raise. Anyway, he didn’t need to. The look that passed between them said it all. We went to the very edge, and we came through it alive — again. After this brief moment of silent communication, they both summoned the energy to move aft to where the corpsman was tending to Morales. With some effort, she focused on the two strained and grizzled faces, and a look of pure gratitude washed over her face. She mouthed, Thank you. Then Engel made his way back to where Weimy, the consummate professional, had his Mk12 trained over the gunwale, still looking for targets along the wooded riverbank. Engel put his hand on Weimy’s shoulder and leaned close to make himself heard.

“Thanks, brother. You were there every time, all the time. We wouldn’t have made it without you.”

“Hey, Boss, the only easy day was yesterday.”

Moments later, the two boats came off step and gently nosed into a bank that abutted a flat grassy area. The grass was close to two feet tall but was now blown flat by the prop wash of two MH-60S Navy Knighthawk helicopters. One was a slick — a MEDEVAC bird with several corpsmen and two litters. The other was the chase bird, amply armed with two M240 machine guns mounted in the doors behind each pilot and four Hellfire rockets on the Knighthawk’s batwings.

The deafening noise of the Knighthawk’s howling GE T-700 turbo-shaft engines and the slapping four-bladed rotors drowned out any attempt to talk. The swick crewmen carefully handed Morales and Mikey over the blunt bows of the SOC-Rs to the waiting arms of a team of corpsmen. They were quickly tied into litters and rushed to the MEDEVAC chopper, which lifted off immediately, heading west back toward the Bonhomme Richard.

Engel and Nolan, after shaking hands with every SWCC sailor, made their way to the waiting chase helo. The lieutenant and the chief quickly embraced A.J., Sonny, Ray, and Weimy as they climbed aboard, then scrambled in after them. They were soon airborne and out over blue water. The six SEALs sat around the small compartment grinning at one another. They were the sheepish, holy-shit-I-still-don’t-believe-it grins of men who had just cheated death. Sonny, seated next to Engel, leaned close to be S clscramblheard over the rotors.

“Here you go, Boss. A souvenir of your visit to Costa Rica.”

Engel opened the waterproof bag, which proved not to be entirely waterproof. It contained the laptop computer, two flash drives, and a cell phone from the Tango compound. He regarded Sonny, who even sweat stained and mud splattered looked a lot like Brad Pitt on a good day.

“This could be valuable intelligence, Sonny,” he said in mock solemnity. “I hope you didn’t let it get banged up.”

Sonny’s grin, with those perfect, even teeth, got even bigger. “No more so than me, Boss.”