Tropical Terror

8

Murdock stared at what appeared to be a broken wall of some sort that had been pushed back against the end of the packing shed. There was a slight decline in the floor as it slanted down some two feet. Lam hurried and held up his hand, keeping the others back while he searched the dirt floor. He went to his hands and knees and then stood grinning.

“Cap, there’s been a lot of foot traffic back and forth across this strip of dirt. I can make out more than a dozen tracks, and several of them are women and children’s shoes. A lot more here than meets the eye.”

“Where is this door?” Murdock asked.

Ostercamp looked up and shrugged. “Well, sir, it wasn’t exactly a door, but it looked like it could be. Over here.”

He moved to a section of the broken wall that closed off the end of the packing shed. He pushed on one section. “This part looks loose, like it could move.” Ostercamp kicked the wall with the flat of his boot and it shook, then edged upward six inches.

“Yes, it does move,” Murdock said. “Kick that sucker again.”

Ostercamp jumped up and slammed both boots against the wall, then dropped to the ground. The wall section moved a few inches, then stopped for a moment before it lifted and swung back six feet to reveal a door in another wall.

“Easy and stand back,” Murdock said. He moved up to the door and looked at the knob. The usual. He reached down and patted the metal knob. No electrical reaction. He turned the knob and pushed open the door with the muzzle of his Bull Pup. The door opened on oiled hinges. Inside they saw a set of steps leading down, and then a short tunnel to another door.

Murdock and the men hurried down the steps. Ed DeWitt tried the door. It was locked. He looked at Murdock, who nodded.

DeWitt used his Bull Pup and slammed two rounds into the door just in front of the doorknob where the lock would be. The sound of the shots in the enclosed tunnel blasted against the men’s ears like a howitzer going off. The door shuddered a moment, then swung open inward.

Just inside the door they found two teenage boys, each armed with a three-foot-long wooden club. One of the boys dropped the club and ran forward.

“You guys Navy SEALs?” he asked.

“Yes,” Murdock said. “I’d guess you’re one of the hostages the Chinese have been holding. Are the two admirals here?”

“No, sir,” the other boy said. “Half hour ago the Chinese commander came back, took my dad and Jake’s dad, and hustled them out of here and locked the door. We don’t know where they took them.”

“Everyone else here okay?” DeWitt asked.

“Yes, sir,” Jake said. “My mom is worried about Dad, but nobody else got shot or anything.”

“We’re sorry about Little Patty. That was terrible. Now, go get your families and bring them into the main house. The worst of this is over for you.”

Murdock led the way out of the underground. He used his radio. “Franklin. Where the hell are you? We need one of the vans around to the side of the house pronto. Come back.”

“Cap, we’re almost there. Sprained my damn ankle on the run and that slowed me down. Be there in two.”

“DeWitt. Assign two men to take care of the admirals’ families. Then join First Squad with the rest of your men. We’ll jam into the extended van and try to catch up with the Ford truck. Not many places he can run to out here.”

The two vans came around the side of the house and slid to a stop. “Let’s mount up that first van and ride. Everyone have TO&E ammo loads? Let’s move.”

Lam headed them out the right way, then jumped in the van. At the dirt track through the plantation, Lam stopped the rig and checked the dirt. He pointed to his right, which would lead back into the island more.

“Where can he be going?” Lam asked.

“Not the slightest,” Murdock said. “Let’s hope he doesn’t have a chopper stashed up here somewhere. We don’t know for sure how he got inland.”

The dirt road continued for three miles, then left the pineapple field and struck out across undeveloped land. The driver swore.

“That pickup, was it lifted with four-wheel drive?” the driver asked.

Murdock scowled. “Yeah, it was lifted at least. Getting rough out there?”

Just then the van slowed and hit something. The front end dropped a foot and the rig came to a sudden stop.

“No way we can keep moving across this rough land,” the driver said. “I didn’t even see that ditch. We can’t get out of it.”

“Everyone out,” Murdock barked. “Lam, get out front and track that bastard. We’ll be right behind you.”

The SEALs moved at a six-mile-an-hour pace as they jogged across the country. It became more rugged, and soon they could see spots where the four-wheel raised pickup had trouble getting through. One gully had three bumper marks on it where the pickup didn’t quite make it across. The fourth time had been a winner.

“We should be gaining on them,” Lam said. “This terrain is gonna stop them sooner or later.”

It did, but it was a half hour later and the night sky was wide open and star-filled and the moon had waned a little from its fullness the night before. They found the pickup nosed down into a ditch it couldn’t climb out of.

“Missed it in the darkness,” Lam guessed. He went across the gully and used a pocket flash to figure out which way the walkers had headed. After two minutes of false starts he pointed almost due north.

“Looks like he’s heading for the coast, Cap,” Lam said. “What’s he going to do, swim back to China?”

They kept moving. The trail was easier to follow now since the men were walking in a file and making a track with as many as twelve sets of footprints. Lam tried to jog again, but lost the trail when they turned toward a patch of trees. These were native koa and ohia trees in what looked like an area designed to produce firewood for stoves and fireplaces.

Murdock and Lam conferred. Then Lam headed out quickly and the SEALs waited. If the woods were clear, he’d give them a call on the Motorola.

Five minutes later he called and the SEALs jogged the half mile into the woods. Lam had been working to find where the Chinese men came out. It took him five minutes more before he stumbled on the discarded food can. It had Chinese characters on it. The trail led north again.

Murdock called up Franklin. “Take the driver and cut across country to the mansion. Fire up the other van and we’ll try to connect on some roads up ahead. We’re moving back into the more settled section of the place, and I’d guess the bastards will try to hijack a car or a truck. We need wheels over there. Go.”

The crack of a rifle shot sent all the squad diving to the ground.

“Fucking thirty-ought-six,” Jaybird said. “I’ve hunted with enough of them.”

“Where from?” Murdock asked. They all stared ahead of their position just outside the patch of native woods.

“My bet is those eucalyptus over there to the right,” Lam said.

“All mine,” Murdock said. He lifted the Bull Pup and sent half a dozen rounds into the trees halfway up.

There was no response.

“Remember, we have two admirals with the bug-outs. We don’t want to endanger them. Spread out, ten yards, line of skirmishers. We’re running for those trees. Just a little over a jog. Keep your weapons at the ready.”

“My guess they’re gone by now,” DeWitt said as they picked up the line and began to jog forward. Murdock moved the line faster.

“Yeah, gone, but they know we’re here. We’ll have to be careful. Hard telling what this sailor might do on unfamiliar land in combat.”

Murdock watched the trees as they came closer. The fast jog ate up the landscape. They encountered no fire from the trees. He didn’t expect any. It had been a rear-guard action to slow them down.

The eucalyptus were more than a hundred feet tall and beautifully grotesque with their growth pattern of limbs. The scent of the menthol nuts on the ground came through sharply as they worked through the smaller trees to the far edge of the woods.

Ahead they saw a farmhouse, complete with a barn, detached garage, and what could only be an outhouse. The buildings looked sixty or seventy years old and were badly in need of repairs. Even through the dim light they could see that any paint that had been used had long ago peeled and fell away.

Murdock stared at the place.

“Abandoned,” Lam suggested.

“Probably, but a good defensive setup. I wonder how many weapons they have. The deer rifle could have come from the mansion. They might have some handguns, but I’d guess not much else. How far to the buildings?”

“Quarter of a mile, maybe another hundred,” Lam said. The buildings huddled in the moonlight. Even if they had weapons inside, the darkness would cover the SEALs’ attack.

“Let’s move up,” Murdock said to the lip mike. “No firing unless I do. They probably are short on weapons. Move out.”

The line of SEALs advanced at a walk. Murdock had been listening for any sound coming from the buildings ahead. There were none. If they were there, they had good discipline. The two admirals were a long way from any field exercises, but they would know enough to keep quiet and follow orders. One of the invaders must speak English.

They were halfway to the buildings when a pain-filled scream echoed across the flatness of the coastal plain.

The SEALs all hit the deck.

“What’n hell?” Ching whispered.

“Sounds like a bobcat in heat,” Mahanani said on the net.

“No bobcats in Hawaii,” Holt said.

“Sounded more like a cougar, about seven feet long and mean as hell,” Ching added.

“What about a wild pig?” Canzoneri asked. “They do have feral pigs over here all over the place.”

“Hey, I grew up on a farm,” Bradford said. “No pig ever sounded that way.”

“Moving out,” Murdock said, closing the discussion.

The closer they came to the buildings, the more watchful they became. When they were twenty yards from the back of the barn, Murdock tapped his mike twice and the SEALs stopped and went to ground.

“Jaybird, on me,” Murdock said. Jaybird moved out of line and worked ahead toward the barn with the commander. They parted in back and each went around one side.

Murdock checked the open door in the barn. It was high enough for a horse to walk in pulling a load. He sniffed. No animal odor. His NVGs came up and he scanned the place. A small stack of hay in one corner. A stall for a horse with a few recent droppings. Oil drips on the floor that might be from farm machinery or an older car. A pair of owls rocketed out of the place, their wings not the silent type. Could be the pueo owl the Hawaiians held to be a family-protecting spirit in their mythology.

“Nada,” the earpiece whispered. Murdock met Jaybird in front of the barn. They looked at the run-down house thirty yards away. For just a second a white light blossomed through a window in the house, then snapped off.

“Hit it,” Murdock barked, and the two men dove for the dirt and rolled away from each other.

The roar of the submachine gun caught them both by surprise as it raked the area where they had stood with a dozen rounds on full auto. They rolled farther apart. Murdock looked for some cover. The MG man worked his rounds toward Murdock’s side. He spotted the old wooden watering trough, and dove for it just as hot lead kicked up dirt where he had been seconds before.

Murdock touched the lip mike. “Bradford. Get up here. Use the barn as cover for the house. Bring the EAR. When you get to the barn, come around the left side and put a jolt through the house window. Hope to hell you can find a window. I’m guessing it will blow the window out in front of it. Go, double time. It’s getting hot up here.”

“Backup?” DeWitt asked.

“Yeah, but keep cover from that sub gun in the house. Only response so far, but the bastard has NVGs for damn sure. Might be a one-man rear guard, but where the hell did they get a sub gun?”

“We’re moving, Cap. Know the two aces might still be in the building. No deadly fire there. Will, spread out to both sides.”

Murdock looked over where Jaybird had vanished. He couldn’t make out the man in the dim light. “Jaybird, you five by five?”

There was no immediate answer. “Jaybird. Hey, buddy. Don’t play possum on me. You see anything from that angle?”

Again there was no answer.

“Mahanani. Get to the right-hand side of the barn and wait. Might have some work for you.”

“I heard. Leave him there, Cap. That NVG could get a lot of us killed out here tonight. We’ll get Jaybird.”

Less than two minutes later, Murdock heard the whoosh of the EAR weapon and the tingling in his ears. He clamped his hands over his ears just before glass shattered and a concussion and explosive force thundered through the small farmhouse like a freight train meeting a tornado head-on.

“Let’s hit the house. Jack, check on Jaybird.” Murdock came up from the water trough running. He held the Bull Pup in front of him and used the NVGs to find the door ten feet down from a blown-out window. He was closest and the first one there. The door had been blown entirely off its hinges and lay shattered ten feet from the house. Murdock stepped into the room with the NVGs and scanned it quickly.

A submachine gun lay on a counter pointed out the window that now held no glass. A man sprawled against the far wall, his head at a strange angle.

“Clear first room,” Murdock said. He slanted toward an open door out of what he figured was the kitchen. The next room held only two old worn-out sofas and a chair. “Clear room two,” he told the mike, and sprinted across it to another door. This one had two beds that had been neatly made up, a current calendar, and a copy of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper. Pizza boxes and remains of fried chicken takeouts littered one side of the room.

“Clear room three.”

DeWitt charged into the room and kept going to the next door. He darted through the opening, his own NVGs working. Murdock sagged against the wall.

“Clear last two rooms,” DeWitt said.

“Mahanani, was Jaybird hit?”

The earplug came on at once. “Yeah. Not good. Took a scalp graze that knocked him out. But there’s a second wound in the lower belly. It’s got to have hit some intestines. Peritonitis is a big problem here, Cap.”

“Franklin, where the hell is that van?”

“Cap, we’re down the road about two miles. We heard the sub gun and are moving that way. Jaybird is hit?”

“Floorboard that crate and get it up here. Make sure your driver knows where the best and closest emergency room is. You’re backup for Jaybird into the operating room. Take no shit from nobody. Get it done. We’re at an old farm with three buildings. Ronson, put up a green flare, now.”

Lam had led the rest of the platoon through the complex and cleared it, and now he took out his three-cell flashlight and began searching the area. He found tire tracks at once.

“Tracks, Cap. Looks like at least two rigs. I’d say they are off-road or utility rigs. Lots of bootprints around the last set of tires.”

“Estimated number?” Murdock asked.

“Can’t tell. A lot of over-printing. Ten to thirty. Two utility vans could haul thirty men.”

“Keep looking. DeWitt. Check the guy in the first room. Looked like he had a broken neck. Solves the prisoner problem.”

Murdock went outside to where the flashlight glowed. He came up to Lampedusa just as he bent and picked up something.

“Oh, shit, this is not good,” Lam said.

“What is it?”

Lam held it out. “A thirty-round magazine, like they use on submachine guns and on some automatic rifles. Looks like the guys we’re chasing have more than one automatic bang-bang.”