Tropical Terror

24

Vince Yamamoto, Governor Itashi’s press secretary and a former Army sergeant, led the hostages into the woodlands. They stopped about five hundred yards down the hill in a clump of cedar trees.

“Governor, I suggest we stay here for the rest of the night. Then I’ll slip back up to the camp and see if I can find out what’s going on. The Chinese there came under attack by someone. Maybe Marines or Army troops. They should be able to rout them now that the Chinese have lost their commander.”

“Sounds good, Vince. Tell the others. We’ll try to stay warm as best we can. This ten-thousand-foot altitude seems a lot colder out here in the open. Is there any way we can have a fire?”

Harry Chung, the governor’s executive assistant, heard them talking and stepped up with a small cigarette lighter. “Our Chinese friends missed this in my shirt pocket when they searched us that first day,” he said. “I’ll find some firewood and shield the flames from the top so no one will be able to see it.”

Ten minutes later Chung had a small fire going, and they took turns at warming themselves. He made the fire larger gradually, until they could use three sides of it for warmth.

They didn’t talk about the Chinese. Sara had told them that she had surprised Lieutenant Hing and stabbed him with her hat pin, then grabbed his pistol and shot him. After that, the subject was closed. Chung had cleaned and bandaged the governor’s leg wound. It would need medical attention soon.

The governor warmed his hands over the fire. They hadn’t taken time to grab the jackets they had brought to the camp. Most of them were in shirts and blouses.

“Hey, people,” the governor said. “We’ll be all right now. Harry’s fire has saved the day. This was supposed to be a rugged, challenging experience. I didn’t plan on it being this tough. In the morning, Vince will slip back up the hill and find out what’s going on. If the Marines landed and have whipped the Chinese, we’ll chopper out of here within two hours.

“Hey, it’s a little after one A.M., which means we have only half the night to go. We can do this standing on our heads.”

The others murmured their agreement. Sara shivered. She wanted to run to the governor and hug him until he gave up and kissed her. She had been wanting him for so long. They had touched, and twice he had given her shoulder hugs for a job well done.

Each time she had been so thrilled she couldn’t talk. All of her tough professionalism had melted into sticky goo in twenty seconds. She looked at him and saw he had been watching her. She moved around the fire and wedged in beside him.

“Can I share some of your fire?”

“We have plenty. Help yourself.”

As she edged in, her hip touched his and neither of them moved. No one noticed it in the firelight. Sara felt a surge of emotion she had difficulty holding in. She looked up at him, and he was watching her.

“Yes, Sara, stay close,” he whispered so no one else could hear. His smile deepened. He went on in the whisper. “We’re all so proud of you. We know it must have been tremendously difficult… with the gun. I’m so proud of you I could kiss you.”

She wanted to whisper right back to him something witty like: “I’ll take a rain check,” or maybe: “Hey, kiss me once and kiss me twice and kiss me once again,” like the song. She only pressed her hip harder against his and nodded, her eyes brimming with tears of wonder and joy. Why couldn’t he tell she was in love with him? Watching him now and feeling the wonder of the fire’s heat, she thought that maybe he did but he didn’t want any Clintonesque problems. Oh, damn.

“Governor, I’ll take a rain check on that kiss until after we’re rescued and I’m warm enough to enjoy it.” She had whispered it up at him so only he could hear.

Surprise flooded his face, and then his marvelous grin came. Oh, but how she loved that grin. “A deal,” he whispered back. Then he put both hands out to the warmth of the fire.

Somewhere above they heard rifle and other small-arms fire.

“Machine guns,” Vince said. “Somebody up there is getting the hell shot out of them.”

“Let’s hope it’s our side doing the shooting,” the governor said.

Murdock grimaced through the pain. Hell of a time to get hit. Almost had the bastards nailed to the wall. He heard the firing and tried to track it to the left. The escaped Chinese might have circled around and hit them.

Mahanani slid to the ground beside Murdock.

“Shoulder, I hear?”

Murdock nodded.

“Not the best, Skipper. Can you raise your arm?”

“Yeah, some.”

“How high?”

“Got it almost to my shoulder once.”

The machine guns rattled again. Mahanani dropped down on top of Murdock as the slugs went zinging over their heads. He got up and pulled Murdock by the left arm farther into the shadows of some brush.

“DeWitt, where are you?” Murdock asked his lip mike.

“At the Chinese bodies. Have them all tied up. Heard the automatic fire. We’ll come up in the brush fringe on the north. How is the shoulder?”

“Not good. You’ve got the con. The attackers might be the two we flushed into the brush before.”

“We’ll get them. You take it easy.”

Lam and Karl ran past where Murdock and Mahanani lay, then dove into the edge of the brush. All firing had stopped.

“Lam, can you find me?” DeWitt asked.

“We’re on the north side brush, forty yards from the tents. The bodies are about sixty yards east of us.”

“Hang there, we’re moving up,” DeWitt said.

Five minutes later the SEALs had joined up.

“Some Chinkos over on the right fired again,” Lam said. “The hostages are out of the tent, so no worry on the twenties. I’d suggest a few rounds into that area, JG.”

DeWitt nodded in the pale moonlight. “Give us a twenty burst to sight in on,” the JG said.

Lam sent one round into the trees where he figured the Chinese might be.

At once he took small-arms fire from fifty feet farther to the right. Six SEAL weapons opened up on the new firing point. Four twenty rounds burst in the trees and brush, and the other weapons riddled the area with two hundred rounds.

“Hold fire,” DeWitt bellowed.

“I’ll check them out,” Lam said.

“No,” DeWitt countered. “You’ve been on point too much tonight. Canzoneri and Train, work up there but stay out of our sight lines. See what you can find. We’ll cover you if they fire.”

Canzoneri and Train vanished into the brush and worked forward.

“Mahanani, how is our leader?” DeWitt asked on the Motorola.

“Took a serious hit on the top front of his shoulder. Might have broken some bones or at least cut up some tendons and muscle. He won’t be shooting much the rest of the night.”

“Get him in a safe place.”

“Chrissakes, I can talk, JG. Just a little shoulder ding. Yeah, we’re moving over into the woods out of sight at least. I’m kicking the sawbones back to you. He stopped the bleeding and bandaged my damn arm so I can barely move it. I think he wants to be a veterinarian.”

“We’re checking out the last fight,” DeWitt said. “Might have nailed those last four who got away.”

“Why would they come back?”

“Honor, to save face. Where else can they go? Damn long swim back home.”

Lam came on the net. “Skipper, we hear movement. We’re maybe twenty yards from the site and we hear one, maybe two men taking off through the brush.”

“Go after them. Use the twenty whenever you get a shot. Nail the last of the bastards and let’s get off this damn mountain.”

“We’re moving, Skip.”

“Thanks for giving me the con,” DeWitt said.

“Yeah, sorry. Old habits.”

“We’re almost to the last firefight site,” DeWitt said. “Right, the airbursts and tree bursts slaughtered two of them. One is a sergeant. So we have two EM out there running.”

Murdock and Mahanani found a spot ten feet inside the brush line behind a huge pine tree. It offered Murdock a sweeping view of about half the cleared area including the tents.

“You hang tough here, Skip. Gave you one shot of morphine, which should keep you at least civil through your pain.”

“Get out of here, Mahanani, and earn your pay.”

Ahead of them a hundred yards, Canzoneri stopped behind a large tree and listened. He could hear feet crashing brush ahead of him. The woods here were green, but with plenty of dry sticks and brush to make noise. He motioned to Train close behind him, and they moved ahead as quietly as possible in the forest.

Every twenty yards, Canzoneri stopped and listened. The third time they stopped he heard nothing ahead. He waited and checked the time on his lighted dial watch. Three minutes later the motion ahead began again. He’d outwaited the Chinese.

Canzoneri moved quietly, listening for each step made ahead of him. He figured the enemy couldn’t be more than twenty yards in front. The woods thinned here on a rocky stretch. Canzoneri and Trail stayed behind solid trees and watched ahead.

Canzoneri spotted one of the Chinese rushing from one tree to the next. Just like hunting season on the pond. He sighted in with the 5.56 on the spot and waited. A moment later the man moved again. Canzoneri tracked him and fired four rounds. Three of the four jolted into the running man’s back and he crunched into the rocks and brush, dead in a heartbeat.

The other Chinese must not have moved, or if he did they never heard him. They waited, then moved ahead.

Five minutes later Train found the first body. They took his 53 submachine gun and searched for the second man. If it had been light there was a chance they could have tracked him in the soft ground under the trees. Now it was impossible. They reported in, and DeWitt told them to return to the camp.

Chun knew he had been lucky up to now. He had been spared in the first barrage of instant death from the sky and escaped with his sergeant. But then the non-com had made them come back and attack the Army troops again. He had spoken out against the idea, and had been knocked down for his trouble.

Now his last friend had died almost in front of him. If he wasn’t careful, he would be dead as well. Slowly he laid down his submachine gun, and took off his web belt and combat harness with all of his fighting gear on. He kept only the rice roll over his shoulder. It was half gone, but he could live off it for another week.

So silently that not even an owl could hear him, Chun began to work his way away from the two soldiers hunting him. He had seen them twice. Now he would vanish.

He had plans. When he had volunteered for this mission six months ago, they had said they wanted men who knew English or could learn. He’d said he could learn. At the last test, he had proven not quite good enough with English to be an interpreter and a spy to land ahead of the invasion.

But he knew his English was better than many of the Chinese immigrants who had landed in this country. He knew that he could pass as an American with a Chinese background. In some town called Pearl City he had a distant cousin he had written to in English and received letters back from. All he had to do now was escape the men hunting him and make his way to Pearl City somewhere on this Hawaiian island.

Chun rested a moment, then worked his way down the mountain. He found a ravine, slid into it, and moved faster then, sure that he was well away from the hunters. He would go as far as he could during the night, then evaluate his situation. He needed to find a house where he could steal some civilian clothes. That was first on his list.

Next came some American money. That would be essential if he didn’t want to walk all the way to Pearl City.

He would walk all night, making good progress. Any ravine would have a small stream where he could get water. The water would be on its path to the coast. At the coast he could find people and watch for a secluded household where he could get clothes and perhaps money as well.

He had no idea how far it was to the beach. He had seen the maps the lieutenant had. They showed there was a wide stretch of forested land, then a stretch of grazing land about the same size that went all the way to the surf. He remembered the lieutenant saying to the sergeants that they would fight their way the ten miles to the beach if they had to. So it was only ten miles.

Ten miles. Five years ago he had run marathons. Ten miles was nothing. He would be at the beach before daylight. What time was it? He had no watch. He could tell the time by the stars in his youth, but not now. He renewed his efforts, hit a fairly easy slope, and began a gentle run. It felt good. Yes, he would get to the beach before daylight, find a house and get clothes, and then be on his way to Pearl City. First he’d have to find out just where it was located. Would there be a bus moving along a coast highway? He would have to wait and see.

Chun felt a wave of excitement. His cousin had told him that he should come to America. Now he had. He must make the best of it. He must reach his cousin. Chinese relatives helped each other. He would be taken in like family. Yes. All he had to do was get to the coast and find new clothes.

Ed Dewitt had established a small command post in dense growth with solid pine trees twenty feet off the clearing and a hundred yards from the tents. It was near the center of the cleared camp area.

Canzoneri and Train had come back, and now he had all of his men together. Murdock sat to one side against a tree. He said he didn’t want any more medication, but Mahanani gave him another ampoule of morphine anyway. Now Murdock couldn’t even lift his arm.

DeWitt had the men gathered around. “We stay under cover until daylight. I want each of you to set up in a defensive position so you can cover a portion of the cleared area. At dawn we’ll decide what to do. There could still be some Chinese stragglers around.

“Ostercamp, you go back and baby-sit our prisoners. Some of them could be waking up pretty soon. Make sure they don’t make any noise or get away. Go.

“The rest of you find your spots and settle in. No sleeping. We’ll do a net check every fifteen minutes. Right now it is zero-two-twelve. Holt, hang with the commander and me. Let’s move it.”

Ed talked to Murdock. “One of the Chinese got away. There may be a few more hiding out waiting for dawn. We’ll wait with them. Any suggestions?”

“You’re doing fine, JG. Hate this fucking shoulder. Is it busted all to hell?”

“Can’t tell, Skipper. We’ll let the medics in the big Army medical center above Pearl work that out. I figure we should keep CINCPAC up to date on our progress. Holt, fire it up and get CINCPAC.”

Holt had to move out from under the trees to get a good sighting on the satellite, then motioned to DeWitt.

“CINCPAC, Red Hill calling.”

“Go ahead, Red Hill.”

“Progress report. We have taken the top of the hill where the camp is. The hostages are not in the tents. We believe they may have escaped into the brush. All opposition here has been eliminated for now. We’re holding to morning to see if we can flush out any more Chinese. Commander Murdock has a serious shoulder wound. We’ll need a chopper to fly us out of here early in the morning if all goes right. Could you send a Sea Knight to the Maui airport for a quick pickup?”

“Red Hill, copy. Will relay this to the admiral and contact you. Bird on Maui seems good idea. Do you have any prisoners?”

“Yes, CINCPAC. We have twelve Chinese with no wounds. Make that two choppers for the evac.”

“Roger that. Who is this speaking?”

“Lieutenant (j.g.) DeWitt, sir. Second in command.”

“Thank you. Expect a reply within two hours.”

When DeWitt went back under the trees to his small CP, he found Murdock sleeping. He touched his forehead. DeWitt scowled.

“Hey, Doc, Murdock is burning up with a fever. Get up here and see what the hell is wrong with him and what you can do about it.”