65 Below (27 page)

As he packed it all up, he said, “We have a picture with the license plate of the Suburban they drove out. Your folks can try to find that vehicle in town and maybe we can catch them before they get away.”

“They are already looking for the Suburban,” Lonnie said. “Bannock called me earlier with the information. I’ll call them back to say they should look around Farmer’s Loop Road.”

Marcus placed the tape-wrapped bundle inside one of the large trash bags and sealed that with more tape around the whole mass. That bundle went into the second trash bag, and was likewise taped up.

Wasner added, “Make sure to tell your cop friends that these guys are the real thing. They are all armed and trained professionals. Don’t expect any of them to surrender peacefully. The real commandos among them are going to be committed to the death.”

Marcus handed the package to Lonnie. She took it out to her cruiser. As she walked, she keyed her radio and relayed the information to AST headquarters.

“All right guys. Let’s move,” Wasner said. “Philips and Andersen, you two stay here and lead the cops out to the site. Bell, you ride with Trooper Wyatt. If the prisoner gives you any trouble, hit him with the Taser. Take the gun from Stingle.”

“Shouldn’t Forester go with the guy, Chief? I only know a couple of bad words in Korean.”

“No. Wyatt is fluent, and I need Forester with us if we catch up to the other guys.”

“Aye, aye, Chief. I just hope no one sends a picture of me in the back seat of police car to my mom….she’d have a fit.”

Bell was a Mormon boy from Utah. He was always worried his mom would hear of something bad he did. The twenty-six-year old warrior seemed more afraid of his mother than any horde of militant extremists or assassins he had ever confronted.

“Bell, I don’t know how your mother even sleeps at night, with you do in this line of work,” Andersen said.

“Oh, she ain’t worried about me dying in battle at all. She’d probably be proud if I had a hero’s funeral, and brag all over town about her son, the decorated SEAL in the flag-draped box. But if she was to hear of me getting drunk or arrested or such—man, she’d fight her way through a whole battalion of screaming Taliban just to give me a whooping!”

Laughter rang in the cold night air as they headed outside, clouds of steam rising from their breath.

Two of the SEALs untied Choi and led him to Trooper Wyatt’s cruiser. Bell sat in the front with Wyatt. The protective glass between the seats prevented Choi, who sat meekly in the back seat, from doing anything harmful to them.

The other SEALs piled into their F350 pickup trucks, having stowed their gear while Choi was being interrogated. Wasner got into the Jeep with Marcus. They left the snowmobiles behind for the investigation team to take into the woods.

Once in the vehicles, the team formed a long, white caravan as they headed to Fairbanks.

A complete mobile biological weapons lab would be up and running in the parking lot of the public safety building by the time they arrived, thanks to a call Tomer made to the Army biological warfare unit. They were standing by to take to a look at the contents of the vial immediately.

1. Chapter 30
   

Tuesday, June 30th, 1998

Senga Village

30 Miles North of Kambala

Sierra Leone, Africa

14:00 Hours

Once Marcus’s strength had returned and he was able to walk, his level of fitness recovered remarkably fast. Sambako had successfully cleaned the infection from his wounds, and been able to keep them clean. Within less than four weeks of the ambush, all that remained of the life-threatening injuries were rippled, white scars that striped the back of Marcus’s legs.

Marcus had started doing work around the village. The sun darkened his skin to the point that in a crowd, he was able to blend quite well, as long as no one studied his face too hard and saw that his features were not indicative of purely African lineage.

Talk around the village was that Sergei had escaped being captured by the Nigerian forces and was prowling the area. Sarandoka, a small village fifty miles to the east, had its inhabitants massacred and was burned to the ground. The people of Senga were in a state of terror. Many had already packed their belongings and were planning to make the trek across the jungle hills to a refugee camp thirty miles away, on the other side of the border in Guinea.

Sambako was pleased with Marcus’s progress, and expected to see his patient, who had since become his good friend, leave soon to find the way back to his own home.

“You are much better, my brother,” he said in his deep voice. “You must start your journey to find a path home to America. You should leave before Sergei’s men arrive.”

“I will leave. But not yet,” Marcus replied.

“Not yet?” Sambako asked. His voice rose in surprise. Marcus had told him much about home and had spoken frequently of his love for Lonnie. Sambako, being a pastor by training, listened intently to Marcus’s stories and counseled him at length. He had fully expected the Marine to want to rush home quickly to marry this wonderful woman who was waiting for him in Alaska.

“Why would you not want to leave? Have you changed your mind about your woman?”

“No, not at all. She can wait a little longer, though.” Marcus stopped and squatted down, surveying the land past the rows of small houses at the edge of the village. “I definitely want to go home, but I can’t leave, with Sergei roaming around here.”

“There is nothing one man can do alone against his army!” Sambako protested. “He now has almost two hundred men following him, thugs and murderers, some of them trained soldiers.”

“And there are dozens of children and women in this village who will die if that army comes here,” Marcus responded. “I cannot let that happen without a fight.”

“I understand,” the minister said. “You are a man like David.”

“David? From the Bible?” Marcus asked. “I’m not looking to kill a giant with a stone, I just want to make sure these innocents get to safety before the giant kills them.”

“Yes, exactly. David was more than a boy who killed a giant. He was a warrior who ruled Israel and drove back his enemies until Israel expanded from the Euphrates River to the Red Sea. For more than forty years, he fought like a beast in battle, yet was filled with mercy for the innocent and would go out of his way to protect his people and allies, as opposed to simply conquering his enemies. He was a warrior, whose enemies feared the mention of his name. The Bible says he was a man after God’s own heart. Did you know he was also a poet? He wrote most of the book of Psalms, which is full of songs and poetry.”

“Well, I’m sure I am not a man after God’s own heart. But if He helps warriors protect the innocent, then I need to get to know Him better,” Marcus replied.

“You should get to know Him now, Marcus. Your life will depend on it,” Sambako said with sincerity.

“I only know what I learned in Sunday School at the little Baptist church back home,” Marcus answered. “Maybe you can pray to Him for me.”

“My prayers will help some, but only those from you will truly help you,” said the African minister. “And I suggest you start making them right away. I heard from the village elders today that some of Sergei’s men were seen about ten miles south of here yesterday. They were most likely a scouting party looking for good villages to raid. It is only a matter of time before they arrive.”

“I need a weapon and ammunition. What’s around here, in the village?” Marcus asked.

Sambako nodded pensively and answered, “Several of the men have AK-47’s. There always seems to be a supply of those at hand. But we are not an army here, not even a militia. The weapons may not be well maintained.”

“Show me what you have. Both in weapons and men who know how to use them.”

Sambako called together the men of the village and told them that Marcus was going to help them defend the village, and, if necessary, lead them in an escape.

Of those left in the village, there were only about twenty-five boys and men healthy enough to fight. Several of the older men offered their rifles for Marcus to use. When they brought them out, he carefully inspected each one to ensure they would actually work when needed. Most were in very bad shape, with rusted barrels and receivers. Two were in fair condition and had been cleaned at least a few times in the past year. One that was offered was immaculate. Temebe the goat herder, a wiry man in his late thirties, presented an AK-47 that looked smooth and glossy from fresh coats of oil that had been wiped continuously over it.

“How is it that your weapon, Temebe, is so clean? Of all of these, yours is the one most often in the field.” Sambako said.

“I have two weapons I use in the field, my brothers. Both are like this one,” the goat herder replied. “As you said, mine are always in the field, not in some closet waiting for the future. They are with me always, and therefore I always think of them. I have never lost a goat to a wild animal or to a thief, because these weapons are my mates.”

“Where did you serve in the military?” Marcus asked.

“Is it this obvious still?” Temebe replied.

“Yes, it is, Marcus observed. “You were a professional, weren’t you?”

“I was in the Legion Etranger, the French Foreign Legion, for five years in the 1980’s. I served in Chad, Malaysia, Sinai, and Angola.” He opened his shirt, revealing a dark tattoo of the Wing & Dagger emblem of the Legions Parachute Regiment emblazoned above his heart.

“Would you be willing to help these people escape to the refugee camp safely?”

“That is why I am still here,” replied the goat herder. “I had already planned to be a rear guard if we were attacked. Since you have survived your wounds, that job will be much easier, I think.”

Sambako was curious. “Temebe, you have never mentioned before that had you served in the French Legion. You have lived with us for many years now, since you came from your home village. Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“My home village had banished me. They sided with the rebels at the beginning of the war. I couldn’t justify fighting with them, so I left.”

“This much you did tell us before, but why did you not trust us to know that you were a soldier?” asked one of the village elders.

“If I said I was a soldier, especially a Legionnaire, word would have spread and one side or the other would have forced me to join them. I am on neither side in this war, and only want to raise my goats in peace,” He replied.

Marcus nodded. “You are a wise man, Temebe.”

With a small amount of discussion, all the men soon agreed that it would be suicidal to attempt to resist Sergei’s army. Instead, the entire village, a total of less than eighty remaining people, would make for the border of Guinea as a group, with the armed men guarding the retreat. Temebe would lead on point, Marcus would be the rear guard.

The route they agreed to would take one full day of walking, through twenty miles of hilly, wooded backcountry until they reached the border. It would be another day to the northwest before they came to the refugee camp that meant safety.

That night, Marcus and Temebe posted guards at key points of the village. They planned to move out in the darkness two hours before dawn. Most of the animals would be left behind, except for what was needed to feed the group. With most of the goats and donkeys still in their pens, if Sergei’s force attacked that morning, they would be temporarily fooled into assuming that the people were still there with their animals, thereby buying some time for the escape.

Throughout the night, the guards reported that all was quiet. No traces of the Soviet or his men were seen or heard. At just before four am, Wednesday, July 1
^st
, Marcus sat down and wrote a short letter to Lonnie. He didn’t know if he would make it out of this alive, and if he didn’t, there was no way of knowing that she would ever get the letter. He wrote it anyway.

Lonnie,

You cannot know how hard these past two months have been. I should rephrase that—I’m sure they have been hard for you too, wondering what has happened to me. If you get this letter, I have probably been long dead. But just in case, I wanted to let you know what happened, so you wouldn’t think I forgot about you.

Our Commando Troop discovered that all the people we had been sent to rescue had been massacred only minutes before our transport dropped us off. As we were searching the village, we were ambushed at the mission in the jungle of northern Sierra Leone. Everyone was killed but me. It was May 14th, 1998.

I had been badly injured, but was rescued by a local minister named Sambako Tonega. He nursed me back to health and now I and another man, Temebe, a former Legionnaire who lived in Sambako’s village, are leading the people out of this area to a refugee camp in Guinea.

If all goes well, you will get this letter from me personally, or at least by post. If not, and you receive this by someone else’s hand or in a package with my belongings, presume me dead, and move on with your life.

I love you Lonnie. I always have, and I always will.

Dreams of you kept me alive these past months when infection and sickness tried to kill me. I can hardly wait until I hold you again. It has been so long.

I am intoxicated by the anticipation.

Marcus

Intoxicated…a poem for you

He inhales deeply

The flowery scent of beauty hangs in the air

Her nature-given perfume

That which is felt more than breathed

Quietly permeates

The places she has been

Soft, shining

Images of her fill his mind

Eyes sparkling in the light of the falling sun

Silken, smiling lips shimmer

Luminescent amidst the dancing glimmer of candles

He awaits the hour

In which he will see her again

To no longer be lost in the imagination

Of that lovely form

He so strongly yearns to touch

To wrap her with his arms

Hold her body in a strong, warm embrace

Passionate, tender, powerful

Pulsing in spiritual harmony