Call to Duty (23 page)

The answer seemed to sit well with the sergeant. “I suppose it’s best to meet problems head-on and not hide from them, hoping they will go away—like we did with Hitler in 1936 when he marched into the Rhineland. We should have
had done with him then and avoided all this. Only Churchill saw him for what he was. But we didn’t listen to him. Stupid bloody fools, all of us. We can’t let this happen again.”

The compartment fell silent as the men settled in for the night. He’s right, Zack thought, we can’t let this happen again. But why did Churchill see it when no one else did?

It was a question he wanted answered.

Early the next day, he reached the gate at Church Fenton. The guard told him to wait while he called for a car to pick him up and take him to his squadron. Three Mosquitoes captured his attention as they took off and climbed into the darkening sky. The speed of the machines surprised him and he was still watching them when a car drove up. “It’s about time you quit playing silly buggers and came back to work,” a familiar voice said. It was his navigator Andrew Ruffum.

“Ruffy!” Zack shouted. “What…how…” Suddenly, he was at a complete loss for words.

“Had the devil of a time getting out of the Beau,” Ruffy deadpanned, lighting his big pipe. “Half-drowned you know. Chaps from the Dutch underground found me when I waded ashore. They were kind enough to provide temporary accommodations until a rendezvous with a submarine was arranged. Quite routine.”

“Right,” Zack deadpanned back.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

The young and lean American ambled across the lush grass of the hotel until he reached the path that led to the pool of Thailand’s best and newest mecca for tourists at Chiang Mai. He was at ease in the posh surroundings yet seemed out of place among the wealthy Japanese and Europeans. He and his friends were the only Americans staying there, much younger than the other guests, and tight jeans and loose shirts could not hide their well-conditioned and muscular bodies. The older men among the rich and pampered hotel guests had tried to ignore the young Americans with their quasi-military haircuts and drooping mustaches, but it was difficult because the women were definitely attracted to the Americans. And since the Americans all seemed dedicated to their favorite game of “getting drawers,” many fruitful relationships had been established. The female players of the game would have been horrified, thrilled, or perhaps a mixture of both, if they knew their young and energetic partners in the game were dedicated and remarkably proficient commandos.

When he reached the pool, he threaded his way among the glistening and well-oiled bodies until he found his friend. He sat down on a sun lounge and pulled a Skoal can out of his hip pocket for a quick dip. “Where’s Joey?”

“In his room.”

“Alone?”

“No way.”

“Who this time? The German blonde?”

“And her sister.”

“You’d better go get him before he screws himself silly. It’s a good thing Kamigami isn’t here.”

“Is it that time?”

“Yeah. I’ll get the others. Meet in twenty minutes.” He picked himself up and returned the smile of a well-preserved forty-six-year-old Frenchwoman who had demonstrated her favorite perversion to him the night before. “Shit, my tongue still hurts,” he mumbled to himself, wondering if there was an exercise that developed tongue muscles.

Within twenty minutes, the fourteen Americans had all gathered in a truck garage on the outskirts of town. The casual way they had slouched through the door in twos or threes disappeared once they were inside. The German who spent most of his time working as an anthropologist was also there. He came right to the point. “No change in the status of your target. She is still in the same location with the same three men. No change in their routine.” That was all to the good, but there was more. He produced a map. “There are four trucks from Chiang’s Burma compound moving down this road.” He traced the route that led to the village that was also their objective. “We’ve lost contact with the trucks but estimate their time of arrival around ten this evening.” He left the map and disappeared out the door.

“There’s been a change in plans,” the group’s leader said. “We go in at nineteen forty-three tonight, rendezvous at twenty hundred with the helicopter at the primary LZ, and get the hell out of Dodge City quickest. The backup team repositions here.” He pointed to a spot on the road three miles north of the village. “Those trucks have to come down this road. Set up a roadblock to stop them if they show up before we go in.” Like any competent leader, the American tailored his words to the personalities of the men who would carry out his orders. “You’re a road watch team. Don’t go shooting the shit out of anyone. Your job is to stop those trucks and give us a heads-up if they’re a factor. We don’t want to go causing some international incident and get our asses in a crack.”

Joey studied the map. “Why don’t we blow this bridge? It’s perfect.”

“Except it’s too close to the village.”

Joey looked disappointed. “Give me a break. A few well-placed charges…blow the shit out of the bridge…with them included. God, I love demo.” Like most demolition men, Joey enjoyed his work and had a world of confidence in what he could do with C4 explosive. There was no doubt in
his mind that he could solve the problem of any hostile trucks foolish enough to drive down that road.

The leader smiled and shook his head. “Forget the bridge. Block the road and report. Withdraw into the jungle at the first sign of trouble. Simple enough, okay?”

The men broke up into two groups and the team of six who would set up the roadblock left first. They had six hours to move into position. “I don’t like these last-minute changes,” Joey’s leader said.

“Hey,” Joey replied, “flexibility, man, flexibility. Got to be like Gumby.”

The team of eight shooters who would do the actual rescue left fifteen minutes later.

Udorn, Thailand

Gillespie settled into the right seat of the MH-53 Pave Low helicopter. His hands flew over the switches and controls as he ran the Before Starting Engines checklist. Then he wound and set the correct time on the eight-day clock and waited. He glanced over at his copilot and then back into the cargo compartment. In the rear, he could see the looming bulk of Kamigami strap in with the team that would secure the landing zone. “Loading the sergeant major creates a definite weight and balance problem.” He grinned at the copilot, trying to ease the snowballing tension. He got a grunt for an answer. Gillespie stared out the windscreen and took a deep breath. The waiting was the hardest part and the tension was becoming an avalanche as the time for engine start neared. Gillespie’s mind roamed back in time and he could visualize an F-4 crew sitting on the same ramp a generation earlier waiting for an engine start that would launch them over North Vietnam and into one of the most heavily defended pieces of airspace ever recorded in history. Has it always been this way? he wondered.

The minute hand on the clock moved with maddening slowness, dragging its way around the clock’s face. Now the second hand started its last sweep. “Starting two,” Gillespie said as it finally touched the twelve.

The tension was broken.

“Hammer,” the Have Quick radio squawked, “Rascal Two returning to base at this time.” The strain in the backup helicopter pilot’s voice was unmistakable over the Have Quick radio as he told the two colonels on the MC-130 that he was aborting. Because the Have Quick relied on rapid frequency hopping to defeat any monitoring or jamming of its transmissions, the men could speak freely without fear of monitoring or jamming. It was also remarkably clear and free of noise and static.

“Rascal Two, this is Hammer, say problem,” Mallard replied from aboard the MC-130.

“Hydraulics,” came the answer.

Damn! Gillespie raged to himself after hearing the exchange. “The goat” strikes again. Like all helicopters, the MH-53 was a flying contradiction of ten thousand parts all trying to go in separate directions. He glanced at his flight engineer sitting between him and the copilot, just aft of the center console. The sergeant scanned the engine instruments and gave him a thumbs-up signal.

“Hammer,” Gillespie radioed. “Rascal One is healthy. Entering holding at this time.” The pilot turned onto a racetrack pattern to lose eight minutes so he would be inbound to the landing zone when the ground team went in to rescue Nikki Anderson. They did not want the early arrival of the big helicopter to send any warning signals to her captors.

“Roger,” Mallard replied. “Rascal Two,” he continued, “return to base. Repeat, RTB. Rascal One, I’m scrambling Rascal Three now.” While still in contact with Gillespie on the Have Quick, Mallard keyed the SatCom radio to relay the situation to General Mado in the command post at Udorn. The general demanded to know all the details before he would scramble the backup helicopter. When he was satisfied that Mallard had made the right decision allowing Rascal Two to RTB, he ordered Rascal Three to scramble. But the MH-53 still on the ground could not bring a generator on line and that was all the general needed to abort the mission. He ordered Hammer to send the abort message terminating Dragon Noire.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Trimler told Mallard. “We’re only using the helicopters for rapid extraction. There’s no
current threat on the ground and we can leave the same way we went in. We’re trained and ready to do that. No big deal.”

“Mado won’t buy that unless we give him a damn good reason,” Mallard said.

Trimler gave it to him. “General Mado,” he radioed. “Be advised that the ground teams have already reached their initial positions. Given the situation on the ground, there is a good chance of discovery if they withdraw at this time. That would put the hostage at risk. I recommend we continue with option three of the plan.”

“Stand by,” Mado replied.

Trimler looked at his watch. “If I know Mado,” he told Mallard, “he’s looking at the plan right now to see what option three is. By the time he figures it out, we’ll be going in.”

“Rascal One departing holding now,” Gillespie radioed.

“Continue,” Mallard answered. Lacking firm direction from Mado, he had no choice but to allow the mission to continue.

Gillespie eased down the collective stick on his left, applied slight forward pressure on the cyclic stick between his legs, squeezed in a little right pedal for trim, and made an easy, coordinated, descending turn onto his run-in heading. With an innate skill and finesse that few pilots possess, the captain made all ten thousand cantankerous parts bend to his will as he kept the aircraft within the tight control parameters that coaxed the MH-53 to perform as its designers dreamed of on good nights. In reality, it was a balancing act much like trying to make love in a hammock.

The captain sitting in the left seat as copilot and the flight engineer exchanged glances. The captain gave a reassuring nod for Gillespie had “the touch.” Now they were skimming along the treetops, rushing toward their LZ at two and a half miles a minute, on time, on course, but very much alone.

Near Ban Muang Dok, Thailand

Joey and his partner were the first of the six-man road team to move into position. Both men were puffing from the long run from where the team’s four-wheel-drive truck had broken down. They had pushed the vehicle past its limits on the last forty-five miles of dirt road and it had overheated.
The engine had finally frozen as they approached the bridge, still two miles from the site of the intended roadblock. The men had quickly stripped their arms and equipment out of the useless truck, crossed the bridge, and run down the road, fully aware the clock was running out on them.

The spot they were making for was perfect for a roadblock. The road made a sharp bend around a large outcropping of rock and then narrowed, making a tight S curve through a heavy stand of trees on the side of a steep slope. Joey could hear a truck laboring up to the rocks when he reached the spot. He dumped his heavy rucksack and ripped it open, pulling out a ribbon charge of C4 explosive. He quickly wrapped it around the base of a tree and attached a fuse. Now he could hear the truck slowing to work its way past the rock outcropping. He pulled the igniter, grabbed his rucksack and MP5 submachine gun and dove into a small fold in the terrain. He wished the underbrush had been thicker to give him more cover, but the heavy stand of trees had shaded out much of the jungle foliage. A sharp crack rewarded his efforts and the tree fell across the road. His partner gave him a thumbs-up and pointed to a second tree. Joey popped his head up and dropped right back to the ground. The tree had fallen across the road but could be easily pushed aside by a truck.

He had to do it again. But judging by the sound, the truck was less than a hundred meters and one bend away. He didn’t hesitate and ran to the tree that he calculated would do the job. One part of his mind registered that the truck had stopped and he could hear shouted commands, not in English, as he set the charge. He pulled the igniter and ran for cover. A burst of machine-gun fire chased him into the thickest part of the trees and he felt a sting across his left buttock. He ignored the pain as his team returned fire, giving him the cover he needed to reach safety.

The Americans quickly pulled farther back into the trees and re-formed, moving into defensive positions where they could now see two trucks backed up behind the trees blocking the road. Men were jumping out of the trucks and running for cover while an officer tried to get them working on pulling the two trees aside.

The man leading the Americans motioned two shooters to a forward flanking position on his right and pointed at the
other pair to pull back and to his left. While the men were moving into position, he keyed his radio and transmitted in the blind, telling Hammer the trucks were early and hostile. Then he and his partner opened fire on the trucks, exploiting the confusion. His partner’s M-249 SAW, Squad Automatic Weapon, sent a hail of 5.56-millimeter bullets into the trucks while he raked the soldiers with his MP5 submachine gun.

The nose of another truck appeared around the outcropping of rocks and stopped. Between bursts, they could hear shouted commands and see more men in the trees now moving directly toward them. The team leader’s partner jammed a fresh “assault pack” of two hundred rounds into his M-249 and squeezed off a short burst to drive the opposition to cover. The two men quickly fell back, leapfrogging into a position behind the other shooters. The two forward shooters waited until the soldiers started chasing the first pair and then opened fire. They cut down six of the attackers from the flank before they withdrew, again exploiting the confusion to leapfrog to a position behind the others. The Americans rapidly gave ground, moving out from under the heavy growth of trees and into the heavier jungle but still paralleling the road that led to the village. The leader radioed for help. “Hammer, this is Pogo Two,” he transmitted. Now he could hear the sounds of a helicopter. Whose was it?

“Pogo Two, this is Hammer,” Trimler replied, his transmission weak and scratchy, “read you two-by.” As ground commander, Trimler controlled the teams on the ground.

“We’re in contact, withdrawing toward the primary objective. I hear a helicopter in the area, can it give us cover?”

“Helicopter is unknown, not ours. Spectre is on the way. Say position.”

“A hundred meters west of the road, moving south, away from trucks currently blocked on road.”

Another voice came on the radio. It was the Beezer in the AC-130 gunship. “Roger, Pogo Two. Spectre copies all. Will be over your position in six minutes. Stay up this frequency.”