Ghost Force (54 page)

When they were finally illuminated, the first thing they saw was three dead guards, lying faceup in the grass, slammed backward by the impact of Rick Hunter’s bullets.

“Jesus,” muttered one of the security men. And he was not referring to young de Cuelo. He crossed himself, and said, “We better get some brass out here. These men have been shot.”

Twenty minutes later the area around the still-smoldering Jeeps was occupied by fifteen people, one of them Commander Marcel Carbaza, the camp commandant, two of them doctors, plus the head of security, Lt. Commander Ricardo Testa.

“No doubt, sir. All three men were shot. I’d say from a burst of expertly delivered fire. The bullets were less than 6mm-caliber, and they all hit in the central chest area…”

“Hmmmm.” The camp commandant was thoughtful. “Obviously military?”

“Oh, I’d say so, definitely.”

“Well, gentlemen. If that’s the case we should perhaps stand by for the entire air base to go up. This looks like Pebble Island all over again. Special Forces, eh?”

Two men laughed. Nervously.

“But if it doesn’t go up…then I ask myself many questions…how did they get here? What were they doing here, shooting guards and vanishing? Or are they still here?”

And then his tone hardened. “Lt. Commander Testa. I want this camp searched from end to end. Every building, every aircraft, for signs of a Special Forces raid. Meanwhile, get the helicopters in the sky, eh? If they’re on the run, they’re making for the Chilean border. Heading west, down the river. There’s no way they’d want to stay in Argentinian territory. Whatever it is they’ve done.

“Take dogs if you have to. Then we catch ’em. Make ’em talk, hah? Clear up a few mysteries
.
Now get moving!”

Dutifully, the guards on the big Argentine air base moved into action, not what you’d describe as urgently—at least the SEALs would not have regarded it as such. But it was activity. They turned on every light on the base, runway, field, service area, fueling area, and inside the buildings. Then they began the two-hour-long process of searching every yard of the place.

Patrols circled the airfield, drove up and down the runways, then, at 12:25 a.m., the order was issued to begin a ground search on foot, lines of men moving across the airfield into the parked aircraft.

Which was roughly the time the detcord, placed with such unerring precision by U.S. Navy Lieutenants MacPherson and Banfield, blew all twelve Etendards to pieces with shuddering simultaneous explosions that shook the outer field of the air base—especially the area in which four of the engines had blasted upward and crashed to the ground, courtesy of Dallas, who was apt to be a bit heavy on the gas pedal when placing C-4 explosive.

Lt. Commander Testa, who had been gazing out at the airfield from the control tower, almost had a heart attack. He knew a career-threatening explosion when he saw one, and he roared somewhat
hysterically into the air base Tannoy system,
Action stations! Action stations! We are under attack…repeat, under attack!! Air search patrols, go!! Action stations!! Action stations!!

0240, SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 1
SOUTH OF THE RIO GRANDE RIVER

Rick Hunter and his men had a start, so far, of one hour and twenty minutes, which was not much of a match for a pursuing helicopter. But they had used the time well, and the rising moon caught them jogging steadily across flat country, more than seven miles south of the base, Don Smith and Bob Bland carrying the machine gun between them, Mike Hook with the communications system. Thankfully, they were light now of their heavy loads of explosive and detonation gear.

Their years of training made the going easy and their feet beat out a relentless rhythm on the soft grassland, their breath coming effortlessly. They knew that up ahead the ground would begin to rise, up into the mountains. But that way lay cover, and shelter, and a chance to get the satellite system into action, a chance to call in rescue. Out here on the bleak coastal plain, with little tree cover, there was nothing for it but to run, south, literally heading for the hills, away from the Argentinian pursuit teams, which would surely not be far behind.

And now, in the far distance they could hear the muffled beat of helicopters, the unmistakable clatter of those big engines echoing through the night. Doug Jarvis thought they would probably be French-built Pumas he had seen on the north-south runway. These patrol aircraft were never heavily gunned, but they could carry pintle-mounted machine guns, which Rick Hunter thought was not a reason for real overwhelming joy.

However, the noise of the helicopters was growing fainter, disappearing away to the northwest, and Dallas confirmed what Captain Jarvis had thought in the first place…“They went down the river, sir. Straight for the border.”

“Dallas, you’ll probably end up an Admiral, with that fast brain of yours,” said Rick.

“Very likely, sir. Very likely. I was hoping to mention that to the President soon as we get back.”

“If we get back,” muttered Chief Hook, jogging along on an easy stride right next to Rick.

“We’ll be all right,” said Dougy. “Remember, they’ve got a thirty-five-mile stretch of land to check out all the way to the border, and they don’t have a damn thing to go on. They don’t know if we’re in a vehicle. Whether we’ve been rescued…whether we had a helicopter. They don’t even know if we’re a force of two, six, or twenty.

“They don’t even know whether we have a Stinger to knock ’em right out of the sky. My guess is we won’t see those helicopters for several hours, not ’til they get sick of the river route into Chile. Then they might run a check to the north, and to the south, but it won’t be yet. Mark my words.”

Acting Lt. Commander Jarvis was correct, as it turned out. The Argentinian search troops thundered up and down their stretch of the river, all the way to Chile’s eastern border and back, all through the morning. And it was not until 1500—when Commander Hunter and his men had been running and jogging for fourteen hours and were on the verge of exhaustion—that Commander Marcel Carbaza’s men finally switched their attack, first, briefly, to the north. Then to the south.

By now the SEAL team had covered a truly phenomenal thirty-eight miles. They were still moving steadily forward into the long, snowcapped mountains that guard the northern approaches to the Beagle Channel. This is the five-mile-wide waterway that flows ultimately into the Atlantic, dividing Argentina and Chile in the extreme south, the final seaward fragments of windswept mountainous land, which includes Cape Horn, and belongs to Chile.

The total distance from Rio Grande to the shores of the channel was eighty miles, and the SAS men were just about halfway when they spotted the helicopters, battering their way up the foothills of the mountains, searching not only with high-powered naval binoculars, but also with heat-seeking infrared. None of the Argentinian searchers believed that a British assault team could possibly have got this far, but they were under orders to cover a fifty-mile-radius, and they were doing it, flying back and forth, covering every yard of the ground.

Rick thought his best chance was to deploy among the rocks and lay low, try to get under the lee, away from the sights of the helicopters. And right now they were moving through a bowl-shaped valley, which they had reached through a rocky pass, where they encountered their first snow. And so they walked down the slope and turned into a crevasse, staying low, listening for the chopper to come clattering through the pass.

It took half an hour, and when it did show up it made enough din to start an avalanche, roaring above them heading south, its search sensors out in front, missing them completely. The trouble was a second helicopter was coming the other way, and its search sensors, seeking heat, could hardly miss them. Nor did it. It hesitated right over their lair, hovered, and then edged away, looking for a landing spot right in the middle of the bowl, not three hundred yards from them.

“Stay still, but get that machine gun ready,” snapped Rick. “Dallas, Mike, come with me. We’ll try and divert them.”

The three soldiers set off, running up through the rocks along the western edge of the valley. They were still able to see the big Puma, now on the ground, its blades whirring. But what they next saw was very bad news indeed. Three heavily armed soldiers had disembarked, and they were hanging on to three big, black-and-brown Doberman pinschers, straining at their leashes. Rick could see their hideous pointed ears from where he stood. He did not have to imagine their salivating mouths.

“Fuckit,” he muttered. “Let’s keep going.”

But then he heard the dogs bark, and realized they were loose, running on ahead of their handlers, searching for the scent. Rick, Dallas, and Mike Hook climbed higher, but they could not make it high enough, and the first dog was around the corner of the rock, its long powerful paws skidding, its breath coming in short eager bursts, a low growl of anticipation in its throat, as it spotted the SEAL Commander. The Doberman instantly adjusted course to the higher ground, and charged straight at him, barking now, fast as a racing greyhound, teeth barred, ready to tear Rick Hunter apart.

The SEAL chief, off balance, trying to hang on to the rock face, tried desperately to draw his pistol, struggling to get a bullet away, in any direction, just to slow the raging beast down.

But it was too late. For the dog, that is. Captain Doug Jarvis blew it away with his standard issue CAR-15, the bullets smashing into its head. And as he did so, the other two came charging up the stony hill, and Dougy felt obliged to treat all dogs equally. “Fucking things,” he muttered. “Anyway, I always preferred Labradors.”

However, the machine-gun fire that had wiped out the dog pack had attracted everyone, and now the three Argentinian troopers were racing after the dogs, light machine guns held before them.

Back in the crevasse, Don Smith had heard the gunfire but could not make out who was alive and who wasn’t. But he could see the pursuing Argentinians, and he opened up with a withering burst from the big M60 machine gun, cutting all three down on these cold remote southern mountains of their homeland.

Dallas never missed a beat. He could see the chopper still revved up on the ground with just the pilot remaining inside. He ran toward it from the blind side, right on the pilot’s seven o’clock…200 yards…150 yards…100 yards…he still kept running…only eighty feet now…
“First base!”
he yelled.

And he hurled his grenade, underarm, hard, low and straight, a real frozen rope, clean through the open door. And he heard it smack into the instrument panel, breaking glass. A split second later it exploded with a massive echoing roar around the valley, obliterating both helicopter and driver. “I shoulda played for the Braves,” he muttered. “This stuff is getting fucking crazy.”

The question was, where was the first helicopter, which seemed to have gone? Commander Hunter had no idea, but he thought it might be making another search line out to the right.

“Anyway,” he told the troops, “if our luck holds, the damned thing will return to base, and they might not work out the other one’s…er…crashed, at least for an hour or so, by when it’ll be just about dark…we better put a few miles between us and this burning wreck…then we’ll stop and eat and get the communications fired up…I don’t think the Args will conduct a rescue operation until it’s light.”

And so they pushed on, weary now, taking turns carrying the gun and the satellite system through the valley, then climbing some more, up through the snowy passes. For leadership at these heights Rick
handed over to the unerring instincts of the mountain man, SAS Captain Jarvis, a man who could follow the contours of the slopes and peaks, picking his way through the lower gaps, trying to restrict their climbing, staying east where the escarpments were less formidable, going for the Atlantic end of the giant Lake Fagnano.

By 1930 the GPS was telling them they had covered fifty-four miles in eighteen hours, a superhuman feat of endurance and stamina through this kind of terrain. And right now they were enjoying two real slices of luck. One, it had been an unusually mild autumn, with snow not so bad as it might have been, even up here; and two, the Args seemed to have gone home for the night.

Thus Rick Hunter’s tired band of warriors found a dry spot under the lee of a rocky hill, unpacked their rucksacks, lit the Primus, and fired up the communications system. Mike Hook had sent their message away in a fast satellite burst while they were waiting for Commander Hunter on the airfield, and now he was recording a new one.

This would give their current GPS position—54.30S, 67.25W.
Have come under attack from Arg helos, anticipate further action first light. Heading Beagle Channel as per last signal. Staying east Mount Cornu. Rescue 54.51S, 67.20W, app 1100. Our course 180.

Chief Hook projected the signal into space, praying it would reach Coronado off the satellite. Which it did, and the ops room immediately signaled the ops room at the Chilean naval base at Puerto Williams, right on the south shore of the Beagle Channel, eleven miles away from the rescue point. Parked right here was one F/A-18F Boeing Super Hornet strike bomber, primed with its AIM-9 can’t-miss guided missiles, heavily loaded 20mm Vulcan cannon, and prepared for takeoff at a moment’s notice.

The pilot, Lt. Commander Alan Ross, wore the sinister patch of VFA-151
Vigilantes
, a red-eyed skull with a dagger in its teeth. He had been in residence for just a few hours, having flown off a diverted U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific, and arrived via refuel stops at Santiago and Punta Arenas.