Philippine Hardpunch (5 page)

Cody sprinted to Caine’s vehicle, Ann Jeffers still slung across his shoulder not slowing him a bit.

Murphy looked back into the hut and motioned Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers to follow.

“Last train, folks, climb aboard.”

Cody set the teenager down in the back of Caine’s vehicle.

Mrs. Jeffers climbed aboard that Chor-7 into the backseat, where she took over the care of her child from Cody. The woman’s
arms went around her daughter, Ann, seated with her unconscious head resting on her mother’s shoulder. From the caring look
of deep maternal concern etched across Louise Jeffers’ face, and the emerging strength shining there, Cody knew Louise Jeffers
would be all right.

Cal Jeffers leaped into the front seat, next to Caine.

Cody told Caine, “We’ll draw fire. Get these folks out of here in one piece!”

“Consider it done.” The Brit nodded sharply.

Cody returned to join Murphy in climbing aboard Hawkeye’s Chor-7, and while Murphy positioned his linebacker bulk behind the
M-60, Hawkeye popped the clutch and got them the hell out of there as if fired from a slingshot.

Caine gunned his Chor-7 into gear, picking up speed as he followed the first vehicle but keeping a slight distance.

The rumbling of explosions had mumbled away to nothing, leaving in their wake the chaos of men hollering, flames eating away
at the officers’ hut and the mess tent and finishing off what was left of the motor pool and the twisted unrecognizable hunks
of smoldering metal junk that had been the vehicles parked there.

Hawkeye floored the Chor-7’s go pedal, whizzing his vehicle past the chaos surrounding the remains of the motor pool, the
munitions shed, the mess tent, and the officers’ quarters.

Hanging alongside Hawkeye, Cody spotted Colonel Locsin and the second NPA officer standing in front of their living quarters,
watching the huts burn down and of course looking this way and that, each officer gripping a pistol, trying to determine the
source of this attack in the misty, smoky, come-and-go madness of the first light of dawn.

Locsin and some of the others heard the Chor-7s coming. They looked around in surprise.

Murphy opened up on them with the M-60, Cody firing his assault rifle as the vehicle raced past.

Communists frantically dived this way and that for cover, some finding none, a hail of projectiles indiscriminately toppling
the NPA regulars making a run for it and those who turned to fight, bullets pulping bodies as the vehicle whizzed past.

Some of the enemy managed to return some fire.

Hawkins steered an erratic course, and the hastily fired rounds snapped around the careening Chor-7 but scored no hits among
the men bracing themselves to keep from tumbling out.

Cody saw Locsin and his officer dive for the ground and tried to follow them with the CAR-15s spitting slugs that shredded
apart the flaming hut behind them, but at that instant Hawkeye leaned both arms into a turn and the Chor-7 bounced and practically
tipped and Cody could not be sure if he’d taken out Locsin and the other man, because they became lost from his sight.

The Chor-7 hurtled along on a high-speed approach directly toward the front gate.

S
ome of the sentries in front of the gate had already left their post, rushing to where the huts burned.

Locsin may have had a paramilitary unit, thought Cody, but it was composed of farm kids and thugs from the towns and villages
and sorely lacked any kind of real military discipline. During these first moments of this “attack,” less than a minute after
the first spurts of rifle fire when Caine and Hawkins had encountered the sentry patrol and had seen no alternative but blasting
their way out of that situation, the soldiers of Locsin’s NPA command, and particularly these at the front gate, had no idea
where this attack was coming from or the nature of the assault; those explosions could have been mortars, grenades hurled
from nearby outside the perimeter, anything.

Several of half a dozen sentries inside the gate turned at the ruckus of the Chor-7 juggernauting toward them. They started
hauling their AK-47s up when they saw what was happening.

Big Rufe Murphy held onto his M-60 for dear life, wheeling that flame-spraying, hammering sucker with both big fists, his
weight-lifter muscles bulging beneath his camou fatigues, his hulking form shaking to the tune of the yammering machine gun
snorting up its belt of ammo, ejecting hot spent casings almost faster than the eye could see.

Cody punched a fresh clip into his CAR-15 and loosed another long burst as the Chor-7 altered its course at the last instant
to race past the gate sentries.

A couple of sentries got smart and bellied the ground, scrabbling for safety, but the others tried being brave and were blown
apart—like bursting rag dolls rupturing blood and guts instead of stuffing—before any of the gate guards could trigger a round.

Hawkins wheeled the Chor-7 into a tight circular turn without slackening speed, causing Cody and Murphy to cease their firing
and hold on to keep from pitching out of the racing vehicle. Hawkins again lined up the Chor-7’s nose with the wood-frame,
concertina-wire-draped gate and this time the Texan nearly pushed the vehicle’s gas pedal through the floor, sending them
rocketing toward the gate.

At this point, Caine pulled his Chor-7 into action. He had been watching the other vehicle and when it was apparent to him
that Hawkeye was about to execute the bustout, the Brit wheeled his vehicle full of hostages to close in to not more than
one vehicle length behind the first Chor-7.

Cody and Murphy holding on with both hands, Hawkins drove over one of the fallen bodies, past fleeing survivors taken by total
surprise by the assault from
inside
their base.

The lead vehicle kerpowed through the closed gate, splintering it apart with grinding, ripping, wrenching force, tossing the
gate aside, piercing straight on through and out of there with the second Chor-7 hot on its tail.

By now, NPA regulars from back there behind them on the base had opened fire on the two high-speed vehicles whizzing through
the gate and off the base. Rounds zinged through the air and Cody felt one slug
spang!
off the Chor-7’s metal chassis near his foot.

Hawkins cleared the walled perimeter far enough to tug his steering wheel again to the left, putting the bamboo wall between
them and those firing after them from inside the compound.

Caine kept the nose of his Chor-7 practically kissing the rear of the first as they bumped and bounced across the clearing
that was washed with the first probing rays of sunlight, the mist beginning to dissipate at ground level but clinging heavily
to the jungle treetops.

The lead Chor-7 led the withdrawal away from the gate on a shortcut to where the trail narrowed for its one-vehicle-width
course into the bush.

Figures with rifles appeared in the destroyed gateway just as the Chor-7s gained the treeline on the far side of the clearing.

Hawkeye braked sharply and pulled over.

With a
beep beep
, Caine steered on through, carrying the Jeffers family farther down the trail.

The men near the gate opened fire, the automatic reports of their weapons sounding like dull, insignificant popping after
the string of explosions, but the bullets whistling into the foliage around the vehicles were real and close enough.

As Caine’s Chor-7 sped past, Hawkeye pulled off after them, giving Cody and Murphy a clear line of fire along their backtrack
which they took immediate advantage of, the mighty M-60 and the CAR-15 returning fire that sent some riflemen tumbling back
there, others diving back out of sight.

Behind the Chor-7s, in the clearing below, the first light of dawn showed devastation, sprawled bodies everywhere from below
this point where the trail climbed to reenter the jungle.

Cody saw burning huts, tents burning to the ground, and the unrecognizable rubble of what had been the motor pool; then the
scene of what was left of the NPA base receded as the opening into the jungle became a tunnel, to the jungle’s muggy, fetid,
embrace, the Chor-7s bumping and bouncing along the trail.

Cody reached for the dash radio to call in the chopper that would be hovering nearby, waiting for the pickup call.

With Locsin’s wheels canceled out, it looked like the team and the Jefferses just might make it. But they weren’t there yet.

Locsin waited an extra minute, feigning a return to consciousness.

He had remained wide awake in the minute or so since the Chor-7 had thundered past loaded with commandos firing on him. He
considered himself not cowardly, but prudent. He told himself he must keep himself alive so he could command here.

As the weapons fire tapered off around over by the gate, he went into his act, sitting up, touching his head; then, as if
satisfied that he had not sustained any serious wounds, he got to his feet and dusted himself off.

He looked at the devastation around him.

Dead men lay sprawled in twisted heaps.

The hut behind him raged out of control, leaping flames matching the rising sun that stained the eastern sky a brilliant red.

Escaler approached at a trot from the direction of the headquarters hut.

Locsin read his man’s expression.

“Gone,” Locsin hissed. “You are going to tell me the Jeffers family is
gone
.”

“Not only that,” Escaler worked to catch his breath, “but they have slaughtered nearly half our men.”

Locsin waved a hand irritably.

“Bah, those who died here this day deserved it. We were caught unawares, and by professionals, at that!”

“As you say, comrade Colonel.”

Locsin gazed out through the gate or through what remained of the gate, in the direction the Chor-7s had taken. He realized
he was more shaken than he cared to admit. He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

“Did you get a look at them, Colonel?” Escaler asked.

“I was too busy… returning fire,” Locsin replied. “But they were professionals, yes, and…” his eyes took in the horror of
bloodshed and devastation around them, “… they knew what they were doing.”

“They surely could not have been Javier’s men.”

“Surely not. I do not trust Javier, but at this point in time he has no reason to double-cross us. Later, yes, we must be
careful later, but not now.”

“The Americans? Our government in Manila has temporarily suspended operations against us, or so they say.”

“So they say,” Locsin repeated. “They may have been saying that to set us at ease, for this.”

“In which case, they succeeded,” Escaler pointed out. “General Chung will not be happy.”

Chung was Locsin’s advisor from UNG II, the North Koreans’ counterintelligence group that in fact supervised the NPA’s activities,
monitoring them for the KGB.

“I will handle General Chung,” Locsin growled. “You will get on the radio to Javier at once. Tell him what has happened here.
Tell him the direction they have taken. Tell him those people
must
be stopped. They are no doubt on their way to a rendezvous point with a helicopter. Once they lift off, we have lost them!
Tell Javier to throw his best unit after them. I will send a force on foot. Go now, quickly! We lose a fortune if those swine
get away from us!”

Escaler whirled to dart back across the base toward the hut with the shortwave radio.

Locsin then occupied himself with dealing with the reports of his ranking officers who reported losses. He ordered a group
formed immediately to give chase after the Chor-7s on foot, but even as he watched his men hurry off to carry out his directives,
he knew that if that commando unit and the Jefferses were to be stopped, if those suddenly
very
valuable hostages were brought back, it was now up to Arturo Javier. The Chor-7s had already outdistanced anything Locsin
could send after them.

He dismissed the last of his men with their instructions for cleanup and tightening security.

It was out of his hands, for now.

There would be Javier’s curiosity to deal with as to why he had remained silent concerning the presence of the Jeffers family
at this base. The missing Americans had been well-publicized by the world media and the Filipino press since their kidnapping.
He told himself that just because he and Javier were associates was no reason to expect either of them to confide in the other
every manner of business not connected directly with their association.

He decided that Javier’s reaction to learning about the hostages that had been held here was the least of his concerns.

Getting those hostages back was Top Priority, and he told himself that is what would happen now.

Arturo Javier had the money and connections to enlist the very best. There would be a full squad of them closing in on that
group from every direction within moments after Escaler sent the radio message.

Americans.

Locsin gave the destruction and death everywhere around him another look.

As the full extent of the damage and loss began to sink in—flames still tonguing the dawn, the dead not yet moved, the wounded
screaming—as all of this sank in, Locsin wondered again what manner of strike force had assaulted his base this morning.

He hated to admit it, and would admit it to no other, but he was impressed. Depressingly so.

He had been trained by the Marcos military as an infantryman and he knew he would be there today had he not considered other,
more profitable means of making money, such as joining with and working his way up through the ranks of the New People’s Army.

The NPA lived in the mountains like animals for the time being, true, but he had his own bank accounts in Switzerland which
he fattened regularly with spoils of the occasional raid against a settlement, or the looting of an Army outpost (under the
guise of “military actions” of the NPA.)

He was satisfied with this arrangement for the time being and made sure that those he commanded, including Escaler, knew nothing
of the secret bank accounts.