Tom Clancy's Act of Valor (9 page)

“Roger.”

The delay before an assault, when everyone was in place, was important. It allowed the SEALs in the assault element to become oriented to the camp, the swamp sounds around them, and the target building. It allowed Engel and Weimy time to study the layout in front of them and become familiar with the movement of sentries. After close to ten minutes, Engel came up on the tac net.

“Ready, Chief?”

“Ready, Boss.”

Engel leaned close to his sniper. “Okay, Weimy, he’s yours.”

From his perch, Weimy could clearly see the guard in the tower a hundred meters away. Through his AN/PVS-4 low-light scope, it was as if the man was just twenty-five meters away in broad daylight. It was by no means a difficult shot, but he didn’t want the guard to fall from the tower and create a disturbance. The guard was no longer smoking, but he was leaning against the rail of the tower’s small elevated platform, an AK-47 held loosely in the crook of his arm. His head periodically bobbed as he fought going to sleep. Weimy centered the crosshairs as he went into his breathing cycle, then pressed the trigger.

The guard dropped silently to the tower platform like a wet rag, but his canteen tumbled over the edge. Weimy and Engel winced, but there was no sound as it fell into the soft mud at the base of the tower. The only sound was the cough of the suppressed rifle and the audible
snap
of the bullet cracking the sound barrier on its way to the target. Following the shot, they all waited in silence for any reaction from the crack of the round. There was none.

“Okay, Chief. You’re good to cross.”

“Roger, we’re moving.”

Each SEAL entered the water in turn, slowly moving from the bank until only their helmets and NODs were visible. They fanned out as they approached the other side, no noise and no ripples. This was something the SEALs had rehearsed dozens of times; this was their element. The estuary was not deep, yet only their heads crested the water. A.J., Mikey, and Ray slowly emerged on the far bank, crouching low as they moved to the cover of the mangrove and low palm growth. They then carefully dewatered their weapons and took up security positions, slightly flanking the building. Nolan, Sonny, and Mikey remained immersed.

“We’re set, ready to move on the target, over,” Nolan reported.

Engel keyed his tactical radio. “Okay, Chief, give me a paint.”

“Roger that. Coming on now . . . and off.”

First Nolan, and then the other four SEALs in turn, activated their IR beacons so that Engel could identify them on the Raven presentation and Weimy could see them with his NOD. “Okay, guys, we can see all of you. Be advised, guard one is still seated at the front entrance, and guard two is on the far side of the building. Two other guards that we can see are on the far side of the compound. Chief, you and Sonny are clear to move from where you are to the side of the main building. Everyone else hold fast.”

Nolan rogered up and started to move from the water, then froze. Between Sonny and him was a small wooden platform stilted a few inches above the waterline. It was too small to be a dock but would serve as a small-boat tie-off and loading pier. The big SEAL and his chief were still shoulder deep in the dark water on either side of the structure. As they waited motionless, a sentry stepped from behind a tree and out onto the platform. It was always the one you didn’t see. As Engel, Nolan, and Sonny held their breath, Weimy sighted in.

“I have him,” Weimy whispered over the tac net, and he did.

The shot took him just over the heart on his left side, spinning him to his left and over backward toward Nolan. Nolan reached up and caught him before his body splashed the water, and eased him below the surface. Not yet dead, the guard jerked involuntarily as he inhaled water, but it did not last long. When he stopped moving, the chief released him and pushed him under the wooden pier.

“Nicely done, you guys,” came Engel on the tac net.

“Yeah, just like we rehearsed it,” Nolan replied. “You ready, Sonny?”

“Ready, Chief,” and the two SEALs emerged from the water, carefully draining their primary weapons as they advanced on the target hooch.

The plan called for them to move slowly and deliberately on the target, locate Morales, and, if possible, bring her out without alerting anyone. This meant inching forward and avoiding contact with the camp security force, or at least delaying any contact until they could find Morales and gain control of her. It’s said that most battle plans go out the window when the first shot is fired. On this night, it was the first scream.

*  *  *

The back room of the long, squalid hut had become a torture chamber. Heeding Christo’s instructions to keep her alive and not call back until she talked, Tommy did what he did best. He tortured the young doctor. Yet in doing so, he was careful to prolong Morales’s life. He had never let Christo down, and he didn’t intend to do so now. He knew the stakes and knew that if he failed, his life was w Sis He orthless. Christo would have
him
tortured and find someone else to extract what he wanted from Morales.

The look on Tommy’s face was one of determination laced with frustration. He had slowly increased the pressure on Morales, from slapping her face bloody to burning her flesh with a lit cigar to cutting her and rubbing salt into the wounds. Earlier that day, he had had her gang-raped by the camp sentries; he had applied electric shock to her breasts and genitals. Nothing had worked. Now, Tommy reached into his bag of sick tricks for what he was sure would finally bring her around. He’d only had to go this far with a hostage once before, a tough Costa Rican paramilitary officer, and the man had broken in less than five minutes. This . . .
Yankee bitch
wouldn’t hold out half that long. He permitted himself a smile; he was going to enjoy this.

Lisa Morales was chained to a sturdy wood table. The rusty metal dug into her wrists, which were made dark red from both dried and oozing blood. Her hands were splayed out on the table, the tops of them swollen and bruised. She hung from them, with her head just below the tabletop. Her feet, stretched out behind her and tied to ring bolts in the floor, were black and swollen from the stick beatings on her soles. Dozens of large flies buzzed around her, licking at the open wounds. She was naked save for her bloodstained bra and panties, and her face was so swollen from Tommy’s beatings that her mother would be hard-pressed to recognize her. Blood seeped from multiple cuts on her torso and legs. The table and floor about her were slick with blood, urine, and feces. It looked like a scene from the Spanish Inquisition.

“No mas . . . ”
Morales moaned, the words almost unrecognizable as she struggled to form them through swollen lips. Her moans were drowned out by a high-pitched electrical whine.

“Por favor . . . no . . . por favor,”
she moaned, barely audible.

Tommy stepped in front of Morales holding a power drill with a 1/16th-inch bit and leaned into the drill as it bit down and through Morales’s left hand.

“Arrrrrrrrrgh . . . ”

The shriek was not loud, but primal and guttural—a sound more animal than human. Her cries were so shrill and wrenching that Tommy raised up, extracting the drill bit from her hand. Enraged that he had let her cries interrupt the flow of his work, Tommy aimed the drill bit at the top of her right hand and shoved it through. Morales’s legs jerked uncontrollably and her head slammed into the top of the table, her body now in an uncontrollable seizure. The look on Tommy’s face had changed from determination and frustration to pure rage.

“Speak to me, you bitch!
Diga me!
”

From deep inside Morales, some small reservoir of adrenaline gave added strength to her voice, and she emitted a howl that pierced the thin walls of the building, spilling into the still night outside. The terrifying screams that echoed through the camp and the surrounding mangrove transfixed the SEALs, freezing them in place. Even the roving guards paused in their Ssed echoedlazy patrol routes and turned to listen. After a long moment of the unbearable, heart-wrenching cries, Chief Nolan came up on the tac net.

“Sir, we got to go.”

“Roger that. Everyone get ready to move, but hold where you are and wait for my command.” Then on his support net, “Whiplash, Blackbeard, over.”

“Whiplash here, over.” The two SOC-R craft were still nestled against the bank at the bend of the river, tied off on mangrove trees and virtually invisible in the low vegetation.

“This is Blackbeard. We are about to go hot. How soon can you get to my primary extraction site, priority one, over?”

“This is Whiplash. We can be at your primary extraction in thirty mikes, maybe a little sooner on priority one, over.”

Engel did some mental calculations. It did them no good to have Morales, and in all likelihood a small army of pursuers, if they had no extraction platform. Neither did it do them any good for the boats to arrive too soon. This was going to be close, one way or another.

“Roger, Whiplash. Start making your way here quietly, and stand by to respond at your best speed, over.”

“Understood, Blackbeard. We are moving toward primary extraction at slow speed, over.”

“Blackbeard, roger, out.” Then on the tac net, “Okay, guys, smooth is fast. Go get her, and call out the security as you see them.”

Some fourteen miles downriver, Chief Bautista had the order he’d been waiting for and switched to his tactical net.

“Two Boat, One Boat, we’re moving upriver at idle. Follow me at loose trail. Man-up on all weapons systems, and be ready to put the pedal to the metal. This extraction will most likely be a hot one.”

“Two Boat, roger.”

No more words needed to be exchanged between Bautista and Chief Tom Dial, the Two Boat’s captain and coxswain. The two SOC-R craft fired up their engines and eased out from the bank in unison. With the Yanmars purring at a soft growl, they began to work their way upstream toward the extraction site at a reasonably quiet five knots. They all felt it; they were headed for a fight. As Bautista and Dial held their craft in the current, each swick crewman at his individual station checked and rechecked his weapon and ammo supply.

*  *  *

As the two SOC-R craft worked their way upriver, Engel was now completely focused on visual presentation on his screen, shifting back and forth from low-light level color to infrared. The SEALs had all switched on their IR markers so he could track them easily as they advanced on the target building. The sounds now coming from the long low hut were moans punctuated by howls of pa Sy h asin and pure terror.

The assault element was now on the move in a modified skirmish line, with Chief Nolan walking point and two SEALs to either side, trailing and slightly behind—five silent forms rhythmically sweeping the area in front of them with the barrels of their weapons as they closed on the low silhouette of the main structure. On reaching the side of the building, they flattened against the plank siding with the now plaintive screams urging them forward. Nolan then moved to the van and led the file to the entrance end of the building. The others bunched closely behind him.

Lieutenant Engel brought the Raven even lower, optically sweeping the area around the SEAL squad. He then saw the roving sentry moving from behind the rear of the building toward the side where the SEALs were queued up by the front entrance. In another few steps, he would be sure to see them.

“Chief, hold up!” Nolan and the other SEALs froze.

“Got him?” Engel whispered.

“Got him,” Weimy echoed.

As the guard stepped from behind the building, he was caught mid-chest by a .556 round from Weimy’s Mk12. Again, there was only the spit of the rifle and the brief
snap
from the round’s sonic path. The Tango’s heart exploded from the impact of the round. He dropped to his knees and fell face forward into the mud.

“Okay, Chief, you’re clear.”

“Roger that. We’re moving.”

Nolan moved carefully around the corner of the building, looking over his rifle across the front porch and entryway. The guard, having been alerted by the sonic crack of the last shot, was now on his feet near the door, with his back to Nolan. If he turned, Nolan knew he’d have to shoot him, and that would alert the camp. “Uh, Weimy?” he whispered into his mic.

“No worries, Chief.” This time it was a head shot and the guard collapsed. Again, another sonic crack parted the silence, this time accompanied by the clatter of an AK-47 falling onto the hut’s wooden porch decking. This may or may not have alerted those in the building or other sentries. Nonetheless, Nolan and his teammates knew they had to act swiftly now. They quickly moved to a stack at the door. A.J. carefully tried the knob and, finding that it turned, pushed it carefully open. He led the file inside, unchallenged. They crept silently down a short, dimly lit hallway. As they entered, they flipped up their NODs; there was enough light to work without them. Ray remained at the door as rear security, leaving the others to press on.

On the rise outside the camp, Engel and Weimy could only watch as the SEALs disappeared into the building. Engel continued his eagle’s-eye survey of the surrounding buildings and Weimy looked for targets. He watched the two roving sentries on the far side of the compound but elected not to kill them. Double kills are sometimes difficult, and until something alerted the camp, he would do nothing to disturb things. For now, they weren’t a threat. The real con S Thand untilcern was that for every sentry they could see, there could be a dozen or more off duty nearby.