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Puerto Arista, Chiapas, Mexico
Saturday, 8 May
0950 Local Time
Eight Hours before Honolulu Bombing
Victor and Alex had left at the condo before dawn with the property manager’s son, who would be driving them over the mountains to Ángel Corzo International Airport. The transportation for this ride was a VW Beetle, of which Mexico seemed to have an abundant supply. They strapped their luggage to the top and piled inside the vehicle as the sun flared over the horizon. The 1970-model car rattled and fumed, and the gearbox made a noise like a Transformer eating breakfast. The two-hundred-kilometer journey, much of it on two-lane almost roads, took three hours—including one stop to change a flat and one stop at a gas station with a reeking toilet that Alex claimed had bacteria big enough to eat her whole.
“I’d rather pee in the bushes next time,” she told him with a shudder.
They had raced to the gate in time to grab a seat on an Interjet flight to Mexico City, which arrived late, cutting their one-and-a-half-hour layover to eighteen minutes. A couple of ticks before the attendant closed the cabin door on their flight to Los Angeles, Victor and Alex slipped through the portal, sweating, panting, and hungry. Alex claimed the window while Victor stuffed their bags into the overhead. He flopped into the middle seat next to a sweaty man in a worn-out shirt and tie.
The jet lifted into a sapphire-blue sky, and Victor entwined his hand with Alex’s.
“Did you mean that last night?” he asked.
“Mean what?”
“What you said. You know.”
Her brow dipped in a frown. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You know...” A small bead of sweat trickled down his neck. I should have kept my mouth shut. “Right before we went to sleep.”
Alex shook her head. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Victor listened to the roar of the jet engines for a time without saying anything. The ding indicating they’d passed ten thousand feet came and went, along with the obligatory announcement that it was okay to use laptops.
“Me too,” Victor said.
Alex’s lips curled in a smile, and she held his hand tighter.
#
MOLOKAI FOREST RESERVE, Molokai
Saturday, May 8
1422 Local
The Vietnam vets moved with speed and purpose once properly motivated. Yeager waited for the three of them to clear the trail and fade into the brush before he slunk off to the side. Thick ferns banked each side of the trail, providing decent concealment, though the secret to remaining invisible was not only blending into the surrounding ecosystem but also achieving a state of near motionlessness. Movement attracted the eye. Unfortunately, so did color, though there was nothing he could do about the bright tourist clothes worn by Osterchuk and the others—or his own lack of camouflage.
He froze when a duo of paramilitary types in black fatigues appeared from the east, walking the trail downslope in the opposite direction from the tour group. The pair stopped to examine the dead body, and one stooped to rifle through Tom’s shorts, removing his wallet and cell phone.
They spoke in a language that Yeager was embarrassed to say he couldn’t identify. Asian was the best he could do—sing-song with lots of vowel sounds and probably not Japanese, though even that was a best guess. It wasn’t the border Spanish of his upbringing, for damn sure.
Yeager peered through the fronds of a particularly large fern with leaves the size of hand towels. The two men seemed content to stay in place, overlooking the trail, and as long as they stayed there, Yeager and the other Marines were pinned down. Movement would attract attention, and attention would draw fire.
Osterchuk’s assessment of the cartridge proved accurate—the men carried AK variants with folding stocks and extended banana magazines. AKM-74s? Whatever the number stamped on the side, they were definitely enough gun to chop the four Americans to dog meat.
In their black clothing and tactical gear, these guys appeared more professional than the spray-and-pray jihadi with whom he was familiar. Yeager couldn’t count on them having poor fire discipline and a lack of understanding of the front sight.
Tactical problem. Regress into the forest while under surveillance from armed opponents. Coordinate movement with the Leatherneck Legends to evade and escape. Notify armed responders of threat. Locate OPFOR base camp.
Oh, and find Charlie before I completely lose my shit.
Yeager gathered himself to move, only to settle back when two more gunmen appeared from the direction of the tracks leading into the forest. They met up with the first pair, and there followed a lot of atonal discussion that involved arm waving and gesturing. One of the newcomers stood apart from the others, both in size and demeanor. Big enough to be classified as a planet, the guy had a gravity all his own, and the body language of the others demonstrated this one was in charge. His moon-scarred face emitted danger, death, and destruction the way a Soviet-era plutonium reactor leeched life-killing radiation into the surrounding soil.
Moonface made a chopping gesture with one hand and barked a command. Yeager didn’t need a translator to understand that he was saying, “Enough.” He pointed downslope and issued a series of orders. The three soldiers acknowledged with their equivalent of “Yes, sir. Right away, sir” and straightened up. They formed a loose skirmish line and disappeared—down the trail toward the base, effectively blocking Osterchuk and Pyle from following the easy route back to the trailhead.
Damn.
The leader reversed course and returned the way he had come, headed roughly northeast. He moved with the lethal grace of a warrior, nearly silent, his weapon at port arms. Yeager held his breath, convinced Moonface would trip over Pettigrew and the guys.
Seconds dragged by and compiled into a full minute. Nothing happened. Yeager waited. Watched.
Birdsong dialed back up slowly as quiet returned to the trail. Yeager became aware of his own sweat smell, harsh and pungent, over the earthy scents of the forest. One good thing: at least his hangover was gone.
The far brush stirred with movement. Yeager focused and, a second later, registered Osterchuk’s big body sliding from cover, followed by Pyle. Pettigrew appeared like a jack-in-the-box, popping up from a cluster of flowered vines. Yeager snorted at the white blossom that clung to the black man’s hair.
Yeager slid out from his hiding spot and motioned the others closer. When they were gathered, he kept his voice pitched low but didn’t whisper. The sibilant sounds of whispering tended to carry farther than a normal voice. “Anybody recognize the OPFOR?”
“North Korean,” Pettigrew said.
“You sure about that?”
“Ah... no,” Pettigrew admitted. “Just a guess.”
“Sounded like Chinese,” Osterchuk put in.
“North Korean sounds like Chinese,” Pettigrew said.
“No, it don’t.”
“Stow it,” Yeager ordered. “We have a force of six-plus bandits armed with AKs, sidearms, and field gear consistent with a light patrol. We have to assume they have a base of operations relatively close. They could be anything from dope runners to part of the terrorist crew that hit the big island today. It was our bad luck to run across a group of them.”
“Especially Tom’s bad luck,” Pettigrew said.
“Asshole,” Osterchuk muttered. “Yeager and Pyle’s wives are missing.”
“Fuck, you’re right. Sorry.”
“The situation has changed, but the mission remains the same.” Yeager gripped the back of Osterchuk’s neck and pulled him close. Speaking almost nose to nose, he said, “Marine, listen up. If you stay on the trail, you’ll hit that patrol sooner or later. Are you good to find a way downhill without following the trail?”
Osterchuk nodded and shot him a thumbs-up. “We got this.”
Yeager held the older man’s eyes for a count of ten. “You’re Marines. There ain’t an ounce of back-up in you. It comes down to it, you’re gonna want to fight, but I need you to be sneaky motherfuckers and get past the bad guys. Don’t engage. Don’t get caught. Bring help.”
Pyle had somehow caught enough of the conversation or understood the tone. He echoed Osterchuk. “We got this, Staff Sergeant.”
Yeager nodded once. “Me and Pettigrew will follow the trail, locate the hostages. Maybe find their base. We’ll set this spot on the trail, right here, as a rendezvous point. I can’t time it out, but one or both of us will return to this location and either leave a message or report in person.” Yeager polled the faces around him and noted nothing but grim determination. “Okay, gentlemen. Let’s get moving.”
#
YEAGER AND PETTIGREW caught up with the enemy rear guard faster than Yeager expected. The group of enemy combatants moved through the woods with the fluid ease of professionals, causing Yeager to revise his estimate of their capabilities. Their rear guard would spin around without warning or freeze in place and go to ground, which was how Yeager’s plan nearly fell apart inside the first hour. Had Pettigrew not grabbed his shoulder and pulled him off the path, Yeager would have walked right into their gun sights. Minutes later, the two-man rear guard had ghosted away, their passage marked by unobtrusive flashes of black swishing through ferns like a malignant breeze.
Their diligence forced Yeager to back off farther than he wanted, losing sight altogether, and move forward at a slow crawl, checking every leaf and bush before resuming movement.
Exotic birds provided background music, their calls strange and unsettling. At a half mile above sea level, the air contained slightly less oxygen than Yeager breathed in Texas, and a headache bloomed over his right eye in response. Adjustment to the altitude would take time. Yeager prayed silently it would take hours and not days to find Charlie and get the hell off of Molokai.
Pettigrew followed without sound or complaint. Yeager would barely have known he was there if not for the burnt-tobacco reek that clung to the man. The old man had grit to spare.
The slow pace meant noon had long come and gone... and Yeager’s belly was telling him he’d skipped breakfast and lunch after expelling whatever remained from the previous night. His grumbling stomach threatened to alert all the bad guys in the neighborhood to come and kill him. He needed Charlie’s backpack with its supply of water and trail-mix bars. The woman made a better Boy Scout than he. “Be prepared” was more akin to a religion than a motto to her. He promised himself to never again gripe about the size of the diaper bag she packed for John Riley. The pang of missing her stole his breath.
Pettigrew touched his back, and Yeager paused and looked over his shoulder. “What?”
“You’re moving too fast again.”
Yeager gritted his teeth and acknowledged the truth of Pettigrew’s words, as much as they annoyed him.
“Look,” Pettigrew murmured, “these boys are leaving a trail a blind duck could follow. We need to hang back until it gets dark and injun up on ’em.”
Yeager studied the man’s tea-colored eyes. “You can find their trail in the dark?”
“I can find their trail in the dark on a moonless night with a blindfold on. I done told you, I tracked some gook bastards—excuse me for my heathen ways. I don’t mean to say gook. I mean some Viet-nam-ese soldiers. I was a black Daniel Boone back in the day. I could follow those pajama-wearing motherfuckers across a swamp in a monsoon.”
Jaw clenched, Yeager studied the skinny man in the too-big cap and Members Only jacket.
“It won’t do no good,” Pettigrew continued, “to get yourself shot. Then where will your wife be?”
“All right,” Yeager said after studying the faint trail. So far, the soldiers had maintained a nearly straight path running downhill and almost due north. Following their trail would be simple. “Let’s find a place to hunker down. We’ll give them an hour.”
“It won’t be dark in—”
“An hour. Period.”
“You know,” Pettigrew said, hands on hips, “I had a sergeant like you once. Best goddamn sergeant ever. Right up until he stepped on a landmine and blew his leg off.”
Yeager squinted one eye. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Naw. I know better than that.”