| |
Molokai Forest Reserve
Sunday, May 9
1937 Local Time
Charlie stood back while Draper, Collins, and Migliozzi helped Danny Osterchuk pry loose boards from the back wall. The effort seemed to require a lot of muffled swearing. Winston used the blade of a knife as a lever on the first board, enough that Danny could get his fingers under the edge and start pulling. He flexed it loose a little at a time to keep the squealing, groaning nails from setting off alarms. Once the first board popped free, the next came quicker.
They were working on a stud in the middle of the opening. The two-by-four studs were spaced sixteen inches apart, and some of the larger people would find it a tight fit. Draper sat on his butt and kicked at the base of the stud with his heel, trying to break it loose, while Danny pulled from the outside. The barracks shivered at each kick, and Charlie winced at the noise.
The hostages crowded in a tight-packed bunch. The group shifted and twitched like herd animals surrounded by a pride of lions. Charlie sensed that at any minute, they would stampede the widening gap and clog the opening. Sand in an hourglass.
She put her back to the work in progress and addressed the crowd in a low, but urgent, voice. “Listen up! Listen up, people. Some Marine veterans are here to help us get out. This is not a rescue by the authorities. We’re going to have to make our own way through the forest to find help. We’ll be in the dark with only a two-man armed escort.” She paused to survey the reactions, which included everything from Betty Pyle’s determination to Austin’s blank stare. “We’ll have to hike out of here on foot. The stronger people need to stick by the weaker ones. Keep one hand on the person in front of you. If you get lost or separated, find a place to hide and stay there. We’ll have to be quiet on the move. No calling for help or jabbering about the weather. Do you hear me? Quiet.”
A squawk from the stud giving way sounded behind her, followed by quiet exultation from the men working on it. When she looked, Danny pulled the board aside. Though still attached at the top, the stud could be pushed aside easily.
Danny caught her eye. “That’s good enough. We’re ready,” he hissed. “Let’s get ’em moving, hey?”
“Okay, line up,” Charlie said. “Betty, go first, followed by you, and you.” She pointed to an older couple from the Lanai resort. “Everyone else, form a line.”
The crackle of gunfire died off. Charlie tilted her head and listened. Was it over? Winston had told her Abel was providing the distraction, along with Ted. Did the lack of gunfire mean he was dead? Her heart said no, but her brain conjured a dozen images—all bad—of how a firefight could go wrong.
Danny must have seen her expression as he stood next to the gap and helped people through it. “He’s okay. Abel’s a salty fu—uh, a salty character, you betcha.”
Even salty fuckers can die. Charlie shook off the thought and concentrated on getting people through the hole in the wall. One by one, in a surprisingly orderly and near-silent manner, the hostages crouched and slipped through the gap while Danny held the stud out of the way and used his free hand to assist them.
Except for one: Austin. The younger man sat and refused to move. “Please,” he said, eyes wet and glittering in the dim light. “I can’t leave without Melissa. How can I leave without her? She’s being... she’s being hurt. By that man.” Austin grabbed Charlie by the biceps when she bent close to him. It jarred her bad hand, and bolts of pain shot up her arm. “Can somebody go get her? One of the men with guns? Can they go get her?”
A thousand reasons to say No, we can’t risk it flashed through her mind. None came to her lips. Charlie’s throat seized. She didn’t know what to say.
“What’s going on?” Danny hissed. “We don’t have all night here.”
Charlie turned to him. “A... a man, the leader I think, has taken two women and... this man’s wife was one. Is one.”
Danny’s eyes widened at her expression. “Oh hell. Oh, hell no. Was Lu Kim one?”
“Yes, why? How did you know?”
The big Minnesotan clamped his jaw and refused to say. “Where’d they go?” he asked instead. “Where’d he take the woman?”
“Over there,” Charlie pointed with her good hand, indicating the northeast side of the camp. “The small hut next to this one. You can barely see it through the trees on this side.”
“Okay.” Danny glanced over his shoulder. “Pettigrew’s already leading the others away. You take this fellow out and follow them. I’ll go get the man’s woman.”
The lock at the front rattled, and a shooting star of panic blew up in Charlie’s heart. She sucked a hard breath when the door banged open and the giant himself slammed through. Dressed in black fatigues and full battle harness, he carried an automatic rifle that looked like a toy in his Hulk-sized fists. His eyes tightened into slits, and a cruel grin twisted his lips.
“What da fuck is this?” Kong crowed. “You trying t’leave me, Red?”
#
MOLOKAI FOREST RESERVE
Sunday, 9 May
1940 Local
Squeeze the trigger. Squeeze the trigger. Squeeze the goddamn trigger!
The freeze broke, and Ted “Gomer” Pyle was back on Hill 881. The AK banged his shoulder. Orange fire blasted out. A VC in black clothing spun and fell in the water. Muscle memory did the rest. Gomer shifted aim and fired, aimed, fired, aimed, fired. Lather, rinse, repeat.
When the AK’s bolt locked back, four men were down and two more had vanished. One of the downed men, in the shallows of the ford, lifted himself into a crouch and staggered back the way he’d come. Another lay half-submerged, facedown in the water. The two closest to Gomer had disappeared under the water. His instinct said they were gone for good.
Magazine change. Click-click. Release bolt. Kih-chink.
Gomer was back in business. Bits of debris dribbled down his back. Incoming fire chewed through the foliage overhead. Rounds laced the stream in a line of geysers. More slapped the mud and splattered grit in his face. The sounds came to his ears as though from a great distance. Gomer ignored it all.
Aim at the muzzle flare. Fire. Shift aim right. Fire.
He triggered the AK in short, controlled bursts, exerting fire discipline to keep the muzzle from climbing and the rounds on target. He’d learned the hard way: going full-on rock and roll killed nothing but sky and drained a mag in nothing flat. Worst feeling in the world: running out of ammo in a firefight with nothing to shoot with except your swinging dick.
A ricochet sparked off a nearby stone, and a hot, burning sensation ripped across his left forearm. Gomer noted other strikes coming closer to his position. They almost had him zeroed.
I should move. I really should.
A head and shoulders reared out of the water in front of him—one of the VC he’d thought he killed already, apparently not as dead as advertised. The Asian features were close enough that Gomer could almost touch his rifle muzzle to the man’s forehead. Gut reaction more than guided thought triggered the rifle in Gomer’s hands. He squeezed, the rifle banged, and gore sprayed backward from the VC’s skull. The man sank below the surface.
“Come back up now, you son of a bitch,” Gomer muttered.
A bullet smacked the forestock of the AK in his hands. The hot, tumbling round burned his cheek and clipped an earlobe. He touched his stinging ear and winced. Huh. Damn near shot my ear off. No loss there.
Where was the artillery? Somebody should have called in an artillery strike by now. Was the RTO down? Were Riddeau and Dearborn dead already? Gomer rapped a palm against the side of his head, trying to bang his derailed thoughts back on track. There was something he was supposed to do...
“Oh yeah.” A grenade. He had one more grenade, and it needed to be over there instead of hanging off his ammo vest over here. Gomer tugged the baseball-sized grenade from his vest and pulled the pin. Leaving his rifle in the dirt—no telling if it was still functional after the bullet strike—Gomer shoved himself up from the ground and pushed his aching body upright.
A concentration of two or three muzzle flashes revealed enemy positions across the stream at about fifty or sixty yards to his right, on the far side of the river ford. Easy peasy. Gomer cocked his arm like a big league pitcher... and was on his back, the breath knocked out of him.
It felt like a giant fist had punched him in the sternum. His mouth worked, his chest heaved, but no air filled his lungs. Above him, fronds of exotic trees framed a night sky filled with stars. He smelled blood and dirt and sweat. No sound penetrated the cotton in his ears.
His right hand was empty. This was important. It meant something. What did it mean...?
Grenade! Where’s the—
Lightning flashed.
#
MOLOKAI FOREST RESERVE
Sunday, 9 May
1943 Local
Yeager arrived at the rendezvous point first. A refrigerator-sized boulder lay canted at a thirty-degree angle, clearly visible from the faint path connecting the camp to the trail where the tour group had been ambushed. Yesterday? Was that only yesterday? Yeager crouched behind the boulder and tried not to think of how little rest he’d gotten since the nightmare had started—or how long it had been since he’d seen Charlie safe and sound.
Yeager estimated the boulder to be about a quarter-mile from the stream. It was the same spot to which he and Pettigrew had retreated twenty-four hours previously, after they’d first discovered the terrorists’ base.
Shots cracked from the direction of the camp. Was Pyle still engaged or were the opposition shooters probing the forest with random fire? The latter didn’t make sense, given the professionalism of the soldiers he had seen up to that point. Pros didn’t fire at random, wasting ammo on a hopeful hit.
“Come on, Pyle,” he said to the darkness. “Get your ass in gear, Marine.”
The next question mark in his mind was whether or not their distraction had provided Pettigrew and Osterchuk the time they needed to infiltrate the camp and free the hostages. They had no way to communicate, so he had no way of knowing.
The decision to let the two older men go after Charlie and the rest had been difficult. In the end, Pettigrew’s ability to ghost through the forest had been the deciding factor. Yeager knew he was good in the boonies and more silent than the average woodsman, but Pettigrew was in a class by himself. At seventy years old, the man could move like poison gas. Yeager couldn’t imagine what he’d been like at nineteen. With Osterchuk to follow along behind him and provide muscle, Yeager figured the two of them stood a better chance of success than he did.
Focusing the enemy attention and keeping it directed away from the camp was the hard part. Yeager and Pyle had to hit and move, remaining in contact enough to lure the enemy fighters to the south while Pettigrew got their people out and moved them northwest. With any luck, they could escape detection and be well gone by the time Yeager and Pyle broke contact and retreated.
Yeager and Pyle would meet the others at the overlook at dawn the next day, where they would have to deal with any blocking force left by the terrorists before evacuating to the nearest town.
A grenade cracked in the distance. The sounds of firing died away.
The sweep second hand of his watch rolled twice around the dial without further movement or sound. Yeager waited. A sinking feeling pulled at his guts. His instincts told him Pyle was injured or dead. He was not terribly surprised, despite the sick sensation of loss that he held at bay with an effort of will.
Yeager checked over his rifle. He dropped the magazine and worked the bolt, reloaded the ejected round and reseated the mag, cocked the weapon and clicked on the safety. Four magazines left. One hundred and twenty rounds. Unknown number of enemy combatants. A few hours left to make them all dead.
“Best get to it.” Yeager levered himself upright and went to work.