FLASHBACK
West Burma Jungle
21 October, 1985, 1450 hours
Karl listened intently as he lay on his belly in the leafy brush of the jungle floor, staring at the Harrier fighter jet that sat silently in the monastery courtyard. Slowly, hidden details of the old monastery materialized through the vegetation. In a far corner, geometric patterns and what looked like dancing tigers came into view on a large block of stone. Part of a dark, lichen-covered pillar stood just inside the jungle a little farther out, carved faces stretching from its surface in an alternating pattern, stone eyes staring serenely into space, as if they were still alive, silent in their vows, prisoners by their own volition.
He strained his ears to decipher the wild sounds of the forest, attempting to locate and identify every scrape and crack he heard. In long periods of quiet, the imagination can play tricks on a person’s mind. When accentuated by fear of death, the imagination can go berserk. Karl struggled to keep his own thoughts in check amidst the confusion of sound and noise that echoed from the endless sea of green: droning bugs, chirping birds, chattering monkeys, and the silent death stalking him from somewhere he could not see.
Movement caught his eye, a shape skittering into view near his Harrier. A small spider monkey climbed across the back of his jet until it stood beside the Plexiglas canopy, pressing its hands against the smooth surface with tiny fingers. An inquisitive expression shone on its small round face as it stared in apparent curiosity into the chamber inside. The creature moved around, looking into the cockpit from different angles. It stared inside and scratched its head, seemingly amazed by the fact that it could see inside this thing that had invaded its jungle home, but that it could not reach in and touch what it saw. It moved around the domed glass bubble to the side where the sun shone behind the monkey. Its face suddenly stretched in a look of shock, its hair bristling like it had just grabbed one of those science fair static balls. It let out an ear-splitting, high-pitched screech, threatening the creature in the glass that stared back at it and screamed at the same time. The little monkey smacked at the face in the glass, only to pull its hand back in pain after hitting the solid surface. It shouted again and swung another assaultive blow at the ghostlike face that hung before it, again pulling its small hand away in pain and confusion.
Frustrated and confused, it hesitated and turned back a couple of times then decided that the other monkey in the window was not worth the fight. Surrendering its claim on the territory, the little spider monkey turned and leaped from the plane. Its tail curved elegantly, controlling the long descent to the ground with acrobatic balance. It scurried back to the edge of the jungle where it clambered up a tree and joined a cluster of other monkeys. They looked like an assembly of little old men as they stared down at the plane with eyes too big for their heads, chattering back and forth about the strange contraption that sat in the middle of their playground.
Colorful birds passed among the trees through multiple levels of branches. The larger and more brightly adorned birds, as if in spite of their beautiful plumage, barked the most atrocious-sounding squawks as compared to the smaller, less colorful birds. The latter, some barely larger than Karl’s thumb, chirped and tweeted in lovely notes that created a musical underscore to the constant thrum of jungle life. A particularly vibrant bird with a large yellow bill and bright green body landed on a nearby branch. It flapped its wings several times then tucked them against the sides of its body and froze like a statue. From its perch it stared down at Karl. It did not move for several minutes. Karl wondered if it had fallen asleep. As if in response to his thoughts, the bright green bird suddenly twisted its head and scratched its long body with the hook at the end of its beak. It flapped its wings in a kind of half-time stretch then resettled and resumed its observation of the large green man creature that lay on the ground beneath it.
In shape, it reminded him of a toucan, but it lacked the multi-colored beak and black body. The green of its plumage was like a shimmering emerald that stood out from the deeper green of the environment in which it lived. Of course, it may well have been a toucan, but he had no idea if there were more than just the kind from the Fruit Loop cereal commercials. For a brief moment, he considered taking up bird watching when he got home.
The creature unexpectedly squawked, a tremendously loud call that sounded almost like a man’s scream, and shot off its branch in a feathery panic, sending Karl’s heart pounding so hard it felt like it was jammed into his throat. The sound left Karl with goose bumps and sent a tingle of fear across his entire body. His pulse raced with fast, hard beats then just as suddenly seemed to stop. He sensed movement nearby. A soft, muffled crack floated from the other side of some bushes a short distance to his left. Karl slowly turned and brought his weapon up, aiming towards the sound. His breath came in shallow, whispery threads and his heart started beating again, pulsing painfully against the inside of his rib cage. The sound drew closer, and he stared, eyes wide, searching, waiting, his body so tense he felt he might snap in half. He hoped to strike first, but a voice in his mind kept telling him to expect to feel the impact of a sniper’s bullet split his head open. He thought of the headless body of the Mujahideen fighter that lay on the pavement just a few meters away. Karl wondered how it would feel or even if he would feel it at all. An image of his home and his parents abruptly jumped to the front of his mind. His mother’s shrill, angry voice grated inside his head. She had practically disowned him for being so crazy as to join the military instead of getting an office job like his father.
“Marines! What are you thinking, son? It’s too dangerous! You’ll get killed! Or worse, get shot up like your Uncle Bert and end up working at some stupid homeless shelter all your life. Are you insane? All the neighbors are talking about how crazy this whole thing is. If you want to travel, try the Peace Corps instead of the Marine Corps! How could you embarrass us like this?”
Before he could answer his mother’s question, a cluster of large leaves quivered ever so slightly, and his mind focused completely on the killer stalking his life. His mind willed the leaves to part, or to be drained of their chlorophyll and become translucent so he could see the hunter. He aimed the rifle into the vegetation, hands trembling. The leaves of a palm fern jiggled. His heart thumped hard and slid back into his throat. A strong metallic taste coated his tongue. Karl’s finger curled around the trigger. He flipped the safety off and set the fire selector to loose a three-round-burst with a single pull. His lips stretched, baring straight white teeth that he did not even realize he was gnashing together.
A deep, moist rumble rolled over the surface of the ground. The brush in front of him vanished. A blur of orange exploded from the palm leaves. He fired two bursts from his silenced weapon. Every monkey in the forest scurried into a panicked scramble up the trees, and every bird shot into the air. He rolled his body quickly to the right, away from the gigantic shape plunging through the air above him. The massive form slammed into the ground where Karl had been lying, the shock wave from the impact of its landing bouncing Karl bodily.
A huge tiger, twice as big as Karl and probably weighing close to eight hundred pounds, sprawled before him. It reached towards him, its six-inch-long, razor-sharp claws stretched out towards its lost meal. Karl scooted back farther, keeping the rifle pointed at the beast. His eyes bugged out, lips pursed to speak words that were stuck behind his tongue, allowing nothing but a guttural stutter to tumble out. The gigantic cat lay on its side, panting heavily. Its massive tongue drooped over wet shiny lips. Frothy blood bubbled between its teeth, some as large as Karl’s fingers. More blood oozed from the gunshot wounds that peppered its face and upper chest.
Life drained from its body and the beast’s claws slowly retracted into the thick, furry paws that had carried its muscular frame silently through the jungle throughout its life. The would-be man-eater drew its last few labored breaths and let roll a final growl that even in death sounded like thunder. Its powerful muscles relaxed and the body sank to the earth as a final cloud of steamy breath rose from his mouth.
The immense tension drained out of him, leaving Karl feeling as if he were about to puke. A chilling ache gripped him like an icy hand and his whole body unexpectedly shivered despite the stifling heat. This was something he had never even considered when he joined the military. The idea of being shot or blown to bits on a combat mission was always in the back of every warrior’s mind. But getting eaten by a tiger was not something the drill instructors or training officers had prepared him for.
His earphones clicked on.
“Eagle? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he replied, breathless. “I very nearly became tiger food, though. How are we looking for me leaving?”
“Looks clear so far to the north. Cobra, what is your report?” said Vulture Two.
The response came in two short clicks and no words following. Cobra had the enemy in sight. Eagle One and Vulture Two went silent as well and waited to hear the outcome. Seconds passed slowly, heavily, as if they did not have the will to move through time. The jungle slowly settled into its own rhythm, chirping and squawking and droning. Then before everything returned completely to normal, the hushed puff of a single shot quietly burst from the southeast of the plane. The men sat still, expectantly hoping to hear Cobra Four’s voice. But there was nothing.
Vulture Two clicked on: “Cobra, what’s your status?”
Two fast clicks followed by two slow clicks. A pause. Three rapid clicks, a space and two rapid clicks.
“I’m on the way, bro,” Vulture responded in a whisper. “Eagle, sit tight while we bag these two. Just a few more minutes.”
Karl endured another long period of silence. He glanced back at the tiger, afraid it might revive and pounce on him from behind. A squadron of flies had already gathered in and around its eyes, nose, and mouth. When he looked closer, Karl noticed a stream of ants moving across the beast’s tongue.
The eater, being eaten. Man, the jungle works fast.
Nearly five minutes went by without word or sound. Then out of the silence, on the other side of his Harrier, a quick succession of shots puffed from silenced weapons. A man screamed in pain. Another puff and his voice abruptly stopped. The thick green darkness of the jungle once again went still.
“All clear. Make your way to the plane. Stay low and watch for booby traps. There may be trip wires or a bomb on it somewhere. These guys both had detonator switches on them. We’ll cover you while you check it out.”
“Roger that,” answered Karl. “I’m on the way in.”
He crawled to the edge of the forest clearing, scanning the area as he moved, his senses heightened to a degree he had not imagined possible, staying on his belly and creeping slowly towards the plane. His nerve endings seemed to be reaching out like microscopic tentacles, examining every feature of the terrain, trying to identify anomalies: wires, unnaturally straight lines, freshly turned dirt or rocks, anything that did not belong. The sickness he had earlier felt at the sight of the bloated corpses dissipated. He now viewed them as potential bombs, places to hide something that could kill him. Through every inch of the excruciating traverse, he expected to hear a shot and was surprised as he moved under the plane, still in one piece.
He maneuvered on his knees and elbows like an unwieldy lizard as he inspected the underside of the craft, front to back, with the detailed attention of a tax auditor. Satisfied, he rose from his belly, anticipating a bullet in the back at any moment. At full height, he checked the starboard wing. Its ailerons, flaps, and surfaces were clear. The intake ports, jet nozzles, and landing gear showed no sign they had been touched. Everything that belonged was there, and nothing more. He hunkered back down and waddled beneath the plane towards the nose, examining the mid-ship landing gear and maintenance ports. They were also clean.
He continued around the nose cone, checked the port-side intake and jet nozzles. All clear. Moving under the wing, he ran his hand over the port side landing gear. As his fingers slid around the tire, a chill shivered down his spine in spite of the triple-digit steam bath temperatures. His fingertips brushed up against something like fishing line. He gingerly moved the leaves and the grasses and plants that jutted up through cracks in the stone pavement beneath the rubber tire and found a clear nylon string. It lay barely camouflaged on the surface, its transparency enough to have hidden it adequately to all but the most stringent of inspections. He followed it with his eyes. From his plane, embedded in the seams in the stone pavement, it led his gaze towards the edge of the monastery courtyard.
“I found something,” he said. “There is a bit of clear string, like a heavy fishing line, attached to my port-side landing gear. It runs from my plane into the trees. Please advise.”
“Eagle, this is Cobra Four. I am straight off that port wing. Give me a second and I’ll check it out.”
“Roger, Cobra Four. Standing by.”
He looked out past the end of the wing and saw Cobra Four making his way cautiously around the edge of the clearing. Karl signaled with his hand, pointing out the direction of the string. Cobra found the spot where the string entered the brush near a large tree at the edge of the clearing. The tree was one of the tallest around the pavement, standing well over fifty meters high, it towered like a massive sentinel guarding the monastery grounds.
“I found it,” he said. “It’s well done, too. It’s a big wad of C4 partway up this big old tree with a whole bunch of stones pressed into it for added discomfort. Looks like it’s set to knock the tree into your path at take-off. There seems to be a disarming trap on this thing, so I need to get a good look before I start cutting wires.” He paused, then added, “Tell my mom I love her if I screw this up.”
“Be careful, Cobra. I’ve got you covered. Eagle, stay down until you get the all clear from Cobra,” said Vulture.
Karl lay back down on his belly and watched from underneath the Harrier as Cobra Four moved in slow motion around the tree and surrounding foliage. His ghillie suit made Karl think again of some kind of monster from a ‘50s B-list horror movie. Then he remembered meeting Vulture One in what seemed like a lifetime ago, but had only been a few hours.
Cobra raised his arms towards the trunk of the massive tree and began to work with something. His movements were calm, deliberate, even slow. Eventually, he spoke into the throat mike. “It looks like I have the main bomb disarmed. There is a backup, though, that leads off from this one. Wait one while I find it.”
Karl watched as he slid his hand down the tree trunk, then followed along a vine that separated from the tree and snaked into a tangled mass of shrubs and thick leafy plants at the base of another large tree. His body was squarely between the plane and the mass of greenery, blocking Karl’s view of what he was doing. Cobra bent over at the waist and parted some branches.
Karl felt the sensation of the earth dropping away from him then slamming back up into his body. He did not hear the earth-shaking explosion, his senses overwhelmed by its concussion that sent a fountain of dirt a hundred feet skyward. He did hear the high-pitched whine of the makeshift shrapnel as it ripped up the vegetation and tore up the ground around him. Before his eyes could shut, he witnessed Cobra Four transform into a momentary red blur then vanish.
The massive tree snapped like a whip from bottom to top. A loud crack hit the air as it separated from its trunk, jumped up several feet, then dropped back to the earth. It stood in that spot, balancing precariously as if deciding whether to stay in place or not, then nodded its head once and bowed towards the earth with a slow, heavy tumble towards the plane. Karl hunkered beneath the plane, bracing himself for the impact. The giant tree leaned into the clearing, its thick branches so wide that even running from the plane would not allow him room to escape without ripping him to shreds. He gritted his teeth and hoped for at least some degree of protection.
A quarter of the way into the descent, as if a giant hand brushed it away, it tangled in the common vines and branches of its neighbors and angled away. It landed with a solid crump, violently flinging smashed limbs into the air, but, other than a scattering of debris, missing Karl and the Harrier. He stayed huddled in a tight ball on the ground under the jet until everything had settled.
“Eagle, are you okay?” called Vulture.
“Yeah, but Cobra is gone.”
“I saw it. You need to check your plane and get out of here right away before anyone else shows up. I will cover you from the edge of the trees. Get moving!”
Energized by the closeness with which death kept brushing him, Karl jumped out from under his plane and did a quick check around the body of the whole jet. The bullet holes from the first gun battle pockmarked the side, tail, and starboard wing of the plane, but he saw no leaks or puddles of hydraulic fluid, nor did the smell of leaking jet fuel seep out of the plane. It seemed flyable and he wanted to get out while he still had his head and limbs attached. He scrambled up the side of the Harrier’s air intake, opened the canopy, and practically dove in, strapping into the harness and yanking on the helmet with the dexterity of a well-trained man scared out of his wits. The massive Rolls-Royce jet engines started with no problem. Gauges and digital displays snapped to as the rotors whined to life behind him. The heavy craft shuddered as the jets roared a crescendo of noise.
“Vulture Two, this is Eagle One. Preparing for take-off. I hope you make it out of here. Look me up on the Belleau Wood when you get to civilization, because I still owe you a beer.”
“Roger that, Eagle One. You are clear for take-off. I am looking forward to that beer. I like Fosters. Vulture Two, over and out.”
“Fosters it is, as many as you like. Eagle One, over and out.”
Karl took off the ear buds and throat mike and pulled down his flight helmet. He closed the canopy over his head, looked over the gauges, and adjusted the controls for a vertical ascent. Less than three minutes after entering the cockpit, the jet nozzles lifted the Harrier from the ground and began the climb straight up through the opening of the jungle. Loose branches and debris swirled away and across the grounds of the ancient monastery in an almost magical whirlwind. Beneath him, the small courtyard and its scattering of dead bodies, new residents strewn about like so much litter. Karl bid the place an unaffectionate farewell.
The Harrier passed out of the trees and lurched to port as it broke into the gusts of the open sky above the jungle. He turned the nose to the wind, rotated the nozzles back, and pressed the throttle forward, sending the plane up and away.
A few kilometers later, a distance traveled in seconds, he recognized the field where they had killed the Mujahideen team. He buzzed low over it and counted the bodies still lying in the road. There were only five. The sixth, the Mujahideen leader, the young millionaire Osama bin Laden, had somehow managed to escape.
“Maybe he got eaten by a tiger,” Karl said hopefully.
He rolled the plane into a tight turn and headed due south. Two hundred miles beyond the sandy coastal beaches, out in the Indian Ocean, his home ship, the USS Belleau Wood, waited on the rolling waves. The package pressed into his thigh from within the flight suit’s zippered pocket. He still did not know exactly what it was, but he hated it regardless. The roughly wrapped bundle had caused the deaths of dozens of men already. Most of those men died trying to get the bloody thing so that they could use it to kill thousands of others, while some died trying to stop them. Karl worked over the implications had he failed to retrieve what he had come for. As he considered the ramifications of his mission, crashing waves of the incoming tide materialized in his view. He flew just above treetop level, skimming the jungle at five hundred feet. The sun sat low on the horizon in the late afternoon. Its radiance enhanced the edges of the landscape as shadows stretched towards the east.
An alarm chirped in his headset. Burmese ground radar locked onto his plane as he reached their low level coastal array. His radio crackled to life.
“Unknown aircraft, this is Burmese Air Force Control. Identify yourself immediately.”
“Burmese Air Force Control, this is Eagle One, Whiskey Echo One Four. Repeat, this is Eagle One Whiskey Echo One Four. Returning from authorized location. Please advise.”
“We copy you, Eagle One, Whiskey Echo One Four. You are not cleared to fly in Burmese air space. You must land immediately at the location I will tell you or risk being shot down.”
“Burmese Air Force Control, I was cleared this morning at oh-eight-four-five to fly in and fly out by General Bang Kao. I have completed the mission he requested and am now leaving.”
“Eagle One, you must land your plane immediately or you will be shot down. General Bang Kao has been relieved of his duties as Army commander. Your flight in our sovereign air space is illegal. You will land now or be fired upon.”
Karl punched the throttle on his fighter. It would take ten minutes to cross the remaining one hundred fifty miles of airspace and get over international waters. Before he could switch radio frequencies to contact the waiting ship, alarms started blaring in his ears. Burmese ground missiles were locked and targeted on his Harrier. Just as fast as the frantic locked alarm sounded, the tone changed to a steady, high-pitched beep. Burmese Air Defense had launched.
“Burmese Air Force Control, be advised you have fired on an authorized United States Military aircraft. Turn those things away immediately!”
“Eagle One, you were warned.”
The captain looked at his radar. Two of the deadly projectiles streaked through the sky, faster than the speed of sound. He accelerated to maximum thrust, but the small light missiles gained on him, hanging tight on his tail. He switched his radio to the air-to-ship frequency.
“USS Belleau Wood, this is Eagle One, VMF-214 inbound from the Burma Coast. Burmese Air Defense has fired on me, repeat, I have two SAMs on my tail.”
“Eagle One, we have you on radar, and the missiles. Use all counter measures and evade. We cannot send assistance at this time.”
Karl flipped the counter-measure arming switch to the Harrier’s chaff flares. The rockets closed to a hundred meters. He pressed the button under his thumb. With a loud pop a mass of white hot metal strips shot out from the back of his jet. One of the heat-seeking missiles took the bait and exploded in the air a football field away. The other stayed on its course, closing in.
He jammed the stick to the left, banking parallel to the coast. The missile followed. Karl adjusted his course, dropping to just twenty feet above the water. Jets of white seafoam shot up like a hyper version of Moses parting the Red Sea as the Harrier engines blasted the ocean’s surface. Waves stretched up, nearly touching his craft. He pulled the Harrier into a vertical climb, sending a plume of ocean spray into the air behind him. But the missile continued its course for him, drawing to within less than fifty meters.
He leveled the fighter and banked right at speed. The G-forces of the turn crushed his body into the seat, making his eyes feel like compressed Jell-O. Halfway through the turn, he fired his second and last chaff decoy, then dropped the Harrier several hundred feet, his stomach lurching into his throat. The rocket briefly lost sight of his engine exhaust, saw the blazing flare, adjusted its course and reacquired what it thought was the target and let loose its explosive payload. The blast shook the wind around the Harrier, and the ten-ton craft bounced in the air like a child’s toy.
Once it settled, Karl worked his way back into the clouds until he was above eighteen thousand feet. No more missiles had left the coastline. He was very near international waters. A sense of relief flowed through his body as he thought of setting the Harrier back down on his ship and putting this day behind him. Reaching cruise altitude, he brought the elevators to level for the flight home. The stick reacted with a strange softness, then the tail swung to starboard, as if a gust of wind had pushed him. He pressed the left rudder pedal to correct the attitude. A loud snap reverberated in the cockpit and the pedal sank to the floor. The hydraulic pressure alarm blared in his ears. The plane wavered wildly back and forth, then slid into a flat spin like a record on a turntable.
“Mayday! Mayday!” he shouted to the controllers aboard the ship. “This is Eagle One, I have lost control. Rudder is gone. I’m punching out!”
As if it was determined to take him with it, the plane accelerated out of control like a demon-possessed carnival ride with such centrifugal force that it took all of Karl’s strength to move his left hand down to the yellow ejection firing handle next to the seat pad. He put his fingers around it and pulled with all his might. Rockets attached to the back of the seat fired, shooting him upwards like a bullet. Long metal rods behind the headrest smashed into the Plexiglas canopy, shattering it into a spider web of tiny fragments. A split-second later, two more rods directly in line with his helmeted head forced the remaining bits of glass up and away and Karl’s body was shot skyward in a dizzily twirling confusion of motion. His leg whacked against the spinning aircraft, sending a sharp pain into his thigh as he corkscrewed into space.
Momentarily knocked unconscious, he awoke to a jolt as another, smaller explosion shook his behind, throwing him forward with a jerk and releasing the seat frame, which toppled to the ocean. The parachute canopy burst from the bundle strapped to his back, expanding to its full size and yanking him backwards as it instantly inflated with air.
His legs dangled free in a misty fog of damp cloud. He was nearly fifteen thousand feet in the air and falling rapidly, the hose of his oxygen mask dangling from his face like an elephant’s trunk, reconnecting to the bottle of breathable air that hung in the seat cushion. During the two-minute descent through the sky he caught a glimpse of his fleet once. The survival bag containing his life raft hung ten feet below, and beyond that, rolling swells of blue-green spread before him in every direction. It was impossible to tell how far the water was by looking. Before he could anticipate the impact, an ocean wave leaped skyward and engulfed his raft and his body with a single swipe. Loud darkness blasted over him. The taste of salt water flooded his mouth and nose. He pulled up and out on the parachute harness release latches. The silk canopy that had saved him was fast dragging him to death, fully saturated with the weight of the water. At the brink of drowning, he broke free from the harness, yanked the cords to inflate his flotation vest, reached up with his arms, palms cupped, and pressed down. It took six hard strokes before he broke through the surface, gasping for breath, only to be greeted by another a wave that smashed him in the face.
When Karl surfaced again, he could not focus through the salt water that burned his eyes. He yanked the cord for the self-inflating life raft that had been hanging beneath him. Nothing happened. It did not inflate, did not even materialize, floating in its packet. He bobbed like a sodden rag in the ocean, his vest keeping him afloat just above the choppy deep, holding him in place to be choked again by the next large wave. A dark shadow drifted across his blurred vision, darker than the water but indecipherable. He felt himself going under again. He jutted his arm up in vain hope that a miracle would provide something to grab hold of. A miracle, or the closest thing to a miracle Karl could imagine, did materialize. Someone took hold of his forearm and pulled him up. Karl wondered if he were dead, if an angelic being had lifted him out of the water, and when his vision cleared, if he would be seated before the judgment seat of God. Instead, he found himself lying on a large, flat boat of some kind. He looked up in confusion at a cluster of small, brown-skinned people silently staring back him. He tried to sit up, but was overwhelmed by dizziness and collapsed back to the deck.