The following morning Smith met Cabrillo at the fantail as they had arranged. This morning both men wore camouflage fatigue pants and plain khaki T-shirts. A folding card table had been set up next to the rust-caked railing and on it were the weapons Smith had requested and extra magazines as well as several boxes of 9mm ammunition, since both pistol and submachine gun used the same. There were also two sets of earphones and several blocks of yellow-dyed ice in a cooler under the table.
The big MD 520N helicopter sat squarely on the rearmost hatch cover, its blades folded flat and covers installed over its jet intake and exhaust. Usually the chopper was lowered into the hull on a hydraulic lift, but, as with everything else Juan had done since Smith came aboard, he didn’t want to tip his hand about his ship and her true capabilities.
The gray tarp had been removed from over the RHIB that was resting on the second aft-deck cargo hatch. Two crew members were giving the lightened craft a final inspection.
“Sleep well?” Juan greeted. He thrust out a hand to show there were no hard feelings over last night’s little staring contest.
“Yes, fine. Thank you. I must say, your galley produces delicious coffee.”
“That’s the one thing this outfit doesn’t skimp on. I’d have a mutiny on my hands if we served anything other than Kona.” There was no sense in being petty and feeding Smith swill.
“Yes, I’ve noticed other places where you are not so, ah, generous.” He wiped a finger along the rail, and the tip came back stained red.
“She may not be much to look at, but the old Tyson Hondo gets us where we need to go.”
“Odd name. Is there a story behind it?”
“That’s what she was called when we bought her, and no one felt any great urge to change it.”
Smith nodded to the pristine weapons. “I see another area where you do not pinch pennies.”
Cabrillo played up the mercenary bit a little. “A carpenter’s judged by how he treats his tools. These are what we use to ply our trade, so I insist on nothing but the best.”
Smith picked up the Glock, hefted it for a moment, and then checked that the chamber was empty. He stripped it down, eyeing each component critically before putting it all back together. He did the same with the Heckler & Koch MP5. “These seem adequate.”
Juan handed Smith a pair of ear protectors while he slipped on his own set. He then reached under the table for one of the yellow ice chunks and heaved it as far over the rail as he could. It hit with a splash and vanished for a second before bobbing back to the surface.
Smith jammed home a magazine in the H&K and cocked the stubby little weapon. He flicked off the safety, selected single-shot, and brought it to his shoulder. He fired, paused, and fired three more times in rapid succession. All four shots hit the ice, which at the speed the ship was carving though the water was nearly a hundred yards off the port quarter by the time the last bullet struck. Smith waited for the ice to drift a little farther astern, letting it get right to the machine pistol’s maximum effective range, and fired twice more. The first bullet missed and kicked up a tiny fountain of water. The second hit the chewed-up ice dead center and split it into two pieces.
“Nice shooting,” Juan called. “Another?”
“Please.”
Cabrillo threw a second chunk of ice overboard. This time, Smith fired three-round bursts that sent ice particles flying. The block literally disintegrated. They repeated the drill with the pistol. Smith fired off the entire clip with the precision pacing of a metronome. Every shot was a hit.
“Satisfied, or do you want to keep going?” Cabrillo had to acknowledge that Smith knew his business.
“I have to confess I haven’t had much practice lately on automatic weapons. The Swiss authorities frown on their ownership. So I would like to continue firing the MP5.”
“No problem.”
They kept at it for another twenty minutes. Juan would load magazines while Smith destroyed chunks of ice. By the end he was hitting with every pull of the trigger no matter how far his target had floated away.
Max’s voice suddenly blared over the loudspeaker mounted under the second-level catwalk that ringed the superstructure. “Cease fire, cease fire. Radar has a contact five miles out.”
“Wouldn’t do for them to hear us,” Juan said, and took the machine pistol from Smith’s hands. He pulled out the magazine and ejected the cartridge that was already in the chamber. “The ammo stays with me, the guns go with you. Security precaution. No offense intended. I’ll have someone drop off a cleaning kit at your cabin. We eat lunch at noon and take off at one. Is there anything else you need?”
“I have my satellite phone, but what about tactical communications?”
“You’ll be issued a radio.”
“Then I’m good.”
“Yeah,” Juan said, “I think you are.”
Smith took the compliment with a little nod of the head.
9
WITH THE DOORS PULLED OFF AND ALL THE SOUNDPROOFING bats removed, the interior of the chopper was as loud as an iron foundry during a pour. And that was just with the turbine at idle. Only Gomez Adams had a proper chair. All the others had been removed to save weight. This left Linda, MacD, and Smith strapped directly to the rear bulkhead with tie-downs intended for cargo. Juan sat next to the pilot on a jerry-rigged folding lawn chair that had been screwed to the deck.
Between the passengers was a mound of personal gear, including food, weapons, ammunition, a GPS tracker, and tactical headsets for the combat radios. Along with Smith’s sat phone, Cabrillo and Linda had phones of their own.
Juan had never considered stowing their gear in the boat on the off chance something happened to it on the flight in. The only provisions he would allow to go with the RHIB were twenty gallons of drinking water. With the tropical heat and soaring humidity, he figured each of them would drink nearly a gallon per day.
Gomez finished the preflight warm-up and asked, “Everybody ready?” His voice was muted through the headphones everyone was wearing.
He didn’t wait for a response before putting on more throttle. Rotor wash whipped through the chopper like a gale-force wind. The headphones kept Linda’s baseball cap in place, but her bunched and rubber-banded hair danced like the tail of an agitated cat.
The noise and wind built to a crescendo that rattled the helicopter within what seemed like an inch of its life. And then the ride smoothed as it lifted gingerly off the deck. The Oregon was at a dead stop, and there was no crosswind, so Gomez easily kept the craft centered over the large H painted on the cargo hatch. Ahead of them a loadmaster was watching the steel cable trailing up to the aircraft’s winch. As the chopper rose higher into the air, more and more cable was taken up until it went taut. The whole time, Gomez had inched the chopper forward so that at the exact instant the line started taking the load he was directly over the rigid hulled inflatable.
As delicately as a surgeon, he lifted the boat off its cradle. They were at the very limit of what the helo could take, and for a moment Adams paused, as if to let the chopper get used to the great weight hanging from its belly. And just as quickly he heaved it farther off the deck and sent the helicopter crabbing sideways, plucking the boat from between the stern derricks. As soon as they had cleared the rail, Adams applied even more power, and they started eastward to where the jungle crouched just over the horizon.
“How’s it feel?” Juan asked the pilot.
“Like we’ve got a two-thousand-pound pendulum swinging free under us. That boat might be pretty sleek in the water, but it’s got the in-flight aerodynamics of a barn door. I hope you aren’t expecting to chopper it back to the ship when you’re done.”
“I’d like to, if we can,” Juan told him. “I recall, though, that our contract does mention being reimbursed for expenses.”
“Good. Write the damned thing off. The strain we’re putting on the airframe and rotors ain’t worth bringing it home.”
Cabrillo laughed. Comp
laining was Adams’s way of dissipating stress. Max Hanley was the same way. Juan felt humor helped him a little, but the truth was that before a mission he liked to keep that stress bottled up inside. It was like the coiling of a watch spring; it was energy he would release later as he needed it. The more dangerous the situation, the tighter, and thus more explosive, he became. Right now, and until they crossed the border into Myanmar, he was truly relaxed. After that, he knew the tension would mount. Like always, he hoped he wouldn’t need to let it out, at least not until he was back aboard the ship soaking in a hot shower after a hundred or so laps in the Oregon’s indoor swimming pool.
Because the chopper was so grossly overloaded, Adams kept the speed down to around sixty knots, but it seemed only a couple of minutes passed before they thundered over a white sand beach at just enough elevation for the bottom of the RHIB to clear the mangrove swamp beyond. That was it, a thin pale strip of sand delineating a world of blue water from an equally monochromatic world of green jungle.
It seemed to stretch forever, rolling and undulating with the vagaries of the topography, but always covering every square inch of the ground below them. They were still in Bangladesh, but Juan knew the jungle stretched uninterrupted all the way to the coast of Vietnam and that it really was terra incognita—land unknown. Neil Armstrong once described the surface of the moon as “magnificent desolation.” This was the same, only this landscape was verdant yet nearly as hostile to human life.
They were so overloaded the chopper was barely able to keep the dangling boat from smashing into the taller trees. Gomez Adams wasn’t so much as flying the aircraft as he was fighting to keep it airborne and on course. His snarky comments had long since dried up. The sweat that shone on his face was only partially due to the high humidity.
Cabrillo plucked a handheld GPS from a pouch hanging from his combat harness. In a moment it told him that they were about to cross into Myanmar’s airspace. He didn’t bother announcing it to the others. But he kept a sharp eye on the jungle below for any sign the frontier was protected.
They had planned their route in to avoid rivers or major streams because any settlements in this remote part of the country would be built along their banks. There were no roads, and for as far as Cabrillo could see there were no signs that loggers had been attacking the jungle. Judging from the view alone, it was as if the human race had never existed.
The ground below started rising, and Adams matched the earth’s contours. Below them their shadow leapt and jumped across the canopy. It was not as crisp had it been earlier because clouds were moving in from the north. Behind the grayness loomed ominous black thunderheads that towered into the sky. They flickered with lightning.
“I’d say you’re in for a spot of weather,” Gomez said, his first words since making landfall.
“Of course we are,” Cabrillo replied. “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
They continued on for another hour and were now deep into Myanmar. Adams had flown masterfully, and, just as they had planned, they crossed over a hillock and there was the target, the river, a narrow slash through the jungle with trees almost meeting overtop. The pilot checked his fuel gauge and did some quick calculations.
“Sorry, but this is as far as I go. As it stands, I need the ship to come east to meet me if I’m going to make it back.”
“Roger that.” Cabrillo twisted in his makeshift seat so he could look at the trio in the cargo area. “Did you hear that? We need to do this quick. Linda, you’ve got point, then MacD and you, John. I’ll be right behind. Linda, make sure you wait to unhook the boat.”
“You got it,” she replied, and kicked a rappelling rope out the hole where a door had once been.
Adams maneuvered the big chopper into a hover directly over the fifty-foot-wide river. The tops of the trees danced and swayed in the rotor wash as he threaded the RHIB through them on its way to the water below. Such was his skill that the boat barely made a splash as it hit. And no sooner was it in place than Linda Ross threw herself down the rope. She dangled precariously for a moment, then arced her body over the RHIB’s inflatable skirt and landed on her feet on the deck. MacD Lawless was halfway down and dropping fast. Linda positioned herself to release the winch hook and waved up at Adams, who was watching the procedure through the Plexiglas windows at his feet.
“See you later,” Juan said to the pilot as he unstrapped himself for his turn down the line.
Before following the others, Juan clipped a D ring from the bundled packs to the line and looked down at the three people in the boat. All were looking up at him. Linda made a gesture to indicate they were ready, so Juan pushed the packs out. They hit the deck hard, but there was nothing in them that could break. Juan slung his carbine over his shoulder and threw himself down the rope, his hands protected by special gloves with leather palms and fingers. He arrested his fall an inch from the boat before letting go. No sooner had his boots hit than Linda released the winch, and Gomez Adams torqued the chopper up and away, heading back to the ship, and flying even closer to the ground now that he didn’t have to worry about the RHIB.
After so much time in the helicopter, it took several minutes for the ringing in their ears to subside.
They were on a deserted stretch of the river, which at this point flowed at a snail’s pace. The banks were about a foot above the water, composed of reddish soil that crumbled in places. Immediately behind the banks exploded a riot of vegetation that was so dense it appeared impenetrable. Cabrillo stared at a spot as hard as he could and estimated he could only penetrate maybe five feet before his view was completely blocked. For all he knew, a division of Myanmar’s Special Forces was lurking six feet in.
The temperature hovered around ninety degrees, but the lack of wind and the thickness of the moisture in the air made it feel like they were breathing in a sauna. In moments, perspiration stains bloomed under Cabrillo’s arms, and sweat trickled down his face. The coming rainstorm would be a welcome relief that couldn’t get there fast enough.
“Okay, we’ve got about sixty miles to cover. I want MacD and John on the bows as lookouts. Linda, you’re with me, but keep an eye on our six. The guys back on the ship beefed up the outboard’s exhaust, but anyone upstream will still hear us coming, so stay sharp.”
With that, Juan took his place at the control console slightly aft of amidships. Other than the ring of rubber fenders that encircled the boat, it was the only thing that stuck up above the deck of the spartan assault boat.
“Gear all secured?” he asked.
“Yup,” Linda said, straightening from where she’d bungeed the packs to a flip-up pad eye.
Cabrillo pressed the starter, and the engine immediately rumbled to life, as he knew it would. He let the single outboard warm for a moment and then bumped the throttle. The boat fought the river’s current until they were holding still relative to the banks. He pressed the accelerator harder. Water boiled behind the transom as the prop bit into the black tannin-laced river. In seconds he had them up to about fifteen miles per hour, far below the boat’s capability even with one of its engines removed, but a speed he judged would allow them plenty of reaction time if someone was coming downstream.
The wind created by their forward progress was a blessed relief.
When they neared a sharp bend in the river, Cabrillo would throttle the boat down so it was barely making headway and peek it around the corner to make sure there was nothing lurking in their blind spot.
After a half hour, two things happened almost simultaneously. The nature of the river changed. The banks drew in closer, which sped up the current, and boulders appeared, creating eddies and pools that Cabrillo had to steer around. These weren’t exactly rapids, but they quickly could become so. The second thing was that, after a brutal spike in humidity that seemed to soak their lungs with each breath, the rain clouds, which had arrived overhead and washed all color from the jungle, opened. It was a constant drumming rain that hit like f
ists. It came down in sheets, it came down in buckets, it came down as if they were being blasted by fire hoses.
Juan fumbled a pair of clear goggles from the tiny compartment under the wheel and slipped them over his eyes. Without them, he couldn’t see the bow of the boat. With them, his vision wasn’t extended too much farther, but enough for them to keep going.
He gave thanks that tropical downpours, while brutal onslaughts to the senses, were blessedly brief. Or so he kept telling himself as ten minutes turned into twenty, and their speed barely made headway against the still-strengthening current.
The three others hunched miserably at their stations, looking like drowned rats. When he glanced down at Linda, who had her back against the rubber fender, she was hugging herself, and her lips were quivering. MacD was making a halfhearted attempt to bail out the RHIB using his boonie hat. A solid inch of water sloshed back and forth whenever Cabrillo steered them around an obstacle.
The riverbanks rose higher still, hemming them in, oftentimes looming over the boat. Loose soil had given way to gravel and rock. The once-tranquil river was becoming a torrent, and as much as Cabrillo thought it might be a good idea to pull over and wait out the storm, there were no sheltered coves, no places to tie off a line. They had no choice but to forge ahead.
Visibility was measured in inches, while overhead thunder cracked an instant after the lightning snaked across the heavens.
But he kept them driving onward. Every time the boat hit an obstruction, or the stern sank deep as they powered over a cataract, he was grateful that the single propeller had a shroud to protect the blades. Otherwise the prop would have chewed itself apart on the rocks.
It took a keen eye to notice when the water suddenly turned muddy brown, and an even sharper mind to understand what it meant.
Cabrillo reacted instantly. He turned the boat sharp right to get out of the center of the raging river just as the rubble of a collapsed bank farther upstream choked the waterway with debris. Whole trees arrowed down the river, their branches reaching out for the RHIB, each easily capable of capsizing the craft or at the least tearing away the rubber fenders that acted as the boat’s gunwales. Had Juan not twisted the wheel, they would have been sunk for sure.