Section 8 (3 page)

Vaughn pulled the LLDR out of its pack and checked the small screen on the back to update their position, then he looked at his watch. Exactly where they were supposed to be at the exact time. He had worked with Nightstalker pilots before, and they were meticulous about their flight routes and timing.
"Ten minutes."
Vaughn relayed the time warning to the Filipinos while he flashed the number ten with his fingers.
The commandos nodded glumly and pulled back the slides on their M-16s, chambering a round. His own MP-5 already had a round in the chamber and the safety was off—the rule in Delta was that one's finger was the safety.
It was dark now, and he reached up and turned on the night vision goggles, letting them warm up but keeping them locked in the upright position for the moment.
"Five minutes," the pilot announced. "Landfall in sight."
The flight plan called for them to hit the north shore of Jolo Island, fly close to the terrain over the island, then split formation when they cleared a pass between two peaks. Vaughn's helicopter would go to the left, while Jenkins and the other four birds would go right, taking twenty seconds longer to get to the target. The reason for the delay was because Vaughn had the laser designator.
Satellite imagery had given them the location of the camp where both American and Filipino intelligence believed the hostages were being held. There were two tin buildings set in a treeline on the southern shoreline of the island, about twenty meters apart. The one to the east, according to intelligence, was the barracks for the guards; the one to the west, the prison for the hostages. The beach itself was about fifty meters wide at low tide, a factor they had taken into account while planning the mission since it was the only place in the area where they could land the helicopters. Intelligence also said there were only a pair of guards on duty at the holding building at night, while the rest—estimated at thirty to forty men—would be in the guards barracks. Vaughn had to wonder how intelligence had come up with this estimate, but the mission was based on it, so he hoped it was correct. He also had to trust that intelligence had the two buildings labeled correctly, because he'd hate to designate the one with the hostages in it.
He leaned forward in his seat and could see a dark mass ahead—Jolo Island. It was among the most southwestern of the thousands of islands that encompassed the Philippines. Not large, and not particularly important, except for the fact that the Abu Sayef made their headquarters somewhere on it and had expanded their sphere of influence over the entire island. There was no government presence on the island, and from what Vaughn had picked up from his Filipino counterparts, the two sides existed in tense pretend-ignorance of each other—that is, until the terrorists went out and kidnapped foreigners, bringing intense pressure on the powers-that-be in Manila. All in all, no one was happy with the current situation.
"Formation is breaking," the pilot announced as they passed between two black masses. The announcement wasn't necessary, since Vaughn could see that himself. But it was standard operating procedure for the pilot to call out all checkpoints, and he was a big believer in SOPs. Without them, little details tended to get screwed up, and enough little screwed-up details added together could lead to big mistakes. The other four helicopters, Jenkins's in the lead, vectored off to the right. They would arrive from the west twenty seconds after the bomb exploded. Vaughn watched the dark form carrying his brother-in-law disappear around the mountain.
It was hard for him to believe that Frank was retiring. They'd worked together for six years. Vaughn had introduced him to his sister five years ago, when she'd stopped by Fort Bragg for a visit. The two had hit it off, which had surprised him. Since her first husband died, she'd been raising her two boys on her own. Vaughn had tried to help, but he was deployed so much with Delta Force, his presence had been spotty at best.
He had not been happy about the blooming romance between his team sergeant and sister, primarily because he knew Frank's presence in his sister and her sons' lives would be as infrequent as his own had been. But he'd kept his unhappiness to himself, partially because he had always lived in fear of his older sister. She'd bossed him around as long as he could remember, and that had never changed. But after seeing them together enough, he'd given in, realizing there was something special between the two. He was going to miss Frank, but was glad that in retirement his friend would be with his sister full-time.
Vaughn shook his head, clearing it of the stray thoughts. He had to focus on the mission. His chopper was swinging wide so they would come to a hover over the treeline next to the beach about a kilometer east of the target. The Stealth Fighter would be coming in from farther to the east and much higher up on its targeting vector.
They were flying just above the tops of trees, as close as they'd flown over the waves. He picked up the LLDR once more, checked the screen, and froze when he saw that the green light was no longer on. Had he accidentally turned it off? There was no time to even consider the question before he reacted, pressing the on button. Nothing. He ran his hands quickly over the casing to see if it had somehow been damaged, but the machine appeared intact.
He pressed the on button several times, hoping it was just a glitch, a ghost in the machine playing games with him. Not the slightest flicker.
The battery.
"Three minutes."
He slid open the cover to the battery compartment, pulled out the bulky green object, disconnected the leads, tossed the battery out of the chopper, then reached into the pack for the spare one that SOP dictated would be carried. He ripped the clear plastic cover off the replacement and shoved the leads in.
As he pushed the battery back into its compartment, he pushed the on button and was rewarded with a flickering green light, indicating that the system was powering back up. How long would it take to acquire a satellite? he wondered. He'd never timed it, but knew it was variable, depending on how close the nearest satellites were, cloud condition, and the vagaries of the machine's inner workings. He was at the mercy of the machine and the electronic forces inside of it.
"Two minutes. On final approach."
That meant that not only was his helicopter on final approach, but the F-114 Stealth Fighter over 10,000 feet above their heads was in its bombing vector, and the other four helicopters were heading in toward their landing zone on the beach.
"Missile away," the helicopter pilot announced as his stopwatch passed the correct moment.
Vaughn could visualize it all in his mind's eye. The pilot of the Stealth Fighter had just punched the release at the designated time and the missile was coming down. The fighter then banked hard left and headed home, mission done.
The green light on the laser designator was still flickering.
"On station," the pilot said as he brought the helicopter to a hover over the treeline and turned it sideways, giving Vaughn a perfect view of the terrorist camp almost a kilometer away on the shoreline. The ocean was off to his left, and a small mountain island about four kilometers in that direction visually confirmed their position.
He knew that someone awake in the camp might be able to hear the helicopter now in the distance, but they had expected that—it was supposed to be too late, since the missile would impact the guard barrack in less than a minute. Even if an alert were issued right now, there would be at least a minute or two of confusion as men awakened in the middle of the night searched for clothes, boots, and weapons, and tried to figure out what the heck was going on. And guards were usually slow to issue an alert for a sound at a distance. There were always those moments of uncertainty, of fear of waking up a superior officer for nothing, of wondering what exactly was going on.
But without laser designation, the missile was flying blind.
The green light became steady. Vaughn peered through the optics. He could see the two buildings now. He put the reticules on the barrack, pressed the designate button, and was surprised at a flashing red warning light that appeared in the scope.
In a second he realized his mistake as the specs for the machine ran through his brain—when the battery had died and the computer rebooted, the GPS needed to be reset or else the designator only broadcast its own position, awaiting confirmation of setting by the handler. Which meant the missile was heading directly toward the designator in his hands and the helicopter.
Worse, the other four helicopters were due to land on top of the camp twenty seconds after missile impact. Which meant they'd be sitting ducks for the guards who were supposed to be dead.
"One minute."
There was no time to consider courses of action. Vaughn jumped forward and slapped the pilot on the back. "Go for the camp. All out."
As befit his training, the Task Force 160 pilot didn't question the surprise order. He pushed forward on his collective and the Huey picked up speed. Vaughn leaned forward, as if by shifting his weight he could make the helicopter go faster. For him, time began to slow down, the helicopter moving in slow motion. All he could think of was the missile descending through the sky above and behind him.
They were picking up speed, but Vaughn knew it wasn't fast enough. The pilot had them low over the beach, trees off to the right, waves breaking to the left, sand below.
"Time?" he demanded of the pilot.
"Ten seconds to impact."
They were still a good two hundred meters from the camp, and he knew he had cut it as close as he could. He threw the designator out of the helicopter at the same time he yelled into the intercom: "Bank."
The helicopter turned hard to the left over the ocean.
Even though the missile was coming in at supersonic speed, Vaughn could have sworn he saw it flash by. There was no doubting the impact as it landed on the beach where he had dumped the designator. The explosion turned night into day for an instant as flames shot forty feet into the air, followed by a shower of sand. The shock wave hit the helicopter and it shuddered violently for a second, then held steady.
He had averted immediate disaster, but now things were preparing to go from bad to worse. "Put us down on shore," Vaughn ordered even as a string of green tracers punched through the darkness at them, narrowly missing. He flipped down his night vision goggles. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, which he had to ignore as the Huey landed hard about one hundred meters from the two buildings, to the west along the beach.
The other four helicopters appeared right on time, coming in low along the beach to the west, to be met not with a destroyed barracks and a few surviving terrorists in shock, but a wave of automatic fire from numerous Abu Sayef guerrillas pouring out of the barracks. Undaunted, the helicopters plowed toward their landing zone just short of the target.
"Come on," Vaughn yelled to the Filipino commandos as he jumped off. He had the extended stock of the MP-5 tight to his shoulder and fired twice, double-tapping a figure holding an AK-47, then continuing to run forward, killing two more terrorists and closing on the building where the hostages were supposed to be held.
The other four helicopters were flaring to land when an RPG round fired by a guard hit one of the choppers dead on, exploding as it penetrated the cockpit. Out of control, the helicopter banked and plunged into the surf. Upon impact, the blades ripped off, tearing through the rear compartment, killing those who had survived the initial blast.
The other three helicopters landed on the beach, and the men on board jumped out into the middle of the raging firefight. Vaughn was forced to dive to the sand as concentrated automatic fire tore through the air in his general direction, barely missing him. He had no idea if anyone else from his helicopter had followed him, and he was still a good fifteen meters from the hostage building.
Vaughn continued firing as he spotted targets. He estimated there were at least thirty or forty guerrillas opposing them—the result of failing to destroy the barracks. They had not planned for this. Military tactics dictated a three-to-one ratio in favor of the attacking force for an assault to be successful. The odds here were reversed.
As he sighted in on another target, a large flash lit the night and his night vision goggles blacked out. Then a hot blast of air lifted him up and slammed him down to the ground while a thunderous explosion deafened him. Sand and debris came raining down—among it, body parts.
Ears ringing, Vaughn slowly rolled onto his back. He blinked as the night vision goggles worked to regain their setting after the overload. He didn't really want to see. Didn't want to get up. Didn't want to confirm what he already knew. It was only a question of how truly bad this was, and he instinctively knew it was very bad.
As the ringing subsided, he could dimly hear firing, though not as much as before. Accepting his duty with the battle still going on, he tucked the MP-5 into his shoulder and got to one knee, scanning the area, though he knew they'd already failed.
The hostage shack was gone. A gaping hole stood in its place. The explosion had been so large, it also took out most of the barracks building, killed quite a few of the terrorists who had been arrayed around the complex, and cut a swath into the jungle behind the buildings. There was no way anyone inside could have survived the explosion.
As if on autopilot, Vaughn fired at an Abu Sayef guerrilla who was limping away from the scene of the explosion. He continued to scan, saw bodies everywhere, turned and looked behind him. A half-dozen Filipino commandos were tentatively moving forward. He could see the crashed helicopter burning in the surf.
Drawn by the flames, Vaughn walked toward it, the water lapping around his legs. A couple of his men were already at work, removing bodies from it, searching for survivors. He paused as he recognized one of the bodies laid out next to the helicopter—or partial body.
A helicopter blade had sliced through the man, cutting him in half. The upper half had been dragged above the waterline. There was no sign of the lower half. Most likely it was still pinned in the wreckage.
Trembling, Vaughn walked over to the torso and knelt next to Sergeant Major Jenkins. He ripped open the combat vest and body armor and, reaching into the breast pocket, retrieved the picture of Jenkins's wife—his sister. He looked at it for several moments, then at his friend and brother-in-law.