Unsung Warrior Box Set, page 24
part #1 of Unsung Warrior Series
He moved back to the middle of the camp, and knelt quietly beside Russo. He picked up her good hand and held it firmly between his. He shook his head ruefully, and smiled in sympathy at her suffering.
She smiled back.
He patted her hand gently, and got to his feet.
Mosha had now started on Hoist. The meds he’d given the big man seemed to be working. Hoist’s headache was already fading, and his blood pressure had moved into the normal range.
The paramedic had him stripped down, and was taping up his ribs. He inserted a thin, curved splint into the taping to immobilize the side wall of his chest. If Hoist had to run, or breath hard, Mosha didn’t want his patient to have stabbing pains in his side.
Maric was working out a time frame for the rescue attempt when Anderson and Hendrik returned. The noise Anderson had heard turned out to be caused by an animal. But that was not the case with what they ran into on their way back.
They were dragging an Iban hunter between them, his arms tied and his mouth taped over. Maric wasn’t surprised to see the Iban’s hunting skills had failed him. The people of the forest might have sharper senses and a greater knowledge of the area, but they weren’t used to the animals they stalked coming for them.
He motioned to Mosha, who locked the man’s arms behind his head. Then Maric stepped forward and cupped his hands around one ear – Pejuang’s trick – to ask him some ‘yes or no’ questions. Something the man could answer with his mouth taped shut. The answers were very interesting.
No, he wasn’t tracking any ‘intruders’, he was just out hunting. Yes, some of the Iban were searching areas to the north. Yes, some ‘intruders’ had escaped that way.
Maric knew it had to be north. He figured the Spetsnaz would think Russo’s squad had come south over the Schwaner range from Nangahkemangai, the nearest road end to the dome. The Spetsnaz wouldn’t know about the abandoned forestry roads inside the national park.
Yes, said the Iban, there were ‘Russians’ leading fighters from many countries (mercenaries, as best as Maric could describe them). Yes, he’d heard they’d taken three prisoners earlier tonight. No, the Russians didn’t suspect there was another camp.
The Iban didn’t seem to feel any loyalty to the Russians, or to the mining operation in general. Maric figured that was because the Spetsnaz kept control by using fear. Fear did not promote loyalty.
Despite this the Iban didn’t seem at ease with the recon team either. He spent most of his time looking around wide-eyed at the team members. It didn’t help they were much larger than he was, and adorned with alarming space-age gear.
Maric dreaded what he had to do next.
Sooner or later he was going to have to decide what to do with the man. And he didn’t like the answer that was presenting itself.
He couldn’t take the risk of just tying the Iban up. Even though he apparently had no love for the Spetsnaz, he would want to warn his own people to flee. It didn’t take much to figure out a major battle was coming to the dome. If the Iban tried hard enough he might just find a way to get loose.
Maric didn’t like to put a value on a life, but there were too many other lives at stake. He looked at Mosha and gave an imperceptible shake of his head. Mosha thought about it for a moment, then made the tiniest of shrugs. He understood the problem. What else could they do?
Maric already had too many lives on his conscience. Some hadn’t seemed so bad – people that were trying to kill him. But too many of the deaths had fallen into a gray area. An area where the largely innocent had been sacrificed.
He was about to give the order to neutralist the Iban when Mosha hesitated. He knelt before his paramedic gear and looked through his meds case. He took out three ampules. Drawing off various amounts of each into a syringe, he signed his intention to Maric.
He could knock the man out for eighteen to twenty-four hours. He’d loaded the syringe with enough medication to drop a horse. The Iban looked young and fit. He would survive the dose. Probably.
Maric shrugged. The attack on the dome would be over well before the man came round.
The Iban, fortunately, was completely unaware of what the little, clear, stick-thing was for. He collapsed moments after Mosha emptied it into the side of his neck. The two men carried him to the edge of the camp and taped his hands and feet together. Then they tethered him to a tree.
A last check on Russo showed she was sleeping soundly. Maybe it was the meds Mosha had given her, but it was exactly what she needed.
Maric felt bad about throwing her back into front-line action the very next day. She should be getting a lot more of that healing rest. But making decisions like that was a part of being in command.
Hoist didn’t look as good as Russo. He was restless. He kept adjusting his position under the survival blanket Maric had thrown over him. At least he wasn’t muttering in his sleep. Maybe that was an unconscious part of the training that had been drilled into him.
Maric made a quick sign, and Mosha shook his head. It was too dangerous to give the big man any more tranquilizers. There was no way of knowing if he’d have improved by morning.
The recon team weren’t going to sleep much during the night, but Maric had always found it worthwhile to make the attempt. He would insist upon it now.
Before he put someone on first watch though, he gathered his troops around him.
Using the satellite maps and a mixture of standard hand signals and mime, he went over the plan time and time again. The moon was now fully overhead, and the team’s night vision had kicked in. It was a good drill session.
They finally turned in. The team were now as ready as it was possible for them to be. Maric cut the watches shorter for the night, and made sure the fourth watch would rouse the rest of them at 0315 hours.
They were going to hit the back of the dome at 0400 hours. After that, things would unfold very fast indeed!
CHAPTER 22
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Maric stood motionless at the edge of the forest. The distance from the last of the trees to the rough opening in the rock was no more than ten meters. The track that looped around the dome stopped a short way back, hidden under the forest canopy.
The moon had disappeared over the western horizon as the squad left camp at 0330 hours. They’d come the whole way using night goggles. Dropping down across the outlet from the volcanic basin, they circled deep into the bush. That way they should hit the dome near the hoped-for ventilation system at the back.
The squad moved through the forest in a ghostly silence, and Maric felt a certain pride in their skill. They’d perfected the art of traveling in the jungle over the last few days.
All of them were traveling light, carrying nothing but weapons and ordnance over kevlar vests. Tramping boots had been replaced with flexible rubber bootees that made no sound, and gave excellent grip for climbing.
Maric checked the time. 0400 hours. They had to time the operation right. They needed to have the security forces fully engaged when one of the team lit up the landing field at 0450.
He scanned the area slowly with his night goggles, checking for movement.
Mosha was among the trees, somewhere to his left, with Russo and Jinks further back. He could feel the presence of the squad members. He wasn’t picking up indications of others in the area.
In front of him an opening into the vertical wall of the dome sat at ground level. It had been dug out of solid rock, crudely shaped by explosives. Maric assumed it opened into one of the ancient lava caves inside the dome.
An old, rusting, grating had been bolted onto the rock to cover the entrance. More to keep out animals than stop people, he reasoned. One more sweep with his night goggles showed nothing in the vicinity.
He was more than a little concerned. Defensive measures around the dome seemed to be lax. Halfway to the dome the squad had waited silently in the undergrowth as a party of hunters traveled along a ridge above them. They’d not made contact with anyone else.
Maric expected the main entrance to the dome to be well guarded. But there’d been none of the night patrols around the perimeter he expected.
Maybe it was a trap. Maybe the Spetsnaz were confident they’d busted the one and only squad and that was an end of it.
Even if there were a few remaining team members out there, the Spetsnaz might think it madness for them to attack a much larger force in an easily defended position. Yes, thought Maric, with a wolfish grin. Madness was another name for doing the unexpected. And the unexpected gave you an advantage.
The Spetsnaz would be out in force just before dawn, bringing their mercenary force with them. They weren’t to be underestimated. They were old hands at this.
They would’ve seen the possibilities for the next few days. The moon, almost full, would disappear over the western horizon in the early hours of the morning. That would create a perfect opportunity for an attack under cover of darkness. And there’d already been a recon team in the area, even if they had won that skirmish.
Maric held his hand up beside his head, and signaled for Hendrik to come forward. As their demolition man appeared silently out of the darkness, Maric pointed to the rusty grating. He made a chopping motion before tapping his ear. Could Hendrik shear the grating off while keeping the noise to a minimum?
Hendrik made the ‘looksee’ sign. Maric tapped the back of his hand to signify ‘yes’, and motioned to Mosha, now standing at the edge of the trees to his left. The two men moved silently across the gap to the dome. Both of them were invisible in the darkness – to anyone without specialized optical equipment.
Maric saw Mosha boost the short, solid figure of Hendrik to the top of the metal grating. Hendrik held himself there while he examined the bolts properly. Satisfied with what he saw, he lowered himself to the ground.
The two of them rejoined Maric.
Hendrik picked up his kit and sorted through it, until he came up with half a meter of what looked like white cord. It would melt through the bolts easily. There’d be no noise, but he couldn’t do anything about the bright light the cord generated.
Maric thought about it. Hendrik’s approach would do the job, especially if they pulled the grating back into place behind them. If anyone saw the light through the trees, the ventilation shaft would look normal when they came to investigate. And he figured light wouldn’t travel far down the twisting passageways on the other side of the grating.
Sometimes you just had to take chances.
He set Hendrik to work on the grating, and signed Russo to move up. The three of them waited patiently until they saw Hendrik twist the timer and scurry back to join them. Switching off their night goggles they turned their faces away from the entrance, missing an extraordinary display.
A faint spider web hung in the air for a moment, as instantaneous detonation lines radiated out from a central point. A circle of bright stars blossomed across the rock face like an improbable circle of fiery mushrooms. Red-hot metal ran like candle wax from a dozen waning points of light.
Well, that’s a giant-size calling card, thought Maric, as the display reflected off the trees around him. In one way it was good. The squad were committed now. There was no going back.
He hurried across the open space and lifted one side of the grating out from the rock. The edges were cool to the touch if he held the metal away from where the bolts had been. The other squad members hurried through, walking more cautiously once they were in the passageway. Maric had impressed upon them how easily sound transmitted along rock walls.
The major pulled the grating onto place behind him, and the team moved forward into a mild breeze. It was laden with the warmth and smells of human habitation.
Maric took point. When a faint glow appeared ahead he motioned to the others to pack away their night goggles. Hearts pumping, forcing themselves to breath slowly and deeply, they moved forward.
The tunnel opened out into a much larger area. Edging cautiously along the last few meters of rock floor, Maric found himself looking into a cavernous, open space. It was faintly lit by reflected light that made its way in from the rest of the complex. It took a while for his brain to comprehend what he was looking at.
A vertical wall tumbled away below him. Across the way a similar rock face was laced with walkways cantilevered out from the rock, connecting a labyrinth of mine openings.
How deep the massive lava cave in the volcano had once been was impossible to say. A mountain of tailings from the mines had filled it to a level some forty meters below the walkways. That explained why none of the tailings had shown in the satellite photos.
The nearest of the walkways was twenty meters below him, and ten or so meters to his right. Maric indicated they would rappel out of the tunnel and onto the walkway below. He pointed to a spot on the wall where he wanted the line anchored. A crack in the rock would take some of the piton, but Mosha would have to drive it in further.
Hendrik placed himself next to Mosha to provide a noise-absorbent cushion. Mosha wound material around the device and hammered it in with light, irregular taps.
Looping the line around one arm, Maric worked his way across the rock face with his feet. He made it onto the walkway in less than a minute. The others followed.
Hendrik tied the line off on the safety rail. It wasn’t ideal. They could end up trying to climb up to the tunnel while being shot at. But it gave them one escape option.
Moving quickly round the walkway, the squad found ladders that took them higher. It wasn’t long before they were level with the main part of the complex. They stepped off the top walkway onto the floor of a gallery that brought several passageways together.
Three corridors had been cut into the rock directly ahead of them, and Maric paused. It was 0410, and they needed to keep moving.
He signaled Hendrik to lay a number of diversionary charges. Then Mosha to take the corridor on his left. Russo would cover the middle corridor with the grenade launcher. It had the most signs of frequent use. Maric would take the single right-hand corridor.
This was the crucial part of the operation. They needed luck to stay on their side for a little bit longer. Once they were discovered it was a turning point. A game-changer. Making ground under fire became a protracted affair. The chances of injuries, even in the most protected of positions, increased.
Maric hoped they could find the prisoners before they were discovered. Everyone in the dome appeared to be sleeping. He moved silently forward.
The first length of corridor remained in the same half-lit, murky darkness. It didn’t take long before Maric discovered another lava cave. A roughly hewn corridor led off that, and a smaller cave appeared to one side, used as storage.
At the end of the corridor he came across a T-junction. Here for the first time the area was lit. A single bulb hung from a wire that ran along the ceiling. It gave a weak light. Maric figured he was moving into the living quarters, where lights would run all the time. He figured there had to be an electricity generator on one of the streams nearby.
Choosing the corridor to the right, he followed it until it opened into a long natural gallery. He was half way along it when something changed in the background emptiness. The barely detectable crackle of reflected sound that underpinned all open spaces. It was time to hide.
He flattened himself into a shallow scrape in the wall of the gallery. The change in the background noise continued to increase. Someone was coming.
In an open space he could have told you how many, and how far away they were. But with every bit of sound bouncing off the rock walls he was reduced to guessing.
An older woman came round the curve of the rock. She was dressed in rough working clothes and looked preoccupied. She disappeared into a side corridor. Maric figured she was a servant from the kitchen, come to prepare the first meal of the day.
Her arrival looked like a low-risk opportunity to gather information, and he took it. He followed her into another lava cave, used as a storage area for food. He stepped quickly left, behind a roughly woven curtain that had been erected to divide one compartment from the next.
Unfortunately, that was exactly what the older woman had done.
The only thing that stopped her screaming was Maric’s military attire. He wasn’t Spetsnaz, but he was an armed soldier. She turned back toward the entrance and froze at his appearance.
Thank God for the rough ways of the Spetsnaz, thought Maric. The poor woman was terrified.
His hand shot out and closed off her windpipe. He could have made her unconscious in a moment, but he wanted to ask her some questions. She opened her eyes wide in alarm, and started to struggle, trying with both hands to remove Maric’s grip on her throat. He put a finger to his lips, and shook his head gently.
When he didn’t do anything more to hurt her, she stopped struggling. Maric leaned in and spoke a few words of Dayak. Then he put his finger to his lips again, and raised his eyebrows questioningly. She nodded, and he let her go.
She didn’t scream, and Maric relaxed. He’d been prepared to re-apply the hold if he needed to.
He leaned in again, and whispered a Dayak phrase he’d learned from Dick. It carried the same meaning as the European saying, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” She looked startled for a moment, then nodded hesitantly. He took her hand and guided her further away from the opening. Then he began to question her.
Had the soldiers brought in some prisoners? Vigorous nodding.
Three prisoners? One quick nod.
Maric felt a huge relief. At least the captured squad members were still alive.
Where were they held? A puzzled look. He thought maybe it was a language problem. Then she started to draw a map of the complex in the accumulated grit on the floor. He stopped her as soon as she’d shown him how to get to the prisoners. It was now 0422. He was starting to feel pressured for time.
His last question caused more confusion. In the end he had to guess at what her answer was. She appeared to be saying the armory was right next to the Spetsnaz sleeping quarters. That made things difficult. It would have been nice to arm the prisoners once they were free, maybe even get the PR7s back. But would the risk of entering the armory be worth the extra fire-power?
