Sudden Threat (23 page)

Inside the embassy was an operations center where the country team had two satellite-capable radio systems. Maps of the major islands hung on the walls, plotting movements of Abu Sayyaf units and hot spots of activity.

As Major Hewit and Lieutenant Rockingham stood atop the embassy roof and watched the medevac helicopter hovering above the landing pad, Hewit wondered where they had gone wrong. A firefight at Subic Bay, fighting in the streets, and they could not contact Major Ramsey’s Special Forces team.

The Black Hawk prop wash created a cool wind atop the JUSMAG roof in the early morning haze. It was an ominous sight to Hewit and a fearsome one to Rockingham, the soldiers running low beneath the chopping blades of the helicopter, carrying a wounded comrade.

Rockingham recognized immediately that the four soldiers carried a piece of plywood with a man lying on it. He ran out to help them, then stopped and nearly gagged when he saw Captain Garrett. He was filthy, his face streaked with matted blood and caked with white dirt. His uniform showed white salt stains where he had sweat through them. A bandage was tied neatly around his head, obviously protecting a wound. He was unconscious—or dead.

Rockingham shuddered.

Major Hewit noticed that the concerned look on the faces of the soldiers showed a deep amount of admiration and respect for the man that they carried. They all searched for the doctor with anxious eyes.

Hewit had summoned the country team physician, an Air Force doctor named Colonel (Retired) Anthony Mosconi, who had stayed in country after Clark Air Base closed. His wife was Filipino, and he preferred to stay in her country as long as feasible. The doctor had a room in the JUSMAG headquarters dedicated to the general practice of caring for the embassy and JUSMAG staffs on a one-day-a-week basis. It had been a while since he had done any combat triage or surgery, but he remembered it well and hoped he would not have to make any tough decisions.

The decision was easy. One of the patients was ambulatory, walking with a crutch provided by the medevac pilot. He had a leg injury, but a quick inspection showed the medic had done a professional job of cleaning and dressing the wound. Turning his attention to the man on the plywood, he saw captain’s bars on the soldier’s uniform.

Must be the commander. Poor guys—eight thousand kilometers away from home, and their commander gets shot.

He shined a small flashlight into the captain’s eyes while the four enlisted soldiers waited close by, hoping, praying for good news.

“Fix him, Doc. I don’t care what it takes, fix him,” said Sergeant Spencer, a tall black squad leader in Barker’s platoon. The doctor looked somberly at Spencer’s serious face and moist eyes.

Looking over the doctor’s shoulder, Rockingham felt guilty that he had missed the action with his company. Rock was incensed that Fraley had forced him into the situation, but Captain Garrett had told him not to fight it, and to get back as quickly as he could.

“Maybe you’ll be able to get some intel,” Zachary had said.

Rockingham talked with the four soldiers about the night’s activity, but they were seemingly incapable of communication as they watched the doctor work on their commander in the brightly lit room that seemed more like an office-made-operating room than a genuine doctor’s workplace.

CHAPTER 40

“What’s your name, son?” the voice asked. This was another dream, he was sure. He was inside of a dirty Coke bottle, trying to look out beyond the dusty glass. There were people standing above him, but their faces were large, then small, then large again as he rolled inside the bottle. Voices. He heard voices trying to talk to him. It was his brother Matt, calling his name. He could not see him, though, only hear a voice. The voice again, calling, pleading for him to come. Then he saw Kurtz rising from his crouch, yelling at him, grabbing his arm and pulling. He heard the voice again, calling a name. The voice. He must remember the voice. If he could only hang on, he could pull himself out of the bottle and find the troubled voice. 

“What’s your name?”

The doctor broke an ampoule of ammonia inhalant open beneath Zachary Garrett’s nose, causing his face to wrinkle. That was a good sign, the troops realized as they watched, peering intently down upon their leader. The doctor had taken off the bandage and handed it to Sergeant Spencer, revealing a long, jagged wound that ran a thirteen-centimeter course above his left ear. The doctor surmised that the wound was more ugly than severe, and concluded that the impact of the helmet being ripped from his head must have knocked him unconscious.
Must have been one hell of a big bullet!

As Colonel Mosconi poked and prodded Captain Garrett, Fraley came rambling down the dimly lit hall, rays of sunlight jumping from each office doorway and highlighting Fraley’s cumbersome gait. Rockingham spotted him and angrily moved to meet Fraley in the hallway.

“You, fat son of a bitch!” Rockingham screamed at Fraley, whose eyes bulged wide as Rockingham grabbed him by the lapels and slammed him against the porcelain tile wall in the corridor.

“Get your hands off me, Lieutenant!” Fraley snapped back, his voice muffled by the shirt gathered around his mouth.

“You listen to me,” Rockingham said, grabbing with one hand the bloodstained dressing from Sergeant Spencer, who looked on in amazement.

“You’re gonna fry for this, Lieutenant, you hear me,” Fraley said, sounding like he had a harelip.

“You see this,” he said, holding the bloody dressing, “you did this.” He had lowered his voice, sounding calmer. Although Fraley was large, he was no match for Rockingham’s powerful frame as Rock lowered the man to the floor.

“I want you to have our blood on your face,” he said, wiping the bloodstained bandage across Fraley’s cheeks, “because you’ve already got it on your hands.”

Fraley quickly picked himself off the floor, brushing his green jungle fatigues, and screamed, “MPs!” Then he added, “Listen here, I’m calling your division commander to tell him to throw your ass in the brig at Pearl Harbor so little boys can screw you up your black ass.”

“Like hell you are,” Sergeant Spencer said, moving in front of Rockingham. Spencer, taller than Rockingham, looked to Fraley like an aboriginal warrior.

“Stay out of this, Spence,” Rockingham said, “this is between me and Fraley.” Spencer moved out of the way, giving Rockingham a supportive glance.

“You’ve got to get past me first,” Rockingham said. He was angry. Mostly he was mad about the abuse they had been taking from Fraley. But part of his rage was that he had not been with his company when they needed him.

“Back off, sir,” Spencer said, placing a hand on Rockingham’s chest. “This guy ain’t shit. He’s already pissed his pants. Let him go do whatever he’s got to do. We’ve got four eyewitnesses here that heard him threaten you and say you had a black ass. Now, really, what’s he gonna do?”

Rockingham backed off, glaring at Fraley with catlike eyes. True to Spencer’s prediction, Fraley turned and walked toward the back door, in the direction of his quarters.

The doctor heard the commotion in the hallway, but knowing it centered on Fraley and that the men had been in a firefight all morning, he let it ride, as did Major Hewit, standing by his side. At one time or another, they had all wanted to do and say the things that Lieutenant Rockingham had. Hewit watched out of the corner of his eye as the two scuffled and wondered if it could get much worse.

“Zachary Garrett. My name’s Zachary Garrett.”

The troops snapped their heads back, watching as their commander awoke.

“Zachary,” the doctor said, “how old are you?”

“Thirty-six,” Garrett said, weakly, eyes trying to open, but mostly fluttering.

“Good. What is your job?”

“Commander. Commander of the best troops in the Army.”

With the last comment, the soldiers knew their commander was going to be fine. They let out a collective “hooah” and gathered around him, where he still lay on the plywood.

“Not so fast, guys,” the doctor said, equally happy that Garrett was coherent. “Zachary, I’m taking off your boot and socks, can you feel any-thing?”

The pregnant pause seemed eternal, casting a dreadful silence over the room. “Zachary?” the doctor asked again, this time pricking his foot with the top of his pen.

“I feel something, Doc,” Zachary said hazily, “but I’m not sure.” The doctor loosened the strap around Zachary’s leg that had been securing him to the plywood. “Maybe this will help,” the doctor said, massaging his leg, then returning to the chore of stabbing his foot.

“Oh yeah,” Zachary said, to a collective sigh of relief.

“The combination of a pinched nerve and the tight strap deadened your senses down there. I think basically all we’ve got here is a decent head wound that’ll heal nicely and a concussion that we can’t do anything about except keep you awake for the next few hours.”

No problem
, Zachary thought,
I’ve got a ton of stuff to do
.        

“Hey, XO, good to see you. Sure could have used you this morning,” Zachary said at the first sight of him since he had left with Fraley. Then he realized his comment was like salt in an open wound for the XO.

“Don’t remind me, sir,” Rockingham said, looking at the floor.

“Don’t feel bad. Your lieutenants did great. So did the rest of the company. You should have seen Quinones and Kurtz,” Zachary said, shaking his head in disbelief, then stopping at the pain. It was some consolation to Rockingham that the lieutenants had performed well. Being the senior lieutenant in the company, he had taken the three “newbies” under his wing and personally guided them through the nuances of junior officership. But still, he felt remorse for not being at his commander’s side during the attack.

The doctor cleaned and dressed the wound on Zachary’s head after shaving the left side of his scalp. “Might as well get the other side while you’re at it,” he joked to the doctor, who laughed and complied with Zachary’s request. After that, he worked on Sergeant Cartwright’s leg, a more complicated wound than he had originally thought. Nonetheless, he thoroughly cleaned the deep cut, put in a few stitches, and properly bandaged it. Digging through a cabinet full of pharmaceuticals, he gave each of the wounded soldiers a full bottle of antibiotics.

After about an hour, the delegation was prepared to return to what the troops had already affection-ately labeled “Garrett’s Gulch.”

Captain Garrett, the XO, Sergeant Spencer, Sergeant Cartwright, and the other three soldiers collected their personal gear and weapons and began to make their way up the stairs to the helicopter. They straggled, with the healthy soldiers helping the wounded, all with thankful expressions on their faces. It could have been a scene out of the
Red Badge of Courage,
the wounded men limping slowly, arms wrapped around the healthy ones. Uniforms ripped and shredded in places, bloodstained.

They heard a commotion toward the front of the building, followed by several shots fired. Having had their fill for the day, they continued up the stairs, finally reaching the roof, where the medevac helicopter started its engine with the high-pitched whine of the turbines, blades turning slowly and awkwardly at first, then beating and chopping to full speed. The body of the aircraft fought the tremens-dous torque and bounced on its wheels.

As they left the air-conditioned building, the Philippine sun blasted their faces with moist heat. Out of instinct, they all checked their canteens. The group hobbled toward the helicopter.

The gunshots grew louder. Automatic-weapons fire. The helicopter pilot was waving his arm at them, beckoning them forward. As the intensity of firing grew, three men and two women came running toward the helicopter from the embassy side of the compound, about one hundred meters from their position by the embassy.

The fleeing men and women were dressed in business suits and dresses that did not facilitate a rapid escape. The door swung open wide again, this time spewing Filipino rebels with blue and red bandannas. They knelt to fire at the fleeing American diplomats without noticing the straggling American soldiers.

“Spence, you go left, I’ll go right,” Rockingham said, grabbing one soldier, leaving the other two for Sergeant Spencer, who moved rapidly around the hovering aircraft. The pilot looked nervously at the armed Filipinos and had a moral decision to make. Did he save his own hide, or did he try to save them all? His hand started to pull back on the cyclic and collective controls, then released as he reasoned otherwise.

The five American civilians were running toward Sergeant Spencer’s team near the rear of the aircraft. Spencer waved his arms rapidly at the group, most of whom were too scared to notice the whirring, invisible tail rotor of the UH-60. They could not hear Spencer’s cries of warning above the gunfire and chopping of the helicopter.

“Get down! Watch out!” Spencer yelled as he watched a young blonde sprint toward them, eyes wide and hair tumbling across her face just enough to distort the fact that she was headed directly into the path of the rotor.

The ambassador realized his secretary’s mistake and reached toward her, straining to grasp her as a hail of bullets chewed the cement behind him. Spencer watched as the young woman’s face splattered against the aircraft and parts of her arms and torso were tossed about the landing pad, looking like some grisly artwork display.

The ambassador rolled underneath the blades, and the rest of his team avoided them as well. They joined Sergeant Spencer’s team of three soldiers as they rounded the aircraft. Spencer told the civilians to get down on the cement when he heard the XO’s rifle open fire. The five insurgents were caught by surprise, reeling under the withering fire brought forth by the XO’s two-man team and Sergeant Spencer’s team from the opposite side of the helicopter.

Meanwhile, Captain Garrett helped Sergeant Cartwright onto the helicopter, then pulled out his 9mm Beretta. Noticing the civilians, he hurried them next to Cartwright in time to turn around and see the door open from the JUSMAG section of the compound. It was Fraley.