The Weapon (20 page)

Sosukan held one up to the gray-green light. Abu spat something angry, and he flinched and handed it over. The leader fingered a knob and jerked a lever up and down. Then looked around.

“Obie?” he called into the jungle.

 

Teddy Oberg hadn't shaved since they got to the camp. He'd told the rest of the team not to, either. He'd traded his pants for the same camos the rebels wore, and found a black T-shirt with a ripped pocket and cheap dark glasses. With a
green do-rag, he was starting to look like them, though he was bigger than any of the Mindanaoans. Monty rubbed his chin. His was growing in, too. Kaulukukui, though, didn't show the slightest fuzz. Maybe the Hawaiian couldn't grow a beard?

“What's he got, Monty?”

He nodded toward Captain Abu. “Wants you to check out the shipment.”

Oberg took the weapon the way a postal worker might reach for the next piece of parcel-rate. He pushed something in and with one jerk pulled the whole back off and then the inner mechanism out. Looked it over, slapped it back in, ran the bolt back and forth. Looked down the barrel, and said something in the language that the rebels didn't speak between themselves, but that they apparently all understood. Henrickson figured it was Tagalog, or maybe, Bisaya.

“What kind of rifles are those, Teddy?”

“These?” Oberg sounded surprised he had to ask. He thrust it into his hands, and Monty flinched at its greasy weight. “AKs. Seven-six-two by thirty-nine.” He frowned up into the truck. “Yeah, there's the ammo. Mikhail Kalashnikov's finest. You don't know AKs?”

“I guess. Russian?”

He pulled another one, squinted at the stock. “Hungarian.”

“Where'd they come from?”

Oberg didn't answer, just pulled out another rifle and gave it the same jerking apart, examination, and reassembly. By now Abu and Izmin and the others had theirs, too, and were jabbering and pointing them at each other. Triggers clacked. Monty backed off, hoping whoever had carried them last hadn't left one loaded.

He'd been wondering how they were going to move the crates, it was a long way from camp and there wasn't even a trail, but over the next hour a silent train of women emerged from the jungle. Loaded with four or five rifles each, or boxes of ammunition, or jerricans of fuel, they melted soundlessly, bent over, back into the green. Out on the road the rain speckled the water in the ruts, but not once did one
of the Abu Sayyaf—he'd picked that name up from Oberg; they apparently didn't consider themselves part of the MNFL anymore—move out from under the cover of the trees.

Of course; the recon drone they'd heard pass over that first day. He'd heard it again last night, waking on the rickety floor of the hut to hear its mosquito song vibrating above them in the dark.

Finally Kaulukukui swung himself out of the empty truck. He looked at the trampled, muddy ground. Rubbed his big flat hands together, then pushed grease off them onto his jeans. His broad face was friendly. Henrickson wondered how this guy had gotten into the SEALs. He looked like he'd be more at home behind some food counter. But probably that had helped him doing the undercover drug thing he'd mentioned once. “Hey. Sumo. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Does it strike you that these guys, this Abu Sayyaf outfit—don't they seem kind of isolated out here?”

“Isolated?”

“I mean, they act more like bandits than fishermen. Should we be giving them guns?”

The SEAL stared. “We get their boat. And we got the AKs for free.”

“That's not what I mean. Uh, what I'm trying to say is, I feel like I'm with Castro in the hills, or the Viet Cong, or something.”

Kaulukukui smiled. “These guys aren't Communists.”

“I didn't mean Communists. Guerrillas, I guess. Why are they hiding out here in southern Mindanao? Why's someone surveilling them with drones? Why—”

The Hawaiian's big soft hand engulfed his biceps. It squeezed gently, like a padded set of hydraulic shears. “Be cool. All taken care of, Monty.”

“What do you mean?”

“Teddy cleared it. With the Army here, the governor, everybody. Don't worry your little head about it. Okay?”

He went back to the front of the truck as the engine
started. Monty hadn't seen the driver at all. The guy had never gotten out of the cab. Now he gunned it, rocked back and forth to free the big tires, then snorted the vehicle around, smashing down small trees. Soon it was a fading growl, then not even that.

He looked around. “Sumo?” he said, not very loud. Then, a little louder, “Uh, Sumo Man?”

Fifteen minutes later Kaulukukui was there again, all at once, preceded by no noise whatsoever, as if materialized out of the dripping green. He held one of the AKs like a big pistol. Henrickson looked from his broad splayed brown feet, to the machete in his belt, to the gun. Kaulukukui was still smiling, but now he didn't look quite so much like a displaced sushi chef.

 

Back at the village he found Oberg sitting in the middle of a rapt circle, showing the locals how to clean the rifles with rags and the kerosene they used in their lights. He started to edge past, but the SEAL waved him in. “Monty, you're gonna be carrying one of these. Grab Rit and Donny, get them over here, too.”

“Me?”

“We don't have a lot of guys to do this with. Don't worry, I won't make you a shooter. But you're gonna be carrying.”

Kaulukukui brought Carpenter and Wenck over from their hut to join the cleaning session. Oberg joked with the Filipinos, making them laugh uproariously. He took the guns apart one after the other, till they were piles of parts on the blankets, then slapped them back together so quickly it looked like a magic trick. The rebels oohed and aahed. Henrickson sat trying not to scratch his balls, his unease growing.

When dusk came Oberg put the last weapon aside and stretched. The rebels rose, each picking up his new rifle, and ambled off. No, strutted; they stuck out their legs like the scrawny village roosters. Sosukan lingered, smiling at Oberg, but finally he left, too. The smell of roasting meat and the women's lilting songs drifted from the cook fires.

Oberg turned to him. “Learn anything today, Monty?”

“I've got a problem with this.”

“Yeah, you look like you ate something bad. Let's get it out in the open. Let's get some of that beer, too.”

“All that trucker brought was Gold Eagle, Teddy. No Red Horse. No San Miguel.”

“Fuck. Well, beer's beer.”

Carpenter came back lugging the case. There were already several bottles missing. Monty didn't like warm beer but he took one. He shifted on the blanket, hoping his crotch wasn't rotting away. Oberg hand-signaled them to sit close together. Monty noticed both SEALs had their rifles where they could reach them, and pulled his own closer. Oberg toasted them and wiped his mouth. “Okay, Monty. Shoot.”

“These are bad guys, Teddy. Why are we arming them?”

“Sumo Man said you were bellyaching. Why don't you get with the program?”

“Running guns to rebels, pirates, whatever these guys are—that's not part of our mission.” He asked Carpenter and Wenck, “What do you guys think? This feel right to you?”

The sonarman shrugged; Wenck just looked at him with big puppy-dog eyes. He turned back to Oberg. “What about the Commander? What's Lenson say about it?”

“Lenson ain't here.”

“Right, but does he know you're doing this?”

Oberg said, “No reason he should. The guy's a Shoe. Not just a Shoe, a fucking
Annapolis
Shoe. We need a boat, I get a boat. We need weapons, I get them. Why bother him with details?”

“What if these guys start robbing banks with these guns? Or shooting up some village? Aren't these Moros?”

“Morons,” Carpenter cracked.

“Shut up, Hooters.”

“Shut up yourself, Coconut Head.”

“I told you, it's cleared with the Philippine Army,” Kaulukukui said.

Oberg cleared his throat. He sat forward, and Monty almost couldn't meet those big blue eyes. “Henrickson, you been at TAG longer'n I have.”

“Damn right.”

“And you're a hell of a good analyst. But TAG Charlie's new to you, right?”

“It's new to everybody.”

“Fair enough, but stop shittin' kittens, okay? And stop acting like we're stupid.”

“I never said—”

“Yeah, you did. Didn't he?”

“Yep,” said Kaulukukui. He wasn't smiling now.

Oberg leaned even closer, breath to breath, and tapped his knee. “When you go operational, you're crossing into spec ops territory. You don't just analyze shit, you got to get your hands dirty sometimes. Which is why Sumo and me are here. Okay? And from what I hear, there was some reluctance to release us to you. We didn't ask for this mission. That's not how we operate. The Army, the Rangers, they'll bust their asses to get a mission. We got more missions than we got SEALs. But we're the guys got handed the job: join up and make this Team Charlie concept work.

“Now, the way we work is, tell us what you need, and we'll get it done. We get the intel, rock-drill the shit out of it, then we do it. Sometimes that means working with local groups that aren't the kind of people the U.S. wants to snuggle up with. I'm not gonna get into the politics of Mindanao, but shit, you're right—these are not good guys. They're pirates—that's why they've got the kind of boat we want. It just makes better cover. Okay?”

Henrickson scratched his groin and fidgeted. The men opposite were liaisons to what the military called the “black community.” “Black” in the ancient sense of “black arts”; arcane, unrevealed, and most likely, evil. Usually the uniformed services avoided it, but now they were reaching out. Involving TAG. He wasn't sure if they were supposed to, or who they were reaching out to. The CIA? He didn't think the Navy wanted to get close to the Agency. This Filipino rebel movement, whatever it was? He shifted again, but couldn't get comfortable.

“How about it, Monty? We on the same page now?”

“I guess so,” he muttered, wishing Lenson was there.

“Jesus,” the SEAL said. He took out a notebook. “Now listen up. We've got a lot to do. And here's the plan.”

 

Rit Carpenter was carrying fuel down to the boat that afternoon when it happened. Nobody else on the trail, just the two of them, and the declining sun shining softly through the jungle—hazy, like it was shining through smoke, or maybe milk, through the trees down by the water, but night already almost here on the shadowy trail. The air so hot and close you ran sweat just standing still, and the hum of the insects like a room full of tiny clocks all clicking and ticking and once in a while alarms going off.

He came to a bend in the trail screened by the banana trees, where it was nearly dark, and there she was gliding toward him, in one of those sarongs or whatever, blue with a pattern of flamingos or egrets. The moment their eyes met something clicked, like a misaligned vertebra snapping back where it belonged. No mistaking that. Just a word or two, a murmur; a touch.

Then they were slipping through the whispering waxy leaves of the bananas, pushing aside webs bearing huge yellow-and-black spiders, into the dimness. She let the headscarf drop as soon as they were out of sight of the trail.

She didn't kiss like an American, or like the Korean girls who'd learned it from TV. In fact she didn't open her mouth at all. That wasn't what lifted him out of his shoes, and it sure wasn't her perfume. She smelled of fish and hard work, but her hand knew the way to third base.

“Whoa! Been there before, huh? What's your name, honey?” He pointed to himself. “Rit.”

“Reet.” She smiled and pointed to her left breast. “Um mali.”

“Umali? That your name?”

She didn't answer, just brought her face close again. And not long afterward, they were stretched out on the blue and white cloth. She was no
Maxim
-cover model. Her breasts hung pendulous, and her skin was going leathery. He figured her at
forty, which meant she was probably about thirty. But who was counting, when she was rubbing his cock between her legs? She wasn't as ugly as some of the tail he'd woke up next to in twenty-two years in the Navy. She giggled as she pinched a green worm off the tip of his dick and flicked it away.

Until she pushed him away, gasping. “What's the matter? Did that hurt?” he murmured, cleaning her ear with his tongue. A sure-fire way to drive them crazy.

She placed a finger before her lips. Glanced toward the trail. A moment later he, too, heard the voices.

Male
voices. They ducked and held their breaths. His heart was going like a coal truck climbing a steep hill.

When the voices passed he slicked back his hair and sucked in his gut. Tried to pick up where they'd left off, but she pushed him away. Motioned at the sky; made a curve with her hands. He frowned. “What?”

“You take me States?”

“You want to go to America? That what you said?”

“Take me States,” she muttered, hiding her face against his chest. “I go, you marry me. I love you, do what you say. Take me States, Reet, okay?”

He patted her, wondering what to say. Like he was really going to take her back? But, shit, couldn't blame her for asking. He'd never seen a woman here who wasn't working, butchering chickens, hoeing in their little gardens, wiping snot off kids' faces while two or three others hung on them, while the guys lolled around shouting for food and telling stories and drinking, at least when Abu or one of the other chiefs wasn't around. A dog's life, as far as he could see.

She laid her head over and mimed sleep. Then waking. Then pointed behind them, to a screened glade by a ring of rocks he recognized after a moment as a well. The air was cooler here and there didn't seem to be as many flies. He tried to take her hand again but she slipped away, miming the curve again. She looked hopeless and desperate, but she was forcing a smile. He felt sorry for her, but hell, what could he do? Maybe a little romance was just what she needed. He showed her his watch, tapped it. “When?”