Joint Task Force #4: Africa Page 24

  If his watch was right, he’d been on the ground for over seventeen hours. He hadn’t been that far from his sailors. Maybe he had walked past them? What if he had missed them, and when morning came he discovered he was miles away on the other side of them. Razi kept walking. He couldn’t have made that much trail in that time. The fall off the cliff added a couple or three hours to his trek. It wasn’t as if the jungle let you walk straight and didn’t fight you all the way. Oh, yes, he knew. Chief Petty Officer Razi was smarter than my other chiefs. He patted himself on the chest. “I know things you’ll never know.”

  Rockdale, MacGammon, and Carson were ahead. He shook his head. Focus. He had to be alert because the three sailors were near. He giggled. They had to be near, he’d walked too long for them not to be near. A wave of ecstatic relief washed over him as he envisioned their gratitude when he walked out of the jungle to join them. Rockdale, MacGammon, and Carson were probably curled up in fetal positions, holding on to each other against the jungle night. They’d be safe soon. He’d be there. No sailor was safe without a chief petty officer nearby.

  He stopped and squatted in the middle of the faint trail, taking another swig of water. Razi shut his eyes. His legs ached. He rotated his right shoulder and wondered why it hurt. He thought maybe a few minutes nap while resting on his haunches would help. He shut his eyes.

  Minutes later he opened his eyes, unable to sleep. He was too pumped up on reaching Rockdale, MacGammon, and Carson, hearing their accolades and feeling the slaps on his back when they see him. Somewhere ahead—and it couldn’t be too far—his sailors waited. For Razi, the mere act of him walking into the middle of the three other aircrew was sufficient to mark it as a rescue. After all, he was a designated NATOPS instructor. What more could a bunch of young sailors lost in the woods want? The children soldiers could have their mothers, but sailors needed their chiefs, and he was these sailors’ chief petty officer.

  He squatted patiently, telling himself he should be up and moving, but the sense of urgency he felt earlier seemed to have evaporated because he had convinced himself his goal was only minutes away. He started to stand; rising halfway, before something—he didn’t know quite what— caused him to sink back down onto his haunches.

  He lifted his head, drawing air through his nose, smelling the jungle night. There was a new odor riding the humid breeze. He had waited patiently when hunting in the hills of North Carolina. A good hunter waited. This wasn’t exactly a blind, but—He switched off the flashlight. The dark of the jungle immediately enveloped him. A sharp smell passed through his nostrils—a foul odor, almost like urine. It took a few minutes for Razi to recognize the ammonia-sharp odor for what it was—human sweat. He lifted his arm, the soaked fabric pulling away, and took a whiff. His nose wrinkled. It wasn’t him, though his was sharp. He raised his head and took several more whiffs. He smiled, associating the odor with the children soldiers who had earlier frightened him. His smile disappeared. Well, he wasn’t frightened now. He stood. The sooner he found them, the sooner they could flee back to momma’s arms.

  The odor rode the wind. He turned his head until the slight night wind hit him squarely in the face. It was at that moment when Razi realized that the jungle sounds were silenced. Everything had gone to ground. He had become so accustomed to the night sounds that they had faded into the background, but with the light gone, the odor assailed his nostrils, making the disappearance of the sounds prominent.

  Razi took several quiet steps forward, following the direction of the wind, hoping he recalled accurately his surroundings in the event he had to backtrack. He wanted a little distance between him and where he squatted. Maybe those boys with their pissant guns had decided to investigate. Something caught his attention slightly to his right. He stopped, leaning against a nearby tree, blending into the grays and blacks of the jungle night as they taught in survival school. He squinted in that direction, concentrating, smelling the air. After several seconds, a flicker caught his eye, and he smiled. It was a campfire. Not a large one, but one nearly blocked by vegetation between him and it. Maybe, just maybe, he’d stumbled onto the armed boys before they found him. He touched his flashlight, nearly turning it on before thinking better of it. He forced down a giggle, thinking of the expression on those boy-soldiers’ faces when he dashed into the center of the campsite, howling his war cry at the top of his lungs before beating the living shit out of them.

  The longer he stared, the clearer the campfire became. After a while, Razi didn’t know how long, he straightened. Then, he started toward the fire, stumbling over unseen vines as he moved, and several times grabbing trunks of young trees that made up this small grove through which he noisily approached the campsite. He heard voices talking and stopped, listening intently for a few seconds, until he realized it was his own voice.

  Razi giggled again. How stupid, he told himself. “At least I’m not answering myself,” Razi said aloud.

  Razi took several deep breaths, one step forward, and squatted again, his head turning slowly from side to side. Bushes in front of him hid the campfire. Those boy soldiers waited ahead. He leaned forward on both hands and eased himself to the ground, sharp sticks poking him the length of his body. “They won’t see me now,” he mumbled quietly. Mustn’t talk to myself. Must keep quiet until I wring their scrawny necks. Theirs were thin reeds of a neck, he recalled. He raised his right hand and made a fist, looking at the silhouette against the night foliage, and shook it several times. Just like that, wring their necks, and watch their puny heads flop forty-five degrees to the side. He twisted his fist back and forth, visualizing their heads flopping from side to side, bouncing off their thin shoulders. Razi giggled. This is going to be fun, he thought.

  Razi dropped his fist and started crawling forward. He couldn’t see the fire now, but he didn’t need to see it. As long as he was crawling forward, they couldn’t see him. Farther into the bushes, his survival vest, no longer strapped firmly to his body, caught on something, slowing his forward movement for a second. Razi wriggled out of it, continuing forward, his mind so focused on the boy soldiers ahead of him. Behind him, the limbs sprung back to their natural position, lifting the vest off the jungle floor into the lower reaches of the main bushes. The pouch flap holding the PRC-90 radio came open.

  His mind was only slightly aware of the loss of the survival vest. He heard the muffled crackle of the radio behind him and a voice calling from it. A low voice called his name along with the other three, but it was behind him and his mind told him they weren’t real, just another obstacle trying to stop him. His forward motion never stopped, Razi kept crawling forward, and in a few feet the voices from the radio could no longer be heard.

  A half-hour later, Razi rolled onto his back, and raised his arms above his chest, stretching out the cramps racing through each arm. Dehydration caused camps, he recalled from SEER training. He patted his chest, searching for the water bottle. Both hands patted his chest. His survival vest was gone and with it the radio, the compass, the water, and what little food he had. For some reason, it didn’t bother him. He raised his arms, twisting his hands back and forth, amazed that he could see them. Moisture dripped off his hands onto his chest. Dawn was coming. He giggled again. I walked all night, killed some terrorists, and even crawled to rescue my sailors. That story line should be worth a few free beers and maybe even a groping session with that new flight engineer. What was her name? He stopped for a moment, trying to recall the flight engineer’s name who had swiped her finger through the peanut butter on his flight boot. “Damn, it’ll come later,” he said after a couple of minutes.

  He sat up and brought his hands close to his face. Strands of torn cloth rippled the fire-retardant cloth of the gloves, leaving strips hanging by threads to the wrist portion. His hands picked at the tattered gloves, ripping apart the few remaining strands that held the fingers of the gloves together. His knuckles were red. Razi blew on them, watching blood pool where cuts and deep abrasions had torn
the skin. He curled his fingers into his palms. How did I do this? he wondered.

  Suddenly, shouts drew his attention. He quickly rolled over onto his stomach and raised his head. Gunfire ripped through the jungle, causing Razi to rise to his knees. The next moment he was standing up, tearing through the bushes. He could see the campfire to his right. He turned slightly and ran directly toward the campfire, ignoring the thrashing noises he was making as he tore through the jungle growth. The smell of gunpowder surrounded him. Someone in the back of his mind was screaming for him to stop. “What are you doing, you stupid shit?” the voice shouted. For a second, he was aware of the stupidity of running toward gunfire. He didn’t even have a knife. Marines did this type of stuff. Not sailors. And definitely not Razi. This wasn’t something he’d do, he told himself, but he kept charging. The fleeting moment of rational thought was lost in a primal urge to kill. He pushed the last bushes apart and stumbled into the circle of the campfire, his motion carrying him forward as he regained his balance.

  A few feet from where he emerged stood Rockdale and MacGammon, their arms raised above their heads. To the right, lay a third body, wearing a flight suit, the head hidden by a flight helmet. That would be Carson. Standing over Carson was the malnourished African Razi had first seen in the downpour. The boy had the barrel of his gun pressed against the flight helmet. Two other boy soldiers stood between Razi and Rockdale.

  Most would have paused, but in Razi’s clouded mind, time slowed. He laughed as he changed direction slightly. Razi reached the two boy soldiers, slamming both fists against their heads at the same time. The young lad standing over Carson raised his gun, swinging it toward Razi, who had changed direction and was charging the remaining boy soldier. Razi howled, his war cry shocking the young soldier, causing him to pull the trigger before the automatic weapon was fully aimed. A fleeting thought of what it was going to feel like when those bullets hit crossed his mind, but Razi continued running—his cry filling the jungle. The weapon swung a few more inches and Razi’s howling grew in intensity as he closed the space between them, a calm thought crossing his mind wondering if this time the boy’s aim would be more accurate.

  From the right, MacGammon hit the young African lad, causing the weapon to spray a pattern of bullets around Razi, barely missing the chief. MacGammon landed on top of the boy and started slamming his fists into the young lad’s head, continuing to pound even when the boy was unconscious.

  Razi stopped and looked down at MacGammon beating the boy. He turned. Rockdale had grabbed one of the weapons and was picking up the other from the two boys Razi had slam-dunked.

  “A fourth,” Razi said. “There’s four of them.”

  Rockdale shrugged, hurried over to MacGammon, and grabbed his arm in midswing. “I think he’s out of it.”

  Razi grabbed a weapon from Rockdale. “There’s another one out there. Stay here. I’ll be back.” And he dashed into the bushes, disappearing quickly from view. Behind him, Rockdale shouted for him to come back, but he couldn’t. Unfinished business was here somewhere. He glanced at the weapon. AK-47, he surmised. He wasn’t sure because he wasn’t a Marine, but he recalled the intelligence specialist saying AK-47s were the automatic weapon of choice for poorly paid terrorists. Besides, he would never ask a Marine what it was; they’d bask too much in the pleasure of having a chief petty officer ask them about something they believed every Navy person ought to know. No, he’d never ask a Marine. A limb swung back and slapped him across his face. Where was his helmet, he wondered as he kept charging.

  MACGAMMON STOOD UP, HIS EYES NEVER LEAVING THE unconscious boy beneath him. Morning filtered through the trees, bringing faint light to the men. “You all right?” he asked, his breathing short and rapid.

  Rockdale nodded. “I’m fine. Let’s check Stetson.”

  A moan from Carson told them he was still alive. MacGammon laughed. “He’d gonna be one sorry motherfucker, isn’t he?”

  Rockdale’s brow wrinkled. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, when we get out of here today, everyone—even Reader’s Digest—are gonna want to know what happened, and only you and I will know.”

  “The chief will know.”

  MacGammon looked around the area. “Are we sure what we just saw was real? One moment we’re about to be shot, and the next, we got Badass running through our campsite, screaming at the top of his lungs, slapping Africans about.”

  “Then he grabs a gun and disappears back into the bushes,” Rockdale added. “Not the Chief Razi I know.”

  “You bet it wasn’t. I didn’t see a single officer to watch him. You know what, Rocky? I bet ya he’s nuts.”

  “How can we tell? I’ve always thought he was nuts.”

  Gunfire from nearby sent the two men diving for the ground.

  “I hope he gets whatever he’s shooting at.”

  “He said something about there being four of them.”

  The sound of movement drew their attention. They saw the feet of the boy soldiers the chief had knocked down disappear into the brush. Rockdale raised the automatic weapon and pointed toward where they disappeared.

  “I wouldn’t do it,” MacGammon said. “The chief is out there somewhere. You might hit him.”

  Rockdale didn’t reply, but he lowered the weapon.

  Carson moaned.

  “Let’s get his helmet off. Did you put it on him last night?”

  “Yeah, I did,” Rockdale replied. “You should have seen the mosquitoes covering him when I got up to throw more wood on the fire.” He kept searching the surroundings, afraid any moment those Africans were going to return.

  “Told you so,” MacGammon said as he unstrapped the helmet and pulled it off Carson. Carson’s hair was matted to his head, several streaks of hair falling across his eyes when the helmet came free. “See, Rocky. That’s why the Navy makes us have short hair.”

  More gunfire came from a little farther out.

  “He must be chasing him.”

  “Chasing his own shadows, more likely,” MacGammon said.

  They squatted beside Carson. “You want to hand me some bandages?”

  “I gotta find our survival vests. They tossed them into the bushes when we took them off,” MacGammon said as he stood. “You know something, Rocky?” He let a deep breath out. “That was as scared as I’d ever been.”

  Rockdale set the helmet aside. “I know,” he said without looking up. He was afraid that if his eyes met MacGammon’s, the slight hold he had on his emotions would let go. “I thought we were going to die,” he continued, his voice trembling.

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  “Be careful,” Rockdale said.

  MacGammon brushed off the seat of his flight suit as he walked across the parachute. “I doubt there are any others around here. What with the chief beating the shit out of two of them—”

  “I thought you were going to kill the other one.”

  “I would have,” he said softly, “if you hadn’t stopped me.” A few seconds later, he pushed into the bushes on the opposite side.

  Rockdale listened to him searching. He raised the AK-47 and started scanning the surrounding bushes. The survival vests couldn’t be too far. They weighed too much for the three lads who had the drop on them to toss them too far.

  “I can’t find them!”

  More gunfire, even farther away, broke the morning noise of an awakening jungle.

  Rockdale stood. “They’ve got to be out there,” he said, stepping across the parachute toward the bushes, glancing back once at the unconscious Carson and African boy.

  MacGammon stepped back into the campsite clearing just as Rockdale reached the edge. “They’re gone,” he said, tossing a couple of energy bars onto the parachute. “That’s all I could find. The chief was right. There must have been a fourth one.”

  “Must have been more than four. If the fourth one was as small and tiny as the three we saw—”

  “Speaking of the three,” MacGammon said, po
inting, “Where is the one I hit?”

  Rockdale turned and looked. Only seconds ago, the third African boy lay sprawled out near the edge of the campsite. “Looks as if we’ve lost all three.”

  “At least we have their weapons.”

  “Weapons!” Rockdale shouted. “Without radios, how in the hell is the helicopter going to know where we are?”

  MacGammon smiled. “The chief! We use Badass’s radio.”

  “Shit! He didn’t have a survival vest on when he crashed into here. He didn’t have much of anything on. He didn’t have his helmet, and his flight suit looked as if someone had taken a razor to it.”

  The smile left MacGammon’s face. “You gotta be shitting me. Badass is a NATOPS instructor—He’s our NATOPS instructor,” MacGammon said, slapping his chest a couple of times. “The man wouldn’t leave his survival vest.” Then in a near whisper, MacGammon added, “Badass is too much of an asshole to violate an instruction!”

  A wavering howl stopped Rockdale as he started to reply. “What the hell!” The howl reminded Rockdale of an old Tarzan movie that his parents enjoyed. “Where did Razi learn that?”

  “I think Chief Razi’s gone native,” MacGammon said.

  ”THE HELICOPTER IS AIRBORNE, SKIPPER,” LIEUTENANT Commander Peeters said, sticking his head through the curtains. “Should be on station in an hour.”

  “Wow!” Commander Greensburg replied. Nodding toward the east, he continued. “The sun has barely broken the horizon and the Air Force is airborne. Dell, write that down. It’ll be a great quote someday.”

  “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Evans said, ignoring an order heard numerous times when flying with the skipper.