Counterfire came from behind the garage area, and two twenty-rounds there silenced those weapons.
“Cease fire on the twenties,” Murdock called. The weapons were silenced, with only an occasional shot coming from the compound.
Suddenly four rebels raced toward the hostages’ building. A 20mm round fired from Murdock’s left, and the round exploded just in front of the running men, cutting them all down into rag dolls bleeding on the grass.
All was quiet. “My men are going in the big house and clean up,” Domingo said. “Murdock, hold fire. We’re at the fence now and going over. We’ll work the big house first and clear it, then the garage, just to make sure, and the barracks last. We’re at the door and going in.”
Murdock and his men waited. They saw lights blink on in the big house. Murdock had heard it had fourteen rooms. The second-story lights snapped off and he heard rifle and submachine-gun fire. Then all was silent.
“Watch for any stragglers,” Murdock said. “If there are any, the sniper rifle is cleared to fire if the target is for sure a rebel.”
They saw none during the next five minutes.
It took an eternity to clear fourteen rooms. At last the earpieces came on.
“Big house cleared. We found six men and four local women. The men are dead. One woman is wounded. The women say there are no guards in the hostage building. We’ll move on to the barracks. We have two wounded, one serious. If we clear the area, we may call for a night evac.”
“Roger, still holding, covering.”
Murdock and the SEALs saw the Rangers move up on the barracks. Firing came from inside. The Rangers went flat against the outside of the building and threw grenades through the broken windows. Then two men forced open the doors and jumped to one side.
The rangers sprayed the inside with submachine-gun fire, then charged inside. Murdock heard only three shots; then lights flared inside the barracks and two more shots sounded.
“Barracks clear,” Domingo said on the Motorola. “We have four prisoners for interrogation.”
“We’ll move up and take over the hostage building,” Murdock said. They were halfway there across the sixty-foot-wide grassy area inside the fence when they saw a section of the lawn near the fence move aside. Two men in rebel green uniforms came out of the ground and sprinted for the fence, and were in the jungle before the SEALs could get off a shot.
“Lam and I, after them,” Murdock said on the net. “The rest of you occupy the hostage area. Go.”
Lam and Murdock charged into the jungle near where the two men had vanished. Just inside the curtain of green, they stopped and listened. Sounds to the left, crashing brush.
They ran that way, dodging around the trees, over vines and brush and a dozen flowering plants. Lam took the lead. He stopped again. For a moment there was no sound; then the steps came again, and the sound of trees and growth being slapped to the side during passage.
They were soon off the flat area near the Eagle’s Nest and charging along the side of the slope that towered over them.
“Gaining,” Lam said. They had their regular weapons again, Murdock his Bull Pup and Lam his Colt 4A1. They jogged through the growth toward the sounds. Lam knelt down again, listening.
No sounds.
He waited. A sound to the left. He pointed that way. Another to the right. They were being attacked. Lam made a down motion, and both dropped to the ground, slid behind trees, and waited.
Nothing happened for five minutes. Then Lam made some sounds, clanked his Carbine barrel against his KA-BAR and then cleared his throat.
Lam had indicated he would take the left. Murdock stared to the right into the jungle, desperately trying to see anything that looked like a green-clad man. The two men charged from different directions. Murdock blasted with the 5.56 Bull Pup on full auto, and saw his rounds nearly slice a man’s form in half. He slammed to the ground six feet from Murdock and never moved.
The second man started to charge, then dodged behind a tree just as Lam fired. The rounds missed. Neither man had fired a shot at the SEALs.
Again a wait. Often in combat the man with the most patience will win, Murdock knew. They waited another five minutes; then Murdock put a dozen rounds into and around the tree that Lam pointed to as the other man’s shelter. The rounds brought no response. Murdock crawled to the side behind cover of a log and some huge trees. Two minutes later he used the radio.
“The tree is bare, he’s slipped away. We lost him.”
They took the dead rebel’s submachine gun and ammo belt and walked back to the compound.
A hundred yards away, the lone survivor of the Eagle’s Nest heard the retreat of the two attackers and gave a sigh of relief. He had escaped them, he always would. He had no idea how the men had been able to attack him. He had double the guards out, and the roadblocks on the highway. He had not been told that both had been destroyed today.
Muhammad Al Hillah, the leader of all the Muslim rebels in Mindanao, leaned against a tree and sucked in air. He was out of shape. Only the tunnel had saved him. If it hadn’t been for that he would be dead or captured. Better dead than captured. He knew how the Army tortured prisoners to get information.
Now he had his fallback position, his number-two camp that almost none of the guards at the Eagle’s Nest knew about. Maybe one. He hoped that man had been killed in the fighting. Now he had a long walk. He couldn’t risk using the road. It would be a hike through the jungles to his new camp. He could go down near the road and walk along the flat country. That would be easier. He had many miles to go. Down past Lebak at least ten miles.
Muhammad shrugged. The night was young, he was strong, and he had his submachine gun. At Lebak he would grab any car he found and use it, without the owner’s approval. The quicker he could get to the secret camp, the better.
He still had negotiating power. He still had those twelve hostages and more than a million dollars in a solid Filipino bank in Davao under another name. Yes, he was down a little now, but with his men in the secret camp, he would survive, and he would win. It was just a matter of time.
23
Murdock and Lam came back to the compound at the Eagle’s Nest just as the mop-up finished. There were thirty-eight dead in the barracks, on the grounds, and in the house. The four prisoners had been questioned, and the most promising was questioned again by Juan.
The session had been brutal and direct. By the time Juan had sliced off the man’s second finger he’d told them all he knew, including where the hostages had been taken.
General Domingo called for two helicopters to come pick up the SEALs and Rangers and move them back to Lebak, where they would evaluate the rebel’s information and plan the next attack.
“Twelve hostages are still out there,” General Domingo said. “Our job is to go out and find them.”
The night landings, one at a time by the choppers, were tricky in the small LZ in back of the big house, but they came in. First loaded were the six women hostages, most in their forties and fifties. Then the SEALs went into the same bird and it took off. General Domingo and the Rangers followed in the second forty-six.
When they landed at Lebak, they learned that the general had arranged for the hostages to stay in the town’s only hotel and eat there as well.
“Ladies, you will be flown by helicopter to Davao in the morning,” Murdock told them.
“That’s where our tour started from,” one of the ladies said as they were being driven from the improvised landing pad to the hotel.