He remembered their first victim, the old lady in the vegetable farm. She had cursed them when they’d stabbed and beaten her. His men had laughed it off at the time but now they spoke of it no more. And that was a bad sign. There were other rumors too, the godless Siamese, the ones who went to the villages and formed the Christian militias that were slowly but surely shutting the warriors of the True Belief out from food and information and recruits, they were spreading rumors that the spirits of the forests had been offended by the warriors and had taken sides against them. The old animist religion that had been in Mindanao long before either Christianity or Islam had influenced both religions more than either liked to admit. His men laughed at the idea of jungle spirits and sneered at those who still respected them. But, in their hearts they were terrified by the idea that the jungle itself had turned against them.
Yet, the curse hadn’t followed them. The strange thing was it affected everybody but them. The first rendezvous had been the first disaster. Then they’d been instructed to meet up with a second unit to ambush a Philippine Army patrol. The patrol had never turned up, the Philippine troops had probably decided to sleep in that day so the two units had split again. Only, the others had been destroyed by artillery fire. Just a few hours after the split, the Australian long-range guns had dropped shells on them and there weren’t even body parts left to bury. The jungle had taken those again. And so it had been ever after. Every unit that touched them had died, by ambush, by artillery fire, by mortars or just by vanishing into the greenery and never being seen again.
But it was the guns that were worst. The original reports had laughed at the Australian artillery, comparing its 94 millimeter guns with the 150s used by others. Only those Australian guns could throw shells to a distance nobody had dreamed of. They were creating a web of fire, an interlocking network of steel and explosive that was slowly pushing forward. Within range of the Australian guns, nobody was safe, the shells could arrive at any time. “Commander Torpedo” knew he was in range of those guns now, the shells could be on their way, now.
Yet they weren’t the ones he feared most. The big, long-range guns were in fixed positions, where they could reach, where they could not, all could be calculated. The dead zones were known and could be exploited. No, the worst were the little mountain guns. They’d never been listed in the reports because nobody took them seriously. They did now. Those guns could appear anywhere, at any time. Even in the most impossible terrain. They’d appear, pour fire into an area everybody had assumed was safe, then vanish again. When the battery position was attacked, there was nothing but empty jungle. Once, just once, the Australians had left some papers behind. The man who’d found them had picked them up and Commander Torpedo still remembered the explosion as the booby trap had blown his arm off.
Even the command had heard of the curse on his unit, the way it had leprosy, infecting everything it touched. He’d been ordered to retreat to this remote area and stay put. “‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you” had been the order. Nobody came near them, nobody spoke to them, nobody delivered to them or took from them. Their food was running out and Jose had never been much of a cook at the best of time. Now his concoctions were barely edible.
Suddenly ‘Commander Torpedo’ started, the ‘meal’, such as it was, in his bowl had slopped into his lap. Had that idiot Jose lost his marbles to the point where the meat was still alive? Then he looked down and saw the Australian-made version of the British Mills grenade in his bowl, and in the split second that was left to him, he realized that he wouldn’t have to complain about Jose’s cooking ever again.
A few feet away, a few minutes later
It had been like taking candy from a baby. The guards, such as they were, had their throats cut first, soundlessly. The Australian unit had moved quietly into place, blocking all the possible escape routes for the unit that was to die. Once everything was set up, half a dozen grenades had been tossed into the camp.
Sergeant Major Shane was proud of his throw, he’d tossed the grenade right into some poor dumb cluck’s dinner bowl. Worth of the Australian First Eleven that throw had been. He hadn’t had time to pat himself on the back, there was work to be done and rifles to do it with. The men who had survived the grenades were trying to rise, some to return fire, although where they would return it to was beyond their knowledge. Others, less brave perhaps but significantly wiser, had tried to make a run for it. It didn’t matter, whatever they did, the staccato crackle of rifle fire had picked off the remainder.
They couldn’t have done it with Old Smelly. The SMLE, despite its smooth, fact-acting bolt, couldn’t match the new semi-automatics for rate of fire. There had been a lot of jokes about that, about how the new rifle replaced Old Smelly’s single shot that hit with a lot that missed. As experience had grown, the jokes had faded away. The new 7mm rounds hit as often as the old .303s had and did a lot more damage when they bit home. Even the die-hards, the ones who’d learned their marksmanship before joining the Army, were beginning to see the virtues of their new rifle. They’d sworn that no semi-automatic could match the accuracy of Old Smelly. Now, they were slowly admitting, perhaps just one, this one, could.
They’d decided to take the terrorist unit out earlier that day. For almost two weeks they’d been following it, seeing where it went and who it had met. Almost a hundred Caffs had been whacked as a result. Almost a hundred stepped on and counted.
Probably a lot more blown apart by artillery. Every unit these poor suckers had contacted had been fed into the grinder. Every dump they’d visited had been quietly “vanished” or kept under surveillance. Now, at least a dozen more units were being followed, their contacts identified and eliminated. So this unit had ceased to be useful and the order had come to finish it off. It was a fair guess the Caffs were having their doubts about it as well, they’d ordered the unit into what amounted to quarantine. That’s what had really condemned it to death.
“Recognize these two?” One of the soldiers was holding a body by its hair. The man had been shot half a dozen times in the chest and there wasn’t much holding him together. “He’s one of the bastards who worked over Missus Tuntoya. Can we tell her we got him? Might cheer the old dear up a bit.” Their officer held a hand out and waggled it palm down. There were a few things to be sorted out first.
Rosario, Surigao del Sur Province, Mindanao, Philippines
Narisa Nurmahmud locked the doors behind her. The Philippine National Bank had closed for the day and she had a rendezvous to keep. During the day she was Miss Narisa the foreign exchange clerk at the PNB. Narisa Valadola according to the official records. But, in the evening she took her new Islamic surname and became a warrior for the jihad to turn Mindanao into a true Islamic state. One day she could wear her hijab and take revenge on those whose beliefs had prevented her from doing so in the past. She had lurid fantasies about how she would take her revenge on them.
It would come soon, the struggle was under way, financed by those who sent money back from the godless places they worked. She had taken another step on that route just today, three more foreign exchange payments had come in, a total of almost sixty thousand pesos. This meeting would get word to Commander Torpedo and he could take it for the greater glory of the jihad.