“Well-” A mortar round detonated not far from their covered position. When Jack looked back up, Alice and Lee had disappeared into the mine opening. “I can tell you this, Lieutenant. That is a real woman and she’s helping one of the bravest men I have ever met in my life.”
Before the German could say anything, another detonation went off not ten feet from their position. Jack managed to shake off the dirt and rocks. He looked at the mine’s gaping maw of an opening.
“Good-bye General Lee,” he said as he slipped back down into the hole.
Everett was in front of the science team as they examined the double steel doors that he had seen on their first visit to the mine a week before. They had opened then for the briefest time and Carl knew that the shaft beyond the doors angled downward on a sharp grade. Everyone started looking for the access panel that would open the doors as explosions outside came at a far brisker pace than just a minute before. Everett and Sebastian both were frustrated beyond measure that they weren’t where they thought they should be inside the mine. The large German was slamming against crates and other material as he searched for the panel, intentionally taking out his anger on the objects he felt were in his way.
“Here it is,” Appleby said. He opened a large steel door embedded in the rock wall. He saw the large switch and the German lettering below it- Sicherheitsturen.
“What does it say?” Ellenshaw asked, looking over the DARPA man’s shoulder.
“It says security door, Professor,” Appleby answered as he eyed Charlie.
“Oh, I guess that’s it then,” Ellenshaw said in all seriousness.
Appleby used his considerable bulk to throw the large-handled switch. The big steel doors started to separate.
The others heard the whine of electric motors and turned to see the two eight-inch-thick steel doors start to part. Everett raised his M-16 and he and Sebastian slipped through the small opening first. Niles grabbed Ellenshaw’s arm as he tried to follow.
“Let them do their job, Professor,” Niles said, admonishing Charlie with a stern look.
As the doors finally opened far enough, they hit their stops and the science team found itself facing eighteen feet of open space. Sebastian and Everett looked around with weapons at the ready, but the entire giant area looked empty, with the exception of several large electric cars equipped with flatbeds parked parallel to the descending roadway ahead of them. Placed down the center line of that road was a red-lighted strip of small glass bulbs embedded in the roadway.
“Seems German engineering was as good back then as it is now, eh?”
They all turned to see Garrison Lee leaning heavily against Alice Hamilton. Niles shook his head. He ran over and quickly took Lee’s weight off Alice’s hands. The woman relaxed and gave Niles a determined look.
“Before you fly off the handle, he has a right to see this, and I for one wasn’t going to say no. Are you?” she asked sternly.
Compton deflated. He held his free hand up to Everett before he could admonish the two older people for their foolishness. Niles shook his head and started for one of the electric carts. He placed Garrison in the back and stepped aside as Carl came up. Carl shook his head at the man who stared at him with one good eye. The old man’s brow lifted as he waited for the chewing out by the mission commander that he knew was coming. Instead, Everett drew out his nine-millimeter and turned it so that the butt of the weapon was facing the senator.
“You remember how to use one of these, I presume?”
Lee grimaced in pain, but still managed to slide the weapon back so that he could look to make sure a round had been chambered. Then he pulled out his old Colt automatic and held both weapons up so Everett could see.
“I should have given that to Alice so she could shoot your curiosity-driven ass,” Carl said. He reached down and patted Lee on the leg.
“Please. She wouldn’t have wasted the bullet, Captain. She would have pistol-whipped me with it. You don’t know how mean this woman really is.”
“Appropriate, I must say,” Niles said. He shook his head at the dying Lee.
“Well, Senator Lee, shall we go see what all the fuss was about back when you were a kid?” Everett said, his anger going the way of a wisp of smoke as he realized Lee was about to go on his final adventure.
“By all means, Captain,” Lee said, as he dipped his hat in Alice’s direction. “My dear Mrs. Hamilton, would you like to ride beside me and prop this old fool up before he falls out?”
Alice smiled and hopped quickly onto the flatbed. She placed her arm through Lee’s.
“I would love to.”
“I notice you didn’t protest my use of the words “old fool,” darling.”
Instead of answering, Alice just laid her head onto the broad shoulder of the man she had loved all of her adult life.
Everett directed the others to climb into the lead cart. Then Sebastian took another of the carts with Charlie, Appleby, and Franklyn Dubois-the German handed his weapon to Ellenshaw and took the wheel of the second cart.
“Don’t shoot me with that,” he said to Ellenshaw.
Jack watched the progress of the young SAS captain and his men as they weaved their way through cover that wasn’t thick enough to hide a raccoon, much less grown men. As the attack force neared the mortar positions, they began encountering fixed positions placed around the mortar crews. As they went as far as they could without being detected, Jack could hear on the radio as the Englishman gave instructions to the young Vietnamese sniper, who was well hidden on the upper tier of the ridgeline above his own position. As the SAS men and the Japanese soldiers waited, Jack watched as the sniper started tracking targets closest to the attack team.
“Come on, kid. Earn your pay for the month,” Collins mumbled while every eye on the ridge watched, hoping the covering mortar fire could be eliminated.
The binoculars in Jack’s hands told the story. He saw a group of pit defenders, as they were called by the SAS captain, start to fall. A group of six mercenaries in the first line guarded the mortar pit a hundred yards in front of the position. This was the extreme range of the sniper’s very old but very accurate M-14, a weapon the Vietnamese only had experience with from the early days of the Vietnam War, thirty-five years before this particular Vietnamese kid had been born.
Through the field glasses Jack saw Captain Whitlesey Mark-Patton raise his right hand and then he saw the extended fingers close into a fist. The first terrorist defender apparently saw movement to his front and made the mistake of raising his head. The fortuitous movement coincided with Vinh Tram’s line of fire. The first round from 1,200 yards caught the man in the top of his head, sending him backward. The next man in line saw his comrade fall and turned to see what the action was about when the second round caught him in the side of his head. Jack couldn’t see if it had been a kill shot because the man’s black baseball cap flew off and obscured his head until he sank out of sight. The friendly sniper didn’t wait to see if the shot had done its work before he fired four more times in rapid succession-hitting every one of his four targets. The nearest he came to missing was when the last man in the defense pit turned to run back to the mortar men he was tasked to guard. The last round caught the man just at the base of the skull and dropped him.
Whitlesey Mark-Patton never hesitated; he and his SAS team, with their tagalong Japanese contingent, ran forward with nothing between them and the mortar. The assault was ruthless. In just five seconds the SAS and Japanese had eliminated the entire mortar crew and then they were up and on to the next, the unguarded center mortar. They hit in the same fashion and then did the same to the third. They stayed long enough to trip fuses in the mortar rounds and drop them into their tubes. A few seconds later the tubes exploded, and then Whitlesey was headed to the next pit as he made his way back.