Captain Richard Head positioned the “1 to 50,000 map” right up to the windshield. A lime-green Day-Glo line zig-zagged across the map, outlining the path that they had followed into the jungle.
Minutes before, a few hundred copies of the map had been scanned and e-mailed to the SEALs and other special operations troops searching for the vice president. Battlefield iPads and printers — durable enough to withstand being dropped into combat from the back of a C-17—were in use throughout the search areas. The entire search team was rerouted up to the area where Bruce had been dropped. They would set up roadblocks and wait.
Head squinted at the map and tried to figure out a faster way to return to the drop area. If the new avionics upgrade had come in, he’d be able to map the route on Google Earth. But for now he used the paper map and followed the rough contours of hills, ridge lines, and mountains that peppered the northwestern part of Luzon. A town called Tarlac seemed to be the closest seat of population. There were no other features except for a few towers and a handful of bridges.
Gould popped into the cockpit and slipped into the right-hand seat. He glanced at the map. “What do ya think — half an hour to get there?”
Head jabbed a finger at the map. “At least. You know, I’m not too crazy about going back and forth between the drop area and here, having to refuel if we’re forced to loiter.”
“If this is so all-fired important, then why can’t they swap us off with another Black Hawk?”
“Good question. But since we’re the only chopper around, I guess we’re it.”
“Still, you’d think they’d pull some of the other guys off the search effort.”
“They will. I was told to yell if we needed help, and they’ll get someone out to us.”
“Hell of a way to run a war. Sometimes I wonder what the commanders are thinking when they come up with war plans like this.”
Head folded the map and leaned over to stick it in the leg pocket of his flight suit. “Hey, don’t complain. That’s all you pilots ever do: bitch, bitch, bitch. Let’s get back up there.”
“I thought you were worried about having to keep coming back to refuel?”
“I am. But if we land outside of Tarlac, we’ll save fuel and be a half hour closer.”
General Simone stood behind his high-backed chair in the center of the Thirteenth Air Force Command Post. An array of oversized, high-definition color liquid-crystal displays covered the walls.
He stared at a computer-enhanced display of two blobs slowly moving through the jungle. Taken from the MC-130 orbiting three thousand feet above, the images faded in and out as Bruce and Pompano stepped around trees and scrub brush. The view slowly rotated as the MC-130 kept in a continuous bank, circling the two. The signal was shot to a geosynchronous AEHF satellite 22,400 miles above the Earth, then relayed back to the command post.
The next screen had the same wobbly infrared features, but it showed the top part of what appeared to be a plantation. The airy house was located in the center of a clearing. People moved around the perimeter of the house. A close-up view showed men carrying rifles.
The details of the house were smeared — because of a huge heat source and the clouds, said a lieutenant from Intelligence — which diffused the IR radiation getting to the sensors on board the MC-130. They couldn’t tell if the HPM weapon was there or not, so to play it safe they had to keep away.
Bruce and Pompano were half a mile from the clearing. Their progress had slowed. No guards were around them.
The other screens displayed various communication links, aircraft in the air, and their locations. People walked through the command post, updating the screens and constantly feeding information into the combat-control database.
Simone studied the screens with a tight mouth. He picked up a phone on a stand at his right. “Get me General Newman.”
Thirty seconds later, the Chief was on the line. “Pete. What’s the status?”
Simone drew in a breath. If it hadn’t been for Newman’s backing, Simone would now be commanding the Army Air Force Base Exchange Service, banished from operational command by the other generals who had disliked his style. He could be frank with the Chief.
“It’s going, General. Thank God the Seventh Fleet is out and not at Subic. Can you imagine Admiral Greshan trying to pull rank and heading this thing up?”
“Greshan wouldn’t have fallen for that crazy stunt of sending Steele out with that old man.”
“And the vice president would be a dead man.” The adjective Vice was faintly stressed. “But that’s not the reason I’m calling.”
“Shoot.”
“We’re tracking Steele.”
“Have you located Adleman?”
“No, sir. He’s probably inside the plantation house we’ve located, along with Pompano’s daughter. It will be getting dark here in less than two hours. My guess is that Steele is going to wait until dark, then try to sneak up to the house.”
“Do you think they can do it?”
“I don’t know. But this Pompano is good. He’s had years of experience getting through the jungle. It’s his territory. On the other hand, I’m worried about his allegiance.”
“What about Steele?”
Simone leaned forward against the chair. He watched the ghostly image of Bruce slipping through the jungle. The lieutenant’s body stood out in the infrared, hotter than the surrounding rain-soaked foliage, even though no features could be discerned. “He’s right at his peak — we couldn’t have sent him to Jungle Survival School at any better time.”
“Good. Good. The only thing that worries me is getting them out. Dropping a line from a helicopter seems awfully risky.”
“We’re using the Black Hawk to drop a Fulton Recovery System. Once the balloon is up, the vice president can be taken out of there in seconds, hopefully surprising the bad guys before they can use their HPM weapon. Bruce and Pompano will hide in the jungle. We’re already feeding targeting information into a flight of F-15Es. The Strike Eagles will give Steele the cover he needs.”
Newman was silent for a long time. “I don’t want to second-guess you, Pete—”
“You’re not, general. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve had all the Black Hawks and Jolly Greens deployed out to Subic. We’re loading another cadre of Navy SEALs on board — the nearest thing we’ve got to an assault force here. At the first sign of trouble, we’re dropping the SEALs into that clearing. But if we do that, we’ve got to take out that HPM weapon first.”
“You’ll risk killing the vice president.”
“We believe they’ll kill the girl first, then use Adleman as a bargaining chip. If we’re quick enough, we will succeed.”
Newman remained silent for a moment. “I don’t like any of this, not one bit, Pete. It’s too quick, and the odds are in their favor.”
“General, there’s a young man out there in the rain risking his life for the vice president, and another man risking his life for his daughter, and that’s our best bet. I don’t like any of the things we’re doing, but it’s better than rolling over and playing dead.”
“Pete … thanks. And keep me informed.”
“Thank you, sir.” Simone hung up and turned back to the screen. The image of Bruce Steele wavered in and out of view. On an adjacent screen, figures showed thirty-four Air Force helicopters at Subic. Eight of them were loaded with the remainder of the SEALs who were not already in the jungle.
The other helicopters were ready to be used as backups and to fly support personnel into the area. The one Black Hawk set aside for delivering the Fulton Recovery System was already in the air. As much as it went against his grain, there was nothing more he could do except to wait.