“Do it, Jonesy,” Ramsey ordered, spitting into the ground, resting his arms on his ammunition pouches. Begrudgingly, Jones obeyed his commander and handed Abe a jeweler’s screwdriver set.
Abe proceeded to dismantle the radio. He had seen many like it.
“This have line of sight and satellite?” Abe asked, almost impossible to understand.
“Yes, it does,” Ramsey said, walking over to where Abe was seated and had essentially disassembled the radio into several pieces. Worried, he sat in front of Abe and watched. Looking at the circuit board, Abe began nodding. He looked back at the front panel of the radio, which had a variety of switches: the frequency dials, voice and data receivers, satellite offset switch, volume and squelch dials, antenna nodes, and encrypting port. In the bottom left-hand corner of the front panel, he played with the switch that read “off-sat-los.” As he turned the switch back and forth, he watched the transistor gate on the circuit board. Nothing was happening.
“Find problem,” Abe said, flatly.
“What?” Jones screamed, scampering back to where Abe was sitting.
“Show me,” Chuck said, highly interested.
“This switch. Control megahertz. You not get enough megahertz. When I move switch, transistor gate stay on line of sight. Not go to satellite.”
“I’ll be damned,” Jones said. “He’s right. You need twenty-five megs to go satcom, and you only get four megs with the line-of-sight mode. I was on line of sight to keep comms with you guys when you found him,” he said, looking at Ramsey and pointing at Abe. “Then my shit caught the impact when he fell on me that night. I’ll be damned,” Jones said, unsure now how to treat Abe.
“Can you fix it?” Ramsey asked.
“Maybe,” Abe said. He would need a thin piece of wire, some solder, and something that would burn hot.
“Where’s McGyver when you need him,” Jones said, referring to the TV hero who always knew what chemicals he needed to get the perfect reaction.
Ramsey collected a small propane tank from Sid Bullings, a medic. He used it to heat his instruments. Jones carried both wire and solder in his communications-repair kit. Abe worked on the radio for about thirty minutes. The propane tank made him sweat profusely. The noonday sun baked him and the rest of the team. The potential good news spread around the team, and all were hopeful.
“I solder into satcom position only,” Abe said. “No way to fix for both.”
“That’s fine,” Chuck said, anxious to give it a try. Abe pieced the radio together with skill. No small bits were left when he was finished, as had not been the case when he put his daughter’s new bicycle together before he left for Mindanao.
Yes, Abe thought, if he could only see his daughters again. He absently patted the photograph that he had transferred from his white smock to his orange running suit, then to his first Army uniform. With quiet aplomb he stood, holding his hands out toward the radio, then softly patting his thighs and walking to where he could see the ocean, framed by two coconut trees. He pulled the picture of his family, which showed his wife in the middle and his girls on either side, out of his pocket. He no longer cared about his Ph.D. in engineering or his tremen-dous success as an auto executive or the fact that he had been handpicked to lead a government production team in the Philippines. He would gladly trade all of that for the freedom to go home. Somehow. Some way. There must be a way. He held the picture at eye level, the clear waters of Cateel Bay framing it. A hot, salty wind blew at his hair and stung a cut on his face. He licked his chapped lips and tasted a salty tear that had strolled along his cheek. He was surrounded, but lonely. The only thing that mattered to him was getting back to his family. He did not care how.
“We’re getting a signal,” Jones said, excitedly. He had reloaded the encryption variable, turned on the power, aimed the antenna, and seen the red light indicate that he was reaching the satellite.
Chuck picked up the black microphone. Looking at his watch, he saw there was only one hour until the helicopters were to arrive. He hoped they would be there.
Chapter 44
Commander Talbosa moved to the front of the column. They had followed the rugged trail blazed by the enemy. He still figured them to be the elite Filipino Scout Rangers. They were certainly the best that he had ever dealt with.
He inspected the two ropes, which dropped over a steep cliff into the Cateel River. He knew the area very well. The Japanese manufacturing plant was nearby, and his men had patrolled the entire area during the rapid construction of the facility. Additionally, he was to link up with Takishi in less than a day in Cateel Bay to fly to Manila and assume control of the entire operation. As it stood, his handheld satellite com-munications had been sufficient to monitor activities that his years of preparation and rehearsal had allowed to occur with precision. There were other insurgent groups, such as the New People’s Army (NPA), that were vying for control, and Talbosa chose to ally with Takishi, keep a low profile, then emerge as the conquering leader with Takishi’s backing.
Still, a part of him simply loved the hunt, and so here he was.
He was close. He could smell them. One chewed tobacco, he knew. At several vacant base camps he’d found bits of smokeless tobacco, decidedly not a Filipino habit. Some Filipinos use smokeless tobacco, but it was more of a — yes — an American habit.
Talbosa thought, kneeling next to the ropes.
Could it be? Good, new ropes. A fresh tin of good smokeless tobacco. Could it be Americans? Could it be Garrett?
Takishi had told him to kill Matt Garrett, but he had seen no indication of the man. Perhaps he was so good that he was never seen. Maybe there was an American or Australian advisor with the Scout Rangers. The sight of blood some fifty meters behind the ropes confused him. Had one of the Rangers been hurt? Was it food they had killed? He was unable to decide.
There were only two places they could have been going, either to the beach or to the top of the mountain. The terrain to the north was much too severe, and he knew they were tired. He had kept them on the run. They would not have rappelled down the ropes if they wanted to go up the mountains. They had followed the stream east, toward the beach.
“Come, men. There is an easy way,” he said. He had one of his men untie the ropes and coil them. The cause needed all of the material it could get. Doubling back and breaking bush for nearly two hundred meters, Talbosa led his men to a path that followed the spine of a ridge down into Cateel City. “We will move along the ridge and find them on either side, waiting for something. They came here with a purpose.”
Pulling off his bush hat, he ran a long-fingered hand through his sweating, greasy hair. Talbosa was tall for a Filipino, nearly six feet. He was a strong man with a probing intellect. In another country, perhaps he would have been a doctor or college professor. But this was his destiny. His people needed him. Three hundred men followed single file as they walked the southern spine of the ridge that led toward Cateel City. Mostly animals used the path to wander down from the rain forest and gain access to the river below.
Talbosa stopped and looked upon the ocean. He was nearly 750 meters above sea level and five kilometers away from the city. Looking skyward, he caught the image of a Philippine eagle silhouetted by the sun, wings spread, casting a large X onto the trail. In its talons, the eagle had a dead monkey it had just captured. Talbosa smiled, watching the “monkey eater” flap, then soar, heading for its nest. To his left was the huge ravine that Ramsey’s team had rappelled. To his right was a dense rain forest. As the trees thinned, the elephant grass took over.