“Hold back! Hold back!” yelled Lieutenant Young. “We’re sending the planes in for another run. Sit tight.”
Cowboy relaxed as the piper in his targeting screen settled on the knot of rebel soldiers in the lead. He pressed the trigger on the stick, pickling two bombs, then pulled the plane upward, rising above the target area quickly and preparing to circle back for another run. He glanced right, looking for the infrared image of the cluster bombs he’d dropped exploding, but he was moving too fast and was already beyond the explosions.
“Good hits,” said Lieutenant Young over the radio. “Basher, stand off.”
“Roger that,” said Greenstreet. His voice was weak.
“One, you good?” asked Cowboy.
The flight leader didn’t answer. Cowboy saw his F-35 flying above and to his left, about two miles away. He began climbing, aiming to get closer to his commander and make sure he was OK.
“Yeah, I’m all right,” said Greenstreet finally. He sounded anything but.
“Sick?”
“Ughhh…”
“Why don’t you go back, Colonel? We’re done here. These guys are just going to mop up. I can handle it.”
“Roger.”
The answer came so quickly that Cowboy knew Greenstreet must be really sick. He altered course slightly, widening his orbit as Basher One angled away.
“Nothing left to do but sing,” said Cowboy, humming a song from Drowning Pool as he radioed the ground for a sitrep.
The first man came through the brush, pushing a large clump of brush away as he ducked onto the road. Turk studied him in his scope, waiting until the rebel turned toward him so he had a broad, easy target. Finger against the trigger, Turk squeezed so gently that it seemed to take forever before the mechanism released the hammer and set the charge.
But then everything went quick: three rounds sped through the barrel, slicing through the man’s chest. A misshapen rose bloomed in Turk’s viewfinder, and the man folded into the ground.
“Three more, left,” said one of the Marines on his right.
The last word was nearly drowned out by gunfire as the others started to fire. The edge of the jungle was suddenly full of rebels. Turk zeroed in on one, only to see him fall before he could squeeze the trigger. He moved his scope right, toward the road; a half-dozen rebels were crouched, trying to return fire. All were down before Turk could aim.
Suddenly there was a loud yell behind him, then a whoop that made Turk think of the battle cries Indians made in old westerns. Captain Deris leapt forward and started to run down the embankment toward the road and the rebel position. In a flash his men rose to follow. The Marines hesitated for a moment, and then they, too, began running.
The battle was over by the time they reached the road. Fourteen rebels lay dead or dying; another two found severely wounded in the high grass on the southern side. Turk used the infrared on his glasses to search the area and found four rebels huddled about 150 yards west in the jungle. They were the only survivors of the rebel force that had attacked the base earlier in the day.
“Are they dead or alive?” asked the Marine captain.
“Alive, but maybe wounded,” said Turk. “They’re not moving much.”
“We’ll take the Malaysians up there and see if we can get them to surrender,” said the Marine commander. “Maybe we’ll get some intel.”
“Yeah, good idea.”
The bombs and cluster bombs had made a mess of the rebel camp, and even Danny wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he reached it.
Body parts hung from shattered trees; severed torsos littered the ground. The area stank of burnt flesh. One of the bombs had hit an underground spring, and water was seeping everywhere, filling the wide crater made by a five hundred pounder.
Danny’s boots squished in the bloody mud. The water made it seem as if the earth itself were bleeding.
Seeing that the area was secure and there were no more rebels in the immediate vicinity, the Marines lit flares for illumination. The light was fickle, as if not even Heaven wanted to look at the destruction.
“We’re never going to know how many are dead,” said Lieutenant Young, coming over to Danny as he surveyed the scene. “Pretty damn brutal.”
“Yeah,” agreed Danny.
“Bunch of assholes,” said Young bitterly. “Who the hell do they think they’re fighting against? Look at them — no armor, shitty Chinese weapons. That kid’s what, fifteen?”
Danny glanced at the face. A thick shadow fell across the bottom half, obscuring his cheeks and mouth, but the eyes were clear, large and shiny with reflected light.
“Yeah,” admitted Danny. “Sixteen at most.”
“What a fucking waste,” said the Marine officer bitterly. “What the hell are they even fighting for? Islam? Like God wants them to kill each other. Shit. Idiots.”
Young detailed four men to “organize the remains,” as he put it. The looks on their faces made it clear they would have welcomed any other order in the world, but it was a necessary job; no support units were going to roll in and sweep up. With Sergeant Intan’s help, they chose a dry bomb crater and began moving the dead to it. The burial was intended to be temporary; the Marine command would formally notify the Malaysian government, which would then decide how to repatriate the remains with their families.
In theory, anyway, Danny suspected that the government would not put a high priority on the job.
He checked in with Turk, who told him that South Force had completed the ambush, vanquishing the rebels.
“There are four guys alive in the jungle,” Turk added. “They’re surrendering. They may have intel on the UAV.”
“OK, good.” It was unlikely they had real information about the UAV, but they might have details about how the forces coordinated with it and possibly who worked with the rebels. There was scant data on the rebel group to begin with, and any information might be helpful.
“Pretty brutal over here,” Danny added as two men passed with a body.
“Yeah,” said Turk. “Here, too. That’s what they get.”
While Danny certainly understood Turk’s comment — in a way it was little different than the Marine commander’s — he was surprised by it. It was out of character, particularly coldhearted for the pilot.
Fallout from Iran, Danny thought.
With the area now completely secure, the Marines not assigned to provide security pitched in to help move and organize the remains. It was a grim, silent task, performed as much as possible with eyes closed.
Danny watched as one of the Marines picked up a trenching tool and began shoveling dirt into the hole. Two more shovels, the small portable ones carried as gear, were located and the dead began to be covered. Walking away from the grave, Danny saw Mofitt resting on his haunches. He had his head in his hands.
“You OK, Corporal?” he asked.
Mofitt looked up. “I’ve seen shit, but this is bad.”
“Yeah,” agreed Danny.
Mofitt shook his head. “They would have done the same to us.”
“They tried to. With the mortars.”
“True. Mothers.”
“You OK?”
“I’m fine,” said the corporal, continuing to stare. “Tired, but fine.”
8
Ray Rubeo sat in his office for hours, his mind blank, shaken by the discovery that the DNA key in the UAVs belonged to Jennifer Gleason.