It was over in a matter of seconds. All of the guards were dead. But it had been noisy. Too noisy.
“What happened?” Hunter asked Chloe.
“The soldiers knew that their comrades didn’t send us,” she answered in a slightly frightened voice. “They told us they had no use for women.”
“No use for women?” Hunter said. “You mean they were—”
“Eunuchs,” Claudia said. “Apparently most of the lowly guards here are.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Hunter said. “Just like in the old days … ”
Suddenly a shot rang out, followed by the sound of an explosion. Hunter, the Aussies, and the girls were out of the guardhouse in a second, making their way down the road to the main group. Sir Neil and Dundee were there to meet them.
“We’re going to have company very soon,” Sir Neil said, pointing back toward the town. Hunter could see he was right. A convoy of trucks was making its way up the pass towards the weapons facility. An American-built Bradley Fighting Vehicle — a kind of half-tank, half-personnel carrier — was leading the way.
As they watched, its weapons officer was pumping out mortar rounds in their direction.
“Let’s go!” Hunter yelled as the shells started to crash down around them. The strike force troopers needed no further prodding. The small band took off through the brush and out into the open fields.
Chapter 20
They ran into more trouble right away. Another enemy force, this one containing foot soldiers plus some trucks, was making its way toward them from the north. If Hunter didn’t act quickly, the strike force would be cut off from both sides and squeezed by the advancing Sardinians.
Hunter had no choice — he had to call for the choppers. The strike force made its way down into a gulley and found an abandoned farmhouse and barn. The enemy approaching from the town had momentarily lost sight of them, but began lobbing mortar rounds into the gulley nevertheless. The foot soldiers looked like they were heading to link up with the column. Then they all would search the small valley together. Hunter figured the strike force had about twenty minutes tops to be evacuated by the frigate copters.
The Aussie troopers formed a defense perimeter around the farmhouse, while the Spanish rocket teams readjusted their warheads for use against the ground troops. Chloe and Claudia took refuge inside the farmhouse while Hunter and Sir Neil helped with the defense preparations outside.
Hunter sent a one-word message to the chopper pilots which he knew would bring them into the general area. Then he would be forced to send up two flares — the predetermined signal for trouble — and hope the chopper pilots would think quickly and come in for the rescue.
Five tense minutes passed. Mortar shells were landing nearby, but the strike force held its fire so as not to give away its position.
Using one of the Aussie troops’ nightscopes, Hunter could see the two Sardinian forces had linked up about three-quarters of a mile away and now were slowly starting to descend into the small valley, a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in the lead.
That’s when he heard the choppers approaching …
He quickly informed Sir Neil.
“Let’s get the ladies out first, Hunter,” the Englishman said. “I hope we’ll be able to hold them off for long enough.”
Hunter knew it was going to be close. Already the sound of the six rescue choppers was beginning to fill the air. Trouble was, the Sardinians heard them too. Within seconds, the night sky was filled with tracer bullets, all directed toward the approaching helicopters.
It was now or never. Hunter took out his flare gun and let two rockets fly. This marked their hiding place for both the choppers and the enemy troops, now a half-mile away.
The mortar shells started dropping closer to the farmhouse. The Aussies opened up on the approaching Sardinians, while the Spanish rocketmen fired on the lead Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Their first shot glanced off the front of the vehicle and careened into a group of soldiers unlucky enough to be nearby. The converted Stinger missile exploded, killing many of the soldiers.
Now the firefight was going at full fury. The Sardinians looked like expert terrain fighters. They were crawling through the underbrush, and some were soon only a quarter-mile from the Aussies’ defense line. At the same time, other enemy troops were firing at the approaching helicopters. The gunners on the air ships were now also returning the fire.
“Boy,” Hunter said to himself as he added his M-16 to the fray. “Did this idea get screwed up!”
The first chopper came down right in the front yard of the farmhouse. Hunter and Sir Neil hustled the two women out and literally threw them on to the chopper. Three of Dundee’s men who had been wounded went next along with their stretcher-bearers. Then Dundee sent aboard another six men and gave the pilot the lift-off signal. The big British helicopter belched a large cloud of black smoke and then roared off, amidst a shower of tracer bullets.
Thus the rescue began. The withering fire from the Aussies, the pinpoint accuracy of the Spanish Rocketeers, plus the fire from the chopper gunners held off the enemy long enough for four more choppers to come in and pick up troops.
Soon there were only Hunter, Sir Neil, and a squad of Spanish rocketmen on the ground. The plan was for them to go out on the last chopper.
But this sixth helicopter was going nowhere. Even before it touched down, a mortar round came crashing down right into its main rotor blade, blowing it off. The chopper yawed to its left, then came down hard right onto the abandoned farmhouse. Hunter and Sir Neil just barely ducked away from the scythe-like chopper blade as it spun over ahead, clipped a tree right off at its roots, and proceeded to chop up some Sardinian troops who had been crawling down in back of the strike force’s position.
Hunter ran into the burning farmhouse and yanked the injured chopper pilot out of the burning machine. The gunner was dead. Sir Neil was beside Hunter to help, and together they managed to carry the pilot to safety before the entire house went up.
Now, with no means of escape by air and a wounded person on their hands, Hunter had to think quick.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Hunter said to Sir Neil, who had already rigged up a makeshift stretcher for the wounded pilot. Hunter told the Spanish rocketeers to send a barrage right into the enemy positions, then get prepared to fall back. With one great whoosh! the Spaniards let fly six rockets in unison, splattering the road and enemy vehicles with flame and causing the enemy infantry to take cover.
Given the moment of diversion, Hunter, Sir Neil, and the six Spaniards took off into the bush, carrying the wounded pilot. The entire farmhouse, barn, and surrounding area was now a mass of flame and the enemy troops were still lobbing mortar shells and tracers into the conflagration. Despite the delay of having to carry the stretcher, the tiny band successfully melted away into the hedgerows at the end of the valley and into the farm country beyond.
Chapter 21
They hid out on the island for the next day and night, moving only in darkness, hoping for a chance to signal one of the frigate helicopters that they knew would be looking for them. However, the Sardinian army troops kept on their tail the whole time, obviously under orders to capture the raiders dead or alive.
The wounded pilot was now at least conscious, although his legs were pretty banged up. In addition, Hunter and the band had no provisions, no gear, no medicine. Hunter knew that by sunup the second day they would have to find some kind of transport if they were to finally shake their pursuers and get up into the hills of Sardinia in the north.
The next morning, they got lucky, or so Hunter thought. Reconnoitering from a small hill, he spotted an enemy truck parked near the side of the road. The crew was bundled up in sleeping bags and sprawled on the road’s shoulder. Hunter guessed it was either some kind of long-range patrol, or perhaps a construction squad that traveled around the island checking on things such as radio lines. No matter. Whatever the case, the crew looked to be lightly armed and the truck was obviously in working order.