"We lost Ramirez!" cried Beasley, his words nearly drowned out by the chopper off their port side, the gunner there now dead, the pilot wheeling off hard to the right.
SEAL Chief Tanner lay on his belly near the last cluster of trees before the long, sandy beach washing out behind them. Phillips was at his side.
The six sailors from the Chinese patrol boat who had launched in the Zodiac must have either spotted them or decided that the infiltrators had used the spit for their exfiltration, because all six of them, armed with pistols and rifles, had come ashore and were combing the forest.
Tanner imagined what must be on their minds. They had just witnessed the destruction of their beloved patrol boat. They had watched their comrades die. Their hearts were hard and aching for revenge.
And damn, Tanner wished he didn't have to confront them, but he and Phillips had no choice. Tanner had thought that they could don their Draegers and simply hide in the waves while these men searched the spit, but if Mitchell was going to double back and bring the fishing boat around to the east side of the spit to pick them up and take them past the gap (well beyond their own swimming capabilities), then these Chinese sailors needed to die here and now; otherwise Mitchell would have yet another firefight on his hands.
Of course, given the radio transmissions Tanner had been monitoring, there was a good chance that Mitchell and his Ghosts would not make it, stranding the two SEALs.
At that point, the best Tanner could hope for was to kill the Chinese sailors, don their gear, and swim out till they ran out of oxygen.
Higher's insistence that nothing be left behind to indicate this was an American operation worked in their favor. However, Captain Gummerson would still ultimately decide whether a security breach was worth risking his crew and his multimillion-dollar submarine.
Phillips lifted his chin, then gave Tanner a hand signaclass="underline" movement ahead.
Tanner tensed as two Chinese sailors eased forward, not a meter apart, just three trees away.
Tanner gave Phillips another hand signal.
Phillips nodded slowly and raised his pistol.
Taking in a long breath and holding it, Tanner rolled away from his tree, aimed at the sailor on the left, and fired.
"Jenkins, turn around!" screamed Mitchell. "We're going back for Ramirez."
Even as Jenkins rolled the wheel, throwing all of them to the rail, Beasley and Smith shifted their fire to the smoking chopper, whose pilot was still trying to regain control.
Suddenly, a new trail of smoke unfurled from the chopper's tail rotor, and a fire appeared there as Beasley and Smith whooped and reloaded.
"Get him!" cried Mitchell as they came back toward Ramirez.
Jenkins released the wheel, turning it over to Mitchell, then dove into the water as Mitchell killed the throttle.
Meanwhile, the now-burning chopper began spinning and wobbling away from the boat, and Hume cursed that he didn't have a rocket to finish her off. But it didn't matter. The chopper rolled hard onto its side, the main rotor now perpendicular to the water as Mitchell brought the fishing boat around once more, trying to slow up near Jenkins and Ramirez.
The chopper's rotors began slicing into the water, and it suddenly turned once more as it made impact, the rotors snapping like twigs, the cabin slapping hard, waves of white water cascading up around the craft.
"Got that one, sir!" shouted Smith.
At the same time, the remaining chopper and its single gunner came back around for another pass, and that pilot had all the time in the world to get his gunner on target. Now their searchlight swept up, across Mitchell's wake, and found the two men in the water.
"Jenkins, come on!" cried Mitchell.
THIRTY-FOUR
The moment the second sailor collapsed with a bullet lodged in his head, SEAL Chief Tanner and his partner wove back through the woods, heading west to circle around and come in from behind the remaining men.
Tanner and Phillips now held their pistols in one hand, their SOG SEAL knives in the other, the seven-inch blades powder-coated to conceal glare.
They darted to the edge of a slight clearing and crouched in the brush.
Just ahead, one sailor shouted to another, giving up his position — his last mistake.
With their predator's instincts finely tuned on the forest ahead, Tanner and Phillips moved in for the kill.
Diaz sat cross-legged on the deck and propped one elbow on the gunwale, sighting the oncoming chopper pilot. He roared down at a forty-five-degree angle, lining up on their stern and interrogating them with his searchlight.
Mitchell hollered as the rotor wash finally hit the boat, whipping up a mist that, in the next few seconds, would ruin Diaz's shot.
The chopper's gunner opened fire, and it was Brown who, despite his head injury, held a steady bead on the bird with his light machine gun. He quickly adjusted fire, and the gunner slumped after firing a salvo that stitched across the deck, missing Diaz by an arm's length.
Brown glanced back at her. "You're clear, Alicia! Take him out!"
It was the least she could do for the man she had almost killed.
Diaz froze and tuned out every noise, jostle, and vibration of the boat. She ignored the cuts, stiff joints, and bruises, and even the searchlight's pulsating glare.
Carlos and Tomas were strangely silent, as though she'd finally convinced them that she was their equal. Oh, that was hardly the case, but maybe they, too, were wondering in rigid silence if she could really pull this off.
Her crosshairs lined up, and just like that, she took a shot, squeezing off a second before thinking about it.
Both rounds punched through the canopy and struck the pilot in the chest and shoulder, respectively, blood darkening the side window as the man fell back, then slumped forward.
To her left, Beasley and Mitchell hauled a bleeding Ramirez back into the boat, and Jenkins climbed aboard himself while the chopper continued to descend.
"Oh my God," Diaz whispered, lowering her rifle as the enemy bird pitched even more, engine and slicing rotors blaring, speed increasing.
The deafening noise stole everyone's attention, Diaz knew, and it was Mitchell who vocalized their thoughts: "It's going to hit! Everybody out of the boat!"
Tanner had holstered his pistol when he'd realized he'd had the perfect kill. He called, "Over here," in Mandarin and got the sailor to turn around and come toward him. As the young man passed the tree behind which Tanner huddled, Tanner came around, covered the kid's mouth with one hand while punching his blade into the man's aorta.
The sailor would not die instantly, Tanner knew, so he'd kept his hand over the guy's mouth and withdrew the blade. He drove the sailor forward and came down with a second strike to the spinal cord.
That finished him.
Tanner carefully lowered the body to the ground and stood upright to catch his breath and wipe off the blade on his thigh.
Phillips, who'd slipped off to their right to take out the dead man's partner, called to say his guy was down, but his transmission broke off at the sound of gunfire.
"Phillips?"
He didn't answer. A hollow pang seized Tanner's gut. He cursed and bolted toward his partner's position.