The front of the vehicle exploded in a brilliant fireball. The driver, killed in the blast, let go of the Jeep’s steering wheel. Consumed in flames, the Jeep slid off the road and smashed headlong into a tall tree.
“Good shot,” said a woman’s voice from the backseat of the Hummer.
“How’s he doing, Sam?” asked Mitchell to the woman hunched over another body in the backseat of the Hummer.
“Ryan, I’ve got an IV in him. But if he doesn’t get real medical care soon, I’m not sure if he’s going to make it,” answered Sam, the team’s medic. “It looks like he’s been tortured and, if that wasn’t bad enough, he has a bad case of malaria.”
Hired to rescue an Indian businessman being held for ransom in a Burmese hellhole, the mission had, at first, gone well enough. They had been able to whisk him away from a warlord’s poorly guarded camp. However, when Mitchell’s people were on their way to their planned extraction point, they ran headfirst into a patrol of corrupt Burmese soldiers. Within seconds, a firefight broke out, and they had to improvise a completely new escape plan. Now, with time racing against them, they were speeding to their extraction point, a clearing less than five kilometers away.
Mitchell sat back down in his seat, picked up his radio. “Gord, this is Ryan; please tell me things are good to go at the extraction point, over.”
Five kilometers away, Gordon Cardinal lifted his camouflage veil and bit his lip as he looked through his sniper scope at the growing crowd of soldiers and thugs barely one hundred meters away. Keying his throat-mic, Cardinal said, “Sorry, boss, the place is crawling with beaucoup bad guys. I count at least thirty. Looks like they picked our extraction point as a place to get themselves organized before coming after you. I can see two Burmese army officers giving orders to the mob. I recommend you proceed to the alternate extraction point.”
Mitchell looked over his shoulder at Sam; she’d heard the conversation and shook her head. He thought about their predicament for less than a second before he made up his mind. Mitchell spoke into the radio. “Gord, the package won’t last that long. I want you to stir up the hornet’s nest and then get the hell out of there; we’re going with Plan B.”
“Can do,” answered Cardinal.
“Head for the coast, Nate,” said Mitchell to Jackson.
Jackson groaned at the news. However, he knew that Mitchell was right; the businessman needed medical care, and fast. The only problem was that the path to their alternate extraction point was hard to find. At night, driving at over seventy kilometers an hour while wearing NVGs, it would take a miracle to find the right trail.
Jackson drove past a couple of breaks in the jungle before turning the vehicle’s wheel hard over. The Hummer slid off the muddy road and onto a narrow path. A second later, they were speeding down a game path that was barely wide enough for the Hummer. Driving from memory, Jackson knew that the trail they were on came out near a small stream, where Cardinal had stashed a boat for them.
Kilometers away, high in a tree, Cardinal placed his sights on one of the men he had identified as an officer. He slowly took up the slack on his trigger and watched as the man fell to the ground with a hole blasted through his right shoulder.
There was barely a sound as Cardinal’s sniper rifle had a suppressor attached to the end of the barrel.
He waited a couple of seconds and then wounded the first man who went to help his injured comrade. As expected, that put an end to the limited bravery the mob had. Someone panicked and opened fire into the jungle; a second later, the rest of the thugs dove for cover and fired in every direction around them. He had to go. Cardinal quickly climbed down out of the tree and pulled back some foliage, exposing his ride. He jumped onto the back of his motorbike, slung his rifle over his back, flipped his NVGs back down over his eyes, and started his motorcycle. Within seconds, he was racing down the muddy path to meet his comrades.
In the Hummer, Mitchell spoke into his radio, “Yuri, this is Ryan, did you catch my last transmission? We had to scrub our original plan and are proceeding to the coast. ETA two minutes.”
“Da, I got it. Will meet you offshore,” replied a voice with a thick Russian accent.
“Gents, have either one of you ever done one of these extractions before?” Sam asked from the backseat.
“I did once, at Ranger School,” replied Mitchell.
“Yeah, but no one was shooting at you back then,” added Jackson as the jungle gave way to a wide-open beach.
Jackson turned the Hummer sharply to the left and sped off down the deserted beach to their next rendezvous point. A couple of minutes later, through his NVGs, he could see Cardinal near the water’s edge. He brought their stolen vehicle to a sliding halt, turned off the vehicle’s engine and jumped out to help Cardinal.
Cardinal, using a portable air tank, quickly inflated their Zodiac. Its proper title was a Combat Rubber Raiding Craft, but everyone inside and outside of the military called it a Zodiac, after its manufacturer.
Mitchell stood sentry with his rifle cradled in his arms while the Zodiac was readied. He took a quick glance at his watch and swore. It would be light on the horizon in the next half hour.
A plane was waiting across the border in Bangladesh to ferry the businessman back home to India. Mitchell knew that Yuri would have alerted the flight crew to make sure that the doctor they had hired and his team were ready and waiting when they arrived. It was going to be close; too close for his liking.
The instant the outboard motor was placed on the back of the Zodiac, Mitchell dashed over to help Sam move the injured man from the Hummer into the bottom of the boat.
“Okay, let’s go,” said Mitchell firmly to his team. “Sam, you look after Mister Patel. Nate, you’re steering while Cardinal and I keep an eye out.”
As one, all four teammates grabbed hold of the ropes on the side of the all-black Zodiac and dragged it into the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal. Within seconds, they all clambered inside as Jackson turned on the battery-powered, outboard motor.
Heading straight out to sea, Jackson called out, “Ryan, where exactly are we heading?”
“Just aim due west and try not to dump us all into the drink,” replied Mitchell as the Zodiac raced out into the dark. It skimmed over the top of the water at over thirty kilometers an hour.
Mitchell heard his radio squawk. Placing it close to his ear, he heard Yuri telling him that he would be in position to pick them up in the next five minutes. He was about to pass on the good news, when he spotted a large patrol boat emerge from a river, turn in their direction and begin to pick up speed.
They had been spotted.
“Yuri, pick up the pace. We’ve got company,” said Mitchell into the radio, before tapping Cardinal on the shoulder and pointing to the patrol boat moving to intercept them. Mitchell identified the craft as an old Patrol Boat, River, long phased out of U.S. service; it was still in use all around the world. He knew that the fifty-year-old boat could easily outrun and outgun them without even trying.
“Nate, give us all you’ve got!” yelled Mitchell.
Jackson looked back and saw the patrol boat cutting through the waves as it sped towards them. “Hang on,” he called out as he gunned the outboard motor.
Leaping forward, the Zodiac quickly picked up speed. Water spray flew over the front of the boat, soaking Mitchell and Cardinal.
Suddenly, out of the dark, 50 caliber tracers streaked past the front of Zodiac. For every tracer round the team saw, there were four bullets they never did.