No, the men were reacting to something, most likely the Americans who had cut the fence, which was probably wired with sensors. That triggered the response, and the guards were coming to close up the hole in the wire.
Matt reasoned that if that were truly the case, then they might have remote-viewing cameras and monitors around whatever facility the fence was protecting. That caused him to wonder just what the hell was happening there.
Could it be related to the Predators?
Major Ramsey and Sergeant First Class Benson were scanning the far side of the track as they watched the three Asian military men running at full speed suddenly fall as if shot.
“What the hell was that?” Benson asked.
“Those guys were shot,” Ramsey said. He moved his scope slowly back and forth, seeing nothing.
Their attention was drawn back to Eddie as he dragged the man in the orange jumpsuit twenty-five meters through the scrub brush. As Ramsey’s instincts kicked in, he pulled a roll of tape out of his ruck along with a set of plastic, disposable flexcuffs like those the police use during riots. Quickly, he taped the man’s eyes and mouth shut then tightened the handcuff around his wrists. After surveying the situation, they moved quickly along the route back to the base camp, passing through it and stopping some fifty meters to the other side. Benson dropped off, informing the rest of the team what had occurred and that they had five minutes to prepare to move.
Then they walked for what seemed like hours, emerging from the jungle highlands, walking across a low valley plain and reentering another jungle, this time only steeper. They found their way using their night-vision goggles, but the Filipino and the prisoner had none, and the group could only move as fast as the slowest man could struggle blindly through the jungle. Ramsey was surprised at how little resistance the prisoner gave and had cut the flex cuffs for ease of movement.
As they struggled up the steep face of a rock outcropping, the captive grabbed at a rock with his bound hands, then lost his grip, dragging his fingernails along the face as he fell several meters. SFC Jones watched as the darkened figure let out a muffled scream and tumbled into him, knocking him back and down before he had a chance to move. As he fell, his rucksack protected his body, absorbing the force of the impact on both men. He heard the unpleasant sound of metal scraping on rock and silently swore at the prisoner, hoping the radio had not absorbed the impact of the fall.
The team re-formed and helped the captive to the top of the rocks, where one might expect to find an eagle’s nest, and set up a new patrol base.
They were high above the coastal town of Baganga, some eight kilometers south of Cateel. Ramsey had decided to stop for the night, what little of it remained.
Ramsey knelt next to Benson.
“Hell of a hump we just did, Major,” Benson said.
“You think it was Ron?”
Benson, who was using his knife to cut some thorny vines from his pants, looked at his leader in the moonlit night.
“Had to be somebody. You know anybody else who can shoot like that?”
Chapter 12
Matt had made three precision kills with his silenced weapon, then watched the two Americans disappear to the south into the dense jungle with the young Filipino and their hostage.
So Peterson was not alone.
His position afforded him a view of the action that had unfolded beneath him and an unnatural flattened expanse of land to the east, his left. He was well protected by an assortment of large rocks and tall pines. The climb down the back side of the mountain had been less difficult than the climb up the western slope, yet knowing Peterson’s body was still up there weighed on him emotionally.
He tried to understand what he had just seen. Obviously, there were survivors from the jump, and they had taken captive a jogger. Three Asian men, who he now realized were Japanese soldiers, had quickly responded to the breaching of the metal fence. As he watched, there were about ten soldiers standing at the location from which the man had been abducted.
One man in particular seemed to be in charge. He was in civilian clothes and wore a pearl-handled revolver on his hip, like a cowboy. An old officer’s hat, like MacArthur’s, shielded much of his face, making it difficult to ascertain all of his features, but Matt could see that the man in charge was taller than any of the others.
His information on the Predators had led him to believe that China was developing the unmanned aerial vehicles for clandestine use against the United States or its allies. His mission was to find out whether that was true.
Yet, there he was in some uncharted rain forest of a remote, yet strategically vital, Philippine island, and he was watching Japanese soldiers and businessmen move about what appeared to be an old mine.
Knowing he had no chance of catching the Special Forces team that had bolted into the jungle, Matt eased away from his perch and moved to the north, away from the gaggle at the fence.
As he approached the fence on the northeastern side of the compound, Matt saw that there was a sensor wire running through the chain link and every fifty meters or so there was a solar panel and battery pack that powered each sensor. Matt’s experience told him that some enterprising villagers had probably toyed around with stealing the batteries for their own purposes, so he continued walking along a minor path that mostly paralleled the fence.
Sure enough, when he reached a spot that afforded him a view, albeit darkened, of Cateel Bay, Matt saw that not only was the battery and solar assembly missing, but there was a small tunneled area beneath the fence. Either an animal had burrowed underneath, or an enterprising villager had evaded the sensors in that fashion.
Matt scraped some loose dirt out of the hole, slid his rucksack underneath, then snaked his way under the fence, the barbs of the chain link scratching at him as he burrowed. Soon he was inside.
He grabbed his rucksack and weapon, continuing downhill until he saw the opening.
Kneeling behind a tree, Matt placed his PVS-18 night-vision monocular to his face and scanned the area like a pirate searching for land. He saw the group rounding the corner about seventy-five meters southeast of his position.
He noticed a rail spur that led to a concrete ramp at the mouth of the complex in the mountain. What looked like an old mine shaft actually was some type of extremely well concealed facility. On the rail spur sat five flatbed cars and four armored vehicles or tanks. The Japanese soldiers seemed to have stopped in the middle of driving what looked like a German Leopard tank onto the last railcar, as the mammoth machine was perched precariously half on the last car and half on the ramp. It seemed to Matt that everyone was moving in the direction of the abduction, so he efficiently moved to the line of railcars and observed closely the tanks, committing to memory every detail possible. Six wheels, the two in the middle almost touching, an armored skirt, and what appeared to be a 120mm main gun.
This is the Japanese Type 90 Main Battle Tank.
He heard a sound less than fifty meters away and looked up. He noticed the taller, pearl-handled-revolver aficionado break away from the gathering and begin walking to the east with two armed personnel.
Interesting.
Matt backed toward the fence, stepping past some generators and telescoping lights like one might see at a Little League facility in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa. As he reached the perimeter fence, Matt followed the pearl-handled-revolver man in parallel and watched as they exited a small gate that was well guarded by at least four soldiers. He had moved along the fence about two hundred meters from where he had started. Not wanting to lose time by heading back to where he had initially gained entrance to the compound, Matt retrieved his Leatherman and cut the fence. He pushed out a small section, scooted through it, then pushed the section back in, as if someone had just cut his way into the compound.