Rather than warn his comrades coming up behind him, the man bent over and pulled at the wire as he followed it to a thick clump of foliage twenty-five meters from the trail. He got down on all fours and pushed a leafy branch aside to look directly into Kamigami’s big brown eyes. Before the man could shout a warning, Kamigami’s left hand flashed out as he jammed the point of his knife into the man’s Adam’s apple. He thrust hard, twisting at the same time, and cut the man’s vocal cords. The man instinctively jerked backward as Kamigami reached for his shirt to drag him under the bush. He missed. “Damn,” Kamigami mumbled. He scrambled backward out of his hiding place while the wounded soldier crawled toward the path, all the time making a gurgling sound like a perking coffeepot.
The man had almost reached the trail when Kamigami got to him. Kamigami bent over, placed one hand on the back of the man’s head, grabbed his chin with the other, and made a hard pull-push jerking motion. The soldier heard the sharp crack of his own neck snapping. The gurgling sound stopped.
Kamigami grabbed the man’s shirt and pulled him away from the trail, reaching the low foliage just as the main column came into view. The first two men missed it, but the third man in line saw a pair of feet disappearing under a bush and shouted a warning. Two things happened; most of the column retreated back down the trail, while the first five men took cover and unleashed a hail of fire. The distinctive chattering bark of their Type 56 submachine guns echoed over the clearing. The Type 56 was a knockoff of the Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle and put out the same heavy rate of fire. The soldiers, all believers in the tactical principle of concentration of fire, sprayed the vegetation above Kamigami, burying him in debris.
That’s when he detonated the two remaining claymores in his string.
Officially the claymore is described as an antipersonnel mine with 700 steel spheres embedded in a plastic matrix. That’s the part of the mine that says “Front Toward Enemy.” Behind that is a layer of C-4 explosive that sends the steel balls and fragments into a killing zone that is 2 meters high and spread over a 60-degree arc out to 50 meters. Beyond that is a danger area that spreads over a 180-degree fan and out to 250 meters. Even the area directly behind the claymore is highly dangerous, and a secondary missile area extends to 100 meters behind the mine.
The five men hosing down the area with their Type 56 submachine guns were simply outvoted by the claymores and shredded. Kamigami was well inside the secondary missile area behind the mine and pressed his body into the shallow depression he had scooped out underneath the foliage. He felt a hot, searing pain across his left buttock as a ricocheting steel fragment cut into his flesh. A cloud of debris and dust rained down on him. The silence was deafening. “I’m getting too old for this,” Kamigami groused aloud as he dug himself out. He came to his feet and quickly donned the web harness with his fighting load, shouldered two bandoliers with extra magazines and grenades, and checked his MP5. In less than twenty seconds he was moving through the jungle and headed for the first string of mines a kilometer down the trail.
Although Kamigami knew the numbers, he never hesitated. For him it was a matter of tradecraft and experience against twenty-two half-trained and poorly led young men. He blew a long blast on his whistle to give them a motivational boost. Then he really put on some speed, figuring that at least two or three of the men would react correctly and home in on the sound. Six minutes later he found the location he was looking for.
He paused at the edge of the small jungle clearing. The grass was thick and even, almost chest high. Perfect, he thought. He listened. Nothing. He sensed a gentle breeze blowing in his face and sniffed the area. Still nothing. Then he heard movement deep in the jungle behind him. Do I have enough time? He didn’t know, but it was worth a chance. He ran across the clearing in a zigzag pattern, getting to the far side in seconds. He quickly cut a long, thin tree branch and sectioned it into fourths, each two feet long. He retraced his steps across the clearing. He planted two sticks in the grass as far back as he could reach without leaving the trail he had made. The sticks were about eight feet apart and parallel to the path. Then he stretched a trip wire between them and tied a grenade to the base of one of the sticks. He carefully extracted the safety pin and used one end of the trip wire to hold the safety lever in place. It was a delicate operation, and even a strong gust of wind could move the grass enough to set off the grenade. He moved another ten meters and rigged a similar trap on the other side of the trail. Now he could hear definite movement in the jungle. He quickly moved to the near side of the clearing where the sound was coming from, and took cover.
He didn’t have to wait long before a shadow in the trees materialized into a single soldier. The soldier glanced directly at the spot where Kamigami was hiding, but didn’t see him. Take the bait, Kamigami mentally urged. The man moved cautiously onto the path Kamigami had cut through the grass. The soldier paused, surveyed the clearing, and motioned his comrades to follow. Two men followed him into the clearing. Kamigami’s eyes drew into narrow slits as he watched their backs. When they reached the booby traps, he raised his MP5 and squeezed off a short burst. The bullets struck the last soldier in the back and blew out large chunks of his chest. The two men in front of him dove off the trail. A few seconds later Kamigami was rewarded with the sound of two grenades going off. A high-pitched scream cut the air.
Kamigami worked his way around the clearing as the screams tapered off to a loud moan. He heard the man pleading for help. You got to be smart in this business, and you weren’t smart, Kamigami rationalized. Then he relented and walked back into the clearing. He found the man still alive, curled up on the ground and holding his intestines in. The wounded man looked up, pleading for help.
Kamigami’s face softened. He hesitated, drew his Beretta, and shot him in the head. It was the best he could do for him. Eight down, nineteen to go, he thought.
The sharp echo of three claymores washed over him. Tel! Nothing made sense. He had driven the men back down the trail, away from Tel’s ambush. Now Tel’s claymores had detonated. Had the soldiers reversed course and stumbled into Tel’s killing zone? Or had they captured Tel and set off the claymores? A vision of Tel staked out in front of his own claymores as they exploded flashed in Kamigami’s mind. He headed for the sound of the explosion. But this time he moved slowly and with caution.
He heard it first — the sound of swarming insects. Then he caught the faint scent of blood that cut through the smell of decay and rotting vegetation that marked the Malay jungle. As quickly as it came, the scent was gone. But Kamigami knew he was in the presence of death. He moved through the underbrush without a sound until he could see the area where he had left Tel. The vegetation was chopped and torn, spattered with human remains — the work of claymores properly sited and detonated. He moved through the death and destruction, getting a body count and looking for Tel. Eighteen.