“But, General.” The colonel ran his hand through his thinning hair. “If those unidentified jets are US Navy F-18s, our fighters would be at a severe disadvantage.”
The colonel was right. Suparman knew it in his gut. Indonesian fighters against American jets-if that’s what they were-would be a suicide mission.
This had to be an American operation. Radar down over the city. Helicopters and troops hitting the palace. Unidentified fighter jets roaring overhead. Classic American military tactics.
This was his first crisis as leader. He had to act quickly and decisively. But he had to be smart.
“Okay, get our planes up for observation, but stay out of the area. Get mobile antiaircraft batteries around the palace to challenge any unidentified aircraft approaching or leaving the palace.”
“That will take at least thirty minutes, sir.”
“Get on it!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Colonel?”
“Yes, General.”
“One other thing.”
“Yes, General?”
“Order execution of phase one of Operation Decapitate. Now. We must strike even before the deadline. America will pay for what it has done.”
“Yes, sir!”
Merdeka Palace
7:39 p.m.
Zack, follow me,” Captain Noble said. They stepped into a hallway behind the reception area of the medical clinic. The first door to the right was an examination room. “Cover,” Captain Noble ordered. Two SEALs brought their Uzis into firing position.
The captain pushed the door open. A flat examination table was in the middle of the room. On it a sheet covered the form of what appeared to be a body.
Time froze. Zack’s stomach rushed to his throat. Jesus, don’t let it be her.
The captain grabbed the top of the sheet. Zack looked away as the captain pulled the sheet back.
Captain Noble said, “It’s President Santos.”
Zack exhaled and looked up. The president’s black eyes were frozen open. His mouth cavity was so wide you could put an apple in it. This was a body whose last emotion had been one of great fear.
Thank God it wasn’t Diane.
Captain Noble whipped out a camera and snapped several shots, lighting the room with the brilliant flash, and burning an image of the president’s stony, dead face into Zack’s head. “Let’s move,” Noble said.
They quick-stepped into the hallway, turned right, and then stopped at the next examination room.
Same drill. “Cover,” Noble said. Uzis drawn in firing position. Noble kicked the door open.
Two female nurses, crying, shaking, stood at the head and foot of another examination table, their hands up in the air. A patient was on the examination table. Plastic tubing, IV lines, were running to his arms.
“It’s the ambassador!” the captain said. “He’s conscious. Rodriguez. Jones. In here! Bring a stretcher! You all right, sir?”
The ambassador rolled his eyes toward Zack, managing an unintelligible grunt.
Rodriguez and Jones burst through the door, carrying one of the two portable, lightweight stretchers that each team had brought from the chopper.
“Get him up top. Take him to Tomahawk 1. Take Branson and Paulus up with you. On the double!”
“Aye, sir!”
“Whatever the IVs are, keep them in his arm.”
“Aye, Skipper.”
Zack lifted the IV bag off the chrome tree, as Rodriguez and Jones quickly lifted the ambassador under his shoulders and by his feet, setting him down on the stretcher on the floor. Zack placed the two IV bags on the stretcher just under the ambassador’s arm.
“Got it,” Rodriguez said.
“All right, guys, move!”
They lifted the stretcher with the ambassador off the floor, and moved him out of the room.
“We gotta hurry,” the captain said. “They’ll have reinforcements storming this place.”
They stepped into the hallway again and turned right. They approached a third room. “Cover!” With Uzis drawn, Noble pushed the door open.
Zack felt his heart drop to the floor.
“Nothing.”
Antiaircraft Battery Four
Bogor, Indonesia (thirty miles south of Jakarta)
7:40 p.m.
The duty officer was just tasting his first bite of cendol, the popular Indonesian dessert consisting of shaved ice, coconut milk, palm sugar, and green food coloring, when the phone rang.
The officer cursed, then barked an answer as he picked up the receiver. “Lieutenant Ortiz.”
He swallowed the cold dessert and sat up straight at the news coming over the telephone.
“What? Unidentified enemy helicopters? Merdeka Palace?”
Hearing those words, several other officers in the barracks put down their playing cards and leaned in toward Ortiz.
“Yes, sir…I understand…You want a battery of handheld stinger antiaircraft missiles deployed immediately…yes, sir…Shoot down any choppers flying from the direction of Jakarta…Yes, sir.” He nodded at the other officers, whose eyes were glued on him. “We’re moving out now.”
Merdeka Palace
7:41 p.m.
Okay, keep moving,” Captain Noble snapped. The armed SEAL team moved down toward the end of the hallway. Only two more examination rooms.
Zack’s mind raced. If they didn’t find Diane here, they probably wouldn’t find her.
“Cover!” The SEALs again drew their machine guns to firing position. Captain Noble kicked open another door. “Nothing! Check the last one!” The armed team moved further down the hallway.
If she’s not here, I’m not leaving. They can leave me. I’m staying ’til I find her.
“Cover!” Drawn submachine guns. A swift boot on another door. “We got something!”
Two Indonesian guards were standing with their hands over their heads. “Get their guns.” Two SEALs rushed to the guards, taking their pistols.
Zack’s eyes fell to the corner of the room. The sight would forever be burned into his mind. The stretcher was pushed against the wall, and on it, Diane lay on her side, forced almost into the shape of a human “S.” A white rag tightly gagged her mouth, and her legs were bound by a thick rope by her ankles. Her white uniform skirt was riding just a bit above the knee, and her hands were tied behind her back. At that moment, a visceral instinct overtook Zack. He wanted to kill!
“Cut her loose, Zack!”
Zack whipped the stainless-steel combat knife from his belt.
“Hang on, Diane. We’re getting you out of here.” He slipped the blade through the cloth that was gagging her mouth.
“Zack? Is that you?” She exhaled and coughed.
“Think I’d leave you in here?” he said. “Never. Now give me your wrists.”
Very carefully to avoid slicing her wrists, Zack slid the knife through the ropes that bound her.
“Hold still.” He bent over to the floor, sliced through the rope and freed her legs. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. A little bruised.”
“Can you walk, Commander?” Captain Noble asked.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Just having a little trouble seeing in the dark.”
“We had to cut the lights. Zack, here’s an extra set of night goggles. Help her out?”
“Aye, Captain.” Zack slipped the night goggles over Diane’s eyes.
“You look great in black, Zack.”
“Okay, let’s get to the choppers!”
They moved swiftly out of the clinic area, and back into the dark hallway. There were six of them now. The remaining squad from the SEAL team, plus Diane.
They jogged down the hallway back toward the stairway leading to the roof. The crisscrossing flashlight beams were gone. As they reached the stairwell leading to the roof, the roaring sound of helicopter engines thundered down the stairwell and into the hallway. They turned right in a single-file column and ascended the stairway.
They reached the roof. Chopper 1 had already lifted off with the ambassador.
SEALs were stationed around the other two choppers in a perimeter, their guns positioned outward.
“Perimeter is secure, Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Garcia shouted. “Choppers ready for takeoff!”