Part 30 (2/2)
* 247 *
”G.o.d, all I was trying to do was keep up.” Jamie swung her legs out of the hammock and leaned toward Lynn, two small pills resting atop the scar in the middle of her extended palm. ”Take these, okay? They'll make it easier to sleep.”
”Yes, all right.” Lynn washed them down with a long swig of water from her hydropack and relaxed into her hammock.
Next to Lynn, Jamie relaxed, too. The wind and rain howled outside the cave, and occasionally a light spray whirled into its depths and cooled their faces.
Sleep came for Jamie softly, gently. She snugged toward it, knowing that for a few hours, until her turn on watch, she'd be able to truly rest.
”Jamie?” Lynn's voice lilted toward her from far, far away.
”Mmm?”
”What happened to your hands?”
”Mmm...can't...'mem...”
* 248 *
Chapter tWenty-nine.
this is a GiFt Lieutenant Sherman's vehement objections didn't change Jamie's mind. ”We're staying put so everyone has a chance to rest.”
Everyone except Jamie and two others, who donned pa.s.sive-identifier cammies and ventured into the storm to hook up with the diversion team and its escorts, Vargas and Tibay.
”Why do you have to go?” Lynn asked as Jamie put on the cammies.
”I know the paths better than anyone else.”
”Christ, Jamie, you need rest, too. Why not just wait here for them? They'll find us, won't they?”
North Carolina came to the rescue. ”We have to reel in our guys today, ma'am. Ay-sap. But don't worry. It shouldn't take long. And since LT might have to use splinter-noise commo to make contact, this way any splinters the enemy picks up are far enough away from here that they'll be misdirected.”
Lynn didn't give up her frown, but she acquiesced with a small dip of her head.
By early afternoon, Jamie had returned with Vargas, Tibay, and the diversion team. As best anyone could tell, they hadn't been spotted, hadn't been tracked.
A day later-on the twenty-first of June-they used the remains of the retreating typhoon as cover and made it to another cave where Rhys had stashed supplies. This cave west of Mount Landargun would be their last. They had reached the pickup point. Here they found * 249 *
additional MREs and a couple more comlinks as well as another sniper rifle, two squad automatic weapons, and a trove of ammunition.
”Ooh-rah! SAWs!” Sherman rooted as he picked up one of the squad automatic weapons. About thirty seconds later, he began lobbying for a SAW nest with himself manning it. As he talked too fast, too loud, Jamie scowled at him on principle.
But she agreed with the idea and had already mapped out how the escapees would execute their part of the pickup plan. Her goal was to get everybody out before any weapons needed to be fired, although the odds of pulling it off weren't good.
Now that the weather had cleared, the enemy searched for them in force. Soon after they took shelter in this last cave, the mountains around them reverberated with the nearly continuous thumping of enemy helicopter rotors-not just small, two-crew attack helos, but also at least one older MI-19 support aircraft capable of carrying thirty people.
Ops center detected nothing, of course. The PIA and their helos had long since been stealthed up. But the sounds suggested PIA fighters were being ferried into the mountains south of them-close and moving north, coming closer-some as close as six or seven klicks away.
Jamie deployed s.h.i.+fts of marines outside the northeast-facing cave in a perimeter extending to the craggy ridge just above it. At least they wouldn't be taken by surprise, and so could choose whether or not to be taken alive.
The pickup, which would begin just before dawn, couldn't come soon enough. All thirty-one prisoners from Saint Eh Mo's listened diligently to Jamie's description of the plan.
”Ladies and gentleman, ops center has given us a new name. We are Prancer, and the spot where we will climb aboard a Shark helicopter tomorrow morning has been named Prancer X-Ray. It's a clearing about two hundred meters north of here. At zero-five-hundred, we begin our move to Prancer X-Ray.”
Their Shark helo would be escorted and covered by two Barracuda attack helos. While they boarded the Shark, the enemy would be distracted and diverted by a small team of marines-dubbed Rubyfish-which would helo-drop onto a plateau about five hundred meters southwest of the ridge that loomed over the cave entrance.
* 250 *
Supported by two other Barracudas, Rubyfish would intercept any PIA approaching from the south and then move north over the ridge to Prancer X-Ray for a second, later pickup.
Jamie called out eleven names, the eleven strongest people she had, and took them aside. ”To get everyone to the Prancer X-Ray pickup site, we need three overwatch teams. Prancer-Dog One will overwatch the Prancer X-Ray clearing. That'll be three people. I want six people on Prancer-Dog Two to maintain a mobile perimeter during our move from the cave to Prancer X-Ray. And I'm asking for two volunteers for Prancer-Dog Three. You'll be overwatching from the high point on the ridge above the cave, and you may have to stay and extract later with Rubyfish.”
Four people volunteered for Prancer-Dog Three. Jamie chose Vargas and Tibay. She didn't mention to them or anyone else what she worried about most, what she'd tried most to change about the pickup plan: The number of helos. Four Barracudas wouldn't be nearly enough unless they got very lucky. However, for reasons that were beyond Lieutenant Gwynmorgan's need-to-know, four would be all they'd get.
v ”Ready?”
After gearing up on the other side of the cave with the people in the overwatch teams, Jamie had checked on everyone except Lynn. She saved Lynn for last.
At the sound of Jamie's voice, Lynn looked up and gaped. A long moment pa.s.sed before she said anything. ”Do you really need-” Lynn stopped her words, but her eyes kept going, from the sniper rifle cradled in Jamie's arm to the a.s.sault rifle slung across Jamie's back to the vest laden with ammunition stacks. Clutching her hydropack, Lynn blinked.
”Uh...” Her voice jittered. ”Have you got water, Jamie?”
”Oh yeah.” Jamie patted the two containers attached to her vest.
She pulled off her boonie hat and her eyewraps and gazed intently at Lynn, but the words she'd wanted to say got stuck somewhere and she said nothing.
Lynn's eyes filled with tears.
* 251 *
”No,” Jamie said, words now flowing, ”don't, don't. You'll be fine, Lynn. North Carolina will be with you every step of the way. Just do what she tells you and you'll be safe, you'll be home real soon.”
”But you- you-”
Jamie reached for Lynn's forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze.
”Oh, don't you worry about me,” she said, smiling, allowing herself one last look at Lynn Hillinger.
So she'd remember. This is a gift. Getting these people out, getting Lynn out-it's a payment on what I owe. If I can just make it work...
”You ready, Senator?”
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