The Worth of Souls Page 12

  LaMonde went back in a round-about way to Bee and reported that they were waiting to take them to the location. Bee turned to Spoke and asked if this was what had been agreed upon. Spoke nodded in the affirmative.

  Bee signaled to the ground SEALS that they were to move in. Each knew the plan, but it still required extreme caution.

  The SEALS were not in friendly territory. No one would breathe easy until the operation was successful. The two SEALS in the over-watch positions waited for Bee to signal them. Then they moved to join the trucks. Once aboard, the trucks departed. As they moved out, a third truck approached the meeting site. It was for the Cambodian soldiers remaining at the site. Soon it caught up forming a convoy of sorts.

  The three trucks drove noisily through the early morning streets. There was little notice which confirmed that it appeared very much a part of the day to day activities in the capital city.

  The trucks continued in a circuitous direction avoiding the rapidly filling streets of the downtown areas. Shopping bazaars with braziers smoking filled the air with the combination of burning charcoal, woks, spices and the ever present burning oil fumes, vehicle exhaust and diesel fuel smoke. Even though it was not yet 0800, it looked like noon. People were already milling about bartering and buying supplies as well as eating and talking loudly. To the uninitiated, there was no war. It was a day like any other.

  The trucks approached another warehouse area. They slowed down and the Colonel motioned for the trucks to stop in the next block. Bee jumped out and met the Colonel. Directions were exchanged and the Colonel motioned for the third truck to approach. He then climbed up on the cab’s step and directed the driver to proceed to the next block. Here the truck waited with its engine idling.

  The Cambodian Colonel looked at Bee. “Where is gold?”

  “Gold is safe. You get one bar now. Remainder on our departure.”

  Bee carefully placed the small bar in his hand. A wry smile creased the corner of the Colonel’s mouth.

  Bee silently motioned for the first two trucks to empty out. The SEALS each moved to their previously assigned locations. Four of the men had over-watch with M-14 rifles. The remaining 11 SEALS and Spoke headed for the next block to the entrance of the building. Bee motioned for two men to head to the back door to block any escape. The remaining 9 men followed him to the garage door.

  The breaching team tested the door to see if it was unlocked and would easily open. Once it was confirmed to be locked, they placed C-4 explosives on both sides of the doors. Inserting detonators they quickly moved away.

  The resulting explosion blew the two sections of door off their hinges and sent wood splinters flying. The rapid movement of SEALS into the building through the demolished door demonstrated a well-practiced skill-set; building breaching. The men moved past the parked truck that blocked entry into the remainder of the interior. Because it formed a potential choke point, care would be needed on EXFIL.

  Once past the truck, they observed several closed and presumably locked doors leading to interior rooms. The first room yielded nothing except straw ticks on the floor and the strong scent of liquid cleaner, probably a disinfectant. The next door, however yielded six girls and a woman who started swinging a large machete-like knife. A shot rang out. The lady spun around falling back into one of the bunk beds with the knife bouncing harmlessly on the floor. The girls screamed.

  Bee quickly addressed the girls as calmly as he could telling them that they were there to rescue them. He asked where the rest of the girls were. The girls stared open-mouthed and quiet. Finally the girl called Julie Sue said they did not know. They were divided a couple of days ago and they did not get to see them any more.

  Across the corridor, Spoke shouted that they must be in the building somewhere because there was another room just like the one Bee entered. Bee secured the room and told them to wait with two of the SEALS. He would be right back. He started across the corridor. A shot rang out followed by the sound of the bullet ricocheting off the floor and walls. Again the girls screamed. The two SEALS motioned for the girls to get down and be as quiet as possible.

  Once again, automatic gunfire filled the hallway. Bee ducked into the room and pushed Spoke in with the remaining SEALS. His right arm stung badly, but the adrenaline flowed and kept him focused and on task. Spoke immediately saw the tear in the sleeve of Bee’s right shoulder. Blood spread rapidly from the wound. Spoke pulled him in and motioned to BM2 Williams to address the wound.

  Senior Chief LaMonde moved quickly behind Spoke to back him up. He did not want to crowd the Intelligence Officer thus forcing him into possible hostile fire from the end of the corridor. Still he wanted to do what he’d been trained for; face fire and beat back opposition.

  Spoke felt the Senior Chief move up behind him. Instead of moving out of the door, he raised his suppressed MAC-10. He felt the carrying strap pull hard on his back and neck. He leaned it quickly into the corridor and sprayed a burst. There was no response. It seemed strange to hear the sound of rounds fired from his suppressed weapon which while not silent, were considerably lower in decibels than the previous rifle fire.

  BM2 Williams pressed a field dressing on Bee’s upper arm. Senior Chief LaMonde assessed the situation quickly and motioned for the other 4 men and Spoke who were uninjured to prepare to move, following him into the corridor.

  The six men moved. A grenade would have been extremely convenient, however not knowing where the other hostages were, made that option moot. The only way this would happen would be if they found the girls and could guarantee their safety.

  They had been pinned down for what seemed like an eternity but in reality was only a few moments. When they heard no response to Spoke’s burst of fire, they moved out and down the corridor, weapons ready and senses tuned for anything that might be harmful or deadly.

  Two shotgun blasts were heard ahead and to the right. Suddenly there was a flurry of movement away from the hallway. People were headed somewhere else in the building. It appeared that the SEAL rear guard responded to weapon fire forcing their way into the building. The result was mayhem which forced the focus away from the hallway.

  The six men leaped into the hall and the Senior Chief fired several rounds down the hall to draw fire. None came. Spoke and BM2 Williams moved with Bee sandwiched between them.

  The next two doors they came to were ajar. Throwing the door open, the interior looked like a bathroom of sorts.

  The opposite door had three women and a man. All were armed. There were no other occupants immediately visible. On the far side of the room was a single door leading to yet another room, and to their right was a mirrored window. Senior Chief immediately recognized it as a one-way mirror. He fired a burst of four rounds high into it and the mirrored window exploded. Movement in the room indicated that it had been occupied, but no one could tell how many there were or if they had been hit.

  The lone man in the dining room was a skinny, scurvy looking wretch. He had a cook’s apron on and a horrid, toothless, cold-blooded look in his eyes and on his face. He started to scream a curse, but fell to three M-16 bullets that spun him like a child’s top. The three women also screamed and one was able to get off two rounds from an AK-47 before being slammed by three more rounds of M-16 fire. The remaining two women threw down their weapons and fell on their knees. The matronly one pointed at the door saying something in Cambodian.

  Senior Chief LaMonde moved to the door while two of the SEALS addressed the kneeling women. Senior Chief kicked just below the door knob. The door jam splintered and the door flew back. Expecting more automatic gunfire, he pulled back and when none came, sprang into the room.

  There, six young ladies screamed their fear. No one was in the room but them. Senior Chief quickly asked if they spoke English. The terrified children were frozen and at first could not respond. The oldest quickly seemed to come back from her stupor and nodded that they could.

  Two more shotgun blasts registered farther into the bu
ilding followed by several fearful shouts. Then all was quiet except for the whimpering and crying of the girls.

  Two more SEALS came into the room where the mirrored glass had been. They motioned that they had detained a couple of men attempting to flee from the back of the warehouse. The two men appeared to be dressed in much finer clothes than those in the dining room. It appeared that the team now had at least some level of the purveyors responsible for the disgusting and ugly human trafficking ring; at least buyers. Perhaps they would yield others involved.

  Spoke disgustedly regarded the two and shook his head. What leads such men to commit the horrors to children that these two did?

  The two women and two men were led at gunpoint out of the room and into the corridor by the SEALS. Here they were blindfolded and their hands tied behind their backs. Next they were marched past the choke point and to the blasted in door at the street. Blindfolds were needed to minimize attempts to flee. No one said a word.

  Chapter 14

  Extraction and Touchdown

  The SEALS assembled the 12 girls in the dining area. Spent shell casings were everywhere along with the pungent smell of burned gunpowder and heated oil from the weapons. The American combatants made sure each of the children had clothing and foot coverings. Several of the Mylar coverings they were going to use as clothing were placed over the dead. Hopefully this would spare the girls any more trauma than they had already experienced. The three women who had surrendered were brought into the room also and prepared for transport out.

  Spoke took over for BM2 Williams and acted as the corpsman. He addressed Bee’s arm which continued to bleed, but was showing signs of slowing down. Since it was not spurting, Spoke knew that the best thing was firm compression. Compression seemed to be working. Still the blood-soaked bandage was seeping. His training required him to add another compression bandage over the existing bandage. This he did and elicited a squirm of pain from the SEAL Team commander.

  RM2 Doering, one of the SEALS, went to have one of the Cambodian military trucks brought back to transport the entire group to safety. The gaping hole that had been the door to the warehouse and imprisonment site now offered quick unhindered evacuation. All 15 SEALS, Spoke, the 12 girls and 4 adult prisoners moved quickly to occupy one of the large trucks.

  The girls were stacked into the nose of the truck bed. It didn’t matter that they were cramped and held on to each other. They were going home. Finally, this nightmare would end.

  The over-watch SEALS came down from the adjacent roofs and climbed in last. Next stop was just outside of town where a large open area would accommodate an Air Force HH-53C Super Jolly Green Giant helicopter. This helo had been extremely successful recovering everything from downed pilots to Special Operations Teams. It had a bullet-resistant floor and would generously accommodate all of the passengers and the gear used by the SEALS.

  Overhead four U.S. Air Force F-4 Phantoms circled to deter any response from hostiles. This CAP hopefully meant that no one was stupid enough to impede the extraction.

  Coded radio call signs were exchanged once the trucks departed the warehouse. This placed the last part of the extraction into action. Now it was the Air Force that had the ball.

  The truck rounded the last curve and headed for the appointed rendezvous location. Everything had played out exactly as planned. All, that is, except Bee taking a round through his arm. Bee yelled over the noise of the helo that the rest of the gold was in his right breast pocket. Spoke was to give it to the Cambodian Colonel and thank him.

  Spoke continued to tie the field compression bandages on Bee’s arm. One of the on-board Air Force medics moved over and started an I.V. with a sterile sugar-water called D5W. This would help him from going further into shock and would help replace fluids he’d lost with the blood loss. The bleeding had almost stopped.

  Naturally, Bee refused any pain killing drugs. He preferred to stay clear-headed. He was sure that Sandy would meet them wherever the helo landed. If not, he would see her at the hospital in Saigon.

  The giant aircraft crossed the Mekong River and headed for Saigon. The extremely valuable cargo was going to make it back. Families would be contacted by the State Department and told the good news. Prisoners would be taken to holding cells and questioned. Whether they would receive punishment was not the concern of the SEALS. Their assignment would be over after the debrief.

  The noise of the helicopter was extremely loud. Most of the girls put their hands on their ear protection headsets to drown out the noise. Normally there would have been enough noise-protecting head gear to help them. These users were small enough that the head sets would not fit properly and flopped down.

  Spoke and Senior Chief LaMonde motioned for the girls to put their hands over their ear protection and force it into their heads. This only lasted for a few minutes before they were too tired to continue. Fortunately, the girls were young and hopefully their hearing would not be impacted by the noisy ride. At least this would be something that could be addressed by doctors at home.

  The HH-53 landed outside the U.S. Military Hospital in a lawn area adjacent to the building. Signs of U.S. military withdrawal were everywhere. Even the hospital was being surrendered. Where there used to be many cars and people around the hospital buildings, there now were only a few. Still a cadre of American medical personnel ushered the girls and wounded SEAL quickly into the building.

  They were moved smoothly and efficiently down a hallway and into a ward. Curtains were drawn around the SEAL and the girls were helped into a room where a doctor and nurse waited to give them a thorough examination. The big difference in the girls’ minds was these people looked and acted like real doctors and nurses.

  Spoke watched from half way down the hallway. He was dirty and smelled of field action. He had blood on his clothes. A hand brushed his arm and he half turned to see Sandy looking down the hallway too. She had tears tracking down her very cute face. Her mascara was a mess making her appearance almost comical. Spoke was smarter than to say anything.

  She looked up at him and her eyes pleaded what her mouth was trying to say.

  “How bad is it?”

  “He’ll make it just fine. He was hit by a stray bullet in the arm. Looks like it hit a vein. He’s lost a lot of blood, but other than that, he’s fine. You know Bee, he’s too stubborn not to come back to you.,” Spoke smiled.

  “I’m going to pull rank and go see him,” Sandy intoned with a determination that said watch out and just try and stop me. Sandy was actually a nurse assigned to the burn and trauma unit now located in the smaller adjacent building. Because everything was scaled back to adjust to the American withdrawal, all of the American Doctors and nurses here knew her well. She had chosen not to be transferred, choosing instead to remain near Bee.

  Sandy started down the hall in such a determined manner that no one tried to stop her. She turned into the room and headed immediately for the curtained off bed. She looked in and rushed to his side.

  Her arms wrapped around her warrior and hugged him tightly. He tried to pull back telling her he was so dirty and needed a shower. She laughed through her tears. She said she’d be back with a basin and solve that problem.

  Bee, ever the consummate warrior, tried not to let on he was glad she was there. His emotions got the best of him and he whispered coarsely that he loved her. She pulled him more firmly to her.

  Finally, one of the nurses tapped her on the shoulder and smiling said that if she didn’t let him go for at least a few minutes, the blood he was getting would be squished out and they would have to start again.

  Tears streaked Sandy’s face and she stood. She kept her eyes on him and kept repeating her love for him. He smiled weakly and nodded off to sleep. Unbeknownst to him the doctor had ordered a sedative to be added along with a tetanus shot. Then, like it or not, he was to get a morphine shot. He was asleep and never argued.

  Sandy smiled and moved out into the hall. Spoke walked up to her and asked how he
was doing. She told him what the doctor and nurses said. The team all crowded in to hear. Her voice was thin and weak, but she articulated a thank you to all of them. She grabbed Spoke’s hand and thanked him with a peck on his cheek.

  The team slugged him in the arm and teased him about the show of emotion. They said they would be letting the boss know of another stallion in the paddock.

  Spoke just smiled and headed over with the other team members for their debrief.

  Chapter 15

  INTERPOL Headquarters, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

  Hsu Feng Jyan, Special Agent for INTERPOL, looked up from his desk as Kao Myan Cho walked in. “Did you get my message?” Myan asked. It was a typical Monday morning. Like Monday mornings everywhere, it had the usual confusion and need to refocus.

  “What message?” Fang, as he was known to both his American friends as well as most of his fellow INTERPOL agents, asked almost absentmindedly. Myan wasn’t known for his accuracy or the usual promptness turning information into results unless it benefited him or concerned his own cases. He was a junior inspector and every one of his partners had said the same thing in the past. Fang likewise felt Myan was not the sharpest tool in the shed.

  “And what did the message say?” Fang asked not believing Myan. His opinion of the junior inspector was growing less by the second.

  “A telephone call from a Lieutenant Marks. He left his number on the message.”

  Fang stopped short. “Who took the message?”

  “I did,” Myan mumbled. Now where did he put that message? He knew if he screwed up Fang’s message, he was in worse shape than he was now. He bent over and sure enough, there it was. It had fallen on the floor under his desk. Sheepishly he picked it up and handed it to Fang. Fang just looked at him. It was important that he allow face to be saved, but Myan needed to know he had screwed up – again.