Chapter 64

Chuck

The area we were searching was a dense northwest forest. That meant primarily pine, with a few deciduous trees and a lot of underbrush. When the teams left the staging area and began fanning out, it seemed we were making a horrendous amount of noise. Within seconds, but almost instantly, everyone found their stealth mode and the forest was quiet except for the rustle of some brush as the many men walked deeper into the wooded area.

Our team was walking toward the last GPS coordinates where the intruders had been seen in order to pick up their trail. Before we had gone a mile, we found evidence of a large contingent of people moving through the woods without making any effort to conceal their travel.

The terrain became rockier, with deep gorges that the trail followed around until they could be crossed. We were very aware of our surroundings, constantly looking for any peripheral signs of guards or movement. We saw a couple of deer and I think we saw a large black bear, but the animals ignored us as we were not making noise.

At the location of the last sighting, we radioed that we had the trail and the direction it was taking. The going was slow and our movement was made more difficult as we were remaining quiet and not disturbing our surroundings.

Night was closing in on us and we had traveled less than ten miles. John radioed the other team leaders to see whether they wanted to continue for another hour, and the consensus was to continue.

As night comes to heavily wooded areas, different sounds come alive. You hear the singing of bat wings, the hooting of owls, and the rapid movement of night mammals. Each of the scurrying critters caused us to pause to identify the noise before taking the next step.

Finally, when it was almost totally dark and without the benefit of a bright moon, John called a halt to the teams. He directed that each team put out two guards and to relieve them every two hours. That would give everyone an equal amount of sleep.

We were sitting in some light brush next to a stream. We scooped some water to make some coffee in our instant heat bottles. Lisa was leaning over the stream getting water when she reached out and scooped something from the water that had been floating downstream. Lisa brought what she found up to hold in her light and looked at it. She turned to John, "They are close. This isn't wet on both sides."

John took a paper matchbook from Lisa and looked at it while turning it over in his hands. He said, "They have to be really close. We need to put out more guards and perhaps consider an upstream night search."

John radioed the other teams restating our GPS position telling the teams that our object would be upstream from where we were. I know every man on our team was looking at his map, trying to see what terrain was upstream from us.

Nightfox said, "I want to take a look farther upstream. The next team is about three miles northwest of us, and that's the way the stream travels. If the matchbook had been in the water for those three miles, it would, in all likelihood, have bounced against obstructions and become wet. Our object has to be close, very dangerously close."

John said, "Okay, but you have to take a partner. Pick one or take Chuck, he should be good for your backside."

Sam smiled at me, "He moves out here a lot better than I would have expected. Okay, we'll search upstream, but we're going to move off the stream a little in case the objective is right next to it."

John said, "Eat something before you go. Chuck, you won't need any of your weapons except your personal rifle. We'll watch your special stuff."

Lisa leaned over to me and said, "Hold that matchbook and see if you can feel their presence. They have to be close and you should be able to feel them. You have even more ability than Mercy, try to feel them."

While I ate a cold MRE and had a small cup of coffee, I thought hard about our adversary while holding the matchbook. I did feel something, but it was cold and hateful. The feelings I was getting made me shiver from the intensity of the anger and bitterness within the feelings. Funny though, as I was feeling those feelings, it was almost like a compass magnet. I turned to the direction the waves of raw emotions were coming from. I looked at Lisa and said, "They are close, in that direction. I do feel them and they are not nice people."

Nightfox had been observing me and said, "Let's go find them. We'll move off the stream about a hundred meters and see where they are."

John was getting the other men to settle down and rest while Sam and I left to search in the dark.

We quietly moved through the heavy brush. When we were adjusted to the night, we put our night vision headsets on and waited until we adjusted to them. When we proceeded, it was slow and deliberate. We constantly were watching for any foreign light and listening for human sounds.

There it was; a flare of light, bright enough that it temporarily blinded Nightfox and me. The two of us were on the ground peering through the brush, watching to identify who and how many. We watched and counted three red dots about three hundred meters from us. This was close, really close to our camp. I was surprised they didn't know we were here.

Nightfox leaned close and said, "I want to get right up on them so I can hear what they say. I need to see if the whole contingent is in the same place or whether this is just a remote group."

I nodded and said, "I'll be right behind you. I'll remain to your left at all times so you know where not to fire."

He nodded as he began to stealthily move in the direction of the red dots of burning cigarette ends. About the time we had moved to within fifty meters of the men, they had extinguished their cigarettes and were sitting on some logs in front of a large opening in the mountain. They were talking normally, loud enough for their voices to carry to us.

We heard, "What do you think all of those helicopters were about that we heard earlier?"

"Probably just the National Guard or a bunch of Reserves out on maneuvers. They kept heading farther east, it's nothing to worry about."

Another voice said, "We're leaving tomorrow night, anyway. We'll meet up with the buses the next morning and be in our target areas by that night."

"I'm glad we are done doing all that hiking. Carrying all those backpacks is hard work. We'll soon be in Mexico enjoying the beaches and reading about our work."

"Ha, ha, ha, no one suspects anything, and this will surprise all of the assholes that disrespect us. While the infidels watch for us in New York City, we will be giving them a show of our disgust on the other coast. It will take them days to even begin to track us. By then, we will be gone while they are still weeping over their losses. Praise Allah."

"We still have to get between here and San Francisco."

"No one will suspect a couple of tour buses of old folks."

"I'm going to get another bucket of water. I want some more coffee."

"Don't drink too much. You'll be trying to sleep in a few minutes. It's almost midnight, time to change the guard. I'll go wake the next four."

We watched as one of the guards walked into the huge opening and disappeared. There was a flash of light as if he had opened a door or curtain when he entered.

The other guard who had gotten the water went through the curtain with the bucket of water, probably to put it on a fire.

Nightfox motioned for us to move back and turned to move in the direction we had come. We knew that we had flattened out a lot of brush and attempted to lift it so our presence wouldn't be so obvious.

When we were a couple of hundred meters away, Nightfox said, "We can't be sure, but it's probable that the entire group is in that cave. Did you see how the flash of light displayed? I think they have a tarp over the opening."

I said, "Yeah, I saw that. We need to tell John so we can gather our troops to this location. Tell you what; I will set up an observation point about a hundred fifty meters out and watch. You go back to John and tell him. You bring relief back. I think we should have two men on observation at all times. We need to know if they go out from their camp to look around."

Nightfox said, "You're right. I'll be back in an hour. Don't get too close. I'll advise you by radio when I'm right here. You can come get your relief and show them your observation point."

Nightfox left, going back toward our camp, and I moved up the hill to get a view of the front of the cave. Once I was in place, I could see they had trampled down all the vegetation around the cave entrance and for about a hundred feet out. The area had a lot of trees so it wouldn't be visible from the air or satellite. It's amazing these men had walked about seventy miles through the terrain they did. They were very determined.

I watched as four new guards came out, and in the beginning, they stood at the periphery of the trampled down area, then they slowly migrated back to the logs that had been sat on by the other men. I was too far away to hear them clearly, but I could hear them say some louder words and their sinister laughs.

I focused on the men sitting together to see if I could listen in to their thoughts. My head was flooded with grisly thoughts and scenes in the men's heads. I kept seeing the huge Bay Bridge going to Oakland falling into the bay. I saw the Golden Gate Bridge collapsing along with another bridge to the north that must be the John T. Knox Freeway. This would paralyze traffic in and around San Franciso. Then I saw an enormous explosion at a ball park near the water close to downtown San Francisco. That must be AT&T park where the San Francisco Giants play. The men were laughing and joking with each other, each wanting to be the one who pushed the button. They kept saying "Praise Allah," but I didn't think Allah was listening.

When Sam's voice came through my ear bud, I almost jumped enough to make noise but I caught myself and moved back to our meeting spot. I brought the three to my spot and they agreed this should be a good place, as there was good cover and wasn't in any direction of travel the men we were observing would go.

I said, "I think they have a latrine out to the right of the cave mouth. Each of the guys has gone that way and they were adjusting their clothes when they came back."

The two men nodded and assumed their positions. Nightfox and I left, quietly moving through the darkness as we made our way back to camp.

John met us as we stepped within the area of resting men. John said, "I've notified all of the teams and they will be moving into the area in the morning. I'm going to rest awhile, until the morning shift for the observers then go reconnoiter the area so we can make a plan. You two lie down a while as I'm going to want you with me."

When I lay down, Lisa reached over and patted my hand. My head was filled with her soft voice telling me to relax to rest. I mentally said to her, "I love you." For that I received a hand squeeze.

Laying in the dark, trying to rest, my mind was filled with the thoughts of those men I had been watching. I must have linked with them some way as their thoughts were still with me. Soon, they were changing guards and the noise of their thinking quieted as they lay down. I did get a glimpse of the inside of the cave though. It was huge. One side had all of the back packs stacked up together while the rest of the men were in rows on the other wall. I could see a large fire box that must have had an overhead vent somewhere.

Seeing through someone else's eyes was weirding me out. Lisa leaned over and said, "Close your mind. You are wide open. You don't need to let Mercy see what you are seeing right now. Rest! Sleep!"

I did drift off to sleep, but it seemed that John was shaking me to get up only seconds later. John told Lisa, "You are on guard here. I have to take Nightfox and Chuck with me while we change guards. Listen for me as I should be able to begin directing our teams into place."

Nightfox and I stuffed another MRE and drank enough water to hold us. We both went off into the brush to do our morning business, covering our leavings so no one would ever know we were there.

Five of us went through the woods, trying to take a little different route so we wouldn't trample the brush and show a trail. We relieved the two guards and they returned to the base camp while John looked over the entrance to the cave. The two observers reported the only thing that had happened through the night was guards changing every two hours, and someone sometimes would come out of the cave and go into the brush then come back, probably to go the latrine.

John said, "We need to circle this hill and see if we can spot the vent they must have for the smoke from an inside fire. Since no other guards were changed overnight, they must not have any peripheral guards out. We should be able to move all of our manpower up near them before we take them down."

We moved back toward our camp, but John had Nightfox and me scout the area over the cave and farther up the mountainside. Sam and I moved about four hundred meters out and climbed the hill. When we were up to where we had a view down to where the mouth of the cave was, the forest was so dense that we couldn't see the edge of the cliff where the cave was. We cautiously moved down the hill until we smelled wood smoke. We moved slower until we saw pale smoke rising from the vent. By the time the smoke from dried wood made it to through the canopy, it had dissipated and couldn't be seen from a distance.

We went to the other side of the curvature of the cave opening to see if we could see anything. We did see an area that was dug up that they were using for a latrine. We quietly moved back the way we came to keep from being observed until we were able to move back toward our camp.

While we were scouting, our ear buds were busy with the radio traffic of John directing teams toward the objective. Some were coming from the opposite side of the stream and some were descending on the cave opening from the opposite direction from where we were.

I was drinking a cup of coffee when my mind was flooded with a lot of excited chatter from someone I had listened to the night before. He was telling someone he thought he saw movement in the woods out from the side of the cave. A voice was saying, "You six, get your rifles and search in that direction. Look for signs of anyone being around. The rest of you arm yourselves and get your backpacks on so we can move out early if we have to."

I went to John and said, "Radio our men and tell them to move back. I think someone has been spotted."

John looked at me warily but radioed the observers to move back a couple of hundred meters, but to leave their area pristine. That would be more difficult as our men had been there for several hours. They would use leaves and pine needles to cover the area. That's why a good observation point is usually rock or a tree, where you don't wear down an area.

John asked me, "And how do you know this. Are you clairvoyant?"

"You know me, John. If I get a feeling, I act on it. This is just a feeling."

He said, "It's time for us to move up anyway. We'll take our positions and get ready for the take down. You need to carry your fifty and have someone carry your 308 for you. If we get to that point, I'll observe for you."

Lisa said, "Give me your scope, John. I've trained as a spotter. I can do it for Chuck. I'll carry the scope and the 308. I'll be his jeep."

John chuckled, but handed her the small field spotting scope. She attached it to her vest belt and shook to make sure it didn't make noise.

That was the first time I really looked at Lisa dressed in her field gear. She looked like any soldier, except we weren't wearing helmets. Everyone was wearing either ball caps or slouch hats. She had a ball cap on and you noticed how short her hair really was because it didn't stick out on the sides.

Lisa wasn't that big, but she looked a little bulky with her protective vest under her fatigue blouse and field vest. Seeing her shoulder her pack and sling the 308 case over her shoulder made me think that she had learned her training well, as she looked fairly balanced. When her hands dropped to her side, her right hand was even with the Kbar strapped to her leg. Yep, she was a soldier, or at least was dressed and acting like one. Somehow, I felt comfortable with her in that getup. Who would have thought I would be traveling with the person I felt intended to, dressed the way we were.

Lisa draped her personal collapsible MP5 over her head so the rifle was at the ready in front of her and looked up at me. I was ready too, with the fifty on one shoulder.

The team moved out, leaving where we had camped undisturbed. The grasses we had lay on were brushed up so they would spring upright in the morning dew and sun.

I was listening to the voices of the men I had listened to the night before and they were not nearly as excited as they were before. Another voice said that the perimeter had been thoroughly checked and no one was around. Another voice said, "Perhaps we should prepare and leave early. We can sleep a night in the forest before the buses pick us up. Let us prepare to leave."

Going up to John, I said, "I have a feeling the group is about to leave early from their position. If we are going to capture them in the mountains, we have to do it now or we'll be trying to contain them in the heavy brush."

John looked at me warily again, but began directing teams to begin closing into toward the mouth of the cave. John said, "I think we need to set off those explosives inside that cave. The mountain can contain the blast, but if it happens outside, who knows what the force of the blast will be like."

I said, "You know there won't be anyone left to question don't you?"

"Oh yeah, there will be," John said, with an evil grin. "You and Nightfox are going to get me a couple. Take two other men and get me a couple of guards. Do it quickly so they won't be noticed. If you're right and they are getting ready to move, they will busy inside for a little while."

Nightfox had heard John and picked two men to come with us. We stripped our extra weapons and field vests to lighten our movements. We didn't even take our rifles. This was a sneak and grab.

We decided to close on the guards from three directions so we could down them quickly before they could alert anyone. Hopefully, no one would come out of the cave while we were taking them down. Each of us pulled off a piece of duct tape, putting it on our pant leg and put some personnel tie-wraps in our belts.

At Sam's signal, we spread out and approached the guards as they huddled, sitting facing away from the forest toward the cave mouth. The last ten feet were the worst. It was wide open and I was sure that the men would see us.