Rick Hunter apart.
The SEAL chief, off balance, trying to hang on to the rock face, tried desperately to draw his pistol, struggling to get a bullet away, in any direction, just to slow the raging beast down.
But it was too late. For the dog, that is. Captain Doug Jarvis blew it away with his standard issue CAR-15, the bullets smashing into its head. And as he did so, the other two came charging up the stony hill, and Dougy felt obliged to treat all dogs equally. 'Fucking things,' he muttered. 'Anyway, I always preferred Labradors.'
However, the machine-gun fire that had wiped out the dog pack had attracted everyone, and now the three Argentinian troopers were racing after the dogs, light machine guns held before them.
Back in the crevasse, Don Smith had heard the gunfire but could not make out who was alive and who wasn't. But he could see the pursuing Argentinians, and he opened up with a withering burst from the big M60 machine gun, cutting all three down on these cold remote southern mountains of their homeland.
Dallas never missed a beat. He could see the chopper still revved up on the ground with just the pilot remaining inside. He ran toward it from the blind side, right on the pilot's seven o'clock…200 yards…150 yards…100 yards…he still kept running…only eighty feet now…
And he hurled his grenade, underarm, hard, low and straight, a real frozen rope, clean through the open door. And he heard it smack into the instrument panel, breaking glass. A split second later it exploded with a massive echoing roar around the valley, obliterating both helicopter and driver. 'I shoulda played for the Braves,' he muttered. 'This stuff is getting fucking crazy.'
The question was, where was the first helicopter, which seemed to have gone? Commander Hunter had no idea, but he thought it might be making another search line out to the right.
'Anyway,' he told the troops, 'if our luck holds, the damned thing will return to base, and they might not work out the other one's…er…crashed, at least for an hour or so, by when it'll be just about dark…we better put a few miles between us and this burning wreck…then we'll stop and eat and get the communications fired up…I don't think the Args will conduct a rescue operation until it's light.'
And so they pushed on, weary now, taking turns carrying the gun and the satellite system through the valley, then climbing some more, up through the snowy passes. For leadership at these heights Rick handed over to the unerring instincts of the mountain man, SAS Captain Jarvis, a man who could follow the contours of the slopes and peaks, picking his way through the lower gaps, trying to restrict their climbing, staying east where the escarpments were less formidable, going for the Atlantic end of the giant Lake Fagnano.
By 1930 the GPS was telling them they had covered fifty-four miles in eighteen hours, a superhuman feat of endurance and stamina through this kind of terrain. And right now they were enjoying two real slices of luck. One, it had been an unusually mild autumn, with snow not so bad as it might have been, even up here; and two, the Args seemed to have gone home for the night.
Thus Rick Hunter's tired band of warriors found a dry spot under the lee of a rocky hill, unpacked their rucksacks, lit the Primus, and fired up the communications system. Mike Hook had sent their message away in a fast satellite burst while they were waiting for Commander Hunter on the airfield, and now he was recording a new one.
This would give their current GPS position—54.30S, 67.25W.
Chief Hook projected the signal into space, praying it would reach Coronado off the satellite. Which it did, and the ops room immediately signaled the ops room at the Chilean naval base at Puerto Williams, right on the south shore of the Beagle Channel, eleven miles away from the rescue point. Parked right here was one F/A-18F Boeing Super Hornet strike bomber, primed with its AIM-9 can't-miss guided missiles, heavily loaded 20mm Vulcan cannon, and prepared for takeoff at a moment's notice.
The pilot, Lt. Commander Alan Ross, wore the sinister patch of VFA-151
That Hornet 18F was all that stood between the SEAL team and certain death. Because even graduates from Coronado could not fight an entire country's national defense system, not if that country was determined to hunt you down on its own territory.
And no one was more concerned than Commander Rick Hunter that after traveling so far, he and his team were still on Argentinian soil.
Nonetheless, they cooked the last of their food, baked beans, ham, three steaks sealed in foil. They finished the bread with the rest of the cheese, drew straws for first watch and camped out for five hours, after which they would once more head south, through the light shallow snow that, at this medium level, barely covered any part of the mountains.
Sleep came easily, and the watch keepers found it hard to stay awake. But the danger up here was minimal, and they were all rested when Chief Bland summoned them back to duty. He had already made coffee, and with some reluctance they crawled out of their sleeping bags, in the dark, and began to pack, pulling on their boots. Dallas found a couple of packs of ginger cookies he had been hoarding, and they shared these before picking up the machine gun and the radio and setting off south over relatively flat ground, with Dallas out in the lead. Still munching boldly.
They had five hours marching through the darkness, and much of it was surprisingly easy going, because the ground began to slope downward as the mountain began its long dip down to the channel. The first fifteen miles went by before they could see the dawn breaking, way out to the left. And as it did so each man began to feel the tension of impending attack.
Because, as Commander Hunter told them, 'There are two possibilities for us. The Args either believe they lost us, and that Puma simply crashed into the mountain. Or they have found out that it did not crash, and that we probably hit it.'
At this point Lt. Banfield lapsed into deep Mississippi. 'In the first case, our worries are over and we're just gonna be walking in t-a-a-a-ll cotton. In the latter case, them boys gonna come lookin'.'
Dallas and Doug Jarvis chuckled, even though they knew it wasn't funny. And they pulled down their hats and kept going, and no one said anything as they tried to walk home across this freezing territory right down here at the end of the Western world.
Two miles farther on, the mountain seemed to come to an end. In front of them was a long green downward slope, still thick grass, with some copses of trees, and a broad area of woodland at the bottom. Beyond that, out by the horizon, maybe seven miles from where they stood, was the thin, shiny ribbon of the Beagle Channel. Except that it would not be thin when they arrived there. Five miles never looks all that thin, even across water.
'Well, this bit should be pretty easy,' said Brian Harrison. But the Commander stood and stared down the hill, frowning. 'Not too easy if they decide to come after us in the next hour, while we're walking over that exposed ground. What time is it?'
'0930, sir.'
'Okay, let's get another message off, Mike, before we get going. Give 'em our GPS position, and tell him we may come under attack. And that if we do we will fire in a short SOS burst to the satellite, and then use our little TACBE to try and guide help in. If there is any.'
'Okay, sir. I'll prepare the SOS so we can wing it off in seconds.'
'Good boy. Let's hope we don't have to.'
Three minutes later, they were on their way, still walking through enemy territory, albeit deserted, still carrying the big machine gun and the comms system. The wind was getting up a little as they made fast progress down the hill, but it came out of the south, bitterly cold, obscuring the sounds from the mountains — obscuring the sounds of two Argentinian military helicopters that suddenly appeared, flying high and slow, way above the peaks, plainly searching.
The SEAL team had traveled almost three miles downward, with perhaps four hundred yards still in front of them before the long beech wood, when they finally heard one of the choppers swoop in low, maybe a thousand yards behind them. There was no point hitting the ground, not here. Their only chance was to run for the woods.
Rick's voice rang out in the lonely grasses.
