There was no real pain ? the nerve endings had been seared by the heat ? but that would come soon enough. I looked across the small cavern at the other men, who were similarly injured. 'How is he?' I said to Than, gesturing at the man on the ground.
He shook his head, stared down at him, and prodded him gently with one foot. 'The heat. I do not know ? the heat kills more quickly than anything except perhaps the fire.'
'Or suffocation,' I reminded him.
'Yes, that too.' Than knelt down beside the man, touching his forehead briefly. He looked up at me. 'He needs water, something cool ? we have none here.'
Indeed we did not. We'd all emptied our canteens onto the canvas, expending every last drop dousing it. It hadn't seemed important at the time, not with the fire almost upon us. Besides, we knew that the lower regions of the mountain range were honeycombed with creeks and rivulets.
'I'll go get some,' I offered. Another man, evidently understanding my suggestion, stood up and walked over to stand next to me.
Than shook his head again. 'It is still too hot outside. The fire, it is past, but the ground is nothing but burnt wood and coals. It is still on fire.'
I stepped out of the cavern and onto the rock ledge to look at what was left. The heat radiated up through my jungle boots, immediate and painful. Than was right ? I couldn't even stand on the rock ledge, much less hike down to the stream through the charred embers that had once been such lush vegetation.
The land around me was a harsh, barren devastation. The trees were stripped of leaves and limbs, and the sky was now visible. In place of the brilliant greens and yellows, there was only black, and a little gray where ash had formed. The only color that remained was in the sky, brilliant and serene. Smoke wafted up from the charred landscape, thick and cloying. I turned back to Than. 'In a few hours perhaps.'
'He does not have that much time.' Than's voice was blunt and matter-of-fact. 'If he survives, he survives.' With this final assessment, he turned back to the man and made him as comfortable as he could. He extracted a first-aid kit from one pocket, the same one we had used to treat Than earlier, and a preloaded hypodermic. He found a clear patch of skin on the man's shoulder and plunged it home, depressing the cylinder to eject the full dose into the man. 'Morphine,' he said in response to my questioning glance.
I nodded. Absent water, morphine was the next best thing. If we could not save him, at least we could keep him comfortable during his final hours.
That night, we posted no guard, secure in the frail protection of our sheltered cave. I woke once at about two that morning, and wondered what had disturbed me. No nightmares that I could recall, and I was still so tired from surviving that day that it seemed impossible I had woken at all.
As sleep drifted back in, I pondered the possibilities. The fire had been moving west, the same direction as the second camp. The lifeline to my father that had seemed so strong in the earlier camp now seemed the thinnest of leads. Was that what the message had meant? And how far west? The possibility that I'd misunderstood his meaning, or even that Horace Greeley was the name of another man in the camp, ate at me.
I drifted back down into sleep without any answers. At the very edge of consciousness, I heard a sound that brought me bolt upright from my hard pallet on the rock floor.
Aircraft ? a helicopter to be specific. And not one of ours, not from the sound of it.
I rolled out of my pallet and went to Than, to wake him and tell him of the helicopter. Even though he had no guard mounted, he would want to know.
I should have been expecting it, but the night held one more surprise for me. The spot where I'd seen Than curl up under a coarse cotton blanket was empty.
I walked to the edge of the cave, stared out into the night, and wondered.
8
I could tell by the look on his face that Lab Rat had bad news. When it's good, he's practically bouncing as he stands at my door and waits for permission to come in. When it's bad, his already small form seems twenty pounds lighter. He shrinks into the door frame, slinks into the room, and his voice is barely above a mumble.
This was one of those times.
'It's still operational,' Lab Rat said flatly. 'The latest imagery shows aircraft moving in and out of the hangar. And they're already repairing the airfield. We knew that wouldn't take long, but it's going even faster than we predicted.'
'What about the SAM sites?' I asked. I was convinced I could eventually knock a hole in the top of those nasty little revetments, but I had to be able to get my aircraft in to do it.
'They're mobile. Not fixed sites.'
More bad news. We'd maintained meticulous plots on the electromagnetic transmissions from the anti-air sites, and I was hoping to take them all out the next time. 'Can you tell where they're headed?' I asked.
Lab Rat shook his head. 'They're moving under cover of the jungle canopy, Admiral. I get a few glimpses of them, some heat sources, but that's about it. We've looked at the terrain, the tactical disposition, and I've simply got no good predictions.'
I leaned back in my chair and considered the matter. Intelligence was fine, but sometimes I needed ground troops. 'Have you talked to the Marines? They might have some other ideas on where they'd put the SAMs if they were the bad guys.'
Lab Rat nodded. 'A few estimates, but they're not any more confident about it than we are.'
I should have known he would have tried it. When it comes to intelligence estimates, Lab Rat is the least likely officer I know to invoke parochial interests. You've got something to say, something to make sense to him, then he'll listen. With ground weapons positions, of course he would have sought out the senior Marine on board and asked his opinion.
'So what do you suggest?' I asked finally. 'We can send in another strike, but…'
Lab Rat sighed, then looked up at me. 'It's time for Special Forces, sir. We could use them one of two ways. Send them in, send them after the SAM sites, or target the revetments.' He grimaced, indicating that neither of those were particularly attractive alternatives. 'Or we can just try what we've done before.'
'And lose more aircraft probably,' I said.
'Probably.'
I stood up and started pacing the length of my office. It helps me to be moving while I'm trying to think. It would help even better if I were in the cockpit of an aircraft, but that's a luxury not often allowed to me as a flag officer. I barely make it out on the flight deck once a week just to get a whiff of fresh JP-5.
'What do the SEALs say?' I asked. We have a platoon on board, with a lieutenant commander in charge of them. Brandon Sykes was one of the smarter SEAL officers I'd met in my time, and he'd proved his tactical savvy to my satisfaction before. If he had an idea, I wanted to hear it.
'Lieutenant Commander Sykes wants to go for the mobile SAMs, but he thinks the revetments are the better targets,' Lab Rat replied immediately. 'He says you can always use the HARMS against the SAMs, but that the revetment is the real problem.'
'He's right, of course,' I answered. 'Did you ask him when he could be ready to go?'
Lab Rat smiled. 'He knew you'd ask that ? he told me so. And he said to tell you that they were ready to move out at your very earliest convenience.'
'So what does that mean?'
Lab Rat thought for a moment, then said, 'I think he'd like about twelve hours, Admiral, but I'm sure he could pull it off right now. If Brandon Sykes says he's ready, he's ready.'
I nodded. 'Twelve hours would put us into the nighttime ? he wants to go in with the RHIBs ? the Rigid Hulled Inflatable Boats?'
'Or maybe helos ? he hasn't decided yet,' Lab Rat said.
