Marching Out Ch. 03

"I'm assuming that your fuel tanks are well away from passenger areas or aircraft?"

"They are, the only thing that's special about that area of the airfield is that it's opposite the apron area where passengers load onto the aircraft."

"Thank you sir, you've been most helpful, I'll call you again when I can give you your airport back."

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Red leader came in on my earpiece, "They were going to blow the American airlines jet on the apron as it was being pushed back, that would have killed all the passengers and crew as well as any passengers in the arrivals and departures area. Airport staff would then empty the airport through the fire exits and the passengers would be shepherded to the fire assembly points where the timers on the detonators would have been started by the microphones picking up the sound of the explosions. They've probably set the timer for five minutes. They'd empty most of the passengers out of the airport in five minutes."

Green three chirped up, "There are a lot of high points around that they could have fired a missile down into that area."

That variant of stinger missile has two targeting sensors, it uses infrared as well as ultraviolet detectors to hit an aircraft even if it's using flares to distract the missile, it also has a self destruct built in, if it doesn't pick up the right target in the first kilometre it self detonates. They needed to get close to the aircraft because the missile just flies straight for first two hundred meters before it starts to look for the target. They didn't just want to down one aircraft, they wanted the airport as well."

The fire brigade came in once everything was as safe as it could be made, they used the same pump that Leroy had set up to empty car's petrol tanks to drain the two oil drum bombs of fuel before refilling the drums with sea water. Each barrel was then moved to a safe location and a small explosive charge was used to destroy the detonator.

We'd decided not to trust the local police station with our three newly acquired prisoners, we called on the help of our American cousins, they had an aircraft carrier one hundred miles south of Grenada, one of our group of terrorists potential targets, they could have been planning to use the Marco Polo's 'Ice cutting' bow to ram the aircraft carrier. The Americans sent a Grumman C-Two Greyhound to land at Grenada's airport, they delivered a squad of their own Seals to help with our ongoing search for terrorists and the Greyhound returned to their ship with our three prisoners.

It was ten PM by the time we could stand down and get some food. Tomorrow we'd start the job of looking for the rest of the terror cell, we'd started out with eleven men that had attacked the cruise ship, we knew that there had to be at least one other member working at police headquarters, another probably working at the fire station, we had captured two more at the car hire company so an unusually high number of members for a terrorist cell, fifteen or sixteen members.

The American's brought fifteen seals and a full lieutenant into the theatre of operations and a different attitude. Their aircraft brought all the comforts of home as well as the men, they had all the food they'd need for a protracted stay on the island as well as things like a fridge and freezer and a full portable cooker. We happily retired Paul as our cook and let the American cook feed us.

I had a mission conference with Gus, the American's lieutenant, he picked up on the fact that Leroy had been eager to get me to go with him to a 'Full Moon' party that was happening at that very moment on the other side of the island. Gus and I took one of Leroy's hire cars, naturally, we didn't fill in any paperwork, kind of, 'Spoils of war,' type of thing. We both had photographs of the missing terrorists as we walked around the beach party.

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I was again playing the dizzy redheaded tourist character, pretending to drink too much, dancing with everyone in sight. The party was a regular pickup spot for local men looking for a little pussy action from a woman that would be off the island and out of their hair within a fortnight.

I was distracted from my task by a barman, I'd seen him pouring a woman a drink and then he'd palmed a pill into that drink. The woman was a leggy blond, she was actually wearing a bikini with a chiffon scarf tied around her waist, I'd seen her with a group of seven other American women, they were on some kind of hen night but the woman I'd just seen being sold a very suspicious drink was the only blond.

It was quite well known that local Afro-Caribbean men preferred to have sex with blond haired women, especially if they were natural blonds with either green or blue eyes.

I watched the woman dancing with one black man as she drank her doctored drink, she started to move sluggishly and the man she was dancing with slowly moved her to the fringe of the party, to the edge of the area of the beach that was lit by the lights from the various bars. I followed the movements and suddenly the barman and one of his friends came out of the blue and helped the black dance partner to pick the woman up and carry her further into the darkness.

I could hear her repeating "No!" over and over again as she was being carried away from her friends.

"Gus, I think an American woman is being kidnapped!"

"Where?"

"She was dancing outside the Mojito Shack, and she's being carried north along the beach by three men."

I could hear Gus' breathing heavily as he ran towards my position. I was just ahead of him, three men turned into five and then seven, the last two both had guns, Gus ran straight into the group and before he could do anything there was a flash and a bang and Gus went down.

I started screaming "Man down...man down!"

The seven men were actually more like eleven, there were men behind me, I got a blow on my jaw out of the black night, I spiralled down to the sand, I wasn't out, I was stunned but before I could respond strong hands were pulling me into the back of a Tata Party-bus. The blond was on her back on a double seat behind the driver's seat in the back of the bus, she was stripped naked and the three men who'd started out taking the woman from the party were all wearing ski-masks, they all took turns at fucking her while the other eight men watched, I was surprised that I hadn't been restrained, I'd just been pushed into a corner in the back of the bus and two guys were standing in front of me to keep me in place behind the back row of seats.

'Big mistake boys, you should have at least searched me or tied my hands behind my back!'

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I started screaming, calling for help, "Help me, I'm in the back of the blue Party-bus!"

I knew that no one at the party would hear me over the music and anyway, the doors and windows of the bus were all closed but the people at the party weren't the ones listening in. My nine man SAS team were back at the old army barracks and every one of them were listening in on the main communications unit.

I got a back-hander across the other side of my jaw and was told to shut up.

"Why did you shoot that man? He wouldn't have been a problem to you, once he saw you had that huge gun, he crapped himself, he wouldn't have caused you any trouble!"

I'd got my message across the radio, my team all knew that Gus was down and soon, Gus' team would know too and they'd all know that the bad men were armed and willing to shoot people.

"He was probably a kid of one of the American bastards that killed my father in eighty-three, all Americans deserve to die for what they did to my island back then."

I watched as all three men fucked the naked American tourist, it was easy to see too because the inside of the van was lit up by a floodlight mounted on top of a video camera so that the action could be filmed clearly.

"We can leave the film on the dead American's body, save us postage on sending the film to the woman's family."

I saw the tape from the video camera being pushed inside Gus' shirt front and then there were eight black men, me and the blond woman all in the Party-bus. Earlier in the evening the highly decorated bus I was on had been driven around Saint George's tourist areas, large loud speakers on the roof playing music and announcing that there was a party on the beach at Grenville Bay.

"Anyone else want to fuck the blond while I drive us home?"

I saw seven men look at the naked American woman's body, her left leg was pulled up and away from her right leg, three men's semen oozed out of her body, her leg was thrown back down, "No way, this one's full...but we have a ginger woman, she's English so she won't be as much fun as the American but she'll keep us entertained for a few days.

I fought them off as best as I could, the only advantage I'd got was that being trapped in the corner behind a seat meant that they couldn't all rush me at once. I dished out black eyes and bloody noses galore and then the fight stopped, we had hit a traffic problem of some kind on the narrow road leading to the mountain.

The men stepped back and a big black fucker pointed the gun that had been used to shoot Gus with, "Right, your choice Missy, you can let us all fuck you willingly or I'll shoot you in both arms and we'll fuck you anyway!"

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He brought the rifle up to his eye, there was a distant pop from out in the darkness rather than a loud bang. A flash of surprise crossed the gun man's face before he slumped slowly to the floor of the bus.

Everyone looked down at the gunman, they were all shocked and surprised as a trickle of brown ran across the rubber floor mat, in better light I knew that the chocolate brown trickle would be bright red.

I smiled at their panic and said, "Surrender right now guys and walk away from this mess and into prison, the man you shot on the beach was an American Seal, your compadre was probably killed by one of his men!"

The nearest man to the fallen gunman dived for the rifle but was dead before his fingers reached the gun. I gasped because I was probably in a direct line between the gunman and the guy reaching for the gun, a bullet could easily have gone all the way through and hit me as an afterthought. My earwig crackled, "Don't worry white control, we're using tumble rounds, not the full metal jackets that the Seals would be using, we sent them off looking for their Rupert.

There was a megaphone announcement from the darkness, "Get your hands in the air and walk slowly off of the bus...NOW!"

There was another pop, louder this time and from about six inches to my left, my left hand side was suddenly very wet. A hole appeared in the side of the bus in front of the seat that I was huddled behind. We call it explosive entry but it was more a rapid cutting than an explosion and the water came from a bag of water that surrounded the linear blasting chord to focus the cutting force in one direction rather than all around.

I slithered under the seat just as two suppressed MP-Five barrels came through the opening that had just been made in the side of the bus. There was the shock of the explosive entry and the added shock of looking down the barrels of two machine guns. I snatched at the rifle that had been pointing at me seconds earlier, the shoulder strap was trapped under the dead man's body so I had to reach further and pop the magazine out of the gun to make it safe. I threw the now detached magazine through the opening in the side of the bus. The Grenadians all surrendered, they were smiling at each other as they left the bus.

They were all forced face down on the road with their hands zip tied behind their backs while I tried to wake the American woman. George's hand patted my shoulder, "The ambulance is a minute away and coming in hot, she'll be in good hands in a few seconds."

George took over looking after the American woman and I took his MP-Five, I hooked its strap over my shoulder like a shoulder bag and I switched my communications unit to loud speaker and I went and stood in front of the seven terrorists, they all looked up at me and they suddenly looked confused at seeing me standing in front of them with a machinegun in my hands.

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I flicked my radio to 'Tac-three'. "White command to November-two..."

My hip barked out "Go white command!"

"How's November leader?"

"He's bleeding badly but he's managed to get a date with the doctor who's patching him up at the hospital."

"The x-ray that shot Gus on the beach is down and out...November-two, when we arrested these jokers they seemed very happy at the thought of being sent to the local hoosegow, can you think of anything that could wipe the smile off of their faces?"

"White command, we've got a Greyhound on its way from the George Washington to medi-vac Gus out but we could give him a little longer to have his date with that pretty doctor, use his transport to send your seven prisoners on a long holiday on Uncle Sam."

"Thanks for that November-two, I'll have them gift wrapped and sent to the airport for you."

I'd wiped the smile off of their faces and just as the ambulance turned up for the American woman too.

I went with the woman to the hospital, I sent one of the American Seals to the Mojito Bar to arrest the barman and to take him to our hanger to wait for us to question him. I had samples taken from the woman, the semen would be mixed, there were after all three men's worth of spunk in the woman, I had the samples sent to the American aircraft carrier for DNA testing as I couldn't trust any of the local services as the terrorists seemed to have friends all over the island.

The hospital was very small and wasn't really set up to deal with the kind of injuries that Gus and the two crew members from Marco Polo had, The Greyhound that had been sent in to evacuate Gus had two doctors trained in battlefield injuries as well as a gaggle of nurses that wouldn't be needed now that the medi-vac mission had changed to one of prisoner transport so they stayed behind to help the hospital staff look after the terrorist's victims.

It was one o'clock when I popped my head around the corner of the ward that held Sandip and his friend from Marco Polo, they were both in pain and still awake. I got a surprised look off of Sandip because of the way that I was dressed, he didn't expect an officer of the British Army to be dressed in a bikini and sarong while on active service.

I had to smile at Sandip's reaction, "I was on undercover work at the 'Full Moon Party', the local police let all of the bad guys go free so we're trying to mop them up again."

"How are things going sir?"

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"Well, we've found more bad guys but reduced their number by three this afternoon and captured eleven but we're not giving them back to the local police, We've exported them for a Caribbean cruise on the American aircraft carrier George Washington heading for Cuba."

Sandip smiled, "The island will be a better place with them gone sir."

"You'll be pleased to know that we've brought in specialists to help make you better Sandip, doctors and nurses trained in battlefield injuries."

I snatched two hours in bed with George and was woken at six by the sound of five Puma helicopters from USS George Washington hovering over our end of the airport's runway. The airport took it's first aircraft in at six-thirty as a rule so the airport was officially still closed. Five Puma helicopters and seventy-five US Marines.

It evolved over the next hour that the blond rape victim from the Full Moon Party wasn't a random party-goer, she was the daughter of a senator who was a senior member of the Armed Forces Appropriation Committee and she had been kidnapped as an attempted political coup for the terrorists. I had to move to the airport's control tower to set up a command and control centre and use the airports powerful radars to guide the Pumas in their search for the terrorist's camp.

My team had boots on the ground, they were scoping out possible targets and using our radio network to inform me and I was using an American radio...Gus's radio...to relay directions.

George was at Police headquarters and he'd found enough proof to point the finger of suspicion at the Chief of Police but as the suspect was the Chief of Police George couldn't get him arrested on his own island.

George had spoken to the Governor General who had intimated that Her Majesties Government would prefer not to have a court case against the Chief of Police...washing the islands dirty washing in public.

The anti terror action was so massive that thirty local people had been picked up in the sweep, all thirty had been brought to the airport. George had invited the Chief of Police to the airport to interrogate the prisoners, George separated the Chief away from the rest of his staff and took him up the steps of the first Greyhound from the USS George Washington on the pretext of talking to Gus, the Rupert that was shot the day before.

"This doesn't look like a medical transport Red Leader!"

"Slight cock-up sir, the first aircraft was supposed to be 'Med-evac one', seems that 'Con-air One' got in first!' if you take a seat I'll get on the net and find out where they've got to!"

George had the ankle chains around the Police Chief's ankles before he knew what was happening. The Police chief's surprise was short lived and he was on his mobile phone in an instant, trying to call in his officers to help him off the aircraft.

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"The electronic warfare countermeasures have been activated on this aircraft sir so your telephone is being jammed and you'll be spending the next few years in Cuba, explaining your relationship to the island's terrorists."

The aircraft could usually take twenty eight passengers in its troupe transport role or twelve stretchers when it was in its med-evac role but for our prisoner transport role it would take sixteen prisoners and up to ten guards.

There was a last minute change of plans with the evacuation of Gus, they had planned to fly him out to the aircraft carrier but on a bit of a toss of a coin, it was decided that San Jose in Costa Rica was closer than the ship and the hospital there would be a better location to treat Gus and Gus insisted on the two crew members from Marco Polo fly with him so that they could be looked after in a larger hospital...an American hospital.

George gave me a kiss and he dropped my suitcases on the tarmac, "Your temporary assignment is over for the moment darling, I have suggested that Gus might need someone to fetch and carry for him until he's back on his feet and he's offered you a flight over to Costa Rico with him, I'm going to ask for you to go into training to become an SAS officer, we can't afford to lose someone who's as good at dealing with stressful situations as you were on this assignment. That last kiss was George's kiss good by...but only for the moment. My next kiss came from Gus as he welcomed me onto Med-evac one and I sat between Gus and Sandip.

"Marco Polo will be in Port Lemon on Sunday before they sail back to England, I think your captain will be visiting you in hospital to make sure that I'm looking after you properly."

I turned up at the hospital in San Jose early the following morning only to find that they had very strict visiting rules, I was told that I'd have to return at two o'clock in the afternoon and I'd have to leave by four o'clock...now that wasn't part of my plan so it took me ten minutes to 'Borrow' a candy-stripers uniform and name badge and I walked back into the hospital through the front door.

Gus had gone through yet another operation on his gunshot wound and was waiting for someone to feed him, his breakfast gloop was sitting on the over-bed table getting cold because it was painful for him to move his arms.