Don Pendleton - Rolling Thunder

“What the hell’s going on here?” Hawkins demanded.

Umiel didn’t understand what Hawkins was saying, but the other man knew a little English and replied, “It is something we learned from the Ertzainta. We take pictures, then check files and find their families. We send ears along with pictures to show what happens if you join BLM.”

“I don’t know who the Ertzainta is,” Hawkins said, “but this is bullshit!”

“The Ertzainta are rogue police,” the other man said. “A death squad that puts more fear into these separatists than we’re allowed to. We will give them credit for this.”

Hawkins stared at the severed ears with disgust, then turned back to the soldiers. “And you don’t think that makes them just more determined to keep fighting you?”

The officer smiled menacingly. “If they fight back, we let the Ertzainta come in and kill someone in their family. Soon they will understand we mean business.”

This wasn’t the first time Hawkins had heard of such tactics used in counterterrorism circles, and there was a part of him that understood the gruesome logic. Still, he couldn’t condone the butchery. It was one thing to gun a man down because he was the enemy. Carving him up for souvenirs, regardless of one’s rationale, went against everything he’d been taught growing up in a military family with a tradition for valor in the battlefield. This was wrong, and he wasn’t about to stand by and watch it happen.

“Sergeant Tatis wants you back at the OR,” he told Umiel. Stretching the truth, he turned to the other soldier, as well. “Both of you.”

“When we finish,” the other soldier said. He was about to slit the ear off another of the dead men when Hawkins yanked out his pistol and thumbed off the safety. The soldier hesitated with his knife and glanced up, finding Hawkins’s gun aimed at his head.

“Now,” Hawkins said.

The soldier hesitated, glaring at Hawkins.

“Americans,” he snapped, spitting at the ground. “Always big shots.”

Before Hawkins could respond, he detected a blur of motion to his right. Umiel was lunging toward him, scooping up a handful of gravel. Hawkins reflexively threw his forearm before his face, deflecting the stones as they came hailing toward him. Umiel reached him before he could fire his gun, however, and the two men tumbled to the ground.

The other soldier was about to join the fray when a rock suddenly glanced off his forehead. He dropped to his knees, stunned. Before he could recover his senses, the shepherd boy rushed forward and shoved him in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. The boy then rushed over to the bodies of the slain Basques and grabbed one of their subguns. He turned it on the Spaniard and fired a blast into the dirt a few feet in front of him, then raised the barrel, pointing it at the man’s chest.

By then, Hawkins had managed to overpower Umiel, pinning his arm behind him in a full Nelson. As he wrestled the man to his feet, he grinned at the shepherd boy and told him, “Something tells me your father taught you a few things besides how to tend sheep.”

The boy grinned back. “He taught me to always be prepared,” he said, adding, “That way, it is easy to keep the faith.”

“There he is!” Manning shouted, pointing at the gorge he and McCarter were flying over in the Sikorsky Skycrane.

McCarter glanced down and spotted the terrorists’ ATV, still tilting precariously at the edge of the drop-off where it had come to a stop earlier. Encizo remained trapped in the front seat, shouldering the large wooden crate to keep it from sliding forward any farther. The driver hadn’t yet regained consciousness and continued to lie sprawled next to the Cuban, who glanced up and waved faintly with one hand once he spotted the chopper.

“This could get tricky,” McCarter said, holding the Sikorsky stable in midair. “If we go down to try to help, the rotor wash is liable to push him over the edge.”

“I think you’re right,” Manning said. “We’ve got to do something, though.”

McCarter shifted his gaze to the route the ATV had taken once it had left the trail. When he spotted a half-fallen, lightning-charred pine tree twenty yards uphill from Encizo’s position, he thought he might have stumbled on the solution.

“Check and see if there’s any rope around here,” he told Manning.

“What for?”

“Just do it!” McCarter snapped.

“Since you asked so nicely,” Manning said with a grin.

The big Canadian swiveled his seat around and snapped open a large footlocker mounted over the rear windshield. The locker was filled mostly with tools and emergency gear, but there was also a large spool of heavy link chain. Manning grunted as he hoisted the spool free.

“Will this do?” he asked McCarter.

“That might work even better. How much do you think is there?”

Manning tried to gauge the length of the chain without unwinding it from the spool. “I don’t know, ten yards. Maybe twenty.”

“Let’s give it a shot,” McCarter said. He jockeyed the controls, pulling the Sikorsky away from Encizo’s position. As he dropped toward the far side of the charred pine, he spelled out his plan. “I’ll get you as close to the ground as I can so you can hop down and hook the chain up to the crane hook. Then run a line under that pine and find a way to secure it to the ATV.”

“So you can winch it,” Manning guessed. “Good idea.”

“That’s why they put me in charge instead of you.”

Manning let out a snort. “And here I thought it was your charm.”

“That, too,” the Briton replied. “Now hop to it.”

“Yes, sir!”

McCarter brought the Sikorsky to within ten feet of a reasonably flat escarpment. The rotor wash raised a cloud of leaves and pine needles, revealing the bare rock Manning would have to land on. The big Canadian manipulated the boom’s remote controls, releasing the winch hook mounted under the fuselage. Once he’d unwound six yards of cable, he locked the winch in place and swung his door open.

“Wait for a thumbs-up,” he told McCarter.

McCarter nodded. “Good luck.”

Manning stepped out onto the cockpit ladder and lowered himself to the last rung, then reached out and let the chain spool drop with a loud clatter onto the escarpment. Once McCarter had lowered the Sikorsky another couple feet, Manning pushed free and dropped to the ground a few feet from the spool. He grimaced as a flash of pain raced up both legs, but there was no time to dwell on his discomfort. He quickly affixed one end of the chain to the winch hook, then limped faintly as he made his way to the toppled pine, feeding out the length of chain behind him. He was rolling the spool under the pine when Encizo called out to him.

“That you, Gary?”

“Stay put,” Manning called back. From where he was standing, the tethered crate blocked his view of Encizo.

“Don’t have much choice.”

“We’re going to tug you back to solid ground.” Manning quickly relayed the plan as he continued to unroll the spool. He was halfway to the ATV when he ran out of chain. Staring up at the Sikorsky, which was still hovering in position above the charred pine, he signaled for McCarter to feed out more cable.

As he was waiting, Manning detected a glint of refracted light to his right. He looked over his shoulder and traced the glint to a mountain ridge a hundred yards away. As quickly as it had appeared, the flash disappeared.

“Anyone else in these hills that you know about?” he called out to Encizo.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Encizo called back. “Why?”

“I think I caught some light bouncing off a pair of binocs,” Manning said.