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Steel's Treasure by Nick Auclair
CHAPTER 20
Target
Range: Clark Air Base
1986
Air Force security policeman Buck Sgt.
William ‘Willie’ Long loved this part of his job: manning the M60 machine gun
in the back of the camouflaged painted HUMVEE patrol vehicle. Willie adjusted
his dark goggles over his eyes and pulled the chin strap to his Kevlar helmet
tight. They were providing security, escorting two trucks; each held three
instructors and ten GIs, officers and enlisted men headed for qualification
training. Each trainee clasped an unloaded M16, and instructors sported loaded side-arms.
He
gripped the roll bar firmly with his left hand and kept the right hand free to
rock and roll with the 60 should the need arise. The 60 could fire two-hundred rounds a
minute. Willie had one-hundred rounds in
a belt mounted in a box on the side of the weapon.
His
security police squadron had been busy since the NPA murdered the GIs. There
were gates to man, miles of perimeter fence to patrol, and the flight line to
secure. The hours were long, but it was good duty.
He
loved the Air Force. He got respect for
doing his job well. There was no prejudice here, not like the backwater town in
rural Alabama where he grew up--no place for a young black man.
And
then of course, there was the social life at Clark. Willie saw lots of women
off base, too many for his grandma’s liking, he was sure of that. He was
planning on seeing one fine lady tomorrow evening--Friday and payday. The joke
was that U.S. payday was always a Phil national holiday. Let the party begin. But that was tomorrow. Today was all business.
He had to stay sharp.
Willie looked down at the two policemen
seated below him. Senior Airman Miles,
the driver, was one of the brothers he ran with. They were tight. Seated next
to Miles, Airman Willard, a skinny white boy from Texas, lovingly cradled his
M16. That boy loved his weapon too much. He always seemed a little too ready to
use it.
Miles
slowed the vehicle in order to keep the two deuce-and-a-half trucks no farther
than twenty-five feet behind them. Willie swiveled his head to check on them.
In the lead truck were two crates of 2,000 rounds of .223 caliber NATO M16
rounds.
They cleared the back gate of the base. To
get to the range they had to drive about one mile from the base down a bumpy,
dusty road that paralleled the Sampang Bato River. Willie worried that its
twists and turns would provide ample opportunity for the NPA to snatch the ammo
in the trucks.
He
used his legs like shock absorbers and kept his lips closed to keep from eating
dust. He scanned the terrain ahead of them. They were about one hundred yards
from Canyon Run where the road narrowed and ran for about fifty yards through a
small gulch of thirty-foot-tall rock walls. During the rainy season the river,
which snaked through the canyon, made the road impassable.
Willie
thought the scenery looked like the backdrop for a western movie. He loved playing cowboys and Indians as a
kid-- felt like he was still playing now, protecting the wagon train behind
him. Willie turned around and noticed the convoy had lagged behind more than he
liked. He tapped Miles on the head with his boot. Miles looked into the rearview
mirror and flipped Willie the bird.
“Come
on homeboy, slow your ass down,” Willie called out.
He
tapped Miles on the head again. Miles brought the vehicle to a stop. Willie
lifted his goggles and grabbed the binoculars that were hanging against his
chest, scanning the canyon ahead of them. He swept the area in a 180-degree
arc. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Below, Willard strained his neck,
checking out the area in front. He may be off, Willie thought, but at least Willard
took his job seriously.
Willie
turned and saw that the trucks had closed the gap to within twenty feet. “Good
enough,” he yelled. “Let’s keep up a
good speed and keep’em moving in a tight formation through the canyon. Let’s
roll homeboy.”
Miles pressed the accelerator, and they jumped
forward. Willie hung onto the roll bar. He felt uneasy, like he was being
watched. Wasn’t that what the hero always said right before the injuns came
streaming over the hill?
Willie
lifted his binoculars once more, checking the ridgeline to his right, then his
left. He focused on something on the road fifty yards into the canyon. It was a
trench, like the ones that moles dug in his grandmother’s front lawn back home.
He hesitated. Probably nothing. But he could hear his hardnosed grandma in his
head, “Fool. Of course that don’t look right!”
Grandma
was never wrong, he thought. He yelled at Miles to hit the brakes, then armed the
60, and yelled out: “Willard, lock and load.”
Willard
happily obliged.
“Willie,
what the fuck, over?” Miles yelled.
“Back
up now,” Willie barked out, scanning the hills and the terrain to the east and
west.
Miles
did until he hit the bumper of the first truck. Willie turned and yelled to the
driver of the big truck to follow him double time. They were reversing. Suspect
ambush ahead.
“You
shittin’ us Willie?” Miles whispered as he nervously looked around them. He
reached down and pulled his baby Armalite to his lap.
“Miles,
pull up, let the trucks turn around, and head back. I want to cover their
retreat.”
Miles
obeyed. Willard stood up in his seat aiming his M16 and daring anyone or
anything to try something. Not on his watch.
NPA Commander Bong peered at the American
vehicles from his hiding place in the tall grass on top of the canyon. Why had
they suddenly stopped? They were still out of range. He wished he had some
binoculars to see what was happening. He wished he had more of everything to
fight against the government. His patrol needed weapons and ammo. Ten men and
they only had six guns; all were barely serviceable World War II vintage.
For
twelve hours they had waited for the convoy of Americanos. It wasn’t an easy
target but the large number of weapons and ammo was worth the risk. Bong wasn’t
afraid of the Yankees. Another unit in
his sector had killed Americans before, and all the Yankees did in retaliation was
to hide in their base.
His
plan to ambush the convoy had been simple.
It had to be: this was his first mission. He had no formal training, and
the local NPA organization hadn’t sanctioned the operation. Bong was out to make a name for himself. Step
one: blow a homemade mine set on the side of the canyon road, destroying the
lead security jeep. Step two: attack the
other vehicles with rifles and grenades. Timing would be crucial.
He had watched the Americans perform the
same exact convoy procedures along the same route last week. He couldn’t
believe his luck when an informant in the village near the range told him that
a convoy was planned for today.
He
peered into the distance. Something was wrong. Apparently his luck had changed.
He angrily watched the American vehicles turn and disappear in a cloud of dust.
With no truck of his own, he could hardly chase after them. He aimed his M1 at the fleeing trucks. They
were in range, but he did not want to face heavy machine gun fire for nothing.
“Damn,”
he banged his hand onto the soft dusty ground. His ragtag group of farmers
stood little chance of being players in the province without weapons.
His
cousin, NPA Commander Hector, had said he was involved in a big operation going
down today near Clark. Bong wanted to
impress his cousin—make a name himself in the organization. What the hell went
wrong?
Ten miles southeast of the canyon,
parked alongside the Marcos highway, NPA Commander Hector and five heavily
armed men sat in the back of a badly rusted dump truck. From the outside it looked
like any of the scores on the roads this hot, dusty afternoon. They had
hijacked it the day before from a construction company.
Hector tried not to worry about being seen. They
were hidden from view by the tall walls of the truck and the spot he had chosen
was away from most pedestrian traffic. At least it was shady. Hector took a
deep breath and tried to focus on last-minute details.
A
whistling from the front cab startled him. His brother, Ka Romeo, who was the
driver, motioned at him through the small window. Hector walked over to the
opening.
“Hector,
we have just received radio confirmation that the vehicles are only ten minutes
away,” he whispered.
Hector
gave his men the thumbs up and listened as Romeo started up the truck’s diesel
engine. The whole back rumbled and vibrated.
Hector lurched to peer out of a crack in the large tailgate.
Commander
Hector was thirty-four-years old. He had spent ten years working his way
through the NPA ranks to his current position, commander of a Sparrow hit
squad, a post he had held for the last three years.
He
hadn’t started out life as a guerrilla. He was from a family of peaceful rice
farmers who had for generations worked land in a small barrio in Neija Ecija
province northeast of Clark Air Base. But
almost fifteen years ago his world shattered. Late one Saturday afternoon, his
new and newly pregnant wife announced she was going to the river by their home to
do some washing. He promised to join her shortly. When he did, she was nowhere
to be found. Someone in the village had witnessed four Philippine constabulary
troopers fleeing the area in their jeep. The next day her badly beaten body,
bullet through her temple, washed up on the shore of the river.
After
an investigation, the local police announced that Hector’s wife was killed in a
shootout with NPA in the area. They said she had drawn a pistol--an old rusty
.45 that the policemen presented as evidence in their sham of a trial. Hector
knew the real story: Four drunken off-duty constabulary men had raped and
murdered his wife and his baby.
Something
in him cracked: the injustice of the sham trial. He wanted revenge. He wanted
justice. But mostly he wanted those fat, sweaty goons who had done this to die.
He got his wish. After the trial a local
NPA contacted Hector, and he jumped at the chance to take up arms. He was taken
to a camp in remote Kalinga Apayao province and received six months of rigorous
physical training, practice handling weapons, and political indoctrination. The
months in the mountains did little to cool his anger. On the day he returned
home, he calmly walked into a seedy bar and shot two of the men who had murdered
his wife. He enjoyed seeing the shock on their faces as he pulled out the gun
and pulled the trigger. Even better was watching the large caliber bullets rip
through their bodies.
Hector
never did track the two others who took part in the murder. But from that point
on, he always imagined his targets were those men. Every person he killed in
the last twelve years was responsible for his wife’s death.
He
used a .45 pistol at close range, coolly and calmly. He had become a killing
machine and earned his place high on the government’s most-wanted list.
His
hit today was not from the usual list of targets: informers, soldiers, corrupt
policemen. Today it was American imperialists, a hit planned high up in the
command chain. Nor was the operation the usual: a pistol at close range. This
involved rifles and vehicles, and that made him a little uncomfortable. He
found the anxiety strangely refreshing. It had been a while since he had felt anything
when killing.
“Ka
Hector.” A face peered through the window of the cab. Hector acknowledged Benny
who was sitting up front with Romeo.
“The vehicles are approaching.”
Hector
closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed to focus. “Salamat, thanks Benny. All right
brothers, it is time.” They silently checked their weapons.
He
felt the truck roll forward a few feet, preparing to pull out in front of the
van with the Americans heading to Crow Valley: a half-dozen military personnel and
civilians going to work at the range. Hector had been ordered to take out the
van, killing all aboard if possible.
Hector
tried to balance himself as he walked back and forth, squinting out of the
crack in the tailgate. He was worried about visibility. The walls of the truck
were nearly five feet high--good for hiding but difficult to see over. And they
needed to see to fire down onto the van.
The truck bounced onto the road. Hector thought
he could see the van several cars behind. The truck deliberately crawled along slowly,
forcing vehicles behind to pass them. When the van of Americanos passed, it
would pull alongside directly into the fire zone--like shooting fish in a
barrel.
Hector
had come up with the idea of using the truck and shooting down through the roof
of the van. The Americans had mounted bullet proof Plexiglass inside their
windows and doors; however, he was banking on the fact that the roof offered no
such protection from a rain of bullets.
After a few minutes, the white van came
into view just one car behind the dump truck. Hector laughed at how easy the
van was to recognize: large American-built, dark tinted windows. “Stupid
Americanos,” he muttered. He would have used a Japanese-made van. It would have
blended in with the local traffic.
Hector
could see that the van driver was impatient. He kept pulling out, looking for
the right moment to pass. “Comrades, be ready,” Hector called out. The shooters
moved to the side of the truck and squatted.
The van driver pulled out as Hector watched
and waited. Timing was crucial. If they popped up too soon, the driver would
spook. Hector raised his hand. “Now. Shoot through the roof.”
The
cadre aimed their weapons over the top of the truck wall and unleashed a loud
volley. Hector had been right; the thin metal roof did little to protect the occupants
from the hail of .223 caliber rounds. The Filipino driver was killed instantly,
and the van swerved off the road and into a grove of banana trees. Two U.S.
civilian contractors who repaired surveillance radars in the valley died from a
combination of gunshot wounds and the force of the collision. Five GIs
originally on the passenger list had pulled out at the last minute, the only
break for the U.S. command in the whole grim incident.
As
the big truck lumbered down the road, Ka Hector walked back to his men, who
were calmly reloading and readjusting their weapons. One casually picked up
empty shell casings. Hector wished he could have stopped to check out the van. He
wasn’t sure if they hit their targets. But they had to move fast to avoid police
or roadblocks.
They
sped toward the rendezvous point five kilometers up the road, where a jeepney
would be waiting to take them to a base camp in the mountains for several weeks
of rest before the next operation. Hector hoped his targets would be PC next
time, maybe they would be the ones.
