Taking his eye off the scope, Rapp asked, "Which hut has the hostages in it?"

Coleman was wearing a pair of night vision goggles with a single protruding lens, the type that made the wearer look like an insect.

"The one on the right."

"Anyone in there with them?"

"There was." Without looking away from the village, Coleman asked Hackett, who was lying next to him, "Kevin, how many tangos are in the tent with the family?"

Whispering, he replied, "Eight at last count."

Coleman relayed the number to Rapp, who estimated the size of the hut and then tried to imagine how the people would be laid out inside.

"Is the total enemy count still at sixty?"

"Give or take a couple," replied Coleman.

Rapp looked at the two tents and four huts. If the numbers were right, he'd accounted for twenty-five of the sixty terrorists. That left roughly thirty-five others divvied up between the other tent and two lean-tos. Fortunately, it appeared those three structures could be assaulted without the hostages being caught in a cross fire.

"What are you thinking, Scott?"

Coleman took a while to answer. He'd been thinking about his strategy all day.

"We send two four-man teams around each side of the camp. They take out the lean-tos while a four-man team takes out the one tent and a five-man team handles the rescue."

Rapp ran the numbers.

"That leaves a cover force of only five."

"We could increase the cover force if you want to just lob grenades into the other structures, but my guess is you won't like that."

Rapp frowned. He instinctively disliked anything that made too much noise.

"It might attract some unwanted attention."

"Shit," answered the young lieutenant on Rapp's other side.

"Who's going to hear it on a night like this? Besides, we're going to have to blow some trees to clear a landing area for the choppers."

This was a part of the plan that Rapp had never much liked. There was a small clearing about a quarter mile from where they were that was to be used as their extraction point. In order to make it big enough for a CH-53 Sea Stallion to land they would have to enlarge the landing area by attaching explosives to at least a half-dozen trees and shearing them off. It was sure to attract some attention, storm or no storm.

"I'd prefer to avoid the grenades if possible."

Coleman flipped his goggles into the up position and looked at Rapp.

"Then we stick with a five-man cover force." Rapp still seemed not entirely enamored with the plan.

"Trust me on this. We'll use one of the SAWs to hit the big tent and take the other two and set them up for cover. In addition to that I'll be up here with Kevin and Slick Wicker. They've already got their line of fire figured and the camp divided into three sectors. If anything pops up they'll take care of it before you even know it's a problem."

The SAW Coleman was referring to was the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. A light machine gun, the SAW was capable of firing up to 700 rounds per minute and in the hands of a trained operator the weapon could lay down a withering amount of suppressive fire.

Rapp nodded.

"You know more about this stuff than I do."

Flashing his teeth behind his painted face, Coleman smiled and said, "Yeah, you're a real Girl Scout. Let me take one guess where you're going to be during all this."

Rapp allowed himself a small smile. Coleman knew him well.

"Let's get back to picking your plan apart for a minute."

"Nope. Not until you tell me what you've got planned for yourself."

"You know where I'm gonna be. Someone has to go in there and check things out before we hit the tent."

"Aren't you married now?" asked Coleman in a smart-ass tone.

Rapp ignored him. Coleman knew the answer.

"Let's get back to the CP and put the finishing touches on this thing before this storm gets any worse."

THIRTY NINE.

Rapp didn't like what he was hearing. Odds were a big thing to him. He was by no means risk averse, but he liked the probability stacked as much in his favor as possible.

Invariably, what bothered him most were things that were out of his control, and the weather was typically one such thing. Captain Forester had just informed them that the storm was in fact growing in strength. Gusts were now topping 60 mph and until they got around to the other side of the island all flight operations were suspended.

Forester assured Rapp, however, that the extraction was still on.

The captain maintained that his pilots could handle the winds. The ride just might be a little bumpy. This did absolutely nothing to assuage Rapp's concerns. Bravado and blustering were one thing but reality was something entirely different. Could the captain's pilots pull off the extraction? Yes, was the answer, but could they also crash? Most definitely.

Nighttime helicopter operations were delicate even in calm weather, but throw in a little wind, rain and a mountainous terrain and you had a recipe for disaster.

As Forester spoke of the competency of his aviators, the CIA counterterrorism operative was acutely aware of one vital statistic: more U.S. Special Forces personnel had been killed in helicopter accidents in the last two decades than in all other mishaps combined.

Rapp, Coleman and Jackson were all kneeling under the relative protection of a large dense tree. Covering his lip mike, Rapp looked at Coleman and said, "I've got a bad feeling about our extraction." Rapp could tell immediately by the look on Coleman's face that the man shared his concern.

"I'm not crazy about it either, but what are our alternatives? Do you want to wait to see if this thing blows over and go in just before first light?"

That option also didn't sound good to Rapp.

"No, we're not going to wait. Now's the right time to hit 'em."

"We brought along plenty of explosives," offered Jackson.

"We could try expanding the perimeter of the landing area."

"That might help," conceded Rapp, "but I'm still not crazy about getting on a helicopter in this weather."

Coleman was struck with an idea.

"What if we march back to the beach?"

"That's fine if we're not pursued or worse." Jackson pointed over his shoulder toward the Abu Sayyaf camp.

"If they manage to get off a radio transmission that they've been hit, we could get cut off on our way to the beach, and even then we still have to get on a chopper."

"Not necessarily," said Coleman. Thumbing the transmit button on his radio he asked, "Captain, what are the seas like on the leeward side of the island?"

There was a brief delay while the captain radioed one of the ships in the group that was out ahead.

"Right now we're looking at ten-foot swells."

He knew the answer to the next question but asked it anyway.

"Any problem launching the Mark Fives in those seas?"

"No. I can turn the ship into the storm, and we'll have no problem."

"What do you think?" Coleman looked at Rapp.

"If the takedown goes off clean we can have the captain launch the Mark Fives and meet them on the beach. It'll take us at least an hour to get there. That should give them more than enough time to launch the boats and pick us up. We can bring the boats right in on the beach, load up and head out to the Belleau Wood."

"And if we run into any resistance," added Rapp, "or we think they've alerted their comrades in arms, we call for the helicopter extraction."

"Exactly," answered Coleman.

Rapp looked at Jackson.

"What do you think?"

"I like it. It gives us some options to work with."

"Good." Coleman was also relieved. Lifting the handset of the secure radio he said, "Captain, here's what we're going to do."