Battleground

15

Lieutenant Blake Murdock watched as the Navy doctor finished patching up Red Nicholson's left arm. There were three slices in his upper arm where they figured 9mm rounds had ripped through a half inch of flesh and gone on their way. The blood was major, the damage minor.

"Why didn't you say you were hit?" Murdock asked his lead scout.

"You'd call off the war for a few scratches?" Red asked.

The doctor shook his head. "You damn SEALs don't say die unless you've at least got an arm blown off. What is it with you guys?"

"Too damn stupid to know any better, Doc," Nicholson said. "L-T, we started planning for the assault on the Roy Turner yet?"

"About ready to."

"This man is confined to his bed for at least three days," the doctor said.

Red laughed.

"Thanks, Doc," Murdock said. "We'll take that under advisement. If this guy can walk, I need him. His left arm never does much anyway. You should see him fire an MP-5 without the suppressor with one hand. He's good. Thanks, Commander. Appreciate your concern."

Red sat up and slid to the floor.

Murdock tossed him a clean desert cammie shirt, and the two walked out of sick bay and up to their SEAL gathering spot.

"How's Ronson?" Red asked.

"Patched and hurting, but no way he'll stay behind. Magic Brown says he's healed up already, but he won't let anybody look at his leg. They're just three crazy sonsobitches." He grinned as he said it, and Red grinned too.

In the SEAL assembly area, half the guys had sacked out waiting for Murdock. When he and Red came in, there was a small cheer. That woke up the rest of them.

Murdock glanced around at the fifteen men. "You guys look terrible, like you need a late-night supper. You don't even have to wash your hands. We have a man to lead you to the mess. Then I'd suggest a quick shower and about eight hours of sack time. We have no data on the next job, liberating the Roy Turner. Now get out of here. I'll let you know when we get together again. Later today sometime. Meanwhile, I've got to have a small chat with Don Stroh. I'll see if he's been talking with our President lately. Now get out of here."

He sat in one of the chairs next to the long table, and looked over at DeWitt.

"Two down, two to go, Two-IC. How's your squad?"

"Fine. You've got the casualties. Can Red do it?"

"Oh, yes, not all that serious. Lots of blood, though. They stuffed a pint in him while we were down there."

"Stroh?"

"Yep, if we can find his digs. Let's go look."

Don Stroh was in the stateroom of a commander he'd bumped. He'd been reading some printouts when the pair knocked on his door. It had taken two guides to help them find the spot. Murdock was sure he couldn't go there by himself again. A carrier was just too fucking big.

"Well done, men," Stroh said, "We're listing the forty-six missing personnel from the Roy Turner as either KIA or MIA. We have witnesses who saw the Kenyans murder our badly wounded on the ship. However, there may be as many as ten men who were not on board the Turner when the attack came. A number of men were on liberty that evening. We don't know how many of them got on board before the attack."

"So we could have over forty KIAs," Murdock said. "Bastards."

"We're debriefing the Turner's officers now. They figure there might have been a dozen of the attackers killed. Probably ten or twelve of our men got weapons out of the armory and used them."

"Fine, what's next?" DeWitt asked. Then he yawned.

"Next, gentlemen, is a stiff shot of bourbon and a 'well done.'" He took a bottle from a desk drawer and poured three shots in drinking glasses.

"I really shouldn't," Murdock said, and tossed it down. DeWitt matched his CO. "Damn, it's Coke," Murdock said.

"Yeah, Navy regs. Well, we've got a go from the President on the capture of the Turner. The wording says at our earliest convenience. When would you gentlemen say that would be?"

"First dark tomorrow, or today, I guess that is," Murdock said. "About eighteen hours from now."

DeWitt nodded. "Yeah, time to rest up some, get plans made, and round up the special gear we're going to need."

"Like what?" Stroh asked.

"Tell you when we figure it out," Murdock said.

Stroh yawned. "That's good with me. Now get yourselves some sack time so you'll be awake by tonight. You've got a whole damn task force waiting for your command." He grinned. "Christ, I love this. I was a corporal in the Army. I love giving orders to these officers. One thing a full admiral doesn't like, and that's getting his orders passed up from you guys, a pair of chicken-shit lieutenants."

Murdock heard him and tried to laugh, but it never quite came out. "Tell him things are tough all over. Anytime he wants to trade jobs and rank, let me know."

The two SEALs waved at Don Stroh, who outranked everyone on board including the admiral, and headed for the officers' dirty mess where there would be steak to order or anything else they wanted. "Food, then the sack," DeWitt said.

Murdock looked at him. "How's that broken arm holding up?"

"Fine. How's your shrapnel ass doing?"

They both laughed. The jabs referred to their wounds during their Firestorm mission. Murdock pushed open the dirty mess door and hurried inside. Food would be good, sleep even better.

The three U.S. Navy sailors worked up to the mid deck and explored cautiously. They knew the ship like a private playground. They were amazed that there were no more guards in all of the dozens of long companionways and decks.

"Officer country," Vuylsteke whispered. They crept that way expecting a guard. No one was there.

Each of the three had a firearm now, and each a knife pushed in a belt loop. Tretter tried the door to one of the "jungles," rooms for four officers of lower rank. The door was not locked. He edged it inward an inch to look around. A night-light illuminated the area. Four men slept in the bunks. Gear and weapons had been laid within reach.

Perez took a look, then dropped to the floor and slid into the room. He found a bag of grenades, two pistols and magazines, and a silenced stubby little submachine gun and two magazines almost a foot long. He grabbed all of them and wormed his way toward the door while still on the floor.

He was two feet from the door when one of the Kenyans in the lower bunk sat up, said something in Swahili, then fell back and kept on sleeping. Perez had the submachine gun aimed at him in an instant, then lowered it, and worked his way out of the room.

"Yeah, some firepower," Perez said slinging the submachine-gun carry-strap over his shoulder. The huge magazine had to hold sixty rounds, he decided.

They slipped away from the spot, and continued on to the officers' mess. There were no cooks on duty. The lights were all on. They found what they wanted, and pushed it all into a gunny sack that had held potatoes. They took a half-dozen loaves of bread that had been unfrozen, half a cured ham, six bags of potato chips, jars of jam, silverware, apples, oranges, and a case of Coca-Cola.

They all grinned. They had really struck a blow against the enemy.

Ten minutes later, they were in the bilges in aux two. They ate until they couldn't face another sandwich, then turned out their flashlights and went to sleep.

It was morning when they awoke. The only way they could tell was by their wristwatches. They said it was after 0800.

"Could be some company soon," Vuylsteke said. "I've been listening, but I can't hear a damned thing. We're so far down here we won't hear their outrage at two of their men missing and that guy's fancy sub-gun and the grenades gone. Damn, I'd like to see what they do."

The answer came quickly.

They heard the firing from above through the doors, compartments, and decks. It gradually came closer. They identified the stuttering of sub guns, and the flat crack of the AK-47, which was hard not to recognize if a person had heard it before.

"Now we know what they do when they get mad," Perez said. "Hell, it ain't their ship. What do they care if they shoot up the place."

A moment later, one of the watertight doors above them came open. It was thirty feet forward. The blasting of a submachine gun came as a surprise, and made all three men duck and put their hands over their heads where they lay.

The gun chattered six rounds, then six more, then the door clanged shut. "Looks like they've had their say," Tretter snorted. "Just wait until tonight when we start lobbing these fucking grenades into their living quarters. We could come close to wiping them out if we really try." Vuylsteke nodded. He was senior here and he still had some responsibility. Hell, he was the commander, the Captain of the Roy Turner, since he was the highest-rated man on board. "Yeah, tonight after things quiet down a little, we're going to try real hard to cut down the odds," Vuylsteke said.

On the quarterdeck of the Roy Turner, Lieutenant Elijah Koinange stared at the body of his top enlisted man and scowled. Who had done this? One guard missing, and now the sergeant stabbed to death. Were there raiders on board? Had they stolen anything? How had they gotten on and off? Or were they still on board? Koinange shivered when he thought about making a radio report to the general. What could he say? No, better to take care of the matter himself. He would make a complete search of the ship starting on the top deck and working down. He knew little of ships, but he learned quickly. He could ask a Navy friend to come help. He shook his head. That Navy friend was on a breakaway ship that had put to sea an hour before the coup. No help there. Koinange had twenty-two men left. The colonel, or rather the general, had said that would be plenty of men to guard the ship. The general had been confident that the Americans would make no move against the ship while he had all of the hostages. First the search. Yes, a search. He would order his men to fire at anything that moved or made a noise. That had to work. If they found nothing, he would have half the men on guard at night. Yes, that would be a help. Surely they would find any of the Americans who had hidden aboard when the capture was made. Surely they would.

The sixteen SEALs of the Third Platoon sat and stood around the big table in their assembly area. Several desert cammi shirts had been unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up in the warm room. The air conditioner kept blasting away, but it was no match for the sullen heat of the near-equatorial spring.

"Hell, yes, we could go in with three hundred Marines from the amphib and smother the place, but we don't need them," Magic Brown said. "How many of you been on a frigate before?"

Every hand but one went up.

"So, we know something about the craft. Them shitkickers on board are Army dudes, for gawd's sake."

"Yeah, Magic, but they been there for three — four — days," Bishop said. "They ain't stupid. They must know now, somebody will be calling."

"That's why I say a quick hit with grappling hooks on both ends of the ship and the pier just after dark, and we've got the surprise element going for us. We could have half the bastards dead before they knew we were there."

"Use the silencers on everything including the Mark 23 pistols?" DeWitt asked.

"Damn right," Magic said. "We won't even need the sniper rifles or the MGs. Leave them on the ship. All of us with silenced weapons, we go in and do them."

Murdock stood. "We've heard most of the arguments by nOW. I agree, we don't need the Marines off that amphib. We need to go in silently. The ship is about a klick, maybe a klick and a half from that inlet we were in yesterday. How do we get there?"

"Not the damned air cushions," Fernandez said. "Too fucking noisy."

"Any Special Boat Squadron runners on this task force?" Jaybird Sterling asked. "We could use two of those new ten-meter RIBS. They do forty knots, and could get us in fast to within a klick. Then we swim in from there for a silent attack."

"We'll find out about the RIBS, Jaybird," Murdock said.

"I still like the IBSS," Nicholson said. "Hell, we can get eighteen knots out of them moving in, then cut it to five, and be on top of the damn Kenyan motherfuckers before they know what hit them."

"We brought four IBSS, so we still have two," DeWitt said.

Don Stroh came into the room, and everyone fell quiet.

"Hey, don't let me stop you. As you were, as you Navy guys say. I'm slumming."

Ed DeWitt went over to him and they talked a minute. Then Don left the room.

"He's going to check on the RIBS," DeWitt said. "He'll shake them loose if anyone has any. Twenty warships out here, should be some of them somewhere."

Murdock resumed the discussion. "Okay, so we're on-site. We stick with the silenced weapons?"

Most of the men nodded.

"Damn right," Ronson said.

Murdock squinted a moment at some notes on the table. "The ship is tied up, so we don't need to worry about the bridge, the engine room, or the main control room. We just have to root out the fucking rangers. How?"

"We start at the top and work down to the weather deck; then we take them one deck at a time," Ken Ching said. "Most of the bastards are going to be holed up in officer country, and the officers' mess eating their brains out."

"I'd Roger that," DeWitt said. "We can go to the quarterdeck, and spread both ways fore and aft. Then we use our Motorolas, and when that deck is clear we move down one. We can clear the coops and the missile storage areas quickly. Any idea how many men will be there?"

"Two dozen, my guess," Ron Holt said.

"They should have twice that many," Doc Ellsworth said. "This is the only U.S. property they still control."

"What about the embassy?" Ted Yates asked.

"I mean anything that's worth ransoming," Doc said.

A half hour later, Don Stroh came in grinning. "Hey, you've got your choice. The amphib has three of the RIBs if you want them."

"Let's use the damned IBSs," Ricochet Lampedusa said. "Hell, we know them, we can get eighteen knots for four klicks, and not make any more noise than some of the small diesel fishing boats that must be working this area. Then we get close, we go down to five knots and slip up on them without a mother-licking sound."

"You lick what you want to, Lampedusa," somebody called, and they all laughed.

"Okay," Murdock said. "We'll go with the IBSs and all silenced weapons. This is all house-to-house killing fields, so the MP-5's will be handy. We can get plenty more from supply, I checked on that. Double ammo, no rebreathers, cammies, so no wet suits."

Don Stroh went out the door, and returned a minute later with a full commander who carried a briefcase and a sheaf of papers.

"Commander Pollard, glad you could come," Murdock said. "Men, meet Commander Pollard, CO of the USS Colgan. We've got a two-hour drill on a frigate, how to get around in it. The tough spots to defend, where most of the enemy probably will be, and what to try not to destroy if you don't have to."

The commander rolled out drawings of the ship with overlays that showed in detail the areas of access, and how to get from one part of the frigate to another. The SEALs crowded around and started memorizing everything they could about the layout of a U.S. Navy frigate.

At the end of the two hours, every SEAL in the room knew a lot more about how he would attack the Roy Turner.

The commander rolled up his displays and held up his hand.

"Men, I wish you luck, and keep the damned machine operable. As soon as you have the vessel secure, a skeleton crew from my frigate will be boarding the Turner to sail her out to sea. Be careful, but be thorough. Find all of those murdering bastards. I don't want to lose any of my crewmen."