Battleground

17

Gunner's Mate First Class Pete Vuylsteke eased up and looked down the passageway. Nobody. It was dark outside. They hadn't heard anyone in their section of the Turner for an hour. Probably gorging themselves on the chief's mess stores.

He lifted up from the ladder and ran across the passage that led to the quarterdeck and into the aft section of the ship. He heard Perez and Tretter right behind him. They went down a companionway, up two more ladders, and came out where he wanted to be.

He flattened out on the broad deck aft of the stack on the superstructure. They were in the open on the top of the ship, and with a minimum of movement they could cover either side of the frigate.

They had brought their weapons. None of them were silenced, and if they started shooting, they had to be able to defend themselves until they could get down to the roof of the hangar, where they could take a flying dive into the bay.

"Yeah, let's do it," Perez had said. "I'm getting too fucking tired of sitting in the bilge. My ass hurts. At least we'll be in the open."

They had talked it over all afternoon, and when it had started getting dark outside, they'd worked up to the top deck. It was so easy, they wondered where all the Kenyans were. They spotted some of them prowling the weather deck.

"Damn poor place for lookouts," Tretter said.

"What the hell, they're shit-kickers, not sailors," Vuylsteke said. He grinned. "Hey, you guys know that, by rules of the sea, I am now the Captain and commanding officer of the Roy Turner."

Tretter snorted.

Perez laughed. "Be damned, you're the senior man, all right. Okay, Captain, what the hell we doing next?"

Before any of them could answer they heard the growl of a truck with lights off edging onto the pier.

"Oh, shit, reinforcements. Tretter, can you kill the driver with your AK?"

It was a fifty-yard shot at most. Tretter cranked in a round, sighted on the right-hand side of the glinting windshield, and fired. The round slammed through the windshield, but missed the driver. Tretter's second round punched through the man's chest, and the truck stalled.

The two shots from the ship brought a yell from a ranger on the deck below near the frigate's torpedo tubes. Vuylsteke aimed the shotgun at him and fired. The load of double-aught buck didn't spread as much as smaller pellets, and six of the thirteen slugs hit the ranger in the chest and slammed him halfway over the rail, where he hung like a ripped rag doll.

They saw no one else on deck. They had the high ground. The only way anyone could get above them would be to climb the mast.

"We just started the shit hitting the fan," Perez said. "Now the fun begins."

They saw a line of men come out of the shadows where the truck had stalled and walk forward.

"Two more rounds in the radiator to kill the truck," Vuylsteke said. "Then nail some of those troops coming up the pier."

The men in green were out of range of the short guns, but they wouldn't be long. The three sailors also had the bag of hand grenades. Perez had counted them the night before, twenty-one in all. They could do a lot of damage.

The sailors began taking return fire from the troops on the pier. They edged back so the superstructure would protect them. Tretter moved up now and then to send off a pair of shots into the growing line of men.

"Close enough yet?" Vuylsteke asked.

"Not for the sub-gun, the shotgun, or the grenades. But we can all use our long guns."

"How far can you throw one of them bombs?" Vuylsteke asked.

"I used to play some baseball, outfield. Hell, guess I can get it out there sixty yards."

"Give one a try," Vuylsteke said. "Remember, you'll get a bounce on that concrete."

Perez grinned and pulled the pin from the smooth round M-67 grenade, then lifted up and threw it like a baseball with plenty of body in it. He dropped down at once.

Vuylsteke lifted up to watch the bomb. It went about thirty yards down the pier, bounced another ten yards, and went off while it was still in the air.

"An air burst," Vuylsteke yelped. "Must have cut down half a dozen of them bad guys down there."

"Take a shot," Perez said, tossing two grenades to Vuylsteke. He pitched one, not as far as Perez's had gone, but the troops had moved up ten yards and he saw them scatter when they heard the bomb hit the concrete. It came down before it exploded, and he heard a dozen men yell in pain and confusion.

"Aft," Tretter bellowed.

Perez turned, holding the sub-gun, and hit the trigger. Two green-clad Kenyan rangers had just come past the 76mm gun mount. Perez squeezed the trigger on the little jammer and spewed out ten rounds before he let up. One of the rangers went down, the other dove the other way. Tretter nailed him with a round from the AK-47.

"Get their weapons and ammo," Vuylsteke said.

"Good idea," Perez said, and ran bent over to the two dead men and brought back their two AK-47s and six magazines of rounds.

"Tretter, keep watch fore and aft. We'll entertain the troops below."

Each one threw a hand grenade, and before it exploded they had the AK-47s up laying down a deadly field of fire at the string of rangers who had stopped moving forward. They were still less than halfway down the side of the frigate.

Murdock and his SEALs were three hundred yards away from the softly lit Roy Turner when they heard firing. Jaybird looked at his commander, who held up his hands in an I-don't-know gesture. They kept moving at five knots.

"Hand grenades," Murdock said. "Somebody's got a shooting gallery going up there."

A few minutes later, they heard the flat crack of rifle fire.

"AK-47s, you can bet your bippy," Holt said.

They all huddled low in the black rubber boats. The motors had been muffled down to a quiet rumble. Now the firing onshore blocked out any sound the motors made.

They had worked out the debarking earlier. DeWitt would power them up to the port side of the frigate midships. They would throw up their grappling hooks, and get four men up ropes quickly to the weather deck. Those would cover the other four coming up.

DeWitt would take his powered IBS to the stern, send his men up grapple-hook ropes there, and work forward.

"Who is shooting at who?" Jaybird asked.

Murdock shook his head. "Whoever it is is doing us one hell of a big favor. All eyes will be on the dock, leaving us home free."

They were thirty yards from the ship when two dark-clad men ran out the quarterdeck door. They didn't look into the harbor; rather they looked up at the superstructure and fired shotguns that way.

"Take them," Murdock whispered. Two men with silenced M-4A1 carbines rose up and fired three-round bursts almost at the same time. The two Kenyan shotgunners slammed against the bulkhead and dropped. One began to crawl away. Another three-round burst stopped him.

On the aft deck of the superstructure, Vuylsteke saw they were running short on hand grenades. They had kept the Kenyan troopers back so they couldn't get on board the Turner.

"Check the port side," Vuylsteke told Tretter. Tretter edged across the flat deck, and looked down on the water side.

"Jesus H. Kerist." He rolled back, and couldn't talk for a minute. "Hey, coming on the port side, not twenty yards off, two black rubber boats. One's towing the other. Sure as hell they're SEALS. I've seen them suckers train. They'll be on board in two or three minutes."

"Good, let's beat back these green guys a little more," Vuylsteke said. "Maybe we'll get our asses saved after all without a swim."

They used the AK-47s, with hand grenades thrown in to mix things up. There was no heavy-weapons response. Vuylsteke thought that strange, but they kept up the fire for another three minutes.

Tretter took another look to port.

"Yeah, four of them up ropes, and more down on the fantail. Damn, we got SEALS moving all over."

"Let them know we're here so we don't get shot," Perez said.

Then they heard the soft chuffs of the silenced weapons. A minute later, all three sailors were on the port side watching the SEALS. One looked up at the superstructure.

"Hey, you SEALS," Vuylsteke bellowed. "Look up here."

They waited a minute. The SEALs hosed down three Kenyan rangers who ran out of the quarterdeck door.

"SEALS, damnit, you've got some help up here," Perez screamed. "Three Americans up here."

One of the SEALS swung his weapon upward and looked that way.

"Don't shoot, we're Americans. We're crew on here who were on liberty when she was taken," Tretter brayed.

The SEAL hesitated. "Yeah? Who is Beavis's buddy?" the SEAL asked.

"Butthead, who else?" Vuylsteke yelled. "Now, don't shoot us. There's about two hundred troops out front on the dock. We've been trying to hold them off."

"Stay low and keep the topside free of any rangers," Jaybird Sterling called. "We'll mop up down here." He touched the mike at his throat. "L-T, we've got three friendlies on the top of the superstructure just aft of the stack. Evidently crewmen who got back on board. They say there are about two hundred more troops out front near the pier."

"Roger that. We'll clean up on board. Get two men topside and harass those troops with some fire."

Jaybird motioned to Lampedusa, and they scurried up a steel ladder that clung to the side of the ship below the 76mm gun mount.

Topside they found the three sailors, and kept low to the deck.

"Fucking glad to see you guys," Vuylsteke called.

Jaybird slid to the deck beside him. "Glad we're here. Where are those troops?"

Vuylsteke pointed them out. About half of them had rushed into the shadows of the warehouse adjacent to the pier. More crowded around the pier just down from the bow of the ship.

The SEALs and the sailors all had found cover to use to hide behind so they could fire at the few Kenyan rangers who moved gradually down the pier toward the ship.

"Wish we had the MG," Jaybird said. "You guys got rifles?"

"AK-47s courtesy of our Kenyan friends," Tretter said. "We still got a dozen hand grenades." He threw one toward the Kenyans, and they edged back as the bomb went off just out of range.

"Let's discourage them," Jaybird said. He had a carbine for the mission, and unscrewed the silencer. "Better range," he said. Then he began sniping at the men on the pier.

Soon there were five weapons firing at the Kenyan rangers. They looked confused, not sure whether to storm the boat and leap on board, or stay where they were and fire back.

Return fire against the ship was light. Vuylsteke decided they didn't want to risk hitting their own men who were still on board. Gradually the Kenyan soldiers edged back away from the ship. More of them ran for the deep shadows in front of the warehouse.

"Let's give them something to think about," Lampedusa said. He unhooked a Willy Peter hand grenade from his harness, pulled the pin, and threw it as far as he could toward the rangers. The grenade went off with a spectacular star-burst of furiously burning white phosphorus. Half of it reached the troops spread out on the dock, and they screamed with pain as the unstoppable phosphorus burned through cloth, flesh, and equipment. More than a dozen Kenyan rangers took off, running for the safety of the warehouse across the pier.

On the weather deck below, Murdock's men hugged the starboard side of the Roy Turner's superstructure on both flanks of the quarterdeck door. Red Nicholson crept up, tossed a grenade into the quarterdeck, and leaned back. The bomb went off with a roaring splatter of shrapnel; then Nicholson and Magic Brown charged into the companionway with their MP-5's on auto fire. Magic saw two rangers on the deck trying to get back to their feet. He triggered a three-round burst into each of them.

Nicholson saw a man running out the far end of the companionway, but his rounds reached the area too late. "Quarterdeck clear," Red said into his mike. The two SEALs worked down to the crossing companionway and paused.

Murdock had sent Ross Lincoln aft toward the point where the hangar was built out solidly to the rail. Lincoln darted forward and stopped, then moved again. A Kenyan fired once from behind some fixtures alongside the bulkhead. A searing burst from the Kenyan's AK-47 missed. Lincoln used his M-4A1 on automatic, washing down the free area under the fixtures, and heard a scream of pain.

He charged the area, and saw a Kenyan ranger bringing up his rifle. Lincoln nailed him to the deck with a three-round burst of 9mm rounds into his chest.

On the fantail, DeWitt's squad had the small flight deck in control. Then two weapons fired from the chopper hangar. DeWitt saw one of the big doors rolled half open, ran up the side, and dove through it with his night-vision goggles in place. The total blackness of the inside of the hangar came into a dull green focus.

DeWitt saw the second SH-60B LAMPS chopper tied down. Just behind it someone fired a shotgun, but the pellets slammed out the open door. DeWitt missed his Mossburg shotgun. Instead he carried an MP-5 suppressed, and blasted a six-round burst into the Kenyan hiding there. The man groaned, then spilled to the side as he hit the deck and lay still.

DeWitt rolled to one side and waited. Three rounds from an automatic rifle splattered the spot where he had been moments before. He saw the shooter behind some boxes on the far side of the hangar. He returned fire with two six-round bursts and waited. A moment later he heard a gush of air; then a body hit the floor and a weapon clattered on the non-slip hangar deck.

DeWitt looked around. In the soft green glow he made sure that there were no more men in the hangar.

"Hangar clear," he said into his mike.

Murdock watched the bridge wing. He'd seen movement there before. Now he studied it with the NVGs. Yes. A man lay on the deck with a weapon. He lifted his silenced MP-5 and drilled the area with a half-dozen rounds, then three more. The man lying there bent in half as if in pain, then flopped on the deck and didn't move.

"Companionway crossing the quarterdeck," Nicholson said. "Do we clear it?"

"Hold," Murdock said. "Let's get the topside clear before we move there. Jaybird, can you get to the bridge?"

The Motorola brought the answer. "Think so, L-T. These fuckers on the dock don't look real interested in boarding and getting killed. We've got five guns up here discouraging them. My guess is no leadership."

"Good. Move to the bridge, leave one SEAL with the sailors. Keep up the fire on the dock."

Jaybird crawled forward under the radar search antennas on the tall masts, and then checked the bridge wing. No activity there. He saw one body that didn't move. He listened. Over the gunfire he could hear no one inside the bridge. He held the MP-5 ready as he stepped over a rail and worked closer to the bridge wing. Satisfied that he could hear no firing or movement from the bridge, he leaped onto the wing and covered the bridge interior. No one was there. He went to the far side and checked. No Kenyans.

"Bridge clear," he said to the mike.

On top of the superstructure midships, Vuylsteke watched the pier. Something had changed out there. He couldn't tell what. He edged further behind his protection. A moment later, he heard running steps, and someone pounded down the weather deck to the rail up near the bridge. A Kenyan with no weapon. He charged the rail, jumped over, and landed two feet below on the concrete dock. He lost his balance and went down. Before he could jump up, two slugs from the crewmen's AK47s jolted into him and he screamed and tried to crawl toward the warehouse. He made it five yards, then fell on his face and didn't move.

Vuylsteke motioned to the SEAL beside him. "What's happening out front? Almost looks like they are getting organized."

Joe "Ricochet" Lampedusa had seen the activity too. He keyed his mike. "L-T, something is going on out there on the dock. You can't see it yet. I'd say they're getting ready to assault us. If they do, we could use a few more shooters over on the starboard side."

"That's a Roger. If it happens, let me know. Is the topside clear yet? What kind of an onboard Kenyan body count do we have?"

The men keyed in with the number they had done. When Murdock figured the total, he came up with twelve. There had to be more than that on board — unless some of them deserted the ship when the shooting started. "Bastards are coming," Jaybird said on the Motorola.

"Everyone who can, get starboard and return fire," Murdock said.

Jaybird watched them. There was a line of green-uniformed Kenyans that stretched almost the length of the ship. They came out of the darkness of the long warehouse firing.

Nineteen weapons answered their attack. Six hand grenades sailed into the marching men when they came close enough. The deadly fire of the three sailors and the sixteen SEALs slowed the march, and then pushed the Kenyans back. Seconds later they broke and ran for the darkness they had left.

"Anyone hit?" the Motorola asked. After a pause, Murdock continued. "They'll be back. DeWitt, get two more of your men on the top of the superstructure. The high ground."

"Roger that."

The three sailors slammed in fresh magazines. They had one full one left each, then no more. The SEALs checked their magazines. The men had taken off the suppressors from their carbines. No need for them now, and the added velocity and range would be useful.

"Here they come," Jaybird said.

The line of Kenyan rangers was considerably shorter this time. Murdock figured there were less than a hundred men. The pier was thirty yards wide here. They came out of the darkness at a trot, then broke into a sprint. One after another they were hit by the nineteen guns now shooting at them from the Turner. They still came on.

All of the SEALs had grenades. They threw them when the enemy was ten yards from the ship. The toll was heavy. Twenty grenades exploded within a few strides of the men. Dozens went down screaming in pain.

The sharpshooters picked off more of the men who got through the rain of shrapnel. More grenades fell on the concrete and bounced to give off an airburst that shredded more of the green-uniformed men.

Half-a-dozen Kenyans lived through the barrage and jumped onto the deck. Murdock and two men firing from the quarterdeck door cut them down, and dumped three of them back on the dock.

Two more got on board aft, and fell before they could get to any kind of cover.

A moment later the attack ended. "Chase them with lead," Murdock said in his mike. The men on the Turner kept firing as the stragglers and the wounded turned and ran for the safety of the shadows. About half of them made it.

The silence that followed the last shots was eerie. The only sound was a gentle lapping of the water on the ship's hull and against the piling of the dock.

Murdock led a quick search of the ship. He found no hiding Kenyan rangers. Then he met the three crewmen, and had them make a second search.

"You men know where they could be. If you find any Kenyans, Jaybird will give us a call and we'll dig them out. You guys have done plenty tonight helping us."

It took them a half hour to figure how to work it, but at last the SEALS, and their three frigate crewmen got the SH-60B helicopter rolled into the hangar beside the other one and the hangar doors closed.

Murdock got Holt to power up the SATCOM, and he radioed the carrier on the "local call" frequency.

"Rover, this is Inflatable.

The answer came back at once. "Yes, Inflatable. Good to hear from you."

"The party's over and it's time to clean up the place. We're ready here for your arrival. Should be no enemy fire. I say again, there is a negative chance of enemy fire. The flight deck is cleared."