Battleground

19

Murdock and DeWitt stood beside the hospital bed and watched Ted Yates come out of the general anesthesia. It had been a bad break of both bones. The fibula was shattered. They'd had to do some reconstruction, inserting a rod and some pinning and wiring.

Doc Ellsworth had watched the operation, and he was still showing the sweat. "Damn, but them guys are good. They pasted old Yates back together like he was a rag doll. He'll be almost as good as new."

Murdock nodded. Almost. He'd been through it several times before. There was no chance that Yates would be able to stand up under the strenuous rigors of a SEAL's life. He would be back to the regular Navy for the rest of his hitch, and his career.

"Yates, Ted Yates," Doc called. "Hey, buddy, you're coming out of that wild dream. How was it in there?"

Yates tried a grin. He blinked, and rubbed his eyes. His hands were still in plastic gloves. They hadn't taken time to clean him up before they operated.

"Doc, you bitch. You didn't tell me it was going to hurt. Still hurts like a fucking volcano."

"You had some shots, buddy. Should knock out the pain in a few minutes. Maybe knock you out too."

"So why all the fuss over a broken leg?" Yates asked. Doc looked at Murdock.

"Yates, it was worse than just a break. The medics say one of the bones was shattered. They had to pull in some reserves to paste you back together."

"Reserves? You mean some pins and wires and things?"

"Yeah, Yates," Doc said. "And a short length of rod. That bone was just in little bitty pieces in there."

Yates frowned at them, then shook his head as a stab of pain drilled through him. He blinked, and looked at Murdock. "L-T, this ain't gonna slow me down being a SEAL, is it?" He blinked again and shut his eyes. He lifted his hand, and then the medications took over as he drifted into sleep.

"You got off the hook on that one, L-T. Course he's got to be told sooner or later."

The three SEALs left the room, and worked their way with some help back to their assembly room. They had cleaned up a little, and Doc went to the EM mess for a late-night supper. He had a steak dinner with all the extras.

Murdock and DeWitt hit their quarters, had showers, and then went to the dirty mess and got their suppers to order.

"We got lucky on that one," DeWitt said. "If those Hornets hadn't been babysitting us, we'd be mincemeat by now in Mombasa harbor. Those one-oh-fives would have riddled the ship and blown us into the bay in tiny little pieces."

"Yeah, thank God for the aviators."

After they had eaten, and were on the way back to their quarters, DeWitt asked the next vital question.

"Now, do we go in and root out General Maleceia like we first planned?"

"That's up to Washington. That's the way we left it in our planning with Don Stroh. He's got the ball now. We lick our wounds, and get ready to go in if he calls."

"Mean we might get a day or two to rest up?"

"If the politicians have to decide it, we might have a whole week. We'll need it to get ourselves into fighting trim again."

Murdock made sure his men had been fed, had showers, and had good bunks; then he crashed in his quarters.

The next morning, Don Stroh knocked on his door at 0700.

Murdock let him in while wringing the sleep out of his brain.

"Hey, thought you'd been up for hours. We may have a small problem."

Murdock took the offered cup of coffee, and sat down sipping at the life-giving fluid.

"Small problem?"

Stroh leaned against the door. "Well, maybe not all that small. You remember we left the ending open here. We said when we got the ship and all the people back, we'd worry about what to do about Colonel, now General, Maleceia."

"You said it was a political, not a military matter. What did the politicians say?"

"Not a damn word. They haven't even considered it yet. My boss said he talked to the President about it again yesterday, and he got put off."

"So, can we fly back to San Diego?"

"You're officially on hold until the politicos decide. I still say we don't make the same mistake we did in Iraq. We go in and blast the guy into hell so we don't have to come down here and do this job again."

"So when will we know how they think?"

"Maybe a day, maybe a week. Maybe never. Politicians have a weakness for letting the hard decisions slide until everyone forgets about them."

"What's so hard about this one?"

"Our stature in world opinion, or our relations with President Daniel Djonjo, who it seems is gradually retaking control of his country. He's got Mombasa almost totally recaptured. He is working north with a large force of troops that remained loyal or came back to his command. So we, and he, don't know what the hell is happening."

"Why wouldn't he want us to rip up the last of the general and get him out of the President's hair?"

"You got me. Maybe they are both from the same tribe or something. It's all a mystery to me. I've sent three signals to my boss this morning with the hope that we can get a go/no-go by tonight."

Murdock stretched and reached for his pants. "So I'd better get my men looked over, shaped up, and rested for another go-round. We need to do our basic planning just in case it is a go."

"I'm with you. I don't see how the President can turn us down on this one. We've asked for a go, and he's conferring with some members of Congress and his staff and cabinet. That could be trouble. We'll have to wait and see."

The two had breakfast, then went to the SEAL assembly room. Again Murdock had to have an escort to get him to the right room on the right deck.

The SEALs looked a little tired but in good spirits. Doc Ellsworth reported that he had taken Nicholson, Brown, and Ronson to the medics to have their wounds treated and redressed. All had broken open again, but the medics said they weren't serious, and if the men wanted to stay on duty, it was their call.

Jaybird had them all cleaning their weapons, and he'd already made an invoice of what ammo they had left for each type of weapon. Six of the men had brought back the AK47s with them.

"A damn souvenir," Miguel Fernandez said. "Hell, ain't every day I get a chance to look down this end of one of them weapons. It's a pretty fine piece."

Murdock filled them in on the chances of taking on General Maleceia. They groaned at the delay.

"Didn't we learn anything in Iraq?" Ron Holt asked. "Jeeze, think them Washington guys would think back and see what we didn't do back there. Time we finished the job here."

Half the men had a comment. Murdock listened, realizing that most of the bitching was along the lines of what he thought.

"At least it gives us a small window to get our breath, check over our weapons, see if we can find anything new we want to use, and maybe even do some training," he said.

That brought a groan from the men.

"Besides, we need to get in some head work on how we'd take on that RX Military Headquarters where the general hangs his hat."

Stroh came forward to the long table and began spreading out satellite photos.

"These were taken during the past twenty-four hours," Stroh said. "About as current as we can get. We also have a man in Nairobi who is trying to pin down exactly where General Maleceia is, where his headquarters is on the complex, and where he spends the most time.

"If we could get a lucky missile targeting him, it would save you guys a hell of a lot of work digging him out of his hole."

The SEALs moved in close, and the planning process began. Murdock hung back and listened. If anyone thought that only officers had the brains to plan an operation, he was missing one hell of a lot of good advice.

Murdock listened to the kicking around of ideas about how to dig out a general from his stronghold. All the while he was planning what he and the men would be doing for the next two days to a week. He was sure it would take Washington that long to make up its mind what to do about General Maleceia.

As had happened often before, his mind flashed back to that last leave he'd had after the China affair. He had gone to Washington D.C., to see his parents. His mother had taken over as usual.