Battleground

23

"Damn right I want to take the fifty," Magic Brown said. "Look, the medics gave me an okay. I did moves and exercises for them and the wound didn't break open. I got a go. I want the fucking fifty in case we need to slow down some armored cars or trucks. Can't tell what we'll wind up working against up there."

"Okay," Lieutenant Blake Murdock said, grinning. "You have to carry the bitch, not me. Now, any other ideas about how, what, and where? If we go, I'd say it could be either day or night. They might want to hit his HQ during the daytime with the hopes that he'll be inside. A good five-hundred-pounder right through that plate-glass wall up there on the third floor would be great shooting."

Don Stroh had given them the word from the company spy in Nairobi a few minutes earlier about where the general would be hanging his hat.

"So we've got fifteen men," Jaybird said. "How many of the bad guys will be on that base?"

"No idea. Our spy didn't find out that kind of information. At one time I heard the general had five thousand men up there in Nairobi, but the way whole companies have been deserting, I'm sure he doesn't have anything like that left."

"Still should be worthwhile odds," Jaybird said. "I hate it when we got to go up against somebody one on one."

The SEALs hooted him down.

"To business," Murdock said. "We need to finalize our plans, so Don can get them up to the XO as soon as possible, so he can coordinate the rest of it. We're assuming that the President will give the flyboys a go on dropping some eggs on this place. Then we go in and mop up. If for any reason the general survives and tries to run, we run with him, only faster, quicker, and with better marksmanship. If we have to, we run him to ground and chew him up and spit him out for fertilizer."

"We still going in by chopper?" Ching asked.

"Best way this time. No real need to do a parachute drop. Those old Seahawks can dump us out there in about two hours. The carrier will move up toward Formosa Bay, which is about twenty miles closer to Nairobi than Mombasa. The bird cuts back for the ship and we go do our thing."

"Double ammo?" Al Adams asked.

"Yes, except for the fifty," Murdock said. "Not even Magic can pack that much and still fight. We'll go with our jungle cammies — could give us better cover — and the rest of our standard equipment. Bishop, we found a replacement SATCOM box that you get to pack along. It came in damn handy last time."

"With that bird sweeping in, they gonna damn well know that trouble has arrived," Ross Lincoln said.

"That's why the Seahawk will swing around on the opposite side of the base and work its machine gun on the far gate to give us a diversion," Murdock said. "We hope most of the bad guys will rush over on that side. We don't know for sure, but the aerials look like there's some woods to cover our landing about a quarter of a mile from the fence."

"We all using our weapons of choice?" Jaybird asked.

"Almost. As long as we keep the balance we need. You take your MP-5 along, but you can smuggle in that shotgun you like if you want to. You've got to carry it." They went over the satellite photos again. They would come in from the back side of the place, with the main entrance in the front and side gates to the left and right. There was no rear gate. The land looked comparatively flat, and evidently had been cleared of all brush and trees for about a hundred yards.

"Lot of real estate to cover if they've got machine guns trained on that open space," Ed DeWitt said. "If we get a go, why don't we go in on the chopper an hour before daylight. We get down, move up to the fence in the dark, cut our holes and get inside quietly to some kind of cover, and wait for the bombers to come over at dawn."

Murdock nodded. "Damned fine. Stroh, what about that?"

"Should be no problem. You'll be going in far in advance of the takeoff of the bomber-fighters anyway. I'd guess they'll use the F-18 Hornet. She'll pack almost eight tons of bombs, and they have the twenty-millimeter Vulcan cannon as well."

"The eighteen," Murdock said. "Yes, probably what they'll use. Just so they blow that top-story front into the basement. Anything else anybody is wondering about?" Murdock asked.

Somebody came to the door and asked for Don Stroh. He went out quickly.

"Something cooking with the go-ahead?" Magic Brown asked.

"Hope so," Murdock said. "Now, if we run into a heavy force along this rear perimeter, what is our alternate course?"

They went on working, planning, trying to come up with a solution for every problem they could think of.

"What if the bombs miss the three-story building and we're already inside the fence waiting to assault it?" Horse Ronson asked.

"We go right ahead and assault it," DeWitt said. "We get inside, clear rooms, move to the top floor, take out everybody up there we can see, and make sure that one of them is a big fat tall son-of-a-bitching general." The men laughed.

"No chance these Navy aviators are going to miss a big target like that," Murdock said. "They have smart bombs too, computer-guided bombs that are supposed to be able to hit dead center in a three-foot circle."

They were still working an hour later when Don Stroh came into the room. Everyone stopped talking, and watched him as he went to the front.

"Anybody here want to go on a short trip to Nairobi? We just got a firm go-ahead from the President." The SEALs cheered, and he shushed them. "The President said that his council had decided to make the hit. The Secretary of State has already phoned President Djonjo of Kenya, and he's given us permission for one more air raid on his country. After this we can't use any more air attacks."

"So it's a go," Murdock said. "What about the timing?"

"Told the XO about your idea of a night drop for you guys just before the bomb run. He liked the idea. No problem for the bird. They made the run before in the Seahawks. He worked out a schedule. Two hours for the flight. The Monroe is moving up to that bay to cut down the flight time. Sunup here tomorrow is supposed to be about 0530. We get you out of here at 0200, gives you over an hour after you arrive to move up, get inside the fence, and find some cover. Enough time?"

"Should work," DeWitt said. "We get a diversion with the bird's machine guns on the front gate?"

"You got it. As soon as he dumps you, he goes strafing. This bird will bring M-60 7.62-millimeter machine guns in both cabin doors."

"Little buddy, you just got yourself a deal," Murdock said. "Now we can get the final touches to our plans. We're going to need some more ammunition and forty-millimeter grenades and some WP. We better get some M-67 fraggers too. Jaybird, make a list. See if all the men have all the ammo they need. Then get a guide and find the armory or the arms locker or whatever they have on this ship. Looks like we're about ready to go catch ourselves a general."

By 2300, the SEALs were outfitted and ready to go. They had all the ammo they could carry, but they didn't have to worry about sinking in the ocean. The ammo load would lighten quickly as they moved up to the HQ building. Murdock arranged a 0100 supper for the SEALS.

Before he ate, Murdock and DeWitt talked to Don Stroh, their CIA mother hen.

"The XO tells me they will send six F/A-18 Hornets up to do the job," Stroh said. "That's over forty-five tons of bombs. XO said he'd also have one Hornet go in early to tail you and the Seahawk into Nairobi the last fifty miles or so in case they pick you up on radar and come after the chopper. We're not sure what kind of air power or radar the general still has up there."

Murdock and DeWitt took one more trip to sick bay and talked with Ted Yates. He yelled as soon as he saw them.

"Hear you guys are going out early in the morning. Damnit, wish to hell I was going with you. Why did this have to happen to me? Probably wash me right out of the SEALS."

They talked him down a little.

"Hey, you were in three of the phases already," Murdock said. "Worth at least a Purple Heart. Maybe your leg won't heal up well enough. We don't know that. I heard about a Marine who was in their advance recon outfit. Most elite bunch the Marines have. He lost one leg below the knee on a practice parachute jump when the wind blew him into some power lines. He healed up, got an artificial leg, and qualified again with his unit. He'd come home from a ten-mile hike and pour blood out of the place his stub leg connected with the leather of the metal leg. Now there was one tough Marine."

"Yeah, but he didn't have to do the SEAL tests. Dammit. I'm mad as hell, L-T. You see what you can do for me when we get back. If I wash out of SEALs on a physical, maybe you can wrangle me a quarterdeck job back at the grinder. Can you do that, L-T?"

Murdock took a breath so he could talk normally. The kid was so much a SEAL. "Yes, Yates, I promise you we'll take the best care of you, and try to get that leg to SEAL fitness. If it doesn't work, I'll see about a quarterdeck deal for you. Now, get some rest. Let that leg heal itself up the best it can.

Colonel Jomo Kariuki had taken great care to cover his tracks. Now he stepped into a double-locked section of a little-used warehouse and turned on the lights. Yes! There sat his Mercedes Benz, a two-year-old sedan with civilian plates. It was gassed, had a week's worth of survival food and water, fifty gallons of extra fuel, and three light weapons including an Uzi and six full magazines. He was ready. He quickly changed into his civilian clothes and opened the rear door.

At the east gate, the guard sergeant was curious. He'd never seen the colonel before, so he couldn't identify him. Kariuki had put on horn-rimmed glasses and a heavy mustache, and now had a sporty billed cap on to help conceal exactly who he was.

"Could I see your papers, please," the sergeant asked.

The colonel gave him prepared identification papers showing him to be a civilian supplier of large amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables for the base.

"Is there any problem?" the colonel asked.

"No, I've heard of your company. We've been told not to let any military personnel off base this late. I guess that doesn't include you. Looks like you're heading out for a trip."

"Not really. I always carry some provisions in case I get stalled on my way out to the farms. Is there anything else?"

The guard hesitated. Colonel Kariuki knew the procedure. He'd just never had to participate before. Now he took a five-hundred-shilling note from his pocket and let the sergeant watch him fold it four times. Then he held it out, and shook hands with the sergeant. The money vanished at the same time into the sergeant's palm.

"Yes, sir. That will be all. Have a good trip."

Colonel Kariuki eased the Italian-made Bernardeli automatic back under the sweater that lay on the seat beside him. The little .22 was quiet and deadly. It was his favorite handgun. He was out.

It took him less than a half hour to power through the fringes of Nairobi and then swing out on the north road. He hit Narvasha, and later Nakuru, with no problems. By now he has his military cap on and his military identification in place in case anyone questioned him. Shortly past Nakuru he came to a military roadblock. He pulled into a short line of cars and farm wagons, and waited.

A captain came up and saw the military cap, and then looked at the ID, which the colonel held up and displayed.

"What is the problem here, Captain?"

"No problem, Colonel. Just making a regular citizen check and watching for renegades. With the change in military leadership, some troops took to the hills, and we're watching for them."

"Well done, Captain."

"Begging your pardon, Colonel, but this is a fine car. Is it a part of the new regime's… er… compensation?"

"No, Captain, it's my personal car. I saved for ten years to buy it. Now, if there's nothing else?"

"Of course, Colonel. Please proceed around these wagons. The road is clear now all the way to the take. I'd guess that's where you're going on your vacation."

"Precisely, Captain, and I'm a bit behind schedule. Thank you." He drove around the wagons and honked at the bar across the road, and it was lifted. He breathed easier as there was no pursuit.

Now all he had left was a straight run west to Kisumu and the small port on the bay of the great Lake Victoria that bordered on three nations. He'd get a boat large enough to carry the car, and go south to Mwanza in Tanzania, and then to a small town he knew of that would welcome him and his South African gold with greatest of pleasure. Eventually he might go on to the coastal capital of Dar es Salaam.

He smiled. Yes, he had timed it about right. The Maleceia coup could not last more than two more days at the most. He had taken off just in time, and with everything he had profited from the short-running coup and his former office in the government.

The road here was two lanes of blacktop with numerous chuckholes and narrow places. He saw them, but didn't understand until too late. The narrowed road was crossed with three lines of glinting metal triangular spikes. Two prongs of each one lay on the pavement, but no matter how they fell, one sharp three-inch spike always stuck upward waiting for a tire.

He hit the brakes, but he was too late to swing into the gravel at the side of the road and go around the tire-killers. Two tires on the passenger side missed the spikes, but the other two tires picked them up and blew out in an instant. He fought the wheel to keep the big car heading down the roadway.

He lost the fight, and it angled across the road to the left as the left front tire spun off the rim and the metal ground along the blacktop leaving a deep gash and throwing the car to the left.

By the time he got the Mercedes stopped, it had two wheels in the shallow ditch, and everything so carefully packed inside had erupted forward in a cascading jumble.

He grabbed the pistol and pushed the door open. Some damn road bandits. He dropped the pistol and pulled the Uzi out from under the seat, then looked around. Half-a-dozen men showed themselves in the moonlight from behind trees, then stepped back out of sight. The first round shattered the windshield, and he dove to the floor. When he came up, he triggered a six-round burst out the door, and caught a young man peering inside.

The bandit slammed backward screaming as he died with three rounds in his neck and chest.

A dozen more rounds hit the car.

Colonel Kariuki fired out the open car door again, then too late realized it was a two-front war. A round jolted through the passenger's side window, shattering it. The second round dug into his back just below his lungs, and missed his spine by inches. He bellowed in pain, and tried to swing the Uzi around.

A huge man dove into the car and wrestled the weapon away from him, then dragged him out to the dirt beside the ditch.

Four men leaped into the car and shrilled in delight. They had found the food. Two more bottles of whiskey, and already one was open and being sampled.

Colonel Kariuki turned over to watch the carnage of his carefully laid plans. Maybe all was not lost.

"Who is your leader?" he asked loudly. His body gushed with pain, but he could not let them know he was hurting.

"Who is your leader?" he bellowed this time.

A small man with a full beard and nearly white hair came out of the car carrying his pistol and nodded. "I am Kinadi, the leader of this squad of patriot soldiers. Who are you?"

"I am Colonel Jomo Kariuki, the second in command of the New Republican Army of Kenya. I sit at the right hand of our leader, General Umar Maleceia."

The man in front of him wore no uniform. He had the white shirt and dark pants of the peasant farmer of the hills. The man laughed, fired the pistol three times in the air, and laughed again.

"Maleceia is a syphilitic idiot. I knew him before he went into the Army. He's a stupid lout with more guts than brains. I was his sergeant his first time in the Army. If you run with him, I should shoot you now."

"I left him. His regime is falling apart. I was on my way to Tanzania."

"Doubt if you'll get much farther."

"Can we speak in private?" the colonel asked. He lowered his voice so only the leader could hear. "It could be well worth your time."

Kinadi motioned three of his men away. He kept the pistol aimed at the Army man. "So, talk."

"At this point I can do you a lot of good. I can make you a quite wealthy man. None of your group needs to know. Let them have the food and the weapons, and you stay here with me. We will change the two tires. I have two spares. Then we will drive to the nearest village, where I will present you with more than a hundred thousand shillings."

"You have money hidden in the car," the robber said. "Why don't I just kill you and take all of the money you have?"

"Because then you'll have to split it evenly with six or eight men, and you'll wind up with a pittance. This way you'll have more cash than you have ever seen in your lifetime."

"True. But if you will give me a hundred thousand, you must have three times that much. Why don't I want to take it all?"

"You'll have to share it with your band. No one will get much. There may be some fights, some killings, jealousies. It happens in the best groups of mere men."

"You have a good point, Colonel. By the way, this is a fine little pistol, a twenty-two caliber I believe." He turned and shot the colonel in the right leg.

"Bastard!" Colonel Kariuki brayed in pain and fury. He beat down the waves of agony. "Why did you shoot me? We were negotiating. I can make you rich."

The bandit leader nodded. "True, Colonel. All true." Then he shot the colonel in the left knee.

Colonel Kariuki screamed until he passed out.

"Tear the car apart," Kinadi ordered. "But don't damage it. Take everything out that will move, the goods, the seats, everything. There may be a surprise in there somewhere."

There was.

The men had taken out the front seats, and then lifted the rear seat to pull it out. A pair of furious Hinds montane vipers struck out repeatedly, shooting venom into two of the men, who wailed and reeled back, sucking at the fang marks to pull the poison from their systems.

Two other men clubbed the vipers to death and carried them deep into the brush.

Colonel Kariuki came to consciousness with the shock of the water that hit him in the face. "What? Oh, God. Why… why are you shooting me? I offered half of the money to you."

"Where is the money hidden, my colonel?" the leader asked.

"What money?"

The leader shot him in the left shoulder with the snarling little .22-caliber. Colonel Kariuki jolted backward, but didn't fall over this time. The pain billowed around him. He felt as if he were in a giant metal barrel and someone kept banging it with a steel hammer. "Where is the money, old man?"

"Money. If I tell you, will you let me go with my car?"

"Sure, sure we will. Why not? What good are you to us without your money?"

"G. It's a deal, a bargain. See, good men can come to reasonable arrangements. The money's in a compartment under the rear seat. It looks like the gas tank, but it comes right out and is hinged. Take it out carefully so you don't rupture the real gas tank directly below it."

The leader motioned, and three men cautiously looked in where the rear seat had been. One more snake darted out, but was clubbed before it could strike.

One of the men yelped, and tugged, and the metal box came loose and moved forward. They lugged it out carefully.

"Damn heavy," one of the men said.

The metal box was eight inches deep, two feet wide, and nearly three feet long. They brought it out and put it on the ground beside the leader. He called the men over, and then counted them.

"Is everyone here? I want no mistakes if this is valuable and we split it. Seven of us, rights Including the two snakebit ones who are still alive." He laughed. "Don't worry, the little viper is vicious, but not all that deadly."

He reached down, undid a hasp at each end, and lifted up the hinged top.

The men gasped. In the moonlight they could see that the box was filled with money. One section had banded stacks of hundred-dollar U.S. bills. Another had banded stacks of thousand-shilling notes. Half of the chest was filled with South African gold pieces.

The leader of the band hit Kariuki in a shot-up knee, setting off a series of wailing screams.

"Can the bills be traced? Are the numbers recorded anywhere as stolen? They're all new and in order."

Colonel Kariuki knew then that he would not live out the night. He screamed at them that of course they were stolen.

"Yes, the numbers are with every police in the world. All stolen, and you'll never spend a dollar or a shilling."

The leader laughed at him. "Old man, you wouldn't have kept them if they had been recorded. What did you do before you were a colonel with the killers down in Nairobi?"

The colonel didn't answer.

The leader hit him again in a wounded knee, and Kariuki bleated in surging waves of pain that made him nauseous. When he could talk again, he realized he was still alive. Maybe he could still get through this and get away.

"Before I went with the Army, I was the Minister of Finance and Administrator of Foreign Aid. I… I helped myself to some of the foreign aid. It was never missed."

"About what I figured." The leader turned away from the Army man. He pointed to three of his men. "You three start dividing it up into seven equal piles. We'll all be rich tonight. But don't damage the mother vehicle. It's mine. The rest of the goods we split equally. Any arguments?" There were none.

Colonel Kariuki had some hope. He called to the leader.

"Now, Mr. Kinadi, I gave you what you wanted. Will you help me into the village where I can get some medical aid? It's the right thing to do."

The leader looked down at the colonel and asked him to repeat what he had said. When he heard it, Kinadi shrugged and turned away. Then in one swift movement he spun back and shot the colonel three times in the chest. After Kariuki fell to the ground, Kinadi shot him twice in the head to make sure.