Battleship Boys

by Paul Lally

  Then a stop so sudden and unexpected, that he and the other captives slid forward and slammed into the bulkhead separating them from the passenger section.

  More shouts from outside. Rear doors BANGED open,

  “Ka' taalaken, náachil, náachil”

  Jensen automatically translates the distinctive Yucatan Maya language. They want them out. The gun-prodding and poking make that happen quickly. His world shifts from pitch black to light grey, as enough sunlight seeps through the sack over his head to indicate midday. They’ve been traveling forever, it seems, but now the journey is over—at least as far as the van is concerned.

  More gun prods.

  He starts in on his oath again, "I do solemnly swear that I will—"

  Someone behind them shouts, “Ma', in le derecha ma' ti' le izquierda”

  The grey light vanishes as Jensen’s feet move from a smooth surface to a gravely one. The sun’s heat that he momentarily felt on his shoulders when they first yanked them out the van disappears. In its place, the distinctively dank odor of being underground.

  A cave?

  A tunnel?

  Where they’re going is anybody’s guess.

  All he can do is keep repeating the Marine’s enlistment oath. If he stops, two things will happen; first, he’ll panic, secondly, he’ll mentally kick himself in the ass for being stabbed by the sharp end of the Garcia Cartel stick instead of wielding it like the DEA wanted him to do all along.

  What the hell went wrong?

  Why didn’t their SIU guy get the complete story about Vargas’s backup goons? What a colossal fuck-up. And him, as the team leader, the fuck-ee.

  Stumbling, tripping, determined not to fall, he keeps moving.

  Gun barrel prods his right shoulder, “Bin un derecha!”

  The hum of machinery and the click and hiss of some kind of compressor. Part of his agent-trained mind duly notes the details, while the rest of his mind darts around like the trapped animal he has become.

  The machinery sound fades... footsteps only... heavy breathing.

  “Parada!”

  A hand shoves against his chest, halting forward progress. Fingers fumble with the knot on his head sack.

  Blinding light quickly resolves to reveal a man standing in front of him. About the same height as him, but more stocky. Jensen instantly recognizes the face, but can’t believe he’s seeing him here. He watched them capture Miguel Vargas with his own eyes. Saw them “bag and grab” him. Then all hell broke loose when the Vargas goons jumped them. But they’d already captured him, right?

  Saw them drive away, right?

  Or did they?

  Yes, the light was for shit at the truckstop, and his nightscope turned the raid into a fuzzy green movie, but their intel was solid, the tractor trailer was bang on schedule, everything in its proper place, until everything went south.

  “Beet u yala'ab”

  The captors quickly yank off the hoods of the other prisoners. Jensen counts fifteen, including him, mostly Mexican para-marines and three survivors from his DEA team. He’s ashamed to make eye-contact with them. He was the team leader on this mission, for God’s sake. Not only did he let them down, he allowed himself to be captured.

  His Mexican counterpart, the marine captain, manages a quick smile and it acts like an ice-breaker in Jensen’s head. He lifts his zip-tied hands and shouts at Vargas, “Desatar in!”

  His captor rears back slightly. “The gringo speaks Maya?”

  “Untie me, dickhead, and I’ll do more than speak your fucking language, I’ll kick your ass for forcibly detaining government agents against their will.”

  “That’s not how it works in my world, my friend. I tell you what to do, not the other way around. And I do so with much less profanity. Who raised you, a pack of wolves?”

  “Tell me who the hell it is we snatched.”

  It’s like he slapped Vargas full in the face for the effect it has. He steps close enough for Jensen to see his slighty swollen jaw.

  “In suku'un.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Si, and I want him back.”

  It’s the first night out at sea for the Battleship Boys.

  Up on the navigation bridge, the X-Band Frequency radar system and the sophisticated GPS navigation system place the Rock precisely 30.255 miles off the eastern tip of Long Island, New York.

  This time of year, it’s been dark for hours. By 2200, the older guys are rubbing their eyes, but far from ready to turn in. Content to hang out in the enlisted mess, coffee in hand (hard stuff too), they conduct the age-old ritual when meeting a fellow sailor that always and forever begins with, “Where you from?”

  As reminisces flow back and forth like ocean waves below, topside is much the same as groups of younger men (late 40s and early 50s) prowl the Rock’s restored teakwood decks, bundled up in matching pea coats and watch caps to guard against the February cold that, thanks to the wind from the Rock’s steady twenty-five knots, it’s even colder.

  A small group of older vets stands by a secondary battery five-inch twin turret.

  “Tokyo never figured it out,” one of them says. “The Yamato’s five inchers didn’t have enough elevation for effective anti-aircraft fire.”

  “But we damn well did.”

  “Amen, brother.”

  Nods and smiles and clouds of breath vapor snatched away by the wind as the men continue kibitzing about weapons of war while enjoying the vicissitudes of peace.

  While the men roam the decks and tell lies, fifteen hand-picked, neatly dressed, bright and shining Maine Maritime Academy seniors race forward and aft, below and topside, doing the bidding of Captain Koga’s experienced crew. The idea of having future maritime officers serving on a ship that’s carrying predominantly older passengers was Bob Martin’s idea (who else?) who saw the publicity advantage.

  So far today, his camera crew has captured a variety of evocative vignettes:

  Engine room: Koga’s Chief Engineer showing Maine Maritime student how to calibrate the DC generator load.

  Navigation bridge: OOD with binoculars standing next to Academy student with matching binoculars, pointing out something in the distance.

  Foredeck: Deckhand and Maritime students in work clothes, pulling maintenance on the anchor capstan.

  Mess hall: Students eating meal with Koga’s crew. Smiling and chatting.

  Add to that, in the days to come during the cruise, Robbie and his crew will be filming LOTS of “combo shots” of older sailors interacting with Marine Academy students, passing the torch to a new generation of mariners.

  As the Rock sails southward on her so-called “farewell cruise,” Bob is scheming to ensure it becomes a “maiden voyage” instead—if he’s got anything to do with it.

  Toward that end, two decks below his fast-as-blazes video editor is frantically packaging “B-Pieces” to uplink overnight to various media outlets hungry for hopeful and happy stories like this one to balance their daily fare of grim and ghastly world news.

  During the past two months leading up to the trip, the occasional stories have been about the restoration process bringing a WW2-era warship back from a rusty grave and into the public spotlight, fully seaworthy and ready to sail.

  Now they’re officially on their way!

  “Got to plant the seeds before the public relations garden grows,” Bob says to Jack after watching one of the two-minute “good news” stories they’re about to uplink to a distribution satellite high overhead at 0400—making it a perfect “softball” story for overworked and underpaid morning news editors to screen it and say, “Go with this battleship thing to round the hour.”

  The smoothly edited piece they’re viewing is complete with voice-over and B-roll detailing the first group of sweepstakes winners making their way across the boarding ramp.

  Smiles, waves, expectant faces artfully edited together with dramatic shots of the Rock’s impressive superstructure, gun turrets, and teak deck. Two short we
eks ago, filled with cables, tools, and Bath Iron Works shipfitters, getting ready for acceptance trials, today she’s filled with old salts, cheerful Marine Academy students, and UNH Hospitality students eager to weigh anchor and sail away.

  “Watch this part coming up,” Bob says.

  The picture cuts to two silhouetted figures standing on the Rock’s forepeak, looking out onto Boston’s harbor and the open sea beyond as the Rock heads out for her grand adventure.

  The video fades to black. Bob’s all smiles. “Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Academy, I’d like to thank you for my Emmy award.”

  “Great work, my friend,” Jack says.

  “Only the beginning. If we keep the Rock on the radar screen, it’ll help her chances of finding her a new home.”

  Jack considers this in silence. Then he says, “You know why you’re so damned successful?”

  “Tell me, so I can tell Rebecca.”

  “Your wife already knows.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Because you’re so confident that something good is going to happen.”

  “You mean the Rock finding a new home after all this is over?”

  Jack pats the bulkhead. “Affirmative.”

  “That’s because she’s already got a home. You just don’t know where it is yet.”

  “You’re more full of bullshit today than you were at RPI.”

  “Got my degree in it, baby.”

  “So... clue me in on your grand scheme.”

  Bob points to the video editing system. “Every story Jeff creates from Robbie’s footage is another arrow in my quiver. And every story he uplinks to the bird is aimed at a bullseye painted over the hearts of the American people, hungry for hope instead of despair.”

  “This where I salute?” Jack says.

  “No, but by the time I’m through with this going-away present for your dad, somebody somewhere is going to reach for a phone and say, “Let me speak with the mayor.”

  “What mayor?”

  “Haven’t a clue. All I see at this point...” he taps his head. “Up here in my brain, and down here...” he thumps his chest. “...in my heart is that city fathers somewhere will be voting ‘yes’ to bring this American treasure home to her rightful place.”

  “Just like that? The power of positive thinking?”

  “Call it what you will. I’m thinking from the wish fulfilled, not of it.”

  “I guess we’ll see what happens, then.”

  “I already have.”

  Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Caleb Wright takes DEA’s emergency call to SOCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

  As the voice at the other end excitedly relates the screw-up in Brownsville and how Garcia cartel’s security force captured the FAST team members, Wright calmly doodles stick people on his yellow tablet. By the time the secure phone call ends, he’s drawn fifteen “hostages.” A manageable amount at first glance, but time will tell.

  It always does.

  SOCOM (Special Operations Command) is a lot of letters that means a lot of kick-ass. While it’s true, each branch of the military features its own uniquely qualified special forces unit: SEALS, Division Marine Recon, Air Force Combat Controllers, Rangers, etc., whenever the shit hits the fan hard and fast enough to require a blend of their respective talents, then SOCOM takes the lead.

  And senior-enlisted professionals like Sergeant Wright take the call.

  His stomach growls.

  Five o’clock in the morning up in Tampa. Still middle of the night down in Cancùn, where the cartel goons have snatched up the good guys and stuck them in a tunnel. The geographic location info’s based on data from the Mexican Marine team leader’s ELT that his idiot captors overlooked.

  Thank God for small favors, otherwise they could be anywhere on God’s green earth. Not that SOCOM’s elite special forces teams couldn’t find them, it’d just take more time to do it.

  And time is running out.

  Always does.

  “When’s their video coming?” Wright says.

  “Oh-six-hundred hours.”

  “So much for breakfast,” he thinks to himself, but says, “We’ll test the patch in thirty minutes. Make sure your guys know the drill.”

  The voice on the other end tenses slightly. “We know what we’re doing. It’s just that—"

  “—I’m sure you do. Just don’t want to get my duty officer’s tits stuck in the wringer if the signal drops. She’s not a happy camper whenever that happens.”

  “The signal will be there five-by.”

  Wright doesn’t bother saying goodbye. Too many fish to fry and he’s only got a half-hour to get the kitchen ready.

  But first things first.

  He digs into his briefcase and and pulls out a calendar. February has half of its days already crossed out with a Sharpie. Yesterday was Wednesday, and it’s long gone. He disposes of it with two bold strokes, then counts fourteen more days until the magic day when he officially retires.

  That thought alone is worth a deep sigh. No more night duty, no more calls from desperate agencies who’ve fucked up big time and need SOCOM to clean up the mess. No more stick figures on yellow note pads; some living, most dying, because contrary to the action-adventure movies with happy endings that the general public adores but he never watches is that by the time the SOCOM takes over the special ops reins, the odds are stacked against mission success.

  Always are.

  The next thing his mind wants to do is jump to the failures that happened on his watch—like that extradition in Panama that ended in a bloodbath with nobody alive but a few terrified kids in a school bus that wasn’t supposed to be there during the initial assault but was anyhow.

  He blots that out of his mind.

  SOCOM’s role is to “coordinate and delegate” the diverse talents of highly motivated individuals willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of a red-white-and-blue scrap of cloth that waves over America from sea to shining sea, including their Florida HQ.

  His boss, Navy Commander Hanna Goldstein is one of those individuals.

  Thirty feet away, she hunches over her keyboard typing at least a zillion words a minute—or at least that’s Wright’s best guess. Never married (unless you count the Navy), a Naval Academy graduate who clawed her way up through the male-heavy ranks to reach the elite position of SOCOM’s Third Shift Watch Commander, Goldstein’s one of the few officers—male and female alike—that Sergeant Wright truly admires.

  He makes his way back to her position on an elevated dias located high above behind the enlisted “drones” who monitor mulitple displays informing SOCOM what part of the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and who might conceiveably need its help.

  An electronic map takes up the entire wall. Peppered with current hotspot missions from Afghanistan to Africa, Canada to Timbuktu, there’s even a few “dots” down in Mexico, but on the west coast.

  At the moment, nothing from Cancùn.

  But Wright’s betting that’ll change in a hurry after the 0600 video call. The folks at DEA pretty much know what the hell they’re doing and almost never get in SOCOM’s hair. But the tone of the agency guy’s voice carried “disaster” in it, despite his attempt to be traffic-cop simple.

  “Skipper, got a minute?”

  Goldstein keeps typing but says, “Go, but make it quick, I’m under deadline.”

  “First of all, I’d like to thank you for that commendation you must be writing about my years of devoted service to the preservation of American democracy. It’s going to look outstanding in my 201 Personnel File.”

  His irreverant comment brings her fingers to a halt and a smile to her face. “I’m going to miss you, Caleb.”

  “Ditto, ma’am. It’s been an honor and privilege serving you.”

  “Cut the kiss-ass.”

  He taps his chest. “Honest Injun.”

  “Don’t be racist.”

  “I’m half-Navajo, ma’am, it’s allowed.”r />
  “Duly noted. Apologies for stealing your country. What’s up?”

  Wright taps the stick figures on his yellow notepad. “DEA’s got a hostage situation working down in Mexico.”

  “What the hell are they doing across the border?”

  “A FAST team mission with the Mexican Marines. Big drug bust and a bag-and-tag minus the drugs, minus the grab, and minus the happy ending.”

  “We talking FUBAR?”

  “Sounds like it and then some. We’ll know more in—” He checks his watch, “—sixteen minutes. DEA’s relaying the video heads-up they just got from the bad guys.”

  She sighs and rubs her face. “There goes breakfast.”

  “My thoughts exactly, skipper.”

  Miguel Vargas peers into the bathroom mirror as he adjusts his open collar shirt so that it doesn’t crowd the lapels of his dark blue sports jacket. He checks his hair; trimmed yesterday, nice and close, just the way he likes it. That makes him smile. And the sight of his snow-white teeth lights up the dimly-lit room. Swelling gone from the abcess, tooth fixed, life is good—and about to get even better.

  “Ma’alob.”

  The cramped space in his tunnel office has barely enough room for a toilet and sink—a far cry from his girlfriend Adriana’s elegant bathroom suite back at her father’s palatial Casa Nautica in Cancún. Worse, the ever-present, ever-so-faint smell of urine reminds him that the makeshift plumbing down here in the tunnel complex is constantly leaking, despite every attempt to remedy it.

  Something caught in his front teeth?

  A shred of chicken left over from the Tacquitos he gobbled down earlier while making sure the video feed was working.

  There. Got it. All gone.

  His ever-curious tongue explores the recent root canal done on his back molar. Sealed over and pain-free—thank God—his mind is clear with purpose and his heart is filled with love for his poor brother Ernesto, stuck in some gringo jail—all because of a goddamned toothache!

  No escaping the fact that the responsibility to deliver the heroin/fentanyl shipment was his alone and he failed—not only Señor Garcia but everyone in the organization—especially that snake in the grass, Iván Zambadas, who will flaunt his failure at every opportunity to regain standing with Garcia.