Can’t be pulling stunts like that. Be a fine thing for the SEAL captain to pull a tendon before they even got ashore, or worse, break a leg.
Damn, I hope this migraine goes away before we land. He sat down and surreptitiously bent his right knee a couple of times, feeling the cartilage grate against the kneecap. He glanced around, but it seemed he was the only one to hear the kneecap grinding and popping.
The SEALs took an oar each and pushed the boats away from the submarine. Looking up, Duncan saw Jewell against the backdrop of starlight, waving slowly at the departing SEALs. Then the silhouette vanished as Jewell followed the last sailor on deck into the submarine.
The outboard motors caught and the rafts began to move slowly toward the beach. A few minutes later Duncan looked back. Nothing. The USS Albany had disappeared beneath the surface without a sound. The SEALs were alone with slightly under two miles of Mediterranean separating them from Algeria. Duncan looked at the dark coastline and wondered briefly what would greet them on this hostile shore when they landed.
HJ. sat quietly beside Duncan. Her CAR-15 was cradled in her arm. A prophylactic that was stretched over the barrel kept the seawater out.
Duncan leaned forward. “H. J.” why have you got a rubber over your piece?”
“To keep the sand out,” she whispered.
“We quit doing that years ago,” he replied. “The Navy issues plastic sleeves because of the negative press about using rubbers.”
“I know, Captain, but I couldn’t find mine so I used some rubbers I had.”
“Why would you-Oh,” he said, his voice trailing off. Yeah, he was too old for the new Navy.
The boats stayed within ten meters of each other as they headed toward the beach. The wind from landward stirred few waves against the incoming tide. Monkey kept switching his looks from the compass, mounted on the port side of the boat, to a shore point he had picked out. He was the only one who sat up, providing the only discernible silhouette. The other SEALs remained tense and prone against the spray tubes, their weapons pointed toward shore. Their eyes swept the beach for signs of activity, and scanned the surrounding waters for any fishing boat or patrol craft that might have gone undetected.
Duncan glanced again to where the submarine had been. Starlight revealed a great expanse of sea lightly rolling upon itself. A nuclear submarine on your six is remarkably comforting. With Albany gone, Duncan felt damn lonely. if duncan had been lucky and concentrated hard, he would have seen the periscope Commander Jewell raised as soon as Albany submerged. Jewell mumbled to himself as he moved the periscope back and forth in an attempt to spot the SEALs, but the boats blended with the dark coastline, rendering them invisible to the casual observer. He switched to infrared, but the heat from the land mass obscured the sensors. After several minutes with no joy, Jewell lowered the periscope and ordered the Albany out to deeper water. Now, Duncan and his crew really were alone.
* * *
Time, speed, and a good mariner’s eye told Doucan when he was five hundred meters from the beach. Using his red-lens flashlight, he flashed three dots to Beau’s boat. Beau acknowledged the signal.
Duncan turned to the men in back. “Stop the engine.”
Here, his squad would wait for Beau and his team to reconnoiter the landing site.
“H. J.” you keep your eyes on the right flank of the beach. Gibbons, you take the left. Monkey,” he said to his coxswain, calling him by his nickname. “You watch our drift. Keep us pointed toward that sharp rock above the beach. You see it?”
“Aye, Captain, I see the precipice,” Monkey answered, secretly glad that the captain had identified the same shore marker he had been using for navigation.
“It’s a hill, you big asshole,” whispered Gibbons. “Why you gotta use words like precipice?”
“I’m reading a new book,” Monkey replied softly.
“What book?”
“Roget’s Thesaurus. Has to do with a man named Roget who could never decide what word was best when he was talking, so he wrote down all the choices,” Monkey teased. The petty officer’s huge hairy hands eased an oar into the water and with two soundless paddles corrected their head.
“Captain, what is this place? I heard that this is where an Army general named Clark landed during World War II,” H.J. said in a whisper.
He felt the wind in his face. Their voices were being carried out to sea.
Satisfied they could talk and with his voice low, Duncan replied, “Yeah. On the hill up there”—he pointed at the sharp rock that Monkey and Gibbons were discussing—“is an old villa owned by a Frenchman who during World War II offered it to the OSS for a meeting between American and Vichy French officers. I saw some photographs that Navy Intelligence took before we left the Nassau. Library pictures of the place showed a beautiful garden surrounding a white villa with a red roof. Today, it’s a dilapidated wreck. The roof is caved in. The garden is overgrown and the windows appear to be a memory. The intelligence specialist who explained the photographs said the green that was covering the house was ivy gone wild.”
“Why did you go through that much trouble, Captain?”
“It helps to know the layout if you have to fight. The overgrown garden will make a fight inside the compound hard in comparison to the relatively clear countryside surrounding it,” he said, and then after a few seconds added, “Of course, it’ll provide more cover for our infiltration.”
“How about cliff? Huh?” asked Gibbons softly, while he continued to scan the beach. “Cliff is a good word for a hill, but not precipice.
For God’s sake, Monkey, precipice sounds like an f’ing child asking to go to the toilet!”
“Precipice is an acceptable alternative to hill,” said Monkey as he took a compass reading to the cliff to confirm their location. Monkey never trusted GPS, or anything more technical than an outboard motor.
If he didn’t understand it, then it couldn’t be trusted. There were a lot of things he didn’t trust. Radio was another one.
“What time is it?” Duncan asked.
“I’ve got zero one ten,” H.J. replied. “Swimmer scouts should be ashore by now.”
Ashore, the two swimmers pulled the boat with Beau and the chief onto the beach. Beau’s squad broke off into two pairs, after a somewhat marginal effort at caching the boat. Peripheral vision was their best surveillance tool as they moved quickly from cover to cover, ambush-cautious.
Beau and Mcdonald ran west across the backshore along the base of the dunes. Ensign Bud Helliwell and Chief Judiah jogged east, taking the left flank. The two pairs ran about two hundred yards down the beach away from each other before disappearing into the tall dune grass that bordered the beach. Like well-oiled gears, the two pairs unknowingly complemented each other as they searched the landing site.
Once in the grass, both pairs waited a few seconds to see if their sprint along the beach had stirred unwanted notice. Two minutes later, satisfied, they began a stealthy climb toward the top of the hill above the beach. Beau dodged ahead for twenty to thirty feet until he found a suitable flanking position. Then he provided cover as Mcdonald rushed past. When Mcdonald went to ground, Beau sprinted ahead, past the petty officer, who cradled the lone MG-60 for his team. They continued in leapfrog fashion as they conducted the reconnaissance. In that manner, both pairs of SEALs circled the area where they expected to find President Alneuf and company. It took thirty minutes for the two pairs to startle each other near the top of the hill.
“Anything, Bud?” Beau asked Helliwell in a whisper.
“Negative. I didn’t see any signs that anyone has been here lately.”
“Me either. That must be the house,” Beau said, pointing to a dark shadow that stood out against the stairs in the background.
“Yeah, think we should search it?” Beau thought for a moment before shaking his head. “No, our job is reconnoiter the beach. Let’s get the others before we go further.”
Crouched, Beau started down the cent
er of the search area toward the beach. He had taken only two steps when voices from above startled him. Without a word, the four SEALs split apart, taking cover behind nearby rocks.
The voices were in French and came from the direction of the old house. A chuckle turned to loud bass laughter drowning out the normal murmur of conversation. Beau motioned to the members of the team and continued his trek down the hill. Bringing up the rear, Mcdonald followed, with Chief Judiah directly behind him. Helliwell covered their retreat from the house with his carbine. Near the beach, Beau removed his red-shaded flashlight. He flashed the dot-dash Morse code symbol for “Alpha” several’ times to ensure that Duncan’s team received it. He expected and got no reply. Boats usually never flashed toward the shore.
“Bud,” Beau said. “Take a position to the right above the landing. If those above decide to investigate the beach, don’t fire unless you have to.” “Come on,” Bud Helliwell said to Chief Judiah, and the two ran along the beach about fifty yards before disappearing into the dunes.
The sound of an outboard motor drifted in from the sea. “Turn that off,” Beau said silently.
A hundred meters from the beach, as if Duncan read Beau’s mind, he said, “Okay, cut the motor and grab the paddles.”
Duncan lifted his carbine and removed the watertight sleeve from the barrel.
H.J. saw him do this and followed suit. Like Duncan, she shoved her “sleeve” into her front shirt pocket.
They paddled another ninety meters before the surf shoved them the last ten meters onto the beach. Beau and Mcdonald ran to the boat. The occupants hopped out and helped the two pull it over the sand and onto the dunes where the other boat rested. Beau wrapped the bowline around a nearby rock to secure it. Monkey and Gibbons hurriedly draped a cammie net over the hastily hidden boats.
They’d only be here a short time and gone by daylight, so Duncan answered in the negative Monkey’s question about deflating and burying the boats in their bags. How the hell would they reinflate them?
“Anything?” Duncan asked Beau.
“Yeah, we’ve got visitors at the old house.”
“How many?”
“At least three. Didn’t try to find them or count them. I am presuming they are President Alneuf and his party. At least. I hope so.”
“Okay,” Duncan replied. He looked around, memorizing where the rafts were and the lay of the beach. He tried to visualize how the place would look if they had to run down from the top. It would be bloody embarrassing to achieve their mission only to find they had misplaced the boats. In the dark, the boats looked like an extension of the boulders leading down to the beach. In daylight, they’d be easily spotted.
“Where’s Bud Helliwell and the chief?”
“They’re in an enfilade position in case those above prove unfriendly,” Beau answered, pointing to a spot about twenty yards above them and to the right.
H. J.” Gibbons, and Monkey ran over and squatted near the two.
“Let’s move out,” Duncan ordered, looking at his watch. “We’ve got an hour and a half to find Alneuf and get back to Albany.”
“Going to be cutting it close,” Beau added, looking at his watch.
“Don’t we always.”
A minute later they came across Mcdonald at the base of the hill. The machine-gunner pointed upward.
“Come on,” Duncan said.
Monkey and Mcdonald cradled their MG-60 machine guns as the other four held their Carbine 15s in position to bring them into play at the first sign of trouble. Monkey and Mcdonald had the heavy weapons and, in most SEAL teams, those assigned the MG-60s found the weight of the weapon slowed their pace. But, when the firefight erupted, those MG 60s were worth their weight in gold.
Gibbons shifted the radio manpack on his back and tightened the straps.
Without the radio they’d have no backup communications, only their bricks. The bricks, MX-300 radios that every SEAL carried for local communications, were VHP and low-power. They lacked the broadcast range to replace the radio manpack. Duncan doubted that their signal would reach a mile, much less the range necessary to contact the Albany. That is, assuming the Albany was even monitoring the frequency of the MX-300s.
Cautiously, the six SEALs started up the hill, keeping their movement as quiet as possible. The wind continued to blow out to sea, and the slight sound of the rolling waves hitting the beach masked the few noises the rocky terrain produced as they threaded carefully uphill.
Bud Helliwell and Chief Judiah stepped out of the shadows and joined the others. Duncan nodded and pointed uphill.
Bud took a position near the point about twenty feet behind Mcdonald, whose finger had eased into the trigger guard of the cradled MG-60.
Duncan and Beau followed. Gibbons, carrying the radio manpack, trailed a few feet behind Duncan, and spread out further behind was the rear security team of H. J.” Chief Judiah, and Monkey. If they had to retreat, these three would provide the first covering fire.
Damn headache. Wish it would go away.
Above, voices escalated into numerous shouts followed by gunfire. The SEALs rolled apart, seeking the nearest cover. Duncan immediately thought they were firing at them. He looked for a target even as he moved.
Beau and Duncan rolled into each other, coming to rest back-to-back behind a natural fence of rocks about twelve inches high. Every gun pointed toward the sound of gunfire. Monkey scrambled further to the left, positioning the MG-60 to cover the left flank, while his counterpart, Mcdonald, did the same on the right.
The shouts, screams, and sporadic shooting continued. Duncan quickly realized they were not the targets of the gunfight. He weighed the options of their next move.
“What you think?” Beau asked softly.
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking! Whatever is going on, they aren’t firing at us,” Duncan whispered. “Take your fire team and move out to the right. We’ll take the left. Be careful. We came to rescue President Alneuf, not kill him, and whatever is going on up there may be his people fighting the Algerians. Beau, don’t get involved. Stay back and let the situation clear itself. I have no intention of getting any of us killed over this operation.”
“What’ll we do if our objective has been captured? Or killed?”
“If killed, we abort the mission. If captured … Let’s see how many there are before we decide. Be prepared to follow my lead.
You’ve got five minutes to get in position.”
“Duncan, how in the hell am I going to know what you decide if I’m over there and you’re over here? I can’t follow your lead if I can’t see you.”
“Beau, watch your brick. If the red receive light comes on, it means I’m moving in. But don’t transmit unless you have to. I’m going to get as close as I can, and I don’t want a radio voice spoiling our concealment. So, go. Take your squad and circle the house. Come in through the garden and assess the situation. Move from redneck to enlightened WASP for the next hour and we’ll get out of this. Put Mcdonald where he can provide cover with that machine gun of his. I’ll be coming through from the right side. Forty-five-degree overlapping fire for Mcdonald and Monkey. Okay?”
“Okay,” Beau acknowledged. “Duncan, be careful.”
“Naw, Beau. I’m going to get myself killed this close to mandatory retirement. Now, get your ass moving,” he replied. He slapped Beau on the shoulder. “Be careful, shipmate. You still owe me twenty dollars.”
“Rather owe it to you than cheat you out of it.”
Beau got to his knees. Motioning to Chief Judiah, the fair haired Georgian dodged to the left, tugging Helliwell’s cammie shirt as he passed. The men followed as Duncan watched the night swallow them.
Mcdonald was too far to the right for Duncan to see him join Beau. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. Damn. Bad enough coming in blind, but coming in blind to a combat situation!
“Come on,” Duncan said, pointing to the left. At a crouch the four moved sideways, up the hill, toward the cr
umbling wall of the garden that surrounded the abandoned villa.
The shooting trickled off, to be followed by a renewed round of shouting. The noise of running feet above them sent Duncan and his squad diving for cover until the sound faded. Behind the convoluted noises of the battle above, the fading clamor of a vehicle engine mixed with grinding gears and spinning tires filled the night.
Someone was fleeing the firefight. Several shots rang out as a second vehicle took off, sending a shower of gravel raining against an out-of-sight wall. This was not going to be a good night. Damn headache. He hoped his wife found the damn dog. Duncan groaned as he remembered he still had her as beneficiary of his Serviceman’s Government Life Insurance. Maybe she’d planned this. He moved forward. If so, her second old man was going to one rich mother.
At the waist-high wall the four SEALs lined up, keeping their heads below it. Duncan motioned Monkey to cover. The bulky petty officer waved a. hairy hand in acknowledgment. Duncan eased over the top.
The overgrown garden shielded him. Bushes, vines, and stunted roses gone to seed had through the years flourished, entangled themselves, died back, and repeated the cycle, creating a miniature jungle of undergrowth in the middle of the arid country. Duncan crawled through the low clearance at the base of the wild growth, careful to avoid disturbing the vegetation. They’d be nervous in the house, and probably shoot first and ask questions later if they suspected someone of being in the bushes. Twenty feet further, his hand touched the graveled driveway leading to the villa.
Behind him H.J. and Gibbons followed. Duncan turned to Gibbons. “Bring Monkey up.”
Gibbons nodded and disappeared the way he came. The two returned within a minute. Duncan motioned to the other side of the road and the two SEALs darted across.
Around the bend of the road, leading to the house, four people came running. The SEALs remained motionless as the four strangers, three of whom wearing military uniforms, ran by. The fourth appeared almost ghostlike as his Arab garb billowed behind him. The ancient rifle the Arab carried accented the spectral moment. Duncan recognized the weapon as a Kalashnikov rifle.
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