“Check in,” he keyed over the radio to his team leaders.
All three did. Everyone was down without a problem. He could see Third Squad, which had fast roped further aft in the ship, moving out. Their mission was the panic room below. The ship’s blueprints and been e-mailed to them on the Dunham, so they knew the quickest route to the panic room. But seeing something in a drawing was one thing. Seeing it for real and through night vision goggles was another. He wished them God’s speed.
First Squad’s mission was to secure the bridge and take control of the ship. The Wilmington was fairly automated, and the engines and rudder were actually controlled from the bridge itself. But still, the engines could also be over-ridden in engineering, so once the bridge was under control, either squad would be given the mission to secure the engineering spaces before the entire ship was cleared.
There was no sign of any opposition. Even considering the darkness, that didn’t seem reasonable. The Sea Hawks were pretty noisy, and certainly someone should have noticed.
Pat reported to the lieutenant, then rushed his team aft towards the bridge. Speed was of the essence, so they were doing a modified sort of bounding overwatch, with Third Fire Team providing cover.
A sudden volley of fire sounded in front of them, and rounds pinged around Pat and LCpl Billings from First Fire Team. The sparks caused by the rounds hitting the structures around them looked like flashbulbs through his goggles. He hit the deck and keyed his mic to call for supporting fire, but Davidson had beat him to it. The platoon sergeant had grabbed LCpl Torino, Third Fire Team’s automatic rifleman, and directed his fire up to the small deck alongside the bridge. Torino laid down a heavy blanket of rounds from his M27. Pat could see the rounds pinging off the superstructure, and he didn’t know if anyone had been hit up there, but the incoming fire ceased.
Pat and Billings looked at each other from where they had taken cover. Billings rolled his eyes, a huge smile on his face. Pat laughed, actually laughed, after having almost caught some rounds. He knew he should have felt frightened, nervous, angry—anything other than excited. This wasn’t a game, after all. But that is just what he felt.
“OK, Billings, let’s go,” he told the lance corporal, still wondering about his odd reaction to being under fire.
“Let’s keep it moving, First Squad,” SSgt Davidson’s voice came over the tactical circuit.
Pat caught the platoon sergeant’s eye and raised one hand in acknowledgment. He started bounding forward again, nerves on full alert. Up ahead, he could see Third Squad disappearing inside the ship’s superstructure. They would be at the panic room soon, so First Squad had to speed it up.
First Squad was to enter the ship on a hatch towards the starboard. As Third Squad had entered at a different hatch, this one had to be cleared. Consideration had been made to using the ladder that went up along the outside of the superstructure all the way to the bridge, but the officers thought this would have them too exposed to any pirate with a weapon.
He was about to remind Cpl Horton of the proper clearing techniques, but he bit that back as he could see Horton’s fire team deploy up ahead, just as they had in a million rehearsals back at LeJeune and Little Creek prior to getting underway. He shifted a bit to his right and brought his M4 up so he could give cover if needed.
In one way, Pat felt like an observer. Through the night vision goggles, there was a bit of an unreal aspect to what he was seeing. That created a feeling of detachment, that he was watching a Discovery or History channel show on the military. He knew that he had to snap out of that mindset. As being fired at only a few moments before attested, this was for real. And he was the squad leader. It was up to him to make sure things went well.
As Horton’s team entered the ship’s superstructure, Pat moved ahead to follow. He had planned to enter along with Second Fire Team, but he decided that he could best direct the action from further up ahead.
Inside the ship, the lights were on in the passageways. Pat flipped off his night vision goggles. Cpl Horton was already at the base of the ladder they were supposed to climb, covering someone, probably PFC Dawkins, who was going up. They had four decks to go to reach the bridge level, and each level opened up the potential for an ambush.
The plan was for Horton’s team to lead the way to the hatch leading into the bridge. Once there, those Marines would provide cover while Cpl Bonaventure’s Second Fire Team would actually breach the bridge, taking out any opposition. Cpl Salazar’s Third Fire Team would secure the way up to the bridge to keep anyone from climbing up their asses. Once the bridge was secure, Bonaventure would stay on the bridge while Salazar and Horton went below to secure the engineering spaces if needed.
“Tango-Six-Charlie, this is Uniform-Eight-Lima, what’s your status, over?” came over his headset.
This was a secure frequency, so Pat didn’t know why they were sticking with call signs, but the lieutenant had insisted on going by the book. With his fire teams, Pat wasn’t going to do that, he had decided, as he was afraid of getting things mixed up.
“Uh, Uniform-Eight-Lima, this is, uh, Tango-Six-Charlie. We have passed Topeka and are moving towards Vegas. No opposition here yet, over.”
For the purpose of this raid, things had been simplified, and “Topeka” referred to the hatch leading into the ship while “Vegas” was the bridge.
“Uniform-Eight-Lima Actual, this is Uniform-Eight-Lima-Seven. My 20 is with Tango-Six-Charlie now, and we’ll be at Vegas in two mikes,” came SSgt Davidson’s voice over his headset.
Pat recognized his platoon sergeant’s voice, but he wasn’t sure what the “Seven” in “U8L7” meant. He wondered if Davidson had reverted to Army-speak.
“Roger, Uniform-Eight-Lima, uh, Seven. Copy that. I can see that on my display, even if all your icons are looking stacked up after Topeka. I just wanted to make sure there were no casualties from that burst of fire back on deck. On this side, Alpha-Three-Romeo is approaching Omaha,” Lieutenant Niimoto responded, using the code name given for the panic room. No opposition—”
Just then, the sounds of muffled gunfire could be heard, a single volley of fire quickly followed by WWIII as other weapons opened up. Third Squad was probably two decks below them, so the weapon reports muddled together with their echoes within the close confines of the ship’s passages. Lieutenant Niimoto’s call was cut off.
Pat keyed the squad frequency. “Horton, Third’s in it deep, so move it. We need to reach the bridge now!”
“Roger that,” Cpl Horton responded.
Looking up the ladder, he could see a rush of activity. He hurried up after them, up four decks until they were at the hatch leading to the bridge. There were five of them standing there in the confined space, with another fire team lined up on the ladder below. Pat knew they should be disbursed, but given the reality of the ship’s construction, he didn’t think that was going to happen.
With four Marines covering, PFC Dawkins reached out and tried the door handle. It turned, but when Dawkins put some pressure on the door, it didn’t open. He turned back and shook his head.
Well, it figured that it would be either locked or blocked on the inside. It would have to be blown. Cpl Horton moved up and placed one of the new remote-controlled shape charges up against the doorjamb. The new charges were fairly compact and when detonated, were pretty directional as to the path of the blast, but in a confined passageway, even the backblast could be deadly.
There was another passage running down the outboard starboard side a few yards from them, and another on the port side farther away. Pat could leave Bonaventure’s team on the deck below, but it might take them too long to rush up the ladder after the blast and get into the bridge. So he called them up and told them to take cover in the starboard passageway. That way, they’d have only a couple of yards to cover to enter the bridge.
He told two of Horton’s team to take cover with them and two to go take cover on the port side.
“Remember, the report
s were that two friendlies are not in the panic room with the others. They could be on the bridge, so make sure anyone you shoot at is a pirate,” Pat reminded them.
Pat knew the bridge would be darkened with only low red lights on for illumination. When it was dark outside, it had to be dark inside the bridge for anyone to see out. However, if they went in with night vision goggles on, a pirate could simply turn on the bridge lights, and they would be temporarily blinded for a few precious seconds while their goggles adjusted. He ordered the lights in the passage to be turned off, then had half of the Marines flip their goggles back on with the infra-red lights beaming. If the pirates kept the lights off, then they would be able to see. If someone turned them on, the rest of the Marines would be able to see.
“OK, when you’re ready,” he told Horton.
As some of the Marines were essentially blind now, without their night vision goggles, Cpl Horton gave the countdown over the squad radio.
“Five, four, three, two, one,” he intoned before a huge explosion and shockwave washed over them all.
Pat had practiced with the new breaching charge, but it was one thing do set it off on a range, another thing altogether inside a ship. His ears were ringing as he got caught up with Bonaventure’s fire team as they rushed forward.
The door to the bridge was gone, completely gone. It hadn’t been made to military standards, of course, but Pat was amazed that the small charge had taken the door right off its hinges.
Pat followed Torino into the bridge, pulling off his own goggles as someone had, in fact, turned the lights on inside the bridge. Outside the broad, sweeping windows of the bridge, the dawn was making its presence known with a beautiful, rosy entrance on the horizon. Why that registered with him, he wasn’t sure, because right in front of him was the body of a man, most of his head and chest crushed. The exploding hatch must have caught him flush. Pat had never seen someone killed before, yet the dawn, something he had seen thousands of times, seem to register more with him.
There was an immediate staccato of fire as PFC Rivera opened up on a man trying to hide behind the captain’s chair. He was holding an AK, and although the chair did not offer that much protection, it seemed enough as nothing hit him. The man seemed to be doing a sort of dance, bouncing from one foot to the other, even popping up to peer over the chair at the Marines.
All told, he probably should have dropped his weapon, because Pat, Torino, and Rivera opened up again, and this time, the captain’s chair was not enough protection. The man dropped bonelessly, the rifle clattering to bounce on the deck. Blood started to flow out from underneath him, and despite the ringing in his ears, Pat clearly heard the loud exhalation of air that came out of him before the man lay still.
“There’s another one!” someone shouted out.
Pat spun to see someone rushing in from the hatch leading to the railing outside. Five sets weapons opened up, and that man dropped as well, face first, his body sliding forward several feet.
The smell of cordite filled the bridge, stinging Pat’s nose. He swung the muzzle of his M4 back and forth as he searched for any other threat. Horton’s team and SSgt Davidson came in as well.
“Check them,” the platoon sergeant ordered.
Pat felt a twinge of guilt. They sure looked dead, but he needed to confirm that. He shouldn’t have had to have the platoon sergeant tell him.
He moved up to the man by the captain’s chair, the one he had helped shoot. He kicked away the man’s AK, then with LCpl Torino, flipped him over. Pat felt a little lightheaded as he looked at the man. He had just taken a human life.
The man sure didn’t look Somali, though. Pat would have guessed him to be European, to be honest. But whatever his background, he was certainly dead.
“Sgt Dailey, I don’t think this guy was armed,” LCpl Hester called over.
Pat got up, wiped the blood on his hands on his trouser legs, then moved over to where Hester and Salazar were standing over the man who had been shot last. He had been hit several times, one round right in the throat, but for whatever reason, there wasn’t nearly as much blood as with the dead man by the captain’s chair.
Pat looked around. It was true. He didn’t see any weapon. Had they shot a man trying to surrender?
“He was armed,” SSgt Davidson said, his voice calm and collected.
“But, I don’t see any weapon here,” put in PFC Rivera, his voice raised up a notch.
“He dropped it overboard when you shot him,” the platoon sergeant replied, looking at each of them in the eye as he did so.
“But, he’s here inside, how could he drop it out there?” asked Rivera.
“Was he running in here?” asked Davidson.
There were nods from the others.
“Why run into a firefight without a weapon? No, he was coming here to fight, and you did what you had to do. All of you. He started his attack, you took him down, and his weapon went over the rail. Simple as that. Now move him over there by that guy,” he told them, pointing the man who had been killed by the explosion.
SSgt Davidson looked Pat squarely in the eyes, waiting for a response. Pat wanted to believe him, but going back through his mind, he wasn’t sure. Could the guy have had his hands up in the air instead of reaching forward to them? On the other hand, he felt he had to believe the platoon sergeant. And Davidson was a combat vet. He probably had his head on straighter in the excitement of a firefight.
Pat took the easy out. “You heard the platoon sergeant. Move this guy over. I’ve got to report in.”
They rushed to comply as SSgt Davidson gave him an almost imperceptible nod of his head.
Pat switched over to the platoon freq. “Uniform-Eight-Lima, this is Tango-Six-Charlie, over.”
“Tango-Six-Charlie, this is Uniform-Eight-Lima, go ahead, over.”
“Uniform-Eight-Lima, Las Vegas is secure. I say again, Las Vegas is secure. We have three enemy KIA. No friendly casualties, over.”
“Say again your last. How many enemy KIA, over?” the lieutenant’s voice asked.
“That was three KIA. One, two three, over.”
“Tango-Six-Charlie, we have secured Omaha and have released the hostages. We have one, repeat one enemy WIA. The ship’s captain informed us that at least eight pirates boarded, so there are four more onboard here somewhere. Have you seen any signs of the two missing hostages, over?”
Pat looked back at the dead white guy. If he were one of the missing crewmen, he wouldn’t have had the AK, would he?
“That’s a negative. No hostages here, over.”
“Roger that. Wait one,” the lieutenant told him. There was an ensuing 20-second silence before he came back with “Tango-Six-Charlie, proceed as planned to Chicago, but take extreme care. We’ve got four pirates aboard here somewhere. I am keeping the crew here until those pirates are located. And be advised that Alpha-Three-Romeo will commence a search for the missing crewmen as well as the pirates. They will be starting forward and working their way back. Make sure your transponders are working, and for Pete’s sake, identify your target before engaging. We don’t need any friendly fire incidents, over.”
“Uniform-Eight-Lima, roger that. Will proceed to Chicago to carry out the mission. I will coordinate with Alpha-Three-Romeo-Actual to make sure we both know where the other is, over.”
“Tango-Six-Charlie, this is Uniform-Eight-Lima, roger, out.”
SSgt Davidson had been listening in when he was on the radio with the lieutenant, but the team leaders were not on the same freq. He called Salazar up, and together with Cpl’s Horton and Bonaventure, briefed them on the orders. Nothing had really changed from the original ops order, but the missing four pirates was a concern.
“OK, Hank, you’ve got it here. Just be ready in case those guys want to try and retake the bridge. But remember, Third Squad’s going to be conducting a search, so don’t get itchy trigger fingers when they come by. You’ve got to make sure you ID any target. Got that?” he asked Cpl Bonave
nture.
“No problem. We’ve got it,” was the expected reply.
He gave the order for Salazar to take his team and lead the way. Getting to the engine room was a pretty direct shot down the same ladder on which they had come up: eight decks down and then a short zig-zag to the entry. Expecting a gang of pirates at every level, the two fire teams, along with Pat and the platoon sergeant, made their way down.
At the engineering spaces hatch, made their entry, fully expecting another firefight, but the spaces were empty. The engine room was clean.
“Uniform-Eight-Lima, this is Tango-Six-Charlie, over.”
“Go ahead, over.”
“Chicago is secure. No sign of enemy nor of the missing crewmen, over.”
“Roger that. I’ve got Alpha-Three-Charlie sweeping the living spaces now. I want you to search every inch of the engineering spaces. Our two missing crewmen could be anywhere, especially if they’ve been killed and stashed somewhere. So be thorough, over.”
“Roger. We’ll be looking hard, over.”
“Oh, and Pat, you did good today. I’m proud of you. This is Uniform-Eight-Lima, out.”
Pat felt a rush of pride. He looked up to catch SSgt Davidson’s watching him. The platoon sergeant gave him a thumbs up.
Damn, the lieutenant and the platoon sergeant? he thought to himself. His first taste to combat was proving to be something special.
Chapter 12
Aboard the MV Wilmington
“Roger, this is Uniform-Eight-Tango, out,” Tony said into the handset before giving It back to Cpl Steptoe. “Thanks, Stepchild.”
He grimaced at that. He really needed to watch that, especially in front of the squad leaders and SSgt Davidson. He has just been so used to calling Steptoe by his nickname back at the detachment that it had become almost ingrained.
He shook it off, though. He was too excited to let that affect his mood. He turned to the others.
The Return of the Marines Trilogy Page 32