The Shores of Tripoli
Page 17
“And if he’s with Grassley, they’ll probably start hunting in richer waters.”
Brewster and Marathyachi stopped in the doorway. “I found a few more tunics, but nothing else, skipper,” said Marathyachi. “Place is pretty sparse.”
“Thanks, Shiv. Give one to everyone and put ’em on. We gotta find where they dumped Rogers and Watts.”
Smith nodded. “Probably in one of the prison cells.”
Williams nodded. “Think you’re right.”
Chavez was squatting over a row of books lining the base of the wall. “You think he can read all these? There’s like four different languages here.”
“I don’t know, Boats. He could speak English pretty well. I wouldn’t be surprised.” Williams rolled up the map. “I don’t think there’s anything else here.”
“Where’s that guy? With the dagger?” asked Smith.
“He’s with Tricky by the front door,” said Williams.
“You think they’d come back here? Mudawar and Grassley?”
Williams looked around and shrugged his shoulders. “Not exactly a lot to pack up here.”
“But they might come back here for us,” said Marathyachi. “They couldn’t keep us here, could they?”
“If they do come back here, then they won’t be on the Dauntless. Let’s go find where they’re hiding her.”
———————
Williams tossed one of the tunics to Childress and nodded at Fatin. “Does he know where we’re going, Tricky?”
“Think so, sir. Did a little pointy-talkie in the dirt.” Childress pointed to his drawing of the harbor fortifications on the sandy floor.
“How’s the hand?” Williams looked at the dark green hundred-mile-an-hour tape covering three of Childress’s fingers.
“Broke two. Ain’t bad, though, sir.”
Williams shook his head. “Alright, Marine.” Williams looked at his crew. Smith, Marathyachi and Chavez were all wearing white tunics over their uniforms, while Brewster and Childress had on tan tunics like Williams, and none were long enough to cover their boots. “Well, we’re not going to fool anyone. Screw it. Let’s roll.”
———————
Childress whispered into the barred door of the first cell. “Watts? Rogers?”
A few of the prisoners rustled inside, but none responded. It was dark on the jetty walkways, and even darker in the cells, so the only hope of finding them came from one of them replying.
“Watts! Rogers!”
“Tricky. Keep it down,” whispered Williams. “Fan out. Everyone go to a cell. Talk to the Americans in there if you have to, but watch out for locals.”
Williams waited with Fatin to watch the rear while the rest of the crew ran down along the cells lining the jetty, but he couldn’t miss the approaching rumble.
A few cells ahead, Brewster was waving his arms and pointing toward the noise.
Williams looked back, then pulled Fatin with him and ran toward the sound. “Watch him,” he whispered as he passed Smith, and gestured for Fatin to stay put. Williams ran past Marathyachi, Chavez and Childress, then got to Brewster. He pointed back to the cells. “I’m going. Keep looking for Rogers and Watts.”
Williams sprinted to the end of the walkway along the jetty. At the end of the path, the jetty became a collection of large boulders that had been dumped there over the years. The rumbling grew louder, and in the early darkness of night, he saw Dauntless nearing a break in the rocks. Dauntless: his boat. His boat that was one of the newest boats in the US Navy, equipped with an advanced, nearly silent electric drive and enough firepower to decimate anything on the water in the early nineteenth century.
And now it was under the command of a rogue member of his crew.
Williams saw two men drop from the bow and start climbing boulders on their way toward him. He ducked behind a large rock and looked back at his crew. They were all huddled around a single cell, pulling at the door. He waved, but none were looking in his direction.
The two men were fifty or sixty meters ahead. They’d reach him in a minute or two, and he looked back at his crew again. He huddled behind the largest boulder and waited.
He heard the Dauntless throttle up and back away from the jetty, then the diesels quieted to an idle in the distance.
Soon, Williams heard the men approaching from over the rocks, and he braced himself for a fight.
The two men clambered over the last few boulders and jumped onto the sandy path to the city. Neither saw Williams, but he waited a few seconds before he stood from his hiding spot.
He looked back toward the Dauntless, then towards the men running on the same path that would lead to his crew at one of the cells.
He hadn’t done sprints in years, but he started to quietly chase after the men and picked up speed. All he had to decide was when he should yell for his crew.
Chapter 19
Intercepted
Childress was laying on his side with his boots pressed against the rock wall of the prison cell. He grabbed hold of the barred door and dead lifted, just as he’d done in countless makeshift gyms in deployed bases around the world. The iron-barred door began to bow almost immediately.
“Pull, pull, pull!” yelled Smith.
The rest of the crew pulled on the door, but even with two broken fingers, Childress had already bent the door and was still pulling it hard against the lock mechanism set into a mortise of the wall.
The lock burst into a cloud of dust and iron and rock, and the door broke free.
“Hurry up. Get ’em. Get ’em both,” said Childress, wiping pieces of rock and metal off his face and neck.
Chavez and Marathyachi carried Rogers out first, and Smith helped Watts walk out.
“Where’s Grassley?” Watts looked dazed. “That fucker.”
Smith helped Watts sit against the cell. “He took our boat. But we’re gonna get it back soon.”
“Asshole must’a knocked me out. He started wailing on my shoulder.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll even the score,” said Childress.
They heard running from the sandy trail.
“Grab these guys!” Williams had nearly caught up to the two men he’d been chasing, and they looked back when they heard him yell.
The two men slowed enough to put Williams in range. He leapt up and grabbed each of them by a shoulder and pulled them to the ground.
Childress ran to join in, but by the time he got there, Williams had already subdued them both.
Williams was breathing hard. “They came from—the—Dauntless.” He put his foot on one man’s back and tried to catch his breath. “Grassley backed away from the jetty.”
“Did he see you?” asked Smith.
“Don’t think so,” replied Williams.
“What do you want to do with them?”
“Him.” Williams pointed at Fatin, who was standing next to the open cell door. “Bring him here.”
When Fatin got there, he looked at the two men on the ground.
“Mudawar,” Williams said, pointing to the two men, then he pointed out to the water. “Mudawar?” He raised his hands in a gesture of uncertainty.
Fatin started talking to them, and between the three of them, they said Mudawar’s name at least five times.
Fatin said something to Williams, but nothing he understood. But Fatin gestured three things he did understand: food, guns, and carrying a bag.
“That’s it,” said Williams. “They were here to get supplies. Grassley’s leaving.”
“Oh, shit,” said Childress.
“Leaving for where?” asked Smith. “Where? Where?” he repeated to Fatin, but Fatin didn’t understand.
“What the hell are we going to do?” asked Brewster. “We can’t let him go!”
Chavez patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll think of something, Brew. Hold on, man.”
“What about them?” Smith pointed to the open door to the cell full of American sailors. “Let them go?”
Chavez looked at the cell. “Skipper, that door’s busted. We can’t keep them in there, even if we wanted to.”
“Why can’t we let them go?” asked Smith.
Williams shook his head. “That’d change history.”
———————
While Childress and Smith kept the sailors and the two captured pirates from trying to get out of the cell, Brewster, Chavez and Marathyachi barricaded the bent door with large loose rocks from the jetty.
Williams and Fatin stood close to the end of the jetty’s path. “Hurry up,” said Williams. “I want to be ready when the Dauntless comes back.”
“Roger!” Smith pointed at a few more boulders. “No! Put the flat rocks on the bottom!”
In ten minutes, they’d managed to place a few hundred pounds of boulders in front of the door.
“Think it’ll hold?” asked Williams.
Smith nodded. “For a few hours. We made it pyramid-shaped so they couldn’t reach through and unstack ’em.”
“Good. Boats, Shiv, Brew? Go find a couple big sacks of something that looks like supplies. Make it quick.”
“Aye, sir!” they replied before running off.
“Alright, skipper,” said Childress. “You mind telling me why we just trapped a bunch of Americans in their cell?”
Williams looked at the pile of rocks blocking the door and nodded. “This event,” he said, pointing toward the Philly still aground in the harbor, “changed American diplomacy. It changed everything.”
Smith looked at the Philly. “How so?”
Williams pointed at the row of cells. “These guys got stuck here for months. And the Philly is brand new. But Jefferson ordered her burnt to the keel. He wanted it destroyed rather than letting anyone else use it. And he was sick of paying these guys a tribute for fair trade. So this event, right here where we’re standing—.” Williams looked around the harbor. “This is the start of the Barbary Wars. Jefferson set the precedent for the use of force, and Tricky,” he said, pointing at his chest, “you should know this.” He pointed both hands down at the sand covering the jetty.
Childress nodded. “To the shores of Tripoli. Battle hymn of the Corps.”
“Exactly,” said Williams. “It defined the Marine Corps.”
Childress grunted. “Who knows how many victories it inspired? How many battles were won after singing that song?”
Williams nodded. “And if we do anything to save these guys, none of that happens.”
Smith shook his head. “Grassley gets his abortion.”
Childress rocked his head. “What?”
“Grassley said he wanted to tear up the Med and abort the U.S.,” said Smith.
“With our ship,” said Williams. “And we can’t let that happen.”
“Holy shit.” Childress alternated his stare between Williams and Smith. “How are we going to stop him?”
“First we’ve got to get on board.”
———————
Sitting in the captain’s chair, Grassley lit another cigarette.
MacFarland shook her head. “I’m going to the head.”
As she stood, Mudawar took a step after her.
Grassley stuck out his arm. “Let her go. There’s nothing down there. Weapons are all locked up.” He smiled and watched her go through the belowdecks hatch.
“She could scuttle the ship,” said Mudawar.
“Scuttle? Only thing down there is the galley, head and berths.” Grassley pointed back to the engine room hatch. “She’d have to go down there to do any damage.”
Mudawar put his hands on his hips and stared at Grassley.
Grassley rolled his eyes and took a long smoke. “I’ll go check on her.” He stood and still looked a little off-balance from the whiskey.
He quietly went down the ladder and peered into the empty galley. He went through the hatch to the berths, but they and the head were both empty. “Hmmph.”
He went to the captain’s quarters on the other side of the ladder and opened the hatch.
MacFarland was sitting on Williams’s bed, but jumped up as soon as Grassley entered and ran toward the captain’s head.
“Where are you going?” He blocked her way. “You seem right at home in the captain’s quarters, don’t you? I knew you were fucking him.”
“What?” Her face tightened. “Leave me alone!”
He laughed. “Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got a great ass?”
“Let me go.” She tried to slip past him, but he pushed his groin into her and shoved her back toward the bed.
“I’m serious. You make that uniform look pretty goddam hot.”
She ignored him and tried to leave, but he shoved her hard onto the bed.
“He ain’t here to protect you anymore. You’re officer fuck-buddy can’t help you.” He moved toward the bed and took off his uniform top. His blue undershirt was tight enough to show that he needed to lose twenty pounds and do a bunch of pushups.
“Back off!” She kicked at him with her boots, but he grabbed her legs and spread them apart.
“Are you really going to fight me on this? You know this won’t go well for you.” He clawed at her waist and tried to unclasp the friction buckle of her web belt.
MacFarland swiped at him with her fists. “Stop it! Get off me!” She caught his cheek with her knuckles.
He lunged at her and flipped her over. He pulled her toward the edge of the bed and shoved his hands into the waistband of her pants and pulled. He smiled as soon as he saw her naked bottom, and kept pulling.
“No! No! Stop it!” She screamed and cried out.
A loud voice boomed, saying something neither understood, but Grassley got pulled off of her. She scurried forward in the bed and turned to see Mudawar shoving Grassley against the captain’s desk. Mudawar pushed and yelled, and the picture of Williams’s family fell to the floor and broke.
“Get off me!” yelled Grassley. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Mudawar pulled Grassley close by the collar. “Do not touch her!”
“Who the fuck are you telling me what to do?” Grassley shoved Mudawar and stumbled toward him.
Mudawar braced himself and made a little room between them. He quickly pulled out his dagger and pressed it to Grassley’s throat. He gritted his teeth and shook the edge of the dagger against Grassley’s neck.
Grassley stopped and raised his hands and took a few deep breaths. He smiled. “I’m stopping. I’m stopping.”
MacFarland crawled out of the bed and ran past the two men.
“See what you did?” asked Grassley. “Now she’s run off.”
Mudawar looked at the blood trickling from Grassley’s neck and thought about finishing the job. “You are filled with sin.”
Grassley laughed. “And a little Jack Daniels, too.”
“We must get our supplies and leave this place.”
“No hurry, is there?”
Mudawar stepped back and wiped the blood trickling off his dagger onto Grassley’s shirt. “We must leave now.”
“It’s a good thing you speak Italian, too.” Grassley straightened his collar. “Otherwise you’d be dead.”
Mudawar shoved his dagger into its sheath. “And it is a good thing you know about this ship. That was the second time I wanted to kill you.”
———————
Smith and Chavez each lowered their cloth bags on the rocks and waited. Behind them, the rest of the crew waited with Rogers and Watts. Rogers was conscious, but bleeding again. The bandage on his side was soaked with blood and needed to be replaced.
“I hear it,” said Brewster.
“Yeah, me too,” said Williams. “Get ready.”
The noise of the diesels increased as it neared, then quieted when the Dauntless coasted at idle toward the rocks.
“Go, now!” said Williams.
Smith and Chavez hoisted
the bags over their shoulders and climbed the boulders on the way to the spot where Williams had seen the others jump off.
“Here we go,” said Smith. “Ready?”
Chavez glanced under the bag toward the Dauntless. “Ready. Do you see Tricky?”
“No. He’s up there somewhere.” Smith heard the transmission of the Dauntless engage, then the throttles revved up. The water churned at the stern and the boat slowed.
“What’s he doing?” Chavez could see that the boat was no longer moving toward the jetty.
“I don’t know.” Smith looked at the Dauntless again. “Shit, he stopped!”
Smith heard the transmission engage again, but the boat turned parallel to the jetty. The bow mounted Mark 38 swiveled and pointed at Smith and Chavez.
“Shit! What do we do?” asked Chavez.
“Keep going. Keep going,” answered Smith.
Williams stood up so he could see over the rocks. “Son of a bitch.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Marathyachi.
“He stopped. He knows.”
“What? How?”
“Don’t know, Shiv. Maybe they had a signal worked out.” Williams let his shoulders drop. “Dammit.”
“If I didn’t need the ammo, I’d blow you two away!” Grassley’s voice was loud and obnoxious over the megaphone.
Williams started quickly over the boulders. “You’re gonna fry for this!”
Grassley didn’t respond.
Williams waved his arms. “Let’s make a deal!
Smith and Chavez dropped their bags and stopped climbing over the rocks.
“Nice try, but you should have brought two lanterns so I’d know all was safe.”
“Shit.” Williams caught up with Smith.
“Not as stupid as he acts,” said Smith. “Think he can hear us?”
“Not with the diesels.” Williams saw movement in the water. “Holy shit.” He started waving his arms again. “Try to keep his attention!”
Smith started waving his arms too. “Why? What do you think he’ll do?”
“Childress! He’s swimming for the boat!”