Battleground sts-6

by Keith Douglass

  Murdock heard the jets overhead. They'd be there until the landing craft were tucked up to the carrier four miles to sea. What could go wrong, now? Maybe the Kenyan Navy. They had talked about the patrol craft the Kenyans had. The question was how many of the ships had gone over to the colonel in the coup. They heard some of the ships had simply put to sea to wait out the confusion.

  On the carrier, they had been most worried about the two Kenyan fast-attack craft with missiles. They were the Nyayo class, 186 feet long, and could do forty knots. They carried SSM-40TO Melara missiles with radar guidance and 210kilogram warheads.

  The F-14's would be watching for them.

  Bishop came up and gave Murdock the listen/talk handset.

  He heard the fighters overhead.

  "That's a roger, Bird One. The three bogies are still on course, now about fifty miles and closing. They have ignored our ID calls. They definitely are not friendlies."

  "This is Home Plate. Tom Birds, your weapons are free. Splash two. I repeat. Splash two."

  "This is Tom Bird Three. I say lock on. I have a fox three from Tom Bird Three." It was the aviator's code for a Phoenix missile launch.

  "This is Tom Bird Four. I have lock on. I say a fox three from Tom Bird Four."

  "Two Phoenix birds away and homing," Tom Bird Three said.

  A moment later. "I have splash on bogie three."

  "Splash on bogie two."

  The air was quiet for a moment. "The third target has just turned and is heading back the way he came. Looks like the fun is over."

  "Well done, return to your cover assignment," Home Plate said.

  On the ground by the inlet, the SEALs heard the whine and roar of the air-cushioned craft two minutes before they saw them. Three of the craft raced forward at a surprising speed, making a huge spray of water and foam as the ducted air fans beat air into the water to keep the craft lifted off it, while fans in back slammed them forward. Suddenly they cut power and slowed dramatically before they drove directly on the beach from the water, scattering sand and sticks from the air blowers. The engines idled down, and the front ramps lowered on both craft.

  Commander Judd had the men in three groups on their feet waiting. They moved on board like well-trained combat troops. Murdock gawked in surprise. He got his men on the second and third craft, saw DeWitt get his squad aboard, and then the ramps came up. At once they roared off the beach into the water and slammed down the inlet toward the bay. The LCAC boats hadn't been on the sand more than a minute and a half.

  Their only armament were 12.2mm machine guns. Murdock told Magic Brown to get out his fifty just in case they needed it. The sixty men crowded the rail and clung to the sides of air shafts and any spare spot they could find on a deck filled with pipes and tubes and compartments. Murdock saw why the specs said the boat was made to handle only twenty-four troops.

  They entered the bay proper, and turned left in a gentle curve spraying water fifty feet. Douglas tailed Murdock wherever he went. His radio was still set to the aircraft, and a moment later they heard the landing craft's radio.

  "Tom Birds, this is Cushion One. I've got lights and a wake coming up fast behind us. Can you see it? Left side of the island in the channel."

  "Looking, Cushion One. Yes, have it. Looks like a fighting ship. Kenya have any big patrol craft?"

  "Tom Birds, could be a fast-attack boat with missiles. We're ducks on a pond here. They match our speed."

  "We can't see much on each fly-over."

  "Can you tell if they have missile launchers?"

  "I'd say that's a roger," another voice came in. "Can't be sure. Can see what looks like a three-inch gun on the bow."

  "She must be a thousand meters behind us. If she's got missiles, we're dead swimmers down here."

  "How about a strafing run in front of her with twenties?" Bird One asked.

  "Give it a try."

  Murdock and the men watched as one F-14 slanted down and traced a fifty-yard line of 20mm rounds across the path of the speedy boat and not more than thirty yards off her bow.

  "Got her attention, she slowed some." There was a pause.

  "Nope, she's up to speed again, Cushion."

  "Can you get a go-ahead to splash her?" Cushion asked.

  "That's a negative, not unless we get some hostile action from her. Maybe she's an escort."

  A moment later the Kenyan boat behind them began winking at them with what had to be rapid machine-gun fire.

  "Hostile action, we're being fired on," Cushion shouted into his mike.

  "Weapons free, coming around."

  Murdock nodded at Magic Brown. "See if you can find their range."

  Brown had been sighting in on the craft with the 16-power scope. He held his breath, refined his sights, and fired. He pulled the bolt back and rammed it forward and sighted in again.

  "Oh, yeah, right in his basket," Magic said. He pounded off three more rounds, then took out the magazine and pushed in another ten-shot magazine filled with armor-piercing rounds. Three more rounds from Magic slammed toward the enemy craft over half a mile behind them.

  "Why don't they use the missiles?" Murdock asked.

  Brown shook his head, and went on firing. "Maybe they don't have any on board."

  He fired six more times before three F-14s blasted down on a strafing run, and riddled the Kenyan boat with 20mm cannon fire. Murdock couldn't tell how many of the 20mm rounds hit the Kenyan craft, but it slowed and then made a sharp right turn, and almost plowed into the side of the mainland.

  "That river rat down there is out of business," Tom Bird One said. "He took thirty or forty hits, and I think lost his bridge. He's dead in the water."

  "That's a Roger, thanks, Bird One," Cushion said. "We're continuing down the channel."

  Murdock slapped Magic on the back. "Glad the Kenyans didn't get their missiles working. Also wonder why didn't they use their twenty-millimeter gun on there that can spit out eight hundred rounds a minute."

  "Hell, that's nothing," Magic said. "On a good day I can get off fifteen rounds in a minute."

  They all laughed as the eighty-five-footer slashed along at forty knots heading down the last half mile of the bay toward the ocean. The flyboys came back on the air.

  "Cushion One, looks like you're free and clear. We see no more pursuit. We say negative on any more pursuit."

  "Thanks, Tom Birds. You earned your day's pay. We've got about a hundred and eighty men on these boats who thank you."

  They swept past the little village of Likoni on the point of land across from Mombasa Island with a roaring and a massive spraying of water from the air-cushioned crafts that would give the natives something to talk about for weeks.

  Four minutes later, the three landing craft took turns pulling alongside a landing platform hung at a low hatch on the big aircraft carrier. Slowly and carefully, the hostage crewmen left the landing craft and walked onto the carrier. Six wounded had to be taken off by corpsmen on stretchers.

  Murdock was the last man off. He shook hands with the ensign on board the landing craft, and went up to the SEAL planning room, where he had told his men to meet.

  The SEALs had sprawled where they landed in the big room. Murdock looked at Jaybird. "Casualty report."

  Jaybird looked around. "Ronson for sure. Doc needs to look at Holt's back. He might have a cracked rib or two. We'll check on Magic Brown's leg. Anybody else?"

  "Yeah," Red Nicholson said. He held up his hand. His spray-soaked desert cammie sleeve showed bright with blood. Then he fell forward flat on his face.

  14

  Wednesday, July 21

  0220 hours

  Pita's apartment

  Mombasa, Kenya

  "This is crazy," Vuylsteke said.

  "Crazy or not, it's got to work," Tretter said. "There can't be more than a dozen or maybe two dozen troops on the Roy Turner. They're army guys, mud-kickers, for God's sakes. We know spots in the guts of the Turner where they'll never find us. We get
on board and harass them and waste a few and hide out, and we'll be there to help capture the ship when the damned Marines, or somebody, swarms ashore to retake her."

  "Yeah, real crazy idea," Perez said. "If somebody comes to retake her. What if they don't? Aw, hell, it sounds just wild enough to work. We can find weapons on board. We can waste a couple of them Kenya Army guys, and take their shooters. Hell, we might be able to capture the whole damn ship ourselves."

  Vuylsteke scowled. "Hey, don't get carried away. First, how do we get on board? Second, where do we hide out? How many Kenyan Army men are on board? Hell of a lot of questions to get answered."

  "We can't answer them here," Tretter said.

  "So, how do we get on the Turner?" Perez asked.

  "Pita said she'll help," Tretter said with a grin. "She'll be a decoy, get the deck guard to come down. She'll fake a fall, say she broke her leg. He goes down to the pier to help her. If nobody else's on deck, we rush out of the shadows, clobber the guy, take his piece, and get on board."

  Vuylsteke worried it. "Then when he wakes up, we hope that this Army guy thinks some locals wanted to get his rifle."

  "If he wakes up," Perez said. "I hear they killed over twenty-five of our shipmates. It was on the radio."

  Pita came out of the bedroom. She had put the sexy blouse back on and only buttoned two of the fasteners. As she moved, the men could see flashes of both breasts.

  "I'll wear this blouse and it'll come open a little," Pita said. She gave them a seductive smile. "I have listened to you. We can do it. If you kill one more of the sadistic Kenyan soldiers, I will help you."

  "I keep my thirty-two," Perez said. "Things get hot at the ship, we shoot and run. We break up on the dock and go four directions, and get here on our own without being tailed."

  "God, we really going to do this?" Vuylsteke asked.

  "Why not?" Perez asked. "We can cut down the odds for whoever comes on board to retake the Turner."

  "I'm in," Tretter said. "Let's get out of here and go kick some Kenyan ass."

  "Hold it. What time is it?" Vuylsteke asked.

  "It's 0227," Perez said. "All them assholes will be sleeping except maybe two guards. Easy. We watch for an hour, find out their pattern. Then we take out one or both of them. Piece of cake."

  "Easy for you, Perez, you got the piece," Tretter said.

  "Yeah, and we'll have all the weapons we can use before daylight. Let's go and do it!"

  Vuylsteke hesitated. "Pita, can you get some soldier off the boat and distract him?"

  Pita smiled, unbuttoned the two fasteners on her blouse, and held open both sides showing her full, light brown breasts to them. She smiled and moved her shoulders so her breasts jiggled.

  "Now you believe me?" Tretter asked.

  Vuylsteke nodded slowly. "Oh, yes, I think those two will do the trick. I want a butcher knife to take along. You better get one too, Tretter, until we get some better weapons."

  Twenty minutes later, the four of them sat in the shadows at the edge of the pier where the USS Roy Turner lay tied against the dock. They had seen one sentry on the ship, walking on this side, but he vanished now and then, maybe to work the far side.

  After ten minutes, they had seen only one man on watch.

  "Got to be another one somewhere," Tretter said. "How about the quarterdeck?"

  They couldn't see into the quarterdeck, but watched it. Nothing developed. The steel gangplank had been moved away from the ship. The way the tide was now, the ship's deck was no more than two feet above the pier and nudged tightly against the concrete dock.

  Pita and Tretter whispered a moment. Then she stood up from the shadows and limped badly as she moved into the soft glow of the ship's lights, working toward the vessel just in front of the squared-off helicopter hangar. She had almost gotten to the side of the Turner when the soldier they had seen with a rifle came running up with his weapon at the ready.

  "What the hell you doing, woman?" the sentry called from the ship.

  "Oh, I didn't see you. I fell over there, broke my ankle, I think. Can you help me?"

  "How? Can't leave my post."

  "Maybe somebody else?"

  "Only one damn guard awake. The sarge is sleeping. What the hell?"

  Pita opened her blouse. "You want me, I'll be glad to fuck you if you help me first. I need my ankle splinted or bandaged."

  "Damn! I can't come down there."

  "We can fuck right here in the shadows after you help me."

  "Oh, damn." The sentry looked around. "Maybe just…" He looked along the deck, then jumped down the two feet to the dock and knelt beside her. She was close to the edge of the pier, and he had to put his back to the far side of the dock where the sailors waited.

  Tretter began to move as soon as the soldier laid down his rifle and began to examine her ankle. Tretter ran forward like a shadow without a sound. The first thing the Kenyan ranger knew of any danger was when the side of a brick slammed down on his head. He slumped to the dock before he could cry out.

  Pita pulled a knife from her skirt and stabbed the soldier, then sliced his throat.

  "Into the bay," she whispered. Tretter searched the man's pockets and brought out three magazines for the rifle. Then Pita and Tretter rolled the body over the small berm and into the water between the ship and the pier.

  When the soldier crumpled on the dock, the other two sailors ran for the ship. They both jumped on board, and pressed against the bulkhead near the quarterdeck door. Tretter kissed Pita and pushed her toward the shadows where they had hidden. She was supposed to go directly to her apartment.

  Tretter jumped on board the ship with the dead ranger's AK-47 and three magazines of ammo. He pasted himself against the bulkhead just forward of the quarterdeck.

  They had agreed to take a look at the in-port operational center and see if anyone was on duty, then do a quick look for another guard. If they found none, they would move to their hiding spot.

  Perez took three steps to the quarterdeck door on the starboard side. They watched both ways. Nothing moved on the weather deck. They heard nothing. Perez edged his head around the opening until he could see into the passageway. Somebody had turned on the red lights, and he could make out the area. He saw no one. Then a moment later he spotted a figure leaning back in a swivel chair that Perez figured had been in the Captain's quarters.

  The man in the chair gave off a soft wheeze of snoring.

  Perez had never killed a man. He set his jaw and waved the other two sailors forward, then slipped inside the quarter deck and with soft, cautious footsteps approached the sleeping man. He had the revolver in his left hand, and in his right he held one of Pita's eight-inch-long butcher knives.

  He took a deep breath, and surged forward the last six feet. He held the butcher knife like a saber, so it extended straight out from his hand. It gave him a three-foot-long lance. He drove forward and the knife hit the green shirt of the Kenyan ranger, glanced a quarter of an inch off a rib, and plunged into the sergeant's heart. The Kenyan almost woke up, his eyes blinked, and then he gave a long sigh as the last breath he would ever take came gushing out of his lungs.

  At the same time his bowels emptied and his bladder gushed as all muscle control over them relaxed.

  They had agreed to leave anyone they killed on the deck in place. Too much trouble and too much noise to try to get a body overboard.

  Vuylsteke nodded at Perez as he ran up. He took an automatic shotgun from the big sergeant along with two U.S. Navy sacks of shotgun shells with the bandoleer-type loop that went over his head. Each sack should have fifteen rounds. They saw nothing else of value, and hurried down the passageway.

  Midships of the quarterdeck companionway, they stopped at a ladder that descended one deck to where they could move on down to the auxiliary machine engine storage space just above the bilges.

  The three crept down the ladder silently, made a turn, and a few moments later had continued into the bowels of the ship. Th
ey slipped under the steel grate just over the bilges. The grate held all sorts of spare compressors, pumps, valves, and other types of auxiliary engineering equipment.

  The space between the steel overhead and their luxury quarters in the bilges was less than eighteen inches. They squirmed in and lay down, trying to avoid the small puddles of oil and water that had drained from above them. "Damn tight," Vuylsteke said.

  "Yeah, but safe," Tretter said. "No fucking Kenyan is ever gonna come down here. Even if they did, they could be standing right on top of us there and never know we were down here."

  Above them, and all around the engine room, equipment hummed along doing its designed duty, which wasn't much now. Mostly there were generators maintaining the batteries, and a few bilge pumps.

  Perez lay a short way from the other two. He was at the spot where there was one true access into the bilges under the platform. But only an experienced Turner crewman who was supposed to check that area every few hours would know how to find it.

  "So we're on," Vuylsteke said. He was still senior noncom in the trio and felt some responsibility. "We get some sleep now and wait until tomorrow and see what kind of hell we've raised. Be damn nice to be a fly on the wall somewhere when they wake up and find both their watch guys dead as road-kill skunks in July."

  Perez laughed softly. "Oh, yeah. Did you see how Pita did in that Kenyan ranger? Damn, if there's a fight, I want her to be on my side."

  Tretter tried to find a comfortable spot. "Fucking hard steel is giving me fits. Perez, can you find any blankets or padding or anything soft up there in that engineering area that we can lay on? Hell, we got us fourteen, sixteen hours to stay in this place."

  Vuylsteke waved at Perez. "Yeah, see what you can find. Nobody gonna be down here for hours, maybe not at all."

  Perez groaned, but moved up to the grating. They could hear him walking around. Five minutes later, he came down with three blankets, two pillows, and a pair of flashlights.

  "Damned engineers getting soft," he said. "I found them so I get a pillow. You guys can fight over the other one."