Battleground

Fernandez saw a hand appear at the top of the stairs holding a grenade. Before it could be thrown, Fernandez drilled the arm with three rounds, and the small bomb dropped out of the Kenyan’s hand and three seconds later exploded.

Fernandez looked back at Lincoln and nodded. He sent covering fire up the stairs until he felt Lincoln slide into place beside him.

“No response up above,” Lincoln said.…

Fernandez used the mike again. “L-T, we could use about four good men in here. The stairs is ours.”

Moments later Adams, Lampedusa, Bos’n’s mate Ted Yates, and Quinley ran into the room and found cover.

“Quinley,” Lincoln said. “You and me up the stairs. Side by side. You’ve got the left. Blast at anything that moves.…”

Don’t miss these other explosive
SEAL TEAM SEVEN
missions:

By Keith Douglass

THE CARRIER SERIES:

CARRIER

VIPER STRIKE

ARMAGEDDON MODE

FLAME-OUT

MAELSTROM

COUNTDOWN

AFTERBURN

ALPHA STRIKE

ARCTIC FIRE

ARSENAL

THE SEAL TEAM SEVEN SERIES:

SEAL TEAM SEVEN

SPECTER

NUCFLASH

DIRECT ACTION

FIRESTORM

BATTLEGROUND

T
HIRD
P
LATOON
^*

C
ORONADO,
C
ALIFORNIA

P
LATOON
L
EADER

Lieutenant Blake Mudock.

W
EAPON
H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.

F
IRST
S
OUAD

David “Jaybird Sterlling.
Platoon Chief. Machinist Mate Second Class.

W
EAPON:
H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.

Ron Holt
Radioman First Class. Platoon radio operator.

W
EAPON:
H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.

Martin “Magic” Brown.
Quartermaster’s Mate First Class. Squad sniper.

W
EAPON:
H&K PSG17.62 NATO sniper rifle or McMillan M-88.50-caliber sniper rifle.

Eric “Red” Nicholson.
Torpedoman’s Mate Second Class. Scout for the platoon.

W
EAPON:
Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.

Kenneth Ching.
Quartermaster’s Mate First Class. Platoon translator/ Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Spanish.

W
EAPON:
Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.

Harry “Horse” Ronson
Electrician’s Mate Second Class.

W
EAPON:
H&K-21A1 7.62 NATO round machine gun.

James “Doc” Ellsworth.
Hospital Corpsman Second Class. Platoon corpsman.

W
EAPON:
H&K MP-5SD or no-stock 5-round Mossburg pump shotgun.

S
ECOND
S
QUAD

Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed DeWitt.
Leader Second Squad. Second in Command of the platoon.

W
EAPON:
H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.

Al Adams.
Gunner’s Mate Third Class.

W
EAPON:
Colt M-4A1 with rocket launcher.

Miguel Fernandez.
Gunner’s Mate First Class. Speaks Spanish, Portuguese. Squad sniper.

W
EAPON:
H&K PSG1 7.62 NATO sniper rifle.

Ross Lincoln.
Aviation Technician Second Class.

W
EAPON:
H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.

Les Quinley.
Torpedoman’s Mate Third Class.

W
EAPON:
Colt M-4A1 and grenade launcher or no-stock, 5-round Mossburg pump shotgun.

Willy Bishop.
Electrician’s Mate Second Class. Explosives expert.

W
EAPON:
Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher

Ted Yates.
Bos’n’s Mate Second Class. Squad machine gunner.

W
EAPON:
H&K-21A1 7.62 NATO round machine gun. Second radio operator.

Joe “Ricochet” Lampedusa.
Operations Specialist Third Class.

W
EAPON:
M-4A1 with grenade launcher.

^*
(Third Platoon assigned exclusively to the Central Intelligence Agency to perform any needed tasks on a covert basis anywhere in the world. A top secret classified assignment.)

0120 hours

Dockside at Pier 12

Mombasa, Kenya

Colonel Umar Maleceia waved his silent platoon forward. The combat-outfitted Kenyan rangers blended into the deep shadows along Pier 12 and waited. Colonel Maleceia moved into the glow from the lights on the USS
Roy Turner
, FFG 68, and marched up the steel gangplank now almost level with the pier.

The sailor on duty on the quarterdeck watched as the Kenyan military officer strode up to the rail. The sailor hurried onto the weather deck and to the rail next to the brow. The six-foot-five-inch 300-pound officer wearing Kenyan Army combat greens stopped three feet from the American and saluted the American flag, then the sailor. The petty officer first class returned the salute.

“Identify yourself, sir, and state your business,” the sentry said.

Colonel Maleceia lowered his right-hand salute and at the same instant brought his left hand up from his hip. The silenced Heckler & Koch USP combat .40-caliber automatic whispered twice, and two rounds jolted into the sailor’s heart. He died before he could cry out.

At once ten of the dark-green-clad troopers from the dock’s shadows raced to the brow and hurried silently up it.

Half went forward, the rest aft on the 453-foot U.S. Navy ship. Each man had a special assignment. A moment later Colonel Maleceia motioned, and twenty more Kenyan Army rangers rushed onto the ship.

Aft, Gunnery Chiefs Winslow and Harper had just checked the Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawk helicopter that sat on the pad on the fantail outside the chopper hangar. Both men had returned from a night in the Mombasa saloons and were not entirely sober.

“Told you this baby has the new R-standard ASW sensors,” Chief Winslow said. “Told you so. You can see the antenna right there.”

“You’re drunk Winslow. You wouldn’t know a sensor from your mother’s army boots.” They both laughed and nearly fell down. “Pay up, Winslow.”

Just as Winslow reached for a roll of bills in his pocket, two Kenyan rangers surged out of the chopper hangar with the 20-mm six-barreled M 15 Vulcan Phalanx perched on top of it. The Kenyans fired their AK-47’s as soon as they saw the U.S. Navy men. A dozen rounds slammed into both chiefs and threw them against the side of the Seahawk, where they died instantly.

Seaman Roberts, on his regular security patrol rounds, heard the shots aft, and then heavier booming blasts from up forward. He ran that way up the weather deck on the starboard side past the alleyway that traversed the middle of the ship. He drew his issue .45 1911 automatic and charged a round into it. Damned big trouble somewhere. The firing sounded like shotguns. Somebody shooting shotguns on the
Turner
?

Below the wing of the bridge, two figures rose out of the darkness. Twin flashes from the pair made Roberts dive to the left. He was too late. One of the AK-47 slugs hit him in the chest and drove him backwards into a giant pool of blackness.

The first shots stirred activity on the quarterdeck. Lieutenant Marvin Foster, the Officer of the Deck, came away from the podium and looked at Seaman Johnson.

“You hear shots?”

The seaman on roving security patrol nodded, drew his .45, and headed for the port side. He never made it. A dark figure with a shotgun edged into the passageway and fired one shot of double-aught buck. It almost cut the sailor in half. The second round slammed Lieutenant Foster against the bulkhead, where he slid down, drawing grotesque patterns of blood on the fresh paint.

Chief Bos’n’s Mate Randolph stepped cautiously into the starboard door of the passage to the quarterdeck. He had a five-round shotgun, and fired one round of double-aught buck into the gunman who had just killed the OOD. He bent at the side of the dead officer and pulled out a ring of keys. Quickly, before any more attackers came onto the quarterdeck, he found the right key, turned it in the slot, and hit the General Quarters alarm. The rhythmic metallic gong sounded again and again through the
Roy Turner
. Now Randolph figured maybe some of the men would have a chance.