Battleground (20 page)

On the weather deck below, Murdock’s men hugged the starboard side of the
Roy Turner’s
superstructure on both flanks of the quarterdeck door. Red Nicholson crept up, tossed a grenade into the quarterdeck, and leaned back. The bomb went off with a roaring splatter of shrapnel; then Nicholson and Magic Brown charged into the companionway with their MP-5’s on auto fire. Magic saw two rangers on the deck trying to get back to their feet. He triggered a three-round burst into each of them.

Nicholson saw a man running out the far end of the companionway, but his rounds reached the area too late. “Quarterdeck clear,” Red said into his mike. The two SEALs worked down to the crossing companionway and paused.

Murdock had sent Ross Lincoln aft toward the point where the hangar was built out solidly to the rail. Lincoln darted forward and stopped, then moved again. A Kenyan fired once from behind some fixtures alongside the bulkhead. A searing burst from the Kenyan’s AK-47 missed. Lincoln used his M-4A1 on automatic, washing down the free area under the fixtures, and heard a scream of pain.

He charged the area, and saw a Kenyan ranger bringing
up his rifle. Lincoln nailed him to the deck with a three-round burst of 9mm rounds into his chest.

On the fantail, DeWitt’s squad had the small flight deck in control. Then two weapons fired from the chopper hangar. DeWitt saw one of the big doors rolled half open, ran up the side, and dove through it with his night-vision goggles in place. The total blackness of the inside of the hangar came into a dull green focus.

DeWitt saw the second SH-60B LAMPS chopper tied down. Just behind it someone fired a shotgun, but the pellets slammed out the open door. DeWitt missed his Mossburg shotgun. Instead he carried an MP-5 suppressed, and blasted a six-round burst into the Kenyan hiding there. The man groaned, then spilled to the side as he hit the deck and lay still.

DeWitt rolled to one side and waited. Three rounds from an automatic rifle splattered the spot where he had been moments before. He saw the shooter behind some boxes on the far side of the hangar. He returned fire with two six-round bursts and waited. A moment later he heard a gush of air; then a body hit the floor and a weapon clattered on the non-slip hangar deck.

DeWitt looked around. In the soft green glow he made sure that there were no more men in the hangar.

“Hangar clear,” he said into his mike.

Murdock watched the bridge wing. He’d seen movement there before. Now he studied it with the NVGs. Yes. A man lay on the deck with a weapon. He lifted his silenced MP-5 and drilled the area with a half-dozen rounds, then three more. The man lying there bent in half as if in pain, then flopped on the deck and didn’t move.

“Companionway crossing the quarterdeck,” Nicholson said. “Do we clear it?”

“Hold,” Murdock said. “Let’s get the topside clear before we move there. Jaybird, can you get to the bridge?”

The Motorola brought the answer. “Think so, L-T. These fuckers on the dock don’t look real interested in boarding and getting killed. We’ve got five guns up here discouraging them. My guess is no leadership.”

“Good. Move to the bridge, leave one SEAL with the sailors. Keep up the fire on the dock.”

Jaybird crawled forward under the radar search antennas on the tall masts, and then checked the bridge wing. No activity there. He saw one body that didn’t move. He listened. Over the gunfire he could hear no one inside the bridge. He held the MP-5 ready as he stepped over a rail and worked closer to the bridge wing. Satisfied that he could hear no firing or movement from the bridge, he leaped onto the wing and covered the bridge interior. No one was there. He went to the far side and checked. No Kenyans.

“Bridge clear,” he said to the mike.

On top of the superstructure midships, Vuylsteke watched the pier. Something had changed out there. He couldn’t tell what. He edged further behind his protection. A moment later, he heard running steps, and someone pounded down the weather deck to the rail up near the bridge. A Kenyan with no weapon. He charged the rail, jumped over, and landed two feet below on the concrete dock. He lost his balance and went down. Before he could jump up, two slugs from the crewmen’s AK-47’s jolted into him and he screamed and tried to crawl toward the warehouse. He made it five yards, then fell on his face and didn’t move.

Vuylsteke motioned to the SEAL beside him. “What’s happening out front? Almost looks like they are getting organized.”

Joe “Ricochet” Lampedusa had seen the activity too. He keyed his mike. “L-T, something is going on out there on the dock. You can’t see it yet. I’d say they’re getting ready to assault us. If they do, we could use a few more shooters over on the starboard side.”

“That’s a Roger. If it happens, let me know. Is the topside clear yet? What kind of an onboard Kenyan body count do we have?”

The men keyed in with the number they had done. When Murdock figured the total, he came up with twelve. There had to be more than that on board—unless some of them deserted the ship when the shooting started.

“Bastards are coming,” Jaybird said on the Motorola.

“Everyone who can, get starboard and return fire,” Murdock said.

Jaybird watched them. There was a line of green-uniformed Kenyans that stretched almost the length of the ship. They came out of the darkness of the long warehouse firing.

Nineteen weapons answered their attack. Six hand grenades sailed into the marching men when they came close enough. The deadly fire of the three sailors and the sixteen SEALs slowed the march, and then pushed the Kenyans back. Seconds later they broke and ran for the darkness they had left.

“Anyone hit?” the Motorola asked. After a pause, Murdock continued. “They’ll be back. DeWitt, get two more of your men on the top of the superstructure. The high ground.”

“Roger that.”

The three sailors slammed in fresh magazines. They had one full one left each, then no more. The SEALs checked their magazines. The men had taken off the suppressors from their carbines. No need for them now, and the added velocity and range would be useful.

“Here they come,” Jaybird said.

The line of Kenyan rangers was considerably shorter this time. Murdock figured there were less than a hundred men. The pier was thirty yards wide here. They came out of the darkness at a trot, then broke into a sprint. One after another they were hit by the nineteen guns now shooting at them from the
Turner.
They still came on.

All of the SEALs had grenades. They threw them when the enemy was ten yards from the ship. The toll was heavy. Twenty grenades exploded within a few strides of the men. Dozens went down screaming in pain.

The sharpshooters picked off more of the men who got through the rain of shrapnel. More grenades fell on the concrete and bounced to give off an airburst that shredded more of the green-uniformed men.

Half-a-dozen Kenyans lived through the barrage and jumped onto the deck. Murdock and two men firing from
the quarterdeck door cut them down, and dumped three of them back on the dock.

Two more got on board aft, and fell before they could get to any kind of cover.

A moment later the attack ended. “Chase them with lead,” Murdock said in his mike. The men on the
Turner
kept firing as the stragglers and the wounded turned and ran for the safety of the shadows. About half of them made it.

The silence that followed the last shots was eerie. The only sound was a gentle lapping of the water on the ship’s hull and against the piling of the dock.

Murdock led a quick search of the ship. He found no hiding Kenyan rangers. Then he met the three crewmen, and had them make a second search.

“You men know where they could be. If you find any Kenyans, Jaybird will give us a call and we’ll dig them out. You guys have done plenty tonight helping us.”

It took them a half hour to figure how to work it, but at last the SEALs, and their three frigate crewmen got the SH-60B helicopter rolled into the hangar beside the other one and the hangar doors closed.

Murdock got Holt to power up the SATCOM, and he radioed the carrier on the “local call” frequency.

“Rover, this is Inflatable.”

The answer came back at once. “Yes, Inflatable. Good to hear from you.”

“The party’s over and it’s time to clean up the place. We’re ready here for your arrival. Should be no enemy fire. I say again, there is a negative chance of enemy fire. The flight deck is cleared.”

2032 hours

Dockside
Roy Turner

Mombasa, Kenya

Murdock set up a watch with all of the nineteen men. Each one had protection from the pier area, and each one had a weapon pointed that way to reply to any snipers who had stayed behind to harass them.

Minutes ago they had heard the heavy engines as several trucks behind the stalled one at the end of the pier evidently loaded up and moved out.

For ten minutes, all was quiet. Murdock expected the choppers to be coming at any time. Moments later he heard a clanking and a roaring motor, and frowned. Jaybird looked at Murdock and shook his head.

“Sounds bad, L-T.”

Murdock motioned to Holt, who gave him the handset to the radio.

“Rover, this is Inflatable, over.”

“Yes, Inflatable. Your birds are airborne. ETA about five minutes.”

“May have a problem. You have any air cover up?”

“What kind of a problem?”

“We hear a tank moving up toward the pier. Not sure where it is. A dead six-by truck is blocking one entrance to our site. We can’t knock out a tank with our weapons.”

“Roger that, Inflatable. We have two Hornets up. They should copy. Wildbees One and Two, do you copy?”

“Affirmative, Rover. We’re about three minutes away from the port. Can we have some white flares and some red smoke on the target?”

“That’s a roger, Wildcats, soon as we see it. My guess is he’ll push the dead truck out of the way and be in our lap. What firepower do these tanks have?”

“Inflatable, they could have our old M-48 Pattons. I think some of them came down here. Kenya was our ally, remember. If it’s the M-48, they have a one-oh-five-millimeter long gun and can carry over fifty rounds.”

“This is Wildbee One in a flyover of the harbor. I see no flares.”

“No target yet, Wildbee, but the sound is coming closer. We’ll put a flare over the suspect area.”

“Coming around with Wildbee Two. Flare now.”

Murdock nodded at Magic Brown, who fired a flare over the far end of the pier. The flare burst with daytime brilliance, and began to float down on its parachute. They could see plainly the stalled truck and the blocked roadway behind it. At almost the same time they spotted the ugly snout of a cannon on a tank as it did a locked-tread turn and rolled directly for the truck.

“Now, Wildbee, we have target. No time for smoke. Do you locate?”

“Have it, but past target. Going around. Wildbee One should be coming.”

“Wildbee One. Have target acquisition, at required altitude, locking on. Firing. One Maverick away.”

Murdock and the SEALs heard the roar of the solid-fuel rocket as it slammed forward at over Mach 1 and almost immediately exploded directly on the still-visible rolling tank. The detonation of the rocket was followed by a roaring secondary blast that bounced the SEALs backward as some of the ammunition inside the tank went off. Shrapnel and chunks of the tank came out of the sky like huge snow-balls—only these could kill a guy.

“Good shooting, Wildbees. The tank is no longer a problem.”

“That’s a Roger. We’ll hang out a while to see if anything more develops.”

The SEALs kept under cover in case any of the Kenyan rangers had hung back.

Two minutes later they heard the incoming choppers.

“Inflatable, this is Knight One checking on your situation.”

“Knight One, all clear here. Not sure how to get lights on the landing pad switched on.”

“Right. We have your position. Coming in now with our own lights.”

They saw the bird coming. It was an HH-46D/E Sea Knight. As Murdock remembered, it had no armament. It swung over the ship at two hundred feet, then circled and dropped lower as its landing lights lit up the fantail of the
Turner.
It touched down, and at once the side hatch opened and twenty combat-dressed Marines poured out. Ten surged to the starboard side of the flight deck and went prone with rifles aimed at the dock.

The rest of the Marines rushed through the hangar, out to the starboard side amidships, and all the way to the bridge taking up defensive positions.

Three Navy officers had exited the Sea King as well, and hurried into the hangar. The big chopper took off at once, and two minutes later a second Sea King settled onto the
Turner’s
deck. This time twenty sailors rushed out of the chopper and into the hangar. That bird lifted off the moment the hatch closed.

Before the next chopper could land, Murdock heard fire coming from the dock area. Murdock used the SATCOM, and told the FA-18’s to stand by. He also put a hold on the last Sea King chopper. Murdock left the quarterdeck and slid to the weather deck beside a pair of Marines.

“Where’s the firing coming from?” Murdock asked.

A Marine sergeant pointed to the bow end of the dock where the ruined truck still lay.

“Up there. Sounds like a fifty. They aren’t on target yet.”

The Marine held an H&K-21A1 machine gun.

Murdock touched his mike. “Let’s get ready with some forty-mike-mike. Throw them up there by the busted truck and tank. Somebody’s coming.”

Moments later Murdock heard the grenade launchers firing. Two HE rounds went off with a crunch just beyond the ruined and still-burning tank. A WP round exploded back farther.

They could hear the rig coming closer now. Not a tank, maybe a truck or jeep-like rig. Then they saw it in the soft moonlight.

“An armored personnel carrier of some kind,” Murdock barked. “Hit it.”

The SEAL weapons opened fire. The Marines chimed in with their AR-16’s and two machine guns. The first volley of rounds made the rig pause. Then they saw someone swing around the top-mounted machine gun.