Battleground (5 page)

“Yes, sir, L-T.” It was Torpedoman’s Mate Third Class Les Quinley, one of the replacements who’d come on board after the Chinese picnic. “Does this shitbird bad-ass Kenyan colonel have a name?”

“Right, Quinley. He’s Full Colonel Umar Maleceia. He was a major last time I met him at a special training program in the States. He was a student there. Which means the U.S. trained him in the latest and best in weapons, communications, and tactics. Which he is probably putting to good use right now. Anything else?”

“Sir?” An airman stood at the edge of the SEALs. He had a piece of paper in his hand. “Lieutenant Murdock. I have some correspondence for you from Washington.”

Murdock nodded, and the airman brought the papers forward, gave them to him, and retreated.

Murdock looked at the top sheet, read a few lines of it, and groaned.

“Gentlemen, our mission has just changed. Our Colonel Maleceia has just expanded his operation. Two hours ago he attacked the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. Now we are ordered to defend and if necessary recapture the
embassy if it falls. The estimate in this report is that the embassy can’t hold out more than about twelve hours. So our first mission will be on land at the embassy in Nairobi, which is about three hundred miles north of Mombasa.”

“Damn long swim, L-T,” Quartermaster’s Mate First Class Kenneth Ching said. The SEALs all laughed.

0512 hours

Ruined building, waterfront

Mombasa, Kenya

Gunner’s Mate First Class Pete Vuylsteke woke up first. His back hurt where he had slept on the hard floor. He poked Perez beside him, and looked around for Tretter.

“Where the hell’s the black kid?” Vuylsteke whispered.

Doc Perez rubbed his eyes. “Last time I saw him he was snoring over there. He sure ain’t there now.”

Vuylsteke looked through the broken window. “Damn near daylight outside. We gonna be safe in here? Where the hell is Tretter?”

They heard something at the edge of the broken-down building, and both dropped flat on the floor. The sound came closer; then Tretter stepped around the crumbling wall and waved.

“Hey, the two sleeping beauties have awakened. I should give you a medal already. Gents, I’ve been out and about on this fine day, and I bring back food.

“Had one hell of a hard time out there faking it. Nothing is open yet. Went down one street and looked in every small shop. Got to another street and saw a woman in an alley. She came my way. I waited and talked to her.

“She pegged me right away as an American. Clothes, she said. She pulled me into a doorway and we talked. Turns out
she was looking for her milk delivery somebody forgot to bring.

“She said she wasn’t at all sympathetic to the new military rule. She knew about our ship getting hijacked. She said the U.S. Navy would blow up half the town in two days to get the ship back.

“I asked her if she could help hide three of us. She frowned and said maybe. If I could help her. Hell, I said anything, we’d help her do whatever she wanted.

“So I found this fine little mama who says she’ll help hide us, but, like, we have to play the game with her.”

Tretter put down two plastic sacks. Inside were two loaves of bread, a small jar of jam, a dozen hot dogs, and three bananas. He pulled out another jar, a larger one, that contained some dark brown strips.

“Kippered fish, gents. A real delicacy. I didn’t ask her what kind of fish. You dig?”

Already Perez had eaten one of the bananas. Vuylsteke had pushed two of the hot dogs inside a cut-off strip of the round loaf of bread, and had his mouth full.

“What’s our security?” Perez asked as he broke off a chunk of the bread.

“This mama has a small place and neighbors. Nobody moving around when I was there. She says she can help us, but we got to help her.”

“I smells me some trouble,” Perez said.

“Oh, she said she heard the word last night. If any of the soldiers occupying Mombasa spot any U.S. sailors running around, they have orders to shoot to kill.”

Vuylsteke waved his sandwich. “Yeah, figures. What does this broad want?”

“First she said I had to smuggle her on board our ship when we get it out of here. I told her not a chance. Then she said we had to get her a visa to come to the U.S. where she can be a recording star. She’s a singer.”

“Evidently,” Vuylsteke said.

“I said easy. Just apply at the embassy in Nairobi.”

“That do it?” Perez asked.

Vuylsteke waved his hand and pointed to the far end of
the building. They could hear voices. Then somebody pushed over some boards and they clattered on the floor.

The three sailors gathered up their food, and edged behind a half-torn-down wall. The voices came closer. A few moments later they could see two black policemen in khaki uniforms. Neither one had a gun. Both had nightsticks. Now the sailors could hear the English words.

“They tell us to search the place so we search,” the taller one said. “Otherwise we get shot. These guys have no brains.”

“How long will this coup last?” the shorter one asked.

“Who knows. We be careful until then. Maybe the United States will come in to rescue their ship. Who knows?”

The two policemen stood there a moment, then turned, and walked back the way they had come.

“We searched it. We tell them we searched the whole building and didn’t find a thing except rat droppings.”

“Yeah, that’s good. Rat droppings.” The smaller man shook his head. “Only, you can tell them, not me.”

The sailors breathed easier as the two policemen went out the way they had come in.

Silently Tretter motioned for the other two sailors to follow him. They went to the near end of the building and Tretter looked out. It was daylight. Tretter rummaged around near a broken door until he found what he had left there. Straw hats, large and floppy.

“Put these on to cover those American heads. Keep your hands in your pockets and maybe we can fake it up two blocks. Hope not a lot of folks are awake yet.”

They put on the hats and Tretter nodded. “For God’s sake don’t rush. We’re almost on the equator here and it’s gonna be hot as hell in ah hour or two. Just mosey along. I’ve got the peashooter in my pocket if we need it.”

They ambled across the dusty street to the alley and moved up it. A door banged somewhere ahead, but no one was there by the time they reached the spot. They saw no one along a second garbage-filled dirt alley that showed the backs of a few old buildings on both sides. They went across
a wider dirt street to an alley, and paused inside in some shadows.

“Halfway up the alley,” Tretter said. He scowled at them. “Don’t gawk at this lady. She’s half Arab and half Kenyan. She talks in English and sometimes Arabic, and some Swahili thrown in. Just take it easy.”

“Hey, she can speak Hindustani for all I care,” Vuylsteke said. “Can she save our swabby asses from that wigged-out crazy colonel?”

“Yeah, I think she can. The Army killed her brother. A lot of the Kenyan people look down on the Arabs and the Arab mixtures. She’s not a happy camper.”

“She got a big place?” Perez asked.

Tretter gave him a snort for an answer, and they meandered on up the alley. Then in a blink they were gone. All three had stepped into a dark doorway that opened to a knock. They went up wooden stairs to the third floor, and then down a hallway. The person who led them was a small woman, no more than five feet tall, with long straight black hair and dark clothes.

She opened the door at the end of the hallway and slipped inside. Tretter waved the other sailors in. The woman closed the door and faced them. She was tiny and slender and had a creamy brown complexion. She wore no makeup, but her eyes glowed a deep brown. She wore a long black skirt and black blouse. Her face was grim.

“So, United States Navy sailors. I help you, you help me, no?”

They nodded.

“The Army kill my brother. I want you kill three Kenyan Army soldiers for me. Three for one, my family tradition.”

“I don’t know, lady,” Vuylsteke said. “We do that, and the whole fuc—the whole damn Kenyan Army gonna be down here looking for us.” He was the senior man. It was his call.

She shrugged. “You think about. I live alone. Have two rooms. No close friends. Work at place across town. You stay here. Be quiet. Tonight I show you how to kill Army soldiers and not get caught.”

“Oh, guys, this lady’s name is Pita,” Tretter said. “It
means the fourth-born, but she says she was only the second-born. Pita, this is Vuylsteke and Perez.”

“Am pleased to meeting you. Now must go see my mother.”

“Pita, is there anything to drink?” Tretter asked. “Water, coffee. We’re all dry as hell.”

Pita frowned for a moment, then brightened. “Yes, I have Coca-Cola. You like?”

1315 hours

U.S. Embassy, 2249 R Street NW

Nairobi, Kenya

Ambassador Harrington G. Jerome watched out his second-story window as the gunfire continued to rake the U.S. Embassy. This was totally outrageous. The embassy was United States soil. How dare this renegade colonel fire upon them.

His First Secretary, Frank Underhill, rushed in, blood dripping from his right arm, which hung useless at his side.

“Sir, we have only our twelve Marines. I’m afraid most of the rest of us don’t even know how to fire a weapon. The gate is holding for now. The Marines drove our big truck against the steel gate, but they say they can’t be sure how long it will last.”

“Yes, Frank, thank you. Keep all of the civilians out of the line of fire. Thank God for the wall around the compound. Otherwise we would have been overrun the first hour. Have that arm tended to at once. We can’t afford to lose you.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do it. We’ve held out four hours already. Maybe we can keep them away until night. They won’t continue to come at us in the dark, will they?”

Ambassador Jerome remembered his days in the infantry. Night attacks were always the best for those attacking.

“Don’t worry about it, Frank. Just keep things together.
Remember, if they do break in, your first act is to burn all papers and destroy the encrypto machine. Be sure of that.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

Below on the ground floor, three U.S. Marines stood beside a broken-out window. They had set up a light machine gun there and had a dozen belts of ammunition ready. From time to time the gunner sent five-round bursts over the top of the wall.

“There’s one,” Sergeant Wilson snapped.

An M-16 on single-shot barked once, and the figure trying to flip over the top of the concrete block wall jolted as the bullet hit him and he spun off the top of the wall and fell outside.

“Keep it up here,” Wilson said. “I’m checking the north wall. That’s their best attack point.”

Sergeant Wilson ran through the embassy with his M-16. He had fatigue pockets stuffed with six spare magazines for the rifle. A window on the second floor on the north-facing side of the embassy had been opened before it could be shot out. A Marine stationed there raised up and looked out at irregular intervals, then quickly dropped out of sight. Twice rifle rounds had slashed through the window a fraction of a second after he’d ducked.

“Still there, Sarge,” Private Marshall said. “Must be fifteen or twenty of them. Don’t know why they don’t come on across.”

“They aren’t sure how many guns we have in here,” Sergeant Wilson said. “They think they know, but nobody is willing to be the first one to bet his life on it.”

“So, is it a stalemate?”

“Only as long as they want it to be, Marshall. They have at least two armored personnel carriers out there and maybe five hundred men. One of those personnel carriers could probably punch a hole in our concrete-block wall. Not even sure if it has rebar in it.”

A grinding and clanking brought both Marines up to the window for a quick look.

“Now we’ve got real trouble,” Sergeant Wilson said. “We
have any of those RPGs left, or did we burn them up in practice?”

“Should be four of them in the basement,” Private Marshall said.

“Go down and get them and bring them all up here. I’ll man your post. Run, damnit. That’s a tank out there grinding along toward us. It could smash its way through that wall like it was flypaper, rebar or no rebar. Move it.”

The Marine took off on a run. Sergeant Wilson lifted up and fired a burst of five rounds out the window at the wall. All of the rounds hit the inside of the blocks, but the Kenyan soldiers on the other side would get the message. He had to buy a few more minutes. He jolted up, looked out, and came down in one move.

A rifle round slapped into the outside of the wall near the window. The tank was halfway across the open field north of the embassy wall. This time, when Sergeant Wilson fired, he lifted his sights to aim at the tank. Then he paused just a fraction of a second to see if any of the six rounds hit the tank. He couldn’t tell. He jerked his head down, and two chunks of hot lead blasted through the open window a microsecond later.

Where the hell was Marshall? The fucking tank would be on them any minute.

Marshall panted up to the window with four Rocket Propelled Grenades. They were self-propelled and had little back-blast. Quickly Sergeant Wilson put one of the devices on his right shoulder, checked the sight, then pulled the tab to arm the grenade. He moved up to the window, aimed the grenade out it and in line with the tank, and fired.

The rocket whooshed away, leaving a burning cloud of smoke behind it. Half-a-dozen rifle rounds hit the window and came through it, but Wilson had dropped down just in time. Long before the smoke cleared away they could hear the tank. The round hadn’t stopped it. Wilson wasn’t even sure if it had made a hit. He sent Marshall to a window down the hall with two grenades and told him to fire at the tank if it smashed through the wall.

“Aim for the fucking tread. That’s about the only way we can stop it.”

As he spoke, a blast shook the north wing of the embassy. It must have hit just below them. Sergeant Wilson lifted up and looked out the window. The tank’s gun, maybe a .75-caliber, still smoked. They had fired a round at the embassy.