"I know your mission isn't complete there, and we and the White House family and staff wish you a safe and successful completion of your work. Thanks again." The typed name on the paper was "Wilson Anderson, President."
"Who's that one from?" Ken Ching asked.
"Just some guy in Washington," Murdock said. They yelled at him until he held up his hand. "Okay, just don't get swelled heads. We got much work to do yet."
He read it aloud, and when he finished, the men were quiet.
"Well, somebody knows that we exist," Ron Holt said.
"Oh, Washington knows about you," Stroh said. "The President and the Director of the CIA are most aware of you and your work. That's why you're on that special string that goes from the President to the Director of the CIA and down to me and then to you. Congratulations. Now, what were you doing? Didn't mean to interrupt." He grinned. "The hell I didn't. I'm getting back upstairs to wait for that damn radio to start talking to us."
When he left, Doc Ellsworth looked at Murdock. "L-T, how long you think it will be before we know our target?"
"My guess, sometime tonight, and we'll go in as soon as possible. That means we wrap this and have some sack time right after chow. I don't want any of you falling asleep on me with bullets flying around."
Olie Tretter watched the Kenyan-Arab woman go out the door and close it. They heard her lock it from the outside. Tretter let out a long breath.
"Man, I have been at sea too long. That is one fine mama."
"She's finer yet if she can save our fucking tails from the locals," Vuylsteke snapped. He regretted it at once. He hadn't slept well last night on those boards. "Easy, guys," Rafe Perez said. "She looked cool to me. She hates the colonel and his Army. Looks like she will keep our secret hoping we can help her."
"Sure, kill three Kenyan Army guys," Tretter said. "Hell, that would bring a company of troopers down on our heads."
Vuylsteke took a long drink from the Coke. He'd come halfway around the world to find a can of Coke in this hot, dry, and definitely hostile place. He had to think. The woman had saved them so far. She would be in big trouble if the Army knew they were hiding in her apartment. Maybe she'd keep on hiding them.
"Look, we've got no big fat choice here. The ship is captured and has a ton of security on board. The Army is in the streets, so I guess this place is under martial law. If that damn colonel can count, he knows not everybody got back on board the FFG by curfew."
"Oh, yeah," Tretter said. "He must know. So he'll send some troops into this area to hunt for us."
"Maybe," Perez said. "Depends on what else he has going. My guess is that Uncle Sam ain't gonna take kindly to having his ship shanghaied. Gonna be some action down here shortly."
Vuylsteke drained the Coke and looked in the other room. A bedroom with a single bed. It had been made up.
"Right now, I need a snooze. Keep it quiet. No radio anybody can hear outside the walls. Station might have some English reports on it. Wake me up at noon and we'll talk it over again. I'll be halfway human by then."
When Vuylsteke woke up about 1400 that afternoon, the other two sailors were sleeping. Tretter was stretched out on some pillows on the floor. Perez was sprawled in an easy chair. He roused them, and asked about any news on the radio.
"Couldn't find any," Perez said.
Vuylsteke took the small battery-powered radio and searched the dial. Halfway down he found some news in English. "The People's Military Committee has announced that it is now in total control of the nation. The members urge calm. All facilities and functions of the government will continue. Police will be in place. All aspects of our usual life will go on with no change.
"General Maleceia will address the people on this radio station and the national TV network. All citizens are urged to listen. His press secretary says there will be important announcements made."
"Sure there will, like turn over all of your teenage daughters to the Army and send us all of your money."
Vuylsteke turned off the radio. "Money. Tretter you changed dollars into shillings, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I got about twenty-five hundred left. What was it, about sixty shillings to the dollar."
"I bet Pita doesn't make much at her job. Some cash would come in handy for her. Might also save our Navy asses."
"Yeah and give her some shillings to buy some food with," Perez said. "We gonna eat her out of this place in another day."
Tretter yawned and pulled on his shoes. "So, we gonna help this broad kill them Army guys?"
"Don't see how we can," Perez said.
"Or maybe it's the only thing we can do," Vuylsteke said. "Hell, we saw those murdering fuckers butcher our guys on the Roy Turner. We got some payback to do."
"With one five-shot thirty-two peashooter?" Tretter asked.
Vuylsteke found another Coke in the small refrigerator. Only one more left. "Got an idea that Pita wasn't talking about shooting anybody. She wouldn't have a gun. She doesn't know we have the little shooter. She has something else in mind. Let's see what it is first. Hell, it might be we need to stay hid here for a week. We better take care of the lady."
Perez looked at Tretter. "Hey, goof-off. Just 'cause you black, don't get no fucking ideas about the girl."
"Me? No way. I like women with big tits. She ain't got much up on top. You saw her. Hell, we're just friends."
"Keep it that way," Vuylsteke said. "Remember, I'm senior here and I'm in charge of your bodies."
"Yes, suh, Boss Man," Tretter said in his best Down South poor-black-trash voice.
Perez chuckled.
It was after six that evening when Pita knocked on the door, then used her key and came inside. She had an armful of groceries.
"Told them I was laying in supplies for a week," she said. The men took the two sacks and put them on the kitchen counter.
"More Cokes," she said, smiling. "First I feed you, then we get outfitted and we go kill ourselves some soldiers."
10
Lieutenant Blake Murdock sported a grin as he walked into the training room the SEALs had been given to use for their planning.
"Damned signal came in," Jaybird said, watching his commander.
"Roger that," Murdock said. The fifteen other SEALs gathered around the eight-foot table as Murdock sat down and spread out a paper in front of him.
"Our man in Mombasa says it's confirmed, the one hundred and sixty men and officers from the Roy Turner are being held in the old Indian Ocean Prison. It was supposed to be torn down a year ago. Colonel, now self-promoted to General, Maleceia released over three hundred civilian prisoners there and dropped in our citizens. The place is fortified by at least a company of Kenyan rangers.
"Our spy says the rangers are hand-picked, and specially trained by the colonel for his elite palace guard. They can fight.
"In their army a company is about a hundred and twenty men. They have machine guns, AK-47s, as well as shotguns, and at least two mobile fifty-caliber MGs. "The target is situated about three hundred yards from the end of an inlet of Mombasa Bay. The water just peters out into a marsh that's great for concealment, but hell for moving through."
"When, L-T?" Jaybird asked.
"When we're ready. I suggested in two hours. Let's make it 2000 to be sure."
"We going in with our IBSS?" Horse Ronson asked.
"That we should kick around. Mombasa is an island almost six klicks long. The deep-water port, Kilindini, is on the west side of the island. As I read the satellite pictures we have, the prison is situated directly across from the main port docks. The bay is more than a klick wide there, and the prison is on a small inlet on the west side on the mainland."