Murdock spread out a dozen satellite photos showing the area.
"We'd come in from the sea down here past this little place called Likoni?" Ed DeWitt asked.
"Looks like it," Doc Ellsworth said. "Then how far to that inlet, half a klick?"
Lincoln studied it and checked the printed mileage line. "Like maybe two and a half klicks."
Fernandez eyed the beach area near the small Likoni settlement. "How big is this place, and can we stash our IBSs along there? Do we motor right up to the back of that jail or swim in underwater? We need more input."
"So how do we find out? Send in a recon team?" It was Al Adams asking.
That was the way it started. Murdock watched, moderated, prodded, and encouraged. He always liked to have input from his men on a mission. Some of the SEAL commanders didn't work this way, but he'd found that men who got a chance to help plan an operation understood it better and were more enthusiastic about making it work.
If it didn't go right, they died.
They worked over the ingress and egress, how they would attack the prison, and then how to get the Navy crewmen out of there and back to the carrier. Eventually, they solved the small problems, tackled the big ones, and had a plan.
Murdock wrote it all down, and went out the door.
"He's checking out the plans with the CIA," Holt said.
"Yeah. Stroh'll probably bump it up to his boss, and maybe all the way to the President," Joe Lampedusa said.
"Oh, hell, no," Bishop said. "The President just gives us a go or no-go on a mission. He doesn't get into the how. What does he know about tactics, the situation, and the terrain?"
Murdock showed the plan to Stroh a few minutes later.
"You can do this?"
"Yes, if you can be sure the help and transport is on-site when we need it."
"No F-14's to soften up the rear entrance?"
"Not this time. We want three or four F-14's to blow shit out of the front entrance. That will suck all of the defenders to the front and give us time to storm in that rear door. From then on, it's flying by the seat of our pants and hoping that our luck holds. I'd rather surprise them, get our men out, and be halfway to the water before they know we were there. Nothing else is going to work against what could be a hundred twenty defenders."
"I'll check with the XO, but I don't see any problem. You have all the ammo, weapons, and explosives you'll need?"
"We could use another five pounds of TNAZ."
"What?"
"The new explosive that's stronger than C-5."
"You've got it. Timing?"
"Get away from here in our IBSs at 2000. We're, what, four miles offshore?"
"About."
"We'll want the carrier to be directly off the mouth of Mombasa Bay at 2000."
"I'll talk to the XO. Should work out okay. The President says it's your ship right now. What Murdock wants, Murdock gets."
"Good. We'll need some chow now. Then get the IBSs inflated and figure how to get down to the water."
"Yeah, damn long jump."
"You have some better satellite shots of this prison?"
"Wondered when you would ask. An even dozen. Not a bad-looking place-unless you want to break in."
They spread out the pictures. One was a long shot of the whole structure. Murdock figured it was six to eight hundred feet long. Maybe half that wide. It was built in a rectangle with a courtyard. Closer shots showed two entrances, a front and a back. The rear way in was closest to the inlet from the bay.
Murdock grunted as he pushed the pictures together. "We've got some more work to do."
"Take it easy. I don't want you guys to burn out before we get that ship back."
"You've got pictures of the ship too?"
"Right, and we'll have more before it's time to worry about her. Let's get the crew out first."
Five minutes later, Murdock spread the satellite recon photos across the SEALs' worktable.
"Sweet Jesus, that's a big sucker," Fernandez said.
"So let's figure out how to bust in," Jaybird said. He pointed at the rear entrance. "We decided to go in this way. Still looks best. Do we get an attack on the front entrance from the fly-guys?"
Murdock said they did.
"We have a close-up on those gates?" someone asked.
Magic Brown came busting in the door. "Damnit, you fuckers are hard to find. This is one big rowboat."
"We love you too, Magic," Murdock said. "You get a medical clearance to leave that bed?"
"Hell, no. Looks like we got some action. We got a go on finding the Navy crew yet?"
Murdock watched Brown walk to the table. The same gait, the same hint of a swagger. He wouldn't limp now if it killed him.
He stared at Murdock. "I'm going, I'm going. Don't try to keep me back. I won't hold up nobody. Fact is, I think you got to have my fifty sniper baby along. Where's my gear?"
By 1800 they had the last of the detailed planning done. Every man knew what he'd do to get inside the prison. From there it would be a matter of playing it by ear. They had no intel where the Navy crew might be in the big place.
"Our informant says the place must be empty except for the Roy Turner crew," Murdock said. "We find them, then bust back out of there."
There were a few more questions, then Murdock held up a hand.
"Enough of this. We chow at 1830, and we should be shoving off from this tub about 2000. It'll be dark by then, but not cold. We're almost on the damned equator. We'll wear our desert cammies and take all of our goodies, including the belt .45 but without the silencer." He looked at his men. "Okay, let's chow down."
Magic Brown kept working on his gear. He had stripped the .50-caliber, and was cleaning and oiling it. He looked up as Murdock squatted beside him.
"Hell, L-T, I've been eating for the past sixteen hours."
Murdock nodded, went back to his quarters, and made sure that his men would get fed.
Pita stood by the small kitchen table. She wore a silk blouse with wild black-and-orange patterns. The top button was halfway to her waist, and she showed an inch of cleavage. Her black pants were skintight and outlined her sleek legs. Her long black hair had been brushed until it shone and flowed down over her shoulders. Her lipstick was a sultry red, and a touch of rouge highlighted her soft brown cheeks. She tapped her fingers on the table.
"Enough," she said softly. "I know you hope American Navy come soon and fight and capture ship. Not for two, three more days. I let you put Pita off for two days. Now three days you here. Tonight we go out and kill bad soldiers. We all go kill soldiers or you find another place to hide."
Vuylsteke stood and nodded. "Okay, Pita. We owe you that much. But how in hell do we kill a couple of their rangers and they don't come looking for us?"
"Pita show you. Now faces, hands."
She took out some cream and began rubbing it on their hands so they were darkened to an even light brown.
"Now, you do faces. You two wear hats, you no look like funky Americans."
Perez was almost that color already. He snorted, but applied a little of the brown makeup, then put on more.
Tretter grinned at his two shipmates. "Remember, you guys, you wanta look black you gotta have this brother walk, kind of loose-jointed, you know, bro?"
He ducked as Vuylsteke took a swing at him.
"Pita, you have guns, knives, maybe a hand grenade or two? What do we use to kill these dogfaces with?"
"No guns, too noisy," Pita said. She reached in a drawer near her small sink and pulled out a piece of quarter-inch rope. It was three feet long and at each end was a four-inch loop. "This work nicely."