The ship was silent for a moment, with only the gentle sound of the Mombasa Bay waters slapping the steel hull. Then two American sailors ran out of the passageway on the port side from the quarterdeck. Both men carried shotguns. Two more Kenyan rangers stormed up the brow from the pier. Damage Controlman Second Class Krokowski brought up his shotgun, surprising the Kenyans.
"What the hell you guys doing?" Krokowski bellowed. The Kenyans shrilled something in Swahili and lifted their rifles. Krokowski fired first, killing one of the Kenyans. The other invader triggered his AK-47 on full automatic, and Krokowski and his buddy spilled backwards on the deck, their weapons skittering away from them. Both the sailors were critically wounded. The Kenyan ran up, fired one round into the head of each American, and rushed down the deck.
Shots sounded from the forward part of the ship. Gunner's Mate Third Class Mondes charged around the Mk 13 Mod 4 missile launcher for the surface-to-surface missiles on the forward main deck with an M-14 in his hand. He heard firing down the starboard side and ran that way. Mondes saw two sailors shot down, and he screeched in protest.
"What is this, a goddamn war?" he roared. Six Kenyans ran toward him and he got off a burst of six shots. He saw two of the Kenyans go down before he felt a hammer blow in his side and then another in his chest and knew he was falling. He hit the missile launcher base and went down. The last thing Mondes saw was a Kenyan soldier standing over him as he stared up at an ugly black rifle muzzle. He never heard the fatal shot.
Twenty men jolted awake by the General Quarters alarm in their aft coops berthing compartment stumbled around hunting clothes. A few got pants on and ran out the door before two Kenyan soldiers ran in and one blasted a shotgun round into the overhead. One of the Kenyan attackers spoke English.
"Down on the deck on your faces!" he bellowed. "The first man who moves gets shot dead."
The General Quarters gong kept sounding through the ship like a racing heartbeat. It sent dozens more men up ladders and reaching for helmets.
Two officers were gunned down as they charged into CIC, the Combat Information Center, where the missiles were controlled.
The firing shotguns brought Commander Joseph Goddard, CO of the Roy Turner, awake with a jolt, only to stare into the black bore of an Uzi submachine gun.
"Captain Goddard, I believe," Colonel Maleceia said softly. "I have just captured your vessel. If you would be so kind as to get up and dress, I'll put you with the other prisoners of war."
Commander Goddard shook his head to clear it. He came awake slowly these days. He heard more firing on board his ship. He nodded, started to slide out of the bunk, then whipped up the 1911 Colt .45 automatic he had slept with every night of his life for the past twenty years and snapped off a shot. It missed the huge colonel. The Uzi chattered and six 9mm rounds blasted into Commander Goddard's chest and belly, slamming him into eternity on his bunk.
"Too bad," the colonel said. "It's a shame to mess up such a fine bunk that way."
Six chief petty officers had been enjoying their weekly Sunday night poker game. The General Quarters blast surprised them, and two headed for the door to the enlisted mess. The Security Alert Team Leader jerked the door open and pushed in three shotguns and a Beretta.
"We've got Kenyan rangers all over the ship," he yelled. "Use these best you can." Then he ran out and up a ladder.
"Whoever they are won't be long getting here," Gunner's Mate Second Class Andy Johnson said. "They must know where this place is." He had one of the shotguns and pushed five rounds into the magazine.
"We'll blast a dozen of them before they touch us," Parachute Rigger Second Class Joe Lawler drawled. He loaded his shotgun and aimed it at the door. "Hail, in Tennessee we got shot at all the time. Damned revenuers never could hit their own assholes."
Outside, rifle butts hammered on the metal door.
Johnson moved up beside the dogged-down bulkhead door and waited. He saw the lever turn. A minute later he stormed away.
"Dynamite," he roared. Johnson swerved behind a heavy metal rack. The explosion that came moments later was muffled, but the locking bolts on the inside of the door snapped and blasted into the compartment.
Someone outside pushed the door open slowly. Johnson crawled forward. When the bulkhead door was six inches open, Johnson lay near it on the deck and threw a hand grenade through it into the passageway.
The blast 4.2 seconds later echoed through the ship like a warning gong. When the rumbling died down, the chiefs heard one man screaming outside.
A moment later, a flash-bang grenade rolled into the compartment and went off with five furiously loud detonations and then six flashes of light so brilliant that a hand over the eyes kept out only a little of the intensity.
The six men reeled from the grenade. The explosion in such a contained space magnified its effect by three times. Johnson lay on the deck bleeding from his nose and one ear.
Lawler sat against the bulkhead shaking his head, blind and not able to hear a thing.
Three submachine-gun-toting Kenyan Rangers stormed through the door and kicked away the shotguns, then systematically shot all six chiefs to death.
In the Communications Center, Gunners Mate Second Class Art Brachman had just signed on the Internet to send an E-mail to his wife back in Portland, Oregon. He had the first two lines of his flash mail done when he heard the booming report of a shotgun. He knew the sound. He cut the lights in the center. Only the greenish hue of the consoles and screens gave off any light. He unlocked the crypto vault and pulled out the 9mm Glock Model 18 pistol with a thirty-three round magazine they kept there. He cranked back the slide, chambering a round, and had thirty-two more slugs to defend himself with.
The Captain had cautioned them yesterday when they tied up. He'd said almost anything could happen in a jumpy, wild-assed place like Kenya, so they should be ready. Only a few chiefs had had any liberty that night, and that was Cinderella liberty. Most of the 206 officers and men were still on the ship.
Somebody ran past the Communications Center room door. Then Brachman heard the steps come back. Brachman swore at himself for not throwing the steel bars on the door, which was always locked. He heard the handle turn; then a half-dozen rounds from a weapon slammed into the door lock and the steel panel swung open. The terrible muzzle of a shotgun poked through the opening.
Brachman fired four times a foot above the shotgun. The sound billowed around the small communications room, and Brachman knew he couldn't hear much. He saw a body slam backwards against the side of the door, then pitch forward. The scattergun clattered on the deck.
Brachman grabbed the weapon. The dead man was black — did that make him a Kenyan? He didn't recognize the green uniform. Brachman took the shotgun and looked at it in the glow of the screens. Simple. A five-round pump weapon fully loaded. He dropped to the floor, pushed over the dead man, and crawled to the open door. Brachman took a quick look down the passageway. Twenty feet down someone fired at him with a rifle. The round missed. Friend or foe?
He poked his head out for a second, saw the green uniform in the passageway, and pushed out the shotgun and fired one round at the approaching figure. The Kenyan ranger flew three feet backwards as he died on the way to the deck.
Brachman wiped sweat off his forehead. What the hell was going on? Bad guys all over the place. Where was the security team when you needed it? He heard more boots pounding down the passage. He searched the dead man's pockets and found four more shotgun shells. Quickly Brachman refilled the magazine and edged up to the door.