"Roger that, Dry Water. How far are you from the target?"
"Eighty yards, Tom Bird."
"Keep your heads down."
Two minutes later two jets came in on a strafing run, their 20mm cannon spouting bright flashes in the darkness. The front of the building took a pounding as the birds followed one another, then slanted up and away.
Brown watched through his scope. "Close, but no hits. Tell them to move it about twenty yards left."
"Tom Birds. Our spotter says no rubber duck. Adjust twenty yards your left for target."
"Thanks, Dry Water. We're a little blind up here."
On the next run, four Tom Cats thundered out of the sky at twenty-second intervals, and blasted the small truck into two million pieces. Magic Brown laughed and folded up his bipod.
"I'd say we're free and clear, L-T."
"Holt, get on the horn to the carrier. Tell them we're moving out of the store with the goods. ETA the water, thirty minutes."
"Got it, L-T."
"Commander, get your men moving out and to the left. We'll ride shotgun for you. Can your men march?"
"No food for three days, but we can move, maybe not up to SEAL standards."
"We'll go at your pace, Commander. Let's do it now."
They came out the door in a ragged line, formed into a column of ducks, and worked down the front of the building for another fifty yards, then angled toward the brush that hid the finger of Mombasa Bay. It was too long a line, and Murdock was worried.
Holt thanked the Tom Birds that were in a holding pattern over the site. Then he picked up some flyboy chatter.
"Tom Bird One, this is Four. I have what could be a visitor from the north on my screen. Anyone copy it?"
"Tom Bird Four, I don't see anything. You and Three take a run up north for fifty miles and see what's out there."
"Will do, One." Murdock looked at Holt. "What was that all about?" Holt told him. "Is Maleceia foolish enough to send more of his too few MiGs down this way?"
"Could be, could be a flight of geese." The line of sailors moved slower than Murdock wanted. Two men had broken down and were being carried by a two-man hand-chair arrangement. They had roughly a half mile to go to a spot along shore where a pickup could be made. Murdock figured his men would be late. They had left the dead sailor in the prison.
Murdock heard the chatter of small arms before he saw anyone.
"Hit the dirt!" Murdock bellowed. The SEALS down the long line repeated the words.
Murdock looked at a slight rise to the west of the prison. He saw the headlights of a vehicle before someone remembered and cut them off.
"Ronson, get set up," Murdock bellowed. The machine gunner came out of the line, flopped on his stomach, and angled his HK-21A1 toward where he had seen the lights.
"Wait for some muzzle flashes," Murdock said. The SEALs with long guns were down and ready.
Half-a-dozen flashes came and bullets sang around them. The SEALs poured fifty rounds into the immediate area. Ronson's machine gun chattered with five- and seven-round bursts until the one-hundred-round belt emptied. He fit in a new one and waited.
"Range?" Murdock asked Jaybird, who had been firing beside him.
"More than fifty yards, Sir. I'd say about two hundred."
"Ching, Adams, Yates, Jaybird. Let's move up there. Long gunners, give us some cover. We'll be to the right for five minutes, then cease fire."
They moved out with their NVGs up, running low to the ground. Murdock led them. The land had been cleared here for two hundred yards and there wasn't much cover. Murdock hoped the men on the rise didn't have NVGs. The SEALS covered half the distance and went to ground. The SEALs below hammered out with the heavier rounds from the sniper rifles, MGs, and M-4A1's.
Murdock angled his men more to the right. He could see the small ridgeline, and a couple of minutes later they were to it. He looked over.
Down forty yards, he saw the enemy. Six Kenyan rangers fired over the small ridgeline with perfect cover. Until now.
Murdock brought his four men up so each had a free field of fire.
"Now," he said in his mike, and all five blasted the six men. The rangers were caught by surprise. Four of them went down in the first furious fusillade. One crawled toward the small truck. Murdock slammed six rounds into him before he made it.
Jaybird caught the last man trying to run up the hill. He blasted him with a three-round burst, and the man went into the dirt and lay still.
"Move the men out for the water," Murdock said into his mike. "Tell the commander to get his men off their asses and heading for the bay."
Murdock and the four SEALs jogged down the hill, angling to catch up with the rest of the group.
Holt touched Murdock's arm. "L-T, the flyboys are on again."
"Tom One, this is Three."
"Find anybody out there?"
"We've got three blips coming in fast from the north. Still over a hundred miles away. Closing at about six hundred."
"Those old MiGs again. Warn them to turn around, and get a radar ID."
"Roger that."
"Home Plate, you copy that?"
"Right. If they keep coming and don't acknowledge, you have missiles free. I repeat, Tom Birds, your missiles are free."
"Roger that, Home Plate. You copy, Tom Three and Four?"
"Right. They're still coming."
Murdock looked at the shadowy line of men. He wanted to run up and carry each one. No food for three days would take a toll on them. They had been functioning on adrenaline, but that was burning off. They still had a quarter of a mile to go, and there was a small ravine in front of them they had to cross. Bad news.
"Holt, tell the carrier we're running late. Have them hold the transport offshore until we get better positioned. We need to be there waiting for them when they come in. They can't do it quietly, so it has to be fast."
"Will do, sir. They have the two LCACs off the coast now waiting for our go. They say it will take them less than eight minutes to get from two miles offshore into our inlet."
"That fast?"
"They do forty knots, L-T."
"We're nowhere near ready for them to be moving yet. Have them hold."
Murdock heard something. At first he thought it was a plane, but the jets were well overhead. Then he caught it truck engines. The sound came from the hill where the six men had been. The sound came closer, then stopped.
The first sailors were in the ravine. It was the only cover around here. The trucks had to mean more troops from somewhere in Mombasa. The prison troops had had time to call for help.
"Get all the crew in the ravine," Murdock yelled. "We've got company."
"SEALS, get these men into the ravine," Murdock said on his radio mike. "It's the only cover anywhere around. First Squad break to the right and form up. Second Squad go left so we can get some cross fire on these assholes. Move. Take the suppressors off the MP-5s to get more range."
Two searchlights came on, shining from the ridge above, and began to sweep the area. Magic Brown lifted his HK sniper rifle and blew out both of them with two quick shots. The lights hadn't touched the last of the sailors, who dropped into the ravine and out of sight.
Murdock had his men in an assault line when the first of the troops came over the small ridge that had been protecting them.
He used the Motorola. "See them? Let's give them a real hot SEAL welcome."
Sixteen weapons opened up on the surprised Kenyan troops. They had no idea where their enemy was. Fire laced into the ranks from both sides and they dropped to the ground. A few fired at the gun flashes on both sides.
A Kenyan machine gun opened up, firing at DeWitt's squad. Six of his weapons concentrated on the MG man, and he went out of business quickly. For a few minutes there was no leadership among the men on the ridge. Murdock had no way of estimating how many there were. He'd seen maybe twenty different weapons firing. For the number of trucks he heard, there should be a lot more ground troops than that.