"She must be a thousand meters behind us. If she's got missiles, we're dead swimmers down here."
"How about a strafing run in front of her with twenties?" Bird One asked.
"Give it a try."
Murdock and the men watched as one F-14 slanted down and traced a fifty-yard line of 20mm rounds across the path of the speedy boat and not more than thirty yards off her bow.
"Got her attention, she slowed some." There was a pause.
"Nope, she's up to speed again, Cushion."
"Can you get a go-ahead to splash her?" Cushion asked.
"That's a negative, not unless we get some hostile action from her. Maybe she's an escort."
A moment later the Kenyan boat behind them began winking at them with what had to be rapid machine-gun fire.
"Hostile action, we're being fired on," Cushion shouted into his mike.
"Weapons free, coming around."
Murdock nodded at Magic Brown. "See if you can find their range."
Brown had been sighting in on the craft with the 16-power scope. He held his breath, refined his sights, and fired. He pulled the bolt back and rammed it forward and sighted in again.
"Oh, yeah, right in his basket," Magic said. He pounded off three more rounds, then took out the magazine and pushed in another ten-shot magazine filled with armor-piercing rounds. Three more rounds from Magic slammed toward the enemy craft over half a mile behind them.
"Why don't they use the missiles?" Murdock asked.
Brown shook his head, and went on firing. "Maybe they don't have any on board."
He fired six more times before three F-14s blasted down on a strafing run, and riddled the Kenyan boat with 20mm cannon fire. Murdock couldn't tell how many of the 20mm rounds hit the Kenyan craft, but it slowed and then made a sharp right turn, and almost plowed into the side of the mainland.
"That river rat down there is out of business," Tom Bird One said. "He took thirty or forty hits, and I think lost his bridge. He's dead in the water."
"That's a Roger, thanks, Bird One," Cushion said. "We're continuing down the channel."
Murdock slapped Magic on the back. "Glad the Kenyans didn't get their missiles working. Also wonder why didn't they use their twenty-millimeter gun on there that can spit out eight hundred rounds a minute."
"Hell, that's nothing," Magic said. "On a good day I can get off fifteen rounds in a minute."
They all laughed as the eighty-five-footer slashed along at forty knots heading down the last half mile of the bay toward the ocean. The flyboys came back on the air.
"Cushion One, looks like you're free and clear. We see no more pursuit. We say negative on any more pursuit."
"Thanks, Tom Birds. You earned your day's pay. We've got about a hundred and eighty men on these boats who thank you."
They swept past the little village of Likoni on the point of land across from Mombasa Island with a roaring and a massive spraying of water from the air-cushioned crafts that would give the natives something to talk about for weeks.
Four minutes later, the three landing craft took turns pulling alongside a landing platform hung at a low hatch on the big aircraft carrier. Slowly and carefully, the hostage crewmen left the landing craft and walked onto the carrier. Six wounded had to be taken off by corpsmen on stretchers.
Murdock was the last man off. He shook hands with the ensign on board the landing craft, and went up to the SEAL planning room, where he had told his men to meet.
The SEALs had sprawled where they landed in the big room. Murdock looked at Jaybird. "Casualty report."
Jaybird looked around. "Ronson for sure. Doc needs to look at Holt's back. He might have a cracked rib or two. We'll check on Magic Brown's leg. Anybody else?"
"Yeah," Red Nicholson said. He held up his hand. His spray-soaked desert cammie sleeve showed bright with blood. Then he fell forward flat on his face.
14
"This is crazy," Vuylsteke said.
"Crazy or not, it's got to work," Tretter said. "There can't be more than a dozen or maybe two dozen troops on the Roy Turner. They're army guys, mud-kickers, for God's sakes. We know spots in the guts of the Turner where they'll never find us. We get on board and harass them and waste a few and hide out, and we'll be there to help capture the ship when the damned Marines, or somebody, swarms ashore to retake her."
"Yeah, real crazy idea," Perez said. "If somebody comes to retake her. What if they don't? Aw, hell, it sounds just wild enough to work. We can find weapons on board. We can waste a couple of them Kenya Army guys, and take their shooters. Hell, we might be able to capture the whole damn ship ourselves."
Vuylsteke scowled. "Hey, don't get carried away. First, how do we get on board? Second, where do we hide out? How many Kenyan Army men are on board? Hell of a lot of questions to get answered."
"We can't answer them here," Tretter said.
"So, how do we get on the Turner?" Perez asked.
"Pita said she'll help," Tretter said with a grin. "She'll be a decoy, get the deck guard to come down. She'll fake a fall, say she broke her leg. He goes down to the pier to help her. If nobody else's on deck, we rush out of the shadows, clobber the guy, take his piece, and get on board."
Vuylsteke worried it. "Then when he wakes up, we hope that this Army guy thinks some locals wanted to get his rifle."
"If he wakes up," Perez said. "I hear they killed over twenty-five of our shipmates. It was on the radio."
Pita came out of the bedroom. She had put the sexy blouse back on and only buttoned two of the fasteners. As she moved, the men could see flashes of both breasts.
"I'll wear this blouse and it'll come open a little," Pita said. She gave them a seductive smile. "I have listened to you. We can do it. If you kill one more of the sadistic Kenyan soldiers, I will help you."
"I keep my thirty-two," Perez said. "Things get hot at the ship, we shoot and run. We break up on the dock and go four directions, and get here on our own without being tailed."
"God, we really going to do this?" Vuylsteke asked.
"Why not?" Perez asked. "We can cut down the odds for whoever comes on board to retake the Turner."
"I'm in," Tretter said. "Let's get out of here and go kick some Kenyan ass."
"Hold it. What time is it?" Vuylsteke asked.
"It's 0227," Perez said. "All them assholes will be sleeping except maybe two guards. Easy. We watch for an hour, find out their pattern. Then we take out one or both of them. Piece of cake."
"Easy for you, Perez, you got the piece," Tretter said.
"Yeah, and we'll have all the weapons we can use before daylight. Let's go and do it!"
Vuylsteke hesitated. "Pita, can you get some soldier off the boat and distract him?"
Pita smiled, unbuttoned the two fasteners on her blouse, and held open both sides showing her full, light brown breasts to them. She smiled and moved her shoulders so her breasts jiggled.
"Now you believe me?" Tretter asked.
Vuylsteke nodded slowly. "Oh, yes, I think those two will do the trick. I want a butcher knife to take along. You better get one too, Tretter, until we get some better weapons."
Twenty minutes later, the four of them sat in the shadows at the edge of the pier where the USS Roy Turner lay tied against the dock. They had seen one sentry on the ship, walking on this side, but he vanished now and then, maybe to work the far side.
After ten minutes, they had seen only one man on watch.
"Got to be another one somewhere," Tretter said. "How about the quarterdeck?"
They couldn't see into the quarterdeck, but watched it. Nothing developed. The steel gangplank had been moved away from the ship. The way the tide was now, the ship's deck was no more than two feet above the pier and nudged tightly against the concrete dock.