Murdock looked at him. "How's that broken arm holding up?"
"Fine. How's your shrapnel ass doing?"
They both laughed. The jabs referred to their wounds during their Firestorm mission. Murdock pushed open the dirty mess door and hurried inside. Food would be good, sleep even better.
The three U.S. Navy sailors worked up to the mid deck and explored cautiously. They knew the ship like a private playground. They were amazed that there were no more guards in all of the dozens of long companionways and decks.
"Officer country," Vuylsteke whispered. They crept that way expecting a guard. No one was there.
Each of the three had a firearm now, and each a knife pushed in a belt loop. Tretter tried the door to one of the "jungles," rooms for four officers of lower rank. The door was not locked. He edged it inward an inch to look around. A night-light illuminated the area. Four men slept in the bunks. Gear and weapons had been laid within reach.
Perez took a look, then dropped to the floor and slid into the room. He found a bag of grenades, two pistols and magazines, and a silenced stubby little submachine gun and two magazines almost a foot long. He grabbed all of them and wormed his way toward the door while still on the floor.
He was two feet from the door when one of the Kenyans in the lower bunk sat up, said something in Swahili, then fell back and kept on sleeping. Perez had the submachine gun aimed at him in an instant, then lowered it, and worked his way out of the room.
"Yeah, some firepower," Perez said slinging the submachine-gun carry-strap over his shoulder. The huge magazine had to hold sixty rounds, he decided.
They slipped away from the spot, and continued on to the officers' mess. There were no cooks on duty. The lights were all on. They found what they wanted, and pushed it all into a gunny sack that had held potatoes. They took a half-dozen loaves of bread that had been unfrozen, half a cured ham, six bags of potato chips, jars of jam, silverware, apples, oranges, and a case of Coca-Cola.
They all grinned. They had really struck a blow against the enemy.
Ten minutes later, they were in the bilges in aux two. They ate until they couldn't face another sandwich, then turned out their flashlights and went to sleep.
It was morning when they awoke. The only way they could tell was by their wristwatches. They said it was after 0800.
"Could be some company soon," Vuylsteke said. "I've been listening, but I can't hear a damned thing. We're so far down here we won't hear their outrage at two of their men missing and that guy's fancy sub-gun and the grenades gone. Damn, I'd like to see what they do."
The answer came quickly.
They heard the firing from above through the doors, compartments, and decks. It gradually came closer. They identified the stuttering of sub guns, and the flat crack of the AK-47, which was hard not to recognize if a person had heard it before.
"Now we know what they do when they get mad," Perez said. "Hell, it ain't their ship. What do they care if they shoot up the place."
A moment later, one of the watertight doors above them came open. It was thirty feet forward. The blasting of a submachine gun came as a surprise, and made all three men duck and put their hands over their heads where they lay.
The gun chattered six rounds, then six more, then the door clanged shut. "Looks like they've had their say," Tretter snorted. "Just wait until tonight when we start lobbing these fucking grenades into their living quarters. We could come close to wiping them out if we really try." Vuylsteke nodded. He was senior here and he still had some responsibility. Hell, he was the commander, the Captain of the Roy Turner, since he was the highest-rated man on board. "Yeah, tonight after things quiet down a little, we're going to try real hard to cut down the odds," Vuylsteke said.
On the quarterdeck of the Roy Turner, Lieutenant Elijah Koinange stared at the body of his top enlisted man and scowled. Who had done this? One guard missing, and now the sergeant stabbed to death. Were there raiders on board? Had they stolen anything? How had they gotten on and off? Or were they still on board? Koinange shivered when he thought about making a radio report to the general. What could he say? No, better to take care of the matter himself. He would make a complete search of the ship starting on the top deck and working down. He knew little of ships, but he learned quickly. He could ask a Navy friend to come help. He shook his head. That Navy friend was on a breakaway ship that had put to sea an hour before the coup. No help there. Koinange had twenty-two men left. The colonel, or rather the general, had said that would be plenty of men to guard the ship. The general had been confident that the Americans would make no move against the ship while he had all of the hostages. First the search. Yes, a search. He would order his men to fire at anything that moved or made a noise. That had to work. If they found nothing, he would have half the men on guard at night. Yes, that would be a help. Surely they would find any of the Americans who had hidden aboard when the capture was made. Surely they would.
The sixteen SEALs of the Third Platoon sat and stood around the big table in their assembly area. Several desert cammi shirts had been unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up in the warm room. The air conditioner kept blasting away, but it was no match for the sullen heat of the near-equatorial spring.
"Hell, yes, we could go in with three hundred Marines from the amphib and smother the place, but we don't need them," Magic Brown said. "How many of you been on a frigate before?"
Every hand but one went up.
"So, we know something about the craft. Them shitkickers on board are Army dudes, for gawd's sake."
"Yeah, Magic, but they been there for three — four — days," Bishop said. "They ain't stupid. They must know now, somebody will be calling."
"That's why I say a quick hit with grappling hooks on both ends of the ship and the pier just after dark, and we've got the surprise element going for us. We could have half the bastards dead before they knew we were there."
"Use the silencers on everything including the Mark 23 pistols?" DeWitt asked.
"Damn right," Magic said. "We won't even need the sniper rifles or the MGs. Leave them on the ship. All of us with silenced weapons, we go in and do them."
Murdock stood. "We've heard most of the arguments by nOW. I agree, we don't need the Marines off that amphib. We need to go in silently. The ship is about a klick, maybe a klick and a half from that inlet we were in yesterday. How do we get there?"
"Not the damned air cushions," Fernandez said. "Too fucking noisy."
"Any Special Boat Squadron runners on this task force?" Jaybird Sterling asked. "We could use two of those new ten-meter RIBS. They do forty knots, and could get us in fast to within a klick. Then we swim in from there for a silent attack."
"We'll find out about the RIBS, Jaybird," Murdock said.
"I still like the IBSS," Nicholson said. "Hell, we can get eighteen knots out of them moving in, then cut it to five, and be on top of the damn Kenyan motherfuckers before they know what hit them."
"We brought four IBSS, so we still have two," DeWitt said.
Don Stroh came into the room, and everyone fell quiet.
"Hey, don't let me stop you. As you were, as you Navy guys say. I'm slumming."
Ed DeWitt went over to him and they talked a minute. Then Don left the room.
"He's going to check on the RIBS," DeWitt said. "He'll shake them loose if anyone has any. Twenty warships out here, should be some of them somewhere."