Goldman looked down at the shorter man. He shook his head. Nothing they could do now. Maybe later. Maybe.
A hundred yards away, Navy chiefs lay in the wreck of an abandoned building just in back of Pier 12 and watched their shipmates marched off the Roy Turner and into the buses. They had had a little drinking party at a dockside bar, and had been almost back to the ship when they'd heard the firing on board. All wore civilian clothes since the Kenyan authorities had requested no U.S. uniforms be worn on Kenyan soil.
"Gonna be hell to pay," Gunner's Mate First Class Pete Vuylsteke growled. "Didn't think them fuckers would try to take over the whole damned ship."
Electrician's Mate Second Class Olie Tretter, a black man who sprawled beside the gunny, swore softly. "Them damned bastards shot up the old Turner pretty fucking good. You hear a lot of shotguns?"
The third sailor, Hospital Corpsman Second Class Rafe Perez, shot a stream of tobacco juice into the rubble. "Hell, yes, scatterguns, AK-47's, and something else. Always tell the Forty-seven by the high-pitched snarl." Perez shook his head. "What the hell we do now?"
"I sure as hell ain't gonna volunteer to get on them buses," Tretter said. "Most likely heading for that prison we heard about in town."
Vuylsteke, the ranking man of the trio, looked at Tretter. "You think you can find somebody to help us hide? Know damned well Uncle Sam ain't gonna let his ship be hijacked for long. Be a task force steaming in here in two or three days to blast this place apart and take back the old Roy Turner."
Tretter laughed. "Hell, you think 'cause I'm black I got kin here in town or something? Yeah, I talked with some of the natives tonight. Especially that one lady with the big tits who went topless. But I ain't no diplomat."
"Weapons," Vuylsteke said. "Perez, you still carry that piddling little Thirty-two strapped to your ankle?"
"Never without it."
"So, we've got a start. We stay in deep shit here until the assholes out there hustle all our men off the ship. Then we slide out of here and find somewhere that we can eat and sleep for a couple of days. Two days, maybe three tops. By then Uncle will have about a thousand Marines in here to take back our ship."
Perez shook his head. "How the hell us two white guys gonna hide in this black country?"
"Didn't say it would be easy," Vuylsteke said. "Our man Tretter here is going to make it happen. What do we do first, Tretter?"
Tretter grinned. It wasn't often these two top hands asked him anything. Then he sobered. "From what I heard, some hairy-assed colonel staged a coup and took over the police and the radio, TV stations and the airports. He already had the army in his back pocket. So looks like this colonel is running the whole damn country."
"He figured the Turner would be a threat to him?" Vuylsteke asked.
"Who the hell knows," Tretter said. "I heard some guys talking who said this colonel is a huge guy, six feet five and two hundred pounds. Not a man to be pushed around."
"You understand this Swahili shit?" Perez asked.
"Not a word. But half the country can speak English. It's one of two official languages, so that'll help. What we have to do is find some friendlies who will cover for us."
"How?" Perez asked.
Tretter watched the last of the American sailors board a bus, and all five buses pulled out. They could see green-clad Kenyan troops on their ship. All had automatic rifles or shotguns.
"Must be leaving a squad or two to occupy the old tub," Vuylsteke said. He looked at Tretter. "So how do you find us some friendlies?"
"First I go back to that little bar — no, a different one. I can pass here, man. I buy somebody a drink and get him talking. Maybe I can find someone not happy with the colonel."
"We all should go," Perez said.
"No. I had to explain why I was with two white guys before. The ship. They knew about the Turner. Now they'll know she's been captured, so you white American sailors should have been captured too. I got to go by myself."
Perez bent down to his ankle, and a minute later came up with the.32 revolver with its tie-down holster. "This might come in handy. I don't have any more rounds. Didn't think the hell that I would need any."
Vuylsteke came back from the front of the abandoned building. "Looks like all of the army has gone except for the guys on board. Too many for us to take with our peashooter. Time for us to haul ass. Where to, Tretter?"
Tretter shook his head. "Right now I don't have the slightest idea."
3
Lieutenant Blake Murdock heard the ringing. Some giant ship was about to ram his forty-two-foot sailing boat in the middle of the Bahamas, and there was no possible way to avoid the collision. He did everything he could think of to get away from the huge freighter rushing toward his fragile craft, but he couldn't, and the ringing came again and again and again.
Murdock jolted upright in his bed. Not the Bahamas. Coronado, California. The phone had provided the ringing sound effects for his dream. Thoroughly awake by this time, Blake reached for the phone. His voice wasn't up to speed, however. He garbled out a hello and listened.
"You sleep all day out there in Lotus Land, Lieutenant Murdock? Hell, it's almost noon in Washington. The birds are out, the sun is shining, and it's going to be one fine day. This is Don Stroh."
"Figures," Murdock mumbled.
"You been listening to the news? It's all over CNN. I don't know how those news-hounds get their stuff so fast. We've only had it since nine last night ourselves. You still with me, buddy?"
"Yeah. My body is awake, but my brain is still trying to outrun somebody in the Bahamas. What's all over CNN?"
"About one A.M. Sunday Mombasa, Kenya, time, a colonel who'd staged a military coup attacked and captured the frigate Roy Turner, which was tied up at a dock on a goodwill call."
"Yeah, now I'm listening. So?"
"Get your boys together fast. Uncle wants his ship back. Third Platoon will go in and get it. Be ready to load at North Island Air Station as soon as possible. Bring your sixteen men, personal gear, personal weapons, plus the fifty-caliber sniper rifles, and most of the ammo and goodies that you'll need."
"We have a hunting license."
"The best kind, straight from Uncle Sam himself. He wants this taken care of quickly and with the more noise the better. He's got a carrier task force steaming that direction — I'll meet you in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. You'll get a satellite printout of all we know about the situation."
"Who led the coup?"
"An old friend of yours. Remember Umar the Great?"
"Umar Maleceia, the huge guy? He was Kenyan, wasn't he. We put him through some tough sledding at the special training program we ran for certain of our allies."
"He loves you too. He pulled the coup. Start gathering in your chicks. I know this is Sunday morning. You don't fly out of North Island until four o'clock this afternoon. Gives you eight hours."
"I should have twenty-four. I think some of the guys went to Baja fishing."
"Hook them back and get them ready. I've got a hot lunch date, then I'm flying out of here. See you in Saudi Arabia."
They hung up.
Murdock flopped down on the bed, then popped right back up. The first thing he did was call David "Jaybird" Sterling, Machinist Mate Second Class and the Platoon Chief. He would know where most of the other fourteen men were. They'd get who they could, and send the strays over by a later plane. They'd done that before, but Murdock didn't like to do it.
He got Jaybird on the second ring. "Circle the wagons, we got a job to do," he told his chief by way of greeting.
"When?"
"We fly out of North Island at sixteen-hundred. We need sixteen live bodies. Spread the word. I'll be at the office in half an hour."