"What's that?" Morales asked. He shook his head a little to clear it, wondering if the long unprotected day in the sun had affected his mind.
"I was wondering if it was just dumb luck that the boat we want is where we can get at it without having to risk the inner harbor."
"Dunno," Morales said. "You bitching about it?"
"Not really. We deserve some luck, after all."
"Maybe the harbor was just too full," Morales offered. "It's not like there was a lot of space between hulls when we were mining them."
"Yeah," Eeyore half agreed, "that could be it, too."
"You still want to go with the direct approach?" Morales asked.
"I think that after a night of swimming and a day in the sun without water we're not really up to anything too clever. So shut up and paddle. And aim toward the harbor mouth; we'll let the incoming tide bring us in to the boat quietly."
The oars were put up and both Eeyore and Morales had their APS underwater assault rifles gripped in their hands. These were sub-optimal outside of the water, but could be expected to work for at least a few shots, if it came to that.
Ahead, the pirate boat was quiet enough. The semi-frantic activity of earlier in the day, as someone apparently worked on the engines, was over for the night. There were some men who could be heard speaking and joking near the bow. Their jocular voices carried well across the water.
The slow tide carrying them to the boat also passed them by the long concrete jetty that protected the outer harbor. It was unguarded or, if it were guarded, the guard was looking outward to sea.
Guards in evidence along the jetty or not, Antoniewicz worried. If it was the engines, and the sound it made before hitting the Namu suggests they had their problems, I sure as fuck hope they got whatever was wrong with them fixed.
The small boat in which they'd hidden for the day thumped gently against the stern of the pirate craft. There was a name painted there, but Eeyore couldn't read it. The thump was gentle, and made little noise. Morales grabbed the stern of the pirate boat while Antoniewicz scrambled aboard, his firearm held in one hand.
Whether it was the gentle thump or some faint sound he'd made in climbing over the gunwale, somebody on the boat noticed. Or maybe he just needed to relieve himself over the stern. Eeyore didn't know and didn't much care. Someone was coming and that someone had to die. He took an automatic kneeling firing position at the starboard corner of the boat.
Poor bastard did just want to take a piss, Eeyore thought, as the dark, skinny man standing next to the boat's cockpit proceeded to do just that, his urine splashing noisily in the outer harbor's water. He'd have lived a few minutes longer, and maybe longer still, if he hadn't then turned as if to walk to the stern.
It wasn't that big a boat. Antoniewicz couldn't wait. He lightly stroked his weapon's crude trigger, twice. There was a slight recoil, but no sound. Even though the APS had no suppressor, the cartridges themselves were piston driven, the explosion of the charge never leaving the cartridge casing and thus never causing harm to a diver underwater who fired one or, in this case, two.
He wasn't even a pirate, actually, but just one of the few people in the port capable of maintaining a marine engine. He needed to take a piss, and then decided to get something more or less cool from the boat's ice chest, below. Not that he didn't make his living from piracy, he did, at least in part and indirectly. Still, the mechanic could say with a reasonably straight face that he was an honest man, who'd never harmed another human being in his life.
He didn't understand, therefore, why he suddenly felt a shock in his upper chest, just below his neck, nor the pain that followed it. It hurt so badly he didn't cry out. His hand went automatically to the source of the pain. He didn't understand why his chest was wet with the thick fluid, nor why his fingers touched on a small-no more than a quarter of an inch thick-metal dart that seemed to be growing from his chest. No more did he understand the iron-coppery stink of blood that assailed his nostrils.
He might have figured it out, eventually, but the second shot went into his brain, right through his left eye. After that, he wasn't in a condition to figure out anything.
"Get Simmons in the boat and then get it started," Antoniewicz ordered, softly, head turned over his left shoulder. "I'll take care of the rest of them."
Gingerly, Eeyore stepped over the still quivering body sprawled on the deck.
The men on the foredeck were simply chatting, laughing sometimes, as Antoniewicz crouched by the side of the cockpit and drew bead on them. He was about to fire when he heard the engine start to life with a shuddering cough. All the men looked up and toward the stern in surprise. Then they noticed him. They didn't go for weapons. Indeed, there weren't any to hand so far as Eeyore could see. Instead, they raised their hands.
Fuck; I can't just kill 'em, now. Not after they surrendered.
Eeyore motioned with a jerk of his head and another with the muzzle of his APS for the men to get into the water. No arguments; they stood and jumped. Once they were in the water and no danger, Antoniewicz walked, bent at the waist, placed his APS on the deck, and then picked up and rolled the body of the man he'd killed over the side.
"Eeyore, cast us off," called Morales.
D-Day, MV Merciful, North of Bandar Cisman, Ophir
Soundlessly, barring only the slight soft whine of their electric motors, the rubber boats carrying the Marine company pulled away from the temporary floating docks along the ship's hull. The Marines sat on the gunwales of the inflatables, with their rifles and machine guns in their hands and their personal equipment D-ringed to lines that ran down each boat's center, bow to stern. Cazz's boat took the lead, moving forward initially before veering to port and the shore. The other boats followed in trail before cutting right or left to make a deep V.
The electric motors had been selected for silence more than speed. The boats didn't move especially fast, no more than four and a half knots or so. This would see them to shore in an hour.
While the Marines cast off and headed to shore, the Mexican ground crews for the remaining fixed wing aircraft continued the laborious process of fitting their planes, four of them, anyway, with the machine guns and rockets they would carry on their missions.
McCaverty, after the briefest of naps, watched Luis' boys work. As he watched, he fumed, I didn't sign up for this to be a doctor. And it's not right that they're making me. I signed up to fly and to fight.
I wonder if that bastard Stauer planned this all along.
"I'd accuse you of planning this," Stauer said, to Phillie, as she stood next to Biggus Dickus, "except . . . I can't quite imagine how. Let me make sure I understand." He pointed a finger at Phillie. "You want to get closer to the action?" The finger shifted to Thornton. "And you . . . you? Trained pinniped par excellence? You want to go on the standby medevac flight heading north?"
"Why not, sir?" Thornton asked. "I started life as a corpsman. You don't have enough doctors to put them on the medevac birds. I'm a better medic than anyone else here, except"-Thornton's head shifted Phillie-ward- "maybe Miss Potter. Might be a matter of life and death for somebody."
Thornton smiled benignly at Phillie. She'd been a much easier sell, when he'd approached her, than he'd expected.
Stauer glared at his lover. "Did you clear this with Doc Joseph?"
Phillie nodded. "He said with McCaverty in OR, and the Chinese women having proven pretty competent, and the Romanian girls to help, that he's more likely to save people if they don't get back to the ship exsanguinated, in shock, and probably infected."