“Looked it up, lad. It’s on the west bulge of Africa. Small place with about four million people. Something must have happened down there we don’t know about. ’Tis now 1015. Suggest you get your tails in motion. I’ll have a bus here for your transport to North Island at 1215.”
“Thanks, Master Chief. We’re moving.”
Murdock told the men all he knew about the mission as they walked over to their quarters, changed into clean dry tropical cammies, and got their gear ready to travel. Full combat vests and ammo and their weapons went into duffle bags, along with complete wet suits and all of their underwater gear. They had early chow at the Amphib base across the highway, and were in the parking lot next to the Quarterdeck by 1200.
Chris Gardner was grinning. “Damn, the second day I’m with the platoon we get activated. Yeah, this is my kind of duty. Glad to be on board.”
“West coast of Africa?” Jaybird yelped. “Gonna take us a year just to fly over there. That’s halfway round the fucking world. What does the Gulfstream II do? As I remember it goes five hundred miles an hour at forty thousand feet. Maybe stop in New York, then to Newfoundland, head southeast to the Azores, and then maybe Mauritania before we go south to that little country. We’re talking some heavy sack time here, gents.”
“How long, Jaybird?” Fernandez asked.
“Maybe twelve thousand miles at five hundred should come out to about twenty-four hours, not counting time stopped to refuel and the clearances and diplomatic shit. Say another six hours. Thirty hours. Then we’ll also lose about eight or nine hours on the clock.”
“Shut up, Jaybird, you’re making my head hurt,” Luke Howard thundered.
At the North Island Naval Air Station, the Gulfstream was warmed up and waiting for them. A slender, pretty woman in a khaki uniform met them at the door. Murdock spotted the lieutenant’s bars on her shoulders and the silver wings on her blouse. She was Coast Guard.
“Lieutenant, some SEALs looking for a ride,” he said. “You have any seats open?”
“Commander, we have nineteen. Also some good food just stowed. Glad to have you on board.” She held out her hand. “I’m Sandra. I’m your bus driver for the trip.”
“I’m Murdock. I hear we’re heading for Sierra Bijimi.”
“That’s what my orders say. I’ve never been there before. If my flight plan works, we should find it.”
They moved out of the doorway and let the men troop inside. Senior Chief Sadler claimed the first four seats for the officers and himself. “Don’t crowd, we’ve got plenty of good seats,” Sadler said.
Murdock and Gardner settled into their seats and strapped on their seat belts. Gardner shook his head. “These guys aren’t going to be happy with thirty hours in the air. How about our taking a one-mile run on our second fueling stop? That could be Newfoundland. Then they’ll be ready to sleep for about ten hours.”
“Good idea,” Murdock said. He liked this young man the more he saw of him. Yes, he would work out well in the platoon.
“Sierra Bijimi,” Murdock said. “I didn’t even have time to look it up on the Web. We don’t know a thing about the country. I wonder what Uncle Sam wants us to do down there.”
8
Just before the door had closed on the Gulfstream at North Island, a sailor had come boiling up in a Humvee waving a sheaf of papers. He ran to the door and pushed them at Senior Chief Sadler.
“Faxes just came in,” the sailor said. “Master Chief told me to get here before you took off or I was toast.”
“You made it,” Sadler said. “Now drive slow going back.” At once the crew chief closed and locked the cabin door.
Murdock and Lieutenant (j.g.) Gardner divided the stack of fax pages and began reading.
“Oh, yeah,” Murdock said. Sadler and Gardner both looked at him. “Now we know why we’re going to that little country. Some wild-eyed rebel down there kidnapped the Vice President and is holding him for ransom.”
“No shit?” Sadler said.
“So all we have to do is track down this rebel band, kill all the bad guys, and rescue the VP,” Gardner said. “Piece of cake.”
“Yeah,” Murdock said. “That’s the what. Just how we do it will depend on a thousand different factors. Some of them must be in all this fax paper.”
Then all three went back to reading. Quickly Murdock discovered that the tiny nation was only ten years old. It had been carved out from another all-black African country through a small revolution. It was near the west coast bulge of Africa, and had one good-sized river flowing through it. The population was listed as being 3.8 million people in an area about twice the size of Delaware. The nation was a member of the United Nations, and had a questionably elected government that was reported to be totally corrupt, with most foreign aid ending up in the leaders’ pockets.
It had been described as a “mess of a country” that deserved better. The standing Army of 4,000 was poorly trained and had old weapons, and the men were paid infrequently. Sierra City was the capital. The country’s Navy consisted of six small riverboats and a few more than one hundred sailors.
Gardner looked up from his reading. “Sounds like a sorry outfit. Why was the Vice President there in the first place?”
Murdock grunted. “Yeah, here it is. He went there on a goodwill trip representing the President. This country was added to his tour only three weeks before he left when another nation backed out.”
“So the rebels had to find out he was coming and then plan to capture him,” Senior Chief Sadler said. “Just who is this Mojombo Washington character anyway?”
Murdock shook his head. “I don’t see much about him. Evidently he’s new to the ranks of the rebels. Here it says that the man speaks English and has attracted some support from the outlying villages. The police think he has a stronghold somewhere up the Amunbo River that runs through there. Eyewitnesses said that the Vice President was taken up that river in a boat.”
“Who will we have to work with when we get there?” Gardner asked.
Murdock checked another page. “A small embassy has been established there and the new ambassador is in it. The President of Sierra Bijimi is Thom Kolda. We don’t have much on him, but he evidently is the top bad guy in the place. Another bad guy probably is General Kiffa Assaba, who is the head of the Army and the National Police.”
“Hey, look at this,” Gardner said. “The only airport has one runway that’s less than a mile long. The Vice President’s Air Force Two had a narrow scrape landing there. It will be able to carry only half its normal load of fuel if it wants to take off.”
Murdock was glad when they landed at Newfoundland. The JG took the men on a two-mile run without any weapons or equipment. Murdock used the Gulfstream’s radio to try to contact Don Stroh in Washington, D.C. He got through to the right office, but the secretary there whom Murdock had talked with before, said Stroh had already boarded a commercial flight on his way to Africa. She couldn’t say exactly when he would get there. Murdock thanked her and hung up.
He took out the fax orders and looked at them again. The SEALs were to report to the American Embassy in Sierra City and wait for further instructions. At least they could do a little looking around, get to know something about the situation. If it was as bad as the reports he had read, neither the Army nor the President would be of much help. Now he wondered how strong this rebel leader was.
A messenger from the airport office raced in a jeep to the refueling location and asked for Commander Murdock. He saluted smartly, then gave Murdock a large manila envelope and retreated. Inside were more fax pages. Murdock saw that they came from Stroh. He read: