“These demands are made on behalf of the downtrodden and exploited people of Sierra Bijimi, and not for the personal gain of any individual or group.
“I look forward to comments and action from the United Nations and the United States. Thank you.”
He turned off the mike. “Gentlemen, I’ll be in my tent waiting for a reply.” He slipped out the flap and was gone.
“Wow,” Jaybird said. He had written down the demands as Mojombo made them. “Too much,” Jaybird said.
“He’s asking the impossible,” Murdock said. “The U.N. never has invaded a country and taken it over. Not a chance. The World Bank won’t make a single loan knowing the monetary corruption in this country.”
“So what you’re saying is that if anything gets done down here to help Mojombo, it’s up to us to do it. Me and your SEALs.” The Vice President scowled as he said it.
Murdock looked out the tent flap and at last nodded. “Looks like that’s about it. So, let’s get the rest of these plans we were working on finished so we can get into some action. I feel like I’m rusting at the switch here.”
“Now you’re talking,” Jaybird said. “First we turn on the SATCOM and see Don Stroh’s reaction and what the newspeople said.”
The moment he turned on the SATCOM, it spoke to him.
“Stroh calling Bull Pup. Stroh calling Bull Pup.”
“Yes, Bull Pup here. What’s the reaction down there to the demands.”
“The press went wild. Every phone line out of here was jammed. Big news. Kolda must have heard about the demands coming and had a man with the newsies. From what we know now, he’s launched eight to ten boats upriver loaded with troops. We have no count, but an estimation is there are about two hundred men on board. These are mostly small pleasure boats, but he’s jammed lots of soldiers on them. Tell Mojombo that he probably can’t stop this bunch with sniper fire from the river.”
Howard went to bring the Loyalist Party leader back. When Mojombo heard the news about the troops coming up the river, he ran out to the small clearing and bellowed out a command.
Men poured out of tents and the edge of the jungle and from near the river. Each man had a weapon with him. They fell in what was evidently platoon and squad order.
The SEALs moved out so they could hear. “… and the word is that ten boats are coming upstream. We go to Plan B. I want a hundred men with rifles along the riverbank. Run down the trail until you see them coming. Then find good cover and fire when they are in range.
“First target the boat driver, try to knock him out. If there is a cabin, riddle it with gunfire. We have to stop them on the river. Once they get to the trail up here, we have to move and move quickly.
“I want every man to draw three hundred rounds to fit his weapon. Do it now. We move out in five minutes.”
Murdock caught up with Mojombo in his tent digging out ammunition.
“We want to go with you. Three more rifles might help. We’ll need AK-47’s. You have any extras?”
Mojombo hesitated, then grinned. “Glad to have you aboard, Commander. I’ll get you weapons. Bring your sub guns as well. We should be able to get about eight miles downstream before they show up. Then it will be target practice.”
“If they break through?”
“Then we run back up here and move everything we can carry. We had to do it once before. Let’s go.”
Two hours later, the troops rested along the river. Murdock figured they had covered nearly ten miles. Murdock shifted the three hundred rounds of the 7.62mm in the small sack on his hip. The AK-47 he had was far from new, but it had been well taken care of. He had eight magazines for it with thirty rounds in each one. The Kalashnikov had two firing rates, full automatic at six hundred rounds per minute, or single-shot. He’d probably keep it on single-shot for any distance work.
They waited.
Twenty minutes later one of the lead scouts a half mile downstream called on one of the new handheld radios.
“They are coming,” Mojombo told his men. They were all on one side of the river, and each one had good protection behind a tree or a rock or a mound of dirt, so he could still see the river plainly and with a good field of fire.
Murdock and the other two SEALs had trees with trunks two feet wide. He had no idea what kind of trees they were, but he was glad they were there. The men had strung out five yards apart covering almost five hundred yards of shoreline.
Murdock and the SEALs were in the middle of the line. “Fire when you see a target,” Mojombo said on the radio, and the word was passed. “Let’s put that first boat dead in the water and drifting back downstream.”
As he said it, Murdock heard a stuttering fully automatic AK-47 blasting away downstream. There was return fire, and Murdock heard at least one machine gun. As the boats powered upstream, more and more rifles took up the hunt.
The first boat never made it to Murdock. The pilothouse of the thirty-footer was blasted away, and no man dared try for the controls. It slued to port, barely missed a thirty-five-footer, and drifted downstream.
The volume of fire continued to grow. The first boat Murdock saw was a fishing craft, maybe forty feet long. It looked like it was made of solid wooden planks, and had absorbed hundreds of rounds. There was no glass in the cabin windows. Murdock concentrated on the small pilothouse, grazing his shots just over the windowsills, trying for some instruments or a hand stretched up to steer the craft by a man sitting or lying on the floor. Murdock wished he’d brought a Bull Pup along on this run. They had five of them back at the embassy.
His rounds didn’t faze the fishing boat. It kept laboring up the river at five knots. He moved his sights to the next boat, a smaller pleasure craft with no good protection built in. The small bridge had been cut with many rounds. Murdock saw a hand holding the wheel and another on what could be the throttle. He aimed at the wheel hand and sent six rounds into it. On the fourth round the hand jolted off the wheel, and Murdock gave it two more rounds for good measure. The small craft stalled against the current, then pivoted to the side and slammed into a twenty-foot fishing boat before it floated down the river with the current.
A swath of machine-gun rounds cut into the trees and leaves over the SEALs’ heads, and Jaybird screeched in anger.
“Where’s the fucking MG? Anybody see it?”
“Yeah, firing out of the steps down to the cabin on that blue and white boat,” Howard said. “About time we welcome him to the party.”
The boat was almost even with them and less than forty yards away on the far side of the river. Jaybird kicked his 47 into automatic, and sprayed the black hole of the steps area with the fifteen rounds left in his magazine. Then Howard picked away at the same spot with single shots. The machine gun didn’t fire again from that position.
Only eight boats moved past Murdock. He heard men in the brush behind him evidently running upstream to have another shot at the boats. When the last one, a small pleasure craft with sheets of steel set inside the pilothouse, moved upstream past Murdock, he picked up and led twenty men into the jungle and north up the river. It was hard going through the trees, vines, and roots, but soon they could hear firing again. They went another hundred yards and moved toward the river. Now there were only six boats. That made fewer targets for the riflemen, and they slammed round after round into the boats as they came along. Another machine gun chattered, and it brought a surge in rifle fire that soon quieted the MG. The Loyalists kept pounding the boats, which had nowhere to hide and no protection. Jaybird wondered where the two hundred troops were.
Murdock saw only four boats left. He and his men moved north again. By the time they came to the river, there was only one boat left, the large fisher with the solid hardwood construction. As the SEALs watched, the boat turned toward the far shore, then turned again and surged downriver with the current. All shooting stopped.