Murdock checked with the new man, Canzoneri.
“How’d it go, Canzoneri?”
“Fine, Commander. Just fine. Except for that damn rope ladder. Our unit never got to train on it. Some foul-up and then we didn’t get back to it. That was one hell of a climb.”
Murdock smiled and went to his quarters. Yes, the new man was going to blend into the Bravo Squad and the platoon just fine.
4
Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock eased into his desk chair in the cubicle he called his office and gave a huge sigh.
Master Chief Gordon MacKenzie chuckled where he stood at the other side of the polished and empty desktop. “Well, laddie sir, looks like you’re happy to have your feet under home territory again.”
Murdock leaned back in the chair and let out another sigh. “Oh, yes, Master Chief, this is a bit of heaven compared to where we’ve been. Not our longest mission, but one I’m still glad we’re away from. Our boys did good.”
“I read your after-action report, Commander, and bucked it on up to our boss man. He can’t be overdispleased.”
“I’m not about to worry about Dean Masciareli. What I want to know is how is our super splinter coming along?”
“Working out hard. Been at it every day for the past three weeks, near as I can tell. Saturday and Sundays as well.”
“Why don’t you just ask me?” a voice said from the hallway. Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed DeWitt came in the door and stood at an exaggerated ramrod attention.
“Lieutenant (j.g.) DeWitt, reporting for regular duty, sir.” He shouted the last word the way the Tadpoles did in SEAL training.
Murdock put his hands over his eyes. “I wanted to come home to this?”
“Sir, I’m ready for full-load duty, Commander, sir!” Again DeWitt bellowed out the final word.
The master chief broke up laughing. Murdock shook his head and waved at DeWitt.
“Shut up and sit down, Ed, before the master chief here has a case of apoplexy or gets a hard-on. Damn, you’ve got loud. If your body is as strong as your voice, you’ve got a go.”
DeWitt relaxed a little as he slumped in the visitor’s chair across the desk from Murdock.
“I’m fit and strong and ready for duty, Murdock. I don’t want to miss another assignment, even a twenty-four-hour picnic. I got cut out of all the fun. I’ve been training like a Tadpole. That damn BB shot that hit my chest is gone and healed and forgotten. Hell, I can do the OC a full minute faster than ever before. I’m a gold-plated, absolute fit and ready SEAL, itching for some action.”
“Medics clear you?”
“Hey, that was two weeks ago. Cleared me for regular duty, and I’ve been at it hot and heavy—”
Murdock held up his hand. “Okay, we’ll have some more training work, you keep up with us, and I’ll punch your ticket to get back on board.”
DeWitt pushed a clipping from a magazine across the desk.
“What’s this, some Buck Rogers blue-sky weapon?” Murdock asked.
“No, sir, Commander,” Master Chief MacKenzie said. “The JG showed it to me. It’s one hell of a weapon. We bugged Don Stroh about it, and he did some fancy footwork.”
Ed DeWitt jumped in. “The weapon is the new infantry rifle, and it’s the most advanced I’ve ever heard about. It has two barrels. One fires a twenty-millimeter explosive fragmentation round with a proximity fuze. Damn, that means we can in effect shoot around corners and hit troops dug in on reverse slopes. It’s a real winner.”
“How heavy is it?” Murdock asked.
“The M-16 with the added-on goodies weighs in at twenty pounds. This Bull Pup scorcher is only fourteen pounds. Get a load of this. The critter has a video camera built in with a six-power scope, laser range finder, and a miniature fire control computer. The laser range finder pinpoints the precise distance where you want the fragmentation round to explode.”
“This thing does all the work?” Master Chief MacKenzie asked.
Ed DeWitt shook his head. “Oh, hell no. You have to be able to hit your target with a laser beam so the weapon knows where the target is. Then it automatically determines the range and sets the fuze for the airburst directly on target.”
“Who sets the damn fuze?” Murdock asked.
“Read up on that last night,” DeWitt said. “It uses a turn-count fuzing system. The weapon gets the target information, knows the tech data on the ammunition, then the fire control system calculates the number of turns it takes the round to reach the target. The laser in the fire control sends pulses out to the target. It then analyzes each pulse and calculates the exact range. The fire control communicates that information to the fuze before the round exits the barrel. Damn fast, that is.”
“So what did Don Stroh say?”
“Our CIA contact said he’d get us six of them from the factory, handmade for field evaluation. The company is still testing it and making changes. Hell, the army isn’t scheduled to get this weapon until 2005.”
“All that electronics,” Murdock said. “What happens if it gets wet?”
“Not sure, but we won’t let it get wet. Oh, one more item. Those twenty-millimeter fragmentation rounds with proximity fuzes. They cost thirty bucks a pop.”
“Hell of a lot more than even a fifty caliber,” Master Chief MacKenzie said. “Stroh said he could get us two of these fancy Bull Pups within forty-eight hours and the other four would take a month.”
“Until then, we go with what we have,” Murdock said. “Oh, who makes this new wonder weapon?”
“Best part,” DeWitt said. “The prime contractor and inventor is Alliant Techsystems Inc. of Minnesota. The basic weapon frame comes from H&K in Germany. An outfit from Pittsburgh, Contraves Inc., supplies the fire control system, and Dynamit Nobel AG has developed the twenty-millimeter ammunition.”
“So this Bull Pup would replace our Colt M-4A1 and the grenade launcher?” Master Chief MacKenzie asked.
“Could, and it would give us a lot more range,” DeWitt said. “The M-203 grenade launcher is good for not much more than two hundred yards. This Bull Pup can reach out a thousand yards with pinpoint accuracy. If you can get the red dot on the target, you can kill it.”
“Fine,” Murdock said. “That’s downstream. It sounds good, and we’ll wring it out in trials as soon as it comes. Thirty dollars a round? Now, that’s expensive rifle fire. So, what about today and tomorrow? JG, you have any kind of a training schedule worked out for the troops?”
“Figured you’d want one, boss, so I made one out. It’s only slightly slanted to the types of work that I want.”
“Sounds good. We missed you on that recent swim. Want you back in the saddle for whatever comes next. How is Milly?”
DeWitt dropped into the last chair in the room and rubbed his face with one hand. “Yeah, she’s good. You know she was uptight about my war wound. But, slowly, she’s come around. Almost back to normal. She said to ask you to come to a barbecue Sunday afternoon. You too, Master Chief.”
Murdock looked at the master chief.
“Well, sounds good, JG, but I’ve got a family thing planned for that day.”
Murdock grinned. “Yeah, be glad to get some of that ’cue, just so Milly does the cooking.”
“Oh, she will. Now, here is what I had set for today’s training.” The master chief waved at them and went back to what he called “work at the quarterdeck.” Murdock waved back. He remembered that the master chief always turned down their offers to socialize. They usually asked him, but he said no. He once explained to Murdock that he had ten platoons to worry about. He couldn’t let it look like he favored one over the other.