“You like ’em young, Rit. That fifteen-year-old in Korea?”
Carpenter grimaced. “I pay as I go, Dan. Never needed to knock anybody around.” He looked at the deck again, then squinted up. “I hope you get him. I like the Terror. It wasn’t me.”
Dan was mulling an answer when the officer of the deck stuck his head in. “Captain? You back here? Sir, Lieutenant Singhe, calling from Combat.” The ensign’s eyes were blown wide, cheeks sallow under scattered freckles. “Incoming aircraft, Skipper. She says, better get down there right away.”
2
Master Chief Petty Officer Theodore Harlett Oberg was six foot two and no longer quite as lean as he’d once been. But he could still run twenty miles, swim five in the open ocean, bench his weight a dozen times, and do twenty pull-ups carrying a weapon and a basic load on his harness gear. His dirty blond hair was banded back in a ponytail. His light blue eyes never seemed to blink. But the first thing most people noticed were the scars radiating out from his nose. The doctors had said they could fix them, but he’d told them not to bother.
Just now Teddy was face to buttcrack with “Knobby” Swager, eighty feet underwater, in a steel escape chamber six feet across. Four other SEALs were crammed in too, faces and gear illuminated by a ruby glow. He checked his watch, then touched his gear lightly, to inventory. Rebreather. Bailout. Rifle. SIG. The thin-blade he’d carried for so long it was like a third thumbnail. The only weapon he’d had left above the Parachinar Valley, after his blood had frozen his handgun solid. The dry re-enriched gas he breathed now parched his throat. His left leg burned like it was thrust knee-deep into molten lead.
“One minute,” said the in-hull circuit, deep in his ear.
Teddy eased his leg, panting a little into the mouthpiece.
A minute. More than enough time to remember another time he’d waited, encapsulated, with the carapace bolted down over fear. That had been in the Gulf. He’d had his doubts about those guys, a mixed bag of electron pushers, computer wonks, and retirees, headed up by a skinny bastard name of Lenson. Not what you’d call tier-one operators. But to Teddy’s astonishment, K-79 had made it out.
He’d checked out of the Teams after that one. Tried to make The Movie. And almost had it. German financing. Liki Dittrich and Hanneline Muruzawa producing. Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, and Russell Crowe reading the script.
9/11 had derailed it, and he’d gotten back in. To Afghanistan. The Tora Bora assault, followed by the fucked-up Echo Platoon mission into the White Mountains. In the Safed Koh, the Ghilzai route across the Pak border. A shot-down helo. An old man, frozen rigid where he sat. A captured Dragunov, after Teddy’d lost his SR-25 falling down a fucking cliff. And one shot at the shadow in the fog that had to have been OBL himself.
He’d thought that was fade-out and credits. Dropping away into the oatmeal dark, the bitter snow. But a skinny, limp-dicked newbie had hiked back for him. Swager had manhandled him fifteen hundred feet back down to the extract LZ. Petty Officer First Class Swager now, in the chamber with him. Still kind of a limp dick, but one Teddy owed his life to.
That was where he’d gotten fucked up. His Achilles tendon, shredded in the fall down the mountainside. They’d had to graft in tendons from his shinbone, then fight some stubborn cipro-resistant Afghani infection. Three months in a cast, six months of physio. And limited duty since.
Until this. Probably his Last Fucking Hurrah. Then it’d be back to Salena. She’d stuck while his leg healed. He was almost forty. Too old for a top-tier operator. Time, maybe, to tackle LA again…
He was checking his watch again when the intercom came on.
“Opening,” it said.
Days before, he’d leaned against an equipment cabinet as a gray-haired buzzcut in slacks and a polo shirt introduced himself. Retired Colonel Somebody, from the Marine Corps history office, had unrolled a topo to give the team a once-over of a curved small island, its beaches and lagoon, interior and relief. Then dimmed the lights, and brought up a PowerPoint slide.
“Early 1942. The Japanese controlled the western Pacific. Their next goal was Australia. We planned to stop them by seizing the airfield they’d built on Guadalcanal. But a distraction was needed before the First Marine Division landed.
“The target was Makin Island. Well placed as a seaplane and reconnaissance base, on the eastern edge of the newly expanded empire. An attack here would divert the enemy and confuse him as to Allied intentions. Additional objectives were to collect intelligence, capture prisoners, and do all the damage possible to the installation.
“Evans Carlson’s Second Marine Raider Battalion trained on mock-ups on Oahu. Intel predicted two hundred fifty defenders and a shore battery covering the lagoon. So the marines decided to land on the ocean side of the island.”
A photo of a very old diesel submarine. Teddy had fidgeted, glancing at Knobby beside him. Whispered, “What is this, ancient history? We got rebreathers to rebuild.”
The prof said, “The raiders embarked on two subs for the trip from Hawaii. The plan envisioned disembarking into rubber rafts at 0300, hitting the beach before dawn, and withdrawing no later than 2100 that same day.
“The weather was bad when they reached Makin, but they went ahead anyway. Unfortunately, heavy swells drowned the motors on the boats. The tide set the subs toward the reef. Carlson decided to abandon a simultaneous assault and began paddling toward the beach, ordering his men to follow.
“They made it ashore, but the boats landed scattered across a mile. Also, one man fired his rifle accidentally, losing the element of surprise.”
Teddy caught Swager’s eye. His buddy inclined his head slightly. They both frowned back at the screen, which now showed movement arrows and tactical symbols.
“The marines moved inland to the coastal road. The defenders, now alerted, engaged them in a fierce firefight near the hospital. They had machine guns, flamethrowers, and snipers.
“When dawn broke things got even worse. A troop transport and a patrol boat were coming in to the wharf. Carlson managed to pass this to the submarines. Fortunately, the subs managed to sink both ships with their deck guns.
“For the rest of the morning Carlson’s men were pinned down by machine guns and snipers. That afternoon the Japanese bombed and strafed them, and landed reinforcements by seaplane. Though fighting hard, and holding against a banzai attack, Carlson had to pull back. He buried his dead and, as dark fell, withdrew to the beach to extract.
“This was when luck really turned against them. The heavy surf dumped the boats as they tried to paddle out. They lost nearly all their weapons and equipment, and finally gave up trying and established a perimeter just off the beach.
“Carlson called a meeting at midnight. His determination to fight on, even without adequate weapons or ammunition, meant most of his men might die in battle. But they accepted it.
“At dawn, some of the unwounded raiders fought through the surf and made it back to the subs, which had stayed despite Japanese air superiority. With the ocean-side surf still too high to get his wounded out, Carlson decided to try to escape via the lagoon side. After a terrific struggle, he managed to get his wounded and most of his men to the subs, using the remaining boats and a native outrigger canoe. Nine men were left behind, however. They were captured and beheaded.”