“Captain James,” a voice called from above.
Looking up, Duncan recognized the silhouette as the captain of the submarine, Commander Pete Jewell, leaning over the rail.
“Yes, Captain,” Duncan answered, using the title that all commanding officers of Navy vessels earned, regardless of their true rank.
“We’re at the launch point. The landing site is two miles away at one eight zero. I must really love you guys!” Jewell sighed audibly. “I never bring my boat this close to the beach unless I’m going on liberty. Captain, we show no signs of aircraft or ships in the area, though EW has picked up a Marconi radar west of us. They think it’s a merchant. We have no lights from shore other than those off Algiers.”
He pointed over the horizon to the east, where a slight glow reflected off the clouds overhead the port city.
“I want to stay surfaced as little as possible, so when you and your teams disembark, the Albany will submerge and turn seaward. We’ll be back, as agreed, in three hours, no sooner. What time do you have?”
Duncan looked at his luminescent wristwatch. “I show zero zero twelve.”
Jewell tilted his watch under a red-lens flashlight. He twisted the setting hand slightly. “There, I show the same, zero zero twelve hours. Sunrise is zero six fifteen. False dawn is zero five hundred.
We’ll be back here at zero three hundred. At zero three-thirty, if we haven’t heard from you, Albany will depart and return at midnight tonight to effect a second rendezvous. If you’re not there then …”
The two reviewed once again the particulars of the pickup arrangement, with Duncan warning Jewell that if the SEALs failed to keep the rendezvous, Jewell was to forget about the pickup and rejoin the battle group. Jewell listened and told himself that he would make the decision when to abandon the prearranged pickup. After all, he was the commanding officer of the USS Albany and operational plans only follow the script until the first bullet is fired.
“Good luck, Captain,” Duncan said, shaking hands with the submarine skipper.
“Good luck to yourself, Captain. I don’t envy your job. I feel safer here, knowing I’ve got two Kilos out there some where who would love nothing better than to sink an American submarine, than going where you’re going.”
“Funny thing, Skipper. I feel the same way about being topside.”
Two SEALs crouched on their knees as they busily inflated the two rubber boats with the help of two Albany sailors. Meanwhile, other team members passed two thirty-five horsepower outboard motors up through the hatch and onto the deck. The other SEALs squatted patiently on the rocking deck, waiting to shove off. Their weapons rested across their laps.
“See you, Skipper,” Duncan said.
He hurried aft. The hissing sound of the boats inflating filled the air over the light slap of the waves against the side of the submarine.
Clouds passing overhead periodically obscured the slight starlight.
“Beau, you launch your swimmer scouts when we’re three hundred meters from the beach, then follow them in slowly.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Beau responded with a smile. “You mean like the way we’ve been briefing and rehearsing for the last twenty-four hours?”
Okay, so he was a little nervous.
“Ready, sir,” Ensign Bud Helliwell said, looking up from where he squatted beside one of the boats. He patted the outboard motor he had just finished latching to the transom. “All ready, Captain.”
Duncan had consciously planned the infil for five knots. On a calm sea like tonight, they’d make that easy. Four paddles per boat backed up the motors. It would take less than a half hour before they’d be in position for Beau’s swimmer scouts to break off.
“Launch them,” Duncan commanded.
The boats eased over the side, tether lines held by sailors on the Albany. The SEALs crawled over the side of the submarine, four to each boat. Duncan was the last to go. His knees creaked when he hit bottom and more fell into than boarded the rubber boat. He rubbed his knee.
Can’t be pulling stunts like that. Be a fine thing for the SEAL captain to pull a tendon before they even got ashore, or worse, break a leg.
Damn, I hope this migraine goes away before we land. He sat down and surreptitiously bent his right knee a couple of times, feeling the cartilage grate against the kneecap. He glanced around, but it seemed he was the only one to hear the kneecap grinding and popping.
The SEALs took an oar each and pushed the boats away from the submarine. Looking up, Duncan saw Jewell against the backdrop of starlight, waving slowly at the departing SEALs. Then the silhouette vanished as Jewell followed the last sailor on deck into the submarine.
The outboard motors caught and the rafts began to move slowly toward the beach. A few minutes later Duncan looked back. Nothing. The USS Albany had disappeared beneath the surface without a sound. The SEALs were alone with slightly under two miles of Mediterranean separating them from Algeria. Duncan looked at the dark coastline and wondered briefly what would greet them on this hostile shore when they landed.
HJ. sat quietly beside Duncan. Her CAR-15 was cradled in her arm. A prophylactic that was stretched over the barrel kept the seawater out.
Duncan leaned forward. “H. J.” why have you got a rubber over your piece?”
“To keep the sand out,” she whispered.
“We quit doing that years ago,” he replied. “The Navy issues plastic sleeves because of the negative press about using rubbers.”
“I know, Captain, but I couldn’t find mine so I used some rubbers I had.”
“Why would you-Oh,” he said, his voice trailing off. Yeah, he was too old for the new Navy.
The boats stayed within ten meters of each other as they headed toward the beach. The wind from landward stirred few waves against the incoming tide. Monkey kept switching his looks from the compass, mounted on the port side of the boat, to a shore point he had picked out. He was the only one who sat up, providing the only discernible silhouette. The other SEALs remained tense and prone against the spray tubes, their weapons pointed toward shore. Their eyes swept the beach for signs of activity, and scanned the surrounding waters for any fishing boat or patrol craft that might have gone undetected.
Duncan glanced again to where the submarine had been. Starlight revealed a great expanse of sea lightly rolling upon itself. A nuclear submarine on your six is remarkably comforting. With Albany gone, Duncan felt damn lonely. if duncan had been lucky and concentrated hard, he would have seen the periscope Commander Jewell raised as soon as Albany submerged. Jewell mumbled to himself as he moved the periscope back and forth in an attempt to spot the SEALs, but the boats blended with the dark coastline, rendering them invisible to the casual observer. He switched to infrared, but the heat from the land mass obscured the sensors. After several minutes with no joy, Jewell lowered the periscope and ordered the Albany out to deeper water. Now, Duncan and his crew really were alone.