“Aye, sir! Whatever you say, Admiral.”
“I’m going to walk you through something here, Lieutenant. We are showing that you still have an ambush group out on the highway north of your primary position. Do they have AT capacity?”
“Yes, sir. They have a couple of Predators left.”
“Good. Leave that ambush in place and pull your primary perimeter back to the beach, right back to the waterline. Do it now. Get your boats ready to launch. In about four to five minutes, your northern ambush is going to see a light armored force moving in fast down the highway toward your position. Instruct them to kill the lead vehicles, then have them lay down anything they have that can cause confusion or delay—smoke, tear gas, area denials, anything and everything they’ve got. Then have them fall back to your beach position. At that point, extract out to Santana. Dedigitate expeditiously, son. You’ll just have time to pull this off, but there will be none to spare for fooling around.”
“Understood, sir. Will do. This is Treestump, out.”
Macintyre went off circuit and glanced at Christine, one iron-colored eyebrow lifting. This is my improvisation, Commander. Let’s sit back and see just how magnificent it is.”
Diversion Point Treestump
6 Miles East-Southeast of Cape Mesurado 0109 Hours, Zone Time;
September 8, 2007
From his station behind the helm console, the signals talker called out sharply. “Captain, word in from the landing party. The northern ambush has just engaged the Union mechanized column. The ambush force is falling back and the Marines say they are beginning extraction.”
“About time,” the Santana’s skipper shouted back from the bridge wing. “Acknowledge the message and advise all hands that we are recovering the landing party. And turn that damn noise off!”
The electrician’s mate operating the loudspeaker system hit the power switch, and the tooth-rattling howl of gas turbines and lift fans cut off abruptly. Now from landward they could hear the clatter of machine-gun fire and the crack of rifle shots.
“Radar—” The Captain started to yell over the now silent speaker system, then caught himself. “Radar, what’s the position on those Union gunboats?”
“Range seven thousand yards and closing, sir. Heading one seven five. Speed ten knots. Plot established.”
“It slowed them down some when we kicked in our electronic countermeasures,” the Patrol Craft’s exec commented.
“Uh-huh,” his skipper grunted. “They don’t want to run headlong into anything while they’re radar blind.”
“It’s only a matter of time before they get a burn-through, or pick us up visually. What happens then?”
“Hopefully we’ll be the hell out of here before the subject comes up. Give the gun mounts another nudge, Joey. We or the Marines may be needing them here in a second.”
“Captain,” the wheelhouse talker broke in once more. “The landing party reports they are off the beach.”
The PC lay with her port side to the coast and her bow aimed to the south, ready to haul clear at a moment’s notice. Stepping to the port-side bridge windows, her skipper and the exec lifted night-bright binoculars to their eyes.
The Marine boats had already cleared the surf line, the rhythmic trudge of the paddlemen becoming apparent as they drove their small craft closer to the mother ship. But also apparent were dark figures dashing down onto the beach the rafts had just departed—figures that dropped prone or knelt to aim weapons.
“Bow and stern mounts!” The Captain didn’t bother with the intermediary of the talker. He relied on his own lungs. “Targets on the beach! Engage antipersonnel! Open fire!”
At the Mark 96 over and unders, gunners flipped their weapon and sight selectors to grenade launcher mode and depressed the butterfly triggers. The chunkers coughed out their loads and low-velocity 40mm rounds arced across to the beach. A double string of explosions walked across the sand, catching and freezing human silhouettes in the strobe flash of shell bursts—silhouettes that distorted under the impact of concussion and fragmentation.
“This is going to point us out to those Union gunboats, sir,” the exec warned.
“Can’t be helped, Joey. Those Marines can either shoot back or paddle, and right now we need them paddling.”
Another shadow shape lunged out onto the beach, this one massive and angular, a Panhard AML armored car crashing through the scrubwood tangle from the roadway, its 90mm gun elevating and indexing for a target.
There was no need for a command to shift targets. The Navy gunners toggled over from grenade launcher to auto cannon without missing a trigger pull. The hot, flat tracer streams of the 25mm Bushmasters converged on the Union fighting vehicle. White sparks danced on the Panhard’s hull and turret, penetrator impacts, each spark marking a hole punched through armor plate. Unable to cope with the torment, the Panhard fireballed, the thud of its explosion echoing offshore.
“Captain,” the radar operator called. “Union gunboat squadron increasing speed to twenty knots. Five thousand yards and closing!”
“How long until we’re within effective firing range?”
“We’re already in range, sir!”
As if in response to the operator’s words, a yellow ball of flame streaked overhead from stern to bow. A 40mm tracer round fired from a Union bow chaser.
“Aft mount! Shift to surface targets astern! Engage as you bear! Fire countermeasures! Full spectrum!”
The Santana’s Mark 52 RBOC launchers hurled grenade clusters overhead. Bursting, they rained down radar-scrambling metallic chaff and dense streamers of multispectral smoke. Another few precious minutes of confusion and concealment gained.
Maybe enough. The rubber raiding craft were nuzzling against the side of the PC, like a row of piglets against the flank of a sow.
“Get those men aboard! For crissakes, move! Move!”
The overheating barrels of the Mark 96 mounts glowed dull red in the chemical haze. Navy hands knelt along the railings, helping to haul Marines up and over the lip of the deck. Wild rifle slugs fired from shore snapped overhead or ricocheted off topside fittings. A wheelhouse window shattered. Someone screamed in agony as a bullet found flesh.
“Range two thousand five hundred, sir! Closing fast!”
Astern, the Union gunboats fired steadily now, pumping blind shell streams into the smoke screen that blanketed the PC. Spray jetted from the sea and the night stank of fear and cordite.
“Captain. All members of the landing party are aboard, sir!”
“Confirm that!”
“Confirmed, sir. All hands present and accounted for! Recovering boats—”
“Screw the boats! Cut ’em loose! Helmsman, all engines ahead emergency! Get us out of here!”
Turbocharged diesels roared as throttles slammed forward against their stops. Santana lunged ahead, the water boiling beneath her settling stern as she pulled away.
“Countermeasures, fire second salvo! Helm, keep that smoke between us and the Union squadron! Radar, what are they doing back there?”
“Standing on, Captain. They’re maintaining course and speed.”
The Captain glanced at the iron log on the control console. Forty knots. “Let ’em.”
Two minutes later, the Union gunboat group tore through the dissipating barrier of smoke and chaff. They sought their foe, but found only a drifting cluster of abandoned rafts and a dissipating wake angling out to sea.
“General! Messages from both Captain Mosabe and the commander of the Mobile Force company. The Americans have disengaged! They’re retreating!”
“Retreating!” Belewa’s brows lifted incredulously. “What do you mean, retreating?”
“The American landing force has withdrawn from the coast, General,” the jubilant radioman replied. “Captain Mosabe report
s he and his squadron are continuing pursuit of the landing ship. Reports are coming in from the northern sector that the U.N. diversionary actions are breaking off as well. All enemy forces are withdrawing from the coast.”
“And what of the hovercraft? We had a fix on them in the southern sector near the landing site. Where are they now? Do we still have contact with the American hovercraft group?”
“No contact currently reported with the hovercraft group, sir.”
Belewa gripped at the edge of the track’s map table like a man dazed. “No,” he murmured, staring unseeing at the white-painted interior bulkhead. “That isn’t right.”
Sako slapped his commander on the back. “What’s the matter, Obe? Can’t you hear the man? We’ve beaten them!”
“No!” Belewa’s shout rang within the steel interior of the vehicle. “There is something wrong! She would have fought!” Belewa spun around. “Don’t you see!” he cried, gripping his chief of staff by the shoulders. This was too easy! If this had been the true battle, she would have fought. The Leopard would have fought us, Sako! This was another diversion!”
Outside in the night, an evil-toned whispering whine became perceptible.
“Recall the mobile force! Recall the gunboats! Immediately!”
The radio operators grabbed for their hot mikes. But before they could kick in their transmitters, the squalling wail of high-intensity cascade jamming blared from the speakers.
Firing Point Sun Village
Three Miles off the Mouth of Port Monrovia 0118 Hours, Zone Time; September 8, 2007
Guided initially by the distant electronic impulses of an orbiting GPU satellite, the first SeaSLAM ER howled in toward the Union coast, passing over Port Monrovia and heading for the city beyond.
As the missile approached the north bank of the Mesurado River estuary, it bobbled minutely in its flight. Miles astern, aboard the Queen, Gunner’s Mate Danno O’Roark’s hand closed around the joystick of his fire-control station, overriding the missile’s onboard navigational system and assuming manual control.
The SeaSLAM pushed over and dove, the thermographic imager in its nose broadcasting a video image of the terrain ahead and below back to the Queen and to O’Roark’s targeting screen. With sweat burning in his eyes and his jaw set, O’Roark locked the crosshairs of the system’s sighting grid onto a specific geometric pattern he’d been studying all afternoon in aerial recon photographs.
The geometric pattern on the ground grew and resolved into a fenced compound. High-tension towers led to and from the area and a double row of rectangular shapes clustered at its center, a bank of heavy electrical transformers. As the thermographic image of the power relay station exploded toward him, O’Roark put his heart and soul into holding the death pip centered on those insulator-horned outlines right up until his screen went blank.
The golden flash of an explosion split the African night, followed by the sharper blue-white glare of a massive electrical discharge. Sudden, total darkness engulfed Port Monrovia.
Bong Mining Company Pier, Port Monrovia 0120 Hours, Zone Time; September 8, 2007
“Go!”
Even as she issued the command, Amanda’s CRRC surged forward in a silent rush for the pier. They had only moments to work with, the brief time that confusion would reign among the port’s defenders. Conning his way in via night-vision visor, the coxswain steered for the Union Banner.
The head of the ore-loading dock loomed clifflike over the little craft and then the float and the low stern of the tug emerged out of the darkness. Bumping quietly alongside, Amanda and the coxswain grabbed for holds on the barnacle-studded truck tire fenders that shielded the flank of the harbor craft.
Unlike the other assault boats in the boarding force, Amanda’s carried a split party. There was a single four-man Marine fire team plus the small prize crew for the tug; Amanda herself, a veteran boatswain’s mate to handle the towing gear and a pair of enginemen who knew their way around Marine diesel plants.
The quartet of Marines swarmed over the tug’s rail in a noiseless rush, their first task to deal with both the tug’s night crew and any security forces aboard. Securing the raider alongside, Amanda and her people followed the Marines onto the deck a few moments later.
“Moonshade to Palace. At objective. I say again. At objective.” Lifting her finger from the touchpad, she let the SINCGARS system go to receive.
“Acknowledged, Moonshade.” The reply was breathed back into her earphone from Operations. “Strongbow also reports at objective. Sun Village maintaining firing sched. Operations continue nominal.”
Again it was a matter of so far, so good. Standing adjacent to the bulky dark mass of the tug’s towing drum, Amanda found herself momentarily at a loss for what to do next. The weight of her pistol tugged at her belt. However, she left the weapon where it was with the holster flap buttoned. Drawing it would accomplish little, and actually firing a shot could prove catastrophic. With the other Navy hands clustered warily behind her, she stood poised and listening.
Beyond the hiss of the waves around the pier pilings, she heard only a scattering of sound from the port, a yelled order, the racing of a truck engine, the crash of a warehouse door closing. In the distance came the thud of another heavy explosion. The seafighters were continuing their SLAM bombardment of the city, spacing the rounds out to provide a further diversion away from events in the port area.
From aboard the tug itself, there came other noises. A swift and stealthy rush of footfalls. A thump that could be felt through the deck underfoot. An exclamation that trailed off into a faint whimpering sob. Then silence, followed by two muffled splashes near the tug’s bow.
The Marine fire team leader materialized out of the shadows. “All secure, ma’am.”
“Very well,” she replied softly. “Boats, check out the towing gear. Buckley, Smith, go take a look in the engine room. Get me a report on how soon we can get her under way. I’ll be in the wheelhouse.”
Whispered “aye ayes” came back.
Amanda followed the Marine team leader forward down the tug’s starboard side. “Four men aboard all told, ma’am,” he reported. “Two soldiers and two civilian crewmen. We’ve got the soldiers taken care of and over the side.”
“And the crewmen?”
“Awaiting your call, ma’am.”
Amidships they came to the entry of the tug’s main cabin. A second Marine stood a silent sentry beside the half-open hatch. Inside, the last two members of the fire team guarded the prisoners.
The tug hands were a pair of lean and weathered African seamen clad only in ragged shorts. They had been shoved down onto the bench of the mess table, facing the deck entry. With their hands bound behind their backs with nylon riot cuffs and their mouths sealed by strips of camo tape, only their eyes could express their terror.
Amanda paused in the hatchway for a moment. The fear she read in the expressions of the two men were an aspect of her profession that she didn’t enjoy. These two sailors were not enemies of either herself or of humanity as a whole. Nor did they have anything to do with the course being steered by Obe Belewa or the West African Union.
There was nothing to be done about it, however, except to brush them out of the way as gently as possible. “Put them under,” she said.
The Marine guards dug yellow injector tubes out of their cargo pockets. Before the two Union seamen could realize what was happening, the injector tips had been socked against their thighs. Heavy-gauge, spring-loaded needles punched into flesh and a massive drug charge followed. After a few moments of struggle, the eyes of the two sailors rolled back into their heads and they collapsed against the mess table, no doubt wondering if they would ever wake up again.
They would. The injectors had originally been designed to carry doses of atropine as an emergency counter to nerve gas exposure. These, though,
intended for use by Special Forces personnel, had been loaded with a carefully metered dose of barbiturate potent enough to knock an adult human unconscious and keep him so for several hours.
“Dump them on the float, Corporal,” Amanda ordered, “and throw a tarp or something over them so they won’t be too obvious. Then stand by to cast off all lines.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Alone, Amanda climbed the weather ladder to the wheel house atop the fore end of the superstructure. The tug’s small bridge smelled of diesel, salt mildew, and stale cigarette smoke. The only illumination filtered in faintly through the wheelhouse’s 360-degree sweep of windows or trickled up the interior ladderway from the cabin night-lights.
Amanda had a night-vision visor, a flashlight, and several glowsticks distributed around her harness. However, she was on the bridge of a ship now. This was her world. She didn’t need vision to find her way.
Stepping carefully, she crossed to the center console, her fingertips touching, exploring, and identifying. Wheel … binnacle … throttles … propeller controls … engine-ready lights … auxiliary switches … engine-room interphone. The position of each control grafted itself into her brain.
Let’s see. Panel lights. Should be this one.
Click! Green glowed behind a few of the gauges.
Okay. So far, so good. Binnacle light.
Click! Amanda nodded to herself as the compass dome lit. This tug had seen some hard usage and short maintenance, but at least the compass had been kept aligned. That wasn’t much, but it was something. She lifted the battered interphone out of its cradle and squeezed the call button. It worked too. That was something else.
“Smith here.”
“Smith. This is the Captain. I’m checking out the wheel house. How does it look down there?”
“Like they’ve been using a pack of goddamn orangutans for an engine-room crew.” A good motor mac’s honest outrage at the abuse of machinery could be heard in his voice.
Sea fighter Page 50
