Counterfire sts-16

by Keith Douglass

  Jaybird watched the rest of the practice. It was before the season started, they hadn’t had their first game yet, and they were still a long way from being a team. Eight-year-olds were simply not that coordinated. Some of them did well. But Jaybird had yet to see a ball hit to the outfield that was caught. Their pitcher had trouble getting the ball all the way to the catcher without bouncing it. Jaybird grinned. Still, it was a load of fun. His kind of baseball. There were two other coaches, both older than he was. One was the pitcher’s father, Harley Albertson, the head coach. He was short and pudgy, wore glasses, a baseball cap, suit pants, and a white shirt. He always came directly from his banker’s job to the practices. He sweated like an overworked horse, and was given to making up words to use in place of swear words.

  “You gimbleshakled marsnest, Phil, you missed that easy grounder.” He was gentle and easy with the kids, and they seemed to try harder when he made suggestions to them.

  The other coach was Rusty Ingles, an insurance salesman in his late thirties, married but with no kids. He was a slender six feet tall, with thinning red hair and lots of freckles. He knew baseball rules inside out, and said he’d played for a junior college back East somewhere for two years. He handled mostly the outfielders, trying to teach them how to judge a fly ball and then to catch it. He wasn’t having anything like good results.

  Jaybird had lettered in baseball three years at his high school, playing shortstop, and loved the game. He followed the Detroit Tigers, not the Padres in San Diego.

  “Good throw,” Jaybird yelled as the third baseman gloved a slow roller off Coach Albertson’s bat and threw it all the way to first base. It arrived after only one hop. “Way to go, Pete. Way to throw, guy. Keep up the good work.”

  “The infield is your job,” Coach Albertson had told Jaybird the first day when he found out he’d played in high school. “Show them how to play the positions and how to field and throw the ball. That’s all there is to it. I’ll run the pitchers and catchers and try to teach these little wonders how to hit the ball.” It was the first year for most of the boys to try to hit a thrown ball. Last year those who played had been able to hit the ball off a T-Ball stand in front of the plate.

  This was their third practice, and the coaches were still moving players around. First they asked what position each boy wanted to play. So far they had no girls on the team. Jaybird was glad about that. Nobody wanted to be catcher. Coach Albertson drafted one kid who could throw pretty well. After the second practice he liked it.

  “Okay, infield practice,” Jaybird called. “Rusty will hit some ground balls and I’ll call which base you throw it to. First round will all be throws to the first baseman. Okay, Rusty, hit some.”

  Rusty’s grin popped out, and he made a vicious swing at the ball he tossed up. He missed it by a yard. The boys all howled with glee. Then he began batting the ball gently directly at the players in turn. Jaybird nodded as Rusty hit the ball almost exactly where he wanted to. All the boys liked Rusty. He was never harsh with them, and half the time told them jokes to get a point across.

  He hit a slow roller to the second baseman playing between first and second. The boy ran toward the ball, missed it, and threw his glove on the ground, then ran for the ball and threw it toward first base. It missed the first baseman by ten feet.

  “No problem, Joey, you’ll get the next one,” Jaybird called.

  Twenty minutes later they called a halt to the fielding and went up to the plate to practice hitting. Coach Albertson tossed the balls in easily for the hitters. Rusty watched for a minute, then headed for the rest rooms. They were city-built, made of concrete block, so they were cold and spartan. Jaybird felt a calling as well and walked to the facility. He had just started around the double turn into the boys’ bathroom, which eliminated the need for doors, when he heard a boy yell from inside.

  “Hey, don’t do that,” the boy called.

  Jaybird frowned and edged around the concrete-block wall so he could see inside the small room. Joey, the second baseman, stood near the urinal with his pants down. He backed away from Coach Rusty Ingles.

  “I just want to see where the ball hit your leg,” Coach Ingles said, squatting beside the boy.

  “Told you it didn’t hurt me,” Joey said.

  “Let me check.” Coach Ingles moved forward, caught the boy’s leg, and rubbed it; then his hand moved up to Joey’s crotch and fondled it.

  “No!” Joey shouted, and jumped back.

  “Hey, that didn’t hurt, did it?” Coach Ingles said. “Hey, I bet it felt good. Look what it did for me.” Coach Ingles’s back was to Jaybird then, but he could see the man unzip his pants. Joey jerked up his pants and ran for the door. Jaybird stepped away from it and around to the side of the rest room. Coach Rusty didn’t leave the bathroom for five minutes.

  Jaybird scowled. What the hell was going on? Was it what it had looked like? Rusty Ingles was a pedophile? Had he been bothering other boys on the team? Before Jaybird could think it through, Coach Albertson called.

  “Hey, Jaybird. Get your fanny over here. I can’t do this all by myself. Both of you vanished on me. You pitch some soft ones. I need to do some batting coaching here or we’ll be last in the league again this year.”

  Jaybird pitched underhanded for a half hour, and then the practice was over. Rusty bailed out early, saying his wife had a special event planned for that night and he had to get home. Jaybird helped the boys put away the equipment in the big bat bags, and then loaded them in Coach Albertson’s van. Jaybird was trying to decide if he should tell Coach Albertson when they were done, but before he could the man waved and drove away. It was Jaybird’s turn to wait at the diamond until the last boy’s parents came to pick him up. Joey had left, and didn’t seem affected by what Jaybird had seen. So what should he do? Call the cops? Cause a big flap in the league? Accuse Rusty privately and tell him to quit coaching this or any other team of small boys or he’d wind up floating facedown in Glorietta Bay?

  Jaybird thought about it on the way back to his apartment. He lived only ten minutes from the field. Everything in Coronado was close at hand. He could take Ingles out in a half a second if it came to that. How did he keep it from happening again somewhere else? The only way was to get Ingles convicted as a pedophile. Then he would be on record and wherever he moved, the cops would know he was a sex offender. Yeah, easy to say, but how to get evidence good enough to stand up in court?

  He turned around and drove back to the bathroom and checked it out. Yes, it would work. Six months ago he had bought a small video camera. Hadn’t used it much. He looked at the overhead. No ceiling, just an open area and beams to the roof. Over a small storage area he found a place where he could put the camera and it would record everything that went on.

  All he had to do was get to practice early in two days, plant the camera, and turn it on. It would run on the battery for two hours. Then he’d pick it up and see what he had on the tape. With any luck Rusty Ingles would try it again with a different boy. It was an ideal setup for Ingles. The kids would be afraid to tell anyone, and he could take advantage of them. If this didn’t work, Jaybird had about decided he would break Ingles’s leg, and then maybe an arm, to convince him to stay away from the kids.

  After training on Thursday, Jaybird set up the camera a half hour before practice started. He turned it on and went out to the diamond. Twice he saw Rusty Ingles go to the bathroom. Each time one of the boys was already in the small building. Practice was just about over, and Jaybird was ready to go pick up the video camera, when his beeper went off. He read the message. “Alert. We ship out in three hours.”

  The SEALs had a job. He yelled at Albertson that he had to go, he didn’t know when he’d be back. Active duty. Albertson knew about his wild schedule and waved.

  “Good luck, man. Stay safe and come back. We need you.”

  Jaybird ran for his car. He was only ten minutes from SEALs headquarters on the Coronado strand. He was the last one to rep
ort in.

  Senior Chief Petty Officer Sadler growled at them as they gathered around him.

  “Oh, yeah, we’ve got one. Orders are for your desert cammies. Two pair, regular weapons. We’ve got seven Bull Pups for this run, so they will be spread around. We’ll want the MGs and the rest of you come with MP-5’s. Your usual mix of goodies for your vests. We will have available all the combat weapons, munitions, and supplies we need on the other end. That’s all I can tell you now. Get cracking. We fly out of North Island in two hours and twenty minutes.”

  “What plane?” Jaybird asked.

  “Like to throw you each in the rear seat of an F-14 and get you moving at Mach two-point-five. But we can’t do that. You’ll be in the usual fast-delivery aircraft, the Gulfstream II. Slam us along at five hundred and eighty-one miles per hour max, cruise at forty thousand. Nice and quiet up there. Now move it.”

  Everyone was medically cleared to go. Lam swore up and down that his arm wound from Sierra Leone had healed and his left leg was damned near back to normal. He demonstrated for the senior chief and walked, then ran without any limp. Everyone knew it must hurt Lam, but they also knew he’d never admit it and get canceled out on this mission.

  They were twenty minutes early getting to North Island, a ride in the Navy bus of about six miles from their home base. Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock sat the SEALs down on the tarmac to wait for the final fueling on the plane. His grin spread all over his face.

  “Want to tell you that we won’t have the JG to kick around any more. Ed DeWitt’s papers came through today. He’s now officially a full lieutenant, and I want you deep divers to show him proper respect.”

  “Hooooooo-yah!” the SEALs shouted in unison.

  “Where is the lieutenant leading us this time?” Kenneth Ching asked.

  Lieutenant DeWitt held the twin silver bars in his right hand, the railroad tracks glistening in the bright sunshine. He looked at them, then up at his men.

  “We know where, and something of the why. We’ll be getting a printout on the plane with more about the what. We’re going to merry old England. Our destination is London, to a military airport just south of London actually, near the town of Crawley. Why? This is now a top-secret, ultra-secret operation. The British people don’t know about it. The American people don’t know about it. I doubt if more than five people in Washington, D.C., know about it. But we are legal. The CNO called Commander Masciareli about four hours ago, and told him the assignment. He called the master chief, who called me.”

  “So what’s it all about?” Lam asked.

  “Big trouble. Really, really big trouble. The kind of trouble the Western capitals have been fearing might come someday. Well, it’s here. Some Islamic militants or some extremist Palestinians have smuggled a nuclear warhead into London. We know where it is, on board a hijacked mid-sized Japanese freighter now anchored in the middle of London’s harbor.”

  “Somebody wants us to go in and get back the boom-boom?” Jaybird asked.

  “Precisely,” Lieutenant DeWitt said. “However, they don’t want it to go boom. That would spoil a lot of afternoon English teas in London.”

  “What about the hotshot SAS?” Bill Bradford asked.

  “They have requested us to come in on a joint operation,” Murdock said. “They will let us handle the water end of it, and anything else that we work out.”

  “Time,” DeWitt said. He pointed to the plane that stood with the passenger door open. The SEALs stood, moved into two squad ranks, and jogged to the business jet and walked on board. The Gulfstream is a large executive jet used as a military VIP transport. The Grumman Aircraft/Aerospace plane has a crew of three and carries nineteen passengers in first-class-type seats. Two Rolls-Royce engines kick out 11,400 pounds of static thrust. It has a ceiling of 43,000 feet and can take jumps of 3,712 miles on one drink of fuel.

  “Oh, yeah, this is the way to fly,” Paul Jefferson said, easing his two hundred pounds into the luxury seat. “Beats a Gooney Bird or a COD Greyhound any day.”

  As they settled into the seats, a dress-blues Navy lieutenant commander in a regulation but tight skirt came out of the cockpit area. She was trim and more than pretty, with soft brown hair framing her face, showing high cheekbones and bright green eyes. She frowned a moment, then nodded.

  “They told me I’d have a full load. Usually I get a better-dressed class of passengers.” She chuckled. “Hey, I’m kidding. I know what you SEALs do, and I’m proud to be a part of this mission. No, I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to know. We take off in two minutes. We tried to get Navy box lunches for you for your evening mess, but we couldn’t. So the Hotel Del Coronado stepped in and provided you with twenty dinners, served on china. So don’t drop anything. We’ll stop in New York for fuel and take off right after we’re topped off. Any questions?”

  “I don’t suppose a phone number would be available?” someone piped up from the back.

  The pilot smiled. “The only one I give out is my husband’s.”

  Half the SEALs groaned.

  “Welcome aboard. If I can find some tailwinds upstairs, we should hit New York in five hours.” She went back into the cabin and seconds later, the jet engines revved up, the chocks were pulled away, and the sleek jet rolled toward the takeoff runway.

  A half hour later, the crew chief, a yeoman second class, pressed Colt Franklin into helping him, and they served the Hotel Del Coronado dinners: three-quarter-pound top sirloin steak with all the side dishes on huge platters with stainless-steel silverware.

  “Why don’t we eat on this airline all the time?” Vinnie Van Dyke yelped.

  After the meal, the yeoman cleared the dishes; then Murdock took the floor. “We don’t know what we’ll do on this one. My guess is they want us to move in and take down the freighter so we can free the captive nuclear bomb.”

  “How big is it?” Miguel Fernandez asked. “I mean, is it a warhead out of an ICBM like we worked before, or is it a stand-alone? Maybe they bought it from China, so it could be a large thing.”

  “We don’t know about any of that,” DeWitt said. “All we know is that the British Prime Minister called the President. He called his Secretary of Defense, who called the CNO, and we’re in business.”

  “Grappling hooks up the side of the freighter?” Tracy Donegan asked.

  “Could be,” Murdock said. “Or we could go up the side out of a rubber duck with hand and foot magnets.”

  “I’d guess there is some kind of a quid pro quo that goes along with the terrorists not setting off the bomb,” Senior Chief Sadler said.

  “True,” DeWitt said. “They want Israel to agree to the immediate evacuation of all Jews from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, both civilian settlers and Israeli military.”

  “They don’t want much, do they?” Jack Mahanani asked. “Just rip out twenty years of colonization by the Israelis. It’ll never happen.”

  “Trade that for, say, three million dead Brits?” Frank Victor asked. “That’s quite a price to pay.”

  “But it’s second-hand blackmail,” Luke Howard said. “They threaten England, and tell them to tell Israel to pull out their people or the Brits get nuked. Doesn’t make logical sense. Why would the Israeli government react to a second-hand threat? Now, if the bomb was in Haifa Harbor, it would be a direct threat to Israel.”

  Murdock spoke up. “We don’t have to sweat the politics. All we have to do is find the damned bomb, throw a lead blanket around it so it can’t be triggered by remote control, and turn it over to the Brits, who will de-fang it.”

  “Sure, but then what?” Jaybird asked. “While the threat is there, the Israelis and the Brits can’t lift a rifle against the Arabs. But as soon as the bomb is grabbed and the threat is gone, you think the English and the Jews are going to sit on their hands? They’ll go after the Arabs like wildfire. The killing fields will be bloody red.”

  “Not our concern,” DeWitt said. “We do our job and when it’s done,
we’re out of there.”

  “Maybe,” Jaybird said. “What if Mossad and M-6 ask us for just a bit more help in taking down some of the Arab militants?”

  “Unlikely,” Murdock said. “But, like everything else in this old world, it’s an uncertain place, strange times, and you can’t really count on knowing how any of our little explorations are going to turn out.”

  6

  Crawley, England

  The SEALs had slept most of the second leg from New York to England. The sleek jet set down at Crawley airport and rolled to a secluded section of the field, where it was met by a squad of armed men who escorted the yawning SEALs into a building that was a combination barracks, assembly room, and mess hall. Accounting for the time zones passed over, it was just after 1300 when they landed.

  A British major general met them. He saluted Murdock smartly and tried to smile. He was showing his fifty-one years with a thicker waist and was heavier around the shoulders. The smile never quite made it.

  “Welcome to England, Commander. I’m Wellsly-Smythe and the Home Office has given me this rather complicated problem. Please get settled in here. In a half hour I want to have a planning session with you and your top men. There’s a conference room at the far end of this building with an outside entrance.”

  Murdock had returned the salute and accepted the man’s handshake. “Good to be here, General Wellsly-Smythe. We’re glad to help in any way we can. This certainly looks like a tough one. We’ll see you in half an hour.”

  As the general left, a man came from the other direction. He wore cammies and had on a cook’s white hat.

  “I say, if any of you blokes are hungry, we can whip up something up here in the mess. Don’t know if you’d call it breakfast or lunch or dinner. We can probably cook whatever you want. Except lobster. We’re short on the seafood side today. We’re ready when you’re ready.”

  The SEALs shouted in delight.

  Murdock led the charge along with DeWitt. Murdock called Sadler, Lampedusa, and Jaybird to the front of the line. “We’ve got a meeting in half an hour,” Murdock explained.