“Copy, Mountain Man, roger that, Mountain Man,” came the confirmations.
“The choppers are circling,” said Washburn.
“What?” said Hatfield. He snapped the binoculars up to his eyes.
“They’re in what looks like some kind of holding pattern a mile out just beyond the ships,” said Ekstrom. “Just circling.”
“What in God’s name are they doing?” asked Hatfield, flabbergasted.
“What in God’s name are they doing?” asked Coast Guard Lieutenant Donald Hacker on the bridge of the Higby, staring at fourteen black helicopters, Blackhawks and Apaches and transports, that were flying in circles off to the port side like children’s toys, round and round.
Captain Sandoval turned to him. “I told you before, Number One, General Rollins wants them to do a flyover just as he steps ashore through the surf,” she said. “They’re waiting for the Ventura to beach which should be—ah, there she goes.” The ferryboat was under way, turning hard to starboard.
“I still can’t quite wrap my mind around this business of deliberately running a large vessel aground for a photo-op, Captain,” said Hacker. “Especially at high tide where she’ll be stranded for half the day. Ventura is not some World War Two LST. What if the tugs can’t pull her off the beach after she’s unloaded?”
“Then we just leave her there,” said Sandoval. “The hulk will become a national monument one day. I guess you’re just not media-savvy, Number One.”
“I guess not, ma’am,” agreed Hacker.
“That ferry is coming in to shore,” Ekstrom told Hatfield in the dugout.
“How are they going to get their vehicles off?” asked Charlie.
“My guess, they’re just going to run the whole damned ship right up on the beach and lower the ramp,” said Hatfield.
“At high tide?” asked Ekstrom. “Stranding the ship?”
“Hey, when you’ve got all the money in the world, you can afford to break some of your toys,” said Hatfield. “But why are those choppers just loafing around out there? What the hell are these assholes up to? This doesn’t make any sense. They can’t really be this careless!”
“Have you considered the obvious?” asked Washburn. “Have you considered that they may just be bird-brained, stupid and incompetent, and they haven’t got a clue what the fuck they’re doing? This government and the Pentagon have been fighting a bunch of barefoot brown ragheads in the Middle East for almost a generation now, and they still haven’t figured out how to beat them. We’re ruled by idiots.”
“What happens in a system when you promote people into important jobs and positions based on the color of their skin or the fact that they’ve got tits on ’em, instead of on their ability to do the job?” asked Ekstrom rhetorically. “You get disaster after disaster, like in the Middle East. Like here. Zack, we may have more of a chance to do some damage here than you think. Apparently that vehicle ferry is coming in first, and coming in alone.”
“My God, the whole thing is a sound byte! It’s nothing but one big photo-op to these people!” gasped Zack in sudden comprehension. “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that they’re going to lower the ferry ramp, and the first person to step off will be that nigger Congressman Roland Rollins, grinning like an egg-suck dog, and behind him will come all kinds of marching men and Strykers and Hummers, and right about then those damned copters will come flying overhead! I’d heard that chimp was planning on challenging Chelsea Clinton for the presidency, and this is going to be his first campaign appearance, stepping onto our land like he was some kind of monkoid Jesus!”
“I believe Custer was planning on running for president as well,” commented Washburn. “We’re a funny-looking bunch of Indians, though.”
Hatfield picked up his radio. “Big Boppers, when that thing hits the shore a ramp is going to drop and almost certainly, the monkoid Roland Rollins is going to exit the vessel. Keep your sights on him and all five of you open up on my command.” He got five copies. The men sounded excited. Washburn chuckled. “What’s so funny?” asked Hatfield.
“I’m thinking about seeing Cat Lockhart’s face when I run all this by him, and him not being here!” Washburn replied.
While the media party waited idly for the fast approaching Ventura, Seth Goldstein was growing increasingly uncomfortable. “Hey man, I gotta drain the snake,” he said to Hastings. “If I take a whizz in the surf here will you promise not to film it?”
“No promises,” laughed Hastings. “We are already working on our outtakes and bloopers reel for this shoot. Go up behind the dunes.”
“It’s too far to walk,” complained Goldstein.
“So go down the beach and whip it out,” Hastings told him. “I think we all know you’re circumcised, Seth. I won’t tell the camera crew. Honest Injun.”
Goldstein looked at him and said “Bullshit, you won’t,” and he started shuffling toward the access road entrance.
On the bridge of the Higby Lieutenant JG Day told Executive Officer Lieutenant Hacker, “One of the shore party is leaving the group, sir.”
Hacker picked up the radio hand mike. “Slitherydee, this is Mama Bear. Who’s that walking away from you and where is he going?”
The sailor with the radio came back after a moment. “That’s the MTV guy, Mama Bear. He had to take a leak. Didn’t want to do it on the beach since we have female personnel here.”
“Okay, well, make sure you keep an eye on him.” ordered Hacker.
“Keep an eye on him yourself, asshole, I ain’t in the Navy no more,” muttered the sailor, sticking the radio back into its holster and resuming his attempt to flirt with Leonard Posner’s makeup girl.
“One of them is coming this way,” said Ekstrom.
“Damn!” cursed Hatfield. “Hunker down, guys, maybe he won’t see us.”
Goldstein trudged up the apparently empty beach toward the roadway, looking for a nice concealed spot to urinate where his merry colleagues wouldn’t film him and preserve it for the ages. He saw a low rise of sand and sea oats at the base of the right-hand berm that looked promising. He reached the mound, unzipped his trousers and unlimbered his circumcised schwanze, and stepped around the mound of sea oats preparatory to emptying his bladder. He looked down and saw three men in a shallow dugout pointing rifles at him, two Kalashnikovs and a Winchester. Goldstein’s thick-lipped jaw dropped and he turned to run, but Zack Hatfield reached up, grabbed the protuberance at his waist and pulled him into the hole.
“What was that?” said Lieutenant Day suddenly, taking the binoculars down.
“What?” asked Hacker.
“I thought I saw something just now,” said Day. “And that guy who went off by himself to take a piss is gone.”
“We have no jurisdiction over civilian personnel, Lieutenant,” snapped Captain Sandoval irritably. “They can relieve themselves where they want.”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Day.
One of the men slapped his hand over Seth’s mouth and the third grabbed and pinioned his arms. Goldstein tried to shriek in pain and terror. He recognized Hatfield, who leaned over him, studying Goldstein’s camel face, his acned skin and fleshy nose and frizzy hair. “A Jew,” Hatfield said, soft and low, his voice filled with loathing. “A goddamned Jew.” Goldstein screamed under the iron hand clamped over his mouth and writhed in terror, knowing that the ancient enemy of his race was upon him and seeing doom in blue eyes as so many of his kind had done before, down through the ages. Hatfield leaned over and cupped Goldstein’s round head in his hands, and whispered the single word “Dresden!” in his ear before snapping his neck like a pretzel. Seth Goldstein kicked and flopped and shit and died. “We don’t dare kick him out,” said Hatfield. “He might be seen.”
“Great, now we have to stand on a dead Jew with shit in his pants,” groused Charlie.
There was a grinding noise from the beach as the S. S. Ventura ground ashore, piling up mounds of dripping sand like gigantic sand castles on either side
of the bow. Zack studied the scene through his binoculars. “My God, they’ve fucked up again!” he hissed in amazement.
“What do you mean?” asked Ekstrom.
“The ship! Look at where it’s come ashore!” said Hatfield, pointing through the sea oats. “I don’t believe it! I just don’t believe it!”
“Right on top of our Semtex IED, our main charge,” said Ekstrom. “If the charge hasn’t been too shaken up and it detonates, we can do enough damage to wreck the loading ramp, and they won’t be able to get their vehicles off. Maybe we can even disable the whole ship!”
“That’s not all,” pointed out Charlie. “Check out the relative positions of the transport and the warship! Everybody to our right down to A Company in the park will have that big hunk of ferryboat between them and the cutter’s guns.”
Zack snatched up his radio. “Queen of Hearts and Pigpen, this is Mountain Man. Listen up. You need to change positions. Get your people down on the ground on the east side of the berm and then move north, cross the road, and take up positions reinforcing Alpha and Bravo companies. This does not apply to Big Boppers and other marksmen. You guys have to stay in place where you are, because we have to cover the kill zone from every angle, so stay low in your blinds and try not to get spotted. Cowboy and Guitar Man, get somebody down to the roadway and guide Charlie and Delta Companies in to your locations. We need to try and keep that ship that just grounded itself between us and the battlewagon, to act as a shield. You got all that, comrades?”
“Got it,” said Sherry Tomczak. “Delta on our way. Queen of Hearts out.”
“Roger, Mountain Man,” said Parmenter.
“We’re running out of time,” said Hatfield. “That monkoid is going to be strutting his stuff off that ship any minute now and once it’s show time we need to be shooting, not running around in the backfield. Move!”
The media people on the beach had backed up a bit and were repositioning their cameras. Posner was talking on his phone with someone inside the vessel. Sue Loomis looked around in awe and pleasure as the golden rays of the rising sun suddenly lit up the beach in soft warm amber light. “Well, I have to admit this will be an impressive byte,” she said. “I might even vote for Rollins myself.”
“What’s the hold-up?” asked Bob Baker.
“Waiting on Fox and CNN live satellite feeds, and once we get those we have to give the copters about four minutes notice,” explained Hastings. “Ah, okay. There was go. We have live feed. Cue the choppers, Leonard?” There was a grinding noise of metal on metal as the loading ramp of the Ventura began to slowly lower itself toward the surf.
“The ship’s loading ramp is starting to come down,” said Hatfield into his radio. “Let’s move it, boys and girls.”
“Cue the choppers,” said Leonard Posner. The three minute delay waiting on the helicopters’ arrival gave the NVA just barely enough time to move off down the far side of the dunes, trot across the road, and then take up new firing positions on the north side of the road, being careful not to be seen. Not that any of the media party were even looking back toward the dunes; all cameras and eyes were on the slowly descending ramp.
“Set,” came the voices of the Third Battalion company commanders.
“Choppers coming inshore, Captain,” said Washburn, looking through his binoculars.
Zack spoke into the radio. “Okay, listen up, Straw Bosses, and pass this on to your troops. I’d lay bets and give odds that bubble-lip Rollins will be first out. After you Big Fifty guys waste him I’m going to pop the top on the daisy chain, after which we open up. But no Mad Minute. Mark your targets, aim, and make every shot count, because this thing may well go on for longer than we anticipated and I don’t want us to run out of ammo. Big Boppers, after you take down that nigger, engage the copters. Try to hit a rotor gear housing or some other vulnerable spot. A .50-cal BMG round can bring down a whirlybird if you hit right, plus if they know they’re being shot at by fifties, they’ll bob and weave and get up high to get out of range. But for now keep your scopes on that beach and lock in on Rollins the minute he shows his nappy head. Fire on my command.”
The roar and flap and whuppa whuppa of the slowly approaching helicopters could be heard above the surf now. The ramp was down. Suddenly a series of large stereophonic speakers mounted on the decks of the Ventura crashed into a thunderous opening with full brass, followed by the thousand voices of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the Coming of the Lord,
He is trampling out the vintage where the Grapes of Wrath are stored,
He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword,
His truth is marching on!
“Aaand . . . . cue General Rollins!” shouted Leonard Posner. Two columns of FATPO men in full body armor, wearing their almost black blue serge Kevlar and cloth and armed with M-16s and light machine guns and grenade launchers, tumbled out of the Ventura’s hold. They formed two files, and between them stepped General Roland Rollins, a huge and powerfully built, very black man with a medium Afro and blinding white teeth.
Rollins was wearing his full FATPO uniform of blue serge, but he was also wearing across his chest and torso a bright red sash of some kind, and over his left pocket sparkled a riotous array of campaign ribbons, six rows of them, none of which Rollins had earned. He had selected them because he liked their colors. They included every Middle Eastern campaign medal, the Vietnam Service medal, a Purple Heart with cluster, a British Distinguished Flying Cross from the Second World War, the Navy submarine service ribbon, and a black ribbon with a black fist in a silver heart that he had designed and made himself. On his right chest were several full medals, including a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, the French Legion of Honor and the Catholic Order of the Sacred Heart. His advisers had finally persuaded him not to wear a Congressional Medal of Honor around his neck. Instead they gave him instead a large jewel-encrusted Maltese Cross of blue and black borrowed from a Hollywood movie set in 19th century Vienna, which meant nothing at all. Some costume designer had made it up. His chest was further covered with gold braided cord and lanyards, again meaning nothing. He was wearing his FATPO uniform cap, dark wrap-around shades, and a corncob pipe was jutting from his mouth.
Charlie Washburn stared at this apparition through his binoculars. “What on earth? Is that Idi Amin or Douglas MacArthur?” he asked, fascinated.
Rollins strode forth energetically through the surf, which reached up to his knees as he stepped off the ramp. His FATPO escorts slogged soggily along with him on either side. The rousing chorus of The Battle Hymn of the Republic thundered overhead. “Ready!” snapped Hatfield into the radio. To the surprise of both Ekstrom and Washburn, Hatfield stepped up out of the dug out and walked several paces toward the beach, upright, totally visible.
All cameras and almost 200 million pairs of eyes around the world were now turned on Roland Rollins as he came to the edge of the beach, took the pipe from his mouth and placed his hands on his hips, bemedaled and beribboned chest thrust forth. He had elected to fracture not one but two famous white men, MacArthur and Julius Caesar, and steal their words as closely as he could. Roland Rollins announced to the world, “I have come, I will see, and I shall conquer!”
Higher up on Sunset Beach, Zack Hatfield raised his radio to his lips and shouted into the handset the command to fire. “Freedom!”
200 million viewers around the globe saw the body of Roland Rollins torn to pieces as five .50-caliber slugs smashed into him, and sent him twirling and whirling head over heels high into the air like a popped balloon, knocking him into the sea where he floated like a sack of gaudy, dirty laundry.
* * *
Roland Rollins died at 5:45 a.m. exactly, or 0545 hours to use military time, just as the golden sunrise flooded the beach with glowing amber light. Among the 200 million viewers who saw him die were Captain Meryl Sandoval and Lieutenant Donald Hacker, who were monitoring the raw feed transmission on the bridge
of the Higby. Both of them stared at the screen as Rollins whirled away into the air flapping like a scarecrow in the wind. Simultaneously they heard a popping and snapping rattle from the shore, almost like a big sheet of cardboard being shredded. On the TV monitor they could see sparks flying on the steel of the ship’s hull and high spatters of sand and water as bullets popped into the beach and the surf. Then the camera was knocked over and all they saw was a stretch of beach and the frothing edge of the incoming tide, with the occasional spurting round strike zipping and splatting. About one minute later a dead hand flopped in front of the camera; there was no way to tell who it belonged to.
0546 hours: “Shore party reports receiving ground fire, Captain,” Lieutenant Hacker said with a snappy salute that only a dunce would not have recognized as sarcastic contempt. “Looks like there was something waiting for us on that beach besides sand dollars after all, ma’am. And you sailed right into it. Congratulations.”
Sandoval had sense enough to keep her cool, understanding that right now she needed to get out of this crisis before devoting the rest of her career to exculpating herself and nailing Hacker’s hide to the hatchway door. She snatched up the radio handset, and called for the bridge of the beleaguered ferry. “Ventura, this is Captain Sandoval,” she said. “Captain Mulvaney, what is your situation?”
“Our situation is there’s a lot of people on the beach shooting at us,” replied Mulvaney in a dry voice. “Mostly small arms so far, although someone just blew off the bow capstan with an RPG.” Sandoval and Hacker could hear clangs and ricochets, and they could tell that the bridge was taking bullets. “Not that we’ll need any of our anchors, since for some strange reason I seem to have deliberately run my own ship aground, against all common sense and thousands of years of basic seamanship. Now I wonder what black jackass ordered me to do that? And what Coast Guard she-jackass wouldn’t back me up when I tried to explain to him what a stupid thing that was to do?”
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