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  “I don’t think that Ojo,” Portnoy answered, “will be where you’re operating. As for Abu Alhaul, he was last located in the Ivory Coast, but I think he has his hands full avoiding Ojo, who has been reported to have said something about finishing his mission when Abu Alhaul’s head is on a stake.”

  “What type of wood does he want?”

  * * *

  Tucker picked up the M-4 carbine and for the umpteenth time checked the weapon. He hadn’t fired it and wouldn’t know the reliability of the weapon until he was in-country and traipsing through the bush and jungle of the Ivory Coast with three others who also had no way of knowing if every weapon would function properly. Collins, Brute, and Ricard were doing the same. Collins was putting his Carbine back together. It was that prior Army training that taught the master chief how to break a weapon to its bare bones and then slap it back together as if it had just come out of the factory. Master Chief Collins stood, propped his Carbine against the bulkhead of the forecastle, and disappeared inside the skin of the ship.

  “The M-4 okay with you, Master Chief?”

  “It’s better than the M-16, but not as good as the AK-47.”

  “Why you say that?”

  “I wish I could say the M-16 was as good as the AK-47 or the M-4 Carbine. You drop the AK-47 in a swamp, you can reach in, grab it, and come up shooting. You get a little dirt on the M-16 and she jams. You got to grease her like a pig to keep the dirt out, and all time you worry when she’ll stop firing — not if, but when. The term ‘piece of shit’ springs to mind.”

  “I think you’ll like the M-4. Lightweight, reliable, and, if we’re lucky, you’ll never have to discover how effective it is.”

  Tucker had offered Brute an M-50 machine gun only to discover neither he nor Ricard were familiar enough with the heavy weapon to ensure they could properly set it up and fire it. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t trained on it, just that the training was rudimentary, with just enough instruction so they could pass the Marine Corps defensive training course. The Seabees trained with the M-50 mounted on an anchored tripod so the weapon remained pointed in the right direction. SEAL training had the M-50 operator cradling the heavy weapon, firing it while on the move. If you haven’t handled a free-wheeling M-50 cradled in your arms, spitting out hundreds of .50 caliber bullets a minute, it could be as dangerous for your friends as it was for the enemy.

  Luckily, they did know how to operate the high-tech automatic grenade launcher mounted on the M-4 Carbine. He was pleased to discover the Seabees had used night vision devices so the PVS-14 technology, though vastly superior to the Seabee device, was familiar. The information technicians from the radio shack departed a few minutes ago after giving the three Seabees a brief training on the use of whisper microphones so the four of them could talk without shouting to each other. Tucker reached up and moved the mouthpiece away slightly. He had had the cams removed from the helmets. He wanted the mouthpieces removed also because he did not intend to use them. For this mission, he was going to keep the four of them close together; close enough that they wouldn’t need the mouthpiece. The ITs explained it would take too long to remove the mouthpieces, but they showed Tucker how to turn them off.

  The cameras were an unnecessary weight. There was no motherboard to watch their progress and no recording device to save anything they saw for posterity. He wished they could use the cams. There’s no substitute for evidenceyou weren’t doing something wrong when you discover yourself standing in front of the green table of unsmiling investigators.

  Ricard squatted on the deck in front of an open box about the size of Admiral Holman’s humidor. This was the C4 to blow the French aircraft. Tucker watched for a moment as the man ran his slender fingers across the top of the plastique. Tucker had already checked to ensure the contents of the box was the plastique explosives before he turned it over to Ricard. He had checked every item they were taking — he mentally crossed his fingers — or hoped he had. What if I didn’t check everything? Then who would he complain to when they arrived at the mission area to discover something else in the C4 box, such as meals-ready-to-eat; MREs — which in their own way could be deadly. No, on this mission he checked everything as if he were going alone, which wasn’t far from the truth. This checking and rechecking gave Tucker a little jump in confidence that they may actually have a chance of returning, but the roiling dragon of uncertainty never ceased reminding him of the odds stacked against them. How can you do a mission with less than twenty percent of the information you needed? A twenty-percent chance was what he would give a mission where they had no opportunity to prepare. “Hey, you four! Yeah, you four! Here’s a gun each. Now, get on that helicopter, fly into unknown jungle in the middle of the night, locate that damn enemy aircraft, and get yore asses back on board before morning. You hear? When you get back, we’ll have some scrambled eggs waiting. By the way, here’s telephone numbers for yellow cabs in the event we can’t reach ya. Have a nice Navy day, Shipmates!”

  Brute reached up, grabbed the web gear on Ricard, and jerked the man back and forth. “Good job, Petty Officer Ricard,” the giant said, his voice serious. “I think you might just be able to move at a fast walk with all that shit strapped to you.”

  Ricard slapped Brute’s hands away good-naturedly. “If you don’t kill me first.” He straightened the vest.

  “You gonna sweat like a pig with that on, you know,” Brute said with a smile. “And, it isn’t as if you have a lot of body fat to sweat away.”

  Tucker smiled at the exchange. A little over two hours since they departed that gone-to-hell airfield the Seabees were repairing and improving. Hell! They improved it by moving into it. He’d say half their mission was done.

  “What do you prefer? Petty Officer McIntosh or ‘Brute’?”

  The man shrugged. “Whatever the commander wants to call me is fine, sir,” he drawled, “as long as he doesn’t call me late for lunch.”

  Tucker detected a slight nasal twang of North Carolina in the man’s voice. You had to live in the south to detect the various dialects of the overall Southern dialect. Trying to imitate a southern accent was something few did well.

  Master Chief Collins stepped back onto the flight deck through the watertight door in the forecastle of the USS Mesa Verde. He reached behind him, swung the lever down sealing the door, and then started walking toward them.

  “I’ll call you Brute.”

  “Okay, sir. I’ll call you Commander.”

  Tucker looked toward the approaching master chief. Beneath the bright glare of the flight deck lights, Tucker saw a slight smile on the man’s face. He thought, Collins is enjoying this too much.

  Without pausing, the master chief diverted slightly, reached down, and grabbed his Carbine with his right hand as he passed. Still heading their way, he shifted the weight of the weapon so the stock cradled in his right hand. What’s that? Tucker asked himself silently? Across Collins’s chest was a black strap with several grenades attached to it. Where did he come up with that? The master chief had a leather belt running from his right shoulder to his cammie belt line where it strapped to the web belt.

  He started to say something, but instead kept quiet. Tucker made a mental note to advise the master chief to take that homemade thing off before they boarded the helicopter. All they’d need would be one of those grenades to have a pin jerked out. What was it that Marine Corps gunnery sergeant had told him? “When the pin is out, Mr. Grenade is not your friend.” Tucker reached up and tugged on his own web gear. He did a quick visual inspection of the two sailors.

  If nothing else, the four of them were dressed identically, wearing jungle camouflaged battle dress utilities. With the exception of the master chief, everyone else wore the Navy SEAL web gear designed to disperse the load of the various accessories they were carrying, such as canteen, flashlight, radio, ammo, and grenades.

  Tucker turned his attention back to Brute and Ricard. Ricard squatted and shut the top on the C4. The explosive expe
rt scooped up the blasting caps and jammed them into his pocket, causing Tucker to wince over the nonchalant way the man handled the miniature explosive devices. C4 exploded by being triggered through a smaller explosion. The blasting caps provided a small explosion slightly larger than the biggest firecracker.

  Ricard stood, saw the expression on Tucker’s face, and smiled. “Not to worry, sir,” he said, patting the pocket jammed with blasting caps. “They’re safe as long as you know what you’re doing.”

  Tucker opened his mouth to protest, but Ricard held up his hand and continued, “And, sir, I know what I’m doing.”

  Tucker hoped he did. “Hoping” isn’t what I want to use for calibrating the success of a mission. “Okay, gents, for this mission, you call me anything but Commander. Call me Raleigh. I’ll call you Brute and you—”

  “Stud,” Ricard interrupted.

  Tucker shook his head. “Stud? Don’t you think it might be distracting for us in the middle of gunfight to be referring to you as ‘Stud?’ How about ‘Turkey?’”

  Brute laughed. “I think ‘Turkey’ captures Petty Officer Ricard’s personality perfectly, sir.”

  Ricard’s chin dropped. “Oh, sir—”

  “I wouldn’t insult the turkey that way, Commander. Benjamin Franklin always believed the turkey should’ve been our national bird. I wouldn’t want to offend this father of our country,” Master Chief Collins added.

  “Master Chief—” Ricard said, shaking his head. “Turkey? I don’t even eat turkey at Thanksgiving. Man, oh, man,” he said with exaggerated shakes of his head from side to side.

  “Just call him Ricard, sir,” Collins added.

  For the first time since the four had been thrown together to go on a mission that might determine the future of America as a superpower, they laughed together. Laughter is universal glue for a bonded team, but even the strongest bonded team had to have the right skills with an intrinsic appreciation of each member’s capabilities. They didn’t have that, and every one of them knew it.

  “We could call you Horny,” Brute said, smiling from ear to ear. “Because you’ve never gotten any.”

  “Oh, man, you don’t know shit, do you?” Ricard laughed, putting his hand against Brute’s shoulder and pushing hard. Brute didn’t budge an inch. It was like shoving against a brick wall with the off-balance push nearly causing Ricard to fall before he caught his balance. “Shit man, why don’t you lose some weight?”

  The door swung open again and Captain Xavier Bennett emerged. The Marine Corps sentry, who accompanied the skipper of the Mesa Verde everywhere, closed the watertight door before quickly catching up and taking position to the left of his skipper. The presence of a Marine with the senior officer and with flag officers aboard major combatants of the United States Navy was a tradition bound in hundreds of years from when the presence of the Marine was to protect the “old man” from mutineers.

  “Commander,” Captain Bennett said as he approached.

  “Attention on deck!” Collins shouted.

  The four of them, along with the supply personnel inventorying the backpacks, snapped to attention.

  “Stand at ease,” Bennett said.

  Behind them, the engines of the CH-53 Super Stallion began to turn, the engine noise rising in volume as the revolutions increased, drowning out normal conversation. A cloud of oily exhaust rolled across the deck, enveloping them for a moment, bringing tears to their eyes before the wind carried it off. Ricard coughed a couple of times before his coughing turned into a spasm.

  Brute grabbed his shipmate by the shoulder. “Where is it?” he shouted above the noise. Ricard tapped a pocket on the top left sleeve of the cammie shirt. Brute unzipped it, pulled a breath applicator from it, and handed it to Ricard, who quickly uncapped it, shoved the open end into his mouth, and took several deep breaths from the fine mist into his lungs. The man turned away, his coughing easing, as the air cleared and the medicine worked its magic.

  Tucker shut his eyes, thinking, I hope my military insurance is up-to-date.

  Bennett leaned down to Tucker’s ear. “Tucker, be careful out there!” he shouted.

  Tucker opened his eyes and turned slightly toward Bennett, who continued, “You know the rules. I can’t come with force to extract you. If I can’t do it without some level of confidence of success, then you’re going to have to make it to the sea or back into Liberia.”

  Tucker patted the top left-hand pocket of his cammies. “Yes, sir. I have a road map of Liberia.” Then, he patted the radio pouch hanging from the waist strap of his web gear. “And, I have an M-bitter radio.” “M-bitter” was slang for MBITR, which stood for multi-band inter/intra team radio; a radio designed for Special Forces — type operations. It weighed less than three pounds and operated in the low frequency ranges for distance and directivity. Tucker nodded at the other three members of his team. “Unfortunately, Captain, this is the only M-bitter we had on board. Let’s hope it works.”

  An information technician standing nearby interrupted. “Commander, I personally tested the MBITR, and it works, sir. The battery is fully charged, and you should be good for forty-eight hours unless you decide to talk on it constantly.”

  “Should be good?”

  “Will be good, sir.”

  Bennett’s eyebrows bunched. After a couple of seconds he replied, “We could outfit the others with some of our aviation survival radios.” He looked at the IT. “Sailor, you think you can scrounge up three survival radios for the other three?”

  “Yes, sir,” the sailor replied, taking off at a trot toward the forecastle.

  “At least if something goes wrong the survival radios will pinpoint your location for rescue.”

  Tucker nodded. The last thing he wanted was for the three to have survival radios. Survival radios broadcast on the international search-and-rescue frequencies. Everyone monitored those mayday frequencies, including the French. He reminded himself to make sure those survival radios were ditched, disabled, or left behind before they reached their destination.

  “Thanks, sir,” Tucker said.

  Tucker started his inspection tour, as he called it. Never go into combat confident you’d done everything you needed to do and that you had the proper gear to do it. Inspect, inventory, and then reinspect and double-check the inventory. Once in-country, it was too late to remember you forgot something.

  Tucker was finishing with the master chief, leaning close and telling Collins to remove those grenades before they boarded the helicopter, when the information technician returned with three survival radios.

  The sailor passed them out to Collins, Ricard, and McIntosh.

  Bennett nodded at the sailor, who turned and quickly walked away, leaving the five of them alone.

  “I think we’re ready, Skipper,” Tucker said. He glanced down at his web belt, checking again the radio, canteen, knife, ammo clips.

  “That’s very good, Commander.” Bennett turned to the other three. “Master Chief, all the best. And I want you to know I feel better about this mission with you going along,” Bennett said, shaking hands all around.

  Bennett said a few inaudible words to the other two, while shaking hands. The deck vibrated slightly from the helicopter waiting to transport them to the unknown. Tucker felt the familiar tingle of excitement of heading into an operation. He welcomed it like an old friend in this jumble of a mission. The tingle would stay until they left the helo and started their mission. Until then, trepidation — a sense of foreboding — would accompany him. He shouted to the other three and motioned them toward the helicopter. If he had someone else readily available to replace Ricard he would. He knew why the young sailor was a Seabee explosive expert instead of an EOD — asthmatic conditions. Can’t very well dive beneath the waves or jump from aircraft if you’re going to have a coughing fit every time you hit an environmental change. EOD and Navy SEALs required good lungs.

  It wasn’t thought with malice, but as a fact of survival. There was no sympath
y to the physical requirements of surviving a covert combat operation. He mentally crossed his fingers and speculated for a moment that they may actually do the mission and never encounter anyone; but in the back of his mind, he knew they would.

  Tucker reached up, grabbed the sides of the helo doors, and hoisted himself inside the low fuselage of the CH-53. He bent around to look back toward Captain Bennett. Their eyes met and locked for several seconds before Tucker turned without either of them acknowledging the contact. In that moment, Tucker realized the Navy captain never expected them to return. Must be the first time sending men into battle knowing you’re sending them to their death?

  He shoved his backpack under the web seat. Sitting down, he balanced his Carbine for a moment as he strapped in. Guess he’d never know how that felt, because when he sent warriors into harm’s way he always sent them with theknowledge they had an overwhelming edge for success, he thought. This was not the case this time.

  Ten minutes later, the Super Stallion lifted off from the steady flight deck of the pier side of the USS Mesa Verde. It rocked side to side for several seconds as if the pilots were testing the flight controls, and then it began to rise. Moments later the black helicopter passed above the lighted flight deck and merged with the moonless African night, the noise of its engines the only indication of its presence. The noise faded as the helicopter turned north as if it intended to parallel the Liberia — Ivory Coast border. Inside, Tucker collected the survival radios, checked to make sure they were off, and pushed them under a nearby seat. Otherwise, they were one last thing to derail the mission.