"A garrote?" Vuylsteke asked.
"Shit, you done this before?" Tretter asked.
"No, of course not." She paused, lifted her brows. "Yes, once. Man tried to rape me. Surprised him from behind. Not too hard to do when man is drunk."
Perez grinned. "Gonna be an interesting night."
She put their hats on, checked them, and then led the way out of the apartment. It was fully dark by then. They went down the same alley they had come up three days ago, along the first street toward the waterfront, then stayed a block from the waterfront until they came to a row of small drinking houses.
"Lots soldiers," she said.
"Only three of us," Tretter said.
She shushed him. "Tretter and me go inside. I bring out one horny soldier. Let him feel me. I say sex in alley. He be half drunk and come down alley with me. We do him there, put in trash box."
Vuylsteke squinted and watched the small woman. She was serious. She must have thought it out in the past three days. Yes, it would work.
"You going back in there for number two and three?" Perez asked.
"No. Go to next bar. Same way. Come." She placed them thirty yards into the alley behind the gin mill. It was as dark as a fifty-foot ocean night dive.
"Stay," she said.
Tretter handed Vuylsteke something and left with Pita. Vuylsteke knew what it was, a six-inch steak knife from the kitchen. He showed it to Perez.
"Yeah, I got me a butcher knife, too. Who's got my thirty-two?"
Vuylsteke said he did, and they waited.
At the door, Tretter knew why he was with Pita. No unescorted women were allowed. They went in. Then she drifted away, sat at a rough bar, and within five minutes had soldiers in uniform sitting on each side of her. She whispered something to the smaller of the two, and slid off the stool and headed for the door. The larger Kenyan ranger swore in Swahili, and the smaller one went out the door two steps behind Pita.
Tretter waited a full minute, then left his drink and went outside. Pita wasn't in sight. He ran to the alley and looked down. He saw only three shadows. Someone grunted, then gave a short, sharp cry before it was all silent again.
Tretter moved up slowly, and saw the two sailors lift a body and drop it in a big trash box. They threw some cardboard boxes in on top of it.
Vuylsteke had blood on his hands. He touched Pita.
"Enough," he said. "An eye for an eye. One body for one body. That's all we help you with. We're going back to your place. We can get away with one kill. Three and the Army would be down here tearing half the buildings apart looking. We listened to the radio. It says there are ten U.S. sailors missing from the captured ship. We can't afford an all-out search. They'd shoot you as well as us if they found us in your place."
She pulled away from his grasp. Tretter saw the determination in her face. "Hey, Pita. I think the big guy is right. You have your revenge. No sense getting yourself killed. Let's go back and see what happens the next couple of days. We still want to get you that visa to America. Might even be able to get enough cash together for an airline ticket one way to New York."
Her face remained angry, then faded to stern. After a few moments she turned and walked back toward her apartment. They moved with her, three shadows trailing behind in the dark street.
In her apartment again, the four looked at each other. Vuylsteke washed the blood off his hands. Perez took out the butcher knife and began washing blood from it.
Pita screamed. She rushed him and knocked the knife from his hand, then grasped the handle, leaned it against the floor and the cabinet, and stomped against it with her shoe. The blade snapped in half.
"No enemy blood on one of my knives," she said, her voice wavering with anger. "I'll never use that blade again. Throw it out. Throw it into the alley."
Perez had jumped back when she grabbed the knife. He looked at Vuylsteke, who nodded. He picked up the two halves of the knife and went out the door.
"In my country, no knife that has touched enemy's blood can ever be used for anything else. It killing knife. Not used in kitchen. An old custom." She sighed. "Maybe we not as civilized as we think."
11
Murdock had checked over each man in his squad, as had DeWitt. Everyone had double the usual load of ammo for his weapon. Magic Brown would have the drag bag for the big M88 .50-caliber sniper rifle.
They had their extra ammo and gear in waterproof equipment bags that were stashed in the IBSs and lashed down. Murdock paced the deck near where they would launch the Inflatable Boats Small.
"I'm forgetting something," he said half to himself.
Holt looked up. "Hey, not me, L-T, I'm here."
Murdock chuckled. "Indeed you are. We're going to need lots of communications if we make this one work right. We brought a backup SATCOM, didn't we?"
"Yeah, we always do. Never needed it before."
"We just might this time. Get it from our stash of supplies and put it in a tow bag. We can have a spare if things get hot. Maybe let somebody in Second Squad carry it."
"Yeah, L-T. Be right back."
Murdock checked everyone again. Then he looked over his second in command, Ed DeWitt. "Now you check me out, DeWitt," Murdock said. He did. Murdock paced. He wasn't nervous. Not really. Or maybe he was, but just didn't realize it. He'd been here and done this a few times before. He still had an unsettled feeling. Anything could go wrong. That was why he wanted the second radio. "Who's worked a radio before?" he asked the rest of the platoon. "I have," Willy Bishop said.
"Good. You worked the AN-PRC-117D?"
"The SATCOM, sure."
"You're elected. You'll pack the second SATCOM in case we need it. You'll be backup. It will be preset to the air-cover frequency."
"Yeah, no sweat."
Holt came in with the radio, and Murdock told him to take it to Bishop. They talked a minute.
"L-T, it's time," Jaybird said.
Murdock nodded. "Let's get these tubs in the water and move out."
They launched from a small platform hanging down from a hatch just above the water. The Indian Ocean was almost calm.
Three minutes after their 2000 target time, everyone and all the equipment was loaded in the two IBSs and they pushed away from the mountain of a ship.
"It always looks so damn big from down here," Fernandez said.
"It's fucking huge, always has been," Ted Yates said, then looked toward shore.
They were a little over four miles out, just beyond visibility from land. Murdock had been given a course to set with his plotting board, and angled that way. The two boats kept close to each other, never more than ten yards apart as the muffled outboard motors purred. They could move the IBSs at a top speed of eighteen knots.
These IBSs had the smaller thirty-five hp engine, and with an eighteen-gallon fuel tank they had a range of sixty-five nautical miles.
Murdock led with Horse Ronson on the tiller. They kept the speed to ten knots as they approached land. That would drop to five or less as they entered the harbor. These IBSS, also called CRRCs or Combat Rubber Raiding Craft, were black and inflated in pockets so one rifle bullet wouldn't sink them. At night they were hard to see, invisible to the best radar. With the dark-clad SEALs low in the craft, they could slip into most harbors without being spotted.
After fifteen minutes of powering toward shore, Murdock figured they had covered about two and a half miles. Now they could see a few shore lights along the mainland. The city of Mombasa was mainly on an island over six miles long and half that wide. The channel they wanted led up the left or west side of the island. They would stay in the middle of the channel to avoid detection.