Kat came in with her brown eyes blazing.
“What do you mean I’m not going along. Do you see me limping? Can I hold my arms over my head? Why the hell are you grounding me because of a little scratch?”
Murdock laughed. He couldn’t help it. She stood there with her fists set on her slender hips, and that stretched her khaki shirt tight across her breasts. Her face was flushed and wreathed in a tight little frown.
“Don’t laugh at me, Murdock. It makes me all the madder.”
He recovered enough to get his voice working. “Hey, Kat, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that is exactly the same thing I’ve had a dozen SEALs say to me over the years. Which makes you a SEAL more than you know. You’re thinking SEAL now, even with a shot-up leg and a shoulder wound that’s going to leave a scar. Now, SEAL, drop and give me fifty push-ups.”
Kat gave a long sigh. “Murdock, you know I can’t do that with this fucking shoulder. But that doesn’t mean I can’t jump in with you to Damascus and spike that warhead just the way we did before.”
“We are jumping, SEAL. It will be a HALO operation. That’s a thirty-one-thousand-foot free fall, and it’s going to be cold enough to freeze your nipples off. Why in hell would you want to go?”
“Sir, it’s my job, sir.” She shouted the words, and it made half the platoon turn and look at her. A cheer started halfway down the room, and then exploded all over the place.
“Come on, Cap, let the SEAL go and jump,” somebody called.
“Yeah, besides, I don’t want to be anywhere in Syria if you’re gonna play with that nuke warhead,” Canzoneri yelled.
Kat’s frown faded. She turned and looked at the SEALs. A huge grin blossomed, and through the grin she felt tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Line up, you assholes, I want to hug all of you,” Kat bellowed in a good imitation of a chief’s parade-ground voice. The SEALs responded by cheering and clapping. At last, Murdock pushed up his fist into the air. The room quieted at once.
“Kat, walk over to the door and back.”
She did, wiping away tears of pure joy and waving at the SEALs. She walked without a trace of a limp.
“Now, Kat. Run to the far end of the room and run back.”
Kat did, with only as slight limp on the way back.
Murdock stood there frowning, his arms crossed protectively in front of him. Kat took up the same stance, staring hard at him.
“Kat, you promise me you won’t get shot again, and you’re on the manifest.”
A whoop of delight came from the SEALs, and they waved at Kat and went back to getting their gear ready.
“Now, SEAL, you better get into the proper uniform for the jump. We only have another hour here. Move it.”
Kat grinned and ran toward her quarters to change into desert cammies.
When Murdock had his gear ready, he went to talk to the admiral, who put down the phone as Murdock came to a braced attention in front of his desk.
“At ease, Commander. Sit. We have a C-130 from Rome. It took off twenty minutes ago and should be here in about two hours. We’ll do turnaround service on it and she’ll be ready to go. You’ll want a night drop?”
“Yes, sir. As early after dark as possible. Flight time from here to our DZ should be about two and half hours.”
“What our people figured. Dark this time of year in this zone is around seven o’clock. You’ll be over hostile territory for about fifty miles or six or seven minutes.”
“Let’s have takeoff from here at 1630. That should work, sir.”
“Sounds good to me, Commander. I’ll issue the orders and we’ll get you airborne.”
“What about the Chinese ship, sir?”
“She’s doing a turtle on us. She hasn’t shown her true colors. She’s anchored off a small island in the Aegean Sea about a hundred miles from here. Trying a waiting game. I don’t know why, unless she’s hoping we’ll relax our CAP over her. No chance another chopper is going to get near her.”
“Maybe by the time we’re back from Syria things will have changed. If not we’ll figure out what to do.”
“Good hunting over there, Commander Murdock. I wish we had better intel for you, but you do have one contact. You’ll be in a big-city situation again. Damascus has about two million people.”
“We’ll put on our city manners, sir.” Murdock stood. “If there’s nothing else, Admiral.”
“Dismissed, Commander, and good luck.”
Murdock charged back to the quarters that NATO had made available to them. They had plenty of time before liftoff.
Kat came back ten minutes later dressed and ready. She began to work on her gear, and at once four SEALs came to help her.
“Thanks, guys. I really need this.” Her eyes had lost the anger, and now her face showed excitement, anticipation, and a little bit of fear.
“At least we won’t be jumping into a combat zone,” she said. “I mean, nobody is going to shoot at us as we come down in our chutes.”
“If we’re lucky,” Jack Mahanani said.
Alpha Squad stood around kibitzing. They had just had their turn, and maybe lost a man doing it. Now Bravo would go in on a one-squad operation.
Murdock had changed the weapons assignments. He selected five Bull Pups, one sniper rifle, one 21-E machine gun, and three MP-S5D submachine guns.
An hour before flight time, De Witt had the squad in formation in the workroom and checked them. He made sure the men had the right ammo for their weapons. The Bull Pup shooters each had thirty rounds, a real load of the huge 20mm rounds.
“Anybody not happy with his assigned weapon?” DeWitt asked. Murdock and Kat were at the end of the squad. Kat held up her hand.
“Sir, I’d rather have a Bull Pup,” she said, grinning.
“Sure and two hundred rounds of ammo,” somebody yelped. They all laughed.
“Any other real questions?” DeWitt asked. There were none. “Okay, take a break. We get on the bus to go to the airfield in twenty minutes.”
A half hour later, the SEALs and Kat rattled around in the huge hold of the C-130 like ten peas in a giant peapod. Some of them sat in the fold-down seats along the sides. Three were sacked out on some moving padding blankets on the floor.
It was DeWitt’s operation. Murdock would act as another gun for him, and give advice if asked for it. If they had to split up, he’d con half the force. DeWitt had just come back from the cockpit, where he’d talked with the Air Force captain flying the big plane.
“Captain Rothkind says he’s been on this run before, but with just two CIA guys. He says the best place to jump is about twenty miles from Damascus. Any closer than that and there are suburbs all over the place. He suggests we come down in the countryside out a ways and then make our way into town. That way nobody should report our coming.”
“Agreed,” Murdock said.
“The loadmaster said we’d be using the side doors for jumping, not the fold-down hatch on the back. We’ll hook up just the same and half the squad goes out each side door.”
“Somehow it isn’t the same,” Murdock said, remembering that heart-throttling moment of the first step into space from the ramp.
“Gets the job done,” DeWitt said, and went to check on a loose strap he saw on one of the men.
Kat sat beside Murdock. Her eyes still held the same snap and lightning charge they’d had when she was packing.
“This better than tearing down nose cones in some subbasement somewhere?” Murdock asked.
“A lot better, yes. This is so much more important, vital to the safety and well-being of the world.”
“It’s good to see that there are still some optimists in the world who believe that the good, not the most powerful, will win the day. Now, on the practical side, we’ll be up all night. Might be a good idea to grab a couple hours of sleep.” Murdock frowned. “Oh, you have done free fall before, haven’t you?”