“About time,” the Santana’s skipper shouted back from the bridge wing. “Acknowledge the message and advise all hands that we are recovering the landing party. And turn that damn noise off!”
The electrician’s mate operating the loudspeaker system hit the power switch, and the tooth-rattling howl of gas turbines and lift fans cut off abruptly. Now from landward they could hear the clatter of machine-gun fire and the crack of rifle shots.
“Radar—” The Captain started to yell over the now silent speaker system, then caught himself. “Radar, what’s the position on those Union gunboats?”
“Range seven thousand yards and closing, sir. Heading one seven five. Speed ten knots. Plot established.”
“It slowed them down some when we kicked in our electronic countermeasures,” the Patrol Craft’s exec commented.
“Uh-huh,” his skipper grunted. “They don’t want to run headlong into anything while they’re radar blind.”
“It’s only a matter of time before they get a burn-through, or pick us up visually. What happens then?”
“Hopefully we’ll be the hell out of here before the subject comes up. Give the gun mounts another nudge, Joey. We or the Marines may be needing them here in a second.”
“Captain,” the wheelhouse talker broke in once more. “The landing party reports they are off the beach.”
The PC lay with her port side to the coast and her bow aimed to the south, ready to haul clear at a moment’s notice. Stepping to the port-side bridge windows, her skipper and the exec lifted night-bright binoculars to their eyes.
The Marine boats had already cleared the surf line, the rhythmic trudge of the paddlemen becoming apparent as they drove their small craft closer to the mother ship. But also apparent were dark figures dashing down onto the beach the rafts had just departed — figures that dropped prone or knelt to aim weapons.
“Bow and stern mounts!” The Captain didn’t bother with the intermediary of the talker. He relied on his own lungs. “Targets on the beach! Engage antipersonnel! Open fire!”
At the Mark 96 over and unders, gunners flipped their weapon and sight selectors to grenade launcher mode and depressed the butterfly triggers. The chunkers coughed out their loads and low-velocity 40mm rounds arced across to the beach. A double string of explosions walked across the sand, catching and freezing human silhouettes in the strobe flash of shell bursts — silhouettes that distorted under the impact of concussion and fragmentation.
“This is going to point us out to those Union gunboats, sir,” the exec warned.
“Can’t be helped, Joey. Those Marines can either shoot back or paddle, and right now we need them paddling.”
Another shadow shape lunged out onto the beach, this one massive and angular, a Panhard AML armored car crashing through the scrubwood tangle from the roadway, its 90mm gun elevating and indexing for a target.
There was no need for a command to shift targets. The Navy gunners toggled over from grenade launcher to auto cannon without missing a trigger pull. The hot, flat tracer streams of the 25mm Bushmasters converged on the Union fighting vehicle. White sparks danced on the Panhard’s hull and turret, penetrator impacts, each spark marking a hole punched through armor plate. Unable to cope with the torment, the Panhard fireballed, the thud of its explosion echoing offshore.
“Captain,” the radar operator called. “Union gunboat squadron increasing speed to twenty knots. Five thousand yards and closing!”
“How long until we’re within effective firing range?”
“We’re already in range, sir!”
As if in response to the operator’s words, a yellow ball of flame streaked overhead from stern to bow. A 40mm tracer round fired from a Union bow chaser.
“Aft mount! Shift to surface targets astern! Engage as you bear! Fire countermeasures! Full spectrum!”
The Santana’s Mark 52 RBOC launchers hurled grenade clusters overhead. Bursting, they rained down radar-scrambling metallic chaff and dense streamers of multispectral smoke. Another few precious minutes of confusion and concealment gained.
Maybe enough. The rubber raiding craft were nuzzling against the side of the PC, like a row of piglets against the flank of a sow.
“Get those men aboard! For crissakes, move! Move!”
The overheating barrels of the Mark 96 mounts glowed dull red in the chemical haze. Navy hands knelt along the railings, helping to haul Marines up and over the lip of the deck. Wild rifle slugs fired from shore snapped overhead or ricocheted off topside fittings. A wheelhouse window shattered. Someone screamed in agony as a bullet found flesh.
“Range two thousand five hundred, sir! Closing fast!”
Astern, the Union gunboats fired steadily now, pumping blind shell streams into the smoke screen that blanketed the PC. Spray jetted from the sea and the night stank of fear and cordite.
“Captain. All members of the landing party are aboard, sir!”
“Confirm that!”
“Confirmed, sir. All hands present and accounted for! Recovering boats—”
“Screw the boats! Cut ’em loose! Helmsman, all engines ahead emergency! Get us out of here!”
Turbocharged diesels roared as throttles slammed forward against their stops. Santana lunged ahead, the water boiling beneath her settling stern as she pulled away.
“Countermeasures, fire second salvo! Helm, keep that smoke between us and the Union squadron! Radar, what are they doing back there?”
“Standing on, Captain. They’re maintaining course and speed.”
The Captain glanced at the iron log on the control console. Forty knots. “Let ’em.”
Two minutes later, the Union gunboat group tore through the dissipating barrier of smoke and chaff. They sought their foe, but found only a drifting cluster of abandoned rafts and a dissipating wake angling out to sea.
“General! Messages from both Captain Mosabe and the commander of the Mobile Force company. The Americans have disengaged! They’re retreating!”
“Retreating!” Belewa’s brows lifted incredulously. “What do you mean, retreating?”
“The American landing force has withdrawn from the coast, General,” the jubilant radioman replied. “Captain Mosabe reports he and his squadron are continuing pursuit of the landing ship. Reports are coming in from the northern sector that the U.N. diversionary actions are breaking off as well. All enemy forces are withdrawing from the coast.”
“And what of the hovercraft? We had a fix on them in the southern sector near the landing site. Where are they now? Do we still have contact with the American hovercraft group?”
“No contact currently reported with the hovercraft group, sir.”
Belewa gripped at the edge of the track’s map table like a man dazed. “No,” he murmured, staring unseeing at the white-painted interior bulkhead. “That isn’t right.”
Sako slapped his commander on the back. “What’s the matter, Obe? Can’t you hear the man? We’ve beaten them!”
“No!” Belewa’s shout rang within the steel interior of the vehicle. “There is something wrong! She would have fought!” Belewa spun around. “Don’t you see!” he cried, gripping his chief of staff by the shoulders. This was too easy! If this had been the true battle, she would have fought. The Leopard would have fought us, Sako! This was another diversion!”
Outside in the night, an evil-toned whispering whine became perceptible.
“Recall the mobile force! Recall the gunboats! Immediately!”
The radio operators grabbed for their hot mikes. But before they could kick in their transmitters, the squalling wail of high-intensity cascade jamming blared from the speakers.