“Yes, sir.”
Belewa stepped out of the fuggy interior of the Styre and stood on the lowered tail ramp. Looking up at the sky, he let the rain cool his face, wishing it could also cool the fevered thoughts in his mind. He had lost the initiative and he was losing the battle. He could sense it. Bit by bit, the Leopard was hooking away his control with deft claws. She laughed at him, taunting, dancing always just out of his reach as she worked to steal his kingdom.
Thank God for the rain. It hid the tears of frustration and rage from his men.
“General!” Atiba appeared in the rear hatch. “Northern sector reports one of their outpost squads has disappeared. Also that one of the breakwater patrols is overdue. They are investigating—”
Belewa spun around to face his chief of staff. “To hell with that! We know what’s happening. They’re already inside! Get through to Payne Field any way you can. Tell them to launch that gunship! Get it out here! Then order the reserve company down to the oiling pier! Reinforce the inner perimeter and get me the guard commander aboard the tanker!”
“Yes, sir!” Atiba disappeared back into the command track’s interior, snapping commands to its crew. He returned after only a moment. “General, there is no response on the tanker landline!”
From the direction of the oiling pier came a sudden, muffled crackle of gunshots. More weapons joined in a few moments later, sharper, more piercing discharges building in a rising crescendo of automatic fire.
“They’re trying to board the tanker,” Atiba exclaimed wildly, staring out into the night.
Belewa instinctively gauged the volumes and angles of the discharges. “No… No, they’re already aboard the tanker! Sako! Fire full illumination. Then order every man we’ve got to converge on the oiling pier! Every man!”
Yanking the Browning Hi Power from his belt holster, Belewa ran in the direction of the growing firefight.
Monitoring her own end of the tactical net, Amanda heard Quillain’s cry of “We are blown! We are blown!” and knew that the operation had just run out of grace time. She couldn’t hear the gunfire at first over the chugging rumble of the tug’s engines. But other indications of the Union response swiftly became apparent.
Flare rockets and mortar-launched star shells arced out over the harbor and burst, cracking open the night with their glare. Amanda’s night-vision visor overloaded, and impatiently she yanked it away from her eyes. She also reached instinctively for the running light switch, then hesitated. There would be no cover of darkness now anyway, and perhaps the Union defenders had yet to realize that two of their vessels had been hijacked.
“Stone, do you copy?” To hell with radio protocol now! “What’s your situation?”
“It’s those goddamn kids!” Quillain snarled back. “They aren’t just kids. They’re a bunch of those kid soldiers you hear about down in these parts.”
Indeed she had heard about them. They were an aspect of the brutal, total-war conflicts that had ravaged West Africa. Ten- and eleven-year-old boys, children barely big enough to pick up a rifle, had been drawn or thrust into the ranks of the combatants. Frequently they became some of the most savage and merciless killers. This was the advantage the child warrior had over the adult, not having lived long enough to either understand what it meant to take life or to fear death.
To Obe Belewa’s credit, he had never used them in his battles. At least until now.
“They’re forted up in one of the bunkrooms,” Stone continued. “The little shits are hosing down anything that moves in the passageway. They’ve already got one man wounded.”
“Can you get at them, Stone?”
“We’re working on it. But even if we do, ain’t no way we’re going to get them or the Algerian crew down that gangway. We got a major firefight going along the pier. Union reinforcements are already movin’ in on us.”
“I’m coming in fast as well. Have the line-handling detail standing by. I’ll be coming in under your counter in about two more minutes. Switch to alternative evacuation plan. I say again, switch to alternative evacuation plan.”
“Roger that, Skipper. Line-handling detail is standing by. We’ll give you all the cover we can. I’m going below to see if I can get those damn kids sorted out.”
“Hurry, Stone! We don’t have a lot of time here.”
“You tell me about it!” The Marine clicked off circuit.
Amanda edged the tug’s throttles open another notch and gave the wheel a half-spin to starboard. She would swing wide and move in from the southwest, keeping the bulk of the tanker between herself and the pier for as long as she could. Given the fight raging between the boarding party and the Union defense forces, maybe the tug would be ignored for a time longer. At least until the Union troops realized what she was attempting.
On the tug’s foredeck, her own “main battery,” the four Marines of the prize crew, crouched low behind the bow towing butts. They had come prepared for heavy combat, two of the men bearing Squad Automatic Weapons, the second pair M4/M203 carbine and grenade launcher combinations.
“On deck!” Amanda yelled through the glassless side panel of the windscreen. “Hold your fire until we’re fired upon directly. Don’t tip off anyone that there’s a prize crew aboard.”
The team leader responded with an acknowledging wave.
The pier and the tanker loomed ahead, the Bajara’s superstructure now starkly outlined by sweeping vehicle spotlights. Amanda could hear the gunfire now over the churning of the bow wave and the rumble of the Banner’s diesels.
As the rifle slugs whined past, Quillain dodged to one side and hunkered closer to the deck. However, as conscious thought caught up with this actions, he realized that it was a futile gesture. The bullets had been ricochets, glancing wildly off the bulkhead at the “L” bend in the passageway ahead. He was as likely to be hit by one while standing erect as he was crawling on his belly.
Corporal Clasky’s rifle team, minus their casualty, pressed back against the inner bulkhead.” What’s the situation?” Quillain demanded, dropping in behind them.
“No change, sir,” Clasky replied. The little sons of bitches tried to bust out a minute or so ago, but we discouraged ’em with a couple of flashbangs. Other than that, they’ve just been shooting up the place like they’re sitting on a truckload of ammo.”
“Let me have a look.” Quillain edged past the other Marines to the bend in the passageway. The fire team leader handed him a small stainless-steel mirror, and Quillain used it to peer around the corner.
He observed another short length of grimy ship’s corridor with a watertight door centered in it. The door stood half open, and as Quillain looked on, a small face, dark and gaunt, peered cautiously around the rusted hatch frame.
Lord A’mighty! They hadn’t been exaggerating. They were just kids, not even old enough to be looking at the girls yet.
“We got the passageway on the other side secured?” Quillain demanded.
The team leader nodded. “Yeah, we got another four men on the other side. Corporal Donovan and his guys.”
“Right.” Quillain nodded. “We give ’em one chance. Then we go in after ’em.”
Quillain bellowed around the corner, using his best drill instructor inflection. “Listen up in there! This is the United States Marines! Surrender! Drop your weapons! Come out with your hands behind your head and nobody gets hurt!”