Unfortunately, she was the only craft of the twelve tied along the pier that was seaworthy. The others had been vandalized and looted, even to the rubber lining around the hatches. The ugliness of the water carrier and its dilapidated condition must have fooled the looters into believing there was nothing of value on board. Beau guessed that the rebels had stopped the looters before they could take the flour and other things on the pier.
A Palace Guard emerged topside, a can opener in one hand and an unopened tin of beans in the other. Beau’s mouth watered with the sight.
Near the stern, Gibbons’s head popped up from the engine room. He gave Beau a thumbs-up. “I’m ready when you are, Commander Pettigrew,” he shouted, jerking Beau’s attention reluctantly away from the beans and back to the matter at hand.
“Captain, I can’t see them!” Monkey shouted from the stern, his MG-60 pointed toward the front of the pier. “There’s smoke all over the place.”
The sound of intense gunfire came from the direction of the smoke.
Duncan hobbled lo the stern and stood beside Monkey and Mcdonald.
“Damn! Can’t see a thing through that soup. Keep a good eye out.
First two people through the smoke will be the colonel and the chief.
Don’t shoot them.” At least, they should be Colonel Yosef and Chief Judiah. He mentally crossed his fingers.
Monkey and Mcdonald gave the captain an irritated look as if to say.
“Captain, we know what they look like and we’re professionals. We don’t go around shooting our own guys.” But they kept quiet. Mcdonald licked his cracked lips. Those beans looked appetizing.
Across the pier from the boat, the Guardsmen prodded the rebel sentries off the pier and into the polluted harbor waters below. Then, they turned and ran to the water carrier. The boat rocked slightly as they jumped aboard.
The engine increased in tempo as Beau gave it power. “Cast off all lines!” he shouted. “Damn! I sound just like a surface warfare officer. Whatever you do, don’t tell my parents!”
Awkwardly, the water carrier wallowed away from its berth and gradually began to move forward. The distance from the pier slowly opened from inches to a foot to several feet.
A gigantic explosion sent a shower of debris a hundred feet into the air. Some fell on the water carrier as the dark cloud from the explosion spread. When the smoke cleared, a twenty-foot section of the pier had disappeared.
Duncan gripped a line that ran from the deck edge to the top of the aft mast, keeping his balance as he scanned the pier for Judiah and Yosef.
A minute later the boat reached the end of the pier, turned right, and put-putted at two knots across the end of it. A small trail of dirty gray smoke from the diesel engine marked their passage. There was no sign of the two men.
“Here, Captain,” Mcdonald shouted as he tossed his MG60 to Duncan.
Duncan caught the machine gun. Mcdonald scrambled up the twenty-five-foot-high aft mast.
“Do you see them?” Duncan shouted.
Mcdonald reached the top. “Sir, they’re not there.”
“What do you mean they’re not there? Is the smoke too thick?”
“No, sir, the smoke is nearly gone. And so is the pier from where you were fighting to the harbor road. Colonel Yosef and Chief Judiah aren’t there.”
Lost? A cold wave of nausea and guilt rushed over Duncan. He should have stayed with the chief and the colonel. To come so far, with escape this close, and to lose them. He wondered briefly if Chief Judiah had family back in Norfolk. It depressed him further to realize how little he knew about the sailors with him.
Beau glanced over his shoulder. He knew what was going through Duncan’s mind. He shouted to draw Duncan’s attention. “Captain, what now?”
Duncan nodded. Good professional training overrode his emotions. His gut reaction was to turn and search for the two, but he knew he couldn’t. His mission was to rescue President Alneuf, and he still had the lives of those on the boat to consider. He pushed the thoughts of Judiah and Yosef to a recess in his mind, to pull forward later when he had the time.
“Get us out to sea, Commander,” he finally said reluctantly.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Beau acknowledged, knowing that if the two weren’t dead, then they were leaving them both to a fate worse than death. He recalled the tortured victims of the village where they had fought yesterday. Hopefully, the two were dead. He pushed the power to full.
Dark smoke spewed from the small stack at the rear of the boat as the diesel engine strained toward its full power of ten knots.
Duncan ran his hand across the top of his head. Once through the harbor entrance, they should be safe.
President Alneuf climbed up from below.
Leaning on the water tank along the centerline of the boat, Duncan hobbled across the deck to where the Algerian president stood, a lost look on his face. President Alneuf searched the faces of the SEALs and the remaining Palace Guards.
“Captain, where is Colonel Yosef?”
“Mr. President, Colonel Yosef, along with one of my men, Chief Judiah, are missing. They blew up the pier to allow us to escape. I am sorry, sir.” Seeing the shocked and sad expression on President Alneuf’s face, Duncan added, “If they’re alive, they’re resourceful and will escape.”
“Do you believe that, Captain?” President Alneuf asked hopefully.
“Yes, sir, I do. I truly do,” Duncan said with as much conviction in the lie as possible. There was no way to escape from the pier.
President Alneuf nodded, recognizing the doubt in Duncan’s words.
President Alneuf looked back at the battle scene, slowly receding, as the boat sailed through the entrance of the small harbor. “It is so sad, Captain. There have been so many deaths in the past few days that death has replaced the Algerian way of saying, “Peace be upon you.””
Duncan opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. He didn’t know what to say, so he touched the Algerian president on the shoulder and left the man to his thoughts. Duncan’s mission was nearly complete. Algeria was not his worry. He went below to check on H.J. and Helliwell.
The two lay across from each other on the bottom of a pair of bunks crowded into a closet-size space.
“How we doing?” he asked.
“Great accommodations, Captain. Sleeps four comfortably, eight intimately,” H.J. replied.
H. J.“s shoulder was tightly bandaged, with her arm wrapped against her side. A red damp spot, where the doctor had sewed the incision shut, identified the location of the wound. The doctor had discovered and removed a bullet. He’d told them that Allah had been with her. The doctor had said two bullets had hit her. Both hits had been at an oblique angle that, luckily, deflected the full force of the impact.
One bullet had passed clean through, missing bone and major blood vessels. The other hadn’t, and it had fractured her collarbone before coming to rest beside the bone. Now H.J. had the bullet in her cammie shirt pocket.
Helliwell’s arm was broken. Duncan guessed Bud had known it was broken ever since the encounter yesterday, but had kept the injury to himself until Bashir produced the doctor. A cast ran from his left wrist to his shoulder.
“Why didn’t you tell me your arm was broken?”
“Wasn’t broken that bad, Captain. Just slightly cracked in two places — clean cracks that will heal in a couple of weeks. Besides, couldn’t have our lieutenant thinking us mustangs were wusses.”
Duncan looked at Heather J. Mcdaniels. “H. J.” where’s your medicine?”
“Here, Captain,” she replied, patting the small bottle in her shirt pocket.