Mark was correct, he realized, then looked down at the remains of the roll. “Still, it tastes fantastic.”
Redman nodded before spitting a gob of thick brown saliva into a paper cup he held in his left hand. “Could be that we almost died. Makes everything taste better.”
A few of the sailors glared at them. John didn’t hold it against them. By this time in their deployment, the sailors were both exhausted and bored, their blue camo’s covered in grease stains and a gray haze from deck paint. Three sailors sat at the table next to them, two of them listening to the third.
“I’m telling you,” the third sailor said, shaking his fist for punctuation, “my friend slept with this chick in Thailand, but when the lights came on, it was a tranny. He fucked a tranny!”
The first sailor rolled his eyes. “Would you shut the fuck up so I can tell my tranny story.”
A new sailor joined them, fresh from duty, slamming his tray on the table. “All I do is paint. Gray. Fucking Gray. I hate gray. Any other color? No. Just gray.”
The second sailor threw his fork at the new sailor. “Why are you being such a shitstain? Why are you talking about work? Why can’t you talk about trannies like everyone else?”
Redman spat another wad of saliva in his cup, then shook his head at the sailor’s conversation. “These boys been out too long.”
John agreed “Where’re the other men?”
Redman paused. “Sleeping. They’ve been through a lot in the last couple days.”
“True,” he said between mouthfuls of baked chicken. “So have you. You lost Morse.”
Redman’s eyes narrowed. “I did. And you lost McHugh.”
“I didn’t know McHugh,” he countered. “You worked with Morse. He wasn’t just a soldier. Not to you.”
Mark started to interject. “John—”
“It’s all right,” Redman said. He regarded John calmly. “Nothing can bring Sean back. It could be me next time. I know that. You know that. You tried with McHugh. Wasn’t your fault. Let it go or bury it deep, but if you keep worrying it like a dog with a bone? Gonna drive you crazy, son.”
“I’m trying.”
Redman leaned forward and nodded. “Me, too.”
Taylor and Mark smiled, and like that John felt some of the weight lift from his shoulders.
“Finish up,” Taylor said, tapping on the table. “We have to meet Deion in ten.”
John entered the ward room and saw Deion sitting at a table scanning through stacks of papers.
Deion brushed the papers aside. “Eric’s waiting.” He motioned for John to take a seat.
He sat and Deion pressed the button on the speakerphone sitting on the metal table. “John’s here.”
There was a burst noise, then Eric’s voice came through. “John. How are you?”
“Better than some on our team,” he said, “worse than others.” Deion eyeballed him and he winced. He didn’t mean for it to sound quite so negative, but Eric spoke before he could apologize.
“I understand. I read the report. You did your best.”
“My best wasn’t good enough. How did the bomb detonate?”
“We think the bomb was GPS locked.”
“Didn’t we plan for that?”
“It was a mistake. We didn’t think the enemy had that level of sophistication.”
“It’s not your fault,” Deion interjected. “We do our best. We can’t be everywhere, all the time. Mistakes happen.”
“Yeah,” John agreed, “and this mistake killed good men. We lost an entire Sea Knight. That’s not including the co-pilot of our Sea Knight. And, don’t forget the Hercules. How many were on board?”
There was a long pause before Eric spoke. “Seven. There were seven men onboard the Hercules.”
“How many mistakes like that are we going to make?”
“Enough,” Deion said. “We all have a job to do. It’s time for you to do yours.”
He started to speak, but Eric’s voice stopped him. “You’re absolutely right. We made a mistake, but imagine that bomb on US soil. Imagine the dead or dying from that. You feel bad about those men, and that’s a good thing. It means you have compassion. But, the mission isn’t over yet. We need intel, and you’re the man to get it. We’re sending you back into the village, alone. We want you to bring back Asad Hassan. He’s the leader of the pirate band that controls Ely.”
“Why didn’t we abduct one of the Al-Qaeda members?” John asked. “Maybe we shouldn’t have killed them all.”
“They could have triggered the bomb on the ground,” Eric said. “What if everyone had died? Now you need to grab Hassan and bring him back.”
“How am I supposed to get in? A nuke just went off. It’s going to be guarded.”
Before Eric could respond, Deion pulled the stack of printouts from the edge of the desk and shoved them at him. “They’re mostly fisherman. Best estimate? There are less than two hundred active pirates in the city of Ely. They’re probably freaked the hell out that a bunch of Special Forces dropped in and stole their package. The last thing they expect is someone to come back.”
“He’s right,” Eric said. “They won’t be prepared.”
It made sense, but he wasn’t going to blindly follow along this time. “My HK is at the bottom of the ocean and the Battlesuit is waterlogged. You think I can just stroll in and snatch this guy?” Deion’s eyes flickered down and back up. John recognized it as one of Deion’s nervous ticks. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“The bomb threw up a lot of dust and radiation,” Eric said. “We’re having trouble communicating, that’s why we’re on audio instead of video. The Peleliu is still rebooting systems and replacing fried parts. There won’t be drones. You’ll have the VISOR, but we won’t be able to feed you telemetry and we won’t be able to track your progress.”
I’ll be completely alone. “Sounds like a suicide mission.”
“This is what you’ve trained for,” Eric said. “You’re stronger than a normal man. Faster. With the Battlesuit and the VISOR you can tear through that town, grab Hassan, and be back before they know you’re there.”
Deion arched an eyebrow. “It’s all we’ve got, man. Helicopters are too loud.”
He understood their position, but they didn’t seem to understand — or care — about his. “Isn’t there another way?”
There was another long pause before Eric’s voice came through the speakerphone. “You’ll do fine. I believe in you.”
They approached the shore and the SEAL, Jenkins, a thick man with a perpetual scowl, cut the gasoline motor when they were a mile away and flipped over to the electric trolling motor, carefully guiding the combat craft silently toward the shore. The city of Ely lay two miles to the north. John used the thermal and night-vision display of his VISOR and saw no lookouts.
He turned to his right, where Taylor Martin was hunched over the side, desperately clutching his HK. He leaned over and spoke softly to the tall black man. “I can’t believe you get seasick.”
Taylor turned to him, his face obscured by NVG’s. “I can’t believe you knew that and still requested I come. You better hope I don’t puke on you.”
John smiled to himself. He had requested Taylor. They were going in quiet, just three men to the shore, and he wanted someone from his team waiting for him at the beach when he got back. “Hang in there. Only a few more minutes.”