There were three landing craft, each capable of carrying two of the armored vehicles, or three of the Ferret scout cars, or one AML and two Ferrets, to sh.o.r.e at a time. There simply wasn't room for more than that, though the boats wouldn't sink under considerably more weight. The round trip took about fifty minutes. Loading took twenty-five minutes to half an hour, and that only because Mrs. Liu was good at her job. It would be at least five hours from when the first LCM left to when the mechanized company was fully ash.o.r.e.

Just as Cazz had been the first man to hit the beach, so Reilly, as a matter of principle, was going in the first load of heavy equipment. Lana was already loaded on her boat, number three. Standing with one leg over the gunwale, his foot locked in the net, Reilly pa.s.sed on last minute instructions to his exec, FitzMarcach.

After five minutes of that, Fitz held up his hands, palms out, and said, "Enough, sir. I know what has to be done and how to do it."

For half a moment Reilly felt anger building. Then he realized, Yeah, what the f.u.c.k am I doing? He knows what to do.

"Sorry, Fitz. Maybe I was just remembering back when you were a lieutenant."

"I could do this back then, too. Just relax, boss. Go have fun. Top and I will follow in the last boat to unscrew whatever you f.u.c.ked up ash.o.r.e."

"Right. See you ash.o.r.e."

With that, Reilly twisted to bring his belly to the gunwale, and his other leg to the net. He then carefully climbed down to where the LCM Number One waited. Once he felt his feet touch the cleated deck, he turned to the rear and walked between armored car and hull to stand under the raised c.o.c.kpit. James, carrying a radio, followed, as he'd followed his chief down the net.

Looking upward, one thumb raised, Reilly said, "Take us in."

Back in LCM Number Three, Lana Mendes felt the sudden surge of the engines as the boat eased away from the hull.

Oh, my G.o.d, she thought, I'm really doing this. It's not a dream. I'm going to go and get to fight in an armored vehicle, and n.o.body's stopped me just because my plumbing's wrong.

For this, Reilly, you old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I will even learn your f.u.c.king n.a.z.i song. She smiled then, unseen by anyone, even Viljoen and Dumisani, thinking, And you can't even imagine the other things I'll do for you, for letting me do this.

D-Day, Beach Red, Ophir

The ramp splashed down, raising spurts of surf and sand around its edges. Instantly, one of the armored cars' engines revved. The car itself spun wheels on wet, cleated steel for a moment, before the wheels caught traction and it surged forward. Up it went, up the sloping front, before thudding across the s.p.a.ce between ramp and hull. It went straight for a moment, then nosed down slightly as it took the ramp into the water. Whitish spray surged around the wheels. Then it was off and moving to the sh.o.r.e.

By the time the next vehicle from LCM One moved off its ramp, Number Two had ramped down, while Number Three was perhaps fifty or sixty meters out from the sh.o.r.eline.

James following, Reilly walked off, down the ramp, and into the surf. There he was met by Cazz.

"Quiet as soft s.h.i.t," the former Marine said. "There's nothing out there but us, for at least five hundred meters in every direction. I think this is going to work."

"It's not like we didn't pick the loneliest, most desolate strip of nothing for fifty miles," Reilly answered.

"I know. But this just feels too easy."

Reilly thought about that for a few seconds, then answered, "I think it'll get a lot harder, pretty soon."

"With a little luck."

D-Day, MV Merciful Merciful

With the Marines gone, likewise the landing craft, a good chunk of the mechanized infantry, and all the special operations types but one, the ship was unusually placid and quiet. Kosciusko didn't have a lot to do; the ship's Dynamic Positioning System-a computerized method of keeping a ship in the same spot-did its job rather well. Cruz was at the stern with the helicopters. The CH-801's, the six of them left, were mostly ready, though Luis' Mexicans busied themselves with them even so. And why not? Four of the Mexicans were going to ride them as door gunners.

Down in the hold the staff kept track of things nicely. All Stauer had to do was stand on the bridge at the moment, and watch . . .

Watch . . . not much of anything, really. Mrs. Liu's doing a fine . . . oh, s.h.i.t.

Forward, on the starboard side, a sudden bright glow that should not have been there grew from among the containers.

While the LCM's were away, Mrs. Liu busied herself and her gantry with repositioning containers so that other containers, holding armored vehicles, would have their doors freed so the vehicles could move into the open for loading. She had most of them available to be opened by now. Indeed, all but a few of the vehicles were lined up in position for the gantry to lift and shift them over the side. And most of those few, notably barring a somewhat smoky Ferret the mechanics were working on inside one of the containers, were moving into position for loading.

FitzMarcach lay atop the container with his head over the edge, looking in- and downward at a scout car from the engine of which smoke seeped. The mechanics had the engine cover off and were muttering darkly as they rattled about with wrench and spanner. The driver sat at his station, inside, while the commander of the vehicle stood in the turret hatch, offering helpful and completely unwanted advice to the mechanics. Fitz glared at the thing, as if trying to get it to move by sheer will.

The Ferret seemed notably unintimidated by the XO's glaring. Quite the opposite. Indeed . . .

Suddenly, one of the mechanics said, "Oh, s.h.i.t," dropped his wrench and went scrambling for the far door to the container. Meanwhile, the other mechanic, followed by the vehicle commander, very nearly flew out the open front door as a large burst of flame erupted from the engine compartment. The flame reached the inside top of the container and spread out in a bright mushroom. Fitz didn't get his head out of the way before the flames singed his eyebrows and made his hairline recede even more than it already had naturally.

And then the flames reached the driver, who began to scream. The mechanic who had headed away from the already open door soon joined him as he discovered that that door couldn't be opened.

There was a fire extinguisher with the Ferret. Neither the mechanics nor the crew had time to use it. Thus, the first people on the scene with any serious firefighting capability were the flight deck crew. They raced over, the first two men jumping from the flight deck level a bit over eight feet down to the level of the armored car containers. These received the heavier and larger than normal fire extinguishers normally found on the flight deck as they were pa.s.sed down. Then deck crew dragged the extinguishers to the open door from which flames poured and began to spray foam inward.

They could still hear screaming.

At least the screaming's stopped, Fitz thought as he directed the firefighters forward into the container. The thing reeked of gasoline, smoke, burned plastic, and, far worst of all, burned hair and flesh. His own face felt warm where the initial flash had hit it, singeing away a good deal of his hair.

Mrs. Liu had gotten the gantry positioned to lift the container off and drop it over the side.

"Can you handle the flames, Fitz?" Stauer asked.

Fitz nodded and said, "Yessir."

"Because if you can't, we've got to dump it."

Fitz felt heat that didn't come from his reddened skin. "And dump our people, Reilly's people, over the side without a proper burial? No f.u.c.king way . . . sir."

"All right," Stauer agreed. "Get in there and get our people . . . our people's bodies, out. Then over it goes."

At the rate they were squelching the fire, Fitz thought and said, "Give us five minutes, no more. Then we can hook the container up and dump it."

"Fair enough," Stauer agreed.

They found the driver half out of the vision port in front of the Ferret. Apparently he'd gotten stuck there and burned from the rear forward.

"Awful way to go," one of the firefighters said aloud as he and another twisted the charred thing to and fro to wriggle as much as they could of it out of the Ferret. Part of one hip and a leg stayed behind. The Ferret, itself, was too hot to enter to retrieve those pieces.

The mechanic-what was left of him-was easier to recover. He was scrunched up on the container's floor in a fetal position with nothing much holding him in place except his fingers. Those were wrapped around an up-down metal rod that held the door closed.

"Just . . . break the fingers off," Fitz said. He sighed, "No time to be careful. And we've got the important part."

"Roger," the navy types trying to extricate the body answered. With a gulp one of them took hold of the mechanic's charred hand and broke the fingers off. They came away surprisingly easily, though they made a sound like crisp bacon being crumbled. It was that, more than anything, that made the sailor vomit.

While the bodies were being carried off on stretchers, FitzMarcach looked up to where two of his own people were hooking the container up to the gantry. One of them looked down at Fitz, questioningly.

He nodded and shouted up, "Signal Mrs. Liu to dump it."

Back on the bridge Stauer watched the gantry lift and swing over the side the container with the burned-out Ferret and small bits of his people inside.

Jesus, he thought, three dead already, two hurt that I know of, and three we've lost contact with, and we haven't even started the shooting part yet. s.h.i.t.

And my boys, dead like that. He pushed the thought away violently. Mourn later; there's a job to do now.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night; when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

-Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

D-Day, Safe House, Elayo, Ophir

The text signal from the ship had been simple. "Auth. Cd. RBF. Do it, 02:15 hours, plus or minus 15."

Though some hundreds of miles farther north, the same wind that blew dust from the stern of the Merciful and made rubber boat-borne RTOs want to cough raised clouds of dust around the safe house and the town, on the outskirts of which it sat.

Buckwheat closed a wooden shutter, then looped a piece of string around two handles. "Let's go."

Fletcher, Rattus Hampson, Vic Babc.o.c.k-Moore, and Wahab all sighed. Most did so with a trace of fear. In Fletcher's case it was pure antic.i.p.ation.

Wordlessly, the five filed out of the safe house and boarded their vehicles in the dusty yard just behind. They left one of the Land Rovers behind. The vehicles started without problem. The team drove nine miles east from Elayo, past the utterly insignificant fishing village of Siyaada, before they killed their lights. They then pa.s.sed the last major wadi before the airport. At the wadi, they turned south into the intensely, even incredibly rough patch of hills cut by wadis that ran perpendicular the coast.

By compa.s.s and GPS they moved another four and a half miles eastward through that, the bouncing of the vehicles causing pain to kidneys and, in Rattus's case, a bit tongue. They came at last to a steep sided bit of ground, small and most unlikely to be investigated. There they pulled the vehicles in tight against the sides and dismounted.

Leaving Wahab behind to guard the transportation, the other four, moving in single file, began the two thousand meter trek to the northeast. They left their gear, most of it, behind, carrying only their weapons and ammunition, dun-colored gillie suits, night vision devices, a GPS, personal communicators, and in Buckwheat's pocket a satellite phone.

The way led steeply up, past a thin dirt road. They crossed this by simply getting on line on the near side, listening for a few moments, then rushing across as one. On the far side they flopped down again, listening for several minutes after.

Hearts were pounding and not just from the minor exertions of walking and rushing.

"Okay," whispered Fulton, "now to the ridge."

The closer they came to that feature, the lower they walked, until finally, perhaps a hundred meters shy of it they went to hands and knees and began to high crawl. From there, they crawled all the way to it, to a point from which they could see the airfield below.

There they waited while Buckwheat flicked on his night vision scope, took a firing position, and slowly swept the scope's field of view across the airfield. He counted silently as he did, then again, just as silently, as he swept it back.