Christmas at Steel Beach Read online

  “Piss her off, boss, and we just might be eating slop for the rest of the tour.”

  “Nah,” she was catching their rhythm, “just him. Wouldn’t do that to y’all.”

  It got her the easy laugh.

  She wasn’t going to be doing that to any of them. Her goal was to make this the best damn mess in the fleet. She figured she only had a month or so before the next round of inspections would occur for the Captain Ney Memorial Award for best Navy mess. The “Large Afloat” category filled the gap between destroyers and the enormous aircraft carriers, and she planned to rule it.

  Well, they weren’t telling her what it was that she didn’t know. Maybe they’d lost track of the question, though she’d bet the taciturn Chief hadn’t.

  Fine, different tack.

  “So, what’s today’s exercise?”

  “Invading the Ivory Coast.”

  She waited the beat.

  There didn’t seem to be a punch line.

  “The Ivory Coast?” she gave a nudge for more information.

  “Yeah.”

  “The country?” She’d heard of it, but that was the extent of her knowledge. Give her a map, and there was still no chance she’d be able to track it down. On the bottom side of the big bump beside Ghana? Or was it down the coast toward the Congo?

  “Yep.” Tom and Dave were tag teaming her back and forth.

  “And we’re invading it? Tonight?”

  “Sure thing.”

  She stared out into the dark beyond the windows. No clues…no lights. Not even running lights…which meant this probably was real and they weren’t just teasing her. She reached over to turn off the switch on the tiny Christmas tree. Looking down at the LCAC’s bay where the Rangers and their vehicles were parked, not one hint of light. A very small force, which probably meant a small invasion. U.S. 75th Rangers—a Special Operations invasion, the kind that never made the news.

  “I’m guessing they don’t know we’re coming?”

  “We sure hope not.”

  That confirmed it.

  The radar screen in front of the Chief, that she could just see over his broad shoulder, was giving some heavy bounceback along the midline of the screen. Not just ships, but shoreline.

  “Well,” she tried to think of something witty to say as another hard wave slammed her back in her padded seat. “Don’t that beat all,” was as much as she could manage.

  Chapter 3

  Sly Stowell grinned. He kept it under his visor, but he liked getting a piece of his own back after she’d laughed at him. Chiefs were supposed to be on the same side—no matter what their department was. Being the backbone of the Navy wasn’t a kid’s game. The enlisted looked up to CPOs for guidance, and the officers needed someone who actually knew how to get things done. And just because she had “Steward” after the “Chief” rather than “Petty Officer” shouldn’t matter either.

  He could hear the Charleston in her voice. Southern girl. Had a laugh that sounded right down home. Who knew they built women like her, knockout redhead with a proper accent and a Chief besides. Though he did wonder about her. Some Chiefs who wore the silver rather than the gold on their insignia were more trouble than they were worth.

  And not knowing to expect the Rangers on this ship? Something seriously weird about that. The Peleliu was no longer a standard ops ship. No Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard. Special Forces had taken her over and the woman didn’t know. Was there a reason?

  Maybe she was too dense to remember her briefing?

  Or had some shore-side doofus not thought it a necessary part of her briefing. He hoped to hell that she at least had the necessary security clearance. That alone was enough reason to keep her in the dark until he knew more about her.

  The other reason he’d been keeping his own mouth mostly shut was that she’d peg him North Carolina right off; western NC. And she was a steward—in charge of the mess—which meant nothing but trouble to a boy from Lexington. His hometown had the best barbeque on the planet, whereas being from Charleston she would put all sorts of strange things in her sauce that were flat out wrong. Wouldn’t that start a whole debate.

  Stop thinking about the pretty lady! He had to stay sharp.

  It wasn’t often that you flew an LCAC blind—at night and running blacked out. He had no way to anticipate the waves that were slapping them around. He didn’t dare risk the forward lights; they would be visible for miles if he kicked on the big floods.

  So he was trusting to night vision. Problem was that looking at the world by infrared night vision made all the water look the same—too little temperature variation. Reaching land would be a relief even if that was where the shit was gonna hit the fan.

  He saw a slight shimmer aloft in infrared—heat signatures in his night-vision gear—there and gone, then another. One to port, two to starboard, another to port. They showed up even less on his radar. The stealth helicopters of SOAR’s 5D company were starting to gather around him. They traveled far faster than he did, so they’d left the ship later, timing their arrival to match his approach to the shore.

  The woman had recovered and was asking the guys something else. He tuned back into the conversation as Dave said, “He’s Sly.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” She didn’t get that really was his name. His dad always joked that he’d been named for Sylvester the cartoon cat. Mama just rolled her eyes at that, but never offered any other explanation.

  “No, he’s—”

  “Two minutes out,” he cut Dave off. He bumped them up another ten knots; now it got interesting.

  “Weapons free.”

  He heard the soft, “Oh darn!” from the steward. If nothing else proved she was a lady from the South, that curse cemented it. She might be pushy, but she was a cook—her knowledge of battle probably wouldn’t fill a teapot. He finally took pity on her. Teasing was fine, but you didn’t scare a Chief, no matter how ditzy a one.

  “My name is Sly Stowell,” he offered. “What’s yours?”

  “Gail. Gail Miller,” she was doing a fair job of straightening out her voice control though the nerves still showed through. Clearly didn’t comprehend what they were headed into or she’d probably be weeping in the corner.

  “Well, Gail Miller,” nice name. It fit her somehow. Implied she was stronger than she appeared.

  Maybe.

  “The Ivory Coast is having a really rough set of elections and we’re going in to clear out the U.S. Embassy in downtown Abidjan. All U.S. personnel were pulled inside the walls this morning, but they couldn’t get them to the airport. They’re surrounded now and the local militia is moving in on them. Nowhere near enough helicopters in the area to evac them all, so they showed some sense and called in the Navy.”

  “Anchors aweigh,” she’d gotten control of her voice back. Well done, Chief. Some hope for her yet.

  “We’re not alone out here. There’s a six-helicopter escort on us that you can’t see. They’re the 5D, the very best on the planet. So, hang tight in your seat and we should be in and out in thirty minutes.”

  # # #

  Hang onto her seat? Gail was already white-knuckling it. Her last time in battle had been a dozen years ago at Battle Stations—the seventh week of boot camp. Which meant…never.

  She should never have climbed aboard. They weren’t even Marine Corps.

  Invading a foreign country with an LCAC and a team of U.S. Rangers with a bunch of helicopters flying alongside?

  The next piece registered.

  “The 5D?” it came out as more of a squeak than a question. As in the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment? They were the best helicopter pilots on the planet. And the scariest. That might explain the intermittent contacts on his radar. But they should have shown up clearly…unless…no. Not possible. Stealth birds only existed in bin Laden compound-style raids and fairy tales. Didn’t they?

  “That’s them in all their glory,” Sly was loosening up and she could hear he was a Southern b
oy as well, overlaid by a lot of Navy. It made her feel better for no reason that was in any way rational.

  The 5th-battalion, D-company of SOAR were rumored to be the very best of the whole 160th. They always drew the ugliest assignments and then apparently pulled a lot of them off; rumors said all of them, but nobody was that good. Hell, it was only rumor that said they even existed. The 5D had taken on some kind of mythical status in the U.S. military ethos.

  “Where are…” she didn’t even bother to finish the question.

  The place the helicopters had come from would have been the top deck of her new ship. She hadn’t seen them being serviced after a day of operations, as she had believed when she approached the Peleliu. The helos were being prepared for a night operation.

  This night operation. The one even now busting her behind as they skidded over waves and flew through the dark.

  Gail would certainly make sure that she would never again go for a ride when there was any real wave action. Maybe if she closed her eyes and clicked her heels three times, she’d merely be on the small unit riverine craft with a bunch of surly Marines. At least that she understood.

  She’d signed up to cook for a couple thousand Marine Corps and Navy personnel. And she was suddenly inside some kind of black ops outfit. What in the name of Father Christmas was the Peleliu really doing?

  “Harbor in ten,” Sly spoke and hammered forward the control stick. The roar didn’t increase, but once more her helmet was slapped against the window close behind her as the twin fans on the stern pitched more sharply and threw the hovercraft forward.

  Between one eyeblink and the next there were the lights ashore.

  “Hope nobody’s out night fishing,” Tom offered wryly as they skidded over the wavetops. “Contact in five, four, three, two…”

  And the boat was shooting up a long waterway with piers and ships to one side and a long, low shoreline to the other.

  “Continue straight for three kilometers then a hard right to a course of sixty-five northeast,” Tom said casually.

  Gail looked down at the speed gauge that she’d picked out earlier; they were going close to a hundred knots. At a hundred and seventy kilometers an hour, three of them went by very fast.

  She kept an eye out on the ships moored to starboard. Nothing fast. Have to be an ocean racer or another hovercraft to chase them. All she saw were the usual crappy rust-bucket tramp steamers that serviced such ports of call.

  “Hang on!” Sly called over the PA. She could hear it both in her earphones inside her helmet as well as echoing over the boat. She couldn’t hold on any harder.

  Sly didn’t slow down the boat. Instead he whipped the wheel to the side. The LCAC spun on its axis like a mad rollercoaster combined with one of those whirling teacup rides. In a heartbeat they were moving backwards at full speed. The two giant fans were still blowing hard, but the stern was now aimed in the direction of motion.

  Bang! went her helmet as the boat’s forward progress slowed in mere moments. Then Sly spun a quarter turn around and they were roaring off beneath a pair of bridges and gaining speed at a course ninety degrees from their prior one. Not a ship on the planet, with its keel in the water, could have made such a turn.

  And, Gail suspected, not all that many LCAC pilots. There was a smoothness, a level of skill that shone from the man. Daddy had pointed out what skill looked like when a guy named Hubert had come out to excavate a vacant lot on their block for a new house. He made that backhoe dance, doing two and three compound movements at once. Her dad made sure she saw how the contractor had dovetailed all his movements.

  Daddy was always doing things like that. University professor turning his daughter into a master observer. “My little Sherlock,” was one of his pet names.

  Color of the shirt on the man we just passed; no, don’t look.

  Close your eyes and describe that woman’s tattoo.

  They still played the game when she was home on vacation, challenging each other with more and more impossible observations. It had given them something to talk about through the teen years when there was no way she was sharing her feelings or anything else about her life.

  It let her see that Chief Petty Officer Sly Stowell drove his hovercraft the same way that Hubert drove his backhoe; like it was art.

  The hovercraft felt as if it constantly searched for an excuse to skitter madly about—yet with Sly at the controls, it flew dead clean. The U.S. Navy was invading the Ivory Coast and they’d chosen him to drive the only water craft in the attack. His behind might be wet, but his skills were clearly among the elite.

  On top of that, if the Peleliu was indeed living some secret identity, only the very best would be aboard.

  Which inevitably led back to her earlier question: What in the name of all that was holy was she doing here? The pieces of that puzzle eluded her completely.

  Three kilometers and one minute later, they were on the far side of Abidjan harbor. If there were any vessels coming for them, they’d be moving far slower. She saw limited car traffic ashore and on the bridges, but none on the water.

  “Hang a left here,” Tom spoke again.

  “Okay,” Sly turned and finally slowed, though the roar of the four massive gas turbine engines didn’t ease.

  They were so steady about it all that she wanted to reach forward and bang their helmets together—if she could unclench her hands from the seat.

  # # #

  Sly hit the beach at thirty knots. They roared up over the sand and flattened a row of low bushes. Recon had said no barriers over three feet in height along their route, which had better be true. He could clear four feet, but anything more and he was likely to high-center on it and finish out his life as a teeter-totter.

  “Left on the Boulevard de France.”

  “Roger that,” Sly turned onto the two-lane highway that followed the shoreline. The shoulders were dotted with widely spaced palms. Even with his elevated view from the control cockpit he still couldn’t see many lights to either side. Whatever troubles this city was having today, the electricity had clearly been one of the early victims.

  “After that, the second turn will be coming up on your right.”

  Tom was playing it perfectly, good man. They’d worked out every inch of this route in the planning session six hours ago. But his navigator was making it sound like they were out for a Sunday drive to tease their unexpected passenger.

  Sly felt as if he was flying at a whole different level with her aboard; a better one. He hit the Boulevard. Rather than slowing for the turn, he once again slewed the tail backwards to make the turn clean. And he nailed it, dead down the two-lane road without bouncing off the trees to either side. Her presence was now lending him a focus rather than distracting him.

  Damned show off! He grinned. Well, even if the girl didn’t know enough to be impressed, he could see Dave and Tom were appreciating the ride. He’d wager that the Rangers down in their holes wouldn’t be though. That focused his thoughts back on the job at hand.

  A night bus was approaching them from the opposite direction. No way to hear the horn that he was sure was blaring, but he could well imagine how wide the driver’s eyes were as the front of the bus slammed down from heavy braking. At fifteen meters wide, the LCAC took up both lanes and the shoulders of the shoreline boulevard. A dozen meters from running over the stopped bus—

  “Turn right onto the seventh fairway. It’s a par four, watch out for the water trap by the green.”

  He flattened a couple of trees as he broke onto the fairway.

  “Dear God in the mornin’, spare me from such men,” Gail muttered with an overly thick Southern accent; he could hear the laugh in her voice. She’d clearly caught on to what they were doing to her.

  Maybe she wasn’t a ditz. Maybe she’d just been messing with him too.

  Damn, if that was true he could actually get to like her…even if she was from Charleston.

  “Cut north to the third fairway…now!”
r />   Sly slewed north then back west.

  “This is a par five, but since you came into the middle of the fairway, we’re only going to give you three strokes.”

  “Two,” Gail countered Tom’s ruling. “If he’s any good, he can do it in two.”

  “At the green, jog left to pick up the fourth.”

  “No divots, Chief.”

  “Goddamn it!” He was maneuvering a thirty-meter long, eighty-ton hovercraft with forty tons of gear and Rangers aboard over a golf course. He didn’t have time to laugh.

  He actually rode the edge of the rise on the third green to help him bank through the turn and left it undamaged except for a huge puff of sand out of the sand trap. He drove up the fourth fairway, slowing down in the dogleg and turning right through a gap in the trees when the fairway turned left.

  “Ooooo!” Gail moaned as if in the agony of disappointment. “Into the rough. Drop and a one-stroke penalty. Gonna be tough to get your birdie now, Chief.”

  He was fifty meters from the tall concrete wall around the U.S. embassy when a missile roared out of the dark and shattered a ten-meter section of it.

  That was SOAR; always right on schedule.

  He noticed that Gail didn’t have a word to say about that.

  Through the gap in the wall he spotted one of SOAR’s Little Birds easing to a hover over the embassy. Four men slid down fast-ropes onto the roof. That would be Michael and three other Delta Force operators. Like Lieutenant Barstowe in the Rangers, Michael was an officer who led from all the way out front, something Sly could definitely respect.

  He eased the LCAC up to the rubble and lowered the hovercraft to the ground. They settled onto the grass, his bow gate pointed directly at the breach in the embassy’s concrete wall.

  In moments they had the gate lowered. U.S. Rangers and the three M-ATVs made short work of entering the compound.

  “C’mon people,” he muttered.

  A crowd began to pour out of the compound. A dribble at first, but then a thick press of them. Men, women, some children. A lot of briefcases, some suitcases, and more than one idiot with a bag of golf clubs.