Force Protection. Gordon Kent

And kept moving.

      It took them almost an hour to reach Liwatoni Road and the entrance to the Yacht Club, over two ravines and through a crowd of refugees from the fighting. They could still hear long bursts of automatic-weapons fire and see fire and smoke coming from the town center, but the greatest pillar of smoke Alan had ever seen was rising from the docks at Kilindini, which was closer here. He could see now that the smoke was rising from one of the piers. And then it struck him, for the first time, that the Harker and Laura and Admiral Kessler were all supposed to be pierside at Kilindini.

      Alan had visited the Mombasa Yacht Club twice for functions, and he recognized it as a haven for oddball expats and round-the-world cruisers. Now its parking lot was packed with refugees, squatting on their heels and watching the smoke rise from the port. Alan crossed through them and pushed the door open and led his group inside.

      Hundreds of photos and plaques adorned the walls, memories of happier days and more robust times. Two terrified black kids were behind the bar, and there was a handful of patrons, two with guns, all drunk. One rose from his chair and pointed a revolver at Alan.

      ‘Members only, old chap.’ It must have been a rehearsed line.

      ‘US Navy.’ Alan glared at the idiot, a fat man whose whole arm shook. He retreated. ‘Put the gun down, mister.’

      The fat man looked at the gun as if it had just grown out of his fist.

      ‘We can’t be too careful –’

      Alan ignored him and the other whites, and focused his attention on the two Kenyans behind the counter.

      ‘I need water and a first-aid kit.’ Alan spoke to the nearer one. ‘Baridi, tafadhali.’

      Both Kenyans vanished and then bottles of water appeared as if by magic. Alan handed them around, watching to see they all drank before he took one for himself, although the plastic Evian bottle was cold and he wanted it with a passion bordering on lust. For a moment the club was silent except for the sound of five men guzzling water. Then a big, sunburned man leaned past the fat man.

      ‘Wha’ the fuck is happening out there?’ Aussie accent.

      Alan finished his water.

      ‘Bad riot in Old Town. Lot of dead.’

      ‘Fucking Muslims.’

      ‘It was provoked.’ He realized that this sunburned Aussie was used to getting his way, but the man’s manner drove Alan to antagonize him. ‘The Muslims seem to have taken all the casualties, over in Old Town. Seems pretty convenient.’ He looked around.

      ‘Any of you here own a boat?’ The fat man raised his hand. A woman pointed at the sunburned man. ‘I need a motorboat that will carry five men.’

      The Aussie looked away, but the fat man pointed to him. ‘Dirk, here, has a sweet little inflatable.’

      Alan looked at him. ‘Good,’ he said calmly. ‘We’ll take it.’ He raised his hand to stifle protest. ‘Listen up, folks. There is a bit of rioting in Old Town. I need to get these men back to their ship. I’m an officer in the US Navy and I’d like to borrow the boat, and stock her up.’ He looked around, unaware that he looked like he had been through a battle or that he was radiating focus and energy. No one in the bar would have stood up to him, anyway.

      ‘I’ll help you get ‘er started, then,’ the Aussie said.

      Alan collected another bottle of water from the bar, zipped his helmet bag, and followed Dirk outside to the club dock. Dirk kept up a constant stream of surly comments while Craw checked the inflatable, and it took the combined efforts of the Aussie and all three merchant sailors to get the engine to come to life.

      ‘I know all about guns,’ Jagiello said.

      ‘That’s great,’ Alan said, ‘borrowing’ some sandwiches.

      ‘No, really. I can shoot. I hunt deer. Well, my dad hunts. I mean, I’ve been with my dad –’

      ‘Sure,’ Alan said, now carrying the box of sandwiches out to the boat.

      He needed to get going; the pause was costing him his edge. He couldn’t lose his own worst-case scenario that the Harker was the target of an attack.

      Two minutes later, they were in the boat and headed down the creek to the harbor, the inflatable low in the scummy water, with five of them filling every inch of her hull and her little engine pushing them along.

      

      It was less than a kilometer to Kilindini Port, a simple piece of navigation, given that they had only to traverse the creek and turn north, and that their boat drew less than six inches of water. Alan passed the helm to Patel; the merchant marine sailors were actually sailors, with experience in boats that Alan and Craw lacked. Various technical aspects and a lot of creeping, dirty water occupied Alan’s mind for the first few minutes, but after that he was a passenger, free to let his mind wander on what might be ahead of him and what he had left behind. And then they left the mouth of the creek and turned north, and suddenly all the devastation of the explosion was visible at once.

      The Harker lay half on her side in the mud at the end of Pier One, her tops on fire. The gantry crane at her berth was toppled over and afire, and a barge of some sort, probably petroleum from the smoke, was ablaze from stem to stern at a mooring fifty yards out. The smoke from the burning barge was what had made the giant black fist in the sky, and the curtain of black smoke lit with bale-fire cut off Alan’s view of the northern part of the port. There appeared to be another fire up by Pier Six, although whether it was a secondary from the main explosion or a separate device he couldn’t tell.

      Already he assumed the explosions were deliberate.

      Jagiello said something in a choked voice. Patel’s knuckles were white where he gripped the tiller.

      ‘Holy shit,’ White muttered. He looked to Alan for direction. ‘We going there?’

      Alan thought of the admiral’s inspection tour; of how he had dropped Laura at the Harker less than two hours ago.

      ‘Yes,’ he said tersely.

      

      Patches of oil, some burning, heaved on the water. Alan directed the boat to the empty side of Pier One, whose bulk would protect them from the heat of the burning ship. A ladder ran up to the pier. He could see movement on the Harker’s superstructure, probably a fire party, but crouched down now in the lee of the structure.

      Craw pointed up beyond the giant cranes and port offices to the blue metal of the main gate. GSU trucks and a crowd – difficult to see whether they were protestors or rioters, but then Alan saw the flash of rifles. The crowd was being swelled from the rear by people coming down Moi Avenue; some in front were trying to climb the fence. The man on the wire fence closest to him wore a Chicago Bulls T-shirt, and his head was bare. He was not a Muslim. The riot had become general.

      The inflatable kissed the base of the ladder and sat there, rising and falling in the turbulence of her own wake. Alan tucked his pistol into his waistband at the back and grabbed the ladder with his maimed hand and hung. Then he reached up with his right hand and took a firmer hold and began to climb as Craw grabbed on below him. He had to climb slowly because his left hand couldn’t bear weight – climb, pause, climb, pause. At the top at last, he pulled himself on to the pier. It struck him an instant later that it was a shambles.

      Whatever had hit the Harker had spread paper and cloth and jagged metal and several waiting cargoes over the pier. Fresh vegetables, probably intended for the battle group, had been stacked here by the ton; now they and their thin-walled wooden crates made a decomposing carpet.

      A wave of heat from the burning oil barge struck him, enough to suck the air from his lungs. The stench of petroleum was overwhelming.

      The fire crew on the Harker was yelling at him, but there was so much noise he couldn’t hear them. He turned and helped Craw up the last step