Force Protection. Gordon Kent

some onshore support here – cops, the army, whatever – we’re pinned –’

      ‘Choppers and Marines, sounds like what you need.’

      ‘Choppers’re just more targets until we can secure a perimeter! Chief, we’re a decoy – we’re helpless, we draw in choppers, they shoot them down. No choppers yet!’

      Then he really started to break up: ‘You telling me the – sage – to – there, sir? Sir – me get – straight –’

      At that point, his voice faded and the line began to crackle. Alan shouted, ‘You’re breaking up!’ and he heard incoherent babble from the other end. He punched the phone off, watching the battery signal flash at him. How much time left?

      He looked at the Harker’s radio man. ‘I’ve gotta have a radio link.’ He threw the cell phone on the tilted desk. It had been shoved into his hand, still in its plastic wrapping, when he had left Norfolk – memory empty, ability to find satellites untested. Now he was concluding it was a piece of crap.

      The communications man looked barely out of his teens. He had come through the explosion with a forearm slashed by flying glass, had stayed at his post, put out his calls for help. ‘I’m working on it. Can’t you make a local call someplace?’

      Alan thought of local friendly assets. There used to be an air force unit at the airport, but they had been pulled out, and it was their abandoned hangars that his detachment was to use. The British had had a regiment up the coast for decades, but they were gone now, too. He thought of the two Kenyan officers he had fought alongside in Bosnia – what the hell were their names? And where were they now? And how would he reach them? The last thing he wanted to have to depend on was a third-world cell-phone network in the middle of a citywide riot. Would rioters tear down cell-phone towers? he wondered. Why not? As useful as burning cars, wasn’t it?

      Suddenly, he said, ‘The Kenyan Navy – Jesus, they’ve got to be here somewhere! There’s got be a Kenyan naval facility at Mombasa!’ He picked up the cell phone and punched in a number that he hoped was right. ‘NCIS, Washington – they can find the Kenyan Navy for us. Shit –!’ He looked around a little wildly; the cell phone wasn’t connecting with a satellite. ‘All this fucking metal –!’ He stared at the communications man. ‘You got any local telephone numbers?’

      The man opened his hands in helplessness, then gestured around them. The comm office was a mess; the ship had tilted, and what hadn’t been shaken by the blast was now tipped on the floor – pubs, gear, a cup of long-forgotten coffee.

      ‘What’s your name?’

      ‘Uh, Hansen – Joe.’

      ‘Hansen, we’ve got to get a number for the Kenyan Navy.’ He punched the numbers for NCIS Washington into the cell phone. It was ridiculous: he was halfway around the world and he was calling home. ‘If it doesn’t work, try a local operator. Try directory assistance, whatever the hell they call it here. Try our embassy; that’s in Nairobi. Try –’

      A dark head popped in the broken door. ‘Fireboat is pumping water in – they think they got the fire limited now –’ It was Patel, the Indian who had come down from the riot with him.

      Alan ran out to the catwalk that curved around the superstructure. Water began to fall on him like rain: the fireboat.

      ‘Great –!’

      A bullet pinged off the steel bulkhead.

      ‘Oh, shit –!’ Instinctively, his wounded hand contracted into what was left of a fist.

      Somebody had started shooting from one of the warehouses along the dock. Not a very accurate shooter, but real bullets. The few men available to do damage control on the Harker were belowdecks, thus safe from sniping; the wounded were up on the main deck now, protected for the moment by the ship’s list to port. But up here on the superstructure, they were exposed.

      Three levels above him, Jagiello, another who had come with him from the city, was supposed to be sitting with the rifle Alan had taken from the sniper. He was a deer hunter, he had said. He’d drill anybody who tried anything.

      Well, why wasn’t he shooting?

      Alan crouched behind the solid starboard rail. ‘Hansen!’

      ‘Sir –?’

      Alan looked up, waved him down. ‘Get down on the deck –!’

      ‘Get out here but keep down!’ When the younger man appeared, ape-like on toes and fingertips, he shouted, ‘Get down! Way down – that’s it. Try that cell phone out here.’

      ‘I’ve got to get a radio hookup.’

      ‘Try the cell phone – that’s an order.’

      Neither of them was sure that Alan had official authority on the Harker, but Hansen seemed to recognize that Alan had authority of a different kind. He rolled on his elbow and began to punch the phone.

      Alan drew the H&K and tapped two quick shots in the general direction of the sniper. ‘Fat lot of good that’ll do,’ he muttered. Where the hell was the guy with the sniper rifle? He peered out through the gap between the steel plates of the bulkhead. The warehouse had a long row of clerestory windows, the glass blown out of every one by the blast. The shooter could be in any of them. It hardly mattered; the range was ridiculous for a pistol, anyway. Still – He saw movement, aimed quickly, fired. Behind him, Hansen was muttering into the cell phone, his long hair plastered to his head by the falling water.

      ‘Got them?’

      Hansen held up a hand, shook his head. Alan looked again at the warehouse, saw a silhouetted head, aimed more carefully and fired. Hadn’t there been some famous pistol shooter who enjoyed shooting at gallon jugs at a hundred yards? Oh, yeah. Do better throwing wads of Kleenex.

      ‘They won’t talk to me,’ Hansen said behind him. His young face was red with anger. He held out the phone. ‘They’re asking me for ID.’

      Alan grabbed the phone. ‘They still there?’ He slammed the cell phone against his ear. ‘Hello! Now listen up. This is Lieutenant-Commander Alan Craik, US Navy.’ He rattled off his service number. ‘I’m under fire and I need help and who the hell are you?’

      ‘Uh – sir, this is Special Agent Gollub, NCIS Washington. Uh, sir –’

      ‘Goddamit, Gollub, don’t dick with me! I’m on a ship that’s been hit by an explosion, people are shooting at us, and I’ve got one goddam pistol! Get me some fucking help!’

      ‘Sir, we’re the Navy’s investigative serv –’

      ‘Then fucking investigate! I want the contact info for the Kenyan naval facility, Mombasa, Kenya. Right now! Do it!’

      ‘Uh, sir, your language is not –’

      ‘Do you know Mike Dukas?’

      ‘Uh, yessir, I know Special Agent Dukas by sight and repu –’

      ‘Well, if you don’t find me that information right now, I am personally going to have him tear your fucking throat out, because he is my asshole buddy! You follow?’ He put his eye to the gap in the steel plates, saw the head again, and fired. ‘Did you follow me, Mister Gollub? Hello? Gollub? Goddamit –!’

      ‘You want the Kenyan Naval Maritime Patrol Center, Kilindini, Kenya. The telephone is 596–987. They communicate on the following frequencies: a hundred and –’

      ‘Don’t tell me; tell this guy.’ Alan handed the phone to Hansen. ‘Get the phone number; screw the frequencies.’

      He looked through the gap again, saw the head, fired three shots. There! Bang-bang-bang – body, body, head! Right? No, missed with every one.

      Gallon jugs at a hundred yards. Jesus! ‘Where’s that guy with the sniper rifle?’ He tipped his head back,