'Is Buckwheat at a place with at least three hundred unobstructed feet clearance, and smooth enough?' Cruz asked.
Stauer shook his head. 'He-rather Rattus-says ‘no,' but there is such a place a couple of thousand meters north.'
'A couple of thousand meters . . . He's going to try to take the airfield for extraction? No fucking way!'
'Relax,' Stauer assured, 'Rattus has a plan.' A fucked up plan, but he has a plan.
D-Day, seven miles west of Dhurbo, Ophir
'You have a plan for this, Eeyore?' Morales asked.
The enemy boat, which had started perhaps three miles behind when they'd spotted it, had closed to within a mile and a half. Soon enough, it would be in range. And then we're fucked, Antoniewicz thought, because we haven't a thing to shoot back with good for more than thirty or forty meters. And not super good at that.
'No, no plan,' he answered, 'except to keep running and hope for the best.'
'We could head in to shore and crash the boat. Try to lose them on land,' Morales offered. 'But . . . '
'Right. Simmons can't run.'
'So what do we do?'
'Outrun them if we can.'
'How do you outrun somebody who's faster than you?'
'Well,' Eeyore said, 'we did mine the boat.'
Danger led to doubt. 'We hope we mined the boat,' Morales said.
'Yeah.' It was a long way to the southern turn toward the ship. Eeyore looked wistfully to the southwest, and 'home.'
'Get to work on the boat's radio,' he told Morales. 'Maybe we can get some help before it's too late.'
'That radio's a burned out piece of shit,' Morales said. 'But I'll try.'
D-Day, midway between Faor and Bandar Qassim Airport
Approximately forty miles south of Antoniewicz and Morales, and completely unaware of their situation, or even their existence, Biggus Dickus Thornton, flying in the medevac plane, spoke to Rattus on the radio.
'How's your limey?' Thornton asked.
'He'll make it if you do,' Rattus Hampson answered.
'We're about twenty minutes out.'
'Load?'
'Two gunships, one dustoff. The gunships have one each side-firing machine gun, manned, two rocket pods and two machine gun pods each. Most we can carry is two men in the dustoff-that would be you and the Brit-plus one in each of the gunships . . . '
'Won't do, Biggus,' Rattus answered. 'Leaves us one short and we're not leaving anyone behind.'
'I was about to say, one in each of the gunships plus one if we can expend all ammo.'
D-Day, south of Bandar Qassim Airport
Rattus listened to the firing to the north and answered, 'I don't think you're going to be short of targets, Biggus. Tell the pilots to go ahead and assume they'll expend all their load. Rattus, out.'
They carefully laid Vic in the back of the Hummer, then Rattus carelessly tossed his aid bag in the passenger seat. Reaching into a different bag, Rattus pulled out two bungee cords. Taking a bungee cord, he began to affix their one remaining machine gun, the one he had carried, to the roll bar on top of the Hummer.
'You sure about this?' Wahab asked.
Rattus shook his head in the negative, saying, 'No, I'm not. Are you willing to leave Buckwheat and Fletcher behind?'
Wahab snorted, thinking about good times in the not-so-distant past, camping out with Fulton, trading stories and lies, and spying. He remembered the American black saving, or at least trying to save, a young girl that he, Wahab, hadn't had and wouldn't have had either the foresight or the will or the courage to try to save. He remembered, too, his friend's-and, yes, Buckwheat was a friend, now-favorite saying: Thank God my multi-great granddaddy got dragged onto that boat.
'Not a chance,' the African returned.
Rattus smiled broadly. 'Thought not. After all, you're one of us, now.'
Wahab felt a sudden warm rush of embarrassment on his face, even as his heart felt warmed by the compliment and the acceptance.
D-Day, four and a half miles west of Dhurbo, Ophir
'I don't think this is going to work,' Morales observed. 'And, no, the fucking radio doesn't work for trans, though I can pick up BBC, if you're curious.' He whistled a few bars of 'Lillibullero,' to make the point.
He could see the distant flashes of what was probably a machine gun on the pursuing boat. He rotated his monocular down and scanned for splashes. Yep, about two hundred meters behind us and to port as we bear. On the plus side, they don't seem to be very good shots. He said as much to Eeyore.
Antoniewicz had a sinking feeling in his stomach. 'How good do they need to be? They'll close to point blank, eventually. Best bring Simmons forward and get him in a life vest.'
'Aye, aye,' Morales agreed.
D-Day, south of Bandar Qassim Airport
Even though he was firing subsonic ammunition, with a suppressor that would probably work with a One-o- Five, and did a pretty fair job of holding in the muzzle flash, too, every now and again Buckwheat got the feeling that somewhere, someone, out on the long slope below him, had his number. He got the feeling again when a long burst of machine gun fire pelted the rock behind which he covered, sending off shards in all the wrong directions. At times like those, he thought it wise to back up and find someplace else to shoot from.
Rifle cradled in the crook of his elbows, he backpeddled down the slope and out of the line of fire. This was, as it turned out, a very good thing as the next burst of fire didn't hit the rock; it hit precisely where he had been posted.
Maybe the suppressor is about done for, he thought, They're only good for so many shots anyway. Flash might be leaking through. No, it's probably leaking through.
He heard an engine's roar from behind him, coupled with the sound of gravel being tossed out by spinning tires.
The Hummer pulled up behind him. 'Jump in and get on the machine gun,' Rattus said. 'Watch out you don't step on the Brit.'
'What?'
'Jump in and get on the machine gun,' the medic repeated. 'We've got company coming, and I have a
