sudden appearance.
“That he did,” Krandle answers.
“About time,” Speer responds.
“Okay, guys, we don’t have a lot of time. Game faces on. We’ll treat this like any other infil. We’re not going in weapons free but watch your corners and each other. Any fire, we respond in kind and disengage,” Krandle says.
“I can’t believe we are going in during the day. We might as well toot horns and wave sparklers,” Speer says.
“You’d rather go in at night, Speer?” Franklin asks.
“Well, no. I’m just saying.”
“You guys done? I can go grab another coffee if you’d like to finish,” Krandle states.
“I’m good. Unless South Side of Chicago here wants to add any of his expertise or deep wisdom,” Speer says. Blanchard just looks at Speer and shrugs.
“Okay. We’ll pick a place to land when we see the town and ride the zodiac in. We don’t know the layout so we’ll check out the main places in town. It’s been a while since this went down so we’ll be looking for tracks or other evidence of survivors. This isn’t a search and rescue so we won’t be going into buildings. If no one comes out, we don’t go in looking. We’ve all seen what happens in them. We stay together. We’ll determine rally points when we glass the area. No matter what happens, we’re exfilling two hours prior to sunset. We’ll stay on button three and use channel four as our zero button. Now, I said we weren’t weapons free but if something is an obvious threat, we don’t hesitate. Apologize later. We all come back. Any questions?” Krandle briefs. There aren’t any.
“Okay, gear up and meet in the equipment room in forty. I’ll go topside to take a look with Franklin and meet the rest of you down there.”
Grabbing his gear from his bunk and locker, Krandle ventures with Franklin into the control room to wait for their arrival at the town of Seaside. The wait is short and they are soon following the watch crew up the ladder. The quarters are tight on top with everyone up but, by allowing only one person to breath at a time, they manage. Krandle looks across the expanse of water at the town abutting the shoreline.
“Seaside, eh? Original name for a coastal city. The town’s founders weren’t very unique,” Franklin comments as he too looks at a magnified view.
“No, but it looks like a nice vacation spot,” Krandle replies.
The city itself is right up against a pristine beach and stretches along the entirety of it. To the north, a waterway empties into the sea. Krandle notices a murky line of sandy water extending out to sea from the entrance indicating a strong current. Across the river, the beach continues on with residential houses set back a distance from the nearly white sands. The city looks to be mostly residential with cabins and smaller houses occupying most of the waterfront. He spots only two high-rises in the entirety of the town. They are two larger hotels next to each other bordering the long strip of sand. A dark line of wet sand shows near the small, cresting waves, indicative of a low or receding tide. This confirms the tide table information that Krandle looked at prior to climbing the steep ladder.
“What do you think?” Krandle asks, lowering his binoculars.
“Well, I would pick next to the river as that is the least populated, but that’s out due to the strong current. The shoreline north of the river looks unpopulated, but who knows how long it will take to navigate around the river into town. Same reasoning for the south shore,” Franklin answers.
“So, right up the middle?”
“As much as I hate to say it, yes. We just won’t have time to land to either side and get into town for a look-see.”
“That’s my thinking. The guys aren’t going to like it much. Hell, I don’t like it much,” Krandle says.
“We could always say no.”
“I know. It doesn’t look that bad. We haven’t been ashore since all of this went down and I’d like to have a closer look for myself.”
“Curiosity and the cat you know,” Franklin comments.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Good thing I’ve only used five lives so far. Plenty to go with some to hand out if needed.”
Turning to one of the watch crew, Krandle asks him to inform the captain that they are a go.
“Up the middle? Are you insane?” Speer says upon hearing the plan. “We might as well toot horns now.”
The ship’s foghorn reverberates through the hull. For a moment, the team stands silent and then all break into fits of laughter. Well, all but Speer. He just stands staring at the hatch above.
“I was only fucking kidding,” he says.
Gaining enough breath to speak, Krandle tells the team that the captain wanted to sound the horn to see if anyone responded.
“It’s not like they wouldn’t see us coming anyway,” Krandle ends.
“Why didn’t we stay with the captain guy in Bangor? I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have launched us at the middle of an unknown town,” Speer says, readying his gear for the climb up.
“This was my call for the landing zone and you know it,” Krandle states.
“Yeah, sure… whatever.”
Krandle is used to this from Speer and takes it in stride. Speer’s sarcasm is usually directed at Blanchard so Krandle is happy it’s just Speer bitching. He knows once they are underway, this attitude will vanish and it will be all business. This is just Speer’s way of dispelling anxiety. Everyone has their own. Some teams joke around, tease, tell lies about their own sexual prowess and/or their teammates lack thereof. With this team, it’s everyone listening to Speer complain about one thing or another.
Speer isn’t too picky about his grumbling. One time he went on and on about how sea crabs were going to give them all away. Apparently, Speer believed the beach they were going in on was a breeding ground for a particular type of crab. He swore that command knew this and was out to get them because they picked that spot for landing. He came up with all sorts of facts and figures putting the number of crabs there at enough to completely cover the beach. Speer was certain that them having to walk over the crabs was going to make enough noise to give them away. Upon landing, not a crab was seen.
In an absolute episode of chattiness during a break, Miller commented, “Crabs damn near ate me alive. We were lucky to get off that beach.”
“Fuck you, Miller. They don’t come out at night,” Speer replied. It was unknown to any of them whether Speer actually realized he defeated his own previous argument that the beach was going to be full of them upon their landing.
“The only crabs you know about are in your pants,” Ortiz said, chuckling.
“Got ‘em from your sister,” Speer said.
“Hope you had fun with that, amigo. She weighs almost three hundred pounds.”
Krandle smiles at the memory. They finish getting their gear ready — waterproofing their radios, mags, and sealing plastic bags over the suppressors and barrels. Making their way topside, the team opens the storage locker on deck, removing the zodiac and readying it. They are soon in the water zipping their way toward shore.
Crouched low on the gunwales, they ride the ocean swells. The rubber craft, with its silent engine propelling it, rides up the back of each wave, crests, and then angles downward to the valley, sending small sprays of salt water outward. Krandle sees the shore ahead as they rise up on top, losing sight of it as they descend the slopes. The tall structure of the hotel in the middle of a stretch of houses appears in the center of his vision each time. And, at the summit of each ridge of water, it grows larger.
Feeling his M-4 against his chest with each bounce and smelling the tang of the sea, Krandle sees the small breakers loom ahead. He feels his heartbeat as his body is keyed up on adrenaline.
In some ways it does get easier but in others, more difficult. Each and every time, he knows he is bucking the odds. He also knows that he would be keyed up even if it was only training.
