~ * ~ * ~ * ~
“Danny, this is Rick. What are the sea conditions like out there and how far are you from being back on station?” I asked.
“Hi Rick, I’m hitting eight or nine footers but it seems to be settling down. We are sixty miles off of the coast of Cuba so we are only forty miles away from being on station.”
“Good, we are going to do the extraction tonight. We’re going to bring Philippe Quentes out. Tomorrow the fortress is going to fall. I need Brady at the clearing by 3:00 AM to take Philippe back to the Sea Eagle. Red Dog will have to secure him. Then I need Brady back here for the final assault.”
“I’ll let him know where he’s supposed to be Rick,” Danny promised me over the phone.
“Better yet, have him fly into the church yard now and come over to Carlos’s house. He can be here when we go over battle plans and see on my diagram where his targets are.”
“I’ll have him launch right away. Do you want him to bring Chris along with him?”
“Have him bring him along. He’ll need him manning the FLIR during the first part of the mission tonight when they pick-up Philippe. The second half will be after daylight but he may as well be along for the ride. Lord knows he could use a little excitement in his life.”
“Chris was standing here. He went to find Brady they’ll be on their way in a couple of minutes,” Danny said as he ended the call.
“We might as well sit and wait for Brady to show up. Otherwise we’ll have to go over everything twice,” I said.
“Good, then we have a few minutes for some fun LT,” Bill laughed out. “Doc, are you sure you got rid of all of those chiggers? I could have sworn, “OOMPH!”
Doc launched himself at Bill like a daredevil shot out of a circus cannon. He was holding him tight with his arms and legs wrapped around him.
“What are you doing Doc, let go of me. I ain’t that kind of guy,” Bill said as he struggled to get loose.
“The way I have you wrapped up Bill you just caught anything I had on me. It’s my considered medical opinion that whatever I got you got.”
“Oh shit,” Bill wasn’t expecting the tables to be turned on him so fast. “I think I was probably wrong Doc, you look really healthy from here.”
The others were laughing hard at the look on Bill’s face when he realized he could be the one scrubbed down with the lye soap.
“I think Doc looks real healthy boys. But I suddenly noticed a pallor on Bill that just don’t look good at all,” Sam said grinning.
“I do have something that Doc doesn’t have,” Bill admitted to the others with a dejected look on his face.
“What do you have that Doc doesn’t have besides chiggers?” Patch asked the smallest Seal.
“A hand grenade,” Bill said taking the pineapple out of his pocket. “The first sailor who tries to de-chiggerize me is going to get more than a boot to the head.”
“You know Bill, you take all of the fun out of good hygiene you know that?” Doc asked him.
“I bet you kind of wish you had one of these the other night Doc or did you enjoy all of the attention you got?”
“I would have enjoyed the experience a whole lot more if you were of the female persuasion. I probably wouldn’t have climbed back into my clothes.”
The chief was laughing at Doc. “This is Cuba not Fantasy Island. Only rock stars get their clothes ripped off by women.”
“Well, the next time it happens to me I’ll invite you to watch Chief. Then you can report back to the others.”
“You go ahead and do that Doc. If I ever see it happen I’ll swear off alcohol for good.”
“You’re going to quit drinking Chief?” Brady asked as he came thru the doorway. “Next thing you know you’ll be going to church and singing in the choir.”
“Doc talks goofier than you so sometimes Brady. He’s telling me that groups of women have ripped his clothes off of him.”
“I saw it happen one time in Sasabo, Japan. They ripped the clothes off of me too if I remember right. I was drinking at the time,” Brady admitted.
“That doesn’t count. You were in a bathhouse and they were Geisha Girls. They were paid to do it. Everybody here knows that’s the only way you two could get any girl to rip your clothes off of you!”
“Now that ain’t nice at all chief! Here I was missing your company while I slept in a nice comfortable bed on the ship every night and ate hot meals three times a day. It was rough duty boys and awful lonesome without your company,” Brady finished grinning widely.
The chief stood looking at Brady thru slits for eyes. “You know boys, I think there’s a chigger infestation onboard the Sea Eagle. We’d better nip it in the bud or we’ll all get it,” the chief said as he advanced on Brady.
“What did I say that was so wrong? That I missed your company?” Brady said as he backed up towards the door. “I’m giving you all fair warning. My entire body is a lethal weapon.”
The group was edging closer to Brady. They’d been eating MRE’s and taking short naps when they could, sometimes laying in the mud. But Brady had a nice bunk and three squares a day. He knew it and was tossing it back in their faces.
“Brady, why are you moving away from us?” Patch asked. “We just want to be your friends.”
“Every man for himself,” Brady yelled as he dove thru the door on a dead run with the others in hot pursuit.
Hell, I guess the meeting will have to wait until Brady got his body
De-Chiggerized. I sat down after pouring a cup of coffee for myself.
“Way to go chief,” I said to the grinning sailor across the table from me. “It’s not like I didn’t have enough already to worry about. Now I have to worry about a deloused helicopter pilot. He’ll be mad as hell and over our heads with a Gatling gun and rocket pod, nice.”
“You don’t have to worry about Brady LT. He’d never take a pot shot at you,” the chief said comforting me.
“I wasn’t worried about me chief. I was worried about you standing too close to me when he goes after you.”
Some of the others came trooping back into Carlos’s kitchen.
“I ain’t ever seen anyone disappear so fast in my entire life,” Doc said. “Where the hell did he go?”
‘It was magic,” Sam said. “One second he was right there in front of me and the next he was gone.”
“Where’s Patch,” I asked the others.
“He’s still out there hunting him. You know Patch, there is no way in hell he’s going to let Brady give him the slip.”
My phone rang. “Is it safe to come back yet LT,” Brady asked me over the phone.
“Patch is still out there hunting you. He won’t give up until he finds you Brady.”
“I saw that crazy Seal three or four times already. There ain’t any way he’s going to get me where I’m at,” he said confidently.
“Just where the hell are you hiding Brady?” I asked my missing helicopter pilot.
“That’s for me to know and for Patch to find out,” Brady said with a cocky voice.
I heard a thump and a scrambling sound overhead and a loud yell for help. I was laughing at the looks of my men. They were looking all over for Brady and he was right over my head all along.
“All I got to say is it took you long enough to find me Patch. And you call yourself a tracker.” Brady kidded.
“I didn’t expect you to be hiding right under our noses you crazy sky jockey.”
“LT, do we still have time to give Brady his delousing?” Bill asked from the living room.
“No, you had your fun and we have a meeting that needs taking care of. Just one question Brady, how did you give them the slip?” I asked.
“Well, they went a chasing me down the street and I rounded the corner a couple of blocks down. Right there was a front porch so I dove underneath it. Once these here, want to be trackers got past me I came back to the house. After that all I had to do is climb up the back porch and slide thru an upstairs window. Just so you know Patch, I didn’t include you with the want to be trackers, you found me fair and square.”
“Well thanks Brady, I’m just glad I found you. I wouldn’t have been able to live it down if I didn’t”
“But I got to say that’s a hell of a way to treat your flight instructor,” Brady grumbled.