Christmas at Peleliu Cove

Chapter 1-2

“Need to grow a white beard if you’re planning to live up to that hat, Lieutenant. Besides, you’re a little early there. And aren’t you from Arkansas? Do they even have Christmas that far south?”

Clint grinned at the heckler in surprise. Maier was always teasing people, but it was the first time she’d aimed a jibe at him in the eighteen months he’d been aboard.

“You snickering at my festive fedora, Petty Officer Nika Maier? Thanksgiving is a week gone; it’s December now. Where’s your Christmas spirit, Petty Officer?”

“I’m Jewish, Lieutenant. And we’re in the Southern Mediterranean where it’s seventy-eight Fahrenheit.”

“And you’re using that as an excuse not to be merry?”

“As I said, sir, Jewish. Against our religion to be merry because we don’t need an excuse to feel someone is out to get us—we already know they are. Besides, that’s not a fedora without a brim and an indented crown.” She picked up a three-foot steel pry bar used for tightening the vehicle tie-down chains and waved it at him, revealing a surprising strength in her slender frame. “Be glad to fix the latter problem for you,” her cheerful tone completely belied her prior declaration regarding merriness.

“And you never had a Christmas tree? I can only pity the poor, neglected child.”

“Might have had a Hanukkah bush, sir. Might have had pretty lights on it. Maybe even presents that were opened on December 25th. But I promise, I wasn’t merry about it.”

Damn but he liked her. Nika Maier had sass and a slow smile that was hard to tease out, but it was definitely worth the effort. And she always gave a hundred percent just like a Ranger and it was easy to respect that, even if she was a Navy swabbie. More Navy swabbies looked like her and he just might change branches of the service.

“My beard comes in as black as my hair, ma’am. Black as my mama’s.” Lena Barstowe was still acclaimed as a beautiful woman even in her fifties. And able to stare down the entire board of the Little Rock hospital she ran if she didn’t like one of their decisions.

“A mama’s boy. I should have known.”

“Not the way you mean it, but yes. Hundred percent! Hoo-ah!” She come up the hard way, nurse to senior administrator—doing a whole lot to respect. Raising he and his little sister on her own, she’d been both warm and strict. And he’d do anything to protect them both.

“So you’re a lump of coal Santa. Wouldn’t want to find you in my stocking; could ruin a whole Hanukkah Bush day. And Ma’am? Do I look like a ma’am?”

Nika Maier looked like a lot of good things he wouldn’t mind finding in stockings and a Ms. Claus mini-dress—an image he decided to keep to himself, especially because she hadn’t set aside that steel bar yet. Clint went for a different conversation though the image didn’t exactly fade away.

“Can’t say I much like sleighs either. Especially y’alls air cart,” he did his best to make the last a dismissive sneer, as beneath a gentleman soldier of Little Rock.

Maier brandished her pry bar again, proving the correctness of his earlier decision on keeping certain things to himself. “You take that back, Army. Nobody insults our little girl 316 and gets away with it.”

Clint heard the first engine idling down the ramp behind him and used it as an excuse to shift aside out of the main line of Maier’s fire, raising his hands in mock defeat. Even idling, the engines rang about the space loudly enough for him to pull on a set of heavy earmuffs. The big fans to clear the exhaust fumes out of the ship had also roared to life, making conversation impossible. Claiming the final word—or at least gesture—Maier offered a final wave of her weapon before moving to load the craft.

Lamar and Jeffries backed the two RSOVs down the Well Deck’s ramp and up the LCAC’s. The Ranger Special Operations Vehicles were Land Rovers on steroids. Like the old Korean and Vietnam War Jeeps, they had no doors to delay exit or attack. They carried seven Rangers, mounted a pair of heavy machine guns—an M240 and an M2—and were nearly indestructible. Everything a growing boy wanted when riding into a s**t storm.

Nika guided them into position without a single miscue. She’d already been a fixture when he pulled his first mission launching from the Peleliu. Just watching her had done a lot to shift his thinking about women in the military. She was five-six, just a slip of a thing with shaggy brunette hair that tended to ruffle in the slightest breeze. Half of the time she looked as if she should be teaching besotted kindergarteners.

Instead, she was completely at home in a heavy-duty war machine like the hovercraft. The other half of the time she reminded him of Natalie Portman in that V for Vendetta movie. He’d have to watch that again—he’d thought the movie merely okay the first time, but imagining Nika Maier in the lead role, especially after the heroine became a kickass warrior for truth and justice, might enhance his opinion a few hundred-fold.

After Nika and the silent Jerome chained down the RSOVs so that they wouldn’t shift during transport, other Rangers began rolling down the ship’s ramp and boarding the LCAC. Six on dirt bikes and four driving four-man MRZRs—rugged-a*s all-terrain vehicles with a roll-cage and a swivel mounted M2 Browning on the passenger side. They were smaller and lighter, but just as tough as their RSOV big brothers.

“C’mon, you elves. Get aboard and get ‘em pinned down. We’re gonna hafta be waiting on the Navy as it is. Don’t give them an excuse to be even slower.”

He’d kept a weather eye on Maier who flicked a finger in his direction. At his laugh she called out.

“We been waiting on your sorry behinds half an hour, Lieutenant. ‘Rangers Lead the Way’ like hell.” She didn’t even break stride to insult him. Didn’t quite offer that hot smile, but he could see her fighting it. Damn woman was a hoot.

Women usually didn’t make him laugh much. His ex-wife sure as hell hadn’t when she’d bailed after only two years. She’d vacuum cleaned his bank account on her way into the arms of a used car dealer while Clint had been overseas. She and Mr. Used Car had kept bleeding his Army pay out of the joint account for six months while he’d been in Afghanistan. The b***h—only way he ever thought of her now—had thought that bleeding him until the last second was a better option than Dear John-ing him while Al-Qaeda had been trying to bleed him for real.

Of course his service brothers had gotten wind of it. Without his knowledge, one had cancelled Mr. Car’s insurance policy. The rest of the squad had leveled the parking lot; seventy-eight cars good for nothing but the crusher. They’d looped the security cameras so that there were no gaps and no evidence. Never f**k with a Ranger.

He’d reamed them good about taking such actions, risking their careers that way, and wanted to thank every man Jack of them. They understood loyalty even if women didn’t. As a bonus, after Mr. Car’s inexplicable loss, the b***h had dumped his a*s and would have cleaned out his account too if his brothers hadn’t already seen to that for both of them.

His team had offered to replace all the money she’d taken but he didn’t want a single cent—it felt soiled by her. So, they’d donated the whole lump into the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. A lot of kids who’d lost their Spec Ops dads had gone to college in Mr. Car’s name. Two years of Clint’s income was gone, but it was helping kids, which reduced the sting. By pure dumb luck he’d never gotten around to adding her name to the retirement account that held the bulk of his savings, or she’d have stripped that too.

Nika Maier walked across his field of view on her way to double-check one of the tie-downs.

Shit! How had he gotten off into that ugly headspace again? He’d thought he was done with that. b***h was gone and no other woman was coming in close ever again except for sport. Wouldn’t mind sporting with Maier a bit, except she didn’t strike him as that sort of woman. Too bad. Damn it! Still thinking dead-end s**t.

“Move your asses!” Clint roared at the last of the Rangers jogging down the ramp as if it was their fault. He tried to soften it, “Time to bring a little Christmas cheer to the heathens.”

He considered tonight’s mission. Yeah, one terrorist camp going down extra hard. He definitely needed a little of that kind of rock ‘n’ roll right now.

“We will!...” He shouted out over the heads of the boarding troops.

“We will!…” He repeated the call.

“Wreck you!” Thirty US Rangers roared with a double-stomp of their boots on the LCAC’s hard steel deck followed by a unison-shouted “Hoo-ah!” in place of the handclap of the altered Queen song. They picked it up as a double-time marching cadence.

“We will…we will…Wreck you!” Half of them singing.

The Well Deck roared with the echoes. They matched their beat to the echo’s, making it all the louder.

Stomp! Stomp! “Hoo-ah!” Half keeping the chant.

Damn but he loved these guys.