Payback (8 page)

The trusty CH-46 landed on the command cruiser
Vicksburg,
CG 59, at 0820, and the SEALs jumped off and assembled on the fantail. Ed DeWitt waited with the other SEALs as Murdock went to talk to the cruiser's captain, Commander Roth.

Roth was a short, heavily muscled redhead, and he grinned when he saw Murdock.

“So, I just wanted to take a look at the guy who has shaken up the brass and the CIA. I've never had an order directly from the CNO before, probably never will again. Can you tell me what this is all about?”

“Commander, I'd be glad to if we knew. That's why we're going on a recon down about a hundred feet. Want to come along?”

The captain chuckled. “Not about to get down that deep. Hell, it's been so long since I've been in the water I don't even know if I remember how to swim. Oh, the CNO says my ship is your ship, you've got the whole damn fleet we brought up here. Whatever you want, you get.

“He said we are on maneuvers, we do some simulated attacks, some circles around the two towers, and a general charging back and forth to cover our dropping you and your men into the water. Might as well get something started. You can board the surface-effect boat whenever you're ready. You need one or two, Commander?”

“One will be good for our men, but send the other one along to play tag with us and maybe shield us when we drop
into the water. Appreciate it if you have somebody watch for us to surface. We'll shoot up a red flare when we're ready for a pickup.”

“Sounds good to me. Let's get this circus started.”

Murdock nodded, and left the cabin and headed back to his men. Two of the air-cushion landing craft hovered around the stern of the cruiser. Murdock signaled to the closest one, and it backed into the cruiser's squared-off stern. The big ship was making less than five knots, so there was no trouble tying up. Sailors put down a ladder from the deck to the air-cushion craft, and the SEALs went down it quickly and sat down on both sides of the deck against the large machinery pods. Murdock came down last. They had four battery-powered stream lights, which would light up the ocean floor for fifty feet. Four of the SEALs each carried one of the lights in a heavy-duty shoulder bag.

Murdock talked with the boat driver, and moments later the craft backed away from the cruiser and angled toward the closest oil rig. The ships had collected on the island side of the tower and a mile away, and now they began to move. The destroyers charged north, then cut back, slashed past the 27 tower, and circled back toward the islands to the west.

The Santa Barbara Channel Islands lay almost twenty-five miles off the mainland opposite Santa Barbara. The largest one, Santa Cruz Island, is over twenty miles long and part of the Channel Islands National Park system, which contains three large islands and several smaller ones.

Murdock slowed the air-cushion boat and waved the second one on toward the tower closest to shore. The big ships put on a good display for anyone watching, and he was sure that the men on both towers were watching it all with interest.

Now Murdock moved his air boat closer to Tower 4, and when they were a quarter of a mile west of it, he signaled the second air boat to ease between them and the tower. Then he and his men dropped off the boat as quickly as they could. They went to fifteen feet at once, and Murdock swam around locating them and getting them all in a group. Then he motioned for a move, and they headed toward the tower using a bearing on Murdock's handheld compass board.

After what Murdock figured was four hundred yards, he
came up and took a peek by putting just his face out of a Pacific swell. He saw the tower a hundred yards dead ahead. Back down with the men, he angled on east and slanted down as they began working their way toward the bottom. Another five minutes and they came to what Murdock had seen before, the concrete blockhouse resting on the channel floor. He checked a depth gauge on his wrist: 110 feet.

The concrete dome looked more ominous now in the half-light from above. Each squad had two of the lights; Murdock motioned for them to be turned on. He positioned one man on each corner of the dome, and then all the SEALs began swimming around the structure, examining it, looking for an entrance, or wires or cables or tubes coming out of it.

Murdock completed a circle and found nothing. He moved to the top of the dome, and again there was no hint of an opening. If there was one there, it was cleverly concealed. They worked the recon for another ten minutes; then word went around the unit that they were done and should head back the way they had come. The heavy lights were passed on to new men, who shouldered the added weight, and they kicked to the west, in a gradual upward slant toward the surface.

Murdock broke to the fresh air first. Yes, they were at least a quarter mile west of the suspect tower. They swam on the surface for another quarter mile west, and then Jaybird fired a red flare and one of the air-cushion boats headed toward them. It sent up a furious spray of water as the powerful fans directed a cushion of air directly down on the water, while other fans pushed the craft forward just above the surface of the water. The spray of water was fifty feet long and half that high, which meant the air-cushioned craft were not for slipping up on anyone. They were eighty-eight feet long and forty-three feet on the beam, and could travel over water, desert, or a highway at forty miles an hour.

The closest one powered down as it neared them and settled into the water. The SEALs used a rope ladder, and climbed up over the blunt bow of the craft and flaked out on the deck. Murdock went to find the driver and use his radio.

“Is it scrambled?”

“Afraid not, Commander.”

“Figures. Tell the captain we're coming back to his cruiser. Ask him if he has a SATCOM. Let's move.”

Fifteen minutes later on board the
Vicksburg,
the radio room got through to Admiral Kenner in his Virginia office with a military scrambled signal. Murdock had been instructed to report his findings directly to the head of all the SEAL teams.

“Yes, sir, Admiral. Measurements were about the same, probably on some metric scale, but about forty by fifty feet oblong with a fifteen-foot-high roof slightly domed.”

“How in hell did anybody get that thing down there, and right under our noses?”

“Sir, the freighters must have brought it in one piece at a time, and they sunk them and fastened them together, then pumped out the water.”

“Why?”

“We've been considering that, sir. If it is North Korea, they have a big loss of face from when we smashed that invasion attempt last year, and they'd want to get even with us for it. We were wondering why they didn't just put a submarine offshore and send a few missiles into our cities, but then we discovered they don't have any missile subs.”

“Is the structure set up so they could fire missiles from it?” Kenner asked.

“No, sir, too small.”

“Does North Korea have missiles capable of hitting our cities from some platform offshore?”

“They do, Admiral. The Taepo Dong-1 has an extended range of four thousand kilometers with its third stage. They have rockets similar to the SCUD with a three-hundred-kilometer range. The Nodong missile reaches out a thousand kilometers.”

“So why do they want a facility in close to shore?”

“Maybe for recon, for intelligence gathering, maybe even as a forward direction control for something coming over the ocean.”

“Is there any easy way to get into that thing?”

“No, sir. It's solid as a rock. We found no indications of windows, doors, openings of any kind.”

“We could blast it open.”

“Probably about the only way, which would really mess up whatever they were trying to do down there.”

“Is there a tie-in with the oil platform?” the admiral asked.

“My guess is that there must be, but I have no idea what it might be. Perhaps a control station of some kind. Intelligence gathering for sure. That oil rig could hold a dozen antennas to gather all sort of electronic data, phone calls, e-mail, faxes, anything that has an electronic base. The same way we get electronic intel around the world.”

There were a few moments of silence; then the admiral came back on the air.

“Thanks, Commander Murdock. Well done. I'll be reporting immediately to the CNO, the President, the heads of the CIA and FBI. They will work out any continuing action. You and your men are released to return to your normal duties in Coronado. Well done, Commander Murdock. Now, get Captain Roth on that mike.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral. Right away.”

A chief heard the conversation, and bolted out the door to bring in Commander Roth. He was there in thirty seconds. Murdock waved and left the radio room.

Murdock found his men in an assembly room where they had cleaned and oiled their weapons, changed out of their wet suits into cammies, and tried to look busy.

DeWitt caught Murdock at the door and asked him how it went. Murdock gave him a quick rundown. “What's with the men?” Murdock asked. “The admiral has released us to get back to quarters.”

“The XO told me we could take the men to the regular mess at 1130. It's almost that now.”

The Navy chief who had handled their embarking and landing on the air-cushion landing craft came in the door and walked up to the officers.

“Sirs, the captain tells me that you're released and to arrange for the CH-46 to transport you back to Coronado. The bird will be ready to board at 1300. That way we all get to go to chow.”

“Thanks, Chief. We'll be on the fantail at 1300.”

By 1430 the SEALs had stowed their equipment. Jaybird had taken the lights back to Team Supply, and Murdock and DeWitt had eyed the training schedule.

“Let's do the O course for time,” DeWitt said. “I'm trying to cut down my personal best.”

Murdock studied the schedule again, then nodded. “Everyone but Bradford. I don't want him tearing anything loose.”

“Right, he can keep the time tally.”

The Coronado O course, O short for obstacle, was said by some to be the toughest in the country. Murdock had cursed and praised it depending on his exhaustion factor. It had the usual walls and logs and jumps, and several with nearly impossible challenges.

Each man was timed going through, with the average about six minutes. The all-time verified record was a little over four minutes. DeWitt warmed them up with a two-mile run in the sand down the beach toward the Navy communication towers. They had ten minutes to cool out, then Jaybird led off.

“Want to get through the course before all you guys with your sweaty hands get everything out there all slippery wet,” he said. The men hooted him down, some with envy. Jaybird had one of the fastest times in the platoon for the O course. Today's times were not for publication. Bradford would tell each man his time, but not record it.

Mahanani sat quietly as he waited for his turn on the devices. Usually he was good at them, but he didn't know how he would do today. The casino/mule situation still bugged him. How in hell had he been so stupid as to get into debt gambling? Okay, he admitted that he had a problem with gambling, but he could kick it—if he could get out of his current situation without getting killed and without getting kicked out of the Navy. He'd heard about one Marine who got a dishonorable discharge and reduction in rate because of his gambling. The Marine had finally sold his car and started robbing his friends where they lived out at Camp
Pendleton just to have enough money to gamble with. So it could happen.

He had to come up with a plan. It all depended on whether or not the casino owners and operators knew about the drug running. If they knew about it, he was in deep shit. If they didn't, there was a chance he could turn in Martillo, and Harley, and maybe get the stateside connection busted in San Ysidro. Maybe. All he had to do was figure out how to do it and when. The sooner the better. Each time he ran the border with half to three quarters of a million dollars worth of cocaine, he was risking his neck and prison time. Wouldn't that go over big with the family!

Mahanani stared at the sand. If he had forty-five kilos in the car, and a kilo went for fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, that meant one load could be worth up to nine hundred thousand dollars. He shook his head. He couldn't even imagine what that kind of money was. They must have a massive distribution system if they moved that much coke every week or so. Maybe it was in a huge pipeline that funneled it back East and to the South. He shivered. He was in about a mile over his head. How in hell . . . He knew how. Now what did he do about getting out?

The whole idea of drug money repulsed him. He could just imagine the hundreds of thousands of addicts who were cheating and lying and stealing to feed their habit. He wouldn't touch that money. Not even if he had a guaranteed way he could hijack his load and turn in the druggers at the same time. No way. Not a chance. He just wanted out clean and with his Buick and no damned debt to the casino.

As he waited his turn on the O course, he tried out various scenarios. He could go straight to the president of the tribe, the head of the casino, and tell them what Harley and Martillo had done to him. Sure, and if they were in on it, he'd be just another nameless corpse found half buried somewhere out in the dry hills of the East County backcountry.

Maybe he could call in an anonymous tip to the narc squad at the San Diego Police Department. He could tell them where the garage in San Ysidro was and how Harley and Martillo got their mules. No, then the cops would set up a watch and raid the place when they thought a mule was
coming in. If he had to keep running, it might be him. That was out. If he was going to get it done, he'd have to contact the cops, tell them when he was making a run, and then let them raid the place just as he arrived with the cargo. They would have to give him immunity from any prosecution for turning in the place. At the same time they would have to arrest Martillo and Harley. No way. Then he'd have to testify. Oh, yeah, and then he'd have to quit the SEALs because he'd have to go into the witness protection program and get shipped off to Idaho or Montana or Georgia. Not a chance.