Seal Team Seven #20: Attack Mode (22 page)

“Heard. Take it easy. Might be more than one. You want some backup?”

“Nope. I’m cool. Moving inside.” He stepped through the door and flattened against the side wall. The steps were to his right. He listened. He’d learned that much from Lam. Nothing. He eased up the first three steps, staying near the wall to cut down on any squeaks. Both the fourth and fifth steps creaked as he put his weight on them. He stopped, the muzzle of the Pup centered on the doorway at the top of the stairs.

He could hear no movement above him. He turned off the Motorola so it wouldn’t give him away with an incoming call, then eased on up to the landing. The door there was closed. He checked the knob. Unlocked. Mahanani turned the knob and edged the door out an inch, then went to the floor beside the wall and nudged the panel open another inch so he could peer around the door-jamb into the room.

Dust, a pile of old newspapers and magazines, a dozen boxes. Not a sound from inside the twenty-foot square room.

“You’ve got five seconds to come out with your hands up; otherwise I throw in two grenades and your ass is blown up with a hundred chunks of hot shrapnel making you into one fucking bloody pincushion. Your choice, asshole.”

There was no reaction. Mahanani shrugged, pulled a
flash-bang grenade off his vest, and worked out the safety pin. He held down the arming spoon, decided where to throw the nonlethal grenade, and pitched it into the room underhanded. Then he closed the door and put both hands over his ears.

He was on his feet when the last blast of sound receded inside the room. He pushed open the door and charged inside. He checked the parts of the dimly lit room that he could see. Nothing—certainly no terrorist. He checked behind the boxes. Nobody. Then he saw something near the window. He moved up cautiously, not quite sure what the object was. He saw the rifle first, an AK-47 that had fallen to one side. Then he could make out the body. He stepped closer and saw the crumpled figure with a bullet hole in his forehead and half of his skull blasted off in back.

There was no one else in the room.

Mahanani turned on his Motorola. “Relax, Cap. Nice shooting. The only terr up here caught one of your rounds in his forehead. He must have been looking out the window at exactly the wrong time. I’m coming down with his AK-47.”

“That’s a roger, Mahanani. Have you seen Lam?”

“Negative.”

“That’s ’cause we’re not to the village yet,” Lam said on the net. “Our boy is hightailing it in your direction. We’re letting him run. He should be showing up there in about ten. You could put a net around this side of the buildings and take him as he comes in.”

“Good idea, Lam. We’re on it.” Murdock moved his men to backyards and doorways facing the jungle to the south of the village. They were ready within five minutes and settled down out of sight to wait for their quarry.

“Like the beaters chasing a lion into a trap where the hunters can shoot it,” Jaybird said.

“Not a lion, dumb-dumb,” Canzoneri said. “More likely a wild pig or maybe a lonesome water buffalo.”

“Whatever,” Jaybird said.

They waited.

Gardner picked up the terrorist first. “I’ve got some-body
in jeans and a T-shirt coming along the edge of the lagoon,” he said. “Yes, he has a rifle. Could be our boy.”

“I can confirm on the clothes,” Lam said. “Guy we’re following has a rifle and is wearing jeans and a white shirt.”

“Let’s take him alive if possible,” Murdock said. “Don Stroh will love it. Does this runner look like an Arab?”

“Black hair and a beard, so it’s a chance,” Gardner said. “I can get to the next building, and if he keeps on course I should be able to surprise him at about six feet. I’m moving.”

“Oh yeah, he looks like an Arab,” Prescott said. “He’s on the same course, near the lagoon. There’s some kind of a garden down there and then some brush and a building next to that warehouse. He’ll come between the warehouse and another building, maybe a store.”

Gardner slid past the house he had been crouching near and sprinted for the next building. He worked around the side of it, out of sight of the terrorist. Then he peered around the corner and saw the man still coming. He was on course. When he passed the big warehouse, he would be within a dozen feet of the store Gardner hid behind. Gardner made sure his Bull Pup was on the 5.56 barrel, then slid off the safety and waited.

He chanced one more look around the wall. Yes. The man was twenty feet away and coming toward him. At the last minute the terrorist changed direction and sprinted for the store that hid Gardner. The JG saw the move. It would bring the man within three feet of where Gardner waited. He reversed the weapon and held the barrel of the Bull Pub. He could hear the man’s feet hitting the crushed coral. He had to time it just right. He waited, holding his breath.

Now. Gardner stepped out and swung the Bull Pub like a club. The terrorist ran right into it. The stock hit the man in the chest and right arm, stopping him and driving him back a step.

Gardner leaped forward and slammed his fist into the terrorist’s jaw, jolting him backward. He stumbled,
dropped his rifle, and fell. A moment later the Bull Pup’s 20mm muzzle pushed down and hovered an inch from the terrorist’s eyes.

“Don’t even think about moving or you’re dead,” Gardner said.

The dark-faced man swore in Arabic and his face twisted in hatred, but that was all he could do.

“Come pick up the garbage,” Gardner said. “I’ve got one bag full, down and wishing he was dead. Stroh should have a field day.”

Twenty minutes later the two prisoners were sitting in an SH-60 waiting to go out to the carrier. The bird had just brought in the radiation experts from the nuclear division of the carrier. Murdock had borrowed a pickup and taken them and their equipment down to the bunker. Another party of six sailors had arrived in another chopper to arrange for a local boat to ferry the plutonium crates out to the carrier. The big ship had steamed closer to the atoll and now cruised slowly five miles to the north.

Murdock watched the radiation testers do their work in the bunker. There were only traces of radiation in the bunker itself. They put a probe into the sealed room and found radiation levels much higher, but not lethal.

“Neither of the lead containers of plutonium has been opened, so there is no big problem,” Commander Whitfield told Murdock. He was the officer in charge of the nuclear propulsion unit on the carrier. “We can breach this lead wall, go inside in radiation-proof suits, and put added protection around the lead containers. Then we’ll crate them up and get them back to the ship and put them in our sealed radiation safe room. Routine work for my men.”

“I’ll leave it in your hands, Commander. I think it’s time I got my men and our two prisoners back to the ship. Have you heard anything about the other two boats with the stolen plut on board?”

“Only that they’re still at sea and are being monitored closely.”

Murdock thanked him and jogged back to the choppers.

“Let’s load up and get out of here. Do we have two birds that can fly?”

They did. In fifteen minutes they had boarded, taken off, and landed on the carrier. Don Stroh met them.

“We’ve got some meat for your grinder,” Murdock said when he saw Stroh. “Not sure what they know, but I bet you’ll find out. If you’re keeping score, we left eight dead on the atoll and brought you two. Most of this bunch were Arab-looking men in their twenties.”

Stroh looked at the two prisoners with hands tied behind their backs, and one with blood all over his face. “Yes, you did well on this one, Commander. We’ll see that both of these gentlemen have the proper welcome into the Company.”

“Where are the other two boats?”

“Not sure. I’ve left that up to the CAG and the captain. They have tabs on them at the CIC.”

Murdock thanked him, sent the SEALs back to their quarters, and he and Gardner went to sick bay to check on the three wounded men. Howard had one leg in a cast and kept swearing at anyone within sight.

“How can I get with the program with all that damn plaster on my leg? Just a little nick on the bone and the doctor went ballistic. Hell, I walked in here on it. No reason I can’t get back to duty.”

“Sailor, you’ll do what the doctor tells you to do, and you’ll keep your mouth shut for the next twenty-four,” Murdock said. He scowled at the SEAL. “Yeah, it’s tough being out of action. I’ve been there a time or two. Just ride with it, and we’ll get you back in the loop. Rest up and read some skiing and windsurfing magazines. I’m sure there are some around.”

Howard closed his eyes and shook his head. “Yes, sir, Commander sir,” he said. Then he grinned. “Hell, Cap, it’s tough as shit week in here. But I guess if I got to, I got to.”

Murdock slapped his shoulder and turned to Jefferson,
who was in the next bed. His right shoulder was bandaged but there was no cast.

“Hey, Cap, you come to spring me, right? Kick in the bail money and I’ll get out of this hoosegow.”

“Don’t you wish, Jefferson. You’ve got a month’s pass. Your shoulder is all cut up and you’ll need probably two months on rehab to get back to fighting trim. That’s why you get the big bucks, right?”

“Oh, hell yes, Cap. Huge money.” He shook his head. “Ke-rist, but I was hoping. You nail some of them bastards?”

Murdock told them about the operation on the atoll.

“You took it to them fuckers. Damn straight.” Jefferson paused. “I hear the senior chief took a round in the back. How’s he doing?”

“Don’t know. We haven’t found him yet. I’ll stop back and let you know how he is.”

They found Sadler. He was in intensive care and getting oxygen and a close watch. A nurse brought his doctor. The medic checked the chart and then turned to the two men still in their dirty cammies.

“Your senior chief has had a dangerous wound. The bullet went in his back and all the way out his upper chest. It broke one rib but didn’t push it into any vital organs. The round did clip the top of his lung, and it collapsed before we got him to the carrier. We fixed that, but there’s also more damage up in that area. There was quite a bit of internal bleeding, but we think we have that located and stopped. He’s on antibiotics and oxygen and an IV. He had two pints of blood and a three-hour operation. We think we have found all the problems. He’s still groggy from the anesthesia. He will be able to talk to you in about four hours.”

“He’ll make it, right, Doc?” Gardner asked.

“Oh yes. He’s a tough one. Vital signs are all good and he’s stabilized. If nothing else goes wrong, he should be up and around in two weeks.”

Murdock thanked the doctor and nurses, and they left, heading for the CIC.

“Now back to work,” Murdock said.

The CIC was its usual busy self. Captain Olenowski, the CAG, was on a stool watching a display screen. He turned when the two SEALs came in.

“We’re still watching the other two boats. One of them went right past Ailuk Atoll and headed for the next one down the chain. He’s about thirty miles from Wotje Atoll, and we don’t know anything about that speck of coral.”

“Sir, where is the second boat?” Gardner asked.

“That one is heading due east and straight for Rongrik Atoll. That landfall is a hundred and sixty miles from us here at Utrik. We think the boat is having some trouble. It seems to be speeding up and slowing down. The average speed has dropped to about six knots and we think that one, too, is overloaded. Right now she’s only halfway to that atoll.”

“So what’s our next move?” Murdock asked.

The CAG rubbed his hand over his face and stared at the screen. “We have two crews at this atoll now, recovering the plutonium in there. The two crated ones are now on a sixty-foot boat bringing them out to us. We’ll hoist them over the side. The other two will take longer, about an hour more to get them crated and protected and hauled out here. Then we have a decision. Do we go to Wotje or to Rongrik?”

“Sir, a suggestion.”

“That’s why the CNO asked you to come, Murdock. Shoot.”

“The SH-60 moves a little over two hundred miles an hour. Three point four five miles a minute. We can beat both boats to their respective atolls. Put a squad of SEALs in each chopper and rattle them out there. We meet them if they land, and take them out and recover the plut.”

The CAG looked hard at Murdock. “You’re down to thirteen men. That’s six and seven to a squad. How about we send a squad of Marine Recon with each of your squads? Beef up your firepower.”

Murdock glanced at Gardner. He lifted his brows. “Fine
with me, Captain,” the platoon leader said. “I’d prefer all enlisted in the squads.”

“Yes, sir,” Gardner said. “Eight more men would be a help. That is eight to a squad?”

“If you want eight, you get eight,” the CAG said. “This way we don’t have to wait to clear the plutonium here. The Sixties have plenty of range to get to the atolls and return. Let’s do it. I’ll get the Marines on the line.”

“We need to do some ammo fill and equipment check,” Murdock said. “It’s now about oh-eight-thirty. If our SEALs could have some chow, we’ll be ready to hit the flight deck at oh-nine-thirty.”

“I’ll phone the mess that you’ll be there in thirty. I want each squad to have a radio you can use to contact us directly. I know you have a SATCOM, but this will be quicker. Bring them to you on deck. Good hunting, men.”

The two SEALs saluted smartly and hurried back to their compartment.

Promptly at 0920, Murdock and his SEALs came up to the flight deck and back to chopper country. The two squads of cammy-clad Marines were already there. One man stepped forward. He wore no rank on his uniform.

“Sir, Sergeant First Vuylsteke reporting with some Marines. Hear we’re going hunting.”

“True, Sergeant. I’ve seen you Recon guys work. Pleased to have you along. Out here we have no rank. Every man supports every other man. I know you all can swim, but we probably won’t be getting wet. What kind of firepower do you have?”

Murdock checked it out. Each squad had an M-60 light machine gun, two sniper rifles, three H&K MP-5s, and three Colt M-4A1s.

“Sir, we have double ammo, six grenades each, and the Colts have six forty-millimeter grenades for their tubes.” He stared at Murdock’s weapon. “Sir, is that really a twenty-mike-mike rifle? Shoulder fired?”