Seal Team Seven (31 page)

Tetsuo Kurebayashi listened impassively as Pasdaran Colonel Ruholla Aghasi continued shouting at the men kneeling before him on the deck. Kurebayashi spoke English—that language was how he communicated with the Iranians who spoke no Nihongo—but the colonel's words were too rapid for him to follow more than a word or two, and Aghasi kept alternating between English and German, of which Kurebayashi spoke not a word.

Unlike Sayyed Hamid, however, that fat pig of a Pasdaran colonel in charge of the Iranians aboard the
Yuduki Maru
, Aghasi was clearly a man of keen intelligence, who knew what he was doing and how best to achieve results. Though he couldn't understand the speech, he knew what Aghasi was saying, because Kurebayashi had come up with the idea and convinced the Iranian leader to try it just hours ago. Aghasi was the commander of a contingent of troops just arrived with the Iranian naval squadron; Kurebayashi had approached him, rather than the unimaginative Hamid, with his idea of seizing the Greenpeace schooner that had been dogging
Yuduki Maru
's wake for the past three weeks.

The speech was having the desired effect. Aghasi, the Ohtori leader noted, was playing the game well, waving the confiscated scraps of the women's bathing suits in front of the male prisoners with evident relish, gesturing frequently toward the cabin where the women had been taken, and at those of his men who were lounging about the well deck now with weapons very much in evidence. Through threats and bullying, the colonel had already gotten two of the prisoners to admit that two of the women were their wives; the dead man, apparently, had been husband to the third. A pity that he had been the one chosen by Heaven to serve as an example to the others . . .

Still, those two would be enough.

Kurebayashi was a longtime student of American tactics. The Yankees had already tried a covert operation, slipping a small squad of commandos aboard the
Yuduki Maru
in an attempt to surprise her captors. That attempt had failed . . . though eighteen of the forty Iranian troops aboard had been killed or seriously wounded, and poor Shigeru Ota, one of Kurebayashi's Ohtori, had vanished in the fight. Their next move, he was certain, would be either another attempt to negotiate or an overwhelming show of force. Iranian sources had already reported the gathering of a sizable American naval task force south of the Arabian peninsula, between the
Yuduki Maru
and her destination; his guess was that they would try a frontal assault next, possibly behind the screen of a professional negotiator.

The Iranians, with their entire pathetic little navy, could not possibly hope to match the Americans ship for ship and gun for gun. The little
Beluga
and her activist passengers were the best weapon they could have to meet the Yankees' challenge, to force them to back down. All that was needed was some cooperation from the prisoners.

That part would be easy. Kurebayashi had studied in America, two years at UCLA. He knew Western men, and he knew something of their illogical ways of thinking, especially about women and sex. Kohler and Brandeis, he was sure, would do anything,
anything
to keep their wives from being gang-raped and tortured one by one before their eyes. Since it was Kohler's help they needed most, they would start with the dead German's wife, then move on to the American, saving Kohler's wife for last. The only real problem was that the process would take time, and Kurebayashi very much doubted that they had more than a few hours before the Americans struck.

But then, it was possible that the threat alone would be enough. He studied the prisoners through narrowed eyes. Yes . . . Aghasi's little speech was definitely having the desired effect. The American, Brandeis, was pale and sweating, on the verge of passing out right there on the deck. Kohler's eyes were squeezed shut, and he was moaning something to himself over and over in German. These men were already broken, Kurebayashi thought, clay to be molded in any way their captors saw fit.

Aghasi barked a question at the American. Slowly, a little jerkily, the man nodded, his hands still clasped on top of his head. Excellent. They had one ally, even if he was an unwilling one. Then Kohler agreed too, nodding his head enthusiastically as tears rolled down his cheeks.

Success . . .

It was evening, but the sun was still well above the western horizon when the first flight of four Marine SuperCobra gunships clattered in toward the
Yuduki Maru
. They came in low, skimming the waves, approaching out of the west so that the enemy's gunners—and their heat-seeking antiair weapons, if they had any—would be blinded by the sun. Half a mile behind the gunships, three big CH-53 Super Stallions of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing came in at higher altitude, each carrying a full load of fifty-five Marine combat troops.

Captain Ron Dilmore was strapped into the rear seat of Pickax One-three, one of the SuperCobras sliding into attack position west of the Iranian squadron. His gunner/copilot, in the front seat, was a skinny, blond kid from Kansas, Lieutenant Charles Mobely.

“So what's it gonna be,” Mobely was saying over the ICS, the Cobra's intercom system. “Peace or war?”

“Aw, the Iranies are chickenshit, Mobe,” Dilmore replied. “They'll take one look at us and—”

“Pickax One, Pickax One” sounded over Dilmore's helmet phones. “This is Rolling Prairie. Deploy in attack formation, but hold your fire. Repeat, deploy for attack but do not fire.”

Rolling Prairie was the call sign for II MEF's Tactical Command Team, buried away in the combat center aboard the
Nassau
.

“There they are,” Mobely said. “I got the freighter and two . . . no, three warships. Looks like a destroyer has the freighter in tow.”

“I see it, Mobe. Pick your targets. I'm gonna buzz the
Maru
.”

The SuperCobra held its approach, now less than fifty feet above the water, its rotor blast raising a wind-lashed fog of spray in its wake. Ahead, the Japanese freighter
Yuduki Maru
was wallowing forward in moderate seas, a long length of heavy towing cable stretched from the fantail of the destroyer to the freighter's bow chocks. Red-white-and-green flags flew from the mastheads of both vessels.

“Hey, Skipper!” Mobely called. “The
Maru
's flying an Iranie flag!”

“I see it, Mobe.” He put the SuperCobra into a gentle turn to port, circling the two vessels at a distance. So far there'd been no fire from either ship, though he could see armed men gathered on their decks. According to Prairie Fire's mission briefing, a team of Navy SEALs had managed to get on board the freighter and damage one of its screws, but had been forced to back off. How many Iranian soldiers were aboard? It looked like hundreds, though he didn't have time for an accurate count. Enough, certainly, to fight off a SEAL squad, and enough to make an airborne descent from helos, if not impossible, at least a very bloody business indeed.

“You getting all this, Mobe?”

“We're rolling, Skipper.” The gunner/copilot was using a sophisticated camera mounted in the Cobra's chin turret to record the scene.

Damn. If the Iranians had raised their own flag over the
Yuduki Maru
, this could get real sticky, real fast. With that Iranian flag flying from her truck, the Japanese freighter was now, technically at least, Iranian property, and the American rescue mission could be construed as an invasion. Wryly wondering what the brass hats were going to make of this one, he opened a channel to Rolling Prairie and called in his report.

The other gunships began circling as well, while the troop-carrying Sea Stallions remained at a safe distance. After informing
Nassau
about the flags and tow cable, Dilmore was told to keep orbiting the freighter but to take no threatening action.

No threatening action? Add the SuperCobra's M197, a three-barreled, high-speed rotary cannon protruding from beneath its chin, to the rocket and minigun pods and TOW missiles slung from hardpoints to port and starboard, and you had one definitely threatening aircraft, even when it was squatting motionless on a flight deck. Circling its intended prey like some bristling, monster dragonfly, it was bound to make the people on those ships nervous.

The original plan, code-named Prairie Fire, called for the Marine helicopters to rush straight in, suppress any hostile fire from the freighter, and off-load the troops directly onto
Yuduki Maru
's forward deck. It was thought that the sudden, demoralizing appearance of the gunships, coupled with the casualties the Iranian forces had already suffered during the SEAL raid earlier in the week, would be enough to force their surrender.

The raid had been almost ready to go the day before when word had been received from the Pentagon that the Iranian warships
Damavand, Sahand
, and
Alborz
had joined the plutonium ship and were now providing close escort, together with a number of small patrol craft.
Damavand
, a World War II-era British destroyer transferred to Iran in the 1970s, now had the
Yuduki Maru
under tow.

Delayed for twenty-four hours while options were reviewed and orders rewritten, Prairie Fire had finally been launched despite the new intelligence, but their mission profile now called for them to approach cautiously, to report everything they saw, to hold fire until specifically ordered otherwise. What had begun as a terrorist incident on the high seas could rapidly escalate into a major military confrontation between Iran and the United States.

“Hey, Skipper?” Mobely called over the ICS. “We've got something screwy coming in on channel four.”

“Let's hear it.” He flipped the channel select knob on his console.

“. . . vessel
Beluga
! D-do not attack!” The voice was ragged with excitement, or more likely, Dilmore thought, with fear. “American forces, please, do not attack. This is Rudi Kohler, of the Greenpeace vessel
Beluga
. Soldiers and sailors of Revolutionary Iran, acting in the interest of world peace, have boarded the freighter
Yuduki Maru
, which was damaged several days ago in a terrorist incident, and have taken her in tow. This is a salvage and rescue operation as described under the international laws of the sea. The . . . the commander of the Iranian forces has asked me, as a representative of the organization Greenpeace International, to act as a neutral observer in this matter, to report what I see and hear to the world.

“American forces, please do not attack. . . .”

“Shit,” Lieutenant Dilmore said, switching off. “A salvage operation! Who do they think they're kidding?”

“Pickax One, Pickax One, this is Rolling Prairie” sounded over Dilmore's helmet phones. “Hold fire, repeat, hold fire. This one's going up the chain. Confirm, over.”

“Rolling Prairie, Pickax One,” Dilmore replied. “Hold fire, roger.” He dropped the helo into a shallow bank to starboard.

“What do you think, Skipper?” Mobely asked. “Was that message for real?”

“Hell, it sounded like he was reading from a prepared statement. I think the poor bastard had a gun to his head.”

“Yeah. Who's this Kohler guy anyway?”

“I don't—”

“Ninety-nine aircraft, ninety-nine aircraft” sounded over the radio, interrupting.

“Uh-oh,” Mobely said. The call sign “ninety-nine aircraft” was military shorthand for all aircraft aloft, and a general order to all of them probably meant an abort. “That was a little too fast for my liking.”

“Quiet,” Dilmore said. “I want to hear.”

“Ninety-nine aircraft, scrub Prairie Fire. Repeat, scrub Prairie Fire and RTB.”

RTB—Return to Base. The brass was calling off the attack before a single shot had been fired.

“Aw,
shit!
” Mobely said. “They're letting the bastards get away with fucking murder!”

“Maybe they know something about it we don't,” Dilmore said. “Coming right to three-five-oh. Oops. What's that?”

“What's what?”

“Sailboat trailing the Iranians, six, maybe eight miles back.”

“Hell, that's probably the Greenpeacers.”

“Rog. Let's have a closer look, okay?”

“Fine.
You
explain digressing from the flight plan to the CO when we get back.”

“
No problemo
. Hang onto your lunch.”

The Marine SuperCobra dropped until its skids were practically skimming the waves, angling south toward the two-masted schooner motoring northward with its sails furled. Several men in civilian clothes stood on the aft deck, one of them at the wheel. As the helicopter circled at a distance, the men waved.

“That's the Greenpeace bunch?” Mobely asked.

“That's them.
Beluga
.”

“They look okay.”

“Yeah. They could also have a guy with a machine gun pointed at 'em, hiding in that hatchway in the deck, telling ‘em to smile and wave.”

“Whatcha want to do?”

“Shit. We can't land. We can't attack a boat full of hostages, if that's what they are. I guess we wave back.”

Circling once more, the SuperCobra then peeled off toward the west, following the other helos of Pickax back toward the U.S.S.
Nassau
.

Prairie Fire was, Dilmore thought, a total bust. The Iranians had just pulled a bit of legal chicanery that might let them get their hands on the plutonium, the operation had the blessing of some guy from Greenpeace, and Uncle Sam was going to come out of this with egg on his face . . . again.