Seal Team Seven (33 page)

Murdock glanced at his watch. It was nearly 2300 hours. “And when do you need our plans?”

For the first time that evening, Fowler smiled. “Lieutenant, I'm afraid I'll need a copy by zero-nine-hundred hours tomorrow. I know that's stretching things tight—”

“I don't mind a little late-night work, Commander,” Murdock said. “But when is Prairie Watch supposed to go down?”

“Tomorrow night,” Fowler told him. “Either late Friday evening or early Saturday morning. We have to know which way to jump in regard to the
Maru
by Sunday. Judging from her speed under tow, she'll reach Bandar Abbas sometime around midday on Sunday. We don't expect to be able to move against her before she's in port. But we must take action before the Iranians have a chance to remove her cargo. Your changing the access code on the
Yuduki Maru
's computer was a good move, Lieutenant, but once they have the ship in port, all they need to do is cut through the deck hatches with a shipyard-sized cutting torch. I'd guess we're looking at Sunday evening, at the latest.”

“Then we'd better get busy,” Murdock said. “Sir. We don't have a hell of a lot of time.”

Beneath a black and overcast sky, the Marine CH-46E Sea Knight skimmed across a black sea, its twin fore- and aft-rotors pounding against the night. The transport helicopter was running without lights, deliberately flying low to avoid enemy search radar. Somewhere, a few miles to the south, the Iranian squadron, the hijacked Japanese freighter, and the civilian pleasure craft were all making their slow way north at a speed of about eight knots.

Aboard the Sea Knight, the men of SEAL Seven's Third Platoon sat in armored seats on the red-lit cargo deck, giving their equipment and each other a thorough final inspection. Of all the means of insertion into enemy territory, Murdock liked helocasting the least. At least with other types of airborne approaches, you got to use a parachute. . . .

“Three minutes!” the plane's crew chief yelled, holding up three fingers for emphasis. The Sea Knight's rotors made so much noise it was hard to talk and be understood, and Murdock found it difficult to believe the enemy hadn't heard them from the moment they'd lifted off from the deck of the
Nassau
. Of course, helicopters from the Marine Expeditionary Force had been probing and circling the Iranian force's perimeter all day, partly to push them into some suitably revealing response, but mostly to accustom them to the sound of nearby American helicopters.

Murdock nodded at the crew chief, then looked at each of the SEALs with him in turn. There were twelve men in all, with two men missing from the group, one from each squad. Magic and Nickle had been detached to serve as overwatch snipers and were following the big CH-46 in a smaller UH-1 helo trailing somewhere astern of the Sea Knight.

All of the men in the CH-46 were outfitted for a combat insertion, with black Nomex flight suits and hoods, fins, masks and UBA rebreathers, and with assault vests carrying full assault loadouts. Their faces, the only exposed skin on their bodies, had been heavily smeared with black paint. Their spirits, Murdock noted, were high; they were all keyed up, but with the grinning, joking intensity of men prepped for a mission and eager to see it through. Mac had seen to it that all of the men had had a good night's sleep. Murdock, DeWitt, and Mac, though, were all running a little shy on rack time. They'd been up most of the night before drawing up the op plans, orders, and loadout checklists for this mission. Both of them had caught a few hours that morning, however, and right now the adrenaline in his system had Murdock alert and wide awake.

The entire platoon had spent much of that afternoon studying the deckplans of the
Beluga
, until they knew every companionway and cupboard, every compartment and storage locker aboard, until they could have run through the yacht blindfolded if necessary. Of even more critical importance, they'd spent hours memorizing the faces of everyone known to be aboard: of the yacht's owner, Rudi Kohler, and his wife; of the Schmidts and the American couple, Jean and Paul Brandeis; and of the four Germans hired by Kohler as
Beluga
's crew. The goal was to be able to recognize instantly any of these people, under any circumstances, from any angle, under any lighting.

They were ready.

Murdock locked eyes with MacKenzie across the Sea Knight's deck. The master chief grinned back in reply, his teeth impossibly white against his paint-blackened face, and returned a jaunty thumbs-up. It was difficult to put his finger on it, but Murdock sensed that something important had changed in his relationship with these men. He was accepted now, a part of the team. The change might have been occasioned by something as simple—and as complex—as shared combat aboard the freighter.

Carefully, Murdock gave his weapon a final check. For this raid, Gold Squad would be serving as backup, a just-in-case reserve against the possibility that Iranians might show up in force, perhaps from one of those escorting patrol boats, and they were armed accordingly, with sound-suppressed H&K MP5SD3 subguns and, just in case the platoon needed heavy fire support, an M-60 machine gun and M-16s with M203 grenade launchers attached.

Murdock and Blue Squad, on the other hand, had the primary task of boarding the yacht and taking down the terrorists, if any, a role known to SEALs as VBSS, or Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure. Marksmanship aboard a small and wave-tossed sailing vessel could be a problem even for the best shot, and there was the danger that high-velocity rounds that missed their target might punch through a thin, fiberglass bulkhead and kill a hostage in the next compartment. Though all of them carried H&K subguns strapped to the rear of their assault vests as secondary weapons, the boarding party's primary weapons would be their sound-suppressed Smith & Wesson Hush Puppies, each mounting an under-barrel laser target designator.

The problem was that the laser sights were relatively delicate and had to be perfectly aligned for them to do any good. The SEALs had checked their sight alignments aboard the
Nassau
; now pistols and attached laser sights were cradled in black, foam-padded, watertight cases. Murdock again tested each of his sight's connections, then closed up the case and secured it to his assault harness. It would have to ride out a pretty severe thump and he didn't want anything coming loose along the way.

“One minute!” the crew chief yelled, and Murdock signaled to the SEALs. Together, they stood up and made their way aft, as the Sea Knight's cargo ramp whined open. Because they were helocasting with bundles of gear, they would be using the open ramp instead of the small, square opening known as the “hellhole” in the Sea Knight's deck.

Chief Roselli, first in the stick, helped MacKenzie and Brown drag the team's bundled CRRCs to the ramp, then stood by, his swim fins looped over his arm, silently counting down the last few seconds to the jump point. The helo was traveling more slowly now; Murdock could sense the change in the pitch and speed of the rotors.

“Ready . . .” the crew chief warned. “Your target is now at bearing one-seven-four, range ten miles!”

“One-seven-four, ten miles,” Murdock repeated.

A light at the front of the cargo deck winked from red to green, and the crew chief gestured sharply with his arm. “Go!”

MacKenzie and Roselli shoved the first CRRC bundle off the ramp, then the second. Roselli followed them, racing into the black gulf yawning beyond the open ramp.

“Go! Go! Go!” Murdock called, clapping Brown on the shoulder. Garcia was next, then Higgins, then Ellsworth, each man slipping smoothly into the place vacated by the man before him, taking a breath, and propelling himself into the night.

One after the other, each of the eleven SEALs went down the ramp, until finally it was Murdock's turn. The crew chief gave him a thumbs-up. “Good luck, SEAL!” The man yelled, and Murdock nodded. Stepping off the ramp's end, he dropped into space and plummeted toward the sea.

The Sea Knight was now traveling at a speed of less than ten knots, at an altitude of about fifteen feet. The blast from its twin rotors raised a swirling, wet mist above the surface of the water. Murdock splashed into the sea and, with practiced efficiency, donned and cleared his mask, slipped on his swim fins, and kicked his way toward the surface.

The other SEALs had already unshipped the four CRRCs and were busy inflating them. Murdock took his place in the first raiding craft, giving a hand to Garcia and Roselli in getting the outboard motor mounted.

It took only minutes to get all four boats inflated, to remove the UBA gear and fins, and to secure their equipment for the next phase of the mission. There was a brief delay as the engine on number three refused to start, but after several tries, Murdock signaled to the men to leave it. A CRRC could carry seven men, more if necessary; they would make the approach with all six men of Gold Squad on one boat, with Blue Squad traveling three apiece in the remaining two. Ten miles . . . running a little east of due south. With their engines purring softly beneath the overcast night sky, the three CRRCs began traveling south.

Colonel Ruholla Aghasi leaned against the light wire railing of the schooner, studied the lightless sky for a moment, then produced a Turkish cigarette and lit it. A few meters away, an Iranian marine stood at the boat's wheel, studying the compass binnacle with an attentiveness that suggested the colonel's presence made him nervous.

Aghasi ignored the man, staring instead at the running lights of the Iranian ships visible on the horizon. The
Yuduki Maru
and the
Damavand
were currently about two miles ahead of the
Beluga
and to starboard, while the Iranian frigates and patrol boats were scattered carelessly about the horizon.

The sight of so many Iranian warships was reassuring somehow, and it took Aghasi a moment to decide why. Kurebayashi, the cold little Japanese terrorist, had motored across to the
Yuduki Maru
several hours before, and Aghasi, for his part, was delighted. He believed in this mission, believed in the promise for his nation resting in the
Yuduki Maru
's vast cargo holds, but the Ohtori commandos disturbed him. Aghasi thought of himself as a moral man, a devout follower of the teachings of the Prophet, and the random, seemingly blind violence practiced by the members of some of the more extreme terrorist groups, such as Ohtori, sickened him. Worse, random terror, in his opinion, was counterproductive. It made enemies of potential friends and squandered the gains made for the Revolution by painting the terrorists and their allies as barbarians.

Ruholla Aghasi would have been a lot happier if the Japanese weren't involved in this mission at all. Possessing two tons of plutonium might indeed elevate Iran to the heady position of supreme military power in Southwest Asia and the Middle East, but the presence of the Ohtori—even if they had been necessary to carry out the initial hijacking—cast a sickly shadow over the entire endeavor.

A woman's muffled scream floated up from the open companionway leading below deck, followed by a man's laugh. He'd been dead serious when he'd lectured the women on their immodest dress a few days before; none of the nine soldiers or marines aboard the
Beluga
with him was used to the casual standards of dress so often adopted by Western women—especially by
rich
Western women—and it was proving increasingly difficult keeping his men under control. His request to Colonel Hamid, that the women be removed from the yacht and held elsewhere, or else put aboard a helicopter and flown to Bandar Abbas, had been ignored. There'd been no serious incidents aboard the
Beluga
yet, but that, Aghasi was convinced, was only a matter of time. The women had served their purpose in providing leverage over the men, and Aghasi was wondering if they hadn't already outlived their usefulness. The scream sounded again, louder, more urgent.

Angrily, he tossed his cigarette over the side. “Keep us on course,” he told the helmsman, and then he stalked forward. Clattering down the steps to the lounge and galley, he brushed past five off-duty troops who traded knowing grins with one another as he passed, then squeezed into the narrow passageway that led to the
Beluga
's staterooms. As he'd expected, several of his Pasdaran were clustered around the open door to the cabin where the women were being kept; Corporal Mahmood Fesharaki was holding one of the women, the American blond, by her waist, laughing as she beat at his chest with flailing fists.

“Mahmood!” he snapped. “Release her!”

“We weren't doing anything, Colonel,” the man replied. “We just wanted her to dance with us.”

“I said release her!”

Grinning, the Iranian corporal shoved the woman back into the cabin. Aghasi glanced at the three female prisoners incuriously. All of them were fully clothed now, at least after the lax fashion of Westerners, in long pants and pullover shirts, but obviously either their clothing was still too revealing, or the men had already made up their minds about their characters. Their obvious fear and vocal protests counted for very little.

“Return to your duties,” he ordered.

“But we are off-duty, Colonel,” a private said.

“Then find something else to do before I put you on duty! I will not tolerate this lax disregard for discipline and order!”

Reluctantly, but still grinning and nudging one another, the crowd began to break up.

The
Beluga
gave a sudden lurch to port, and Aghasi braced himself against a bulkhead to keep from falling. A loud thump sounded from outside, from above deck. . . .