Seal Team Seven (5 page)

Aboard the C-130 Hercules, the forward, port-side access opens onto a fore-and-aft passageway on the aircraft's port side. To the right, the passageway leads straight aft to the aircraft's cavernous cargo deck; to the left, it goes forward a few steps, then takes a sharp twist to the right and up several steep steps to the flight deck.

Roselli turned right, then went prone, MP5 at the ready and extending into the plane's hold. Behind him, Mac went left to clear the flight deck. Doc followed Roselli to help secure the hold.

On the cargo deck the only light came from a couple of battle lanterns hanging from the starboard bulkhead. In their pasty glare, Roselli could see a number of men milling about in confusion, some already on their feet, others just rising from blankets or sleeping bags scattered about the deck. Some wore civilian clothing, others military fatigues, though all had the blue armband of the UN. There were a couple of Land Rovers parked aft in front of the tail ramp, piled high with cardboard cartons.

Hours of practice in SEAL Team killing houses had trained Roselli to take in a room at a glance, separating the bad guys from the good in an instant. No one visible in that crowd was holding a weapon, though some wore pistol holsters. None had the look of focus or concentration that suggested he was carrying out some prearranged plan. To a man, they looked frightened, confused, and a more than a little dazed.

“What the hell's goin' on?” someone yelled in English. He was answered by an excited voice in French, then by someone else speaking what might have been Swedish.

“Everybody down!” Roselli bellowed, hoping the tone of his voice would carry the meaning to those who didn't speak English. “We are American Special Forces! Everybody down!” The babble of voices increased, and Roselli shouted again, his voice echoing in the hollow compartment. “American Special Forces! Everybody down!”

A big, blond man wearing a uniform and a blue beret approached, hands raised. “You are . . . Americans?”

“Please get down, sir,” Roselli replied crisply, still on the deck, his MP5 unwavering. “I don't want to have to shoot you.
Now!”

The man complied, and he barked an order at the others as he did so. In a few moments, everyone was lying flat on the deck. In moments more, the C-130 was secure. The UN inspectors looked terrified, and as Ellsworth moved past him to start checking the rest of the hold, Roselli could certainly understand why. The black fatigues and combat vests, heavy with pouches, grenades, magazines, and equipment; the faces painted black with only the eyes and lips showing through the greasepaint; the commo gear and NVGs pushed back on their heads, all combined to create a terrifying, nightmare image. The SEALs looked like invaders from some other, darker world.

As Ellsworth covered the plane's occupants, Roselli ran a quick count. There were fifteen UN inspectors aboard, plus the four-man crew of the Hercules. Nineteen for nineteen, and no ringers hiding among the hostages.

“Did any Iraqis come aboard?” Roselli asked the inspection team leader.

“N-no, sir! They gave us until dawn to surrender the records.”

“Looks like we came just in the nick then,” Ellsworth said, teeth showing very white against his black-painted face.

“Cargo deck clear!” Roselli called over the radio. “Hotels secure!”

Hotels meant hostages. Had there been bad guys on the plane the SEALs would have had to tie the hands of everyone aboard with plastic restraints and clear them one by one, but that wasn't necessary now. MacKenzie appeared a second later. “Flight deck's clear. Regular cakewalk.” He touched his Motorola's transmit key. “Alfa, Bravo!” he called. “Stage two clear, negative tangos. We have the package! No damage!”

Cotter heard those welcome words over the tactical channel and loosed a pent-up sigh of relief. The code phrase meant that all of the UN people were safe, the first half of the mission successfully accomplished.

Which left only the getaway.

“Alfa, this is Charlie!” That was Nicholson, one of the two Gold Squad men sent to take down the guards at the roadblock. “Clear! Four tangos down!”

That left one element of the assault still unspoken for. Delta, consisting of the rest of Gold Squad—DeWitt, Wilson, Fernandez, Holt, and Kosciuszko—had been assigned the daunting task of clearing the airport terminal facility, together with the attached air traffic control building that glowered over the parked Hercules like a prison guard tower.

“Delta, this is Alfa. Report.”

For answer, there was only a series of clicks, a signal that element Delta was busy right now.

Electrician's Mate Second Class Charles Wilson, “Chucker” to his squad mates, braced himself on one side of the door, while Chief Kosciuszko took the other. This was the deadliest part of clearing a building, going through a closed door with no idea what was waiting for you on the other side. Reconnaissance by grenade was the preferred room-clearing technique, but the assault so far had been carried out in near-perfect silence, and the longer the SEAL assault team let the neighbors sleep, the better.

So Kos nodded to Chucker, and Chucker nodded back. The chief took a step back, kicked at the flimsy, hollow-core door, and smashed it open. In a smooth roll around the door frame, Wilson burst into the room, his H&K held high, tight, and ready.

Nothing. Several beds, one of which looked as if it had been slept in recently.

Neither man wore NVGs. Even low-light gear requires
some
light to work, and it had been decided before the mission that individual IR goggles, which “saw” heat instead of visible light, were too heavy to make bringing them along as well worthwhile. Instead, both men had flashlights taped underneath the heavy, sound-suppressor barrels of their MP5SD3s; they provided both light for searching darkened rooms, and a quick-and-dirty aim-assist device in a close-quarters firefight.

Chucker crouched to one side of the door, H&K still at the ready, as Kos rolled in and began searching the room. They moved swiftly and with few words. “Clear,” Kosciuszko said, and withdrew from the room. Chucker noticed a closed door and tried the knob. Locked. He put his shoulder to it and the cheap lock gave easily. Inside, his flashlight revealed a tumble-down of empty cardboard boxes, a mop and a wheeled, metal bucket, piles of rags and cleaning supplies.

“Chucker!” sounded over his radio. “Move! Move!” Kos sounded worried. Time for the search was sharply limited.

“On my way.”

“Kos, this is Rattler.” That was Fernandez. “We're in traffic control. Negative, negative. No hostiles.”

“Roger that,” Kos said, still standing by the splintered door. “Extract. Two-IC, this is Kos. Terminal clear. Dry hump!”

“Copy,” the squad leader, Lieutenant j.g. DeWitt, replied. “Move 'em out, Kos.”

“On our way.”

“Alfa, Delta!” DeWitt's voice called over the tactical frequency. “Clear! Dry hump!”

Meaning they'd not found any guards inside the terminal complex. Cotter gave the scene another scan with his binoculars as worry tugged at his awareness. Had there only been ten Iraqis to begin with? To guard the UN Herky Bird and its treasure trove of stolen intelligence? Shit, there ought to be more, a
lot
more. Even if they hadn't heard the death-silent assault by the SEALs, they ought to be reacting by now to the explosion in Zabeir. Where the hell were they?

“You see any movement out there?” he asked Brown.

“Negative, Skipper. Nothin' but our own people.”

“Stay on it. Gimme the sat comm, Professor.” Higgins handed him the radio. “Sky Trapper, Sky Trapper,” he called. “This is Blue Water.”

“Blue Water, Sky Trapper” sounded over his headset a moment later. “Copy. Go ahead.”

Sky Trapper was a Saudi Arabian AWACS aircraft manned, at least for tonight, by U.S. Air Force personnel. The airborne communications and radar early warning plane was orbiting over northern Saudi Arabia, serving as a command center for the far-flung assets of Operation Blue Sky.

“Sky Trapper, Blue Water. Cold Steel, authentication Charlie India two-three. We have the package intact, repeat, we have the package intact. We're ready for delivery. Tell Cowboy and Shotgun to get their asses in gear!”

“Ah, roger that, Blue Water. Be advised that Shotgun should be over your position any time now. Cowboy is en route, ETA six minutes.”

“Copy, Sky Trapper. We'll be waiting. Blue Water out.”

Handing the sat-comm handset back to Higgins, Cotter paused and listened, straining against the darkness. Yes . . . he could just hear it now, the faint and far-off
whup-whup
-
whup
of approaching helicopters.

He changed channels on his Motorola, switching to a frequency that would link him to the entire SEAL platoon. “Blue and Gold, this is Papa One. Helos are inbound. Don't shoot 'em down, they're on our side. Two-IC?”

“Copy, Papa One,” DeWitt replied. “Go ahead.”

“Start bringing your people in, two at a time.”

“Roger, Papa One, wilco.”

“Out.”

The plan was moving like clockwork now, each man with an assignment, each man with a place. Right now, Cotter's place was at the Herky Bird with the rest of his unit. He touched Higgins's shoulder. “I'm going in there. You two stay put until Cowboy One touches down, then hustle on in, okay?”

“Right, L-T.”

“Magic?”

“Yeah, Skipper?”

“You did good. Real nice shooting on those two tangos. Two for two.”

Brown's face split in a wide grin. “Hey, thanks, Skipper!”

Cotter believed in giving praise where praise was due. He'd been concerned, naturally enough, about the cherries in the platoon—and Magic Brown had been one of them. The quartermaster first class had been in the Navy for ten years, but he'd only been a SEAL for one, and this was his first time in combat. No matter how hard a man trains, no matter how grueling his indoctrination, there is no way to tell how he will act the first time he has to actually kill another human being. Brown had come through his baptism of fire and blood splendidly.

Rising, Cotter left the shelter of the low ridge and trotted toward the C-130. In the distance, the glare from the exploded SAM bunker had dwindled to a sullen flicker, and the aircraft was almost lost in the darkness. Damn. Where were the rest of the Iraqis, partying in town? Fleeing toward al-Basra? Getting ready to spring their trap? Cotter didn't like this situation one damned bit.

The rumbling boom of the explosion had brought him wide awake in an instant. While his partner Ibrahim had stood guard on the walkway outside, Sergeant Riad Jasim had been catching a brief nap in a duty room inside the control tower; but now fire stained the sky, Ibrahim was dead, and strange, black-garbed men were swarming among the shadows beneath the UN aircraft.

Terrified, Jasim had hidden inside a second-floor storeroom as someone banged up the control tower steps outside. He cringed as they slammed open the door to the storeroom, but he was hidden behind a pile of empty boxes and—praise be to Allah!—the intruders had no time for a thorough search.

When they left, he sagged back against the concrete block wall, trembling with relief.

Jasim spoke no English, but he had a good ear. He'd heard the language spoken before, during the heroic Mother of All Battles when his supreme commander, the glorious Saddam, had halted the enemy invaders at the gates of Iraq with the mere threat of his terrible weapons. “Terminal clear! Dry hump!” was English, Jasim was sure of it, even if the words themselves were gibberish. The Americans were here, attempting to liberate their spy plane!

When the heavy-booted intruders had left, Jasim had slipped out of the storeroom and up the steps to the glassed-in control tower. There, flat on his belly, heart pounding, he edged toward the glass door leading out onto the circular walkway that encircled the tower. He'd left his AKM assault rifle outside, with Ibrahim.

He was no hero. He'd been a simple farmer from al-Kut until the army had drafted him, but he believed in Saddam Hussein as the soul and savior of the Iraqi people, and he knew that Paradise awaited him if he died fighting the infidel Americans.

Slipping through the open door, he crawled onto the walkway. Ibrahim lay across his path, eyes open and staring, blood soaking the front of his uniform.

“My friend,” Jasim told the corpse. “I will avenge you!”

But the brave words could not stop the trembling weakness he felt within. Somehow, he forced himself to go on. Retrieving his rifle and chambering a round, he inched himself closer to the edge of the walkway.

By the time Lieutenant Cotter reached the C-130, the platoon was already deploying in a loose perimeter about the aircraft. Two Gold Platoon men, Fernandez and Holt, were already setting out four strobe beacons in a Y-shaped pattern, the top of the Y marking a safe LZ for a helicopter, the tail indicating the wind direction. MacKenzie met Cotter at the perimeter. The big master chief had slung his H&K and broken out his machine gun. Crouching there on the tarmac with that big gun in his hands and a belt of 7.62mm ammo draped over his shoulder, the Texan looked a bit like a black-faced, black-fatigued Rambo.

Except that Rambo never would have stood a chance against these night-clad killers. They moved with an efficient deadliness Hollywood could never portray and which movie-going audiences would find frankly unbelievable. Cotter felt a swelling, glowing pride for his men as he entered the perimeter. They were the best, absolutely and without qualification.