Specter (19 page)

In a swift and determined series of maneuvers, planned and coordinated by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North at the White House, four F-14 Tomcats off the American carrier U.S.S.
Saratoga
intercepted the Egyptian airliner and forced it to land at a NATO military airfield at Sigonella, Sicily, where the SEALs were waiting for them. Moving fast, the SEALs had surrounded the aircraft on the runway, prepared to fight with the terrorists if necessary.

Then a political complication had arisen. Italian
carabinieri
had appeared, surrounding the SEALs and ordering them to stand down. The Italians were outraged that the Americans had taken military action on their territory; for their part, the SEALs thought that the Italians—who'd caved in to terrorist threats in the past and not always carried through with what they'd promised to do—would let the hijackers escape.

A tense standoff ensued for nearly an hour, with the Italians demanding the release of the airliner's occupants, the SEALs refusing. A radio conversation on a tactical channel overheard by several officials at the scene added a new note of tension. Two SEALs were quietly discussing whether or not to take out the Italians, and how best to go about it. Only when the American Secretary of State received assurances from Rome that the terrorists would be tried for murder did the SEALs—somewhat reluctantly—stand aside and let the
carabinieri
take charge of the prisoners. Even at that, the SEALs didn't give up the chase entirely. When the terrorists were flown to Rome, two of the SEALs followed close behind in a small plane, claiming engine trouble to enable them to land behind the other plane and maintain surveillance of the
carabinieri
and their prisoners.

Eventually, the terrorists were tried, though Abu Abbas—the mastermind of the original hijacking operation—had been allowed to walk away by Italian authorities almost as soon as he landed. The murderers received sentences of from fifteen to thirty years; Abu Abbas and two fellow-plotters were sentenced to life in prison
in absentia
... not that anyone expected that they would ever be brought to justice.

SEALs and international politics, Murdock reflected, simply did not mix.

The patrol boat
Lindos
was secured by lines passed down and slung over bollards rising from the pavement, and a gangplank was dropped over the side. A moment later, a line of six Greek soldiers came filing ashore, along with Roselli, one male prisoner, and a young woman wearing a sailor's dungaree shirt several sizes too large for her. All three were handcuffed with their hands behind their backs, and each was guided down the ramp by a Greek trooper.

“Come on, Captain,” Murdock said to Solomos. “What's with the handcuffs?”

“Standard operating procedure, Lieutenant,” Solomos said blandly. “All prisoners must be secured for their own protection and the protection of the arresting officers while they are being processed.”

“You're not arresting my man, are you?”

“I am. I am arresting all of you. You will be held here in Salonika until my office can make arrangements to turn you over to American naval authorities.”

“Aw, damn it all, Captain! How come?”

“Your interference has jeopardized a Greek counterterrorist operation and resulted in the escape of at least one suspect. Further, your activities triggered a gun battle in Salonika harbor, one in which innocent bystanders could have been killed. I will be very happy to see the last of you, Lieutenant.”

“That's bullshit, Solomos, and you know it! You people weren't going to do a damned thing about those suspects, and the gun battle started when your damned soldiers charged in with searchlights and sirens!” He didn't mention that sniper shot from the tower that had taken out the gunman. Solomos didn't appear to be including the Delta Force team in his little tirade. Papagos and Brown were standing nearby, under guard but not yet handcuffed. Solomos's people appeared to be ignoring the Delta men still in their tower-top OP.

“We appear to be missing five of your men, Lieutenant,” Solomos said. “There were nine of you. Where are the others?”

“Seeing the sights.”

“At this hour of the night? I don't think so.”

“Then they're bar-hopping. Maybe you should go check some of your local taverns. Or the whorehouses.”

“I have a better idea. You may be more willing to discuss things with us in a reasonable manner at the police station.” He reached into a back pocket and produced a pair of handcuffs. “Turn around, and place your hands behind you.”

Murdock hesitated, as if he didn't quite know what to do, looking from Papagos to Brown to Roselli. Roselli gave him a broad wink, a sign that he, at least, thought things were going well.

They'd gone over as many of the possibilities as they could think of earlier, while planning this op with Beasley and the Delta people. He'd emphasized to both Roselli and Sterling that they needed at least one of those men off the yacht, no matter what. With all the lights and confusion, Murdock hadn't been able to see clearly what was happening when the patrol boat had drawn alongside the
Glaros,
but the fact that both Jaybird and one of the suspects were missing was a hopeful sign.

He just hoped Jaybird had indeed managed to carry off his part of things, or this whole show would all be for nothing.

“I said turn around! Hands behind you!”

“Oh, very well . . .” Murdock pivoted, turning his back to Solomos ... but then continued the movement, hard and fast, ducking his head and snapping his leg up and around in a reversed roundhouse kick. His foot slammed into the DEA captain's gut, bending him double and lifting his toes clear of the pavement.

“Lochagos!”
a soldier shouted, and then Magic's elbow slammed into his face not once but twice, so quickly the movement was a blur. Papagos sidestepped his guard, smashed down on the inside of the man's ankle, and stepped inside the muzzle of his M3 grease gun and snatched it away before the man's finger even reached the trigger. Roselli simply spun and threw a roundhouse kick into his startled guard's face, sending the man flying backward into the water. A second soldier was gaping at Solomos, who was still busily folding himself around Murdock's shoe, and never saw the two lightning kicks that caught him first in the stomach, then in the head.

Normally, trying an unarmed takedown of soldiers with automatic weapons was nothing less than an act of desperation ... and a great way to get somebody shot. Murdock had taken the measure of these men, though, and decided that if the SEALs were going to make a break, it had better be now, while things were confused, rather than later ... quite probably inside a Greek prison cell. The soldiers, he thought, were army troops brought in to assist the DEA, not DEA men themselves. They were young and they were inexperienced; it was clear from their milling about on the dock that they didn't have the faintest idea what was going on. No doubt they'd been rousted out of their barracks that evening and told that they were helping the police, and they still didn't know who or what their prisoners were.

They were finding out in a hurry. One-two-three, and three more soldiers were down or disarmed. In the flurry of confusion, the male prisoner off the
Glaros
saw an opportunity and started to run, but Razor calmly reached out with one foot and tripped him, slamming him facedown into the pavement.

“Drop ‘em! Drop 'em!” Magic barked, gesturing with the grease gun he'd lifted from one of his victims. The soldiers gaped at each other, then at Magic, who shouted at Papagos in frustration, “For Christ's sake, Nick, tell these guys to drop 'em!” One by one, pistols and submachine guns clattered onto the pavement, and men began raising their hands in the air.

Murdock, meanwhile, had reached down and grabbed Solomos by his hair, whipping him up and around with his left arm about the man's throat, one extended right knuckle pressed menacingly against the DEA captain's temple. “Let's have the keys to Roselli's cuffs, Captain.” The man struggled, then tried to pull away, and Murdock increased the pressure of his knuckle against his head. “Do it, or I'll reach into your skull and pluck out your eyeballs from the inside!
Do it!”

Hastily, Solomos grabbed something, and a Greek sergeant unlocked Roselli's hands. The other soldiers stood in a half circle around the SEALs, some looking confused or scared, others furiously angry. Papagos made the rounds then, gathering up the discarded weapons. Keeping three of the grease guns and several magazines, he dropped the rest over the side of the pier with a loud splash. After a moment's thought, Murdock also ordered them to unlock the girl's hands as well. She was almost certainly an innocent bystander, but Murdock had heard unpleasant things about what went on inside Greek jails. Besides, she might be persuaded to help with the other prisoner.

With a squealing of tires, a dark blue, four-door sedan bumped up onto the curb with Scotty Frazier at the wheel. Armed, then, the SEALs backed away, keeping their weapons trained both on the Greek soldiers and on the sailors watching helplessly from the deck of the patrol boat. Several tourists, those who hadn't already fled, stood nearby, watching as though the whole scenario had been arranged for their entertainment. Roselli helped the girl into the front seat, then slid in beside her. Magic and Papagos climbed into the back.

“Just to show you my heart's in the right place,” Murdock told Solomos, reaching across the man's shoulder and plucking a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver from his shoulder holster, “you can have that one.” He pointed at the prisoner who, face bloodied, was still lying on the concrete. Murdock had considered bringing the man along as well, but decided that he would be too likely to slow them up.

Besides, he owed Captain Beasley one; the Delta team must know what was going on down here but they hadn't intervened against the SEALs. Leaving the prisoner as an intelligence source for Delta would be a good way to say thank you.

“You will be court-martialed for this!” Solomos growled.

“Maybe, but it won't be your choice. Now why don't you work on finding out where the real bad guys took Ellen Kingston, okay? Otherwise we might have to come back here to discuss it with you, and I don't think you'd like that at all.” He gave Solomos a hard shove, knocking him to the pavement, then dove into the open right rear door of the sedan. As the car lurched forward off the curb, he could hear Solomos screaming up the wall of the tower. “Beasley! Shoot him! Beasley!
Shoot him!”

Then the car was racing down the Leoforos Nikis, past the White Tower and then hard left onto the Ethnikis Aminas. “You know where you're going?” he asked Frazier from the back seat. Much of downtown Salonika was off-limits to cars in an attempt to control pollution, some parts just during the day, others at all times. The streets, most of them, were straight, but many crossed one another at confusing angles.

“No problem, Skipper,” Frazier called back. “But we're going to want to ditch this heap before we get close to the new hotel.”

“Right. What is it ... a rental?”

“Uh, actually, Boss,” Frazier said, sounding embarrassed, “Mac and me didn't have time to find a rental place, and anyway, Mac was worried about the paper trail, y'know?”

“So you stole it.”

“Yeah. Well, borrowed it.”

“Right. I should have guessed. You guys ever decided to leave the Navy, you've got a great career ahead of you in larceny and grand theft.”

“Hey, be all that you can be,” Roselli quipped.

“That's the damned Army, numb-nuts,” Magic said.

“Aw, they won't mind if we borrow their slogan. We borrowed one of their suspects, didn't we?”

“Cap it,” Murdock warned. He still didn't know if the girl spoke English, and he didn't want her to hear too much. “Let's find a place to stop, okay?”

Somewhere in the distance, a police siren was giving its odd, piercing, two-tone chant. The SEALs were going to have to work fast if they were to salvage anything out of this mess.

Jaybird throttled back on the Zodiac's engine, turning the steering handle slightly to guide the rubber boat gently past an anchored sailboat. The gasoline engine was louder than the SEAL could have wished, but there was still plenty of commotion going on across the harbor to the southeast, and he doubted that anybody was paying him any attention.

Ashore, two police cars hurried past, racing along the Leoforos Nikis toward the White Tower. He hoped Roselli was okay.

The operation this evening had been loosely planned and open-ended; ideally, Jaybird and Roselli were supposed to have grabbed Vlachos and Trahanatzis and gotten them ashore in the rubber Zodiac. Mac, DeWitt, Frazier, Stepano, and Papagos were supposed to find a new hotel, one hidden away in a secluded part of the city where Solomos and his people weren't likely to find them, then go out and boost a couple of cars. After that, Papagos was to join Magic and the L-T by the White Tower, where they would be watching the op go down with the Delta guys. Frazier would take one car and be their backup if they needed a fast getaway, Stepano would stay at the hotel, and Mac and DeWitt would take the other car and wait for Roselli and Jaybird to show up at the pier near the customs house.

Jaybird still wasn't sure what had gone wrong, though he suspected that that bastard Solomos was behind it. Maybe he'd seen the two SEALs making their final approach on the yacht from his OP overlooking the harbor. Maybe Jaybird and Roselli had simply been guilty of extremely bad timing, launching their snatch operation at the same time as a planned raid by the Greek police. Whatever the reason, the original plan had gone to hell as soon as that Greek patrol boat had come rumbling out of the night, searchlight glaring.