True Devotion (6 page)

No orders were needed. Every member of the eight-man squad knew the mission inside and out. They were heading to the container terminal, a joint Ukraine-American venture just south of the lighthouse and the connecting jetty. The warhead was being smuggled by rail to the harbor, where it was to be loaded aboard a grain transport ship stopping here and then bound for Hong Kong.

The water was cold and its surface marred by a film of diesel fuel left by the numerous ships coming through the port. The air smelled dank, the tons of cargo and oil and the crush of a city built to the shoreline combining to replace fresh air with the smell of an industrial world. It was enough to make Joe’s eyes water and his nose burn.

This mission was the type SEALs liked best. Simple. Silently slip into port, locate the cargo, move it to their own secure transport, then take it out to sea. Having the blueprints for the American-designed cargo area had helped them decide where to strike. They considered hitting the train on its way to the harbor, but that would put them too far away from the water, which every SEAL considers his safe home. Hitting the ship once it put to sea was very attractive, and Joe had tasked the second eight-man squad of the platoon to be prepared to do just that if necessary. But it was here, in Odessa, where the real prize lay. The smugglers.

One of them had to know the identity of the man arranging these sales. The intelligence community wanted him identified, desperately. He’d been nicknamed Raider as years passed and his handiwork frustrated the military time and again. He had the habit of swiping military hardware from supposedly secure sites.

He was a thief; it was that simple. One who had graduated from shoulder-fired missiles back in the days of Afghanistan to the big leagues—nuclear components and now warheads. At times Joe thought it was almost like a game with him. Until they stopped him, missions like this one were going to continue.

The fact Raider focused on military weapons . . . He was stealing them at the behest of others, but his buyers’ lists were elusive. The variety of items stolen and the years it had been happening had the intelligence community searching for an arms dealer who was filling out his portfolio with stolen goods for sale, but that link had never appeared. These weapons were stolen to fill specific requests. And that suggested the weapons would be used as soon as they were delivered.

Given the years spent searching for a name without anyone coming close to identifying him, the man was probably in the loop somewhere, reviewing the intel on himself. He had stayed hidden too long for that to be accidental or simply good luck. Capturing one of the smugglers was high on the mission priorities—right after “secure the warhead” and “don’t get killed.”

Joe searched the north side of the break wall while Nick searched the south. Clear. Nick nodded, slipped off the buddy line, and disappeared below the water’s surface. He reappeared eight minutes later at the end of the break wall, visible in Joe’s NVGs—night vision goggles. Nick left the water, weapon in hand, to disappear among the rocks.

What made stealth was patience. Joe waited. Nick had to check out the jetty before they made the move into the port waters.

The all-clear signal came by infrared light.

Cougar and Boomer appeared beside him in the water. A silent touch to each man’s shoulder and they dropped below the surface as one. Wearing Draegar LAR V rebreather units to suppress bubbles marking their passage, they swam fifteen feet below the surface, following the GPS past the break wall to the first container cargo berth. The U.S.-registered
St. Juanita
had berthed there late in the afternoon. The three of them surfaced in the shadow of its hull at 0223 hours local time. Anyone moving around would be less than alert; 0300 was the body’s natural lowest point. Nick slipped back into the water and crossed from the break wall to join them.

The change from water to land warfare took only moments. They were the front line four. Their task was straightforward—enter the cargo area and secure the warhead. If possible, they would capture one of the smugglers. Once Joe signaled success, the second wave of four SEALs would come in behind them and secure the transport area.

A crew from the Special Boat Unit was idling at sea. They had a forty-two-foot Fountain high-speed boat, with its one-thousand-horsepower engines, waiting for word to come in and pick up the cargo. Snatch the warhead and get out of Dodge. It generally worked like a charm.

Nick went up the ladder to the terminal first, taking point. He disappeared and they waited. A single click over the headset signaled it was clear.

Joe went up next with Cougar behind him. A concrete ledge about two feet wide ran along the edge of the pier, and they dropped over it to the walkway. As the satellite photos and blueprints had shown, the walkway was designed for forklifts carrying wide cargo loads. Joe darted across to the cover provided by massive cable spools stacked side by side. Having destroyed enough of the stuff during his demolition forays with Boomer, Joe instantly recognized the thick cable as power line. The
St. Juanita
must have been off-loading the spools.

A glance to his left confirmed Cougar was secure. Joe clicked his microphone and Boomer appeared a moment later. Two clicks and Nick appeared as a glowing silhouette on the NVGs, a good hundred meters down the walkway. The black thermal tape across the back of his wet suit glowed like a beacon, a visual reminder that he was a friendly. They each wore unique tape patterns to make it instantly apparent who was where in the dead of night. The guys on the team didn’t give him a choice; he was double-striped. It was one of the banns of being the lieutenant.

They headed into the cargo terminal proper, where massive metal containers in all colors, some big enough to hold a luxury car, were stacked in rows waiting to be moved by forklift and crane. The area felt claustrophobic despite how big the terminal was—over a quarter of a million square meters in size, dwarfing several football fields—but there would be no need to search its expanse. Cargo arriving by rail within the last eight hours eliminated the guesswork. For the smugglers to bring the warhead in, keep it concealed, and move it to a ship the size of the grain transport, they only had one option. Berth three.

Nick held up his hand in warning and they instantly, silently, dispersed. Joe watched from the shadows of a container carrying Russian truck brake bearings as a dockworker moved past his location, head down, trying to use a flashlight to read a page on a clipboard.

The sound of the man’s footsteps faded. A click over the microphone and they were moving again.

When Nick gestured forty seconds later, it was to indicate they were on target. Joe moved forward to join him while Cougar and Boomer disappeared into the darkness to either side.

Nick had taken up a perch beside a stacked column of steel girders. They were at the foot of the rail yard, and two locomotives, boxcars attached, were on the tracks before them.

Joe settled beside Nick, next to what had once been an oil drum and was now a catchall for broken pallet wood, providing good concealment. The metal of the drum was cold to Joe’s touch, the sea air creating a sheen of moisture on its surface.

He had to marvel at the intel. Even the boxcar numbers were right. Missions never went as planned, and intel was always wrong. For once the axioms they lived by were proving wrong. The warhead had arrived, right on schedule.

Joe turned his attention toward the water. The enormous docking berth three was empty. It would be dawn before the grain transport ship arrived; it was still outside the Black Sea. There had been concern the smugglers would be able to get a ship here early and have it waiting, for the warhead was vulnerable when it stopped moving. But it turned out not to be that easy to find ships able to carry such cargo with legitimate reasons to be in both Odessa and Hong Kong. The smugglers were playing it cautious. But they didn’t know they had a mole passing on their travel arrangements.

“There.”

The word was a whisper over his headset from Nick.

Someone had just stepped down from between the third and fourth railcar. A second and then a third man appeared, and over the distance there was the sound of men laughing as one slapped another on the back. They were all armed. Joe studied their movements, trying to identify the leader.

Two more men appeared. Joe immediately picked up the way one man turned up his coat collar and pushed his hands into his pockets—he didn’t seem to be enjoying the cold air. “Shift change.”

Nick nodded. “Five tangos here. Who else?”

Tangos—terrorists—and the smugglers were certainly that. The SEALs had come prepared to handle four times that many, but to do it silently meant taking each step with care. Joe touched his mike. “Cougar, sneak and peek. The rail station house.” There was smoke coming from the stovepipe of the small building. There might be a couple more still inside, trying to ward off the chill of the night.

“Sniper. Caboose roof,” Nick said calmly. Two clicks came over the mike. Boomer had him. If it came down to shooting, Boomer was carrying a suppressed sniper rifle with a starlight scope. He could drop the man with a whisper, but his fall off the caboose roof would attract attention.

Nick kept scanning. Joe had never met anyone more relaxed in combat than Nick. He didn’t appear to have a stressed bone in his body. Any moment now Joe expected Nick to crack his jaw on a yawn.

Joe saw Nick smile. “Cougar snaked.” It was team shorthand for slipping through stuff you would not want to name later. Joe spotted Cougar now back at his secure perch wiping his hand off on his wet suit, clearly disgusted. Cougar reached to touch his mike. “One, L-T.”

Joe clicked an acknowledgment.

Seven tangos. They had the players; now they needed the best arrangement.

In a matter of minutes, the three men originally by the railcars moved toward the station house. The two that remained looked around briefly and then swung themselves up onto the perch between the cars.

Only three tangos in the open, unheard of odds. “Cougar, quietly jam that front door of the station house closed; then take down the sniper. Eagle and I will take the two by the car. Boomer, anyone interrupts, deal with them.”

Everyone acknowledged.

“Go.” Joe felt the twinge he always did as he issued the single word that put men into battle. The enemy wasn’t showing much foresight, but the element of surprise was always tenuous.

Cougar disappeared. Joe followed Nick around to the back of the railcar. Nick indicated the man on the left, and Joe moved to take the man on the right.

They hit together, bringing the men down. Joe saw a knife coming around and turned it back on his man.

Nick had been able to take his man down alive. At least one of them had been successful. Joe let the annoyance fade away; he had given his man a choice, and that in itself rarely happened. It wasn’t like they were smuggling fireworks. Flexible cuffs came out, duct tape, fast security steps to keep the man quiet and under control.

Joe opened the railcar door and lifted the man inside. A quick glance confirmed that they had what they were after. “Boomer, we’ve got the package and one guest. Signal Wolf to secure the transport area.”

A click acknowledged the request.

Cougar joined them and set to work on the case while Nick took up position at the door.

As expected, the warhead had been disassembled and packed in molded foam. Joe looked at the sleek circuit boards that formed the nerves of the timing mechanism and thought them beautiful like a cobra was beautiful—even apart they looked deadly. The warhead casing had been taken out and sandblasted clean of writing. He rubbed his fingers over the oddly chalky white surface and found his fingers covered with the rough powder. Raider was taking extreme measures to hide his tracks if he was trying to conceal any indication of which device had actually been stolen from even the buyer of the warhead.

In the center of the case, held in foam, was another box. Cougar backed out the screws, ignoring the lock. The department of energy frowned on sending its people onto foreign soil in the middle of the night, so they didn’t have a NEST guy on-site to tell them what shape this warhead core was in. It was just as well. Joe had worked with enough of the Nuclear Energy Search Team guys to know they were too cautious for the time constraints demanded by a live op. Besides, if it was radioactive, they were dead. Broken arrows—these lost, shot down, stolen, and otherwise missing nukes—didn’t tend to be forgiving.

Cougar dismantled the lid and lifted it carefully over the lock.

Joe sucked in a deep breath. No wonder Raider had sandblasted the casing. He’d swiped a K-42, Russia’s most advanced compact warhead, only six known to be deployed. The plutonium core was formed in two layers, like a baseball around a golf ball. Joe had seen pictures, but never in his worst nightmare had he envisioned dealing with one. Certainly not in a railcar in Odessa. “Boomer. Send a flash. We’ve got a K-42.”

“Repeat.” Nothing rattled Boomer—that had just changed.

“K-42. Flash it.”

The Air Force had an AWACS up over Italy so Boomer could get the message off without going to the satellite link. Even if he had to break out the dish, this news had to get out. Every asset in the area would be used to stop this shipment if necessary.

“Pack it, Cougar. Let’s move.”

Joe joined Nick at the door, watching the rail station house. These guys didn’t know what they were smuggling—not the details. Raider was compartmentalizing, and that was his greatest strength but also his greatest weakness. Joe smiled grimly. This little gem would create enough heat in intelligence services around the globe to make Raider’s life unpleasant in the upcoming months, to say the least. Get enough people comparing notes and something would click. They would find the guy. You couldn’t arrange to swipe and sell one of these without leaving some serious footprints.

“Transport area is secure.”

Joe looked at Cougar and got a nod. “We’re moving, Wolf.”