by Don Mann
As the lead climber he went up first, two rungs at a time, like a mountain lion. In addition to the other first-line equipment secured to his web belt, he carried a carabiner with four one-inch tubular nylon runners. Reaching the deck, he knelt, did a quick 360 through his NVGs, saw that the coast was clear, secured the ladder to the rail with the carabiner, slung the nylon runners over it, and attached a safety line from the runners to the ladder.
Done!
Now he signaled the rest of the team to board the ship. They hurried up, grenades and anything that could rattle taped to their combat vests. The ten SEALs broke into three groups designated Alpha, Beta, and Delta. Delta, led by Mancini and including Revis, JD, and Diego, headed directly for the Variable Air Volume (VAV) system on Lower Deck D, near the ship’s engine. Beta, consisting of Duke and Nash, with Davis in charge, had been tasked with securing the engine room and helping Team Delta clear the lower decks. Crocker directed Team Alpha, which included Akil and Storm, directly to the ship’s bridge.
Precisely as planned.
The element of surprise uncompromised, Team Alpha hurried up the metal stairway two steps at a time, Crocker in the lead, finger resting on the safety guard of his suppressed HK416, heart pounding. The electromagnetic energy directed toward the ship interfered with their comms, too, so they were using hand signals—left fist pumped up and down for “hurry,” hand around the left eye for “sniper,” and so on.
They were halfway to Deck 10 when Crocker felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned back to Akil, who flashed three quick signals in succession—“hostage” (left hand under chin), “enemy” (slapping the right wrist), and “direction” (pointing behind him).
Where?
Mid-deck below, near the pool, he saw three armed terrorists in black, with black beards, dragging a hostage. It was unclear whether the captive was alive or dead until one of the terrorists slapped him hard and the man moaned and waved his hand as though he were drunk, or coming out of a stupor.
Crocker placed his palm on his head, indicating that he wanted the other two SEALs to cover him, then sprung.
Scott was disoriented, but still alive. His head felt swollen and hot, and every muscle in his body was seized with terror. He knew what was about to happen as the terrorists positioned him against the Goofy fountain and stepped back.
What have I done to you? he wanted to ask them, but there was no point now. Instead, he said out loud, “Please, God, watch over my wife and sons.” He closed his eyes as the terrorists lifted their AK-47s and waited for the bullets to enter his head and body, hoping it would end quickly and he wouldn’t feel much pain.
His body flinched as he heard the shots, which sounded more like spitting than pops. Curiously, he didn’t feel anything pierce his skin. Even so, his knees gave way and he started to sink.
Halfway to the deck he was stopped by strong hands that pulled him close and covered his mouth. He heard a voice whisper in English, “Sir, are you a passenger?”
Scott nodded and looked up. He wasn’t sure whether he was seeing a demon or a rescuer. It was a heavily armed man all in black, peering at him through elaborate goggles. No eyes, no smile, a serious expression.
“I’m an American,” the man whispered. “We’re liberating the ship. Hide in there.” He pointed toward the shadow behind the Goofy fountain. “Don’t move or make a sound until we come back.”
It all happened in the blink of an eye. When the man turned and left, Scott saw the three terrorists’ legs bent and torsos twisted, bleeding out on the deck. He reached down and pulled a weapon out of one of the dead men’s hands. Holding it, he was about to fire it into the inert body when he remembered his rescuer’s words and stopped.
His whole frame shaking with relief and fury, he knelt behind the fountain, took a deep breath, and said to himself, I’m still alive.
The air hung thick and still in Lower Deck D, because the ventilation system wasn’t working. Condensation clung to the metal surfaces and walls. Wondering what had happened to the crew, Mancini carefully led the way into the ship’s dark bowels, past the massive electric turbines, when he saw a dim light from a metal catwalk above and to his left, and held up his fist: “Freeze!” The three SEALs responded, lifted their weapons to their shoulders, and knelt. Everything was in shades of green—walls, turbines, electric switches, catwalk, even the dim light. He signaled to Revis and Diego to climb up and determine what it was, while he and JD waited. The two SEALs hurried up the slick metal ladder as Mancini glanced at the laminated chart in his hands, trying to determine the direction to the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) system, which appeared to be farther aft, past the sixth turbine and on a platform of its own.
He was squirming on his belly to massive Turbine No. 3 when he heard the echoes of suppressed fire—subtle, yet unmistakable. Two quick bursts, three, four, five, then silence. Then the loud sound of metal pounding metal that echoed through the cavernous space, then more silence. Then a loud explosion, then more suppressed fire and silence again.
“What the hell was that?” JD whispered.
Mancini shook his head and whispered into his head mic, “Delta 3, Delta 4, report.”
No answer.
“Delta 3, Delta 4, do you read me? Over.”
Nothing.
“Delta 3, Delta 4?”
Praying that the comms weren’t working, he made a quick calculation. Since the HVAC wasn’t functioning, the danger of released sarin quickly spreading throughout the ship had lessened considerably. He handed JD the laminated chart and indicated that he should continue searching for the HVAC while he went back to check on Revis and Diego. JD nodded.
Mancini grabbed hold of the wet metal rail and hoisted his big body up two rungs at a time like an ape. Reaching the catwalk, he hurried along it in a crouch, and stopped when he heard something splatter. A warm, wet liquid hit his neck.
Blood!
Above him he saw an arm and leg hanging over the partial deck, then heard a squeak behind him. Turning, he saw a terrorist aiming an AK at him and pulling the trigger. He hit the metal grid, felt bullets ricocheting around him. Two rounds hit the ceramic discs of the Dragon Skin that covered his back under his black nylon suit.
He flipped over, located the man through his NVGs, and squeezed off a round from his suppressed and specially modified M7A1, hitting him in the face and hands.
The terrorist tried to hang on to the ladder and pull himself up, but Mancini fired a quick round that caused him to twist, fall, and hit the lower deck.
Mancini wiped the terrorist’s blood off the goggle lenses with the sleeve of his suit, took two quick breaths to clear his nostrils, and squinted into the vast space behind him and to his right and left. Then, facing the way the young SEALs had gone, he saw the flash of an IR strobe, invisible to the naked eye but easy to make out through NVGs. He signaled back with his.
Revis emerged from the darkness like a black ghost and whispered, “We took out two enemies. You okay?”
“Yeah. Where’s Diego?”
“The terrorists were guarding a mechanical room. We took them out and found about a dozen crew members inside.”
“Diego’s with them now?”
“Affirmative.”
“Show me. Maybe one of the crew can lead us to the HVAC.”
“We spoke to the chief engineer. He knows where they set up the sarin but says that’s not the only problem.”
“What is?”
“They’ve set explosives throughout the ship.”
Davis and Team Beta encountered that problem as soon as they entered the interior of Deck 4 and had to climb past a pile of propane tanks. Connected to them were strips of plastic explosive wired to a detonator and a digital timer. The massive explosion and fire they would cause if detonated would block access to the Deck 4 lifeboats. All passengers and crew on Deck 4 and below would be trapped and likely die of smoke inhalation if the sarin didn’t get them first.
Fortunately,
he had Nash with him, who was the breacher and explosives expert with ST-10. Davis held a red MagLite cell flashlight as Nash removed his NVGs and carefully disabled the detonators and timer. Then they moved down the hallway to the Security Office, pushed open the unlocked door, and dispatched the three terrorists dozing in the dark in front of a bank of blank surveillance monitors.
As one enemy fell to the floor, Davis noticed that the beard he was wearing was ripped partially from his face.
“What the fuck is this?” he asked out loud.
He knew that the plan called for his team to join Delta and clear the lower decks, but there were likely more propane tanks connected to other timing devices on the upper ones that Crocker and Team Alpha might have missed as they hurried to the bridge. So Davis decided to change the plan and clear Decks 5 through 11, first.
It proved to be a critical decision.
Crocker was the first man on Team Alpha to enter the hallway that led to the bridge. Approaching the secure door, he saw a dark trail on the carpeted floor and more dark smudges on the walls. He touched a smear with his operator gloves and held it up to his nose. It was blood.
He tried to push in the door with his shoulder, but it was either locked or bolted shut. A breaching charge would eliminate the element of surprise and give the terrorists time to hit the button that could release the sarin.
He checked his watch as he considered alternatives: 0538, ten minutes before sunrise.
He leaned close to Akil and whispered. “Attach some det cord to the frame and doorknob. Don’t set it off until you hear me and Storm come busting through the forward windows.”
“Copy.”
“Wait for us. You should hear us and their response.”
“Fuck, yeah.”
He directed Storm, a tall former Sooners tight end, to follow him up to the comms deck. There, with the wind whipping their faces and the sun starting to spread a dim ribbon of light across the horizon, he used his SOG knife to cut through the twelve-foot length of nylon rope he wore attached to his belt, handed half to Storm, and asked in a whisper, “You ever rappel down a building?”
“I’ve rappelled down a mountain, sir.”
“Good. Follow me.”
He saw that two panes of glass on the port side forward had already been blasted out. On the safety rail above them he secured both lines with the double figure-eight fisherman’s knot he’d learned while scaling Devil’s Rock in northern Ontario, then pointed to Storm and down to the bridge.
Storm nodded back.
Weapons resting on their right hips pointed forward, left hands grasping the line, they hopped the rail and started down with their boots against the metal face. Crocker pushed out, eased his grip on the rope so he could lower four more feet, and swung forward through the broken window boots first. As he did, a shard of glass in the frame ripped through his nylon suit and cut into his leg along the outside of his calf. He ignored the pain and flash of heat spreading through his body as in a split second he located targets and a place to land.
Through the NVGs he spotted a man gaffer-taped to a chair and a stunned-looking terrorist standing behind him. He directed fire from his 416 into the terrorist’s chest, hit the floor, skidded, landed on his butt, and spun up.
The nerves in his right leg screamed. He ignored them. Located another enemy to his right and directed a burst of fire into his groin. The man screamed and fell back, and almost simultaneously the secure door blasted into the cabin, filling the space with smoke and sucking out the oxygen.
In the midst of hellish confusion and screams in Arabic and English, he gasped for air and looked for targets, who were now harder to distinguish from the crew members because of the smoke, not yet aware that the blast had ripped the 416 out of his hands, and only partially aware of Storm grappling with someone to his left.
Instinctively he reached for his SIG Sauer pistol as Akil charged in, shoved aside a terrorist standing in his way, and in one fluid movement shot him in the face. As the terrorist fell onto Crocker, Crocker saw another, taller one turn to his left, reach for something in his vest pocket, and run in the direction of the captain’s quarters. Crocker intuited what he was about to do. Without wanting to expend the half second it would take to find his weapon, he propelled himself up and lunged onto the man’s back.
Stavros Petras crashed chest first into an upholstered chair and flipped over with Crocker still holding on to his neck. The fall resulted in Crocker landing on his back on the floor, with Petras’s full weight smashing into him, and forcing the air out of Crocker’s lungs. He felt a rib snap and saw spinning stars but he refused to let go, putting Petras in a headlock and squeezing with all his strength.
He reached for his SOG knife with his left hand, aware that the terrorist was desperately clawing for something at the front of his shirt. Crocker didn’t have another hand with which to stop him. He found his knife, raised it, and thrust it into the back of the terrorist’s neck, hoping to sever his spine.
Petras’s whole body jerked three times and froze, and an instant later an explosion from Deck 11 threw both men into the air.
Chapter Twenty-One
The deed is everything; the glory is naught.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
As soon as the waiting firefighting and chemical weapons teams from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the explosion, they sped toward the Disney Magic.
Davis and his men had been defusing the explosives on Deck 10 when the propane tanks on Deck 11 went off. Luckily for most passengers and crew, charges on the other decks had already been disabled, and Mancini and Team Delta had unhooked the eight sarin canisters from the ship’s inoperative HVAC system. Also fortunate was the fact that there were no passenger cabins on Deck 11, nor were any crew or passengers present in the Deck 11 teen Vibe Club when the explosion went off. The handful of crew huddling in the Wide World of Sports Bar and Palo restaurant escaped with minor burns and bruises.
Firefighters from the Eisenhower found Crocker, Akil, and Storm using the ship’s fire extinguishers to battle the flames on Deck 11. All three men were only half conscious, bleeding from various cuts and bruises and suffering from smoke inhalation. They had to be overpowered and dragged away.
Crocker came to five minutes later, lying on a deck chair on Deck 4. He squinted up at the man sitting beside him and saw the sun rising over the man’s right shoulder. When he sat up abruptly to see whether the ship’s superstructure was still intact and the fire was out, all appeared normal except for wisps of light-gray smoke from the upper deck. A sharp pain in his lower chest reminded him of the terrorist landing on him, which had probably resulted in a cracked rib. The suit on his right leg was stuck to his skin and caked with blood.
“Who are you?” Crocker asked, wincing.
“Scott Russert, from Putney, England,” answered the man with red hair.
“What are you doing here, Scott?”
“You saved my life, and I don’t even know your name.”
“Crocker. You here alone?” He saw groups of passengers being escorted down to a lower deck.
“Traveling with my family.”
“They’re safe, I hope.”
“Already been rescued. Waiting for me on one of the patrol boats.”
“Shouldn’t you be with them?”
“I wanted to thank you first.”
“For what?”
“For saving my life when I was about to be shot and tossed in the pool.”
Crocker remembered the event; it seemed to have happened a month ago. “Hey,” Crocker said. “Glad I could be of service.”
Scott’s smile revealed a wide space between his front teeth. “You’re one of those bloody but unbowed blokes, aren’t you?”
“Something like that. But I can’t answer that definitively until I’ve checked on my men.”
Of the ten SEALs who had taken down the ship, Crocker had arguably suffered the most damage. Davis and the Team Beta guys on Deck 10 were
treated for cuts and bruises, minor burns, and smoke inhalation. Akil had lost a tooth when he crashed through the bridge door. Storm had dislocated a vertebra in his lower back.
The medical staff on the Eisenhower stitched together the skin on Crocker’s calf and taped his ribs. He still wasn’t sure exactly what had gone down on the Magic and didn’t know the identities of the terrorists who had seized the ship. Figured he’d be briefed on all that when he got back to HQ in Virginia.
Most of the SEALs flew to Naples Naval Station in Italy and from there home to Virginia Beach. Crocker and Mancini detoured to Germany to check on Suarez. Both men needed time to process the psychological whirlwind they’d been through. In Crocker’s case, he wanted to get his head right before he returned home and faced Holly. There was always a huge emotional letdown after a mission of this magnitude, and he wanted to be ready.
At the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, near Ramstein, they were escorted by a male orderly who explained that during a typical day the military hospital served 1,178 meals, administered 1,598 doses of medication, handled 2.3 births, and accommodated twenty-three new patients and nine new acute emergencies. The number of incoming acute cases was more than many civilian hospitals admitted in the space of two months.
“What’s the pace like currently?” Crocker asked.
“With combat winding down in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s about a fourth of that,” the orderly answered.
“Good.”
In the ICU on the third floor they found Suarez flirting with a cute blond nurse with a cross tattooed above her right breast. He was covered with thick white bandages from his neck to his waist.
“Glad to see you with a smile on your face again,” Crocker said.
“They’re taking good care of me.”