Murdock surfaced for a quick peek after a half mile. They were still offshore, and needed to correct to the left to come to the harbor entrance.
Murdock had Kat on his buddy line so he could keep track of her. There was no question about her swimming ability. She also had held up well under fire, killing at least three of the enemy on their trek into Iran several months ago. Still, he knew that he and every SEAL in the platoon would be protective of the pretty lady.
Murdock surfaced again just inside the harbor entrance. Another half mile to the ship. He could see piers along both sides of the port. He angled to the left and looked for a pier they could hide under until their recon had been completed.
They stayed underwater for another quarter of a mile, counting swimming strokes to determine the distance. Then all the SEALs surfaced. Each one had been pulling a drag bag that had a flotation device in it to make it easier to move.
Murdock pointed at a pier that had a freighter tied up to it and was in a night-loading operation. There was room beneath the pier, and the SEALs slipped under and found soggy timbers from a previous wooden pier. They hauled out of the water and rested, sure that the activity overhead and the noise of the loading would cover any sounds they made.
Murdock pointed at Jack Mahanani and Joe Lampedusa, Operations Specialist Third Class. “We’ll go recon this freighter and the warehouse. See if there are any holes in their guards and just how good they are. DeWitt has the con. We should be back in forty-five minutes. If we’re not back in two hours, DeWitt will continue the operation without us.”
The three recon men left their drag bags and slid back into the water. They were still a hundred yards from the bright lights that marked the ship and warehouse targets. Murdock led the trio five feet under the water. When they came to the lights, they broke the surface to sneak a peek.
Lights bathed the side of the ship and the pier and the warehouse front. It was two minutes before any of them saw a guard. One man came around the side of the warehouse, marched down the length of it, and vanished at the other end.
As soon as he saw the sleek freighter up close, Murdock discounted her as holding the missiles. She was in the process of being loaded, but there was no night crew. Cranes stood at the side of the big ship, and dozens of trailer containers and piles of goods sat on the concrete dock to be loaded.
The SEALs looked back at the warehouse. It had huge doors, all down the front. All were closed, and probably locked, Murdock decided. They swam to the edge of the pier, and found a ladder going up a concrete pier support that vanished into the water.
The SEALs were in the darkness here, but twenty yards ahead the floodlights took over, turning the night into noon. The three men climbed the ladder, edged onto the pier, and hid behind some stacks of wooden boxes ready for shipment.
After five minutes they found out there were three guards circling the warehouse. A small jeep rolled up and two men in it talked to one of the guards. Then the rig drove back the way it had come.
“Every two minutes another guard comes around,” Murdock said. “Does that give us time to grab one of them, strip him, and put Lam in his uniform and insert him into the guard rotation?”
“Damn short time,” Lam said. “I could have my Draegr and combat vest off and put his clothes over my cammies.”
“Where?” Mahanani asked.
“Closest stack of goods, those cardboard boxes just at the end of the warehouse,” Lam said.
“Worth a try. That would give us four minutes to get to that first small door, bust it open, and get inside.”
“What if I meet those guys in the jeep?” Lam said.
“You take them out silently and we go hard if we have to,” Murdock said. “It would take them some time to miss the jeep guys. Then to get some men here. Maybe in that time slot we can open the cones and set all the charges.”
“Then run like hell,” Lam said. “I’m game. Hell, I like walking guard duty.”
“Not now. You two stay here and watch for anything new. I’ll go bring in the troops and your drag bags. Stay out of sight.”
It took Murdock ten minutes to swim back to where the SEALs hid and get them moving toward the warehouse.
“We’ll put Bravo Squad on the pier with Kat. Alpha stays at the foot of the pier in the water. When Bravo gets inside the warehouse, we’ll see what we have. Probably Alpha Squad will come on the pier and deploy defensively protecting this end of the warehouse. We hope to keep this silent until we get the charges set and we’re back in the water. If it doesn’t work out that way, we play it by ear, defending with all our weapons until Bravo Squad gets out of there with Kat.”
The SEALs swam.
Murdock went topside and watched the rotation of the guards. Lam picked out the one he wanted to take out. He’d use his KA-BAR fighting knife for a silent kill.
“See those boxes nearest the warehouse?” Lam asked. “I’ll get behind those in the first gap between guards, then take out the one I picked as soon as he turns the corner and has his back to me. I’ll have twenty yards to cross as quickly and silently as I can. Then I drag him back to the boxes and change clothes.”
Lam had stripped off his combat vest and his Draegr, and put down his Colt Carbine. He waited. When the next guard vanished, Lam sprinted for the boxes. He made it without a cry from any stationary guard.
The targeted guard came past and turned. Lam left the boxes at full stride, his rubber boots making almost no noise on the concrete. The Libyan guard must have heard something. He turned a second before Lam hit him from the side. Lam’s hand went over the soldier’s mouth. His other hand drove the KA-BAR blade into the guard’s side and slanted upward so it penetrated flesh and then lanced into his heart. He died a few seconds later.
Lam dragged him by the hands back to the boxes, leaving only a thin trail of blood to show his passage.
Murdock couldn’t see Lam stripping the uniform shirt and pants off the Libyan and pulling them on over his cammies.
Quicker than Murdock expected, Lam, in the Libyan uniform and floppy hat, ran back to the warehouse, picked up the guard’s automatic rifle, and began his slow walk around the warehouse.
Murdock called up Bravo Squad with Kat. They climbed the ladder and hid behind the boxes.
“Kat, on the next round by Lam, Mahanani and I will run over to that small door and get it open. We’ll check inside and see if there are any guards. If there are, we take them out. Then I’ll come to the door and wave. You wait until you see Lam coming. When he shows, he’ll wave at these boxes to let you know it’s him. When you see him, you and Bravo Squad dash across the concrete and get inside the door within a minute. Then you go to work.”
He crawled to the ladder and talked to Dobler. “Chief, you have command of Alpha Squad. As soon as you see Bravo Squad get inside, you bring up your men and deploy them for protection, but keep hidden from the guards. We’ll get out as soon and as soundlessly as possible.”
He got back to the freight boxes just in time to spot Lam on his rounds. Murdock and Mahanani sprinted to the regular door on the end of the warehouse.
“Locked,” Murdock said. He put his sub gun on single-shot and fired three silenced rounds into the door-lock area. The door swung open.
Murdock listened. He heard nothing. He slid through the half-open door. The inside of the huge warehouse was as bright as the outside. He saw four guards pacing around an eighty-foot-long missile that sat in the middle of the otherwise empty warehouse. They were forty yards away. Three tables sat near the missile. On it Murdock saw four shapes of what could be nuclear warheads. Murdock went silently to the floor.
Mahanani crept in beside him and went down, his Alliant Bull Pup with its 5.56 underbarrel already tracking the guards.
“I’ve got two on the right,” Murdock whispered. Then he fired the submachine gun on a three-round burst. Two of the 9mm singers slammed into the guard who had just patted another soldier on the shoulder. He slammed backward from t
he force of the rounds and jolted to the floor. Before the man he touched could turn to see where the rounds came from, he took one of a three-round burst in the throat, and died in seconds from a shooting spray of blood spurting with heartbeat regularity from his carotid artery.
Mahanani’s first round caught the left guard in the chest and drove him backward into the fourth man, who stumbled and fell. Mahanani pumped three rounds into the crawling man, who seemed to be trying to get behind some wooden boxes.
“Clear right,” Murdock said.
“Clear left,” Mahanani said.
They all had put on their personal radios as soon as they were out of the water. Murdock and Mahanani stood and checked the rest of the building quickly. There were no more guards inside.
“DeWitt, get your men and Kat in here when you can when Lam comes by again. We’re clear in here. One missile and some items on tables. Move it when you can.”
Murdock and Mahanani checked the four guards. Three were dead, but one was still moving. Mahanani put a silenced round into his head, and they pulled the bodies away from where Kat would be working on the warheads.
“Those little things are nuclear bombs?” Mahanani said.
“These are good-sized ones. We have them so small they’ll fit in a suitcase.”
Ed DeWitt and Kat came through the door. Then Kat ran to the table.
“Yes, four of the warheads. Are there any more in the missile nose cone?”
Murdock and Kat hurried to the big ICBM, and saw where the nose cone had been opened. Four more missiles remained in place.
“Will they have to come out of there?” Murdock asked.
She shook her head. “No, I can set the charges right where they are, but we do have a problem.”
“What?”
“We have eight warheads here. They exploded one in Chad. Where is the tenth warhead?”
“Shit. I knew this was going too easy. What would they do with it?”
Kat went back to the table and examined the four warheads. She opened a drag bag and carefully took out four large charges of TNAZ, a plastic explosive fifteen percent more powerful than C-5. She placed the charge at an exact spot, then wrapped it in place with sticky green ordnance tape. After that she took out her tools and worked silently over the warhead for three minutes. Then she nodded and moved to the next one.
Murdock pressed his throat mike on the Motorola.
“Holt. Get your ass over here into the warehouse when it’s clear. Bring your boom box with you.”
Holt came in a few minutes later and looked at Murdock.
“Wind up that thing and see if you can raise the carrier on TAC One. Big Daddy is the call sign.”
Murdock helped Kat with the third warhead on the table, putting on the green tape when she had the charge placed.
“I need fifteen minutes more,” Kat said.
Holt came up holding out the handset. “I have a Captain Prescott on the horn, Skipper.”
“Captain, Murdock here.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Small problem. We have located eight of the warheads. One is missing, one was shot off over Chad. We’re going to try to find the missing bomb, but right now don’t know how or where to look. Any suggestions?”
“It could be refitted and ready to drop on another city,” Captain Prescott said. “Check out that facility. It might be best to take eight out of nine and haul ass.”
“I read you, Captain. One more observation. We have only one missile here. The ship that brought it is in the process of on-loading freight. We don’t think it ever contained any more missiles or they would be in this warehouse. You might relay this to Stroh, who will be vitally interested. We’ll keep you advised. Out.”
Murdock watched Kat work, then moved along the table, looking for any paperwork. There could be something here to give them a clue where the other warhead was taken. He found nothing. He looked in the open nose cone, hoping someone had dropped a map indicating where the other warhead would be.
Nothing.
He was about to use the radio again when a bell rang, then one of the huge warehouse doors fronting the pier began to roll up slowly. When it was head high, a tracked vehicle clanked its way through the door. Murdock scowled as he and the rest of the SEALs and Kat dropped into hiding places.
“It’s a damned Russian armored personnel carrier,” DeWitt whispered on the Motorola. “Looks like a twenty-millimeter cannon on front.”
“It’s the APC-nineteen model,” Holt whispered in the mike.
“Not a chance,” Fernandez said. “The Ruskies didn’t make a nineteen. Could be the thirteen.”
“Whatever it’s called, it’s trouble,” Murdock said. “On the other hand, what a good rig to transport a nuclear warhead.”
By that time the APC had rolled to within fifteen feet of the silver-tipped missile. The big door had rolled back down behind the machine. A forward hatch opened and an officer with braid on his shoulders pushed up and out of the APC.
The officer frowned at the table with warheads with green tape on them, and shouted something in Arabic. He reached for a pistol at his hip.
Murdock’s silenced round hit him in the right shoulder.
“Move in,” Murdock said to the mike. The closest two SEALs grabbed the officer before he could shout again, stripped away his pistol, and covered his mouth. Murdock ran from the side and aimed his submachine gun down the hatch.
“Train, get up here,” Murdock shouted. Train could speak Arabic. The slender SEAL hurried up.
“Tell the driver to surrender. We have captured his officer.”
Train shouted into the open hatch, then repeated the words.
“Order him to come out without a weapon or we’ll drop in a grenade,” Murdock said.
Train gave the message, and a moment later a soldier came out with both hands over his head.
“Ask him why the rig is here,” Murdock said.
Train asked twice, then slashed him across the face with his hand. The man jolted backward, surprised. Then he wilted and began talking. When the Arab finished, Train turned.
“This one says they came in to pick up another nuclear warhead. He said they are to take them to a secret place where they are to be stored.”
“Ask him if they have already taken one there.”
Train asked him. The APC driver said that they had. He wasn’t sure where it was. The officer drove the last few miles.
Murdock and Train went to the officer, who had been trying to yell at them through the hands that held his mouth.
“Ask this one where they took the other warhead,” Murdock said.
Train did, and the officer laughed. “He said he will never tell pigs like us. He would rather die first.”
“Sounds reasonable. Tie his hands and feet with plastic strips. Then lay him down next to the rig’s tracks and tie him to the tracks so he can’t roll over.”
It was done quickly. Then Murdock took Train up to the Libyan officer. Murdock pulled a hand grenade from his vest. The officer’s hands were free, but his wrists were bound securely. His arms were then bound tightly to his body with green tape so he couldn’t move them, only his hands.
Murdock put a grenade in his hands and had Train explain.
“This is a hand grenade. Soon we will pull the pin and you will hold it. Hold down the arming spoon so it won’t go off. When you get tired, you will relax your hand and the bomb will go off on your chest, sending you quickly into your meeting with Allah.”
The officer screeched something in return. Murdock took the hand grenade from him and pulled the pin, then holding it carefully, he wrapped the Libyan’s hand around the grenade to hold the spoon. Murdock surged behind the APC and waited.
* * *
He put Train where he could hear anything the officer said but still keep away from any shrapnel.
“Now we wait,” Murdock said. He put Kat back to work on the warheads. She had four of them done, then went into the no
se cone to take care of the other four.
“All we do is wait,” Murdock said.
The Libyan officer stared at the deadly hand grenade. He knew what they could do to a man. He would die surely. Maybe he could hold out for five minutes. Sweat beaded his forehead and ran down his cheeks. Truly he did not want to die. He felt the cramps coming on his hand. It wouldn’t be long now. What should he do?
7
“Yes, I’ll tell you,” the Libyan officer screamed. “Help me. Help me. Come get the grenade. I’ll tell you where the warhead was taken.”
Tran Khai, “Train,” charged from his safe spot behind some boxes and slid to the concrete beside the officer. Carefully he gripped the grenade and slid the man’s fingers from the spoon. He held the spoon against the small bomb and yelled for some green tape. A moment later he caught a roll and taped the spoon tightly to the grenade’s body, preventing it from exploding.
Murdock knelt beside the Libyan captain. “Train, ask him where he took the other nuclear warhead.”
Train did, and the Libyan answered in a low voice that Murdock knew was brimming with disgust at himself for being so weak. Train looked up.
“He says he took it to a special building about three kilometers away. It has four scientists there working on it to convert it into a drop bomb.”
“Can he take us there?”
Train asked, and the officer said he could.
“Untie him from the track but keep his wrists bound,” Murdock said. He hurried over to the nose cone. Kat was working on the last warhead. She bound it with the green tape and looked at Murdock.
“Done. All we have to do is set the timers and get out of Dodge.”
“Good. Hold on the timers. Let’s see if we all can fit into this Russian personnel carrier.” He examined it. It was much like the U.S. APCs, but was designed to carry only fifteen fully armed troops. They had to get seventeen inside, eighteen counting the officer. Ostercamp could drive the thing. Murdock called to Tony Ostercamp, who checked the driver’s position.
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