The Shark Mutiny

by Patrick Robinson

  As Admiral Bergstrom had mentioned at the time, “Guess I’d rather have a dozen tired SEALs wallowing around in the surf than twelve dead ones floating faceup in the fucking Strait of Hormuz.”

  Ray Schaeffer had sat in on that meeting, and he smiled to himself as he thought of the diabolical difference between planning in an air-conditioned room in Coronado and making a swim like this thousands and thousands of miles from home.

  Ray kicked and counted, kicked and counted, keeping his eye on the compass, staying on zero-nine-zero. They’d been going for an hour and a half now, and by Ray’s reckoning that spelled 3,600 yards covered, which was two miles, give or take the length of a submarine. There was a rising moon now, and phosphorescence in the water. He thought he could make out the ocean bottom right below, but he was unsure and he did not want to waste energy, or his precious air, in finding out.

  Also he was asking serious questions of his granite-hard body, and there were nagging pains high up in both thighs. His calves and ankles were mercifully fine; that was where the pain usually hit on a long swim. And there had been times when it had hurt like hell.

  The kid behind him was only twenty-one years old, and there was no way Ray was going to betray tiredness, so he gritted his teeth, dug ever deeper and forced himself forward, ignoring the lactic acid now flooding into his joints and muscles, making every yard an ordeal.

  Seventeen minutes after the two-mile mark, Ray felt his board sliding through sand. Instinctively he straightened up and was surprised to find himself standing up to his chest in about four feet of water, still holding the attack board. Charlie bobbed up right beside him and they both shut down their Draegers, reclining back in the water, resting their aching limbs.

  They took their mouthpieces out and stored the air lines neatly. “You all right, sir?” asked Charlie.

  “No problem, kid,” replied the Lieutenant Commander. “Let’s take five, then walk forward slowly for another five and wait for Dan to show up.”

  “Sounds good…. Can you see anything up ahead, sir?”

  “I thought I could just then, a dark shoreline directly in front, maybe a half mile. But the moon’s gone behind that cloud, and I can’t see a fucking thing now.”

  By now the lead SEALs had removed their flippers. They were walking slowly forward, and they were quickly in less than three feet of water. The Draegers were beginning to weigh heavily; so were the mines. They were comfortable with the rest of their gear.

  About 100 yards back, Dan Conway and his teammate broke the surface, and began to walk forward. By the time they caught up with Ray and Charlie, Clouds was in, then the rookies, only two minutes behind. Big Rob Cafiero and his rookie were in next, but they had to wait 10 minutes for Petty Officer Combs, who was of course carrying the M-60 machine gun, which might save all their lives in an emergency.

  Ray Schaeffer aimed them all east, and they set off on the stretch they had all been dreading, wading, now in 18 inches of water through the long shallows, each man hauling 80 pounds plus. After 100 yards it was like walking through glue. No one complained but it was a muscle-throbbing exercise, and there was no efficient way to do it, except to keep pushing forward, lifting their feet just enough to take the real “tug” out of the water.

  However, it was pleasantly warm, there was no surf to speak of and up ahead they could see the shore. And that was the good news. This walk could have been a mile and a half. As things looked, it would be only a little more than 1,000 yards. Ray ordered them to fan out and draw their weapons, which made a long line of black-hooded figures 30 yards apart. When they reached the beach, assuming it was deserted, they would close in to Lt. Commander Schaeffer’s central position to check the GPS. The numbers they were looking for were 26.47N 57.01E.

  The last 100 yards were easily the worst, and they struggled through a kind of kelp field, knee-deep and clinging. But eventually they walked up onto a completely empty beach of coarse sand and occasional rocks. There was not a light, and certainly not a person, to be seen. The numbers on the GPS were right on, which explained a lot. Nothing on this particular stretch of wasteland had been picked up after a hundred satellite passes carefully logged and studied at the top-secret National Reconnaissance Office in Washington. The even more beady-eyed operators at Fort Meade had found nothing either. One mile dead ahead, across slightly hilly terrain, was the sprawling Chinese crude-oil refinery.

  It was 2130, and Lt. Commander Schaeffer ordered the SEALs off the beach and into the rougher ground behind. With exquisite timing the moon came out again, and they could more or less see where they were headed without using night goggles. Up ahead they would be approaching the southwestern corner of the refinery, and somewhere before that they would make the rendezvous point, dumping most of their gear.

  Four SEALs only would enter the refinery that night. Two more would cut and fold back the wire, and Petty Officer Combs would ride shotgun over the operation with the big gun, and also join the wire cutters as lookouts. No one knew what to expect in the way of guards, or even lights. They knew only that Ray Schaeffer, Dan Conway and Clouds Nathan were going through the wire perimeter fence, assisted by Charlie, to lay down the pile-driver explosives contained in the limpet mines, which they would attach to the inside-facing walls on the big gasoline holding tanks.

  Chief Petty Officer Rob Cafiero would take charge of the base camp, when they found it, unloading groundsheets, setting up the radio, posting sentries, preparing the mass of explosives for the main assault the following night. But it took another hour before they found a three-corner outcrop of warm rocks, five feet above the ground at its highest point. It provided protection from the north and from the seaward side. The SEALs used the wire cutters to cut scrub and cover the camouflage nets. It had to be 1,000 to 1 against anyone stumbling across their “hide,” and from the sea it was totally invisible.

  They all removed their wet suits and wore only light camouflage combat trousers and jackets. They pulled on their desert boots, and the warriors going in that night increased the greasepaint on their faces and tied their matching green-and-brown “drive on” rags around their heads, in the style popularized chiefly by Willie Nelson.

  They ate a couple of protein bars and drank water. Then shortly after 2300, Lt. Commander Ray Schaeffer led Assault Team One forward, a total of seven SEALs, carrying the three limpet mines and all the detonation equipment required to take out the group of holding tanks hard against the fence in the southwest corner of the refinery. No explosions until the next day, but a lot of the groundwork completed, with, hopefully, a thorough knowledge of the defense system the Chinese operated in their new refinery.

  “Don’t expect us back before zero-four hundred, Rob. We wanna take a very careful recon of this place. And it will take time.” Lieutenant Commander Schaeffer’s words were almost inaudible, and a light breeze from the ocean scarcely ruffled the poor, rough, brown grass that grew sporadically on this warm moonlike landscape.

  They drew their weapons and marched forward, moving softly over the ground. Up ahead there was a glow in the sky, and they all knew what that was. The main surprise as they pushed east away from the ocean was the amount of light there was both inside and around the refinery.

  Within 10 minutes they had a clear view of the western perimeter, which Ray Schaeffer knew was two miles long. They could see a line of lights, set high on steel pylons every 200 yards. But they were aimed into the refinery and cast almost no light on the dark wasteland around the outer edge. That was good and bad, because it made their approach easy. But one of the lights was throwing a lot of illumination right into the group of storage tanks toward which they were headed.

  They lay flat on the ground, staring at the fence 20 yards in front of them.

  “Christ,” said Clouds, “it’s gonna be like the stage of the New York City Ballet in there.”

  “Great,” muttered Dan Conway. “We’ll probably get a round of applause.”

  “Shut up, comedian
s,” whispered Lt. Commander Schaeffer. “That light second from the end has gotta go. Guess we could shoot it, but I’d rather cut it.”

  “That would sharpen up the guards if they found the cut,” said Dan.

  “Yeah, it might,” replied Ray. “But I’ve been looking down the line of lights. There’s one every two hundred yards, but I’m only counting fifteen, not seventeen. That means there’re a couple out already. Those bulbs go all the time, I’d say, and one more isn’t going to put the place on red alert. These guys are civilians. They’ll probably send a couple of electricians out, maybe tomorrow, to replace the bulbs. So we want to make a cut they won’t notice.”

  “Okay, sir,” said Charlie. “I’ll do it. I’ll slice down six inches and pull the inside stuff out. One little cut puts the bulb out. Then I’ll fold it back inside the rubber casing. They might not notice it at all.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Ray Schaeffer. “I have a little roll of electrician’s tape in my pocket, and we can thank Rusty for that. He told me before we left Coronado, we would almost certainly have to take out a couple of lights, and a little roll of black tape does a lot to cover your tracks.”

  “Beautiful,” said Clouds. “Pity about the applause, though.”

  They moved in toward the fence, staying low, crawling across the ground on elbows and knees, the time-honored approach of the killer SEAL. Dan Conway and Charlie went to the base of the light pylon, and the two rookies began to cut a hole in the chain-link fence. There was no sign of guards, no sign of life in this remote part of the refinery in the small hours of the morning. The only sound was the snap of the wire cutters as they carved a doorway through the fence.

  At 0017 the big light went out, plunging the storage tanks into darkness. The SEALs lay silently, waiting for a Chinese patrol to show up. But none did, and at 0035, they pulled back the wire and Ray Schaeffer, with Clouds Nathan, wriggled through, followed by Lt. Conway and Charlie. Clouds had the detonator, fuses, time clock and cord, plus one of the shovels. The other three carried the big limpet mines on their backs, and they raced for the cover of the storage tanks, three lines of 10, all owned by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). All now in deep shadow.

  It did not look far on the aerial photographs they had been studying for several days, and they all knew the precise route to take. But it was a long 50 yards over flat ground, and they were glad to know that Ryan Combs was right inside the fence with his trigger finger on the machine gun.

  Once in among the tanks they worked fast. They made for the middle one in line five, and the two outer ones in line six, which formed a triangle right in the center of the group. Clouds removed the mines from their straps, and clamped the magnets onto the lower inside-facing surfaces of the three tanks. He wired up the detonators and ran cord from each one to a central point at the western edge of the untargeted middle tank in line six. Right there he wired up the clock, which would dictate the time of the explosion of all three mines.

  Then he took the shovel and buried the det cord in the soft sand. When he arrived back at the clock, he wrapped it in a plastic bag and buried that, too, without setting it. That would take about one minute on the way out the following night, if their luck held. Right then they were “outta here,” and they flew for the fence, unnoticed by anyone, and made their way back through the wire.

  It took another 10 minutes to clip the fence back into shape, and the SEALs retreated into the rough ground 20 yards back, from where they would watch whatever movement there was inside the refinery.

  It was a long, boring wait. The only sign of life was almost a mile away inside the control center. Occasionally they caught a glimpse through the binoculars of a door opening, and once they saw some kind of a jeep move from the control block up toward the main refining towers, but it was too far to see if anyone got out or in. By 0330 Lt. Commander Schaeffer concluded that the refinery was just about devoid of any security whatsoever, and he declared the recon was at an end. By this time the following night they’d be on their way out to the submarine. God willing.

  They arrived back at base camp at 0400, reported on the distinct lack of armed guards, at least in that remote part of the refinery, and drank a lot of water. Lieutenant Commander Schaeffer and his men would sleep first, and Chief Petty Officer Cafiero organized the sentries.

  They were all awake by 0800, and they spent the day lying low, under the camouflage, eating very occasionally one of the high-protein bars and studying endlessly the layout of the refinery’s interior.

  That night there were three targets: the towers, the control center and the middle group of storage tanks. If there was time, Lt. Dan Conway and Clouds Nathan would also attempt to insert high explosives into the more remote petrochemical compound, but that would be touch and go. It was almost 800 yards from the towers along a well-lit road.

  Ray Schaeffer had divided the SEAL squad into three teams of four, one led by himself, one by Lieutenant Conway and one by CPO Rob Cafiero. Lieutenant Nathan would join Ray in the critical attack on the giant separating towers, Dan Conway and Charlie would take the central storage area, while Rob Cafiero and Ryan Combs would place the high explosives on the walls of the control center. Two young SEALS would accompany each team, acting as guards, lookouts and radio operators, should there be a need to communicate. Each time clock would be set to detonate at 0300.

  They would all go under the wire together at 2300, and the watchword of the operation was stealth. At least for the first hour it was. Thereafter the SEALs would feel free to fight their way out and down to the beach using whatever means were necessary. Ryan Combs would bring two belts of ammunition and the M60-E4 machine gun with him.

  They dug and buried all their surplus gear, including groundsheets. They left the wet suits, flippers, Draegers and attack boards under the camouflage nets. Because of the 12-man limit on the team, they did not have the luxury of leaving anyone in charge, and at 2230 they all set off toward the refinery. It was warm and windless, with no moon. High clouds drifted in from the sea, and they marched in silence, in three lines of four, through the desolate area behind the beach toward the refinery.

  The first thing Ray Schaeffer noticed was that the light they had deactivated the previous night was still deactivated. The second thing he noticed was a jeep moving swiftly along the outer perimeter along the narrow blacktop track they had crossed to get to and from the storage tanks.

  The vehicle did not stop or slow down in this remote corner of the plant, but there were four people in it, and they were carrying weapons, a direct result of an instruction from the Chinese Navy, received 48 hours previously. The guards were in fact military personnel from the People’s Liberation Army and they had been in residence for two months, although they had not found it necessary to mount any form of patrol. The area was, face it, deserted.

  The SEALs flattened themselves into the ground as the jeep drove past, but then they moved quickly to the fence and the clips were removed to open their own personal gateway. Once inside, they placed three clips back on the wire to hold it, more or less in place, to attract no attention.

  At this point they again checked their synchronized black pocket watches and the time clocks, which would be adjusted as the charges were put in place. Then they fanned out into three groups. They would meet again 90 minutes from then, at 0030, in the dark deserted area of the towers.

  The first team on station was Dan Conway’s. He and Charlie led the two rookies deep in the shadow of the hot crude-oil pipes, which cleaved a gantry right down the middle of the refinery. They moved slowly, creeping quietly along, directly beneath the great three-foot-diameter pipes. They provided excellent cover all the way to the central storage area. The four SEALs waited for 15 minutes until they were certain they were alone, then they bolted across the flat well-lit ground to the left and dived into the shadow of the first tank, remaining motionless on the sand for 10 minutes, heads down, but knives drawn.

  Meanwhile Lt. Commande
r Schaeffer and his 2 I/C, Lt. Clouds Nathan, had made it to the tower area. They had crossed two sets of railroad tracks, well to the right of the central pipeline system, and were now crouched in the dark on the south side of a giant holding tank. The towers looked massive, but there were three very close together in the center of the separating plant, and these were the targets.

  The problem was four Chinese technicians who had plainly arrived in a parked jeep, testing what looked like a large valve halfway up the biggest tower. “Oh, Jesus,” said Ray, “if they’re not outta here in thirty minutes, we’ll go and place the two mines out in the petrochemical area, and then come back. We can’t risk being seen, not yet, not until the stuff’s in place.”

  They waited. So did the technicians. And finally Ray whistled up both of the other teams on the little radio, and announced he was going to the distant chemical area, and would use two of the mines. Dan Conway was instructed to get among the towers as soon as possible with the two extra mines his team was carrying.

  They carried out their regular mine placing on the tanks, in precisely the swift, efficient way Clouds had worked the previous night. The time was precisely 2345, and they set the time clock for three hours and fifteen minutes.

  Then they rushed back across the open ground into the shadow of the pipeline, and began working their way up to the tower area. Meanwhile, Ray and Clouds were jogging along the eastern perimeter fence, right in the shadow, directly under the lights, headed for the wide area of the plant owned by SINOPEC (China National Petrochemical Corporation).

  When they arrived, the place was not only silent; there were also huge dark areas to the west of the tanks, and they worked right in there, shoveling a shallow six-inch trench in which to lay the det cord. By the time they’d finished, it was 0015, and Ray set the clock for two hours and 45 minutes. Then he buried it lightly in a plastic bag.

  By the time SEAL Team One was out of the chemical area, Rob Cafiero and Ryan Combs were making steady progress around the control center. They had placed one mighty charge of plastic C4 explosives hard on the wall below the main downstairs window, and they had seen four white-coated technicians enter the building and four come out.