The rest of the Third Platoon, however, was quartered here in the barracks, a large, two-story cinder-block affair painted a depressing olive drab and overlooking the dumpsters arrayed along the back of the enlisted mess across a dusty street. Large signs decorated the bulkhead outside the door "To err is human. To forgive is not our policy." "SEALs have nerves. They just ignore them." There was trash on the floor, several beer cans and a plastic Diet Coke bottle. More alarming was the white bra dangling like a pennant from an overhead light, and the sheer panties on the deck just inside the door.
Otherwise, the place was similar to other enlisted barracks Murdock had seen. A fair amount of ingenuity had been used to turn a spartan and utilitarian open barracks into living quarters offering a semblance of privacy. The original dormitory space had been divided into "cubes" by plyboard partitions, each with two racks in a bunk-bed arrangement, plus gray, upright lockers, a table or battered government-issue desk, and occasional human touches like a guitar case or a stereo or a nude centerfold taped to bulkhead or open locker door. Each cube was separated from the world by improvised curtains hanging across its entrance, old sheets or blankets.
There were beer cans scattered about the barracks deck, and one body, a man clad in boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Murdock stooped to check the guy's breathing; he appeared to be sleeping off a hinge, and didn't move when Murdock nudged him twice. He was clutching a woman's bra, a lacy black one, in his right fist.
Murdock stood as another man entered the passageway, a short, dark-skinned Latino with a thin, black mustache. He was wearing a towel and shower clogs and carried a bar of soap.
"What's your name?" Murdock asked.
"Boomer. Ah ... Garcia. Sir."
"I could be mistaken, Garcia," Murdock said slowly, "but I thought the usual procedure was to shout 'Attention on deck' when an officer walked in."
Garcia stiffened, hands at his sides. "Attention on deck!"
Murdock nudged the body with the toe of his shoe. "What's this?"
"That's Doc," Garcia said. "Uh, HM2 Ellsworth. Sir."
"He always rack out in the passageway?"
"No, Sir. We, ah, we had a bit of a party last night, sir."
Murdock looked at the woman's undergarment in Ellsworth's hand. "So I see."
Two more men stumbled from behind two of the curtained-off cubes, one wearing civilian clothing, the other in boxer shorts. Their reactions were definitely running a bit on the slow side. It took several beats for them to realize that Murdock was there and to shuffle into a position approximating attention in front of their cubes.
"Names?"
"Torpedoman's Mate Second Nicholson, Sir." He was the one in his underwear. He had the hard-muscled body of a SEAL and a face that looked too young to shave.
"Gunner's Mate First Class Fernandez. Sir." Another Latino, stocky, heavier than Garcia, with black hair beginning to curl over his ears.
"And this is that crack SEAL platoon I've been hearing about?" He crossed his arms and shook his head in mock exasperation. "I don't believe it!"
"Sir," Nicholson said. "It's Saturday."
"I know what day it is, Nicholson. Thank you. Next time the Iraqis decide to take hostages, you can pass 'em the word that we won't attack until regular working hours.
"In the meantime, and before the Norfolk City Department of Health comes in and closes this establishment down, you're going to square this shithouse away. Understood? I said, 'Understood?'"
"Yes, Sir!" the three chorused. "Garcia!"
"Yes, Sir."
"Lose the face fuzz."
"But-"
"You're a SEAL, Garcia. You know that facial hair can break the seal on a swim mask."
"But Lieutenant Cotter said-"
"I don't give a shit what Lieutenant Cotter said! Strip the lip!"
"Aye, aye, Sir."
Murdock heard the resentment in Garcia's voice. "Fernandez?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Haircut."
Fernandez looked startled. "Aye, aye, Sir."
"Just in case there was any question, ladies, I am your new platoon leader, and we will be seeing a lot of each other in the next few days. Where's the rest of the platoon?"
The men traded uneasy, sidelong glances. "I ain't sure, Sir," Garcia said. "Maybe they left early."
Murdock glanced at his watch. It was almost 1000 hours. "When you see them, you can tell them I will be holding inspection of this barracks tomorrow afternoon. I will expect the flotsam cleared away, the contraband off the bulkheads and lockers, the personal gear stowed, and the deck waxed and shined." He looked meaningfully at Nicholson. "And I don't give a shit if tomorrow is Sunday. Beginning Monday, I will begin talking to each of you individually. I want to get to know you, find out what the hell makes you think you're decent SEAL material. And ..." He stopped, and nudged Ellsworth again. "Will two of you pick this up and get it to its rack? I have this thing about gear adrift. That is all."
Murdock turned to make a dignified exit and nearly collided with a familiar figure in civilian clothes who was just coming through the door, a big, olive-green sea-bag balanced on one shoulder.
"Uh ... Third Platoon?" the newcomer asked uncertainly, looking around.
"Jaybird!" Murdock said, taking a step back and smiling. "You're just in time!"
Sterling's eyes widened. "Oh, no!"
The SEALs stared after the lieutenant for several long moments after he'd gone.
"What the fuck was that?" Fernandez wanted to know.
"A prick." Garcia replied. "Mickey Mouse himself with delusions of grandeur."
"You guys notice his hand?" Nicholson asked. "He's a ring-knocker."
"No shit?" Garcia said. "An Academy grad?"
"I don't care if he's John Wayne in drag," Fernandez said. "We're SEALS. We don't hafta' take that shit."
"Scuttlebutt is he's from Coronado," Nicholson added. "A fuckin' BUD/S instructor."
"He is," Jaybird put in. "I flew out from California with him last night."
"Aw, man," Garcia said, disgusted. "I did my hard time in BUD/S. What is this shit anyway?"
"Yeah," Fernandez added. "I wonder if that dude's always so full of sweetness and light, man." He pointed at Jaybird. "I thought you California SEALs were 'sposed to be laid back and mellow, man."
"Hey, don't blame me," Jaybird said. "I hardly know the guy."
"Obviously," Nicholson pointed out, "he's an officer an' a gentleman. Far above us enlisted pukes. Say, how'd you get a handle like Jaybird anyway?"
On the deck, Ellsworth gave a mournful groan. "Hey," Garcia said. "Couple a' you guys gimme a hand here."
Together, they got Doc to his rack.
For a long time after that, they discussed the new lieutenant's manner, bearing, attitude, and probable ancestry, comparing it point by point with those of Lieutenant Cotter. So far, the new guy didn't measure up well at all.
Wednesday, 18 May
1145 hours (Zulu +3) Freighter Yuduki Maru Indian Ocean, south of Mauritius
The sun glared with brassy heat from the flat swells of the Indian Ocean, as two ships, the Yuduki Maru and her escort, Shikishima, plowed steadily eastward at eighteen knots. Twenty days out of the French military port at Cherbourg, she had another four weeks' voyage ahead of her. Her course lay due east across the Indian Ocean, south of Australia and New Zealand. then turning northwest, passing through Micronesia and the empty waters of the western Pacific until she entered her home port of Tokai, ninety miles northeast of Tokyo.
Yuduki Maru's long-way-around voyage had been dictated by the volatile rumblings of international politics. Like some twentieth-century Flying Dutchman, she was pledged to remain always at least two hundred nautical miles from land. Forbidden outright to enter the waters of South Africa, Indonesia, Chile, or Malaysia she had a sharply limited choice of courses. The Straits of Mulacca, twenty-three miles wide at their narrowest, and the South China Sea, a den of modern-day pirates, both had been closed to her.
In t
he interests of secrecy, her final course had been set only days before she'd left Cherbourg. Not that secrecy remained absolute. The Greenpeace vessel Beluga had dogged the tiny flotilla since their sailing, remaining just over the horizon, making certain that the Japanese ships did not break their international quarantine.
Captain Chuichi Koga, Yuduki Maru's master, was unconcerned with the Beluga, as he was with the quarantine and with the crowds of protestors who'd mobbed the fences at the naval base perimeter at Cherbourg. The total voyage, Cherbourg to Tokai, should take seven weeks. Koga, a professional, confident, and supremely competent officer of the merchant marine who demanded absolute punctuality of himself and of his crew, had no doubts whatsoever that they would arrive in port on schedule.
Yuduki Maru was small for so long a voyage, with a length overall of 119 meters, a beam of less than eighteen meters, and a full-load draft of just over six meters. She had a displacement of 7,600 tons.
Nevertheless, she was an impressive vessel. Like her sister ship, the Akatsuki Maru, she had been an American cargo ship--sailing under the name Atlantic Crane--before her conversion to her new and highly specialized task. She'd been refined in a Belfast shipyard, her hatches strengthened, her huge, forward deck crane removed, and her electronics suite upgraded and modernized. Large sections of her cargo hold had been sealed off and converted to carry extra reserves of diesel fuel so she could manage her forty-thousand-kilometer voyage without refueling. Some of her cargo space had also been converted into accommodations. Besides her usual crew of forty-five, the Yuduki Maru carried thirty armed guards.
And, of course, there was the comforting presence of the Shikishima a kilometer to port. Captain Koga, like most of his superiors, would have been far happier if a couple of Japanese Navy destroyers could have escorted Yuduki Maru on her long passage. Unfortunately, Japan's postwar constitution specifically prohibited any of her 125-odd military vessels from being deployed outside Japanese waters. For that reason, escort duties had been assumed by the Kaijo Hoancho, an organization analogous to the U.S. Coast Guard. Shikishima had been specially built for this task at a cost of twenty billion yen, a 6,500-ton cutter armed with machine guns and one of the American Phalanx close-in point-defense systems. She also carried a Kawasaki-Bell 212 helicopter on her fantail landing platform.
The Americans had been involved with planning for the security of these voyages from the beginning. They were, naturally enough, keenly interested in the security of Yuduki Maru's precious and deadly cargo.
Two tons of plutonium, after all, was prize enough to attract the eye of dozens of governments, political factions, terrorist groups, environmental activists, and outright criminals all over the world.
It was enough to provoke a war, and more than enough to finish one. It was also a symbol of Japan's national honor.
Japan's interest in plutonium was strictly peaceful and economic. Ever since the 1960s, the country had been committed to achieving energy self-sufficiency through an aggressive and high-tech atomic power program. In particular they'd sought the promise of fast-breeder nuclear reactors.
There were already forty-one conventional nuclear power plants fueled by uranium in the Japanese home islands. For years, the spent nuclear fuel from these reactors had been shipped to reprocessing plants in Europe, notably the French company Cogema, in Cap de la Hague, Normandy, and a British plant in Sellafield, Cumbria. There, high-grade plutonium was extracted from the radioactive ash left over from the conventional nuclear plants; a special type of power plant, the so-called fast breeder, generated power from plutonium and, in a process that seemed to defy the normal laws concerning something from nothing, actually generated more nuclear fuel as an end product. Ultimately, Japan could be completely self-sufficient, generating all of its own power needs, even exporting power to other nations.
It was a worthwhile goal, given that Japan was currently almost entirely dependent on outside sources for energy, and she had some grand and energy-intensive plans for future technological growth. Unfortunately, there were some serious drawbacks as well.
First and foremost, plutonium is without question the deadliest substance known. Quite apart from its high levels of radioactivity, it is so toxic that a microscopic amount can kill a man, while a gram or two in a water reservoir can wipe out an entire city. And, of course, there is the nuclear genie; the hardest part of building an atomic bomb is processing the uranium in the first place, or getting hold of enough plutonium to provide the fissionable material. Just eight kilograms of plutonium is enough for the manufacture of a quick-and-dirty nuclear device as powerful as the one that burned the heart out of Nagasaki.
Too, there were the political problems that buzzed around the stuff like flies over garbage. A sizable percentage of Japan's home population resisted any manifestation of nuclear power, for obvious reasons, and the outcry from environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists around the world had been startling. Transporting so much plutonium was perceived as an unacceptable risk, one threatening thousands, even millions of people, should something go wrong.
Nor was breeder technology proven. Monju, a prototype breeder reactor, was still a year away from producing electricity. America, France, Great Britain, and the other major industrial powers had long ago abandoned the breeder concept as too risky for commercial use.
The creation of so much plutonium had proven to be a public relations nightmare for Tokyo, but there was no other way for the country to achieve its goals. Suggestions from the international community that Japan use plutonium extracted from the post-Cold War world's nuclear stockpiles instead of shipping it halfway around the world was no solution at all, since something still had to be done about all that plutonium piling up in Europe. Besides, the Japanese public insisted, understandably if somewhat irrationally, that only plutonium that had never been used in nuclear weapons was acceptable as a power source at home.
Fears of what would happen if Japan's plutonium stockpiles at home or abroad fell into the wrong hands dogged the nation like a shadow. Anti-nuclear groups were swift to point out that while a serious malfunction in a conventional reactor could lead to meltdown and the release of radiation, a disaster in a breeder plant could result in a very large bang indeed.
Since the United States had sold the original nuclear fuel to Japan, Washington, under the provisions of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, maintained a say over what happened to it and how it was handled. Unfortunately, the U.S. government was far more sensitive to pressure from the environmentalists Japan than Japan was. A 1989 plan to fly the plutonium back to had been vetoed outright by the U.S., which dreaded the political, ecological, and literal fallout of a plane crash.
The ideal, of course, would have been to process the original spent fuel cores at home, in Japan, but the first such reprocessing plant, now being constructed at Rokkasho, in northern Japan, was not due to begin operation until 1997, and would only have an output of five tons of plutonium a year. Besides, Britain and France had already served notice that they would not store Japan's accumulating stores of plutonium indefinitely. The stuff was difficult to keep, took up a lot of space, and provided a dazzling target for terrorists and activists of any of several political persuasions.
And so, the only alternative for Japan, hedged in by a bewildering array of political threats, treaty and constitutional obligations, and public relations problems, had been to transport the stuff back to the home islands by sea. Tokyo had consulted with Washington on the operation and accepted the American directives regarding security. These had included the structural upgrades to the freighters, the addition of an onboard security force, and the building of the Shikishima herself, since Japanese naval vessels were not allowed to leave their home waters.
The first shipment of 1.7 tons had left Cherbourg early in October of 1992, arriving without incident in Tokai fifty-eight days later. Several shipments had made the passage since, the start of the biggest sea lift of plutonium in history. The timetable u
ltimately called for a total of some ninety tons of plutonium to be shipped from Europe to Japan by the year 2010. Koga wondered if his government was tempted by so much plutonium to abandon its stance of nearly fifty years and become a nuclear power. The idea didn't bother Koga as it did many of his countrymen; he didn't remember Hiroshima, and as Japan became increasingly isolated in a hostile world, it would have to learn to protect itself, without relying on the vacillations of a fragmented and unreliable West.
In the meantime, it was enough to carry out his duty, which was to deliver two tons of plutonium safely to port in Tokai.
Raising his binoculars to his eyes, he scanned an empty horizon for a moment, then turned them on the lean, white hull of Shikishima, still maintaining station to the north. The Kaijo Hoancho emblem, a triple blue stripe on the hull forward, like a squared-off Roman letter S lying on its back reaching from scupper to waterline, was clearly visible, as were the sailors lounging in the gun tub on the forward deck. They seemed unconcerned about the proximity of Yuduki Maru's cargo.
And in fact, there was little to worry about. The cargo was safely stowed in hundreds of individual lead pigs in the freighter's holds, divided into carefully measured and separated quantities to avoid critical mass and a chain reaction. So far as any external threat was concerned, Yuduki Maru and Shikishima were alone on that wide, empty ocean. The nearest land at the moment was the southern tip of Madagascar, one thousand kilometers to the north, and the weather, a serious concern during the initial planning, was exceptionally and spectacularly calm.
Koga turned his attention to the Yuduki Maru's deck below the bridge. The freighter was designed along the lines of a tanker or bulk carrier, with the blocky, white superstructure far aft, and hold access through deck hatches in the long forward deck. A number of men were visible at the moment, mostly off-duty crewmen basking in the sun. One man, a galley worker, was perched bare-legged on one of the hatch covers, dutifully slicing up vegetables, which he removed one by one from a large sack at his side, and dropping the pieces in a bowl in his lap.
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