"Damn it," Congressman Murdock said again. "Someone tell me what's happening!"
General Bradley looked at him, and the corner of his mouth pulled back in a hard, quick, and humorless half smile. "Apparently, Hormuz was able to rendezvous with the Yuduki Maru sometime earlier today."
"Worst-case scenario," Mason added. "There are Iranian troops aboard that freighter. According to Hammer Bravo, it might be as many as forty men."
"Oh, God. Are we going to have to abort?"
"We'd rather not, Congressman," Admiral Bainbridge said, his voice cold. "We've gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to get our people onto those ships. Let's give them a chance, shall we?"
Though the air in the climate-controlled room was cool, almost chilly, Murdock found that he was sweating.
2323 hours (Zulu +3) Bridge Freighter Yuduki Maru
Bending over low to stay out of the line of fire, Murdock moved to the main bridge console, studying the array of computer terminals, instruments, and consoles.
The bridge arrangement of modern merchant ships had become more and more complex over the past decade, until they resembled something out of a science-fiction movie, but Murdock had been carefully briefed on the control systems layout of Yuduki Maru's main console. At the extreme right of the main panel, next to a machinery monitoring station, was a terminal and display screen, the freighter's cargo-monitoring console. He checked to see that the display was on, entered some memorized commands on the keyboard, then studied the glowing display of characters and graphics that filled the screen.
The characters were Japanese ideographs, but he'd been shown what to look for on the graphics, and what he saw was immensely reassuring. Yuduki Maru's cargo, stored in holds one and two, was still secure. Radiation levels in the hold were normal. there was no indication that the automated wash-down foam had been triggered, and all of the cargo hold seals were listed as intact. Apparently, no one had even tried to enter the cargo holds, and that lifted an enormous weight from Murdock's shoulders. One of several worst-case scenarios discussed back at Little Creek was the possibility that the terrorists had mined or booby-trapped the cargo.
If they hadn't been into the cargo hold, they couldn't have tampered with the plutonium.
But Murdock was taking no chances. Still working by rote, he entered another string of keyboard commands, and watched as the characters on the screen shifted from Kanji characters to English. With the United States insisting on a say in the security of the plutonium, the freighter's computer security had been programmed with both Japanese and English access, and the SEALs had been given the appropriate codes before the mission. He waited as a new screen came up, then began typing in a series of memorized commands.
After another pause, the results of his work flashed onto the screen and he nodded his satisfaction. The plutonium holds were now under an emergency lock-down. Only a password that Murdock had just typed into the security system--Jaybird--would allow access. If the SEAL squad was wiped out in the next few moments and the Iranians regained control of the bridge, they would be unable to get past the security overrides. Eventually, they might be able to break the code, bypass the security lock-down, or cut their way in through the weather deck and rifle the cargo by brute force, but all of those attempts would take both time and special equipment not available out here in the middle of the Indian Ocean. "Lieutenant?" Ellsworth said. He was crouched by the door at the back of the bridge through which the SEALs had burst moments before. "I think we're about to have company."
"On my way." He switched off the computer monitor, then hurried across the deck to where Doc was waiting.
Now everything was up to MacKenzie down in the engineering room.
2324 hours (Zulu +3) Engine room access Freighter Yuduki Maru
MacKenzie had led Garcia and Higgins down two levels, to what on a Navy vessel would have been called the third deck, somewhere close to the freighter's waterline. The passageway led fore and aft; forward, according to the deck plans and model the SEALs had studied, lay the cargo holds that--please God!--should be locked and secured. That, however, was the Lieutenant's responsibility. Three men could not secure Yuduki Maru's cargo, but Murdock ought to be able to check it and lock it down from the bridge.
Instead, Mac led the way aft, toward the freighter's engine room. Somewhere ahead, a steel door clanged open. A moment later, a Japanese merchant sailor appeared, wearing shorts and a white T-shirt, running blindly down the passageway. An instant later he caught sight of the SEALS, of their black faces, menacing garb, and weapons, and he nearly collided with a bulkhead trying to stop.
"Tomare!" Higgins called. "Halt!" Several of the SEALs were fluent in more than one other language, but he was the only one in the platoon who spoke Japanese. The seaman took a step back.
"Chikayore!" Higgins snapped. "Come forward." Reluctantly, the man complied.
In seconds, they had the seaman on his face, his wrists cuffed with plastic ties behind his back, his ankles tied together. Higgins spoke to him, his voice coaxing. The hostage answered back, gesturing back down the passageway with his head and with rolling eyes. "What's he say, Prof?"
"Okay, he says he's just a member of the crew," Higgins replied. "Says there's always a couple of Iranians on guard in the engine room. He also says something's got 'em pretty well stirred up right now. He decided to git while the gittin' was good."
MacKenzie nodded curtly. "Let's put 'em down then."
Leaving the seaman lying in the passageway, the SEALs headed for the engine room. The door was closed but unlocked, opening to Garcia's push.
Inside, a railed platform overlooked the engine room, a claustrophobic compartment filled with monstrous shapes reduction gears, condensers, generators, and massive steam turbines like green-painted prehistoric monsters embedded in the ribbed, gleaming steel decks.
An Iranian soldier shouted warning as MacKenzie burst through the open door. The SEAL chief triggered a short burst from his HK and the man went down, his AKM clattering off one of the engine housings and onto the deck. Another soldier lunged for cover, shouting something in Farsi. Garcia leaned into the railing and fired once ... twice. The Iranian clawed at his back, then dropped to the deck. For a long moment, MacKenzie held his position, swinging his HK's muzzle left and right, searching for further movement. Nothing.
"Secure the door," MacKenzie told Garcia. "Prof, you're with me."
A steep metal ladder led from the platform down to the main engineering deck. MacKenzie, his HK strapped to his combat harness, grabbed the railings and rode them twelve feet to the steel grating below. The engine room throbbed with the pulse of confined power, and in the distance aft, connecting with the turbines, he could see the ponderous revolutions of the reduction gears turning Yuduki Maru's paired propeller shafts.
Mac and Prof carried out a lightning inspection of the engineering deck, checking the bodies and searching for tangos missed during their entry. They found no more terrorists, but they did discover four terrified Japanese crewmen hiding behind a massive generator mounting. MacKenzie covered them while Higgins tied their wrists, led them to the forward end of the compartment, where he tied their ankles as well, and then began questioning them.
"Shit, Mac," Higgins said, joining him again after a few moments. "These people all say there's forty or fifty bad guys on board! Some Japanese tangos, plus a shitload of Iranians!"
"I was beginning to get that idea." MacKenzie looked forward, past the humming hulks of the freighter's turbines. There were three doors in the forward bulkhead, two high up and to either side, and a third in the middle and on the same level as the engineering deck, leading forward to the boiler room. Garcia was still on the starboard side platform, guarding the door and watching over the engine room. The four civilians, tied hand and foot, lay on the deck next to the boiler room door.
Tactically, the SEALs simply could not now continue the mission as originally planned. Though SEALs liked to boast of a ten-to-one or better k
ill ratio in combat, there was no way, realistically, that the seven of them could face an unknown but very large force of heavily armed Iranians--now thoroughly aroused and hostile Iranians--and win. Despite the popular fictional image of SEALs as Rainboesque commandos who routinely took on impossible odds, the Teams were not suicide squads and they did not attempt hopeless missions. Their training, their experience, and their hard-won skills were too valuable to throw away in empty, heroic gestures. "Hammer Six," he called. "This is One."
"One, Six. Copy."
"Echo Romeo secure. But Skipper, it's not gonna be secure for long. I've got some locals here who tell me we've just stepped smack in the cow patty big time."
"Roger that." There was a moment's hesitation, and MacKenzie could almost hear the wheels turning as Murdock considered his next order.
"Okay, Chief," Murdock's voice said. "Set for Kneecap, but do not initiate. Do you copy?"
"Roger. Set Kneecap, do not initiate."
"Keep me posted."
"Rog."
Kneecap was the code word for one of the SEAL team's contingency plans, a last-ditch, we've-got-to-get-out-of-Dodge measure to keep Yuduki Maru's cargo out of Iranian hands. Two satchel charges, one apiece for each of the freighter's propeller shafts, would be enough to disable the Yuduki Maru, leaving her dead in the water. A second assault would then be mounted, as soon as additional SEAL or Marine forces could be mustered.
A final, more drastic option remained if Kneecap didn't work. If worst came to worst, the team could execute Headshot, blowing precisely placed holes in the freighter's sides and sending her to the bottom. In theory, specialized submarine recovery vehicles would be able to salvage the freighter's cargo before seawater corroded the cylinders containing the plutonium, contaminating the local waters with radioactivity.
That was definitely a last-ditch option, however. No one wanted to risk breaching or scattering the containment cylinders, for the scenario describing the spread of radioactive contamination through ocean currents from the Seychelles to Cape Town was too dreadful to easily contemplate.
"Prof!" he called. "It's Kneecap! You take the port shaft. I'll take the starboard."
Yuduki Maru's two propeller shafts ran from the reduction gears connecting them with the turbines, vanishing through watertight seals and bearings into the shaft alleys in the aft hull. An explosive charge positioned over the shaft bearings would break or bend the propeller shafts, rendering them useless, irreparable anywhere short of a major dry-dock overhaul.
MacKenzie reached into one of his waterproof satchels, pulling out a cable-cutting charge, a U-shaped pouch containing a half kilo of C-6 plastic explosive, multiple detonators, and an electronic firing trigger with a keypad for entering any time, in seconds, from one to 9,999.
He was halfway to the shaft bearing when the Iranians burst through the engine room's port-side entryway.
"Cover!" Garcia shouted from his perch on the starboard side. His HK spat flame, striking sparks and shrill pings from the open door, then slashing into the first Iranian soldier in line and toppling him over the platform railing and onto a generator housing below. The next Iranian got off one brief, wild burst from his AK before Garcia's enfilade fire sent him tumbling in a bloody heap down the steel ladder. A confused babble of Farsi, shouted orders and queries, sounded from the passageway beyond.
MacKenzie dove for cover, crouching behind a massive reduction gear housing alongside one of the throbbing turbines. "Six, this is One! It's going down now. Hard!"
"Copy, One. What's your sit?"
MacKenzie could hear the hammer of a heavy weapon in the background as Murdock spoke. "Not good! Not good!" MacKenzie shouted over the tactical channel. "We need backup, and we need it fast!" Another burst of AK fire sang through the engine room. Sooner or later, overwhelming Iranian forces would root them out of here, with gunfire, grenades, or gas.
And then it would be all over.
MacKenzie dropped an empty magazine, then slapped home a fresh one. A single burst of AK fire snapped from the door, wild again, the rounds shrieking off steel. He guessed, judging by the yells and shouting voices outside, that the Iranians must be getting ready to try a rush.
The original plan to blow Yuduki Maru's propeller shafts was out now. It would take minutes to plant the charges ... and the SEALs now had only seconds. What the hell was going on up on the bridge?
2326 hours (Zulu +3) Bridge Freighter Yuduki Maru
"I hear 'em on the ladder," Ellsworth said. "They're coming up the companionway."
"Flash-bangs," Murdock said, reaching for his combat vest as Ellsworth nodded and did the same. The metallic thumpings on the stairway behind the bridge were louder now, punctuated by shrill voices. The two SEALs yanked the pins on their stun grenades, paused, then tossed them in perfect arcs through the bridge door and into the square pit of the companionway outside.
Seconds later, the darkened corridors lit with pulsing flashes of dazzling light reflected from white-painted bulkheads, and the ear-hammering blasts of multiple concussions. When his ears stopped ringing, Murdock could hear the low groans and cries of stunned, wounded men.
"Together," he told Doc, and together they broke from cover, racing to the companionway and thrusting their HKs over the railing. Two decks down, and scattered halfway up the steps, a tangle of khaki-clad bodies was writhing in the uncertain illumination of a fallen emergency lantern, Iranian troops, the blood streaming from noses, mouths, and ears looking garishly black in the yellow light. Murdock flicked his selector switch to semi-auto and began triggering round after aimed round into the helpless targets. Doc joined in the slaughter until, seconds later, there was no more movement.
"Stay here," he told Ellsworth. "Yell if any more come."
"Will do, Skipper."
Murdock ducked back onto the bridge, ducking again as more bullets slammed through the shattered bridge windows, tunneling into the overhead soundproofing, spilling more shards of glass across the deck of the bridge. He crouched in the shelter of the console, as the Type 62 machine guns thundered from both wings.
Clearly, Operation Sun Hammer had gone badly sour. The four Americans on the bridge had stopped the Iranian thrust through the superstructure, and they had the Iranians on the forward deck pinned down for the moment, but others would be on their way soon, and there simply weren't enough SEALs aboard to neutralize the entire enemy force.
He switched channels on his tactical radio. "Foreman, Foreman, this is Hammer One. Do you copy?"
Somewhere to the north, the orbiting E-3A Sentry aircraft picked up his words, passing them along to the anxiously waiting men in the bowels of the Pentagon.
"Hammer One, Foreman copies" came the reply a moment later.
"Sheet metal," Murdock said, using the code phrase meaning that Hammer had just tried driving a nail into steel instead of soft wood.
For a long moment, Murdock heard only static. Outside, the gunfire had died down, but he could still hear the Iranians calling to one another in the darkness.
He had just told the mission directors back in the Pentagon that the mission, as originally planned, could not be completed, and what he was waiting to hear now was the code phrase "Alfa Bravo," the order to abort.
But what, he wondered, should he do if he heard Charlie Mike, ordering him to continue? Long before sunup, he and his men would all be dead or prisoners, and beyond executing Kneecap, they wouldn't be able to accomplish a damned thing.
Shit. If they ordered the SEALs to stay, there was a damned good possibility that he was going to develop serious communications problems. He was supposed to have operational control on site, not the REMFs in Washington, but that wouldn't count for much if he ended up disobeying a direct order. Come on! Come on!
2328 hours (1528 hours Zulu -5) joint Special Operations Command Center The Pentagon
"Damn it," General Bradley said, chewing at his cigar. "They can't just jump ship! We'll have video back in another minute. They can't
pull out now!"
To Congressman Murdock, it sounded as though Bradley were more concerned about not being able to see what was going on ... almost like a child told that he couldn't watch his favorite cartoon.
"Doesn't sound like we have much choice, General," Captain Mason replied. He gestured at the main viewing screen, which showed a test pattern at the moment. "Murdock is our man on the scene. He has to make the call, one way or the other. And we have to back him."
There, it had been said. His son was in charge of Sun Hammer. Congressman Murdock closed his eyes, riding out a tremor of fear that rippled up his spine. "In any case," Bainbridge said, "we have to give them our answer. Now."
Captain Granger laughed. "You gentlemen realize that there's not a lot we can do to enforce whatever order we give them? It really is their call."
"Tell them Alfa Bravo," Bainbridge said. His eyes glittered like ice in the phosphor light from the test pattern on the screen.
Mason picked up a telephone and began speaking into it rapidly.
As he was talking, another telephone on a console near the screen buzzed, and Carter picked it up. "Yeah ... uh-huh." There was a pause. "Okay. We're ready." He kept the receiver in his hand, as he had before. "KH-twelve-five is coming over the horizon now," he told the others. "They're putting the feed through from NPIC now." Carter pronounced the acronym "en-pick," a word that stood for the National Photographic Interpretation Center, a joint CIA-NSA department located in Washington, D.C., that carried the responsibility for receiving and distributing all military satellite imagery.
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