The test pattern flickered out and was replaced by a slow-moving emptiness of rugged, black ripple patterns. It took Congressman Murdock a moment to recognize what he was looking at as the surface of the ocean. Under the control of unseen hands at some distant control center, the view slewed abruptly to one side, focusing once again on the Yuduki Maru. The angle was different this time, flatter, and from farther off. It was moving more quickly too, which meant, Murdock had been told, that the satellite shooting this was traveling in a lower, faster orbit.
Again, the Yuduki Maru was illuminated in soft-glowing greens and whites, an oblique view that picked out the flashes of gunfire on her long, forward deck in sharp pinpricks of light. It seemed strange to see the shots flickering in absolute silence.
"That's it," Bradley said, pointing. "A firefight. God, how are they going to get out of that?"
"What about the other group?" Murdock asked. "The ones on the Hormuz?"
"Normally," Mason said, "they would have been the backup to the strike on the plutonium ship. But they have their hands full with their own prisoners. The helos are still inbound. Another thirty minutes before they arrive at least." He shook his head. "I don't see that Hammer One has a choice. They have to get out."
"If," Bainbridge said quietly, "the Iranians let them."
2329 hours (Zulu +3) Bridge Freighter Yuduki Maru
"Hammer One, Foreman. Alfa Bravo. Repeat, Alfa Bravo. Confirm."
"Foreman, Hammer One confirms Alfa Bravo, Alfa Bravo. Out." Murdock cut the channel. "That's it, people!" he yelled to the others on the bridge. "We're outa here!" Switching to the tactical frequency, he patched through to MacKenzie again. "Hammer One-one, this is Six. One-one, Six! Get out of there, Mac! We've got an abort and we're going over the side!"
2329 hours (Zulu +3) Engine room Freighter Yuduki Maru
"Roger that, Six. One copies." MacKenzie signaled Higgins and Garcia with a vigorous pumping of his fist. "Right, boys and girls! Time to get out of Dodge!"
Damn. With the Iranians pressing them, they'd not had time or opportunity to plant the charges that would cripple the Japanese freighter. Still, he might manage to salvage a portion of Kneecap at least. Murdock hadn't given any orders about that one way or the other, or even asked how far along they were planting their charges.
That left things pretty much up to MacKenzie. Rising from cover behind a reduction gear housing, he loosed a long, full-auto burst at the open door, forcing the Iranian troops at the port-side doorway to duck for cover. Higgins took the opportunity afforded by MacKenzie's covering fire to bolt for the starboard-side ladder and scramble up the rungs to where Garcia was crouched astride the watertight door's combing.
"Cover me!" MacKenzie shouted.
From his perch on the railed, overhead platform, Higgins responded with a three-round burst that sparked and sang off the doorway opposite his position. MacKenzie pulled out the timer on his satchel charge, stabbed the numeral nine twice, punched the start button, then tucked the canvas bag into the pistoning motion of a starboard reduction gear housing. He now had about a minute and a half.
"Moving!" he yelled, and with the word he was racing down a narrow passage between the hulking mountains of painted steel.
At the base of the ladder, he paused long enough to stoop next to the four Japanese enginemen who were still lying facedown on the deck next to the aft bulkhead. Swiftly, he used his diver's knife to slice through the plastic restraints on their wrists. Pointing fiercely at the center door, he shouted one of his few words of Japanese "Isoge! Hurry!"
The crewmen needed no further encouragement. Scrambling to their feet, they dove for the passageway leading to Yuduki Maru's boiler room. Lying flat on the deck, they probably would have been safe from the detonation of half a kilo of plastic explosives, but bits of metal and broken machinery would make a devastating shrapnel. Worse, MacKenzie had no idea what the Iranians might do to their hostages when they found them tied up and abandoned by the Navy SEALS, but a distinct possibility would be a mindless venting of their anger on helpless, trussed-up civilians. This way, at least, they would have a chance.
"God damn it, Mac," Garcia yelled from overhead. "Move your ass!"
MacKenzie swarmed up the engine-room ladder, joining the other two SEALS. By his watch, only seconds remained of the minute and a half on the timer.
"Go!" he snapped. "Go! Go!"
After dogging the watertight door shut, they raced down the passageway outside, retracing their steps. They were ten feet from the door when a loud crack echoed off steel bulkheads behind them, accompanied by the metallic clang of hurtling fragments. Instantly he felt a strange new sensation, an uncomfortable, uneven shudder transmitted through the deck plating.
"Feels like you rigged up the works real good, Mac," Garcia said.
"Yeah, but we only knocked out one screw." They stopped in the passageway next to the Japanese crewman they'd caught and tied earlier. As Garcia and MacKenzie watched the corridor approaches, Higgins cut the man free, speaking quietly to him in Japanese.
MacKenzie opened his tactical channel. "Hammer Six, Hammer Six! This is One."
"Six. Go ahead."
"Okay, Lieutenant. The bad guys are back in Echo Romeo, in force. We managed half a Kneecap before we split."
"Copy that, Mac. How badly is she hurt?"
"Can't say for sure, Lieutenant. But my guess is her port shaft is bent to hell."
"Rog. I can feel the cavitation up here. Okay, Mac. Good work. Make your way topside for EE. Hold the boarding zone for three minutes. If we're not there by then, you're on your own."
EE--Escape and Evasion. MacKenzie scowled at that sour thought. The mission had gone bad, a real clusterfuck. They would have to run ...
"Yessir. Copy that." He glanced back at Higgins, who was helping the Japanese crewman to his feet. "Uh, Lieutenant? We have one of the hostages here."
"Good," Murdock's voice replied. "Bring him along if you can."
"That's what I was thinking." Questioning the Japanese crewman could reveal useful details about Yuduki Maru's hijackers and might, possibly, give them a second shot at the freighter.
"Let's get the hell out of here," he growled at the others. Together, they started up another ladder toward the main deck.
2331 hours (Zulu +3) Bridge Freighter Yuduki Maru
Murdock looked at the terrified Japanese crewman still lying on the deck, hands bound behind him and his back dusted with broken glass. Blood streaked his forehead where he'd been cut by a flying shard. Murdock didn't want the SEAL force burdened by rescued hostages, but he also doubted that the terrorists or Iranians aboard would be lenient with anyone who had helped the U.S. intruders. Mac had one hostage already. Good enough. He would bring another.
"Doc!" he snapped. "You help this guy. We're taking him with us."
Ellsworth snicked a fresh magazine into his HK. "Aye, Skipper."
Roselli and Brown joined them a moment later. "Port MG is spiked, Skipper," Roselli told him. "I yanked the operating rod and the bolt and chucked 'em over the side."
"Same on the starboard wing," Magic added.
"Okay, gentlemen." Murdock took a last look around the glass-littered, blood-splattered bridge. Was he forgetting anything? "Let's get the hell out of here."
2332 hours (Zulu +3) Freighter Yuduki Maru
Tetsuo Kurebayashi poked his head above the deck hatch, staring aft toward the ship's superstructure. It was difficult to see much; it was dark and most of the superstructure lights had been smashed, including the lights on the bridge.
In fact, the bridge looked empty, the large, out-slanting windows eye-socket-empty and lifeless. The machine guns to either side, on the wings, were silent as well. Had the American commandos been killed?
Kurebayashi was too much the professional to assume that. More likely, the attackers had withdrawn.
But what had they come here to accomplish in the first place? Kurebayashi had assumed their intent was to recapture the Yuduki Maru, b
ut they'd seized the bridge and, according to the wild reports brought to him by the Iranians, other parts of the ship as well, then simply abandoned them.
Where had they gone ... and why?
Cautiously, Kurebayashi rose, half expecting a sniper's shot from some darkened section of the bridge to slam him down, but no shot came. "Tsuite koi!" he called to the men crouched in the darkness around him. "Follow me!" When no one responded, he shifted to one of his fragments of badly accented Farsi. "Akabeh man biaweed!"
He started forward, his AKM thrusting ahead as he moved. Often, he'd been taught at the training camps in Syria and Libya, heroism in battle consisted of nothing more than keeping your wits about you when it counted and in acting when others about you were reacting. At first, none of the Pasdaran hiding in the shadows moved, but as he continued his lone march toward the Yuduki Maru's superstructure, others, first singly, then in small groups, began following. "Isoge!" he snapped, lapsing back into Japanese as he broke into a run. "Hurry!"
2333 hours (Zulu +3) Port-side catwalk Freighter Yuduki Maru
The rescued hostage was less than eager to maintain the SEALs' rapid pace, and twice Murdock had to tell Ellsworth to snap it up, to make the man hurry. He'd sent Magic Brown on ahead to flush any would-be ambushers, and ordered Roselli to bring up the rear, protecting their flanks from the Iranian and terrorist gunmen sure to be close on their heels. He stayed with Doc and the prisoner, pushing aft along the open walkway between Yuduki Maru's superstructure and the side of the ship.
When Brown reached the fantail, Murdock gestured Doc and the hostage on, then doubled back to join Roselli. "Anything?" he asked the lanky SEAL.
"They're on our tail, Lieutenant," Roselli replied. "At least ten of 'em."
"Let's discourage them until the others get away."
"A pleasure." Crouched against the superstructure, Roselli raised his HK, aiming into the darkness forward. Murdock stood behind, aiming over the other SEAL's head. Shadows moved against the darkness.
"Now!" Murdock rasped, and he squeezed the trigger, loosing a hissing, full-auto burst at the half-glimpsed attackers. A shrill cry wailed from the forward deck. Gunfire barked and flashed in reply, and a bullet howled off steel a foot above Murdock's head. "Shit, we're gonna get murdered here!" Roselli said.
"Just so they don't murder our guys in the water. Keep firing!"
He spent the last of his magazine, dropped the empty, and slapped in a new one, his last full mag. Thirty rounds ... and then he'd be down to pistol and knife. He threw the selector switch to semi-auto.
A scream echoed from astern. Looking back over his shoulder, Murdock glimpsed one of the Japanese hostages flying through the air and into the phosphorescent glow of the ship's wake. Apparently, Doc had been forced to convince the guy to abandon ship; a black shadow followed the crewman--Doc--in a perfect dive twenty feet into the sea below.
"Skipper!" Brown's voice sounded in his earphone. "We're in!"
"Our side's wet too," MacKenzie added. "You guys want to stay aboard and play with your new friends by yourselves?"
"Cast off!" Murdock replied. "Razor and me're right behind you!
He snapped off several quick shots against targets felt more than seen. Murdock could almost feel the irresistible tug of the sea. From the beginning, SEAL training emphasizes that the sea is the SEAL's home, his advantage, his place of refuge, the place to go where the enemy cannot follow. "Okay, Razor," he called. "Over the side!"
"Right, Skipper! I'm--shit!" The deck lurched beneath their feet before Razor could finish the reply, and a dull, two-part ba-BOOM thundered in the night astern of the Yuduki Maru. Turning and staring aft, Murdock could just make out something like a vast wall of white spray, a geyser made dimly luminous by the faint luminosity of the sea itself, rising against the night.
"What in Jesus' name was that?" Roselli asked, his voice betraying his awe. "Offhand," Murdock said, "I'd say it's that Iranian Kilo."
A second explosion thundered out of the darkness, accompanying a second towering geyser.
"Mat'll hold our playmates' attention for a bit," Murdock said. "Let's go!"
Together, they took three swift, running steps across the deck, catapulted over the railing, and dove head-first into the sea.
Monday, 23 May
1345 hours (Zulu -5) NAVSPECWARGRU-Two Briefing Room Little Creek, Virginia
"Once the order was given to abort Sun Hammer," Captain Coburn said, addressing the other officers in the room from the podium at the head of the table, "our people returned to their boats in the water and cut loose from the freighter. Lieutenant Murdock reported some shots fired from the ship's deck, but that the hostiles probably couldn't see much, if anything, on the dark water. Both CRRCs drew away from the Yuduki Maru, lowered a sonar transponder into the water, and awaited pickup by the attack sub Santa Fe."
Captain Paul Mason shifted uncomfortably against the hard wooden seat of his chair. His back was hurting badly already, and the session had just begun.
Most of the senior officers in the NAVSPECWARGRU-Two community were present for the briefing, along with Brian Hadley--the CIA spook from the National Security Council--and Kerrigan and his MIDEASTFOR staff. Kerrigan, Mason thought, would be sure to take the opportunity to scold the SEAL command for its failure yesterday, but it was clear that the SEALs were going to have a further part to play in this drama. Otherwise, Kerrigan would never have bothered calling them all together again to keep them up to speed on events in the Indian Ocean.
"At approximately the same time," Coburn continued, "at 2335 hours, the Iranian attack sub Islamic Revolution was destroyed by two wire-guided torpedoes launched some four minutes earlier by the U.S.S. Newport News. Our attack subs in the area had detected the Islamic Revolution closing on the Yuduki Maru. It is possible that the Iranians detected our operation, possibly by picking up the noises made by our SEALs while they were in the water." Coburn glanced up from his podium notes at Admiral Kerrigan. "The decision to sink the Islamic Revolution was made when the Newport News picked up the sounds of her outer torpedo doors opening, presumably in preparation for an attack against the Yuduki Maru. The attack was authorized by Vice Admiral Winston, CO-MIDEASTFOR, in Naples, after consultation with the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs.
"As for SEAL Seven, the Hormuz Assault Team remained aboard the Iranian oiler until relieved by U.S. Marines flown in by helicopter off the U.S.S. Nassau. They returned by helo to the Nassau, where they are now. The Yuduki Maru Assault Team transferred to a Navy helicopter from the deck of the Santa Fe early this morning and were flown to the Nassau. With them were those two Japanese crewmen, who were flown to the Nassau, where they could be immediately debriefed by our intelligence people.
"So our current force disposition has all of our SEALs back aboard the Nassau, with II MEF. Their current position is some ninety miles off Ras Asir--that's the northeastern tip of Somalia, the Horn of Africa. The Hormuz and her crew are under Marine control and are heading north toward Socotra at nine knots. The Yuduki Maru, of course, remains in Iranian hands." He glanced at the faces of the men around the room, then nodded to Admiral Kerrigan. "Admiral?"
Kerrigan smiled as he took his place at the briefing room podium. He looked, Mason thought, like the proverbial cat that had eaten the proverbial canary, fat, sleek, and contemptuously pleased with himself. SEAL Seven's failure yesterday had let him score big in his campaign against Navy Special Warfare.
"Gentlemen," the Norfolk staff CO for MIDEASTFOR said. "The President has informed us through the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs that the United States will act immediately and unilaterally to resolve the current crisis in the Indian Ocean. He has directed General Vonnegut of II MEF to prepare a plan for a Marine amphibious operation in order to seize the Yuduki Maru and restore her cargo to Japan before, ah, hostile radical forces can off-load it. This operation, code-named Deadly Weapon, will utilize the full assets of 11 MEF, which, as Captain Cobu
rn has just told us, is currently positioned off the Horn of Africa.
"The failure of the Navy SEAL Team deployed to seize the Yuduki Maru demonstrates, I think, the necessity of relying on conventional military forces in situations bearing such serious international consequences as the hijacking of two-ton cargoes of plutonium."
Right, Mason thought, a little bitterly. And it was the SEALs who bought you the time to mount your amphibious operation. The guess now is that the Yuduki Maru won't reach port in Iran before next Saturday.
"As of zero-nine-hundred hours our time this morning," MIDEASTFOR's liaison continued, "Yuduki Maru was maintaining her original course at a reduced speed of about ten knots. She crossed the equator last night and is now eleven thousand kilometers due east of Mogadishu. Her destination still appears to be the Gulf.
"Iran has not yet made any public announcement about any of this. She has not admitted to the loss of one of her submarines, nor has she made any statement yet about the capture of the Hormuz. One notion we are still investigating is the possibility that the Yuduki Maru hijacking was carried out by an as yet unnamed dissident group within the Iranian military.
"One further disturbing development has been detected by our satellites. Five hours ago, well before dawn in the Persian Gulf, a large flotilla left Bandar Abbas, heading south. This flotilla consists of one guided-missile destroyer, the Damavand, two frigates, Alborz and Sahand, and four Combattante II-class patrol boats. Since this represents a considerable fraction of iran's total naval force, we can only assume that Tehran is taking current events in the Indian Ocean very seriously indeed. What we do not yet know is whether this flotilla has been deployed to support the Yuduki Maru, or to combat the dissident forces that have hijacked her. From our perspective, it doesn't really matter which. It is the NSC's consensus that neither Iran nor an Iranian splinter group can be permitted access to Yuduki Maru's cargo.
"In any case, the crewmen brought back by the SEALs may be able to shed new light on the situation. At this point in the proceedings, I'd like to turn the podium over to Mr. Hadley, who has some additional intelligence for us. Mr. Hadley?"
Seal Team Seven 01 - Seal Team Seven Page 20