The situation might even allow Iran's new rulers to practice some good old-fashioned blackmail, threatening to close the strait or to poison the Saudi oil fields unless their demands were met. Murdock had a realistic enough understanding of modern international politics to know that the chances of closing ranks against such threats were nil. Japan and much of Europe still depended on the Gulf for nearly all of their oil imports. Hell, even the United States, given its zigzag record in foreign policy over the past couple of years, might cave in and pay rather than risk having the Strait of Hormuz closed. Murdock was frankly amazed that the go-ahead had been given for Deadly Weapon.
Threading their way north past the civilian traffic, the SEALs stuck with the Yuduki Maru. The Iranian radio-silence order worked to their advantage, of course, as did their straggling. With luck, the SEALs would be able to sail the Beluga all the way into Bandar Abbas, allowing them to provide II MEF with an eyewitness report on the defenses and preparedness inside the port.
Jaybird Sterling had the helm again. The young SEAL trainee did indeed know how to handle a pleasure craft like the Beluga, and he'd been standing watch-and-watch at the wheel with Murdock since he'd volunteered to stay aboard. The other two SEAL volunteers were Razor Roselli and Professor Higgins. During Saturday's early morning hours, the former hostages had been bundled up in life jackets and transported two by two in one of the SEALs' CRRCs to a point well clear of the Beluga, then hoisted aboard a hovering Sea Mustang sent out from the Nassau for the recovery. Colonel Aghasi had made the trip as well, along with eight of the VBSS team SEALS.
Murdock, Roselli, Higgins, and Sterling had remained aboard, ready to make a quick getaway over the side with their diving gear if their cover was too closely probed, but otherwise continuing to report on the Iranian squadron's position and disposition throughout the next thirty-six hours. Higgins had programmed Beluga's on-board satellite communications gear to track a MILSTAR relay satellite, giving them secure and untraceable communications with both Nassau and the Pentagon.
Now Murdock emerged from below deck into the baking heat of the Gulf sun and walked back to the helm. There was a somewhat lonely emptiness to the sky; American helicopters had continued to dog the Iranian squadron day and night until an hour earlier, when the freighter had officially entered Iranian territorial waters. Now the four SEALs were alone. "Looks like we're getting pretty close," he told Jaybird.
"For sure, Skipper. Maybe we should get shined up and squared away for inspection, huh?"
"Shit, Jaybird," Roselli called from the top of the deckhouse. "You look just fine to me!"
"You both need haircuts," Murdock replied, and the others laughed. None of the SEALs looked very military at the moment. All of them had removed their black gear and wet suits and were wearing pieces of uniforms scrounged from the Iranian dead before they'd been put over the side Saturday morning. Jaybird had stripped to the waist; just since yesterday, his California-boy tan had darkened to the point where his skin was as swarthy as that of any Iranian. To aid the disguise, he kept his pale, sun-bleached blond hair covered by a black Navy watch-cap. Roselli and Higgins both wore Iranian tunics that, unbuttoned and with the shirt-tails dangling, gave them the unkempt appearance of a pair of modern-day pirates ... or a Pasdaran boarding party. Murdock had relieved Aghasi of his peaked officer's cap and tunic, complete with colonel's insignia, and aviator's sun glasses before packing the Iranian off aboard the helo. He hadn't had time to grow the colonel's bushy mustache as well, but to complete the deception he'd smeared his upper lip with a finger laden with camo paint. The disguise wouldn't fool anyone up close, of course, but through binoculars at a range of twenty meters or more, it ought to get by. The SEALs were banking on that peculiar aspect of human psychology that allowed people to see what they expected to see, rather than what was actually there.
Raising his own binoculars to his eyes, he carefully swept the horizon from west to east.
They were well into the northern portion of the Strait of Hormuz now. That wrinkled-looking mass of bold gray mountain rising to the north was Iran. Almost due west was the rocky, mountainous island of Qeshm, largest island in the Gulf, with its odd, cone-shaped rain reservoirs and impoverished-looking, ramshackle coastal villages. Through his binoculars, Murdock could pick out the anachronistic intrusion of radar dishes and blockhouses marking an Iranian Silkworm missile battery mounted on the erosion-streaked side of a barren hill. Camouflage tarps had been stretched between poles, shielding SAM sites and vehicle parks from the blazing sun ... and from the probing eyes of American satellites.
Dead ahead, some fifteen miles across the sun-dazzled water, the port of Bandar Abbas--known simply as Bandar to the locals--rose between sea and mountains in blocks and tiers of white stone. A beneficiary of the wars, both trade and military, of the 1980s, Bandar was a large and modern city with a population of just over 200,000. Though the typically squalid tent cities and slums of most Middle Eastern cities cluttered Bandar's fringes, Murdock could make out the gleaming facades of several modern buildings above the noisome tenement hovels of the low-rent districts. Every building seemed in need of paint, however, and the dhows, fishing boats, and motor craft lining the waterfront were uniformly battered, sun-baked, and coated with ancient layers of filth and grime.
Farther west, Bandar Abbas's airport buildings were visible as gray and white blurs shimmering in the desert heat. Murdock could just barely pick out the shapes of several military aircraft there--F-4 Phantoms and F-5E Tiger IIs, for the most part, sold to Iran before the revolution--as well as the larger bulk of an Iran Air 727.
Returning his attention to the city's waterfront, Murdock examined several port facilities. One fronting the downtown area was clearly a commercial port and ferry dock; others were marinas occupied by high-sterned, lateen-rigged dhows and fishing smacks. Most of the military facilities appeared to be northwest of the city, tucked in behind the lee of Qeshm Island and the hook of the headland on which the city was built.
And that, clearly, was where Damavand was taking the Japanese freighter. Through the binoculars, Murdock identified a small shipyard between Bandar Abbas and the port of Dogerdan to the west, with dry-dock facilities, the looming skeletons of hammerhead cranes, the squat cylinders of POL storage tanks, and the long, low tent-roofed shapes of warehouses and machine shops. Numerous yard and service craft lay alongside sun-bleached wharfs; larger ships, a destroyer and a pair of frigates, were tied up alongside a fueling pier. Patrol boats and landing craft were everywhere, almost too numerous to count.
Shifting the aim of his binoculars again, he studied the stern of the Yuduki Maru. A large number of Iranian soldiers were visible on her upper deck, and the sounds of gunfire, single shots and full-auto, carried faintly across the open water. Many of the soldiers were firing off whole magazines into the sky, celebrating their victory over the Great Satan and his minions. It was unlikely that they'd been told anything about the politics of their mission, other than that it would be a blow against the hated Americans.
"Better get your celebrating done now, you sons of bitches," Murdock said softly. "You might not have the chance later."
"Hey, Skipper," Roselli called from his perch atop the deckhouse. "What do the rules of war say about you wearing a Pasdaran colonel's uniform?"
"Oh, not a whole lot, Chief. The usual hearts-and-violins stuff about piracy, hanging from the neck until dead, drawing and quartering."
"Yar!" Roselli growled. "We be pirates!"
"Aye," Higgins added, clambering up out of the companionway. "Break out the skull and crossbones!"
"You guys're pirates, all right," Murdock replied, continuing to study the Yuduki Maru through his binoculars. It looked like a deck crew forward was casting off the tow from Damavand, though from this angle it was a little hard to be sure. No doubt they'd decided that it made better propaganda for the freighter to be taken into her berth under her own steam, even if she did have to limp along on one screw.
"Yeah, Prof. What's up?"
"I'm not sure," the slightly built SEAL replied, "but I think it involves us." Higgins had been manning the yacht's communications shack almost continuously since they'd taken Beluga, not only transmitting intelligence, but also eavesdropping on the Iranians. The radio-silence orders had applied to all of the ships in the squadron, but there'd been plenty of traffic coming out of Bandar Abbas, and from other warships in the area.
"Okay, you know I don't have much Farsi," Higgins said. "Just Arabic. But I could follow enough to know that they've been trying to raise us for the past five minutes or so. If I had to take a guess, I'd say they started out by telling us where to go, then started telling us to heave to."
"Okay, Prof, thanks. It's nothing we weren't expecting."
"Stick with the radio silence then?"
"Absolutely. Damned thing's bust, right?"
"Can't hear a thing, Skipper."
"Good. Hang tight a sec." Pulling a notebook from his pocket, Murdock began writing quickly, filling three pages with his observations of the port approaches, the military aircraft on the runway, the ships and patrol boats in the harbor, the Silkworm and SAM batteries on Qeshm. Tearing off the pages at last, he handed them to Higgins. "You read all that?"
"Sure. No sweat."
"Transmit that ASAP, coded burst through MILSTAR. Repeat it until you get an acknowledgment."
"Aye, aye, Skipper."
"And keep your primary ready. This'll get hot damned quick."
"Yes, Sir." Higgins took the papers and descended back into the cool darkness of Beluga's below-deck spaces.
Murdock glanced up at Roselli. "You hear all that, Razor? We may have company soon."
Roselli patted the captured G-3 rifle. "Ready to rock and roll, Skipper."
Raising his binoculars again, Murdock swept the harbor. Motion on the water to one side of the freighter caught his attention. "Uh-oh," he said, focusing on the blurry white mustache of a high-speed wake. It looked like a speedboat was coming toward them bow-on, racing out from the naval facility. "Okay, you pirates. Just make sure your powder's dry and your cutlasses are within reach. That company's about to pay us a visit."
In minutes, the Iranian craft was close enough that Murdock could easily make out its details. During the Tanker War in the Gulf during the early 1980s, the Western press had consistently called these fast little attack craft "speedboats," implying that the grenade and rocket attacks on the oil tankers of various nations were being carried out by men in outboard-motor pleasure craft.
That sleek, low shape was no pleasure craft, Murdock knew. It was a long, low, dagger-lean "Boghammer Boat," one of some forty high-speed military patrol craft acquired by Iran from Sweden for naval operations in the Gulf. Though not originally armed, they could carry as many as ten or twelve commandoes, armed with machine guns, RPGs, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers. As he studied the group of three Iranians standing in the Boghammer's enclosed pilothouse, he could see at least two pairs of raised binoculars staring back at him.
He hoped none of those men knew Aghasi personally, for the camo paint on his upper lip didn't do much to change the differences in height, weight, or age between Murdock and the Iranian.
It only had to get them close enough.
"Keep her steady," Murdock told Sterling. The Boghammer cut past Beluga's bow, then whipped past the starboard side, throwing up a choppy, froth-edged surge of dirty water as it slowed. Engine growling, the Iranian patrol boat slipped down Beluga's starboard side, crossed astern, and began moving up the port side from aft. Murdock counted eight men aboard, two of them officers, all armed. An American-made M-60 machine gun had been raised on a makeshift mount in the well deck forward of the deckhouse. One of the soldiers nervously fingered the blunt-snouted tube of an RPG-7, a Russian-made weapon almost certainly captured in years past from the Iraqis. Most Iranian military hardware was still American-issue, weapons and gear left over from the days of the Shah.
One of the officers was standing on the Boghammer's afterdeck, a loud-hailer in his hand. Raising it to his lips, he elicited a piercing yowl of feedback, then began calling to Beluga's crew across the narrowing stretch of water.
"What's he saying, Skipper?" Jaybird asked.
"Haven't the faintest idea," Murdock replied. For answer, he raised an arm and waved the Boghammer closer.
At Murdock's command, Jaybird throttled back, bringing the yacht to a near-idle. The Iranian speedboat drifted closer, then closer still. One man stood on the bow, ready to leap across with a line. Another lineman stood aft, while the officer with the loud-hailer took up a position amidships.
"Higgins? Roselli?" Murdock asked, not taking his eyes off the Iranians. "You both ready to go?"
"Sure are, Skipper," Higgins answered from the shadows in Beluga's open companionway.
"Just say the word, Skipper," Roselli added. He was standing by the mainmast now, holding the G-3 in a casually relaxed and non-threatening pose. From the corner of his eye, Murdock could see Jaybird's HK, tucked safely out of sight below Beluga's port-side gunwale. His own HK was lying on the deck at his feet.
"Roselli," he said, a stage whisper through smiling, clenched teeth. "You've got the MG forward. Stand ready."
"Az kodawm vawhed hastid?" the Iranian officer demanded, lowering the loud-hailer. He sounded angry, and his dark eyes flashed as he waved it at Murdock. "Kaf kardam!"
Smiling, Murdock shook his head, then gestured for the officer to come on board. Glowering, the Iranian stepped onto the Boghammer's gunwale.
"Now!" Murdock yelled, dropping to the deck, scooping up his HK, and rolling back to his knees as he brought the weapon to his shoulder. By the mainmast, Roselli whipped the G-3 into firing position and triggered a short, full-auto burst that chopped into the Iranian behind the machine gun and punched him back against the Boghammer's pilothouse windscreen. Murdock sent three rounds slashing into the officer, who tried to complete his leap to the Beluga's afterdeck, faltered, then tumbled into the water between the two boats. Sterling put the Beluga's wheel hard over, sending the larger yacht smashing into the Boghammer's side with a grinding crash.
Murdock shifted targets smoothly, cutting down an Iranian soldier holding a G-3 rifle, then another whose weapon was still slung over his back. Higgins emerged from Beluga's companionway, firing into the Boghammer's pilothouse, while Sterling, armed now, advanced to Beluga's gunwale, firing down into the patrol boat's after well deck.
Murdock estimated that five seconds passed between the first shot and the last. He and Roselli scrambled aboard the Boghammer to bring it under control, checking the bodies sprawled from bow to transom for signs of life. Two badly wounded and unconscious men were dispatched with single shots through their heads. The SEALs were in no position to tend to prisoners.
"Can you run it, Chief?" Murdock asked Roselli as he studied the simple controls in the pilothouse.
"Aw, shit, Lieutenant. I could run this blindfolded. Throttle, gearshift, and wheel ... that's all there fuckin' is to it!"
"Good man. I want you to go over this boat with a magnifying glass, okay? Find and fix anything we broke in that firefight."
"Right, Skipper."
Returning to the afterdeck, Murdock crossed back to the Beluga, where Sterling was finishing tying off a stern line, securing the Boghammer to the yacht. "Jaybird!"
"Yeah, Skipper?"
Murdock put one hand on Sterling's sweat-slick shoulder, and with the other pointed west across the water toward the rugged coast of Qeshm. "Looks to me like we might have a beach over there at the foot of those hills. Think this tub has the oomph to haul herself and the speedboat into the shallows?"
"Sure thing, Skipper."
"Do it. If she's too sluggish, Roselli can help from the Boghammer. Higgins!"
"Yessir!"
"You 'n me just got assigned the grunt detail. Let's start hauling our gear over to
the Boghammer."
"Aye, aye, Skipper. You get in the 'Hammer and I'll start passing to you, okay?"
"Affirmative."
In the blazing, late-afternoon heat, the two men began moving all of the SEAL weapons and equipment to the smaller boat.
"Looks to me like you've got this thing pretty well thought out," Higgins said, passing a SEAL rebreather across Beluga's rail to Murdock.
"Nah," Murdock replied, taking the SCUBA and stowing it in the Boghammer's aft well deck. "I'm making it all up as we go along."
"Yeah," Higgins said. "I was afraid you were gonna say that."
Murdock decided to take a chance. "So? How do I stack up so far against Lieutenant Cotter?"
Higgins reached for a bundle of swim fins, masks, and weight belts. "Well, I'll tell you, Sir. The L-T'd have had this thing scoped out a week in advance, everything planned down to the last detail. He wasn't one to make it up on the fly, know what I mean?"
"Yup." Murdock suppressed a flash of irritation. He had asked for the comparison.
"But I'll tell you what," Higgins continued. "Whatever plan he'd have come up with, I guarantee you it wouldn't've been this much fun!"
As they continued loading their gear aboard the Boghammer, Murdock wasn't sure whether he'd just been complimented or not.
2115 hours (Zulu +3) Boghammer patrol boat Northeastern coast of Qeshm
"Damn," Sterling said as he leaped off the Beluga and onto the Boghammer's after well deck. "I really hate trading this sweet beauty for a stinkpot, skipper!"
Seal Team Seven 01 - Seal Team Seven Page 27