Flashpoint
( Seal Team Seven - 11 )
Keith Douglass
Pearl Harbor has been attacked — again. And only SEAL Team Seven and Carrier Battle Group Fourteen can save America — and themselves — from complete annihilation.
Keith Douglass
Flashpoint
SEAL TEAM SEVEN
THIRD PLATOON[1]
CORONADO, CALIFORNIA
Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock. Platoon Leader. 32, 6'2", 210 pounds. Annapolis graduate. Six years in SEALs. Father important Congressman from Virginia. Murdock recently promoted. Apartment in Coronado. Has a car and a motorcycle, loves to fish.
WEAPON: H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.
ALPHA SQUAD
Willard “Will” Dobler. Boatswain’s Mate First Class Senior Chief Petty Officer. Platoon Chief. Third in command. 37, 6'1", 180 pounds. Married. Two kids. Sports nut. Knows dozens of major league records. Competition pistol marksman. Good with the men.
WEAPON: H&K MP-5 submachine gun.
David “Jaybird” Sterling. Machinist Mate Second Class, Lead Petty Officer. 24, 5'10", 170 pounds. Quick mind, fine tactician. Single. Drinks too much sometimes. Crack shot with all arms. Helps plan attack operations.
WEAPON: H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.
Ron Holt. Radioman First Class. 22, 6'1", 170 pounds. Plays guitar, had a small band. Likes redheaded girls. Rabid baseball fan. Loves deep-sea fishing; is good at it. Platoon radio operator.
WEAPON: H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.
Bill Bradford. Quartermaster First Class. 24, 6'2", 215 pounds. An artist in spare time. Paints oils. He sells his marine paintings. Single. Quiet. Reads a lot. Has two years of college. Squad sniper.
WEAPON: H&K PSG1 7.62 NATO sniper rifle or McMillan M-87R .50-caliber sniper rifle.
Joe “Ricochet” Lampedusa. Operations Specialist Third Class. 21, 5'11", 175 pounds. Good tracker, quick thinker. Had a year of college. Loves motorcycles. Wants a Hog. Pot smoker on the sly. Picks up plain girls. Platoon scout.
WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.
Kenneth Ching. Quartermaster’s Mate First Class. Full-blooded Chinese. 25, 6'0", 180 pounds. Platoon translator. Speaks Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. Bicycling nut. Paid $1,200 for off-road bike. Is trying for Officer Candidate School.
WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 rifle with grenade launcher.
Harry “Horse” Ronson. Electrician’s Mate Second Class. 24, 6'4", 240 pounds. Played football two years at college. Wants a ranch where he can raise horses. Good man in a brawl. Has broken his nose twice. Squad machine gunner.
WEAPON: H&K 21-E 7.62 NATO round machine gun.
BRAVO SQUAD
Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed DeWitt. Leader Bravo Squad. Second in Command of the platoon. From Seattle. 30, 6'1", 175 pounds. Wiry. Has serious live-in woman. Annapolis grad. A career man. Plays a good game of chess on traveling board.
WEAPON: The new H&K G-11 submachine gun.
George “Petard” Canzoneri. Torpedoman’s Mate First Class. 27, 5'11", 190 pounds. Married to Navy wife Phyllis. No kids. Nine years in Navy. Expert on explosives. Nicknamed “Petard” for almost hoisting himself one time. Top pick in platoon for explosive work.
WEAPON: The new Alliant “Bull Pup” 20mm 5.56 attack rifle.
Miguel Fernandez. Gunner’s Mate First Class. 26, 6'1", 180 pounds. Has wife and child in Coronado. Spends his off time with them. Highly family-oriented. He has family in San Diego. Speaks Spanish, Portuguese. Squad sniper.
WEAPON: H&K PSG1 7.62 NATO sniper rifle.
Colt “Guns” Franklin. Yeoman Second Class. 24, 5'10", 175 pounds. A former gymnast. Powerful arms and shoulders. Expert mountain climber. Has a motorcycle, and does hang gliding. Speaks Farsi and Arabic.
WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.
Les Quinley. Torpedoman Third Class. 22, 5'9", 160 pounds. A computer and Internet fan. Has his own Web page. Always reading computer magazines. Explosives specialist with extra training.
WEAPON: H&K G-11 with caseless rounds, 4.7mm submachine gun with 50-round magazine.
Jack Mahanani. Hospital Corpsman First Class. 25, 6'4", 240 pounds. Platoon Medic. Tahitian/Hawaiian. Expert swimmer. Bench-presses 400 pounds. Once married, divorced. Top surfer. Wants the .50 sniper rifle.
WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.
Anthony “Tony” Ostercamp. Machinist Mate First Class. Second radio operator. Races stock cars in nearby El Cajon weekends. Top auto mechanic. Platoon driver.
WEAPON: H&K 21-E 7.62 NATO round machine gun.
Paul “Jeff” Jefferson. Engineman Second Class. Black man. 23, 6'1", 200 pounds. Expert in small arms. Can tear apart most weapons and reassemble them, repair, and innovate. A chess player to match Ed DeWitt.
WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.
DEDICATION
This book is sincerely dedicated to Kathleen Tucker who stays the helm, who keeps the household afloat and who dedicates her time and effort to the care, comfort and well-being of Rose Marie.
May she always be on board.
NOTE TO THE READER
Welcome to the land of the U.S. Navy SEALs and their remarkable exploits on land and sea and in the air. We hope you’re excited about the SEALs and their exploits. I’d like to hear from you to get some input about how you feel about the series, the characters, and the types of actions they have been involved in.
Take a minute out of your busy day to drop me a line or a whole letter. Send it to:
Keith Douglass
SEAL TEAM SEVEN
8431 Beaver Lake Drive
San Diego, CA 92119.
You bet, I’ll make sure to read and respond to every letter. Why not stop reading right now and send me a letter? I’ll appreciate it.
— Keith Douglass
San Diego
1
Gulf of Oman
The fifteen members of SEAL Team Seven sprawled in the comparative spaciousness of the Pegasus Class Mk V (SOC/PBF). It was a Navy patrol boat specifically designed to insert and withdraw SEALs and other Special Forces on covert operations.
Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock checked his men. This was a surprise flashpoint kind of a mission. They had no notice, just orders to get moving. No time to rehearse or plan out in detail what they would do.
Senior Chief Will Dobler grinned at his commander. “No sweat, Cap. We’ve done little ones like this a dozen times.”
Murdock lifted his brows. “Yeah, but some more planning would have been good. Now we just go in and do it, the first time.”
The Pegasus was eighty-two feet long and had an extremely low profile that was loaded with radar-absorbing material on its forward and rear cabin areas. Even the low-slung bow had the radar-absorbing material.
Now it slammed through the calm waters of the Gulf of Oman off southern Iran at its top speed of forty-five knots.
Commander Murdock had to shout to be heard over the rumble of the two MTU twelve-volt diesel engines that turned out 4,506 horsepower to work the two Kamewa water jets that jolted the slender craft through the water.
“You know most of it,” Murdock said. “We go in at first dark, have all night to recon the place, plant our charges, and get ready for the big show about 0800 tomorrow when the curtain goes up. At least that’s the way it’s set up. We know nothing of current guards around this complex. Not one damn thing.”
“Sure we got enough goop?” Radioman First Class Ron Holt asked. “Sounds like we got one shit pot full of junk to blow sky high.”
“True, lots of stuff out there, but we’re covered. That’s why each of you has a drag bag loaded with C-4 and TNAZ.”
“What if somebody spots us doing our work?” Engi
neman Second Class Paul Jefferson asked. “Hey, us black guys don’t blend in too damn good with the fucking Muslims.”
“We play it cool if we can. We want as few of their dead bodies out there as possible tonight. It could be a warning and get their guard up. Remember, all of these fuckers out there are terrs. We take anybody out, we have to tonight or early in the A.M., but we do it silently. Your knives will be best here.”
“This sale yard is a half mile long?” Quartermaster’s Mate First Class Kenneth Ching asked.
Boatswain’s Mate First Class and Senior Chief Petty Officer Willard Dobler took that question.
“Yeah. Alpha Squad has the right-side quarter mile and Bravo Squad works the left four forty. We spread out over the length of the place, and when activity slows down about midnight, we move in, take out any guards we have to, then plant our goop and get the hell out of there. No timers to set. All will be detonated with radio signals.”
“All this work for a damn rummage sale?” Machinist Mate First Class Tony Ostercamp asked. “Hell, couldn’t six F-18s off the carrier do just as much damage in less time?”
“They could,” Murdock said. “The only trouble is worldwide public opinion would be against us on this one. We maintain that the mother of all flea markets of terrorists’ favorite weapons and other missiles of war and terrorism should not be held. It’s such an array of weapons that terrorists want that it’s caused an uproar in several countries. Our satellites have been printing out pictures for two days of a glut of terrorist treasures. We want to destroy all of it we can.
“We knew that such a sale could not benefit the world in any way, yet could arm hard-core terrorists and hate mongers for ten years. That’s why we go in covertly, do the business, and get out without anyone tagging any country as the hit men.”
“Hey, glad for the work,” Torpedoman Third Class Les Quinley said. “I can use the overtime pay.”
That brought a chorus of wails and cheers.
“Somebody say that the old fox Osama bin Laden is behind this full table?” asked Electrician’s Mate Second Class Harry Ronson.
Murdock looked at Ronson. “That’s the word we have. Bin Laden is the multimillionaire who promotes terrorism on a worldwide scale. He recently moved from Sudan to Afghanistan, where he has his headquarters and training camps for terrorists. We raided him back in 1998 with Tomahawk missiles after who we think were his men bombed the two U.S. embassies in Africa earlier that year.
“It’s reported that every year, bin Laden pumps millions of dollars of his inherited fortune into terrorist groups and supplies them with weapons. This huge fire sale of everything the terrorists want is believed to have been arranged and highly subsidized by the bin Laden millions.”
“What if we miss something, don’t get it planted with a bomb?” Machinist Mate Second Class and Lead Petty Officer David “Jaybird” Sterling asked.
“We won’t,” Senior Chief Dobler said. “When you go in, you’ll be in pairs. You start planting your charges and move away from each other, planting your bombs on everything in sight. When you meet another SEAL working toward you, you’ll know that you have covered your fifty-yard area. The two of you finish and shag ass out of there.”
The snarl of the diesels slowed, then came close to stopping. The slender boat coasted to a halt in the water. One of five crewmen on the craft came into the compartment. He wore the stripes of a Lieutenant (j.g.).
“Men, we’re ten miles off the objective, Chah Bahar, Iran. Their radar can’t pick us up from here. We’ll wait here until first dark and then move in slowly to your disembarkment point a half mile off the beach. The last mile will be at five knots. Any questions?”
“You’ll be picking us up, Lieutenant?” the senior chief asked.
“That’s not clear yet. It could be a sub, might be choppers, or it could be me. That will be worked out, and you’ll be informed by SATCOM before you get wet coming back.”
“Good. Otherwise, it’s a long swim to the carrier,” Dobler cracked, and the SEALs laughed, glad for something to break the tension.
“We estimate we’ll be under way again in about fifteen minutes. Then we’ll need about forty minutes to get you ready to splash.”
“Thanks, Captain,” Murdock said, using his title as captain of the small craft. The officer nodded and left.
“Double-check your gear again,” Murdock said. “We’ll use the rebreathers all the way as soon as we splash. Last report was that this beach was a gentle slope and sandy, but a recent storm may have turned it a dozen ways from there.”
The SEALs did as they had dozens of times before on missions and on training runs. All the men, even the officers, had undergone the six months of rigorous training that became a boot camp hell of cold, water, explosions, more water, long hikes, no sleep, working the problems, and live fire exercises, until they wanted to scream and run somewhere that they could get warm, dry, and go to sleep. More than 60 percent of the Tadpoles who started SEAL training quit and went back to regular Navy duty.
Murdock watched his men. He had been blooded with all but one of them on the last two missions. His one new man, George “Petard” Canzoneri, had been a find. He was the top demolition man in the whole of Team Seven. He could make C-4 and TNAZ do work that nobody else could. Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed DeWitt had found him as they searched for a man to replace Al Adams.
For a moment, Murdock was worried about DeWitt not being along on the mission. He still hadn’t recuperated enough from his chest wound in Iran to get back into training. Senior Chief Dobler had been leading Bravo Squad through the last two months of training. If Ed didn’t make it back into the team in another two weeks, he’d have to be replaced by a new squad leader.
Murdock heard the big diesels stir, then turn out more power. They were moving at what he figured was twenty knots. Four of his SEALs had finished final checking on their gear and were sleeping. He grinned. Yeah, they were loose. This was a simple little mission that Don Stroh had briefed them on two days ago.
“Directly from the President and the CIA chief,” Stroh had said. A day later, they were on the plane and then to the carrier and now a half hour from Iran. But it would be only a twenty-four-hour mission, if that long.
Fifteen minutes later, Murdock looked out the slanted front windows of the Pegasus’s cabin and saw lights onshore.
“Two miles off, Commander,” the captain told him. “We’re at seven knots now, coming down to five. How close do you want me to take you?”
“Half mile should be safe for you. Dark as hell out there tonight. What happened to the moon?”
“It’s on the wane,” the Lieutenant said. “Don’t think it gets up and over the horizon tonight.”
“Good.”
Ten minutes later, the SEALs splashed into the Gulf of Oman, tied on their six-foot-long buddy cords, took their compass sightings, and headed for shore, swimming fifteen feet below the surface. The first man to touch land would wait for the rest, staying submerged.
Ken Ching found Iranian soil first and put down both feet, then backed up so he’d stay underwater. The rest of the men assembled, and the squad leaders counted heads. All present.
One by one, the SEALs surged shoreward with the waves, coming to rest on the beach sand, looking like long, motionless black logs. Murdock went first, using two waves to get in just out of the heavy surf. He unhooked his rebreather and, without moving, checked the shoreline.
Yes, sandy, no habitation. It had been cleared years ago of shacks and houses when they built the military air base; then the Iranian Air Force moved to a better location. The land remained undeveloped.
When First Squad hit the sand with its weapons pointing shoreward, Murdock came up to a crouch, then ran with his wet cammies pasted against his legs. On such a short swim, they elected not to wear wet suits. He pulled on his wet, floppy hat and slid in behind a small mound of sand that had been half claimed by hearty beach grass.
He sensed the other SEALs le
aving the wet and lining up ten yards apart down the beach on both sides of him. Slowly, he lifted up and peered over the small dune.
Yes, he could see lights, lots of lights, as if it were a carnival or a huge outdoor display area. Which is what it was supposed to be. He heard some small motors running, generators probably, for some of the individual display areas. Then the flat snarl of an AK-47 jolted through the air with six rounds, then six more.
Someone slid into the sand beside Murdock.
“Somebody checking to see if a weapon fires,” Operations Specialist Second Class Joe “Ricochet” Lampedusa said. He was the platoon’s best tracker and lead scout.
“How far to them?” Murdock whispered.
“Half a mile, maybe a little more. A long flat space to come back across in daylight with them fuckers shooting at us.”
“We fix it so not many of them are able to shoot at us,” Murdock said. He took the Motorola out of his waterproof pouch on his combat vest. The Motorola was a person-to-person communication radio for short distances. Each of the SEALs had one. A belt pack contained the operational transceiver and battery. A wire led to an earplug and attached lip mike. When Murdock had his radio in place and saw that Lampedusa did as well, he spoke.
“Radio check, Alpha.”
One by one, the seven men in Alpha Squad checked in. Then Murdock heard Senior Chief Dobler call for a radio check on Bravo Squad. All present and accounted for.
“Half mile to our objective. We’ll move in our usual twin diamonds, but at half speed. No rush. Full dark now, and our job planting the explosives shouldn’t take more than two hours, even if we run into some opposition. Drag bags. Let’s dump them here and hang the goodies around your neck, in your belt, any way you can. We don’t want to pull those fuckers over the ground.”
Only Murdock and Lam had NVGs, Night Vision Goggles. Murdock pulled his down from where they had perched on his head and checked the objective. The pale green glow gave him a clear look at the sales area. They were at the back of it. Evidently, there was one long line of booths and display areas that faced the other way. There could be an old runway they were working on. He watched for security.
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