Siege at Tiamat Bluff

by David DeLee

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “I don’t like it,” McMurphy said.

  He stood with Tolliver and Amal Haddad on the side of the flight deck, bundled in their parkas once again staring at the Sikorsky Sea Dragon that had brought the SEAL team to the Putnam. This time they watched as Lieutenant Jones and Chief Null supervised their people as they unloaded what looked like two large black torpedoes.

  McMurphy knew what they were. And it explained the weight distribution trouble the chopper pilot experienced trying to land the bird earlier. Advanced shallow water delivery submersibles.

  Submarine like vessels they were twenty-two feet long, had a beam of five feet and carried a crew and passenger complement of six. They could reach speeds of six knots and with their lithium-ion battery-powered electric motors had a mission capacity of twelve hours, while basically running silent.

  There was just one problem, McMurphy thought. “Those things can’t go below two hundred feet.”

  “You need to keep current with what’s going on, old-timer,” Tolliver teased. “You’re thinking of the original ASDS subs. These are the next-gen Shallow Water Combat Submersible. They’ve got a cutting-edge inertial navigational system, high-frequency sonar, an electro-optical periscope, wireless communication, and GPS.”

  “Define shallow for me,” McMurphy said, returning to his original criticism. “It’s still in the damn name.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say. It’s the Navy we’re talking about.”

  “Test dives give them an approval rating to operate as deep as twelve-hundred feet,” Haddad said, her shoulders hunched against the icy wind. She corralled a lock of dark hair and secured it behind her ear. Or tried to. “Plenty of room for error for this operation.”

  “Says the woman who’s not in a wetsuit about to climb inside one of those tin coffins.” McMurphy held his fins, mask, and neoprene gloves in hand as the SEAL team efficiently set the submersibles up on the Putnam’s ramp, preparing them to launch, refusing any assistance from the Guardsmen onboard.

  So much for interagency cooperation.

  In truth, McMurphy wasn’t really worried about the submersibles. It was the mission that bothered him. They’d spent the last few hours cooped up in the officers’ mess collecting data, dissecting it, brain-storming ideas and plans, and rejecting most of them. All of which made McMurphy a little stir-crazy.

  “Well I don’t like anything about this either,” Tolliver said, echoing McMurphy’s thoughts. “We’ve got eyes on the park, but that’s still a big facility down there that we can see inside of. They could move the hostages anywhere. If they do that, we’ll be blind again.”

  “The biggest problem still remains getting inside,” McMurphy said. It had been decided the moon pools were the only viable means of getting inside. Open pools that required only a stealthy approach, or so said Lieutenant Jones. “Junior’s overconfident. Sucre’s not going to leave the moon pools unguarded. Jones men pop up through there like he’s talking it’ll be like shooting ducks in a barrel.”

  Earlier in the officer’s mess, seated around a table with hot coffees in white Coast Guard mugs warming their hands, Jones had presented them with a plan. One in which his two, six-member teams—including McMurphy, the big Irishman was quick to remind the Navy man—would approach Tiamat Bluff in the submersibles, disembark a mile from the facility to avoid sonar and radar detection, and swim to the facility where they would surreptitiously slip inside via the two moon pools. Once inside, they’d advance to the park and engage the enemy while effecting a rescue of the President and the other hostages.

  McMurphy bristled at the way he added ‘and the other hostages’ as if they were an afterthought. He reminded Jones Tiamat Bluff had high-tech exterior surveillance equipment, including video surveillance capabilities as well, and who knew what else. There was no way they could know what the facility could see and not see.

  Jones insisted his men were trained to slip undetected into such an environment. “It won’t be a problem,” he promised.

  “One thing that’s kept me alive over the years, Junior,” McMurphy said, “is not underestimating my adversaries.”

  “Nor am I,” Jones said, a bit defensively. “It’ll take time and the going will be slow, but we’re very good at making stealth approaches like this. If you’d rather remain onboard the Putnam where it’s safe and sound…”

  “That’s enough, Lieutenant,” Vice-President Wright said over the secure video feed, arranged through the Putnam’s tech people. His image, from the Oval Office, had been projected on the mess hall’s wall.

  “Sorry, sir. And I will admit, McMurphy’s not entirely wrong on that point. Getting through the moon pools is going to be our toughest hurdle. Under normal insertion conditions we’d cut power, at the same time, create panic and confusion…”

  Power at Tiamat Bluff was self-contained, provided by its own power plant, but no one in the room knew enough about how it works, if they could even get inside the facility or how that might adversely affect life support systems, nor was there time to figure it out.

  “With no other entry options available, those moon pools will be heavily guarded,” McMurphy said, pleading his case. “You can bet Sucre’s prepared for that. This plan, as is, will only serve to get your people cut to ribbons and the hostages killed.”

  “Do you have another suggestion, Chief?” Wright asked. “Or do you just want to keep poking holes in other peoples’ ideas?”

  McMurphy let the jab go even if it was a low blow. Everyone was short-tempered and under pressure. “Actually, I do. Not a different one, but a supplement one.”

  “We’re listening,” Wright said.

  “We need to create a distraction. One that Sucre won’t immediately think is an attack”

  “What kind of distraction?” Tolliver asked.

  “I’ve thought of that, too,” Jones said playing one-upmanship with McMurphy. “I’ve been wracking my brain to come up with one, but I’m drawing a blank.”

  “Luckily I’m not.” McMurphy wasn’t above giving a jab or two of his own. “I’m told the old delivery vessels carried an inventory of limpet mines onboard.” Magnetized mines designed to be attached to the hulls of ships. Named after limpet sea snails because of how they cling to rocks and other hard surfaces. “Are these fancy new SWCS vehicles similarly stocked?”

  Jones arched an eyebrow. “Yes. Each vehicles’ compliment is four. But if you’re thinking of trying to breach, we already dismissed—”

  McMurphy cut him off. “I’m not. We’d risk imploding the whole damn facility and getting everyone killed. Time fused?” he asked of the mines.

  “Of course.”

  “What are you getting at, Skyjack?” Tolliver asked.

  He ignored the question, asking instead, “The Putnam’s got two long-range rigid-hull inflatables on board, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure, but…”

  “We load one of the inflatables with all the combustible fuel you can spare, Captain, and we sink it near Tiamat Bluff along with—” Tolliver looked at him with admiration. Jones simply looked confused. McMurphy smiled. “—the timed fuses. We detonate the limpet mines on the ocean floor. It should provide a big enough bang to simulate a small, but naturally occurring earthquake. Or in this case a seaquake.”

  Tolliver slapped him on the shoulder. “Splendid idea.”

  Haddad frowned. “I still don’t see…”

  But Jones caught up. “Properly timed, we can breach the moon pools while the enemy’s distracted by the earth—seaquake.”

  Haddad seemed horrified by the idea. “What’s not to say they won’t think it’s an attack and start killing hostages. Starting with the President?”

  “Dr. Larson and her staff,” McMurphy said. “They’ll explain that tremors like that happen all the time. Which they do. A naturally occurring phenomenon. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “You can’t know that?” Haddad said.

  “And i
f she doesn’t?” Wright asked.

  “Brice is down there, too, sir. He’ll know what it really is, but will tell her what to say.”

  Wright frowned and Haddad shook her head. Neither one seemed to like the idea. McMurphy wasn’t crazy about it either, but if the Vice-President was sold on Jones’ plan, it was all he could come up with at the moment to give it a halfway decent chance of success.

  “Timing will be critical,” McMurphy said. “We’ll need to have already penetrated their surveillance and gotten into position before the blast. As soon as the seaquake’s triggered—”

  “Our insertion team will slip inside, use the confusion to our benefit. Secure the guards in the moon pools and move on from there undetected,” Jones finished. “By the time they really figure out what’s going on, it’ll be too late.”

  At least he didn’t call it an assault again, McMurphy thought, still concerned at the young SEAL’s overconfident zeal. Once inside, there’d be other obstacles to face. Obstacles they can’t plan for. Surveillance cameras, roving patrols. But, he reasoned, they were a SEAL team. Maybe he wasn’t giving them enough credit. Maybe he was worrying over nothing.

  “There is one more problem,” Jones said. “I can’t spare any of my people to go sink the inflatable and trigger the seaquake?”

  Tolliver looked at McMurphy. “Should I be insulted?”

  “I would be,” McMurphy said. “Hell, I’m for you.”

  “Lieutenant,” Tolliver said, drily. “There are fourteen officers and ninety-nine crewmembers on board this vessel. Almost every damn one of them is capable of carrying out this mission. We’ll tow the loaded inflatable into position and sink it. You just do your job and get the President out of there.”

  Jones held his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean anything by that. Just trying to think of everything. Make sure nothing can or does go wrong. The stakes are too damn high.”

  “On that, we can all agree,” Vice-President Wright said. He paused for a moment, then added, “You’re a go, Lieutenant. Godspeed.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jones stood up as the image of Wright winked out. “Let’s go to work.”

  Now out on the flight deck, McMurphy watched the SWCSs being prepped for launch. He’d participated in formulating the plan, and though he didn’t think it was a good one, he’d suited up and helped Tolliver’s men load the inflatable and plot the best location for triggering their deceptive seaquake. It was the best option they had at the moment.

  Still, his gut felt queasy and it wasn’t because he’d skipped lunch.

  It was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Familiar, because he’d felt it before, like an early warning alarm. And every time he felt it, disaster followed.

  Every damn time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  With the Putnam stationed fifty miles east from Tiamat Bluff, in compliance with Sucre’s orders, it would take the SWCSs—at their max speed of five knots—over ten hours to reach their target. An unacceptably long period of time. And it made a return trip in the vessels impossible. The battery-powered engines only had a twelve-hour mission capability.

  The Vice-President was reluctant to defy Sucre’s orders and move the Putnam closer.

  They needed an alternative way of getting the vessels within range.

  Unlike the older SEAL delivery vessels that preceded them, the SWCSs couldn’t be dropped from a helicopter without cracking open like an egg. A serious mission drawback in McMurphy’s opinion. He shook his head. Nobody improves a thing like the Navy does.

  That left them with towing the vessels into position using the two Coast Guard RHIBs. The x-factor in their plan, and why Wright wouldn’t order the Putnam closer, was no one knew if Sucre had a means of watching the ocean surface over Tiamat Bluff as he claimed. Until they had more intel, no one was willing to risk the President’s life to find out.

  So, it was agreed, the RHIBs would release the submersibles five miles—or about another hour’s ride—away from Tiamat Bluff.

  The RHIBs would go on and scuttle their explosive-laden payload at the designated coordinates and time then return to the Putnam.

  That was the plan, anyway.

  Now, locked inside a black metal tube, flooded with freezing cold Atlantic Ocean water, even wearing a 6/5mm neoprene wetsuit with hood, boots, and gloves sealed and taped, diving to a thousand feet under the surface in the dark and feeling only the thrum of a single, nearly silent propeller while hooked up to the submersible’s compressed air supply wasn’t McMurphy’s idea of fun. Not unless he was driving the darn thing. Which he was not.

  It’s a waterlogged casket, he thought not for the first time. He focused his attention on a single red dot of light on the forward bulkhead. He sat rear-facing, though once they were underway it was hard to tell. His sensory perception was gone. Next to him sat a young SEAL named Kowalski. They faced two others. Petty Officer Null and Bradley Jones were in the cabin at the controls.

  “Nervous?” Kowalski asked.

  McMurphy shot him a warning glance through his full facemask.

  Kowalski snapped his gaze straight ahead, properly fearful.

  The truth was, if he were honest with himself, yeah, he was nervous. Not because he was trapped inside a tin can descending to the ocean floor, but because he wasn’t at the wheel. McMurphy had a need to be in control. He liked it. He thrived on it. And he sucked at being a passenger.

  “Ten minutes to dismount point,” Jones’ voice said over the earpiece jammed in McMurphy’s left ear.

  The SWCS didn’t have a front window for Jones to see out of. Instead, the pilot relied completely on a sophisticated, high-tech, and classified inertial navigational system, high-frequency sonar, radar, and GPS to direct the submersible to its target.

  McMurphy glanced at his dive watch. The dial light in day-glow green.

  Pre-arranged timing would be critical to the mission’s success. Because they couldn’t risk any external communication with the Putnam or the RHIBs being picked up by Tiamat Bluff’s comm center, they had gone radio silent with the surface.

  Relying on synchronized watches, the two submersibles would settle to the sloping incline of Georges Bank, above and east of Tiamat Bluff’s main complex. The submersibles would open their hatches—possible because the water-filled compartment had equal pressurization. The two SEAL teams would emerge and swim, hugging the seafloor, to their assigned positions the two moon pools. There they would wait for Tolliver’s teams to sink the RHIBs to the ocean floor and detonate the limpet mines.

  Five minutes before Jones was set to slow the submersible to a stop and let her settle to the ocean floor, an underwater explosion rocked the SWCS. If not for the seriousness of the situation, McMurphy might have joked about a premature detonation. The blast was too soon Had something gone wrong with the RHIBs?

  In the cattle car compartment, as he called it, the SEALs with him tensed.

  Jones cursed through the earpiece.

  “What just happened?” McMurphy asked.

  “We’ve lost contact with Submersible Two,” Jones said.

  Not the RHIB then. Something else. “That was more than losing contact, damn it,” McMurphy said.

  A tense minute followed before Jones cursed again. “Mines.”

  McMurphy exchanged concerned looks in the dark with the other divers. The glow from the single red warning light, the only illumination by which he could see their faces. He read the apprehension in their expressions.

  “Mines!” Jones shouted. “We’ve stumbled into a damn minefield. Submersible Two is down.”

  Before McMurphy could wrap his brain around that and formulate a response, their own submersible rocked violently. They veered unexpectantly to the right. The muffled sound of another explosion followed.

  McMurphy felt the vibration of the blast through his seat.

  “We’re hit!” Jones shouted.

  A high-pitched screech pierced McMurphy’s ears. From their reactions, the othe
r SEALs heard it, too. These were tough men, highly trained and not to be corny about it; the best of the best. Still, McMurphy saw the fear in their eyes. They might be SEALs, but they were men first. They were scared, and they had every right to be.

  Nor was that a bad thing. No one wanted to die one thousand feet underwater. It was all in how they dealt with that fear that mattered. Fight or flight kicked in. Neither an option trapped in the SWCS like they were.

  “Jones. Jones!” McMurphy called but didn’t get an answer.

  “We need to get out of here,” Kowalski said.

  “Take it easy, son,” McMurphy said, trying to calm him down. “We will.”

  The submersible rocked again. The explosion had come from the vessel’s aft end. The constant engine vibration felt through their seats up until that point stopped. The engine was knocked out, but they were still descending, drifting powerless to the ocean floor.

  “Jones?” McMurphy said. No answer. To the others, he said, “We need to stay calm.”

  “We need to abandon ship,” Kowalski said.

  “Easy, Kowalski,” the diver across from him said, reaching out to put a hand on his arm.

  Kowalski shook the hand away. “We need to get out of here!”

  He reached overhead and undogged the canopy release.

  “Don’t!” McMurphy shouted.

  The young man ignored him and slid the access cover back before anyone could stop him.

  With the chamber was flooded, the compartment under the same pressure as outside, opening the cover wasn’t the danger. Kowalski worked at disconnecting his air supply hose from the large compression tank strapped to the SWCS’s ceiling. His hands shook doing it, but he affixed the hose to the air tank strapped to his back.

  “There’s nowhere to go,” his buddy said.

  Kowalski started to drift up from his seat. “Better than being a sitting duck in here.”

  “Aw, crap,” McMurphy said.

  Kowalski spun around. Over his shoulder, a gunmetal orb the size of a softball appeared. It had several antennae sticking out of it, looking like a miniaturized version of the cold war era Sputnik. A glowing orange light beeped in the center of it.