Counterfire sts-16

by Keith Douglass

  “They shouldn’t be watching in that direction even if they think we might come back,” Murdock said. “Hell, we’re wet anyway. What’s a little more water.”

  They met two boat people going down the first row of slips, but nobody was around to see them slide into the water between two fifty-foot sailboats. They did a heads-up crawl across the narrow channel between the slips, and came up on the stern of the Sundowner. She was tied up on the port side. There was no good access on the starboard. With the deck four feet above the slip planks, the SEALs had room to lift up on the slip beside the hull of the craft and stay out of sight of anyone on board. They did. Murdock stood up and looked across the deck. They were aft, and he could see only the walkway along the cabin and the door leading inside. He looked to the stern and found no guard or lookout.

  A diversion. On the slip were two buckets half filled with water and with washing gear nearby. Murdock pointed to one of the buckets, and Lam pulled it back out of sight.

  “Toss it up forward and I’ll be at the steps and try to nail whoever comes out to investigate.” Murdock grabbed the other bucket and dumped out half of the water. He hefted it by the handle and grinned.

  The steps on the slip were the movable kind used at many marinas to allow the people to walk up them to board higher-riding boats.

  Murdock moved to them, crouching next to the ship, holding the partly filled bucket in his right hand, and nodded. Lam threw the metal bucket high and when it crashed down on the deck, it made a smashing metallic sound. Murdock heard voices from inside; then he heard footsteps come out of the cabin and stop. Murdock surged upward leaping high and swinging his heavy bucket hard just over the rail at the man’s back. It slammed into him, jolting him forward. He fell on his hands and knees, the sub gun clattering out of his hand.

  Murdock jolted up the steps and dropped flat on the surprised Arab. He slammed his fist into the man’s cheek twice and saw the Arab pass out. Murdock dropped the man into the water beside the boat, picked up the submachine gun, and moved toward the cabin door.

  “What’s going on out there?” someone inside yelled in Arabic. Murdock didn’t respond. Lam crept up the steps, his .38 out. Murdock and Lam surged through the cabin door into a salon twenty feet long with plush furniture, a big-screen TV, and two Arabs sipping drinks. Both looked up in surprise.

  “The party’s over,” Murdock said in Arabic. “You, Hamdani, on your feet and take me to where your prisoners are.” The Arab lifted off the couch slowly, then charged Murdock. The SEAL lowered the muzzle and fired one shot into Hamdani’s right leg. The Arab stumbled and went down on the thick carpet. He swore and stood slowly. Murdock frisked him, found a handgun, and tossed it to Lam, who had the second man covered.

  Twenty minutes later they had found the prisoners, and had the three Arabs tied and lying on the forward deck. Murdock had fished the first man out of the water. He was alive and swearing. Three official-looking cars drove into the marina, and six men surged down the dock to the slips. Anthony waved, and the Scotland Yard men came on board.

  Ten minutes later, the SAS captain, the Yard inspector, and the two SEALs were back in the speedboat patrolling the port. They powered toward the ocean end of the bay as fast as they could. Anthony now had a Yard radio. There had been no sightings of an Arab boat moving toward the ocean. Scotland Yard had the help of four eighty-foot Navy patrol craft that could do thirty knots.

  “They say they have spotted only four pleasure craft of any size heading outbound,” Anthony said. “Two American, one French, and one Israeli.”

  Murdock laughed. “Yes. Think the way the terrorists would,” he said. “They would figure that if anything went wrong, the Navy would be looking for Arab flag-boats. How to avoid this? Fly a different flag. What would be most ironic? Fly an Israeli flag on the boat with the bomb on board.”

  Anthony radioed the idea to his men with the Navy boats.

  They liked the logic. “Two cutters are heading for the Israeli boat now. We should know in ten minutes.”

  They kicked the boat up to top speed and slanted toward the mouth of the port. Long before they got there, they had a report.

  “Yeah, Anthony, you had a good idea. We tracked down the Israeli boat. They saw us coming and tried to run, but we nailed them. We boarded her and found the whole crew and passengers were Arabs. We saw a big splash just before we boarded, and know something went overboard. Below we found two sets of scuba gear and tanks. So we don’t know what happened.”

  “Tell him to get an exact spot where they splashed,” Murdock said. “Use a satellite tracking device. Must have one.”

  Anthony tried, but they didn’t have anything like a Mugger with them. They got coordinates as closely as they could.

  Anthony looked at Murdock.

  “They dumped it. Get your Geiger counters out and go over that boat. It’s got to show radiation. First call the SEALs in Crawley. Tell Lieutenant DeWitt to get all the men with their diving gear and outfits for Lam and me, and take the bus to the bay where they were before. A boat will meet them there.”

  “You’re going to try to find the bomb in the bay?”

  “If it’s there and we have some help, we should be able to give it a good try. Get talking on that radio.”

  The Navy had anchored the Arab boat in place and called for the radiation detection team. It was more than an hour before the other SEALs raced up on a British Royal Navy patrol boat. An ensign on the first patrol boat on the scene talked to Murdock by radio.

  “Yes, sir, Commander. We saw the splash. I figure the ship here moved about forty to fifty yards downstream before we got her stopped and anchored. Best we can do.”

  “Did you see any divers go in the water?”

  “No, didn’t see any. We watched her close after that splash.”

  “Good. Now one more question. Does the Royal Navy have a minesweeper in port? Anything that can search the bottom of the harbor here for metal?”

  “I see what you mean. I don’t know. I’ll call the admiral and ask him at once.”

  “One more thing. Can you anchor one of your patrol boats over the spot where we think the splash occurred?”

  “That I can do right now. You diving?”

  “As soon as we can get where you are.”

  The Navy patrol boat that picked the rest of the SEALs up at Pier 12 rushed them to the spot, which was toward the outer part of the London harbor. The Navy team on board the Arab yacht found definite traces of radiation on deck in three places.

  Murdock put down Alpha Squad first. “We want a complete search. On the bottom we’ll go hand-in-hand and make sure we don’t miss anything. Not sure of the visibility, but it’ll be better now than tonight. Over the side.”

  The harbor at this point was only about sixty feet deep. The new Draegrs automatically adjusted the air/nitrogen mix so they could stay down at that depth for extended lengths of time.

  Murdock stared ahead through the murky water. There wasn’t enough river flow to really clean out the harbor. They were over a mile from the North Sea, so that didn’t help. He stumbled over something in the muck of the bottom, kicked it, and saw an old piece of what could have been an aircraft wing. Maybe a wartime Spitfire that didn’t quite make it back to the airdrome.

  They crisscrossed the area for an hour, then swam to the surface. Murdock went back down with Bravo Squad and Lieutenant DeWitt.

  After a two-hour search the SEALs came up for a breather in the clean air.

  The ensign reported that they had no minesweeper ready for work in the area. The closest one was in Portsmouth. It would need twelve hours to get under way, then another six hours to get on site.

  Anthony came on board. “We have been questioning everyone on that Arab ship and can’t get a thing out of any of them. It’s a pleasure cruise. They know nothing about any bomb on board. I do get the idea that two of the people who were on board are not there now. One woman let slip a name, another woman another name, and
neither one is on the passenger list.”

  Murdock frowned. “They wouldn’t just dump the bomb and forget it,” he said. “They had to have a fallback plan. Dump it overboard with a neutral flotation device. Put two divers in the water with it and they could swim it to shore or to another boat.”

  “It didn’t come to another small pleasure craft,” the ensign said. “We’ve been monitoring everything that comes in or out of port ever since we saw the splash.”

  “Then it has to be the shore. Ensign, can you haul anchor and get us to the closest landfall to this point?”

  “Aye, can do, Commander.”

  Five minutes later, the SEALs kicked out of their flippers, shrugged out of their Draegrs, and stepped on shore. The area was only partly built up, with a series of mud flats and shallow water. It took only a half hour of working both ways along the shore from their landing point for the SEALs to find the track.

  Some large object had been pushed, dragged, then looked like it had been rolled through the soft mud flat for fifty yards to a now-and-then dirt road that meandered around the mud flats. More footprints showed in the mud near the roadway. Then they found tire tracks. By that time there were a dozen Scotland Yard men all over the place.

  “Pickup with a lift gate would work here,” Murdock said. “They roll it on the lift gate and if it’s strong enough, it lifts the bomb up and into the body, where it’s braced and they simply drive away.”

  A shout went up six hundred yards inland. Anthony, on his radio, asked what they had found. He listened and grinned.

  “Some luck after all. The blokes ran into a muddy spot they couldn’t get through with the pickup. Mired down to the rear axle. They left the pickup. We have license plates to check. The boys up there say looks like they off-loaded something into a larger truck, probably with four-wheel drive and lots of engine. They’ve had four hours to get it out of here.”

  The SEALs jogged up to the transfer point. Anthony went with them, and said the Yard had checked the license plate and had a home address on the pickup owner. Two teams were on the way to talk to the owner. The SEALs and Anthony followed the road out of the flats and to the first paved road. An old man with a dog on a leash stood there watching.

  “Ain’t been this much activity around here since that Spitfire crashed into the flats during the winter of ’43. What the hell happened out there?”

  “Nothing you need to know,” Anthony told him.

  Murdock smiled at the old man. “What kind of a dog?”

  “Terrier. I used to show him before he got too old like me.”

  “You live nearby?”

  He pointed. “About twenty rods that way. Strange. First two men ran up the road and to a phone, I’d guess, on the corner two blocks down. Then the pickup came. Got me curious.”

  “The men who ran up the road. What did they look like?”

  “By then I’d come out with Roger here and walking. Seen them up close. A-rabs, no doubt. Then a big truck came. Had huge tires and a cab high off the ground. Even had some kind of a crane on the back, you know, to pick up things with.

  “I came back not ten minutes later. By then I was real curious. Wrote down the make of the truck. It was an Atlas, and the license place was Atlas 44. Remember that. One of them personalized or maybe business kind of plates.”

  Anthony had stayed to listen; he gave Murdock a thumbs-up and took out his radio. He moved away and talked. The SEALs waited.

  He returned grinning. “Yes! Atlas is a producer of specialized trucks, fairly small operation. Their trucks all have license plates from Atlas l to Atlas 234. Atlas 44 is owned by a man with a small business and we have his address. We have cars coming over here we can use to make a raid on the place. Want to come along?”

  The SEALs all had their MP-5’s, which had been slung over their backs during the search. They had worn their combat harness loaded with the usual combat essentials, and were ready to kick ass. They jammed into six cars that arrived and sped away.

  It was a two-hour drive to find the place. It was just north of London near the small town of Hertford. The sun had set sometime before and Murdock’s watch showed just after 2045. The cars stopped a block away, and Scotland Yard set up a command post. They had twelve Yard men and the sixteen SEALs.

  “Your firepower is better than ours,” said Anthony, who was in charge of the operation. “We’ll have you surrounding the place, but be careful you don’t shoot any friendlies.”

  The main building was about twice the size of a good house. It had two windows in front, two sedans parked out front, and a truck with a crane attached at one side.

  “We’ll put two flash-bangs through the windows, then smash down the front door and charge inside,” Anthony said.

  “Inspector Anthony, did you bring those lead blankets?” Murdock asked.

  Anthony nodded. “Indeed we did. In one of the cars. We’ll bring it up close. Any other questions?”

  “We won’t fire unless some bad guys come boiling out the back doors,” Murdock said. “Single shots only.”

  They deployed. Murdock was with Alpha squad in front of the building. He watched the flash-bang grenades blast inside, and at the same time two big Scotland Yard men hit the front door of the place with a leaded battering ram and the door caved in. Six Yard men boiled through the smashed-open door. Murdock heard four shots, then all was silent. Anthony came out and signaled to a car, which drove up directly to the front door. Three men carried the lead blankets into the building.

  Murdock ran up to the door, but held the rest of the SEALs back. He stepped inside and saw two dead Arabs. Both had submachine guns and bandoliers of ammo across their chests. A third Arab sat on the floor, his hands trying to hold blood in his chest. He coughed and blood flew from his mouth.

  “We almost made it,” he said in English.

  Murdock saw the men shaping the lead blankets around a three-foot-high muddy wooden box in the middle of the room. It was made roughly in the shape of a squared-off ball. The lead blankets were doubled.

  The Arab didn’t notice them. He looked at the nearest Scotland Yard inspector and asked him something.

  “What?” the inspector asked.

  “Could you get my watch? It has a picture of my wife and two daughters in it. In my pocket. One last look.”

  The inspector looked at Anthony. He nodded. The Yard man fished out the gold-plated pocket watch with a chain. The man opened the top of it and looked at the inside of the cover.

  Then he laughed. “Fools,” he yelled. “Damn fools. I’ve won after all. All I have to do is press the stem and in ten seconds the bomb detonates and half of London and all of us simply vanish from the face of the earth as we vaporize in a glorious atomic explosion.”

  “Don’t do it,” Anthony said.

  The Arab laughed and blood sprayed out of his mouth. He looked at the red stain on his hand and his watch, and said something in Arabic that Murdock figured was a prayer. Then he screamed and pushed the stem on the pocket watch. He screamed again and counted on down from seven to zero.

  Nothing happened.

  The Arab opened his eyes and stared in disbelief at the bomb. Then he began to cry.

  “The lead blanket prevented the signal from getting to the bomb,” Murdock told him in Arabic.

  The dying man looked at Murdock and shouted something, but this time nothing but a froth of blood came out of his mouth. His eyes glazed; then the blood stopped and he tilted to the left, then fell over dead before he hit the floor.

  By the time Murdock left the building, an armored truck with siren blasting pulled up outside. Men were equipped for the job. A ramp opened in back and a small forklift rolled out and into the building.

  Murdock called the SEALs around and told them what had happened inside.

  “That wraps it for us then, Cap?” Bill Bradford asked.

  “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  Inspector Anthony came out and found the SEALs. He wiped a line
of sweat off his forehead.

  “Too close in there. We’ll never know if that was a real trigger that he had in that watch or not. Oh, we’ll check out the watch, but would it have set off the bomb without the lead shield around it?”

  “Ours is not to wonder why,” Jaybird said.

  Anthony laughed, and it broke the tension for him. “True, how true. Now, let’s get you men back to Crawley and some dry clothes and lots of good chow.”

  His radio came on and he listened to his earpiece. A moment later he nodded. “Yes, sir. Yes, I’ll tell them. Good night, sir.”

  He looked over at Murdock. His grin grew to cover his whole face. “That was my boss. He said to thank you for your help on this little project. Without you we probably would never have found the damned bomb. We’ve had a message for you from Mr. Stroh.”

  “Oh, boy,” Paul Jefferson said. “This can’t be good.”

  “Mr. Stroh says that you should get some food and then a good night’s sleep. However, just because this little game of hide-and-seek is over, you won’t be going home. He says he has a new project for you that starts bright and early in the morning.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Frank Victor said. “Just exactly what we need — another surprise.”

  “What the hell is it?” Colt Franklin asked.

  “It’s a surprise,” Senior Chief Sadler said. “If we knew what it was, it wouldn’t be a surprise. Let’s shag ass out of here. I’m hungry.”

  9

  The next morning Murdock and DeWitt met with Don Stroh at the small officers’ mess on the military base. Murdock wasn’t quite sure what kind of a base it was. There were Royal Air Force planes there, also Royal Naval units, and he had seen companies of soldiers marching around.

  There were only ten tables in the mess. Three of them were occupied. The Americans feasted on bacon and eggs, hash browns, and cups of scalding coffee. After the dishes were cleared away, Don Stroh put a folder on the table from his slender briefcase.

  “This may seem slightly unusual, but I’m telling you this before it’s official. It’s still just a suggested plan by a foreign power, and the President and the CNO and even the Secretary of Defense have not given me a report on it, or a decision.”