It has a maximum cruising speed of 581 mph at 25,000 feet, and can cover 4,275 miles between fuel drinks from a tanker or on the ground. It has airline reclining-type seats, and facilities for meals and refreshments for the passengers if the flight plan calls for that.
The SEALs settled down in the comfortable seats and relaxed. They knew what their job was; they just didn’t know how they would handle it. That would be worked out on board the carrier in the Mediterranean Sea.
Stroh had called just before they left their quarters. He said he’d meet them on the carrier.
“I’ll probably get there first,” he said. “I have a three-thousand-mile head start.”
Murdock, DeWitt, and Senior Chief Dobler conferred near the front of the double row of seats.
“So we don’t know how many ICBMs there could be in that ship just in port from Odessa?” DeWitt asked.
“We don’t until we open the door and look,” Murdock said.
“These are the MIRV babies with ten warheads in each nose cone?” Dobler asked.
“Right,” DeWitt said. “The CIA thinks they took out one of the independently targetable warheads and turned it into a drop bomb and blew half of that region in Chad into Bolivia.”
“Then their Army charged across the border,” Murdock said. “Which might help us since most of their good troops will be out in the field, not guarding that ship.”
“How do we know it will even still be there?” DeWitt asked.
“Priorities,” Murdock said. “If I was Qaddafi, I’d get that first bomb out and ready to go before anything else on that ship moved. First jobs first.”
Dobler looked at Murdock. “Anybody in our platoon know how to defuse and destroy a nuclear warhead?”
“Not that you could count on,” Murdock said.
“Our orders were to capture or destroy the warheads, as I heard,” Dobler said. “We going to pack them out of there on our backs with a ten-mile swim, or what the hell?”
“Mostly the latter,” DeWitt said.
They looked at each other.
“So?” Dobler asked.
“So we play it by ear until we can get some on-site intel and then plan out damn carefully just what the fuck we’re going to do,” Murdock said. “Right now I’m ready for a nap. On this one we better sleep when we can. It’s about a three-hour run to D.C. Then we’ll probably get some juice in the air or on the ground. After that I’d bet we’ll drop in on Lisbon, Portugal. That should take another seven or eight hours.”
“What do I tell the troops about chow?” Dobler asked.
“Supposed to be something on board, box lunches, and we hope, better than MREs.”
An hour later, Ed DeWitt was still wide awake. He poked Murdock in the shoulder and weathered the growl.
“Hey, Boss, I keep thinking about the destroy part of that mission description. I’d bet you know who I’m thinking about.”
“True, true as blue, J.G. We were lucky once, why tempt fate? This one looks just nasty as all hell. No reason to expose that person to all the shit we’re going to run into.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” DeWitt grinned. “Okay, you can go back to sleep now.”
An hour later the crew chief came back from the cockpit. He had a printout of a radio message from Washington, D.C. Murdock rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and focused on the paper and the stark black print.
“Thursday, September 12.
“From the Office of the President.
“To Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock, Commander SEAL Team Seven Third Platoon.
“Commander Murdock: The President has assigned a special agent to assist you in your destruction of the warheads we suspect are on a ship in the Tripoli, Libya, harbor. That person is someone you’ve worked with before, Katherine Garnet. She will travel with Don Stroh and meet you on the carrier. Good luck.” It was signed by the President’s administrative assistant.
Murdock showed the paper to DeWitt, who read it.
“Not again,” he said.
“Again,” Murdock said. “Just like in Iran on our death race. At least the lady knows her business. All we have to do is keep her alive, do the job, then get her home in one chunk without a lot of bullet holes in her pretty little hide.”
5
USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, CV 69
In the Mediterranean Sea, Off Libya
Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven came off the COD plane on the deck of the Franklin D. Roosevelt carrier tired and grumpy. Most of them had slept little on the fourteen-hour flight. They had crossed so many times zones that they had no idea what time it was other than it was still daylight.
They were shown to their quarters and a nearby double-size compartment where they could stash their gear and weapons and work on them when they needed to. Murdock called them together in the assembly compartment. Jaybird struggled in the door, the last man to report.
“I haven’t had any new signals on our mission,” said Murdock. “For those of you who want to set your watches, it’s now thirteen-fifteen. You have lost seven hours, we had a thirteen-hour flight, and you’re all assigned to your bunks until eight hundred in the morning. Senior Chief Dobler will tell you where your chow is and will boot you out of your bunks in the morning. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Jaybird asked. “I heard something about a civilian with us again. To do the destruct on the warheads. Is it that pretty Lieutenant Garnet again?”
“It is. She knows her job and as I remember, Jaybird, she can outswim you and outrun you.”
That brought a chorus of catcalls from the SEALs.
“Yeah, but…” He stopped. “Hey, I’m glad she’s gonna be along. Gives us a little class.”
Murdock dismissed the men, and found Don Stroh coming in the compartment door as the men filed out.
“Well, Stroh, I hear the Navy chewed your CIA ass,” Murdock said.
Stroh came up and shook hands with Murdock, DeWitt, and Dobler.
“Not true. A mild reprimand, and that from some lower-half admiral I’ve never heard of.”
“We have,” DeWitt said. “He signs our paychecks.”
“So, the Navy chain of command communication works. The master chief and I checked. It took the Navy three hours to get word to you after I had the go-ahead from the President to the CNO.”
“That’s good for Navy time,” Murdock said. “Where’s Kat?”
“She’s resting. It was a long flight. The three of us have a conference with the XO and the CAG in fifteen minutes. You don’t need to shave. These men know your schedule.”
“Let’s get to it,” De Witt said. “We need some more input about the target ship and the port there and just where that ship is.”
They met in Commander Engle’s quarters. The XO was a short, thickset man with a windblown complexion, intense brown eyes, and a demeanor that showed all business.
Captain Prescott, the CAG, nodded to the SEALs and Stroh, and pointed them toward a map on a table hinged to the bulkhead.
“Gentlemen, I’m Prescott and this is Commander Engle.”
Murdock introduced himself, then the other two, and they all looked at the chart of the Tripoli harbor.
The carrier’s executive officer pointed to a spot about a third of the way into the harbor.
“The satellite picture shows the target ship at this pier, which is reported to be a secure area with armed patrols. There is a warehouse directly across from the ship, which also now has armed patrols around and inside it. We do know that security around the building has been reduced somewhat today. We think that’s because some of the troops have been sent into Chad on the invasion.”
“How big is that harbor?” DeWitt asked.
“From the harbor mouth to the ship is about a third of a mile,” the XO said. “No more than that.”
“The swim from offshore to the ship will be no problem,” Murdock said. “We have any human intel from an in-country man?”
“No agents in that area
, as I understand,” Stroh said.
“So, we’ll have to do it ourselves,” DeWitt said. “That’s going to take longer. We recon, study, then attack.”
“Do we know if the missile or missiles are still on the ship, or are they now in the guarded warehouse?” Murdock asked.
“We don’t know where they are,” Stroh said.
“Timing?” the CAG asked. “We could do something with a fake air raid on Tripoli, never getting inside their airspace,” the Commander of the Air Group, now called an Air Wing, threw out.
“You’d need Presidential approval for that,” Stroh said.
“No, I meant a training flight into the immediate area,” CAG Prescott said.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Murdock said. “Timing? My men need some rest time. We can go in with first dark tomorrow night at the earliest.”
“Won’t do,” Stroh said. “We need you in there with first dark today.”
“We just arrived,” DeWitt said. “We need to do our planning, our alternative operation, what weapons to take.”
“Murdock, can you have your platoon and Kat ready to go on a chopper from here at seventeen-thirty?” Stroh asked. “The President said if you didn’t move fast, there would be nothing there to find when you arrived.”
“He’s right, Stroh,” Murdock said. “We can be ready. Ed, go get the troops moving. They have three hours to sleep, half an hour for a special chow, and another hour to get gear ready and to transport. Go.”
Ed left the compartment.
“Captain, can you loan us a Sea Knight for transport to within a mile of the harbor entrance?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have a SATCOM with us. We’ll need a Pegasus on call from the beach at anytime before dawn. If you can keep him around the three-mile mark offshore, he can get to us quickly. We’ll swim out a half mile when we know he’s coming in. We’ll use light sticks for contact.”
The XO made a note. “Yes, we can have a Pegasus at that point two hours before dawn waiting your call on the SATCOM. Use TAC Two.”
“Roger that, Commander,” said Murdock. “Now, we’ll need a facilitator to draw ammunition, arms, and explosives from your stores. Can you name us a man and have him here quickly?”
The XO nodded. “He’ll be at your assembly compartment as soon as we break up here.”
“Stroh, is Kat up to speed on the project?”
“She is. She knows what I know.”
“Does she have her special tools and equipment for the job?”
“She does. Everything except the explosives she said are vital.”
“Get some cammies cut down for her and have her at the assembly compartment in three hours. She’ll probably want a sub gun, and I want her to have an ankle hideout.”
The XO pushed another stick of gum into his mouth and chewed with vigor. He stopped and looked at Murdock.
“That’s all the planning you can do?”
“We don’t have the intel to do any more. This is a play-it-by-ear kind of mission, the deadliest kind, Commander. I wish we had all the intel we need. We don’t, so we have to generate it near-site, or blast in and see what we have to do on-site and react with deadly force. Usually it works.”
“Let’s play what-if,” Stroh said. “What if you find the missile, it still has nine warheads in it, but you can’t get to it to destroy them due to the overwhelming forces of the Libyan Army. What’s Plan B?”
“Then we would call in four Tomcats from the CAG to blast the warehouse with four Phoenix missiles, hoping to rip apart the missile and destroy all of the warheads. I’d suggest you put through a request like that to the President and get preapproval of it, so if we need to, we can SATCOM Captain Prescott. He will have his planes in the air ready for a five-minute strike on the warehouse, or the ship, wherever we locate the missiles and can’t reach them.”
“That would be no problem from this end,” Captain Prescott said. “I would need an absolute go-ahead from the President for such a strike, and it must come through channels as well.”
“I’ll get on that,” Stroh said. “Now, any Plan C?”
“My Plan C is to leave Kat on board here and have her tell my people how to blow up those warheads,” Murdock said. “We were lucky getting her out of Iran. It worries me having a civilian along, even though she can out-SEAL some of our SEALs.”
“That’s not a plan. Kat is on your team by order of the commander in chief, and it went through channels. Forget Plan C.”
“Anything else?” the XO asked. “Commander Murdock, in effect this ship and its crew and planes are yours to command. Anything you want, you get. We are now about two hundred miles off Libya’s port of Tripoli. Before you leave on the Sea Knight, we’ll be about fifty miles offshore. Your mission is our mission.”
“Thanks, Commander. I feel blind on this one, like both of my flanks are open just asking for an attack. It’s on missions like this one where we lose some of our men. I don’t like that. We’ll get the job done. I just hope that all of us will be coming back on the Pegasus.”
“Looks like we’re done here, gentlemen,” Captain Prescott said.
Murdock stood. “You’re done. I’m just getting started.”
* * *
At 1630 the SEALs were back in the assembly compartment, fed and working on weapons and equipment. The armament specialist from the carrier had been with Dobler, and had brought up everything the SEALs and Kat had asked for in the way of ammunition and explosives.
Kat arrived with Stroh, and the SEALs cheered.
“Good to see you again, Lieutenant,” Jaybird screeched. The others whistled and hooted as Kat walked in wearing cammies that had been tailored to fit her. She grinned and waved at the men. She knew most of them.
Kat walked up to Murdock and saluted. “Lieutenant Garnet reporting for duty, sir,” she said.
Murdock chuckled. “Your salute is terrible, Lieutenant.” He grinned and shook her hand. “Good to have you on board.” He meant it. She looked the same: five feet eight and slender. Short brown hair, deep brown eyes. She had a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from MIT and a GS-15 rate in the civil service. That was as high as the ratings went. He knew she was a Scuba diving instructor, had made more than forty parachute jumps, and had won the second Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii when they let women participate. Now she ran marathons for fun.
She took a deep breath. “Murdock, I’m not sure if I’m glad to be here or not. From what I hear, this is a chancy mission. We don’t know enough about where the missile or missiles are in Tripoli.”
“True, Kat. We follow orders. We go in and see if we can find the warheads and blast them into kindling and scrap metal, then swim for home. Simple, really. I checked out an H & K MP-5 for you. I remember you like the sub gun.”
“Yes. It can come in handy.”
“Like saving somebody’s life. I thank you again for that, young lady. You do good work. How about a hideout for your left ankle, a fine little six-shot revolver?”
“Will I need it?”
“If you do, it will be too late to get one. I suggest you take it. Senior Chief Dobler has your weapons and combat vest.”
She watched him, then smiled and nodded. “Yes to the hideout. You’re welcome about the little Iran shoot-out. I’m glad that I was there at the right time and place.” She frowned. “Is this one going to be as tough as it looks like?”
“Probably. We do what we can. We don’t sacrifice half our platoon to get it done. We’re getting approval from the president to bring in missiles on the missile site if we can’t get the warheads destroyed.”
“Oh, yes, I like that.”
Murdock lowered his voice. “I don’t see any rings, so I’d guess that you aren’t married.”
She laughed, and it reminded him of earlier times. “No, not married, and I see you aren’t either. Hasn’t Ardith trapped you yet?”
“Not yet. Have you eaten?”
“Yes, and I even got three hours of sleep. I�
�m ready. My tools are packed, we have the right explosives all packaged ready to push fuses into. Now, I want to get off this ship and get moving before I start to get nervous.”
* * *
A half hour before takeoff, the SEALs and Kat waited on the flight deck. Their gear, in waterproof tote bags, was all stowed on board. Each bag had a SEAL’s name on it. They carried their weapons ready to be strapped over their backs on rubber tubing, and all had on camouflage makeup smeared in jagged patterns on their faces and noses, and their ears were blackened out.
Murdock came out of the Sea Knight chopper and waved the platoon forward. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We’ve got places to go, and warheads to blast into shards of worthless junk.”
6
The Mediterranean Sea, Off Libya
The Navy Sea Knight skimmed the small chop on the Mediterranean as it bored through the just-dark sky less than fifty feet off the water. The pilot told Murdock the low course would help prevent any new Libyan radar from spotting them.
The flight from the deck of the carrier would be less than twenty-five minutes to the drop-off point a half mile offshore. Murdock had his platoon as ready as they could be. He had given Kat a quick refresher course on the Draegr LAR V, the bubbleless rebreather, then taken her on deck and she’d fired two magazines through her submachine gun.
“Oh, yes, I remember,” she’d said as she quickly dropped out the empty magazine and slammed in a full one and chambered a round.
In the big chopper, Murdock checked his watch. “Time,” he shouted at the troops. They lined up on each side of the helicopter and waited for the aft hatch to open. The craft slowed, then hovered ten feet over the water. The hatch swung downward forming a ramp, and the SEALs ran forward, stepped into space, then almost at once plunged into the cold water of the Mediterranean.
They surfaced quickly, gathered in their two squads, and Murdock led them in their underwater swim toward shore. They dropped down fifteen feet and kicked through the dark waters. Murdock used the compass board, a plastic device about a foot square with a large lighted compass in the center and handholds on both sides. Using it, SEALs can follow a direct course while underwater to their target position.
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