Captain Ralston smiled. “Good, good. I think this little talk has been of some benefit for you. I’ll call the communications center and have them set up a call with the White House. As you know, there is little chance you’ll talk directly with the President. But he will get the message.”
Twenty minutes later, Captain Ralston left the communications center when Kat picked up the handset.
“I’d like to speak with the President, please. This is Katherine Garnet on the aircraft carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Mediterranean.”
“Yes, Miss Garnet. Congratulations on your successful mission on the nine warheads. I’m the President’s personal secretary and he knows about your good work. He left an hour ago for Europe and can be reached only in emergencies.”
Kat stared at the handset.
“Miss Garnet, are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“The President tried to call you, but we couldn’t get through to the ship. Some mix-up somewhere. He’ll try to call again tomorrow. May I offer you my congratulations on saving the world from nine more nuclear explosions and the millions of lives you saved.”
“Thanks, but the SEALs did most of it. I… I’ll wait for the President’s call. Thank you.”
When they first arrived in the assembly compartment, the SEALs had dropped their gear, had a big supper-type breakfast, and fallen into bed in their quarters. Mahanani had taken care of any scrapes and scratches. Ching had had what they decided was a sprained finger. They’d taped it tightly to the finger next to it.
Murdock showered after his meal, and dropped into bed, one of a six-pack officers compartment. De Witt was in the bunk over him.
Three hours after he got to bed, Murdock came awake with a start. Don Stroh was shaking his shoulder.
“Okay, sailor, up and at ’em. You’ve had more than enough sleep for one day. The captain wants to see you.”
Murdock came awake instantly. It was a skill he’d had to develop in the SEALs the first month he’d arrived, and he had maintained it.
“Captain? The ship’s captain or the CAG?”
“Yeah, the fly guy. He says he just received some messages from Air Force One and from the CNO. Sounds like they have made up their mind about the next move.”
Murdock decided to let DeWitt sleep. He dressed, and Stroh led him to the carrier’s Combat Information Center. It was the heart of the ship’s battle capability. All combat information came in there, and most of it showed on a large display of screens.
Captain Prescott nodded at the two and led them to a screen.
“This is a feed from our AWACS plane monitoring the Chinese ship. At the moment, she’s almost dead in the water. A small ship of some sort is approaching her, and it looks like some kind of a meeting or a mid-sea transfer. Either way, we don’t like it. Wanted to let you see this so you know that we know what the Chinese are doing all the time.”
He took two sheets of paper from a small desk area and waved them. “The gist of this signal from the President is that we have a green light to go ahead and stop, board, take control, examine, and generally satisfy ourselves that there are or there aren’t any of the former Soviet Satan missiles on board.
“The only vessel we have in the area is a missile cruiser at Athens. She’s been alerted, and has left one of her helicopters onshore. She will be ready to receive a visiting Sea Knight, if that is what we decide. She is now steaming in the general direction of the Chinese ship, the Star of Asia, a freighter in poor condition.”
“You also got the signal through Navy channels?” Murdock asked.
“Yes, from the CNO through channels. It took a little over an hour more than it did for the message to come from the President. At least we’re legal.”
“So we figure out how to take down a rusty Chinese freighter on the high seas?” Murdock asked.
“That’s the size of it, Commander. I understand your men have done this before.”
“We have. How big is this freighter?”
“About the size of our combat stores ships. Five hundred and eighty feet, about sixteen thousand tons. That’s a generality, but that’s the signals we get back.”
“So, we go from here to Athens in a COD. Pickup the Sea Knight in Athens and join the cruiser in the Aegean Sea. That’s the easy part.” Murdock paused. “Anything about timing of our attack? My men just came off an all-night mission.”
“The President mentions that in the signal. He said if you could get to the freighter sometime tonight, it would be the best scenario.”
“Tonight?” Murdock looked at his watch. It was 1206. “So we’re still nearly eight hundred miles from Athens. The Carrier Onboard Delivery planes make about three hundred and fifty miles an hour. A two-and-a-half-hour flight. Then make connections at the Athens municipal airport, or do we have some military in Greece?”
“We have some military. Athens is about seventy-five miles from the Chinese freighter. We have a COD on board here that you can use anytime.”
“It sounds possible. My men can sleep on the trip. Not more than a half hour on the Sea Knight to the freighter. Then we go out the hatch with our IBSs and go up the freighter’s rusty side and take her down. We’ll need hand and foot magnet climbers, the kind our men use when working parts of the exterior hull.”
“I’m sure we have them. When do you want the COD to be ready for takeoff?”
Murdock looked at his watch again. “We’ll plan a midnight attack. Gives us twelve hours. Let’s let the men sleep two more hours, then we’ll get them up and moving. We’ll need breakfast and box lunches. Also a resupply on ammo and explosives. Oh, do you have two IBSs? Inflatable rubber boats?”
“One of our support ships has some. We’ll get two of them on board within an hour.”
“Good. You’ll clear this with the XO and the captain? I’m getting bugged about going through channels.”
Captain Prescott grinned. “I know the feeling. Yes, I’ll inform them of the plan.”
Murdock stood. “I better get my second up and briefed. You’ll alert the kitchen crew we’ll need breakfast in three hours?”
“Right. Our cooks can come up with any kind of meal any time of the day.”
Murdock grinned, waved, and headed for his compartment. He had to get DeWitt up and moving and briefed. DeWitt knew where Senior Chief Dobler bunked. Two hours’ more sleep for the men, then they would be up.
Murdock wondered how Kat was doing. At least she wouldn’t be along on this run. He poked DeWitt on the shoulder.
“Hey sailor, get up. Time we do it again.”
DeWitt came alert slowly. He sat up, shook his head.
“We’re going after the damn freighter?”
“Roger.”
“Wonder if they have any Chinese troops on board. Ah, probably not. It’s just an old rust-bucket freighter.”
10
The SEALs were ready when the COD rolled up. They had spent an hour checking gear, getting weapons cleaned and oiled, and making everything ready. Kat had come down and sat watching them. Murdock had phoned her earlier and told her that they wouldn’t need her on this mission.
“Kat, our first job is to take down the ship, seize control. Then we can spot a place on the deck, clear it out, and have an LZ for you to step into from a hovering chopper. When we need you to look over the warheads, we’ll call you in. I’m not about to mess with that kind of nuclear power myself.”
“I can go up the side of that ship as well as any of your men.”
Murdock chuckled. “Hey, Kat, I know it. But somebody might start shooting, and that’s our strong point. So let the guys do their thing, and then we’ll use the SATCOM and get you on board quickly.”
“This is assuming that there are missiles and warheads on board that Chinese ship.”
“Assuming, yes, Kat. But there’s not much of a choice where they can put them. They could have ferried them all to land for a trans-Siberia plane ride, but I don’t think so.”
“Well, we’re flattered. You want to go even after what happened early this morning back there in Libya?”
“Yes. I’m working through it. I decided not to tell the President that I wanted to quit.”
“Good. You have a nap and some dinner and if all goes well tonight, we just might be calling you for a helicopter ride come daylight.”
“I’ll be ready.” She paused. “Murdock, thanks for hanging in there with me when I was coming apart at the seams.”
“Hey, nice lady. We all have our seams. See you tomorrow.”
A half hour later, the SEALs trooped into the COD. It was exactly like the ones they had used around the world. A workhorse for a fast ride onto or off an aircraft carrier.
The flight to Athens was routine, well within the range of the C-2A Greyhound. They landed on what looked like a military airstrip, but nobody explained to them where they were. A Navy Sea Knight dropped down within thirty yards of the COD, and the SEALs left one plane for the next. In the interim they moved their uninflated IBSs into the chopper and inflated them, positioning them at the rear of the craft next to the aft hatch. First they would push out the boats, then jump in after them all from about ten feet off the water if they were lucky. Just the way they had practiced that day off San Diego in the Pacific Ocean.
The pilot came back and checked with Murdock after the sixteen SEALs had settled into the bird.
“Commander, we have a little over a half hour flight time. The target ship is steaming at ten knots again in a generally southern direction. As I understand it, you want to jump out about a mile to the front of the freighter and on its line of travel.”
“Right, Lieutenant, and we don’t want the Chinese to know we’re there. We stay a mile away, they won’t hear us. If that old scow has the kind of radar on it I expect it to, they won’t have a prayer of spotting the chopper.”
“That sounds good to me. I don’t think I’ll ever trust those damned Chinese to do or say what we expect them to. We’re out of here in about three minutes.”
The crew chief buttoned up the craft and went with the pilot back to the small cockpit.
Murdock took advantage of the quiet before takeoff to talk to the men.
“We’re about half an hour to getting wet. We go out, get in our boats and wait for the freighter. One man will go up the side from each boat and they’ll use two drop lines for the rest of us. Any questions?”
“What if the old tub is so rusty that our magnets don’t hold?” Jaybird asked.
“Then the climber will detour to another area where the magnets will hold. The boats in the water will follow the climber wherever he goes.”
Then the big rotor cranked up, the engine howled, and they lifted gently off the ground.
Jaybird Sterling sat on the floor of the chopper beside Senior Chief Dobler. He leaned away a little so he wouldn’t touch the chief. He had been trying his best to avoid talking to the chief lately. Ever since he’d kissed the chief’s daughter, he had been so mixed up he could hardly breathe.
He shook his head remembering. Ke-reist, no girl had ever set him off the way she did. The soft little way she had of moving her hands when she talked. The easy-to-get-along-with conversations they had. Then that kiss in the stacks. He shook his head again. It had never happened that way before.
He didn’t know how old she was. She had to be seventeen at least. Hell, he could wait a year — if he could see her now and then. The library was the best bet. Yeah, first thing they got home, he was going to call her when he knew her dad would be at the BUD/S. Yeah. That would work.
What if when Helen was eighteen, Chief Dobler still objected to Jaybird seeing her? What then? Hell, he’d cross over that minefield when he came to it. Carefully, but he’d get across. Hell, he was a SEAL. That should count for something with her old man. Saving his ass a time or two under enemy fire would help. Yeah, and not fuck up between now and then. That was the big one.
Jaybird had played football and baseball in high school. He was good, but not good enough to get a scholarship anywhere. Like so many players, his folks couldn’t afford to send him to college. He didn’t want to go to some rinky-dink junior college or a state college, especially in Oregon where he grew up. So he cut out for the Navy when he was just over eighteen.
It took him three years to get into the SEALs, and he’d been slaving in Third Platoon now for another three years. Hey, there was almost nothing that would get him out of the SEALs.
The new guys to the unit kept asking him how he got his nickname. They knew it meant naked, as in naked as a jaybird. He had told so many different stories now that he hardly remembered how it actually happened.
His best story was that he had this dish down at the beach and it was late and nobody was around. They went skinny-dipping just before dark, and when they got back to shore, saw a group of twenty or so had parked right beside their clothes and towels, set up a volleyball net, and had a game going. Others had started a fire in a fire ring, and they all appeared to be settled in for the evening.
That left him and his girl both naked and getting cold. She cried and yelled at him to go get her clothes. He tried, but one of the men spotted him and chased him back into the water. After that they decided he should go back to the car for a blanket and use that to go get their clothes and towels.
Of course his keys were in his pants pocket on the blanket. Still, he said he could break in. He had a secret way. He ran up the cliff to the parking spot, and had almost succeeded in prying loose the driver’s side door when two cops grabbed him. Next thing he knew he was in the county lockup wearing jail clothes. The cops wouldn’t believe his story. They impounded the car. He had to call Murdock to come bail him out.
It was two weeks later before a package came for him with his clothes, his wallet, and his car keys. The girl who mailed the bundle back to him refused his phone calls and he never saw her again.
Jaybird grinned. That was one of the best ones. Yeah, those stories wouldn’t help any with the senior chief. He’d have to start toeing the line, doing everything right.
Damn it to hell, he wondered just how old Helen was.
* * *
The chopper’s radar picked up the freighter when they were five miles off, flying at a hundred feet over the dark waters of the Mediterranean. The Star of Asia had not changed course, and had slowed to seven knots. They were still well ahead of the freighter. The pilot reported that they would move up to within a mile of the craft, check the course again, and drop the SEALs off.
At the one-mile mark, Murdock went up and looked through the cockpit window. He could see the running lights of the freighter. It didn’t have the look of a ship trying to hide.
“Listen up,” the crew chief shouted. “In one minute the aft hatch will open. Then you’re on your own. Dump those big rubber boats out of my chopper and jump in after them. Good luck.”
The SEALs came to their feet, checked each other’s gear, then lined up with a squad on each side.
The aft hatch swung down, making a ramp.
The SEALs pushed the first raft out the door, then the second one. The bird had come to a complete stop, and hovered about fifteen feet over the water.
“Go, go, go,” Murdock bellowed. The two lines of SEALs ran forward and jumped off the end of the ramp. Two seconds later they were wet and clawing for the surface, their heavy combat load dragging them down.
It took them almost five minutes to get the IBSs righted, and for the SEALs to climb into them. Murdock made a vocal check to be sure all sixteen men were on board. The two boats were tied together with a twenty-foot cord.
“Directly to our rear you can see the lights from the freighter,” Murdock said. “The pilot checked with the plane overhead and we know this is the right ship, the Star of Asia, of Chinese registry. We’ll both stay on the same side, the way we practiced it. Keep the boats tied together and latch them onto the hull. As soon a
s we touch, I want the two climbers moving up with the pull cord attached. Everyone get out your Motorolas and let’s get on the net. Questions?”
There were none.
“We’re drifting off the ship’s course,” Lam said. “About a three-knot drift.”
“Start the engines,” Murdock said. “Let’s keep as close to that course as we can. The ship should be here in nine minutes.”
The SEALs shivered. They had done this a hundred times before, but they never became used to the cold. They had elected not to wear their wet suits. They wouldn’t be in the water long enough to justify them, and the suits would slow them down once they made it up the ropes to the deck.
The time dragged. Someone told a dirty joke. That triggered a dozen more.
Murdock hushed them after three minutes. “Coming up on us. Hold it down.”
Now they could see the ship better. They could make out the different-colored navigation lights standard on all vessels. Then a minute later they could hear the growl of the diesel engines inside the big ship, and the gentle hiss as the bow parted the waves.
The ship would miss them by forty yards.
“Let’s move up on her,” Murdock said. “Match her speed, then we edge in beside her amidships and latch on with our magnets. Go.”
The twelve-foot-long-by-six-foot-wide rubber boats moved closer to the ship, matched its speed, then angled toward the hull that soon towered over them. Murdock guessed it would be a forty-foot climb. This part they hadn’t practiced.
Ching perched on the edge of the IBS nearest the big hull and held the powerful magnet. It had a line tied to it and looped around a rope tie-down that circled the top edge of the small craft.
“Closer,” Ching whispered. The small boat edged in again, countering the soft wake of the large craft. Then Ching lunged to the side, planted the magnet on the side of the ship, and at once tugged the line tight, holding the IBS against the large freighter.
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