As soon as the tie-down was completed, Jaybird put both hands against the side of the ship, testing the magnets strength. They held. He put one foot against the ship’s hull, then the other one, with the magnets grabbing the metal. Then he began the slow work of going one hand and one foot at a time as he worked his way up the side of the ship. A thin nylon line trailed from his combat vest.
“Cover him,” Murdock said. The same thing happened at Bravo Squad’s location, where Colt Franklin went up the side of the ship. Murdock could see Jaybird. He was halfway up. Then two jerks came on the line, and Jaybird tied off the climbing rope. A few moments later, two more jerks came on the climbing rope.
The SEALs in Alpha Squad were lined up at the side of the ship. They allowed ten feet of free rope, then another man started up the rope. Four men would be on the rope at once before the first one reached the top.
After Jaybird tied off the climbing rope to a sturdy stanchion, he faded into the shadows of some machinery at the side of the deck eight feet from the rail. He waited. Ching came over the rail, swung his weapon off his back, and moved beside Jaybird. They were to move to the bridge, take down any civilians there, and take control of the bridge.
This was the dicey time, when half the squad was on the rope and only two of them were on the deck. Jaybird heard something, a motor grinding. Suddenly the metal he leaned against vanished into the deck, and when he looked around he found himself staring at a pair of missile firing tubes. Directly in back of that a false cover swung back to reveal a machine gun aimed directly at Jaybird.
Jaybird hit his Motorola. “Abort, abort. This thing is no rust bucket. Missile tubes, machine guns, and that’s just so far. This tub is a Chinese man-of-war, either a destroyer or a frigate.”
“Confirmed?” Murdock asked.
“Fuck, yes!” Franklin shouted into his throat mike. “I’ve got all kinds of firepower staring at me from a hundred-and-thirty-millimeter guns to torpedoes. Abort.”
Jaybird dove for the rail. The machine gun chattered and rounds slammed into the area where he had been. He rolled twice, hit the rail, and went overboard. Ching was right behind him. Ching felt a hard blow to his back, but didn’t drop his weapon. He slid under the rail and jumped feet-first into the Mediterranean below.
The men on the ropes dropped off, hit the water, and swam for the IBS. Three men remained on each of the small boats. They cut the lines holding their craft to the side of the freighter.
Murdock saw muzzle flashes from the rail above. The overhang meant the gunners had to lean out over the rail to get a shot at the side of the ship where the boats were. Murdock slammed three three-round bursts at the muzzle flashes above, and felt his craft slide away from the freighter. Somebody on the motor kicked it over, and they swept farther away from the freighter. It would take the big ship a half mile to stop.
Even now the ship slid away from them.
“SEALs,” Murdock bellowed. “Find your boats. We’re here waiting for you.”
Murdock’s earpiece buzzed. “We’ve got four in our boat,” DeWitt said on the Motorola. “One more coming on board. I’m still light by three. Use light sticks?”
“Not yet. They could have machine guns aft. Make a lovely target. Hold. We just got one more. I’m four short here.”
Murdock kept calling. Two more of his squad found the IBS and were dragged on board.
When the big ship was only a shadow in the distant darkness, Murdock broke out two light sticks, the kind you bend to break an internal barrier letting two chemicals come together and glow. He had two red ones.
“SEALs,” he bellowed again. “We’re here. Find us.” He turned to Senior Chief Dobler. “Who are we missing?”
“First two men up, Ching and Jaybird.”
“Anybody get shot on the deck?” Murdock asked.
Ed DeWitt came on the radio. “We are still missing one man. We think he was hit when he was on deck. The number-one man up the rope after Franklin. It’s Canzoneri.”
Holt came up with the SATCOM ready. “Call, sir?”
Murdock took the handset. “TAC Two?” he said. Holt nodded. “This is In the Wet, calling Knight One. Can you read?”
No response.
Murdock waited a minute, had two more glow sticks activated, and then tried again.
“This is In the Wet. Knight One, can you read?”
A response came back at once.
“Wet, this is Knight One. Trouble?”
“Right. Can you reverse that thing and come get us?”
“That’s a Roger. We’re at land base, but can be moving in five. Give us a Mugger location.”
DeWitt had been listening to the talk over the Motorola. He read off a series of coordinates to Murdock, who passed them on.
“See you in thirty-two. A parachute red flare would be helpful.”
“Can do, Knight One. In thirty-two.”
Murdock signed off, told Holt to keep the channel open to receive, and looked out at the gentle Mediterranean. He was glad there was no bad weather.
“Call out, you guys, make some racket. We have thirty minutes to find our last three men. We will not leave anyone behind.”
11
Murdock took out his night-vision goggles and kept scanning the swells around them. Dark water that looked green in the night viewing. He thought he saw something to the left. No, only a swell that formed a small whitecap on top. Just what they didn’t need, a rising sea.
He quartered one area, then another, working all the way around the IBS. The two boats were still tied together.
“We’ve found a man,” the Motorola said. It was De Witt. “Not sure who it is yet.”
Murdock kept looking. Every man in the boat checked harder to find any sign of their two lost men.
“It’s Ching,” DeWitt said on the radio. “He’s got a wound in the upper chest. Not sure how bad it is. We’ll stop the bleeding. We still need two men.”
“Jaybird and Canzoneri,” Murdock said. Both had been on deck of the craft when the shooting started. Sitting ducks. Jaybird had said the ship was a Naval vessel? Franklin said there was all sorts of firepower around, including a 130mm gun and torpedoes. Jaybird had mentioned missile tubes and machine guns.
“Better tell somebody that ship is a Chinese destroyer,” DeWitt said. “She’s camouflaged, but now her cover is blown.”
Murdock used his binoculars and stared the way the Chinese ship had vanished. “If she’s a destroyer, she’ll be coming back to clean up,” Murdock said on the mike. “Let’s get those two men.”
“The men we’ve recovered so far have all been ahead of us, down the path of the freighter,” Senior Chief Dobler said. “Let’s power up and move that way a hundred yards.”
Murdock nodded. “Do it. Tell the other boat.”
They motored ahead slowly, watching new territory.
“Swimmer to port,” somebody called. DeWitt’s boat was leading and he powered that way. A moment later he reported.
“We’ve got Jaybird. Looks like he’s got a dislocated shoulder. No gunfire wounds.”
“Good. Now let’s find Canzoneri.”
They kept moving slowly forward. Then a light stick in green glowed just over the swells well ahead of them, vanishing now and then, but soon showing again.
“To starboard, light stick,” Murdock shouted. The boats motored that way, losing the light stick, then finding it at the top of the next swell. Murdock’s boat got to him first. They dragged Canzoneri into the boat, and then saw that the light stick was jammed in the shoulder section of the combat vest. Canzoneri was not breathing.
Mahanani laid him as flat as they could get him in the craft and did mouth-to-mouth CPR. Three minutes, then four, Mahanani kept it up.
Then Canzoneri heaved upward as vomit and seawater exploded out of his mouth, drenching Mahanani.
“Yeah, you fucker, you can throw up on me any time,” Mahanani said. He wiped Canzoneri’s mouth, lifted his shoulders a little,
and put Canzoneri’s head in his lap.
Murdock turned to find Holt. The radioman held out the SATCOM handset. “You want to make a call?”
Murdock grinned. “How in hell do you do that, Holt?” He took the mike and talked to the chopper coming for them.
“Relay to whoever you can that the Chinese rust-bucket tanker is actually a destroyer in disguise, with full arms, torpedoes, and missile tubes. That’s all we saw on our quick tour of the main deck. It’s no rust bucket, and should be able to make at least twenty-two knots if it wants to. So far it hasn’t come back to finish us. They knew we were coming, which means they have excellent radar.”
“Copy, In the Wet. Will forward your report to my CO. Our ETA your last coordinates is fifteen minutes.”
“We’ll have all sorts of light sticks for your welcome,” Murdock said. “No sign of the Chinese warship.” He signed off and tried to relax. Half of the Motorolas were not working due to a sudden swim.
“Skipper, Jaybird is in a lot of pain over here,” DeWitt said on the box. “Can Mahanani pull an arm back in its shoulder socket?”
Murdock pointed at Mahanani. “Never done it, J.G., but I’ve seen it done. Want me to come over there?”
“Jaybird says it’s worth a try. He says his shoulder can’t possibly hurt any more.”
“It will for a few seconds. We’ll pull the boats together.”
Two minutes later, Mahanani stared down at Jaybird, who sat on the bench. “You ready for this, SEAL?”
“Just goddamn do it, or give me a .45 with a round in the chamber.”
“I’ll do it.” Mahanani put his foot in Jaybird’s right armpit and took hold of his right wrist with both hands. He had felt the dislocation and figured which way he had to pull. He increased the pressure with his foot, then suddenly pulled out and down.
Jaybird let out a bellow of pain that they must have heard in Athens. “You killed me, you sonofabitch. Why the fuck did you have to do…” He stopped. “Hey, the hurt is not as bad, it’s fading away.”
Jaybird yelped in delight, then faced Mahanani. “Hey, don’t you never die, you motherfucker. We need you in this outfit.” It was the highest praise one SEAL could give another.
The chopper showed up a quarter of a mile from where the two IBSs bobbed in the Mediterranean, which was now showing routine whitecaps. The big bird did a circle, spotted the half-dozen light sticks, and came in slowly.
Murdock had been on the SATCOM.
“Yeah, funny bird with propeller on top. Come in right over the first boat. We’ll try to go up the ladder from the boat. Should work. In any case we dump the boats. They are expendable.”
“That’s a Roger, Wet Ones. Be right there.”
Ed’s boatload went first. He had the two wounded. Ching swore at them.
“No sling for me, you shitheads. I can climb the fucking ladder. Done it a thousand times.”
“You’re shot up, Ching.”
“I go first just to show you lowlifes how to do it.”
Mahanani had stayed in DeWitt’s boat. He signaled to the J.G. that he would be right behind Ching.
The bird came in slowly, positioned directly overhead, and turned on the landing lights. Ching grabbed the trailing wooden and rope ladder, and got his feet on the bottom rung. He was two grabs from the top when his left hand slipped off the rung. Mahanani was a step behind him, and went up beside him and hoisted the 180-pound Ching up the last two steps, where two men in the chopper grabbed him and boosted him inside.
After that it was routine. Jaybird needed help on the last rung. The chopper moved to the second boat. Canzoneri had recovered, and went up the ladder quickly. The rest of Alpha Squad made it inside.
Murdock climbed the rope and rungs as the last man, and at the hatch turned and fired six rounds into each of the two IBSs. They wouldn’t sink quickly, but over four or five hours they would take on enough water to sink so low in the water they would be hard to spot.
The hatch swung upward, and the SEALs slumped on the floor of the chopper. The crew chief called Murdock to the cabin, where the pilot gave him a throat mike and earpiece to the radio.
“Yes, sir, Admiral, you heard right. That Chinese rust bucket is a disguised and camouflaged Chinese destroyer. Those panels swing back to show missile-launching tubes, a 130mm cannon, machine guns, and deck torpedoes. That was all our men saw in the short time they had before they aborted our mission and dove overboard. We have one man wounded and another one hurt and we almost lost one man. Yes, I’ll talk to the President and tell him the same thing. If those other missiles are on board that Chinese man-of-war, it’s going to be damn hard to take a look at them.”
Murdock listened on the earphones.
“Yes, sir, we’ll be in Athens in about half an hour and we’ll be glad to bring our eyewitnesses to a debriefing with anyone you chose. But first I have two wounded I need to take care of. What kind of medical do you have there?”
“Just a small clinic with one doctor,” said the admiral. “We often use a hospital in Athens that is excellent.”
“Could you have an ambulance waiting for my men? One has been shot in the upper chest. Not critical but serious. Another man was revived from drowning with CPR, and I want his lungs checked over.”
“Yes, Commander, we’ll have medical waiting, but we request that you put him in the medics’ hands and come to our debriefing as soon as you set down. There could be a lot riding on this debriefing.”
“My wounded come first, sir. If you can assure me they will be in good hands…”
“They will be, Commander. I’ve seen these doctors in action. The hospital is as good as most in the U.S.”
“Fine. As soon as my two men are in that ambulance, we’ll come to the debriefing.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
Murdock handed the mike and earplug back to the pilot.
“Thanks, Lieutenant, for the ride. You held this chopper as steady on our pickup as I’ve ever seen it done. You do good work.”
The pilot slipped on the radio gear and nodded.
“Debriefing in Athens?” DeWitt said. “They want to talk to our men who were on the deck?”
“About the size of it. A pair of admirals have flown in from somewhere, and somebody from NATO. They said they have already brought Kat over from the carrier. Big party.”
When the chopper landed, an ambulance was waiting. A doctor checked Ching.
“The bullet that hit him is still inside. We’ll need to operate and find it.” He listened to Canzoneri’s lungs and shook his head. “His lungs don’t sound right. He’d better come to the hospital as well. They will be in good hands, Commander, I guarantee.”
A bus took the rest of the SEALs and their equipment to a NATO facility where they would be debriefed. Jaybird, Franklin, DeWitt, and Murdock reported to the meeting room as soon as they arrived. They were told not to change clothes or even wash up. Time was vital.
The debriefing went about as Murdock figured it would. The two admirals were joined by a general from Germany and two nuclear experts, as well as Kat from the carrier. The panel of debriefers sounded more like a courts-martial panel. They grilled the two SEALs who had been on the Chinese ship’s deck.
Jaybird and Franklin reported what they had seen on board the Chinese ship.
“No, sir, I didn’t see any Chinese personnel,” Jaybird said. “I did see a machine gun firing at me and four missile-firing tubes. She’s a destroyer or a frigate and definitely military.”
By noon the debriefing was over. Murdock and DeWitt were asked to stay, along with Kat, to talk to the debriefing team. A civilian entered the room. He introduced himself as Horner from NEST. Murdock remembered that was for Nuclear Energy Search Team. What was he doing here? That team was called in on a broken arrow, a radiation spill, or a leaking warhead.
Now the tone of the meeting changed. Admiral Tanning spoke first. “We now have intel that shows us almost one hundred percent that five of the
six Satan missiles taken from Ukraine are on this Chinese ship which you now claim is a warship. Our problem: How do we confront the ship and the Chinese government? How do we stop and search the ship without causing an international incident? How do we get the missiles out of Chinese hands?”
“Some more information for you,” General Archibald said. “We have intel from our people in the Ukraine that the two managers of the secret missile storage area outside Odessa evidently were the traitors who sold the missiles. The price tag was something over seventy million dollars.
“However, both the managers were found shot dead in the warehouse where the missiles were stored before on-loading on the Chinese ship and the Libyan-bound freighter. Traces of nuclear leakage were found on the floor of the warehouse. There was no trace of any payment money, so the Chinese probably faked that or took the money with them.”
“So, how do we treat this ship?” Admiral Tanning asked.
Murdock looked around and saw no one ready to comment, so he did. “We treat them the same as we did in Libya. Just because China is already a nuclear power should not make any difference. We committed an act of war against Libya by going in with our military and destroying the remaining warheads that they had purchased on the open market. We felt in the name of international peace we were justified. We should treat the Chinese ship the same.”
“Are you suggesting that we attack her, maybe sink her?” General Archibald asked.
“As a last resort,” Murdock replied. “There are many ways we can slow, harass, even stop the ship in mid-Mediterranean. One example would be to disable the ship, force it into port for repairs, and then take it over by force. Along that line, SEALs can plant a pair of limpet mines on each side of the hull aft and flood some of the holds. This would require some quick porting.”
The admirals and the general looked at each other. “An act of war now could save millions of lives if these warheads went to the wrong parties,” Admiral Tanning said. “We realize that. The President and NATO are extremely concerned. If we do anything to that Chinese ship, it will be under NATO auspices, a spread-the-blame procedure.”
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