“What ever happened to the Cowpens, that U.S. cruiser that was in Athens when we began this?” DeWitt asked.
“Plans were changed when we found out the Chinese ship was so close to Athens,” Murdock said. “Forget to tell you that. I understand that the Cowpens is playing a role.”
Admiral Tanning nodded. “Indeed. She sailed as soon as we were sure the Chinese ship had the missiles, and has been shadowing her about ten miles off. The Cowpens would be a good platform for any SEAL operation, or any other move on the Chinese.”
The quizzers talked to Kat then, asking about the type of warheads she had worked on, how they were set up, how she deactivated them, how long it took. And what she suggested they do if they did capture the five remaining missiles with the fifty warheads on board.
Admiral Tanning shook his head. “As for our next step, we don’t know. We’ll talk with the President within the hour. He will consult with NATO. Anything we do must be authorized by the highest authority, as well as NATO. But this does not mean it will take weeks to happen. I expect that some decision will be made within three or four hours. Until then, we hold fast.”
Then the session was over and Murdock tarried, so he could ask Admiral Tanning if he had any orders for him and his platoon.
“No sense your going back to the carrier. We’ll have our other carrier in the Mediterranean that’s a lot closer come up to this area. In the long run, we may have to push a battle group around the Chinese ship and make her show her true colors or get blown out of the water by any one of fourteen ships or eighty-five aircraft.”
He stared at Murdock for a moment. “Commander, I admire what you and your men do. See to your wounded and I’ll get orders cut so you remain here on this NATO base until we figure out what to do. That’s not going to be long. That Chinese ship could kick up to twenty-five knots and be in the Suez Canal within a day or two. We can’t let that happen.”
At the temporary quarters the SEALs were assigned, they settled in and cleaned their weapons and oiled them. They always had to clean them well after a dunking in salt water.
Murdock called the hospital where his men were. After several tries with operators, he got one who spoke English and was connected to the nurse who was attending his men.
“Commander, your one man with the lung problem is doing fine. A week’s rest here and he’ll be good as new. Your other man with the bullet wound… He’s in surgery right now and the doctor told me, if you called, to urge you to get over here as fast as you can. The operation isn’t going well.”
Murdock grabbed his clean cammy shirt and pulled it on as he ran out of the officers’ quarters looking for some transportation to the Athens hospital. Damnit, he wasn’t about to lose Ching.
12
Athens, Greece
The driver of the NATO sedan who took Murdock to the Athens hospital told him the Greek name of the hospital meant mercy. Murdock hoped the name was accurate. He talked to two people at the front desk before he found the English-speaking nurse who had talked to him on the phone. She met him in the lobby and took him to a waiting room just off the operating room.
“Mr. Ching is still in the OR, but the operation should be nearly done. I’ll go and check. He has improved since I spoke to you last. One doctor said that they had found several fragments of the bullet, and that no vital organs had been hit; however, there has been serious damage to his upper body and one shard penetrated his left lung. It has been removed, and the lung is back to normal functioning.”
“Good. Let me know when I can see him.” The nurse nodded and went through a door into the operating room area.
Murdock sat down, and couldn’t stop thinking about the Chinese ship. She had to be a destroyer, camouflaged and outfitted to look like a freighter. They must have changed all of the antennas, or fixed them so they could be raised when needed.
He’d seen the book on Chinese destroyers. They were loaded with highly efficient missiles, torpedoes, and all sorts of firepower. He was certain that the admiral would ask him how the SEALs could disable the ship and force it into a nearby port, where the national port authorities could take over, seize the ship, and confiscate the nuclear warheads. Great idea if it worked. It would depend on how much damage the SEALs could inflict.
It couldn’t be so much that they would sink the craft. No real chance of that with limpet mines. Just damage her enough to make her go into port. He wished he had a schematic of the ship showing its structure. Somewhere aft would be best. Not the engine room.
He was still trying to work out a plan when a doctor came through the OR doors and walked up to Murdock.
“Your sailor is alive. Getting better. My English poor.”
The nurse who had talked to Murdock before hurried up and spoke with the doctor, then translated.
“This is Dr. Arjarack. He was the surgeon who worked on Mr. Ching. He says that all of the metal is removed and Mr. Ching should be fine in two months. No strenuous exercises from now to then. He’ll be in the hospital here for a week to watch for infection and any other developments. Then he’ll be released.”
Murdock thanked the nurse, shook the doctor’s hand, and headed back to the NATO compound. The driver and his car were waiting for him in a VIP spot just outside the hospital doors. Nice to have a little clout somewhere.
* * *
“So how the fourteen of us gonna knock down a fucking destroyer?” Ostercamp brayed. “We just got our asses kicked out there in the briny deep, don’t forget.”
“Attention on the deck,” Senior Chief Dobler barked, and the SEALs jumped to their feet.
Murdock came in the door and grinned at the regular Navy discipline. It didn’t hurt now and then. The SEALs didn’t make a habit of it.
“As you were,” Murdock said.
“How are the guys?” Jaybird asked.
“Canzoneri should be back in two or three days. Observation. That slug that ripped into Ching shattered and went all over his chest. They think they got all of it, but had to do some cutting. He won’t be with us anymore on this mission. In a week or so I’ll get him flown back to Balboa Navy Hospital in San Diego.”
“So we’re down to fourteen,” DeWitt said.
“We get a mission yet to take out that destroyer?” Franklin asked.
“Not yet, but we can always plan what we would do, what we can do, and be ready when the word comes down.”
“Why not our biggest limpets?” Holt asked.
“Maybe wrap cable around her screws. When she winds in the last of the cable, there’s a contact-bomb attached that blows her screw in half.” It was Paul Jefferson’s idea.
Murdock looked around. “Only two ideas? Come on, you guys, we need eight or ten.”
“Against a fucking destroyer?” Ostercamp asked.
“How about a few RPGs into her bridge?” Khai asked. “That should slow her down and get her into a port for repairs.”
“Yeah, but who wants to get within two hundred yards of her in an open boat?” Lampedusa asked.
“How about a sea-skimmer missile from a ship?” Vinnie Van Dyke asked. “They could take out half the warhead so it wouldn’t sink the sucker, just blow a hole in her hull.”
Senior Chief Dobler had a notebook out, and wrote down each idea as it came along.
“Ed, any suggestions?” Murdock asked.
“How about a Stinger missile?” DeWitt asked. “Hand-held, five feet long, up to three miles of range, and travels at Mach 1. Two-point-two pounds of high explosives with a penetrating design.”
“That’s a ground-to-air missile,” Mahanani said. “Don’t you need an IR source for it to lock onto?”
“Not sure,” DeWitt said. “The RPG sounds possible, maybe a combo limpet and RPG. What’s the best range for an RPG anyway?”
Nobody knew.
“Bradford,” Murdock said. “Get on a phone and find out the maximum and best range for the regular RPG.”
Bradford ran for the door.
&nb
sp; “My guess here is that the President and NATO will give us one shot at getting that rust-bucket destroyer into port,” Murdock went on. “If we can’t damage her enough, then the Navy’s task force with that second carrier will bear down on the Chinese and threaten to blow her out of the water if she doesn’t submit to a Greek inspection. She’s in Greek territorial waters with all these Greek islands. Then it will be up to the Chinese, to give up the missiles and warheads, or get their ship blasted into compliance without sinking her. Either way they lose.”
“Let’s hope,” DeWitt said. “Anybody hear what’s happening in Chad? Has Libya taken over the whole country? Is there any more fighting?”
Mahanani had a small powerful standard-band radio he carried, and he’d been listening to the Armed Forces Radio station.
“Chad at first capitulated,” Mahanani said. “But when they heard about the rest of the Libyan warheads being destroyed, they began fighting back again like the other time Libya invaded. Neither side has a huge army, maybe sixty or seventy thousand men. Last I heard, Chad was making slow progress in blowing Libya out of their country.”
Dobler came up and talked to Murdock. “We’ve got bunks for the men and know where the chow hall is. I hear there’s some kind of a PX, but we don’t have any money so it doesn’t matter. Maybe we should let the men get some sleep.”
“Good idea, Senior Chief.”
“Hey, Chief Dobler, is there any place around here that I can get Internet access?” Fernandez asked. “I want to send a long E-mail back to my wife.”
Dobler said he wanted to send a couple himself, and they went off hunting a computer with on-line access.
Murdock checked his watch. It was only 1309. Felt like 2200. It had been a long day and night and day. Sleep. He needed some. He found his quarters and tumbled into the bed. It was a real room with a door and just two single beds. BOQ quarters of some ilk. He didn’t fight it or even question it. He just went to sleep.
Murdock woke up at 1635 hungry as a cootie bear. He saw DeWitt sleeping, and left. The officers’ mess was not crowded. Murdock saw Admiral Tanning at another table with two men. The admiral nodded, Murdock nodded back. The food was better than he expected. He had his usual after-mission steak dinner, and went back to his quarters and rolled into bed.
Star of Asia
In the Aegean Sea
The most difficult work lay ahead.
Chen Takung watched the engineers work with increased respect. It was just past 0800, and with the new day the engineers had removed the nose cone from one of the Satan missiles in the hold. Then the first warhead had been extracted and carefully separated from the rest of the elements.
Now the engineers had to disassemble the receiving elements of the guidance system from the warhead. Chen had never seen one before. It looked like a small rocket to him, with a propulsion system and guidance controls.
The captain of the ship had asked him why they hadn’t made the Ukrainians do this work. Since what they wanted were the warheads, why not simply buy them and not the whole rocket? There were several reasons, but they all had to do with time and secrecy. Chen explained that it would not have been possible to do the breakdown of the missiles and take out the warheads in the missile storage area near Odessa.
Someone would have seen it happening and report. Neither could they take the time in the warehouse at the port to do the same job. It could be done leisurely at sea, the rest of the missile parts and body dumped overboard when the nose cone came off.
Chen checked his watch. Nearly 1400. Their radio communication with the visiting ship had been affirmative. It would rendezvous with the Star of Asia promptly at 1500. The first warhead was ready. He had been authorized to sell one missile and one warhead from another missile. The price for the single warhead was the equivalent of ten million dollars U.S.
It was the same boat that had met them two days ago. At that time the sale had been agreed to. Now the ship would bring the payment and take delivery.
Then it would be full speed toward the canal. Chen laughed softly, full speed at ten knots. He still wondered who the attackers had been during the night. His men on the deck said they were dressed in camouflaged uniforms, and had good weapons. Pirates of some ilk, ready to take down a rusted old scow of a freighter?
That was the only scenario he could think of that made sense. They had been scared off quickly. One or two had been wounded or killed. His men had made a mistake by firing too quickly. They should have waited until all of the pirates had been on the deck. None of his men had been scratched.
For a moment he wondered what his reception would be in China. He would be met in port, or perhaps well out in the Gulf of Bo Hai, with a Naval escort. There would be bands and a parade, and perhaps even President Jiang Zhemin himself would be there to pin the medals on him. Oh, yes, what a glorious day that would be.
One more sale, then the ship would head directly for the canal.
He tired of watching the engineers, and returned to the bridge. They were making five knots in a generally southern direction. Never had Chen seen so many islands. They were the Greek islands, and many of them were populated. It must be a headache to govern. He would rather have his country all in one piece with water only on one side of it.
“Sir,” one of the officers on the bridge said. “We have a ship coming up from the port side at fourteen knots. She has the radar appearance of a small freighter. Range is ten thousand meters.”
“Thanks, Commander. You better let your captain know.”
Moments later the ship’s captain came on the bridge.
“Not visual yet, sir,” the commander said. “Range now a little under ten thousand meters.”
“Try a hailing frequency,” the captain ordered.
A few minutes later the radio man returned to the bridge.
“Sir, she responded, she’s the Faizabad Roamer. That’s the same ship we contacted two days ago. She gives you her compliments and says she will be alongside shortly for a transfer of the package by high line.”
The captain shook his head. “It’s too choppy out here today for a high-line transfer. We’ll do it with a small launch. Get my gig over the side at once, Commander.”
An hour later the transfer was complete. The warhead had been cushioned with insulation inside a wooden box, then swathed with flotation blankets. Next they’d wrapped the box securely.
The money came over in the captain’s gig first; then the warhead went back. The two boats were within a hundred yards of each other for about fifteen minutes. With the safe transfer, the two boats turned heading in opposite directions.
Chen nodded. Yes, the last contact with the Western World before he headed for Mother China. He lit another cigarette and chain-smoked for an hour. All the time he thought about home, his wife, and their small son. He would be home soon. Again he wondered what his reception would be when he returned to China with forty-nine nuclear warheads. Glorious, it would be glorious.
13
NATO compound
Athens, Greece
Murdock and DeWitt had been summoned to a meeting at what looked like a corporate boardroom. It was 0720 the morning after their failed attack on the Chinese ship, and Murdock and Ed DeWitt both had been roused from a dead sleep. The oblong table in the large room was of dark wood Murdock figured was something better than mahogany. When they arrived, Admiral Tanning was waiting. So was Don Stroh.
“You boys move faster than I do,” Stroh said, “but I always catch up. The admiral needs some input before he makes a decision. Admiral Tanning, I believe you’ve met these SEALs.”
The admiral nodded, and looked up from some papers he held.
“We have a change of direction,” he said. “I thought we’d be going for the freighter/destroyer, but not now. Less than an hour ago, a ship approached the Chinese vessel and steamed alongside for some time not a hundred yards from the destroyer. We’re not certain, but we think that there was an exchange of some kind between
the two. After fifteen minutes the ships parted, going in opposite directions.
“We’ve had information from our satellite trackers and the AWACS plane in the area, that the smaller freighter is moving along at fourteen knots and heading generally southeast, which would bring it out of the Greek islands and position it for a run through the Mediterranean toward the Arab nations of the Middle East.”
Murdock frowned, bringing three deep creases to his forehead.
“So the thinking is that there could have been a transfer of a warhead or two from the Chinese ship to the second one. Do we know the registry of the second ship?”
“No. We’re trying to determine that. It may take a flyover by a jet to establish the name.”
“So we have a second ship at sea,” DeWitt said. “This one probably isn’t a destroyer. We could do the same thing we tried to do with the Chinese warship.”
“Another chance for a really bad international incident, attacking an innocent ship on the high seas,” the admiral said. “Is there a better way?”
He looked up as a Marine came in with a folder. He gave it to the admiral and retreated. Admiral Tanning looked at the papers a moment, then shook his head.
“Changes, gentlemen. The latest word from the AWACS is that the smaller freighter has changed course and is now steaming at fourteen knots back toward Athens.”
“Where she could connect with a plane to take a small package with a nuclear warhead to any country in the world,” Murdock said. “The new freighter has to be our first priority. We know where the rest of the warheads are. Where could the new one, or two or three, be going?”
“How heavy are those warheads?” DeWitt asked.
The admiral looked up. “Could be anywhere from fifty pounds to three hundred. They could carry three or four in a small boat from the destroyer to the merchantman.”
The same Marine came in with more papers. He gave them to the admiral and left.
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