“Nice try, SEAL. Good defensive move. An attack is always the best defense. Keep up the good work.” She stared at him, scowling. Then gradually the look eased and turned into a smile. A moment later they both laughed.
“Hey, we better get out of here,” Kat said. “You have to work tomorrow.”
At the sedan they found their driver finishing a Greek take-out dinner and a large container of Coke. He put it all away, held the door open for Kat, and drove them back to the NATO headquarters in Greece.
At the door of the BOQ, Kat paused. “You know, I’m the only person in this wing. Six rooms and all vacant except mine.” Kat reached up, caught Murdock’s face with both her hands, and kissed him on the lips. It lingered and then kept going. She moved away and took a long breath.
“Oh, my,” she said. “I really hadn’t planned on doing that. But I’m glad I did.” She smiled. “One more?” The kiss was more intense this time, with their mouths opening and tongues working. Murdock was the first to ease away this time.
“I think you better get yourself into your room. It’s that Greek wine, I think.”
“Really? Next time I’ll get two bottles.” She smiled, touched his face with her hand, then eased through the door and closed it.
Murdock stood there a minute. No, he told himself. He had a commitment and he was standing by it. He had a lady back in Washington, D.C. One lady was plenty for him.
* * *
The next morning was a whirl as the SEALs drew the ordnance they needed, including the four large limpet mines and explosives and more rounds for their personal weapons. The two IBSs were flown in from the closest carrier task force and dropped off at the NATO compound.
Dobler checked them both to be sure they were working properly, then deflated them and checked for new canisters to inflate. When all was right, he marked them off his list.
Kat swung by in her sedan that morning on the way to her shopping trip. She wore her Navy uniform, and wished the whole platoon good luck. She had taken special care with her hair and makeup and looked delicious, Murdock decided. He walked her back to her car.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded, but didn’t look at him. Then she turned. “Last night I wasn’t drunk when I asked you to come inside. I was lonely and overwhelmed by your charm and your delightful body and I wanted you. I’m not sorry. Yes, I remembered about Ardith Manchester back in D.C. But I took a chance. So, still friends?”
“Absolutely. I shouldn’t tell you how close you came to getting your wish. Now, get out there and be a tourist, view and sightsee and shop. Go.”
She laughed, and ran for the sedan. He watched it head for the main gate.
The SEALs had an early lunch, and flew off the base at 1320 for their two-hour ride in the Sea Knight. Most of them slept on the trip. Senior Chief Dobler read a war paperback. Murdock thought about the mission. It was a no-see mission. They would have to be careful attaching to the destroyer this time. They would have to come in ahead of it, power their boats over to it, and with small hand magnets hold their place on the side of the ship until they could get the limpets attached and the timers set.
Working on the screws would be more difficult. They would have one or two tries at each of the destroyer’s two shafts. Even if they could get clamped on to the very end of the destroyer, it would be a tough throw to get the light line that was attached to the cable into the area where the propeller was sucking in water before it blasted it out to the rear.
At ten knots it wouldn’t be such a task as it would be at thirty knots. Murdock worked it over and over in his mind. He didn’t have any better plan by the time they landed on the cruiser Cowpens. He decided not to send a swimmer under the hull with the cable and bomb. There was a big chance the swimmer would be sucked into the propeller blades and be chopped to pieces.
Murdock knew the mission had the highest priority when the XO of the Cowpens met them at the chopper pad.
“I’m Marshall,” the commander said, holding out his hand to Murdock, who was first off the helicopter. “Captain Casper wants you to know that this ship is yours. Anything you want, you get. It isn’t often we get a direct order from the CNO.”
“Murdock,” the SEAL said, taking the other man’s hand. “We won’t need much. Just want to be seven miles ahead of that Chinese destroyer just after dark. That way you should be able to stay out of his radar pattern and still get us in position.”
“No problem. Let’s get your men off here and into some quarters. We’ll feed you before you go. I see you have the IBSs. We can launch you off the fantail and put the men down on ropes. You have some ordnance?”
“Yes, heavy limpets. They can be stowed close by.”
Murdock had already assigned the attack teams. The IBSs would be tied together with a sixty-foot line. He again went over in his mind the assignments and how it would work.
The SEALs gathered in an empty compartment amidships and Murdock rehearsed the actions again. Four men had the limpets as their duties, and four more would work the propeller throw, two on each shaft.
“You other six men will be security. Watch the rail for any kind of action. Listen for any whistles or shouts from above. I don’t think they can detect the magnets on this rusty outside hull, but they just might have some sort of device to measure the jolt.”
They had chow at 1700, then cammoed their faces with black, green, and blue greasepaint, and went up to the helicopter launch pad at 1800. It was just starting to go dusk. The men wore their jungle cammies and floppy hats. A short time later the cruiser took a 45-degree turn to the left.
“We’re moving closer to the destroyer,” Murdock told the men. “We should be seven miles ahead of it. The cruiser will drop us off on the direct course of the destroyer. All we have to do is lay low and let the big bucket come to us. Then we motor up to her, clamp on our magnets, and lash up.
“The first boat has the limpets, the second the prop men. That line connecting us should be sixty feet long. First boat latches on about fifty feet from the bow and plants the limpets there. If you have time, attach three of them.
“Second boat, we latch on as close to the stern as possible. We’ll try throwing our lines under the end of the boat. It’s going to be tougher than I had figured. We try until we loose the last of our six lines.
“We’ll use the Motorola. Give me a call, Ed, when you’re done. But don’t detach until you get the word.”
A short time later the XO appeared. “We’re on course and should be seven miles ahead of the Chinese ship in two minutes. We’ll cut power and let you off directly on the destroyer’s course. Your men can go down rope ladders?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. As soon as we cut power, we’ll drop the tethered IBSs over the fantail. Good luck, SEALs.”
Two minutes later the big ship cut power and slowed in its forward progress. Another minute and the XO pointed, and sailors put the IBSs over the fantail so they would trail the ship. The crew snugged the IBSs up tight against the back of the ship and dropped rope ladders down. The SEALs went into the boats by squads, with the officers last to go down the ladders.
“Bravo Squad, you ready to cast off?” Murdock asked.
“Motor started and ready,” DeWitt said.
Murdock nodded to Lampedusa, who started the motor on Alpha Squad’s small boat.
“Cast off,” Murdock said, and the two small boats coasted away from the slowly moving cruiser. A minute later the cruiser powered up and moved to the side to get back in a ten-mile tracking position.
“We hang around right here and see what shows up,” Murdock said. “We have that sixty-foot tether binding us together?”
“On here,” Lam said.
“Tether on,” DeWitt said.
“So, we dick around here for a while,” Murdock said. “At ten knots it should take that Chinese destroyer thirty to forty minutes to come to us. Each boat needs a lookout.”
They waited. There were almost no waves, just a
gentle swell that lifted them about four feet and then lowered them again. Mahanani called in.
“Hey, Skipper. I figure we have a current running here of about four knots almost at right angles to that destroyer’s course. Shove us a lot farther than it will that big junk pile.”
“Roger that, Mahanani. He’s coming SSW at us, so we need to do about two miles at a right angle to that. Let’s try it now and wait. We should be able to see his lights at three or four miles. We’ve been waiting for ten minutes now.”
Lampedusa called to his CO. “Skipper, we have a problem back here. Somewhere we have a ripped panel. I can hear air hissing out, then it bubbles, and then hisses. The boat must have snagged on something when they launched it off the cruiser.”
15
Murdock moved to the side of the IBS where Lampedusa sat.
“A leak? No lie, Lam? Where?”
“Not sure, Skipper. Listen, you can hear it.” The men in the boat stopped whispering and listened.
“Yeah, I heard a hiss and then bubbles,” said Murdock, “so it’s somewhere on the side or bottom, and we can’t get to it for repairs.”
“We going down?” Van Dyke asked.
“Hell, no. These little boats are built in something like fifteen to twenty compartments, airtight compartments. They simply won’t sink. Remember how they never really collapse all the way? That’s so one lucky rifle shot into an IBS won’t sink it. She has a lot of other watertights to hold her up. So, no sweat. We continue on as usual. Anybody see any lights yet?”
No one responded. Murdock checked his watch. They had motored at a right angle to the path of the destroyer. That should take care of the current drift. Almost no wind to deal with.
Ten minutes later they spotted lights moving toward them.
“She’s still two miles off and I can see some of her side lights, so we’re not on her line of travel,” Lam said.
“We’ll wait until we’re closer to move up,” Murdock said.
“I’d say we’re a quarter of a mile off her course,” DeWitt said on the Motorola.
“Should be. Ed, you ready?”
“All set soon as she comes up to us. No way they can have radar that can find us. Important point is, they won’t be looking for something this small.”
They waited.
“Holt, crank up the SATCOM,” Murdock said. Holt had to hold the antenna. The small dish might not be stable enough in the tiny boat, which bobbed around in the light sea. It could have trouble holding onto the satellites.
Murdock took the handset and used voice.
“Sardine, this is Floater, come in.”
No response.
He had to make the transmission four times before he had a return call.
“Breaking up, Floater. Try again.”
“Sardine, the can approaches. We’ll make contact in ten. Call you when we’re done and give you our coordinates. Over.”
“Read you. Soon as you’re done you contact Sardine. We’ll figure out what to do then. Roger.”
“Button it up, Holt. Keep the spray out of it. We can’t afford a breakdown on our commo gear.”
“We better choggie in on her,” DeWitt said. “Near a half mile off her course and a mile upstream. Pick up our speed to ten?”
“That’s a Roger, DeWitt. We’re right behind you.”
The little rubber boats moved quicker through the silent sea then as they angled toward the destroyer, which they could see now with navigation lights all on and glowing.
A short time later the radio came on again. “Cutting throttle,” DeWitt said on the radio. “Estimate we’re about fifty yards off their course and we’re still a quarter of a mile ahead of her. Be here shortly. We latch on sixty feet from the bow, you hit the stern. Right?”
“Right,” Murdock said. “Tell us when you power forward to meet your buddy.”
Murdock checked. The six lines and cables were laid out across the back of the IBS. Ready for throwing. The more he thought of it, the worse his job sounded. He had no idea how far the screws were from the stern of the ship. He had no idea how far underwater they were, two feet or fifteen feet.
“Now, we’re powering up,” DeWitt said. The tether cord tightened; then the second IBS moved ahead. The big ship lunged at them through the sea. It looked huge from this viewpoint. They were fifty feet off the course line and the ship was coming toward them. DeWitt moved his boat faster, then worked through the slight bow wave and contacted the big ship. He bounced off, then came back again, matching speed with the freighter/destroyer.
Then Khai planted one magnet against the massive hull, and it held. He tightened up the cinch line, and the boat was latched to the Chinese craft. At once Mahanani moved to the side with the extra-large limpet mine, and let the strong magnet pull it against the side of the ship.
Ostercamp placed the second one two feet away, and Jefferson attached the third one. Immediately the men moved the fusing system to On, and waited for DeWitt to call the time to program the detonator to set off the high explosive.
The big limpets were set two feet above the waterline. With any luck they would blow a hole big enough to let water pour into the hull.
On the other boat, Murdock saw DeWitt attach his boat. Murdock cut power and let the tether line swing him around until he touched the big ship gently. Will Dobler attached a magnet to the boat, and latched it to the line that ran around the top of the IBS.
“Now,” Murdock said.
Bradford had the first line and cable in hand with the charge set on the end of it. He threw it down into the water at the side of the big ship with the hope that it would swing under the boat and be sucked into the powerful pull of the screws.
Bradford threw three of them, and then Van Dyke threw the last three. They heard nothing.
“Done here,” DeWitt said softly into the mike.
“Done here,” Murdock said. “Cast off.” Both boats snapped loose the lines that held them to the big boat, and it jumped away from them as it slanted past at ten knots. The SEALS all crouched low in their boats as the big ship plowed ahead. Any watch on the stern would have an impossible job to try to spot the SEALs or their boats in the dark water and the blackness of the moonless night.
Murdock waited until the sound of the big ship faded. Then he called DeWitt.
“I could use some Mugger coordinates, Mr. DeWitt.”
“Roger that, Captain. Be a shake. Yes. Now I have them.”
“Hold until I get that cruiser.”
The second call produced an answer, and Murdock gave the cruiser the coordinates where they bobbed along in the Mediterranean Sea on a three-knot current.
“How long?” Murdock asked on the SATCOM.
“How long did you set those fuses for?”
“Fuses set for fifteen minutes. That’s another six minutes to the blasts,” DeWitt told Murdock, who repeated it into the SATCOM.
“Let us know when they go off and we’ll start moving your way. His radar can nail us as soon as we come over the horizon.”
“Roger. We’re not going anywhere. We have a three-knot drift to the SSE.”
“We hear you.”
They waited.
“Two minutes,” DeWitt said.
Almost at the same time a brilliant flash erupted in the darkness in the direction the Chinese ship had sailed. Then another one and a third one on top of it. A glow showed in the night sky for ten or fifteen seconds. Then it died.
“Three big bangs,” Murdock said on the SATCOM mike.
“He’s not much more than three miles from you,” the man on the cruiser said. “Suggest you rev up your engines and motor away from him at your top speed. We need at least seven miles to be on the safe side.”
“That’s a Roger, Sardine. We can do eighteen knots. Give us twenty minutes and we’ll be six miles more to the NNW.”
“Understand. Twenty minutes. We have heard no distress call from the Chinese. Nothing on the international hailing frequency or an
y SOS. You didn’t sink her, did you?”
“Not a chance. They are playing it cagey, as I would. See you in twenty.”
Later Murdock checked his watch. It was almost two hours before they saw the cruiser bear down on them. The SEALs had out light sticks so she wouldn’t run them down. They had made three more Mugger location checks. Now the small boats powered up, and moved to the fantail of the cruiser and tied up to lines.
Jaybird bleated in pain as he went up the rope ladder to the chopper landing pad. Lampedusa helped him up the last three rungs.
“We need a corpsman over here,” Lam called out.
“I’m fine,” Jaybird said.
“Yeah, I always carry you up a rope ladder,” Lam said, and kept Jaybird on the deck until two corpsmen hurried up. They talked to him a minute, helped him stand, and hustled him down to the ship’s sick bay.
“On the chopper,” Murdock bellowed. “We’ll leave the IBSs for seed. We might be back.”
The XO was there before they finished loading. Murdock waved at him. “Commander, one of the IBSs has a leak in one of the chambers,” said Murdock. “Can you have it repaired?”
The commander nodded, and Murdock stepped on board the chopper and the crew chief closed the hatch.
This time all of the SEALs slept on the two-and-a-half-hour ride back to Athens.
The last time Murdock checked, the cruiser’s radio had still not picked up any kind of distress call from the Chinese ship.
It was 0240 when Murdock and his charges, less Jaybird, stepped off the NATO bus in front of their quarters. Don Stroh came out of a sedan grinning.
“Shit a bucket full of cookies, you boys have done it again.”
“What?” Murdock said, jolting himself fully awake. “The cruiser didn’t hear any distress calls.”
“True, neither did anyone else in the Med. But our AWACS plane shows that the Star of Asia is now dead in the water, and has been for the past three hours. That old tub ain’t going nowhere. Now all she has to do is ask for assistance and we can board her and take over, get the damn warheads, and then tow her into port.”
“You wish. Her captain won’t allow a boarding party within ten miles. He’ll break out his big guns and challenge you.”
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