The admiral gave a curt wave with his hand. “No, SEALs, you sit. We do too much sitting around here, anyway. You’ll be on your mission soon enough with no chance to take it easy.”
The SEALs sat.
“Now, Commander, you’ve had some time to consider your assignment. Your suggestions.”
“If you have a Pegasus in the task force, it could take us in to within half a mile of shore, and we’ll go in underwater to the first objective. If no Pegasus, a Sea Knight could take us within a mile and we’ll drop out and swim on in.”
Murdock looked up. The XO nodded.
“We have a Pegasus, an eighty-two-footer. That would be the least intrusive.”
Murdock then outlined in broad strokes their plans to wash down the cocaine in the freighters and be gone before the Colombians knew what was happening. “We understand there are two tons of cocaine on each freighter. That’s over a hundred million dollars’ worth in street value. That’ll hurt them.”
“What about the ether?” the admiral asked. “It’s in a guarded warehouse in the port area.”
“Ether is highly volatile, and if we can get one or two barrels of it burning, it can cook off the rest in a huge bonfire nobody could put out,” Ed DeWitt said.
The admiral looked at DeWitt a moment. “What else?”
“Then we’d need some help, Admiral. Our plan is to go back to the water and swim a mile offshore. We’ll contact the carrier by SATCOM before we leave dry land and ask for a meet a mile off with a Sea Knight chopper. We’ll go up the rope ladder from a hover position. Then the Sea Knight can take us about eighty-five miles upriver to Plato, where the rest of our mission is located.”
“Ladder access. What if you have wounded who can’t climb the ladder?”
“We carry them up or rope them up, Admiral,” Senior Chief Dobler said. “No problem; we’ve done it before.”
“When the Sea Knight comes, it would bring a preordered resupply for us of ammo, weapons, and explosives,” Murdock said. “Some MREs would be good, too.”
Captain Wilson cleared his throat. “After you do your work there, how do you get back to the water?”
“That one we didn’t have time to work out. We could float down the Magdalena River. But that would be at least a ninety-mile trip with a lot of chances to be discovered.”
“You’d need the Sea Knight and some fighter cover, same way you got out of Bogota,” Captain Wilson said. “Will the President authorize it?”
“He did before,” Murdock said. “We think he will again.”
“If the chopper came in due west of Plato, there would be only about sixty miles of territory to cover, and it’s less built up than the north.”
“Noted. What about the Colombian navy?”
“As you know, Admiral, Colombia has only four corvettes in the one thousand five hundred — ton class,” DeWitt said. “They have one larger patrol boat of a hundred and eighty-five feet, and about forty patrol and riverboat craft. We consider the navy’s threat to us as insignificant.”
The admiral peaked his fingers and looked at his men. “Any questions of the SEALs?” he asked. They shook their heads.
“All right, Commander. We’ll go with the Pegasus and the Sea Knight. The CAG isn’t here, but I’m sure he can spare one for a while. On the resupply and trip to Plato, give us a two-hour lead time so we can get your resupply on board and make your meet on time. We’ll want another two hours for the trip in from the west coast toward Plato. Commander Kenney will coordinate your need for weapons, ammo, and supplies. Anything else?”
Captain Wilson cleared his throat again. “Commander, I hear you have a new army rifle. Is it as good as I’ve heard?”
“Senior Chief Dobler can fill you in on that, sir,” Murdock said.
They looked at Dobler. “Sir, it’s called the Bull Pup, at least for now. It’s a dual-barreled weapon of about fourteen pounds. It has one barrel for 5.56mm rounds and another one on top to fire 20mm explosive rounds that are aimed and fuzed through a six-power scope, video camera, and a laser range finder. The laser is spotted on target, responds to the computer inside, and arms the round with the exact number of revolutions the spinning bullet needs to reach that spot.
“The rounds can be set to explode on contact or with a delayed fuze to shoot through sheet metal or light wooden walls. The rounds cost thirty dollars each. It carries a six-round magazine. The weapon is now under testing by the makers and will not be available to the army until the year 2005. We ordered specially made models because it’s such an advanced design.”
“So it will give a rifleman an airburst with a 20mm round,” the captain said. “That’s like shooting around a corner or over the back side of a building or hill.”
“We have found it’s tremendously effective, Captain,” Murdock said.
“I’d like to see one, Commander,” the Captain said.
“I’ll arrange that, Captain.”
The admiral stood and the rest of them came to attention.
“Thank you, gentlemen. We didn’t touch on the timing. It’s now about 1600. Your orders said at the first possible moment before those two freighters sail. Can you do it tonight?”
“Yes sir. We’d like to leave here so we can hit the port at first dark or as close to that as we can,” Murdock said.
“We’re about fifty miles off the Colombian port of Cartagena,” the captain said. “That’s about an hour and a half in the Pegasus so you don’t get shaken to pieces. Commander Kenney, you better get cracking on that materiel these men need.”
“Yes sir.”
“Work with Senior Chief Dobler,” Murdock said. The admiral looked at Murdock, then turned and left the compartment.
* * *
Two hours later, Murdock looked around the tightly efficient cabin of the Pegasus. The eighty-two foot craft had been specifically designed to insert and recover SEALs and other covert forces. It could rev up to 45 knots and had a range of 550 miles. A crew of five ran the boat. It wasn’t designed as a fighting craft but did carry mounts for 12.7mm machine guns and one Mark 19 40mm grenade launcher. The boat jolted along through the darkening Caribbean Sea at a little over thirty knots, cutting down the slamming into the light chop on the water.
They were ready. Murdock had made one last check on Canzoneri to be sure that his leg wound hadn’t opened up. It looked to him to be healing well. Mahanani gave the petard expert an okay for duty. Murdock told the corpsman to check the other wounded. Murdock’s wrist took a new bandage. Dobler’s round through his thigh was coming along well, not giving him any trouble. Jaybird’s shot left forearm was starting to heal. All ready for duty. They all settled into the boat.
Murdock had brought along three extra MP-5 submachine guns. They would be in drag bags with their explosives and other gear that they wouldn’t need at once. Their first job was to get into the water, then swim to shore and find the right ships in the harbor.
It was nearly 1930 when the SEALs rolled off the Pegasus and dropped into the warm Caribbean Sea. They had their buddy cords tied on and the eight two-man teams sank to fifteen feet, checked their compasses, and headed for the port city of Cartagena, Colombia. They had a little over a half mile to go.
At the entrance to the harbor, they all surfaced, and Murdock and Lam studied the situation. The brightly lit Navy Station showed to the left. To the right they saw the docks with six merchant ships tied up. Two of them were bathed in floodlights and were being loaded with huge cargo containers.
Murdock motioned for them to swim that way, and they went underwater again, using their rebreathers so they wouldn’t show any line of bubbles behind them.
The next time they came to the surface, barely breaking the water, they were at the first in a line of freighters. They could read the names: The Montrose, a Bolivian flagship, and The Mary Jane, registered in the the Bahama Islands. Murdock read the name on the bow of the big freighters and waved his men around them. They found the ones they wanted two
down. The Winddriven and the Alpha Marie were the targets. They lay side by side and were dark. Evidently, the loading was finished.
The plan was for each squad to take one ship, to move up the side of the ships on ropes anchored by rubberized grappling hooks on the rail, then to capture any crewmen and guards on board, and then to wash down or otherwise ruin the two tons of cocaine on each ship.
Murdock sent DeWitt with his Bravo Squad to the Winddriven, and he moved up to the Alpha Marie. He had his men fasten their drag bags on the hull to the ship with large magnets with hooks on them made for that purpose. The waterproof bags rested just below the waterline so no lookout could see them.
The platoon leader threw the first grappling hook attached to quarter-inch nylon line that could hold more than a thousand pounds on a straight pull. On the second try, the hook caught. Murdock tested the hook by putting all his weight on the rope. It held. He passed the bottom of the line to Jaybird and began to go hand over hand, walking up the side of the ship and pulling upward on the rope. His MP-5 submachine gun was strapped over his back.
He had just cleared the side of the ship and climbed over the low rail when a shadow appeared in front of him. The shadow turned into a man with a submachine gun pointed directly at Murdock’s chest.
“Well, look at this. Froggy, froggy, what have I captured here? Make a move at that weapon, and you’ll be dead in a five-round burst.”
21
Behia de Cartagena
Cartagena, Colombia
Murdock stared at the gun-wielding American. “¿Qué pasa? Qué pasa?” Murdock said, using his best Spanish accent.
“Oh, shit, you kidding? None of the greasers down here have frogman junk like you’re wearing. Full wet suits, breathers, masks, gloves, and even boots.”
“Inspección, inspección.” Murdock shouted, not knowing what else to do. He held out both his hands in a pleading gesture.
Two silenced rounds drilled into the gunman’s chest six feet in front of Murdock. The guard grunted and slammed backward, dropping the submachine gun he held and falling with dead weight against some pipes and pulleys on the deck.
Murdock charged forward and grabbed the weapon and checked the American. He was dead.
Jaybird climbed over the rail and grinned in the darkness through his camo-paint-splotched face.
“De nada,” Jaybird whispered. Together they lifted the body and carried it down a dozen feet along the rail and dropped it overboard. By then, two more SEALs were on deck, and they spread out as previously arranged. Murdock and Jaybird took the bridge; two more men cleared the area just below it. And two more took each of the other decks and areas where there might be crew or guards.
On the bridge, Murdock and Jaybird found one Bolivian guard sleeping. They knocked him out and tied his hands and feet with riot cuffs. The papers were all in Spanish. By the time they moved down the ladders to the holds, Senior Chief Dobler said the boat was secure.
“We found three crew and three more guards, all goofing off. No shooting. All contained and cuffed. Ching talked to all of them. One said the secret cargo was in hold four. He took us down to it. This way, Cap.”
Hold four was in the center of the big cargo vessel. A mixed cargo was arranged around the heavy wooden boxes. Each one was four feet square and three feet high. Jaybird found some tools and ripped off the top of one. Inside, wrapped in triple heavy plastic, lay the powdered cocaine.
Lampedusa had out a fire hose, and Bradford waited at the valve to turn it on. There were ten boxes stacked three high. Ching and Ronson pushed the top ones off to fall to the deck, then the men began breaking in the tops of the other boxes.
The water came on, and Lam aimed it into the powder. At first they used too much pressure and the white powder flew all over. With practice, they figured out how much water to use and washed down one box after another until there was a milky flood over half of the hold floor. It took longer than they figured. An hour into it, they had half the boxes of cocaine ruined. All the tops were now pried off, and a second fire hose was watering down the coke.
Jaybird came running down a ladder and called to Murdock.
“We have some trouble, Cap. Four guys coming up the gangplank. Two in suits. Two look like gorillas.”
Murdock took Jaybird and Dobler with their silenced sub guns, and they ran up to the top deck. The men headed for the bridge.
“¿Aye, qué pasa?” Murdock called. The men turned. Two pulled out automatic handguns, looking for trouble. Murdock and Jaybird had shots. Both the big men went down with a pair of 9mm slugs in their chests.
Dobler ran up and covered the two suits.
“What the hell is going on here?” one of the suits yelled.
Jaybird checked both the gunmen. Dead.
“I said, what the hell is going on here?” the taller of the two men asked.
“You forgot to pay your insurance on the cocaine shipment,” Murdock said. “As the shipper, you know damn well you have to pay the insurance.”
“We paid off half the damn country…” The man stopped. “Hey, you’re Americans. You divers or frogmen or what the hell?”
“We ask the questions,” Murdock said. “You two want to live more than five minutes, you better start giving me some answers. Names and addresses.”
“Joe Black from Miami,” the taller one said.
“Phillip Bartlesman, Atlanta,” the other said.
“Who do you work for?”
“None of your damned…”
Murdock lifted the silenced MP-5, and the man changed his tone. “We buy from the big guys, the Medellin. Figured we’d cut out a middleman and do our own delivery.”
“Both ships?” Murdock asked.
“Yeah.”
“Street value?”
“About a hundred and thirty mil. But we don’t see a third of that.”
“Nice profit.”
The shorter man dove to one side, drawing a handgun. Dobler tracked him and put five silenced rounds up his back before he could roll. He never pulled out the gun.
“Keerist, you shot him down.”
“He shouldn’t play with guns,” Dobler said. Dobler put the still-hot muzzle of the MP-5 under the suit’s chin. “Isn’t his five minutes up, Cap?”
“Almost. Who do you work for?”
The suit shivered. “Art. Art Ridozzo. Miami. The Ridozzo Family.”
“Some Mafia shithead doesn’t scare me. Tell him he just lost his sixty million dollar investment and to get into another line of work. Can you swim?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“Good, come over here to the rail.”
“I can walk down the gangplank.”
“Not yet. When we’re done, you go for a swim. Cuff him, Jaybird. A gag, too. Then let him lie there until we’re done. Dobler, see if you can find out what’s going on at the next ship.”
Murdock didn’t want to use the Motorolas unless he had to. The Medellin cartel could have some serious receivers and scanners in this area. They could afford to buy the best in the world. Dobler trotted to the far side of the freighter. Murdock went back to hold number four.
The milky swamp on the hold floor was a foot deep by then. They were on the last two boxes of cocaine.
Murdock went back on deck and looked at the other freighter anchored fifty feet away. His earphone came on with three clicks. He clicked three back.
“Cap. We’ve got troubles. Thought we had it clean. Four gunmen jumped us. Fernandez is hit bad. Stalled on the meltdown. Could use five more guns. Come up the gangplank. Oh, Christ. Gotta go.”
“Dobler, Jaybird. Finish the meltdown here. Rest of you top deck for the gangplank. Bravo needs some help. Move, now.”
Murdock ran for the gangplank. He scanned the dock. He saw only one wandering homeless man with a plastic sack over his shoulder. It was sixty feet down a wooden and concrete dock to the next freighter. He saw no one on deck. Holt, Bradford, Lam, Ching, and Ronson came storming up to the plan
k. All had their weapons at port arms, ready for action.
“Trouble on the next boat. Ed might be pinned down. We go up the gangplank without a sound, search for the bad guys. Four of them. They must be in the hold or can look down into the hold. Let’s go.”
The SEALs moved swiftly but without a sound down the metal gangplank to the dock, then ran the sixty feet along the concrete to the next ship’s plank. Lam went first with his eyes wide open, watching for any movement. Nobody was on guard. They all made it to the ship and hunkered down along the rail, listening.
Somewhere inside the ship they heard a shot, then another one. Muffled but not suppressed. The sound came from the aft section. They moved that way. More sounds. Some shouting.
A hatch was open halfway to the aft end. Murdock looked over the side and saw the deep hold with nothing in it but a dozen wooden crates identical to the ones they had in the first ship.
He could see no SEALs. A white milky flood on the hold floor showed some of the coke had been melted.
“How do we get down there?” Murdock asked.
Ching led the way to a set of steel steps leading down to the holds about halfway back. They moved down and worked a series of catwalks and ladders until they were near the open hold.
“Ed, where are you?” Murdock asked on the radio. “Where are the shooters?”
“All of us are pinned down behind the coke crates. Two of the shooters are to our left in some machinery. Two are behind some heavy boxes to the right.”
“We can’t see them,” Murdock said. “We’re halfway down. Can you use a grenade?”
“Afraid where it would bounce. Close quarters in here.”
“Let it cook for two seconds, then throw it. Give it a try.”
Seconds later, a grenade exploded in the hold. The confined space made it sound like a two-thousand-pound bomb going off in an elevator. Murdock and his men crawled forward for a better look into the hold.
Lam pointed to one side. Two men with automatic rifles hid behind wooden crates. Lam pointed right. Murdock took the one on the left. They both fired three-round bursts from the suppressed weapons. The men jolted backward. One tried to crawl around the box. Lam nailed him with three more rounds, and he lay still.
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