“Sounds best, gents,” Dobler said. “If we used the IBSs and got cut up by a patrol boat, we could lose half our ordnance. We go in slower but with ninety-nine percent chance of a surprise mission.”
Murdock called to Ching and had him go find Stroh. The CIA man came in. Evidently, he’d been standing in the companionway, waiting for them.
“We need to talk to the chopper pilot who would take us in on his Sea Knight,” Murdock said. Stroh went to the phone and made three calls. Then he motioned to Murdock, who took the handset.
“Lieutenant West Jones, Commander,” the voice on the wire said. “What can I do for you?”
“You know where Bandar Abbas is opposite the Straight of Hormuz?”
“Right, Commander. Some of us have been talking about a run in there. Shitpot full of islands in front of the navy base there. Don’t know if they are fortified or not. They should have some antiair missiles out there.”
“Say you’re going in there after dark. How close could you get fifteen SEALs to that navy base?”
There was a silence, then the flyer let out a long breath. “Yeah, thought you might be asking that. I talked with my CO, and he says I have the assignment. I’ll have to look at the detailed charts we have on that area. Might come down the channel between the coast and that long island. Could surprise them. Have to do some homework. Hell, Commander, I’ve been shot at before. Just want to have a halfway even chance of coming home.”
“Read you, Lieutenant. You have an hour to figure it out. We’ve got to make some decisions here.”
“Will this be a round trip for you on the Knight?”
“Probably not. Since noise won’t be a problem coming out, we’ll try for the Pegasus. It’ll do forty knots.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll get back to you on this line within sixty, Commander.”
Murdock told the others what the flyer had told him.
“Let’s assume that we’ll go in by chopper and come out by Pegasus. We’re what they built that critter for. So, how do we take down two submarines?”
They worked over that for a half hour. They at last decided how to do the job. Mostly it was a discussion between using TNAZ and the larger limpet mines with shaped charges.
Stroh sat and listened to them. When the talk slowed down, he lifted his brows. “So when do you guys want to go to the dance? Right after dark or about midnight?”
Murdock looked around.
“Midnight,” Jaybird said.
“Yeah, midnight to 0100,” Dobler said.
DeWitt nodded.
Murdock looked at Stroh. We’ll check out of here at 2300, get to our drop point a little after midnight, and swim in. We’ll be on site and ready to go by 0030.”
“I’ll clear it with the captain and talk to the COD for the chopper clearance. You guys better go draw some ordnance.”
“You should come with us this time, Stroh,” Jaybird jawed.
“Maybe next time,” Stroh said and hurried out the door.
At 2310, the big Sea Knight helo slid down until it was ten feet off the Strait of Hormuz water. Fifteen black wet suited SEALs dropped out the rear ramp into the water, each one holding a neutral buoyancy bag filled with the tools of his trade. Standard weapons for each man lay across his back, held on with black rubber tubing.
The SEALs hit the water, teamed with another man, took a sighting on the lights of the naval base onshore, and dove down fifteen feet into the black water.
Up front Murdock checked his attack board, a plastic device with two handgrips and a compass in the middle faintly lighted by a light tube. He adjusted his angle slightly, fastened the eight-foot buddy cord to Holt, and they stroked toward the Iranian coast two miles away.
They surfaced after half a mile. The SEALs had swum underwater with their Drager LAR V rebreathers so much in practice that they could tell within ten yards how many strokes it took them to cover a half mile. The rebreathers recycled the air so there were no bubbles to trail to the surface to give away the swimmers below. Here there was little current, so that helped. They popped up all within twenty yards of each other. Murdock counted heads, waved them forward, and they went down to the fifteen-foot depth and swam again.
The floatation bags they dragged behind them on a line contained all the explosives that they would need. They were waterproof and stabilized with enough air to make them near neutral in buoancy, but the SEALs still had to drag them through the water.
They swam for a mile this time, surfaced to bunch together closer. By now they were little more than a quarter of a mile offshore. They saw two patrol boats with lights flashing working back and forth in front of what must be the channel into a bay, which was blazing with lights. That had to be the Iranian naval base.
The SEALs redirected their approach to the base and swam again. They were near the channel when they saw lights overhead and heard the screws of a powerful boat slamming through the water over them. They were plenty deep to clear these patrol boats, but it kept everyone on his toes.
After the boat raced past them, Murdock and Holt surfaced with just their masks and noses out of the water and checked the channel. Yes, dead ahead, and Murdock saw no searchlights on the water or sentries on the points of land on each side. Good. They went under and swam near the surface until they were inside the channel itself; then they waited for the others to catch up with them.
There was no convenient pier for them to cluster under. Each team surfaced for a peek, then submerged and kept close to the top of the water.
Murdock checked the inside of the base. He saw patrol ships tied up at piers fifty yards from the entrance on both sides. Then the bay swept back into the gloom until it came to a brightly lit area where a frigate had been moored. Where were the subs?
Murdock signaled for the SEALs to dive again. He used sign language to indicate they would go to the far end of the small bay and check around. The submarines shouldn’t be that hard to locate.
They swam three hundred yards and surfaced. Murdock checked again. Yes. To the left, under minimum lights, he saw the two sleek black ships resting in the water and tied to a dock end to end.
Everyone came up, saw the ships, and angled away on preassigned tasks.
Four SEAL pairs swam to the farthest sub, found it underwater and surfaced just enough to be sure it was the right one. They scanned it, estimated the distance, then went underwater and opened the floatation bags. They had to support the heavy limpet mines until they could get them positioned at the right place on the sub. The four were in a row about three feet under the water at nearly the midpoint on the oval, undersea ship. They were roughly fifteen feet apart and near the center of the 238-foot-long craft.
The mines were heavy, with a specially shaped charge construction so 90 percent of the blast would be angled inward against the side of the submarine. They were guaranteed to punch a large hole through the outer shell of the sub and do a great deal of damage inside.
The spread-out mines were designed to flood at least three of the watertight compartments if the doors could be closed. They would be enough to drop the warship into the mud of the harbor.
One man went back to the surface and watched. When he saw through the dim light a SEAL working on the first sub come to the surface and wave one arm, they both dived. The men moved to the mines and set the timers on them, then swam away from the ships at their own flank speed.
Murdock saw that the two submarines were planted with mines, and he and Holt led the charge away from the area. Just the way a stick of dynamite in a pond will kill half the fish, a limpet mine going off underwater sends out a tremendous concussion that will kill any diver caught within a quarter of a mile of it.
The timers were set for an hour. In that time they could be out of the channel and into the strait.
They were about a third of a mile from the subs when Murdock felt the concussion. He stroked to the surface and found the other SEALs there, treading water. He spat out his mouthpiece and checked h
is lighted-dial wristwatch. The timers had been running for only fifteen minutes.
“Malfunction on one mine,” Jaybird said, coming up beside him. “One mine won’t sink the subs, but will get somebody out there to check on their hulls. They might be able to deactivate the Limpets.”
“No way,” Ching said. “These are new ones. They try to pry them off the hull, they detonate automatically.”
They heard another ragged roar as another mine went off.
By that time, all the SEALs were treading water and looking behind them. The underwater explosions didn’t create any fire or blast into the air. It sent another shock wave through the water that the men could feel.
“Two down,” Murdock said. “Nothing we can do to change it. We better get the hell out of here. Surface. Let’s make some time.”
The SEALs did the crawl stroke and plowed through the channel toward the open water of the strait.
A patrol boat came out of the darkness, snapped lights on, and pinpointed the splashing seals. A machine gun chattered. The SEALs dove to avoid the hail of lead. Rebreather mouthpieces were pushed back in place and they went to twenty feet down. Then Murdock tried to find his men. They had scattered.
He saw the lights above. Heard the big engines on the sixty-foot ship growling as the craft worked a search back and forth where the crew had seen the swimmers.
Murdock swam out of the area the ship searched, and he and Holt came to the surface for a peek.
Nothing.
The ship was off a hundred yards, stopped in the water. Another pair of SEALs surfaced, and then more, and Murdock whistled them over. They treaded water, waiting.
“Anybody get hit?” Murdock whispered. The sound carried. There were several no’s.
“I got a nick in the arm. Barely cut through the wet suit.”
“Bradford, is that you?” Murdock asked.
“Yeah, Skip, but no strain. Not even any blood. Hell, I can swim twenty miles.”
“How many men we have?” Murdock asked.
“I count ten,” Jaybird said from close by.
“Ten? Where the fuck are the other five?” Murdock felt like screaming. First the damn mines don’t work right…
They all felt it then, four more blasts almost at the same time.
“That should be the second sub,” Murdock said. “Let’s spread out a little and see if we can find the missing men.”
They spread out and swam slowly back the way they had come. The patrol boat came alive again, gunned its motors, and moved down channel into the naval base.
They were fifty yards from where they started when Dobler called out softly. “Pink light stick, Skipper. Toward the base.”
They swam faster that way, and soon found three men. Lampedusa was holding up someone in the water.
“Skip, got some trouble here. It’s the JG. He caught one of them slugs. We kept his rebreather mouthpiece in and waited until the ship left, but he won’t be swimming much. We get to that point of land over there?”
“Yes, move that way. We’re still missing two men. You hear them?”
“Might have,” Lam said. He gave up his burden to Horse Ronson who towed the JG along with a powerful sidestroke.
“We heard somebody swimming toward the point just after the boat left. Could be ours.”
Murdock kicked out in a powerful crawl stroke and felt Holt beside him. They moved to the landmass that was still only a dark blob. Almost there, they heard swimmers ahead of them.
“SEALs,” Murdock called softly.
“Fuck yes. Got a man hurt. Making for the shore.”
“Ostercamp?” Murdock called softly again.
“Yeah. It’s Ching. Took a slug somewhere. Haven’t found it yet, but he’s not in good shape.”
“Get him to the land, and we’ll have Doc look at him. The JG caught one, too. Where did those fuckers come from?”
Ten minutes later, the fifteen SEALs waded to shore and stretched out their two wounded men. Doc Mahanani did the best he could in the faint moonlight. He did some bandaging, then talked to Murdock.
“Skip, we got troubles. The JG took one in the chest area. The slug must have gone into the water first, because it didn’t go all the way through him. He’s losing some blood. But evidently it didn’t hit his heart or any vitals, otherwise he’d be KIA.
“Ching isn’t so bad. Looks like a graze on his scalp that might have knocked him out, and one round through his right arm, up in the biceps. Neither one is going to swim one hell of a lot.”
Murdock checked with the two wounded men. Ching was mad.
“Hell, why they pick on me? Just a scratch, Skip. Shit, I can swim as good as any of you fuckers. Give me the chance.”
Murdock grinned at him in the darkness. That attitude was part of what made him a SEAL. “Sure you can swim, Ching, and you’d leave a blood trail a yard wide that would bring about twenty hungry sharks homing in on us from five miles away. Just take it easy and stay down.”
The SEALs had automatically cleared their weapons of water, made sure they were locked and loaded, and they spread out in a perimeter defense around the two wounded men.
The JG was hurting.
“Damnit, Skip, I caught one. Not my turn. Your turn. Don’t think I can swim much. I’m a good floater. We should have saved one of those flotation bags.”
“No sweat, DeWitt. We’ll tell the Pegasus to come in here and get us. Not that many patrol boats running around.”
“There will be, Skip, once they realize those subs didn’t blow up by themselves. We get both of them?”
“Not sure, the photos tomorrow will show us. Now all we have to do is get home.”
“Lampedusa materialized without a sound beside Murdock.
“Commander, we’ve got some trouble. About ten or twelve bad guys coming toward us from down the bay shore. Could be navy security.”
“Get on your ears,” Murdock whispered to the closest SEAL. He passed the word. Soon all the Platoon men had their Motorolas on.
“Company from the north. Lam says about a dozen. We take them out silently if we can. Only silenced weapons until we need you big guys.”
In the stillness he could hear weapons clicking off safety to single shot or three-shot mode.
They waited.
DeWitt gritted his teeth but a low moan came from his lips.
The SEALs waited.
Two dark shadows appeared twenty yards from Quinley, silhouetted against the light from the navy base. Quinley slammed out five silent rounds from his H & K G-11 with its caseless bullets. One of the men went down, the other lifted his rifle. Two more shots jolted him to the ground before he could shoot or cry out.
They heard some low voices ahead. The next figure that came toward them was low on the ground, crawling. Lampedusa heard him before he saw him. When the scout had a target, he drilled the man with six rounds from his Colt carbine M-4A1. The man bellowed in pain, then died.
All was quiet for a moment. Then, on a slight rise a hundred yards away, what Murdock figured was a tripod-mounted heavy machine gun blasted at them with five- and seven-round bursts.
The SEALs hugged the ground. They had no cover to hide behind. The machine gun cut off, and a dozen black shapes showed against the lights of the base, charging forward with their guns blasting.
“All weapons,” Murdock said into his Motorola. The sniper rifles cracked and the others chattered on full auto or three-round bursts. Quinley finished off one fifty-round magazine and pushed another into place.
Half of the attackers went down; the rest dropped to the ground and kept firing. Slowly, the SEALs’ superior firepower drove back the Arabs, punishing them.
“Casualties?” Murdock snapped into the Motorola.
Two more men checked in with minor wounds.
“We’ve got to get wet,” Murdock said. They have the advantage here. That MG is going to open up again when they’re sure all their live ones are out of its line of fire. Go now, pull back t
o the water. Mahanani and Ostercamp, take care of the JG. Ching, you okay to get wet?”
“Damn right, Commander.”
“Let’s move.”
Before the machine gunner had time to check with his men in the immediate area, the SEALs stowed their radios in waterproof pouches and slid into the black waters of the Strait of Hormuz. Murdock squatted in the water and counted the SEALs as they went into the wet.
“Fourteen,” he whispered to Holt. “Who in hell is missing? We need fifteen bodies.”
“One man must not have not been able to report in on the casualty call,” Holt whispered. “I’ll go check the beach.”
Before Murdock could tell him not to, Holt lifted out of the water and charged the beach. He was on it and checking around when the machine gun on the high ground cut loose again. It worked the other side of the thirty-yard-wide area. Holt quartered the beach, saw nothing. When the gunfire worked over toward him, he dove into a low spot where a small stream came into the bay. The rounds went over his head.
He heard a low moan.
Holt lifted up and looked. No NVGs. Damn. He looked again. “Hey SEAL. It’s Holt. Where are you?”
The moan came again from his right. The machine gun worked to the left. Holt lifted up and charged along the sand. He saw the man then, down and not moving. Holt dove over beside him. Checked his face. Bradford.
“Bradford, can you hear me? We’ve got to get the hell off the beach. Can you move? Bradford.” There was no response.
The machine gun worked back toward them. Holt grabbed the big man and dragged him. He had to stand up to do it. He was giving away forty-five pounds. He couldn’t find Bradford’s weapon. He tugged and pulled, slipped and fell down, dragged the 215-pound man another three feet.
The machine gun swept the area again. Six more feet. He lunged and tugged and rolled Bradford and at last nudged him into the small depression and slid in beside him.
The machine gun bullets tore up the sand where they had just been. Holt panted from the burst of energy he had used up pulling Bradford into the depression.
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