“I understand, sir,” he told the admiral.
“You remember what I said now. Any problems, and I want to hear your voice on the phone.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” As far as Blake Murdock was concerned, the admiral was his father, and his SEALs his brothers. He didn’t need any other family.
12
Monday, September 18
0400 hours Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, California
Murdock wished that moving a SEAL platoon was as easy as throwing sixteen guys into the back of a truck, but it wasn’t. Their equipment alone filled several aircraft pallets.
Their green light had come from CIA headquarters on the previous Thursday, and Murdock had immediately given the whole platoon the rest of the week and weekend off. Even though the majority had no idea about the upcoming mission, such a windfall only convinced them that something major was forthcoming. There just weren’t that many good deals around, and they always had to be paid for.
Murdock had done it because they would be going into isolation until the mission was over, and the married men ought to have some time with their families. And the single SEALS, well …
The chiefs had wanted to move to Niland at night, for a lower profile. Then they couldn’t get transportation on Sunday night, so they had to settle for the wee hours of the morning. The married men had come in with their game faces on.
Murdock didn’t know how they did it, how you told your loved one: “Honey, I’m leaving. I don’t know when I’ll be back, and you probably won’t be hearing from me. If something happens someone will show up at the door, but don’t call the office because the duty might not be cleared for the operation, or might not even know I’m gone.”
It took one hell of a woman to put up with that, which was why SEAL divorces were regular events.
Murdock was in his office finishing up platoon evaluations. The paperwork couldn’t be ignored. Anyway, officers hopping around sticking their noses into things only screwed up an embarkation. Razor would come in when everything was ready, and then Murdock would go out and help the boys lug everything to the trucks.
Razor Roselli did crash into the office, but it wasn’t to tell Murdock the platoon was ready. “Boss,” he announced, “we’ve got a little problem.”
“What is it?”
“Jaybird hasn’t shown up yet.”
“You sure?” Murdock asked. “General mayhem, yeah, but I can’t picture Jaybird Sterling missing a movement.”
“All I know is, he ain’t here.”
“What about Doc?”
“He’s here, but he doesn’t know where Jaybird is.”
Now Murdock was concerned. For Jaybird to miss any action he’d have to be either in jail, in the hospital, or dead. Shit. “Okay, get some people on the phones. Check the brig and the base hospital, then the jails and hospitals out in town.”
“Okay, Boss.” As he went out the door, Razor was muttering, “He’s dead. If he ain’t dead now, he’s gonna be.”
About fifteen minutes went by before Razor blew back in. “If you can believe this, Jaybird just called the duty. He’s at an apartment building in downtown Dago, and he needs a ride.”
Roselli’s smile was terrifying. “I’ll take care of this myself!”
Murdock didn’t think Razor was in the right frame of mind to go unsupervised. “We’ll take my truck.”
During the drive downtown, Razor seemed preoccupied, chanting, “He’s dead, oh, he’s dead,” like some twisted mantra.
Murdock was getting sick of it. “Look,” he said. “Would you rather have a pain in the ass who can really operate, or some Little Lord Fauntleroy who can’t cut it in the field?”
There was just a smoldering silence from Razor Roselli.
“I love it when I’m right,” Murdock chortled.
It was a very nice high-rise apartment building. As they entered the parking lot, Murdock aimed his pickup so they could stop in front of the lobby.
For some reason Razor Roselli happened to look up. Then he looked up again. “Wait a minute, Boss. Pull around the side of the building.”
“How come?”
“Park right there,” said Razor, pointing to an open space. Murdock went along. He turned off the key, then followed Razor’s finger, which was now pointing skyward.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?” asked Murdock. Then: “Oh, my God.”
A man was climbing down the side of the building, balcony to balcony.
Murdock rolled down his window and pulled his body halfway out to get a better view. “You know,” he said, “the son of a bitch is either wearing a pink jumpsuit, or he’s bare-ass naked.”
“It is Jaybird, isn’t it?” Razor Roselli asked faintly.
Murdock slid back into the truck cab. “Yup, it sure is.”
“That’s good,” said Razor, with evident relief. “The thought that there might be someone else just like Jaybird running around loose on the planet just bothered the fuck out of me for some reason.”
Murdock went back out the window. “Good climbing technique,” he said conversationally.
Razor stuck his head out his window and immediately regretted it. “I don’t believe it,” he moaned. “He is absolutely stark fucking naked.”
“Actually,” said Murdock, “that ought to help your climbing. You know, you’re supposed to lean away from the rock. If you don’t have any clothes on, you automatically lean away so your Johnson won’t get scraped off.” He paused. “I wouldn’t want to be a tenant sitting out on my balcony right now, though.”
“Am I even here?” Razor Roselli demanded of the heavens. “Why can’t this just be a nightmare? What did I do to deserve this?”
“What didn’t you do?” Murdock retorted.
Jaybird Sterling jumped down onto the second-floor balcony, swung out over the railing, and finished off his trip to the ground by shinnying down a drainpipe. When he hit the ground he spit something he’d been carrying in his mouth out into his hand. Murdock honked the horn and flashed the headlights.
Jaybird made a loping run to the pickup. He tried the door, but Razor had it locked.
Sterling knocked on the window, grinning good-naturedly. “Hey, Chief, could you let me in?”
“Let him in, for crying out loud,” said Murdock. “I’d like to get the hell out of here before the cops come.”
“Only if you make it an order, sir,” said Razor, while Jaybird waited patiently outside. “Consider it so,” Murdock sighed.
Razor unlocked the door and slid over. Jaybird hopped in and sat down. Murdock gunned the engine and pulled out.
“Morning, sir,” Jaybird said pleasantly. “Morning, Chief. Sorry to drag you out here.”
Razor began darkly, “You dirty-“
“Excuse me, sir,” Jaybird interrupted. “You wouldn’t happen to have a blanket or something?”
“No,” said Murdock.
“Too bad,” said Jaybird, crossing his legs delicately.
Razor Roselli was talking unintelligibly to himself.
“Your ass is going back out on the street,” said Murdock. “Unless I hear a story right quick.”
“Well, sir,” said Jaybird. “I was in a bar last night, and I met this girl.”
“Imagine that,” muttered Razor.
“This was one in a million, sir,” Jaybird reported. “I was just sitting there having a beer, and this beautiful girl walks right up to me. Brown hair, blue eyes, tits like …” He pantomimed with his hands to give them an idea of the general dimensions. “Before I could say anything, or even buy her a drink, she says, ‘I’ve been watching you for a while. I think you’d better come home with me.’”
“Yeah, right,” said Razor Roselli.
“Don’t be too hasty, Chief,” said Murdock. “Take a look at how our boy here is dressed, and judge for yourself how the story is shaping up.”
“Well, when you put it that way,” said Razor.
“I swear it’s the truth, Chief,
” said Jaybird. “I was there with my buddy Hanson, from Team One. He was right there, and he couldn’t believe it either.”
“So what did you do?” asked Razor.
“I went home with her,” Jaybird replied, as if he couldn’t believe the question. “We went to the bar in Hanson’s car, but she said she’d drive me back to base.”
“Jaybird,” Razor said wearily, “you must’ve come in on the noon balloon.”
“SEAL groupie,” said Murdock. “Nut-case.”
“Anyway,” said Jaybird, anxious to get back to his story, “we head for her apartment. And all the way there she’s telling me everything she wants to do. She practically rips my clothes off in the elevator. Now, I’m figuring, this is that night, right? The one you’ll remember when you’re eighty and still get hard thinking about it, And if we ended up actually doing everything she was talking about, my picture was going up in some Hall of Fame somewhere, and I’d get a plaque to commemorate the event. And if I died, they’d retire my number.”
“Get on with it,” said Razor.
“Okay,” said Jaybird, “we’re in the apartment, then we’re in the bedroom. You should have seen this painting she had over her bed; I don’t even know where you could buy something like that — Anyway, my clothes are off, and I’ll tell you, Chief, I had a hard-on that could cut glass.”
“And at that point,” said Razor, “she tells you she needs a hundred dollars to pay her mother’s medical bills.”
“I ain’t never paid for it, Chief,” Jaybird protested.
Roselli shot him a disbelieving look.
“Well, not with money,” said Jaybird, grinning, “just little pieces of my heart.”
“That’s why the chicks dig him,” Roselli said to Murdock. He’s deep.”
“Am I ever going to hear this fucking story?” Murdock demanded.
“Like I said,” said Jaybird. “We’re in the bedroom, naked. Then someone starts pounding on the door.”
“Uh, oh,” Razor said facetiously.
“I stay in the bedroom, she goes to answer it,” said Jaybird. “It’s her husband.”
“Who she neglected to mention all this time,” said Murdock.
“Must have forgot,” said Razor. “It’s the oldest one in the book. You’re standing there at attention, he’s got a gun, and it’s going to take the contents of your wallet to make him go away.”
“I wasn’t hanging around for any of that,” said Jaybird. “There was a phone right there, so I made a real quick call to the duty.”
“Good presence of mind,” Murdock conceded.
“Then I went out the window,” said Jaybird. “And over the balcony. And you know, the whole way down I couldn’t stop thinking about everything she said. Took a couple of floors to lose my hard-on.”
“Thanks for sharing that with us,” said Murdock. Then, just for the sake of clarity; “And you did all this without your clothes.”
“They were in the living room.”
“You’re sitting here in the lieutenant’s truck with your wallet and your pager,” Razor said dubiously. “But your clothes are back in her living room?”
“I’m not that green, Chief. I might get separated from my threads, but not my wallet and keys. I stuck ‘em in my mouth when I went over the balcony.”
“I don’t ever want to know how you got them into the bedroom,” said Murdock.
Jaybird opened his mouth.
“I told you I didn’t want to know,” Murdock said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Jaybird,” Murdock said kindly, “do you remember how you got your nickname?”
“Ah, yes, sir.”
“Tell me,” Murdock ordered.
“Well, sir, this girl and I-“
“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” said Razor.
“We were getting it on in the ocean, and these people came down to the beach and parked right where we left our clothes. So we had to swim down the beach and escape and evade back to my car-“
“Naked, right?” Murdock interrupted.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you got caught?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you were Jaybird forevermore. Jaybird?”
“Yes, sir?”
“One time you can put down to carelessness. Twice is starting to look like a personal problem.”
“I see your point, sir. Sir?”
“Yes, Jaybird?”
“I’m never gonna live this one down, am I, sir?”
“No, I wouldn’t think so,” said Murdock.
Especially when they arrived back on base, and Razor Roselli marched Jaybird Sterling right through SEAL Team Seven headquarters on the way to get some clothes. Jaybird handled it well. His general demeanor was the same as that of the Queen of England when greeting her subjects. The SEALS, however, demanded an explanation.
13
Monday, September 19-Tuesday, November 18
Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range Niland, California
The CIA had wanted all the mission preparations to take place at their training facility at Camp Peary, Virginia, known as The Farm. Murdock, suspecting that their real desire was to supervise him more closely than he wanted, used the excuse that the residents of nearby Williamsburg wouldn’t take kindly to thousand-pound demolition shots going off at all hours. So Niland it was. The country was suitably bland and covered with scrub, and the mountain range was perfect to train for the helicopter part of the mission.
But one of the advantages to working for the CIA rather than Special Operations Command was that things got done in days rather than weeks. Murdock found plenty for the platoon to do. First, everyone had to be briefed on the mission, even though only half the platoon, eight men, would be going. Someone might get sick, or have a training accident, and one of the others had to be ready to step in. Of course, Murdock also had a more devious motivation behind the arrangement. The second eight, furious at being left behind, would bust their balls trying to prove to the lieutenant that he’d made a mistake in not picking them. They would push the first eight so hard that Murdock wouldn’t have to as much as raise his voice.
And the first eight would be Murdock, DeWitt, Roselli, Kosciuszko, Jaybird Sterling, Doc Ellsworth, Magic Brown, and Professor Higgins.
Once the plan was briefed, they fell into a daily routine. In the mornings they did a hard PT while the desert was still fairly cool, and then fell to on the book work. Each man would have to memorize the entire route they’d be driving. From the insertion landing zone, to Baalbek, then out of town to the extraction landing zone. Satellite photos were put through a stereoscopic projector to give a 3-D view. Murdock insisted that everyone commit the entire street plan of Baalbek to memory. It would be night, there might be no street signs or time to consult them, and they might also have to deviate from the planned route. Getting lost was not an option. Neither was stopping at the nearest gas station to ask for directions.
In the afternoons they drove out to a secluded spot on the eastern side of the Chocolate Mountain range. A team from the CIA’s office of Technical Service had flown in with some civilian contractors and heavy equipment. Near an old dirt auxiliary landing strip they constructed a wooden replica of the Baalbek warehouse. Any Russian noticing something new on a satellite photograph would have figured it for an airplane hangar target, since SEALs practiced air base attacks all the time. Inquisitive SEALs from other platoons were encouraged to think the same thing. The Technical Service people surrounded the warehouse with a chain-link fence, and graded in a rough dirt road in exactly the right spot.
Technical Service were the people in the CIA who did everything from supplying disguises to agents to planting listening devices in objects without leaving a mark or a seam. They also supplied the Russian AKM assault rifles and PKM machine guns, the same weapons used by the Syrians, that the SEALs would be taking on the mission. The pink-dappled camouflage uniforms, Presidential Guard berets and insignia, boots, and web gea
r were fitted to each man and then packed away for the actual mission.
With Hummvees initially standing in for the armored cars and limousines, and man-shaped metal targets scattered about, the SEALs practiced the actual mechanics of shooting their way into and out of the area. It was all done with live ammunition — SEALs never used blanks.
The trick, as always, was not so much hitting the targets. It was not accidentally shooting one of your own in the smoke, noise, and confusion. If you wanted it to come off fast, you had to first walk your way through step-by-step in daylight. Then half speed, then full speed in daylight. Then with live ammo, and then at night. It took time, and was as complex as any grand ballet. If you didn’t rehearse, the wrong people died.
A few days later they were joined by what the Army called a Special Operations Aviation Task Force.
The Army’s premier helicopter unit was the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne). It had formed in the aftermath of the botched Iranian hostage rescue mission, when everyone had realized that the skills to fly helicopters behind enemy lines had been lost after Vietnam. The 160th had three battalions. The 1st and 2nd were the “black” battalions, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 3rd Battalion was stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia. It supported the Army Rangers, in particular the 1st Ranger Battalion, also located at Hunter.
The task force that showed up at Niland to support Murdock consisted of five MH-60K Blackhawks of 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion of the 160th, all eight MH-47E Chinooks of Alpha Company of the 2nd Battalion, and a maintenance element from the maintenance companies of both battalions.
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