Bloodstorm

10

The SEALs were ready when the COD rolled up. They had spent an hour checking gear, getting weapons cleaned and oiled, and making everything ready. Kat had come down and sat watching them. Murdock had phoned her earlier and told her that they wouldn’t need her on this mission.

“Kat, our first job is to take down the ship, seize control. Then we can spot a place on the deck, clear it out, and have an LZ for you to step into from a hovering chopper. When we need you to look over the warheads, we’ll call you in. I’m not about to mess with that kind of nuclear power myself.”

“I can go up the side of that ship as well as any of your men.”

Murdock chuckled. “Hey, Kat, I know it. But somebody might start shooting, and that’s our strong point. So let the guys do their thing, and then we’ll use the SATCOM and get you on board quickly.”

“This is assuming that there are missiles and warheads on board that Chinese ship.”

“Assuming, yes, Kat. But there’s not much of a choice where they can put them. They could have ferried them all to land for a trans-Siberia plane ride, but I don’t think so.”

“I’d still like to be with you guys.”

“Well, we’re flattered. You want to go even after what happened early this morning back there in Libya?”

“Yes. I’m working through it. I decided not to tell the President that I wanted to quit.”

“Good. You have a nap and some dinner and if all goes well tonight, we just might be calling you for a helicopter ride come daylight.”

“I’ll be ready.” She paused. “Murdock, thanks for hanging in there with me when I was coming apart at the seams.”

“Hey, nice lady. We all have our seams. See you tomorrow.”

A half hour later, the SEALs trooped into the COD. It was exactly like the ones they had used around the world. A workhorse for a fast ride onto or off an aircraft carrier.

The flight to Athens was routine, well within the range of the C-2A Greyhound. They landed on what looked like a military airstrip, but nobody explained to them where they were. A Navy Sea Knight dropped down within thirty yards of the COD, and the SEALs left one plane for the next. In the interim they moved their uninflated IBSs into the chopper and inflated them, positioning them at the rear of the craft next to the aft hatch. First they would push out the boats, then jump in after them all from about ten feet off the water if they were lucky. Just the way they had practiced that day off San Diego in the Pacific Ocean.

The pilot came back and checked with Murdock after the sixteen SEALs had settled into the bird.

“Commander, we have a little over a half hour flight time. The target ship is steaming at ten knots again in a generally southern direction. As I understand it, you want to jump out about a mile to the front of the freighter and on its line of travel.”

“Right, Lieutenant, and we don’t want the Chinese to know we’re there. We stay a mile away, they won’t hear us. If that old scow has the kind of radar on it I expect it to, they won’t have a prayer of spotting the chopper.”

“That sounds good to me. I don’t think I’ll ever trust those damned Chinese to do or say what we expect them to. We’re out of here in about three minutes.”

The crew chief buttoned up the craft and went with the pilot back to the small cockpit.

Murdock took advantage of the quiet before takeoff to talk to the men.

“We’re about half an hour to getting wet. We go out, get in our boats and wait for the freighter. One man will go up the side from each boat and they’ll use two drop lines for the rest of us. Any questions?”

“What if the old tub is so rusty that our magnets don’t hold?” Jaybird asked.

“Then the climber will detour to another area where the magnets will hold. The boats in the water will follow the climber wherever he goes.”

Then the big rotor cranked up, the engine howled, and they lifted gently off the ground.

Jaybird Sterling sat on the floor of the chopper beside Senior Chief Dobler. He leaned away a little so he wouldn’t touch the chief. He had been trying his best to avoid talking to the chief lately. Ever since he’d kissed the chief’s daughter, he had been so mixed up he could hardly breathe.

He shook his head remembering. Ke-reist, no girl had ever set him off the way she did. The soft little way she had of moving her hands when she talked. The easy-to-get-along-with conversations they had. Then that kiss in the stacks. He shook his head again. It had never happened that way before.

He didn’t know how old she was. She had to be seventeen at least. Hell, he could wait a year — if he could see her now and then. The library was the best bet. Yeah, first thing they got home, he was going to call her when he knew her dad would be at the BUD/S. Yeah. That would work.

What if when Helen was eighteen, Chief Dobler still objected to Jaybird seeing her? What then? Hell, he’d cross over that minefield when he came to it. Carefully, but he’d get across. Hell, he was a SEAL. That should count for something with her old man. Saving his ass a time or two under enemy fire would help. Yeah, and not fuck up between now and then. That was the big one.

Jaybird had played football and baseball in high school. He was good, but not good enough to get a scholarship anywhere. Like so many players, his folks couldn’t afford to send him to college. He didn’t want to go to some rinky-dink junior college or a state college, especially in Oregon where he grew up. So he cut out for the Navy when he was just over eighteen.

It took him three years to get into the SEALs, and he’d been slaving in Third Platoon now for another three years. Hey, there was almost nothing that would get him out of the SEALs.

The new guys to the unit kept asking him how he got his nickname. They knew it meant naked, as in naked as a jaybird. He had told so many different stories now that he hardly remembered how it actually happened.

His best story was that he had this dish down at the beach and it was late and nobody was around. They went skinny-dipping just before dark, and when they got back to shore, saw a group of twenty or so had parked right beside their clothes and towels, set up a volleyball net, and had a game going. Others had started a fire in a fire ring, and they all appeared to be settled in for the evening.

That left him and his girl both naked and getting cold. She cried and yelled at him to go get her clothes. He tried, but one of the men spotted him and chased him back into the water. After that they decided he should go back to the car for a blanket and use that to go get their clothes and towels.

Of course his keys were in his pants pocket on the blanket. Still, he said he could break in. He had a secret way. He ran up the cliff to the parking spot, and had almost succeeded in prying loose the driver’s side door when two cops grabbed him. Next thing he knew he was in the county lockup wearing jail clothes. The cops wouldn’t believe his story. They impounded the car. He had to call Murdock to come bail him out.

It was two weeks later before a package came for him with his clothes, his wallet, and his car keys. The girl who mailed the bundle back to him refused his phone calls and he never saw her again.

Jaybird grinned. That was one of the best ones. Yeah, those stories wouldn’t help any with the senior chief. He’d have to start toeing the line, doing everything right.

Damn it to hell, he wondered just how old Helen was.

The chopper’s radar picked up the freighter when they were five miles off, flying at a hundred feet over the dark waters of the Mediterranean. The Star of Asia had not changed course, and had slowed to seven knots. They were still well ahead of the freighter. The pilot reported that they would move up to within a mile of the craft, check the course again, and drop the SEALs off.

At the one-mile mark, Murdock went up and looked through the cockpit window. He could see the running lights of the freighter. It didn’t have the look of a ship trying to hide.

“Listen up,” the crew chief shouted. “In one minute the aft hatch will open. Then you’re on your own. Dump those big rubber boats out of my chopper and jump in after them. Good luck.”

The SEALs came to their feet, checked each other’s gear, then lined up with a squad on each side.

The aft hatch swung down, making a ramp.

The SEALs pushed the first raft out the door, then the second one. The bird had come to a complete stop, and hovered about fifteen feet over the water.

“Go, go, go,” Murdock bellowed. The two lines of SEALs ran forward and jumped off the end of the ramp. Two seconds later they were wet and clawing for the surface, their heavy combat load dragging them down.

It took them almost five minutes to get the IBSs righted, and for the SEALs to climb into them. Murdock made a vocal check to be sure all sixteen men were on board. The two boats were tied together with a twenty-foot cord.

“Directly to our rear you can see the lights from the freighter,” Murdock said. “The pilot checked with the plane overhead and we know this is the right ship, the Star of Asia, of Chinese registry. We’ll both stay on the same side, the way we practiced it. Keep the boats tied together and latch them onto the hull. As soon as we touch, I want the two climbers moving up with the pull cord attached. Everyone get out your Motorolas and let’s get on the net. Questions?”

There were none.

“We’re drifting off the ship’s course,” Lam said. “About a three-knot drift.”

“Start the engines,” Murdock said. “Let’s keep as close to that course as we can. The ship should be here in nine minutes.”

The SEALs shivered. They had done this a hundred times before, but they never became used to the cold. They had elected not to wear their wet suits. They wouldn’t be in the water long enough to justify them, and the suits would slow them down once they made it up the ropes to the deck.

The time dragged. Someone told a dirty joke. That triggered a dozen more.

Murdock hushed them after three minutes. “Coming up on us. Hold it down.”

Now they could see the ship better. They could make out the different-colored navigation lights standard on all vessels. Then a minute later they could hear the growl of the diesel engines inside the big ship, and the gentle hiss as the bow parted the waves.

The ship would miss them by forty yards.

“Let’s move up on her,” Murdock said. “Match her speed, then we edge in beside her amidships and latch on with our magnets. Go.”

The twelve-foot-long-by-six-foot-wide rubber boats moved closer to the ship, matched its speed, then angled toward the hull that soon towered over them. Murdock guessed it would be a forty-foot climb. This part they hadn’t practiced.

Ching perched on the edge of the IBS nearest the big hull and held the powerful magnet. It had a line tied to it and looped around a rope tie-down that circled the top edge of the small craft.

“Closer,” Ching whispered. The small boat edged in again, countering the soft wake of the large craft. Then Ching lunged to the side, planted the magnet on the side of the ship, and at once tugged the line tight, holding the IBS against the large freighter.

As soon as the tie-down was completed, Jaybird put both hands against the side of the ship, testing the magnets strength. They held. He put one foot against the ship’s hull, then the other one, with the magnets grabbing the metal. Then he began the slow work of going one hand and one foot at a time as he worked his way up the side of the ship. A thin nylon line trailed from his combat vest.

“Cover him,” Murdock said. The same thing happened at Bravo Squad’s location, where Colt Franklin went up the side of the ship. Murdock could see Jaybird. He was halfway up. Then two jerks came on the line, and Jaybird tied off the climbing rope. A few moments later, two more jerks came on the climbing rope.

The SEALs in Alpha Squad were lined up at the side of the ship. They allowed ten feet of free rope, then another man started up the rope. Four men would be on the rope at once before the first one reached the top.

After Jaybird tied off the climbing rope to a sturdy stanchion, he faded into the shadows of some machinery at the side of the deck eight feet from the rail. He waited. Ching came over the rail, swung his weapon off his back, and moved beside Jaybird. They were to move to the bridge, take down any civilians there, and take control of the bridge.

This was the dicey time, when half the squad was on the rope and only two of them were on the deck. Jaybird heard something, a motor grinding. Suddenly the metal he leaned against vanished into the deck, and when he looked around he found himself staring at a pair of missile firing tubes. Directly in back of that a false cover swung back to reveal a machine gun aimed directly at Jaybird.

Jaybird hit his Motorola. “Abort, abort. This thing is no rust bucket. Missile tubes, machine guns, and that’s just so far. This tub is a Chinese man-of-war, either a destroyer or a frigate.”

“Confirmed?” Murdock asked.

“Fuck, yes!” Franklin shouted into his throat mike. “I’ve got all kinds of firepower staring at me from a hundred-and-thirty-millimeter guns to torpedoes. Abort.”

Jaybird dove for the rail. The machine gun chattered and rounds slammed into the area where he had been. He rolled twice, hit the rail, and went overboard. Ching was right behind him. Ching felt a hard blow to his back, but didn’t drop his weapon. He slid under the rail and jumped feet-first into the Mediterranean below.

The men on the ropes dropped off, hit the water, and swam for the IBS. Three men remained on each of the small boats. They cut the lines holding their craft to the side of the freighter.

Murdock saw muzzle flashes from the rail above. The overhang meant the gunners had to lean out over the rail to get a shot at the side of the ship where the boats were. Murdock slammed three three-round bursts at the muzzle flashes above, and felt his craft slide away from the freighter. Somebody on the motor kicked it over, and they swept farther away from the freighter. It would take the big ship a half mile to stop.

Even now the ship slid away from them.

“SEALs,” Murdock bellowed. “Find your boats. We’re here waiting for you.”

Murdock’s earpiece buzzed. “We’ve got four in our boat,” DeWitt said on the Motorola. “One more coming on board. I’m still light by three. Use light sticks?”

“Not yet. They could have machine guns aft. Make a lovely target. Hold. We just got one more. I’m four short here.”

Murdock kept calling. Two more of his squad found the IBS and were dragged on board.

When the big ship was only a shadow in the distant darkness, Murdock broke out two light sticks, the kind you bend to break an internal barrier letting two chemicals come together and glow. He had two red ones.

“SEALs,” he bellowed again. “We’re here. Find us.” He turned to Senior Chief Dobler. “Who are we missing?”

“First two men up, Ching and Jaybird.”

“Anybody get shot on the deck?” Murdock asked.

Ed DeWitt came on the radio. “We are still missing one man. We think he was hit when he was on deck. The number-one man up the rope after Franklin. It’s Canzoneri.”

Holt came up with the SATCOM ready. “Call, sir?”

Murdock took the handset. “TAC Two?” he said. Holt nodded. “This is In the Wet, calling Knight One. Can you read?”

No response.

Murdock waited a minute, had two more glow sticks activated, and then tried again.

“This is In the Wet. Knight One, can you read?”

A response came back at once.

“Wet, this is Knight One. Trouble?”

“Right. Can you reverse that thing and come get us?”

“That’s a Roger. We’re at land base, but can be moving in five. Give us a Mugger location.”

DeWitt had been listening to the talk over the Motorola. He read off a series of coordinates to Murdock, who passed them on.

“See you in thirty-two. A parachute red flare would be helpful.”

“Can do, Knight One. In thirty-two.”

Murdock signed off, told Holt to keep the channel open to receive, and looked out at the gentle Mediterranean. He was glad there was no bad weather.

“Call out, you guys, make some racket. We have thirty minutes to find our last three men. We will not leave anyone behind.”