Murdock took out his night-vision goggles and kept scanning the swells around them. Dark water that looked green in the night viewing. He thought he saw something to the left. No, only a swell that formed a small whitecap on top. Just what they didn’t need, a rising sea.
He quartered one area, then another, working all the way around the IBS. The two boats were still tied together.
“We’ve found a man,” the Motorola said. It was De Witt. “Not sure who it is yet.”
Murdock kept looking. Every man in the boat checked harder to find any sign of their two lost men.
“It’s Ching,” DeWitt said on the radio. “He’s got a wound in the upper chest. Not sure how bad it is. We’ll stop the bleeding. We still need two men.”
“Jaybird and Canzoneri,” Murdock said. Both had been on deck of the craft when the shooting started. Sitting ducks. Jaybird had said the ship was a Naval vessel? Franklin said there was all sorts of firepower around, including a 130mm gun and torpedoes. Jaybird had mentioned missile tubes and machine guns.
“Better tell somebody that ship is a Chinese destroyer,” DeWitt said. “She’s camouflaged, but now her cover is blown.”
Murdock used his binoculars and stared the way the Chinese ship had vanished. “If she’s a destroyer, she’ll be coming back to clean up,” Murdock said on the mike. “Let’s get those two men.”
“The men we’ve recovered so far have all been ahead of us, down the path of the freighter,” Senior Chief Dobler said. “Let’s power up and move that way a hundred yards.”
Murdock nodded. “Do it. Tell the other boat.”
They motored ahead slowly, watching new territory.
“Swimmer to port,” somebody called. DeWitt’s boat was leading and he powered that way. A moment later he reported.
“We’ve got Jaybird. Looks like he’s got a dislocated shoulder. No gunfire wounds.”
“Good. Now let’s find Canzoneri.”
They kept moving slowly forward. Then a light stick in green glowed just over the swells well ahead of them, vanishing now and then, but soon showing again.
“To starboard, light stick,” Murdock shouted. The boats motored that way, losing the light stick, then finding it at the top of the next swell. Murdock’s boat got to him first. They dragged Canzoneri into the boat, and then saw that the light stick was jammed in the shoulder section of the combat vest. Canzoneri was not breathing.
Mahanani laid him as flat as they could get him in the craft and did mouth-to-mouth CPR. Three minutes, then four, Mahanani kept it up.
Then Canzoneri heaved upward as vomit and seawater exploded out of his mouth, drenching Mahanani.
“Yeah, you fucker, you can throw up on me any time,” Mahanani said. He wiped Canzoneri’s mouth, lifted his shoulders a little, and put Canzoneri’s head in his lap.
Murdock turned to find Holt. The radioman held out the SATCOM handset. “You want to make a call?”
Murdock grinned. “How in hell do you do that, Holt?” He took the mike and talked to the chopper coming for them.
“Relay to whoever you can that the Chinese rust-bucket tanker is actually a destroyer in disguise, with full arms, torpedoes, and missile tubes. That’s all we saw on our quick tour of the main deck. It’s no rust bucket, and should be able to make at least twenty-two knots if it wants to. So far it hasn’t come back to finish us. They knew we were coming, which means they have excellent radar.”
“Copy, In the Wet. Will forward your report to my CO. Our ETA your last coordinates is fifteen minutes.”
“We’ll have all sorts of light sticks for your welcome,” Murdock said. “No sign of the Chinese warship.” He signed off and tried to relax. Half of the Motorolas were not working due to a sudden swim.
“Skipper, Jaybird is in a lot of pain over here,” DeWitt said on the box. “Can Mahanani pull an arm back in its shoulder socket?”
Murdock pointed at Mahanani. “Never done it, J.G., but I’ve seen it done. Want me to come over there?”
“Jaybird says it’s worth a try. He says his shoulder can’t possibly hurt any more.”
“It will for a few seconds. We’ll pull the boats together.”
Two minutes later, Mahanani stared down at Jaybird, who sat on the bench. “You ready for this, SEAL?”
“Just goddamn do it, or give me a .45 with a round in the chamber.”
“I’ll do it.” Mahanani put his foot in Jaybird’s right armpit and took hold of his right wrist with both hands. He had felt the dislocation and figured which way he had to pull. He increased the pressure with his foot, then suddenly pulled out and down.
Jaybird let out a bellow of pain that they must have heard in Athens. “You killed me, you sonofabitch. Why the fuck did you have to do…” He stopped. “Hey, the hurt is not as bad, it’s fading away.”
Jaybird yelped in delight, then faced Mahanani. “Hey, don’t you never die, you motherfucker. We need you in this outfit.” It was the highest praise one SEAL could give another.
The chopper showed up a quarter of a mile from where the two IBSs bobbed in the Mediterranean, which was now showing routine whitecaps. The big bird did a circle, spotted the half-dozen light sticks, and came in slowly.
Murdock had been on the SATCOM.
“Yeah, funny bird with propeller on top. Come in right over the first boat. We’ll try to go up the ladder from the boat. Should work. In any case we dump the boats. They are expendable.”
“That’s a Roger, Wet Ones. Be right there.”
Ed’s boatload went first. He had the two wounded. Ching swore at them.
“No sling for me, you shitheads. I can climb the fucking ladder. Done it a thousand times.”
“You’re shot up, Ching.”
“I go first just to show you lowlifes how to do it.”
Mahanani had stayed in DeWitt’s boat. He signaled to the J.G. that he would be right behind Ching.
The bird came in slowly, positioned directly overhead, and turned on the landing lights. Ching grabbed the trailing wooden and rope ladder, and got his feet on the bottom rung. He was two grabs from the top when his left hand slipped off the rung. Mahanani was a step behind him, and went up beside him and hoisted the 180-pound Ching up the last two steps, where two men in the chopper grabbed him and boosted him inside.
After that it was routine. Jaybird needed help on the last rung. The chopper moved to the second boat. Canzoneri had recovered, and went up the ladder quickly. The rest of Alpha Squad made it inside.
Murdock climbed the rope and rungs as the last man, and at the hatch turned and fired six rounds into each of the two IBSs. They wouldn’t sink quickly, but over four or five hours they would take on enough water to sink so low in the water they would be hard to spot.
The hatch swung upward, and the SEALs slumped on the floor of the chopper. The crew chief called Murdock to the cabin, where the pilot gave him a throat mike and earpiece to the radio.
“Yes, sir, Admiral, you heard right. That Chinese rust bucket is a disguised and camouflaged Chinese destroyer. Those panels swing back to show missile-launching tubes, a 130mm cannon, machine guns, and deck torpedoes. That was all our men saw in the short time they had before they aborted our mission and dove overboard. We have one man wounded and another one hurt and we almost lost one man. Yes, I’ll talk to the President and tell him the same thing. If those other missiles are on board that Chinese man-of-war, it’s going to be damn hard to take a look at them.”
Murdock listened on the earphones.
“Yes, sir, we’ll be in Athens in about half an hour and we’ll be glad to bring our eyewitnesses to a debriefing with anyone you chose. But first I have two wounded I need to take care of. What kind of medical do you have there?”
“Just a small clinic with one doctor,” said the admiral. “We often use a hospital in Athens that is excellent.”
“Could you have an ambulance waiting for my men? One has been shot in the upper chest. Not critical but serious. Another man was revived from drowning with CPR, and I want his lungs checked over.”
“Yes, Commander, we’ll have medical waiting, but we request that you put him in the medics’ hands and come to our debriefing as soon as you set down. There could be a lot riding on this debriefing.”
“My wounded come first, sir. If you can assure me they will be in good hands…”
“They will be, Commander. I’ve seen these doctors in action. The hospital is as good as most in the U.S.”
“Fine. As soon as my two men are in that ambulance, we’ll come to the debriefing.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
Murdock handed the mike and earplug back to the pilot.
“Thanks, Lieutenant, for the ride. You held this chopper as steady on our pickup as I’ve ever seen it done. You do good work.”
The pilot slipped on the radio gear and nodded.
“Debriefing in Athens?” DeWitt said. “They want to talk to our men who were on the deck?”
“About the size of it. A pair of admirals have flown in from somewhere, and somebody from NATO. They said they have already brought Kat over from the carrier. Big party.”
When the chopper landed, an ambulance was waiting. A doctor checked Ching.
“The bullet that hit him is still inside. We’ll need to operate and find it.” He listened to Canzoneri’s lungs and shook his head. “His lungs don’t sound right. He’d better come to the hospital as well. They will be in good hands, Commander, I guarantee.”
A bus took the rest of the SEALs and their equipment to a NATO facility where they would be debriefed. Jaybird, Franklin, DeWitt, and Murdock reported to the meeting room as soon as they arrived. They were told not to change clothes or even wash up. Time was vital.
The debriefing went about as Murdock figured it would. The two admirals were joined by a general from Germany and two nuclear experts, as well as Kat from the carrier. The panel of debriefers sounded more like a courts-martial panel. They grilled the two SEALs who had been on the Chinese ship’s deck.
Jaybird and Franklin reported what they had seen on board the Chinese ship.
“No, sir, I didn’t see any Chinese personnel,” Jaybird said. “I did see a machine gun firing at me and four missile-firing tubes. She’s a destroyer or a frigate and definitely military.”
By noon the debriefing was over. Murdock and DeWitt were asked to stay, along with Kat, to talk to the debriefing team. A civilian entered the room. He introduced himself as Horner from NEST. Murdock remembered that was for Nuclear Energy Search Team. What was he doing here? That team was called in on a broken arrow, a radiation spill, or a leaking warhead.
Now the tone of the meeting changed. Admiral Tanning spoke first. “We now have intel that shows us almost one hundred percent that five of the six Satan missiles taken from Ukraine are on this Chinese ship which you now claim is a warship. Our problem: How do we confront the ship and the Chinese government? How do we stop and search the ship without causing an international incident? How do we get the missiles out of Chinese hands?”
“Some more information for you,” General Archibald said. “We have intel from our people in the Ukraine that the two managers of the secret missile storage area outside Odessa evidently were the traitors who sold the missiles. The price tag was something over seventy million dollars.
“However, both the managers were found shot dead in the warehouse where the missiles were stored before on-loading on the Chinese ship and the Libyan-bound freighter. Traces of nuclear leakage were found on the floor of the warehouse. There was no trace of any payment money, so the Chinese probably faked that or took the money with them.”
“So, how do we treat this ship?” Admiral Tanning asked.
Murdock looked around and saw no one ready to comment, so he did. “We treat them the same as we did in Libya. Just because China is already a nuclear power should not make any difference. We committed an act of war against Libya by going in with our military and destroying the remaining warheads that they had purchased on the open market. We felt in the name of international peace we were justified. We should treat the Chinese ship the same.”
“Are you suggesting that we attack her, maybe sink her?” General Archibald asked.
“As a last resort,” Murdock replied. “There are many ways we can slow, harass, even stop the ship in mid-Mediterranean. One example would be to disable the ship, force it into port for repairs, and then take it over by force. Along that line, SEALs can plant a pair of limpet mines on each side of the hull aft and flood some of the holds. This would require some quick porting.”
The admirals and the general looked at each other. “An act of war now could save millions of lives if these warheads went to the wrong parties,” Admiral Tanning said. “We realize that. The President and NATO are extremely concerned. If we do anything to that Chinese ship, it will be under NATO auspices, a spread-the-blame procedure.”
“What ever happened to the Cowpens, that U.S. cruiser that was in Athens when we began this?” DeWitt asked.
“Plans were changed when we found out the Chinese ship was so close to Athens,” Murdock said. “Forget to tell you that. I understand that the Cowpens is playing a role.”
Admiral Tanning nodded. “Indeed. She sailed as soon as we were sure the Chinese ship had the missiles, and has been shadowing her about ten miles off. The Cowpens would be a good platform for any SEAL operation, or any other move on the Chinese.”
The quizzers talked to Kat then, asking about the type of warheads she had worked on, how they were set up, how she deactivated them, how long it took. And what she suggested they do if they did capture the five remaining missiles with the fifty warheads on board.
Admiral Tanning shook his head. “As for our next step, we don’t know. We’ll talk with the President within the hour. He will consult with NATO. Anything we do must be authorized by the highest authority, as well as NATO. But this does not mean it will take weeks to happen. I expect that some decision will be made within three or four hours. Until then, we hold fast.”
Then the session was over and Murdock tarried, so he could ask Admiral Tanning if he had any orders for him and his platoon.
“No sense your going back to the carrier. We’ll have our other carrier in the Mediterranean that’s a lot closer come up to this area. In the long run, we may have to push a battle group around the Chinese ship and make her show her true colors or get blown out of the water by any one of fourteen ships or eighty-five aircraft.”
He stared at Murdock for a moment. “Commander, I admire what you and your men do. See to your wounded and I’ll get orders cut so you remain here on this NATO base until we figure out what to do. That’s not going to be long. That Chinese ship could kick up to twenty-five knots and be in the Suez Canal within a day or two. We can’t let that happen.”
At the temporary quarters the SEALs were assigned, they settled in and cleaned their weapons and oiled them. They always had to clean them well after a dunking in salt water.
Murdock called the hospital where his men were. After several tries with operators, he got one who spoke English and was connected to the nurse who was attending his men.
“Commander, your one man with the lung problem is doing fine. A week’s rest here and he’ll be good as new. Your other man with the bullet wound… He’s in surgery right now and the doctor told me, if you called, to urge you to get over here as fast as you can. The operation isn’t going well.”
Murdock grabbed his clean cammy shirt and pulled it on as he ran out of the officers’ quarters looking for some transportation to the Athens hospital. Damnit, he wasn’t about to lose Ching.