Bloodstorm

12

The driver of the NATO sedan who took Murdock to the Athens hospital told him the Greek name of the hospital meant mercy. Murdock hoped the name was accurate. He talked to two people at the front desk before he found the English-speaking nurse who had talked to him on the phone. She met him in the lobby and took him to a waiting room just off the operating room.

“Mr. Ching is still in the OR, but the operation should be nearly done. I’ll go and check. He has improved since I spoke to you last. One doctor said that they had found several fragments of the bullet, and that no vital organs had been hit; however, there has been serious damage to his upper body and one shard penetrated his left lung. It has been removed, and the lung is back to normal functioning.”

“Good. Let me know when I can see him.” The nurse nodded and went through a door into the operating room area.

Murdock sat down, and couldn’t stop thinking about the Chinese ship. She had to be a destroyer, camouflaged and outfitted to look like a freighter. They must have changed all of the antennas, or fixed them so they could be raised when needed.

He’d seen the book on Chinese destroyers. They were loaded with highly efficient missiles, torpedoes, and all sorts of firepower. He was certain that the admiral would ask him how the SEALs could disable the ship and force it into a nearby port, where the national port authorities could take over, seize the ship, and confiscate the nuclear warheads. Great idea if it worked. It would depend on how much damage the SEALs could inflict.

It couldn’t be so much that they would sink the craft. No real chance of that with limpet mines. Just damage her enough to make her go into port. He wished he had a schematic of the ship showing its structure. Somewhere aft would be best. Not the engine room.

He was still trying to work out a plan when a doctor came through the OR doors and walked up to Murdock.

“Your sailor is alive. Getting better. My English poor.”

The nurse who had talked to Murdock before hurried up and spoke with the doctor, then translated.

“This is Dr. Arjarack. He was the surgeon who worked on Mr. Ching. He says that all of the metal is removed and Mr. Ching should be fine in two months. No strenuous exercises from now to then. He’ll be in the hospital here for a week to watch for infection and any other developments. Then he’ll be released.”

Murdock thanked the nurse, shook the doctor’s hand, and headed back to the NATO compound. The driver and his car were waiting for him in a VIP spot just outside the hospital doors. Nice to have a little clout somewhere.

“So how the fourteen of us gonna knock down a fucking destroyer?” Ostercamp brayed. “We just got our asses kicked out there in the briny deep, don’t forget.”

“Attention on the deck,” Senior Chief Dobler barked, and the SEALs jumped to their feet.

Murdock came in the door and grinned at the regular Navy discipline. It didn’t hurt now and then. The SEALs didn’t make a habit of it.

“As you were,” Murdock said.

“How are the guys?” Jaybird asked.

“Canzoneri should be back in two or three days. Observation. That slug that ripped into Ching shattered and went all over his chest. They think they got all of it, but had to do some cutting. He won’t be with us anymore on this mission. In a week or so I’ll get him flown back to Balboa Navy Hospital in San Diego.”

“So we’re down to fourteen,” DeWitt said.

“We get a mission yet to take out that destroyer?” Franklin asked.

“Not yet, but we can always plan what we would do, what we can do, and be ready when the word comes down.”

“Why not our biggest limpets?” Holt asked.

“Maybe wrap cable around her screws. When she winds in the last of the cable, there’s a contact-bomb attached that blows her screw in half.” It was Paul Jefferson’s idea.

Murdock looked around. “Only two ideas? Come on, you guys, we need eight or ten.”

“Against a fucking destroyer?” Ostercamp asked.

“How about a few RPGs into her bridge?” Khai asked. “That should slow her down and get her into a port for repairs.”

“Yeah, but who wants to get within two hundred yards of her in an open boat?” Lampedusa asked.

“How about a sea-skimmer missile from a ship?” Vinnie Van Dyke asked. “They could take out half the warhead so it wouldn’t sink the sucker, just blow a hole in her hull.”

Senior Chief Dobler had a notebook out, and wrote down each idea as it came along.

“Ed, any suggestions?” Murdock asked.

“How about a Stinger missile?” DeWitt asked. “Hand-held, five feet long, up to three miles of range, and travels at Mach 1. Two-point-two pounds of high explosives with a penetrating design.”

“That’s a ground-to-air missile,” Mahanani said. “Don’t you need an IR source for it to lock onto?”

“Not sure,” DeWitt said. “The RPG sounds possible, maybe a combo limpet and RPG. What’s the best range for an RPG anyway?”

Nobody knew.

“Bradford,” Murdock said. “Get on a phone and find out the maximum and best range for the regular RPG.”

Bradford ran for the door.

“My guess here is that the President and NATO will give us one shot at getting that rust-bucket destroyer into port,” Murdock went on. “If we can’t damage her enough, then the Navy’s task force with that second carrier will bear down on the Chinese and threaten to blow her out of the water if she doesn’t submit to a Greek inspection. She’s in Greek territorial waters with all these Greek islands. Then it will be up to the Chinese, to give up the missiles and warheads, or get their ship blasted into compliance without sinking her. Either way they lose.”

“Let’s hope,” DeWitt said. “Anybody hear what’s happening in Chad? Has Libya taken over the whole country? Is there any more fighting?”

Mahanani had a small powerful standard-band radio he carried, and he’d been listening to the Armed Forces Radio station.

“Chad at first capitulated,” Mahanani said. “But when they heard about the rest of the Libyan warheads being destroyed, they began fighting back again like the other time Libya invaded. Neither side has a huge army, maybe sixty or seventy thousand men. Last I heard, Chad was making slow progress in blowing Libya out of their country.”

Dobler came up and talked to Murdock. “We’ve got bunks for the men and know where the chow hall is. I hear there’s some kind of a PX, but we don’t have any money so it doesn’t matter. Maybe we should let the men get some sleep.”

“Good idea, Senior Chief.”

“Hey, Chief Dobler, is there any place around here that I can get Internet access?” Fernandez asked. “I want to send a long E-mail back to my wife.”

Dobler said he wanted to send a couple himself, and they went off hunting a computer with on-line access.

Murdock checked his watch. It was only 1309. Felt like 2200. It had been a long day and night and day. Sleep. He needed some. He found his quarters and tumbled into the bed. It was a real room with a door and just two single beds. BOQ quarters of some ilk. He didn’t fight it or even question it. He just went to sleep.

Murdock woke up at 1635 hungry as a cootie bear. He saw DeWitt sleeping, and left. The officers’ mess was not crowded. Murdock saw Admiral Tanning at another table with two men. The admiral nodded, Murdock nodded back. The food was better than he expected. He had his usual after-mission steak dinner, and went back to his quarters and rolled into bed.

The most difficult work lay ahead.

Chen Takung watched the engineers work with increased respect. It was just past 0800, and with the new day the engineers had removed the nose cone from one of the Satan missiles in the hold. Then the first warhead had been extracted and carefully separated from the rest of the elements.

Now the engineers had to disassemble the receiving elements of the guidance system from the warhead. Chen had never seen one before. It looked like a small rocket to him, with a propulsion system and guidance controls.

The captain of the ship had asked him why they hadn’t made the Ukrainians do this work. Since what they wanted were the warheads, why not simply buy them and not the whole rocket? There were several reasons, but they all had to do with time and secrecy. Chen explained that it would not have been possible to do the breakdown of the missiles and take out the warheads in the missile storage area near Odessa.

Someone would have seen it happening and report. Neither could they take the time in the warehouse at the port to do the same job. It could be done leisurely at sea, the rest of the missile parts and body dumped overboard when the nose cone came off.

Chen checked his watch. Nearly 1400. Their radio communication with the visiting ship had been affirmative. It would rendezvous with the Star of Asia promptly at 1500. The first warhead was ready. He had been authorized to sell one missile and one warhead from another missile. The price for the single warhead was the equivalent of ten million dollars U.S.

It was the same boat that had met them two days ago. At that time the sale had been agreed to. Now the ship would bring the payment and take delivery.

Then it would be full speed toward the canal. Chen laughed softly, full speed at ten knots. He still wondered who the attackers had been during the night. His men on the deck said they were dressed in camouflaged uniforms, and had good weapons. Pirates of some ilk, ready to take down a rusted old scow of a freighter?

That was the only scenario he could think of that made sense. They had been scared off quickly. One or two had been wounded or killed. His men had made a mistake by firing too quickly. They should have waited until all of the pirates had been on the deck. None of his men had been scratched.

For a moment he wondered what his reception would be in China. He would be met in port, or perhaps well out in the Gulf of Bo Hai, with a Naval escort. There would be bands and a parade, and perhaps even President Jiang Zhemin himself would be there to pin the medals on him. Oh, yes, what a glorious day that would be.

One more sale, then the ship would head directly for the canal.

He tired of watching the engineers, and returned to the bridge. They were making five knots in a generally southern direction. Never had Chen seen so many islands. They were the Greek islands, and many of them were populated. It must be a headache to govern. He would rather have his country all in one piece with water only on one side of it.

“Sir,” one of the officers on the bridge said. “We have a ship coming up from the port side at fourteen knots. She has the radar appearance of a small freighter. Range is ten thousand meters.”

“Thanks, Commander. You better let your captain know.”

Moments later the ship’s captain came on the bridge.

“Not visual yet, sir,” the commander said. “Range now a little under ten thousand meters.”

“Try a hailing frequency,” the captain ordered.

A few minutes later the radio man returned to the bridge.

“Sir, she responded, she’s the Faizabad Roamer. That’s the same ship we contacted two days ago. She gives you her compliments and says she will be alongside shortly for a transfer of the package by high line.”

The captain shook his head. “It’s too choppy out here today for a high-line transfer. We’ll do it with a small launch. Get my gig over the side at once, Commander.”

An hour later the transfer was complete. The warhead had been cushioned with insulation inside a wooden box, then swathed with flotation blankets. Next they’d wrapped the box securely.

The money came over in the captain’s gig first; then the warhead went back. The two boats were within a hundred yards of each other for about fifteen minutes. With the safe transfer, the two boats turned heading in opposite directions.

Chen nodded. Yes, the last contact with the Western World before he headed for Mother China. He lit another cigarette and chain-smoked for an hour. All the time he thought about home, his wife, and their small son. He would be home soon. Again he wondered what his reception would be when he returned to China with forty-nine nuclear warheads. Glorious, it would be glorious.