Flashpoint

1

The fifteen members of SEAL Team Seven sprawled in the comparative spaciousness of the Pegasus Class Mk V (SOC/PBF). It was a Navy patrol boat specifically designed to insert and withdraw SEALs and other Special Forces on covert operations.

Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock checked his men. This was a surprise flashpoint kind of a mission. They had no notice, just orders to get moving. No time to rehearse or plan out in detail what they would do.

Senior Chief Will Dobler grinned at his commander. “No sweat, Cap. We’ve done little ones like this a dozen times.”

Murdock lifted his brows. “Yeah, but some more planning would have been good. Now we just go in and do it, the first time.”

The Pegasus was eighty-two feet long and had an extremely low profile that was loaded with radar-absorbing material on its forward and rear cabin areas. Even the low-slung bow had the radar-absorbing material.

Now it slammed through the calm waters of the Gulf of Oman off southern Iran at its top speed of forty-five knots.

Commander Murdock had to shout to be heard over the rumble of the two MTU twelve-volt diesel engines that turned out 4,506 horsepower to work the two Kamewa water jets that jolted the slender craft through the water.

“You know most of it,” Murdock said. “We go in at first dark, have all night to recon the place, plant our charges, and get ready for the big show about 0800 tomorrow when the curtain goes up. At least that’s the way it’s set up. We know nothing of current guards around this complex. Not one damn thing.”

“Sure we got enough goop?” Radioman First Class Ron Holt asked. “Sounds like we got one shit pot full of junk to blow sky high.”

“True, lots of stuff out there, but we’re covered. That’s why each of you has a drag bag loaded with C-4 and TNAZ.”

“What if somebody spots us doing our work?” Engineman Second Class Paul Jefferson asked. “Hey, us black guys don’t blend in too damn good with the fucking Muslims.”

“We play it cool if we can. We want as few of their dead bodies out there as possible tonight. It could be a warning and get their guard up. Remember, all of these fuckers out there are terrs. We take anybody out, we have to tonight or early in the A.M., but we do it silently. Your knives will be best here.”

“This sale yard is a half mile long?” Quartermaster’s Mate First Class Kenneth Ching asked.

Boatswain’s Mate First Class and Senior Chief Petty Officer Willard Dobler took that question.

“Yeah. Alpha Squad has the right-side quarter mile and Bravo Squad works the left four forty. We spread out over the length of the place, and when activity slows down about midnight, we move in, take out any guards we have to, then plant our goop and get the hell out of there. No timers to set. All will be detonated with radio signals.”

“All this work for a damn rummage sale?” Machinist Mate First Class Tony Ostercamp asked. “Hell, couldn’t six F-18s off the carrier do just as much damage in less time?”

“They could,” Murdock said. “The only trouble is worldwide public opinion would be against us on this one. We maintain that the mother of all flea markets of terrorists’ favorite weapons and other missiles of war and terrorism should not be held. It’s such an array of weapons that terrorists want that it’s caused an uproar in several countries. Our satellites have been printing out pictures for two days of a glut of terrorist treasures. We want to destroy all of it we can.

“We knew that such a sale could not benefit the world in any way, yet could arm hard-core terrorists and hate mongers for ten years. That’s why we go in covertly, do the business, and get out without anyone tagging any country as the hit men.”

“Hey, glad for the work,” Torpedoman Third Class Les Quinley said. “I can use the overtime pay.”

That brought a chorus of wails and cheers.

“Somebody say that the old fox Osama bin Laden is behind this full table?” asked Electrician’s Mate Second Class Harry Ronson.

Murdock looked at Ronson. “That’s the word we have. Bin Laden is the multimillionaire who promotes terrorism on a worldwide scale. He recently moved from Sudan to Afghanistan, where he has his headquarters and training camps for terrorists. We raided him back in 1998 with Tomahawk missiles after who we think were his men bombed the two U.S. embassies in Africa earlier that year.

“It’s reported that every year, bin Laden pumps millions of dollars of his inherited fortune into terrorist groups and supplies them with weapons. This huge fire sale of everything the terrorists want is believed to have been arranged and highly subsidized by the bin Laden millions.”

“What if we miss something, don’t get it planted with a bomb?” Machinist Mate Second Class and Lead Petty Officer David “Jaybird” Sterling asked.

“We won’t,” Senior Chief Dobler said. “When you go in, you’ll be in pairs. You start planting your charges and move away from each other, planting your bombs on everything in sight. When you meet another SEAL working toward you, you’ll know that you have covered your fifty-yard area. The two of you finish and shag ass out of there.”

The snarl of the diesels slowed, then came close to stopping. The slender boat coasted to a halt in the water. One of five crewmen on the craft came into the compartment. He wore the stripes of a Lieutenant (j.g.).

“Men, we’re ten miles off the objective, Chah Bahar, Iran. Their radar can’t pick us up from here. We’ll wait here until first dark and then move in slowly to your disembarkment point a half mile off the beach. The last mile will be at five knots. Any questions?”

“You’ll be picking us up, Lieutenant?” the senior chief asked.

“That’s not clear yet. It could be a sub, might be choppers, or it could be me. That will be worked out, and you’ll be informed by SATCOM before you get wet coming back.”

“Good. Otherwise, it’s a long swim to the carrier,” Dobler cracked, and the SEALs laughed, glad for something to break the tension.

“We estimate we’ll be under way again in about fifteen minutes. Then we’ll need about forty minutes to get you ready to splash.”

“Thanks, Captain,” Murdock said, using his title as captain of the small craft. The officer nodded and left.

“Double-check your gear again,” Murdock said. “We’ll use the rebreathers all the way as soon as we splash. Last report was that this beach was a gentle slope and sandy, but a recent storm may have turned it a dozen ways from there.”

The SEALs did as they had dozens of times before on missions and on training runs. All the men, even the officers, had undergone the six months of rigorous training that became a boot camp hell of cold, water, explosions, more water, long hikes, no sleep, working the problems, and live fire exercises, until they wanted to scream and run somewhere that they could get warm, dry, and go to sleep. More than 60 percent of the Tadpoles who started SEAL training quit and went back to regular Navy duty.

Murdock watched his men. He had been blooded with all but one of them on the last two missions. His one new man, George “Petard” Canzoneri, had been a find. He was the top demolition man in the whole of Team Seven. He could make C-4 and TNAZ do work that nobody else could. Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed DeWitt had found him as they searched for a man to replace Al Adams.

For a moment, Murdock was worried about DeWitt not being along on the mission. He still hadn’t recuperated enough from his chest wound in Iran to get back into training. Senior Chief Dobler had been leading Bravo Squad through the last two months of training. If Ed didn’t make it back into the team in another two weeks, he’d have to be replaced by a new squad leader.

Murdock heard the big diesels stir, then turn out more power. They were moving at what he figured was twenty knots. Four of his SEALs had finished final checking on their gear and were sleeping. He grinned. Yeah, they were loose. This was a simple little mission that Don Stroh had briefed them on two days ago.

“Directly from the President and the CIA chief,” Stroh had said. A day later, they were on the plane and then to the carrier and now a half hour from Iran. But it would be only a twenty-four-hour mission, if that long.

Fifteen minutes later, Murdock looked out the slanted front windows of the Pegasus’s cabin and saw lights onshore.

“Two miles off, Commander,” the captain told him. “We’re at seven knots now, coming down to five. How close do you want me to take you?”

“Half mile should be safe for you. Dark as hell out there tonight. What happened to the moon?”

“It’s on the wane,” the Lieutenant said. “Don’t think it gets up and over the horizon tonight.”

“Good.”

Ten minutes later, the SEALs splashed into the Gulf of Oman, tied on their six-foot-long buddy cords, took their compass sightings, and headed for shore, swimming fifteen feet below the surface. The first man to touch land would wait for the rest, staying submerged.

Ken Ching found Iranian soil first and put down both feet, then backed up so he’d stay underwater. The rest of the men assembled, and the squad leaders counted heads. All present.

One by one, the SEALs surged shoreward with the waves, coming to rest on the beach sand, looking like long, motionless black logs. Murdock went first, using two waves to get in just out of the heavy surf. He unhooked his rebreather and, without moving, checked the shoreline.

Yes, sandy, no habitation. It had been cleared years ago of shacks and houses when they built the military air base; then the Iranian Air Force moved to a better location. The land remained undeveloped.

When First Squad hit the sand with its weapons pointing shoreward, Murdock came up to a crouch, then ran with his wet cammies pasted against his legs. On such a short swim, they elected not to wear wet suits. He pulled on his wet, floppy hat and slid in behind a small mound of sand that had been half claimed by hearty beach grass.

He sensed the other SEALs leaving the wet and lining up ten yards apart down the beach on both sides of him. Slowly, he lifted up and peered over the small dune.

Yes, he could see lights, lots of lights, as if it were a carnival or a huge outdoor display area. Which is what it was supposed to be. He heard some small motors running, generators probably, for some of the individual display areas. Then the flat snarl of an AK-47 jolted through the air with six rounds, then six more.

Someone slid into the sand beside Murdock.

“Somebody checking to see if a weapon fires,” Operations Specialist Second Class Joe “Ricochet” Lampedusa said. He was the platoon’s best tracker and lead scout.

“How far to them?” Murdock whispered.

“Half a mile, maybe a little more. A long flat space to come back across in daylight with them fuckers shooting at us.”

“We fix it so not many of them are able to shoot at us,” Murdock said. He took the Motorola out of his waterproof pouch on his combat vest. The Motorola was a person-to-person communication radio for short distances. Each of the SEALs had one. A belt pack contained the operational transceiver and battery. A wire led to an earplug and attached lip mike. When Murdock had his radio in place and saw that Lampedusa did as well, he spoke.

“Radio check, Alpha.”

One by one, the seven men in Alpha Squad checked in. Then Murdock heard Senior Chief Dobler call for a radio check on Bravo Squad. All present and accounted for.

“Half mile to our objective. We’ll move in our usual twin diamonds, but at half speed. No rush. Full dark now, and our job planting the explosives shouldn’t take more than two hours, even if we run into some opposition. Drag bags. Let’s dump them here and hang the goodies around your neck, in your belt, any way you can. We don’t want to pull those fuckers over the ground.”

Only Murdock and Lam had NVGs, Night Vision Goggles. Murdock pulled his down from where they had perched on his head and checked the objective. The pale green glow gave him a clear look at the sales area. They were at the back of it. Evidently, there was one long line of booths and display areas that faced the other way. There could be an old runway they were working on. He watched for security.

It was barely 2100. Many men still milled around, evidently working on their displays, getting them ready for the rush of customers in the morning.

Now and then, a light blinked out, and Murdock figured they should stay put for a while. He hoped the place would be deserted by the time they got there to place the explosives.

He frowned as he saw a soldier walking what must be a guard post. He went behind two shapes that must be tents, then moved thirty yards north and went back between displays.

Lam groaned beside him. “See that fucking guard?”

“Yeah. Complicates things.”

Murdock used the Motorola. “We’ve spotted some Army guards patrolling. Changes things. We’ll hunker down here and wait until all the lights go out. By that time, we’ll figure out what to do about the guards and our whole timing operation.”

They moved forward slowly for a quarter of a mile and found a small ravine a hundred yards from the display that would hide them. The SEALs spread out and settled down. Murdock, Dobler, Lam, and Jaybird talked it over.

Jaybird had watched the sales area and reported what looked like a series of guards who were on the whole layout.

“No chance we can get in and get out without being spotted,” Jaybird said. “If we take out three or four of the guards, they’ll find that out in a rush, and we’ll have to fight our way in and out. They might not want to give us a hell of a lot of time to booby-trap all of those goods.”

“How about a diversion?” Lam said. “We can use the forty-mikes to cause a problem for them two hundred yards the other side of the strip. They bug out over there, we put down the charges and haul ass out of there before they get back.”

“Yeah, but would all of the guards go out there, or do they have a company of troops somewhere waiting for trouble?” Dobler asked.

“Probably,” Murdock said. “We’ve got to count on them having a good-sized force here. Iran doesn’t want a black eye, especially on bin Laden’s show. So we go with the worst scenario. If it doesn’t happen, we’re glad and get the job done and get our asses back in the water.”

They all looked at the objective again through the glasses.

“I figure about twenty guards,” Lam said. “They each seem to have a zone about twenty-five yards long. They go around and around.”

“We move in and take out ten of them,” Dobler said. “On their next round, we take out the other ten. Then we dig in and plant our bombs and TNAZ and get the hell out.”

“How long to plant all the goods?” Murdock asked.

Jaybird shrugged. “Each of us has fifty yards. That’s maybe twenty bombs. I’ve got thirty. By rushing and having the detonators in first, we should be able to do it in twenty minutes.”

Murdock rubbed his face with one hand. He needed a shave.

“So, say we try it that way. We snuff half the guards, and ten minutes later, they make the second round and we get the rest. If all goes right, we have twenty minutes to lay down the explosives and haul ass.

“If things get out of hand, say there’s a shot or two fired by the guards, that would alert the rest of the forces and a jeep or two. Then we send out our forty-mikes on my command and create our diversion. We hope to drain off the manpower there until we get done with the goop.”

“They’ll know they’ve been hit by then and come right here to the prize and start checking,” Lam said. “No way we can wait until morning to blow the bombs.”

“Why they give us that time line, anyway?” Dobler asked.

“Said they wanted to catch the buyers in the area and snuff as many of them as possible.”

“Probably won’t go down that way,” Jaybird said.

Murdock looked back at the target. “Fewer lights now. One generator must still be working.”

“By 2400, that place will be dead black,” Lam said. “I hope.”

Murdock called up Petard Canzoneri.

“Yes, sir, all ready to go. Each man has enough explosives for twenty bombs. He also has twenty detonator-receivers. They will be handed out in groups of sixty, working from one end of the line to the other. Each group of sixty detonators will have a separate frequency to explode the bombs.”

“Not all at once?” Murdock asked.

“No, sir. I don’t have that many hands. This way I can work from one end, or from both ends, or from the middle outward, depending which will do the most damage.”

“Sounds like a good plan, Canzoneri. Get some rest. We won’t be moving for some time.”

The plans made, they waited. Murdock knew they had five grenade launchers. On command, each man with a carbine would launch four rounds across the target and well inland to maximum range.

He had posted guards, one on each end of the SEALs’ gully, and one in the center, all watching the target. None of the Iranian Army men had even looked outward toward the SEALs’ location.

They waited.

At midnight, Murdock checked the target again through the NVGs. He had trouble finding any lights. At last he made out two, both small. Next he searched for the guards. Yes. There was one. He timed the man’s circuit. It was fifteen minutes before a guard appeared at the same spot. Probably the same man.

Lam slid into the sand beside Murdock.

“I make their rounds every fifteen minutes,” Lam said.

“Agreed. Senior Chief, are you awake?”

“Ready,” came the sound over Murdock’s earpiece.

“Work with Canzoneri and spread out the men so we can take the guards. Also have him give the men the twenty detonators in the sequence he wants. Have them put the detonator-receivers into the bombs. Do it now.”

“That’s a roger.”

Ten minutes later, the radio earpiece spoke.

“All men in position,” Commander. “All detonators given out in the proper sequence. We’re ready.”

“Good, Senior Chief. Let’s move up slowly. Everyone will stop twenty yards from the tents and displays. When the guards come, dispatch them silently. Let’s move.”

Murdock checked the line with his NVGs. The fourteen other SEALs were in line and moving forward.

They were twenty yards from the target when the men began dropping to the ground. Murdock went with them. Directly ahead, he saw a guard come around the corner of a bright blue tent. He didn’t even look toward them. Instead, he stopped and lit a cigarette, cupping the glow of the smoke. Murdock was closest to the man. He waited until the guard turned away, then Murdock unsheathed his KA-BAR fighting knife and moved silently forward. The last four steps, he ran. The Iranian must have heard his footsteps. He started to turn just as the blade drove deeply under his left arm into his heart. He went down, dead, like a head-shot steer.

Murdock took the AK-47 and checked it. Loaded. He looked down the line and saw two other SEALs moving up to the tents and display tables. He heard no sounds. Good. He waited four or five minutes, then used the radio.

“Alpha Squad, how many guards down?”

He knew the voices. Four responded. His made five. That left fifteen. “Bravo Squad, how many terrs down?” Six different voices answered. That made eleven. Maybe they could pull it off. Another ten minutes, and he saw more guards through the NVGs moving around the backs of the displays.

He saw one man go down, then a second.

Before anything else happened, a piercing scream shattered the Iranian night, then the flat blasts of a dozen AK-47 rounds ripped through the air. Another voice shrilled. He heard the chugs of a silenced weapon near him. Somewhere a siren went off.

Murdock hit the mike. “Shoot those forty-mikes. Four rounds each. Fire now. Everybody plant those charges.”

Murdock ran to the front of the tent and ducked inside. The tent was filled with 105 rounds and stacks of bags of gunpowder. He pushed two charges under the gunpowder. Sympathetic explosions should wipe out all of the rounds as well. He ran outside and began working to his left.

By now, he wasn’t sure that the double teams were intact. They would plant what bombs they could and haul ass when the fresh Iranian troops arrived.

He had heard the forty-mikes being fired and exploding well inland. He hoped that drew most of the others on hand. More sirens wailed. He saw a pair of headlights racing up the old concrete runway toward them.

Before the rig came into the range of Murdock’s MP-5, a longer SEAL gun knocked out the lights and the rig itself with six rounds.

Murdock kept placing the bombs and checking the detonators. He’d never seen such a variety of weapons and ammunition. He had a glimpse of a jet aircraft of some kind and several armored personnel carriers down the way.

Machinist’s Mate First Class Tony Ostercamp and Paul Jefferson had killed the guard they surprised and now came to the white tent. To the left side, they found tables piled high with assault rifles, machine guns, and boxes of ammo.

Jefferson worked there. Ostercamp waved and headed the other way to the tent. Jefferson wrapped charges around two AK-47s at the bottom of the pile. He moved to his right to an orderly layout of RPGs, rocket-propelled grenades. It took him only a few seconds to bury a quarter-pound charge of TNAZ under the stack and push in more securely the electronic detonator. He looked to his right.

Something moved.

He waited. The shadow he had seen stepped forward cautiously. Jefferson was glad his black face and hands wouldn’t show in the darkness of the moonless night. The figure took two more strides forward, then turned to look behind. The guard held an Ingram submachine gun.

Jefferson froze in place, waiting. Another four steps. The man checked behind him again, then came forward.

Jefferson leaped upward at the last moment before the guard would have stepped on him. His KA-BAR knife drove out at the end of his stiff arm like a spear. It slashed through soft cloth, glanced off a rib, and penetrated deeply into the Iranian’s heart. The man slumped forward, dead without a sound.

Jefferson caught him before he fell. The Ingram came between them and wedged in as Jefferson dragged the man behind the table of weapons. He found a canvas and hid the body under it, cleaned off his KA-BAR on the dead man’s shirt, and sheathed it.

He could hear small arms fire inland. He hoped that the forty-mikes drew off some troops. He knelt and looked around. He saw no more guards. They were either dead or hiding. A grenade blew up fifty yards down the long line of arms.

Jefferson went back to his work on the weapons. Next he came to an armored personnel carrier, a small, fast almost-tank that could haul eight to ten men into battle sporting a fair amount of armored protection. He pried off the fuel tank filler tube, pushed an eighth pound of TNAZ into the tube, and reset the electronic detonator.

Jefferson put a quarter pound of TNAZ on the underside of the engine block where it wouldn’t be easily found.

The next display was inside a tent. He unzipped the doorway and went in. A sleeping man jolted upright, lifting a pistol. Jefferson’s boot slammed into his jaw, pivoting his head upward and backward, breaking his neck in a millisecond. The pistol fell out of his hand before his death spasms could jerk his dying finger on the trigger.

Jefferson found nobody else in the tent. Inside were six tables loaded with radios and simple radar equipment, enough to outfit at least a battalion. Jefferson strung primer cord around a dozen of the most complicated units, then put three one-eighth-pound chunks of TNAZ on radios, under tables, and in various spots where they might not be easily seen. He hoped the first man into the tent in the morning figured the primer cord was large electrical lead wiring.

When he finished, Jefferson dragged the dead man outside and put him behind the tent. Jefferson broke off some desert brush and covered him, then continued his work to the right. He heard more weapons fire. Far down at the end of the display, he saw some winking lights as weapons were fired his way. He could hear no rounds hitting.

His sector here was fifty. By then he should meet another SEAL working toward him from the other direction. He left the white tent and had started to look at the next display of shoulder-fired missiles when he felt something jab into his back.

“Do not even twitch, American SEAL. I have seen you people work before. Don’t even think about moving or breathing, or I’ll blow you in half with my machine gun.”