Seal Team Seven

Thursday, 19 May

1512 hours (Zulu -5)

NAVSPECWARGRU-Two Briefing Room

Little Creek, Virginia

Captain Paul Mason strode into the briefing room, back straight and almost pain-free. It had been several years now since he'd needed a cane to walk, and he continued to skirmish with the Navy doctors who'd originally predicted that he'd be driving a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Someday, Mason knew, he would not only walk, but he would jump out of airplanes again as well, don the heavy tanks of a SCUBA apparatus, and even pull a five-miles-plus endurance swim with fins. He was a SEAL.

Waiting in the room were several of the important ops-level people in the Norfolk SEAL Community; the skippers of SEAL Teams Two, Four, Seven, and Eight; Captain Kenneth Friedman, commanding Helicopter Attack Squadron Light Four, the Red Wolves; and several staff, logistics, and support officers. Rear Admiral Bainbridge, CONAVSPECWARGRU-Two, was there as well, chewing on the stem of an unlit pipe and looking distinctly unhappy as he reviewed a sheaf of computer printouts just handed to him by his meteorological officer. Also present was Rear Admiral Kerrigan of MIDEASTFOR. The Middle East Force, under the operational umbrella of the Sixth Fleet in the Med, was headquartered in Bahrain, but Kerrigan served as staff liaison to the various naval commands based in Norfolk, including NAVSPECWARGRU-Two.

And at the end of the table, isolated by his civilian clothes, was the suit from Langley. Brian Hadley didn't look like a spook — small, rumpled, and nearsighted, with the frizzy white hair of a university professor — but he was supposed to be one of the best analysts in the CIA's Intelligence Directorate, head Of the Office of Global Issues.

Hadley had arrived, Mason knew, only moments ago from the Executive Office Building, where the National Security Council staff had been meeting round the clock since this current crisis had broken loose.

Mason walked to the end of the long mahogany table, taking his place behind the podium there. The other men in the room, most of whom he knew well, watched him attentively.

"Very well, gentlemen," Mason said, gripping the sides of the podium. "You've all been following the situation, and you know why we're here. For the past twenty-four hours, the Japanese plutonium ship Yuduki Maru, with two tons of weapons-grade plutonium aboard, has been off course. She is out of radio contact and, until we can determine otherwise, we are assuming that this is a terrorist incident and are classifying it as a Broken Arrow."

The men around the table shifted uncomfortably. Broken Arrow was the code phrase for any accident with nuclear weapons — specifically with U.S. weapons accidentally launched or jettisoned, such as had happened back in the sixties with the crash of a U.S. aircraft carrying nuclear weapons off the coast of Spain.

The provisions for calling a Broken Arrow alert, however, included the theft or loss of any nuclear weapon or radiological component, or any situation where there was a real or implied public hazard from that component. The fine points had been debated in both the Pentagon and the White House already; the plutonium aboard the Yuduki Maru belonged to Japan and was not the direct responsibility of the U.S. government. Still, the United States had assumed an indirect responsibility for the plutonium. American firms had sold the original uranium to Japan in the first place, and perhaps more to the point, two tons of radioactive plutonium represented a terrific danger, both to American interests and to America's allies. If terrorists had indeed hijacked the Yuduki Maru, they were not likely to be sympathetic to U.S. interests.

Reinforcing this, Mason went on to discuss the evidence that this was the act of terrorists. "The Shikishima," he said, "the freighter's Maritime Safety Agency escort, has been confirmed sunk. At about 1530 hours yesterday local time, the Greenpeace yacht Beluga encountered the oil slick and some floating bodies. Beluga and other vessels in the area have been alerted to keep an eye out for survivors, but at this point we are not hopeful.

"We were able to pinpoint Yuduki Maru immediately and confirm that she is now cruising almost due north at eighteen knots. As of 1300 hours our time today, she was two hundred miles off Pointe Itaperina — that's the southeastern corner of Madagascar. Our intelligence on the situation so far is limited. There has been no communication from her crew, and attempts to contact her have been ignored. We have no idea who is in command now, what group, faction, or government is responsible, or what the freighter's new destination might be."

"How the hell was the escort sunk?" Captain Whittier, of SEAL Two, wanted to know. "Sabotage?"

"Possibly, though security was extraordinarily tight on both vessels before they left Yokohama. At the moment, we're operating on another, rather disturbing possibility." Mason opened his briefcase and removed a folder stamped Top Secret. Inside were two eight-by-ten-inch black-and-white photographs, which he passed around to the other men at the table.

"As you can see from the inscription," Mason continued, "both photographs are of the Iranian naval facility at Bandar Abbas, right on the Straight of Hormuz. The first one was taken on 4 May. Note the two submarines in the upper left."

"Kilos," Captain Harrison, the CO of SEAL Eight, said, "The Iranian Kilos."

In 1992, amid considerable international controversy, Russia had delivered to the Republic of Iran two conventional attack submarines of the type known in the West as Kilo. Displacing 2,900 tons submerged, with a top underwater speed of twenty knots, they'd been designed by the old Soviet Union primarily as a commodity for export. Algeria, Poland, Romania, and India all had Kilos in their fleets, and possibly CSCUBA and Libya as well. Each was armed with twelve 533mm torpedoes.

"The second photograph was taken by a KH-12 satellite two days later, on 6 May. One of the submarines, note, is gone. We have identified the missing boat as the Enghelab-i Eslami. That's Farsi for the Islamic Revolution."

"Let me get this straight, Captain," Admiral Bainbridge said. "You're saying that the goddamn Iranians could be behind this?"

Mason faced him squarely. "There is no hard evidence to that effect, Admiral. At least not yet. But one possibility we must consider is that an Iranian submarine torpedoed the Shikishima, and that at the same time, a terrorist component aboard the plutonium freighter seized the ship. The Yuduki Maru's new course is consistent with a port in Iran."

"And this Iranian boat has been missing all this time?" Bainbridge asked, "Almost two weeks?"

"You know it's never as easy as it looks in the movies, Tom," Admiral Kerrigan told him.

Bainbridge scowled. "I thought we had subs in the Gulf watching the sons of bitches?"

"We did," Kerrigan said. "We've had an attack boat stationed in Bahrain ever since the Iranians took delivery of those boats, a blanket warning to them not to get cute with shipping in the Gulf. But tracking a submarine in the open ocean's tough, especially a conventional boat. They're quieter than nukes. No cooling pumps for the reactors. Our sub, the Sturgeon-class attack boat Cavalla, headed out after the Revolution as soon as we realized the Iranian boat was gone. We also have other attack subs converging on that area, but, well, it's a big ocean. Remember the flap a few years back, when that North Korean freighter carrying missile parts to the Gulf just disappeared? And that was with subs searching for her, satellites, the whole nine yards."

"Yeah, but I have a sneaky suspicion you'll find the bastard if you concentrate on the area around that Japanese freighter," Captain Whittier observed.

"I must stress again that Iranian involvement at this point is strictly hypothetical," Mason said. "We did not see the actual sinking of the Shikishima and our tracking of the Yuduki Maru so far has been through strictly electronic means."

"Electronic means?" Captain Friedman, the helo squadron skipper, asked. "What, radar?"

"An electronic transponder built into her superstructure," Hadley said. His speech, the way he said "transpondah," had the nasal twang of upper-class Massachusetts. "We used the same trick back in the eighties, tracking a load of fifty-five-gallon drums of ether we thought might lead us to a secret cocaine cartel lab in the Colombian jungle. The transponder's small, the size of a book, but it puts out a steady signal that can be pinpointed by an ELINT satellite in orbit. It was the change in position registered by our satellite that first told us yesterday something was wrong."

"My God," Bainbridge said slowly. "Didn't we have any spy sats following that tub? We should have been watching that ship twenty-four hours a day!"

"Our technical assets are limited, Admiral," Hadley said. "More than most people realize. We never have been able to provide full twenty-four-hour coverage of any one potential target."

"But damn it, this is the Jap plutonium ship!"

"We can still only watch the thing when our satellites are above the horizon, Admiral, and frankly, there just aren't enough satellites to go around. For the past few days, most of our watch time had been allotted to southern Iraq, following up on the aftermath of Blue Sky.

"Now, on the direction of the President, the National Reconnaissance people have shifted the bulk of our observation time to the Yuduki Maru. I'd estimate that we have about forty percent coverage now."

"In other words, we can see her two hours out of five, is that it?"

"Essentially, Admiral, yes."

"Damn." Bainbridge glowered a moment more, then glanced up the table to where Mason was waiting. "Sorry, Captain," he said. "Please continue."

Shepherding one of these high-level briefings was always a challenge, Mason thought. The admirals were used to running their own shows... while the SEAL commanders had less than the usual respect for rank, privilege, or decorum. It made for some lively sessions sometimes.

"Thank you, Admiral," he said. "Okay, judging from the Yuduki Maru's transponder track and where it departs her scheduled course, we believe that the raid took place at approximately noon yesterday, Zulu plus three, about 0400 hours our time. The National Security Council has been in almost constant session since we received news yesterday morning of Yuduki Maru's possible capture.

"This morning, the President gave the authorization to begin working on ways to get that ship back. Since it's a ship and it's at sea, gentlemen, it looks like this one's going to be a SEAL op."

There was a stir around the table at his words, though obviously the news was not a complete surprise. Mason saw a smile or two among the SEAL skippers. Only Kerrigan and some of his staff officers looked displeased. Kerrigan, Mason remembered, was not a fan of special-ops forces. Well, there were plenty in the military community who agreed with him — the usefulness of elite units like the SEALs and the Army Special Forces was still being hotly debated, as the ongoing Congressional hearings on SEAL funding proved — but there wasn't much choice this time around. Only the SEALs could reach Yuduki Maru before she got close to a populated coast. Sure, a submarine or an air-strike from a carrier would stop that freighter in her tracks. But at what terrible cost?

"All SEAL commands will be responsible for drawing up preliminary plans for the operation. Assume a ship-boarding action, aimed at securing the ship and holding it for the arrival of a NEST team." The Nuclear Emergency Search Team was one of America's most secret units. Operating under the Department of Energy, it had the sophisticated equipment necessary for finding, handling, and safing nuclear material.

"The code name assigned to the mission will be Sun Hammer," Mason continued. "My staff will provide you with whatever you need in the way of background intel. I also want your assessments, your honest assessments, of each of your Teams' readiness and capabilities. Some of you are stretched damned thin right now. Two, most of your people are in Germany right now, aren't they?"

"Hell, Captain," Whittier replied easily, "that just means they're halfway to the Indian Ocean already."

"This isn't a competition. I know all of you want to participate, but the final decision will be based on who is best able to handle this. Let me have a preliminary work-up by 0900 tomorrow.

"Now, we have one potential wild card in the picture," Mason continued. Opening the folder again, he extracted another photograph. It was a file photo of a battered-looking vessel, rust-streaked and decrepit, tied up to a crumbling pier. Her forward well deck was so low it seemed a fair-sized wave might swamp her. The number 43 was painted on her bow beneath her high forecastle deck.

"Looks like one of our old yard oilers," Admiral Bainbridge observed.

"She is," Mason said. "She used to be the YO-247. Launched in 1956, and turned over to Iran under the old U.S. Military Air Program. I'm not sure of the year, but pre-1979 obviously. Not really a seagoing vessel at all, but the Iranians have modified her heavily. She's the Hormuz now. One hundred seventy-four feet long. Top speed nine or ten knots. Cargo capacity of about nine hundred tons."

"Modified her for what?"

"Under the Shah she was a fleet oiler. Since the Iranian Revolution, she's been laid up at Bandar Abbas most of the time, but there's evidence they've been upgrading her for long-range work. Possibly as a Milchekuh." The word, German for "milk cow," was drawn from the Germans' use of disguised ships for at-sea replenishment of their submarines in World War II.

"Which is how that Kilo could operate so far out of Iranian waters," a staff officer observed.

"Exactly," Mason agreed. "And it could be coincidence, but the Hormuz left Bandar Abbas late last month. We haven't found her yet."

"We're looking, of course," Bainbridge said, turning to the CIA man.

"Of course," Hadley replied. "Although in her case, we don't have the advantage of a transponder. But if we find the Hormuz anywhere between Socotra and Madagascar, we'll have a pretty good idea of what happened to the Shikishima. And we'll know that Iran is behind the hijacking."

"We are also concerned," Mason added, "about whether or not the Yuduki Maru could rendezvous with the Hormuz. Right now, we're probably dealing with a relatively small number of terrorists, presumably members of the freighter's crew. If she meets up with the Hormuz, though, the terrorists could be reinforced by troops. Worse, all or some of Yuduki Maru's cargo could be transferred to the ship."

"Is that likely, Captain?" Admiral Kerrigan asked. "The Japanese freighter has twice the speed of the Hormuz and is a hell of a lot more seaworthy to boot. The Iranians wouldn't be crazy enough to put the cargo in..." He let the thought trail off as he considered the possibilities.

"As you've just guessed, Admiral," Mason said with a grim smile, "we don't have the faintest idea what the Iranians are going to do. Maybe they wouldn't care if the plutonium was scattered across half the Indian Ocean. Maybe that's the whole point of this operation, to call attention to some political grievance they'll announce over the course of the next few days. Or maybe they figure we won't dare attack because any damage to the vessel would cause the very eco-disaster we're trying to prevent. The surface currents in that part of the Indian Ocean all run east to west, toward the East African coast, then down the Mozambique Channel. Huge areas of the coast, from Mogadishu to Cape Town, could be contaminated if the Yuduki Maru sank or caught fire.

"As you SEAL Team COs work up your operations drafts, keep in mind that we may have to deal with both the Yuduki Maru and the Hormuz, as well as the possible presence of an Iranian Kilo.

"But — and I can't stress this enough — we still don't have any hard proof that the Iranians are behind this incident. That's strictly a worst-case scenario. Shikishima could have been blown up by a bomb somehow planted on board in Japan. The absence of both Hormuz and Enghelab-i Eslami from Bandar Abbas could be coincidence. If the Iranians are not involved, we're probably looking at a strictly terrorist act, probably by something like the old Japanese Red Army."

"They've been out of the picture for a good many years now," Hadley pointed out.

"One of their leaders formally renounced the use of force in 1981," Mason said. "But they maintained a headquarters in a PFLP camp outside of Beirut throughout the eighties. They could have decided to become active again. Or we could be dealing with another Japanese terrorist organization, an offshoot, or some group we haven't heard of yet."

"Lovely thought," one of Bainbridge's staff officers muttered.

"My people will provide all of you with everything we know about the JRA and other terrorist groups that could be involved. And of course, if we have any communication with the hijackers — demands, threats, whatever — we'll set up an intel conduit to keep all pertinent material flowing your way."

"So," Eight's Captain Harrison said thoughtfully. "We're basing out of Diego Garcia, I suppose."

Diego Garcia was the tiny coral atoll, some one thousand miles south of the southern tip of India, which was the United States Navy's sole outpost in the vastness of the Indian Ocean.

"We're already putting our transport assets together toward that end," Bainbridge said. "Air Force C-5s will carry your helicopters and whatever other gear you need to the island. The State Department is also in touch with the Sultan of Oman, trying to get permission to use Masirah as a staging area."

An island located just off the Omani coast, Masirah was close to the southern approaches to the Strait of Hormuz. Though the traditionally touchy Arab sensibilities objected to American troops on their territory, Masirah had been used in the past, beginning with the Iranian hostage-rescue attempt in 1980. Obtaining permission to use the former British base there would probably not be difficult, so long as the Americans kept a low profile.

Which SEALs were very good at doing.

"That's all I have at this time, gentlemen," Mason concluded. "Other questions?"

There were none.

"Okay." He scanned the faces of the group until his eyes met those of Captain Coburn, of SEAL Seven. "Phil?" he said. "Don't leave."

In small groups, already discussing the operation, the others filed from the room. Phillip Coburn remained.

"What do you think, Phil?" Mason asked.

"Could be hot, Paul." Alone, they reverted to first names. "If those terrorists planted explosives around the ship, there may not be any way to get at them with any kind of reasonable chance of success."

"Gambling on the odds will be up to the politicians," Mason said. "How's Seven fixed right now?"

"Second and Fourth Platoons are in the Caribbean," Coburn said. "Training deployment to Vieques with the Marines. One and Three are here. They could be ready to leave on twenty-four hours' notice."

Unlike the other SEAL Teams, SEAL Seven, brand-new and still growing, had only four platoons.

"How would you handle the deployment? Just in rough."

"Two platoons," Coburn said without hesitation. "I'd put Third Platoon in the lead, with one squad for the Yuduki Maru, a second for the Hormuz. They're my most experienced people, with the most actual combat experience. They'd go in and secure both vessels at once, then hold 'em for the NEST guys. First Platoon in reserve, probably at Masirah. As backup to Three in case something goes wrong."

"Third Platoon just got back from Iraq."

"Right. And they just got kicked in the gut too. I need to put them back in ASAR."

"This is too damned important a mission for you to use it to build up your people's morale, Phil."

"They can handle it, Paul. They're the best people I have. There was fire in his eyes and in his voice as he said the words, and Mason could feel his excitement.

"Well, the final decision hasn't come through yet, but there's a good chance we're going to have to use Seven on this one. I had to go through the motions with the others, but Two, Four, and Eight are all pretty well committed elsewhere right now."

"What about Six?"

Mason smiled as he shook his head. "That's USSOC territory, and outside my bailiwick. But Six is under a cloud right now, and I have a feeling the Joint Chiefs aren't going to want to use them. The size of the appropriations for their toys are part of the reason Congress is looking so hard at the SEALS just now.

"In any case, we're still looking at the Seven concept of a unit that can deploy outside of established operational areas. And Seven's pre-positioned gear is still handy at Bahrain. Unlike SEAL Six."

"That's right," Coburn said eagerly. "Like I said, twenty-four hours. All you have to ship are my boys."

"Draw up your plan, Phil. Have it on my desk tomorrow morning."

"Aye, aye, Captain!" He looked as delighted as a kid at Christmas.

Mason sighed. He just wished that he could be going along.