Seal Team Seven

Saturday, 28 May

0001 hours (Zulu +3)

Greenpeace yacht Beluga

Indian Ocean, 230 miles southeast of Masirah

"Ali!" Colonel Aghasi called again, and again there was no answer from the sergeant on guard on Beluga's well deck. Thoroughly alarmed now, he drew his pistol, a big, black Colt .45 automatic, and started toward the deckhouse companionway. "You men," he snapped at the five Pasdaran soldiers in the lounge. "With me, quickly!"

The soldiers were picking up their assault rifles when the commandos burst into the compartment.

The first two crashed through the aft companionway, figures scarcely human in black garb that completely obscured their features. Ruler-straight, needle-slender streaks of ruby light whipped about in the semi-darkness of the lounge and galley, and each time they brushed one of Aghasi's men there was a short, ringing chuff of sound. One after another, the Pasdaran infantrymen jerked wildly with a bullet's impact, arms and legs flailing as they spun, twisted, or pitched back off their feet. There were four left... then three... two...

A thunderous explosion sounded from forward, followed closely by the stink of burnt plastique. One of the men in the passageway screamed, then collapsed into the galley, just as Corporal Mahmood Fesharaki lunged through the door into the women's cabin. Two more nightmare apparitions appeared at the forward end of the passageway, dropping down into the yacht through a forward deck hatch blasted away by an explosive charge.

Chance spared Aghasi's life; he was lunging forward, the .45 in his right hand coming up, when the side of an Iranian soldier's head exploded a meter away in a fine mist of blood and pieces of skull. Something — a fragment of bullet or bone — struck Aghasi squarely on the inside of his wrist with the solid jolt of a hammer blow. His fingers went dead as the pain of a splintered bone lanced up his arm, and the pistol spun from his hand as though propelled by a kick. At the same instant, Aghasi's face and torso were painted by a grisly splash of blood and brain. Clutching his shattered wrist, he went to his knees as the last of the Iranian troops in the aft lounge died.

Then he was smashed down by a stunning blow to the back of his head. Blinking up from the deck, he saw one of the invaders looming over him, the night-vision goggles over his eyes giving him the glittering, black-chitin look of some monster insect. The long, heavy snout of a silenced automatic pistol swung toward him, and suddenly he was half blinded by the other-worldly dazzle of a laser tracking up his face.

"Don't... shoot!" Aghasi gasped in English, trying to squint past the laser's light. "Please!.."

"Harakat nakoneed!" the nightmare figure rasped in passable Farsi. The gaping muzzle of the sound-suppressed pistol, the ruby sparkle of the laser sight, did not waver. "Don't move!"

Gritting his teeth against the pain in his wrist, Aghasi managed a jerky nod. "Absolutely, sir," he replied, still in English. "I would not dream of moving."

A woman screamed nearby, and Aghasi squeezed his eyes shut, certain that the sound would make the invader kill him anyway. He felt a hot wetness spreading across his groin and realized with a burst of sickened shame that he'd just lost control and emptied his bladder. He could sense the commando's finger tightening on the pistol's trigger.

0002 hours (Zulu +3)

Greenpeace yacht Beluga

Indian Ocean, 230 miles southeast of Masirah

Murdock, the Smith & Wesson gripped firmly in both hands, held the red aim-point of laser light centered squarely on the prisoner's forehead. Garcia and Roselli squeezed past at his back. "Galley clear!" Roselli called. From the corridor leading to the sleeping compartments forward, MacKenzie answered with, "Passageway clear!"

Turning his full attention to the prisoner at his feet, Murdock revealed his teeth, a terrifying mimicry of a smile, he knew, from his paint-blackened, insect-eyed face. "Rawst begueed, he growled, before shifting to English. "Tell the truth! How many men with you?"

"Four and — ah, fourteen," the man admitted. He was wearing olive-drab fatigues, but the gold device on his collar was the rank insignia for an Iranian Pasdaran colonel. A lucky catch, if he could be made to cooperate. "Fourteen, plus myself! You've already some of..."

"Mac!" Murdock said, speaking into the slender microphone wired against his cheek. "We have fifteen tangos aboard total." Reaching up with one hand, he slid the starlight goggles up on his face, then glanced about the room. "I have five tangos down here, and one prisoner."

"Three tangos down here," MacKenzie replied. With three more dead on the upper deck, that made the total twelve. Which left three unaccounted for.

He changed channels on his Motorola. "Backup, Backup, this is Bedsheet," he called. "We have three tangos loose."

0002 hours (Zulu +3)

UH-1 helicopter

Indian Ocean, 230 miles southeast of Masirah

"No sweat," Magic Brown said, squinting into the eyepiece of his night sight.

"Bedsheet, Backup, we copy that," Nicholson murmured into his microphone. "Magic's got one of 'em lined up now."

They were aboard a UH-1 helicopter off the Nassau, hovering 150 yards off Beluga's bow, at an altitude of eighty feet. The helo's right door panel had been slid back, and the two men were crouched behind an improvised firing platform on the cargo deck. Nicholson was serving as spotter with a hand-held nightscope, while Brown took aim through the scope mounted on his MIAI, a match-quality M-14 upgraded for use as a SEAL-sniper primary weapon.

From this almost-stationary vantage point, Magic could see almost all of the Beluga's deck, including the still, sprawled form of the dead guard beside the foremast, and two more in the well deck aft. He could see the three CRRCs, two empty and tied alongside, the third occupied by Gold Squad and maintaining an overmatch position astern of the yacht. On Beluga's starboard side, a live man's head and shoulders were protruding from a porthole. Evidently, he was trying to escape to the upper deck. The port was a tight fit, but a determined wiggle freed both arms, and then he was hauling himself through. The two airborne SEALs had been watching him intently for several seconds.

"C'mon, baby," Magic said softly. "Look at Poppa."

"I don't think it's a civvie," Nicholson said. "Look! I see a weapon."

"I see it," Magic said. The man was through, crouching on the wooden deck, and someone had just handed what looked like a G-3 assault rifle through the porthole. Still, it could be one of the civilian hostages, escaping with a captured rifle from the cabin where he'd been held captive. In the greens and grays of the starlight scope, it was difficult to determine whether or not he was wearing a uniform.

Suddenly he turned, his magnified face staring directly into Brown's scope, and the SEAL sniper had a clear look at his features. Definitely, he was not one of the civilians whose faces he'd memorized aboard the Nassau. Gently, almost lovingly, Brown caressed his MI's trigger. There was a single sharp report, and the upturned face in the nightscope exploded in a messy spray. "Kill," Nicholson said. "Good shot, Magic."

"Yeah, that's one down," Magic said. "Now where're the rest of the bastards?"

0002 hours (Zulu +3)

Greenpeace yacht Beluga

Indian Ocean, 230 miles southeast of Masirah

MacKenzie snapped off hand signals to Higgins and Ellsworth, then to Garcia and Roselli. You two, that way! You two, over here! Doc Ellsworth nodded as he crowded up against the bulkhead, his pistol in both hands, muzzle high. Luxury yacht or no, the Beluga's central passageway was claustrophobic, especially when occupied by half a dozen SEALs in full gear, with weapons and combat loadout vests, and movement was made no easier by the bodies of three Iranian soldiers and their weapons lying on the deck.

Beluga boasted a number of cabins and staterooms on this deck. The owner's cabin was a large area forward, but the door was open and Doc had pronounced it clear when the bow team had first come in. Four more cabins were aligned two by two on either side of the passageway leading aft to the galley, while a companionway forward dropped to the next deck down, leading to a forecastle cubby for the yacht's crew, storage spaces, and a small engine room.

Two of the side-by-side cabins on this deck were open; one was filled with radio and computer equipment, including the electronic gear necessary for establishing a satellite communications link. Another room, empty when the SEALs broke in, had been occupied by the Iranians. The last two, opposite one another, were closed and locked from the inside. As MacKenzie gave silent, hand-sign directions, Doc and the Professor took up positions alongside the cabin door to port, while Garcia and Roselli took the cabin to starboard. Seconds before, Nicholson had radioed the VBSS team about the kill outside, warning them that at least one more tango probably occupied the starboard cabin.

Garcia and the Professor were both equipped as assault breachers, with shotguns instead of H&Ks. Standing to the sides of their respective doors, they took aim, then fired, the twin booms of the shotguns ear-splitting in the confined space below decks. The cabin doors were lightweight, hollow-core barriers designed for privacy and nothing more. One-ounce slugs smashed locking mechanisms and plywood, then punched through carpeting and fiberglass decks as the doors disintegrated into splinters and whirling sheets of wooden paneling.

On the starboard side, Roselli lunged through the door a blink behind the shotgun blast, his Smith & Wesson gripped in both hands, the aiming laser sweeping across the darkened room like a jewel-bright rapier. On the far bulkhead, a porthole had been opened; an Iranian stood there, a G-3 assault rifle aimed at the door.

The shotgun blast and the spray of splinters and wood chips had forced him to turn his head, and he was a split second late in firing — fortunately for Roselli, since the SEAL otherwise would have been dead as soon as he burst through the opening. Roselli tracked his pistol, the laser painting an unsteady line across the Iranian's chest. In the same, confused instant, one of the two other figures in the cabin, a big, lanky man in a lightweight safari jacket suddenly bolted toward the door.

Roselli held his fire as the hostage lurched between him and the soldier. The soldier fired an instant later, triggering a full-auto burst toward the door; the volley had been aimed at Roselli, but the bullets slammed into the bulkhead, the overhead, and the hostage's back. Roselli triggered three quick shots as the stricken hostage crumpled to the deck, slamming the Iranian back against the porthole.

On the other side of the passageway, Doc plunged into the stateroom through the storm of splinters loosed by Higgins's shotgun blast. A single Iranian soldier stood there, hiding behind a tall, attractive blond woman in a T-shirt and blue slacks. He had his left arm tight across her throat, gripping her so tightly that her scream was a silent, desperate gape as her hands clawed at his forearm; his right hand pressed the muzzle of a Colt .45 pistol against the side of her head.

"Aslehetawnra beeandawzeed!" he screamed, and the panic was evident in the harsh raggedness of his words. "Goosh koneed va elaw meezanam!"

Ellsworth wasn't sure what the man had said. He didn't speak Farsi, and the few phrases he'd memorized for this op were brief and strictly utilitarian. He suspected, though, that the Iranian had just rattled off a couple of those memorized phrases, things like "Drop your weapons," and "obey or I'll shoot." Strictly Wild West gunslinger stuff.

"Take it easy, fella," he said, his eyes glancing about the tiny compartment. Two more women were clinging to each other on the cabin's single bed. "Nobody's gonna hurt you! Azyatee beh shomaw nameerasad!"

The expression on the visible part of the Iranian's face went from desperation to blank puzzlement. The pistol in his hand didn't waver, but a fraction more of his head was visible now behind the woman's blond mane. Doc was holding his Smith & Wesson at waist level, a deliberately nonthreatening stance, but the laser was painting the wild straggle of the Iranian's hair. He dipped the muzzle a fraction of a degree, and the red dot of the laser aim-point slid onto the guy's face. The Iranian flinched, probably from the dazzle of the laser, and pulled farther behind the woman. Doc let the laser dot drift onto her hair, which sparkled under the beam's caress. "Tasleem shaveed!" Doc told him. "Surrender!"

"Eli?"

Doc squeezed the trigger. His pistol chuffed, punching the round effortlessly through the woman's hair and into the Iranian's left eye. The soldier spun backward and fell across the bed alongside the other two women. The blonde stood motionless on the deck, eyes squeezed shut, screaming now as loud as she was able.

"Shit," Doc said. "I didn't think my accent was that bad!"

The blonde stopped screaming, opened her eyes, then screamed again as soon as she'd had a good look at her rescuer.

"It's okay," he said, raising his voice. "It's okay! We're Americans!"

"Americans!" One of the women on the bed sprang forward, grabbing his arm. "Thank you, God! Americans!" The other two women followed an instant later, and Ellsworth found himself surrounded. "Port cabin clear," he reported over his radio as the women crowded closer. "One tango down."

"One tango down, starboard cabin," Roselli added on the same channel. "And one hostage down too. Doc? We need you over here!"

"On my way, Razor." He had to roughly disentangle himself from the women to get out of the compartment. "Okay! Okay! Take it easy, ladies! We'll have you out of here soon."

He could hear the thunder of the Huey outside edging closer to the yacht.

0008 hours (Zulu +3)

Greenpeace yacht Beluga

Indian Ocean, 230 miles southeast of Masirah

"Prairie Home, Bedsheet," Murdock called. Leaving the prisoner under guard, he'd emerged onto Beluga's well deck and was standing again in the night, speaking via satellite link with the command center aboard Nassau. "Prairie Home, Bedsheet. Come in, Prairie Home."

He waited out the silence, listening to static. The Huey circled through the night, keeping watch against the appearance of Iranian patrol boats or other unpleasant surprises. Close by, Jaybird, who'd once professed to Murdock his experience with sailing vessels, had taken over the helm, while MacKenzie, Higgins, Roselli, and Fernandez mounted guard on Beluga's upper deck.

Except for the muffled clatter of the helo, the night was quiet now. The nearest Iranian vessels, some three miles ahead now, seemed oblivious to the activity aboard the Greenpeace yacht. The continual fly-bys and perimeter intrusions throughout the past hours had paid off; the Huey was certainly registering on the Iranian warships' radar, but they'd apparently chosen to ignore it.

They would, no doubt, continue to ignore it, at least until Beluga showed some sign of trouble, an abrupt change of course, for example, or a rendezvous with an American ship.

"Bedsheet, this is Prairie Home," a voice crackled at last in his earplug speaker. "Authenticate Hotel, Alfa, one-niner-one."

"Prairie Home, roger. I authenticate: Victor, India, one-one-three.

"Roger, Bedsheet. Go ahead."

"Prairie Home, objective secured, repeat, objective secured. We have fourteen tangos down, that's one-four tangos down, one tango captured, all accounted for. We have one hostage dead during the takedown, one missing."

Murdock tried to dismiss the sour, dark burning inside he'd felt since he'd learned of Paul Brandeis's death minutes before, but it wouldn't go. The SEAL assault had gone down with stunning ferocity, speed, and precision. Forty seconds after Murdock had first opened fire on the Beluga's helmsman, all but one of the Iranians had been dead, with no casualties among the SEALS. Of the hostages aboard, all three women, Rudi Kohler, and four of Kohler's employees found locked in the crew's cubby below dec were safe.

The single, wrenching tragedy in the takedown had been the death of Paul Brandeis, the American hostage who'd blundered into Roselli's line of fire and taken the full-auto burst meant for the SEAL. Doc hadn't been able to help the American, who'd probably been dead before he hit the deck. Murdock could still hear the wrenching sobs of Brandeis's widow, even out here on Beluga's deck.

"Bedsheet, Prairie Home. That's a major well done! Now pack up and get the hell out of there!"

"Copy, Prairie Home," Murdock said. "We have some loose ends to tidy up first. This is Bedsheet, out."

Well done, right, he thought bitterly. The hell of it is, the mission was well done! But damn it all! We came so close to pulling it off one hundred percent!

There was always a terrible risk in hostage rescues, the near certainty that one or more of the civilians involved would get hurt or killed. Put one or more desperate, armed men in the company of a number of untrained and panicky civilians, then throw a SEAL assault team into the middle of it. No matter how well trained the attackers, no matter how expert their marksmanship, no matter how many hours logged in the fun house back at Little Creek or how advanced the technology of their weapons, the chances were still better than ever that someone — SEAL or terrorist, it didn't really matter — would deliberately or by accident cut down some kid or wife or husband. In the 1990s, the supreme example of how a hostage rescue ought to work remained the stunning Israeli raid on Entebbe in 1976. The Israeli paras performed brilliantly, but even there, two of the over one hundred hostages were killed and seven wounded during the fierce firefight in the air terminal building between Israeli troops and the PFLP terrorists.

Knowing the odds didn't help. Paul Brandeis had panicked and gotten in the way during the firefight; another hostage, Karl Schmidt, was missing — almost certainly dead, though Murdock hadn't had time yet to question the rescued civilians about that.

Yes, there definitely were several loose ends to wrap up here. Turning sharply, he strode across the deck and took the steps down the companionway two at a time.

0025 hours (Zulu +3)

Greenpeace yacht Beluga

Indian Ocean, 230 miles southeast of Masirah

Murdock sat behind a polished formica table across from the Iranian prisoner, who'd been propped up on one of the sofas that circled the lounge bulkheads. Doc was next to the prisoner, wrapping a bandage around his broken wrist. The man claimed to be Pasdaran Colonel Ruholla Aghasi and insisted that he was ready to cooperate in any way that he could.

Studying the man, Murdock was inclined to believe him, though training and common sense both urged caution. Senior officers did not change sides at a whim, nor were they as likely to be cowed by pain or threat as lower-ranking men who simply did what they were told.

None of the SEALs was feeling particularly friendly toward Aghasi at the moment. In choked, broken words, Gertrude Kohler had described the hijacking, Karl Schmidt's murder, and the threatened rape and torture of the women. Doc's hostility was clearest of all, a dark simmering behind his eyes as he tended to Aghasi's wound. Garcia was sitting quietly on the other side of the lounge, mounting guard with a sullen intensity that was disturbing. The rest were either forward with ex-hostages or up on deck. Casually, Murdock gestured with the muzzle-heavy blackness of the Smith & Wesson in his hand. "Colonel, you say that you're willing to help us," he said quietly. "I don't see why I should believe you."

"Hell, I don't think you should trust him, Skipper," Doc said. He continued wrapping the roll of gauze bandage around Aghasi's wrist as he spoke, the action strangely at odds with the steel-hard anger in the SEAL's voice. "These sons-a-bitches gunned down two innocent people!"

"Take it easy, Doc. Let's hear him out."

"I... regret those deaths," the Iranian said. "I didn't want civilians to be hurt. This operation has not gone entirely to plan."

"Suppose you tell us about it, Colonel. Who killed Karl Schmidt? The Ohtori?"

That jolted the colonel. He reacted to the name Ohtori as though he'd been slapped. "N-no," he said. "One of my men shot him when he, when he attacked the soldier holding his wife. I did not order it. How... do you know of Ohtori?"

"Never mind, Colonel. It's my turn to ask the questions. How long have you been working with the Japanese?"

Aghasi swallowed. "Not long. To be truthful, this operation has been a mistake from the start. That is why I wish to cooperate."

Ellsworth tied off the bandage, then slipped the Iranian's hand into a gauze sling. "Maybe he'd like to cooperate from the bottom of the sea, Skipper. Should be safe enough. Even the sharks wouldn't want him. What d'you say?"

"Why don't you go check on Mrs. Brandeis, Doc?"

"Aye, aye, sir."

Aghasi looked pale, and he was sweating heavily. His uniform gave off the acrid bite of ammonia, a mingled stench of sweat and urine. "Your men are... frightening, Lieutenant."

"Frightening? Hell, you don't know what frightening really is. Right now, they just dislike you. You'd better pray you never get them really mad!" He gestured with the pistol again. "So. Why don't you like the Ohtori? Who decided to start working with them?"

The Iranian took a deep breath. "Do you know an Admiral Sahman? Or General Ramazani?"

"No. Should I?"

"Perhaps not. Sahman is second-in-command of the Iranian naval facilities at Bandar Abbas. Ramazani is one of our senior Pasdaran officers, a hero of the Iraqi War."

The "Iraqi War," Murdock knew, referred to the bloody struggle between Iran and Iraq from 1980 to 1988, a conflict that had claimed over a million dead on both sides.

"It happens that both Ramazani and Sahman oppose the mullahs in Tehran. Since the Shah was overthrown fifteen years ago, Iran has been held back, paralyzed. They believe, as I do, that an Islamic state can also be a modern state.

"In any case, they've kept their opposition secret while they built their own power bases and allied with other revolutionary groups. By now, they have connections with groups throughout the Gulf region, including the NLA."

The NLA, the National Liberation Army, was a brigade-sized band of Iranian rebels and defectors, perhaps 4,500 men in all, armed with captured or stolen equipment and operating out of southern Iraq. Murdock had seen the background and pre-mission intelligence on the NLA when he'd taken command of Third Platoon; the SEALs who'd gone in on Operation Blue Sky — the hostage rescue at the Basra airport — had been briefed on the possibility that they might encounter NLA elements in the Iraqi swamps.

"I believe Ramazani met the Ohtori through his NLA contacts," Aghasi continued. "The Ohtori are a... how is the English? A splintered fraction?"

"A faction. A splinter group."

"Yes, a splinter group of the old Japanese Red Army. They are strange people, absolute fanatics."

Murdock had heard plenty of the religious fanaticism of the Iranian Pasdaran, but he merely nodded. "Go on."

"Apparently, Ohtori established links with the NLA in Iraq. Both groups maintain training camps in that country. Now they are working with a splinter group within the Iranian military. Their plan was for the hijacking of the Japanese plutonium ship."

"How does that help the NLA? Or the Ohtori, for that matter?"

"Power, of course. Political power. It provides the rebels with lever, with lever..."

"Leverage?"

"Precisely." Aghasi's face twisted in a wan, nervous smile. "The plutonium gives Ramazani a weapon strong enough, dramatic enough to induce the rest of Iran's military to join him."

"What weapon? An atomic bomb?"

Aghasi's eyes widened. "Na!" he said, momentarily lapsing back into Farsi. "No! Plutonium itself is dangerous enough!"

Murdock nodded impatiently. "I understand all of that. But is that what this thing is all about? A military coup? A power play by some of your officers?"

"It is more than a power play, Lieutenant. It is a first battle in the war for the soul of my people."

"Okay. So your side gets the plutonium. Your army joins your cause and overthrows the mullahs. Then what?"

"They install a military government in Tehran, under General Ramazani. They... they then have the, how you say, the advantage against our enemies in the region. Iran, Iran's people, will be secure at long last."

Murdock chewed on that for a long moment. He had the feeling that Aghasi was telling the truth as he understood it. He also had the impression, however, that Aghasi was holding quite a bit back. That bit about Iran being secure at last was a bit too pat, a bit too neat. Murdock could think of several other possible outcomes to the scenario Aghasi had just described. Iran's new rulers might decide to launch a preemptive strike on Iraq, for instance, using plutonium-loaded bombs and SCUD warheads. The Iran-Iraq war had not been settled by the armistice of 1988. Far from it, in fact. That war had been only the most recent round in a bloody conflict of rival peoples that went back at least fifteen hundred years. Iraq had provided a safe haven for the NLA, hoping to use it one day to topple the Shiite regime in Tehran. From what he knew of the history of conflict in the region, Murdock doubted that the new ruling clique in Tehran would remain grateful for the help for long. If nothing else, a holy war with apostate Iraq would help unify the Iranian people and take their minds off the inevitable shortages and difficulties brought on by the change of governments.

And there was worse. Operation Blue Sky had been launched because some UN observers had discovered intelligence relating to Iraq's nascent atomic weapons program. What if Iraq was farther along toward an atomic bomb than American intelligence believed? Iran's attack using radioactive dust, possibly even the mere knowledge that they'd acquired the stuff, might be answered by a volley of Iraqi atomic warheads.

Nuclear war at the head of the Persian Gulf could kill more millions, not to mention contaminating half the world's oil supply for generations to come.

"I notice," Murdock said at last, "that you refer to 'them' when you talk about Ramazani's coup, not 'us." What's your part in all of this? Why are you here?"

"I was part of it. I suppose I still am. But... I no longer believe."

"What happened?"

The Iranian shrugged. "Lieutenant, I needn't remind you that my people have suffered a very great deal in the past fifteen years. I am a religious man, but I cannot honor the twisted fanatics who rule my country, who hold it trapped in an earlier century." He brought one long finger up to his head, tapping at his temple. "These eyes have seen the effects of their, their fanaticism. My own son, my Amin, was one of thousands of Iranian children who marched singing into the Iraqi mine-fields and machine-gun cross fires and mustard gas. That was eight years ago. He was thirteen then. It was the mullahs who commanded that the supreme sacrifice must be made, even to the sacrifice of our firstborn in their war against the Iraqi. It was then that I decided that I would do all in my power to fight the mullahs, the dictatorship that grips my nation. But..."

"But?"

The man sagged, and Murdock was aware of something behind those tired, tired eyes, a profound weariness. "I found myself working with fanatics once again, Lieutenant. It seems that I cannot escape them."

"Who? The Ohtori?"

He nodded. "Yes. These are men who... I don't entirely understand this, but I have heard that they believe they will be turned into stars if they die. The Prophet promises the faithful who die in jihad a place in paradise, but these men are, are monsters. You have a saying in your language, the ends justificate the... the..."

"The ends justify the means."

"Precisely so, yes. For these men, any act, no matter how terrible, is justified if it makes success for them in the end. The Ohtori leader who engineered the capture of this sailing vessel was ready to kill everyone aboard, to order my men to abuse the women, even to torture them if it would advance his cause. I spent a great deal of time last night wondering about this, wondering if I was fighting on the right side. On the side of Allah."

"And what did you decide?"

Again an eloquent shrug. "Nothing, Lieutenant, save that there are no easy answers to be found. And then I began to wonder if I was worthy of the martyrdom promised by Allah. That he did not permit me to die this night is, perhaps, an expression of his will."

Murdock pushed back from the table. "Colonel, I don't know about Allah, but I'd say that there's been enough martyrdom for one day."

"Ensha'allah."

Murdock knew that phrase, which could be heard in various related forms throughout the Islamic world. As God wills.

"Tell me, Colonel. What sort of radio schedule were you keeping aboard this vessel? How often were you supposed to check in?"

Aghasi pursed his lips. "There was no schedule, Lieutenant. We were ordered to maintain radio silence. Unless, of course, we came under attack. Then we were to call on a frequency of 440 megahertz, and a patrol boat would close to render assistance."

"And did you get that message off?"

"No, Lieutenant. Your attack was too swift."

Murdock stood. "Thank you, Colonel. You have been most helpful."

"What will become of me?"

"We'll arrange to fly you to one of our ships. Don't worry. You'll be well treated." As he spoke, though, Murdock's mind was racing ahead. If what this Pasdaran colonel had said was true, a startling opportunity existed for the Americans... if they could get their act together in time. Leaving Aghasi in Garcia's care, Murdock hurried from the cabin. He needed to make another radio call to Prairie Home and, through them, to the Pentagon.

1045 hours (Zulu -5 hours)

NAVSPECWARGRU-Two Briefing Room

Little Creek, Virginia

"What is the single element that screws us up time and time again in this sort of op?" Captain Coburn demanded. He looked around the table, moving from face to face. "Intelligence! Or rather, the lack of reliable intelligence. I remind you that the last time we tried to go into Iran, during Operation Eagle's Claw, in 1980, we had no intelligence assets on the ground in that country at all."

"This is hardly a similar situation, Captain Coburn," Admiral Kerrigan said. "Besides, it was mechanical failure that doomed Eagle's Claw, that and the collision of a helicopter with an Air Force transport."

"You're talking through your brass hat, Admiral, and you know it," Brian Hadley said, grinning. "I was at Langley in '80, and I remember. The Company had been out of Iran ever since the Shah got booted out, and we were desperate to have some eyes and ears on the ground. If some young Navy officer had come up with an idea to walk into Tehran and tell us what was going on, I'd have fallen down and kissed his Corfams."

"Hmpf! Has anyone considered that Murdock might be hot-dogging this thing?" Admiral Kerrigan demanded. "Good God, Captain, this whole idea reeks of romanticized John Wayne shit! Spies and traitors and the proverbial cavalry coming over the hill just in the proverbial nick of time!"

"Maybe so, Admiral," Captain Mason admitted from the other side of the table. "But the cavalry, as you put it... or in this case, the II MEF, is going in whether we approve Murdock's plan or not. And it does give us a hell of a lot better chance to pull this off."

"I, for one, resent the implication that my people are show-boating a mission," Coburn said evenly. "These men are pros, Admiral. There are no 'hot dogs' in my command."

"Perhaps that was too strong a word, Captain," Kerrigan said. "But how are we supposed to coordinate a plan that your men keep changing in the field?"

Coburn grinned. "Are you suggesting, Sir, that one lieutenant in a sailboat is about to upset something as big as Operation Deadly Weapon?"

"At this point, Captain, I'm not sure there's anything your people can't do... or screw up if they put half a mind to it." He said it with a wry half smile, and the other officers in the briefing room laughed.

Coburn felt himself relax a little. He'd been expecting a far bloodier battle with the MIDEASTFOR liaison, but Kerrigan's constant opposition to NAVSPECWAR operations appeared to have eased somewhat since the last time he'd been in this room. Obviously he still didn't like the special forces concept, but he at least was willing to work with the idea and had agreed that Deadly Weapon would lead off with NAVSPECWAR people. He seemed most concerned now with the possibility that intelligence data routed back from Murdock's team might force a last-second change in the U.S. Marine amphibious operations about to commence in the Gulf.

Today's planning session had actually been called by Brian Hadley, who was scheduled to meet with the President's National Security Advisor later that evening. He'd wanted an assessment by members of the Navy Special Warfare community about whether or not the idea radioed back by Murdock had a chance of working.

Except for Kerrigan and his people, of course, everyone in the room had thought Murdock's plan a wizard idea. And Kerrigan's opinion carried little weight here. Everyone knew he was down on the special-ops people, and he was consulted on the matter only because Deadly Weapon would fall under MIDEASTFOR's provenance.

But the SEALs were going to be a part of this, no matter what Kerrigan had to say.

"I suppose what I object to most," Kerrigan went on, "is this sense of making things up as we go along. Modern war can't be fought that way."

"On the contrary, Admiral," Hadley said. "Vietnam demanded flexible, adaptive battle plans, and every military option since has demonstrated the need for more flexibility, not less. We've got to know what we're getting into over there."

"I would have thought that the SEAL-Marine joint recon force was adequate to our needs."

"Maybe so," Coburn said. "I damn well hope you're right. But it seems to me that young Murdock is going to be the right man in the right place at the right time, and we'd be fools to yank him out now. This is too good an opportunity to throw away."

A rippling murmur of approval made its way about the table. Coburn had been as surprised as anyone else in Little Creek by Murdock's radio message, some eighteen hours ago, suggesting this last-minute change to Deadly Weapon. The former hostages, the Iranian prisoner, and all of the SEALs save four had been ferried by helicopter back to the Nassau.

But as of the last report, Murdock and three of his men were still aboard the Beluga, sailing in company with the Iranian squadron toward the port of Bandar Abbas.

It was expected that they would actually enter Bandar Abbas in another — he looked at his watch — eighteen hours now. Just hours ahead of the planned Marine invasion of Iran.

"But how reliable is Murdock's information, do you think?" a captain on Kerrigan's staff wanted to know as the murmur died down. "His report says he got all of this from that captured Iranian colonel. Couldn't all of this be some kind of elaborate setup?"

"Up at Langley," Hadley said, "they're rating this one as a B-3."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's how the CIA weights the reliability of data acquired from various sources. The letter gauges the reliability of the source, while the number reflects Langley's guess as to how accurate the information might be. B means usually reliable. That's not a put-down of your man, Captain Coburn. I don't think anyone ever gets tagged with an A, meaning absolute reliability. The 3 means the information is possibly accurate. It's not confirmed by other sources, so it's not a 1, and it's not possible to call something this fuzzy probably true, so we can't give it a 2. The point, gentlemen, is that we have here a reliable source giving us intelligence that quite possibly is accurate. We cannot afford to simply ignore what he says."

"Has anyone thought to consult with Congressman Murdock about this?" Kerrigan asked. "That's his son out there. I find it shocking that he was allowed to lead two dangerous assaults one right after the other, first against the Yuduki Maru, and then against the Beluga, and that now he's doing this."

"Lieutenant Murdock," Coburn said slowly, "is an excellent officer. He does not allow politics, personal feelings, or shall we say, family obligations to divert him from what he perceives as his duty. I am well aware of Congressman Murdock's interest in his son's activities. I'm also aware that neither Lieutenant Murdock, nor myself, nor the President of the United States himself for that matter, can allow personal feelings to jeopardize this operation. I'm sure, sir, that the congressman would be the first to agree if he were here."

"So what you're all telling me," Brian Hadley said at last, "is that this sneak-and-peek is a good idea. That we should plan this thing knowing we're going to have SEALs on the ground, or on the water actually, when we send in the Marines."

"Abso-damn-lutely," Coburn said. "These people'll be able to tell you things your spy satellites never dreamed of."

Hadley grinned. "I hope so, Captain. Because I happen to agree with you. This is too God-damned good an opportunity to throw away!" He began gathering up the charts and papers on the table in front of him and putting them into his briefcase. The naval officers rose, began gathering up their own papers, and started to leave.

"Captain Coburn?" Hadley said, looking up.

"Sir?"

"I wonder if I might have a word with you before you go?"

"Of course, sir," Coburn said. He glanced again at his watch. "I am on a pretty tight sched."

"I understand you're on your way over there."

"Yes, sir. First and Second Platoons will be taking part in the main landings."

"I just wanted to hear it from you, your assessment of young Murdock. He's been pushing pretty hard. Can we push him this much more?"

Coburn considered the question. "If he wasn't up to it, Mr. Hadley, I don't think he would have suggested it. Murdock always has the Team's best interests at heart, not his own."

"Hmm. That was my assessment, based on what I've heard. You know, don't you, that a lot of the SEALs' future is riding on this op?"

Coburn grinned at him. "Tell me something I don't know."

"Right now, a House investigative committee is going over your Murdock's after-action report on the Japanese freighter. They're explaining to each other how they could have done it better, and they're wondering if all the money they're giving NAVSPECWAR is being well spent. There's serious talk of disbanding the SEALS, Marine Recon, the Rangers, all of the SPECWAR people except the Green Beanies."

"Give us half a chance, Mr. Hadley. We'll show them that we can deliver plenty of bang for the buck."

"Yes. From what I've heard about your people, I have to agree." There was a knock at the door, and Coburn looked up. A young second class electrician's mate stood there, his SEAL Budweiser winking brightly in the overhead fluorescent lighting. "Hey, Chucker! Come on in."

"Helo's waitin'on the pad and ready to go, sir," EM2 Wilson called, gesturing with the rolled-up white hat in his hand. "Whenever you're ready."

"Let's haul ass then. Ah, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Hadley?"

"Of course." He nodded toward the enlisted SEAL. "That one of your people, Captain?"

"Sure is. A brand-new SEAL, just assigned to an open slot in First Platoon. Isn't that right, Wilson?"

"Yes, sir. Uh, begging the Captain's pardon, sir, but the helo jockey told me that if our asses weren't on board in five minutes we were gonna have to hitch a ride to Oceana."

"Then we'd better move. Mr. Hadley?"

"You've answered my questions." Hadley reached out and clapped Coburn on the shoulder. "Good luck over there, Captain."

"Thank you, sir. But believe me, it's not luck that counts in this game." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating EM2 Wilson. "It's guys like that."

He picked up his briefcase and headed for the door.