Keith Douglass - Seal Team Seven

Murdock nodded at the crew chief, then looked at each of the SEALs with him in turn. There were twelve men in all, with two men missing from the group, one from each squad. Magic and Nickle had been detached to serve as overmatch snipers and were following the big CH-46 in a smaller UH-1 helo trailing somewhere astern of the Sea Knight.

All of the men in the CH-46 were outfitted for a combat insertion, with black Nomex flight suits and hoods, fins, masks and SCUBA rebreathers, and with assault vests carrying full assault loadouts. Their faces, the only exposed skin on their bodies, had been heavily smeared with black paint. Their spirits, Murdock noted, were high; they were all keyed up, but with the grinning, joking intensity of men prepped for a mission and eager to see it through. Mac had seen to it that all of the men had had a good night's sleep. Murdock, DeWitt, and Mac, though, were all running a little shy on rack time. They'd been up most of the night before drawing up the op plans, orders, and loadout checklists for this mission. Both of them had caught a few hours that morning, however, and right now the adrenaline in his system had Murdock alert and wide awake.

The entire platoon had spent much of that afternoon studying the deck-plans of the Beluga, until they knew every companionway and cupboard, every compartment and storage locker aboard, until they could have run through the yacht blindfolded if necessary. Of even more critical importance, they'd spent hours memorizing the faces of everyone known to be aboard: of the yacht's owner, Rudi Kohler, and his wife; of the Schmidts and the American couple, Jean and Paul Brandeis; and of the four Germans hired by Kohler as Beluga's crew. The goal was to be able to recognize instantly any of these people, under any circumstances, from any angle, under any lighting.

They were ready.

Murdock locked eyes with MacKenzie across the Sea Knight's deck. The master chief grinned back in reply, his teeth impossibly white against his paint-blackened face, and returned a jaunty thumbs-up. It was difficult to put his finger on it, but Murdock sensed that something important had changed in his relationship with these men. He was accepted now, a part of the team. The change might have been occasioned by something as simple — and as complex — as shared combat aboard the freighter.

Carefully, Murdock gave his weapon a final check. For this raid, Gold Squad would be serving as backup, a just-in-case reserve against the possibility that Iranians might show up in force, perhaps from one of those escorting patrol boats, and they were armed accordingly, with sound-suppressed H&K MP5SD3 subguns and, just in case the platoon needed heavy fire support, an M-60 machine gun and M-16s with M203 grenade launchers attached.

Murdock and Blue Squad, on the other hand, had the primary task of boarding the yacht and taking down the terrorists, if any, a role known to SEALs as VBSS, or Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure. Marksmanship aboard a small and wave-tossed sailing vessel could be a problem even for the best shot, and there was the danger that high-velocity rounds that missed their target might punch through a thin, fiberglass bulkhead and kill a hostage in the next compartment. Though all of them carried H&K subguns strapped to the rear of their assault vests as secondary weapons, the boarding party's primary weapons would be their sound-suppressed Smith & Wesson Hush Puppies, each mounting an under-barrel laser target designator.

The problem was that the laser sights were relatively delicate and had to be perfectly aligned for them to do any good. The SEALs had checked their sight alignments aboard the Nassau; now pistols and attached laser sights were cradled in black, foam-padded, watertight cases. Murdock again tested each of his sight's connections, then closed up the case and secured it to his assault harness. It would have to ride out a pretty severe thump and he didn't want anything coming loose along the way.

"One minute!" the crew chief yelled, and Murdock signaled to the SEALS. Together, they stood up and made their way aft, as the Sea Knight's cargo ramp whined open. Because they were helocasting with bundles of gear, they would be using the open ramp instead of the small, square opening known as the "hellhole" in the Sea Knight's deck.

Chief Roselli, first in the stick, helped MacKenzie and Brown drag the team's bundled CRRCs to the ramp, then stood by, his swim fins looped over his arm, silently counting down the last few seconds to the jump point. The helo was traveling more slowly now; Murdock could sense the change in the pitch and speed of the rotors.

"Ready..." the crew chief warned. "Your target is now at bearing one-seven-four, range ten miles!"

"One-seven-four, ten miles," Murdock repeated.

A light at the front of the cargo deck winked from red to green, and the crew chief gestured sharply with his arm. "Go!"

MacKenzie and Roselli shoved the first CRRC bundle off the ramp, then the second. Roselli followed them, racing into the black gulf yawning beyond the open ramp.

"Go! Go! Go!" Murdock called, clapping Brown on the shoulder. Garcia was next, then Higgins, then Ellsworth, each man slipping smoothly into the place vacated by the man before him, taking a breath, and propelling himself into the night.

One after the other, each of the eleven SEALs went down the ramp, until finally it was Murdock's turn. The crew chief gave him a thumbs-up. "Good luck, SEAL!" the man yelled, and Murdock nodded. Stepping off the ramp's end, he dropped into space and plummeted toward the sea.

The Sea Knight was now traveling at a speed of less than ten knots, at an altitude of about fifteen feet. The blast from its twin rotors raised a swirling, wet mist above the surface of the water. Murdock splashed into the sea and, with practiced efficiency, donned and cleared his mask, slipped on his swim fins, and kicked his way toward the surface.

The other SEALs had already unshipped the four CRRCs and were busy inflating them. Murdock took his place in the first raiding craft, giving a hand to Garcia and Roselli in getting the outboard motor mounted.

It took only minutes to get all four boats inflated, to remove the SCUBA gear and fins, and to secure their equipment for the next phase of the mission. There was a brief delay as the engine on number three refused to start, but after several tries, Murdock signaled to the men to leave it. A CRRC could carry seven men, more if necessary; they would make the approach with all six men of Gold Squad on one boat, with Blue Squad traveling three apiece in the remaining two. Ten miles... turning a little east of due south. With their engines purring softly beneath the overcast night sky, the three CRRCs began traveling south.

2356 hours (Zulu +3)

Greenpeace yacht Beluga

Indian Ocean, 230 miles southeast of Masirah

Colonel Ruholla Aghasi leaned against the light wire railing of the schooner, studied the lightless sky for a moment, then produced a Turkish cigarette and lit it. A few meters away, an Iranian marine stood at the boat's wheel, studying the compass binnacle with an attentiveness that suggested the colonel's presence made him nervous.

Aghasi ignored the man, staring instead at the running lights of the Iranian ships visible on the horizon. The Yuduki Maru and the Damavand were currently about two miles ahead of the Beluga and to starboard, while the Iranian frigates and patrol boats were scattered carelessly about the horizon.

The sight of so many Iranian warships was reassuring somehow, and it took Aghasi a moment to decide why. Kurebayashi, the cold little Japanese terrorist, had motored across to the Yuduki Maru several hours before, and Aghasi, for his part, was delighted. He believed in this mission, believed in the promise for his nation resting in the Yuduki Maru's vast cargo holds, but the Ohtori commandos disturbed him. Aghasi thought of himself as a moral man, a devout follower of the teachings of the Prophet, and the random, seemingly blind violence practiced by the members of some of the more extreme terrorist groups, such as Ohtori, sickened him. Worse, random terror, in his opinion, was counter-productive. It made enemies of potential friends and squandered the gains made for the Revolution by painting the terrorists and their allies as barbarians.