Keith Douglass - Seal Team Seven

"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.

1612 hours (Zulu +3)

Greenpeace yacht Beluga

Off Bandar Abbas

The sun was merciless, glaring down from a brassy, cloudless sky. The yacht Beluga was still following along in the wakes of her larger Iranian consorts, but by this time she'd managed to drop back until she was nearly five miles astern of the Yuduki Maru, far enough to avoid inspection by curious soldiers or sailors aboard the freighter or the other ships, close enough that it was not obvious that she was hanging back.

Throughout the run north past Al Masirah, zigzagging northwest into the Gulf of Oman at the Tropic of Cancer, then north again through the oil-blackened narrows of the Strait of Hormuz, Murdock had noticed that the Iranian flotilla lacked almost any sense of order or convoy discipline. The Damavand continued plowing steadily ahead, towing the dead weight of the Japanese freighter. One or another of the frigates was usually within close support range, but the patrol boats scattered themselves all over the map, and by Sunday morning, two had vanished entirely, probably racing ahead to safe berths in Bandar Abbas.

The formation was made even more ragged by the presence of so many civilian vessels. The Strait of Hormuz was always crowded with commercial shipping, most of it the monster oil tankers bearing the flags of a dozen nations. The biggest were VLCCs — Very Large Crude Carriers — steel islands as long as four football fields end to end, with dead weight tonnages of half a million tons or more. At any given moment, one or more of those monsters could be seen on the horizon from Beluga's deck, entering the Persian Gulf riding high and light, or exiting the passage with full loads that seemed to drag those leviathan bulks down until their decks were nearly awash.

It was the seagoing traffic, of course, that invested the Strait of Hormuz with its singular strategic importance. More than once in recent memory, Iran had threatened to use its surface-to-surface "Silkworm" missiles purchased from China to close the strait to international shipping. So far, they'd refrained. Iran also used the Strait of Hormuz for access to the world's oil markets. But when it came to splinter groups like the NLA, or bands of disaffected military leaders who might actually welcome the political chaos such a shutdown of the economy might bring, all bets were off, and anything was possible. General Ramazani and his fellow plotters might easily decide to close the Strait of Hormuz permanently, leaving them free to pursue their own military objectives without fear of Western intervention in the Gulf. A couple of tons of radioactive plutonium distributed among the warheads of SCUD or Silkworm missiles and detonated across the shipping channel off Ra's Musandam would do just that. Alternatively, clouds of plutonium dust released from Iran's Gulf islands of Abu Musa and Tunb could close the channel and leave the port of Bandar Abbas open.

The situation might even allow Iran's new rulers to practice some good old-fashioned blackmail, threatening to close the strait or to poison the Saudi oil fields unless their demands were met. Murdock had a realistic enough understanding of modern international politics to know that the chances of closing ranks against such threats were nil. Japan and much of Europe still depended on the Gulf for nearly all of their oil imports. Hell, even the United States, given its zigzag record in foreign policy over the past couple of years, might cave in and pay rather than risk having the Strait of Hormuz closed. Murdock was frankly amazed that the go-ahead had been given for Deadly Weapon.

Threading their way north past the civilian traffic, the SEALs stuck with the Yuduki Maru. The Iranian radio-silence order worked to their advantage, of course, as did their straggling. With luck, the SEALs would be able to sail the Beluga all the way into Bandar Abbas, allowing them to provide II MEF with an eyewitness report on the defenses and preparedness inside the port.

Jaybird Sterling had the helm again. The young SEAL trainee did indeed know how to handle a pleasure craft like the Beluga, and he'd been standing watch-and-watch at the wheel with Murdock since he'd volunteered to stay aboard. The other two SEAL volunteers were Razor Roselli and Professor Higgins. During Saturday's early morning hours, the former hostages had been bundled up in life jackets and transported two by two in one of the SEALs' CRRCs to a point well clear of the Beluga, then hoisted aboard a hovering Sea Mustang sent out from the Nassau for the recovery. Colonel Aghasi had made the trip as well, along with eight of the VBSS team SEALS.

Murdock, Roselli, Higgins, and Sterling had remained aboard, ready to make a quick getaway over the side with their diving gear if their cover was too closely probed, but otherwise continuing to report on the Iranian squadron's position and disposition throughout the next thirty-six hours. Higgins had programmed Beluga's on-board satellite communications gear to track a MILSTAR relay satellite, giving them secure and untraceable communications with both Nassau and the Pentagon.

Now Murdock emerged from below deck into the baking heat of the Gulf sun and walked back to the helm. There was a somewhat lonely emptiness to the sky; American helicopters had continued to dog the Iranian squadron day and night until an hour earlier, when the freighter had officially entered Iranian territorial waters. Now the four SEALs were alone. "Looks like we're getting pretty close," he told Jaybird.

"For sure, Skipper. Maybe we should get shined up and squared away for inspection, huh?"

"Shit, Jaybird," Roselli called from the top of the deckhouse. "You look just fine to me!"

"You both need haircuts," Murdock replied, and the others laughed. None of the SEALs looked very military at the moment. All of them had removed their black gear and wet suits and were wearing pieces of uniforms scrounged from the Iranian dead before they'd been put over the side Saturday morning. Jaybird had stripped to the waist; just since yesterday, his California-boy tan had darkened to the point where his skin was as swarthy as that of any Iranian. To aid the disguise, he kept his pale, sun-bleached blond hair covered by a black Navy watch-cap. Roselli and Higgins both wore Iranian tunics that, unbuttoned and with the shirt-tails dangling, gave them the unkempt appearance of a pair of modern-day pirates... or a Pasdaran boarding party. Murdock had relieved Aghasi of his peaked officer's cap and tunic, complete with colonel's insignia, and aviator's sun glasses before packing the Iranian off aboard the helo. He hadn't had time to grow the colonel's bushy mustache as well, but to complete the deception he'd smeared his upper lip with a finger laden with camo paint. The disguise wouldn't fool anyone up close, of course, but through binoculars at a range of twenty meters or more, it ought to get by. The SEALs were banking on that peculiar aspect of human psychology that allowed people to see what they expected to see, rather than what was actually there.