Larry Bond - Exit Plan

Shirin was shaking with fear. Never had she felt so exposed, so isolated. She let go of Fazel’s hand with great reluctance, and only after he repeatedly said he had to take his place aft. As he left he motioned for her to get down and stay down. Without Yousef’s reassuring presence, she felt utterly alone huddled up in the bow.

While the corpsman scooted passed Jerry to his defensive position, Lapointe loaded a high-explosive dual-purpose 40mm grenade into the launcher mounted on his SCAR. He only had eight grenades and he planned to use them sparingly.

During the planning, Ramey had instructed Lapointe to wait until the patrol boat steadied itself, an indicator that they were probably going to shoot, and then fire a grenade at their bow. Jerry was uncertain of what Ramey hoped to achieve with this tactic and asked Lapointe, “Pointy, how can you possibly expect to hit a small, high-speed craft with such a low-velocity weapon?”

Lapointe at first looked at Jerry incredulously, then snickered. “Who said anything about hitting them, XO? That would be the golden BB of all time! The boss figures that the Iranians will turn wide enough to avoid the grenade, giving him or Doc a clear shot at an outboard.”

“Oh, yeah. Disregard the silly question,” Jerry replied, feeling more than a little embarrassed. Lapointe laughed.

Although the RIB had been spotted at a range of nearly five thousand yards, this was far beyond the range of any weapon on either side. For seven agonizing minutes, Jerry and the SEALs could only watch as the Iranian patrol boat slowly closed on them. Through his sight, Jerry could see the long, slender wedge bouncing on the waves, throwing water out to either side. He knew they’d have to slow down considerably if they expected to hit anything. With the hull undulating up and down as the Pasdaran boat skipped along, he could see the machine gun barrel wandering all over the place. Sometimes it wasn’t even visible as the boat’s hull pitched upward.

Lapointe had taken over monitoring the UAV feed from Ramey. Both he and Fazel were now in a prone firing position, their weapons resting on the boat’s transom and held firmly against their shoulders. “Shot warning!” Lapointe sang out. “The gunner has just pulled back on the cocking handle.”

“Steady on course, Philly,” Ramey shouted. “Don’t turn until Pointy tells you to.” The junior enlisted gave him a thumbs-up sign, acknowledging the order.

Jerry leaned over and looked at the UAV feed. The unmanned aircraft was bore-sighted on the RIB, keeping a steady eye on the pilot and gunner. It felt bizarre to be watching in real time as someone took shots at you, sort of like looking at a video game in reverse.

“Shot! Right slow!” yelled Lapointe. He could see a flare of infrared energy around the muzzle as the weapon fired. Phillips altered course slightly to starboard. The splashes from the rounds landed well to port.

“He fired too soon,” criticized Ramey, then he said to his men, “Hold your fire. He needs to get a lot closer.”

The Iranian crew didn’t seem to realize this as another three wild volleys were fired before they stopped and concentrated on closing the range. Within another couple of minutes, the range had shortened to less than five hundred yards. This was the point when Phillips would begin using more radical turns to chase the splashes of the previous burst, to throw off the Iranian gunner’s aim.

“Shot! Left hard,” Lapointe called out again. Phillips banked the boat hard left. The splashes were to the right; immediately he shifted his rudder, and headed in their direction. The RIB was starting to get really close.

“Now, Pointy!” Ramey commanded. Lapointe raised his weapon, placed his sights ahead of the RIB’s bow and pulled the trigger. A dull pop and a little smoke was the only sign the grenade launcher had been fired. Seconds later a small white plume of water marked the explosion. As anticipated, the Iranian turned hard right and Ramey and Fazel took a couple of aimed shots. Both missed.

“He’s got to get closer, Boss,” Fazel observed. Ramey nodded his agreement.

The RIB crew recovered quickly from their rude surprise and brought their racing boat back on to a pursuit course. The two boats weaved back and forth, the range dropping with each turn. During their maneuvers, Lapointe fired off another three grenades, each shot a little closer to the Iranian boat than the one before. Each time they swerved hard, with Ramey and Fazel taking aimed shots. Suddenly, Fazel saw something fly off one of the outboards. “I got a hit!” he yelled.

Jerry and the three SEALs all watched for some indication that the RIB’s speed had been reduced, but it seemed unaffected as it continued to close. Another burst of.50 caliber fire came perilously close to the boat’s stern — off by a mere foot. Water from the splashes sprayed on Ramey.

Phillips instantly zigged to the right, but the Iranian gunner had finally caught on to the American’s strategy and immediately let loose another volley. Several rounds hit the gunwale between Jerry and the corpsman, tearing away chunks of the hull as they passed through.

“Son of a bitch!” yelped Fazel, as the bullets zipped over his head. Unfazed, he took several more shots. He scored some hits, but they were on the hull and thus totally ineffective. The RIB was only a couple of hundred yards away.

Lapointe shifted his body as best he could to put more weight on his good leg. This allowed him to lean a little to the left and brace himself up against the control console. He lined up his sights, well in front of the RIB, and placed his finger on the trigger. He then patiently waited for Phillips to finish executing a weave turn, checked his aim point, and fired.

The grenade hit the water several yards in front of the boat and exploded directly under the RIB’s hull. The plume from the blast lifted the bow higher into the air, causing the racing boat to plane at an unsafe angle. The aerodynamic forces on the hull at such high speed pulled the bow even higher, and in the wink of an eye, the RIB went airborne, rotating end over end as it flew through the air. Pieces of the boat were ripped away and thrown skyward as it hit the surface, cartwheeling to a stop.

Jerry’s jaw dropped as he watched the RIB sail into the air. Dumbfounded, he looked at Lapointe; and he wasn’t alone. Ramey, Fazel, and Phillips were equally astounded. No one was quite ready to believe what they had just seen. Lapointe, too, was awestruck. Everyone repeatedly looked back and forth between Lapointe’s grenade launcher and the capsized Pasdaran RIB.

It was Jerry who broke the silence as he patted Lapointe on the back. “Bravo Zulu, Pointy! That was one hell of a golden BB!”

“Awesome shot, Nate!” congratulated Fazel.

Ramey just shook his head, a big grin on his face. “No one back at the SEAL team will ever believe this,” he lamented.

Lapointe acknowledged the accolades from the XO and his teammates with a simple, “Thanks.” Then looking toward Jerry he added with a wink, “That was a bit sloppy, but I’ll take it.”

Jerry and the others laughed, relieved that the most dangerous threat had been eliminated. But it wasn’t the only threat they faced, a fact Ramey reminded them of when he pointed toward a new contact on the port quarter. “Enough celebrating, everyone, the second boat is inbound and the third isn’t far behind.”

Rahim and Qorbani were both watching through binoculars as the ten-meter RIB appeared to be closing in for the kill. The VEVAK agent was silently urging the RIB’s crew on, encouraging them to quickly finish the threat to his and Moradi’s plan. Moments later, they stared in horror as the Pasdaran boat flew into the air and tumbled back down on to the sea. It didn’t take a genius to realize that the chances of surviving such a violent crash were nil. Anger filled Rahim. The Americans had once again outmaneuvered him. It was incomprehensible how they always somehow found a way to snatch victory from his grasp. He swore that the long chase would end here and now.