Exit Plan (55 page)

“What’s wrong, Pointy?”

“They’re going out
on
to the breakwater, XO.”

Jerry quickly took a look through his scope. Lapointe was correct, the Pasdaran patrol had continued down the road and was now heading out onto the breakwater. “Oh crap! Now what do we do?”

“We follow them out,” Lapointe stated frankly.

“Come again?” Jerry was sure he didn’t hear him right.

“I said, we will follow them out onto the breakwater. It’s not like we have a lot of choices, sir.”

“Why can’t we just wait here for them to finish their job and leave?” “Because the other patrol, you know the one we’ve been watching all night, will come over that rise to the south soon. We don’t know exactly how far down the beach they’ll come. My guess from what we’ve seen is they’ll get close to the breakwater, if not right up to it. If we stayed we would be stuck here for far too long,” explained Lapointe. “It’s only about an hour till sunrise. We need to be on a boat and out to sea before then, preferably long before.”

Jerry felt like smacking himself, he’d forgotten about the other patrol. Finding themselves stuck between two groups of Pasdaran soldiers was an unpleasant thought, but he wasn’t thrilled with Lapointe’s idea either. “Can’t you radio Lieutenant Ramey and just have him swing by and pick us up here?”

“I don’t know where Mr. Ramey and the others are, XO. I’d have to crank up the power on the radio to ensure I reached him, and the odds of the transmission getting picked up by the Iranians is pretty damn good. By going out onto the breakwater, Matt will be able to see them, and us. He can initiate contact when he thinks it’s best to do so. Besides, I’d rather have those IRGC soldiers in a cross fire, than the other way around.”

Jerry hesitated. He tried weighing all the variables of the tactical situation, but none of the options looked any less risky or more likely to succeed than the other. He didn’t know what to do. This just wasn’t what he was trained for.

“XO, we don’t have a lot of time. You’re just going to have to trust me on this.” While respectful, Lapointe’s tone was firm. And it was the confidence in Lapointe’s voice that broke Jerry’s mental gridlock. SEALs are trained to handle these kinds of situations, and they train hard.

“Alright, Pointy, we do it your way. But getting over to the breakwater quickly isn’t going to be easy.”

A wiseass smirk flashed onto Lapointe’s face. “Well, you know, XO, the only easy day—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” interrupted Jerry, annoyed. “The only easy day was yesterday. I got it. I got it.”

“Then let’s do this. Just get me moving as fast as you can, XO. Don’t worry about my leg.” The LPO then turned to Shirin and said, “Dr. Naseri, we’re going for the breakwater. Just keep up.”

“I understand, Mr. Pointy.”

“Let’s move, people,” Lapointe commanded.

~ * ~

“You’re right, Doc. Those are not our guys,” remarked Ramey. They’d seen several flashlights earlier, but they couldn’t tell how many people were standing at the end of the breakwater until they got closer.

“My bet is they’re IRGC,” Fazel commented. “But where are Pointy and the others?”

“If I know Nate Lapointe, he’s nearby. Keep looking.”

“Ahh, Boss, there’s another group, right off the port bow, on the beach.” Fazel pointed in the general direction of the new contact.

Ramey shifted his scope to the left and took a long look at the new contact. A frustrated sigh escaped from his lips. “Oh, bite me! It’s another IRGC patrol. Four men in a single column.”

“Where are you, Nate?” growled the corpsman through clenched teeth. The tactical situation was deteriorating rapidly. They had to find the others soon; otherwise it was going to get real messy, real fast.

Ramey continued scanning the length of the breakwater. All he could see were the four IRGC soldiers. Suddenly, a new contact emerged from around the curve in the outer breakwater wall. This contact was not on the road, but farther down on the wall. The platoon leader held his breath as he watched two more individuals round the bend. The lead person was moving stiffly—it was Lapointe.

“I have ‘em, Doc! They’re coming around the bend in the breakwater. Right off our bow,” announced Ramey. He toggled his radio. “Pointy, it’s Matt. I think I see you. Wave your right arm.”

The lead person of the new group started waving his right arm.

“Confirmed your identity. Okay, Pointy, head for the water. We’re coming in.”

~ * ~

“XO, move toward the water,” whispered Lapointe. Jerry reached out blindly with his foot for the next rock, found it, and slowly scooted down onto it. Planting his feet firmly between two large boulders, he reached back and guided Shirin down, supporting her weight. He then checked on Lapointe who seemed to be doing all right on his own. Turning about, Jerry repeated the process, inching closer and closer to the sea.

~ * ~

“They’re almost down, Boss,” reported Fazel. The boat was less than fifty meters from the breakwater, but as Ramey evaluated the situation, he was convinced it was going south fast; they wouldn’t get away without a fight.

“Doc, the IRGC soldiers are heading back toward our people. We’re probably going to have to engage. Pick your target, but don’t shoot unless I give the order.”

“Understood,” replied Fazel, who sat down on the deck steadying himself.

Ramey raised his own weapon and set his sights on the lead soldier. He toggled his radio. “Pointy, you have four IRGC closing on your position. We’ll engage and draw their fire. Don’t shoot until after we do, and only if you have a clean shot. How copy, over?”

~ * ~

Lapointe whispered back his orders, confirming he had heard them correctly. He could see through his scope that the speedboat was tantalizingly close, but what he couldn’t see were the IRGC soldiers—the breakwater blocked his view.

“XO, hold my weapon while I get into a reasonable prone position. Dr. Naseri, get behind the XO. Mr. Ramey thinks it’s going to get a little crazy here in a few seconds. XO, don’t shoot unless I say so.” Jerry handed Lapointe his weapon after he had slithered onto a large flat boulder. Jerry nestled down behind him. Once again he was to remain passive, the SEALs would do the shooting. Shirin moved behind Jerry and curled up into a ball.

~ * ~

Ramey and Fazel stayed fixed on their targets as they moved. If they so much as deviated one inch from their present path, the SEALs would drop them.
Just keep going, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain
, Ramey thought to himself.

~ * ~

The soldiers were very near. Lapointe could see three of them clearly as they got closer and closer. They seemed oblivious to the presence of the boat. That is, until one man abruptly panned his flashlight out to sea.

~ * ~

The flashlight beam momentarily blinded him, but Ramey could still make out his target. “Fire!” he commanded. Both he and Fazel squeezed off two rounds each and dropped their respective targets. Lapointe waited, then fired and hit the soldier with the flashlight that was illuminating the speedboat. The last remaining man, confused and terrified, hit the deck and began firing wildly out toward the sea.

“Move it, XO!” yelled the LPO. Jerry turned about and grabbed Shirin off the rocks. He could see the shadow of the boat and he moved as fast as he could toward it.

“Over here, XO,” Fazel shouted, his hands outstretched. Seeing the corpsman, Jerry moved closer and literally tossed Shirin into his open arms.

“Get in!” yelled Ramey.

Jerry spun, ignoring Ramey’s command. “Pointy!” he shouted. He heard a bullet whiz by his head.

“Keep your shirt on, I’m coming,” Lapointe yelled back. He was sliding down a rock, when his wounded leg got caught in a crevice.
“Arrgh!”
he screamed as he fell.

“Boss, there’s reinforcements coming!” Phillips exclaimed, pointing toward the rapidly undulating flashlights on the beach.

“XO! Move your ass, now!” shouted Ramey, still shooting.

Jerry staggered over to Lapointe, yanked him to his feet, and dragged him to the boat. Fazel reached out, grabbed his teammate, and unceremoniously dumped him on the deck while Jerry jumped into the boat.

“Punch it, Philly!” Ramey ordered.

Phillips wasted no time in slamming the throttle all the way forward and the small boat leapt away from the rocks.

As the coast began to fall away, they heard explosions over the din of the engine. Ramey looked over toward Bandar Lengeh and saw a huge fireball climbing into the dark night sky.

“Way to go, Boss!” shouted Phillips.

Ramey didn’t smile. He had bought them time, but would it be enough? “Keep the pedal to the metal, Philly! We aren’t out of the woods yet.”

~ * ~

It was nearly dark. Moradi finished the latest report from Rahim with disappointment. The major was almost legendary within VEVAK, both feared and admired. Was that reputation misplaced, or was his failure to capture the traitors an indicator of their own strength? If they had indeed wiped out a heavily armed Pasdaran detachment lying in ambush, then they might indeed escape, or at least take more lives and further delay their capture.

This was not good, and in normal circumstances would be a crisis of national importance, but Moradi and Rahim had worked to limit the spread of information, so far successfully. It had been difficult, and they couldn’t keep it up forever, but after tonight it wouldn’t matter.

The latest intelligence reports were more than encouraging. Last light would be at 1845, but the planes wouldn’t come until later, in the early hours of the morning, or even just before dawn. But all indications were, it would be sometime tonight.

They’d run drills for the last three days, with the workers hustling into shelters while Pasdaran crews hurried to their stations. Over a thousand men were dedicated to defending the facility.

He expected the casualties to be light to moderate. The Israelis didn’t fly all this way to bomb guns and SAM launchers. A few planes would use antiradar missiles on the SAM guidance radars, but the gun crews would be relatively safe. Likewise, workers in the shelters and at home would not suffer too greatly. The greatest losses would be in the underground centrifuge halls.

Unfortunately, there was no way to quickly shut down the centrifuges in an emergency. Nonessential staff would be evacuated during an air raid, but the machines had to be tended. Spinning at tens of thousands of revolutions per minute on magnetic bearings, it took hours to slow and stop them, and that was only after the cascades had been flushed with nitrogen gas.

The workers had emergency suits that they could put on when an alert sounded, but uranium hexafluoride gas was both toxic and corrosive. It would take a big bomb to penetrate the layers of earth and reinforced concrete that protected the halls, but that same protection would then contain the blast. A powerful explosion would send the delicately balanced centrifuges caroming off each other, spraying the lethal gas everywhere. He was sure the Israelis would use more than one bomb. In fact, he was expecting the halls to be so ruined that the only sensible course would be to cover them with even more earth and leave them as poisonous, radioactive tombs.

Moradi had decided to stay in his office in the main administration building until the alert sounded. After that, he would hurry to the command bunker with the others. It was possible that the Israelis would attack without the air defense system even detecting their approach. While their planes were not stealthy, he’d received briefings on the electronic techniques they had used elsewhere, and if the planes flew low enough, they could simply fly under the radar beams. Iran lacked the airborne radar aircraft that could track low flyers.