Seal Team Seven #20: Attack Mode (16 page)

Murdock scowled. “They must have the plutonium packages. Those boats could scatter those packages all over the South Pacific. We’ve got to take her down tonight. We’ll do it by roping down the way we did before. First we hose down the whole damn deck with fire from our sixteen guns out of two Sixty choppers. Then one squad goes down as the other guards and shoots at any opposition. Then the other squad comes down and we take over the damn ship and stop this proliferation.”

Don Stroh had walked up a few minutes before, and he looked grim, but he nodded. “Yes, I agree. It’s time to put a stop to this hijacking, and to find out if my man on board is still alive.”

“When, Commander?” the CAG asked.

“We’ll need a half hour to get suited up and on deck. We’d like two Sixties without their torpedoes.”

“You’ve got it, Commander. Let’s go take down that damn freighter, then we can worry about those three boats that could have some of the plutonium crates on board.”

It was thirty-two minutes before the two SH-60 Seahawks lifted off the carrier
Vinson
at 2142. All sixteen SEALs were fit for duty. Howard’s three rounds in his right leg had been in and out and had missed the bones. He limped a little bit, but he said there wasn’t a chance he’d miss the take-down. Murdock made sure everyone had full loads of ammo.

On the short ride to the freighter he gave final instructions on the Motorola. Both choppers had been fitted with two of the two-inch-thick ropes to drop out the side doors. “Bravo, you take everything forward of the house about amidships. Alpha will take it from the front of the house and the crane to the stern. We’ll use the twenty-millimeter for those who have contact rounds for the air attack. We want to wash this baby clean on the deck. Don’t target the bridge. After our first barrage, Alpha will go in and rope down on the stern section. Bravo will cover us and take out any opposition with small rounds, no twenties. When we’re down, we’ll cover Bravo roping down on the forward deck. Let’s do it.”

Murdock looked out the open side door, and he could see the running lights of the freighter. They wouldn’t burn for long. The two birds split up and each zeroed in on its section of the target.

Alpha Squad fired out the left-hand door as the bird circled the stern, careful not to get too close to the other circling bird.

Murdock fired his 20mm at a set of lights near the stern, and when he fired, the rest of his squad blazed away out
the door. Three men lay on the chopper deck, the rest fired over their heads. Sadler saw a man run toward the house from a hatch near the stern. He led him and dropped him in the middle of a 20mm round, which also slammed shrapnel forward into two lights and some hatch covers.

After one circle Murdock yelled into the radio. “Cease fire. We’ve got their heads down. Chopper, move up on the stern deck. Get us down to thirty feet and we’ll go out.”

The pilot had been rigged with one of the spare Motorolas.

“That’s a roger, Commander, Moving in on the stern. Now about fifty feet wet, coming in to dry feet in about ten. Okay, we’re now hovering about twenty feet over the deck and twenty feet from the stern.”

“Go,” Murdock shouted to Jaybird, who kicked his rope coil out and let it fall to the deck. Murdock did the same. At once they reached out, grabbed the rope, wrapped their legs around it, and slid down, using the heavy gloves as brakes.

Murdock hit the deck first. He had ordered his men not to use the twenties once they were on deck. He saw movement ahead, near the big crane, and he slammed a six-round burst at the movement. It stopped. The SEALs had their assignments. Murdock and Jaybird would advance up the deck to the house amidships and go up the ladders, with the bridge as their target. The bridge was four stories above the main deck. They charged into a hatch and up a ladder on the port side, then cleared two small rooms. They had started up the next ladder when a handgun popped three times above them. Hot lead ricocheted off steel and flew past them. They glued themselves against the steel bulkheads and looked up the ladder.

They could see no one. Murdock grabbed a fragger and pulled the safety pin. He’d angle the bomb up the steps so it would hit on the landing and roll against the bulkhead. He let it cook two seconds after the arming handle flipped off, then tossed it underhand. He and Jaybird jolted down the steps and felt the concussion as the bomb
went off. Hot shrapnel from the grenade peppered the stairwell, but none reached the SEALs.

They both surged up the ladder when the whining chards of steel stopped singing. On the landing they found a man with a handgun. He had taken dozens of pieces of the grenade in his torso and was dead.

Jaybird pointed up the next ladder. They went up silently, found no one on the landing, and checked two dark rooms. Officer country but nobody at home.

The last ladder was shorter, ending in a steel hatch that Murdock knew could be battened down from the inside. He tried the twist handle and found it free, unlocked. Both SEALs paused at the hatch, then Murdock nodded, twisted the handle, and slammed the hatch inside. They both jolted into the room, which had bright lights. Three men stood next to the front windows peering down at the deck.

They were not armed. One man threw up his hands. The other two cheered. “About damn time somebody came and rescued us,” one of the seamen said.

The other one laughed. “Don’t believe that sonofabitch. He’s one of the hijackers. He’s got a pistol in his pocket; he’s just too chickenshit to use it.” The man snarled at the other seaman, spun, and drew a pistol. Jaybird tracked him and drilled his chest with three rounds from his MP-5 before the gunman could get off a shot.

“Never draw against an aimed weapon, pardner,” Jaybird said in his best Western drawl. The shots in the closed bridge made hearing hard for a minute or more. Jaybird was the only one who knew what he had said. Murdock leaped forward and smashed to the floor the man who’d had his hands up. There he searched him, then bound his wrists behind his back with riot cuffs and put another set on his ankles.

“Where are the rest of the hijackers?” Murdock asked.

The seaman slumped in a chair near the wheel. He shook his head. “Man, them things are loud. What kind of a weapon is that?”

Jaybird told him. “Where are the others?”

“I heard some of the hijackers talking. The head man here, a guy named Taliva, told them he had expected the Navy would attack him and take down the ship before now. Late this afternoon he went to the airport. He said he had three planes there, and he would use one of them to get away.”

“How many of them left on board?” Murdock asked.

“Four or five. He told them to hold the ship as long as they could. Promised them each a hundred thousand U.S. dollars.”

“The regular crew?” Jaybird asked.

“Most of us are locked in the dayroom forward. Man, you guys really shot up the place. You commandos?”

“Navy SEALs,” Jaybird said.

“Not the Navy I used to know. Damn.”

“Can you show us where the other hijackers might be?”

“I saw one of them go into the captain’s cabin. He was drunk as a turtle and wanted to sleep it off.”

“Show us,” Murdock said.

They left the two men on the floor and followed the seaman down one level and to the rear, where they found the hatch partly open. Murdock kicked it inward and Jaybird charged in. A man lay fully clothed on the big captain’s bed. When he’d slept off his drunk, he’d find himself tied hand and foot.

“How many boats loaded the crates on this afternoon?” Murdock asked the seaman.

“Four of them that I know of. One was going to the planes, the other three headed out to sea.”

“Any idea where the last three went?”

“All headed east and south. Of course, they could change directions anytime out there. It’s a big ocean.”

“We’re finding that out,” Jaybird said. They headed back to the deck to find the rest of the SEALs.

When Gardner and his squad hit the forward deck, they had only one gunman shooting at them. They flattened out and took any cover they could find.

“Anybody see his gun flash?” Gardner asked.

“Thought I saw some muzzle show down around that
first hatch cover,” Jefferson said. “That’s closest to me. I’ll take a look.” Jefferson sprinted from his cover to another spot nearer the hatch and dove behind a large coil of rope. There was no firing. He checked the area, spotted a large wooden box that could have come from the hatch, and jolted forward toward it. This time he took fire—three three-round bursts from a sub gun. He screeched and rolled behind the box.

“Jeff, you hit?” Gardner asked.

“Just a scratch. I’ll edge around this box. He’s exposed, so he runs or gets blasted. I’m moving now.” A moment later Jefferson pounded six rounds at the dark lump he saw halfway down the long hatch cover, in the blackness. Nothing happened for an extended five seconds. Then a scream came and the sub gun chattered again, only this time it was aimed straight at the night sky as the man stood, stumbled toward Jefferson two steps, then collapsed and sprawled forward. The submachine gun clattered out of his hands on the steel deck.

“He’s down,” Jefferson said. “Where the hell is that medic?”

“I’m coming,” Mahanani said on the net. “Stay put, I know where you are.”

“The rest of us, let’s flush forward to the bow, then we’ll clear it to the house. Remember there are civilians on board. Don’t shoot up the regular crew.”

“Where are they?” Prescott asked on the radio.

“Probably locked up and safe somewhere below decks,” Gardner said.

The SEALs moved cautiously, using what little cover they could find working to the bow. There was nobody else there. They turned back toward the middle of the ship and were within twenty yards of the house when a rifle cracked. The SEALs hit the deck.

“Where?” Fernandez asked.

“Near the second hold, closest one to the bridge house,” Canzoneri said. “I saw him fire and drop. I think he’s behind the hatch cover. It’s open. Could be where they loaded out the plut.”

The SEALs moved up cautiously. Only then did Gardner remember the night vision goggles he wore. He pulled them down and scanned the area, lifting past the first hatch cover. Beyond the gaping hole of the second hold, he spotted a jumble of what had to be wooden boxes, but not the plut ones. He caught a sudden movement as a head jolted upward and scanned the area, then dropped down.

“Anybody close to those wooden crates on the port side of the hatch cover?” Gardner asked.

“I’m about twenty,” Rafii said.

“I just saw him. He’s behind those wooden boxes. Can you drop a fragger in there?”

“That’s a roger, JG. One fragger coming up. It could bounce so take damn good cover.”

“Cook it two seconds,” the JG said.

Rafii took a grenade off his combat vest and pulled the ring that held in the safety pin. He judged the distance again, then let the arming handle fly off. He waited two seconds, then lofted the grenade underhanded toward the boxes that were backed up against the bulkhead. The hand bomb cleared the first box, hit the steel bulkhead, and bounced inside the jumble of crates. It exploded after its 4.2-second fuse train hit the main charge.

“Go,” the JG said. Rafii came off his knees and jolted forward, his MP-5 on full auto as he sprinted the twenty feet to the boxes. One had tipped over from the force of the grenade. He pushed it aside. Behind it were two more boxes. Rafii swung his weapon’s muzzle at both, then stood beside them. He pulled out his minilight, held it away from his body, and shone the beam into the murky darkness. He spotted a hand that was not attached to an arm.

A scream shrilled through the night from the wooden boxes.

“Come out with one hand up, and we might save your worthless hide,” Rafii barked.

One box moved. Another edged aside. A figure came into the beam of light. His left hand held an Ingram sub gun. It was aimed at Rafii. The SEAL’s weapon fired a
dozen shots, blasting into the hijacker and throwing him backward, slamming him against the bulkhead. The hijacker’s head slumped to one side, and he slowly slid down the steel plate until he sat on the deck, the Ingram still dangling from his left hand.

Rafii shone the light on the man once more. “Clear forward,” he said.

“The forward deck is clear,” the JG reported. “Should we check out the forward cabin areas?”

“That’s a roger,” Murdock said. “A seaman here says the crew is locked in a dayroom forward.”

“We’re moving.”

Just beyond the third hold they found a hatch that opened on a ladder that went down one flight. Claymore and Fernandez led the squad. They cleared four cabins with four bunks each, then found a pair of double doors with an outside lock on them.

JG Gardner came up and nodded. “Rafii, can you do this one?”

Rafii looked at the hasp and lock. He shook his head, waved the others back, and shot it off the hasp with three rounds from his sub gun.

They heard yelling from inside. A moment later the doors slammed open and fifteen men came charging out.

“Don’t shoot,” one bellowed. “We’re the good guys. From all the shooting topside, we figured you must be the Marines.”

“Not a chance,” Canzoneri said. “We’re SEALs and we just saved your asses. Any more lockdowns around here?”

“We’re it,” the tall man said. “You leave us anything to use to sail this tub out of here?”

“You get new screws and you should be in business,” Gardner said. “Any idea where any more of the hijackers might be hiding?”

“Several,” one of the crewmen said. “We also have a CIA man on board who’s shot up. Hope to hell you can take a slug out of his shoulder. It’s overdue.”

“Where is he?”

“Hiding from the hijackers,” the man said. “I’m Pete
and I cook on this tub. I’ll show you where Keanae is. Hope you have a medic.”

It took the SEALs an hour to comb through the rest of the ship. They found only one more hijacker, hiding in the laundry room under some dirty sheets. Mahanani treated Jefferson’s scratch.

“Just a scratch, huh, Jeff?” the medic said.

“Yeah.”