Seal Team Seven #20: Attack Mode (28 page)

Fernandez dropped down again, this time just inside the rear tire, sighted under the pickup at the tail assembly on the two-engine aircraft, and fired one 20-mm round. It hit the tail and exploded, shattering the rudder and one of the stabilizers. The plane wouldn’t fly for a long time.

Now dozens more rounds came pounding at the pickup. The glass shattered, the windshield went out, both tires nearest the shooters went flat.

“Out of here,” Fernandez bellowed. He dropped down and fired into the brush and vines at the far edge of the airstrip, where he had seen some muzzle flashes. Then the four picked up and ran straight away from the pickup, using it for protection as long as they could. Thirty yards over, they plunged into brush and enough large trees for cover.

“Anybody hit?” Fernandez asked. He heard grunts and voices saying no wounds. “Settle down behind some protection and I’ll call the skipper.” He had just made contact on the personal radio when the JG cut him off.

“Hold there, Fernandez. We’re going to be busy here. A boat just came through the channel and into the lagoon. It’s heading for the dock. Can’t be sure, but it looks like the one we’ve been waiting for. Soon we can see if it has three crates of plut tied down on its rear deck. If so, we’re gonna be busy for a while.”

Gardner had an early warning from one of his men at the dock when they first saw the boat outside the reef. “Looks like they’re hunting the channel, which must mean they aren’t natives,” Rafii called on the radio. Gardner and his men rushed down toward the dock, finding hidden vantage points where they could bring fire on the ship once it tied up.

They watched as the sixty-footer edged through the lagoon, then idled up to the dock. Nobody showed on board the boat. The man on the engine worked the controls to keep the boat next to the dock. Then a shotgun blasted from somewhere on board the craft, followed by four more blasts.

Gardner heard the slugs hitting the small office, blowing out windows and shredding tarps and furniture. “That’s double-ought buck they’re using,” Gardner said on the radio. “Keep your heads down. That stuff is murder.”

Eight or ten more shotgun rounds came, then a bullhorn voice came across the space.

“U.S. Navy, we know that you’re there waiting for us. We’re waiting for you. Want the plutonium? Come and get it. Just try. We’ve got two hostages with us. You make any move at all to stop us and the hostages go down one at a time. Right now there are ten submachine guns at your backs. We can’t see you from here, but our men behind you have you all spotted. Throw out your weapons or die on the spot.”

Gardner angled his Bull Pup around the edge of the
building he had hidden behind and triggered an impact round on the small pilot house of the boat. It disintegrated, and the bullhorn gave off a shriek as it was blasted into rubble along with the navigation equipment. The shotguns blasted again.

Gardner turned and stared into the area behind the building. There was a patch of brush and vines, then the street, then the buildings of the village. There was no place where ten men could be hiding to threaten them. “Open fire at the boat,” Gardner said, “but don’t hit the two crates of plut on the deck. Shoot out the windows, shoot into doors. No more twenties. Let’s wear them down. I can’t see anyone behind us. He was bluffing.”

The MP-5s and the Bull Pup 5.56 rounds slashed into the wooden boat. Then the shotguns fired again, maybe one less this time, Gardner figured. The shotguns trailed off and a bullhorn came on.

“Hold your fire,” the voice shouted over the bullhorn. “I want to make a deal with you. I know that one of our planes has been destroyed on the airstrip. We can take away only one of the crates of plutonium. We have two hostages on board. They are the twin girls of the postmaster at Rongrik Atoll. They are eight years old. We will not kill the girls if you hold your fire and let us take one of the crates of plut to the airfield and load it on our plane and take off. Then we’ll let the little girls go just before take off. I’m bringing the girls on deck now, so you can see I talk true.”

“We’re fucked,” Canzoneri said on the net.

Gardner shouted at the boat. “How do we know you’ll let the little girls go?”

“I give you my word of honor as a gentleman. I am from Persia. I do not give my word frivolously.”

Gardner knew he didn’t have time to talk to Murdock or to Don Stroh. It was a command decision. His command, his decision.

“You’ve got it, Iran. Cease fire. Hold your fire, SEALs and Marines. Hold your fire.”

“Call off your four men at the airfield. If they damage the other aircraft, the deal is all off.”

Gardner used the net. “You guys at the airfield heard what’s going down. They have the upper hand for the moment. Don’t interfere with the plane, or with the rig that brings the crate of plut out there and loads it. We’ll have to figure something downstream.”

“I’ve radioed the men at the airfield,” Gardner bellowed at the men on the boat. “You’re clear to move the plut.”

“No tricks, Navy SEALs, or the little girls die.”

“No tricks.” Gardner turned to Canzoneri. “Can you get to the chopper without being seen?”

“Let me look around a little. I’m not far from the brush and the houses. Yeah, I can do it.”

“Get over there and have the pilot radio the carrier what’s going down here. Tell them we’ll have a twin-engine transport in the air in fifteen to twenty minutes. They may want to shadow it with an F-18. Then you stay there so we can communicate through you to the carrier.”

“Roger that, Skipper. I’m gone.”

Gardner leaned against the building, then stood behind it, then sat down and crossed his legs. He hated waiting. What was taking the forklift so long? They had to use a forklift to get the plut crate off the boat. Then it would be a quick run out to the airstrip and the plane at the end of the runway. That was where they would let out the two small girls. Gardner checked his watch. It had been almost fifteen minutes since he gave the terrorists the advantage. Where was the forklift?

Then it came wheeling around the corner and stopped on the dock. It had a cable and winch it used to drag one plut crate to the very edge of the boat. Then it pulled it upright, and just before it tipped over, the operator lifted the twin lift bars and caught it and eased it backward against the rails. The forklift backed away from the pier slowly, then headed for the airport. A pickup truck came down next, and six men and the two small girls got into the truck, and it drove away.

“JG, this is Canzoneri.”

“Go.”

“Got through to the carrier. They have two F-18s in the sky this direction and will send them here. Take them about five more minutes to get here.”

“Roger that, Canzoneri. Fernandez, keep me up to date what’s happening out at the airstrip. The plut is coming your way.”

“Damnit, JG. They going to get away with it?”

“So far, but the game isn’t over.”

The SEALs and Marines came out of their cover and checked the boat. The two crates of plut were intact. Gardner had Canzoneri have the chopper pilot radio that news to the carrier.

“JG, the carrier people say they have a chopper with radiation experts in it on the way. They will take over the plut.”

“Forklift just rounded the corner and is moving over to the aircraft,” Fernandez said on the net. “There are three men around it now opening a hatch. It looks big enough to get the crate inside. Yes, now I see, they have rollers on the floor of the plane to get the crate inside.”

“What about the little girls?”

“Both are standing outside the plane. Oh, now they are being lifted into the front of the plane. The crate is inside. That was quick and easy. Side hatch door is closing. The plane’s engines are starting.”

“Let me know when they drop off the little girls. Canzoneri, the minute the little girls are out of there, you. have the pilot tell the carrier. It might make a difference what they do.”

“Roger that, JG,” Canzoneri said.

Fernandez came back on. “Okay, they moved the plane. It’s taxiing to the far end of the airstrip. Wonder if that strip is long enough. That plane has a big load. Yes, he’s turning into the wind, checking his mags, or whatever they do when they run up the engines. So far the little girls are still on board. Now, now the side passenger door is opening. What the hell? No little girls. Looks like they threw the body of a man out the door, then closed it.

They’re taking off. Little girls still on board.”

“Canzoneri, tell the carrier. Where are those Eight-eens?”

“She’s struggling down the runway, almost at the end,” Canzoneri said. “Damn, she made it into the air and missed some brush down there by not more than ten feet. She’s up and gone. Coming toward you guys at the village.”

JG Gardner could see the plane then, low and gaining altitude.

“We can shoot her down with our twenties,” Prescott said.

“No, the little girls,” Gardner said. Then he screamed. Two small figures, one after the other, tumbled out the side door of the plane and fell straight down. Both landed in the lagoon.

“The bastards,” JG Gardner said. “Canzoneri, tell the carrier what they did. Ask him if he can give the Eighteens guns free to shoot the fucker right out of the sky.”

They watched the plane turn and head east.

“What the hell is east of here?” Claymore asked.

“A lot of water and a few little islands,” Gardner said. “They must have had a route all planned out when they put their planes here.”

“East of here is Kwajalein,” Mahanani said. “We’ve got a big missile base there, mostly for tracking I think. He sure as hell won’t sit down there.”

Canzoneri came on the net. “Oh, yeah, the Eighteens are within five miles of us and they have the small plane on their radar. They are tracking it. I can hear the pilots talking to the CAG on their radios. I’ve got a feeling they might have plans for the twin-engine transport with the baby killers.”

“Plans?” JG asked.

“They were talking about how deep the water is around here, and how solid those lead bottles were. Somebody said deep ocean water would be a perfect insulator, keeping the plut way down there. Plut is heavier than water, so it would go to the lowest spot.”

“If they shoot the fucker out of the sky,” Mahanani said.

“Yeah, looks like a possible. The CAG said wait until they get about halfway to Kwajalein, that would be about eighty miles east of us here at Wotje.”

“How deep is the water around there?” Gardner asked.

“I’ll ask,” Canzoneri said. He came back on a minute later. “The carrier folks say there are trenches along there that go down to twelve to fifteen thousand feet. That would put a cork on that bottle for a long, long time.”

“How fast is the transport going?” Gardner asked.

“The Hawkeye puts it a little over a hundred and fifty miles an hour. So, along about a half hour we’ll see what the brass has decided.”

Prescott scowled. “So it’s a choice whether you want to risk polluting a chunk of the ocean, or let the bad guys get away with plutonium 239 that could power up as many as forty nuclear bombs that could wipe out four hundred million people. Hey, I’ll go for the ocean risk in a minute.”

“Now we see if you’ve got the right stuff to be an admiral,” Gardner said. “Let’s give this boat a going over. They might have left something here that would indicate some more customers.”

“What about the customers in the bed and breakfasts?” Claymore asked.

“Good idea. Fernandez, check with the guy who runs the airstrip to see if they said anything about how much gas they needed to get to their next stop, anything that we might use if the Eighteens don’t do the job. The rest of you here check out the boat. I’ll take two Marines with me and we’ll go see the bed and breakfast people.”

Mary answered the door at her house. Her smile was as big as ever. “Now we have room, do you want to stay over?”

“What happened to your other guests?”

“Oh, they didn’t tell you. Most of them were going to fly out in the commuter planes that leave this afternoon
for Majuro. Some of them were going in the transport aircraft that were out at the airstrip.”

“They are all gone?”

“Far as we know. The commuter will be leaving in about five minutes, if you want to catch them.”

“Not a problem.” Gardner hurried back to the dock. The man who owned it and the office behind it was out counting up the damage. Gardner talked to him. “Lots of damage here. I know how to help. Put in a claim to the U.S. Navy. I’ll make sure it gets paid.”

The owner, about thirty, with buckteeth and angry eyes, softened a little. “No fooling, Sergeant? A thousand dollars would just about cover it.”

“You have a boat and motor we could borrow? Want to see if we can find those two little girls.”

Ten minutes later Mahanani and the JG were on the lagoon. They went to where they thought the girls had fallen into the water. They found the first one quickly. She had snagged on a coral head barely a foot under the water. They lifted her into the boat and kept looking.

“A body will sink when it’s dead,” Mahanani said. “Then after a few days the bacteria starts to work inside and bloats it and it rises to the surface. No sense looking here anymore.”

Back at the dock they met the sheriff, who said she would take care of the body until the parents from Rongrik could come over.

“You guys leave a lot of bodies around. I hear there are two out at the airstrip, and three or four in the Jap caves. We’ll get to them today, probably, and bury them this afternoon.”

Canzoneri came on the net. “Skipper, it’s been decided. The eighteens will try to shoot up one wing of the transport with their twenty-millimeter guns. Hopefully put the bird down with minimum damage, so it doesn’t hit the water too hard and blow up the lead bottle. That’s the idea. I’ll see if I can get my mike up by the chopper’s speaker. Moving it”

The pilot’s voices came faintly over the Motorola net.

“Roger that, CAG. We use the twenties. She’s about two miles ahead. We’re starting our run now. Minimal damage, just enough to put her down. This is Transport Alert One going in on a strafing run.”