Under Siege (30 page)

“Gentlemen, say we find our manufacturing plant, take it down, and now we have a ton of anthrax. How do you kill the anthrax virus?”

The captains and the major looked at each other and shook their heads. One of the sergeants opened a file folder. “We’ve been doing some computer searches on that.
Researchers are working on that problem, have been for ten years. Best so far is the gamma-phage—a virus that attacks and kills the anthrax virus. This is in active use now and works on a small scale and will be used in Iraq in those death zones as soon as facilities can be set up.

“With a ton of anthrax you’d need a ton of gamma-phage, which isn’t practical. Other researchers have been working on different methods to dispose of anthrax. It is a living organism and as such is susceptible to certain environmental dangers. They tried drowning them. Didn’t work. The best method so far is heat. Tests have shown that heat of eighteen hundred to two thousand degrees Fahrenheit will destroy the virus. Such heat will burn up anything the virus was on as well, so for most applications, the heat method is not practical. Here it might be.”

“How do we get anything that hot?” Lampedusa asked.

“The inside of a pottery kiln would work great,” one of the captains said.

“How about a brick kiln?” Jaybird asked. “That would be big enough to load the goods into.”

“A good gasoline-fed fire can generate heat up to four thousand degrees,” Murdock said. “If heat will do the job, it might be our solution. We would appreciate it if the sergeant could continue his research on this problem and keep us up to date while we’re here and in the field. We’ll want to use the SATCOM, you have them available here?”

“We do,” the sergeant said.

“Timing,” Murdock said. “We need to work out who goes where, how we get there, and contingencies. We’ve done enough for tonight. My men have been on their feet for the past twenty-four. We’ll be sharper tomorrow. Can we meet here at oh-eight-hundred?”

The master sergeant looked at his team. They nodded.

“Oh-eight-hundred it is. We’ll have some transport folks here, and some other specialists. Let’s call it a night.”

They stood together and walked out.

“Gonna be a hot time in old Iran soon enough,” Jay-bird said.

“Yeah, but only if we can find the fucking anthrax,” Bill Bradford said.

Back at their barracks, Murdock, Gardner, Jaybird, and DeWitt worked out the teams to go to each location. They balanced them for Arabic language, for weapons, skills, and experience. They kept squad members together as much as possible. The roster looked like this when they finished:

Team One: Murdock, Jaybird, Lampedusa, Bradford, and Ching.

Team Two: Gardner, Canzoneri, Rafii, Fernandez, and Prescott.

Team Three: DeWitt, Howard, Van Dyke, Mahanani, Neal, and Tate.

Murdock read over the list out loud and everyone nodded. “Okay, let’s get some sack time. Chow is at oh-seven hundred, so look sharp. I’ve ordered new cammies for us, three pair each, so they should be here tomorrow. Showers are suggested. See you guys in the morning.”

Murdock sighed as he sat down on his bunk. It had a mattress and a metal frame and was just that—a military cot. They would always be the same and feel the same. Even so, he knew after a quick shower he would be sleeping in about fifteen seconds.

At the meeting the next morning there were fifteen present. They split into teams. Murdock assigned them to their areas. He would take the interior location with the air-drop.
Gardner would have the Turkey campaign and DeWitt would investigate the south coast of Iran across from Qatar.

The planning went fast after that—transport, recovery, weapons, uniforms or civilian clothes. They opted for Iranian middle- to lower-class clothing. There was a spot on the base that could outfit them. Weapons would be restricted to side arms and to one MP-5 per team. Concealment would be the ultimate factor on weapons.

When the three teams had worked out transport with the specialists in that area, Murdock called them all together.

“Okay, say my team finds the location in mid-Iran. Do I rely on local explosives and gasoline to get the anthrax vaporized, or do we have a special flight that comes in with fuel and explosives?”

The sergeant major spoke up. “Depends, Commander. Where I was in Iran I didn’t see a gas station for hundreds of miles. There was nothing out there. That probably will be the case around your back country area. Where could you get a three thousand gallon tanker filled with gasoline?”

“If we tried to air-lift in a tanker, it would be slow going with a chopper,” one of the captains said. “And the Iranians do have a few jet fighters left with missiles.”

“So we’ll have to use what we have on the ground,” Murdock said. “That might mean a side trip into some town and find a tanker and divert it to the location.”

“Would a house fire, a building fire, generate enough heat to do the job?” DeWitt asked.

“Checked that last night on the computer,” another sergeant said. “Wood fires can burn hot—up to two thousand degrees—but we don’t know if the buildings there are stone or wood or brick. Any new construction for a factory probably would be metal, which wouldn’t help us at all.”

“So what it comes down to,” Murdock said, “is that we have to play it by ear, using local fuel to do the job any way we can. The hot fire is the key. Oh, one more thing. We have one SATCOM with us. We’ll need two more so each
team can have one. We establish one frequency to use so we all can stay in touch.”

“I can get two more SATCOMs,” Colonel Allbright said.

“What about some anti-biological safe suits?” Gardner asked.

“We have them, but how can you infiltrate with one on?” the other captain said.

“We carry them in a suitcase,” Lam said. “Would one fit in an average-sized suitcase?”

“We could make them fit. You wouldn’t need all the equipment, just the biological.”

“We need at least two of those suits for each team,” DeWitt said.

“We’re getting there,” the master sergeant said. “Now what about timing? Night drop would be best for the interior team, that’s Murdock. Night coastal landing also for the DeWitt team across the gulf. The walk across the border from Turkey would depend.”

“Let’s get moving tonight,” Murdock said. “Say a nineteen hundred takeoff in a fixed wing for a night drop over central Iran for my team. We can do a HALO jump if that would help.”

“We can do that,” the major said.

“Let’s get the teams outfitted with new clothes and money for emergencies,” Murdock said. “The rial, if I remember right. About eight thousand for a U.S. dollar, so we’ll have large denomination bills. We’ll need six hundred dollar’s worth per man. We’ll turn in what we don’t use. Any questions?”

“What if you get captured?” the major asked. “Won’t the U.S. be identified as an aggressor?”

“No sir, Major. We don’t carry any I.D. No dog tags, wallets, pictures, anything that could tie us to the U.S.”

“No I.D.? How do you function in the military?”

“Oh, we have I.D. You just can’t see it.” Murdock said. “Your security people may know about it. Three months
ago we were all implanted with microchips with our complete military and personal history, our medical updates, any injuries or allergies, rank, enlistments, almost everything in our two-oh-one files. Your security people may have a microchip reader that can detect and read the chip. Best I.D. in the world.”

“Heard they were coming. Didn’t know they were here. Where do they put the chip?”

“In a fleshy area in the back of your neck, just above some bones. The chip is small, about a quarter of an inch square, but loaded with information.”

Murdock looked around. “Now, if there’s nothing more to do here, we have equipment to get, ammo to pick up, clothes to put on, and a thousand other tasks before we go. Work with Gardner and DeWitt to set up their departures. I think we’re done here.”

Colonel Allbright was all over the place. He brought the SATCOMs to the barracks and arranged for the six biological suits to be delivered. All the men went to the clothing building where they were outfitted with working-class Iranian clothing. The men were issued Glock pistols and two hundred rounds of ammo. Murdock checked over his team and nodded. They had all they needed. The Iranian clothing felt strange, but they wore it now to get used to it. They stood out in the chow line.

At nineteen oh-four Murdock and his team stepped into the huge C-141 Starlifter. It was the same plane used for dropping paratroopers and could haul 155 jumpers or 200 regular soldiers. It was a four-engine jet transport that could do 556 mph on maximum cruise speed and fly up to 41,000 feet.

Murdock talked to the crew chief, an Air Force first sergeant.

“Not quite six hundred miles over there, the way we’ll
go. We’ll be at forty-one thousand, so no problem with missiles. How high do you want to jump from?”

“Can you come down to twenty thousand? We don’t have our cold weather masks or oxygen tanks along.”

“Twenty will be no problem. We’ll let down once we’re over the mountains and into the boonies. Got some bucket seats along the side there. We’ll use the side door for you to jump from. You’ve done this before?”

“More than I want to remember. How long to the jump zone?”

“A little over an hour, counting our takeoff and let-down to twenty. I’ll give you a heads-up at ten minutes to drop.”

The sergeant looked at their civilian clothes. “Going in undercover, huh? Good luck. Not too much action out in this part of Iran, but you never can tell about these crazy Arabs.” He gave Murdock a thumbs up and went back to the cabin up front.

Then the motors started and shortly the big plane taxied slowly out to the runway.

“This is a big mutha,” Jaybird said. “A hundred and sixty feet wingspan and the turkey is a hundred and sixty-nine feet long. Nice kind of plane for our private use. Wonder how much she gets per gallon of JP-4?”

The motors revved then and the big craft raced down the runway and lifted into the Qatar night sky heading west over the gulf and then into Iranian air space. Murdock hoped this wasn’t the time that Iranian fighters were out looking for payback for the shellacking they took during the invasion. Some estimates were that Iran used up all but ten of its jet fighters in the war. He hoped they were right.

The flight gave Murdock some time to think through his current situation. So far his promotion to the CNO’s staff hadn’t cramped his SEAL operations. But it wouldn’t always be so. After this the CNO might not clear him to participate. Have to play it by ear. Ardith would be just as pleased if he stayed in Washington full time. After this
mission, he’d reconsider. Maybe he’d been lucky not to get shot up any more than he had been. That afternoon he let the medics look at his leg. They changed the bandages and told him to stay off the leg for a week. He said sure, good idea, and got out of there quickly. The leg still hurt, but he could block it out. Any action and he wouldn’t even know the bullet had ripped through there.

Don Stroh had sat in on the last meeting, and then vanished. He came back with the name of a contact in the little town Murdock was aiming for. The man’s name was Salama Masud. He was a wool buyer who then shipped it to factories to the north. He was an important man in the area, and the CIA had not used him much, but he was ready.

Murdock felt good, not nervous or jittery. He had done this before. HALO, High Altitude jump, Low Opening. They would come out of the plane at twenty thousand feet and freefall for fifteen thousand feet and open their chutes at about five thousand, or lower in densely populated areas. They would keep tabs with each other with the Motorolas.

“Sir, sir.” Murdock heard someone and felt a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, heads up, we’ll be over the DZ in ten.”

Murdock woke up and nodded. “Right, sergeant. Thanks. I guess I dozed off there.”

The Air Force man chuckled. “Never saw anyone do that before, sir. You’re not uptight at all about this jump. That’s a good sign. I’ll be back to open the door when we hit the DZ.”

Murdock looked at his men. Two of the four were sleeping. He woke them up.

“Let’s go, ladies. Time to check gear and chutes. Everybody on your feet. Jaybird, check me.”

They were ready to go when the sergeant came back. All had on helmets, face protectors, and gloves against the cold at twenty thousand. The fall wouldn’t take long. They
lined up at the door with Murdoek last. No ripcord to snap on the rail. They would pull the cord later.

“Ready in two,” the sergeant said. Then he opened the side door and the gush of air rushing out of the plane jolted them a step forward.

“Easy, easy,” the crew chief said. The green light snapped on over the door and Jaybird dove out the opening. Lam went right behind him, then Bradford and Ching. Murdoek was close behind them. The quicker they got out of the plane, the closer they would land together.

Murdock felt that gut-gripping emptiness as he dove into the void. Nothing but black sky, whistling wind, and enough frigid air to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. He opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure why he closed them when he dove out, but he always did. He checked around, but it was too dark to see any of the others. He spread out his arms in a swan dive and kept that attitude as he picked up speed. He checked the radio.

“Hey, team, everyone on board?”

They all checked in. “Good, my handy-dandy little wrist altimeter shows us at eighteen thousand and falling. I’ll give the word to yank the rip cord at five. Everyone have that little rope in his hand?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jaybird said. The other chorused in.

Below, Murdoek could see only blackness. No streaming lights on a freeway. No brilliant lights in a city. Not even the-lonely light of a thatched roof hut in the mountains. They should come down in the edge of some hills near a plains or a desert, he wasn’t sure which. But not a lot of people.

The first faint glow of lights showed to the north. He checked his altimeter. Six thousand.

“Okay, let’s pull the magic string and become butterflies,” Murdoek said. He pulled his ripcord and braced himself as best he could for the balls-busting jerk of the parachute crotch straps. When it came he wasn’t ready. He
was still diving and it jerked him backwards and upright at the same time. He looked up as the glorious brown silk blossomed above him. It was the most beautiful sight in the world every time it happened. It meant he wouldn’t slam into the ground at a hundred and twenty miles an hour.