All sixteen SEALs from Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven were crouched in the two fifteen-foot-long Zodiac-type IBSs (Inflatable Boat Small), each IBS powered by a fifty-five-horsepower outboard. In decent weather they could make eighteen knots. Not with the current four-foot seas and gusting wind.
The two craft were tied together by a thirty-foot line, and they had trouble staying that close to each other. Murdock, in his boat, and Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed DeWitt, in his, both had their Motorola personal radios out. The rest of the platoon kept their radios in the usual watertight compartments.
Murdock’s radio sputtered.
“Skipper, we’ve got some trouble coming up on the port side. Sounds like a coastal patrol craft. No idea how big. He might miss us. He has a searchlight probing around.”
“Roger that, Ed. Keep watching him. Yeah, I see him now. Unless he turns, we should be okay.”
As soon as Murdock said it, the ghostly lighted craft, not more than seventy-five yards off, turned and headed directly toward them.
“Lam, get the EAR out now,” Murdock whispered just loud enough so his lead scout could hear. Joe Lampedusa, Operations Specialist Third Class, lifted a strange-looking weapon from under his poncho.
“Fully charged, Skipper,” Lam said. He raised the Enhanced Audio Rifle, and aimed it at the oncoming patrol craft.
“If he spots us, give him two shots,” Murdock whispered.
Lam nodded in the darkness.
They watched the sweep of the powerful searchlight as it skipped across the whitecaps of the Mediterranean Sea. It almost touched them once, then rotated back the other way. The next time it came around, the craft itself was not more than twenty-five yards shoreward, and the light touched DeWitt’s boat first.
“Fire,” Murdock said. Lam aimed and pulled the trigger. The sound that came from the EAR was not an explosion; it was more like a whooshing of air. Half a second later the audio blast hit the patrol boat and the three crewmen on the small bridge had no time to react. They slumped over and fell to the deck. The craft’s engines kept going at the set speed, but with no one on the wheel, it cut a slow-arc course away from land.
Lam spotted two more sailors rushing toward the bridge. He fired again. The EAR weapon had had the required ten seconds between shots to recharge itself. The second blast hit the patrol ship and the last two men on board fell as if sleeping. They would be unconscious for four to six hours, and wake up with no physical harm. Their only problem would be explaining to their commanding officer what had happened.
“Good shooting, Lam,” Murdock said. He stared toward the shore now, and could see that the lights they had been keying on were closer. “Steady as she goes, Mr. DeWitt. We should still be on course. Let’s move the throttles up so we can make ten knots. Nobody is going to hear us in this storm.”
Murdock mulled over the mission. Every man in the platoon knew the details. That was the way the SEALs operated. They were to land on what was supposed to be a deserted stretch of beach near the small town of Al Hamim, which was west of Tubruq. If matters went to the worst scenario, the friendly border of Egypt was only sixty miles to the east.
First they would land, then hide the boats and move seven miles inland to a village called Bani Qatrun. Murdock watched the lights. They appeared to be closer. The small boats fought an outgoing tide as well as the weather. The rain kept falling. It would help shield their entry and, hopefully, their exit. The submarine would hold just off the east coast of Libya, and surface for a five A.M. pickup. If all went well.
Murdock had argued about this mission. He felt that risking the lives of sixteen men to recover one man was not good strategy. Then they’d explained who the one man was, a top CIA field agent who had been compromised and captured. He had been in custody only two days, and might not have leaked any of the vast amounts of special knowledge that he had. Clive Ambrose Cullhagen was not an ordinary CIA agent. He’d been instrumental in establishing the CIA’s newest world-events-evaluation center. He was a living storehouse of U.S. plans and secrets and those of half of our allies who used the center.
He had to come out.
The CIA director had emphasized that Cullhagen had to come out dead or alive. A top-security phone call had involved four men on a conference call. Murdock had been one; the CIA director, the Secretary of State, and the President of the United States had been the others. They had talked it over for almost an hour; then the CIA director had called the Chief of Naval Operations and the wheels had turned.
“I can hear the surf ahead,” the Motorola speaker in Murdock’s ear reported.
“Yes, I’ve got it,” Murdock said. “With the first breaker we cut the tie rope.”
“Roger that, Skipper,” DeWitt said.
Murdock took the tiller then and directed the small craft exactly where he wanted it, angling the motor, adjusting the direction. The breakers were not as severe as they could be. He heard the crash of the water against sand. Then they were there. Jaybird cut the tie line, and Murdock rammed the throttle forward to catch the surge of water that would develop into a breaker. He wanted to surf along the top and at the last minute race down the slope of the wall of water.
It didn’t happen that way.
A larger swell came in at a forty-five-degree angle and ate up Murdock’s surge. It battered the rubber duck, threatened to flip it over, then slammed it sideways toward the beach and the sand that came up suddenly. The rubber duck danced on the second surge for a moment, then righted itself and slid down the front of the breaker like a surfer avoiding the crashing water.
When the small craft nosed inward and then glided on shallow water toward the beach, Luke Howard, Gunner’s Mate Second Class, and Machinist’s Mate Second Class Jaybird Sterling jumped out, grabbed the pull ropes, and tugged the rubber craft higher on the beach on the thin flow of the receding breaker.
Four SEALs ran up the twenty yards of sand to the dry area and dropped to a prone position with their weapons covering the shoreline ahead of them. The rest of the SEALs crouched in the boats until they saw a signal from the scouts onshore. Then they left the rubber ducks and charged inland forty yards to a brushy area. They quickly secured the spot, posted lookouts; then men picked up the 265-pound rubber boats and ran with them to the brush, where the boats were hidden and camouflaged with branches.
Murdock stared out of the copse of stunted juniper and lentisk trees. They were growing only because of the moist influences of the Mediterranean Sea. He knew that the rest of Libya was dry; ninety-nine percent of the nation was classified as a desert with less than six inches of rainfall a year.
Murdock went over the images in his mind of the maps he had memorized. The village they needed was inland about seven miles, in a desert resort where water percolated up through the sand to create a true oasis. He checked his watch: ten minutes after midnight. If they stole a truck, they could be discovered. They had to stay as silent and unseen as possible until the attack on the house. The decision had been made to hike through the desert to the site. The men were traveling comparatively light with about sixty pounds of gear, weapons, ammo, and explosives. They wore their desert cammies and most had floppy hats, kerchiefs, or watch caps for headgear.
The men quickly took out their Motorolas and attached them with the lip mikes. Murdock called for a platoon radio check, and the seven men in his squad reported in the correct order. Then Bravo Squad came on. All accounted for.