“Yeah,” Jaybird asked. “I heard something about a civilian with us again. To do the destruct on the warheads. Is it that pretty Lieutenant Garnet again?”
“It is. She knows her job and as I remember, Jaybird, she can outswim you and outrun you.”
That brought a chorus of catcalls from the SEALs.
“Yeah, but…” He stopped. “Hey, I’m glad she’s gonna be along. Gives us a little class.”
Murdock dismissed the men, and found Don Stroh coming in the compartment door as the men filed out.
“Well, Stroh, I hear the Navy chewed your CIA ass,” Murdock said.
Stroh came up and shook hands with Murdock, DeWitt, and Dobler.
“Not true. A mild reprimand, and that from some lower-half admiral I’ve never heard of.”
“We have,” DeWitt said. “He signs our paychecks.”
“So, the Navy chain of command communication works. The master chief and I checked. It took the Navy three hours to get word to you after I had the go-ahead from the President to the CNO.”
“That’s good for Navy time,” Murdock said. “Where’s Kat?”
“She’s resting. It was a long flight. The three of us have a conference with the XO and the CAG in fifteen minutes. You don’t need to shave. These men know your schedule.”
“Let’s get to it,” De Witt said. “We need some more input about the target ship and the port there and just where that ship is.”
They met in Commander Engle’s quarters. The XO was a short, thickset man with a windblown complexion, intense brown eyes, and a demeanor that showed all business.
Captain Prescott, the CAG, nodded to the SEALs and Stroh, and pointed them toward a map on a table hinged to the bulkhead.
“Gentlemen, I’m Prescott and this is Commander Engle.”
Murdock introduced himself, then the other two, and they all looked at the chart of the Tripoli harbor.
The carrier’s executive officer pointed to a spot about a third of the way into the harbor.
“The satellite picture shows the target ship at this pier, which is reported to be a secure area with armed patrols. There is a warehouse directly across from the ship, which also now has armed patrols around and inside it. We do know that security around the building has been reduced somewhat today. We think that’s because some of the troops have been sent into Chad on the invasion.”
“How big is that harbor?” DeWitt asked.
“From the harbor mouth to the ship is about a third of a mile,” the XO said. “No more than that.”
“The swim from offshore to the ship will be no problem,” Murdock said. “We have any human intel from an in-country man?”
“No agents in that area, as I understand,” Stroh said.
“So, we’ll have to do it ourselves,” DeWitt said. “That’s going to take longer. We recon, study, then attack.”
“Do we know if the missile or missiles are still on the ship, or are they now in the guarded warehouse?” Murdock asked.
“We don’t know where they are,” Stroh said.
“Timing?” the CAG asked. “We could do something with a fake air raid on Tripoli, never getting inside their airspace,” the Commander of the Air Group, now called an Air Wing, threw out.
“You’d need Presidential approval for that,” Stroh said.
“No, I meant a training flight into the immediate area,” CAG Prescott said.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Murdock said. “Timing? My men need some rest time. We can go in with first dark tomorrow night at the earliest.”
“Won’t do,” Stroh said. “We need you in there with first dark today.”
“We just arrived,” DeWitt said. “We need to do our planning, our alternative operation, what weapons to take.”
“Murdock, can you have your platoon and Kat ready to go on a chopper from here at seventeen-thirty?” Stroh asked. “The President said if you didn’t move fast, there would be nothing there to find when you arrived.”
“He’s right, Stroh,” Murdock said. “We can be ready. Ed, go get the troops moving. They have three hours to sleep, half an hour for a special chow, and another hour to get gear ready and to transport. Go.”
Ed left the compartment.
“Captain, can you loan us a Sea Knight for transport to within a mile of the harbor entrance?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have a SATCOM with us. We’ll need a Pegasus on call from the beach at anytime before dawn. If you can keep him around the three-mile mark offshore, he can get to us quickly. We’ll swim out a half mile when we know he’s coming in. We’ll use light sticks for contact.”
The XO made a note. “Yes, we can have a Pegasus at that point two hours before dawn waiting your call on the SATCOM. Use TAC Two.”
“Roger that, Commander,” said Murdock. “Now, we’ll need a facilitator to draw ammunition, arms, and explosives from your stores. Can you name us a man and have him here quickly?”
The XO nodded. “He’ll be at your assembly compartment as soon as we break up here.”
“Stroh, is Kat up to speed on the project?”
“She is. She knows what I know.”
“Does she have her special tools and equipment for the job?”
“She does. Everything except the explosives she said are vital.”
“Get some cammies cut down for her and have her at the assembly compartment in three hours. She’ll probably want a sub gun, and I want her to have an ankle hideout.”
The XO pushed another stick of gum into his mouth and chewed with vigor. He stopped and looked at Murdock.
“That’s all the planning you can do?”
“We don’t have the intel to do any more. This is a play-it-by-ear kind of mission, the deadliest kind, Commander. I wish we had all the intel we need. We don’t, so we have to generate it near-site, or blast in and see what we have to do on-site and react with deadly force. Usually it works.”
“Let’s play what-if,” Stroh said. “What if you find the missile, it still has nine warheads in it, but you can’t get to it to destroy them due to the overwhelming forces of the Libyan Army. What’s Plan B?”
“Then we would call in four Tomcats from the CAG to blast the warehouse with four Phoenix missiles, hoping to rip apart the missile and destroy all of the warheads. I’d suggest you put through a request like that to the President and get preapproval of it, so if we need to, we can SATCOM Captain Prescott. He will have his planes in the air ready for a five-minute strike on the warehouse, or the ship, wherever we locate the missiles and can’t reach them.”
“That would be no problem from this end,” Captain Prescott said. “I would need an absolute go-ahead from the President for such a strike, and it must come through channels as well.”
“I’ll get on that,” Stroh said. “Now, any Plan C?”
“My Plan C is to leave Kat on board here and have her tell my people how to blow up those warheads,” Murdock said. “We were lucky getting her out of Iran. It worries me having a civilian along, even though she can out-SEAL some of our SEALs.”
“That’s not a plan. Kat is on your team by order of the commander in chief, and it went through channels. Forget Plan C.”
“Anything else?” the XO asked. “Commander Murdock, in effect this ship and its crew and planes are yours to command. Anything you want, you get. We are now about two hundred miles off Libya’s port of Tripoli. Before you leave on the Sea Knight, we’ll be about fifty miles offshore. Your mission is our mission.”
“Thanks, Commander. I feel blind on this one, like both of my flanks are open just asking for an attack. It’s on missions like this one where we lose some of our men. I don’t like that. We’ll get the job done. I just hope that all of us will be coming back on the Pegasus.”