With only about three hundred yards to go, the Gulf Venture’s tall, rounded bow loomed out of the darkness, rising high above him as it shouldered through the slowly heaving sea. Flynn’s shoulders tensed. Ready… set… now! “Go for pop-up!” he yelled. He threw his shoulders back and arched his back to zoom skyward, going vertical to bleed off forward velocity and gain altitude in the same maneuver. In less than a second, he’d climbed three hundred feet above the deck of the oncoming ship.
“Dump impellers and deploy your chutes!” Flynn radioed. His gloved fingers pressed another control. Electronic latches on his breastplate opened. Cut loose, the winged BMW propulsion unit tumbled away into the darkness, throwing up a white-foamed splash when it hit the surface of the ocean. In that same moment, his ram parachute streamed out behind him and snapped open with a tooth-rattling jolt. Tugging on the front risers to control his heading, he slid downwind along the length of the enormous oil tanker, aiming for a comparatively clear patch of deck a couple of hundred feet forward of the ship’s towering aft superstructure. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him seven more camouflaged rectangular parachutes floating down out of the sky behind him. The Quartet Directorate’s Dragon assault force was coming in right on target.
“Enemy in sight!” A lookout screamed suddenly. “Directly over the ship!”
Startled, Captain Reza Heidari jolted upright from his seat at the navigation plot table. With the countdown clock now at T −21 minutes and proceeding smoothly, he’d been busy calculating the series of turns needed to bring the tanker directly through the selected launch coordinates at precisely the right moment. He stared out the bridge window, stunned by the horrifying sight of parachutes unexpectedly blossoming just above his ship’s hull. This was impossible, one part of his mind screamed. The unknown aircraft his radar had been tracking had never approached closer than twenty-two nautical miles. That was well outside the range of any feasible conventional airborne assault.
With an effort, he closed his open mouth and regained a measure of control. Theoretically impossible or not, it was happening. A hostile landing force was touching down on his deck — right in front of his bewildered eyes. All that mattered now was to destroy this group of enemy paratroopers before they wrecked MIDNIGHT beyond repair.
Heidari whirled round on his second-in-command. Like him, the younger officer stood rigid at his station, gaping up at the descending parachutes with utter amazement. “Dabir!” he snapped. “Sound general quarters! Order our Quds Force commandos to attack immediately! I want that deck cleared!”
A swift counterattack to hit the enemy airborne troops while they were still struggling out of their parachutes was the only sound tactical move. Allowing them time to get their bearings and seize the initiative would be disastrous.
“But the rocket!” Dabir protested. “Stray bullets from a gun battle could set it off!”
“Fuck the rocket!” Heidari growled. Then he forced himself to think clearly. “Belay that. I still want our commandos to attack. But they are to engage the enemy only at close range! And using precise, aimed fire. Make that clear to them!”
“Yes, sir!” the younger officer nodded rapidly. He hit a button at his station. Klaxons blared out across the whole ship, deafeningly loud. Then he grabbed an intercom phone and started yelling into it, relaying the captain’s orders to the senior warrant officer in charge of the two reinforced squads of Quds Force soldiers aboard. He stopped in midsentence and looked back at Heidari. “What about the guards posted outside Launch Control?”
“Send them all!” Heidari snarled. This was no time to plan a cautious, defensive fight. Allowing the enemy free reign over the Gulf Venture’s deck was tantamount to accepting ignominious death and defeat. For all he knew, they had orders to plant explosives to destroy the Zuljanah rocket and his ship together. This far from land, such a move would probably be suicidal, but not all infidels were cowards afraid to sacrifice their own lives when needed. “In fact, pass the word to the antiaircraft gun and missile crews. I want them out on deck in combat, too!”
For a moment, Dabir only stared at him. “But, Captain,” he protested. “Our sailors don’t carry personal weapons! They’ll be cut to pieces by trained enemy troops.”
“The crews can fight with fire axes and other tools,” Heidari said grimly. “Or using their bare hands, if necessary!” He saw the younger man’s horrified expression. “Don’t you understand, Touraj?” he said through gritted teeth. “Lives mean nothing now. Not theirs. Not yours. Not mine.” Shaken, Dabir nodded hurriedly and bent back to the phone to pass on his orders.
Heidari swung around toward one of his petty officers, a reliable veteran of years of service aboard the Revolutionary Guard’s fast-attack combatants. “You!” he said curtly.
“Sir?” the middle-aged sailor answered, stiffening to attention.
The captain fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a set of keys, and tossed them over. “Get down to the storage locker where we confined those Russians and let them out. Tell that idiot Skoblin to throw his men into this battle before we lose everything!” The petty officer nodded once and hurried off, rushing toward the nearest ladder.
Thinking furiously, Heidari turned back to the windows. Outside, on the deck, the first enemy paratrooper had just landed. He swallowed hard, seeing the digital clock over the plot table still counting down. Somehow, he and his men had to either drive this hostile force into the sea… or hold the launch control center until Majidi and his technicians were finally ready to send their missile soaring aloft toward the United States.
Thirty-Nine
The moment his boots touched the tanker’s steel deck, Nick Flynn punched out of his parachute harness and yanked off his oxygen mask and cylinder. The pungent stench of raw crude oil stung his eyes and nose. These sons of bitches have been dumping their oil overboard, he realized. That odd coating he’d noticed spreading over the sea was a thick oil slick which must already be more than a mile or two across. He shouldn’t be surprised. Even deliberately causing a major environmental disaster was petty vandalism compared to the vicious act of mass murder the Russians and their Iranian partners intended to carry out against the United States.
The alarm sirens blaring across the ship suddenly cut out. In the comparative silence, he heard shouts from the six-story-high superstructure looming above him. Feet rang on metal as armed men rushed down the companionways and ladders leading to the deck. Whoever was in charge up there obviously wanted to hit the Quartet Directorate force while it was most vulnerable.
Flynn sighed. He hated it when the enemy reacted intelligently. But it figured that Iran and Russia’s mercenary Raven Syndicate would have entrusted this high-risk operation to some of their best officers and men. He tore at the zippers sealing his wingsuit and kicked out of the bunched nylon fabric as quickly as possible. Then he dropped prone and rolled into cover behind a ladder to the steel catwalk running above this section of the hull. While readying his Kel-Tec carbine, he kept an eye on the deck ahead. There, not more than a couple of hundred feet away, hunched shapes were already moving toward him, darting from cover to cover as they drew steadily closer.