Both helicopters were emptied within ninety seconds. As soon as they hit the deck, the boarders threw their gloves away. The first four men down adopted a circular formation that was reinforced as the others joined them. The helicopters darted off like startled dragonflies and hovered a few hundred yards from the ship on either side. They would await the word that the ship had been secured, or that the mission had failed. Their orders were to evacuate the assault team and sink the ship with well-placed missiles.
Mason swept his eyes around. He was glad to see that the ordnance expert, Joe Baron, had made it safely. Mason could handle explosives in a pinch, but Baron was a pro. The lieutenant pulled a light stick from his vest and snapped it back and forth so that the chemicals inside mixed and glowed a cold blue. He waved the light stick to let the port team know all was well. His signal was returned a second later. Radio talk would be kept to a minimum as they swept the ship from one end to the other.
Mason got on his cell phone. "Omega Three. Stern LZ secured. No assets encountered. Report in, Omega Two."
"Omega Two. Stern secured. No one home, so we will roam."
"This is Omega One. Proceed according to plan and cut out the lousy poetry."
"Roger," Louis answered, although it must have killed him not to say "Dodger."
"Omega Three. All A-OK."
Mason ordered the teams forward. They broke into two squads on both sides. One squad formed the base element, taking up firing positions to protect the other group as it raced forward. Then the assault team became the fire team and the other squad leapfrogged ahead in a maneuver that quickly covered ground.
Within minutes, they had rendezvoused in the bow of the ship with the port team. Mason ordered his 2IC to probe the bridge and superstructure while he took his squad to the decks below. Using the same leapfrog technique, Mason and his men made rapid progress through the storage areas and holds. They stopped in front of one door that was welded shut. Since they couldn't get in, no one could get out, so they moved on. They burst into the boiler room with guns ready. The engines were going, but there was no sign of boiler men or engineers.
A voice crackled in Mason's earpiece. "Up Squad. Gone through the crew and officers' quarters. Beds all made. No one here. Spooky as hell."
"Boiler room. Engines are purring away. No one here either."
The squads continued into the ship, and still they encountered no one. After a thorough search, they climbed back to the main deck.
The voice of the 2IC came onto Mason's radio. "Lieu- tenant, I think you should get up to the bridge as quickly as possible."
Moving quickly, Mason led his team to the wheelhouse. On the way, they passed men who were stationed on the decks and wings of the bridge keeping watch.
"Anything?" Mason said to the man who carried the shotgun.
"No, sir."
Mason made his way into the wheelhouse. The 2IC and several of his team were waiting for him. Nothing seemed out of place. "What did you want to show me?"
"This is it, sir. Nothing. There's nobody here."
As he looked around at the computer monitors glowing with blue light and the blinking faces of the digital readouts, the truth dawned on Mason. He and his men were the only human beings on the great ship.
CALLS WERE COMING in from the other Omega teams. Louis and Carmichael reported that the Ataman II and III were deserted. As he listened to the reports, Mason detected a change in the ship's movement. He was sure of it. The ship had stopped its forward motion. He went over to the big window that overlooked the deck and stared out into the darkness. Something was definitely happening. He couldn't be sure, but the ship seemed to be moving laterally.
"Lieutenant," one of his men called. "Look at this." The man was standing in front of a large computer monitor. Pictured on the screen was what looked like an archery target. The image of a ship was slightly off to one side of the bull's-eye. The ship was turning on its axis as it moved closer to the center of the concentric circles. Red lights flashed intermittently on both sides of the ship image. The situation became clear to Mason in an instant. The ship was a drone. The vessel and its sister ships were being controlled from another location.
Mason ordered his 2IC to secure the bridge and called the choppers and told them to land. Then he instructed Joe Baron to assemble with the squad members trained in explosives on the foredeck. He called the other Omega teams and instructed them to proceed to the main objective, the bombs. Mason raced down to the first level and led the way inside the ship, with Baron and the other SEALs pounding down the stairs behind him until they came to the sealed door they had seen on their first exploration.
The lieutenant checked their location against the ship's diagram. They were outside the bomb chamber. Baron got to work right away and taped strips of plastic explosive C-4 onto the door. He inserted the blasting cap into the puttylike material and ran an attached wire around a corner. Mason and the other men cleared out of the area and squatted a safe distance away, with their hands covering their ears. Baron squeezed the M-57 firing device attached to the other end of the wire. A loud, hollow thump echoed through the passageway. They rushed back to the smoking door, now marked by a ragged-edged square hole. Baron, who was as skinny as an eel, easily wriggled through. The others handed their packs to Baron, then squeezed through the opening after him. Flashlight beams stabbed the darkness. Then someone found a wall switch, and the chamber was flooded with light.
The SEAL team was standing on a platform with a large rectangular opening in the center. The missile hung down through the opening from the ceiling, held in place by gantries that extended from the walls like helping hands. There was silence as the men gazed with awe at the huge cylinder. The light gleamed off the metal skin and the rotor housings.
"Look sharp. No time for sightseeing!" Mason barked.
Baron ran his fingers over the surface of the missile. Then he inspected the intricate network of hoses and elecical connections that snaked down to the missile from a ole in the ceiling. He sucked his breath in. "Man, I've ever seen anything like this."
"The question is, can you deactivate it?"
Baron grinned and rubbed his palms together. "Does the pope live in Rome?"
"No, actually he lives in the Vatican."
"Close enough." Baron dug into his pack, pulled out a stethoscope and plugged it into his ears. He listened at several points on the outside of the missile, smiling and frowning like a heart specialist examining a patient.
"She's all dressed up and ready to go. I can hear humming."
"What about those connections?" Mason asked.
"Fuel and electrical. I could cut them, but that might tell this baby it's operating on its own."
"In other words, it might start the launch."
Baron nodded. "I've got to cut the heart out of this thing." He ran his fingers along the slightly raised edge of a panel on the side of the missile. Then he dug out a set of tools from his rucksack, and after a couple of tries found a lug that fit the nuts holding the panel cover on. Using a battery-operated wrench, he started to unbolt the panel cover.