“Murderers!” she screamed.
The sergeant angled his weapon down and fired a five-round burst into the woman’s chest.
10
Murdock and Don Stroh sat in the dirty shirt mess working over second cups of coffee.
Stroh pointed a twisted finger at Murdock. “I tell you, everyone at State is in a dither. They don’t know what to think. Half of them say that Saddam Hussein is staging the biggest coup of the century. They say look at the ‘incidents’ so far. Fifteen separate actions that they say almost certainly have gone down with the hand of Saddam behind them.”
“Fifteen?”
“Some you don’t know about yet. Count them this way. Three embassies attacked, four blasts in Cairo make seven, the hijack of the tanker most certainly by Saddam. Then the Qatar takeover, the Bahrain capture, ten tankers loaded with embargoed oil smuggled out of the Iraq port of Basra, the attack on Oman, the Lebanon insurrection by army units, then the assassination of the Syrian president, and the stabbing death of the Jordanian king.”
“I didn’t even know about the last two. What’s he trying to do, take over the whole Saudi peninsula?”
“Maybe, but he can’t do it without Saudi Arabia. No action there at all yet, and I think it’s because he’s afraid of them. He remembers Kuwait and the bloody nose he got there.”
“What about Iran? Nothing’s happened there yet.”
“True, and he might have them on tap as an ally. Who knows? The one big theory shooting around the Agency, State, and half of Washington is that he’s looking for leverage to raise oil prices, and get himself free of the embargo.”
“How does he do that, short of a break with the U.N. embargo and running armed tankers down the gulf?”
“Might be what he’s thinking. Who knows what the hell that madman has up his sleeve.”
“You said something about three places to send us next. What are they?”
“At the time, the boss was worried about Lebanon. Now it looks like they have that situation in hand. The rebels have been routed; a bunch of them killed. Three of their leaders executed by lopping off their heads in a public execution. So that one’s in hand.”
“So?”
“So the CNO and the Joint Chiefs are all over this. They say that Saddam tried outright aggression last time in Kuwait and got slaughtered militarily and economically. So, this time, he tries another way. He’s trying to take over these small countries from the inside. Not much we can do about that. We would be interfering with the internal affairs of the nations.
“This will work for him only on a limited scale. The brass says that once he has a toehold, he has to use his military to go in and prop up the puppets he’s put in power. Yeah, works in the small places without the army. But take Syria. He’d need to put a couple of hundred thousand men in there to take over the country, even if he did have a favorable political leader.”
“He’s got almost four hundred thousand men under arms,” Murdock said.
“But his equipment is getting old and worn out.”
“Tell that to the guys he’s killing.”
Stroh finished his coffee and waved at a steward for some more.
“Look at it this way. He wants to get control of the Persian Gulf so he can sell his oil at twice the going price and maybe charge everyone else for using the Strait of Hormuz. What does he need? First he needs a friendly Iran, since they control one bank of the strait. Then he needs that tip of Oman beyond the United Arab Emirates that controls the other side of the strait. If he has those two, he can finesse Saudi Arabia and be in business.”
“Sure, but Oman still has that separated chunk of land out there on the strait.”
“It was a theory.”
“Mr. Stroh?” A sailor touched his shoulder. “Sir, there’s a phone call for you. Seems to be important.”
“They’re all important, son. Where can I take it?”
Murdock finished his coffee and watched Stroh talking on the phone. He nodded, then hung up and marched back to the table.
“Just a theory, huh? That tip of the Strait of Hormuz has just been invaded by three hundred paratroopers and ten landing craft. In two hours, they captured the only city of any size in the area, Al Khasab. This carrier is about eighty miles from there. We’re speeding there as fast as we can. The President has ordered aircraft to fly over the area and report what’s going on. All communication with the city there was cut off an hour ago.”
Murdock stared into his coffee. “Now he needs the United Arab Emirates. It has a commanding view of the entrance to the strait. I’d say the UAE would be the next target. It has to be Saddam. How does he think he can get away with it?”
“With Saddam, that doesn’t seem to be a big factor.”
“How does he think he can control the strait with the Enterprise right in his face and all the firepower that the fleet down here has?”
“Logic has never been one of Saddam’s strong points. The question is what the hell are we going to do now?”
“Wait for somebody to yell for help. Did Qatar ask for help to recapture the point out there?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“Saddam only put three hundred men in there? That’s confidence. They could slip a thousand men across the strait from Iran. Even three hundred against sixteen is not good odds for the SEALs’ continuing health plan.”
Stroh stood. “I better go call my boss. He may have some new information.”
Murdock went back to his men. He had his three with wounds checked over again in sick bay. None of the wounds was serious, but Murdock wanted them to heal properly. All the men were fit for SEAL duty when needed.
The men worked over their equipment, cleaned and oiled weapons, put their gear in top shape, and made themselves ready for the next assignment.
“Got to be something else popping over here for us,” Jaybird said. Murdock had told them about the invasion of the enclave of Oman out on the point.
“Hey, we saved that old sultan’s ass once before. We gonna have to go back in and do it again?” Quinley asked.
Nobody had an answer for him.
Three hours later, the SEALs had a new assignment. Stroh talked to them all about it in their assembly room on the big carrier.
“Sultan Aziz of Oman has asked for help. The Navy will be putting five hundred men ashore from an amphibious ship tomorrow at sunup. Before then, they want to be sure the landing area is clear of mines and any other antiship construction. It’s a good old basic SEAL operation. Soon the carrier and its task force will be off the strait and waiting.
“The sultan didn’t want us to bomb the place into rubble just to get the Iraqis. There will be as little damage done to the land and buildings as possible. Our five hundred Marines will move in with complete air cover and do what they have to, to defeat the land force there.”
“We clear the beach and get out of the way?” Murdock asked.
“Right. There will be the fast boats for you to use to get in to shore and back to the carrier. You won’t be part of the invasion force.”
“Hot damn, that’s good,” Bill Bradford said. “No sense wasting our special talents pretending that we’re infantry.”
“But damn good infantry when we need to be,” Jaybird yelped.
“Will there be any sound-activated mines?” Murdock asked.
“Not that we know of. Saddam probably can’t afford those. We expect the usual old fashioned contact mines, maybe some angled steel, the regular antilanding devices.”
“When do we leave?” Murdock asked.
“You’ll be a mile offshore in two ten-meter RIBs that will then edge you into within a quarter mile of shore once it’s fully dark. Then you go over the side and tote your goods along in buoyancy packs and get to work.”