Then they moved silently down the slope. All the SEALs had put their radios back on.
“Machine gun clear,” Murdock whispered into his lip mike.
Ahead they could see little. They knew the rest of the platoon was working up from the side. All the SEALs were between the Iranian patrol and the naval base.
Murdock froze against the ground as he heard someone in front of him. A lead scout walked forward, watching half the time back the way he had come. When he was six feet away, Murdock put three rounds into his chest, and he jolted sideways and died in the dirt.
“White flare,” Murdock whispered.
“Yo,” Lampedusa said on his radio. Twenty seconds later the flare went off overhead, turning the point of land into midday brightness. Six of the Iranians went down to the silent shots of the SEALs. Murdock saw Holt grab a dead Iranian’s rifle and kill the three Iranians nearest him. There were no more Iranian soldiers alive.
“Cease fire,” Murdock said. SEALs from the side charged forward, checked the Iranians to make sure they were dead, then looked at Bradford.
Mahanani sprinted ahead of the others and knelt beside Bradford. He used a small pencil flash and found the wound. It had hit Bradford in the belly and knocked him out. He was barely conscious now. Mahanani bandaged the wound the best he could and found Murdock.
The medic told the platoon leader about the wound. “Quicker we can take him back to the carrier, the better. He’s in a bad way. Should have a chopper come and get him.”
Murdock used his Motorola. “Pegasus, this is Sailor One. Can you read me?”
He waited. There was no reply. He tried three times. Each time, the speaker in his ear remained silent.
“Move everyone down to the farthest point of land we can,” Murdock said into the mike. “We’ll try again on the Pegasus. No way we can swim out two miles.”
Bradford couldn’t walk. Jefferson and Ronson carried him. He passed out from the pain after three steps. They had left the JG and Ching on the point before the rest moved up the channel. Now they came to them, and Murdock made a check.
He had fifteen bodies, but two of them were not able to swim. On the point, he tried the Motorola again. He heard some static, but he wasn’t sure if it was the Pegasus.
The SEALs had automatically spread out in a perimeter defense with all of them facing toward the naval base. The two wounded men were in the center of the arc.
Lam stayed out a hundred yards, hunkered down behind a stump, watching toward the naval base. He wondered how long it would be before the patrol was missed and the Iranians sent another one, larger and with more heavy weapons.
Murdock called over Senior Chief Dobler.
“Hang tough here. If we have company, do the best you can. I’d expect a patrol boat with a light would be checking out this area before long. If it comes, kill the light first, then give them a reception. Move away from our wounded before you fire. Then shoot and scoot to a new location.”
“You going for a swim?”
“Only thing I can do. We’ve got to bring the Pegasus into this point or say good-bye to two good men.” He handed his submachine gun to Dobler and started to take off his rebreather. He stopped.
“Yeah, keep it on. You might find a patrol boat out there. How far out you going?”
“Until I can contact the damn Pegasus that’s supposed to be out there. No way Stroh would let them hang us out to die.”
Murdock walked into the small wave action on the point, then bent and thrust out into the water. A moment later, he was working a fast racing crawl stroke directly away from shore. He knew there were two small islands nearby, but they had missed them coming in, should miss them going out.
He worked three hundred crawl strokes, treaded water hard, and lifted up enough to take out his Motorola from the waterproof pouch.
“Pegasus, this is Sailor One, can you read me?”
He pushed the earpiece in and listened. Only the same static he’d heard before.
Murdock tried the call twice more, then pushed the little set back in his waterproof pouch and swam again. He picked out a star for his aiming point and kept swimming.
This time, he went five hundred strokes, then went through the same routine with the radio.
“Pegasus, this is Sailor One, can you read?”
This time some words came over, but they were too garbled for him to understand.
“Pegasus, if you read, come in closer. We need you on the dirt on the point of land at the mouth of the naval base channel. We have two badly wounded men who can’t swim. Come in the hell and pick us up.”
Again, the only sound in Murdock’s ear was garbled; he made out no single words.
He swam again. He knew his crawl was slowing. He figured he was out almost two miles when he used the radio again. The garbled words came through again. Then he heard two words he knew.
“Light stick.”
They must be receiving him. Maybe his earpiece got wet or some other malfunction on the receiver. He used the lip mike. “Yes, light stick. I’m about two miles off the point. Light stick coming on.” He pushed the set back in his pouch and rested on the water a moment. Then he pulled the light stick off his wet suit and broke it. The pink glow seemed brilliant. He shielded it from the land and waited, treading water just enough to stay on top.
The light stick said it was good for six hours. He wondered if that was right. He’d never used one that long. Where the hell was that boat?
His kicking slowed and he drifted down until the light went underwater. He shook his head, kicked harder, and held the stick up with his arm fully extended.
Somewhere far away, he heard the throb of an engine. Yes. He waited. No. The engine was too heavy, too large. Then he saw the searchlight cutting through the chop that had developed on the strait. The boat came closer. A damn Iranian patrol craft. He wasn’t sure how big it was, but it was doing a search pattern. Working closer and closer to him.
He pushed the light stick underwater. It gave off an eerie glow, but it couldn’t be seen ten feet away. He kicked over and tried to float. The rubber suit was too heavy and dragged him down. When he looked up, the boat came closer, then it changed course and angled straight at him.
How could it? The sailors on board couldn’t see him. They hadn’t seen the light. He was too small to show up on surface radar. He waited. It would change course in a new search grid.
It didn’t change course but bore down on him. He pushed the Drager mouthpiece in place and duck dived down twenty feet. He saw the craft’s searchlight probing, then swing around. The boat passed fifty feet to one side and was gone.
When the rumble of the motors faded, he went back to the surface. He kicked out high again and tried the Motorola.
“Pegasus, Sailor one. That patrol boat damn near ran me down. You see it? Where the hell are you?”
This time he shook the earpiece and pushed it in place. The words came loud and clear.
“Yeah, we’re tailing him. Hear you five by five. Show me your light stick. Can’t be more than a few hundred yards from you.”
“Hear you fine now. Yeah. Light stick up.”
“We have it, we have you, coming up slow. There’s a landing platform on the back. Just installed. We’ll coast in. Grab that platform, and we’ll talk.”
Murdock looked up and saw a black chunk of the night moving toward him. The purr of the engines sounded. He waved the light stick. Then the black-painted Pegasus slid in beside him, and he touched the hull as it slipped past, almost dead in the water. Yes, the platform. He pulled up on it and hands grabbed him and hoisted him on board.