At 0002 hours, time was running out.
In spite of the extremely dangerous conditions, Crocker called Captain Sutter in Virginia Beach to request permission to launch.
Sutter said, “I admire your courage, Crocker, but I can’t make that decision.”
“Who can?”
“Admiral Evan Thompson of U.S. Special Operations Command in conjunction with the president.”
“Put me in touch with him,” demanded Crocker.
“I just got off the phone with the admiral, and his answer was a big no. Given current conditions, he doubts that the cigarette boats will ever make it to the ship. His engineers tell him they’ll break up as soon as they hit the water.”
“Then we’ll deploy directly from the Eisenhower.”
“The cig boats will never make it.”
“It’s worth a try,” Crocker argued. “We’re looking at the real possibility of three or four thousand casualties.”
“We all realize that,” Sutter answered.
“Then what’s the alternative?”
“The Turkish president has initiated secret discussions with the terrorists in hopes of talking them down to some kind of reasonable settlement.”
“How’s that going?”
“Badly.”
“That means you’ve got to let us deploy.”
“I can’t. The president will never allow it. And Admiral Marcelus won’t let you leave his ship.”
Crocker hung up, seething with so much frustration he couldn’t stand still. He got up, paced behind the table, then told Anders he was heading to the men’s room to splash water on his face.
He needed something-a ray of hope, a possibility. In the narrow passageways lined with photos of the ship’s officers, he saw Mancini standing with one of the ship operations men, a tall red-bearded fellow in a khaki uniform. They were going over a list of equipment on a clipboard. Weapons, NVGs, comms.
Mancini saw the intensity in Crocker’s eyes and asked, “What’s wrong? You look like you’re about to explode.”
“The op’s on hold. Looks like a no-go.”
“The weather?”
“Yeah, weather sucks big time.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Admiral Thompson from SOCOM has decided it’s too dangerous to deploy from the air. We can’t swim because of the conditions, and we can’t get close enough without being detected.”
“Mules, man. What do we do?”
“Nothing. Wait. Hope for conditions to improve. But that seems unlikely to happen before the deadline.”
“Condition FUBAR.” (Fucked up beyond all recognition.)
“You got any crazy ideas?”
Mancini was always good at thinking outside the box. He pulled at his beard, rubbed his huge biceps, then nodded. “Yeah, I might.”
Crocker nodded at him. “What?”
“The SEALION II.”
“What the fuck’s that?”
“It’s the high-speed experimental insertion craft developed by NAVSEA Future Concepts.”
Crocker remembered seeing one at the Naval Amphibious Base in Virginia. “You mean that long, weird, alligator-looking thing?”
“Yeah, looks like an old Confederate torpedo boat, only a whole lot faster and sleeker.”
“Does it work?”
“I hear the fancy electronics suite it carries is filled with kinks, but it’s fast as hell, with low visibility and an almost-zero radar profile. I rode in one once. Cool beans. The advantages it has over cigarette boats include superior ballast, strength, and stealth, including much lower noise production.”
Leave it to Manny to know the latest shit. But the odds of one being on the Eisenhower were about the same as finding a snowball in the Amazon jungle.
“Is the one in Virginia the only one in existence?” Crocker asked, bracing himself for disappointment.
“I think NAVSEA has built four or five. I’ll check.”
“You find one for us and I’ll put you on my Christmas card list.”
At 0035 Crocker was on the phone with Captain Sutter again, informing him that Mancini had located a SEALION II at the U.S. Naval Command Center in Naples, Italy-where it was being tested in ocean conditions-and requesting permission to cram it into a C-130T Hercules and transport it to the Eisenhower.
“God bless, Mancini,” Sutter responded. “But how long is it going to take to get there?”
“Approximately three and a half hours flying at max speed, which is why they need to leave now,” answered Crocker.
“Who’s they?”
“The boat, the chief special boat operator, and pilot.”
Sutter didn’t need more than several seconds to think about it before he answered, “Permission granted.”
“A heartfelt thanks, sir.”
“That doesn’t mean you’ve got a go to launch. That’s the sole prerogative of the White House, but let’s see if the SEALION makes it there in time first.”
“Sound thinking.”
Crocker immediately called Naples and relayed the approval from Sutter, then sat down with Admiral Marcelus and Anders and told them about the plan. They were as excited as he was, but remained leery about the weather.
The SEALION II, like other low-displacement-hull crafts (including cigarette boats) had the capability to navigate the ocean but was designed for littoral (or coastal) waters. High, turbulent seas posed a real danger of capsizing.
Crocker, who was willing to take that risk, next huddled with his men-Mancini, Akil, and Davis, and the six SEALs from Team Ten. The incoming SEALs introduced themselves as Storm (sniper), Revis (logistics), Diego (chief climber), Nash (breacher and explosives), JD (comms), and Duke (weapons). Crocker briefed them on the pending arrival of the SEALION II, the dangerous weather conditions, and the mission to take down the terrorists on the Disney Magic. All nine men expressed their readiness and eagerness to go.
Next they moved to a conference room where they studied plans of the cruise ship and consulted with the Disney engineer via Skype. Given the large number of video surveillance cameras on the ship, the distance from the Security Command Center to the bridge, and the very small margin of time they had to work with, it was a mission that required precise planning and perfect execution.
Surprise and speed had to be impeccable.
For the next two hours they developed an elaborate PLO (patrol leader’s order), raised questions, voiced concerns and criticisms, then amended the PLO and started again. They tried to cover every possible contingency-lack of interior lighting, booby traps, use of chemical agents, what to do if the terrorists started shooting hostages, how to deal with passengers, and so forth. They talked about the dangers posed by rounds ricocheting off metal walls, pressure waves traveling through narrow hallways as the result of an explosion, and the ways they could expect sound to travel in different compartments of the ship.
Thoroughly briefed and mentally exhausted, they took a break at 0256 to dry-check their weapons and organize first-, second-, and third-line gear. Crocker left Mancini to supervise, and went to the ship’s command center, where he learned that the C-130T with the SEALION aboard was scheduled to land in an hour.
Even if they were able to unload the SEALION, fill it with fuel, deploy it in the water, and load on their gear in thirty minutes, they’d be real close to sunrise, which was scheduled to begin at 0548. He learned that Captain Sutter had briefed the White House via encrypted conference software about the nature of the mission, but it still hadn’t been officially approved.
The other problem was the distance between the Eisenhower and the Disney Magic, currently twenty-five nautical miles-as was the case for all other combat ships, per Naval Command orders. At that distance and at the SEALION II’s max speed of twenty-five knots, it would take the SEALs approximately an hour to reach the cruise ship.