“That would be enough to take both radars down,” Murdock decided. Bouddica had two radar towers, visible above the main platform as a pair of slender towers capped by what looked like large, white golf balls — the weather shrouds housing the radar dishes.
“There’s more,” Sterling added.
“What?”
“Any preliminary data we can acquire about the location and nature of the, quote, possible nuclear device, unquote, as well as any information on the location of the hostages and the disposition of tango security elements on any of the targets, including the fishing trawler Rosa… ” Sterling stopped, and drew a deep breath, before proceeding. “Would all be greatly appreciated!”
“Tall order,” Murdock said. He was already considering possible approaches to the main personnel habitat over on Alpha. If they could just slip across the bridge unobserved, at night… “We’ll have to see what we can do about that. When it’s going down?”
“Tonight. Time’s not set yet, but tonight. The British government has been in radio communication with the terrorists. I gather they’ve agreed, at least in principle, to all of the tangos’ demands, though they’re claiming some problems.”
“Delaying tactics,” MacKenzie suggested.
“Sounds like it,” Sterling agreed. “Things like, the UN can’t make an official vote on admitting the PRR until a full session of the General Assembly can be arranged Monday.”
“They bought that?” Roselli asked. “The tangos, I mean?”
“They’re probably more interested in the money transfer,” Murdock suggested. An earlier burst-transmission picked up from MILSTAR had brought the SEALs up to speed on the terrorist demands.
“Probably.”
“What about the prisoner release?” MacKenzie wanted to know.
“The British have promised to release the prisoners,” Sterling said. “One of them, the Korean woman, will be sent out to Bouddica tonight. The terrorists were demanding that she be flown out to the platform by helicopter, but the Brits are pleading that bad weather in the area might pose a danger. So they’re sending her out on the Horizon.”
“Which lets Wentworth get his boys in close when they come in to hand her over,” Murdock said, nodding. “Slick.”
“If they can manage it, the tug will move in close and provide a diversion while SEALs and SBS take down the tanker and the trawler. We’ll hit the facility’s radar so that the main assault force can come in by helo.”
“What about the minisub?” Johnson asked.
“The SAS’ll hit that off the Horizon.”
“Sounds like it’s all covered then,” Roselli said.
“Yeah,” Murdock said. “Except for one little thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Where the hell’s the A-bomb? Sounds like Washington is expecting us to find that out for them.”
Sterling nodded. “I guess they’re working out a set of code words now, Skipper. They’ll discuss that with you when you talk to them later. So we can tell them where the thing is, or even call the whole thing off.”
Roselli laughed, a short, bitter sound. “Which makes it our fault if the thing goes down bad.”
“Shit, Razor,” Murdock said, grinning. “Isn’t that the way it always is?”
“Scars and stars, L-T,” Roselli said, shrugging. An old SEAL saying held that others got the stars — meaning promotion to admiral — while the SEALs faced the actual combat. “It’s always scars and stars… ”
20
DeWitt released his equipment pack, which fell to the end of its tether with a sharp jerk, then dangled there five meters beneath his feet. Looking up, he checked the canopy of his ram-air chute, making certain that it was fully deployed and hadn’t twisted into a deadly Mae West. Doc Ellsworth, he remembered, had been the victim of a faulty chute deployment over the Balkans; he’d been able to work with his reserve okay, but he’d ended up coming in off course and slammed into a tree.
Incidents like that always tended to make everyone a little more careful afterward.
The wind was blowing from the east at a fairly gentle five knots, which meant that DeWitt and the other jumpers had to quarter slightly into the wind to compensate for drift to the east. This op had been pretty restrictive in what was available for insertion. There weren’t enough minisubs available for eight men, and if they were to reach their objective by IBS, they would have to come from the south or the west to keep from fighting the current… and an approach from the west would take them right under the noses of the tangos on Bouddica.
The current mission plan then, as were so many of them, was a series of compromises forced by available equipment and the lay of the land. The objective was at least in sight now… the long, low, black and white smudge of the tanker Noramo Pride, lying on the horizon just to the right of the tangled gray tower that marked Bouddica.
To DeWitt’s right, just visible as a blue-on-blue patch against the sky, was another chute, he couldn’t tell whose. Seven other SEALs were in the sky all around him, but DeWitt couldn’t see any of them, a fact that was oddly reassuring. If he couldn’t see them at a range of a mile or so, the terrorists on Bouddica and aboard the tanker wouldn’t see them either.
The plan was simple — the best kind when it came to combat. There were fewer things to go wrong, or to screw up, that way. The SEALs had leaped from an Air Force C-130 moments before at an altitude of thirty thousand feet, which put the aircraft easily beyond the range at which it could be seen or heard from the platform. The SEALs, wearing heavy coveralls and jackets against the cold, with oxygen bottles strapped to their sides and connected to the full-helmet masks they wore, had fallen to ten thousand feet before opening their chutes.
It was, in fact, a mix of HAHO and HALO techniques. High Altitude, High Opening approach would have had them pulling the ripcord above 25,000 feet, then literally flying to their target for as much as fifty miles across the open sea. They could damn near have jumped over the east coast of England and flown all the way to Bouddica on the power of the wind alone.
High Altitude, Low Opening gave the jumpers no distance but let them fall almost on top of the target, literally yanking their rip cords at the last possible moment, scant hundreds of feet above the surface.
The compromise, however, had them fall a long way in order to stay off the enemy’s radar. Bouddica had a decent radar setup, both to monitor the ever-changing weather and to watch the steady flow of surface traffic moving through this part of the North Sea. A skilled operator might detect the blips that were approaching parachutists, and while it seemed unlikely that terrorists would have radar experts within their ranks, SEALs only reached old age when they planned for all possibilities and were very, very careful in how they dealt with them.
They would splash into the sea five miles south of Bouddica, where they would home in on a Chemlite stick held by Brown, who’d jumped a few moments before the rest of them in order to serve as pathfinder. Once everyone was down, they would inflate two SEAL IBSs — one of them was part of the heavy bundle dangling beneath DeWitt’s feet — climb aboard, and begin motoring toward the Noramo Pride.
They would deliberately hang back out of sight, however, until 2200 hours, almost half an hour past sunset, when it would be dark enough to approach on the surface of the sea without being easily spotted.
Once they reached the tanker, of course, everything was easy. Just climb the damn thing, neutralize every terrorist aboard, and wait for further orders. Meanwhile, all hell would be breaking loose around them. The anchor tug Horizon would be returning to the area at just about 2200 hours, with the North Korean woman on board. There would be some final negotiations, and then Chun would be handed over to the tangos, just as they’d demanded.