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Keith Douglass

Pacific Siege

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Chet Cunningham for his contribution to this book.

SEAL TEAM SEVEN THIRD PLATOON CORONADO, CALIFORNIA

Lieutenant Commander Blake MurdoCk. Platoon Leader. 32, 6‘2”, 210 pounds. Annapolis graduate. Six years in SEALS. Father important Congressman from Virginia. Murdock recently promoted. Apartment in Coronado. Has a motorcycle, loves to fish. WEAPON: H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.

FIRST SQUAD

David “Jaybird” Sterling. Machinist Mate Second Class. Platoon Chief. 24, 5‘11”, 170 pounds. Quick mind, fine tactician. Good with men in platoon. Single. Drinks too much sometimes. Crack shot with all arms. WEAPON: H&K MP-5SD submachine gun. Administrator for the platoon.

Ron Holt. Radioman First Class. 22, 6‘1”, 170 pounds. Plays guitar, had a small band. Likes redheaded girls. Rabid baseball fan, Loves deep-sea fishing, is good at it. Platoon radio operator. WEAPON: H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.

Bill Bradford. Quartermaster First Class. 24, 6‘2”, 215 pounds. An artist in spare time. Paints oils. He sells his marine paintings. Single. Quiet. Reads a lot. Has two years of college. Squad sniper. WEAPON: H&K PSG1 7.62 NATO sniper rifle or McMillan M-87R .50-caliber sniper rifle.

Joe “Ricochet” Lampedusa. Operations Specialist Third Class. 21, 5‘11”, 115 pounds. Good tracker, quick thinker. Had a year of college. Loves motorcycles. Wants a Hog. Pot smoker on the sly. Picks up plain girls. Platoon scout. WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.

Kenneth Ching. Quartermaster’s Mate First Class. Full-blooded Chinese. 25, 6‘0”, 180 pounds. Platoon translator. Speaks Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Spanish. Bicycling nut. Paid $1,200 for off-road bike. Is trying for Officer Candidate School. WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 rifle with grenade launcher.

Harry “Horse” Ronson. Electrician’s Mate Second Class. 24, 6‘4”, 240 pounds. Played football two years at college. Wants a ranch where he can raise horses. Good man in a brawl. Has broken his nose twice. Squad machine gunner. WEAPON: H&K 21-E 7.62 NATO round machine gun.

James “Doc” Ellsworth. Hospital Corpsman First Class. 25, 5‘10”, 160 pounds. One year pre-med, then he ran out of money. Prefers small dark-eyed girls. Single. Competition shooter with pistol. Platoon corpsman. WEAPON: H&K MP-5SD/no-stock, 5-round Mossburg pump shotgun.

SECOND SQUAD

Lieutenant (j.g.) Ed DeWitt. Leader Second Squad. Second in Command of the platoon. From Seattle. 30, 6‘1”, 175 pounds. Wiry. Has serious live-in woman. Annapolis grad. A career man. Plays a good game of chess on traveling board. WEAPON: The new H&K G-11 submachine gun.

Al Adams. Gunner’s Mate Third Class. 20, 5‘11”, 180 pounds. Surfer and triathlete. Finished twice. A golfing nut. Binge drinker or tee-totaler. Loves the ladies if they play golf. Runs local marathons for training. WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.

Miguel Fernandez. Gunner’s Mate First Class. 26, 6‘1”, 180 pounds. Has a child with a woman in Coronado. Spends his off time with them. Highly family-oriented. He has family in San Diego. Speaks Spanish, Portuguese. Squad sniper. WEAPON: H&K PSG1 7.62 NATO sniper rifle.

Colt “Guns” Franklin. Yeoman Second Class. 24, 5‘10”, 175 pounds. A former gymnast. Powerful arms and shoulders. Expert mountain climber. Has a motorcycle, and does hang gliding. Speaks Farsi and Arabic. WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.

Les Quinley. Torpedoman Third Class. 22, 5‘9”, 160 pounds. A computer and Internet fan. Has his own Web page. Always reading computer magazines. Explosives specialist with extra training. WEAPON: H&K G-11 with caseless rounds, 4.7 mm submachine gun with 50-round magazine.

Rodolfo “RG” Gonzalez. Damage Controlman First Class. 26, 5‘10”, 180 pounds. Loves to surf, prays for a storm for better waves. Is Second Squad’s tracker. Speaks Spanish, Italian, and Russian. WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.

Jack Mahanani. Hospital Corpsman First Class. 25, 6‘4”, 240 pounds. Tahitian/Hawaiian. Expert swimmer. Bench-press 400 pounds. Once married, divorced. Top surfer. Wants the .50 sniper rifle. WEAPON: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher. Replacement for Gonzalez after he’s shot up in Iraq on the first phase of this mission.

Joe Douglas. Quartermaster First Class. 24, 6‘1”, 185 pounds. Expert hand-to-hand and unarmed combat. He’s an auto nut. Rebuilds classic cars. Working on a 1931 Model A Ford Roadster. Platoon’s top driver, mechanic. WEAPON: H&K 21E 7.62 NATO round machine gun. Second radio operator.

Fred Washington. Engineman Second Class. A black man. 24, 6‘0”, 180 pounds. Is driven to succeed. Taking Computer College Courses. Doesn’t carouse much. is writing a novel about the SEALS. WEAPON: H&K MP-5SD submachine gun.

Third Platoon assigned exclusively to the Central Intelligence Agency to perform any needed tasks on a covert basis anywhere in the world. A Top Secret classified assignment.

1

Tuesday, 9 January
33,000 Feet Altitude
Near Kuwait Border

Newly promoted Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock watched his fifteen men in the murky gloom of the interior of the special C-130 Hercules. They were flying at night near the northern Kuwaiti border next to Iraq, too high for anyone on the ground to see or hear the plane. This area was outside the Iraq radar envelope.

The Hercules was the one they had used before, painted totally black with no insignia, armed and equipped specifically for covert night flights over hostile territory.

Murdock patted the side of the big plane. He knew it was the most versatile and widely used military transport in the post-World War II era. The four big turboprop engines growled away outside. He’d heard that a C-130 had even been flown off a Navy carrier without the use of a catapult or arresting wires. The plane had a 133-foot wingspan, which made Murdock wonder how they did it. Right now they were flying at the plane’s ceiling of 33,000 feet.

The big plane lumbered through the thin air at 350 mph as the sixteen SEALs rattled around in the big cargo compartment. The Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven, based in Coronado, California, under command of NAVSPECWARCOM, Naval Special Warfare Command, was now assigned to and under the direct orders of the CIA. Murdock began inspecting each of his first squad’s seven men. They had checked the rigging, gear, weapons, and combat vests of each other. Now Murdock went over it all again, then had two men look over his latch-up. When he was satisfied, he saw that Lieutenant (j. g.) Ed Dewitt had given his seven-man Second Squad a similar routine.

“When the fuck we going to get there?” Engineman Second Class Fred Washington asked. He was the only black man in the group, and confessed he sometimes felt like the platoon’s “Nominal Nigger.”

“Hell, I can say that, but you shitheads better not,” he had said during late-night drinking binges.

“We get there when we get there, Slowfoot,” Les Quinley cracked.

He was a Torpedoman Third Class, from Maine, and the platoon’s computer expert.

Even though they had made jumps like this dozens of times, each one was new and different, and presented the ever-present dangers of any jump.

Murdock looked at his watch, and punched the light button. In the glow he saw that they had fourteen minutes to their drop point. They had been sucking oxygen from masks provided in the plane ever since they passed fifteen thousand feet. He motioned the men around him, talking loudly so they could hear.

“Nothing new from the top. We go in as we planned. Let’s stay within fifty feet of each other on the drop, and pull up when we get down there for an easy landing. We don’t want any broken legs or sprains on this jump. Any questions?”