Authors: Keith Douglass
Payback
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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SEAL TEAM SEVEN: PAYBACK
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A
Berkley
Book / published by arrangement with the author
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All rights reserved.
Copyright ©
2002
by
The Berkley Publishing Group
This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.
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ISBN:
978-1-1012-2081-8
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A
BERKLEY
BOOK®
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Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
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Electronic edition: April, 2003
Version_2
Titles by Keith Douglass
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THE SEAL TEAM SERIES
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SEAL TEAM SEVEN
SPECTER
NUCFLASH
DIRECT ACTION
FIRESTORM
BATTLEGROUND
DEATHRACE
PACIFIC SIEGE
WAR CRY
FRONTAL ASSAULT
FLASHPOINT
TROPICAL TERROR
BLOODSTORM
DEATHBLOW
AMBUSH
COUNTERFIRE
PAYBACK
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THE CARRIER SERIES
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CARRIER
VIPER STRIKE
ARMAGEDDON MODE
FLAME
-
OUT
MAELSTROM
COUNTDOWN
AFTERBURN
ALPHA STRIKE
ARCTIC FIRE
ARSENAL
NUKE ZONE
CHAIN OF COMMAND
BRINK OF WAR
TYPHOON SEASON
ENEMIES
JOINT OPERATIONS
THE ART OF WAR
ISLAND WARRIORS
FIRST STRIKE
Dedicated to those U.S. Navy SEALs
who have died in the service
of their country in some
dirty little war in a
strange land far from home,
or in some covert
operation that
only a few
will ever know about.
Ave, hail and farewell.
We salute you.
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Dear Reader,
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Hey, wanted to thank you for your fine response to my plea for mail in book number sixteen. A plea made due to an unfortunate wager I made with an erstwhile friend. No, I didn't get the thousand letters, but he backed off and we had an arm-wrestling contest instead for the small inheritance, and now he owes me two hundred dollars. I said the inheritance was small.
A note of caution. Men, more and more mail is coming to me from women readers. Yes! A lot of the fair sex like the shenanigans and combat of our SEAL Team Seven. The loudest protest against having my favorite girl-type nuclear weapons expert along on the two missions came from a woman, an ex-Navy lady at that.
So, it might be a good idea to hide this copy of
Payback
under a pillow or slip it in with the magazines so your wife, or lady friend, doesn't find it. I'm warning you now. I won't be responsible if some female discovers your copy and you never get a chance to finish reading it.
Oh, yes, keep those cards and letters coming. If I goof, yell at me. If you like these books, you can say that too. I'll pitch your letters at my new editor. Every little bit helps. Send your letters to:
Â
SEAL TEAM SEVEN
Keith Douglass,
8431 Beaver Lake Drive
San Diego, CA 92119
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Take care and, please, read more (of my) books.
Keith Douglass
S
EAL
T
EAM
S
EVEN
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HIRD
P
LATOON
*
C
ORONADO
,
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ALIFORNIA
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Rear Admiral (L) Richard Kenner.
Commander of all SEALs. Based in Little Creek, Virginia.
Captain Harry L. Arjarack.
51, Commanding Officer of NAVSPECWARGRUP-ONE, in Coronado, California, including SEAL Teams One, Three, Five and Seven.
Commander Dean Masciareli.
47, 5' 11", 220 pounds. Annapolis graduate. Commanding officer of Seal Team Seven in Coronado.
Master Chief Petty Officer Gordon MacKenzie.
47, 5' 10", 180 pounds. Administrator and head enlisted man of all of SEAL Team Seven.
Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock.
Platoon Leader, Third Platoon. 32, 6' 2", 210 pounds. Annapolis graduate. Six years in SEALs. Father important congressman from Virginia. Murdock recently promoted. Apartment in Coronado. Has a car and a motorcycle, loves to fish. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round. Alternate: H & K MP- 5SD submachine gun.
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QUAD
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Timothy F. Sadler.
Senior Chief Petty Officer. Top EM in Third Platoon. Third in command. 32, 6' 2", 220 pounds. Married to
Sylvia, no children. Been in the Navy for fifteen years, a SEAL for last eight. Expert fisherman. Plays trumpet in any Dixieland combo he can find. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round. Good with the men.
David “Jaybird” Sterling.
Machinist's Mate First Class. Lead petty officer. 24, 5' 10", 170 pounds. Quick mind, fine tactician. Single. Drinks too much sometimes. Crack shot with all arms. Grew up in Oregon. Helps plan attack operations. Weapon: H & K MP-5SD submachine gun.
Luke “Mountain” Howard.
Gunner's Mate Second Class. 28, 6' 4", 250 pounds. Black man. Football at Oregon State. Tryout with Oakland Raiders six years ago. In Navy six years. SEAL for four. Single. Rides a motorcycle. A skiing and wind-surfing nut. Squad sniper. Weapon: H & K PSG1 7.62 NATO sniper rifle.
Bill Bradford.
Quartermaster's Mate First Class. 24, 6' 2", 215 pounds. An artist in his spare time. Paints oils. He sells his marine paintings. Single. Quiet. Reads a lot. Has two years of college. Platoon radio operator. Carries a SATCOM on most missions. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round.
Joe “Ricochet” Lampedusa.
Operations Specialist Second Class. 21, 5' 11", 175 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. Alternate: Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round.
Kenneth Ching.
Quartermaster's Mate First Class. 25, 6' even, 180 pounds. Full-blooded Chinese. Platoon translator. Speaks Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. Bicycling nut. Paid $1,200 for off-road bike. Is trying for Officer Candidate School. Weapon: Colt M-4A1 rifle with grenade launcher.
Vincent “Vinnie” Van Dyke.
Electrician's Mate Second Class. 24, 6' 2", 220 pounds. Enlisted out of high school. Played
varsity basketball. Wants to be a commercial fisherman after his current hitch. Good with his hands. Squad machine gunner. Weapon: H & K 21-E 7.62 NATO round machine gun.
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QUAD
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Lieutenant Ed DeWitt.
Leader Bravo Squad. Second in command of the platoon. 30, 6' 1", 175 pounds. From Seattle. Wiry. Married to Milly. No kids. Annapolis graduate. A career man. Plays a good game of chess on traveling board. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round. Alternate: H & K G-11 submachine gun.
George “Petard” Canzoneri.
Torpedoman's Mate First Class. 27, 5' 11", 190 pounds. Married to Navy wife, Phyllis. No kids. Nine years in Navy. Expert on explosives. Nicknamed “Petard” for almost hoisting himself one time. Top pick in platoon for explosives work. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round.
Miguel Fernandez.
Gunner's Mate First Class. 26, 6' 1", 180 pounds. Wife, Maria, daughter, Linda, 7, in Coronado. Spends his off time with them. Highly family-oriented. He has family in San Diego. Speaks Spanish and 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.
Tracy Donegan.
Signalman Second Class. 24, 6' even, 185 pounds. Former Navy boxer. Tough. Single. Expert tracker and expert on camouflage and ground warfare. Expert marksman. Platoon driver, mechanic. Frantic Chargers football fan. Speaks Italian and Swahili. Weapon: H & K G-11 with caseless rounds.
Jack Mahanani.
Hospital Corpsman First Class. 25, 6' 4", 240
pounds. Platoon medic. Tahitian/Hawaiian. Expert swimmer. Bench-presses four hundred pounds. Divorced. Top surfer. Wants the .50 sniper rifle. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round. Alternate: Colt M-4A1 with grenade launcher.
Frank Victor.
Gunner's Mate Second Class. 23, 6' even, 185 pounds. Two years in SEALs. Radio, computer expert. Can program, repair, and build computers. Shoots small-bore rifle competitively. Married. Wife, June, a computer programmer/specialist. No children. Lives in Coronado. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo with 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round.
Paul “Jeff” Jefferson.
Engineman Second Class. Black man. 23, 6' 1", 200 pounds. Expert in small arms. Can tear apart most weapons and reassemble, repair, and innovate them. A chess player to match Ed DeWitt. Weapon: Alliant Bull Pup duo 5.56mm & 20mm explosive round.
Caribbean Sea
Off Puerto Rico
Lieutenant Ed DeWitt kept one eye on the radar screen in the sleek cabin of the Pegasus as it slammed through the azure Caribbean Sea at thirty knots. He could just make out the trace of the pirate cruiser slashing through the water five miles ahead of them. The boatmen had done nothing illegal yet, but the Navy spotter in an aircraft high overhead had been shadowing the power cruiser for two hours and had called in the Pegasus for assistance. The same boat had been chased before by the plane, but it had become hidden and then lost in a maze of small inlets, narrow waterways, and tangled growth on an uninhabited stretch of the southern coast of Puerto Rico east of Punta Petrona. Now the spotter kept DeWitt up to date through his ear speaker on his Motorola personal-commo radio.
“Yes, I'd say the pirates are definitely aiming at that sailboat,” the spotter went on. “The target is about five miles ahead of the pirate, but he's dead on course to overtake her shortly. Our hope was that you could charge up there and intercept the pirates before they hit the sail ship. But not a chance. I didn't call you in soon enough.”
“We can kick this boat up to forty-five knots. Wouldn't that be enough to cut him off?” DeWitt asked. He watched his seven-man team in the slender Navy powerboat.
“Negative. He's got too much lead on you. My fault. We protect these sail craft whenever we can, but this bastard pirate came out of that damn fog bank and surprised everybody. We didn't think he was out hunting today.” The
spotter's voice came through showing his frustration. The Navy coxswain at the controls of the Pegasus heard the exchange on his Motorola and nodded.
“Watch and wait,” DeWitt told his Bravo Squad of Third Platoon, SEAL Team Seven, home-based in Coronado, California. His squad was on special duty with the Coast Guard and the Navy to cut down on the pirating of small vessels in the Caribbean area.
The Pegasus is the Navy version of a “cigar” boat, eighty-two feet long and only seventeen feet wide. Officially it's the Pegasus Class MKV (SOC/PBF). It was designed specifically to insert and withdraw Navy SEALs from unfriendly territory. Eight of the boats went into service in 1997, with twenty more added to the fleet in 1999. It's powered by two 12V 396 TE94 diesels that turn out 4,500 horsepower.
DeWitt checked his men. All were ready. They had specific instructions to do as little harm as possible to the pirates, and were ordered not to use the Bull Pup exploding 20mm rounds on the pirates unless they had to, if it turned into a running gun battle.
Three minutes later the Motorola spoke again. “Yes, yes, we have the pirate ship within hailing distance of the sailing vessel. You can't get there in time,” the spotter in the Navy plane said with a touch of guilt.
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On board the charging powerboat, Sancho waved at the man steering the forty-two-foot sailboat only thirty feet away. Then he angled in closer and from twenty feet pointed to his best shot, Hernando, who blasted ten rounds from a Colt Commando on full automatic. The man at the yacht's wheel didn't even have time to look up as the sound of the shots and the 5.56mm lead messengers jolted into his body at the same time. He screamed once; then another round caught him in the throat and angled upward into his brain, dumping him on the deck, where he sprawled in sudden death.
Sancho eased his forty-foot powerboat up to the sailboat. Two of his men tied the crafts together, and at once six men leaped on board the pleasure craft. Each of the Puerto Rican pirates carried a submachine gun. Two had Ingrams, two had
Beretta 3's, and the rest CZ Model 25's from Czechoslovakia.
A man rushed up from the cabin. He yelled at the first gunman he saw, and was rewarded with four rounds of parabellums to his chest. The shooter stripped out the dead man's wallet from his shorts, and pulled off rings and his watch. Three pirates stormed below. They found four women and two more men in the saloon.
The pirate's submachine guns stuttered out instant death as all three men fired. They killed two of the women where they sat. One of the men tried to charge forward, but was stopped in mid-stride when six rounds hit his chest and shoulders and two more punched deadly holes in his brain.
One blond woman in a bikini still held a drink in her hand where she sat on a couch. She looked up in terror as Sancho walked up to her and fondled her breasts. “Hey, pretty lady, I really hate to do this, but you know, it just got to be done.” He smiled at her and winked, then shot her once in the heart. Sancho laughed. “Hey, dead lady, I lied.”
The men belowdeck split up. One took wallets, rings, and jewelry from the women. Another one darted into the rear cabin, found the safe, and blew it open with a small controlled charge. He then quickly looted everything of value in the safe.
In the small forward cabin the boat's navigation equipment, radios, depth gauges, and other instruments were stripped off the fittings, and rushed to the pirate ship.
Sancho stood by the wheel of his powerboat, Ingram in hand, watching the men work, and checking his watch.
“Sixty seconds,” he bellowed into the silence of the sea. “You have one minute to finish. Quickly now. The damn Navy plane is getting interested again. We need to race out of here.”
Sancho heard another controlled explosion. Good, they had found the second safe. There was always one hidden, but he and his men had seen plans of most of the yachts and he knew where to look. Moments later men began jumping back on board the motor launch. “All on board,” one of the pirates, wearing a bandanna over his head, called.
Sancho motioned for them to untie the sailboat, and then
he counted his men. Everyone had returned. He took a small black case from his pocket and gunned the launch away from the sailboat. He opened the lid on the case and pushed one red button; then when they were a hundred yards from the sailboat, he pushed the second red button. A blast echoed across the water, splinters flew over the
Marylue,
and smoke gushed from two blown-out portholes. A moment later fire billowed up the stairwell and the ship began listing to port.
Sancho grinned, turned the launch toward shore, and pushed the throttles forward all the way. Now it would be a race between him and whoever the Navy and Coast Guard tried to throw at him this time. He laughed softly, fingering the scar tissue across his right cheek. Sometimes he enjoyed the chase as much as he did the attack. He coaxed one more knot of speed out of the big engines belowdeck and charged across the water.
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The Pegasus had been slamming through the waves at its full forty-five-knot speed, making the SEALs hang on to keep from being bounded overboard as the long craft skipped from one wave top to the next.
DeWitt pulled down his mike from where it rested out of the way against his floppy hat brim. “These guys work as quick as expert car strippers. Everyone with a specific job to get done fast. We play it by ear when we get there.”
Two minutes later the radios came on. “The pirates have pushed away from the sailboat,” the spotter said. “The sails are down and she's drifting; now she's showing smoke and starting to list to port. The pirate ship is gunning for land.”
“Moving as fast as we can,” DeWitt said.
Two minutes later, the Pegasus nosed up to the dangerously listing sailboat. Her port rail was almost in the water. DeWitt had used his binoculars and seen one dead man on the deck. The man had slid almost into the water. The moment the Navy craft touched the sailboat they lashed both craft together. DeWitt pointed to Mahanani and Fernandez.
“You two, on board with me, the rest hold here. Get ready to cut loose the second you think this sailboat is going down.”
They jumped onto the slanted deck and hurried to the steps
going down to the cabin. Inside, they paused.
“My God, a slaughterhouse,” Jack Mahanani, hospital corpsman first class, said.
“Check them,” DeWitt ordered.
Mahanani moved from one body to the next quickly. The whole boat gave a lunge to the left as it listed farther to port. The corpsman touched the throat of the last woman victim and looked up. “All dead, Lieutenant.”
The boat slued to port again.
“Out of here, she's going down,” DeWitt barked, and the three raced up the steps to the canted deck. All but one of the ties had been undone, and they worked up the deck to the edge of the Pegasus and stepped on board. The last tie was cut and the Pegasus drifted a dozen feet to the left.
Ten seconds later the craft with the name
Marylue
on the bow tipped the rest of the way on her side, slowly took on water, and sank below the light chop of the blue sea.
Then they heard the spotter plane race overhead.
“We have it, SEALs. Videotaped the sinking and your getaway. You have the name of the craft?”
“Affirmative. The
Marylue.
Eight dead. No time for ID on any of them. We're going after the pirates. Can you give us a heading?”
The northwest heading came through, and the Pegasus gunned through the waters heading toward Puerto Rico.
Five minutes later the spotter plane came on the air again.
“We've reported the attack and the sinking. Also have a new heading for you on the pirate. We estimate his speed at about thirty-five knots. He's twelve miles ahead of you and looks to be heading for the coast of Puerto Rico. He's got a nest there that we can't find. It's an elaborate complex of shallow waterways and tangled growth and canals and all sorts of places to hide and set up camp. The locals have been chasing this guy for years. We know about where he heads, but we've never been able to watch him go ashore. There are a hundred spots along here he could slip in and we'd never spot him from the air.”
“Busting our asses to get to him, spotter. No way we can catch him even at our forty-five knots. Best we can do is get a firm radar fix on him where he vanishes into the maze.”
“Better than we've had from the air, Pegasus. Once when we had a shot at him, we were on a hundred-twenty-foot cutter and no chance to follow him up those narrow little ditches he used. When you get the radar fix on his entrance, tell us and we'll get ground units in there as close as we can. Use your second radio to contact them on TAC Two. Good luck.”
The three SEALs who came back from the sunken sailboat were subdued. Miguel Fernandez, gunner's mate first class, stared at his hands and shook his head. He closed his eyes and held his sniper rifle close to his chest. “Worst damn slaughter I've ever seen,” he said. “They just mowed the tourists down where they sat like they were targets in a shooting gallery.”
Mahanani wiped the victims' blood off his hands. He washed them with alcohol from his medic kit and took a long deep breath. “Like a damn close-combat kill house in there, only these were real people who bled a lot. Most of them were in their fifties. Retired, I'd bet, out to see the world. Those fucking pirates are worse than animals. I'll be damn glad to find them.”
DeWitt stared straight ahead at the sea and the radar. He wouldn't let his emotions get control. He had beaten down nausea twice since he came out of the sailboat's cabin. He had wanted to throw up and then cry and scream to the heavens. But he didn't. Officers don't cry. He had to maintain.
He scanned the water ahead. No sign of the pirate ship yet. They were on the right heading. The plane had moved forward and tracked the pirate ship, but they had only a general idea where the boat would hit land.
Ten minutes later the longer-range radar picked up the powerboat, and less than two minutes after that it vanished off the screen, to be replaced by the solid land mass of southern Puerto Rico.
“Save that heading,” DeWitt said, and the ship's driver nodded. On this angle they could come within a hundred feet of the spot where the pirate ship vanished into the maze of trees and waterways.
Ten minutes later, the Pegasus nosed up to the uninviting Puerto Rican coastline. It was mostly uninhabited along here,
covered with jungle. They probed along a hundred yards each direction, and found several half-clogged narrow waterways. Which was the right one? Canzoneri sat on the bow watching the vegetation. He held up his hand, and DeWitt had the coxswain stop the boat.
“Look over there,” De Witt said. Some vines and tree limbs had been stripped of their leaves, and a few branches hung almost touching the water.
“Could be it,” Lam said. “How about nosing into that same spot and see what we can see.”
DeWitt looked at young Ensign Swartz, who commanded the boat. Swartz scowled and planted both fists on his hips.
“I told you when we started that the open sea is fine, but this running up channels and dodging vines is something else,” Swartz said. He paused. “I know our mission. I also know that as skipper of this boat I'm responsible for her. If anything gets damaged or broken or if we get grounded, I'm the one on the hot seat.”
DeWitt stepped toward him. “Hey, Swartz, understood. I've got carte blanche on this mission. The CNO himself authorized it. If we scrape up this Pegasus or total it, you won't be given a statement of charges. I guarantee you that. Let's nose in there and take a gander.”
Ensign Swartz looked at his coxswain.
“Sir, looks deep enough, good quantity of water coming out, check that current. We can nudge those vines apart and if we don't hit the bank, we should be home free. Let's try it.”
“Ahead, slow,” Swartz said. The coxswain moved the throttle and wheel and headed for the spot with the sheared-off branches. DeWitt, Swartz, and Lam stood on the bow of the sleek boat and watched the vegetation come closer. When they touched it, Lam brushed it aside and the craft edged inward. A moment later they were past the curtain of green growth and in a channel thirty feet wide that extended forward into the gloom.
“Yeah, looks good to me,” DeWitt said. Swartz took a deep breath and signaled the coxswain to motor forward slowly.