Seal Team Seven (43 page)

Kurebayashi did not wait to identify the attacker, did not even pause to analyze what had just happened. Dropping straight to the landing on the steps, he rolled onto his back, dragging his AKM around as he fell. Shadows flitted across the top of the companionway. Someone was up there in the passageway over his head, moving toward the bridge.

Carefully, he raised his rifle, waiting for a target to move into his line of sight.

Chucker Wilson studied the passageway ahead, empty now save for the bodies of the two Iranians sprawled on the deck beneath twin smears of scarlet on the bulkhead they'd been leaning against. The bridge door between them was closed, and there'd been no sign that anyone on the other side of that massive steel bulkhead had heard.

Lieutenant Murdock slapped his shoulder; it had been swift-triggered three-round bursts from their H&Ks that had brought down the guards. And now the way was clear. At their backs, Lieutenant j.g. DeWitt and Jaybird Sterling stood up, getting ready to advance.

Captain Coburn had been right. Wilson knew he wasn't cut out for any job with the fleet, anymore than he was cut out for a job as a civilian. It was good to be back with the Team again, back where he belonged.

Murdock started toward the bridge door, and Wilson followed, four feet behind.

Somewhere in the back of Wilson's mind, an alarm bell was going off. Something was
wrong
. . . .

Kurebayashi could hear the footsteps moving across the deck, soft and muffled, but identifiable nonetheless as stealthy footsteps. In another two seconds, the American commando—this must be the work of the Yankee SEALs—would be visible through the open companionway at the top of the steps.

Ever so slightly, his finger tightened on his AKM's trigger. . . .

Wilson knew what had set off the mental alarms. The L-T was advancing toward the bridge door, his H&K held stiffly in front of him with the muzzle covering the door and the two bodies. In a moment, he would step past a companionway, the rail-guarded opening in the deck giving access to a ship's ladder and the next deck down.

And Murdock's attention was so completely focused on the bridge door, he didn't appear to even be aware of the companionway. If there was someone down there, out of sight but ready with a weapon . . .

There was no time for finesse or even for a radioed warning. With the telescoping butt stock of his own H&K already pressed high against his shoulder, Wilson lunged forward, shoving past a startled Murdock, pivoting sharply to face into the open companionway.

There was someone down there, sprawled on the landing with an assault rifle already raised. Wilson squeezed his trigger as the muzzle flash from the other weapon obscured the enemy soldier's face. His H&K's sound-suppressed burst mingled with the bone-rattling crack-crack-crack of an AKM; he felt something pluck at his thigh, felt something else nudge him hard in the side, but he held his stance, triggering two more quick three-round bursts. The guy on the landing jerked sharply as though kicked, rolled to one side trying to rise, then shuddered and collapsed. Only then did Wilson notice that he was Japanese.

MacKenzie, with his big M-60 slung around his neck, and Bearcat Holt appeared on the landing moments later, probing the body for signs of life.

“That's a dead tango,” MacKenzie said, but the words sounded far away and muffled.

Murdock helped Wilson to the deck. “Son of a bitch, Chucker,” Murdock whispered harshly in his ear. “Did you think I was going to leave my back open?”

It was only then dawning on Wilson that he'd been hit. There was still no pain, but his side felt numb, as though he'd taken an injection there full of novocaine, and his leg felt hot, sticky, and wet.

“Thought . . . you weren't gonna check your tail.” Holt knelt at Wilson's side and began breaking out a first-aid dressing. Gunfire exploded in the distance.

“That tears it,” Murdock said. “We're out in the open now.”

“Okay!” DeWitt snapped. “Let's hit the bridge!”

Wilson wondered why everyone sounded so very far away.

As the first chatter of automatic weapons fire echoed across the freighter's deck, a SEAL fire team was just moving into position beneath the ladder on the starboard side of the ship's superstructure forward. Chief Ben Kosciuszko and Rattler Fernandez just had time to take cover behind a wooden crate on the deck when the gunfire from topside brought all work forward to an immediate halt.

Someone yelled a warning in Farsi, and then soldiers with readied weapons were trotting aft toward the deckhouse. Kosciuszko eased his M-60 around and squeezed the trigger. Full-auto thunder pounded across the steel deck, hammering down three of the lead Pasdaran soldiers and scattering the rest. Fernandez raised his M203, sighting at the clutter of propane tanks and cutting equipment stacked up in the center of the deck.

“Hey, Chief,” Fernandez yelled above the M-60's thunder. “This ship has pretty thick decks, right?”

“Ten inches of steel, Rattler. I don't think you can hurt 'em with your toy.”

“Let's find out, man.” He triggered the 203, which loosed its 40mm grenade with a hollow-sounding thump. The projectile slammed into an acetylene tank and detonated; the entire front half of the ship lit up in a savage, yellow glare, as white flames clawed at the sky. Men were screaming, lying prone and pounding on the deck as flames ate their backs, or running madly to escape their own blazing clothing and skin.

The survivors, completely demoralized, ran for cover or dove headlong over the railing, preferring the cool black of the water to being burned alive on deck.

A single automatic rifle barked challenge from the bow, and Kosciuszko opened up in reply.

Gunfire exploded in the night, full-auto bursts cracking across the black water from the direction of the
Yuduki Maru.
From their vantage point in the stinking mud beneath the shore end of the fuel pier dock, Coburn could see tiny figures running along the freighter's forward deck, or on the pier at the ship's port side. It looked like all hell had broken out aboard the Japanese freighter, with flames engulfing part of the deck halfway between the bow and the superstructure, accompanied by the familiar chatter of a pig, an M-60 machine gun.

“What's happening with the Combattante?” he asked. Cautiously, Doc crawled out from beneath the pier, looking down the line of wooden pilings to the moored patrol boat. “Shit,” he said. “Looks like trouble.”

Coburn duck-walked through the mud to Doc's side, to a point where he could see the patrol boat's stern alongside the massive pilings of the fuel pier. Steel pipes threaded their way across the dock, and beyond them, embedded in concrete, were several storage tanks.

The gunfire and explosions aboard the
Yuduki Maru
had certainly captured the attention of the Iranians aboard the gunboat. Coburn couldn't see the craft's forward turret, but the open 40mm mount was being rapidly swung around, as Iranian sailors yelled at each other and pointed. Soldiers were trotting across the pier now, looking for firing positions. Gunfire from the patrol boat would slash into the Japanese freighter's side if the bad guys dared open up. Any SEALs caught on deck would be sitting ducks.

“You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?” Doc asked.

“Wouldn't be one bit surprised.” Coburn fished into his black gear and pulled out a hand grenade. Doc too produced a grenade, holding the arming lever shut as he worked the cotter pin free.

“Those POL tanks look good,” Coburn said. POL—petroleum, oil, and lubricants, in this case diesel fuel—an ideal target.

“A SEAL's wet dream,” Doc said.

“On my mark now, three . . . two . . . one . . . go!”

Together, they let fly, sending the grenades arcing high above the pier, then bouncing with a stony clatter on the concrete among the fuel pipes.
“Bepaweed!”
someone screamed, and then the night dissolved in thunder. Diesel fuel gushed across the concrete from ruptured lines and tanks.

Coburn pulled out a second grenade, a canister this time, with AN-M14 and INCEN TH3 stenciled on the side. The AN-M14 was an incendiary grenade, packed with thermite and given a two-second fuse delay. He exchanged glances with Doc, pulled the pin, and let fly.

The thermite burst amid the pooling fuel oil at 2200 degrees, hot enough to burn through steel. Thunder rolled again, and this time the sky turned to flame.

They'd waited outside the bridge until they heard gunfire rather than bursting in at once, figuring that the battle might offer a diversion for the bridge assault team. Taking up positions on either side of the door, Murdock and MacKenzie counted down silently as the gunfire built to a crescendo of thundering noise. There was a deck-jolting concussion—what were the guys playing at out there?—and then Murdock went through the bridge door first, his H&K stuttering softly as he tracked its muzzle across a startled Iranian soldier, punching the man back against a bank of computer consoles. MacKenzie was right behind him, swinging the deadly gray bulk of his M-60 as lightly as Murdock's H&K, and when his finger closed on the trigger, the bridge rang with the hammering, rapid-fire detonations of that machine gun.

Half glimpsed as he swept the bridge were flames lighting the night outside—one blaze on
Yuduki Maru'
s own forward deck, other greater, brighter fires erupting two hundred yards to starboard, lighting the night in an unfolding glory of yellow and orange that caught a large patrol boat in silhouette.

Murdock didn't pause to admire the view, however. He tracked left and killed another man by the teletype machines, then pivoted back to cover Mac. Three Iranian naval officers, one with ornate gold braid on his white uniform, tried to scatter for cover as MacKenzie's searing fusillade scythed through them. One down . . . two . . . three . . . Another man, an army officer, grabbed for his holstered pistol, then seemed to dissolve in red mist and fragments as MacKenzie's weapon cut him down as well.

“Wheeoo! Rock and roll!” MacKenzie yelled into the sudden silence as his finger came off the trigger. “Just a-playin' in the band!”

“Yeah, you left 'em dead in the aisles,” Murdock replied, stepping closer to the dead naval officers, probing them with his foot. “Watch it with that thing, huh? We still have to get this ship out of . . . uh-oh.”

Murdock froze, his H&K aimed at the figure standing alone on the
Yuduki Maru's
starboard bridge wing. The man was holding a pistol, but the muzzle was pointed uselessly at the overhead. Possibly the guy hadn't had time to aim . . . or maybe he was trying to surrender. He was Japanese, which meant Ohtori. Another Ohtori prisoner would be a real bonus for the intel boys. “Easy there, guy,” Murdock called. “Drop the weapon. Ah . . .
buki o sutero!
Drop your weapons!”

“Put it down!” MacKenzie added, his voice sounding as loud as the full-auto mayhem of a moment earlier. “Now!”

The Japanese terrorist wavered for a moment, the pistol aimed at the sky in a trembling, uncertain hand. Suddenly, he snapped the muzzle down against his right temple and jerked the trigger. There was a crash and the man's head snapped over against his shoulder, the left side of his skull suddenly gone soft beneath a wet mat of disarrayed hair. The pistol fell over the railing; the terrorist dropped to his knees, then fell full-length on the deck.

“Son of a bitch!” Jaybird said, coming up behind Murdock. “Was he crazy?”

“Worse,” Murdock said. “He wanted to die for his cause. Hard to fight people like that.”

“Well, better them than us,” MacKenzie said. “Let's make sure the rest of them do the same. C'mon, Jaybird. Help me set up this pig over there.”

Together, Jaybird and MacKenzie braced the M-60 on a smashed-open section of the bridge window.

There were bodies all over the freighter's forward deck, visible now as the flames dwindled. It looked like someone had touched off some propane tanks; the only fire now was from burning scraps of wooden crates, but it was bright enough to give MacKenzie a perfect view of the deck. A soldier took aim at the bridge and fired, the bullet going wide. MacKenzie answered with a burst that sent the man toppling sideways into the water. Wild shots were coming from the shore, but nothing coordinated or effective.

For the second time, Murdock approached the bridge computer console, tapping in memorized commands. The computer was giving readouts in Japanese again; obviously someone had been working with it recently, trying to access the cargo locks. Switching it back to English, Murdock scrolled rapidly through various user logs and menus. Good. His password was still in place . . . and the cargo hold had not been breached.

He let go a low, heartfelt sigh of relief. This op would have been immeasurably more complicated if the bastards had managed to break into the hold. He keyed his Motorola. “Prof! This is Murdock!”

“Copy, L-T,” Higgins's voice replied. “We're set up and ready to go.”

“Call ‘em in,” Murdock told him. “Tell 'em the package is safe!”

“Ro-
ger
! I'm on it!”

The lieutenant glanced across the bridge to where Wilson was lying on a fire blanket on the deck. He looked unconscious. “Also tell 'em we need medevac for a casualty.”