Under Siege (29 page)

“First class bus transport to your quarters,” he said. “You’ll have fifteen minutes to get yourselves put together. Same clothes, no weapons. Then the bus will take us to a meeting. Hope to hell you guys got some sleep on the plane. There won’t be any from now on for at least forty-eight. Let’s move.”

Murdock stopped beside Stroh. “You’re sounding like a first sergeant or a major with his battalion.”

Stroh grinned. “Hell, I’ve been listening to you for enough years that some of it has rubbed off. I don’t know what’s coming up, but a three-star general usually doesn’t send a bird colonel as a messenger boy.”

Murdock knew that the sprawling base bad been used as the main combat control center for the buildup and then the attack on Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial government several years ago. The short, successful war had convinced the U.S. military that they should concentrate then-power in this small country on the Persian Gulf. They quickly pulled men, equipment, and facilities out of Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia and brought most of it here.

The bus traveled two or three miles, Murdock figured, before it stopped in front of new-looking two-story building. There were no unit signs on it, just one that said “Transient Barracks.

As they got off the bus, the colonel waved at them. “Enlisted in this door, officers down to the second door.”

Murdock walked up to the bird colonel and saluted. “Sir, if it’s all right with the colonel, the officers would prefer to bunk, eat, and train with our men. It’s a SEAL tradition, and has worked out very well, especially in our combat operations.”

“Permission granted. I understand you ate on the plane two hours ago. Our meeting is at fourteen hundred, that’s twenty minutes from now. The bus will take you there. It’s your personal transport while on base. Welcome to Qatar.”

“Thank you, sir. Any hint about our mission?”

“Not a clue. Not more than three or four men on the base know about it. You might say you’re top secret.”

Murdock nodded and followed the last SEAL into the barracks. It had been set up with rooms to hold twenty men, ten along each side. Regular army cots, mattresses, and pillows.

“We’re in heaven,” Luke Howard said.

At the end of the row of bunks were showers and the head.

The bird colonel stepped into the room. Jaybird saw him first and shouted, “Ten hut!” The SEALs dropped what they were doing and jolted to their feet in a strained attention.

“At ease, as you were. Just want to talk to your commander for a minute.”

Murdock walked up. “Sir, Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock, First Platoon, SEAL Team Seven. At your service.”

The colonel held out his hand. “Colonel Ben Allbright. Staff with Lieutenant General Walloused. He’s the head man at this base. You’ll be meeting him in twenty. Oh, he wants to see all of your men at the meet. He’s never worked with SEALs directly. We understand that some of your EM take part in your planning and in setting up field tactics and operations.”

“Yes, sir. More than once one of my men has pulled our platoon out of a disaster. Some of these guys are so smart and bright that it makes me keep hustling to keep up with them.”

“Good. We’ll see you outside in eighteen.”

Murdock turned to his men. “Okay, wash up, comb your hair if you have some. Don’t worry about clean uniforms, we don’t have any. All sixteen of us will be going to meet with the base commander and his staff. Use your brains, and talk only if you have something brilliant to say. Let’s play it by ear, gentlemen.”

* * *

Twenty-seven minutes later, the bus stopped in front of the post headquarters. It held a ring of concrete barriers around it. Inside the ring sat two quad fifty machine guns mounted on halftracks. Beyond that sidewalks led to three main doors. At each one stood two marines holding MP-5s with double banana magazines. Each man was at least six-feet-five inches tall. The colonel led them into the center door. The marines snapped to attention with a weapons salute, holding the MP-5 pointing straight up and right in front of their chests. The SEALs slithered inside, all eyes as they saw a part of the military that usually was off limits to them.

The new building was massive, four stories tall, with corridors leading off all directions. Colonel Allbright led the way. They passed two more guard stations, then went through a room filled with ten desks and every one of them manned and busy. At the far side, two massive doors stood ten feet tall. Two more marines, these in dress blues, stood guard. They checked the colonel’s badge, saluted him, and eyed the SEALs with curiosity.

“Sir, the meeting has been moved to E-three,” one of the marines said.

“I know the way, sergeant. Thanks.” The colonel gave a forward signal with his arm and the SEALs followed him down another corridor to a bank of elevators. They took up all three elevators and got off on the third floor.

The conference room was windowless, held twenty chairs and a polished oval table at the head with three padded swivel chairs behind it.

“Take the seat closest to the table,” Colonel Allbright said.

Just as the last SEAL sat down, the doors behind them opened. The colonel shouted the attention command and the SEALs jolted to their feet.

Lieutenant General Wallace Walloused marched to the front of the room, his three polished silver stars gleaming
on his shoulders. Three other men followed him. Two of them were also generals and the third a bird colonel. The colonel was the only one in the room wearing a side arm. He stood to the left of the big table at a stiff parade rest. The generals sat down and the three-star in the middle spoke.

“First Platoon, SEAL Team Seven, congratulations on your recent successful mission rescuing the First Lady. Our commander-in-chief is absolutely delighted with your work. He recommends you highly. What we have for you now is a little different, although we understand you have penetrated enemy homelands before on missions.” He pushed a button on a control panel in front of him and a large scale map lowered from the wall behind.

“You’re going into Iran. You know about the recent, and brief, war between Iran and Iraq. It’s over now, and both nations are trying to rebuild and reestablish control. Their economies have been shattered. A new clique of military officers control Iran with what’s left of the army. Riots and looting have taken place where we never thought they could. The nation will soon be under strict embargoes by the United Nations for starting the war, and more importantly for using anthrax as a combat weapon.” The general looked to his left and nodded.

“Gentlemen, I’m Ralph Hallander. No, I’m not Dutch. I’ll be your contact on the biological side. Your target is anthrax. We can’t do much to clean up Iraq where the anthrax was used. The UN, with help from some American university research people, are doing that. They have developed a system of spraying a gamma-phage on contaminated areas to kill the anthrax virus outright.

“Your job is much more complicated. You will go into Iran, discover where the anthrax has been manufactured, and then you will attack and destroy the facility and any stockpiles of anthrax that may be stored there. It’s a big order, but we have certain information to help you. Most of
the ground work must be done by you men in Iran. Are there any questions?”

Jaybird lifted his hand. The general pointed at him.

“Sir, what kind of information? How detailed? Will we have to search all over the country?”

“We hope not,” the general said. “Our agents in Iran have narrowed down the possibilities to three areas. All are remote, where mistakes or accidents would not endanger large numbers of Iranians.”

General Walloused turned to the third man at the table and nodded.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m Norman Eckerson, and I’ll be your base liaison for anything you need to accomplish your mission. General Walloused received a phone call yesterday from the Secretary of Defense. That doesn’t happen often. The secretary told him that you men have the highest possible priority for anything on base or in our arsenal to get your job done. This includes helicopters, ships, aircraft, weapons, munitions, uniforms, the works. If it’s on-base, you’ll have it within an hour. If I have to get it from off-base, it might take a day. We have prepared packets for each man. Included are tips and hints about Iranian life, dress, some easy to remember phrases, maps, guides on customs and lifestyles. The more you know about Iran, the safer you’ll be if you come to a point where you need to deal with some of the native population. Any questions?”

“Will you give us a language coach to help us learn Arabic?” DeWitt asked.

“One is on standby and will be available anytime you men are on-base. He is yours twenty-four hours a day. Just don’t overwork him.”

Rafii held up his hand and was acknowledged. “Sirs, I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia. I have been on missions like this inside Iraq and Iran before. It seems that it works best if we can do our search and find information about the location with a small party of four or five. Can we
split up our platoon and search out these three possibilities?”

“Sounds like a good suggestion,” General Eckerson said. “At this point we are entirely unstructured. We have some people for you to meet with at nineteen hundred. These are planners and some who know Iran. Whatever you two groups come up with as a mission plan will be evaluated and most likely approved.”

A sergeant came into the room and passed out foot-square envelopes to each man.

Murdock stood and General Walloused nodded at him.

“Generals, I might be a little out of line here, but four or five times this platoon has been left high and dry deep behind enemy lines without the promised extraction transport. We made it out each time, but the casualties we took were excessive. I hope this time if we are deep into Iran that every effort will be made to complete our withdrawal, if such a procedure is called for in our mission plan.”

“Commander Murdock,” General Eckerson said. “I know of at least one of those missions. The one I remember was a diplomatic problem about air clearance that grounded your choppers. There will be nothing of that sort of problem here. We’ll be going in covert and operating covert and coming out just as quickly and silently as we can. Nobody will be left behind.”

“Thank you, sir.” Murdock sat down.

“That completes the meeting,” General Eckerson said. “Colonel Allbright will take charge.” The generals stood. The SEALs surged to their feet as the three officers walked out of the room.

“At ease,” Allbright said. “Now you’ve met our leaders. The bus is waiting. Your mess call is at seventeen hundred about a block from your barracks. The bus will go by it on the way back. Then it will stay at the barracks to take you to the meeting at nineteen hundred. Oh, and don’t worry, we eat extremely well on this base. Let’s get onboard.”

* * *

The meeting at nineteen hundred was also in the headquarters building. It was on the second floor in a situation room. The walls were blank but had spots for dozens of large-scale maps. There were three sand tables that had been covered with layouts of three sections of Iraq during Operation Freedom back in 2003. They showed the progress of troops, location of hot spots, and the eventual destruction of all Iraq troops and armor.

Murdock had brought his top planners, Sadler, J.G. Gardner, Jaybird, Rafii, Lampedusa, and DeWitt. They sat at a large oval table. On the far side were seven locals. Two were captains, one a major, and four enlisted men, mostly E-7s and E-8 sergeants. To Murdock’s surprise, a master sergeant led the meeting.

“Gentlemen, good evening. We could give names around the table but most of us would forget them in a few minutes. Let’s concentrate our time on working out this mission. First, I want you to know that four of us here have been in Iran recently on covert missions. Whatever help that might be, we will be glad to give. Our major problem is finding the exact location of the manufacturing facility, and any off-site storage there might be.”

One of the captains spoke up directing his question at Murdock. “I understand it was suggested that groups of four or five might go in and check out the three potential locations and report back by radio. Is this a practical idea, Commander?”

Murdock stirred. “Yes, it has worked before. One of our men is an Arab and speaks perfect idiomatic Farsi. We all have had some language training but need more. I’d think the three probes would be a place to start. But we need to have continuing plans in place for each one for when we hit the hot location.”

The major spoke. “I know it’s not military style, but let’s see a show of hands for those who think the three-probe idea should be used.” All the hands went up.

“Now, where are these locations?” Senior Chief Sadler asked.

One of the sergeants moved in back of the table and pulled down a large-scale wall map of Iran. It was five feet tall and eight feet wide. He used a pointer and indicated spots on the well-lighted map.

“One is here somewhere, around the port city of Bandar-e Bushehr, which is just across the gulf and north from us, no more than two hundred and fifty miles away. We think the potential location there could be in the mountains behind the port. The second suggested area of concern is the high desert near Nay Band.” His pointer touched the map halfway up and well on the western side of Iran.

He let the men make notes, then moved on. “The third suspected area is near the Turkish border at the very northern part of Iran, near the small town of Khvoy. This one will be the most difficult for access and to exfiltrate.”

The meeting rolled on. An hour later, Murdock saw it coming together. They would have transport in and out, tricky sometimes but possible. They would have all of the explosives and weapons they could carry. They could go in by air-drop or overland. It was quickly decided that the mid-Iranian location would have to be an air-drop. The Turkey border spot could be accessed through Turkey by land and the close one across the gulf would be water launched.

They were well into the second hour of planning when Murdock raised a question that had been bothering him.