Nucflash (23 page)

“An open invitation to Adler to push the button,” Schellenberg agreed.

“Then why did you pre-position the SEAL platoon?” Buchalter asked.

“To give us some leverage,” Bainbridge replied. “And in case NAVSPECWAR can provide the necessary intelligence. I had in mind the possibility of using a minisub, one of our SEAL delivery vehicles, to carry out a covert reconnaissance of the situation.”

“That makes sense,” Buchalter said. “I want you to write me up a plan. Tell me what you need. You'll get it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

In fact, Bainbridge was more uncomfortable than ever with the idea. Though he commanded the Navy's East Coast Special Warfare Group, he'd never entirely believed in the concept of special warfare . . . and that meant the SEALs. Oh, they had performed splendidly in the past, certainly. SEAL Seven's recent rescue of hostages, including an American congresswoman, from a terrorist stronghold in what had once been Yugoslavia had been a classic.

But the Navy SEALs, he knew, were unpredictable, and damned near uncontrollable. Like many in the senior levels of the U.S. military, Bainbridge did not trust Special Warfare forces. This situation in the North Sea was one place where gun-toting cowboys could
not
be allowed to interfere.

Not even if the only alternative was surrender.

“The boys seem to be hitting it off pretty well,” Colonel Wentworth said.

Murdock tossed off the last of his gin and nodded. Another roar of approval sounded in unison from the two groups of men—SEALs and SAS troopers—who'd taken over the pub a few hours before by the simple expedient of being louder and more obnoxious than anyone else in the establishment.

“They make noise together all right, Colonel,” Murdock said.

Chucking everybody else in the place out was a strange way to preserve operational security, he thought, but it was just as well that most of the civilians had long since taken their business elsewhere. None of the men were in uniform, but even in civvies, the British and American elite troops stood out alike in their hard-muscled fitness and swaggering banter. They
looked
military, and Murdock was more aware than ever that that could mean trouble.

When he'd first taken command of SEAL Team Seven, Murdock had made a point of making the men adhere to the Navy dress codes . . . and more. No mustaches that could break the seal on a face mask. Short hair.
Discipline
, and the uniformity of appearance that helped build good unit morale.

Over the past few months he'd changed his mind, though. As a vital part of the U.S. military's intelligence gathering network, Navy SEALs had to be able to blend in with the population at large. There'd been a particularly nasty terrorist incident in the early eighties, when three Navy divers on a hijacked passenger plane had been singled out by their terrorist captors despite their civilian clothes, beaten, and finally murdered. The word was they'd been picked out from the other passengers by their athletic builds, clean-cut looks, and whitewalls—the close-shorn hair that left them nearly bald on the sides of their heads.

That, Murdock had declared, was not going to happen to his boys, and as the men liked to say among themselves, the Old Man had loosened up considerably since taking command of SEAL Seven's Third Platoon. Roselli and Fernandez both sported black mustaches now, and all of the men had hair a bit longer than Navy regs normally allowed.

Besides, as he watched the men, it was clear they didn't lack for unit morale.

Someone stumbled against a table and there was a sharp report of shattering glass.

“Go easy on the crockery, eh?” The bartender growled at Murdock's back.

Murdock sighed. Reaching into his hip pocket, he pulled out his wallet, then unfolded a five-pound note, which he slipped across the counter. “Sorry.”

“No problem, mate,” the bartender said, making the money disappear. “Long as we settle up when I call time, right?”

“Right.”

The bartender, Murdock reflected, didn't seem too upset at the fact that so many of his customers had been driven away tonight. With all the heavy-drinking SEALs and their new SASmen buddies, he was probably doing three times his normal business.

While Murdock retained enough of his officer's training formality to keep him from joining in the fun—even a SEAL officer was expected to maintain a certain amount of decorum in front of his men, after all—he'd come along to unwind with his men . . . and maybe to look after them as well.

Though details of any upcoming mission were still vague, everyone knew, with that undeniable and insistent sixth sense that the shooters in any elite team always possess, that something was going down. By way of preparation and possibly of initiation, the SASmen had invited their SEAL compatriots to a pub in Dorset's strip district as soon as they'd stood down from the last of their training exercises that afternoon, and the party promised to get even more raucous as the evening wore on.

With the pub named The Golden Cock, the SEALs could hardly have refused, even if they hadn't felt the need to uphold their international reputations as hard drinkers. There'd already been a great deal of ribald bantering between the Brits and the Americans over that noun, which, though not exactly common in refined company in England, was still a perfectly legitimate term either for a rooster or for nonsense. Somewhere in the shared linguistic past of the two countries, the term “cock and bull story” had been broken in two, with the English taking the cock while the Americans got the bull. Polite Americans, it was noted, didn't like using the word “cock” under any circumstances, and the SASmen delighted in ribbing the SEALs about getting drunk on “rooster-tails” before dinner, or about going off half-roostered.

MacKenzie and DeWitt had stayed back at the Dorset base, continuing to go over the platoon's gear and filling out the paperwork for the munchkins back in CONUS, but the rest of the men had joined up with First Troop and descended on the objective with the enthusiasm of Sherman's visit to Georgia.

“Good to let the boys have one over the eight,” Wentworth said. He signaled the bartender for two more.

Murdock looked at him and blinked. “Beg pardon?”

“Get sloshed.”

“Pissed?”

“Don't think they've quite reached
that
point yet, Leftenant.”

“Let's have another round, gents!” an SAS trooper called out.

The crowd began clamoring at the bar. Murdock and Wentworth grabbed their drinks and a half-empty bottle and moved off to a table, safely out of the way. The men jostled one another happily and noisily, and it was impossible—unless you knew their faces—to separate the British SAS from the SEALs.

“So what do you think, then?” Wentworth asked him as they took their seats.

“About what. The men?”

“The situation, actually. About being on alert and not knowing when the curtain's going up. Or even
if
it's going up.” He toasted the men at the bar with an upraised glass. “
Them
I know about!”

“Not a lot to go on, is there?”

The standby orders had been routed through to the SEALs late that afternoon, but with precious little explanation. According to the background faxed through to SAS headquarters from Norfolk, terrorists had taken over both an oil-production platform and an American tanker and were threatening to touch off a nuke if anyone so much as came close. The British had a bit more information available, thanks largely to the BBC broadcast at noon that day. The group responsible was the PRF . . . the same group that had been involved in the Middlebrough takedown.

That strongly suggested that
this
was the big operation hinted at by the German BKA.

The Third Platoon's orders directed them to be “made ready for possible immediate operations against hostiles in connection with the current situation on the Bouddica oil production facility.”

Yeah, right. The bad guys had a fucking nuke in there, and the SEALs were to be “made ready.”

The orders passed down to the First Troop of the 23rd SAS were a bit more explicit. A reconnaissance operation was being contemplated for the following afternoon—sometime after noon on Thursday. Wentworth had been in on some of the early planning missions, and was scheduled for another at 0800 hours the next morning. Initial planning had concentrated on the use of a BGA service boat out of Middlebrough to deploy an SAS assault force, possibly backed up by SBS commandos.

“No, not a lot to go on,” Murdock finally said. “SOP, really. Not enough intelligence and we're operating in the dark.”

“I've been wondering about why you SEALs were put on alert,” Wentworth said. “Not really your bailiwick, is it?”

“Well, the way I see it, Colonel, the brass'll probably make it a political decision. You Brits will take on the oil rig, since that's British property, while we hit the tanker.”

“If the brass ever gets off its collective arse,” Wentworth said, “and decides to do anything. If you ask me, I think they're afraid to move.”

“Well I suppose a one-hundred-kiloton nuke could have that effect on someone,” Murdock said. “But damn it, we have to do
something
.”

“Of course.” Wentworth downed a slug from his glass. “We will await further orders. Or do you Yanks do things differently?”

Murdock turned his gaze on the men gathered at the bar. “I wonder.”

Wentworth's eyebrows arched up. “You're worrying me, Yank. I can hear the gears clicking away from here.”

“Yeah. I was just wondering about a quiet little exercise.”

“Exercise?” Wentworth took a deep breath, then poured himself another couple of fingers from the bottle. “I suppose you mean a reconnaissance exercise.”

“Full gear. Full simulation. Open ocean.”

“Possibly with a ‘simulated' target?”

“I had in mind one of those North Sea oil rigs. A big one.”

“I was afraid of that.” Wentworth took a deep breath. “You know, Yank. I should say no right now. What you're suggesting, going in without orders? They could bloody hang you from the yardarm.”

“Actually, I think I have the orders end of things pretty well covered. UNODIR.”

“What's that?”

“‘Unless otherwise directed.' The Special Warfare warrior's friend. They just want me to stay where they can reach me . . . and that means keeping them informed at all times of where I am.” He patted the beeper in his jacket pocket. “Like this. So, I write out a set of orders. ‘Unless otherwise directed, SEAL Seven Third Platoon shall under the command of Lieutenant Murdock, et cetera, et cetera, conduct an independent reconnaissance in preparation for possible operations against hostiles in connection with the current situation on the Bouddica oil-production facility.' I transmit that to Norfolk a few hours before we get wet. By the time someone back in Norfolk reads it and starts getting nervous, we've gone in, done it, and gotten out again.”

“You're mad. There's a procedure to these things. They'd never accept that.”

“I don't know about you Brits,” Murdock said, considering his glass. “In my neck of the woods, the main consideration is always,
always
CYA.”

“CYA?”

“Cover your ass. Or arse, as you Brits might say. As long as the people reading the document as it makes its way up the ladder can truthfully say, ‘This looked as though it was done according to proper procedure, and I handled it according to proper procedure,' they never have to actually
think
about the damned thing. Somewhere up the line, someone will have enough weight to really read the thing and say, ‘Hub?' By then, though, they'll have to go along with it. What are they going to do, call up the bad guys and say, ‘Uh, excuse me but have you seen our SEAL Team?' ”

Wentworth laughed.“ ‘Won't you please send them home?' ”

“‘They've been very bad boys. I'm sorry if they bothered you.' ”

“Assuming your own people don't shoot you,” Wentworth said after a moment, “we do still have a problem. Have you thought through the implications of what might happen if we fail?”

Murdock looked up sharply. “ ‘We'? I don't remember inviting you.”

“Be reasonable, Leftenant. You're going to need help to deploy, right? A boat. Or a helicopter. And you'll need backup. Extraction cover and transport. Maybe special weapons and ammo. Reinforcements. Radio net coverage. Am I right?”

“Well . . .”

“Besides, we need that intel too, and if the Defense Ministry makes up its mind to launch an assault, it would be nice to have our team already in place. So First Troop is in too. Now, answer my question. What if we fail? Can we
risk
failure?”

“You're asking whether we can afford the possibility of the bad guys setting off their bomb.” Wentworth nodded, and Murdock pressed ahead. He began ticking off points on his fingers. “Okay. First, we don't
know
they have a bomb. That has got to be the number-one question Washington and London are both asking right now, and we can answer it for them.”

“Maybe. If we get close enough.”

“Two. Assume they do have a bomb.”

“We
have
to, damn it. If nothing else, there's the radioactivity on that Korean woman's clothing.”

“Agreed. And they're not going to touch the thing off at the first sight of combat swimmers.”