Deathrace (10 page)

“Cut some orders for those two going to Saudi Arabia.”

“What uniform, what gear?”

“Send them in cammies. To take small arms. Give them both MP-5’s and thirteen-round H&K P7 automatics. They’ll be going in by air, HALO, and will be outfitted with Iranian clothes, and I.D. in Saudi. They’ll get rials there as well for cash, and changes of clothes. They can get ammo in Saudi, so don’t bother with that. Get both of them in here as soon as they show up.”

“Aye, aye, L-T. This have any bearing on our month of training?”

“Probably not, Jaybird. Unless they can help root out some vital intel that the bombs are farther along than the brass thinks they are. We’ll keep to our sched for now at least.”

Murdock paused and gulped at his coffee. “Seen DeWitt yet?”

“No, sir. Shall I get Doc Ellsworth up here just for laughs?”

“Better not. This could be a damn touchy situation. Depends on Milly.”

“Right, sir. I’ll bring in the guys when they come.”

When Murdock looked up from his desk a minute later, a pretty face surrounded by short brown hair poked around the door frame.

“Any room at the inn?”

“Kat, come in. How many sets of cammies do you have?”

“Two.”

“I’ll order you six more. You’ll need them. You on for long-gun shooting today, right?”

“That’s what Lieutenant DeWitt said.”

“He should be here shortly. Jaybird has ordered a car, and has laid out enough weapons, and ammo to sink a battleship. How was the swim?”

“Fine, but I’m a little out of shape.”

Murdock grinned. “Really? That’s not what Jaybird said. You left him in your wake.”

“He’s not used to competitive swimming. When I get in the water, I hate to have anybody ahead of me.”

“Even the men triathlon swimmers?”

“Especially them.”

“Swimming shouldn’t be a problem for you here. We’ll go in by air, almost for sure, but I’d guess our only way out will be to fight our way to the coast of southern Iran and take a long swim.”

Jaybird came in towing his two SEALS. “Captured a pair for you, L-T.”

* * *

“Good. Kat, I want you to listen to this.” Murdock went over what he knew about the mission.

“So, that’s about it. You don’t have to play spy, although you will be going in with civilian clothes and gear, international brand weapons, and lots of rial to spend judiciously so you don’t attract attention. You’ll be meeting a man named George at site B, wherever that is.”

“So we back up this guy, as he tries to tie down the exact location of the nuke plant?” Douglas asked.

“Right. Iran is tough with its Secret Police. We lost our native contact there, and George is feeling lonely. CIA would rather risk some of us than send in two more of their own. So we get the assignment.”

“We HALO in,” Franklin said. “How the hell do we get out?”

Murdock waved them over to look at an eight-by-ten fax of a map of Iran.

“Advice on the wire this morning is that once your mission is over, you radio out the pinpointed location, and then exfiltrate out of the area. They say the least sensitive route is to the north of Tehran, to the Caspian Sea. It borders Iran and Russia. The water is about sixty miles from Tehran. Then you should be able to find a boat, or work your way along the coast north to the border with Russia, and get across.

“At Baku, in Russia, there will be a CIA man. Baku is about two hundred miles north of the border with Iran.”

“Sounds like a walk in the park,” Douglas said.

“Yeah or a long hike,” Franklin said. “We volunteered for this duty, right?”

“Right, Franklin, and brush up on your Farsi—you’ll be the mouthpiece for your twosome,” Murdock said.

Franklin laughed. “Grandma said I’d be glad someday that she taught me to speak the old country language.”

“You fly out of here at thirteen hundred, so get moving it,” Jaybird said. The three walked out of the office.

At the stroke of 0800, Ed DeWitt came in the door. His uniform was crisp and fresh, his face cleanly shaven but showing traces of strain and fatigue.

“Well, shipmates, look what my pit bull dragged in off the beach,” Murdock said. He grinned. “Or is it roadkill?”

“Roadkill is closer to it,” DeWitt growled. He sat in the chair across the desk and glanced up at Kat.

“Good morning, Lieutenant Garnet. I believe we’re going to be doing some long-gun shooting today.”

“Looking forward to it, Mr. DeWitt.”

Jaybird came in and motioned to Kat. “Ma’am, we didn’t set you up with a locker for your gear and personal things. We even have locks to show you how much we are a family here. Let me get you set up before you go on your picnic.”

Kat nodded, and followed Jaybird into the squad room. “So, what did Milly say?” Murdock asked when they had left.

“About what I expected. She cried. She asked if I wanted her to move out. All the damn female emotional things. Then she seduced me three times last night. But the real surprise was this morning at five
A.M.
The alarm went off and she was all over me again. She said she’d totally satisfy my male libido so I’d think of Kat as nothing but another one of the guys. Oh, damn, she’s right. It’s really working.”

Murdock chuckled. “One of Hollywood’s leading men in the fifties had the same problem. His wife did him every morning before he went on the shoot. They were married for twenty-seven years.”

“Sorry to hear it.” DeWitt took a long breath, then grabbed the cup of coffee Jaybird handed him. “If I pass out on one of our training runs, don’t call just any doctor, get me straight to my urologist for a hormone transplant.”

Jaybird came back in grinning and tossed DeWitt a small plastic bottle. He read the label. “Might help,” he said holding it up. “One-a-day vitamins.” They all laughed.

* * *

Kat stowed the gear that Jaybird had issued her in her locker. It included all sorts of items she wasn’t familiar with, including some kind of a SCUBA device she figured must be a rebreather for underwater swimming. She had everything in shape when Jaybird came back.

He had a black tow bag beside an assortment of weapons.

“Long guns, today, Lieutenant. I’ll drive the car around and load this for you. Also I’ve included some MREs and two six-packs of Coke. I think the L-T will take along a cooler with some ice. Might as well make it a real picnic. Not many fast-food places where you’ll be going.”

Kat went back to Murdock’s office.

“The atmosphere in here has changed since yesterday,” she said. “Now there’s an excitement, an electrical charge. Reminds me of the last few minutes before a race.”

“True,” Murdock said. “We’ve got those two men heading for Saudi Arabia. It’s like this is the real start of our mission. Now all we have to do is get the rest of the troops ready and get into Iran. Let’s hope they do a good job.”

Jaybird ordered the additional cammies for Kat, got the travel chits cut for the two SEALs, and grinned at the open-ended orders. The two men were to report to an Air Force base near Ridyah, Saudi Arabia, for an indeterminate time period, and would SEE to the base commander for further instructions. He’d never seen orders quite so vague before.

Kat and DeWitt got off on their drive to the east country, where the Navy had an unofficial firing range.

Murdock and Jaybird drove Franklin and Douglas to North Island with five minutes to spare before flight time. They put on flight suits and stowed their MP-5’s beside their feet. Five minutes later, the two Navy F-14 Tomcats raced down the runway and lifted off. They would do midair refueling three times and set down in Saudi Arabia, nonstop.
The Tomcat can do about two-thousand miles to a tankful on a hop in ferry mode.

The Toms carried minimum arms—two Sparrow missiles and two Sidewinders. They would be flying over no disputed territory. At a top speed of 1,500 mph they would be doing nearly Mach 2.34 and searching for favorable tailwinds.

Yeoman Second Class Colt “Guns” Franklin sat in the rear seat of the F-14 and marveled at the wonder of it all. It was his first ride in a supersonic fighter of any kind. He’d almost lost his lunch when they took off from North Island. He listened to the chatter between the pilots. He could see the other F-14 to his right, just far enough away so the two planes wouldn’t interfere with “clean” air ahead of them.

He knew they would do air-to-air refueling. That would be something to see. He’d watch the other plane get the fuel, since he couldn’t see much out the front.

Guns wasn’t even sure where they were flying. He figured they’d have to cross the U.S., pick up some fuel partway there, and then head for where—Greenland? They weren’t going over the pole; he knew that from their talk.

Fifteen hundred miles an hour. In two hours they would be all the way across the U.S. Damn! That was moving. He didn’t even want to figure how fast that was in feet per second. He looked at the radar and intercept instruments in front of him but didn’t touch anything. They fascinated him but scared him, too. He didn’t want to push a button and fire a missile. Could he do that? He didn’t know.

A little over six hours later, the two fighters contacted the control tower at a U.S. Air base outside of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Both pilots had landed there before. Guns couldn’t figure out why.

Once out of the planes, Franklin and Douglas were taken to the field’s commanding officer. He sent them down the hall to a small room where a civilian sat waiting for them. He shook hands with them and began chattering in Farsi.

Douglas shrugged.

Franklin cocked his head to one side, then replied in the same language: “Sir, your accent is rather weird, or maybe it’s mine, but I can understand you with no trouble. Is you accent the correct one for modern-day Tehran?”

The CIA man smiled. “Mine is out of date, I’m sure, in a growing, changing language, but the important thing is that you understand, and can communicate. Your friend isn’t so lucky.”

“He knows no Farsi, but he’s a whiz with a SATCOM.”

“Good. We’ll need you both.”

They went back to English.

“Welcome to Saudi Arabia, men. I understand you’re both SEALs from San Diego. Yes, we know that you’re not spies, not trained to gather intelligence on foreign soil. What we’ll want you to do is to back up and protect our man who is in country doing that job.

“You’ll get civilian clothes, and two changes. You have H&K M-5’s, I understand. Good German make. There will be nothing except your English to tie you to the U.S. Now, we’ll get you fed, and then you can catch some sleep. You passed several time zones, so you’ll take a day or so to adapt.

“You’ll have identity papers if you need them, but try to stay away from anyone who might ask for them. You were told you might go in HALO. A change here, gentlemen. We have too far to fly to penetrate the Iranian airspace at that altitude, which would show up on their radar.

“Instead we’ll go in low and mean, hope to stay under their radar. You’ll be riding in a big mother, a specially equipped MC-130 Combat Talon. It’s also called a Hercules and can carry seventy-four troops fully combat-ready. You’ll have the space all to yourselves.

“This plane is especially equipped for exactly this type of deep-penetrating covert missions. She’s painted all black and with no U.S. Air Force markings or insignia. The crew
will be carrying no U.S. identity and their uniforms are strictly non-U.S.”

“So if we get shot down, nobody can say we’re Americans,” Franklin said.

“Quite right and for good reason we won’t claim you are. You’ll get on board, and jump off, a rear loading ramp on the plane. Plenty of room. We’ll be dropping you off at no more than a thousand feet, depending on the terrain. Your chutes will be on static lines for instant deployment. You should have fifteen seconds before you reach the ground, so be ready. Have you ever jumped this low before?”

“Ten times or so,” Franklin said. “No problem.”

“We’ll go in at night, right?” Douglas asked.

“Yes. You’ll get a ride up to Kuwait, and from there the MC-130 will take off for Tehran. We plan on dropping you about fifty miles this side of the city. Tehran has seven million people now and growing. We’ll try to hit near a main highway where you can catch a bus to get to the city, and find the meet. It will all be spelled out on a paper for each of you. Don’t let anyone see that paper.”

The civilian looked at them for a moment. “That’s about it. Any questions?”

“Does the Company put any restrictions on us? We’re basically a shoot-and-scoot-type operation. This won’t quite be that, I’d guess.”

“No restrictions. However, if there’s a body count, it will bring out the Secret Police by the hundreds. They don’t like anybody but themselves killing people in Iran.”

“Foul-ups,” Douglas said. “Say we get to the meet, and this George isn’t there? Say George got himself killed. What do we do then?”

“You have a SATCOM. I’d hole up somewhere and ask for instructions. We’ll be listening for you twenty-four hours a day. You should listen for us at midnight and six
A.M.
“

“We know what George is trying to find out,” Franklin
said. “We’re not spooks, but we’ll do what we can to help him, as well as protecting his ass.”

“Good. You’ll be shown to quarters now for some food, and then sleep. Tomorrow you’ll get a ride up to Kuwait.” The man pointed at the door, and two Air Force men came in.

“Right this way to your quarters, men,” a corporal said.

“Where’s the food?” Franklin asked.

The corporal grinned. “Hey, you get to order what you want, and we’ll bring it to you. How about that for service?”

The tension, the long flight, and the change in time all hit Douglas at the same instant. “Hey, if I drop facedown into my steak and go to sleep, just roll me over and let me snore. I’ve never been so damn tired in my life.”

11

Franklin and Douglas had been outfitted with Iranian clothing an hour before. Now they looked over their I.D. and other papers that made them out to be Iranians.

“We don’t even look Arabic,” Douglas said.