By Dawn's Early Light (19 page)

1900 GMT
LACCADIVE SEA
08°00'00" N 70°00'00'E

Bill Jackson sat on his haunches on the narrow swim platform lowered on the
Vinson
's starboard stern.

The seas ran to three meters, but in the broad path made by the giant aircraft carrier the ocean was flat. It was overcast tonight. There were no stars and no horizon, only a blackness in every direction. Perfect.

He checked his GPS Plugger handheld navigator and then his watch. It was 2300 hours, local. They were in position and on time.

Jackson looked over at the others, then gave them the
go
signal.

Terri, who was point, slipped into the water first, followed by MacKeever and then Chopper. Jackson waited for the interval, then turned and rolled backwards into the water four feet below.

It was like running into a concrete wall. The
Vinson
had reduced speed to thirty-five knots; not so slow as to create any suspicions by some scope dope somewhere, but fast enough to bounce the divers around for the first ten seconds.

Murphy's Law, he thought as he tumbled end-over-end in the
Vinson
's powerful prop wash: Never forget that your equipment was made by the lowest bidder. After they had knocked off the carrier's reactor with no problems, they had spent the remainder of their time going over the mission details, and then checking their equipment. There would be very few second chances where they were ultimately going.

Gradually they came out of the strongest parts of the
Vinson
's wake, the seas directly behind the big ship still relatively calm. Chopper and Shooter formed up on Terri, and when Jackson reached them they gave him the thumbs-up sign.

“That was some ride,” Terri said.

“Yeah. And our taxi should be along any minute now,” Jackson said. In addition to the Draeger closed-circuit rebreathers they wore, each of them carried a thirty-five-kilogram pack with their weapons and other gear. Their loads would be lighter during the feet-dry portion of their mission, but still considerable.

“Right behind you, F/X,” MacKeever said.

Jackson turned. The
Seawolf
's attack periscope head jutted one meter out of the water, the oblong hooded lens aperture pointed at them. A single flash of soft red light came from the periscope, and then it disappeared under the water.

“Claustrophobia city, here we come,” MacKeever said. He cleared his mouthpiece and slipped under the water just behind Terri. Chopper followed him, and with one last look toward the
Vinson
's lights already a very long way off, Jackson compensated his buoyancy-control vest and dove into the blackness.

 

The
Seawolf
hovered at fifteen meters. The bridge deck atop her sail was only a couple of meters beneath the deepest wave troughs.

Terri on lead followed the aft edge of the sail down to the broad deck that materialized dimly like a ghost ship, then back to the open hatch into the escape trunk.

No lights showed from inside the boat in case a reflection through the water could be spotted from the surface, or from a low-flying aircraft. They were taking no chances.

Everything was by feel. Jackson entered the escape trunk feet first behind the others, and when he was in he reached up and pulled the hatch closed.

When he had it dogged, he fumbled for the flood-control valve, finding it just over Chopper's shoulder. There was a very loud
hiss
of high-pressure air, and a lot of serious bubbles came from the bottom of the chamber as the water began to drop.

As soon as it was chest level they spit out their mouthpieces and breathed the relatively fresh air. A second later a dim red light came on.

“I'm glad that's over with,” MacKeever said. Despite their training, some SEALs were claustrophobic locking into and out of submarines. MacKeever was one of them. His therapy was griping. He'd never froze on a mission. Not once. He just bitched a lot.

“You'd think they'd find an easier way,” he groused.

“You shoulda joined the army,” Ercoli said. “I heard those guys even get breakfast in bed.”

The hatch beneath their feet was undogged from below, and was pushed up. An officer with carrot-red hair, whose name tag read
BATEMAN
, grinned up at them. “Welcome aboard the
Seawolf
, gentlemen.”

Terri pulled off her hood, and gave him a big smile.

“And lady,” Bateman amended without missing a beat.

One by one they climbed down into the stores room just aft of the mess room, where they took off their packs and dive equipment. They were handed towels and then followed Bateman forward a couple of compartments to the officers' wardroom.

Frank Dillon was waiting with Jablonski and Alvarez, whom he introduced. None of them showed the least surprise when they realized that one of the SEALs was a woman, and a good-looking woman at that. Except Alvarez, who grinned.

“Pleased to meet you, ma'am,” he said.

“Thanks for the lift, skipper,” Jackson said. “Would have been a long swim home if you hadn't been here.”

“Happy to oblige, Lieutenant,” Dillon said. “But now that you're aboard we'd like to know where we're headed.”

“You were told nothing, sir?”

“Just the time and place to rendezvous with the
Vinson
and pick up you and your team.”

“We're going to Pakistan,” Jackson said. He took out a sketch map and unfolded it on the table. “An ISI prison and interrogation center outside Kandrach. Four CIA guys are being held there and we're going to bring them home before it's too late.”

“Too late for what?” Dillon asked.

“One of them is Scott Hanson, the president's brother.”

Dillon exchanged a look with his officers. “I wonder whose bright idea it was to send him into harm's way? Did they have anything to do with the nuclear test that Pakistan conducted?”

“They witnessed it, skipper. The ISI is probably going to use them to bargain with, especially if they realize who Hanson is.” Jackson shook his head. “I don't know the rest of the story, except that a couple of them might be banged up, and the ISI might have an idea that somebody's coming for them.”

“No doubt about it,” Dillon said. “Anything else?”

“Yes, sir. I wasn't told the significance, except that this was Mother's plan. And that the shuttle launch stays on hold until you send the mission-accomplished signal.”

Bateman's eyebrows rose. “Mother?”

For a couple of moments Dillon had no idea who Jackson was talking about, but then he remembered. He smiled. “Carolyn Tyson.”

“The director of the CIA?” Bateman asked.

“I was an engineering officer aboard the
Flying Fish
. She came aboard for two weeks on a mission in China. Bright woman.”

“She was a SEAL,” Terri said. “Her handle was Mother.”

“I never knew how she got that,” Dillon said.

Terri grinned. “Tyson chicken. Mother hen. Mother. It works like that sometimes, sir.”

“If this is her op, then it'll be a good one,” Dillon said. “She's the best.”

2245 LOCAL
KANDRACH, PAKISTAN

Jackson and his SEAL team stayed out of the way for the night and a day en route. They'd been assigned to hot bunk in the goat locker but ended up in the torpedo room where they had a little more space to lay out their weapons and check them one final time.

There was no sensation of speed inside the
Seawolf,
but Jackson had been briefed that they would be making in excess of forty-five knots. They would cover the two thousand kilometers from their rendezvous with the
Vinson
to a point a few kilometers offshore of Kandrach in a little over twenty-four hours.

No submarine moved as fast underwater, and not many surface ships could outrun them, either. It was like being inside a rocket ship.

Bateman appeared at the hatch. “We're on station. Are you guys ready?” he asked.

Jackson looked up and nodded. They'd consolidated their loads. In addition to carrying knives, 9mm pistols, hand grenades, and one LAW rocket each, they carried their suppressed Colt commandos and two thousand rounds of ammunition each. MacKeever also carried a room broom, and Chopper carried his Peacemaker, a folding stock SPAS 12 Franchi twelve-gauge shotgun that could fire thirty rounds per minute. It was guaranteed, Chopper said, to create peace in small rooms filled with pissed-off enemy soldiers. Nobody felt the need to contradict him.

“How far out are we, XO?” Jackson asked.

“Five miles. But we'll get you a lot closer before you have to start swimming. There're a lot of patrols out there.”

Terri grinned viciously. “Finally, some decent odds to play with. Frankly,
guys
, I wasn't looking forward to one-on-one.”

MacKeever gave her a high five.

Bateman shook his head. “You folks are nuts,” he said good-naturedly. “Lay aft to the escape trunk when you're good to go.” He turned and left.

“Okay, no hotdogging on this one,” Jackson warned. “They aren't going to be in any kind of mood to take prisoners.”

“Neither are we, F/X,” Ercoli said.

 

Bateman met them at the forward escape trunk a few minutes later. He was a little tense.

“When we get the green light we'll be two thousand yards offshore. That's the best we can do. It's kinda busy up there right now.”

Jackson unfolded his waterproof chart, and Bateman pointed to a spot a few kilometers west of Kandrach.

“The skipper's giving you six hours,” Bateman said. “We're going to back off and snuggle up next to a wreck in about four hundred feet of water until then. Don't be late.”

Jackson folded up the map and put it in a zippered pocket. “They might be in bad shape, commander. Have your pharmacist mate standing by.”

Bateman nodded. “You might have to wait in the water at the rendezvous point until it's clear for us to surface and take you aboard. But we'll be there.”

MacKeever snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot. You know what we're really going to need, sir?”

Bateman's eyes narrowed. “No. What?”

“A hot bath, a massage, and a cold beer.”

A green light next to the hatch flashed twice, then the lights in the compartment went to red.

“I'll see to it personally,” Bateman said, opening the hatch.

They climbed up into the escape trunk, Jackson last. When the chamber was sealed they opened the flood controls and donned their masks and mouthpieces.

“There's gotta be a better way,” MacKeever griped as the water reached his chest. And then even the red light went out.

It was another starless night when they locked out of the
Seawolf
and made their way fifteen meters to a choppy surface, Terri ascending first as point.

Jackson checked their exact position with his Plugger GPS, and punched it into memory. Now they could come back to within one meter of this spot no matter what the sea state was.

To the east the small city of Kandrach lit the night sky. To the west they could make out the rotating green-and-white beacon of Ormara air force base. But straight north the beach was dark.

The water was filled with rotting garbage and oil slicks that were roiled up and frothy in the short, sharp whitecaps. Behind them, to the east and west, a thousand meters or more out to sea, they could see the lights of perhaps as many as a dozen fast-moving patrol boats. With all the racket they were making,
Seawolf
would be in no real danger of detection unless one of them accidentally ran directly overhead.

Jackson gave Terri the thumbs-up signal, and she immediately headed toward the beach. The others fell in behind her at ten-meter intervals.

It took them almost an hour to reach the beach, where they lay in the surf to watch for patrols.

There were a lot more lights here than they'd been able to pick out from two kilometers offshore. The mouth of the Hab River was between them and Kandrach. A bridge crossed a couple of klicks inshore, and from where they lay they could see some traffic. More lights moved along the river, and farther inland, maybe several kilometers, were lights on a tower or possibly a power plant smokestack. It was not on their charts.

There was more activity here than promised in the briefing package Jackson had read. A lot more activity.

One hundred meters from the water's edge the hardscrabble beach gave way to sand dunes, low scrub grass, some scraggly-looking trees, and three sandbagged gun emplacements.

As they watched, an APC came up the beach, its lights off. They were able to hear it before they saw it, and Jackson motioned for them to stay down and to remain absolutely still until it passed. The spotter standing up in the turret was probably wearing night vision glasses.

It was an old Russian BRDM-1, with a crew of five that mounted a 7.62 mm SGMB machine gun. In a real firefight up against a tank, it wasn't worth much. But against someone crawling up from the beach it would do the job.

It passed slowly east to west, and when they could no longer hear its exhaust, Jackson pointed out the three sandbagged gun emplacements to make sure everyone was clear on exactly where they were.

If anyone spotted them, or if they had to fire a single shot, the game would be up and they would have to hightail it back to the rendezvous and wait for the
Seawolf
to come pick them up. If that happened there was little doubt what the ISI would do to the American prisoners. At the very least they would be tortured and beaten, if that hadn't already occurred.

Jackson motioned for them to move out. This time he took point, the other three at close enough intervals that they could reach out and touch the ankle of the SEAL ahead of them.

As they crawled one meter at a time up the beach from the water, Jackson's every sense was attuned to his environment. He was as aware of his people behind him and the activity out to sea as he was of the lack of activity for the moment on the beach, the gun emplacements they had to slip past, and every square centimeter of scrabble and sand in his path.

If he was expecting an armed party to come ashore, he would have booby-trapped the beach with contact mines or Claymores. Not only would something like that slow down the invaders, it would provide an early warning perimeter.

Fifty meters up from the water, Jackson stopped. A nearly invisible monofiliment line at nose level was just a few centimeters in front of his face. He followed the line out in either direction with his eyes, but he couldn't see where it connected.

He reached back and touched the top of MacKeever's head. Shooter's eyes narrowed behind his camo paint.

Jackson gave hand signals to indicate the line, and that they were to crawl over it without disturbing whatever trigger it might be connected to.

MacKeever nodded his understanding and relayed the instructions.

Jackson probed the sand directly on the other side of the wire to make sure that it was clear. He rose up a little and straddled the line, and then carefully moved completely across, making sure that the toe of his boot cleared.

When he was over he waited for MacKeever to cross, then moved forward a couple of meters to let Ercoli clear the trip wire.

As soon as Terri brought up the rear, Jackson headed for a spot halfway between the two gun emplacements toward the west.

Twenty meters out a red light showed briefly from an open doorway. Jackson froze. The others behind him, realizing that their point man had stopped, did the same.

A Pakistani soldier in night fighter camos appeared in silhouette a couple of meters west of his bunker. He stretched, looked out to sea, then directly at Jackson.

For several seconds the soldier remained staring at Jackson, but then he turned and walked a few meters back toward the sand dunes and brush. He undid his web belt, slid his trousers and underwear down around his ankles, then squatted to pee. It was the Muslim way.

When he was finished he got up, pulled up his pants and donned his web belt and holster, then went directly back to the gun mount.

Jackson waited a few minutes in case the soldier's bunker mate also needed to take a pee. When that didn't happen he moved out.

The beach gave way to a series of low, rounded sand dunes behind which were scrub grass and short, gnarly trees that reminded Jackson of olive trees he'd seen in the south of Spain. He'd been over there a few years ago on a training mission with the Spanish special forces.

Beyond the dunes and trees the coastal highway ran roughly parallel to the beach, crossing the Hab River a couple of kilometers to the east.

Jackson checked his watch. They'd locked out of the submarine one hour and fifty-eight minutes ago. They were due back at the rendezvous with the four American prisoners, who were probably banged up and would not be able to move very fast in four hours.

Time was running short.

There was no traffic for the moment. Jackson turned back and explained what he wanted to do.

“I'll be the hitman,” he told them. “Terri will be the decoy.”

A big grin spread across her narrow, pretty face. “All's fair in love and war, F/X,” she said.

“That's the truth,” he replied. “We're looking for a truck. No comms antenna. Wait for my signal.”

Terri nodded, and started taking off her equipment pack and unslinging her LAWs rocket.

Keeping low, Jackson darted across the road, taking up position in the opposite water-filled ditch. He took off his equipment pack because he was going to have to move fast. He screwed the silencer on the end of his Sig-Sauer P226 9mm autoloader pistol.

The first two vehicles to pass were automobiles, one a battered Mercedes and the other an old Russian Lada. The third was a tanker heading toward the city, and the fourth was a personnel transport truck, its canvas sides rolled up.

Jackson glassed the truck, which was coming across the bridge from Kandrach, with his low-lux binoculars. He could make out that the driver was alone, but very few other details until the truck got within one hundred meters of his position.

The driver was definitely alone. He was wearing an army cap and there was no communications antenna. There were no soldiers in the back.

Jackson motioned at the oncoming truck. Terri waved back.

When the truck was less than fifty meters away, Terri casually got up and walked out onto the road. She had stripped to her bra and panties, her white skin almost incandescent in the truck's headlights. She had left her boots on, but she had wiped the camo paint off her face.

The truck driver jammed on the brakes.

Jackson checked to make sure that the bridge was still clear and that nothing was coming from the opposite direction. They only needed a couple of minutes for this to work. Considering how long it had taken them to get this far, and how much farther the ISI prison was, they needed transportation even if it meant taking a chance.

Terri smiled and raised a hand as the truck came to a complete halt. She headed over to where it had stopped, the driver's eyes practically popping out of their sockets.

Jackson rose up and crossed the road in a run, keeping an eye on the back of the driver's head.

At the last moment he jumped up on the passenger-side running board. Terri ducked down as the truck driver, sensing someone behind him, started to turn.

Jackson fired three shots into the driver's head, blood and brains splattering out the open window.

They had transportation.