Exit Plan (24 page)

“Oh, well, in that case—it wouldn’t help, sir. There are way too many patrol boats. Besides, that isn’t our only problem.”

He gestured to an operator, who called up images on the briefing screen. “This is why I called you. This is the beach where the rendezvous took place.”

The UAV image showed the now-familiar beach, but Guthrie saw men in a ragged line, slowly walking over the landscape. “They’re searching for something,” he said.

Frederickson smiled grimly. “I don’t think they’re looking for seashells.”

“This is seriously not good. Why that beach?” Guthrie asked, but the answer was obvious. “Correction— Is there any way that this is
not
connected to our people?”

The SEAL lieutenant frowned. “There has been no activity in that area since our people left last night.”

“Other areas?”

“Nothing that we’ve seen, yet. They drove up in a couple of vehicles and began systematically searching the beach. We’ve got traffic on the road, people moving near structures, but this is the only organized activity near the shore within the UAV’s field of view.”

“Well, whoever they are, it’s obvious we can’t execute the pickup on that beach, or the secondary one down the coast.”

“They can’t stay there forever. My bet is that they’ll leave when they’ve finished their search, sunset at the latest. It’s really hard to search in the dark.”

“That’s not the real issue.” Guthrie countered. “Why are they there? Are the Iranians looking for our people? If so, how much do they know? How hard will they look?”

“Increased boat patrols, search parties?” Frederickson asked. “Less than a day after our guys landed on that beach? There is no other logical conclusion. The Iranians are looking for our people.”

“Then can we afford to have them sit tight? How safe is their hiding place?”

“Matt Ramey’s good, Skipper. I’ve walked within a few meters of his position and I didn’t spot him. But hiding’s what you do while you’re waiting for something to happen. If we can’t go in to get them, then hiding’s not the right thing to do.”

“We need a new plan,” Guthrie concluded.

“We’re improvising at this point, Skipper, but we’ll work up something.”

“I know a few things about staying covert myself. This is just like submarine warfare, but on land. The enemy has a datum, and they’re searching. The tactic is to clear datum quickly and quietly. Don’t let them get a better whiff of you, and get outside their search radius.”

Frederickson nodded. “Understood. Give me fifteen minutes with the rest of the platoon.”

~ * ~

The call came early. They weren’t supposed to make a go/no-go decision until after sunset, and that wasn’t for another half hour. Jerry knew it had to be trouble. He took the handset from Lapointe.

It was Guthrie. “XO, we have to scrub the recovery mission. There are people carefully searching your beach, and the boat patrols have increased this afternoon.
Dramatically
increased. We can’t get a CRRC in to you, and even if we could, they’ll probably be waiting for us at the rendezvous site.”

Jerry’s heart sank. Automatically, he answered, “Understood, sir. Do you have a recommendation?”

“Get out of there. Head northwest to Bushehr and find a boat. It’s Frederickson’s recommendation and I agree. Put Lieutenant Ramey on and I’ll give him the details.”

Jerry had turned the handset so that Ramey and Lapointe, both now close by, could hear. The others had seen his face and heard his tone. He passed the handset to Ramey and said to the rest, “The recovery mission’s scrubbed. They’re looking for us.”

Shirin gasped and spoke quickly to her husband. His shocked expression matched hers, and they tried to ask questions, but Phillips and Fazel both motioned for silence while the lieutenant quickly made notes. He signed off, almost matter-of-factly.

“Mr. SEAL, Jerry said they were looking for us. Is it true?” Fear was wrapped around Shirin’s question.

Ramey nodded. “This afternoon, more patrol boats came out, and there’s a search party working the beach where we met. Only an idiot would think otherwise.”

He let that sink in, then said, “They won’t find anything, but they will expand their search tomorrow. It’s what I’d do. I’d also watch that beach. That plan is gone. We’ll head toward Bushehr and find a boat.”

“Bushehr is over a hundred kilometers from here,” she protested.

“Almost one eighty, according to the map. We’ll cut north, away from the water for a while, then overland until we can find transport. For the moment, we walk.”

“Stay off the roads?” Shirin asked.

“They’ve seen the car. They have its license number, and they’ll be watching the highway. We’d never make it past the first roadblock. We’ll have to steal something once we’re past Kangan.”

Yousef spoke softly but urgently to Shirin. She replied, and the conversation almost became an argument. Fazel listened, but did not translate. Finally, she seemed to remember that he could understand them, and spoke in English. “It might be better if we went to Bandar Charak. My uncle lives there. If we get to him, he will help us.”

“How trustworthy is your uncle?” Jerry asked.

“He is the one who passed my information on to the Americans. He’s opposed the government since the Revolution, and is a member of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, in your language the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran. My uncle was going to send us out with a smuggler, but something went wrong. Then he arranged this meeting with you.”

“Which hasn’t worked out so well, either,” Ramey finished. He folded a map. “Bandar Charak is half again as far, in the other direction, and it’s near some medium-sized Pasdaran bases, but on the other hand Bushehr has the largest naval base in this part of the gulf. . . and it’s always good to know somebody in a strange town.” Ramey went silent as he weighed the possible enemy forces and the terrain, choosing their destination.

“All right, we head southeast. Pointy, call our friends back and tell them there’s been a change in destination. We’ll need a new route. Philly, this is as good a place as any to bury the swim gear. Doc, put dinner together. We should eat before we start out. We are gone at last light.”

“One other thing,” Ramey added. “The twenty-four-hour weather report has a storm coming in from the northwest sometime tomorrow morning. The forecast called it ‘a typical spring shamal pattern.’”

Yousef understood the word, and spoke urgently. Jerry didn’t. “A shamal?” he asked.

“Sandstorm,” Fazel explained. He nodded toward Yousef. “The captain thinks we should wait here until it passes.” The corpsman’s tone was full of contempt.

“They can’t search in a sandstorm,” Jerry reasoned.

~ * ~

Ramey, Lapointe, and Phillips dug like rabid badgers. With the scrubbing of the second CRRC mission, the SEALs had to dig a hole big enough to bury all their scuba gear; and there was a lot of it. Jerry initially tried to help while Fazel stood guard, but he soon found himself more of a hindrance, getting in the way of the three human backhoes.

“I still can’t believe that idiot had his cell phone on,” grumbled Ramey, as his spade bit into the sand. “They gotta have a good idea of where we are by now.”

“Not necessarily, Matt,” added Lapointe. “All they’ll get is the tower his phone was linked into. That could be five to eight miles away. That’s a lot of territory to cover, and a fair chunk of it is rugged terrain. They’ll search the easy stuff first.”

“Pointy’s right, Boss,” Phillips chimed in. “Kangan probably only has one cell phone tower, but once they match that with the Basij report on the car, they’ll be all over this place like a swarm of bees.”

“Which means we need to get the hell out of Dodge, and soon,” concluded Ramey, throwing his shovel on the cave floor. “This will have to do. Grab the gear, tanks first, Philly.”

Phillips and Lapointe leapt out of the four-foot-square, three-foot-deep hole and started handing Ramey the air tanks, followed by the fins, masks, rubber hoods, and gloves.

“Hand me the garbage, too, while you’re at it,” said Ramey. Phillips tossed him the two bags with the remains of the MRE pouches. “Is that everything?”

“Yes, sir, I made two sweeps of the cave.”

“Good,” Ramey replied, as he jumped out of the hole and picked up his shovel.

“Start filling, guys. XO, you can lend a hand here, too, if you don’t mind.”

“Certainly,” responded Jerry, as he joined the other three men throwing dirt into the hole. Ramey was still tense, but his overall demeanor seemed to have improved, at least Jerry thought so. He couldn’t tell if the platoon leader was actually dealing quietly with his grief, or merely keeping it in check, storing it up for release later.

After fifteen minutes of shoveling and stomping, the hole was filled and the remaining sand kicked around the cave. A quick glance by an untrained eye would not see anything amiss. But if a professional did a thorough inspection, the soft spot in the ground would be quickly discovered. And while the SEALs were hoping the distance from the cave to the car would be enough to prevent the discovery of their equipment, burying it was a little extra insurance.

“Okay everyone, huddle around for a planning session,” Ramey announced, as he put on his battle gear. Motioning Phillips toward the cave entrance he added, “Philly, take the watch. I need Doc’s linguistic skills for this. And keep a sharp eye out on that road.” Phillips nodded his head as he grabbed his weapon and went outside.

“I can translate for my husband,” protested Shirin.

“I’m sure you can, ma’am. But we can’t afford any misunderstandings. Doc here will only assist when necessary to make sure Mr. Akbari has a clear picture of what we are trying to do,” responded Ramey coldly. Yousef was not happy with the lieutenant’s tone, and he clearly heard and understood the word “mister”—as opposed to rank—that Ramey used before his name.

Ramey unfolded his map and placed it on the ground. Shining his flashlight on to the map, he pointed to their location. “We are here, in these foothills approximately ten klicks from Bandar Kangan. Our destination is way the hell down here, just shy of two hundred and thirty-five kilometers to the southeast.” His finger swept down the coastline until he tapped the map at Bandar Charak.

“Given our untenable position, we have to start this trek on foot. My intention is to use this dirt road as our evasion and escape route. It parallels Highway 96 and is roughly graded and fairly flat, which will make it easier for us to maintain a reasonable pace. The closest we get to the highway is three hundred meters, and the farthest is one-and-a-half klicks, so we’ll have a good field of view to watch out for anyone coming from the highway. There is good ground to the northeast, with plenty of hills and shallow ravines, so we have excellent cover in case anyone does go off road. My goal is to make Akhtar by 0400, forty-five minutes before twilight begins. There are some hills to the west where we can hide out until later in the evening. Hopefully, we can find a small van there that we can requisition.” Ramey paused as Shirin relayed the plan to Yousef. A frown quickly formed on his face.

“Matt, I’m not all that great with land navigation. What kind of distance are we talking about here?” asked Jerry, noticing Akbari’s reaction.

“Almost fifteen kilometers, XO.”

“That’s a bit of a hike, don’t you think?”

“In eight hours? That should be very doable. I specifically chose a route to accommodate Dr. Naseri’s condition.”