“Where are they?” Murdock asked.
Jaybird shrugged. The two SEALs charged along fifty feet of deck and ran hard for their objective, the bridge. They found the first door unlocked. They went through it silently, their MP-5’s ready. No one was in the small room. It had steps leading upward and they took them soundlessly.
Three minutes later Murdock and Jaybird found the bridge deserted. They made a sweep of the captain’s cabin directly below and four more cabins. Nobody. Where were the Arabs?
Murdock ran back to the long deck. He used the Motorola, the SEALs’ personal communication radio that was good for about two miles.
“Check in when you have your objective. We found nobody on the bridge. Has anyone seen any Arabs?”
“None here,” Van Dyke said. “Nobody in forward crew quarters.”
Four more men checked in with negative answers.
Murdock heard a plane. He took out the second radio and keyed it. “Flight SAS, this is Deckhand. Abort. I say abort jump. We are in place and so far haven’t found a single Arab or Japanese crewman on board. I say again, abort the jump.”
The radio sputtered, then came on clear. “Did you say abort? Murdock? Abort? We’re ready. No Arabs? Christ, where did they go? Where did the fucking nuclear bomb go?”
“Sorry to spoil your fun, but no use taking the risk of a jump here. This is a washout. It must have been a decoy. Now we really have to find the bomb.”
It took them twenty minutes, but at last they found the Japanese crew. They had been locked in a forward hold, but had been given a supply of food and water. The Japanese shouted and screamed in delight when they were released.
Ken Ching was soon with them and getting the story. There were twenty-four in the crew. They went back to their usual posts and positions and were all smiles. They even lowered a boat with a motor and ferried the SEALs, and the floating drag bags they had tied to the lines, back to shore.
Murdock used the cell phone and called for the bus to come and pick them up. He talked to Captain Brainridge on the cell, and Brainridge said he’d get the bus to them.
“What the hell happened?” Brainridge railed.
“We got snookered, outfoxed. The Japanese said that there was no bomb on board, never had been. The Arabs boarded their ship at sea ten miles off the harbor when their own boat was sinking. Then they took over and made the captain sail the ship into port and tie up at an anchorage rather than at the dock where she was expected.
“Ching said the Arabs told the crew that they would leave before it was daylight, but the crew would be locked up. The Arabs said someone would rescue them within two or three days.”
It was just after 0300 when the SEALs got back to the small military base near Crawley. Captain Brainridge and his three SAS men were waiting for them.
“No wonder our intel men with hundred-power telescopes didn’t see any Arabs on board the ship,” Brainridge thundered. “They weren’t there. Now our huge problem is trying to find out where they and the fucking nuke bomb are.”
Murdock slumped in a chair and nodded. “Oh, I agree, absolutely agree. You must have some kind of a clue. The crew said they never saw anything that could have been a bomb. In the small boat that was sinking, they saw only a few suitcases, which the men salvaged before the boat sank. No bomb.”
Brainridge sank into a chair and shook his head. “I’m not used to this kind of shit. Usually I get an assignment, a mission, and I go and do it and come home and take a week’s furlough. This hide-and-seek is no fun.”
“Did you report our raid to your Home Office or whoever is in charge of this?”
“I did. They yelled at me for five minutes, then apologized for ten minutes. Then they asked me how we find the bomb in a town with seven million souls?”
“Hope you had some suggestions,” Murdock said.
“Actually I didn’t. They said to just hold on here. They have a committee of twenty of the best detective minds in Scotland Yard working on the problem right now.”
“Good, maybe by morning I’ll have some ideas. Right now I’d just as soon have a few hours of sleep. Teacher, may I be excused?”
Brainridge laughed. “That you can, old sot, that you can. Let’s convene class again about 1000 in the conference room.”
Murdock waved, walked over to his bunk, and flopped on it. He got up only long enough to take off his wet cammies, then dropped on the bunk again and pulled the light Army blanket over him.
Murdock had breakfast in the morning before he went to the meeting with Brainridge. The SEAL was thirty minutes late getting there and offered no excuse.
“I’ve been catching it all morning from four different agencies,” said Brainridge, “each of which thought we should have caught the Arabs and found the bomb last night.”
“The committee come up with anything?”
“Zilch. They’ve been up all night talking, arguing, suggesting, and negating. I think we may have at least one duel coming up.”
“What about the Arab boats in port?”
“What? Say again?”
“What about the Arab-flag boats in London Port? Any one of them could have a nuclear bomb on board.”
Captain Brainridge’s eyes snapped, his brows raised, and he jolted out of his chair and grabbed his cell phone. He dialed and waited.
“Yes. How many ships are there now in the Port of London flying Arab flags?” He listened a moment. “Well, find out. I need to know in ten minutes. Move it!”
He hung up and nodded. “Oh, yes, now I think we might have something.” He paused and his eyes hooded. He rubbed his face with one hand and scowled. “Only how do we board a foreign-flag-ship without causing an international incident?”
“Easy,” Murdock said. “Health inspection. Your National Board of Health, or whatever agency you have, has had a report that this boat has a case of bubonic plague on board. The health inspectors take precedent over any national sovereignty considerations. Hey, it works. They also take on board the most sensitive Geiger counters they have to look for any radioactivity they can find. I’ve done it before in Greece.”
Brainridge grabbed his phone again. He dialed and listened. “You have those Arab ships yet? Ten. Good, here’s what I want you to do. No questions, get it done in the next hour. I don’t care what kind of strings you have to pull. Now listen carefully.”
After he finished on the phone, Brainridge looked at Murdock. “Thanks, I’ve got some ships to search.” The captain ran out of the room, and tires squealed as he drove away.
Murdock went back to his bunk for a nap before noon chow.
By 1600 the ten Arab-flag ships had been searched, scrutinized, taken apart with a magnifying glass. They found no bomb, and no crew that was the least bit nervous worrying about the inspectors finding a bomb.
Murdock’s phone rang when he was getting his gear cleaned and ready for shipment.
“Hey, Commander. Great idea about the ships. The health inspectors didn’t find any bubonic, but they came up with one case of diphtheria, three of measles, and two of rabies. They’re happy. My boss isn’t and the Home Office isn’t. They still want us to find the bomb. Any more good ideas?”
“What about pleasure boats? Do they register at the port or anything like that?”
“Not that I know of. They just sail in and tie up somewhere. Marina space is getting hard to find.”
“What about the big ones, the seventy-, eighty-, hundred-foot yachts? Where do they tie up?”
“A yacht club somewhere.”
“You have a speedboat?”
“I can get one.”
“Let’s take a boat ride and see if we can find any boats with Arabic names and maybe even a flag or two. Can’t hurt.”