“Will 911 work here?” he asked Lam.
“No. Here in England you call 999.”
He did. It worked.
“Operator, this is an extreme emergency and I need you to connect me with Scotland Yard at once.”
“That’s highly irregular, we have procedures.”
“Lady, I know that. I must get to Scotland Yard at once. Break the rules this time. It’s of utmost national importance.”
“I may get in trouble, but I’ll try. You’re a Yank, right?”
“Yes, please, hurry.”
It took him only two minutes to get the right man. Then Murdock mentioned Inspector James Anthony and his assignment today.
“The inspector and an SAS captain have been kidnapped at the Watertown Marina aboard an Arab yacht called the Sundowner. Go get them. More important is for the harbor patrol or someone to watch for an Arab yacht leaving the area. I don’t know how big it is or what its name is, but a man on board is called Andwar. It has to do with the extreme emergency we’re dealing with. I’m Murdock of the U.S. Navy SEALs. We’re working with the SAS.”
“Yes, we copy, you’re recorded, and we’ll put teams on both cases at once. We know who you are and what you’re doing. Do you think the… the package might be on that Arab pleasure craft?”
“I’m sure it is. Call out the Navy. Have them check every Arab boat heading out of port.”
“Will do, Murdock. We’re moving.”
Lam looked at Murdock. “We’re going back, right? The only weapon I have is a .38 hideout on my right ankle.”
Murdock grinned. “My .38 is on my left ankle. Damn right we’re going back. We don’t leave any of our own behind, and right now those two are part of our operation.”
Murdock turned the boat around, and they came up slowly to the marina and docked at the first slip. The Arab yacht was in the second tier of slips. There was no easy way to get to the target. It was big enough that the bridge looked out over most of the other boats, which made for a perfect lookout spot.
The SEALs surveyed the problem and both agreed. They would go down the first line of slips. Drop into the water between boats, and cross over to the other line of slips so they could come in at the stern of the target.
“They shouldn’t be watching in that direction even if they think we might come back,” Murdock said. “Hell, we’re wet anyway. What’s a little more water.”
They met two boat people going down the first row of slips, but nobody was around to see them slide into the water between two fifty-foot sailboats. They did a heads-up crawl across the narrow channel between the slips, and came up on the stern of the Sundowner. She was tied up on the port side. There was no good access on the starboard. With the deck four feet above the slip planks, the SEALs had room to lift up on the slip beside the hull of the craft and stay out of sight of anyone on board. They did. Murdock stood up and looked across the deck. They were aft, and he could see only the walkway along the cabin and the door leading inside. He looked to the stern and found no guard or lookout.
A diversion. On the slip were two buckets half filled with water and with washing gear nearby. Murdock pointed to one of the buckets, and Lam pulled it back out of sight.
“Toss it up forward and I’ll be at the steps and try to nail whoever comes out to investigate.” Murdock grabbed the other bucket and dumped out half of the water. He hefted it by the handle and grinned.
The steps on the slip were the movable kind used at many marinas to allow the people to walk up them to board higher-riding boats.
Murdock moved to them, crouching next to the ship, holding the partly filled bucket in his right hand, and nodded. Lam threw the metal bucket high and when it crashed down on the deck, it made a smashing metallic sound. Murdock heard voices from inside; then he heard footsteps come out of the cabin and stop. Murdock surged upward leaping high and swinging his heavy bucket hard just over the rail at the man’s back. It slammed into him, jolting him forward. He fell on his hands and knees, the sub gun clattering out of his hand.
Murdock jolted up the steps and dropped flat on the surprised Arab. He slammed his fist into the man’s cheek twice and saw the Arab pass out. Murdock dropped the man into the water beside the boat, picked up the submachine gun, and moved toward the cabin door.
“What’s going on out there?” someone inside yelled in Arabic. Murdock didn’t respond. Lam crept up the steps, his .38 out. Murdock and Lam surged through the cabin door into a salon twenty feet long with plush furniture, a big-screen TV, and two Arabs sipping drinks. Both looked up in surprise.
“The party’s over,” Murdock said in Arabic. “You, Hamdani, on your feet and take me to where your prisoners are.” The Arab lifted off the couch slowly, then charged Murdock. The SEAL lowered the muzzle and fired one shot into Hamdani’s right leg. The Arab stumbled and went down on the thick carpet. He swore and stood slowly. Murdock frisked him, found a handgun, and tossed it to Lam, who had the second man covered.
Twenty minutes later they had found the prisoners, and had the three Arabs tied and lying on the forward deck. Murdock had fished the first man out of the water. He was alive and swearing. Three official-looking cars drove into the marina, and six men surged down the dock to the slips. Anthony waved, and the Scotland Yard men came on board.
Ten minutes later, the SAS captain, the Yard inspector, and the two SEALs were back in the speedboat patrolling the port. They powered toward the ocean end of the bay as fast as they could. Anthony now had a Yard radio. There had been no sightings of an Arab boat moving toward the ocean. Scotland Yard had the help of four eighty-foot Navy patrol craft that could do thirty knots.
“They say they have spotted only four pleasure craft of any size heading outbound,” Anthony said. “Two American, one French, and one Israeli.”
Murdock laughed. “Yes. Think the way the terrorists would,” he said. “They would figure that if anything went wrong, the Navy would be looking for Arab flag-boats. How to avoid this? Fly a different flag. What would be most ironic? Fly an Israeli flag on the boat with the bomb on board.”
Anthony radioed the idea to his men with the Navy boats.
They liked the logic. “Two cutters are heading for the Israeli boat now. We should know in ten minutes.”
They kicked the boat up to top speed and slanted toward the mouth of the port. Long before they got there, they had a report.
“Yeah, Anthony, you had a good idea. We tracked down the Israeli boat. They saw us coming and tried to run, but we nailed them. We boarded her and found the whole crew and passengers were Arabs. We saw a big splash just before we boarded, and know something went overboard. Below we found two sets of scuba gear and tanks. So we don’t know what happened.”
“Tell him to get an exact spot where they splashed,” Murdock said. “Use a satellite tracking device. Must have one.”
Anthony tried, but they didn’t have anything like a Mugger with them. They got coordinates as closely as they could.
Anthony looked at Murdock.
“They dumped it. Get your Geiger counters out and go over that boat. It’s got to show radiation. First call the SEALs in Crawley. Tell Lieutenant DeWitt to get all the men with their diving gear and outfits for Lam and me, and take the bus to the bay where they were before. A boat will meet them there.”
“You’re going to try to find the bomb in the bay?”
“If it’s there and we have some help, we should be able to give it a good try. Get talking on that radio.”
The Navy had anchored the Arab boat in place and called for the radiation detection team. It was more than an hour before the other SEALs raced up on a British Royal Navy patrol boat. An ensign on the first patrol boat on the scene talked to Murdock by radio.