“Yes, sir, Commander. We saw the splash. I figure the ship here moved about forty to fifty yards downstream before we got her stopped and anchored. Best we can do.”
“Did you see any divers go in the water?”
“No, didn’t see any. We watched her close after that splash.”
“Good. Now one more question. Does the Royal Navy have a minesweeper in port? Anything that can search the bottom of the harbor here for metal?”
“I see what you mean. I don’t know. I’ll call the admiral and ask him at once.”
“One more thing. Can you anchor one of your patrol boats over the spot where we think the splash occurred?”
“That I can do right now. You diving?”
“As soon as we can get where you are.”
The Navy patrol boat that picked the rest of the SEALs up at Pier 12 rushed them to the spot, which was toward the outer part of the London harbor. The Navy team on board the Arab yacht found definite traces of radiation on deck in three places.
Murdock put down Alpha Squad first. “We want a complete search. On the bottom we’ll go hand-in-hand and make sure we don’t miss anything. Not sure of the visibility, but it’ll be better now than tonight. Over the side.”
The harbor at this point was only about sixty feet deep. The new Draegrs automatically adjusted the air/nitrogen mix so they could stay down at that depth for extended lengths of time.
Murdock stared ahead through the murky water. There wasn’t enough river flow to really clean out the harbor. They were over a mile from the North Sea, so that didn’t help. He stumbled over something in the muck of the bottom, kicked it, and saw an old piece of what could have been an aircraft wing. Maybe a wartime Spitfire that didn’t quite make it back to the airdrome.
They crisscrossed the area for an hour, then swam to the surface. Murdock went back down with Bravo Squad and Lieutenant DeWitt.
After a two-hour search the SEALs came up for a breather in the clean air.
The ensign reported that they had no minesweeper ready for work in the area. The closest one was in Portsmouth. It would need twelve hours to get under way, then another six hours to get on site.
Anthony came on board. “We have been questioning everyone on that Arab ship and can’t get a thing out of any of them. It’s a pleasure cruise. They know nothing about any bomb on board. I do get the idea that two of the people who were on board are not there now. One woman let slip a name, another woman another name, and neither one is on the passenger list.”
Murdock frowned. “They wouldn’t just dump the bomb and forget it,” he said. “They had to have a fallback plan. Dump it overboard with a neutral flotation device. Put two divers in the water with it and they could swim it to shore or to another boat.”
“It didn’t come to another small pleasure craft,” the ensign said. “We’ve been monitoring everything that comes in or out of port ever since we saw the splash.”
“Then it has to be the shore. Ensign, can you haul anchor and get us to the closest landfall to this point?”
“Aye, can do, Commander.”
Five minutes later, the SEALs kicked out of their flippers, shrugged out of their Draegrs, and stepped on shore. The area was only partly built up, with a series of mud flats and shallow water. It took only a half hour of working both ways along the shore from their landing point for the SEALs to find the track.
Some large object had been pushed, dragged, then looked like it had been rolled through the soft mud flat for fifty yards to a now-and-then dirt road that meandered around the mud flats. More footprints showed in the mud near the roadway. Then they found tire tracks. By that time there were a dozen Scotland Yard men all over the place.
“Pickup with a lift gate would work here,” Murdock said. “They roll it on the lift gate and if it’s strong enough, it lifts the bomb up and into the body, where it’s braced and they simply drive away.”
A shout went up six hundred yards inland. Anthony, on his radio, asked what they had found. He listened and grinned.
“Some luck after all. The blokes ran into a muddy spot they couldn’t get through with the pickup. Mired down to the rear axle. They left the pickup. We have license plates to check. The boys up there say looks like they off-loaded something into a larger truck, probably with four-wheel drive and lots of engine. They’ve had four hours to get it out of here.”
The SEALs jogged up to the transfer point. Anthony went with them, and said the Yard had checked the license plate and had a home address on the pickup owner. Two teams were on the way to talk to the owner. The SEALs and Anthony followed the road out of the flats and to the first paved road. An old man with a dog on a leash stood there watching.
“Ain’t been this much activity around here since that Spitfire crashed into the flats during the winter of ’43. What the hell happened out there?”
“Nothing you need to know,” Anthony told him.
Murdock smiled at the old man. “What kind of a dog?”
“Terrier. I used to show him before he got too old like me.”
“You live nearby?”
He pointed. “About twenty rods that way. Strange. First two men ran up the road and to a phone, I’d guess, on the corner two blocks down. Then the pickup came. Got me curious.”
“The men who ran up the road. What did they look like?”
“By then I’d come out with Roger here and walking. Seen them up close. A-rabs, no doubt. Then a big truck came. Had huge tires and a cab high off the ground. Even had some kind of a crane on the back, you know, to pick up things with.
“I came back not ten minutes later. By then I was real curious. Wrote down the make of the truck. It was an Atlas, and the license place was Atlas 44. Remember that. One of them personalized or maybe business kind of plates.”
Anthony had stayed to listen; he gave Murdock a thumbs-up and took out his radio. He moved away and talked. The SEALs waited.
He returned grinning. “Yes! Atlas is a producer of specialized trucks, fairly small operation. Their trucks all have license plates from Atlas l to Atlas 234. Atlas 44 is owned by a man with a small business and we have his address. We have cars coming over here we can use to make a raid on the place. Want to come along?”
The SEALs all had their MP-5’s, which had been slung over their backs during the search. They had worn their combat harness loaded with the usual combat essentials, and were ready to kick ass. They jammed into six cars that arrived and sped away.
It was a two-hour drive to find the place. It was just north of London near the small town of Hertford. The sun had set sometime before and Murdock’s watch showed just after 2045. The cars stopped a block away, and Scotland Yard set up a command post. They had twelve Yard men and the sixteen SEALs.
“Your firepower is better than ours,” said Anthony, who was in charge of the operation. “We’ll have you surrounding the place, but be careful you don’t shoot any friendlies.”
The main building was about twice the size of a good house. It had two windows in front, two sedans parked out front, and a truck with a crane attached at one side.
“We’ll put two flash-bangs through the windows, then smash down the front door and charge inside,” Anthony said.
“Inspector Anthony, did you bring those lead blankets?” Murdock asked.
Anthony nodded. “Indeed we did. In one of the cars. We’ll bring it up close. Any other questions?”
“We won’t fire unless some bad guys come boiling out the back doors,” Murdock said. “Single shots only.”
They deployed. Murdock was with Alpha squad in front of the building. He watched the flash-bang grenades blast inside, and at the same time two big Scotland Yard men hit the front door of the place with a leaded battering ram and the door caved in. Six Yard men boiled through the smashed-open door. Murdock heard four shots, then all was silent. Anthony came out and signaled to a car, which drove up directly to the front door. Three men carried the lead blankets into the building.