“… They did it!” Paul Kohler whooped, sounding very much like Razor Roselli.
Miguel Fernandez, whom the platoon called Rattler in honor of his favorite cuisine during desert operations, stared at the screen and wondered which one of his friends was dead.
Don Stroh had a handset up to his mouth, and was passing the news over a satellite link to the operations center at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The major was on an internal ship’s phone giving the word to his pilots waiting in the ready room.
Stroh put down the handset and picked up another one that connected to the ship’s Combat Operations Center. “Is it still there?” he asked. “Okay, thanks.” He hung the phone up. “We’ve got a real problem.” He turned to the communicator. “I want you to send, ‘WAIT ONE STOP STAND BY FOR MESSAGE END,’” he ordered.
“Aye, aye, sir,” the sailor replied.
A Russian Sovremenny-class destroyer had shown up in the area about a half hour before, attracted to the Washington and trying to discover what she was doing. Intelligence photographers shooting through night-vision equipment had been lined up on her rails the whole time. The Russians had been going through one of their we’re-a-great-power hypernationalistic phases lately, and had been causing more mischief than they had in years.
The presence of the destroyer meant the Washington couldn’t launch the helicopters without permission.
“If only we’d gotten that message an hour ago,” the major lamented.
“The COC says we can lose her,” said Stroh. “But the Navy can’t do that, get back into helicopter range, and go to flight quarters all before daylight.”
“Then we have to launch anyway,” said the major. “Screw the Russians.”
Fernandez was glad the major had said that because otherwise he would have had to. And one of the facts of life was that majors got more favorable hearing than first-class petty officers.
“We can’t do that without permission from Langley,” said Kohler.
“Well, fucking get it then,” Fernandez blurted out. Heads turned and all eyes fell on him, and he added rather lamely, “Sir.”
Well used to SEALS, Don Stroh only chuckled. “I’m going to do just that, Miguel.”
The communicator handed him the handset to Langley, and he explained the situation in detail. After Stroh finished he listened for quite a while. His face darkness. “I’d like to point out, sir,” he said, “that if any SEALs are captured, the mission will be even more compromised than it would be by the sighting of a few helicopters. Any number of cover stories could explain that away.”
Fernandez’s stomach turned to ice.
Stroh listened some more. “Yes, sir, their equipment is sterile, but that won’t matter if the Syrians get a chance to go to work on them.” More listening. “Yes, sir, we will stand by, but allow me to remind you that our launch window is closing rapidly. Yes, sir.” He gave the handset back to the communicator. “They’re going to get back to us.”
“The fuck!” Fernandez said fiercely. “The dirty work is done, so now no one gives a shit anymore.”
One of the Navy intelligence officers seemed on the verge of having words with Fernandez, then perhaps thought better of it.
“I can launch at any time,” the major said. “I’m willing to launch right now,” he added pointedly.
Don Stroh just shrugged helplessly and shook his head.
The minutes ticked off. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. The tension in the room was unbearable.
“Sir,” the communicator said, giving the handset over to Stroh.
“Yes, sir,” Stroh said into the handset. There was conversation on the other end, and Stroh finally broke in to protest, “Yes, sir, but we have no idea what the situation on the ground is right now … sir, I don’t care where the order came from, this is murder. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I understand perfectly.” Stroh gave the handset back to the communicator. “We don’t launch while the Russian ship is here,” he told them. “So that means the earliest we can launch is after dusk. Tonight.”
“They got to sit out there all day?” Fernandez shouted.
“Well, screw that,” said the major. “I’m launching right now. I’ll take the responsibility.”
Fernandez could have French-kissed him — and an officer at that.
Another phone rang, and it was handed over to Don Stroh. “Yes? Yes, Captain? You did? Very well, thank you.” He hung up. “The Captain just got a flash message from Washington. No Army helicopters will be launched until End of Evening Nautical Twilight. Tonight.”
“Those bastards don’t miss a trick, do they?” Fernandez asked bitterly. If they had turned the major down he’d been considering pulling his pistol and making some demands. Now even that wouldn’t work. “I’ll tell you something. You all better make out your wills, ‘cause you do this to Razor Roselli and I wouldn’t put odds on your life expectancy once he gets back.”
“I’d be glad to have Razor take a shot at me, as long as we get him back,” said Stroh. He sounded completely worn out. “Be that as it may, now we have to sit down and put together a message to the SEALS.”
25
The light on the keypad blinked. Murdock and Razor were both huddled over the tiny display.
“What the fuck took them so long?” Razor whispered in Murdock’s ear. “They bring in Shakespeare to compose the fucking message?”
Murdock reached over and hit the button to review the message.
They watched eagerly as it ran across the narrow strip window of the display:
UNABLE TO LAUNCH AIRCRAFT STOP CANNOT LAUNCH IN DAYLIGHT STOP REMAIN HIDDEN OR ESCAPE AND EVADE AT YOUR DISCRETION STOP WILL LAUNCH ON ORDER ANY TIME AFTER EENT 11 NOV STOP SORRY STOP ORDERS STOP GOOD LUCK END
Razor couldn’t believe it, and reviewed the message again.
Murdock felt like he’d been kicked in the balls.
Razor took a moment to regain his composure, then whispered, “Well, this has to be the best fucking I’ve ever taken, bar none.”
“I think I’m finally starting to get a handle on the drawbacks to working for the CIA,” Murdock whispered back to him.
“Fuck ‘em,” Razor whispered. “We’ll get our own selves out.”
“Acknowledge the transmission,” Murdock told Higgins. “And don’t tell them to go fuck themselves.”
“Roger that, sir,” the Professor replied. “I’ll keep it professional.”
With that, as might be expected sitting in the Lebanese woods with dawn approaching, it was back to business.
Murdock crawled to each man and gave him a whispered briefing. They were SEALS, so no one went hysterical. At first some of them thought Murdock was playing a really bad joke. Then there were a few whispered oaths, followed by a general shrugging of shoulders, as if all that could be expected from the powers that be was a good hard shot up the ass anyway. The SEALs knew what kind of situation they were in but, since they were SEALS, it was the kind of situation they expected to find themselves in.
Murdock briefed them because they needed, deserved to know. And because, as usual, they picked his morale right back up. Jaybird Sterling wanted to know if it meant an extra day of combat pay. Murdock said only if it went past midnight the next day. Jaybird then asked if the lieutenant would take that into consideration in his planning, since he was thinking of buying a motorcycle.
Then Murdock, Razor, and DeWitt pulled a poncho over their heads, turned on a flashlight, and broke out their maps for an impromptu conference.
“Let’s get the hard stuff out of the way first,” said Razor. “We have to leave Kos here.”