"Damn it!" a Marine general growled from nearby. "Can't we take those things out?"
"Negative, sir," the technician replied. "All three platforms are dry."
Fire Scout UAVs could and often did mount a pair of detachable munitions pods, each carrying four 2.75-inch Hydra 70 rockets. This battle evidently had been going on for some time, now, and apparently all of the munitions had already been expended.
"How long until help gets there?" a heavyset man in an admiral's uniform demanded. He was Vincent Forsythe of Naval Special Warfare Command, the man ultimately in command of this operation.
"Sierra Foxtrot Four-one is en route, sir," a woman's voice replied. "ETA fifty-three minutes."
The exchange was cool and professional, but Garrett could hear, could feel, the tension growing. American combat personnel, Navy SEALs, were ashore on the southwestern coast of Iran just west of the Straits of Hormuz, near the port of Bandar-e Charak. Operation Black Stallion had been planned and under preparation for months now, rehearsed and rehearsed again until each move unfolded with the precise choreography of a ballet.
But something had gone wrong, terribly wrong, and the dancers were falling.
"Tell Echo Two to get their asses in gear," Admiral Forsythe said. "Echo One is getting cut to pieces."
A moment later they heard the curt reply from the speaker. "Echo Two. We're moving."
Black Stallion consisted of three elements. Two Cyclone-class coastal patrol craft, the Sirocco, PC-6, and the Firebolt, PC-10, lay just offshore, waiting to retrieve the SEALs. The eight men of Echo One had swum ashore from the Sirocco over three hours ago and made their way to the objective, but now were falling back to the beach. Echo Two was a second eight-man SEAL squad deployed off the Firebolt as a rear security element. They were redeploying now to reinforce the hard-pressed Echo One, but it would be minutes more before they could enter the fight.
And even when they did, how would it help? Sixteen men, three of them wounded, against what looked like a battalion-strength force — six or eight hundred men at least. SEALs were the world's premier special operations force, but they were not frontline troops to be thrown away in a pitched, stand-up battle. An old maxim of special ops declared that any covert mission ending in gunfire was a failure; the idea was to get in, do the deed, and get out undetected.
"What else do we have in the AO?" Garrett asked Berkowitz, whispering. "What backup?"
"Nothing at the beach but the PBCs," Berkowitz admitted. "The Kitty Hawk is outside the Straits of Hormuz… five hundred miles away. And the Pittsburgh is transiting the straits now. About forty miles."
Garrett's mouth twitched in a sudden grin. The Pittsburgh, SSN-720, had been his first command ten years ago. She was a Los Angeles-class attack boat, swift, silent, and deadly, currently assigned to the Kitty Hawk's battle group.
"Whose skippering the 'Burgh?"
"Jack Creighton, sir."
"Good. A good man."
One of the civilians, a young man with thick-framed glasses, appeared to notice Garrett for the first time. "What is he doing here?"
"This is Captain Garrett," Berkowitz said. "NAVLITWAR."
The man glanced at the gold dolphins on Garrett's breast, pinned just above the ranks of brightly colored ribbons — his "fruit salad."
"Sub driver?"
"Used to be, sir," Garrett replied evenly. "Now I drive a desk."
"Uh. Welcome to the club." The man returned his attention to the screen.
"Echo Two, Echo Two! We are engaging the enemy!"
"That's Paul Myers," Berkowitz told Garrett. "National Security Advisor."
Garrett was impressed. The National Security Council, or NSC, was the advisory body within the executive branch of government responsible for assessing all risks, objectives, and commitments related to the U.S. military. Its day-to-day activities were run by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs — better known as the National Security Advisor—this man, though he didn't appear old enough to have the ear of the President himself. If Paul Myers was here, watching Black Stallion unfold on these monitors in real-time, this was a very important operation indeed.
It also meant that some of the civilians in the room, at least, were security personnel — possibly Secret Service, possibly CIA. One or two, likely, were with Central Intelligence, which had a hand in staffing the NSC.
Garrett was beginning to realize just how hot Black Stallion actually was.
Wolfe raised himself to a half crouch, knocking down two more Pasdaran guardsmen with tight-grouped bursts from his H&K. "Echo Two, One-one!" he called. "Hold your position on the ridge and give us cover!"
"One-one, Two-one, copy," Chief Hadley replied. "Get your asses out of there."
At the moment, Wolf and EM1 Brown were providing cover for Jordan, Creston, and Dole as they carried Johnson, Applebee, and Miller to the beach. Two men against hundreds; they wouldn't be able to hold on much longer.
Especially, Wolfe thought as he dropped an empty 9mm magazine and snapped a fresh one home, with ammo running low. The team had gone in with a light load-out, just eight mags—240 rounds — per man. Reconnaissance operations weren't supposed to end in prolonged firefights. After this one, he had one loaded magazine left.
Gunfire cracked and rattled from the ridge to the west, echoing off the boulders and steep-sided gullies. All of the SEALs carried sound-suppressed weapons, so the racket was all from the hostiles — AK-47s, to judge from the distinctive flat crack they made when they fired. The bad guys were pressing hard. At least they hadn't launched any more rocket-propelled grenades at the retreating SEALs, though that respite, he was sure, would not last for much longer.
"Hey, Wheel," EM1 Brown called from a few feet to his left, using SEAL slang for the platoon CO. "I'm almost dry."
"Same here. Move upslope to the left. We'll try to join with Echo Two, give the others a chance to reach the beach."
"Roger that."
The mission was screwed, a cluster-fuck from minute one. Right now, Wolfe had just two tactical priorities to worry about — getting his unit as a whole out of this trap, and getting the three wounded men back to the boats. The situation was fast developing into a SEAL unit commander's worst nightmare. The Team could break contact with the enemy and E&E back to the beach rendezvous, could even split up, every man for himself, to better slip through the closing Pasdaran trap and get to the sea.
But the three wounded men were slowing them down. Jordan, Creston, and Dole could only move so fast carrying their injured teammates, and they couldn't defend themselves while they moved. Either what was left of Det Echo had to provide cover for them until they reached the beach, providing a rough defensive perimeter along the ridge to the west, or they had to leave the wounded behind and run for it.
And, damn it, SEALs never left their own behind.
Never!