Murdock grabbed the speargun and fired for his legs. The steel ten-inch dart dug into the man’s right thigh and put him down. Murdock swung around and caught the man with the knife bearing in again. Murdock’s knife came up and sliced the attacker’s bare arm. Then he spun around and slashed again, drawing blood across the man’s chest. The attacker screamed and ran into the darkness.
The man with the baseball bat knelt on the ground holding his right wrist.
“Bastard, you broke my wrist,” he shrilled. Then he stood, holding his wrist, and ran toward the street. Murdock moved up to the man with the spear in his thigh. The man held up both hands.
“No more,” he said. “Christ, but that hurts. Damn speargun? You some kind of one-man army?”
“Something like that. Right now you’ve got a date with the local sheriff.”
“Hell, no, take me to the hospital, I’m bleeding.”
“You’ll bleed more if you give me any trouble. Get in the rig and shut your face.”
The man with the dart in his leg looked at Murdock’s stern expression and the KA-BAR knife he waved around. He nodded and crawled in the Explorer.
Fifteen minutes later at the Sheriff’s Department headquarters, Murdock, two detectives, and the sheriff questioned the man.
“Three of you came after me,” Murdock said. “Why?”
“Hell, we figured you’d have a wallet and some cash and maybe steal your car. We needed some loot to make a score.”
“You waited for me when there were twenty guys in the campground you could have rolled. I don’t buy it.”
The sheriff moved up. “Your ID shows you’re J. J. Martin. Look, Martin, we can get you to the hospital just as soon as you tell us who hired you to beat up Murdock. We found the brand-new hundred-dollar bill hidden in your wallet. A bum like you couldn’t hold on to a C note for ten minutes. Who hired you?”
“Just waiting for this dude to come back to his—”
One of the deputies slapped Martin with his open hand and knocked him off his chair. He wailed in pain. They sat him back on the chair.
Sheriff Kirkendol grinned. “Did you like that, J. J.? We’ve got lots more where that came from. Now. Nice and slow. Who paid you the hundred clams to beat up on the diver coming out of the water on Goleta Point?”
J. J. looked at the sheriff, then at the big deputy, who was opening his fist and closing it.
“Aw, hell, not worth getting beat up for. Don’t know a name. Some guy in The Pelican, that dark little bar on Fourth Street. He paid us a hundred each to find this diver and smash him up. Never saw the guy before.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“Oh, hell, no. He had a hat on pulled down low and shades on in the bar. Could have been almost anybody. Now can I get to see a doctor?”
“You want to press charges of assault and battery with a lethal weapon?” the sheriff asked Murdock.
“Too much bother.”
The sheriff turned to a deputy. “Take him to the emergency room and dump him off. No charges. And be sure that hundred-dollar bill is still in his billfold.”
When the wounded man had left, Murdock and the sheriff sat alone in the interrogation room.
“So, did you get to the tower?” the sheriff asked.
“Oh, yes. I’m sure they have some kind of sonar protection around the tower so they can spot boats or swimmers coming in. I don’t know how they do it. They put three armed divers in the water to greet me. One of them is going to be sleeping with the fishes tonight, another one has a speargun dart in his upper chest, and the third one swam away.”
“Thirteen,” Sheriff Kirkendol said.
“What?”
“That must be the thirteenth man you’ve killed. Glad that’s out of my jurisdiction. Did you find anything out there?”
“I can’t tell you, not until I tell some other people. But I thank you for your help. I’m heading back to San Diego.”
“Just like that?”
“It’s a federal case, Sheriff. I’ve got to report it. If we can give you any help on your case, we will. Right now I’m due back in the squad room down in Coronado. Thanks for your help. Don’t worry, I’ll clean up the blood that good old J. J. got on my Explorer.”
“Federal? Murdock, I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Just don’t talk about that other oil rig out there. Something should be happening soon. You take care now.”
It was almost midnight when Murdock gassed his Explorer and headed out for home. Three hours, maybe three-and-a-half drive time to get down to Coronado. Shouldn’t be any traffic this time of night, and if he pushed it a little, he might get in some sleep tonight before calling Don Stroh at 0600. If he was lucky the spook would be in his office by 0900 Washington, D.C., time. Murdock pictured the solid structure built on the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel about two miles offshore. What in hell was it? Who put it down there? What could it possibly be used for? Why would the protectors kill anyone snooping around? He wanted some answers, and he knew Don Stroh would too.
5
At 0615 Murdock stormed through the Quarter Deck, waved at the night watch still on duty, and hurried to his small office in SEAL Team Seven, Third Platoon. He picked up the unsecure phone and dialed the number of Don Stroh at his CIA office in Arlington, Virginia. The spook answered on the fourth ring.
“Yeah, I’m here but I’m not awake. Haven’t even had my coffee yet. What’s up?”
“Good morning to you too, Super Spook. You know my voice. This is not a secure line. Get your SATCOM out and warmed up. I’ll be calling you in ten minutes on something important.”
“Murdock, you’re drunk again, right? What the hell is this? A secure line. When do we use a secure line?”
“Almost always, like when I catch more eatable fish than you do. Get somebody who can run a SATCOM for you and get it tuned in and turned on. Fifteen minutes. Be there. I’ve got to find my SATCOM.”
“You’re not joking.”
“I never joke when I have to get up after three hours of sleep. Now get cracking.” Murdock hung up, went to the equipment storage closets, and took out one of three SATCOMs they used. He set it up in his office with the dish antenna pointing out the window. He had to open the window to get it to give off the beep to show it was properly aligned with one of the satellites. Then he checked his watch. His stopwatch dial showed eight minutes had elapsed since he’d talked with Stroh. At twelve minutes he turned on the set, heard the beep again, and pushed the send button on the handset.
“Don Stroh in D.C. Murdock calling.”
He waited a moment, and then a voice came back that wasn’t Don Stroh.
“Yes, Don Stroh’s office here. We’re just set up and working. Here’s Mr. Stroh.”
“Don, record this, you’ll want to refer to it. Have your recorder ready?”
“Yes, go ahead. What in hell do you have?”
Murdock sketched in his long day in Santa Barbara, including his fight with the three divers. He told about finding the structure on the channel floor.
“Somebody with a lot of resources is doing something off that oil platform besides drilling. Figured you’d want to know. I’m telling my boss here as soon as he gets on board. You didn’t hear this from me. Let’s see what happens going up the chain of command.”
“Sounds ominous. They killed two men who tried to check on the underwater, including one ex-SEAL?”
“Right. That’s why I went to take a look. It’s in your hands now. I want to write up a report for Masciareli. You’ve got it on your end.”
“Good enough. We’ll get something on it, then contact the chain and see where we go. I’m out of here.”