The bridge arrangement of modern merchant ships had become more and more complex over the past decade, until they resembled something out of a science-fiction movie, but Murdock had been carefully briefed on the control systems layout of Yuduki Maru's main console. At the extreme right of the main panel, next to a machinery monitoring station, was a terminal and display screen, the freighter's cargo-monitoring console. He checked to see that the display was on, entered some memorized commands on the keyboard, then studied the glowing display of characters and graphics that filled the screen.
The characters were Japanese ideographs, but he'd been shown what to look for on the graphics, and what he saw was immensely reassuring. Yuduki Maru's cargo, stored in holds one and two, was still secure. Radiation levels in the hold were normal, there was no indication that the automated wash-down foam had been triggered, and all of the cargo hold seals were listed as intact. Apparently, no one had even tried to enter the cargo holds, and that lifted an enormous weight from Murdock's shoulders. One of several worst-case scenarios discussed back at Little Creek was the possibility that the terrorists had mined or booby-trapped the cargo.
If they hadn't been into the cargo hold, they couldn't have tampered with the plutonium.
But Murdock was taking no chances. Still working by rote, he entered another string of keyboard commands, and watched as the characters on the screen shifted from Kanji characters to English. With the United States insisting on a say in the security of the plutonium, the freighter's computer security had been programmed with both Japanese and English access, and the SEALs had been given the appropriate codes before the mission. He waited as a new screen came up, then began typing in a series of memorized commands.
After another pause, the results of his work flashed onto the screen and he nodded his satisfaction. The plutonium holds were now under an emergency lock-down. Only a password that Murdock had just typed into the security system Jaybird would allow access. If the SEAL squad was wiped out in the next few moments and the Iranians regained control of the bridge, they would be unable to get past the security overrides. Eventually, they might be able to break the code, bypass the security lock-down, or cut their way in through the weather deck and rifle the cargo by brute force, but all of those attempts would take both time and special equipment not available out here in the middle of the Indian Ocean. "Lieutenant?" Ellsworth said. He was crouched by the door at the back of the bridge through which the SEALs had burst moments before. "I think we're about to have company."
"On my way." He switched off the computer monitor, then hurried across the deck to where Doc was waiting.
Now everything was up to MacKenzie down in the engineering room.
2324 hours (Zulu +3)
Engine room access
Freighter Yuduki Maru
MacKenzie had led Garcia and Higgins down two levels, to what on a Navy vessel would have been called the third deck, somewhere close to the freighter's waterline. The passageway led fore and aft; forward, according to the deck plans and model the SEALs had studied, lay the cargo holds that please God! should be locked and secured. That, however, was the Lieutenant's responsibility. Three men could not secure Yuduki Maru's cargo, but Murdock ought to be able to check it and lock it down from the bridge.
Instead, Mac led the way aft, toward the freighter's engine room. Somewhere ahead, a steel door clanged open. A moment later, a Japanese merchant sailor appeared, wearing shorts and a white T-shirt, running blindly down the passageway. An instant later he caught sight of the SEALS, of their black faces, menacing garb, and weapons, and he nearly collided with a bulkhead trying to stop.
"Tomare!" Higgins called. "Halt!" Several of the SEALs were fluent in more than one other language, but he was the only one in the platoon who spoke Japanese. The seaman took a step back.
"Chikayore!" Higgins snapped. "Come forward." Reluctantly, the man complied.
In seconds, they had the seaman on his face, his wrists cuffed with plastic ties behind his back, his ankles tied together. Higgins spoke to him, his voice coaxing. The hostage answered back, gesturing back down the passageway with his head and with rolling eyes. "What's he say, Prof?"
"Okay, he says he's just a member of the crew," Higgins replied. "Says there's always a couple of Iranians on guard in the engine room. He also says something's got 'em pretty well stirred up right now. He decided to git while the gittin' was good."
MacKenzie nodded curtly. "Let's put 'em down then."
Leaving the seaman lying in the passageway, the SEALs headed for the engine room. The door was closed but unlocked, opening to Garcia's push.
Inside, a railed platform overlooked the engine room, a claustrophobic compartment filled with monstrous shapes: reduction gears, condensers, generators, and massive steam turbines like green-painted prehistoric monsters embedded in the ribbed, gleaming steel decks.
An Iranian soldier shouted warning as MacKenzie burst through the open door. The SEAL chief triggered a short burst from his H&K and the man went down, his AKM clattering off one of the engine housings and onto the deck. Another soldier lunged for cover, shouting something in Farsi. Garcia leaned into the railing and fired once... twice. The Iranian clawed at his back, then dropped to the deck. For a long moment, MacKenzie held his position, swinging his H&K's muzzle left and right, searching for further movement. Nothing.
"Secure the door," MacKenzie told Garcia. "Prof, you're with me."
A steep metal ladder led from the platform down to the main engineering deck. MacKenzie, his H&K strapped to his combat harness, grabbed the railings and rode them twelve feet to the steel grating below. The engine room throbbed with the pulse of confined power, and in the distance aft, connecting with the turbines, he could see the ponderous revolutions of the reduction gears turning Yuduki Maru's paired propeller shafts.
Mac and Prof carried out a lightning inspection of the engineering deck, checking the bodies and searching for tangos missed during their entry. They found no more terrorists, but they did discover four terrified Japanese crewmen hiding behind a massive generator mounting. MacKenzie covered them while Higgins tied their wrists, led them to the forward end of the compartment, where he tied their ankles as well, and then began questioning them.
"Shit, Mac," Higgins said, joining him again after a few moments. "These people all say there's forty or fifty bad guys on board! Some Japanese tangos, plus a shitload of Iranians!"
"I was beginning to get that idea." MacKenzie looked forward, past the humming hulks of the freighter's turbines. There were three doors in the forward bulkhead, two high up and to either side, and a third in the middle and on the same level as the engineering deck, leading forward to the boiler room. Garcia was still on the starboard side platform, guarding the door and watching over the engine room. The four civilians, tied hand and foot, lay on the deck next to the boiler room door.
Tactically, the SEALs simply could not now continue the mission as originally planned. Though SEALs liked to boast of a ten-to-one or better kill ratio in combat, there was no way, realistically, that the seven of them could face an unknown but very large force of heavily armed Iranians now thoroughly aroused and hostile Iranians and win. Despite the popular fictional image of SEALs as Rainboesque commandos who routinely took on impossible odds, the Teams were not suicide squads and they did not attempt hopeless missions. Their training, their experience, and their hard-won skills were too valuable to throw away in empty, heroic gestures. "Hammer Six," he called. "This is One."
"One, Six. Copy."
"Echo Romeo secure. But Skipper, it's not gonna be secure for long. I've got some locals here who tell me we've just stepped smack in the cow patty big time."