That sleek, low shape was no pleasure craft, Murdock knew. It was a long, low, dagger-lean "Boghammer Boat," one of some forty high-speed military patrol craft acquired by Iran from Sweden for naval operations in the Gulf. Though not originally armed, they could carry as many as ten or twelve commandoes, armed with machine guns, RPGs, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers. As he studied the group of three Iranians standing in the Boghammer's enclosed pilothouse, he could see at least two pairs of raised binoculars staring back at him.
He hoped none of those men knew Aghasi personally, for the camo paint on his upper lip didn't do much to change the differences in height, weight, or age between Murdock and the Iranian.
It only had to get them close enough.
"Keep her steady," Murdock told Sterling. The Boghammer cut past Beluga's bow, then whipped past the starboard side, throwing up a choppy, froth-edged surge of dirty water as it slowed. Engine growling, the Iranian patrol boat slipped down Beluga's starboard side, crossed astern, and began moving up the port side from aft. Murdock counted eight men aboard, two of them officers, all armed. An American-made M-60 machine gun had been raised on a makeshift mount in the well deck forward of the deckhouse. One of the soldiers nervously fingered the blunt-snouted tube of an RPG-7, a Russian-made weapon almost certainly captured in years past from the Iraqis. Most Iranian military hardware was still American-issue, weapons and gear left over from the days of the Shah.
One of the officers was standing on the Boghammer's afterdeck, a loud-hailer in his hand. Raising it to his lips, he elicited a piercing yowl of feedback, then began calling to Beluga's crew across the narrowing stretch of water.
"What's he saying, Skipper?" Jaybird asked.
"Haven't the faintest idea," Murdock replied. For answer, he raised an arm and waved the Boghammer closer.
At Murdock's command, Jaybird throttled back, bringing the yacht to a near-idle. The Iranian speedboat drifted closer, then closer still. One man stood on the bow, ready to leap across with a line. Another lineman stood aft, while the officer with the loud-hailer took up a position amidships.
"Higgins? Roselli?" Murdock asked, not taking his eyes off the Iranians. "You both ready to go?"
"Sure are, Skipper," Higgins answered from the shadows in Beluga's open companionway.
"Just say the word, Skipper," Roselli added. He was standing by the mainmast now, holding the G-3 in a casually relaxed and non-threatening pose. From the corner of his eye, Murdock could see Jaybird's H&K, tucked safely out of sight below Beluga's port-side gunwale. His own H&K was lying on the deck at his feet.
"Roselli," he said, a stage whisper through smiling, clenched teeth. "You've got the MG forward. Stand ready."
"Az kodawm vawhed hastid?" the Iranian officer demanded, lowering the loud-hailer. He sounded angry, and his dark eyes flashed as he waved it at Murdock. "Kaf kardam!"
Smiling, Murdock shook his head, then gestured for the officer to come on board. Glowering, the Iranian stepped onto the Boghammer's gunwale.
"Now!" Murdock yelled, dropping to the deck, scooping up his H&K, and rolling back to his knees as he brought the weapon to his shoulder. By the mainmast, Roselli whipped the G-3 into firing position and triggered a short, full-auto burst that chopped into the Iranian behind the machine gun and punched him back against the Boghammer's pilothouse windscreen. Murdock sent three rounds slashing into the officer, who tried to complete his leap to the Beluga's afterdeck, faltered, then tumbled into the water between the two boats. Sterling put the Beluga's wheel hard over, sending the larger yacht smashing into the Boghammer's side with a grinding crash.
Murdock shifted targets smoothly, cutting down an Iranian soldier holding a G-3 rifle, then another whose weapon was still slung over his back. Higgins emerged from Beluga's companionway, firing into the Boghammer's pilothouse, while Sterling, armed now, advanced to Beluga's gunwale, firing down into the patrol boat's after well deck.
Murdock estimated that five seconds passed between the first shot and the last. He and Roselli scrambled aboard the Boghammer to bring it under control, checking the bodies sprawled from bow to transom for signs of life. Two badly wounded and unconscious men were dispatched with single shots through their heads. The SEALs were in no position to tend to prisoners.
"Can you run it, Chief?" Murdock asked Roselli as he studied the simple controls in the pilothouse.
"Aw, shit, Lieutenant. I could run this blindfolded. Throttle, gearshift, and wheel... that's all there fuckin' is to it!"
"Good man. I want you to go over this boat with a magnifying glass, okay? Find and fix anything we broke in that firefight."
"Right, Skipper."
Returning to the afterdeck, Murdock crossed back to the Beluga, where Sterling was finishing tying off a stern line, securing the Boghammer to the yacht. "Jaybird!"
"Yeah, Skipper?"
Murdock put one hand on Sterling's sweat-slick shoulder, and with the other pointed west across the water toward the rugged coast of Qeshm. "Looks to me like we might have a beach over there at the foot of those hills. Think this tub has the oomph to haul herself and the speedboat into the shallows?"
"Sure thing, Skipper."
"Do it. If she's too sluggish, Roselli can help from the Boghammer. Higgins!"
"Yessir!"
"You 'n me just got assigned the grunt detail. Let's start hauling our gear over to the Boghammer."
"Aye, aye, Skipper. You get in the 'Hammer and I'll start passing to you, okay?"
"Affirmative."
In the blazing, late-afternoon heat, the two men began moving all of the SEAL weapons and equipment to the smaller boat.
"Looks to me like you've got this thing pretty well thought out," Higgins said, passing a SEAL rebreather across Beluga's rail to Murdock.
"Nah," Murdock replied, taking the SCUBA and stowing it in the Boghammer's aft well deck. "I'm making it all up as we go along."
"Yeah," Higgins said. "I was afraid you were gonna say that."
Murdock decided to take a chance. "So? How do I stack up so far against Lieutenant Cotter?"
Higgins reached for a bundle of swim fins, masks, and weight belts. "Well, I'll tell you, Sir. The L-T'd have had this thing scoped out a week in advance, everything planned down to the last detail. He wasn't one to make it up on the fly, know what I mean?"
"Yup." Murdock suppressed a flash of irritation. He had asked for the comparison.
"But I'll tell you what," Higgins continued. "Whatever plan he'd have come up with, I guarantee you it wouldn't've been this much fun!"
As they continued loading their gear aboard the Boghammer, Murdock wasn't sure whether he'd just been complimented or not.
2115 hours (Zulu +3)
Boghammer patrol boat
Northeastern coast of Qeshm
"Damn," Sterling said as he leaped off the Beluga and onto the Boghammer's after well deck. "I really hate trading this sweet beauty for a stinkpot, skipper!"
"I like the bed-sheet navy too, Jaybird," Murdock replied, casting off the stern line. Beluga rested where she'd been run aground several hours earlier, in a shallow cove several miles from the village of Qeshm at the eastern tip of the island. "But you've gotta admit, she's one of a kind, while this Boghammer is going to be one among forty. And right now, we can't afford to stand out in the crowd!"
"Besides," Higgins said, grinning, "it's kind of nice to be in something that'll give us a bit of speed!"
"Roger that," Murdock said, casting a wary eye toward the darkening sky. An Iranian helicopter droned low over the water several miles to the south, but didn't appear interested in Qeshm. So far they'd been damned lucky. The Boghammer must have been sent out to investigate when the Beluga failed to respond to instructions over the radio; sooner or later, someone ashore was going to realize that the Boghammer had never reported back, and that the Beluga had failed to dock in Bandar Abbas, or wherever they'd been ordered to go. The military bureaucracy any military bureaucracy was slow and cumbersome enough that it would have trouble tracking down a covert team as small as four SEALs in one small boat, and the Iranian bureaucracy was considerably more disorganized than most. Still, Iranian aircraft were bound to spot the yacht sooner or later, and any determined search by patrol boats or helos would discover her resting place on Qeshm Island almost at once.