Kurebayashi did not wait to identify the attacker, did not even pause to analyze what had just happened. Dropping straight to the landing on the steps, he rolled onto his back, dragging his AKM around as he fell. Shadows flitted across the top of the companionway. Someone was up there in the passageway over his head, moving toward the bridge.
Carefully, he raised his rifle, waiting for a target to move into his line of sight.
0126 hours (Zulu +3)
Bridge access passageway
Freighter Yuduki Maru
Chucker Wilson studied the passageway ahead, empty now save for the bodies of the two Iranians sprawled on the deck beneath twin smears of scarlet on the bulkhead they'd been leaning against. The bridge door between them was closed, and there'd been no sign that anyone on the other side of that massive steel bulkhead had heard.
Lieutenant Murdock slapped his shoulder; it had been swift-triggered three-round bursts from their H&Ks that had brought down the guards. And now the way was clear. At their backs, Lieutenant j.g. DeWitt and Jaybird Sterling stood up, getting ready to advance.
Captain Coburn had been right. Wilson knew he wasn't cut out for any job with the fleet, anymore than he was cut out for a job as a civilian. It was good to be back with the Team again, back where he belonged.
Murdock started toward the bridge door, and Wilson followed, four feet behind.
Somewhere in the back of Wilson's mind, an alarm bell was going off. Something was wrong.
0126 hours (Zulu +3)
Bridge access ladder
Freighter Yuduki Maru
Kurebayashi could hear the footsteps moving across the deck, soft and muffled, but identifiable nonetheless as stealthy footsteps. In another two seconds, the American commando this must be the work of the Yankee SEALs would be visible through the open companionway at the top of the steps.
Ever so slightly, his finger tightened on his AKM's trigger.
0126 hours (Zulu +3)
Bridge access passageway
Freighter Yuduki Maru
Wilson knew what had set off the mental alarms. The L-T was advancing toward the bridge door, his H&K held stiffly in front of him with the muzzle covering the door and the two bodies. In a moment, he would step past a companionway, the rail-guarded opening in the deck giving access to a ship's ladder and the next deck down.
And Murdock's attention was so completely focused on the bridge door, he didn't appear to even be aware of the companionway. If there was someone down there, out of sight but ready with a weapon...
There was no time for finesse or even for a radioed warning. With the telescoping butt stock of his own H&K already pressed high against his shoulder, Wilson lunged forward, shoving past a startled Murdock, pivoting sharply to face into the open companionway.
There was someone down there, sprawled on the landing with an assault rifle already raised. Wilson squeezed his trigger as the muzzle flash from the other weapon obscured the enemy soldier's face. His H&K's sound-suppressed burst mingled with the bone-rattling crack-crack-crack of an AKM; he felt something pluck at his thigh, felt something else nudge him hard in the side, but he held his stance, triggering two more quick three-round bursts. The guy on the landing jerked sharply as though kicked, rolled to one side trying to rise, then shuddered and collapsed. Only then did Wilson notice that he was Japanese.
MacKenzie, with his big M-60 slung around his neck, and Bearcat Holt appeared on the landing moments later, probing the body for signs of life.
"That's a dead tango," MacKenzie said, but the words sounded far away and muffled.
Murdock helped Wilson to the deck. "Son of a bitch, Chucker," Murdock whispered harshly in his ear. "Did you think I was going to leave my back open?"
It was only then dawning on Wilson that he'd been hit. There was still no pain, but his side felt numb, as though he'd taken an injection there full of novocaine, and his leg felt hot, sticky, and wet.
"Thought... you weren't gonna check your tail." Holt knelt at Wilson's side and began breaking out a first-aid dressing. Gunfire exploded in the distance.
"That tears it," Murdock said. "We're out in the open now."
"Okay!" DeWitt snapped. "Let's hit the bridge!" Wilson wondered why everyone sounded so very far away.
0126 hours (Zulu +3)
Forward deck
Freighter Yuduki Maru
As the first chatter of automatic weapons fire echoed across the freighter's deck, a SEAL fire team was just moving into position beneath the ladder on the starboard side of the ship's superstructure forward. Chief Ben Kosciuszko and Rattler Fernandez just had time to take cover behind a wooden crate on the deck when the gunfire from topside brought all work forward to an immediate halt.
Someone yelled a warning in Farsi, and then soldiers with readied weapons were trotting aft toward the deckhouse. Kosciuszko eased his M-60 around and squeezed the trigger. Full-auto thunder pounded across the steel deck, hammering down three of the lead Pasdaran soldiers and scattering the rest.
Fernandez raised his M203, sighting at the clutter of propane tanks and cutting equipment stacked up in the center of the deck.
"Hey, Chief," Fernandez yelled above the M-60's thunder. "This ship has pretty thick decks, right?"
"Ten inches of steel, Rattler. I don't think you can hurt 'em with your toy."
"Let's find out, man." He triggered the 203, which loosed its 40mm grenade with a hollow-sounding thump. The projectile slammed into an acetylene tank and detonated; the entire front half of the ship lit up in a savage, yellow glare, as white flames clawed at the sky. Men were screaming, lying prone and pounding on the deck as flames ate their backs, or running madly to escape their own blazing clothing and skin.
The survivors, completely demoralized, ran for cover or dove headlong over the railing, preferring the cool black of the water to being burned alive on deck.
A single automatic rifle barked challenge from the bow, and Kosciuszko opened up in reply.
0126 hours (Zulu +3)
Fuel-dock
Bandar Abbas shipyard
Gunfire exploded in the night, full-auto bursts cracking across the black water from the direction of the Yuduki Maru. From their vantage point in the stinking mud beneath the shore end of the fuel pier dock, Coburn could see tiny figures running along the freighter's forward deck, or on the pier at the ship's port side. It looked like all hell had broken out aboard the Japanese freighter, with flames engulfing part of the deck halfway between the bow and the superstructure, accompanied by the familiar chatter of a pig, an M-60 machine gun.
"What's happening with the Combattante?" he asked. Cautiously, Doc crawled out from beneath the pier, looking down the line of wooden pilings to the moored patrol boat. "Shit," he said. "Looks like trouble."
Coburn duck-walked through the mud to Doc's side, to a point where he could see the patrol boat's stern alongside the massive pilings of the fuel pier. Steel pipes threaded their way across the dock, and beyond them, embedded in concrete, were several storage tanks.
The gunfire and explosions aboard the Yuduki Maru had certainly captured the attention of the Iranians aboard the gunboat. Coburn couldn't see the craft's forward turret, but the open 40mm mount was being rapidly swung around, as Iranian sailors yelled at each other and pointed. Soldiers were trotting across the pier now, looking for firing positions. Gunfire from the patrol boat would slash into the Japanese freighter's side if the bad guys dared open up. And SEALs caught on deck would be sitting ducks...