At the moment, conversation had drifted from what Kosciuszko would do to them if they screwed up to times they'd been in trouble generally. Jaybird told them again about the administrative mess he'd been in after the affair with the skinny-dipping in La Jolla, ending with his being arrested by a female cop while driving through town in his VW completely naked. Roselli and Holt repeated the story about the time in Norfolk when they'd been arrested by the local police after threatening to chuck a hotel manager out of a fifth-story window, when Mac had had to come down and bail them out.
"So, Stepano," Roselli called, shouting to be heard above both the roar of the Greyhound's engines and the laughter and applause that followed his tale. "We heard tell you were in some sort of trouble back in Yugoslavia. What was it, some problem with the government?"
When Stepano didn't answer immediately, Murdock leaned closer to the big Serb-American. "You don't have to tell 'em anything if you don't want to."
"Oh, is no problem, Lieutenant," Stepano replied. "I was just thinking. Was not government trouble, exactly. You see, there was this girl. Ah."
"Okay!" Doc shouted. "This boy's gonna fit right in!"
"It was still serious thing, Lieutenant. They were threatening me with Goli Otok. You see, she was daughter of a member of Central Committee."
Murdock shook his head. "Sorry, Goli… what?"
"Goli Otok," Stepano repeated. "One of two islands in the Adriatic, not so far from Trieste, you see? Goli Otok was torture prison for men, run by Tito's secret police. Sveti Grgur was same thing, only for women prisoners. There were awful stories…"
Stepano bit his lower lip, then settled back in his seat. "Is not really so funny a story," he said, finally. "That was why I left Yugoslavia, though. I was eighteen."
His mood momentarily darkened the atmosphere within the COD's compartment, but not for very long. Doc began telling a story about a girl he'd known in Norfolk who was the daughter of an admiral, and soon the cargo compartment was again ringing with the SEALs' shouts and laughter.
But the exchange had left Murdock thoughtful. He'd heard the fear behind Stepano's words. How did the Serb feel about going back to his old neighborhood, Murdock wondered. Those "torture prisons" he'd mentioned probably belonged to Croatia now, and Tito's secret police would have evolved into something else. But there would be other Goli Otoks in place in what was left of Yugoslavia, and knowing the socialist bureaucratic mind, Murdock was sure that there were still plenty of records stuffed in a file folder someplace in Belgrade with Stepano's name on it.
It might be a good idea to make sure that Stepano stayed in Greece, should the team need to cross over into Serbian-controlled areas. Of course, the whole reason Stepano was along was to provide translation if they did end up across the border. Murdock shook his head. He sure as hell wouldn't want to be in Stepano's place right now.
God, why had the big Serb volunteered for this anyway?
The nuclear aircraft carrier Thomas Jefferson, CVN 74, had been on patrol in the eastern Med, but as soon as word had been received that Congresswoman Kingston's flight had been hijacked, the Jeff had put about and headed north, entering the sparkling blue waters of the Saronic Gulf early on the morning of March 7 and anchoring in the roads off Pireas, the port facility for the city of Athens.
The supercarrier, nucleus of Carrier Battle Group 14, was the visible, physical manifestation of America's military might, a symbol of both reassurance and warning to the Greek government that the United States was extremely concerned about the incident. Jefferson also provided a way station for the SEALs en route from the Adriatic. The COD touched down in a barely controlled crash on the Jef's flight deck, tail hook snagging the number-three arrestor wire and dragging the big aircraft to a halt. SEAL Seven's Third Platoon did not linger aboard the carrier for long, however. After a short briefing with a military attache officer from the American Embassy, during which they received the necessary papers and travel permits and made arrangements for the secret shipment of weapons and other gear to Salonika, the SEALs had gone ashore in One of Jefferson's liberty boats, a Mike boat lowered alongside the temporary dock floated off the carrier's stern.
All fifteen men wore civilian clothes. Looking at them, for the first time Murdock wished he'd allowed more latitude for his men in their grooming standards. MGS, or "Modified Grooming Standards," had been a sore point in the SEAL community for some time. Some units, like the notorious SEAL Six, encouraged their men to wear beards, mustaches, and long hair — long enough to warrant ponytails — precisely so that the Team members didn't look like military personnel. Some Team commanders stressed MGS as a means of letting their men operate undercover; others, and Murdock was among them, had always stressed traditional Navy grooming standards, both to avoid making waves with other naval personnel, and because long hair or face fuzz could be a hazard for SEALS. Murdock had ordered more than one man in his platoon to shave his facial hair because of the danger that a mustache might prevent a watertight seal between skin and face mask.
Aboard the Mike boat, however, Murdock was painfully aware that his people all looked like sailors, clean-cut, clean-shaven, their hair closely trimmed. With their short hair and their powerful, athletic frames — Bearcat Holt, especially, had the physique of a body-builder — they could only be military personnel or members of some traveling international sports team. That could well turn out to be a handicap on this op.
To reduce the chances of being spotted for what they were, Murdock had the platoon split up as soon as they were ashore. Fifteen muscular young men traveling together looked like a military unit on a secret mission; two or three such men together were not at all unusual in a country where, despite tensions with Washington, American marines and sailors often went ashore on liberty in their civvies. Murdock did veto Doc's grinning suggestion that they round up some girls to make their disguises more complete.
Travel arrangements had already been made through the embassy, but only six of them — Murdock, DeWitt, Papagos, Sterling, Brown, and Roselli — would take the chartered flight north. The rest would make their own ways north to Salonika, never traveling more than three at a time, some aboard various commercial aircraft flights from Hellenica International, the others taking buses, rented cars, or the Greek OSE railway. The embassy officer had told them that rooms had been booked for them at a hotel called the Vergina, on Monastiriou Street northwest of central Salonika, not far from the railway station.
They were met at the Salonika airport by two men, who stepped forward as soon as Murdock and the SEALs with him stepped through the door into the airport arrivals area. One, clearly, was a local, with dark eyes, hair, and skin and a brushy black mustache. He wore a conservative suit beneath an open trench coat, garb that somehow communicated the idea of "police" or "secret service" without actually displaying a badge. The other man, Murdock was willing to bet, was American… and almost certainly military, despite his sports shirt, slacks, and the tourist's 35mm camera around his neck. He was as tall and as muscular as Stepano, and he had the same clean-shaven, square-jawed, brush-cut look that described most of Murdock's SEALS.
"Lieutenant Murdock?" the small, dark man asked. His English was clipped and precise.
"That's me."
"I am Captain Solomos," the man said. "DEA, the Special Mission Platoon. Welcome to Salonika."