“Let’s go! Let’s go!” he shouted. “All the way!”
At Homestead Air Reserve Base, the Bird Colonel charged with the mission to destroy the oil rig glanced over his shoulder, left and right at his wingmen. He gave them a salute and applied the full power of the F 16’s Pratt and Whitney engines. The aircraft trembled under the power of the jet’s reheat exhaust until he released the brakes, the seat slammed into his back and the aircraft accelerated along the runway.
The two wingmen rolled with him at speed and soon the tarmac was flashing by beneath them. As the nose came up, he lifted the undercarriage and let the reheat fire him up towards their formation height. At two thousand feet he levelled and let the wingmen form up on him. Then the three aircraft turned and headed out over the angry sea.
At that point, Birdman, the mission leader in the lead jet, thumbed his transmit button and spoke on a radio frequency connecting him directly to the Sea Stallion helicopter.
“Sea Horse one, this is Bird one. How do you read? Over.”
“Bird one, this is Sea Horse one. Charlie Tango. Over.”
Birdman looked down at his knee pad. On it were written three letters: C, T and R; Charlie, Tango and Romeo. The first two letter were the code to authenticate the call from Bird One; the Sea Stallion helicopter. The third letter, Romeo would not be used unless the mission had to be aborted.
Birdman was satisfied.
“Roger that, Sea Horse one. Birds one, two and three are flying. Out.”
The three F-16’s climbed from their two thousand feet level and roared up to thirty thousand feet to get above the storm. Once above it, the formation leader set the co-ordinates, checked the ‘time-on-target’ with his wingmen and offered up a short prayer.
“OK guys, this is it,” he called over his radio. “Let’s go hunting!”
Marsh followed the Marine Sergeant in the darkness, clutching Helen’s hand tightly. He caught brief glimpses of the soldier’s silhouette against the flickering lights of muzzle flash and ricocheting bullets. The rig seemed to be lit up like a Christmas tree with flashing lights.
Although the crew on the rig were well armed, none of them were really prepared for this kind of professional assault. Many of them had come straight from their rest rooms or places of work without the benefit of camouflage clothing or even a prepared plan of action. Against the Seals and the Marines, they stood little chance.
The wind screamed and hammered at the sergeant and his two charges as they made slow progress up the stairs. It seemed to toy with them. One moment it would slacken and eddy to a soft swirl; then suddenly it would rise up into a gigantic fury. High in the derrick tower the wind tore at the rigging lines and the whole rig seemed to shake and resonate beneath the savage fury of the wind.
They reached the top of the stairs and huddled against a wall for protection. In the flickering light the sergeant’s eyes seemed to detach themselves and float before them.
“I hope this damn rig can stand up to it,” he shouted. “She’s beginning to move.”
It was true; Marsh could sense the enormous strain on the anchor chains. They vibrated with a hum that echoed through the deck plating. Much more, he thought, and the rig would start dragging its anchors.
The battle to get into the control room had reached something of an impasse as the Seals were forced to keep their heads down because of the covering fire coming from the men defending the rig.
The sergeant motioned to Marsh and Helen to stay put and not move.
Lieutenant Santos crouched on the upper platform cursing his luck. He had seen Malik and realised it was him who was orchestrating the defence of the control room. And he guessed that Khan was already inside, feeding the figures into the rig’s computer.
“I’m going up top!” he shouted to his men. “Hold their attention.”
Santos knew his way around oil rigs. It was not because rigs were his particular forte, but he had conducted so many classroom scenarios in rig protection, and had participated in active exercises, that he had come to know many rig layouts. And this rig was no exception.
He left his position and clambered down to the lower gallery. The roaring of the wind and the sea combined with the cathedral like space induced in him a complete sense of detachment. It was as though he has moved into another world.
He felt his way round the gallery catwalk using a faint illumination from the insipid daylight to help him pick his way round the steel structure. He found the stairwell he figured would take him directly to the rear of the control room deck.
At the top he peered cautiously along the deck until he was certain nobody was there. He was on the far side of the rig, away from the immediate fire-fight.
There was a catwalk from his position to the platform on which the control room was standing. Part of it was sheltered from the wind. But as he stepped into the wind, it struck him so fiercely that it threatened to pitch him off the catwalk and into the steelwork below.
He turned and backed into it, using the handrail to steady himself and edged toward the control room deck. He could sense, rather than see the long, empty drop below him, but chose not to dwell on it. His immediate thought was to get to the control room safely before any of the rig’s crew spotted him.
He sensed Malik before he saw him.
It was the uncanny sound in that roaring wind of a footfall on the steel plating. He spun round and saw the looming figure of the Arab coming towards him.
Santos had his weapon slung over his shoulder. He had put it there because he needed both hands free to negotiate the rig in that fearsome wind.
Malik was holding the Stechkin pistol in his hands. He lifted his arm to fire but the wind caught him and pushed him off balance against the inner rail of the catwalk. Santos seized the moment and launched a kick at Malik, using the handrails to support him. His boot connected and caught Malik a glancing blow to the chest, but Malik fired a round and Santos felt the sting as the bullet tore into the top of his shoulder.
Malik came forward, seeing that he had wounded the Seal. His clothes billowed out transforming him into a colossal, nightmarish figure. He pointed the gun at Santos, and even as his hand wavered in the wind, Santos knew he wouldn’t miss at that range.
The shot came just after Santos rolled himself into a ball and hurled himself at Malik’s midriff, thrusting his good arm upwards to ward off Malik’s arm. Malik tried to club Santos but the Seal’s weight brought them both crashing down on to the deck.
Malik fell on top of Santos. The American knew he would not win a physical contest with the Arab because of the wound in his shoulder. But if he was damaged physically, he wasn’t damaged mentally. His brain was still quick and he was trained to react to any situation,
As Malik landed on top of him, Santos rolled his body towards the edge of the catwalk. Before Malik could figure out what was happening, he realised that the Navy Seal was using his own body as a roller and pitching him towards the lower gap in the safety rail.
Malik grabbed for the handrail, but the combined force of the wind and Santos’s rolling motion beneath him, caused him to miss it. Santos stopped and pushed Malik forward. He saw the Arab’s legs thrash the air and then there was nothing: not even the sound of his deathly screams as he plummeted eighty feet into the angry sea below.
Khan was unaware just how close the Seals were to the control room, because he had two things on his mind: one was to programme the computer, and the other was the searing pain across his chest and down his arms. He was leaning against the computer table, sweat breaking out on his brow. Alongside him were two engineers and although they were both carrying arms, they were not mentally equipped for a fight with America’s finest.