"Maybe the civilians need a scare," McKenzie argued. "Everyone thinks the world is safer now that the Cold War is over, but they're fooling themselves. Everything's gotten a lot more dangerous. Too many bombs, too much nuclear material floating around. Too many people playing shady games."
"You know I got passed over on my last promotion, don't you? The promotion board OK'd me, but then some fucking civilian oversight board noticed that I'd been at Tailhook. Fuck, I wasn't even in the goddamn hotel when those aviators were doing their stuff. I was representing SEAL Team Two at the convention."
"Sorry about that," Thorpe murmured, keeping his eyes on the control panel. He'd known McKenzie for the past six months, but had never worked this closely with him. Listening to him, Thorpe was beginning to wish he wasn't on this mission with the man.
"Fucking civilians," McKenzie said harshly, drawing a concerned look from Thorpe across the flooded chamber. "They're talking about chaptering me out, taking away my pension. We're the ones getting screwed while they sit at home and bitch about taxes and cut our fucking benefits. Fuck them all."
"Nav update?" Thorpe asked, trying to draw the older man's attention back to the task at hand.
After McKenzie gave him their present location, they both lapsed into silence. While his hands were steady on the controls, Thorpe felt the tension in the rest of his body and had to force himself to relax.
Thorpe's six-foot-two frame was cramped in the limited space allowed him. Under his wet suit, his body was well muscled, the result of a fierce daily workout routine.
His face, hidden by the mask he wore, was the deep brown of a man heavily exposed to the harshest of the sun's rays. He already carried the deep lines and crevasses that signaled late middle age. Only his blue eyes hinted that he was just thirty-four. If he had allowed his hair to grow beyond the thick, short stubble he favored it would have been dark and liberally sprinkled with gray.
Next to Thorpe, McKenzie had a better lengthwise fit at slightly less than five-foot-six, but his barrel chest and massively muscled arms made it difficult for him to move around. Before joining SO/NEST, McKenzie had carried the label of strongest man in the SEAL teams, quite a feat among a group of men who prided themselves on their physical conditioning. During physical training Thorpe had seen the older man bench press over three hundred pounds. McKenzie had as much pride in his body as a two-thousand-dollar-an-hour-model.
Both men stayed as still as they could during the run in, trying to keep the trim of the SDV steady.
"Running clear," McKenzie eventually said in a level voice. "I put us at three klicks off coast. Change heading to one-one-zero degrees."
"One-one-zero degrees," Thorpe confirmed, as he manipulated the controls. He glanced at his partner. The earlier outburst seemed forgotten, as McKenzie's demeanor eased.
"Two minutes."
"Roger."
The SDV slid through the water, the propellers leaving no trace fifty feet below the surface. As they drew closer McKenzie directed Thorpe nearer the surface as the ocean floor rose beneath them.
"We have one hundred feet under us," McKenzie announced. "Thirty above."
"Eighty down, twenty up."
"Sixty down, ten up. Hold vertical."
Thorpe slowed their forward speed and held their depth steady.
McKenzie was watching his screen intently. "Forty down. Route still clear."
Thorpe slowed until they were at a crawl.
"I've got solid contact," McKenzie said. "Shoreline," he confirmed. "New heading, eight-zero degrees."
"Eight-zero degrees." The SDV turned slightly left.
"Easy, easy," McKenzie muttered as he watched numbers tick off on his screen. "On my mark. Ten down, ten up. Hold."
Thorpe brought the SDV to a halt, then slowly let the craft sink until it rested on the bottom, in twenty feet of water, two hundred yards from shore.
Thorpe reached out and flipped a switch on the control panel. "Beacon on." He checked what looked like a large wristwatch strapped to his left forearm. A small red dot glowed. "I read the SDV beacon six by six."
McKenzie did the same. "Six by six."
Thorpe was doing everything by the book, following a checklist taped to the left side of his compartment. "Begin shutdown."
Each man turned off their parts of the SDV until all that was functioning was the beacon and the air supply.
"Switch to personal air," Thorpe ordered before he turned off the SDV's air supply. He glanced over. McKenzie pulled out his air hose, which also disconnected him from the internal communication system. McKenzie gave him a thumbs-up. Thorpe switched on his own rebreather then flipped a switch cutting off the internal air.
They pushed open their hatches and slid out, pulling their waterproofed rucksacks with them. Leaving the Mark IX resting on the bottom, they swam toward the shore, the rucksacks towed on six-foot lines attached to safety lines at their waists.
The two men ascended until they were just below the moonlit surface. Their fins flickered back and forth, propelling them smoothly toward shore. Thorpe held a nav board right in front of his face, following the azimuth determined from their mission briefing.
After a few minutes both men could feel the sea change. They knew they were close to shore from the increasing swell. Thorpe tapped McKenzie on the shoulder. McKenzie held position while Thorpe surfaced. Thorpe rode a wave up and looked shoreward. He could make out lights to the left but the shore ahead was dark. Thorpe hoped their underwater navigation had been accurate. He returned to McKenzie.
Together, they moved forward until they could feel the tips of their fins hit the bottom. Thorpe edged ahead, the surf lifting him and then slamming him down into the sand. Before the water pulled him back, Thorpe dug his hands into the sand and held his place, then scuttled forward a few more feet. He could feel McKenzie behind him, pulling off his fins. McKenzie then crawled to his side and Thorpe returned the favor. Each retrieved his rucksack and unfastened the submachine gun tied to it, pulling backthe slide and making sure there was a round in the chamber, ready to fire, then pulling the muzzle plug out. They slipped an arm through the shoulder strap of their ruck and lay at the edge of the surf, listening carefully.
Thorpe stood and sprinted across the sand, McKenzie right on his heels. They reached the concealment of the dunes. The dry desert air felt good against their faces, the only part of their skin exposed.
Thorpe carefully unsealed his ruck, making sure it made no noise. He pulled out a small handheld device and turned it on. The GPR — Global Positioning Receiver — quickly accessed the nearest three DOD satellites overhead and pinpointed their position to within five meters.
"We're four hundred yards south," Thorpe whispered. He didn't think that was too bad for an eight-kilometer underwater infiltration. Both he and McKenzie donned their night-vision goggles. Thorpe waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the slightly green and depth-distorted display.
Thorpe shouldered his ruck. He stood and led the way, carefully moving through the dunes to the north, McKenzie behind him and to the right.
They now heard another noise over the pounding surf: heavy diesel engines. Thorpe slowed, searching for the guards that would be near. A high dune lay across their path and they crawled until they could just see over it.
"Shit," McKenzie muttered. Four large military-style trucks were parked with their open tailgates pointed toward the beach. But the trucks were not the focus of McKenzie's comment. Rather he was referring to the two tanks, one with its main gun aimed out to sea, the other guarding the sandy road that led inland.
"They're Merkavas," McKenzie said, confirming what Thorpe had already determined from their distinctive shape. "What the hell are the Israelis doing here?"