the waters were quite clear. There wasn't even very much garbage floating at the surface, since in a place as poor as this one, the definition of what constituted garbage was quite constrained.
Which is a pity, thought Eeyore, because with more garbage floating around we could put our heads up to get bearings if we needed to. Well . . . nothing for it. Needs must . . .
As dark as it still was below the surface, they continued east by compass, as well as by the feel of the water, and the small currents, and the sound. The monoculars on their masks weren't a lot of use yet since they needed at least some light.
The sound of a freighter, tied up to the dock, with waves and currents shifting it about, was distinctive, a combination of whoosh, groaning metal, and the occasional resounding thump.
Target one, Antoniewicz announced to himself. Though it's probably harmless, part of our job is to punish the other side. He swam upward slightly, his fins propelling him and his hands reaching forward to prevent an unfortunate head-first bump on the hull. Morales followed closely.
Eeyore's right hand touched on the barnacle-encrusted hull. Both arms flared out as he twisted his fins down to bring him to a complete stop. Morales bumped him from behind, then continued on to target two, a smaller ship farther in.
Antoniewicz's legs sank slowly until he was approximately vertical next to the hull. Once he'd achieved that posture, those legs began automatically to pump slowly to maintain his position. His hand went to his side to draw his knife. With this he scraped away enough of the barnacle mass encrusting the surface to be sure of a good attachment. After he felt around the area he'd cleared, and was satisfied, he reached around and pulled a pod containing limpets to where he could open it and get at its contents. This he did, then he removed from the pod a single mine.
The ship's hull, in planning, had been presumed to be metal, based on the size. This proved to be the case. As Eeyore's hands moved the limpet near the hull, the mine's own magnets pulled it inward. He placed both hands around it and attempted to move it. When it remained stuck fast to the hull, he pulled out first one pin, then the other. The thing was mined now, and woe betide anyone who tried to remove it. Just as unfortunate would be the ship itself once it had moved some distance from the harbor.
And even if the ship doesn't move, the diver thought, in about forty-eight hours we're getting the earth- shattering-okay the hull-shattering-kaboom anyway.
Satisfied with that, Antoniewicz swam off. Sensing the presence of at least a faint moonlight filtering through from the surface, he pulled the monocular over his right eye and turned it on. Ah, yes, that's much better. At the next target Morales was just beginning to scrape the hull when Eeyore nudged him. The former stopped what he was doing momentarily and gave a thumbs up. Eeyore saw that Morales, too, had activated his monocular. He continued on his way.
These three biggies in the outer harbor, he thought, then we link up at the mouth of the inner harbor-north side-and it gets interesting.
D-1, three and a half miles north-northeast of Nugaal, Ophir
Terry glanced at his watch, did some mental calculations, looked around at the terrain he'd memorized, and called a halt. The team went into a cigar-shaped three hundred and sixty degree perimeter, each man taking a knee. The rear man, Grau, and the point, Semmerlin, each bearing one of the suppressed, subsonic sniper rifles, moved to the center, by Welch, and did likewise. Both used their rifles as crutches to help ease themselves down under the backbreaking load. Little Joe tried to take a knee, but ended up on all fours. He was vomiting onto the ground as Terry spoke in a whisper.
'We're not going to make the planned hide before the moon has this place lit up like Christmas,' Welch said. He pointed to the left and said, 'There's a wadi-sort of a wadi, satellite imagery showed it has some vegetation- over that way, about a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty, meters, I think. We'll go there and hole up. Priorities of work remain the same. Questions?'
'No, sir . . . None, boss.'
'All right. Back to your places and move out.'
The spot selected was actually just past the juncture of a smaller wadi with the major wadi. There were three reasons for this. One was that the confluence, and the resultant greater quantity of underground water, had made the spot rather more lush . . . for certain highly constrained values of 'lush.' Second was that it seemed to Welch to be less likely to be visited by a passing goatherd, since the major wadi had enough vegetation to feed a good sized herd while the minor held out the chance of losing a goat in it. Lastly was against the possibility of a flash flood, always a danger in the desert where rains, while infrequent, typically came unannounced. They could fill up a wadi very quickly and, the next thing the occupants knew, they were drowning or being carried off, or, more usually, both.
While Grau and Semmerlin kept guard, the remainder of the team-including, somewhat inexpertly, the two translators-excavated one side of the wadi, saving the light colored spoil off in a separate pile. Once they had a place big enough to hide the chutes and harnesses, they carried their own in, placed them-really packed them-as tightly as possible and went to retrieve those belonging to the others. After that, the darker subsoil was shoveled over, to be followed by the lighter, dryer top soil. Then they clustered into three groups, one with Grau, one with Semmerlin, and, between the other two groupings, Little Joe plus the two translators with Welch. Over themselves they erected light weight sand and brown camouflage nets on very low collapsible poles. This was at least as much for protection from the sun-limited though that protection would be-as to hide from casual view.
And then all but the three on watch went to sleep.
D-1, Bandar Qassim
Morales was sitting on his ass, arms folded, cross-legged, atop an underwater concrete block when Antoniewicz reached him after mining the third small freighter in the outer harbor. He moved his right flipper as if tap-tap-tapping with impatience. If the mouthpiece made it impossible to smile, still Eeyore was pretty sure his teammate was smiling inside.
This shit's fun.
With hand signals, Eeyore reconfirmed what had already been planned and agreed to: Morales would sweep the northern and eastern sides of the inner harbor, mining any boat as large as twenty feet in length, while Eeyore followed the north-south jetty before moving to the southern edge of the port, to do the same. Eeyore had the shorter swim but, since the inner side of that north-south jetty was tightly clustered with hulls, about the same 'work load.' In fact, if the ship and boat positions hadn't changed substantially since the last satellite update, by the time Morales worked his way through the northern, eastern, and southern sides, Antoniewicz would only be about half done with the western. Morales would then start with the southernmost cluster of boats on that western side.
Reaching down to his right wrist, Eeyore twisted the dial on his wrist compass to a bearing of one hundred and fifty degrees. This was conservative, as it would bring him to a little dogleg jutting eastward from the southern jetty. He'd then follow that around to the targets.
Dragging his underwater assault rifle and sixteen limpet mines, Antoniewicz kicked off on his set bearing. With the fins he wore, and the shape he was in, he'd crossed the roughly sixty meters in about twenty-five seconds, despite the load he was dragging. In his monocular he saw the indistinct outline of what was probably a very bored guard.
And I'm so glad we're using rebreathers rather than tanks, Eeyore thought. Even if they are Russian and even if the slightest mistake that might let water get at the potassium superoxide would make for a really big and hot bang.
Antoniewicz turned left and, keeping no closer to the jetty than he had to, swam the long, one hundred and
