Nimitz Class

“Well done, Chief. Couldn’t be better…oh, Tommy, call CNO’s office and make sure he’s told about all this, will you? Top secret. He’s waiting.”

“Aye, sir. Thursday night flight, right?”

At this point the broad plan for the mission was formally approved by Commander Banford. Rusty Bennett routinely informed his men they were now, officially, in isolation. Phone calls were banned, even to wives and children. No letters could be written, not even postcards. No faxes, no fraternizing with anyone not involved with the planning and training. In that way, there was no chance of anyone, however unintentionally, compromising the mission.

The men were permitted to update or write their wills, and these would be held in the SEAL archives until their safe return. Or failing that, they would be pronounced legal by the Navy.

Rusty Bennett spent the first evening in conference with his whole team, thinking it through, measuring accurately on the charts all of the distances. In particular the navigational plan for the ASDS — from the Mendel Rivers to its waiting position outside the port of Bandar Abbas. His second-in- command, referred to as 2IC, a lieutenant junior grade, David Mills from Massachusetts, sat in on these meetings, since he would drive the miniature submarine in while Rusty navigated. The other eight men would sit behind them, in the dry but cold air, breathing through tubes connected to a central air system in the ASDS, as it crawled slowly and silently through the ocean, fifteen feet below the surface.

The sea miles were plotted with immense care. Rusty Bennett himself called out the information…“Total distance SSN to ASDS waiting position at 56.12E, 27.07N…is 12.93 miles…course three-three-eight…two hours and thirty-five minutes at five knots…add thirty minutes for the launch…at ten and a half miles there’s a red flashing light every seven seconds marking a long shoal to port…water’s only about twenty feet deep in there…if we see the light we’re plenty close…it should be about 750 yards off our port beam as we pass…we don’t want to be way off course on the right either, because there’s a wreck marked there — in about thirty feet of water very near the inward channel.”

Rusty Bennett was in fact never off course, having been brought up in his father’s lobster boat, creeping his way through the fog that often blankets those enchanted pine-tree islands off the Maine coast. Rusty Bennett was reading ocean charts when most kids were still busy with Mr. Rogers. His father was a native of the outward island of Monhegan, and his mother’s maiden name was Lunt, the famous Down East family that ran the boatyard and lobster fleet out of Lunt Harbor, Frenchborough.

The sea was in this particular SEAL’s blood for generations. And he came from a cold, dangerous northern sea, in which the big marker buoys, with their chiming navigation bells and flashing lights, were often the only means of avoiding a catastrophic loss of bearing and direction. Miss one of them in bad weather, and death might be staring you in the face. Unsurprisingly, Rusty Bennett was one of the best navigators the SEALS had ever had.

Every time he spoke, someone took down his words. By the time he turned his attention to the Iranian submarine base, there were two note-takers, one Senior Petty Officer double-checking every figure, and another following Rusty’s progress on a second chart…checking, checking, checking. Another man on the computer keyboard was entering the navigation plan in a file now marked “Operation Vengeance.”

Rusty Bennett kept talking. “Probable distance from ASDS anchorage to right-side harbor wall…five hundred yards…bearing two-eight-four…there’s a green navigation light on that wall…we may even see it. Right there we turn right…bearing zero-zero…heading for the inner harbor…thirteen hundred yards…this wants counting carefully…because we make a right there…that’s two hundred yards beyond a second green light…this one flashing quickly…water’s only about nine feet deep in here close to the wall…after that second right turn we swim for a thousand yards on a nine-zero bearing…right there we should be outside the floating dock…five of us bail out there and get up on it…possible four-or five-foot climb….

“The other four keep going on bearing…the Kilos berthed either side of the jetty will come up inside 50 yards…total swim distance in is thus 2,800 yards…it’s gonna take us one hour to swim that, then we’ve got 160 yards further to go…allowing for nav stops…say ten minutes…that’s seventy minutes from exit ASDS to the dock.”

They finally wrapped it up just before 2300, and headed thankfully to bed. The chief who ran the training program wanted all five of the dock team ready to leave for the San Diego base by 0630 the following morning. Rusty mentioned that since he wasn’t throwing the grapplers over the shores, maybe he was unnecessary. The chief’s reply was curt. “What if someone gets hurt, and you’re not sure about getting the grappler over, first time, sir?”

“Yes, guess so. But who would cover the guys then?”

“That’s SOP, sir. Either your wounded man can get up the ladder to do it, or you shoot the fucking Iranian guard, nice and quiet, before you start.”

“Oh yeah, right, Chief.”

Shortly before 0700 the next morning, the Navy jeep drove onto the jetty alongside the huge floating dry dock, Steadfast, positioned deep inside the San Diego base. Six men jumped out of the vehicle, and immediately the chief began to speak. “Now, you can all see the size of it, right? The wing walls are 83 feet high, and close to 260 feet long. I should think the one in Bandar Abbas is nearly identical, because a Russian Kilo is 242 feet long.

“See those two cranes high up, on top of the wall? Well, they can lift thirty tons and you find them on top of all floating docks. Also up there you are going to see a control tower, and in there you may see a guard and an operator, or just an operator who doubles as a guard. In front of him are the hydrovalves and flooding systems, and he has a set of illuminated dials which show him the angles of the dock in the water.

“They are really just like spirit levels. Theoretically, when Rusty blows a hole in the starboard-side ballast tank, the dock will begin to tilt. What we don’t want is for the guy in the tower to notice something very early and then compensate for the list on the dock by flooding the opposite tank as well. But I don’t think he will have time. A little later, we’ll give that a bit more thought, and then we’ll go up and act out the scenario a few times ourselves, just to see what might happen and to get accurate times.

“Meantime, let’s get into the dock, and see how good we are at hurling the grappler ropes up and over the shores.”

All five men took their rope coils out of the jeep and headed for the engineer’s platform which was moored on the stern of Steadfast. They crossed from the jetty, and walked into the floating dock, all of them for the first time. From water level it looked massive, and so did the submarine propped up inside. They stood alongside the boat, and above their heads they could see the big wooden shores, four of them in a line, about thirty feet above the steel deck.

The trainer told them the secret of standing at least twenty feet in front of the unseen perpendicular line from the beam down to the floor. “That way, you pick your angle, and throw the rope up, underarm, in a dead straight line, making sure it goes above the beam. That way when it drops, it must come down on the far side, and then you just pull, and the grappler will come up and dig into the wood. You want to give it a good jolt, but nothing too loud.

“The trick is to learn to twirl the hook in a large circle, clockwise as you look at your right hand. You need to know exactly when to let go. That’s just practice. Okay, Lieutenant Commander, show ’em how it’s done….”

Rusty got into position, and began to whirl the hook around until the noise made a hum in the air. He gazed upward and let go. Too low. The grappler flew twenty feet above the ground like a rocket at least ten feet below the beam and crashed down onto the deck with an unnerving, echoing thump and clatter.

“Well, sir, I’d say you just came up with a pretty good way of getting all five of you killed right there,” said the chief. “I said you needed practice and that’s what you’re gonna get.”

One by one the SEALS aimed their hooks up and over the beam; only one made it the first time, but he missed the next time. Seven hours later they were still there, and the standard was now almost flawless.

“In the end, it’s like riding a bike,” said the chief. “Once you know how, you never forget. I’m getting pleased with you, but I shall want each of you gentlemen to throw six perfect passes over the beam, one after the other. Anyone misses, you all start again, until we get thirty passes all sailing over. No mistakes.”

“You ever consider becoming a basketball coach?” asked one of the SEALS.

“Sure I did, but only for the money. I wouldn’t have saved so many lives…missed…the way you’ve been missing since this morning…too low…because you’re letting go a fraction of a second too soon…now come on, get