Lieutenant Commander Dan Headley led them down to a more-or-less empty area in which they could prepare for the mission. He fell into conversation with Rusty Bennett, and mentioned he had a good friend in the squadron…“Guy named Rick Hunter…Commander Hunter now, I believe. He and I grew up together.”
“Hey, you gotta be from Kentucky, right?” said Commander Bennett. “Rick’s a real good friend of mine. Just left him, matter of fact, down at DG.”
“That right? I didn’t know he was anywhere near here.”
“Oh, just Rick and about seven-eighths of the entire United States Navy,” Rusty replied with a chuckle. “I’m telling you, someone in the Pentagon’s awful jumpy about whatever the hell’s going on in the gulf.”
“Guess so. All we know is what everyone else knows. The Iranians somehow mined the Strait of Hormuz and shut down most of the world’s oil supply.”
“Big minefield, I understand. That’s gotta be a major worry.”
“It ought to be,” replied Dan Headley, smiling. “’Specially for you. We’re just about in the middle of it right now.”
“Shit,” said Rusty. “I knew I shouldn’t have come. Your CO any good?”
“I don’t really know him well enough to say. But I don’t think he’s hit anything recently.”
“God forbid he starts now.”
Both officers laughed. And
“They had lunch, steak and eggs, at fourteen hundred,” said the SEAL Commander. “Maybe you could fix a few sandwiches, slices of pizza or something. Just in case anyone’s hungry. But I don’t think many of them will be. They’ll need a lot of cold water, though. They got a two-hour journey in the ASDV, then a long swim…don’t want them to get dehydrated.”
“Okay. I’ll get that organized. By the way, you’re not going yourself, are you, sir?” The XO paid due deference to Rusty’s higher rank.
“Not this time. But I’m gonna help your boys get the ASDV moving, if you think I could help. I’ve done it a few times in my life. And this is a very big vehicle.”
“I’m sure my crew would appreciate that, sir. The damn things are always difficult. And this one’s the biggest we’ve ever had.”
“Anyhow, right now I want to talk to the guys while they’re getting ready — so we’ll catch up in a little while.”
“Good enough, sir. My watch starts in a few minutes. I’ll be in the control room, you need to find me.”
By now the twelve combat SEALs were sorting out their gear. Each man had his own custom-made wet suit and numbered flippers. Each of them had a Draeger oxygen supply, the special SEAL air bottle that leaves no telltale bubbles on the surface. Each man would carry a knife and Heckler and Koch’s superb light submachine gun, the MP-5, a close-quarters weapon, best inside 25 yards, but perfect for an assault on a nonmilitary establishment. Only Petty Officer Ryan Combs would carry in a bigger weapon, the lethal M-60E4 machine gun. They would carry in, between them, 14 ammunition belts, each containing 100 rounds. Ryan himself would carry the gun, plus two belts, to give him a total weight of 40 pounds to carry. The gun would be used only in a dire emergency if they had to fight their way out of the refinery.
Ryan would also carry on his back a limpet mine, which he could manage just fine. It was the walk through the shallows that was so worrying. The Draeger is just about weightless in the water, but it weighs 30 pounds in the air, and that gave Ryan Combs very nearly 100 pounds in weight to haul to the beach, which would probably prove too much after a quarter of a mile.
Rusty Bennett had ordered big Rob Cafiero to step up and share the load of the gun and ammunition if Ryan could not cope. All the SEALs were heavily laden, a bomb or mine for 11 of them. Two for three of them. The fusing wire and detonation devices would be carried by John Nathan. Between them, the SEALs would also haul camouflaged groundsheets, two shovels, wirecutters, clips, plus night binoculars, the lightest possible radio for emergency only, water, high-protein bars and medical supplies. The return journey would be one hell of a lot easier.
In Rusty’s final briefing back on the carrier, they had debated making a request for the crewman of the ASDV, not the driver, to accompany them in, strictly as a beast of burden, until they reached dry land. But that ASDV was priceless, the only one of its kind, and the CO of the
However, if push came to shove, Rusty would insist, and no CO wants to go against the express wishes of a SEAL commander on the edge of a dangerous mission, probably on orders directly from the White House.
And so they prepared for their final talk together. Spread out before them were the chart and the map. As they pulled on their wet suits in a temperature deliberately turned right down to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, they listened to Rusty, who was saying that the ASDV driver would take the vehicle in as far as possible, until the keel touched the sand.
“Right then we’ll move into the dry hatch, one at a time; as soon as it floods, each man will drop straight through. The man with the attack board goes first, then his partner drops through and they move immediately, swimming east, bearing zero-nine-zero, until the water gets too shallow to swim comfortably. The six two-man teams rendezvous in the shallows. They should be around five minutes apart. After that, you know what to do.”
For forty minutes more the SEALs made their final preparations, and at 1750 they began to embark the ASDV, dragging in the gear, each man slipping expertly up through the hatch, finding his allotted seat and placing his equipment in the tight overhead space. The loading took all of half an hour as the SEALs struggled to find a reasonably comfortable position for the two-hour ride inshore in this sturdy 65-foot-long electric submarine.
Down in the control room Lt. Commander Headley had the ship, assisted by the Sonar Officer, Lt. Commander Josh Gandy, and the Navigator, Lt. Shawn Pearson.
“Right now I have us at our destination, sir. That’s 26.36N 56.49E on the GPS.”
“Okay, Lieutenant. Depth?”
“I was just coming to that, sir. We’ve still got plenty of water. I’m showing ninety feet below the keel, and we’re sixty-five feet below the surface right now. You wanna save the battery on the ASDV, I’m certain we could run in maybe another three miles. This chart’s kinda pessimistic about depth.”
“You agree with that, sonar?”
“Yessir. I’m showing total depth right here of just over two hundred feet, and Shawn’s chart gives one hundred seventy. We could certainly go on.”
“
“Aye, sir. We just saved the ASDV a half hour’s battery each way.”
“Good call, Navigator.”
At which point Commander Reid entered the control room, looking less than thrilled at the way the submarine was being run.
“Did you just countermand my orders, XO?”
“I adjusted our rendezvous point by three miles northeast, sir, because of clear and obvious discrepancies in the chart. We’re still in deep water, and we can save the battery on the ASDV.”
“The battery on the ASDV is not your concern, Lieutenant Commander. What is your concern is a set of orders, issued to us, by the flag, and signed by me as your Commanding Officer. I do not permit leeway in orders such as those.”
“As you wish, sir.” Dan Headley looked bewildered. But he replied with a calm demeanor.
“XO, turn the ship around and return to 26.36N 56.49E. The rendezvous issued by the flag.”
“Sir, with respect, could we not let the guys out right here, a couple of miles nearer their objective?”
“I think you heard me, Lieutenant Commander. Turn this ship around immediately and return to our correct position. I have no desire to take my ship any nearer to the shores of Iran than is absolutely necessary.”
And with that he turned on his heel and walked out of the control room, leaving all three of the ship’s operational officers speechless.
Shawn Pearson spoke first. “Now that, gentlemen,” he said, “was rather interesting.”
“If you meant that the way I think you meant it, I do not want to hear any more,” replied the XO, somewhat
