The Shark Mutiny (2001) Read online

  “A long way for you and me, Alan. But not these guys…they’ll slide through those warm shallows like a shoal of Florida bonefish—fast, sleek, unpredictable and likely to fight like hell.” Arnold Morgan made a curving forward motion with the palm of his left hand…. “Death to the Chinese oilers, right?”

  “Actually, I’m more worried about pursuit than anything else, Arnie, especially if they keep a fleet of helicopters at the refinery.”

  “Alan, if that place goes up the way I think it will, there’s not going to be anything even resembling pursuit. Bergstrom has the charts, and his top instructors will be involved in the planning. I expect Commander Rick Hunter will lead the squad, but I’m not sure if he’ll go into Iran or Burma. Not both.”

  “You have real faith in those SEALs, don’t you?”

  “Yes. If they can’t do it, it can’t be done. And I know that a group of the most highly trained demolition killers on this planet can blow up a goddamned oil refinery. Gimme a book o’matches, and I’ll blow the fucker up myself.”

  Both Alan Dixon and Tim Scannell laughed at the President’s top military adviser: always just the right combination of steel and intellect, respect and contempt, fortitude and laughter. Arnold Morgan really was anyone’s idea of the perfect keeper of America’s front line.

  Both the Admiral and General now stood back and watched as Morgan once more stepped up to the chart, this time holding a grainy black-and-white photograph in his left hand while making a tiny drawing on the chart, a small pencil line five miles offshore right on the 20-meter depth line.

  “See that?” he said. “That’s the loading dock. Just completed construction. That’s where the big Chinese VLCCs will be landing. The pipeline’s already in, but we have no evidence of trade yet. Pity the sonofabitch is so far from shore, otherwise we could just hit some combustible merchant ship and give ’em Texas City Two. But, as the proprietors of the refinery might put it, no can do. So we’ll just have to slam the fucker, bang in the middle of the plant. Then maybe take out the loading dock on the way back, if there’re ships at it.”

  “Okay, sir. Sounds good, if a bit tricky. You wanna talk some about the Bassein River hit?”

  “Not now, Tim. I’m judging that to be a lot more complicated. We’ll have John Bergstrom in before we finalize. And possibly a couple of his commanders—maybe forty-eight hours. Wednesday morning.”

  He saw the two service chiefs out, and then walked slowly back to the chart of the Strait of Hormuz. And he muttered to himself, “They must know that goddamned refinery is vulnerable. They must know there will be some form of retribution if the U.S. finds out they helped lay that minefield. Or maybe they figure we’ll never find out for certain….”

  He paused for a full minute. And then he muttered, “Nah, they’re just not that stupid. They must know we’ll find out….”

  And if that’s the case, he pondered, there’s only one question left: What in the name of Christ are they up to?

  072200MAY07.

  Flight Deck, USS Constellation. Strait of Hormuz.

  26.30N 56.50E. Speed 30. Course 225.

  She was turned along the southwesterly run of the minefield now, the U.S. Navy’s beloved forty-year-old “Connie,” plowing forward into the hot wind of this sweltering Arabian night. Right now she was about five miles north of the field, and the area seemed quiet as the Indian Pondicherrys moved steadily about their hazardous business, cutting the mines free and then blowing them on the surface.

  But still the howling F-14D Tomcats, courtesy of U.S. fighter wing VF 2—the fabled Bounty Hunters—gunned their aircraft off Connie’s 1,000-foot-long flight deck, up and into the black skies that now blanketed the most lethal stretch of ocean in the entire world.

  Each pilot wore on his right sleeve the Bounty Hunters’ triangular emblem, the yellow delta-winged fighter-bomber on red-white-and-blue stripes. Most of them also sported the jaunty gunslinger patch, the cowboy tomcat leaning on a big D, with the new stitched lettering, Anytime, Pal.

  And they flew right out on the edge of the envelope, banking in hard over the Iranian coastline and then back out to sea. This really was Anytime, Pal, because right now the U.S. Navy meant business, and everyone knew it. One squeak out of an Iranian antiaircraft battery, one illumination, one suggestion, and that battery would be obliterated by a phalanx of missiles with an accuracy record of around 100 percent.

  Navy pilots are used to being accused of “U.S. bullying.” But they were not bullies tonight, while the whole world awaited the reopening of the gulf to oil tankers.

  Tonight the Navy fliers were the fearless White Knights of the Skies, the way they mostly saw themselves anyhow. And they hurled their Tomcats through the high darkness of Islam, the single most threatening airborne cavalry ever assembled, on a mission to shut down the menace of a known aggressor. Anytime, Pal. The patches said it all.

  Back on Connie’s flight deck in the controlled chaos of a hectic night’s flying the 22-ton Tomcats were slamming down in batches, because the carrier has to keep making ground downwind, altering course, between landings and takeoffs. Swarms of flight-deck personnel surrounded each aircraft as it thundered in, a team ever ready to rush forward and ram the Sidewinder safety pins into the pylon firing mechanisms. The hot swirling air, stinking of JP-4, burned rubber, searing hot metal and salt water, assaulted everyone’s senses as the air boss snapped out commands through the 88,000-ton ship’s tannoy system. This was Connie’s last tour of duty.

  Out on the stern, oblivious to the earsplitting shriek of the incoming jets, the duty arresting gear officer, a lieutenant junior grade, sweating in his big fluorescent yellow jacket, was in contact with the hydraulic operators one deck below. The wires were ready to withstand the 75,000-pound force of the Tomcat hitting the deck at 160 knots, the pilot’s hand still hard on the throttle just in case the hook missed.

  The 28-year-old Lieutenant, Bobby Myers from Ohio, could feel his voice rising now as he snapped down commands to the hydraulic men…“Stand by for Tomcat one-zero-seven…two minutes.”

  He looked back over the stern, 90 feet above the water, straining to catch the lights of the fighter-bomber. He knew the pilot personally, and, as it did every single time, his chest began to tighten, and his heart was racing. Nothing ever dismisses the nerve-twisting tension that grips the arresting gear officer when a fighter-bomber is on its final flight path. Every arresting gear officer who ever lived, that is.

  Bobby had him now, five miles out, and he checked the wires again, checked on his radio phone that the huge hydraulic piston was ready to take the strain in the forthcoming controlled collision between deck and plane.

  “GROOVE!” he shouted into the phone, the code word for “She’s close, STAND BY!”

  Two miles out now, bucking along in the warm erratic air currents of the gulf, the Tomcat pilot fought to hold her steady, watching the landing lights, always watching the balls of light, an iron grip on the stick. He could see the carrier’s stern rise slightly on the swell, and the precision required for the high-speed landing would be measured in inches rather than feet. Every pilot knows he is a split second from death during every carrier landing he makes. One in five Navy pilots dies in the first nine years of his service.

  Seconds later Bobby Myers snapped, “SHORT”—the critical command for everyone to stand right back away from the machinery.

  And now Bobby saw the Tomcat right above, screaming in.

  “RAMP!” he bellowed, and every single eye on the flight deck was lasered in on the hook stretched out behind. The blast from the jets shimmered in the night air. The ear-shattering din of the jet engines made speech impossible. One mistake now and it would not be just the pilot who died. A pileup on the flight deck could spark a jet-fuel fire that could put the entire ship out of action.

  And hundreds of battle-hardened flight-deck technicians, already swarming forward, silently breathed Thank God, as the hook swung, and then grabbed the wire, hauling the
Tomcat to a standstill. Just as they would all breathe Thank God again, one minute from now, as they coaxed yet another F-14D out of the sky to safety, refueled her and prepared her to go again.

  So it is, out with the frontline steel fist of the U.S. Navy, where men face danger every minute, where they operate in harm’s way every single day, always under orders, always working for the cause. Their rewards are modest, at least financially. But in a sense they have the biggest paychecks of all: not written out on some bank transfer. Written out on their own hearts.

  And meanwhile 200 million citizens back home grouse and moan about the rising price of gasoline.

  “Tomcat one-zero-six…one minute…STAND BY!”

  080600MAY07. USS John F. Kennedy.

  10.00S 137E. Speed 30. Course 270.

  The 88,000-ton carrier was halfway between Pearl Harbor and Diego Garcia, steaming at flank speed through the Arafura Sea south of the Indonesian archipelago, heading for the near-bottomless waters above the Java Trench. They were well through the narrows of the Torres Strait, there was almost no wind off Australia’s Northern Territory and it was hotter than hell. Big John’s 280,000-horsepower Westinghouse turbines were working. The giant four-shafter was fully laden with more than 40 fighter-attack F-14A Tomcats, F/A-18C Hornets and a dozen more radar-spotter aircraft, prowlers and ASW squadrons.

  The flight wing patches worn by the aviators bore the names of legendary U.S. Navy outfits: the Black Aces; old Fighting 14; the Top Hatters; and VFA-87, the Golden Warriors. There might not yet be a full-scale war raging in the Gulf of Iran, but you’d never have known it watching Big John, armed to the teeth, driving forward on the second half of her 10,000-mile mission to Jimmy Ramshawe’s minefield.

  And now 5,000 miles of the Indian Ocean stretched before them. They would be the fifth U.S. CVBG to arrive on station, almost certainly to move north from Diego Garcia immediately, up to the gulf to relieve the Constellation Group.

  On the bridge of the carrier, Rear Admiral Daylan Holt was studying the plot of his group, one cruiser, two destroyers, five frigates, two nuclear submarines and a fleet tanker. At this speed they were burning up fuel, fast. But his orders were clear: Make all speed to DG and stand by for gulf patrol.

  That was one way to send someone on a 10,000-mile journey across the world. But Admiral Holt was prepared, even though it was difficult to get a handle on how serious things really were in the Strait of Hormuz.

  He sipped black coffee in company with his Combat Systems Officer, Lt. Commander Chris Russ, as the sun began to rise blood red out of the ocean over the stern of the massive warship. There was an air of apprehension throughout the carrier, had been since they had cleared Pearl a week ago. The pilots were predictably gung-ho. A bit too gung-ho. And now, for the first time, Lt. Commander Russ posed the question to the Admiral.

  “Do you think we might actually have to fight this, sir? I mean, a proper hot war?”

  “I think it’s possible but unlikely, Chris. Look at our perceived enemies—Iran, who put down the minefield, and China, who made it possible. Well, for a start, Iran’s not going to fire a shot in anger. They know we could ice their entire country in about twenty minutes. They have not fired yet, and in my opinion will not fire at all.”

  “How about the Chinese?”

  “They might attack if the action were in the South China Sea where they have their main fleet and we have many, many fewer ships. But they won’t attack in the gulf. They’re too far from home, and anyway they know we’d wipe out their ships in about twenty minutes.”

  “That’s a kinda busy twenty minutes, sir,” replied the Lieutenant Commander, grinning.

  “That’s a lot better than a kinda dead twenty minutes,” replied the Admiral, not grinning.

  0600. Tuesday, May 8.

  HQ SPECWARCOM. Coronado Beach.

  San Diego, California.

  Commander Russell Bennett, one of the most highly decorated U.S. Navy SEALs ever to serve in the squadron, was relishing his new job as the senior instructor for combat-ready men.

  The ex-Maine lobsterman, lionized in Coronado for his daredevil role as forward commander in a sensational attack on a Chinese jail last year, was back home on the beach, running through the cold surf, driving his men ever onward, before the sun had fought its way above the cliffs.

  They’d been out there since 0430 now and some of the newer guys, fresh out of their BUDs course, were finding it tough going. Rusty’s methods were brutal in the extreme. He parked six Zodiacs a half mile offshore and ordered all 50 of the men into the surf to swim out and get on board. Then he had them drive forward with their paddles, beach the big rubber landing craft, turn it around, and then fight it back out through the crashing breakers, again using paddles only.

  One half mile later they all jumped back into the freezing water wearing only swimming shorts and fought their way back to the beach, leaving only the six boat drivers behind. Tired, freezing, still in the dark, the men were then ordered to run four more miles back along the beach to a point where the Zodiacs were again waiting a half mile offshore.

  They’d done the exercise twice now, and all they heard was Commander Bennett’s voice urging them onward: “Keep going, son. I’m probably saving your life.” They were precisely the same words Rusty’s own instructors had yelled at him 15 years before. More important, they had been prophetically correct, which was, essentially, why the hickory-tough Rusty Bennett was still breathing, after an operational career that had six times seen him square up and stare down the Grim Reaper. The carrot-haired ex-SEAL combat team leader was just a bit too tough to die. And today he was making sure that also applied to the men he was now training. Every last one of them.

  Three times in the past 15 minutes, young SEALs had fallen flat down in the sand, too cold, too exhausted to care. And each time Rusty Bennett had stood above each man and roared abuse, swearing to God he’d blow his head off if he didn’t GET UP AND MOVE FORWARD.

  Two of the men were almost unconscious. One of them was sobbing. But all three of them reached down again, and found more, and then got up and moved forward in a combination of agony and defiance. At the end of the exercise, Commander Bennett took each of them aside and told him quietly, “That’s what it’s all about, hanging in there when you have nothing left. That’s a great job you did right there. I’m proud of you.”

  Back in the SEALs’ headquarters, Commander Bennett was summoned to the office of the SEAL Chief, Admiral John Bergstrom.

  “Morning, Rusty,” he said. “How do they look?”

  “Good, sir. Very good. Six of the veterans are already excellent leaders, and some of the new guys have terrific potential. We got great swimmers, good radio technicians, demolition guys and marksmen. Plus a few obvious hard men.”

  “Can we get two teams of twelve out of the group for a couple of critical missions?”

  “I’m sure we can, sir. I really like what I’m seeing from them. But I wouldn’t mind knowing roughly where we’re going.”

  “Well, you and I are leaving for Washington shortly after midnight for a final briefing. We’ll be there all day. I guess we’ll know then.”

  “Are we seeing the Big Man, sir?”

  “In person.”

  “Jesus. Are you sure I’m ready for this?”

  “You’re ready. Just as long as you remember his bark’s bad, but his bite’s worse…. Just kidding. The Admiral loves SEALs. Thinks we’re the most important guys in the U.S. armed services. Anyway it’s pretty obvious where we’re going, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir. Middle East. But I just wonder what we’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Probably not public relations. If Arnold Morgan wants us, he wants something either flattened or just plain obliterated. Trust me.”

  “Hell. I hope it’s not the big Iranian Naval yard down on the gulf. It’s swarming with military personnel.”

  “Of course, you’re an expert, eh, Rusty?”

  �
�Yessir. A very fair description. Damn place gives me the creeps.”

  “If I had to guess, I would say it’s certainly not Bandar Abbas the Admiral wants to talk about.”

  “Why not, sir? He said to have two teams of twelve on twenty-four hours battle notice. That’s two targets. Separate. Even Arnold Morgan could not possibly think twelve SEALs could take out an entire Naval base, with several thousand men on duty.

  “We might have a shot if we went at night!” said Rusty, grinning. “But I agree. He’s got something more passive in mind.”

  John Bergstrom walked across the room to a largescale electronic chart of the ocean along Iran’s southeastern coast. He stood staring at it as if checking reference points. And then he muttered, almost inaudibly, “What about that damn Chinese refinery?”

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t quite get that.”