Seal Team Seven #20: Attack Mode by Keith Douglass

maybe twenty hundred. I’d use the Rubber Ducks and go in with one boat on each side and go up in a coordinated move.”
    “No jumpers to secure the deck?” Murdock asked.
    “That’s a small target, at night, and we don’t know about the winds down here. Too dangerous for the benefits.”
    Murdock looked at his men. The brightest ones had spoken up. He stood from the bunk he’d been sitting on. “Jaybird, Senior Chief, JG, we’ll have a meet with the CAG and some of his people and see their reaction. First we’ll have to get within ten miles of her to use the Ducks. I’ll see when we can have a meeting.”
    Murdock found the closest phone and contacted the CAG. Captain Olenowski reported that the freighter was still anchored and the Hawkeye was watching her.
    “When can we set up a meeting? We need a plan to use to go in and grab the freighter.”
    “Make it in an hour, in a room just off the CIC.”
    “Be four of us. We’re looking to hit the freighter an hour after first dark.”
    “Sooner the better. We don’t know what she’s doing there or when she might move.”
    The meeting went quickly. Murdock outlined the planto use the choppers to take them within ten miles of the freighter. “Then we’d go the rest of the way by the IBS. You do have a pair of IBS craft in your fleet, don’t you?”
    “I’ll check,” a captain who wasn’t introduced said. “We usually have a dozen. After you get to her, you go up the sides and take down the pirates?”
    “Yes, sir. We’ve done this type of attack more than a dozen times under fire. We’ve only had to back down once, when they saw us coming and sprayed us with machine-gun fire.”
    “You don’t expect any heavy weapons on this boat?” the CAG asked.
    “No, sir. It would have been hard to get them on board in Honolulu or on the atoll.”
    “So you’ll need two Sixties stripped down, one for each squad,” Captain Olenowski said.
    “Yes, sir,” Gardner said. “The distance should be no problem. The Sixties have plenty of range.”
    “We’ll get to her well before dark,” the CAG said. “We’ll stand off twenty miles and be ready to give any assistance.”
    “Might be a good idea to have a pair of Tomcats with a full load of twenty-millimeter rounds flying CAP, just in case we need them,” Murdock suggested.
    “You’ve got them,” Captain Olenowski said. “Let’s set up the takeoff time. Your men need any supplies, ammo, weapons?”
    “We’re combat loaded at the moment. Depending on the action here, we’ll be looking for some ammo later.”
    “Take off at twenty-two hundred, Commander?”
    “Fine. We’ll be ready.”
    On board the
Willowwind
    Jomo Shigahara scowled at the engineering officer. “You mean he hasn’t got it fixed yet? You said it would be an hour and that was three hours ago.”
    “The program Schafer put in nearly worked, but the virus was worse than he figured. He says another hour and he should have it.”
    “If he doesn’t, I’m going to cut off the little finger on his right hand. You tell the bastard that. Also, if it isn’t done in an hour, he doesn’t get the other five thousand dollars. Go tell him.”
    Shigahara watched the engineering officer leave the bridge. So far this was not going the way he had hoped it would. He turned as one of his men came up. He’d been on the radio.
    “Message just came in, Captain,” Socha said.
    “Better be good news.”
    “You’ll like it,” Socha said and handed him a sheet of paper. Shigahara read it and grinned.
    “Yes, good news. Get that middle hatch open and warm up the crane. We’re back in business. Glad you recovered, Socha.”
    They watched from the big ship as men at the far side of the lagoon took camouflage off a boat. She was a sixty-footer and looked fast to Shigahara. The men backed her out of the small concealed dock and worked her gently out through the coral heads in a channel that couldn’t have been more than thirty feet wide.
    The boat