Seal Team Seven #20: Attack Mode by Keith Douglass Page B

Hawkeye said their radar showed something being off-loaded. Now the boat is moving south, heading in the direction of Majuro.”
    “Where there is a large-sized airport with planes big enough to hoist one of those lead bottles into the air,” Murdock said.
    “Stop him,” Stroh said.
    “We can’t shoot him out of the water,” Olenowski said. “That would dump the plutonium into the ocean and could cause a horrendous dead zone.”
    “Shoot the twenty-millimeter in front of him and order him to stop,” Stroh said.
    “If he has the plutonium, the man in the boat knows that we won’t sink him, so a bluff over his bow wouldn’t stop him,” Murdock said.
    “Why not shoot off his rudder with those twenty-millimeter rounds?” Stroh asked.
    “Possible, but at nine hundred miles an hour there’s noguarantee of pinpoint accuracy from the Tomcat’s guns,” the CAG said. “We might end up sinking him. Not an option.”
    “Send out a chopper and four of us will rope down on his deck and take over the boat,” Jaybird said. “We can spray the cabin with MP-5 automatic fire on our way down and not endanger the cargo.”
    The CAG looked at Murdock, who nodded. “We can do it. Leave two men in the chopper door to give covering fire as we go down. Swing us on board and we drop off the ropes and take over.”
    The CAG looked at a paper. “He’s making eighteen knots. Take him a long time to get to Majuro, over five hundred miles away.”
    “I’ve been checking with the office,” Stroh said. “Twenty-five of these atolls in the Marshalls have airfields. Don’t know how big any of them are. Most of them are probably for small private planes. What’s the closest atoll to the one he left?”
    The CAG looked at one of his men at the maps.
    “That would be Bikar, sir. She’s about a hundred and eighty miles southeast from Sibylla.”
    The Navy captain looked at Murdock, then at Stroh. “Sounds like the best plan. We’ll send two Sixties. You can have cover-fire men in one, your ropers in the other. We have some two-inch line which should be like the ones that you use.”
    “Sounds like they should work,” Murdock said. “Let’s get mounted up. We should be taking off in the birds in thirty minutes.”
    “I’ll get somebody to find the ropes and give them to you at the choppers,” the CAG said.
    Murdock and Jaybird trotted back to the compartment. On the way Jaybird asked the question. “Who’s on the ropes?”
    “You, me, Bradford, and Ching. Put our snipers in the other bird—Claymore, Canzoneri, and Fernandez—all shooting out one door as the bird circles the boat.”
    …
    Twenty minutes later the SEALs were on board the two choppers waiting on the flight deck. The heavy ropes had been found and one end was wired tightly to the top of each of the chopper door posts. They were fifty feet long and neatly coiled so they could be kicked out at a moment’s notice.
    The four SEALs on the ropes all had H & K MP-5 submachine guns strapped on their backs with plastic tubing. One yank and they’d be ready to use. The four SEALs had heavy gloves designed to act as brakes as the men slid down the heavy rope.
    Stroh walked back and forth in front of the birds, like an expectant father. Captain Olenowski came out and talked to Murdock.
    “We’ve got a go from the Task Force commander and from Stroh’s boss for this operation. Then we worry about the freighter. Good luck out there, and bring everybody back.”
    “What do we do with the ship and cargo when we have it secured?”
    “You signal the chopper you have control and we’ll send out a heavy lift bird to pick up the package and move it into our radiation proof vaults. Go.”
    Murdock stepped into the SH-60 Seahawk and waved at the crewman he was ready to take off.
    Jaybird wrote on a pad of paper and gave it to Murdock.
    “We’re about a hundred miles from the boat Take us about thirty minutes to get there at two-oh-seven mph.”
    Murdock nodded. He