world.”
“If you want it secret, where do you plan to put it? Qatar? Diego Garcia?”
“I haven’t decided yet. But first this new platoon will need some intake from DEVGRU itself—guys who are already experts on boarding moving ships. Like the pirates, they will use grappling irons, and they will climb hulls and come in from the air in attack gunships—one to deploy our boarding party and one to give them heavy covering fire.”
“Training them where?”
“Right here in the San Diego base. There are warships and submarines running in and out of here all the time. It’s ideal. We can work with both
stationary and moving ships, and we can establish this platoon and its senior command to form an outfit that deals with pirates only. The training will be absolutely sharp end, no distractions. And people in the base will hardly notice, since we work there fairly often anyway.
“This new Pirate Platoon will become the unchallenged experts on the subject. They say yes, then it’s a go. They say no, and we reconsider. But at least we won’t have politicians and journalists telling us what they think.”
“You have any ideas about who might command this fighting force? As if I didn’t know.”
“That’s my boy, Mack. This would be right up your alley. Take you back to the old days, oil rigs in the Gulf and all that.”
“Well, it might. But they were swim-ins from the mini-subs. This is entirely different. Boarding a moving target.”
“That’s why you’re here, Mack. Because we believe you can do what would be impossible for other men.”
“Hmmmm. Let’s give it our best shot. Which platoon am I having?
“Alpha, Beta, and Charlie are busy. I want to reform Delta. So from now on Delta is the anti-pirate force, and you’re its commander. There’s probably some special guys you want with you, and I regard this coming challenge as so urgent you can have anyone you like.
“But for the first time, Mack, we’ll have a specialist group, ready to go in and attack the pirates, show ’em what happens when the SEALs move onto the international stage. But we better not fuck it up.”
Mack was thoughtful. “Andy, we cannot just go in if a situation is honest-to-God hopeless. We’ll get no marks for failing. And there will be situations that are beyond us—mostly because they’re too far away offshore, and we cannot get there in time.
“Equally, we don’t want to go in heavy-handed and start shooting pirates when it’s not necessary. Our missions need to be chosen with care. But when we go in, we hit hard.
“As Navy SEALs, we are sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves, so every mission is a mission of mercy, to rescue prisoners, to reclaim ships and property, to protect the innocent.”
“Couldn’t have said it better, Mack. I’m calling a meeting of senior instructors and commanders this evening. And then we go to work. Line up some top-class guys for the Delta Platoon. These goddamned pirates want to fuck about, we’ll show them how to really fuck about.”
NINE THOUSAND MILES FROM CORONADO, the Navy’s P-3C Orion took off from Nairobi’s Wilson Airport right on time, bound for a remote stretch of dark sky high above the Indian Ocean, 0.75 degrees south on the GPS, 52.36 east. Behind the captain and the navigator sat the four navy guards. Between them were five large zip-up mailbags, fluorescent orange in color.
Inside those bags was a total of $5 million, packaged in stacks of fifty $100 bills. There were two hundred of these small, manageable stacks in each of the five bags, the handles lashed together with a wide unbreakable nylon strap.
On each bag, there was a flotation device and a satellite location beam, just in case the drop missed the deck of the Niagara Falls and landed in the water. The state-of-the-art locator, which would begin transmitting as soon as the bags landed, was similar to those carried by all combat SEALs operating behind enemy lines.
Their route
“If you want it secret, where do you plan to put it? Qatar? Diego Garcia?”
“I haven’t decided yet. But first this new platoon will need some intake from DEVGRU itself—guys who are already experts on boarding moving ships. Like the pirates, they will use grappling irons, and they will climb hulls and come in from the air in attack gunships—one to deploy our boarding party and one to give them heavy covering fire.”
“Training them where?”
“Right here in the San Diego base. There are warships and submarines running in and out of here all the time. It’s ideal. We can work with both
stationary and moving ships, and we can establish this platoon and its senior command to form an outfit that deals with pirates only. The training will be absolutely sharp end, no distractions. And people in the base will hardly notice, since we work there fairly often anyway.
“This new Pirate Platoon will become the unchallenged experts on the subject. They say yes, then it’s a go. They say no, and we reconsider. But at least we won’t have politicians and journalists telling us what they think.”
“You have any ideas about who might command this fighting force? As if I didn’t know.”
“That’s my boy, Mack. This would be right up your alley. Take you back to the old days, oil rigs in the Gulf and all that.”
“Well, it might. But they were swim-ins from the mini-subs. This is entirely different. Boarding a moving target.”
“That’s why you’re here, Mack. Because we believe you can do what would be impossible for other men.”
“Hmmmm. Let’s give it our best shot. Which platoon am I having?
“Alpha, Beta, and Charlie are busy. I want to reform Delta. So from now on Delta is the anti-pirate force, and you’re its commander. There’s probably some special guys you want with you, and I regard this coming challenge as so urgent you can have anyone you like.
“But for the first time, Mack, we’ll have a specialist group, ready to go in and attack the pirates, show ’em what happens when the SEALs move onto the international stage. But we better not fuck it up.”
Mack was thoughtful. “Andy, we cannot just go in if a situation is honest-to-God hopeless. We’ll get no marks for failing. And there will be situations that are beyond us—mostly because they’re too far away offshore, and we cannot get there in time.
“Equally, we don’t want to go in heavy-handed and start shooting pirates when it’s not necessary. Our missions need to be chosen with care. But when we go in, we hit hard.
“As Navy SEALs, we are sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves, so every mission is a mission of mercy, to rescue prisoners, to reclaim ships and property, to protect the innocent.”
“Couldn’t have said it better, Mack. I’m calling a meeting of senior instructors and commanders this evening. And then we go to work. Line up some top-class guys for the Delta Platoon. These goddamned pirates want to fuck about, we’ll show them how to really fuck about.”
NINE THOUSAND MILES FROM CORONADO, the Navy’s P-3C Orion took off from Nairobi’s Wilson Airport right on time, bound for a remote stretch of dark sky high above the Indian Ocean, 0.75 degrees south on the GPS, 52.36 east. Behind the captain and the navigator sat the four navy guards. Between them were five large zip-up mailbags, fluorescent orange in color.
Inside those bags was a total of $5 million, packaged in stacks of fifty $100 bills. There were two hundred of these small, manageable stacks in each of the five bags, the handles lashed together with a wide unbreakable nylon strap.
On each bag, there was a flotation device and a satellite location beam, just in case the drop missed the deck of the Niagara Falls and landed in the water. The state-of-the-art locator, which would begin transmitting as soon as the bags landed, was similar to those carried by all combat SEALs operating behind enemy lines.
Their route
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