No words were exchanged between the members of the team. Communications were limited to hand signs, touch, and rare, non-vocalized clicks and cluckings over the technical radios. Mutual trust and coordination within the group were perfect, almost effortless. These men had worked, trained, slept, and practiced with one another for months, until each could sense the others' positions and movements even in total darkness.

Sometimes Roselli imagined he could even sense their thoughts.

At the moment, of course, he didn't need psychic powers to know what the others were thinking. Everyone was focused completely on the mission, and on their objective, now some ten kilometers to the South.

1515 hours (Zulu -5)

Meeting of the House Military Affairs Committee

Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.

Congressman Farnum leaned forward, one hand clutching the base of the microphone as he played to the cameras in the room. "But Captain Granger, isn't it true that these SEALS, these, ah, 'NAVSPECWAR' people, as you call them, isn't it true that they present the Navy with special administrative and discipline problems?"

"Of course, Mr. Chairman. As I'm sure there are similar administrative difficulties with other elite military forces."

"Ah. But is it not true, Captain, that there have been numerous incidents near SEAL bases involving disorderly conduct? Drunkenness? Sexual harassment of both civilians and female military personnel?"

"It's true, Mr. Chairman. There have been some incidents. But I should point out, Sir, that these are very special men, highly trained, dedicated, motivated to a degree I never would have dreamed possible before I saw them in action."

"That hardly excuses their actions, Captain Granger. Ah, you are not a SEAL yourself, are you?"

"No, sir. But I have worked closely with the Teams on several occasions."

A congressman several places to Farnum's left looked up from the papers on the table before him. "When was it that you last saw SEALs in action, Captain Granger?"

"During the Gulf War, Congressman Murdock. I was a commander at the time, attached to the boat squadron that put a SEAL detachment ashore off Kuwait City the night before General Schwarzkopf began his end run around the Iraqi right. It was a damned impressive operation, let me tell..."

"I'm certain it was, Captain," Farnum interrupted. "Some of these elite units make a point of carrying off flashy, showboat missions that grab the public eye."

"I'd hardly call that op 'show-boating,' Mr. Chairman. The SEALs worked in complete secrecy, and their involvement in Desert Storm did not surface until some time after the war. In that particular instance, they swam ashore onto a heavily defended beach at Kuwait City and planted a large number of demolition charges. When those were set off, the explosions convinced the Iraqi commanders that the U.S. Marines were coming ashore there, at Kuwait City, rather than across their trenches and mine-fields in the south. In fact, our records show that several Iraqi units were moved back from the front lines to Kuwait City that morning, in anticipation of Marine landings there."

"Ah, yes, Captain Granger," Farnum said, shuffling through his notes. "We're aware of all that. However, the point here is that all of our military services maintain — at great expense, I might add — elite special-warfare units. The Air Force has their First and Seventh Special Operations Squadrons. The Marines claim their whole corps is an elite force, but they reserve a special distinction for their Special Operations Capable units. The Army, ah, well, the Army has Rangers, the Delta Force, Airborne units, Special Forces. Is it not true, Captain Granger, that these units perform many of the same tasks as the Navy's SEALS?"

"Well, yes, it is, Mr. Chairman, but..."

"Marine Recon teams could have planted those demolition charges in Kuwait as easily as SEALS, am I right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why is it that the U.S. Marines, the FBI's Hostage Rescue Teams, the Rangers, Delta Force, the SEALS, and God knows who else all train extensively to carry out, for example, hostage rescue missions? How many hostage situations has our nation been faced with in the past, Captain Granger?"

"I'm afraid I'm not qualified to answer that question, sir."

"The point is that we simply do not need so many units all designed to perform the same basic tasks. This is an appalling and incredibly expensive duplication of effort, training, equipment, and budgetary allocation that this nation can ill afford in these times of fiscal challenge. It is our purpose here today to determine just why Congress should permit continued funding for the U.S. Navy SEALS."

"Well, Mr. Chairman, the SEALs add a unique and valuable dimension to our special warfare capabilities. Their ability to work underwater, for instance..."

"Is duplicated by the Special Forces. Actually, I must admit that the old Underwater Demolition Teams did provide a useful service in surveying beaches, blowing up obstacles in advance of a landing, and that sort of thing. But the UDTs were closed out in 1983, when they officially became part of the SEALS, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now we have SEALs who do everything the UDT did, but who also conduct raids, rescue missions, even intelligence ops many miles inland. I submit that, for all of the branches of the armed forces, special operations are, ah, sexy. They have seduced all of the services, who see them as a means of securing for themselves larger and larger portions of the military appropriations pie.

"Now, in my understanding, Captain, the historic role of the U.S. Navy is ships and sea lanes. They support our ground forces overseas and, through our ICBM submarine force, maintain one leg of our nuclear-deterrence triad. I fail to see why we need these naval commandoes, these Rambos who carry out missions that can just as easily be assigned to Army Special Forces.

"In short, Captain, we simply do not need the SEALS. They are an expensive luxury we can easily do without."

0145 hours (Zulu +3)

South of Hawr al-Hammar, Iraq

Once the marsh had extended for most of the twenty kilometers between the motionless black waters of the Hawr al-Hammar and the ancient city of al-Basra to the southeast. North of the lake, the swamps had covered hundreds of square miles between the Tigris and the Euphrates River, stretching almost halfway to Baghdad. In the years since the Gulf War, however, Saddam Hussein's engineers had been busily carving a system of canals and man-made or man-improved rivers throughout the area in an attempt to drain the entire region. The Qadissiya River — dug in 1993 by 4,500 workers in just forty-five days — drained much of the southern Iraq wetlands into the Euphrates, and together with the Saddam River and the Mother of Battles River had already transformed the age-old topography of this part of the Fertile Crescent. Officially, the project opened new land for agriculture. It was pure coincidence that the south Iraq marshes had long provided refuge for Shiites, dissidents, and rebels.

As the intruders worked their way south through the dying marshlands, they encountered more and more signs of habitation. Twice they halted, then took wide detours to avoid sarifas, traditional marsh dwellings woven from the omnipresent reeds with ornate, latticework entrances. The huts, and the slender, high-prowed canoes called mashufs by the locals, were identical to huts and canoes built in this region for at least the past six thousand years.

Twice too the squad went to ground as Iraqi military patrols blundered past, crashing through the reeds and calling to one another with sharp, guttural cries in Arabic. Another time, as the squad was wading along the muddy banks of a canal, they froze in place, as unmoving and as invisible as moss-covered logs, while an ex-Soviet Zhuk-class patrol boat motored slowly past.