He let go a low, heartfelt sigh of relief. This op would have been immeasurably more complicated if the bastards had managed to break into the hold. He keyed his Motorola. "Prof! This is Murdock!"

"Copy, L-T," Higgins's voice replied. "We're set up and ready to go."

"Call 'em in," Murdock told him. "Tell 'em the package is safe!"

"Roger! I'm on it!"

The lieutenant glanced across the bridge to where Wilson was lying on a fire blanket on the deck. He looked unconscious. "Also tell 'em we need medevac for a casualty."

"Right, L-T."

"Razor?"

"Here, L-T."

"Where's 'here?'"

"On the fantail, L-T. With Prof."

"Head on down to the engine room. I'll have Mac meet you there. I want you two to go over the engines of this tub. Find out if we can get her under way again."

"Roger that, L-T. On my way."

"Mac, you hear that?"

"Sure did, Skipper." The big Texan somewhat reluctantly yielded his M-60 to Holt, who'd done all he could for the wounded Chucker. Roselli's original rating before he'd joined the SEALs had been a machinist's mate, while MacKenzie was a master chief engineman. He wanted his two best snipes in the freighter's engine room before he even thought about backing off from the Bandar Abbas dock. "Jaybird?"

"Yeah, L-T."

"You take Mac's pig for him. Holt, you're with me. I want to check out the ship's con before we try moving her."

"Aye, aye, Skipper."

"Right, L-T."

They had a busy several minutes ahead of them now.

0130 hours (Zulu +3)

Fuel-dock

Bandar Abbas shipyard

Cautiously, Doc peered past a stack of crates toward a vast and well-lit expanse of concrete fronting a row of machine shops and storage buildings. Coburn knelt beside him, his face still a nightmarish mix of blood and greasepaint. "What's the word, Doc?"

"I don't like it, Captain. Too open."

Another explosion boomed in the night at their backs. The fueling dock was still burning furiously, the livid orange flames adding to the light bathing the waterfront strip. Hundreds of Iranians had descended on the area and were fighting the blaze now. Doc and Coburn had hidden behind a pile of concrete pipe sections as the fire trucks and soldiers hurried past, then slipped deeper into the shipyard, putting as much distance between themselves and their handiwork as they could.

Now they were about eighty yards from the water, and still some two hundred yards or more from the Yuduki Maru's pier. Doc could see the forward half of the Japanese freighter, revealed in the gap between two small buildings. The fires on her deck appeared to have died down.

Damn! The ship was still too far for the short reach of their tactical radios. Each time Doc tried, he heard only garbled bursts of noise and static.

Coburn pointed to a line of military vehicles parked beside a storehouse, apparently untended. "There's transport."

"Yeah." Doc's voice sounded less than certain.

"We've got to get to the Maru's pier," Coburn said. "In a jeep we can just drive up to the dock like we own the place."

"And maybe get nailed by our own guys when they think we're the Iranian cavalry." But Doc had to agree that riding would get them where they needed to go faster than by shank's mare. And though he'd said nothing to the patient about it, Coburn was not in good shape. The immediate effects of the CO2 poisoning had been banished by getting rid of the rebreather, but the SEAL Seven commander could well have internal injuries. Doc wouldn't be able to know that for sure, though, until he had Coburn back aboard the Nassau. Where other ships had a sick bay, the LHA had no less than three well-equipped hospitals with a total of six hundred beds and all the high-tech medical wonder gadgets you could ask for.

But for any of that to do any good, Doc had to get his patient off the beach and aboard the Nassau. "Okay," he said at last. "We'll give it a try."

Ellsworth and Coburn moved together, sticking to the shadows at the perimeter of the field, circling the well-lighted part until they reached what appeared to be a small motor pool. Doc selected a vehicle, a military jeep of obvious American manufacture, handed Coburn his H&K, and slid in behind the wheel.

"No keys," Coburn said.

"No problem," Doc replied. Drawing his knife, he used the hilt to smash the face plate off the ignition block assembly. Selecting two wires, he cut and stripped them with his knife, then brought the bare ends together. The engine ground, then caught as Doc pumped the gas.

Coburn watched the process, which took less than five seconds, dubiously. "Your record says you're a country boy, Doc."

"Yup, that's me. Just a sweet, simple country boy..."

"...trying to get along in the big city, yeah," Coburn said, finishing the old line for him. "I've heard that one before. Remind me never to trust you with my car."

Doc gunned the engine once, put the jeep in gear, and pulled out of the motor pool area. "Hey, I'm just a laid-back kind of guy," Doc replied easily. "You can trust me with your car, your money, your girl..."

"Yeah, you're laid back like a rattlesnake. I don't know if... watch it!"

Doc had seen the danger at the same instant, a line of Iranian soldiers moving along the catwalk atop a massive, concrete structure that looked like a dry dock crib. He increased the jeep's speed slightly. "Don't sweat it, Captain. We're Iranians too, remember? This here is an official Iranian government vehicle."

But the men on the catwalk evidently were not convinced. Muzzle flashes popped and stuttered as the Pasdaran infantry opened fire. Bullets sparked off the pavement and slammed into the jeep's side.

"Right," Coburn said. Twisting in his seat, he aimed his H&K and loosed a long, full-auto burst. "Unauthorized use subject to heavy penalty!"

Doc spun the jeep's wheel, sending the vehicle hurtling down a narrow alley between two warehouses. They emerged on the waterfront, driving along a broad, concrete wharf. Startled Iranian soldiers and dock workers dove left and right, scattering from the jeep's path.

"I hope you're a better corpsman than you are a driver," Coburn yelled. Then a burst of machine-gun fire slammed into the jeep from the front, shattering the windshield and shredding the right front tire. Doc felt the jeep going out of control, the rear skidding wildly to the left, and he fought to keep the vehicle from flipping over. Smoke exploded front beneath the hood, and the engine died. Still spinning now, they skidded another ten feet and slammed hard into a bollard rising from the water's edge.

"Damn, the pedestrians are getting worse every..." He stopped. Coburn was slumped over in the passenger's seat, fresh blood bright against his scalp. "Shit!"

Half standing in the wrecked jeep, Doc grabbed his H&K from the back seat, thumbed the selector to full auto, and cut loose at a squad of advancing Pasdaran. Two collapsed on the pavement and the others scattered. Doc glanced back over his shoulder; the Yuduki Maru was still a good fifty yards away.

"The sea is your friend," Doc said. He'd meant the words, drilled into SEAL recruits throughout their BUD/S training, to be ironic, but right now he was well aware of the truth behind them. He checked Coburn, finding a strong pulse. It looked like a round might have grazed his scalp, knocking him unconscious, though Doc wanted to give him a thorough look-over.

There was no time for that now, though. Another bullet slammed into the side of the jeep. "C'mon, Captain," he said, dragging Coburn's limp body from the passenger's seat and draping him over his back in an awkward fireman's carry. "Let's us go for a swim!"

With Coburn still over his shoulders, Doc leaped off the wharf and into the cold, dark embrace of the harbor once more.