"C'mon, baby," Magic said softly. "Look at Poppa."

"I don't think it's a civvie," Nicholson said. "Look! I see a weapon."

"I see it," Magic said. The man was through, crouching on the wooden deck, and someone had just handed what looked like a G-3 assault rifle through the porthole. Still, it could be one of the civilian hostages, escaping with a captured rifle from the cabin where he'd been held captive. In the greens and grays of the starlight scope, it was difficult to determine whether or not he was wearing a uniform.

Suddenly he turned, his magnified face staring directly into Brown's scope, and the SEAL sniper had a clear look at his features. Definitely, he was not one of the civilians whose faces he'd memorized aboard the Nassau. Gently, almost lovingly, Brown caressed his MI's trigger. There was a single sharp report, and the upturned face in the nightscope exploded in a messy spray. "Kill," Nicholson said. "Good shot, Magic."

"Yeah, that's one down," Magic said. "Now where're the rest of the bastards?"

0002 hours (Zulu +3)

Greenpeace yacht Beluga

Indian Ocean, 230 miles southeast of Masirah

MacKenzie snapped off hand signals to Higgins and Ellsworth, then to Garcia and Roselli. You two, that way! You two, over here! Doc Ellsworth nodded as he crowded up against the bulkhead, his pistol in both hands, muzzle high. Luxury yacht or no, the Beluga's central passageway was claustrophobic, especially when occupied by half a dozen SEALs in full gear, with weapons and combat loadout vests, and movement was made no easier by the bodies of three Iranian soldiers and their weapons lying on the deck.

Beluga boasted a number of cabins and staterooms on this deck. The owner's cabin was a large area forward, but the door was open and Doc had pronounced it clear when the bow team had first come in. Four more cabins were aligned two by two on either side of the passageway leading aft to the galley, while a companionway forward dropped to the next deck down, leading to a forecastle cubby for the yacht's crew, storage spaces, and a small engine room.

Two of the side-by-side cabins on this deck were open; one was filled with radio and computer equipment, including the electronic gear necessary for establishing a satellite communications link. Another room, empty when the SEALs broke in, had been occupied by the Iranians. The last two, opposite one another, were closed and locked from the inside. As MacKenzie gave silent, hand-sign directions, Doc and the Professor took up positions alongside the cabin door to port, while Garcia and Roselli took the cabin to starboard. Seconds before, Nicholson had radioed the VBSS team about the kill outside, warning them that at least one more tango probably occupied the starboard cabin.

Garcia and the Professor were both equipped as assault breachers, with shotguns instead of H&Ks. Standing to the sides of their respective doors, they took aim, then fired, the twin booms of the shotguns ear-splitting in the confined space below decks. The cabin doors were lightweight, hollow-core barriers designed for privacy and nothing more. One-ounce slugs smashed locking mechanisms and plywood, then punched through carpeting and fiberglass decks as the doors disintegrated into splinters and whirling sheets of wooden paneling.

On the starboard side, Roselli lunged through the door a blink behind the shotgun blast, his Smith & Wesson gripped in both hands, the aiming laser sweeping across the darkened room like a jewel-bright rapier. On the far bulkhead, a porthole had been opened; an Iranian stood there, a G-3 assault rifle aimed at the door.

The shotgun blast and the spray of splinters and wood chips had forced him to turn his head, and he was a split second late in firing — fortunately for Roselli, since the SEAL otherwise would have been dead as soon as he burst through the opening. Roselli tracked his pistol, the laser painting an unsteady line across the Iranian's chest. In the same, confused instant, one of the two other figures in the cabin, a big, lanky man in a lightweight safari jacket suddenly bolted toward the door.

Roselli held his fire as the hostage lurched between him and the soldier. The soldier fired an instant later, triggering a full-auto burst toward the door; the volley had been aimed at Roselli, but the bullets slammed into the bulkhead, the overhead, and the hostage's back. Roselli triggered three quick shots as the stricken hostage crumpled to the deck, slamming the Iranian back against the porthole.

On the other side of the passageway, Doc plunged into the stateroom through the storm of splinters loosed by Higgins's shotgun blast. A single Iranian soldier stood there, hiding behind a tall, attractive blond woman in a T-shirt and blue slacks. He had his left arm tight across her throat, gripping her so tightly that her scream was a silent, desperate gape as her hands clawed at his forearm; his right hand pressed the muzzle of a Colt .45 pistol against the side of her head.

"Aslehetawnra beeandawzeed!" he screamed, and the panic was evident in the harsh raggedness of his words. "Goosh koneed va elaw meezanam!"

Ellsworth wasn't sure what the man had said. He didn't speak Farsi, and the few phrases he'd memorized for this op were brief and strictly utilitarian. He suspected, though, that the Iranian had just rattled off a couple of those memorized phrases, things like "Drop your weapons," and "obey or I'll shoot." Strictly Wild West gunslinger stuff.

"Take it easy, fella," he said, his eyes glancing about the tiny compartment. Two more women were clinging to each other on the cabin's single bed. "Nobody's gonna hurt you! Azyatee beh shomaw nameerasad!"

The expression on the visible part of the Iranian's face went from desperation to blank puzzlement. The pistol in his hand didn't waver, but a fraction more of his head was visible now behind the woman's blond mane. Doc was holding his Smith & Wesson at waist level, a deliberately nonthreatening stance, but the laser was painting the wild straggle of the Iranian's hair. He dipped the muzzle a fraction of a degree, and the red dot of the laser aim-point slid onto the guy's face. The Iranian flinched, probably from the dazzle of the laser, and pulled farther behind the woman. Doc let the laser dot drift onto her hair, which sparkled under the beam's caress. "Tasleem shaveed!" Doc told him. "Surrender!"

"Eli?"

Doc squeezed the trigger. His pistol chuffed, punching the round effortlessly through the woman's hair and into the Iranian's left eye. The soldier spun backward and fell across the bed alongside the other two women. The blonde stood motionless on the deck, eyes squeezed shut, screaming now as loud as she was able.

"Shit," Doc said. "I didn't think my accent was that bad!"

The blonde stopped screaming, opened her eyes, then screamed again as soon as she'd had a good look at her rescuer.

"It's okay," he said, raising his voice. "It's okay! We're Americans!"

"Americans!" One of the women on the bed sprang forward, grabbing his arm. "Thank you, God! Americans!" The other two women followed an instant later, and Ellsworth found himself surrounded. "Port cabin clear," he reported over his radio as the women crowded closer. "One tango down."

"One tango down, starboard cabin," Roselli added on the same channel. "And one hostage down too. Doc? We need you over here!"

"On my way, Razor." He had to roughly disentangle himself from the women to get out of the compartment. "Okay! Okay! Take it easy, ladies! We'll have you out of here soon."

He could hear the thunder of the Huey outside edging closer to the yacht.

0008 hours (Zulu +3)

Greenpeace yacht Beluga

Indian Ocean, 230 miles southeast of Masirah