"What will become of me?"

"We'll arrange to fly you to one of our ships. Don't worry. You'll be well treated." As he spoke, though, Murdock's mind was racing ahead. If what this Pasdaran colonel had said was true, a startling opportunity existed for the Americans... if they could get their act together in time. Leaving Aghasi in Garcia's care, Murdock hurried from the cabin. He needed to make another radio call to Prairie Home and, through them, to the Pentagon.

1045 hours (Zulu -5 hours)

NAVSPECWARGRU-Two Briefing Room

Little Creek, Virginia

"What is the single element that screws us up time and time again in this sort of op?" Captain Coburn demanded. He looked around the table, moving from face to face. "Intelligence! Or rather, the lack of reliable intelligence. I remind you that the last time we tried to go into Iran, during Operation Eagle's Claw, in 1980, we had no intelligence assets on the ground in that country at all."

"This is hardly a similar situation, Captain Coburn," Admiral Kerrigan said. "Besides, it was mechanical failure that doomed Eagle's Claw, that and the collision of a helicopter with an Air Force transport."

"You're talking through your brass hat, Admiral, and you know it," Brian Hadley said, grinning. "I was at Langley in '80, and I remember. The Company had been out of Iran ever since the Shah got booted out, and we were desperate to have some eyes and ears on the ground. If some young Navy officer had come up with an idea to walk into Tehran and tell us what was going on, I'd have fallen down and kissed his Corfams."

"Hmpf! Has anyone considered that Murdock might be hot-dogging this thing?" Admiral Kerrigan demanded. "Good God, Captain, this whole idea reeks of romanticized John Wayne shit! Spies and traitors and the proverbial cavalry coming over the hill just in the proverbial nick of time!"

"Maybe so, Admiral," Captain Mason admitted from the other side of the table. "But the cavalry, as you put it... or in this case, the II MEF, is going in whether we approve Murdock's plan or not. And it does give us a hell of a lot better chance to pull this off."

"I, for one, resent the implication that my people are show-boating a mission," Coburn said evenly. "These men are pros, Admiral. There are no 'hot dogs' in my command."

"Perhaps that was too strong a word, Captain," Kerrigan said. "But how are we supposed to coordinate a plan that your men keep changing in the field?"

Coburn grinned. "Are you suggesting, Sir, that one lieutenant in a sailboat is about to upset something as big as Operation Deadly Weapon?"

"At this point, Captain, I'm not sure there's anything your people can't do... or screw up if they put half a mind to it." He said it with a wry half smile, and the other officers in the briefing room laughed.

Coburn felt himself relax a little. He'd been expecting a far bloodier battle with the MIDEASTFOR liaison, but Kerrigan's constant opposition to NAVSPECWAR operations appeared to have eased somewhat since the last time he'd been in this room. Obviously he still didn't like the special forces concept, but he at least was willing to work with the idea and had agreed that Deadly Weapon would lead off with NAVSPECWAR people. He seemed most concerned now with the possibility that intelligence data routed back from Murdock's team might force a last-second change in the U.S. Marine amphibious operations about to commence in the Gulf.

Today's planning session had actually been called by Brian Hadley, who was scheduled to meet with the President's National Security Advisor later that evening. He'd wanted an assessment by members of the Navy Special Warfare community about whether or not the idea radioed back by Murdock had a chance of working.

Except for Kerrigan and his people, of course, everyone in the room had thought Murdock's plan a wizard idea. And Kerrigan's opinion carried little weight here. Everyone knew he was down on the special-ops people, and he was consulted on the matter only because Deadly Weapon would fall under MIDEASTFOR's provenance.

But the SEALs were going to be a part of this, no matter what Kerrigan had to say.

"I suppose what I object to most," Kerrigan went on, "is this sense of making things up as we go along. Modern war can't be fought that way."

"On the contrary, Admiral," Hadley said. "Vietnam demanded flexible, adaptive battle plans, and every military option since has demonstrated the need for more flexibility, not less. We've got to know what we're getting into over there."

"I would have thought that the SEAL-Marine joint recon force was adequate to our needs."

"Maybe so," Coburn said. "I damn well hope you're right. But it seems to me that young Murdock is going to be the right man in the right place at the right time, and we'd be fools to yank him out now. This is too good an opportunity to throw away."

A rippling murmur of approval made its way about the table. Coburn had been as surprised as anyone else in Little Creek by Murdock's radio message, some eighteen hours ago, suggesting this last-minute change to Deadly Weapon. The former hostages, the Iranian prisoner, and all of the SEALs save four had been ferried by helicopter back to the Nassau.

But as of the last report, Murdock and three of his men were still aboard the Beluga, sailing in company with the Iranian squadron toward the port of Bandar Abbas.

It was expected that they would actually enter Bandar Abbas in another — he looked at his watch — eighteen hours now. Just hours ahead of the planned Marine invasion of Iran.

"But how reliable is Murdock's information, do you think?" a captain on Kerrigan's staff wanted to know as the murmur died down. "His report says he got all of this from that captured Iranian colonel. Couldn't all of this be some kind of elaborate setup?"

"Up at Langley," Hadley said, "they're rating this one as a B-3."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's how the CIA weights the reliability of data acquired from various sources. The letter gauges the reliability of the source, while the number reflects Langley's guess as to how accurate the information might be. B means usually reliable. That's not a put-down of your man, Captain Coburn. I don't think anyone ever gets tagged with an A, meaning absolute reliability. The 3 means the information is possibly accurate. It's not confirmed by other sources, so it's not a 1, and it's not possible to call something this fuzzy probably true, so we can't give it a 2. The point, gentlemen, is that we have here a reliable source giving us intelligence that quite possibly is accurate. We cannot afford to simply ignore what he says."

"Has anyone thought to consult with Congressman Murdock about this?" Kerrigan asked. "That's his son out there. I find it shocking that he was allowed to lead two dangerous assaults one right after the other, first against the Yuduki Maru, and then against the Beluga, and that now he's doing this."

"Lieutenant Murdock," Coburn said slowly, "is an excellent officer. He does not allow politics, personal feelings, or shall we say, family obligations to divert him from what he perceives as his duty. I am well aware of Congressman Murdock's interest in his son's activities. I'm also aware that neither Lieutenant Murdock, nor myself, nor the President of the United States himself for that matter, can allow personal feelings to jeopardize this operation. I'm sure, sir, that the congressman would be the first to agree if he were here."

"So what you're all telling me," Brian Hadley said at last, "is that this sneak-and-peek is a good idea. That we should plan this thing knowing we're going to have SEALs on the ground, or on the water actually, when we send in the Marines."

"Abso-damn-lutely," Coburn said. "These people'll be able to tell you things your spy satellites never dreamed of."