NEW JERSEY SHORE
They came in from the south, rotor blades reverberating, echoing across endless miles of beaches. Their powerful downwashes kicked up a sandstorm that enveloped the picturesque Ocean Avenue while cruising at their maximum-rated speed of just under 160 knots, or around 180 miles per hour. The airspace for five hundred miles had already been cleared of all traffic except for these and any others needed for this operation.
Lieutenant Commander Jay Patterson headed the assault in the lead MH-60M/L Black Hawk Defensive Armed Penetrator. The fortified escort and fire support delivery vehicle was designed for Special Ops forces such as his Red Squadron from the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU, the official name of SEAL Team Six out of NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach.
Two Black Hawks followed his bird as they hugged the shoreline in tight formation under the confused gaze of hundreds of commuters. In five miles, Ocean Avenue would turn inland shortly before it reached the Gateway National Recreation Area, also known as Sandy Hook.
Minutes ago the Seawise Goliath had identified itself by breaking ranks from the rest of the merchant ships still holding for inspection crews.
Somehow, in spite of all of the precautions taken by Port Authority to avoid spooking the terrorists, the supertanker and its millions of barrels of crude oil had now become a weapon of mass destruction.
Even if there isn’t a bomb aboard, he thought, glancing at the other two Black Hawks. Each carried a team of veteran SEALs armed with enough weapons and munitions to start a small revolution. He was confident and a little apprehensive, as all leaders were before going into combat.
Was this the right plan?
Was there enough rehearsal?
Did they have luck and the angels on their side?
Patterson narrowed his gaze while staring out the windshield.
The hell with luck.
SEALs made their own luck and their own odds, and he never bet against himself or his guys. This was what they did, violent and aggressive action, and they did it better than anyone he had ever seen.
Following the call from the president, Patterson had selected his team quickly but also carefully. He chose those who worked well with each other and him, operators with multiple tours in the scariest corners of the globe. Patterson, barely thirty-five but already a veteran, had most of his team alongside him in the last thirteen years of war. Together they had fought in the peaks of Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the sands of Iraq—plus a handful of even darker destinations that would forever be classified. But the places hardly mattered anymore, only the guys, and that most had survived.
Patterson had been a manager of violence. He had set up ambushes and also fallen into them. He had torn the enemy into pieces and had also carried out his dead and wounded. He had fought, blasted, kicked, punched, stabbed, and incinerated his marks with professional precision—all in the name of the United States of America, its war on terror, and the teams … always the teams.
The SEALs, like every good unit, took those who made it through a selection process as brutal as the six-month-long infamous Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL school (BUD/S) at Coronado, California. They were forged in pain and determination, bonded together as only survivors can be … for all time. The BUD/S’s stories were legendary and all true. No sleep for six days while conducting the most grueling and torturous physical activities, which only former students of the course could devise. And the six-day-without-sleep marathon was just the final test. Getting to that week was actually work. Those fortunate enough to make it through BUD/S were then assigned to SEAL teams, where they had to earn their sacred Trident. Four years on the teams and then they could volunteer for SEAL Team Six, where they had to go through another six months of qualification courses that evaluated and dissected every second of their lives under near-constant combat conditions.
After what seemed like an endless string of operations over the course of a dozen years, Patterson thought he had seen everything. But as he checked his plan and his watch for the hundredth time, something made him wonder if he was about to face a whole new level of bad guy.
“Two minutes,” he said into his mike.
He shifted his gaze to the incoming bay as they pushed north at thirty feet, trying to remain out of sight for as long as possible while approaching the HVT, a supertanker sailing under the Liberian flag.
“Red, be advised the target vessel has broken through tugboat barrier. NYPD helicopters and ships have been ineffective. Coast Guard cutters are in pursuit. Drones and F-22s are in the air.”
“Roger,” Paterson replied. “Red’s two minutes out.”
Damn, he thought as they cruised over Sandy Hook and entered the Lower New York Bay. This is what we do. It was their job. It was what they’d signed up for, trained for, and when they admitted it … lived for.
“There, sir!” said the pilot while pointing toward the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
Patterson knelt in between the pilot and copilot and spotted the runaway tanker well past the bridge with two Coast Guard cutters on its ass.
“That’s one big son of a bitch,” Patterson yelled. Damn good thing they practiced on these and that the design of these monsters was fairly common. When the bell rang on something this short notice, it was truly come as you are, ready or not.
“Big and slow, sir!” replied the pilot.
Patterson grinned, patted the pilot on the back, and said, “Thanks for the ride.”
“Roger that,” responded the pilot as they overtook the cutters and dropped below the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, packed with morning commuters.
Patterson took it all in as the massive stern nearly filled the chopper’s windscreen a minute later. The ship was big all right but not slow, dashing through the bay at full speed. It produced an enormous wake, pounding the shore and tossing ships around, prompting at least a dozen collisions already as large merchant vessels were entangled all over the damn place.
It was wreaking havoc on a grand scale, and that was just the tip of this massive steel iceberg.
And it was headed straight for the southern end of New York City and its hundreds of buildings, including Freedom Tower. Its sleek shape dominated the skyline, towering above all other high-rises under a clear sky.
Patterson cringed.
Not again.
That’s when he spotted two men against the yellow railing on the tanker’s stern, training their large machine guns on them and opening fire.
The pilot released a volley of 70mm Hydra rockets and followed up with the M230 30mm chain gun mounted on the portside stub wing, tearing metal, wood, and flesh.
The Hydras hurtled toward the tanker’s stern. And a second later, it all went up in flames, consuming the figures and their muzzle flashes in a soaring wall of fire.
Nice, thought Patterson, as the guns trained on the ship’s bridge.
So far all was going as planned, which the SEAL commander knew from experience never lasted long.