"Look," he said, "you're proposing a scenario neither of us wants. It would be irresponsible and immoral. Though I suppose those points don't disturb you very much."
"Let me help your thought processes. You have twenty minutes, starting now. If at the end of that time you can't assure me that the assault has been called off—please don't bother to deny that one is imminent—then what will happen will be on your hands." He paused. "Incidentally, I also will bring Professor Mannheim to the phone then, and you can explain to him why he is about to die. I am putting this line on hold. You now have nineteen minutes and forty seconds." The phone went silent.
Hansen stared at Ed Briggs, sitting bleary-eyed across on the couch, then returned his gaze to the desk, noting the time on the digital clock.
"Alpha Leader, this is SEAL One," crackled the radio. "Bearing two-zero-niner. Range five hundred meters. No hostile fire."
"Roger," Nichols replied. "Continue inbound." He clicked off his walkie-talkie, then turned around and yelled to the men in the back of the Huey.
"Okay, heads up. The assault is now in progress. We go in at 0630 hours."
The Deltas nodded as they checked their watches and spare ammo clips. The twenty-three men were all wearing black pullover hoods, each with a thin plastic microphone that looked like a phone operator's. Over these they had Kevlar helmets with protective goggles and light balaclavas, while their bulletproof assault vests included pockets filled with grenades and extra ammo for their H&K MP5 assault submachine guns.
Nichols was using a squad of ten Navy SEALs to stage a diversionary assault on the shoreline, the same kind of diversion that had been employed so successfully by the SEALs in the war to liberate Kuwait. After leaving the carrier, they would approach the island at forty mph in a pair of Fountain-33 speedboats, powered by 1,000-hp MerCruiser engines. About one kilometer offshore, they were scheduled to disembark into two motorized Zodiac rubber raiding craft that they had lashed to the bow. If all went according to plan, they would hit the coastline in full view and provide diversionary fire, giving the real assault team an opening to take the two main objectives.