The Fiberglas gunwales of the Union gunboat shattered under the impact of hundreds of projectiles, and so did its crew. The volley of hand grenades were never cast as the Union sailors writhed and crumpled under the raking storm of high-velocity metal. The hand grenades couldn’t comprehend their convulsive change of destiny, however. As they fell from nerveless hands, safety levers flicked away and fuses ignited.
A crewman toppled over the low railing of the Boghammer, following the grenade he had lost over the side. An instant later, he was hurled grotesquely back into the boat, bounced off the surface of the sea by the underwater detonation of the hand bomb. The other grenades exploded in turn, gutting the gunboat from bow to stern, shredding any remnants of life left aboard. The fiery secondary blasts of the outboard fuel cells finished the job, turning the little craft into a shallow drifting dish filled with blood and fire.
The guns aboard the seafighter fell silent. Someone swore thickly as they dug a hot cartridge case out of an open shirt collar.
Quillain glanced at Amanda Garrett. She looked away from the funeral pyre blazing off the stern ramp, her eyes closed and her teeth clinched. Then, as Quillain watched, her eyes opened and she looked up again, instinct suppressed and control restored. Deliberately she stared at the sinking gun boat.
Quillain nodded slowly. If you’re responsible for having it done, you’d better be able to look at it afterward.
“That didn’t work out so well,” she said, only the faintest trace of unsteadiness lingering in her voice. “We’ll have to try a different approach next time.”
“I guess so, Skipper,” Quillain agreed, stripping reloads out of the shell carrier strapped to the Mossberg’s buttstock. “We’ll come up with something better.”
She looked across at him curiously. “How did you know about the grenades?”
“Didn’t know for certain-sure.” Quillain paused to dunk the first round into the shotgun’s magazine. “Only, if I’d been in their spot, that’s what I would have tried.”
Mobile Offshore Base, Floater1 0612 Hours, Zone Time;
June 12, 2007
With a final blast of her drive propellers, the Queen of the West hunched over the edge of the platform access ramp. Easing into her hangar, she sank down on her crumpled skirts with a tired metallic sigh. Leaning out of his cockpit window, Steamer Lane held up a single finger to the waiting service crew, passing the word that there would be another kill silhouette to paint.
The Marines shuffled stiffly down the stern ramp, en route first to the gun-cleaning racks and then to the showers and the bunkrooms. The stern gunners followed, lugging their heavy twin-mount .50 along stretcher-fashion. The shipboard turbine techs and gunner’s mates sleepily had words with their opposite numbers in the service details, checking the PMS cards for the day’s maintenance package and discussing systems glitches that had cropped up during the previous night’s patrol.
As Amanda and the hover pilots disembarked, a runner waited for her at the foot of the ramp. “Captain Garrett, Commander Rendino requests your presence in the briefing center.”
“Very well, I’m on my way,” Amanda glanced at her companions. “Steamer, it looks like you and Snowy have to handle the postmission.”
“No problem,” the hover commander nodded in reply. “We’ll take care of it, Skipper.”
“Thanks, Steamer.”
“Sure thing. A good hunt last night, Captain.”
“Good hunters, Commander.”
As Steamer and his exec turned away, Stone Quillain started down the stern ramp, shotgun slung over one shoulder. As he strode past, he gave Amanda a quick nod and a lessening of his usual scowl. Amanda nodded back, trying to contain her grin. The SOC Marine still wasn’t exactly outgoing, but progress had been made on that front as well.
Slinging her pistol belt over her shoulder, she started for the briefing center.
Entering the trailer, Amanda found the wall flatscreens filled with charts of the border region between the West African Union and Côte d’Ivoire, what the Gold Coast Africans referred to as “Frenchside.” She also found Christine Rendino and a solidly built, red-haired man in a flight suit studying the maps intently.
“Hi, boss ma’am. I don’t think you’ve had the chance to meet Commander Evan Dane yet. He commands the 847th Provisional, the British patrol helicopter squadron supporting UNAFIN.”
“No, I haven’t, Chris, but I’ve been wanting the opportunity.” Amanda set her pistol belt onto the center table and extended her hand to the British pilot. “It’s always a pleasure to work with the Royal Navy, Commander.”
“It’s our pleasure, Captain Garrett,” Dane replied, exchanged a firm handclasp. “Damn nice work you people did on those boat hides. It was about time somebody started to drive the bloody train around here.”
“We were lucky things worked out as well as they did.” With her hands resting on her hips, Amanda studied the map displays. “What’s up?”
“A little side project Commander Dane and I have been working on,” Christine replied. “While you and the Little Pigs have been trashing the Union’s boat hides, we’ve been trying to do something about the Union’s maritime smuggling line into Côte d’Ivoire.”
“Can you confirm they have one established?”
“God, fa’sure! Over Frenchside, the coastal waters look like the Ventura freeway on Friday night.”
Dane nodded his agreement. “I can show you hours of low light video showing pirogues and pinasses crossing the line into Union waters after dark, mostly loaded with oil drums.”
Christine nodded soberly. “The West African Union has established a network of agents alone the Côte d’Ivoire coast. They’ve recruited a cadre of seamen from among the fishing villages and they’re financing and coordinating an organized program of petroleum smuggling with the intent of breaking the U.N. trade embargo.”
“How did you pick up on this operation, Chris?”
The intel shrugged. “Through the network of agents I’ve set up in the coastal villages, of course.”
“I should have known. How much are they moving?”
“Thousands of gallons a week, at least.” Christine crossed her arms and leaned back against the table edge. “Probably not enough to meet the Union’s overall needs, but fa’sure enough to stretch their reserves out for a few more months. And the volume’s growing.”
“I didn’t think the Union would need all that much oil,” Amanda mused.
“It’s all relative. Probably what we burn in one L.A. rush hour would last them for a year. The thing is, they still have to have some. More than two-thirds of their electrical power production still comes from diesel generators, they have a communications and food distribution network to maintain, and Belewa has an active military campaign going against Guinea. Any kind of combat operation, even support for a low-grade insurgency, will burn gas like nobody’s business.”
“So this is a major point of vulnerability for Belewa?”
Christine nodded. “Oh yeah. In fact, for a lot of kinda subtle reasons above and beyond the obvious ones, this is Belewa’s major point of vulnerability. We cut off his go-juice and this dude is kicked to the curb.”
Amanda noted Dane’s puzzled expression. “Translated from the original Californian, that means we win. All right, then, what are we doing to bring this state of affairs about?”
“Not bloody much, to date,” Dane snorted.
“The Commander’s right, boss ma’am,” Christine said regretfully. The original game plan was that any coastal smuggling from out of Côte d’Ivoire and into the Union would be intercepted by Ivoire’s navy and customs service, supported by our TACNET recon and Commander Dane’s helicopters. So far, things haven’t worked out quite as we had hoped.”
“How many smuggling intercepts have been made so far?”
To date, a grand total of none.”
“None!” Amanda exclaimed, her eyebrows lifting.
“That’s right, Captain,” Dane said dryly. “It’s been a bit of a struggle, but we’ve managed.”
“Yeah,” Christine continued. “We’re tracking and spotting just fine. Verified contacts all over the place. But we’re not getting the intercepts out of the locals.”
“Is there a problem with the Ivoire patrol boats?”
Christine held up one finger. “Patrol boat. Singular. The Côte d’Ivoire authorities have assigned one customs patrol boat to work with us Frenchside. A twenty-eight-foot cabin cruiser mounting a light machine gun that probably hasn’t been fired since colonial independence.”
“And damned if it isn’t even around when you need it,” Dane interjected bitterly. “Either it’s off on some unspecified bloody mission, or it’s bloody broken down, or its captain’s left the bloody ignition key in his other bloody pair of pants.”
“I take it, then, Belewa’s people have gotten to the Ivoire authorities?”
“It’s a safe call to make.” The intel gestured at the West African area map. “The Union’s strategic policy to date has been to kiss Côte d’Ivoire’s ass while kicking Guinea’s. It makes sense, given Guinea is the weaker sister of the two nations. Ivoire has a way stronger economy and military. They’ll be harder to destabilize and conquer, so Belewa’s left them on the back burner until he’s better fixed to do the job. In the meantime, he’s using them.
“He doesn’t screw with the Ivoire economy, because a comparatively wealthy nation makes a better resource base for a smuggling operation. He’s also made no overt threat against Ivoire, so that both that nation’s government and the man on the street are willing to look the other way when it comes to a little blockade busting. Especially after a liberal application of dash in the right places.”
“In other words,” Amanda said slowly, “they won’t openly sanction breaking the U.N. embargo, but they also aren’t too concerned about how much attention their citizens pay to it.”
Christine nodded. “Exactamundo. They just can’t be too flagrant about it. There are too many U.N. observers on the border crossings landside to permit much POL to get through on the roads. Also, it’s hard to backpack a meaningful amount of gas across through the jungle. That means it’s got to be moved by sea, along the coast.”
“Where theoretically we should be able to get at it.”
“There’s theory and there’s reality, Captain.” Dane took over the commentary. “Last night we had one more try with the Ivoire customs service.”
Dane’s ruddy complexion flushed further. “Christ! I hovered over a pinasse with a deckload of oil drums for forty-five minutes. I had my running lights at bright flash and I was dropping flares and marker strobes. The patrol boat was less than two miles away, and yet they still claimed that they couldn’t see the target.”
“I presume that protests have been filed with the government of Côte d’Ivoire concerning these incidents.”
“Oh sure,” the intel replied. “And their kickback is that no evidence of malfeasance has been discovered on the part of their personnel. Also, since no smuggling intercepts have been made, there is obviously no smuggling problem to be concerned about, and thus they are reducing their border coverage.”
“Oh Lord.” Amanda rubbed her eyes tiredly.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore, boss ma’am. This can only be either Africa or the Twilight Zone.”
“There’s nothing more my people and I can do, Captain,” Dane said earnestly. “Not without surface support. We can’t fire on the smuggling boats. They’re unarmed small craft crewed by civilians. And you can’t conduct a boarding and seizure from a flippin’ helicopter.”
“Yeah,” Christine agreed. “We’ve got to start hitting that supply line. And to do that, we’ve got to have a hull in the water over Frenchside. One that we can depend on. Can you give us one, Captain?”
Amanda didn’t have an immediate reply. Turning away, she crossed her arms over her stomach and slowly paced the full length of the briefing trailer and back, her features set in thought. When she returned to the briefing screen and the two waiting officers, she shook her head.
“I want to say yes so badly I can taste it, but no, I can’t afford to cut anyone loose.”
“But look,” Christine objected, “we already have somebody out there we can use.”
The intel picked up the flatscreen remote and called up a force deployment overlay on the area chart. “When we took out the Union boat hides, we established the Union East surveillance station here, just off the borderline of the West African Union and Côte d’Ivoire. We have one of the aerostat carriers positioned there to give us full coverage of the Union Littoral. One of our Cyclone PCs, the Santana, is currently escorting her. Why not cut Santana loose from close escort and let her chase some smugglers. She can handle that and still provide a degree of protection for the ’stat carrier.”
Again Amanda shook her head. “But then, who provides protection for the Santana? The Union has a strike force of almost twenty Boghammers based at Harper, right on the Ivoire border.” Amanda leaned forward and tapped a point on the flatscreen with her fingernail. “They could sortie at any moment. That aerostat carrier, which one is she? The Bravo? She has a Marine security detail aboard her. Fisted together, she and the Santana probably have enough firepower to put up a fair fight. If they separate, however, one or both of them could get swarmed and cut to pieces. It would take us at least two hours to get a PG out there in support. Way too long.”
Amanda glanced over at the British helo leader. “Unless maybe we could count on some air cover. What about it, Commander?”
“I’d love to oblige, Captain Garrett, but the only armament my Merlins carry is a single GPMG in the side door. My lads and I would be more than willing to back you up in a bash. I just don’t know how much good we could do against the twin 14s those Bogs mount.”
“Could you get some Sea Skuas?”
Dane grimaced. “I’ve been trying to get my antiship missiles back ever since we got here. The Foreign Office won’t authorize their release into this theater. They claim offensive armament would be, and I quote, ‘provocative and inappropriate for a peacekeeping mission.’ I suspect we’ve got some silly bastard up there who’s related to that silly bastard of yours who wouldn’t let your chaps take their tanks into Somalia a few years ago.”
Amanda sighed. “Well, that’s it, then.”
“God, there’s got to be some way to work this,” Christine insisted. “Why not put a PG over on Union East the same way we’re doing on Guinea East. Maintain a standing patrol of one seafighter and one PC on each barrier line? That would give us the shooting edge.”
Again Amanda shook her head. “That’s no good either, Chris. The hovercraft just can’t loiter offshore for a protracted period of time the way the PCs can. They aren’t designed for it. We’d burn out our crews and overwear our equipment in short order. And we don’t have enough hulls in the squadron to simultaneously rotate out to two patrol stations, not without intermittently leaving big holes in our coverage. Belewa will be watching for things like that.”
Amanda propped her hip against the conference table. “As is, we’re spread so desperately thin, one accident or engineering casualty could collapse our entire operation. We just can’t take on anything more. We’ll have to let the oil smuggling ride for a while.”
The intel smacked her palm with her fist in frustration. “Jeez! But that’s what we were sent out here to do!”
“That, and to protect the Guinea coast,” Amanda replied. “We have the resources to do only one or the other. Currently, taking the pressure off the Guinea government has the immediate priority.”
“But that’s now. In the long run, a stalemate fa
vors Belewa.”
“I’m all too aware of that, Chris.”
A metal pitcher of ice water and a stack of paper cups sat in the center of the table. Amanda paused for a moment to pour herself a cupful. “Unfortunately,” she continued, sip ping the cool liquid, “that doesn’t alter our current tactical situation.”
“Well, what do we do next?”
“Unfortunately, again we don’t do anything.”
“Say what?”
“The ball is back in the Union’s court,” Amanda replied grimly. “We’ve had our free shots with taking out their boat hides and by intercepting last night’s recon probe. Now we’re totally reactive again.
“If this were a blank-check operation, we’d go after them. We’d stay on the offensive. We’d use our superior recon capacity to pick and choose our targets and we’d whittle the Union navy down until it wasn’t a factor anymore. As a U.N. interdiction mission, however, we aren’t permitted that option. All we can do is patrol and gather intelligence and wait for Belewa to make the next move.”
Dane gave a noncommittal grunt. “I’m not sure if I like the sound of that, Captain.”
Amanda lifted an ironic eyebrow. “I know that I don’t, Commander, but I’m afraid we’re stuck with it.”
“And what happens when Belewa makes that move?” Christine insisted.
“Hopefully we spot it in time to block it. And then, again hopefully, it’ll be our turn once more.”
Mamba Point Hotel
Monrovia, West African Union 0620 Hours, Zone Time;
June 12, 2007
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