Frozen in place, the Marines crouched unmoving behind the gun wales and high bows of the pinisi, Ives lifting his head just enough to track the dinghy with his helmet cam.
For a moment they thought they might make it. The small boat chugged past ten yards … twenty, then the onboards picked up the hint of a shout. Someone in the dinghy pointed back at the rubber raider craft tied up alongside the schooners. The outboard motor revved and the boat turned sharply toward the beach.
Quillain threw a pen down angrily in the console. “That’s it. Show’s over.”
“Carlson, we have been spotted,” Ives called excitedly. “Do you want us to engage?”
This time Amanda slammed her hand down on her keypad. “Negative, negative, negative. Do not engage! We have a change in the ops plan! Go back and grab that GPU and any charts you saw lying around, then disembark and stand by for pickup. Expedite!”
“Aye, aye, ma’am!”
She toggled over to the command channel. “Steamer, are you still there?”
“Right here, ma’am,”
“Execute an immediate pickup on the Marines! Fast and dirty. Start engines and go in on the pad! Move it!”
“Roger that! Executing engine start now. We’ll be there in a super short.”
“Amanda, what in the hell are you thinking?” MacIntyre demanded. “We’ve got the only military hovercraft around here. If you take those Sea Fighters in there like that, you’ll be telegraphing Harconan that we’re on to him.”
Amanda twisted around in her chair to face the admiral, speaking hastily. “That’s irrelevant, sir. Any kind of unusual activity at any of his bases will be attributed to us. Harconan will assume we have penetrated his security and will act accordingly, changing his ops plan. Accordingly, we change our plans first. We turn this soft recon probe into an attack mission. We use this opportunity to take out the strike force he’s assembled here.”
On the monitor, the Marines were piling into their raider craft in preparation for casting off. An enterprising drone controller had moved the Queen’s prowling Cipher into position to cover the village waterfront. On his displays, the dinghy could be seen grounding on the beach, its passengers running toward the lights of Adat Tanjung.
“Damn it, Amanda,” MacIntyre exploded, “a recon probe is one thing; so is intervening in an active pirate attack. Calling in an overt anti-shipping strike on a group of Indonesian vessels is another, even if we can prove they were illegally armed. This will pull the Indonesian government down on us!”
Amanda shook her head decisively. “No, sir, it will not. Harconan will cover it up for us.”
On the tactical display, the position hacks of the microforce hover craft began to sweep toward the moorage. At Adat Tanjung the sound of their lift fans and turbines would be rolling in over the village, the drumming and laments trailing off at the strange, frightening sound coming from the darkened sea.
In the LFOC, the lower rank kept silent as the TACBOSS and the CINCNAVSPECFORCE butted heads.
“Dammit, Elliot, think! Harconan doesn’t own the entire Indonesian government or military. Having questions asked and official inquiries launched about a U.S. Navy attack on a Bugis village is just exactly what he doesn’t want either! Like Tran was saying, the island administration doesn’t like messing with the Bugis. These are Harconan’s people, and what he says, goes.”
Neither Amanda nor MacIntyre noted her use of his first name. It wouldn’t register on either of them for some time. “We have a chance to salvage a major material and psychological victory here,” she went on forcing her point. “We can cost Harconan ships and weapons without causing Indonesian casualties, we can make him lose enormous face with his own people, and we can make him do the cleanup work for us. This can work! I’ll take full responsibility for this.”
MacIntyre gritted his teeth. Trying to run a hand through his hair, he snagged his headset. Impatiently he tore it off. He’d been here before with this woman, off the China coast and in northwestern Africa. The Pentagon flag officer he’d been for the past few years was instinctively appalled at kicking the book over the side this way. But the Special Boat driver he’d been in the times before said, Yes, she’s right, roll the dice!
“You’re the TACBOSS, Captain. Carry on.”
She slapped her palm on the console. “Yes! Thank you, sir!” She spun back to face her workstation and the bulkhead displays, her features blade keen and beautiful in her fierce exultation.
MacIntyre looked at Amanda’s back and the fall of silken shoulder length hair and felt suddenly old. There had been a time he wouldn’t have had to fight himself to make that call.
On the helmet cams the Queen of the West and the Manassas materialized, braking hard with their forward puff ports. Spinning about, still on their air cushions, they presented their opening stern gates to the Marine raider craft. A wave of spray broke over the camera lenses blurring them out, but the voices still could be heard over the tactical loop yelling over the roaring howl of the lift fans.
“Put her on the ramp…. Put her on the ramp, come on…. Where is the goddamn shackle! Over the bow! … Move it! Ferkin’ … ah, shit! … Go! Go! Go! … Yeah! We’re in! We’re in! Ramp coming up!”
The command circuit overrode the overhead speakers. “TACBOSS, this is Royalty! Fourteen out, fourteen back! Full recovery verified. All reconners aboard. Requesting instructions.”
“Well done, Steamer,” Amanda replied. “Here’s your reward. Take out the pirate ships. I say again, take out the pirate ships.”
“Eeeeeeeyyyyyyyaaaahooooo!” The scream overloaded the loudspeaker.
“I believe he approves,” Tran commented.
Anchorage off Adat Tanjung
0117 Hours, Zone Time: August 17, 2008
The real-time download from the Cipher showed the villagers streaming down to the beaches and wharves. There was nothing they could do, save to rage helplessly. Their heavy weapons were aboard the flotilla of anchored gunships, and even the boldest pirate was disinclined to put out in a small boat to challenge the screaming sea monsters that had invaded their harbor.
Steamer Lane danced the Queen around until she was between the rafted ships and the shore, ensuring that his misses would scream out over the open ocean and not inland toward the village.
“Manassas, you got Five and Six,” he directed. I’ll take Three and Four.”
“Rog’ that,” Tony Marlin replied in his earphones. “I am in position, ready to fire. Bet mine are on the bottom first.”
“Steak dinner. Taken. Gunners, cannon, fire!”
The Queen of the West hovered bow to bow with her targets, fifty yards separating them: point-blank range for the twin sets of 30mm autocannon she carried in her shoulder-mount weapons pedestals. These were the same Hughes M-230 series chain guns carried in the chin turret of the Apache attack helicopter. Weapons designed to kill armored fighting vehicles, not wooden-hulled schooners.
The cannon jackhammered, spewing their multiple shell streams. The rounds alternated between armor-piercing and high-explosive incendiary. The HE/I rounds ripped away timbers and planking, spraying white phosphorus fragments among the splinters that remained. The AP rounds simply tore through the entire length of the hundred-foot-plus-long hulls of the schooners. In the parlance of the old broadside Navy, this was called “raking fire,” and it was considered the most devastating. What was true then was still true now, especially as the concealed arms lockers and engine room fuel tanks of the pirate pinisi became involved.
The rakish vessels began to settle rapidly by the bow, flames hailing out of their deck hatches and climbing their rigging. After half a dozen long bursts, the 30-millimeters checked fire, barrel overheat warnings sounding at the gunners’ stations.
Scrounger Caitlin looked judgmentally between the two sets of sinking hulks. “I’d call it a draw,” she said.
“Looks like,” Lane agreed. “Tony and I’ll buy you the steak instead. Rebel, Rebel, let’s
move it out of here. Set departure heading and form up on me. All ahead … good cruise. Door gunners, finish off the leftovers.”
The hovercraft surged past the burning ships, gaining speed, their OCSW 25mm crews in the side hatches pumping a final few dozen “make sure” grenades into the wrecks.
“Royalty, this is the Reb. What about the last two?” Marlin inquired.
“Missile drill. Hellfires. One off each pedestal. Our guys don’t get a chance to do enough live-fire with those. Let’s not miss the opportunity.”
“Roger that. Hellfires on the rails.”
The Sea Fighters’ weapons pedestals snapped vertical, loading arms slicing down into the gun tubs to acquire and lift the stumpy sleek shapes of Hellfire laser-guided missiles onto the launching rails that ran above the autocannon barrels. The Hellfire was yet another antitank weapon successfully converted to a naval application. It, too, was intended to kill steel and not wood.
The pedestals swiveled and trained aft. Designation lasers lanced out from the Sea Fighters’ mastheads, painting the targets as they fell away astern, pointing the way for the venom to follow.
The Hellfire salvos arced high on golden flame and dove in. The last two pirate vessels dissolved.
“It’s like the Fourth of July,” Scrounger commented as she studied the receding fires in her sideview mirror. “You always shoot off the big one last.”
The people of Adat Tanjung stood on the beach, watching until the last flickering bit of floating wood extinguished itself. No one considered taking one of the village trucks to the nearest polisi post. No one considered appealing for aid to the nearest farm village inland. They were Bugis, and the clan affairs stayed in the clan, even the disasters.
All were silent as they withdrew to their darkened huts. The lament for the lost ships would begin tomorrow. The residents of Adat Tanjung were nominally Muslim, but the old gods stand close behind every Indonesian. First they had lost their men on the Piskov raid. Now their finest war pinisi had been eaten by a strange and terrible foe. It was as if the vested spirit of the sea had turned its back on the clan.
For a Bugis, nothing could be more fearful.
One among them hurried back to his chandler’s shop and to the two-way radio concealed in the storeroom.
Landing Force Operations Center, USS Carlson
0121 Hours, Zone Time: August 17, 2008
“How do you want to work it with the microforce now, Skipper?” Quillain inquired. “Have ’em go into hide as per the old ops plan?”
“Yes … no, hold on that.” Amanda was suddenly finding it very hard to think as she tipped back over the edge of the combat adrenaline rush. “Tell them to go stealth and to clear the area, avoiding contact with Indonesian surface traffic. Then bring them home. Tell Steamer to proceed directly to Benoa Harbor for recovery. He has enough fuel remaining for a direct transit.”
The Marine nodded. “Might as well. The bad guys sure know they’re out there now.”
“Exactly: We’re not going to gain any advantage in holding them out there. When Steamer shows up tomorrow morning, we’ll tell the harbor master they’ve been conducting training exercises in international waters. We’ll let the Indonesians worry about just what that may mean.”
The operations team in the LFOC were standing down, securing systems and preparing to hand things over to the skeleton duty watch. Standard white lighting snapped on, replacing blue battle illumination.
Amanda rubbed her burning eyes with her palms, a sense of unreality washing over her. Had Palau Piri been just that afternoon? It seemed like a different world altogether, a different reality, some incredible fantasy spun in a half dream state.
It had been real though, something to be confronted and lived with.
God, but she was so tired.
She sensed someone standing beside her. Admiral MacIntyre, stolid and impervious as always. Remembering the way she had spoken to him during the engagement made her suddenly feel like a very awkward little girl.
“I’m sorry, sir, for getting a bit emphatic back there. I apologize for getting out of line.”
“You were running a combat engagement, Captain, and at that moment you didn’t have the time to worry about the formalities. Getting the job done has the priority. I need to apologize for lagging on you for a second there. You were correct in your assessment. This was a good mission save and an acceptable calculated risk for the return.”
“I hope so, sir.”
He smiled at her. It was a good smile, sure and safe and approving. “Midrats?” he inquired.
“That sounds good. Last time, you were telling me about Judy.”
Palau Piri Island
0725 Hours, Zone Time: August 17, 2008
Mr. Lan Lo stood waiting beside the breakfast table in the central lanai. He had known for an hour already of the night events at Adat Tanjung and of the loss of the fleet units, but he had kept the knowledge to himself. There was no immediate action that could be taken, and it would be better for Mr. Harconan to be centered from his morning swim and run before he was apprised.
It was unfortunate.
Lo was not a man of overt passions, but he did have a profound understanding of the human condition. His employer, Makara Harconan, was a man in the total and classical sense of the word. Thus he required a mate for completeness, the proper balancing of Yin and Yang. More than that, however, Mr. Harconan was a man of extraordinary capabilities. Such men frequently require extraordinary women to match them because they rapidly become bored and unsatisfied with the frivolous or the commonplace.
Over the past few days, Mr. Harconan had given every indication of having found one such extraordinary woman. Regrettably she was also his blood enemy, who was striving with her own considerable resources to destroy both him and his works.
Truly a tragedy on a par with any told in the wayang poems of the Ramayana. No doubt resolution would be … difficult.
Mr. Harconan strode into the inner garden looking enervated and happy with his world. Lo allowed him to take his chair and then related the events of the night, telling of the secrets presumed lost to the Americans and of the slash at the heart of the Bugis fleet.
When he was finished, Mr. Harconan stared at the tabletop. “She must have known,” he said. “She must have had the entire attack set up and in motion before I brought her here. She looked me in the eyes and never a hint. Never a slip. Not even when …”
“Quite so, Mr. Harconan.”
Port of Call Bali
August 2008
Three days passed for the Sea Fighter Task Force. Three days of sight-seeing temples under tropic skies and drinking beer on the beach at Kuta Bay. Three days of ushering curious Balinese around the decks of the Carlson and the Cunningham. Three days playing the Bahasa Indonesia tour tapes provided by the Department of Defense School of Languages and of answering questions asked in hesitant English. Three days of performing their open mission, showing the flag, and demonstrating America’s military presence on the Pacific Rim.
Three nights as well. Three nights of sitting behind closed-up defenses, watching the dark. Three nights of the Sea Fighters slipping out of the Carlson’s well deck to moan away beyond the Island of Turtles. Three nights of helicopters clattering away into the darkness to skim the wave crests at radar-evading altitudes. Three nights of the same explanation being offered to the port master and Bali ATC. “Units launching to conduct routine training exercises in international waters.”
The Indonesian naval air and surface units that attempted to track the stealthed and evasive Yankees knew this to be a sophistry. Fragmentary fixes and sighting reports indicated the Sea Fighter elements to be plunging deeper into Indonesian territory. Yet, their commanding admiral dared not ask the question “What are the Americans up to?” either to his own government or to the United States. He feared being asked a question in return: “Who asked you to find out?”
Sabalana Island Group
Flores Sea, Indo
nesia
0143 Hours, Zone Time: August 20, 2008
Even though the lonely coral spit lifted only a few feet above the surface of the sea, Cobra Richardson had to climb to avoid dragging Wolf One’s skids across the beach. Whipping up a whirlwind of sand now instead of a wake, he eased the ground-effecting Super Huey forward at a walking pace, a Marine ground guide with a pair of infrared lumesticks spotting the smaller helo in beside the two larger grounded Cargohawks.
Its turbines spooling down, Wolf One’s rotors slowed, whickering into silence. When all that remained was the sound of the breaking surf and the disturbed cries of the nesting terns, the helicopter’s side hatches slid open and Amanda Garrett and Christine Rendino disembarked.
Stone Quillain’s looming shadowy presence awaited them. “Evenin’, Skipper. Evenin’, Miss Rendino. We hit something funny out on this weapons hide. Sort of what Miss Rendino wanted us to keep an eye open for; I thought you might want to check it out for yourself.”
“We do, Stone. Lead on.”
The Marine headed inland, although there was little “inland” to this place. A double spine of sand dunes ran down the center of the spit. Even by starlight, the entire tiny island could be made out from either dune crest. There was no sign of life save for a whispy hint of salt grass and a scattering of birds’ nests—no reason to land here at all unless one had a set of coordinates downloaded from a pirate captain’s Global Positioning Unit.
“Which one is this?” Amanda asked as they trudged upslope through the feathery sand.
“We’ve coded it Star Bravo,” Christine wheezed. “We’ve been wondering what the addition of the star symbol meant with the hide site designations we picked up at Adat Tanjung. Looks like our resident leather neck found out for us.”
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