Target Lock

by James H. Cobb

  “Thus they’re going to be safe under several dozen feet of concrete and lava rock, pretty much permitting us to go crazy topside on the surface of the peninsula. We might have to worry about something on the scale of a Daisy Cutter, but anything the task force can throw shouldn’t affect the deep tunnels. Once we get our assault team inside the sub pen, we’ll be able to isolate the landward entrances with gun and air power, preventing reinforcement from the surface reaching the complex.”

  “Yes, sir, that would work, but that still leaves us with the problem of getting inside in the first place. That’s the hard part.”

  “As I said, not necessarily.” MacIntyre looked back at the intel, an odd smile on his face. “It just requires a degree of … unconventional thinking.”

  Christine hesitated. “Sir, I’ve been here before with Amanda, and yeah, you’re scaring the hell out of me too. How unconventional are we talking about?”

  “Saint-Nazaire, Chris. The Campbeltown and Saint-Nazaire.”

  Christine applied her eidetic memory, flicking back through military history for a match for the names. When she came up with them, her eyes widened. “Oh, shit, sir. Oh, holy shit!”

  MacIntyre shrugged. “It should work.”

  “Yeah, but … where are we going to get a spare destroyer from? I mean … you weren’t going to use the Duke, were you?”

  “Oh, no, I never considered that.” MacIntyre strolled across to one of the cabin ports and peered astern toward the Indonesian frigate doggedly trudging in the wake of the task force. “I thought that instead we might … borrow one.”

  “Oh, my god …!” Christine clapped her hands over her mouth, muffling her exclamation.

  Maclntyre’s grin had grown, a bold, reckless, and somehow youthful cast coming to it, vastly different than anything Christine Rendino had ever seen before. “That’s how we also turn Harconan’s Indonesian navy contacts back on him,” he continued. “As we move in on Crab’s Claw, our erstwhile shadower will be transmitting a series of false position reports that indicate we’re buying the hostage package and that the task force is getting the hell out of Dodge. That ought to work. Shouldn’t it?”

  When Christine lowered her hands, she was grinning as well. “Yes, Admiral, sir, it should work just fine, and afterwards they are gonna throw our asses in Leavenworth for the next three hundred years.” She put emphasis on the our.

  “Very likely, Chris,” MacIntyre acknowledged, shoving his hands all the way into his pockets. “But if Amanda’s there to testify at our court martial, won’t it be worth it?”

  For the second time in his career, Eddie Mac MacIntyre earned himself a fierce hug around the neck from a junior officer.

  Flag Plot, USS Evans F. Carlson

  2253 Hours, Zone Time: August 24, 2008

  MacIntyre leaned forward at the communications console and spoke into the microphone grill at the base of the videophone link. “Admiral Elliot MacIntyre, authenticator Ironfist November zero two one. Ready to receive call.”

  Truth be told, he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be for perhaps another twelve hours. But one didn’t simply wave away a direct communication from the United States Secretary of State, not even if he was a friend.

  The screen before him filled with the Milstar-linked image of Secretary of State Harrison Van Lynden, set against the backdrop of his private office at the State Department.

  “Hello, Harry,” MacIntyre said levelly.

  “Eddie Mac, what the hell’s going on out there?”

  “A great deal, Mr. Secretary.”

  “That’s readily apparent. What the world and the National Command Authority wants to know is, what? The Indonesians are yelling their heads off about a major firefight in Benoa Harbor. CNN camera crews seem to be backing that up. We have reports of many unidentified Indonesian casualties and rumors of missing U.S. personnel. What we aren’t receiving is input from NAVSPECFORCE. You’ve practically been running EMCON, Eddie Mac. What’s going on?”

  MacIntyre sat back in his chair, aware of the other figures standing around him in the dimness of the flag plot. “Mr. Secretary, as stated in my preliminary report to the CNO, the task force came under attack by a heavily armed force believed to be an Indonesian pirate raiding party. Our ship’s personnel defended themselves and an emergency sortie from Benoa Port was conducted. At this time the task force has withdrawn to the Flores Sea south of the island of Sulawesi and an assessment of the situation is under way.”

  “That’s exactly what I want, Eddie Mac, an assessment of the situation. I’m expected in the Oval Office in forty-five minutes and President Childress wants a nuts-and-bolts update. All I’m getting out of your headquarters are rewritten versions of this initial report. I want the whole story, Admiral, now, and do not even begin to bullshit me!”

  “Mr. Secretary, what you have is essentially what we have. We’ve been successful in pushing the Indonesian piracy cartel into a corner, and they’ve pushed back—hard. The ships are intact and operational, we have taken casualties, two dead and five wounded, also as stated in our incident report.” MacIntyre took a deliberate breath. “However, there is an additional factor.”

  “Do we have a hostage situation, Eddie Mac?”

  “Yes, Mr. Secretary, we do. My task force commander, Captain Amanda Garrett, is in the hands of the cartel at this time.”

  “Ah, Christ!” Van Lynden grimaced. “That is all we need. How in the hell did this happen, Eddie Mac?”

  “They had good luck, we had bad, Mr. Secretary.”

  “Can you confirm if she is alive?”

  MacIntyre smiled frostily into the screen. “Yes sir. We can. We can not only confirm that she is alive, Mr. Secretary, but she has given us her location, the location of the hijacked INDASAT, and the location of the primary pirate base.”

  In spite of the situation, Van Lynden laughed softly. “I should have known, I should have known. All right, Eddie Mac, what do you propose we do about this?”

  “Mr. Secretary, we are working the problem at this time.”

  “I understand that, Admiral, but I want a preliminary briefing I can run past the President, just to get him ready for what you have planned.”

  “Mr. Secretary,” MacIntyre said, emphasizing his doublespeak carefully, “we are working the problem at this time. May I have a few additional hours to prepare a full situational update for the National Command Authority? I feel we will be able to present the President with a … valid resolution to the situation.”

  MacIntyre locked eyes with Van Lynden. After a pause, the Secretary of State spoke again: “How long will you require to prepare this briefing, Admiral?”

  “Approximately twelve hours, Mr. Secretary. At that time we will be prepared to answer any questions you may have.”

  “Understood, Eddie Mac. Twelve hours. We’ll be standing by.”

  The Milstar link was broken from the Washington end.

  The admiral pushed himself back from the screen and reached for the officer’s cap he’d left balanced in the brow of the console. Crumpled soft, salt-stained and oil-spotted, its once polished bill was roughened and green from long exposure to the Persian Gulf sun. It was a relic from another time and another Eddie Mac MacIntyre, the fraying braid denoting a lieutenant commander’s rank.

  MacIntyre had carried it for years, tucked away in his at-sea luggage. He’d never really known why. Now he did.

  Donning the cap, MacIntyre gave it a decisive tug down over his eyes. It still felt pretty good after all these years; maybe it was the most comfortable hat he’d ever worn.

  He stood and turned to face the others who shared the flag plot with him: Captain Carberry, Christine Rendino, Stone Quillain, Nguyen Tran, and Labelle Nichols. The policeman, the Marine, and the special boat woman loomed as shadows within the shadows, being clad in black utilities.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, that’s as much authorization as we’re going to get.”

  Indonesian Navy Frigate Sutanto

>   2330 Hours, Zone Time: August 24, 2008

  The phone over the head of Captain Basry’s bunk buzzed over the whirr of the air conditioning. The Indonesian groaned and reached for it once more. “Yes?”

  “Captain, this is watch officer Kodi. The Americans have resumed low-grade radar jamming once more.”

  Basry muffled his second groan. “Any difference from other times today?”

  “No, sir. We have received the same notification from the American flagship that they are systems testing.”

  “Any interference with our station keeping?”

  “No, sir. We have a clear visual plot on the running lights of both targets.”

  “Any alteration of course and speed or any other unusual activity on the part of the Americans?”

  “No, sir, nothing noted.”

  “Then, Lieutenant, advise me when something unusual is noted.”

  “Yes, sir. My apologies, Captain.”

  Basry slammed the phone into its cradle and buried his face back into his pillow.

  The operative phrase in the watch officer’s statement had been Nothing noted. The Sutanto’s lookouts had been too far away to note the two shadowy shapes that darted away from the flanks of the Carlson or the small Cipher reconnaissance drone that lifted off from the LPD’s flight deck. Likewise, the degraded Indonesian radar failed to detect the minute radar cross-sections of the three objects.

  Half a mile out on either side of the line of advance of the Indonesian vessel, the seaborne shadows went inert, their wakes fading behind them as they powered down. Thermally stealthed as well, neither emitted enough infrared radiation to be discernible through a night-vision system.

  The Sutanto swept between them, unaware of their presence.

  The Cipher drone swung wide around the Indonesian frigate. Dropping in behind the ship, it crept up from astern, a black dot skimming the wave tops.

  “Lieutenant Kodi,” one of the lookouts called, “something is taking place aboard the American vessels, sir.”

  The lieutenant swept up his binoculars, aiming them at the distant clusters of running lights that marked the positions of the American ships. The helipad strobe lights on both U.S. vessels had begun their dazzling pulse, and the red flush of night work lights could be made out aboard the LPD as her hangar-bay doors opened. The Americans might be preparing to launch helicopters.

  Kodi glanced at the bridge phone and hesitated. The captain had stated he wanted to be notified only if the Americans were up to something out of the ordinary. Would an air operation come under this definition? Perhaps if the Americans actually launched their helicopters … ?

  The watch officer chose to be conservative.

  “Lookouts, stay alert,” he called to the men on the bridge wings. “Keep an eye on what the Americans are up to.”

  He meant the American vessels ahead of them. As yet, no one aboard the Sutanto was aware of the U.S. craft behind them.

  Heavy-duty Velcro parted and the anti-IR shroud split overhead down the length of Raider One. A puff of hot, fetid air was released as the insulated shroud peeled down to either gunwale.

  Stone Quillain palmed the sweat from his face, resmearing the thick coat of black camouflage cream he wore. “Damn, that’s better,” he muttered. He was one of the dozen people aboard the eleven-meter RIB; half were handpicked SOC Marines, the others Special Boat Squadron hands. “Hey, Labelle. How we doin’?”

  Lieutenant Commander Labelle Nichols stood beside the raider’s coxswain at the helm station, peering down at the dimly glowing lines on the miniature Cooperative Engagement tactical screen. Even with her naturally dark features, she, too, wore black camou paint to kill the sheen of her skin. “Looking good, Stone. Raider Two is on station and the Carlson reports no situational changes aboard the Sutanto. It looks like we climbed in their back pocket okay.”

  “Good enough. Then let’s bite ’em in the ass.”

  “Doing it.”

  Nichols typed the execute command into her terminal and dispatched it via microburst to Raider Two and the CIC of their mother ship. Then she murmured a command to the coxswain at the helm station. Engines kicked over with a muffled rumble. With mufflers full on, the diesels were no louder than the hissing hydrojets they drove. Such quieting cost horsepower, but the raiders would still have more than enough speed to pursue and overtake the Sutanto.

  The Cipher drone popped up astern of the Indonesian frigate. Station-keeping over the Sutanto’s wake, the drone’s onboard cameras provided an overview of the warship’s decks and the events unfolding around it.

  Two miles ahead, in the Carlson’s Combat Information Center, Christine Rendino stood at the shoulder of the drone’s systems operator. Studying the low-light images feeding from the little RPV, she coached the raider force in over a voice communications channel.

  “Looking good … the fan tail appears clear … the only lookouts appear to be forward on the bridge wings…. No reaction…. No reaction….”

  The two RIBs appeared at the bottom of the screen, converging on the stern of the Indonesian frigate. Deftly skirting the edge of the larger vessel’s prop wash, the raiders merged their own foaming wakes in with that of the larger warship, while keeping their hull uncontrasted against dark, unbroken water.

  Stone Quillain saw the angular stern of the Parchim-class frigate loom out of the darkness. At his station along the inflated starboard gunwale, he lifted the heavy anchor pad off the Fiberglas decking, fumbling a little as the powerful magnets tugged at the metal in his MOLLE harness.

  This night in addition to a wide assortment of gas bombs and flash bangs, he carried a pair of Taser shock pistols at his belt and a SABR slung across his back. The magazine well for the rifle half of the composite weapon was empty, however, while the grenade half had been stoked only with teargas and jellybag stun loads.

  The remainder of the boarding party was similarly armed. This night’s mission must be totally nonlethal. If this operation was to cling to the rags of legitimacy, no Indonesian sailor could be killed or even seriously harmed.

  At the helm station, Labelle Nichols stared fixedly at the side of the ship that towered above them, commanding her coxswain with the slight quick gestures of a hand outlined in the faint glow of the binnacle light.

  The RIB slid in closer. Bucking over the frigate’s hull wash, it bumped its rubberized Kevlar flank against the steel of the larger ship. Stone socked the rubber-coated magnetic bosses of the anchor against the plating, as did the three other hands along the starboard side. The drag of the magnets alone would not be enough to hold the RIB in place, but they would make station-keeping easier for the coxswain.

  The Marines and sailors along the portside swung their preassembled titanium and Fiberglas boarding ladders up to the lip of the frigate’s deck, hooking their rubberized ends over the scuppers, the entire docking procedure taking only a matter of seconds.

  Stone heard Nichols’s voice whisper through his com headset. “Raider One, docking accomplished. Ready to board.”

  A few seconds later a second voice whispered out of the night: “Raider Two docked. Ready to board.”

  With that declaration, command of the operation passed to Quillain. “Boarding parties! Board! Board! Board!”

  Stone hit one ladder, Labelle Nichols the second, swarming up the thin, quivering yet immensely strong rungs to the frigate’s deck. He was just short of the deck lip when Christine Rendino hissed in his ear, “Hold! Hold! Hold! You have activity on deck!”

  Stone froze, hanging from the ladder rungs. Three feet away, Nichols did the same, a shadow smeared against the gray hull paint. Overhead they could hear a clattering, a scuffling of feet, and an illegible whining mutter. A faint, foul stench tainted the clean sea air.

  Cook’s Striker Achmed Singh swore to Shiva under his breath as he struggled to hoist the heavy slops can over the rail. Every night the same. He was always the one anointed to carry out the garbage. He knew that Chief Pangururan had it
in for him because he, Singh, was the only Balinese Hindu in the galley gang, but still, every time?

  Singh wouldn’t have even minded so much if it were daytime, but damnation, it was dark out here on the fantail at night. Singh wasn’t enough of a sailor yet to be confident at the rail with the luminous wake boiling furiously at his feet. Even in the face of the humiliating jests aimed at him by the other galley hands, he always donned his life jacket before beginning his nauseating task.

  With a final heave he lifted the overflowing can to the top cable of the railing and tilted the garbage over the side, being careful not to spill anything on the deck. No sense in inciting the rage of that snot-nosed deck division ensign.

  The can was just emptying out when Singh felt a powerful hand close on his life-jacket collar and a second on his belt.

  “Y’all want a hand there, sport?”

  Cook’s Striker Achmed Singh, garbage can and all, shot over the stern rail to plunge into the frigate’s wake, his startled scream temporarily gagged by a mouthful of seawater.

  “We have a local in the water astern,” Labelle Nichols whispered into her headset. “Drone Control, keep a fix on him. Raider One, drop back and pick him up.”

  Stone gave the grinning black woman a thumbs-up sign and they headed forward.

  The remainder of the sixteen-person boarding party was on deck and ready to deploy. Moving silently on foam boot soles, the black-clad assault force flowed up either side of the Sutanto’s deckhouse. Following the ops plan, men peeled off at each hatchway and deck ventilator, grenades coming out of harness pouches.

  Half a dozen boarders remained to edge up the ladderways to the bridge wings.

  “Lieutenant Kodi, the Americans are launching helicopters.”

  The watch officer had already seen the lights of the first aircraft lifting from the helipads of the LPD. He also observed that it was swinging back in the direction of the Sutanto. This was clearly an event worthy of the Old Man’s interest. Reaching for the interphone, Kodi buzzed the captain’s sea cabin.