09.Deep Black: Death Wave

by Stephen Coonts

  Realists like captain Morrisey, repeated pointed out that shooting captured pirates and sinking their boats would stop piracy in these waters in fairly short order. The international community, however, was unable to embrace what they saw as murder; most European states had long since abolished the death penalty, and summarily executing pirates went beyond the pale. While capital punishment was still legal in the United States, the government was not about to permit executions on the high seas, not when such measures would bring a storm of protest from the comfortable politically correct. So piracy and murder were subsidized and encourage by governments unwilling to meet force with force.

  The pirates were all on board the Yakutsk now, racing along the decks. There appeared to be about fifteen of them, heavily armed with rifles and RPGs. Dean and the others aboard the Erie watched as a bearded man stepped out of a watertight door in the ship’s superstructure brandishing an AK assault rifle, only to be shot down by the boarders.

  “Is this all going out to the Puzzle Palace?” Dean asked. Their implants and belt antennae didn’t work here within the shielded and electronically protected confines of the Aegis cruiser’s CIC.

  “Absolutely,” Morrisey told him. “They’re seeing this at the same time we are, with maybe a half-second delay off the satellite.”

  “Good.”

  “And Ocean Storm is set to go?”

  “Affirmative. The Constellation is getting this feed, too.”

  Dean nodded. All of the pieces were in place.

  As the Yakutsk had traveled farther and farther west, eventually entering the two-hundred-mile gap between the island of Socotra and the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, the carrier battle group shadowing it had begun closing the range. The Lake Erie now was just under twenty nautical miles southeast of the Yakutsk, while the aircraft carrier USS Constellation was about thirty miles from the target. The Yakutsk’s radar likely was picking up both the Erie and the Constellation, as well as the other surface ships of the battle group, but these were crowded waters, with international sea traffic funneling in toward the narrow mouth of the Red Sea. With luck, the Erie had been dismissed as another freighter, the Constellation as a supertanker out of the Arabian Gulf. Not that secrecy was of particular importance now. The Yakutsk’s Russian crew would very soon be learning the truth, as would the pirates attacking them.

  “Can we have some more detail there?” Dean asked, pointing toward the cargo ship’s deck amidships, just forward of the superstructure. A gun battle had broken out between the pirates and a small group of shipboard defenders.

  “Those don’t look much like sailors,” Morrisey commented. “They don’t even look like merchant seamen.”

  “Probably JeM,” Dean said, thoughtful. “Pakistanis riding shotgun on the nukes.”

  “Makes sense that the JeM wouldn’t let such a valuable cargo go unprotected. The Russian seamen don’t care if the bad guys get the cargo. It’s in their best interests to just surrender and let the ship’s owners ransom them.”

  “How many men in the Yakutsk’s crew?” Dean asked.

  “About twenty,” Morrisey told him.

  “Plus an unknown number of Pakistani gunmen. The pirates have their work cut out for them.”

  “Captain Morrisey?” a sailor said from a nearby console. “We’re getting an SOS from the ship.”

  “Record it, Tompkins,” Morrisey told her, “and transmit to both Citadel and Xanadu.” Citadel was the code name for the Constellation; Xanadu was Fort Meade.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Okay,” Dean said, relieved. “We now have official permission to board that ship.”

  Permission to board and search the Yakutsk for the missing nukes had been repeatedly refused by the White House. Dean didn’t know for sure, but he strongly suspected that Bill Rubens was behind this somehow—a hint, a suggestion, in the right diplomatic ear might have gotten the Yakutsk noticed by the Somali pirates. If the United States Navy was not permitted to search a Russian cargo ship on the high seas, international maritime law required nearby ships to come to the aid of that vessel if it sent out a distress message. Rubens had told him to keep a close eye on the ship from the Erie’s CIC and stand by to coordinate a Navy SEAL assault—Ocean Storm—from the Constellation.

  It was almost as if Rubens had somehow known that the Yakutsk was going to be attacked by pirates.

  “Citadel has acknowledged,” Tompkins said, “and requested permission to deploy Ocean Storm.”

  Dean nodded. “Go,” he said.

  ASSAULT FORCE OCEAN STORM

  NORTH OF SOCOTRA

  GULF OF ADEN

  SUNDAY, 1612 HOURS LOCAL TIME

  The leading chief, Senior Chief Petty Officer Carl Raleigh, came to his feet. “Attention on deck!”

  “Okay, ladies!” Lieutenant Commander Edward McCauley said as he walked into the compartment on board the USS Constellation. “As you were!” The men took their seats again, chairs scraping and clattering as they settled. “We have the word,” McCauley continued. “We are go for VBSS!”

  “Hoo-yah!” Forty voices shouted back, ringing off the bulkheads of the compartment designated as the SEAL Team squad bay. The men, dressed in black and with their faces painted green, were members of Alfa Troop, SEAL Team Three, headquartered in Coronado, California; their operational area was Southwest Asia, which included the Gulf of Aden. They’d deployed to the Constitution from Kuwait two days ago, under orders passed down from SOCOM, the U.S. Special Operations Command. Since that time, they’d been on a constant state of alert, waiting for the order to go.

  “The objective of this op is to secure the ship, which is believed to be illegally transporting a number of small tactical nuclear devices. We do not have to worry about finding those devices. That is the job of the NEST people who will be following us in. Our job is to get on board that ship, take down the hostiles, and hold it so the techies can do their thing.

  “We are clear to use lethal force. The hostiles on board include Somali pirates and members of a Muslim terror group, the Army of Mohammad. In addition, it’s possible that the members of the ship’s crew may offer resistance.

  “Be very clear about this, people. While we have no wish to cause unnecessary casualties among the ship’s crew, while it would be useful to capture hostile personnel for interrogation, this is a shoot-first order. If anyone shows a weapon, if anyone offers resistance, if anyone even looks like he’s going to give you an argument, take him down, and take him down hard! The number one objective here is to secure those nukes, not to save lives on that ship, not to take prisoners. You have one order on this op. Secure those weapons! Questions?”

  A hand went up, and McCauley nodded. “Petroski?”

  “I was just wondering, sir … is there any chance of those nukes going off?”

  “Beats me, Pet. What I was told was that it takes twenty minutes to prep one of these weapons, to arm it and set it off. If they do manage to detonate one … well, the good news is we’ll never know it, and the bastards won’t be able to use them against civilian targets. Other questions? Right. Let’s move out!”

  “Hoo-yah!” The SEAL battle cry rang again from the bulkheads as the men began filing out into the next compartment, the armory, where they drew weapons, ammunition, and various items of special gear. Minutes later, they stepped out into the glare of the afternoon sun above the Gulf of Aden, hurrying across the steel flight deck to the waiting helicopters.

  “Now hear this, now hear this,” blared from the 1MC. “Commence helicopter operations on the flight deck.”

  The rotors on the big HH-60H helos began to turn.

  ART ROOM

  NSA HEADQUARTERS

  FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

  SUNDAY, 0935 HOURS EDT

  On the big main display in the Art Room, Rubens saw the image of the Yakutsk being relayed by satellite from the USS Lake Erie. The Yakutsk was just over 240 feet in length and thirty-six feet wide, with a draft of twel
ve and a half feet. Her bridge house was positioned amidships, just forward of the single, large stack. There were two tall masts, one aft of the stack, one just aft of the raised forecastle forward. Stays and rigging connected the two masts with one another and with various points on the deck and bulwarks.

  Those masts and stays could be a problem.

  “The first helicopters are away, sir,” a technician reported.

  “Good,” Rubens said. “What’s their ETA?”

  “Range to the target is now twenty-five nautical miles. The first helos should be over the target in ten minutes, thirty seconds.”

  “Very well.”

  This was where the real worrying began. The SEALs and Navy Special Warfare helicopters were now committed to attack a Russian ship, and the hell of it was that the action probably would not have been approved by the White House. Rubens had set up this scenario to respond to the ship’s SOS, a tenuous legal fiction. If this went badly, it would mean an international incident, and Rubens would be forced to resign at best, face criminal charges at worst.

  Nevertheless, he didn’t see any other way to get the job done.

  CIC, USS LAKE ERIE

  NORTH OF SOCOTRA

  GULF OF ADEN

  SUNDAY, 1635 HOURS LOCAL TIME

  A pitched gun battle was being waged on the decks of the freighter, covertly observed by the shadowing Fire Scout. As the observers on board the Erie watched, three more speedboats pulled up, and more pirates stormed aboard. The defenders were being forced forward. RPG blasts ripped across the Yakutsk’s forward deck, and bodies sprawled in untidy heaps.

  “I hope to hell your boss knows what he’s doing,” Captain Morrisey said. “If he doesn’t, we might be about to start a war with Russia.”

  “Shit,” Akulinin said, “the SEALs board the ship, grab the nukes, and get the hell out. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “More than I care to think about right now,” Morrisey said. “Why didn’t they just send in CTF 151 and let them sort this out?”

  Since January of 2009, Combined Task Force 151 had been patrolling the Gulf of Aden. Led by the United States with the USS Boxer as the flagship, it included vessels from fourteen nations. Many, like China and Russia, were only there to escort their own ships, but the rest, including the American contingent, had been aggressively attempting to suppress piracy in the area. Hampered by bureaucracy and by the pirates’ ability to vanish into Somalian coastal waters masquerading as fishing boats, the international force had so far achieved mixed results.

  “I think the people back home running this op wanted an all-American force, Captain,” Charlie Dean told him. “Fewer complications that way. They probably also think it better to keep the Russians out of the loop for as long as they can. The Yakutsk is Maltese-flagged, so the Russians aren’t in there escorting her, but if they knew what was about to go down, they would not be happy about it.”

  “I’m not sure I’m happy about it,” Morrisey said. “But if we bloody some pirate noses, I won’t mind one bit.”

  “I think we can count on that, Captain. Right now, though, my partner and I have to get in there.”

  “The helo is warmed up and waiting for you,” Morrisey told him. “Good luck … and don’t get yourself shot.”

  Charlie Dean and Ilya Akulinin left the Erie’s CIC, heading aft.

  18

  ASSAULT FORCE OCEAN STORM

  CARGO SHIP YAKUTSK

  GULF OF ADEN

  SUNDAY, 1646 HOURS LOCAL TIME

  The flight of HH-60H Seahawk helicopters came in low and tight, skimming above the oceans low enough that their rotor wash threw up clouds of spray. There were eight aircraft, each carrying five Navy SEALs, each mounting GAU-17/A miniguns in their open cargo doors, and four carrying AGM-114 Hellfire missiles slung from hardpoints on either side. They came in out of the southwest, out of the late afternoon sun. Before the pirates were even aware of the danger, the Seahawks peeled off, sweeping around the Yakutsk in a counterclockwise circle.

  The flight was divided into two platoons, Alfa and Bravo. Alfa was the assault group, Bravo the reserve. With the airspace above and around the Yakutsk suddenly dangerously crowded, Bravo hung back while the four helos of Alfa Group pressed the attack.

  Alfa One, the command ship, swung in close, bringing its left side to bear on the cargo ship’s forward deck. A second hovered nearby, offering fire support to the first. The portside door gunner leaned into his harness as he brought his weapon to bear. He pressed the trigger, and a shrill whine filled the Seahawk’s cargo compartment, the weapon’s six fast-rotating barrels delivering a blistering four thousand rounds per minute onto the target.

  The firestorm of 7.62 mm rounds engulfed the step of the Yakutsk’s foremast, slamming off the steel deck and splintering the white-painted wood of the mast itself. Ship crewmen and JeM defenders scrambled for cover as ricocheting bullets and finger-sized splinters sliced through the air.

  Firing at a rate of better than sixty rounds every second, the door gunner kept his weapon trained on the base of the mast as more and more chunks splintered away. Abruptly, then, the mast broke free just above the base, jumping and leaning sharply to the right. The gunner shifted aim then, sending the stream of slugs into the portside attachment point for the foremast’s stays, hammering at the tiny target until wire rope parted and the shackle broke free.

  The loose stay whipped and cracked through the air, and the mast, cut loose at its base, began to topple away from the helicopter, falling over the cargo vessel’s starboard side and hitting the water in a cascade of white spray. The gunner had already shifted his aim, targeting a second stay attachment, moving systematically to take out masts and cables that posed hazards to low-approaching helicopters.

  On the command helo’s cargo deck, one SEAL leaned over and asked Lieutenant Commander McCauley, “Sir! What happens if we punch a hole in one of those nukes? Game over?”

  “Nah,” McCauley replied. “Not unless they’re booby-trapped. But it’ll make a hell of a mess, and I wouldn’t count on having kids afterward.”

  “Got one already, sir.”

  On the forward deck of the cargo vessel, a Somali pirate emerged from the deckhouse carrying an RPG on his shoulder. Before he could take aim, a minigun burst from Alfa Two literally shredded him from the waist down, splashing an ugly red smear across the steel deck next to the savagely torn torso. The man triggered the RPG as he collapsed, the round striking a stanchion nearby and detonating with a flash.

  “We have one Papa down, one Papa down,” came over the SEAL tactical net. For ease of communications, the people on board the Yakutsk were identified as Papas (pirates), as Tangos (terrorists), and as Charlies (crew members). The SEALs would attempt to avoid hitting Charlies, but the Papas and the Tangos were fair game.

  The difficulty was in telling them apart in the heat and raw confusion of combat.

  On the bridge, high above the deck, a window smashed open on the portside wing, and the flicker of a muzzle flash winked full auto. The SEALs on Alfa One heard a close-spaced pair of loud thumps as rounds struck the Seahawk, but then Alfa Two turned its portside minigun on the ship’s bridge and sent a stream of rounds smashing through the open window. Glass exploded from the bridge, shards sparkling as it fell in the sunlight.

  The ship’s mizzenmast, rising from the deckhouse aft of the ship’s stack, shuddered, then collapsed as Alfa Three hammered at the mast’s step, sending it toppling into the sea alongside the ship. The last of the standing rigging parted with the fall, leaving the Yakutsk dead in the water, a tangle of masts and rigging off its port side.

  “Deck approach is now clear,” McCauley called over the tactical channel. “Alfa Three, you are go for deployment.”

  “Copy, Alfa One.”

  One of the Seahawks circled around the Yakutsk’s port side, turned sharply, and came in across the bow. Hovering above the forward deck, the helicopter hung motionless as a rope curled from the open side hatch
and the first Navy SEAL slid down and onto the deck. He was followed by a second man, and a third. The SEALs on deck spread out as soon as they touched down, H&K submachine guns up against their shoulders as they moved. With the last of the five SEALs delivered to the Yakutsk’s deck, Alfa Three moved off, to be replaced by Alfa Four. Within the space of a few seconds, five more SEALs fast-roped to the ship’s deck.

  “Alfa Four element, on deck! Moving!”

  An armed man—whether Papa or Tango, it was impossible to tell in the battle haze—appeared on a walkway along the side of the bridge house and was immediately cut to bits by a minigun burst from Alfa One. Alfa Two moved aft, drifting into position, then delivering its five-SEAL payload to the Yakutsk’s fantail.

  “Alfa Two element, on deck! Moving!”

  Alfa One continued to hover alongside the ship, LCDR McCauley directing the attack. At his command over the network, Bravo One moved in then and took up station off the ship’s starboard side, flying shotgun as Alfa One moved in to deliver its five SEALs. TM1 Johnson tossed a coiled line out the open door.

  “First up!” McCauley yelled. One by one, then, the SEALs grabbed hold of the line with gloved hands and jumped out into wind-blasted space. McCauley went down last, a dizzying descent through the hurricane blast of the Seahawk’s main rotor, landing on the open area directly above the Yakutsk’s bridge.

  He continued to hear radio chatter from the other SEALs as they moved through the ship. “One-three! I’m on the bridge! Two Tangos down, two Charlies down!”