Operation Malacca

by Joe Poyer

  'You can depend on the fact that the Soviet Union is weighing all possibilities. Consider this. If Malaya falls to the Communists, then the line up in Indo-China will be complete.

  Thailand remains squeezed but possibly neutral only as long as it takes the Burmese Communists to upset their government and . . . they are not far from that point now.

  Then Thailand loses any remaining independence she would have. Cambodia and Laos fall into line without a whimper. With friendly Communist governments throughout the Peninsula, Singapore and its naval base falls right into the Soviet's lap as its main base in the South China Sea . . . controlling the approaches to the Straits from either direction and completing the encirclement of China. China is hemmed in and we are pushed back onto Australia and New Zealand. How long can Indonesia remain independent with insurgents and arms pouring across the Straits? How long can the Philippines remain independent if the South China Sea is a Russian lake?

  `Strategic long-range interests make it imperative that the installation be destroyed or neutralized at the very least.' He shifted in his chair and relit his pipe. 'Recognize that the Soviets take no chances here. It all falls on the Vietnamese who recognize that their stake is very, very high . . . and they have always shown themselves willing to gamble against the odds.'

  'Way too many alternatives, aren't there?' Keilty commented.

  `Way too many,' the Secretary of Defense agreed dryly.

  An Indonesian Admiral spoke up, his soft accent harshened by anger. 'What do we wait for? We have no choice but to act now.' He turned to the Bradley's captain. 'If your weather reports are correct, we can no longer delay. To do so will be to see Singapore blanketed by radioactive water.'

  'Admiral Okhato is correct, gentlemen,' an Australian officer said quietly. 'Do you want to see another Fall of Singapore like in forty-two. I don't, I was there. If we have to evacuate the bases at the same time everyone in the city is trying to get across the river, our chaps will die of radioactive poisoning. There's three million people in that city, two bridges to the mainland, and the causeway. If the monsoon strikes the day or so following the detonation, the insurgents could occupy a clean city and chase us so far back into the hills it will be the Japanese war all over again.

  There was a growl of agreement from the others. After several minutes of arguing, during which the American secretary remained aloof, he banged on the glass top of the chart table with a coffee cup. There was immediate silence.

  'I propose,' he said simply, 'that the station be captured and the bombs be disarmed.'

  A chorus of seconds greeted his proposal, and minutes later, they were again grouped around the maps, planning the best use of the Bradley, the two MTBs and the four companies of

  marines, two Australian/New Zealand combined units and one each Malaysian and Indonesian.

  Two hours later, Keilty went below to the crew's mess, where Charlie had been installed, and found him swapping " dirty jokes with the third-watch cook.

  `Hey, you clown,' he roared. 'Cut that out, I got enough trouble with him as it is, without you putting more ideas into his head.'

  The cook, who had not heard him come in, jumped in surprise, then swung around to see a blond giant with a bright red face bearing down on him. The door to the pantry was open and he made it in record time to the laughter of the other mess workers. Mumbling to himself, Keilty fussed around the tank, checking the water-temperature gauge and recirculating pump to Charlie's soft chuckles.

  'For crying out loud,' Keilty said angrily. 'Where in hell did you pick up that kind of language?

  `Damned bluenose,' Charlie shot back, then laughed again, the sound coming out in static, as the transphonemator could not transliterate it.

  `Look here, those numbskulls have finally decided to raid the station after all.'

  "Do tell,' Charlie muttered. 'Another triumph of common sense.'

  `Huh? Well, yeah, I guess you could call it that,' Keilty said with a glance at the dolphin that could only be described as fishy. He was beginning to wonder about Charlie. It was turning out that the dolphin was even sharper intellectually than he had thought. This whole fiasco was becoming a real eyeopener.

  Keilty dragged up a chair, and with his feet on the seat, settled himself on the back so that he could look down into the tank. The dolphin was lying relaxed in the water.

  Charlie had pushed the mike extension around so that he could shift his position without banging into it. Keilty placed his mike in the clip on the edge of the tank and hunched forward comfortably to speak into it.

  `So they decided to capture the station and get the bomb,' Charlie reiterated. 'How?'

  `Well, as for the station, a straightforward attack is about the only way. Those pictures you brought back show only one narrow ladder, and the deck about sixty feet above the surface.

  So the ladder will be the hardest part. You didn't see any other ladders, did you?' he asked sharply.

  `Nope.'

  `Well that's that, then. The ladder is the only way up.' Keilty paused. 'The stairs will be too well guarded.

  'The seas are getting up a bit, and it's beginning to rain pretty hard out there. They tell me it will last about three hours, then quit. After that, the seas should keep rising. So they can depend on that for some cover.'

  `That doesn't sound so difficult. I don't know much about this kind of nonsense,' Charlie said, 'but there shouldn't be too much trouble, should there?'

  `Yep.' Keilty decided the back of the chair wasn't very comfortable and shifted down to the seat. 'There's a report that a Vietnamese destroyer – a ship like this one – is heading for the station. That could cause all sorts of trouble. They want to keep the carnage and bloodshed down as much as possible because of quote, world opinion, unquote, and if that destroyer shows up and starts shooting, there's going to be a mess.'

  `Why not do it all and get it over with before the destroyer shows up?' Charlie asked.

  `Because what's to prevent the destroyer from standing off and lobbing a few shells in to destroy the station – and the evidence!' He stressed the last.

  Òh.'

  `So they need some way to knock off the destroyer, without sinking it if possible, and make it turn back.'

  `So where's the problem? Get some help.'

  Ì figured you'd say that, 'cause that's what I asked. Ànd ..

  Ànd they told me. There's nothing that could do the job that could intercept the Vietnamese destroyer before it's too late. Everyone is either down the strait or back in Singapore, so they don't cause too much of a ruckus down here. Aircraft are out too,' he said to forestall Charlie's next question, 'because of the weather. There's only about two thousand feet visibility out there, even when it's not raining under these clouds. And radar isn't accurate enough for this job.'

  Charlie digested all of this for a minute, then said: `So what do they want us to do?'

  Keilty stood up and rubbed the back of his neck, wondering how to put this next to the dolphin. He paced a moment,

  aware that the dolphin's great, clear eyes were on him, then abruptly sank back down into the chair.

  'It's like this,' he began. 'They have what they call a limpet mine. You set a timer, clamp it to a ship with its built-in magnet, and when the timer runs out, the mine explodes and blows a hole in the ship. The timer lets the guy who planted it get away, or lets the ship get out to sea so that it sinks beyond the possibility of salvage.'

  Ànd with this wonderful device . . .' Charlie spoke his unfinished sentence in an exceedingly dry voice.

  'Now cut that out,' Keilty snapped, irritated.

  `They want us – you – to plant this bomb, plant it just so, so that it will blow a God-damned big hole in the ship and force them to turn back.'

  `They do, do they?' Charlie glared at him, then dropped his head below the water line.

  `Hey, come on out of there,' Keilty yelled, and slapped the water. When nothing happened, he sat grimly back to wait.

  E
xactly two minutes later, Charlie stuck his head out of the water again. He glared at Keilty for a long moment.

  'Do I have to wear that blasted pack again?'

  `No. I can make up a sling for you to carry the mine beneath your chest. It only weighs ten pounds or so, and isn't very big.'

  Charlie considered again. `So what do I have to do?'

  Keilty took a deep breath. It looked as if the dolphin would help after all. Suddenly it occurred to him. Why was he getting so worked up about this phase of the operation?

  They had done what they had been asked: verified the presence of the bomb. The rest of it was up to that pack of short-sighted idiots still arguing in the wardroom. He shrugged mentally. Somebody had to do it, and it looked as if they were elected. A germ of an idea occurred to him. His face took on a strangely piratical appearance, his heavy blond brows drawing inward and down. He ran a blunt hand through the straw-colored mop of hair and stood thinking a moment.

  `Hey. I said, what do I have to do?' Charlie's demand snapped his train of thought. He grinned at the dolphin.

  'My friend, we are going to make a killing. All you gotta do is take the mine. The first MTB – on which I will also be – will take you out and drop you in the path of the destroyer. You hang around until it comes up. It should only be doing fifteen knots or so, and you won't have any trouble in catching it as

  it goes by. When you do, plant the mine close to the bottom of the keel, just back of the bow where it begins to flatten out. Figure it's about twenty feet back from the front. The mine has a magnet, so it will stick. As soon as it makes contact with the hull, the mine will go off in exactly fifteen minutes. So you get out of there as fast as possible. Swim back the way you came, and you should be able to spot the second MTB with your sonar.

  They will take you back to the Bradley. Then join us as reinforcements.

  'Our MTh will have to drop you, then beat it for the station. The second MTh will have to hang back a couple of miles so that the destroyer doesn't spot them on radar. You won't have any trouble finding them with your sonar, will you?' Keilty asked anxiously. 'Or the destroyer either?'

  `N0000, I wouldn't think so,' Charlie answered dryly. He was about to add something about the quality of the human underwater gear, then thought better of it.

  Àll right, if that's all there is to it, you can tell them they've got a minelayer.' Charlie hesitated. 'That's a joke, son.'

  `Yeah, I know,' Keilty said with a straight face, and stood up. 'Look now, get some rest. I'

  ll go back and tell those clowns you're willing and maybe dicker with them.' He patted Charlie's rough gray head and went out, after warning the mess crew to let the dolphin rest.

  This time the marine guard saluted and opened the hatch quickly.

  'Thanks,' Keilty said, and stepped in. The loud buzz of conversation died down as he made his way between the tables to the map. When he reached it, he turned his back to the bulkhead and grinned at the expectant faces.

  `Gentlemen, he agrees.

  Several heads nodded at this wise choice, except Rawingson's. Keilty noticed he was staring at him with a slightly quizzical look.

  He held up a hand, grinning wolfishly. 'Our fee will be one hundred and fifty thousand U.

  S. dollars. A letter of commitment, signed by you . . .' He turned to the American Secretary of State, who looked rather thunderstruck. . and witnessed by the rest, will do for now.'

  Angry voices began shouting and arguing. 'And,' he finished with a roar to override the noise, 'it will be payable on demand and of course subject to G and A fees and overhead.'

  It took forty-five minutes of bland indifference to the shouting, but eventually he pocketed the letter of commitment.

  They spent a sickening ten minutes getting Charlie's tank transferred from the rolling and pitching Bradley to the MTB, bobbing and dancing beneath the black wall of steel that was the destroyer. Keilty could imagine the sweating face and strained muscles of the helmsman as he fought the wheel to keep the relatively tiny craft from being crushed by the larger destroyer. From the sound of the engines, both Rolls Royce gas turbines must have been turning over at maximum power.

  Keilty had supervised the rigging of the transfer line himself and had inflated the oil-filled sacs that would cushion Charlie in place of water. The dolphin had said nothing the entire time, although Keilty had left the transphonemator in place and working so that he could soothe the highly nervous dolphin. He had noted with concern that the tension had drawn strong lines around Charlie's beak and eyes and lines along his body that shifted constantly with his muscle action.

  Deep black clouds filled the sky from horizon to horizon and pressed down closely on the three frail craft in the center of a dark, empty universe. The barometer needle had been dropping slowly all day, and strangely enough, there had been no wind. Only a leaden silence broken by the muted roar of engines and the quiet slap of feet. Talk in the oppressive atmosphere was limited to desultory conversation and occasional commands.

  The destroyer's floodlights had been turned on at the bow and along the starboard side to provide light for the MTh crews. Their own running lights added to the harsh glare that surrounded the three ships. Looking down from the railing to the deck of the frantically bobbing MTh, Keilty could see angry waves with foamy crests lashing upwards like solid metal hulks before sliding brokenly back into oily troughs. Once overboard in that, he thought, if you weren't crushed against one side or another, the giant twin screws of the destroyer, or the smaller, sharper ones of the MTBs would make mincemeat out of you.

  Providing you escaped that fate, you would be lost forever in the eight-foot seas.

  The lights from the ships, a bright pool in the ocean of darkness, created a scene strongly reminiscent of an Ingmar Bergman movie. The whites were crystalline and harsh and the blacks were pools of jet, with no shade of gray or color in between. Except for the fluidity of movement, the slow-motion rise and fall of the man-made ships, and the wild insanity of the sea, the scene could have been that of a lunar rock formation at sunset. He wished he had a camera to record the drama so he could later compare the scene with photos taken by various Apollo Lunar Expeditions. He was sure that he would find the same breathless prescience of danger that almost screamed from the two-dimensional recordings of man's attack on what was essentially alien territory.

  Turning away from the rail, he tried to shake off his sinister and superstitious dread. He said a few words to Charlie, who did not reply, and he noted the clear whites that showed completely around his pupils. Like a frightened horse, he thought ... or a man.

  He stroked the dolphin's head and was about to say something else, when the iron voice of the PA system boomed at him.

  Àre you set down there, Dr. Keilty?'

  He waved back at the bridge and caught snatches of muffled conversation with the MTB

  carrying over the loudspeakers.

  `Prepare to transfer tank. Cargo officer, at your discretion.' The flat, metallic voice died quickly with no trace of answering echo. Keilty shivered again. Charlie must have caught his mood, because he looked up at Keilty and dropped one eyelid in a close approximation of a wink.

  Feeling slightly relieved, Keilty swung himself up onto the tank so that he was astride one of the oil cushions beneath the middle tackle guy.

  The cargo officer came over at a run. `Dr. Keilty, you can't go over on that.' The fear in his voice was obvious to all.

  Trying to keep his voice calm, Keilty replied, 'Why not? You guys said it was safe.' It didn't come off, and his voice was harsh with suppressed fear.

  Òf course it's safe. But if something should go ...'

  `God damn it. If it's safe, nothing will go wrong. You think I'm going to let him ride across if the whole lousy system's going to fall apart?'

  The officer, his face screwed up with doubt, hesitated, then turned on his heel and ran back to the bosun's chair lying on the deck next to the winch. He was back quickly with a w
ide safety strap.

  `Put this around your waist and secure it to the tackle lock. If something goes wrong, it's got a quick-release buckle. Lift

  up on the right side.' He hesitated again and looked up at Keilty as he took the belt. '

  Good luck, sir,' he said quietly, and went back to the winch.

  Keilty finished buckling up the belt and glanced up at the bridge. A line of faces pressed against the window, but the angle and light made it impossible to make out features. He rapped Charlie on the back and waved a hand at the cargo officer.

  The tank jerked, then swung crazily for a moment until the winches took up the slack in the guide ropes.

  'Here we go, ugly,' he muttered through clenched teeth.

  'Looked in a mirror lately?' was Charlie's strained reply.

  The tank lifted smoothly for a moment, then dropped sickeningly over the rail and began the long slide down to the jouncing deck below. Behind, Keilty could see the destroyer out of the corner of his eye as the deck dropped below them. He jerked his head around in time to see the MTh ride up a crest.

  'Christ,' he roared. 'Hang on ...'

  The cable above his head whipsawed sharply and the tank sprang upwards, then violently down as the destroyer rode up again. The winch screamed behind him at the overload, smoke pouring from the motor housing as the cable sawed into the reel.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the tank was level again and seconds later thumped onto the deck, where it was securely bolted down. Keilty painfully pried his fingers loose from the guy wire and turned on his stomach and slid down stiffly.

  'How the hell did I ever get mixed up with you?' Charlie asked wearily.

  Five minutes later, the two MTBs were beating their way southeast through steadily worsening seas.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Keilty crouched on the lee side of the MTB's cabin, watching through the aft hatch the radio operator with his head cocked to one side and earphones held with both hands to his ears. The man's face tightened for a moment, then he reached for his pencil and began scribbling out the message. Keilty looked at the huge Maori beside him in the camouflage greens of the Royal New Zealand Marines with the pips of a lieutenant.