Task Force

by Brian Falkner

“I’m sure of it,” the Tsar said.

  They were all silent, letting the Tsar concentrate on the vague noises coming through his headphones.

  “It’s turning,” he said. “It’s getting louder. I think it’s coming in this direction.”

  Another pause.

  “Cavitation has increased. It just picked up speed.”

  4. PATROL SHIP

  [2220 hours Local time]

  [Moreton Bay, New Bzadia]

  “HOW FAR AWAY IS IT?” CHISNALL ASKED.

  “A few hundred meters, give or take.” The sonar had no way of measuring distance, other than by the volume of the sounds. “Cavitation has stopped,” the Tsar whispered.

  “Where?” Chisnall asked.

  “About where I last heard the Demons.”

  Chisnall could imagine them, motionless in the water, scarcely daring to breathe as the patrol ship closed in on them.

  “Active pinging, active pinging!” the Tsar said. “The ship is pinging.”

  Chisnall could hear that without a sonar array. The high-pitched pulse of sound echoed around him.

  “LT, your orders?” Price asked.

  Chisnall stared to the south as if he could see the drama unfolding there.

  The Tsar yelled, “Underwater explosion!”

  Chisnall heard it, too, a distant sonic boom, far away but still powerful enough to vibrate the glass of his mask.

  “What the hell was that?” Wilton asked.

  “Ultrasound depth charge,” Barnard said.

  “Azoh!” Wilton said.

  “LT?” Price asked.

  “Keep moving,” Chisnall said. “We don’t have time to stop.”

  “They’re in trouble,” Barnard said. “We have to do something.”

  “And jeopardize our mission as well?” Chisnall said. “The Demons will have to look after themselves.”

  “We’re wasting our time if the Demons get caught,” Barnard said.

  She was right. The task force wouldn’t make it a hundred feet up the river if the Demons didn’t switch out the lights.

  “Okay. You’re right. I’ll go and check it out,” Chisnall said. “Everyone else, stay on task. Sergeant Price has mission command till I get back.”

  “No, LT, I’ll go,” Price said.

  “I can’t risk you,” Chisnall said.

  “Then send Wilton or … Monster,” Price said.

  “Do your job, Sergeant,” Chisnall said. “You’re in charge till I get back.”

  He thought briefly about opening the equipment pod and getting a weapon, but that was not possible underwater, and difficult even floating on the surface. He decided not to. In any case he was just going to have a quick look around; he wasn’t planning on getting into a firefight.

  “And if you don’t come back?” Barnard asked.

  Chisnall didn’t answer. He was already on his way.

  Price watched Chisnall swim off, the black shape of his barracuda disappearing into the strange underwater twilight.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Barnard asked.

  “What?” Price asked.

  “Chisnall racing off to be the hero,” Barnard said. “What’s he trying to prove?”

  “Chisnall doesn’t have to prove anything,” Price said. “Not to me.”

  “Or me,” Wilton said.

  “Boo-yah,” Monster said.

  “He should have sent someone else,” Barnard said.

  “He should have sent me,” the Tsar said.

  “Then who would have operated the sonar?” Price asked. “Listen, I know Chisnall. He’s not trying to be a hero. He just doesn’t want to risk any of our lives, so he’s risking his own.”

  “He’s the team leader,” Barnard said. “Doing this, he’s risking all of our lives.”

  “You’re right. He’s the leader, and he has given orders,” Price said. “Now shut up and follow them.”

  There was only one problem with what Barnard had said. She was right.

  Price checked the time and made a quick calculation. They should reach St. Helena Island only a few minutes behind schedule. Still in time to intercept the security shift change.

  “What if the LT doesn’t come back?” the Tsar asked.

  “Then you’re stuck with me,” Price said. “But we proceed with the mission as planned.”

  “LT will be back,” Monster said.

  “They call him Lieutenant Lucky,” Wilton said. “He’s a real lucky dude.”

  “And if they called him General Motors, would he drink gasoline and fart exhaust fumes?” Barnard asked.

  “He’s the luckiest person I know,” Price said.

  “It’s not luck,” Monster said. “The universe, it turns according to a plan, and Chisnall fits somewhere into that plan. He’ll be back.”

  “Oh, right. Of course. There is a plan to the universe,” Barnard said. “Stupid of me. I thought it was a random bunch of stars.”

  “You believe what you believe. Monster believe what Monster believe,” Monster said.

  “And you can’t argue with irrational beliefs,” Barnard said.

  “So does the universe have a plan for me?” Wilton asked.

  “No,” Price said.

  “Why not?” Wilton asked.

  “Because the universe thinks you’re a jerk,” Price said. “Now cut the chatter and focus on the mission.”

  “New Big Dog barks just like the old Big Dog,” the Tsar said.

  “What did I ever do to the universe?” Wilton asked.

  It took Chisnall less than ten minutes to locate the ship. He drifted toward it, no more than a vague motionless black shape hidden behind the bright glare of the underwater searchlights. He was noiseless in the water, with only the occasional swish of his tailfin.

  He wondered if he was doing the right thing. He could have let one of the others go. He should have let one of the others go. He knew that. And yet somehow he couldn’t.

  He approached the ship from the stern and let himself float upward until he was just below the surface. A small handheld periscope was fastened inside the front of the barracuda. He undid the rubber clips and raised the scope until the water drained away from the lens and the ship appeared: a green monolith in his night vision.

  It was a patrol craft, a sleek, fast machine still painted in the gray of the Australian navy from which it had been appropriated. It looked to be about two hundred feet long, with two radar towers amidships and a Zodiac inflatable in a cradle on the rear deck.

  A long taut cable stretched away from the stern, disappearing underwater about ten feet from the boat. A towed sonar array. At this close range, they would have had no problem locating the Demons.

  There was activity on the stern near two low platforms with steps leading up to the main deck. Another searchlight scanned the surface of the waters behind the ship, a fiery circle in his night-vision mask. He made sure to stay well out of range.

  As he watched, the light fixed on something floating in the water. Two Bzadian soldiers used a long, hooked pole to drag it to the platform. With horror, Chisnall realized that it was a body in a black wet suit. The body stirred a little as they hauled it up the stairs to the deck. The Demon was unconscious, but at least alive.

  Other Bzadians were bent over something on the deck, and as he watched, they lifted another Demon—dead or alive, Chisnall couldn’t tell—and carried him through an open doorway at the rear of the superstructure. Three more Demons were carried into the cabin. Including the one they had just dragged out of the water, that made five. One was missing, maybe dead on the bottom of the ocean.

  Shouted orders came from a small main deck, high on the superstructure, to the rear of the bridge. The searchlights cut off and the Bzadians moved to the front of the ship. Chisnall allowed himself to float closer to the stern.

  His mind was racing.

  The Demons had been captured or killed.

  But it was worse than that. If they realized who the Demons were, the
y would alert Coastal Defenses. The task force depended on stealth and surprise. Operation Magnum would be over before it had begun.

  The only rational thing to do now was to return to his team and they could slink back to the submarine with their tails between their legs.

  The water drained away from her mask as Price lifted her head out of the water for the first time since leaving the submarine. For all the navigation gadgets in the world, she still liked to see for herself where she was. Where she was going.

  The lights of Brisbane were a forest of color on the mainland, a few miles due west. In front of that, slightly to the north and much closer, a distinct glow came from an otherwise dark mass that had to be St. Helena Island. They were heading in the right direction, and as best as she could judge, they were not much more than a mile away.

  She looked to the south, at the lights of the ship. There had been no word from the Demons since Chisnall had left. And no word from Chisnall.

  She did another quick radio check but got only silence.

  In the absence of any other orders, in the absence of Chisnall, the only thing to do was carry on. It occurred to her that she might never hear from him again. She might never know what happened to him, or the Demons. But those were thoughts for another time.

  Right now there were things to do.

  There was a team to lead.

  Price pointed her barracuda down, and the lights of the city disappeared above her.

  It was over. Logic told him that. But emotion wouldn’t let him leave. Not yet. A waft of his craft’s tail propelled him toward the platform. Watching the back of the boat intently to make sure there were no observers, Chisnall reached out for it.

  The ship’s engine note changed, escalating into a throaty roar. Turbulence bubbled up around him. The bow of the ship lifted. Chisnall rammed his throttle to full.

  He nearly made it. The platform edge was just inches from his fingertips when it started to slip away from him, the gap widening as the ship surged ahead. He leaped off the barracuda, stretching out full length, lunging for a metal rail at the base of the platform. His fingers snagged and then lost it as the boat powered away from him in the dark water.

  There was a rushing sound, and Chisnall spun around to see the narrow line of a wire rope cutting through the water behind him. The sonar array! He launched himself sideways, grasping the rope with one hand, then the other. It was wet, and his hands slipped. He managed one large gulp of air before sliding underwater. The water came at him faster and faster as the ship picked up speed. His facemask dislodged and began to fill. He locked his hands around the wire, trying to hang on. His lungs were already starting to burn. Rushing water buffeted his face, and he dared not open his eyes.

  Tightening his grip with one hand, he managed to slide his other hand forward a few inches. It immediately slipped back, losing most, but not all, of what he had gained. He slid his other hand along, with no better result. A wave of dizziness flooded over him. But he continued. Slide a hand forward, slip a little back. Slide the other hand forward, slip a little back. His mind was empty. Nothing existed except moving one hand, then the other, until at last he could do no more. The pain in his chest was unbearable; his brain was spinning. His mouth opened but instead of water, he inhaled a lungful of pure, sweet sea air.

  Chisnall took another breath, but this time got water. Spluttering and choking, he took another frantic gasp and got air. His mind began to focus. He was out of the water just enough so that he was able to catch a breath in the troughs of the waves.

  Timing his breaths carefully, he opened his eyes and glanced up at the stern of the ship. It seemed to tower above him, although it was only a few feet away. An easy climb on an obstacle course, dry, with fresh muscles. Here in the rough seas, at the limits of his endurance, it was impossible. He knew beyond a doubt that he could never make it. But he had to try.

  Chisnall wrapped his legs around the wire and twisted his ankles together, locking the cold metal between them. Without warning, the boat began to turn, a sharp veer to starboard. The force of it almost wrenched him from the wire, and he screamed in frustration and agony. But it was his salvation. As the boat turned, the wire swung to the right and suddenly the metal stairs that led to the platform were almost within his grasp. The impossible now seemed possible, and that thought gave him renewed energy.

  He stretched out a hand, scrabbling at the edge of the short flight of steps. His fingers touched it, then slid away. Again he tried, and this time the waves were kind and the rocking motion of the boat brought the stairs to him. He gripped it with a strength that he didn’t know he had. The boat began to straighten. He flopped into the water, his fingers steel claws on the railing of the stairs. He swung his other arm up and now both hands locked on, the rest of his body bouncing over the water behind the ship, buffeted by the turbulence from the propellers below. Two hands became two hands and a knee, then two knees, and finally he collapsed onto the platform.

  He could have lain there and gone to sleep, or at least rested until he got some feeling back in his numbed fingers and legs, until the fires that burned in his muscles faded. But there was no time for that.

  There were shouts coming from the deck above him. They were hunting again.

  Price could hear the pinging through the cool water even before the Tsar spoke. It sounded like the tolling of a high-pitched bell. A warning bell.

  “Active pinging,” the Tsar said. “Cavitation has increased, getting louder. They’re coming this way.”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Wilton said.

  “Spread out as much as you can, but stay in comm range,” Price said. “Head for the island. Barnard, you’re supposed to be the intelligence officer. Do you know anything about these depth charges?”

  “The ultrasound blast will stun you up to about ninety feet,” Barnard said. “Outside of that it’ll rattle your teeth, but you’ll be okay.”

  “And inside of that?” Price asked.

  “If you’re within sixty feet, you’ll be knocked out cold,” Barnard said.

  “What about thirty feet?” Price asked.

  “The shock wave will probably stop your heart,” Barnard said.

  “They’re right on our tail,” the Tsar said. He sounded panicky.

  “What do we do?” Wilton asked.

  Chisnall raised his head above the level of the deck. It was clear. The stern was lined with equipment lockers but nothing large enough to conceal a person. On the right side of the deck was an inflatable boat, a Zodiac, on a short slipway for easy launching.

  He slid onto the deck and crawled behind the Zodiac. Only then did he raise himself up and peer forward. He didn’t have his night-vision mask, but he didn’t need it. The deck was well lit by fluorescent tubes mounted on the superstructure above him. A large window at the top opened onto the bridge, and he could see someone moving around inside.

  He eased past the Zodiac, toward an open door. Inside, he could see some of the Demon Team. Three of them were conscious but looked dazed, sitting cross-legged, leaning against a wall. Their hands were locked to their necks in a neckcuff, a type of Bzadian handcuff. Two others were lying on the floor, but their hands also were cuffed, which gave him some hope that they were still alive. One of them was bleeding from the ear. Varmint was missing.

  He waited outside, listening for a guard. There had to be a guard. He couldn’t wait long. At any moment someone could decide to walk back to the stern, or someone up on the bridge could look down.

  At any moment the boat could reach the Angel Team.

  He was unarmed. His weapons were stored in the equipment pod towed behind Monster’s DPV. But there was no time, so there was no choice. He moved forward, sliding his feet across the wet deck to minimize noise. When he reached the door, he stopped again to listen and, hearing nothing, risked a quick glance inside. An internal flight of stairs led up to the bridge. There was an open door at the bottom of the stairs, and he could clearly he
ar the crew talking, discussing some new sonar contacts.

  The Angels.

  Just the sound of the Bzadian tongue sent a cold chill down his spine. Hearing it made everything much more real. He really was once again behind enemy lines, walking a very precarious tightrope. Chisnall slipped into the cabin and shut the door at the bottom of the stairs. The voices from the bridge became an indistinct murmur. Good. The door was soundproof.

  He ran over to the first of the Demons and kneeled beside him. Dazed eyes stared up at him. Chisnall had never seen the effects of an ultrasound blast at close range. It wasn’t pretty. Blood trickled from the Demon’s nose. His name was Miscreant, Chisnall thought, although all the Demons seemed to look the same—skinny, hard-faced, and with a shaved head. Miscreant had an even scrawnier look about him, which was how Chisnall recognized him. The next two Demons, Yobbo and Hooligan, seemed equally dazed and confused.

  Chisnall examined Miscreant’s neckcuff. A flexible plastic collar with two wrist loops fastened at the back of the neck. Struggling or pulling on the wrist loops only tightened the collar, choking the prisoner until he or she relaxed. The locking mechanism was a simple one, requiring a key-tube to be pushed into a hole at the back of the neck. Chisnall didn’t have a key-tube. He could probably get the Demons over the side of the boat, but even conscious they would drown with their hands locked to their necks.

  “Stop what you are doing,” a voice said, slow and even, and Chisnall looked up to see a steady coil-gun aimed right at his head. The Bzadian who held it was unusually tall and thick-chested: tough and competent.

  Chisnall stood up, folding his arms across his chest, Bzadian style, with his palms out, to indicate that he was not going to resist.

  “What have you done to these soldiers?” Chisnall asked. The language and the regional dialect flowed effortlessly, his surgically created forked tongue buzzing on the difficult Bzadian sounds. “We were on a training exercise in the bay and found ourselves attacked by our own forces.”

  “A training exercise?” the Bzadian said. “Why didn’t we know about it?”

  “Of course you knew about it,” Chisnall said. He turned as he spoke, bending down over the scrawny shape of Miscreant and examining the blood that trickled from his ear. “The exercise has been planned for weeks. Coastal Defense Command knows all about it. Now you have killed some of my best soldiers.”