Ward and Spadefish waited for some word on whether or not their mission was a success. And, if not, whether more of the Tomahawks waiting down in the torpedo room would need to be hurled toward de Santiago’s deadly factory.
“XO, time to impact?” Ward asked, never removing his eye from the periscope’s eyepiece.
Glass looked at the red LED read out from the cesium time standard, the atomic clock.
“Skipper, first salvo should be hitting right about now. Second one in twenty-three minutes.”
“Alright. What is the status of loading the re-strike birds, Weps?”
Guhl eased back the earphones and pushed back from the fire control console on which he had been resting his elbows. He looked back over his shoulder, a perplexed look on his face.
“You say something, Skipper? Chief Ralston was just reporting.”
A burst of scratchy static came from the intercept speaker on the bulkhead behind Ward’s ear. It disrupted the quiet conversation of the control room and everyone looked at it, as if by doing so they could tell what had caused the noise. This speaker was designed to intercept extremely high frequency signals, such as those used by fire control radars that might detect Spadefish’s periscope. The static gave them some semblance of early warning, even before any analysis was done on the signal.
Ward’s brow was creased in question. With the frequency range of the intercept receiver, he should be seeing some war ship up there topside. And that was especially true, given the loudness of the static. The ocean was empty. He had just given it a good look
What was happening? That was much too strong a signal to be spurious background noise. He yelled into the open microphone above his head.
“ESM, conn. What the hell are we hearing out here?”
It was Larson, the crypto technician, who answered.
“Skipper, I honestly don’t know. We’re analyzing now. Can we use the ESM mast?”
“ESM, conn. ESM mast coming up,” Ward ordered. “Give me an analysis as quickly as you can. There isn’t anything up there that I can see.” Ward looked back into the scope just to confirm his own words for himself. Nothing but moon, stars and puffy clouds. “Don’t ask for a DF. I can’t lower the scope right now. We need to keep the radio mast up until we get a report on the mission.”
The irritating pulse of static on the intercept speaker was a curious puzzle, maybe even a potentially dangerous one, but there was a mission yet to finish. They may need to send up some more birds toward the beach if the first flock had strayed. He looked away from the scope toward Stan Guhl.
“Weps, you were saying?”
“Chief Ralston was just reporting all tubes loaded for re-strike, Skipper. We’re doing continuity checks now. We’ll be ready.”
Ward set his mouth firmly. He expected nothing less. He hoped the same would be true if that damned noise proved to be a threat.
John Bethea cheered loudly, shaking his fist in the air in triumph. The home team had just scored a crucial touchdown! The transcript of Bill Beaman’s report of the attack lay on his desk and photos from far out in space confirmed what the SEAL Commander had told him.
“This is great! Fabulous! We finally hit ‘em where it hurts!” he yelped to absolutely no one. His office was empty. It was two o’clock in the morning.
He grabbed the telephone and punched the speed dial. First he had to get Beaman and his men out of there. They had been trekking the mountains of Colombia, chasing Juan de Santiago for too long. Time to bring them back to the States and to the heroes’ welcome they deserved. Hell, these men should be paraded down Broadway, tickertape fluttering around them. He knew that would never happen. Their mission was so sensitive that few outside the JDIA would ever know it had even taken place.
Bethea arranged for the Colombian Army to pick the SEALs up from a drop zone a few miles from where the flames that engulfed de Santiago’s factory still raged. A two-hour helicopter ride to Bogotá, a shower, a hot breakfast and a change of clothes, then first-class tickets to San Diego’s Lindbergh Field. He would have them home by tonight so he could shake each man’s hand before he sent him off on well-deserved liberty.
Even with that happy chore completed, Bethea’s brow was still knitted with worry. There was still a couple of missing elements that bothered him. A factory the size of the one they had just hit could produce tons of coke and had been in full operation for several weeks. The satellite photos showed burning buildings spread over several hectares. They couldn’t account for where all the product they had turned out had gone. There were no warehouses on the property that anyone could see. The stuff had not shown up in the States yet. Tom Kincaid up in Seattle reported everything eerily quiet there. So quiet, his chief suspect in the distribution of the deadly recipe had not raised his ugly head since the first spate of lifeless bodies had turned up. And the DEA man, flying beneath the radar of his superiors, had set up a tight network of former pals in the Agency to keep tabs on the import of the mixture in other parts of the country. It was possible de Santiago might move his desired point of entry once he had killed so many with the initial test.
Nothing. None of the potent stuff had turned up anywhere since that first murderous shipment.
De Santiago wasn’t stupid enough to leave it lying around in the factory, no matter how hidden it was. The stuff had to still be in shipment. There was likely a good boatload ready to go by now. None of his eyes and ears along the coast had caught wind of it. And El Falcone had reported nothing.
Bethea had no choice but to depend on his network of informants, especially El Falcone, to uncover the trail. Or someone in de Santiago’s group would get talkative. If that happened, he needed Spadefish to be in position to intercept the conversation. She was equipped to do that better than anything else he had anywhere in the area, and, judging from the satellite photos on his desk, she was now free for her next assignment.
So that was what had to be done. He would ask the informants to listen even harder. And he needed Spadefish to move closer and turn up her hearing aids to the max.
“God help us if that shit gets through,” he said to himself, imagining how much damage that potent poison could do, even if it would be a long time before any more could follow it.
He stood and walked over to the communications center to talk to Ward, but as he did, he pondered the second problem, the location of the lab that was making that addictive additive. The factory was adding it into the mixture but it wasn’t doing the actual manufacturing. The pictures he saw and Beaman’s eyewitness accounts confirmed this was merely a run-of-the-mill coke operation, albeit on a grand scale.
More work for El Falcone, he decided. Sure wish he wasn’t such a pain-in-the-ass to contact. Even in the best of times, communications were tenuous with the spy. Bethea had no way to directly contact him. He could only place a specially worded ad in a Cartagena newspaper and wait for El Falcone to check in.
He would need to put that into the works, too. That is, as soon as he had Ward and his sub on the way to their next job.
Bethea stepped into the comm center. The on-watch technician looked up from her keyboard and pushed back her headset, not at all surprised to see the boss in the bunker at this hour. She had never seen the man sleep.
“Evening, sir. Ward is on the secure voice circuit waiting for tasking. We have the strike results yet?”
Bethea nodded. The ear-to-ear grin told the story. He grabbed a headset and pulled it over his ears.
“Jon, great shooting! Just got the satellite pictures. Confirms Beaman’s initial report. That whole valley is burning. We won’t be needing any re-strikes just yet.”
Ward answered in a voice that was strong and clear over the secure radio circuit.
“Good because we’ve got a new development down here. My guys just intercepted that same signal again. You remember? The one from that merchant, the Helena K, that we picked up on the weather buoy frequency?”
Bethea closed his eyes and slowly
shook his head. Even though Ward was three thousand miles south, he could sense the man’s eagerness to go chase that will ‘o the wisp.
“Jon, you know the story. We searched that ship, stem to stern. There isn’t anything there. She’s empty. Look, I’ve got something else I want you to do.”
Ward wasn’t buying it.
“John, that guy’s a druggie! I know he is. I’m going to ease off down there and take a look for myself.”
Bethea bit down hard. He was adamant.
“Skipper, I need Spadefish in close to the coast doing signal intercept. I need to know where the rest of de Santiago’s coke is. It’s got to come out of one of those ports over there and I want you in position to hear any communications that will tell us where. Then you can go chasing them down.”
Ward was almost shouting when he answered.
“Damn it, John! That’s what I’ve been telling you. Those drugs are on the Helena K. I know it and I mean to prove it!”
Bethea’s face had turned a dark crimson. He knew the reputation of some of these sub commanders, but he had never had to deal with such a stubborn SOB as this one before. The on-watch technician found something interesting to study in the bottom of her empty coffee cup.
“Listen to me. That ship is empty. We searched it from one end to the other. There weren’t any drugs aboard at all, let alone several tons of pure cocaine. Now, Captain, you will follow your orders and proceed to the coast to conduct signal intercept operations! That is final!”
Thousands of miles away, beneath the surface of the southern Pacific Ocean, Jonathan Ward strategically held the red phone as far away from his ear as his right arm would stretch. When he spoke again, he said, “JDIA, this is Spadefish. Receiving you garbled. Unable to receive your last. Say again.”
He reached over to the bulkhead and turned the receiver off before facing Ed Beasley.
“Officer of the Deck, lower all masts and antennas. Make your depth six hundred feet. Set a course for the Helena K. All ahead flank.”
Beasley acknowledged, “Aye, Skipper,” to Ward’s departing back.
Joe Glass followed on Ward’s heels. They walked into Ward’s stateroom together. Glass slumped down onto the settee.
“Skipper, what the hell was that all about? We didn’t loose communications out there and you know it.”
Ward half smiled and nodded.
“Joe, file this away for when you have your own boat. Bethea’s sitting on his ass in a snug bunker there on the beach in San Diego.” Ward plopped down hard into his own chair and took a swig of what had to be ice cold coffee. He didn’t notice. “He doesn’t understand what’s happening out here at the pointy end of the spear. Now, Carlos and Larson are telling me that boat is a druggie. Those two are the best spooks I’ve ever dealt with. My gut tells me to trust them and I’m going with my gut.”
Glass shook his head slowly.
“Okay, Skipper. You’re putting it on the line for this. Why don’t you just follow orders? No danger there.”
Ward chuckled.
“XO, you’ve heard the old saying ‘No balls, no blue chips?’” The executive officer shook his head. “No blue chips in taking the safe way out. Yeah, we could run over and sit on our butts listening to Radio Cartagena and a bunch of taxi cab drivers for a few days. No muss, no fuss. Then we troop home with nothing. All JDIA’s fault when a few tons of super cocaine turn up on American soil. Way I see it, that merchant is involved somehow and our job is to find out how. Just because Bethea doesn’t understand that is no reason for us not to do our job.”
He looked into the cup and realized how vile the liquid in it was. He stood and opened the door. “It’s like my old man used to say. ‘Better to ask forgiveness than permission.’ Now get some rest. I have a feeling we’re going to be busy when we catch up with the Helena K. I’ll be out on the conn for a bit.”
Ward walked on out to the control room. Joe Glass smiled wryly. He couldn’t imagine anyone else he would rather go to war with than Jonathan Ward. He hoped that when he had his own boat, he could be half the skipper that man was.
He finished his coffee and headed back to his own stateroom.
John Bethea stared in disbelief at the dead receiver.
“I don’t believe that son-of-a-bitch! He hung up on me! I’ll fry his worthless ass as soon as I get my hands on him.”
He grabbed the secure phone and dialed Tom Donnegan’s number in Hawaii. The Admiral answered. Bethea started talking, angry words pouring out in a torrent. He didn’t quit until he had detailed Ward’s mutiny.
Donnegan spat out the remnants of a well-chewed cigar. He took a deep breath and exhaled before he spoke.
“Calm down. Won’t do any of us any good if you blow a gasket. There’s nothing we can do until Ward wants to talk again. I suspect his communications problems will be corrected once he has looked over this merchant. We can deal with his insubordination when he gets back.”
“But…”
“You want me to send somebody down there to arrest him and put him in the brig? Let him run on down and look in the hold of that merch and satisfy himself. Either he’ll turn up your cocaine and all will be forgiven or he’ll owe you and me and the people of the United States a big apology.”
“But…”
“Just get your informants on the job, John. Let my man use his gut for a bit. His ass will be mine if he’s guessed wrong. And I’ll let you take a shot or two at him just for good measure. He’s a good man. And he’s got some smart guys riding with him. Frankly, I don’t think we have a choice but to let him do what he thinks is right.”
“But…”
“Goodbye, John.”
The receiver went dead.
Lieutenant Commander Bill Beaman walked into the clearing when he heard the beat of the choppers. The two H-60s cleared the ridgeline. They flared out and settled onto the grass as the rest of the weary SEALs walked out of the trees.
The pilot of the lead helicopter saluted.
“Senor Beaman, El Presidente Guitteriz congratulates you,” the pilot shouted. “I am to take you to the military barracks in Bogota for a bath then to the airport for your flight home.” He nodded in the direction of where the fire lit up the night sky. “I don’t know what you did there but El Presidente is most impressed.”
Once the SEALs were aboard, the two choppers lifted off and climbed above the ridges. They circled around slowly and headed toward Bogotá.
“Skipper! Skipper, wake up.”
Seaman Cortez hesitated a moment, then shook Jon Ward’s shoulder.
The captain awoke with a start, not sure for a moment where he was or who was so rudely interrupting the dream about his wife and a Hawaiian beach and a mai-tai in a gallon glass. He sat up and swung his legs out, off the narrow bunk. He didn’t remember lying down, let alone falling asleep. His wristwatch said he had slept for two hours. It felt more like two minutes.
Cortez backed up a step and stood at attention. He pulled a small card from his pocket and read, “Captain, the Officer of the Deck sends his respects. He reports that we have sonar contact on the Helena K at an estimated range of ten thousand yards. He requests you come to the conn.”
Ward ran his hands through his hair and tried to shake the sleep from his eyes.
“Tell the Officer of the Deck I’ll be there in a minute.” Cortez turned and started to leave the cramped room. “Oh, and tell him I want him to come to one-five-zero feet and to clear baffles.”
Ward walked toward the control room. He heard the quiet, intense conversation of the section tracking party gathering and evaluating all the information they could about the sonar contact. He also heard Ray Mendoza’s voice come over the 21MC speaker.
“Conn, Sonar. Contact sierra-four-two making one-two-zero turns on one four-bladed screw. Equates to twelve knots.”
Chris Durgan, sitting in front of the fire control computer, grabbed the microphone hanging above his head.
“Sonar, conn. Aye. Ou
r solution agrees.” He tweaked a dial on the desk section of the computer, fine-tuning the computer’s best guess of what the Helena K might be doing. He glanced over his shoulder. “Officer of the Deck, we have a curve. Eklund range calculated at nine-seven-hundred yards. Recommend coming left to course three-one-zero.”
Steve Friedman, standing on the far side of the periscope stand, listened to Durgan as he watched the trace develop on the sonar repeater. The stack of dots was the history of the noise detected by the large sonar dome in the bow of Spadefish. Friedman was trying to uncover every secret that stack of dots concealed.
He nodded his head and said, “Helm, left full rudder. Steady course three-one-zero.”
The compass repeater spun counterclockwise. That was the only way anyone aboard knew that Spadefish was making a turn. As the sub swung to the new course, the stack of dots skewed rapidly to the right. Spadefish steadied on the new course. The dots started to build a new vertical stack, well to the right of the old one.
Ward stepped up onto the periscope stand and stood beside Friedman.
“What do you have, Steve?”
Friedman looked up briefly, then returned to staring at the sonar screen even as he answered.
“Skipper, we have a tracking solution on the Helena K. Range nine-five-hundred yards, course three-five-two, speed twelve. No other contacts.”
Ward smiled to himself as he watched the sonar screen for a second. These people were good. The long days of training, the endless hours of practice were paying off once again.
“Well, Steve, if it’s alright with you, why don’t we go on up and take a look at her?”
Spadefish slid effortlessly up from the depths until the periscope broke through the ocean’s surface. Ward watched the video screen, seeing just what Friedman was seeing as he spun around with the ‘scope. The sun was just peeping over the horizon to the east. The Helena K was little more than a black dot on the horizon. They couldn’t tell much about the ship from this view and distance. The merchant boat couldn’t see them trailing her either.
Final Bearing Page 30