by Greg Dinallo
When it came to unconventional missions, the DCI knew preventative damage control had its limits. The dangers of revising military records to support an operative’s cover far outweighed the advantages. Kiley had labeled the inviolable rule DDD: documentation destroys deniability.
“No Colonel Larkin, Richard or otherwise, based in the U.K.,” Gutherie’s secretary announced about a half hour later.
The Congressman’s brows went up as she knew they would.
“Quite a guy . . . Vietnam ace, Special Forces,” she went on, saving the plum for last. “He works in the White House these days.”
“The White House,” Gutherie echoed flatly. “What the hell are they up to now?” He was already irritated over executive branch end runs around Congress. The last-minute notification of the air strike on Libya was only the latest affront. They didn’t even pay lip service to oversight anymore; and lately, he’d heard rumors that Special Forces personnel working out of the Pentagon were carrying out unauthorized covert activities in a number of the world’s trouble spots.
The congressman swiveled to the window and looked out at the Capitol. It was still raining. The flag was heavy with water and hung limply against the pole.
STEPHANIE and the children had spent the weekend at her parents’ house in Bethesda. After breakfast, she left Laura and Jeffrey, and drove to her home on Andrews Air Force Base; her husband’s luggage was in the den waiting for her and she wanted to be alone.
She lifted one of the pieces onto the desk and opened it slowly. Her head filled with Walt’s scent, which came from within the bag. She savored it, then began gently removing the items, pausing reflectively before putting them on the desk: shaving gear, toiletries, civilian clothing, an old sweater that she crushed to her bosom. She had removed about half the contents when she heard the mail dropping into the box next to the front door.
She paused, welcoming the interruption, and fetched it. Her eyes darted to the pale blue air mail envelope amid the magazines and fliers, darted to Shepherd’s bold printing. She returned to the den, opening the envelope carefully to preserve it, then removed the contents, undid the tissue wrapping, and stared solemnly at the cassette. Walt’s scent was one thing, his voice another, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for it.
The ring of the telephone jarred her.
“Stephanie, you sure about the name of your husband’s commanding officer?” Gutherie asked.
“Yes, yes, I am—Larkin. Colonel Richard Larkin. That’s what they told me when I called Heyford. Why?”
“I have a feeling something strange is going on,” he replied, telling her of his secretary’s discovery and of his suspicions that covert activity was getting out of hand. “Did your husband say or do anything unusual lately?”
“Well, come to think of it, he was always good about keeping in touch. This time was different.”
“Anything else?”
“I just got a tape from him in the mail. He always sent one before flying a mission. I haven’t listened to it yet.”
“Why don’t we do it together?” Gutherie suggested, hearing the uncertainty in her voice. “Who knows, it might shed some light on this.”
Forty-five minutes later the congressman’s black New Yorker was parked in Stephanie’s driveway and the two of them were in the den. Gutherie put the cassette in the tape player and turned it on.
“Thursday, three April. Real pretty up here, babe,” Shepherd’s voice began. The engaging charm of his gentle drawl enfolded Stephanie in its familiar warmth. She stared out the window at a stand of budding Aspen as she listened, almost chuckling at the image of an ice-water-soaked Beethoven. Walt’s reference to his favorite little gymnast coaxed a poignant smile from her. When he got to Brancato growling over poorly cooked pasta, she had almost put the horrible reality out of her mind. But his remarks about the mission wrenched her back abruptly. Her eyes had filled with tears by the time he promised they’d do something special to make up for their anniversary.
Stephanie shrugged, acknowledging that the tape hadn’t shed even a glimmer on the situation, when the selectively edited section began.
“Tuesday, fifteen April. This is going to shock you, babe; it’s going to make you happy too. Don’t believe what you’ve been seeing on TV. I didn’t go down over Libya; didn’t even fly the damn mission. I’m alive but I’m in big trouble and need your help. Come to London as soon as you can. Check into the Hilton and I’ll find a way to contact you. Trust no one, no one. Miss you and the kids like crazy. Kiss them for me, okay? I love you, babe, I love you with all my heart.”
A rush of adrenaline hit Stephanie with staggering force. Her color returned, a sense of joy spreading over her like a warm glow.
Gutherie was rocked; he stood in shocked silence, staring at the tape player.
“Walt’s alive,” Stephanie finally said in a stunned whisper. “He’s alive, alive,” she repeated, savoring the word. Her spirits soared, then came crashing down as the implications of the message hit her, hit her hard, and she turned a frightened look to Gutherie. “What do you think happened to him?”
“I have no idea,” Gutherie mumbled, the words sticking in his throat.
“You said you thought something strange was going on. You asked me if Walt said or did anything unusual. If you know something, please tell me.”
“I did, Mrs. Shepherd. Believe me, I told you everything I know.” The congressman stepped to the desk and picked up the air mail envelope. “It came in this?”
Stephanie nodded solemnly, then shut off the tape.
“It was mailed in London the day after the air strike,” Gutherie observed pointedly, examining it.
Stephanie bit a lip, holding back the emotions that had welled up, then nodded as the pieces began falling into place. “I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, but I had a feeling something wasn’t right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Walt wouldn’t change bases without letting me know, let alone go a week without calling back. We’re a close family; I told you, he always kept in touch.” She paused, as a question occurred to her. “Why would the president say he died in the line of duty?”
Gutherie shrugged, clearly baffled. “I’ll make some calls; see what I can find out.”
Stephanie nodded numbly, struggling to cope with the wrenching swing of emotions; then, her presence of mind returning, she reconsidered. “Wait. Wait, no. I don’t want you to call anyone,” she said firmly.
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“You heard what Walt said about not trusting anyone. He said it twice; he must have a good reason.”
“Mrs. Shepherd, I think you can trust me.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but, under the circumstances, I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“Quite true,” Gutherie mused. “Of course, it’s possible it might have just been a figure of speech.”
“No, I know my husband,” Stephanie said adamantly. “He’s a pilot, a technically precise man; and if he said no one, believe me he meant it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to London; I’m going to do exactly as Walt instructed,” Stephanie replied. Then locking her eyes onto his, she added, “And I expect you to do the same and keep this between us.”
“I can’t say I blame you, Mrs. Shepherd; but it’s obvious something’s terribly wrong. I can’t just ignore it.”
Stephanie broke into a knowing smile. “I realize there may be a hot issue here, Mister Congressman,” she said pointedly, her resolve strengthening with each passing minute. “Just give me some time to get to London and find out what’s going on.”
Gutherie winced, unable to deny that the upcoming campaign had occurred to him, and wrestled with the decision.
“A day or two. I’ll leave tomorrow,” she declared. “Please, I’m afraid for Walt; he sounded so desperate.”
Gutherie let out a long breath and nodded.
24
FOR THREE DAYS, the interval between sonar signals had been gradually diminishing.
Following the call from Kiley, Commander Duryea had put the Cavalla on a heading for the Middle East and began hunting for the PLO gunboat.
“Lot of ocean out there,” he prompted McBride.
“Probably hug the coast all the way to Egypt,” the exec offered smartly, assuming the Zhuk would remain in Libyan waters, avoiding the 6th Fleet on station off Benghazi, several hundred miles northeast of Tripoli.
“I’m counting on it. Sixth gets nosy and spooks them, the element of surprise goes out the window and the hostages along with it.”
“Any chance she’ll port someplace to refuel?”
“Negative. She’s carrying two auxiliaries,” Duryea replied, having spotted the deck-mounted tanks while berthed in Tripoli harbor. He stepped to his keyboard and typed the word MAFIA. A graphic depicting a line of undersea SOSUS hydrophones was superimposed on the electronic chart of the area.
The MAFIA net cut across the Mediterranean from Sicily to Misratah, 50 miles east of Tripoli. Each cluster of detectors was encased in a huge tank moored to the bottom and linked to an onshore transmitter by fiber optic cables. The hydrophones picked up the sounds of the sea, its inhabitants, and all vessels that crossed or came within several hundred miles of the net. All data was relayed via FLTSATCOM to SOSUS control in Norfolk, Virginia, for computer processing and storage.
Duryea brought the Cavalla to periscope-antennae depth and sent the following cable on an SHF channel:
FM: USS CAVALLA
TO: SOSUS CONTROL NORFOLK
REQUEST CURRENT DATA ON ZHUK CLASS PATROL CRAFT. ASSUME EASTERLY COURSE SOUTH/MED. MAFIA CROSSED IN LIBYAN WATERS POST 0130/14APR.
Zhuk was a Soviet Navy classification, which meant the gunboat’s basic acoustic signature—a sound fingerprint created by a vessel’s propulsion machinery and hull moving through the water—was already in SOSUS computer files. All contacts that fell within Duryea’s parameters were matched to the specimen signature. The gunboat was identified; its course, speed, and location established and radioed to the Cavalla.
Duryea used the BC-10 to estimate the gunboat’s current position and plotted an intercept course.
“Come to zero eight seven. All ahead full.”
The Cavalla was at 90 feet, 65 miles astern of the gunboat, when Cooperman heard the first sonar echo on the BQS-6 bow array. Primarily a passive collector, the big spherical transducer had single-ping ranging capability. Cooperman fed the data to the BC-10 computer for DIMUS analysis. Digital multi-beam steering processed many signals simultaneously, isolating the sharply defined frequencies, allowing Cooperman to lock onto the unique cavitation of the gunboat’s twin propellers.
Now within striking distance, Duryea was waiting not only for cover of darkness but until an hour when the Palestinians would be asleep. Then and only then would the team of SEALs attempt to rescue the hostages. Duryea was hugging the attack scope, watching the PLO gunboat riding a gently rolling sea, when an alienlike silhouette entered the command center.
Lieutenant Diego Reyes was a fireplug of a man, his black wet suit stretched taut over planes of hard-packed muscle. A laser-honed diver’s knife rode his left calf. Born in a Los Angeles barrio, the cocky Chicano had eagerly traded the world of drive-by shootings for the calculated violence of covert action.
“Ready to deploy, sir,” he reported, as coolly as if announcing dinner was ready. “They have sentries?”
Duryea nodded and stepped back from the periscope, letting Reyes have a look. “Take the conn. I’ll be in section eight,” Duryea said to McBride, using the nickname that the SEALs—thought by some to be certifiably insane—had given their quarters.
Duryea and Reyes made their way to a compartment where five men in wet suits were reviewing deck plans of the Zhuk. Pictures of the hostages and cards displaying phonetically printed Arabic phrases were taped to the bulkheads. Like their leader, the SEALs were young, action-oriented, and driven to flirt with death—a team of disciplined killers for whom the time between missions was torture.
“Two sentries,” Reyes announced, marking the positions on deck plans. “Piece of cake, right?”
“Right!” the group responded spiritedly.
“Wrong. We’re talking religious fanatics here!” Reyes admonished, a slight accent surfacing with his temper. “These ragheads think they’re fighting a holy war. Like God’s on their side or something.”
“Does that mean they go straight to pussy heaven just like us?” a SEAL cracked.
“Yeah, but the word is theirs makes ours look like a weekend pass in a convent. These mother fuckers don’t back down. If they can’t blow you away, they’re gonna get their dicks real wet trying. Got it?”
A cacophony of four-letter wisecracks erupted as the team pulled on hoods and diving masks, and followed Reyes up a ladder and through a hatch into the dry deck shelter, mounted on the exterior of the Cavalla’s hull. A swimmer delivery vehicle hung from a cradle within. Five feet in diameter, thirty feet long, the black SDV resembled a minisubmarine with three open cockpits. Each had two breathing regulators on flexible hoses that were fed by a common scuba unit built into the vessel. Compartments in its sleek plastic hull contained the standard complement of weapons, rope, grappling hooks, and roll-up boarding ladders.
“Go with God,” Duryea said.
“You really think He takes sides?” Reyes asked.
“I’ve heard it said, He takes the good.”
“Then we’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Duryea smiled. He left the DDS, locked the access hatch, and then pulled a lever, opening valves that quickly filled the chamber with ice cold seawater. When the aft bulkhead yawned open, Reyes released the tie-down latches and eased the vessel from its cradle. It emerged into the green-black depths, leaving a graceful trail of swirling bubbles behind.
A thousand yards ahead, the churning wake of the Zhuk’s propellers caught the light of a crescent moon that sliced through hazy clouds.
Reyes set the dive planes to neutral and homed the throttle. The SDV accelerated toward the gunboat like a ravenous shark that had just spotted its prey.
Commander Duryea went directly to the Cavalla’s communications room and printed out a message:
FM: USS CAVALLA
TO: DCI/KUBARK
TARGET SIGHTED. PROCEEDING AS PLANNED.
UNODIR.
The officer on duty scanned it for encoding, got to the sign-off, and questioned Duryea with a look, though he had no doubt of his captain’s intent.
“Send it and shut off the radio,” Duryea replied, making certain it was clear.
UNODIR—an official U.S. Navy acronym—was pronounced “you know dear” and meant “unless otherwise directed.” That the sender’s radio had been turned off to preempt countermanding orders was implicit. UNODIRs were favored by submarine commanders, who, unlike their surface counterparts, were often out of voice contact with their superiors. They were most often used in covert operations, which were Duryea’s specialty. He wholly embraced the navy dictum that with absolute power came absolute responsibility, and knew that by documenting he had taken action without clearing it in advance, a UNODIR didn’t cover his ass but those of his superiors.
When Duryea returned to the command center, the SDV was 15 feet beneath the surface, abreast of the gunboat.
Reyes maneuvered into position just starboard of the hull and signaled to one of the SEALs in the aft cockpit, who fired a spear-gun at the Zhuk’s propellers. The dart-sized projectile was tethered to a net stowed in the SDV. As the tether became entangled in the whirling blades, the net was drawn from its compartment and swiftly sucked into them. Made of Kevlar strands—the material that when woven into fabric can stop a bullet—the net gradually bound both props in a knotted bundle of shredded space-age plastic. And it did so gently and silently, disabling the gunboat without the jolt or racket that a chain or explosive d
evice would have made, waking the crew and alarming sentries.
On the Zhuk’s bridge, the PLO helmsman was staring curiously at the erratically surging tachometer. He had heard no noise to indicate the boat had struck floating debris; he had plenty of fuel, and no reason to suspect the vessel was about to be boarded. He cut back the throttles and the gunboat soon lay dead in the water.
The aft sentry was wondering why they’d stopped when his walkie-talkie came to life.
“I think something’s fouled the props,” the helmsman said, deciding he had plowed into a kelp bed. The thick plankton that flourishes along the North African coast often trapped divers and disabled vessels.
The sentry crossed the deck with a flashlight and was about to peer over the transom when with stunning rapidity, a gloved hand thrust upward; a glint of metal flickered in the moonlight; blood splashed onto the deck in explosive spurts. The sentry pitched forward against the rail, clutching at a gaping slash in his throat that had severed his vocal chords, ensuring he couldn’t scream.
Reyes was standing on one of two boarding ladders the SEALs had hooked over the stern gunwale. He grabbed a handful of the dying Palestinian’s hair and yanked him over the rail into the sea.
Four SEALs followed Reyes up the ladders onto the deck, the sixth remaining behind with the SDV. They separated into two groups and moved up opposite sides of the superstructure toward the bow.
The forward sentry was lighting a cigarette when he heard a short-lived whistle. The barbed, stainless steel arrow covered the distance from speargun to the center of his chest in an eyeblink. He was teeter-tottering, mouth agape in silent agony when three SEALs sprang from the darkness and pitched him over the side.
Reyes was already moving up a short companionway to the bridge. The helmsman was on the radio, trying to raise the aft sentry on the walkie-talkie. He never heard the powerful Chicano slip into the cabin behind him. His last memory was the flicker of light from a loop of hair-thin wire passing in front of his face.