Nucflash sts-3

by Keith Douglass

  He held the mike to his mouth, pressing the transmit key.

  “Flight Three-one, Noramo Pride. What type of aircraft are you? And you’d better give me the dimensions of your rotor. Over.”

  “Noramo Pride, this is Three-one. We are a Westland Naval Lynx, Mark 81. Our rotor diameter is twelve point eight meters.”

  Twelve point eight meters… that was about forty, no, forty-two feet. There would be plenty of room, so long as the pilot had a good, clear approach to the deck.

  “Will you be able to jettison most of your fuel before you land?”

  “That is affirmative, Noramo Pride.”

  “Very well, Three-one. You are clear to land on my forward deck. We’ll have a spot cleared and lit up for you. Over.”

  “That is very, very good news, Noramo Pride. Thank you!”

  “I will have boat crews standing by in case you run into trouble.” Not that boats would help much at night, in these cold waters, if the helicopter had to ditch.

  “Roger, Noramo Pride. I’d still rather save the aircraft if I can. It feels like a simple mechanical problem. I may be able to fix it myself… but I can’t do that until I’m down, and right now you have the only real estate within reach. Over.”

  “Copy that.” Scott had a sudden thought. Fifteen passengers… might they be VIPs of some sort? Helos were always shuttling important people back and forth across this stretch of the North Sea, either between Great Britain and the Continent or between the beach and one or another of the oilor gas-production platforms located in this mineral-rich region. “Three-one, who are your passengers, over?”

  “Noramo Pride, my passengers are fifteen men of a company of Royal Dutch Marines. We were on maneuvers on one of the Dutch production platforms earlier this evening. We were on our way back to de Kooij when this happened.”

  “Understood, Three-one. My radio operator will be standing by on this channel. Captain Scott, out.”

  Handing the microphone back to Pelso, Scott turned and left the radio shack, making his way back to his bridge. He’d been sailing these waters and others around the world for nearly twenty years, and he knew of the Royal Dutch Marines. While the Dutch military was not especially highly regarded among the NATO nations of Europe, their marines, at least, had a justifiable reputation as an elite unit, with decent training similar to that of the British SAS or Germany’s GSG9 in many respects. They’d seen plenty of action in various terrorist situations back in the seventies, Scott knew. Nowadays, they were charged with the safety of such diverse Royal Netherlands assets as Schipol International Airport, various seaports, and any Dutch-owned oil platforms in the North Sea.

  No doubt the maneuvers the helicopter pilot had mentioned were part of the marines’ counterterrorist training. De Kooij was the naval base ashore where the Royal Navy aviation units were stationed. Understandable, that training. Everybody with a piece of the carved-up North Sea was nervous about the terrorist threat, and justifiably so. A swath down the center of the North Sea, from north of the Shetland Islands to the Broad Fourteen just off the Dutch coast, was pocked by hundreds of oil rigs, production platforms, and tanker-loading buoys gathered together in sprawling clusters of various sizes that marked the oil and natural gas fields discovered so far. This area was among the richest oil- and natural gas — producing regions in the world; the surrounding nations — especially Great Britain, Norway, and Germany, but including other nations as well — had invested hundreds of billions of dollars in these fields, investments that substantially reduced or even eliminated their dependence on the politically uncertain influx of oil from the Middle East. Those drilling and production rigs were attractive, lucrative targets for terrorists… especially Middle East terrorists who knew very well just how closely tied were the world’s economies to oil.

  Hence the considerable interest by elite military units such as the British SAS and SBS, or the Royal Dutch Marines, in defending those investments.

  Several minutes passed, in which time Scott gave the orders to several of his crew to make certain that the area on the forward deck chosen for the landing was clear of anything that might get caught up in the rotor wash, and that all potential obstacles such as overhead lines, railings, or the ship’s big hose derricks were secure or well back out of the way. A six-man boat crew was told off as well and was waiting on Noramo Pride’s second deck fully rigged out in foul-weather gear and life jackets, with two lifeboats already swayed out on their davits and ready to put into the sea. Searchlights mounted high up on the tanker’s bridge wings and along the main deck’s railings were switched on and swung about to paint a brilliant oval of illumination forward, giving the ship the cheery look of a football stadium lit up at night. The helicopter would be directed to touch down on the forward half of the hull, between the foremast rising from the forecastle and the two tall king posts with their hose-handling derricks mounted amidships just aft of the ship’s loading station. Though the Pride’s forward deck encompassed a full two acres, finding a clear spot to land was still a challenge, for much of the deck surface was taken up by a maze of piping, deck machinery, winches, fire hoses and foam dispensers, and the tangle of fittings for the ship’s inert gas system. Still, a suitable area had been marked out by the lights, and crew members detailed to secure the helicopter once it was down.

  “Captain,” a voice called over the bridge intercom speaker. “Starboard wing lookout here. We’ve got an aircraft of some kind approaching from the south.”

  “That’s him, Captain,” Moskowiec confirmed from the radarscope. “Bearing now one-eight-nine, range one mile.”

  “Very well.”

  Scott walked across the bridge to the starboard windows in time to see the helicopter’s lights passing abeam. Off the starboard bow, the lights slowed, pivoted, then brightened as the helo nosed in toward the Noramo Pride, quartering in from downwind. The thutter of the rotors could be clearly heard above the wind now. If there was a problem with the engine, Scott couldn’t hear it. Whatever the trouble was, then, might not be too bad after all. From the tension in the pilot’s voice, he’d half expected to see the chopper limping in, smoke spilling from its manifold, its rotors barely turning fast enough to keep it aloft.

  He was happy to be proved mistaken. Despite empty cargo tanks, despite inert gas systems, despite damage control crewmen waiting with foam dispensers in the bows, the Noramo Pride could be turned into an inferno in an instant if something went wrong enough to send that helicopter and its load of aviation gasoline crashing into the tanker’s deck.

  As the helo entered the crisscross of the tanker’s searchlights, seemingly balanced atop the white shaft of its own spotlight shining beneath its nose, Scott could make out its blue-black paint scheme, the tripartite red, white, and blue roundel on the fuselage, the words “KON. MARINE” picked out on the tail boom in large, white letters. Dutch Navy, sure enough. The nose came up as the aircraft flared out for touchdown, gentling down precisely between forecastle and king posts despite the wind. The pilot, whoever he was, was good. Almost as soon as the helicopter’s wheels touched down, the rotor blades began slowing. Several of the Noramo Pride’s deck crew raced toward the aircraft, heads bent to avoid the dipping blade tips, carrying chains and chocks to make the helicopter secure. The wind might be down now, but if it came up again tonight, that helicopter could be overturned, smashed in an instant into crumpled and possibly burning wreckage.

  Scott raised a pair of 7x50 binoculars to his eyes. The helicopter’s side door had been slid back, and soldiers were spilling out one after another, lining up and moving aft across the deck. They were big men, made bulky by the cold weather gear, combat vests, satchels, and weapons they carried. They were wearing watchcaps instead of helmets, and their faces were blacked with camouflage paint. It looked like they were carrying a mix of exotic-looking weapons, including both submachine guns and military assault rifles, but Scott had heard that elite units like this one often carried different kinds of guns, and lo
ts of them. One of the men, a tall, heavily built man with a shock of very pale, almost silver-blond hair poking out between painted skin and black watchcap, appeared to be the leader. He paused to talk briefly to the crew securing the helicopter, talked a moment more with the aircraft’s pilot, then started walking aft with the rest of the men.

  “Kathy?”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  Scott stopped himself. He’d been about to send the third mate down to the galley on an errand, and that sort of thing had been a source of friction more than once already on this voyage. Kathy Moskowiec was a bright, attractive woman five years out of Kings Point Maritime Academy. Sensitive about being the only woman aboard ship — women had been serving with tanker crews only for the past ten years or so, and never in great numbers — she took her professional image very seriously.

  “Take the wheel, please,” he said, changing his order. “David?”

  “Yes, Cap?”

  The A/B — the able-bodied seaman — standing at the ship’s wheel was David Ramos, a stocky Filipino who’d been in the merchant marine, then in tankers, for almost as long as Moskowiec had been alive.

  “Haul yourself down to the galley,” he told the man. “Tell the cook to make sure there’s plenty of tea and coffee laid on. I imagine that bunch is going to want to get warmed up.”

  “Right you are, Cap.” Kathy took David’s place at the wheel, and the A/B hurried off the bridge. For several minutes, there was no sound save the warm hum of the bridge ventilators and electrical systems. The searchlights outside were switched off, and the Noramo Pride again plowed ahead through the sea in a blackness relieved only by her red, white, and green running lights.

  Then one of the aft bridge doors opened, and five of the visitors entered, led by Mike Beatty, the ship’s chief mate. The silver-haired man was with them, looking particularly ominous in his black combat garb, and with a wicked-looking submachine gun strapped across his chest.

  Scott frowned. He’d been in the U.S. Navy for four years before he’d gone into tankers, and he knew something about the military. While he’d never worked with SEALs or similar commando units, he’d had the impression that they didn’t haul loaded weapons around, especially aboard ship or on a helicopter, in order to reduce the risk of accidents. These men all had magazines plugged into the receivers of their weapons.

  Well, maybe the Dutch did things differently. Or maybe those magazines were empty. Perhaps he could speak to the unit’s commander about it after the amenities were over. “Welcome aboard, sir,” Scott told them. “Do you speak English?”

  “Ja, ” the leader replied, smiling. “A little, anyway. Some of my men, maybe not so good.”

  “Well, we’ve laid on coffee and tea for you all down in the mess, and I imagine Cookie can rustle up some midrats, if you’re interested.”

  “Midrats?”

  “Midnight rations. Something for your boys to eat.”

  “Ah! Thank you very much for your hospitality, Captain,” the man replied slowly. “It was… how you English say? A bit dicey out there.”

  “Actually, sir, we’re Americans.” He extended a hand. “The Noramo Pride is an American vessel. Captain Scott, at your service. And you are?…”

  “Delighted to meet you, Captain Scott. I have one rather urgent request, before we do anything else. Might you show me, please, your radio room? I need to report to base that we are okay.”

  “Of course. This way, if you please.”

  Scott had led the man — followed by two of his black-garbed soldiers — up to the door of the radio shack before a question occurred to him. “Uh… excuse me, sir,” Scott said as he opened the radio-room door and held it for the man, “but why do you need to use our radio? You could have used the one aboard the helicopter to call—”

  The gunfire was shockingly loud contained within the narrow, steel-walled confines of the ship’s passageways, as the black-garbed commando opened up with his submachine gun from the open doorway, spraying the radio shack from bulkhead to bulkhead, from overhead to deck. Greg Pelso was just rising from his seat, his mouth gaping open in astonishment as half-a-dozen bullets slammed into his torso in a bloody, splattering tattoo that sent him crashing backward, arms flailing, into an electronics cabinet.

  “What the hell? — ”

  For a nightmare moment, Pelso seemed pinned upright by the bullets slashing into his body, as radio equipment around him exploded in a shower of sparks and the thunder of gunfire and the crash and ping of bullets smashing delicate equipment drowned out his gurgled shriek. When he collapsed onto the deck, the front of his shirt was sodden and stained bright red, his face was an unrecognizable pulp of blood and skin tatters and shockingly naked bone, and a very great deal of blood was pooling on the linoleum beneath his body.

  Scott was still lunging for the gunman, a scream of protest in his throat, when the butt of an assault rifle slammed into the back of his head, tumbling him forward onto the deck across a clattering spill of brass casings from the commando leader’s submachine gun. In the distance, he could hear other sounds of nightmare chaos — shouts and wailing curses from the bridge and, farther off still, the rattle of automatic gunfire.

  A heavy boot nudged him in the side, rolling him onto his back. Stunned, his head throbbing from the blow, he blinked up at the black, pain-blurred form of his captor, silhouetted against the lights in the passageway’s overhead.

  “Captain Scott,” the man said, and his voice, while still accented, no longer carried the bumbling and somehow disarming clumsiness of someone who knew only a little English. “I am Heinrich Adler of the Army of the People’s Revolutionary Front. Your ship is mine, and you and your crew, what is left of them, are my prisoners.” He shifted position, so that the ugly black muzzle of his weapon was pointed directly at Scott’s face. “Most of your people are expendable, and I will not hesitate for an instant to shoot some of them in order to force the compliance of the rest. Do you understand me?”

  Scott blinked, not sure whether a response was called for.

  The man’s boot swung back, then shot forward, hard, cracking into Scott’s ribs and sending a blinding pain shooting through his body. “I said do you understand me?”

  “Y-yes!” Scott gasped, trying to capture the breath driven from his lungs. “God… what… what is it you want?”

  “For the moment, Captain, we have what we want, but I assure you that when I require more of you, you will be the first to know.” He looked up at the other two soldiers, snapped something that sounded German to Scott, and jerked his head. Rough hands reached down and grabbed Scott’s arms and shoulders, and started dragging him across the deck back onto the bridge.

  “Captain!”

  Kathy was standing at the wheel between two of the invaders, but she pushed past them as Scott was dropped onto the deck.

  “Easy, Moskowiec,” Scott said, rising. His head hurt like hell, but he didn’t think there was any serious damage. “Just do what they say, okay?”

  “But who are they?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said, eyeing the commando leader, who was now talking rapidly and unintelligibly to someone on a small radio attached to the shoulder of his load-bearing vest. “But somehow I don’t think they’re really members of the Royal Dutch Marines.”

  12

  Tuesday, May 1

  0940 hours

  Fishing trawler Rosa

  The North Sea

  The Rosa was typical of the small independent trawlers that made their living off the shoals and fishing banks that ringed the North Sea, from the Frisian Banks off the Netherlands to the Viking Banks between Norway and the Shetland Islands. Originally part of the Norwegian trawler fleet, she’d been appropriated by the Germans early in World War II, ended up in Poland as part of the reshuffling of the German border at the end of the war, and finally been sold to a fishing cooperative back in East Germany. Thirty years later, aging, so rusty in spots that her owners insisted that only the rust was h
olding her together, the Rosa was ready for the breakers’ yard.

  Before she could be transformed into 210 tons of scrap, however, money quietly changed hands, a certificate was forged, and the Rosa was quietly moved from her port at Warnemünde through the Kiel Canal to an out-of-the-way pier on the Hamburg waterfront.

  There, she was repainted and her engines refurbished. There was still some question about her seaworthiness, but after all, it was only necessary that she make one final voyage. One week after departing Hamburg, she could sink forever beneath the waves of the North Sea, and it would no longer matter.

  She’d already been at sea for three days, having departed the German port early on Sunday. That was a day earlier than originally planned, but a certain amount of flexibility had been built into the operation, just in case there were last-moment complications. On Tuesday morning the Rosa was loitering at an otherwise undefined spot in the North Sea fifty miles east of Flamborough Head when a thirty-foot cabin cruiser out of the English port of Great Yarmouth approached. Signs and countersigns were exchanged, first by carefully worded radio exchanges until they were within visual range, then by flashing lights. After some preliminary maneuvers to bring the cabin cruiser in under the lee of the larger vessel, three men — Major Pak and two RAF gunmen — clambered up a cargo net and onto the ancient trawler.

  Pak’s first question as soon as he stepped onto the Rosa’s main deck and faced the vessel’s captain was sharp and to the point. “Where is it?”

  “Main hold forward,” the captain replied. “Under our nets, for camouflage.”

  “Take me there.”

  The forward hold stank of fish, but Pak ignored the stench as a couple of Rosa’s crewmen pulled the nets off the massive wooden crate, which rested on wooden supports and was still fitted with the straps and snap-swivels used to hoist it aboard. “Compressor, Air” and the name of a well-known industrial manufacturer were stenciled on the crate’s side, along with the usual shipping information and serial numbers.