Ghost Force am-9

by Patrick Robinson

  But Ernesto was certain. He called to Carlos. "Come on, we must check this out, bring a cell phone."

  The two Argentinian soldiers walked down the track to the beach, following the same route as the SAS men. And they crunched along the shingle, both of them carrying flashlights. Out at sea, Rick Hunter and his men, closer now, could see the extra lights.

  "What the hell's that?" muttered Rick. "Unscheduled lights. Don't like it."

  On the beach Douglas was horrified, as the lights drew nearer. "Must be local residents," he whispered. "I'm going to try and bluff this out, especially if they're English."

  And he stood in the glare of the light as the two Argentinians approached, dazzled by the beams, and unable to see who was carrying them. But Trooper Goddard, using the night glasses, could see.

  "Fuck me," he muttered. "These guys are Argentinian military. Peter…Peter…they're armed soldiers."

  Trooper Wiggins did not hesitate. Ernesto Frasisti was almost level with Douglas, who still could not see his uniform. And the Argentinians were baffled by the sight of this unkempt beachcomber. And that bafflement, that split second of confusion, cost them both their lives. Trooper Wiggins cut them down in their tracks with two bursts from his machine gun. And the only other sound was the dull crunch of the pebbles as they fell.

  But now all five of the rearguard SAS ran forward and gathered around the two bodies. Douglas, who was slightly shaken at his obvious brush with death, could only think, What if they'd fired first?

  Instinctively he swung around and shook the hand of Peter Wiggins. But other thoughts were cascading into his mind. What if Sunray was out there, and had seen the lights and even heard the gunfire?

  He grabbed for his flashlight and hit the buttons, firing five more quick beams out to sea. Still pulling hard on the oars in the inflatables, and still more than a half mile from the shore, Rick Hunter caught the message and made one of those decisions that had made him a legend in Coronado. Every impulse he possessed was telling him, Speed, nothing more, just go, go, go!

  "Fire up both engines!" he yelled. "And floor those throttles…make straight for that last signal…Now! Now! Now!"

  Segal and Wallace hit the ignition and rammed open the throttles. The bows of the Zodiacs arched upward as the engines howled, as the two Yamahas forced them through the water. Seconds later both boats surged up over the stump and settled onto their fastest angle, flying across the top of the short, choppy waves. Don Smith and Bob Bland were both upside down, legs in the air, flung back by the sheer force of the power-drive to the beach alongside Egg Harbor.

  The SAS men could now clearly hear the roar of the motors as Commander Hunter gunned his SEALs into the shore. Douglas hit them with five more quick-fire beams as they reached the shallows.

  "Engines up!!" roared the SEAL chief. "Engines up!" And the two Zodiacs came slicing into the beach, where Troopers Ferry and Lewellwyn, up to their thighs in water, grabbed the painters and hauled the boats in.

  "Okay, guys…grab your stuff and get aboard…four men to each boat…eight of you, right?"

  None of the SAS men had any idea who he was, this giant officer, with his face painted black and drive-on rag wrapped around his forehead. He looked like Geronimo's personal trainer.

  "Captain Jarvis…your very bossy sister sent me to get you…and I've crawled through broken glass to make it!"

  Douglas Jarvis stared in amazement at the mighty figure, whom he had met only twice in his life, but who now most certainly stood before him. "Ricky?" he said. "Jesus Christ! Is that you? I thought you'd retired. What the hell are you doing here?"

  "Damn good question, old buddy. But I just told you. Di sent me to get her kid brother home."

  "How'd she know where I was?"

  "I think she phoned the Prime Minister. You know Di. Fearless."

  Doug Jarvis flung his arms around his brother-in-law. "Jesus, Rick, you'll never know how glad I am to see you."

  "I bet I do," chuckled the big SEAL leader. "And by the way, those two guys right there spread out on the beach, are they just resting, or are they dead?"

  "Dead. Argentine military. Kinda jumped us. Had to blow 'em away before they blew us."

  "Yeah, I know the feeling," replied Rick. "Better load 'em in the boats. One in each. Don, Brian…give the guys a hand. Dump 'em inboard and then let's go. Fast, before someone comes looking."

  "You don't wanna just leave the dead guys, Rick?"

  "Hell, no. If we do, they'll get found in an hour, if they came from one of the those houses. If we take 'em out to sea and dump 'em, it'll probably take a week. Missing soldiers are nothing like so urgent as murdered ones, right?"

  "Right," said Doug. "Let's dump 'em, like the man says."

  And so they all clambered aboard. Two of the SEALs shoved the boats out, stern-first into the tide. The helmsmen dropped the engines and backed out into deeper water, while the two boatmen, Mike Hook and Don Smith, hauled themselves up onto the bow.

  Moments later they were heading directly out to sea, back into the south-running channel of Falkland Sound, all sixteen of them, eight to a boat, plus the late Ernesto and Carlos, whose journey would be somewhat shorter.

  "How far, Rick?" asked Douglas, when the introductions were more or less complete.

  "Thirty miles. We'll be running down the Sound between the islands at around ten knots all the way to our meeting point. That's a spot just south of Elephant Cays, north of Speedwell Island. Way down at the south end of the Sound. You probably saw it on the map."

  "I did," said Douglas. "What are we meeting?"

  "U.S. Navy submarine. USS Toledo. She had another pickup around at East Cove at 2100. That's a hundred miles away from our meeting point. She'll be there, right off the Elephants, at 0200, in about two hundred feet of water."

  "Beautiful," said Douglas. "They got any showers on board?"

  "That submarine's got more bathrooms than the Waldorf-Astoria," said Rick. "Get you guys smartened up. I forgot to mention, Dougy, you look like shit."

  "And of course you look absolutely fucking wonderful, all dressed up for the enclosure at Royal Ascot, right?"

  Everyone laughed at this typical exchange between the two brothers-in-law, until Ed Segal asked, "Rick, you got any idea what's up ahead?"

  "We got a clear run steering course two-two-five," said Rick. "For about nine miles. Then we have to jog left through a narrow seaway off Great Island. There's a wreck to the south, and a goddamned sandbank the size of the Sahara."

  "Two-two-five?" asked Bob Bland, checking, like all good navigation officers.

  "Right. Just gotta be careful around the island. It's uninhabited, unmarked, and totally fucking unnecessary, but it's there."

  And so they slipped quietly across the pitch-back waters of Falkland Sound, unseen by anyone, making a steady ten knots. It was a little after 2300, and simultaneously, USS Toledo, making a swift twenty knots 150 feet below the surface, was somewhere off Sea Lion Islands, the most southerly point of the Falklands, fifteen miles off the mainland. On board were the twelve U.S. Navy SEALs who had blown to smithereens every ship in Mare Harbor.

  And right now, this particular Dirty Dozen had it all over the sixteen backs-to-the-wall warriors from Egg Harbor. Because it was beginning to rain, a violent, gusting squall coming up from the southwest, freezing cold, lashing rain sweeping sideways over the surface.

  Inside the Toledo no one even knew. The big L.A.-class submarine moved serenely through the depths, no swell, no chop, no wind, perfect temperature. Excellent soup and steaks for the SEALs, clean dry clothes, and a large selection of movies.

  Out in the Zodiacs the rain was awful, pelting down on the rubber hulls as they made their way south. The SEALs, who still wore their wet suits, were best equipped to cope with it, but Douglas Jarvis and his men were not so well insulated, huddled down inside their waterproof smocks, wearing hoods and Gore-Tex trousers. It was a wet and cold ride through seas that grew rougher every mile as
they approached the open waters of the Atlantic.

  Nonetheless it beat the hell out of being trapped in their hide trying to get off the island without a boat.

  Meanwhile, back in Egg Harbor, Ben Carey and his wife were wondering what had happened to Ernesto and Carlos—"such nice young gentlemen."

  Eventually, shortly after 11:30 p.m., Ben decided to go out and take a look. He knew where they had gone, and he had seen their flashlights along the beach, but they ought to have been back by now, especially in this weather. So while Mrs. Carey went quietly to bed, Ben went down to the beach, using his stout walking stick to help him along the shingle.

  Of course he found nothing, certainly not Ernesto and Carlos. So he walked back to the house, but decided to make radio contact with the Goose Green emergency number, which they had been broadcasting all day on FIBS (the Falkland Islands Broadcasting Service), which is heard everywhere.

  Hello, this is Ben Carey over at Egg Harbor…had a couple of your boys in here this evening…

  Yes, sir. Please go on.

  Well, around ten o'clock one of 'em, nice young man called Ernesto, thought he saw a light out on the beach. So he and his colleague, Carlos, went out to investigate. I saw their lights along the water, but I haven't seen either of 'em since. And that was an hour and a half ago. I just took a walk along there, but I found nothing. The place was deserted. And now it's rainin' pretty hard, and I was just beginning to wonder if they was okay.

  Mr. Carey, thank you for your call. I think we'd like to send a helicopter up there and make a few checks. Could you listen for us, and maybe give us a flashlight guide down onto the jetty?

  Oh, sure. Be glad to. How long?

  No more than fifteen minutes.

  I'll be out there.

  Ben poured himself a cup of cocoa, put another log on the fire, and sat down comfortably to wait. Nine minutes later he heard the steady beat of a low-flying helicopter.

  He grabbed a big golf umbrella and his flashlight, and headed out into the belting rain, closing the door behind him. He aimed the flashlight up and began turning it on and off.

  He could see the lights of the aircraft up there, and he saw it bank around and come into land following the position of his light. It touched down on the wide blacktop along the jetty. And he saw the pilot motion his thanks through the windshield.

  What he saw next, however, surprised him. The load doors burst open and one by one Argentinian frontline troops, dressed in waterproof combat gear, came swarming out, machine guns ready. There must have been twenty of them.

  The commanding officer shouted, "Which way, Ben?" in English. And he pointed out along the beach, at which time the entire group headed down onto the shingle and began running along the shoreline. The CO walked across and asked him again what time the two young troopers had left the house, and Ben confirmed ten o'clock.

  He went back inside and sat by the fire, until the CO knocked and came in. "No sign of 'em, Mr. Casey. We're quite worried. But there's not much we can do until it gets light.

  "Just to check, you saw nothing else out there, or heard anything?"

  "Not really, but I did see lights on the beach. And come to think of it, I thought I heard a very dull crackling sound at one point, kind of like a firework, but not so sharp. The walls in here are very thick."

  "Could it have been gunfire? Machine-gun fire?"

  "Well, I don't really know what that sounds like. But anyway there was not much of it. Just lasted a few seconds. Never thought any more about it."

  "Okay. Thanks very much, Mr. Casey. And good night."

  With that he was gone, and Ben heard the chopper clattering up into the skies. What he did not hear was the Argentinian CO open up the line to HQ Mount Pleasant …Bravo Four Six…we have an emergency in Egg Harbor…two of our men missing after reported gunfire…possible SAS bandits now on the run in this area…suggest broadcast warning to islanders, and prepare for first light search…weather conditions right now very bad, and these men are clearly dangerous. Lt. Colonel Ruiz, CO, Goose Green.

  Weather conditions might have been bad in the helicopter, but they were a lot worse in the Zodiacs. For mile after mile Ed Segal and Ron Wallace drove the boats forward, their backs braced against the driving rain and cold. They made their sweep around Great Island, and set sail for the last twenty miles, now head-on into the wind, and against the tide, a buffeting combination.

  By 0100 they were running down into the wide waters surging in from the Atlantic. Wide and deep, that is. They were driving into the wind and sea, using the kind of speed that would normally hold them at fourteen or fifteen knots, but here it just kept them at ten knots over the seabed.

  At 0140 Rick checked the GPS and ordered a two-degree course change at five knots only, to bring them onto the precise position of the RV — two and a half miles west of the kelp-strewn Elephant Cays…52.11 South 59.54 West.

  Ten minutes later the numbers on the little handheld GPS correlated. "Okay, guys, we gottit. Any moment now the submarine should make contact, but I don't want to transmit anything above the surface of the water…I'm just gonna keep watching this thing…make sure the tidal drift doesn't drag us off our numbers."

  And there they sat, in the lashing rain, the pitch dark, the chill gusting wind off the South Atlantic. There were sixteen of them in the two inflatables, the bodies of Ernesto and Carlos having been heaved over the side a mile off Ruggles Island more than an hour earlier.

  The eight Americans, even Dallas, were pretty fed up and wanted nothing more than to get off the decks of these freezing-cold, soaking-wet Zodiacs. Douglas Jarvis and his boys were as happy as any eight men could be, finally off the hellhole of East Falkland, where they had been effectively marooned since April 8, that Friday night below Fanning Head, nearly three weeks ago.

  They were there for fifteen minutes more before Commander Hunter ordered a two-hundred-yard turn to the north. "We're getting dragged off," he said. But as the helsmen made the course adjustment, there was a sudden, massive roll on the surface of the water, as the 7,000-ton, 362-foot-long jet-black shape of USS Toledo came shouldering out of the deep, not forty yards from the Zodiacs.

  It was as if a full-sized destroyer had suddenly materialized from nowhere. Nuclear-powered, on a single driveshaft thicker than a telegraph pole, the submarine broke cover at an angle, its massive propeller thrashing below the surface. Then it seemed to lunge forward with a mighty s-w-i-s-h-i-n-g sound in the long swells, before coming to rest, its deck casing only eight feet above the waterline.

  Captain Jarvis only just had time to mutter, "Jesus Christ!" before the bulkhead door at the base of the sail opened wide, and the submarine's deck crew emerged carrying boarding nets, rope ladders, and harnesses…"Okay, you guys! Make it real sharp now…get the hell out of those rowing boats…harnesses on, four at a time…"

  Dallas, Douglas, Ron, and Peter were first aboard the Los Angeles — class ship, being half hauled and half climbing out of the Zodiacs, which were now moored tight alongside. Four at a time was right, and the boarding operation took less than fifteen minutes, before Commander Hunter took out his combat knife and slashed four great gashes into each of the rubberized hulls on the port side.

  Then he leaned out and cast off the second boat before stepping onto the rope ladder, no harness, and hauling himself up onto the casing with a shout of, "Cast her away!"

  With one of the Zodiacs already sinking, the other began to ship water at a fast rate. Before Rick was inside the sail, with the door clipped shut, and making his way down the companionway, both the boats, which had served them so well, were on their way to the bottom in thirty-five fathoms, leaving no trace.

  It was an expensive way to run a Navy, but not so expensive as it might have been hanging around on the surface for a half hour, trying to drag the heavy-engined boats inboard, and being picked up on Argentine radar. Submarines like the Toledo cost a minimum $500 million apiece.

  Nineteen minutes after she h
ad broken the surface, USS Toledo made her turn to the south and was about to vanish with all the Special Forces safely on board …"Down periscope…and bow down ten…five hundred…make your speed twenty…steer course one-three-five…"

  Captain Hugh Fraser had one thing in common with Douglas Jarvis. He just wanted to get away from the Falkland Islands, or whatever the hell they were now called, as fast and as silently as possible.

  1200, THURSDAY, APRIL 28

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Admiral Arnold Morgan had seen a few angry men in his time. But rarely had he sat in the Oval Office, in the presence of a leading U.S. industrialist, who was, quite literally, fit to be tied.

  "Mr. President, I just cannot understand how this goddamned banana republic can ransack a massive U.S. oil and gas field, march my men out at gunpoint, and not raise as much as a squeak from the world's so-called superpower…not a threat, not even a goddamned postcard. Nothing.

  "And you want me to go back and tell my shareholders, the Americans who actually own ExxonMobil, that not only have we just been robbed of two billion dollars — the President of the United States of America is not prepared to raise one goddamned finger to help us get it back."

  "Steady, Clint," said Arnold, a fellow Texan. "This is not quite as simple as it seems. We are doing something; we've got guys out there risking their lives to get this thing resolved in our favor. Two days ago we sent a communiqué to Buenos Aires, direct from the President, suggesting we all meet, right here in Washington, DC, and come to terms as laid down by us."

  "What kind of terms?"

  "The kind that will give you back both of those big oil and gas fields along Choiseul Sound, and the one in South Georgia."

  "But we don't have any leverage down there, Admiral," replied the President of ExxonMobil. "No warships, no big guns, no goddamned muscle. That's the only language these guys understand. Jesus, we could raise an army out of Texas shareholders who'd go down there and do something.

  "I keep saying we just can't sit here, losing millions of dollars a day, not to mention our entire investment in cash, time, expertise, and plain ole Texas know-how. Goddamnit, President George Dubya would not have put up with it."