by Mack Maloney
The loss of Sir Neil was tempered somewhat by the discovery of the load of weapons in the hold of the small Sardinian ship. Back on the Saratoga once again, Hunter met with Heath and Yaz and discussed the mother lode he had found.
“Either they were hiding their most valuable weapons in that ship or they were just about to make a huge arms deal and we happened to hijack the delivery truck,” Hunter said as he battled his way through yet another plate of ill-prepared food. “Not only are there Sidewinders, but also Shrike antiship missiles and dozens of other weapons.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say they were doing a deal,” Yaz said. “Most likely with one of Lucifer’s allies. Probably to be used against us.”
“If that’s the case, we were more than dumb lucky jumping on that freighter,” Heath said.
“Right,” agreed Hunter. “Not only did we get more Sidewinders than we need, we kept them out of some unfriendly hands.”
The Saratoga once again starting sailing to the east in earnest. They entered the Strait of Sicily the following evening—a night during which Hunter closely examined the cornucopia of weapons they’d found aboard the Sardinian ship. Hunter counted more than 150 Sidewinders in the cache, which were moved to the ammunition magazine aboard the carrier. There were also a number of antipersonnel bombs, small napalm rockets, and a few dozen Shrike antiradar missiles, as well as more standard iron bombs and high-explosive devices.
Hunter immediately wired up six Sidewinders to his F-16, and began configuring the Harrier jump-jets to do the same. Of all the jets on the carrier, the Harriers could most easily adapt to the fighter-interceptor role.
Hunter later took an hour off to visit the ailing Sir Neil. The Englishman was confined in the carrier’s version of intensive care, the two Italian doctors hovering over him. He was heavily bandaged from his waist to his head. Still, the Brit was conscious and typically plucky.
“Hunter, old bean,” the man said when the pilot entered the room. “I hear our mission was a success in the end.”
“I would have given it all back if we could have avoided this,” Hunter told him, examining his wounds.
“Rubbish, Hunter!” Sir Neil replied, his weakened voice rising a notch. “We needed the weapons, man! We couldn’t very well sail into the Gates of Hell with a popgun now could we? And an unloaded popgun at that.”
“But we need you, sir,” Hunter said. “You were the brains of this outfit.”
“And what the hell makes you think I still can’t be!” the wounded officer said, nearly ripping his head bandage. “What do you intend on doing? Casting me adrift in the Med and going on without me?”
“Wouldn’t think of it, sir,” the pilot said with a grin. “You’ll have to stay here and eat this rotten food with the rest of us.”
Sir Neil managed a smile, then motioned Hunter to come close. Speaking in a voice low enough that his doctors couldn’t hear, he said: “Aye, Hunter, when you get a chance, please slip me a bit of the grape, wot? Just a small bottle would do. Some of Giuseppe’s good stuff. Just to get the blood flowing in the right direction?”
At that moment, Hunter was certain Sir Neil would survive his wounds.
The sun was just starting to break the eastern Med horizon when one of Yaz’s men started pounding on Hunter’s cabin door. He was sound asleep at the time, wrapped very comfortably in young Emma’s arms. But he was up and at the door in a second. He sensed that something was up.
“Sorry, major,” the young sailor said, catching a peek at Emma’s naked breasts out of the corner of his eye. “But CIC reports a large flotilla of ships heading our way.”
“Jeezus,” Hunter cursed pulling on his flight suit and boots. “What kind of boats, any idea?”
“Well, the blips on surface radar indicate that they’re fairly small,” the sailor said. “But there’s more than a hundred of them.”
Hunter was up on the flight deck in a matter of minutes, glad to see that Yaz’s guys had his F-16 fired up and ready for launch.
He met Heath just as he was climbing up the 16’s access ladder. The BBC film crew was nearby, recording everything.
“They’re about twenty-five miles to the northeast,” Heath told Hunter. “Definitely coming right for us.”
“What kind of small boats are floating around here these days?” Hunter asked him as he put on his flight helmet. “Do they make PT boats anymore?”
“Could be anything, Hunter,” Heath told him. “Armed trawlers perhaps. Maybe converted minesweepers.”
“Can you get the Harriers warmed up?” Hunter asked just before he closed his canopy. “If there are more than a hundred of these guys, I’m gonna need help.”
With that, the F-16 roared off the carrier in a burst of steam, climbed, and streaked off toward the northeast.
Hunter clicked on his “look-down” radar and located the fleet of ships immediately. He checked his cannon ammunition indicator. It showed all six of his M-61 Vulcans were full. His computers indicated that no sophisticated weapons were aboard the boats—yet he knew torpedos wouldn’t necessarily trip the computer’s sensors.
He took a deep gulp of oxygen and put the 16 into a dive.
He broke through a light cloud cover at about 5000 feet and found himself right on top of the flotilla. The fleet was spread out for almost two miles. He wasn’t surprised that the boats were all different shapes and sizes—trawlers, pleasure yachts, ocean ferries, even a few armed tugboats similar to O’Brien’s.
Hunter was surprised however when he saw that most of them were flying white flags.
He dropped down to 500 feet and slowed the jet down to a crawl, certain that there were no antiaircraft missiles ready to fire at him. He tipped the 16 to its portside to get a better look at the boats. They appeared to be crowded with armed men—irregulars, he theorized. No specific uniforms. And, far from appearing hostile, they were all waving and cheering as he flew by.
He buzzed the fleet a few more times, noticing several of the boats were carrying radio antennas on their masts. On a chance the boats were carrying modern communications equipment, he searched both his VHF and UHF bands to try to pick up any signal. At the end of the UHF band, he started to pick something up.
“ … Liberte Marina calling,” the heavily Italian accented voice called out through a burst of static. “We are compadres. Please do not attack. We are the Liberte Marina … ”
Liberte Marina? Did that translate into Freedom Navy? If so, what the hell was the Freedom Navy?
Two Harriers arrived on the scene a few minutes later, and luckily one of the pilots was conversant in Italian. As Hunter orbited above monitoring the radio conversations, the two Harriers hovered over the now-stopped flotilla, the pilot speaking with the fleet’s leader.
They were the Freedom Navy, a combination Sicilian-Italian force that had apparently heard all about the Saratoga’s mission to the Suez.
But what did they want?
“We are here to join you!” the fleet leader kept saying over and over in very broken English. “Compadres! We sail with you!”
An hour later the Freedom Navy boats were floating beside the Saratoga fleet. Several Norwegian frigates repeatedly sailed through the Liberte boats keeping an eye on them. A half-dozen helicopters buzzing above them did the same. The BBC video crew was hanging off the side of the carrier deck, diligently capturing all the action on film.
Hunter was back on board the Saratoga by the time the Navy’s leader had been airlifted aboard. He joined Heath, Yaz, and Captain Olson in the carrier’s stateroom, where they questioned him.
His name was Commodore Antonio Vanaria. He was a short, stubby character complete with knee-high boots, a feathered Napoleon-style hat, a mean-looking double-barreled carbine strapped over his shoulder, and bandolier ammunition belts crossing his chest.
He had come to offer help.
“Everywhere people are talking about the Saratoga!” he said in broken English, gesturing expansively. “They say,
‘The men on the Saratoga will stop Lucifer in his tracks!’ The men on the Saratoga—they the bravest in the whole world!
“We—my men of the Liberte Marina—want to join such brave men. We too will fight the devil, Lucifer!”
“Commodore,” Heath calmly began, taking the place of Sir Neil. “We are on a very, very dangerous mission here. You can see the type of ships and weapons we had to hire for protection. I’m afraid your, well, boats, would be very vulnerable to weapons such as the Exocet, especially—”
“We no care,” the Commodore broke in. “We want to fight. We want to fight with the brave men of the Saratoga!”
With that, the strange little man walked to the stateroom’s typically round porthole window, opened it, and screamed at the top of his lungs: “Viva la Saratoga!”
His cry was immediately received with a return chorus of “Viva! Viva la Saratoga!” Amazingly, it was coming through loud and clear from the men on his boats nearby.
“It appears we have a fan club,” Yaz said in an aside to Hunter.
“I guess so,” Hunter said, shaking his head. “And this was supposed to be a secret mission.”
The Commodore returned from the porthole. “Me—my men—we have been waiting. Preparing. Training to sail with you. We know our stuff, signori. We are good fighters. Sea fighters.”
“Sea fighters?” Heath asked.
“I believe he means ‘pirates,’” Olson, the Norwegian commander, said.
“Good pirates,” the Commodore quickly injected. “We no raid women and babies. We raid the Sardinians. We raid no-good Sidra-Benghazi. We raid Russians—”
“What a minute.” Hunter stopped him. “You’ve seen Russian ships in these waters?”
“Si, signor,” the man answered excitedly. “Reds. Armed trawlers. Destroyers. Even some submarines and cruisers.”
“Heavy-duty stuff.” Yaz whistled.
“Between them and whatever the hell Lucifer’s allies have floating around,” Hunter said, “we’re going to have our hands full.”
“Si, si, signor!” the commodore said, bounding over to Hunter. “We help. We know the waters!”
Hunter, Yaz, Heath, and Olson all looked at each other. The Commodore’s enthusiasm was contagious. And Hunter could just tell by the nature of the man that he was trustworthy.
“But how could we feed them all?” Heath said. “You know what the food situation is on this ship.”
“Yeah,” Yaz said. “The bad news is the food is terrible. The good news is that no one can cook it and there’s not much to go around.”
The Commodore’s eyes lit up. “Food?” he said, a wide grin revealing a tooth-gaped smile. “We have plenty of food! Good food! And we can cook. My men and I are the best-fed sailors in the whole Mediterranean!”
Whether the little man knew it or not, his value had just gone up a few notches.
Once again the four principals exchanged looks and a round of “what the hell” shrugs.
“We’ll have to blow it by Sir Neil,” Hunter said. “Though I know he could stand a few good meals—”
“And he’s not averse to adding every fighting hand we can get,” Heath said.
Hunter turned to Olson. Really the final decision would be his. “Captain, you would have to coordinate the Commodore’s boats with yours. Can it be done?”
The craggy, proud-looking Olson rubbed his chin in a habit of thought. “They could provide a fine protection for our flanks and rear, of course.”
“Of course!” the Commodore yelled in glee, waving his hands.
“If it’s okay with Sir Neil,” Olson said, “it’s okay with me.”
A quick meeting was held in Sir Neil’s intensive care room. Heath slowly and deliberately whispered the situation into the British commander’s ear. Hunter could hear the key word “food” repeated several times. Finally they saw Sir Neil nodding his head, before falling back into semiconsciousness.
“The Commodore can throw in with us,” Heath told Hunter, Yaz, and Olson afterwards. “If Captain Olson can shepherd them for a while—who knows, they might bring us some luck.”
“Luck, hell,” Hunter said. “I’ll be glad to have one thousand sea pirates on my side any day.”
“Plus they can cook,” Heath said, raffishly twirling his huge red mustache.
The Commodore soon made good on his promise for edible food and decent cooking. That night he and 100 of his men fed the entire crew of the Saratoga a huge pasta meal. Similar feasts were prepared for the men on the other ships in the carrier’s entourage. But, privately, Hunter, Heath, and Olson agreed that the Norwegians would keep a close eye on the pirates—although, judging by the Commodore’s fervor, the likelihood of one of his men being a spy for Lucifer was remote.
In the meantime, the Italian communications team continued monitoring long-range radio transmissions emanating from Lucifer’s Arabian Empire. Hunter was constantly kept informed on critical messages. Most of the radio intercepts had to do with movements of Lucifer’s Legions and coordinating their transfers to troop ships anchored near his base at Jidda on the Red Sea.
But then, on the afternoon following the appearance of the Commodore’s fleet, Hunter and Heath were called up to the Saratoga’s CIC. The communications people had eavesdropped on a conversation between the pilot of Lucifer’s only airplane—a captured US-made P-3 Orion—and the captain a fleet of mercenary ships sailing in the Red Sea. The ships were discussing instructions to head toward the Suez Canal and “commence operations.”
“What kind of operations?” Hunter asked Giuseppe, the leader of the Italian communications team.
“It’s hard to say, major,” the man told him as he sat working over a sophisticated radio set. “But, judging by the strength of the mercenary’s radio signal, we can approximate the size and type of the ships they are using.”
“And?” Heath asked.
“And, if I had to guess,” Giuseppe said, “I’d say they were minelayers. Russian-built minelayers.”
“Blast!” Heath spat out. “Soviet mines! That’s all we need.”
“Mines in the canal could definitely crimp our style,” Hunter said.
Heath tugged at his mustache with worry. “Should we consider an air strike, major?” the Brit asked.
“I don’t think we can risk it,” Hunter replied. “We could lose some very valuable aircraft to SAMs, especially if they have a P-3 Orion flying around out there. With the AWACs gear on that airplane, they’d see us coming for miles.
“Plus we can sink the minelayers, but that wouldn’t take care of the mines themselves.”
“So what are our options?” Heath asked.
Hunter shook his head. “I’m afraid we don’t have any right now,” he said. “We’ll just have to deal with it as we go along.”
“Christ,” Heath said. “Just one more thing to worry about … ”
Another day passed. Slowly. Tension was building on the carrier, Hunter could feel it in his psyche. Even the Med seemed to be working against them. They were running into strong head winds. The resulting currents were making the towing operation more difficult.
Hunter spent most of his time this day supervising the rewiring of the Swedish Viggen fighters to carry heavy ordnance. The constant, more noticeable pull-push of the carrier in the rough seas made the precise work required twice as difficult.
After the long day finally ended, Hunter walked alone to the stern of the Saratoga. He stood close to the edge of the mighty carrier’s deck, watching O’Brien’s tugs churn up the Mediterranean in front of him, their thick towlines taut and vibrating like a too-tightly-strung violin.
As always, his mind was going in a million different directions. Life was so strange, he thought. He loved the USA. He missed his friends back home. Emma had filled a nice niche in his life, but he yearned for the sweet touch of Dominique. Yet here he was, out in the middle of the Mediterranean, on a disabled flattop, being towed into “the Gates of Hell,” as Sir Neil liked to
describe it. Chasing the super-criminal who had so ruthlessly destroyed the fragility of America.
But was it worth it? Was it more like chasing a phantom? Punishing one man certainly wasn’t going to rebuild America from the ruins of The Circle War. Was the fact that Lucifer—then Viktor—had kidnapped Dominique and had used her in his devious plans the real reason why Hunter was so intent in tracking down the madman? Was this crazy adventure simply nothing more than a personal vendetta? Hunter shook his head—he just didn’t know.
The pilot heard someone behind him. He turned to see that it was the strange man Peter.
The prophetic looney-tune had been calmer than usual in the last few days; one of Yaz’s corpsman had injected him several times with a sedative, so Heath had told him. The drug was working; Peter spent most of his time lying in his wooden box-bed, placidly ranting. The Brits had even reduced the man’s four-man SAS guard to just two. Now, as these soldiers took a smoke break nearby, Peter walked to the edge of the deck and sat down, completely oblivious to Hunter, who was standing no more than ten feet away.
He didn’t speak. It appeared to Hunter that the strange little guy was working his way into a trance. He was sitting in an authentic cross-legged swami style, his palms open on his knees, his eyes closed tight. Hunter expected him to start moaning the magic word “Om” at any minute. Instead the man just sat there rigidly, the ever-present stream of drool running out of the corners of his mouth and on to his disgustingly moist and dirty beard.
Hunter moved a little closer to the man. Who the hell was he? he thought. How could anyone so obviously fringed out see the future so clearly? How did the man function from minute to minute, day to day? What spirits haunted him?
Suddenly Peter opened his eyes and turned his strange gaze right at Hunter. The eyes were almost red with intensity. The stare absolutely haunting. “You … ” he said, as if Hunter had just suddenly appeared. “You are the pilot. The Wingman. I see you. In my dreams. Battling the Angel of Death … ”
Hunter knew the man was about to go “off” once again. But he also knew that it was in Peter’s most disordered moments that he was at his most prophetic.