Aleta shook her head. ‘I’ll be okay. Professor Badawi has plenty of room at his place. His wife died a few years back, and he said I was very welcome to stay. Plus, he has a safe.’
‘I’d still be a lot happier if you came back with me.’
‘So you can leave me to go off doing God knows what? I’m an archaeologist, Curtis, and the last time I looked, unless I can get a job in the Smithsonian, there’s not much scope for my work in Washington. How long are you going to be gone this time?’ she asked, her voice softening as she got up and stood behind him, sliding her hands down his shirt.
It was late in the evening as Rachel waited in the hotel lobby while Davis accepted the congratulations of well-wishers, his Secret Service detail ever watchful.
Crowley, she knew, would have watched the debate from his penthouse office, just across town. It was the closest she’d been to him for weeks, and once again, she found herself stifling thoughts of him with Miranda, but they continued to eat away at her. Her mind made up, she would ensure Davis was safely in his suite, and then try to spend an hour or two with Crowley . . . After tonight, she’d earned it, she told herself.
‘The momentum is with us,’ Rachel told Davis, as she escorted him to his suite. ‘I have to go out for a while, but absolutely no more interviews. We’re on the home straight here – there’s less than forty-eight hours to go.’
She headed back to the lobby where she got the concierge to hail her a cab.
‘EVRAN Towers,’ she said, not bothering to provide the address. Rachel felt the excitement that came with her old position. There wasn’t a cabby in Dallas who didn’t know how to find the company’s massive skyscrapers.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Governor Davis,’ the woman on the hotel switchboard said, ‘but I have one of your Secret Service men with me, and if you agree, he’s okayed a call from Mr Cronkwell. Can I put him through?’
‘Of course,’ Davis said, downing his third double whiskey.
‘Walter . . . great job at moderating tonight, I really appreciated it.’
‘The pleasure was all mine, Governor.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I know this is a little irregular, Governor, but I’ve cleared it with your Secret Service detail and there’s someone I’d like you to meet . . . Susan Murkowski from our network.’
‘Delighted – send her on up,’ Davis said, pouring himself another double. ‘I’m in the Ritz-Carlton suite. I’ll let the Secret Service people in the corridor know she’s coming . . . And don’t let me take up your time – you deserve a rest.’
‘Thank you, Governor,’ said Cronkwell, hanging up the phone. He winked at Murkowski. ‘All set. Got your chastity belt on?’
‘Susan – may I call you Susan?’ said Davis, opening the door to Murkowski. ‘Come on in.’
‘Of course – thank you, Governor,’ she said, following him in to the stylish lounge and dining room with soft lighting and elegant velvet couches. A large walnut sideboard took up one wall. ‘What a wonderful view.’ The best suite in the hotel commanded panoramic views of the city lights.
‘What can I get you – a wine? Whiskey? Bourbon and soda?’
‘Oh, I’m fine, Governor . . . I’m not a big drinker.’
‘Nonsense. What’ll it be?’
‘Well, a red wine, if you have one.’ Murkowski noticed the governor was already a little unsteady on his feet.
Davis disappeared into the kitchen area and returned with a Californian Broken Earth cabernet sauvignon.
‘Come and join me on the couch,’ Davis said, pouring Murkowski a large glass. ‘What did you think of the debate?’
‘I thought you did very well, Governor,’ said Murkowski, refraining from adding she thought Hailey Campbell had done better.
‘Yeah . . . I don’t know what Hailey’s smokin’, but, if you’ll pardon my French, she sure as hell doesn’t get this climate change bullshit.’ Davis rested his hand on Murkowski’s knee.
‘Can I get you another whiskey, Governor?’
‘Why, that’s mighty nice of you . . . don’t mind if I do. Good drop, this Eagle Rare.’
‘You’ve run a very successful campaign, Governor,’ Murkowski said, pouring him another whiskey from the sideboard. ‘And you have some very big backers.’ She returned to the couch, handing Davis the crystal tumbler.
‘Louis Walden’s been right behind you,’ she continued, but there’s been an enormous amount of money spent on advertising . . . close to $800 million?’
‘More than that,’ the governor said, putting his hand back on Murkowski’s knee. ‘My backers have very deep pockets.’ Murkowski kept a neutral expression, but the governor wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixated on her cleavage. This, Murkowski thought, is going to require careful handling. On the one hand, avoiding his attempts to grope her, and on the other, getting him hammered enough to divulge all the information she wanted.
45 CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
‘Things are starting to move.’ McNamara brought up the latest imagery on his wall screen. ‘This satellite picture is less than two hours old and you can see the EVRAN I has entered the Amazon River again and is approaching Manaus. You must have done a pretty good job – they had to tow it to a dry dock in Rio de Janeiro, and it’s taken them nearly nine months to repair her.’ McNamara was delighted at the very thought of it. ‘Crowley would’ve been apopleptic. We haven’t managed to get anyone on the inside, but we’ve had EVRAN timber under constant observation the whole time. If the missiles are there, my guess is Crowley won’t risk them on anything other than his own ship, but we’ll see. They’ll be loading her just as soon as they can. Oliveira down in Brasília’s done a good job – the paperwork indicates she’s destined for Karachi, and ten armed guards were observed boarding her.’
‘Which adds strength to the hypothesis that she’s carrying missiles,’ said O’Connor. ‘You don’t need armed guards for cargoes of timber.’
‘Precisely.’ McNamara pulled up some detailed images of the ship. ‘As container ships go, she’s not particularly big – about 20 000 tonnes – but you can see the containers for’ard of the bridge are stacked three high, and aft of the bridge, she’s capable of carrying forty large containers lengthwise, four containers high, ten to a row. Your task is to board her, overcome any resistance, and see what you can find.’
‘Before or after breakfast?’
‘I’ll leave the timing to you,’ said McNamara, grinning broadly, ‘although perhaps during the early hours of the morning might be best. But if there’s nothing on board, we’re fucked and there’ll be one hell of a stink from Crowley, but judging from the intercept Murray picked up between Khan and the Taliban we should hit paydirt.’
‘What assets have we got?’
‘I’ve briefed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the chief of Naval Operations, and the commandant of the Marine Corps, and we agreed not to rope the president into this until we’re certain . . . as long as I carry the can if things go wrong.’
‘Decent of them.’
‘The guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen was due for some home porting maintenance at Station Norfolk, but the crew’s been recalled from leave.’ Located south of Washington in Norfolk, Virginia, the huge base was the largest naval station in the world, with seven miles of piers supporting over seventy warships and aircraft on the Sewells Point area of the Hampton Roads peninsula.
‘I’ll bet they’re pleased about that.’ It was a part of being in the military the public didn’t see, and the sacrifices the young men and women made, along with their families, were often not well understood.
‘No aircraft carrier or nuclear submarines?’ Even after all the years of working with Tom McNamara, O’Connor never ceased to be surprised at his boss’s contacts and his ability to pull the right strings.
‘They’re still busy in the gulf. Besides, if we need those, we’re in a bigger pile of shit than we think. The Lassen’s due in Be
lém about now.’ The capital of Brazil’s northern state of Pará was the gate to the Amazon and the port was one of the nation’s busiest. ‘One of our jets is standing by at Andrews to fly you into Val de Cães international, and from there you can join the Lassen. She’s carrying a replacement crew for the EVRAN I and you’ll have the same team you had in the Korengal Valley.’
Here we go again, O’Connor thought.
‘The Lassen will shadow the EVRAN I out of the Amazon, and as soon as she’s clear of Brazil’s territorial waters, you can implement a VBSS operation.’ VBSS, or Vessel Board Search and Seizure was something the navy, marine corps and United States coast guard all trained for to varying degrees, but both O’Connor and McNamara knew this operation was at the high-risk end of the scale.
‘Any thoughts?’ McNamara asked.
O’Connor recognised his tone of voice, and it was time to get serious. ‘I’ll have to kick it around with the SEAL team, but we’ve got the usual options. I’m assuming the Lassen will have two Sea Hawk helos, but Crowley’s thugs don’t fuck about, and we’ll take a lot of fire if we try to land or fast-rope onto either the for’ard or aft containers. I suspect the best option might be to go for a night boarding using rigid hull inflatables, and use the Lassen and the helos as a diversion. I mean, we’ll ask the EVRAN I to heave to, but . . .’
‘Yeah . . . I think you’re going to have to fight your way on board.’
O’Connor had no way of knowing how true that would be.
The EVRAN I cleared the mouth of the Amazon River just before midnight, on a south-easterly course across the South Atlantic Ocean that would take her around the Cape of Good Hope, from where she would turn north across the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea to dock in the teeming Pakistani port of Karachi. Wisal Umrani, the master of the EVRAN I, checked the radar screen on the bridge. The traffic entering and leaving the Amazon had been heavy earlier, but now the number of blips on the screen had diminished. Apart from one contact about five miles astern, and three more well to the north and south, the seas ahead looked relatively clear, and Umrani began to relax. His crew had been augmented by ten heavily armed guards. When he’d queried it, he’d been told it was necessary for protection against pirates. Other than that, it looked like it would be a normal voyage, and Umrani, a Pakistani by birth, was looking forward to a few days R&R with his young family in his home city of Karachi.
O’Connor finished introducing the members of SEAL team six to the captain of the USS Lassen, Commander Tom Guivarra, and his men went below decks to carry out a final check on their gear. There wasn’t a man among them who would rather be anywhere else, including O’Connor’s number two, the lanky Chief Petty Officer Rudy Kennedy, Petty Officer Louis Estrada, and Alejandro ‘Chico’ Ramirez, the team’s intelligence operator.
O’Connor stared at the dark ocean ahead. The 9000-tonne Lassen was armed with Harpoon, Tomahawk and surface-to-air missiles, vertical launching systems, 127-millimetre, 25-millimetre and 12.7-millimetre guns and 20-millimetre Phalanx close protection systems. Life for those on board the EVRAN I was about to get interesting, he thought.
An hour later, the captain swivelled in his chair on the bridge. ‘She’s just into international waters,’ Guivarra said, ‘so any time you like, we’ll crank this baby up.’
‘Let’s go,’ O’Connor said with a grin, his teeth showing white against a blackened face.
‘Full ahead!’
‘Full ahead, sir!’ There was nothing Tommy Guivarra liked better than an excuse to put the pedal to the metal. Top speed was classified, but it was in excess of 30 knots, and the Lassen’s General Electric gas turbines transmitted an enormous burst of power. Almost immediately, a huge feather of foam shot out from the stern as the big twin screws reached their peak revolutions.
Three nautical miles astern of their quarry, Guivarra slowed the destroyer to allow the launch of the two 11-metre RHIBs carrying O’Connor and his men. The rigid hull inflatables, or RHIBs, were capable of a staggering 70 knots, twice the speed of the destroyer.
O’Connor crouched in the bow of the lead RHIB, along with four members of SEAL team six. The seas were around one metre, and the RHIB flew off the top of the swells, becoming airborne before crashing down with a bone-shattering thump, clouds of spray flying either side of the bow. Chief Petty Officer Kennedy was in the bow of the second RHIB, and O’Connor knew that he could not have asked for a better team.
‘Captain . . . there’s an unidentified ship approaching.’ EVRAN I’s first officer had been watching the fast-closing blip on the radar. Normally he would hesitate to call the captain from his cabin, but this looked anything but normal.
Umrani rubbed his eyes as he came on to the bridge. ‘What is it?’
‘The radar, Captain,’ the first officer said, pointing to the screen glowing with a soft green light. A single green line from the centre of the screen was circulating, and each time the radar signal was dead astern, the blip was highlighted. ‘Whatever that is, it’s got to be doing 30 knots, and it’s coming up on the starboard side.’
‘Hold your course.’ Umrani picked up a set of binoculars and walked out on to the starboard wing. He adjusted the focus and picked up the Lassen’s slim bow profile and the high, arcing bow wave. Puzzled, he walked back in to the bridge.
‘It’s naval . . . looks like a destroyer or a frigate. We’ll be on their radar, and the weather’s reasonable, so they must have seen us . . . Wait, they’re signalling us to heave to,’ he said, reading the flashes from the destroyer’s bridge. ‘Signal back Why? We are the EVRAN I, a container ship bound for Karachi.’
The reply was swift. We know that. This is USS Lassen. Heave to.
Umrani shrugged. ‘Slow astern,’ he ordered, not wishing to put too much strain on the newly repaired screw.
‘What’s going on!’ Diego Sánchez demanded. Umrani had disliked Sánchez from the moment he’d come on board. The tall, solidly built commander, like the rest of his guards, was dressed in black.
‘I’m heaving to . . . I’m not sure why, but there’s a US Navy ship coming up behind us, and they’ve ordered us to stop.
‘The hell they have . . . Keep going.’
‘I’m the captain of this ship, Senor Sánchez, and what I say goes.’
Sánchez whipped out his pistol and put it to the head of the astonished captain. ‘Full ahead, or you’ve just given your last order.’
The colour drained from Umrani’s face. ‘Full ahead,’ he ordered the equally astonished officer of the watch.
‘All guards on deck, López to the bridge,’ Sánchez ordered over his two-way radio. A short while later, Sánchez’s second-in-command appeared.
The officer of the watch on board the USS Lassen was on to the move in a flash. ‘She’s picking up speed again, sir.’
‘They’re going to do it the hard way,’ Commander Guivarra acknowledged. ‘Get the birds up.’
First one Sea Hawk, then another, took off from the stern of the destroyer and adopted a holding pattern at 3000 feet, ready to create a diversion. Guivarra, seated in his captain’s chair, picked up his binoculars and grinned. They must be hurting big-time, he thought, as he focused on the RHIBs, smashing their way across the waves, well out to the port side of the EVRAN I.
‘Slow down,’ O’Connor ordered the coxswain on the RHIB, ‘we’re almost abeam of her now.’ He flipped the safety catch on his M14. Over to the south-west, O’Connor could see the Lassen taking up station on the starboard side of the EVRAN I.
‘Lassen, this is Hopi One Four, in position over.’
‘Lassen, copied out.’
Suddenly, the night sky was lit up further to the south-west. Staying out of range of any small arms fire, the Sea Hawks were discharging flares, far enough away so as to not light up the sea around the container ship, but sufficiently abnormal to attract attention. As the flares lit up the sky, the guards on board the EVRAN I took up positions on the starboard gunwales.
‘Go,
go, go!’ O’Connor ordered, and both coxswains gunned the RHIBs to over 40 knots, approaching the container ship from her port side.
The RHIBs made it to the side of the EVRAN I and one after another, the grappling ladders were fired from their compressed air launchers. O’Connor and Kennedy led the way, followed by the rest of the team.
On the bridge, Sánchez watched the flare display for some time, but then he smelled a rat. He dashed across to the portside wing, in time to see the last of the SEALs clambering over the side.
‘Merda! Shit!’ He fired at the disappearing figures and the bullets twanged off the steel superstructure. ‘López! Portside! Repel boarders!’ Sánchez screamed into his two-way.
O’Connor sent CPO Kennedy and three men to cover the port side, while he led Petty Officer Estrada and the rest of them, dodging around companionways, past sea cocks and hatches. The first two guards came running toward the stern, and O’Connor fired two quick bursts. Both fell, clutching at their chests, their AK-47 Kalashnikovs clattering to the deck. The three guards following them immediately took cover, and sparks flew as the air was suddenly thick with bullets ricocheting off the steel bulkheads.
‘Man down!’ One of the SEALs had been hit, but O’Connor and Estrada pressed on, taking out the three guards with short but deadly accurate bursts of fire. ‘Five down . . . five to go!’ Estrada yelled. O’Connor smiled to himself. In tight spots like this, the Estradas and the Kennedys of this world were irreplaceable. Firing broke out on the port side as CPO Kennedy and his team accounted for two more.
O’Connor moved forward, more cautiously now. He propped by the next bulkhead and signalled Estrada to freeze. There it was again. A movement about 20 metres down the companionway that ran under the containers. O’Connor ducked as his quarry opened up with another burst of AK-47 fire. The noise in the confined space was deafening. His quarry changed magazines, exposing his left shoulder and O’Connor fired again, taking him out. ‘That’s eight!’ he called to a grinning Estrada, who had taken cover behind a heavy steel stanchion. After yet another sustained burst of fire on the port side, CPO Kennedy came up on the headsets. ‘Another thug down.’
The Alexandria Connection Page 36