Tom Clancy Presents: Act of Valor

by Dick Couch

  Vladimir watched as the two RHIBs climbed up his wake. On each RHIB there were two men, SEALs he rightly guessed, laying on the spray tubes with automatic weapons. The bow .50-caliber was trained on him.

  “On the motor-yacht, this is the United States Navy,” came the voice on the bullhorn from the single Mark V now no more than fifty yards away. “Heave to and prepare to be boarded! I say again, heave to and prepare to be boarded! This is your final warning!”

  Vladimir held the Motorola handset to his mouth with one hand and kept the other in plain sight. “Okay, Captain, we have no choice. Slowly bring down your speed and come to a complete stop.” Then he stood along the starboard rail in full view of the Mark V, his hands spread wide in a crucifixion gesture.

  The Osrah’s captain did not answer, but he immediately complied and the yacht began to lose way. From the pilothouse he had watched the gray speedboat chase after their tender and destroy it. He was all too willing to resist no further. In the solarium, Christo completed his shredding and the deletion of the most sensitive files from his laptop. He thought about stepping onto a weather deck and dropping it over the side, but he too had seen the tender leave the Osrah and watched as it was run down and destroyed. He sighed, closed the lid of the laptop, and picked up his Iridium satellite phone. He hit a number on the speed dialer and waited for the connection to go through. It was answered immediately by a trusted retainer.

  “Please let me talk to my wife,” Christo said without preamble, and he waited. A moment later, “Cherie, it is good to hear your voice this day,” he said warmly. “I am fine, could not be better. And how are you and the little one?” The sat phone was encrypted, but he still never mentioned their names on the phone. “Excellent. I am happy for you both . . . No, I am not sure when I can join you, and that is why I am calling. I may be tied up for a period of time and perhaps hard to reach . . . No, no, nothing’s amiss . . . just business.” Christo then heard the thumping of an approaching helicopter. “Listen, Cherie, I really must go now . . . I know, and I miss you as well. My best to the little one . . . Yes, all my love as well.”

  Christo pulled back on a heavy sliding window near his desk and, with a penknife, cut a long slit into the window screening. He tossed the sat phone through the opening, over the rail, and into the water. Then he lifted one of the balls of his Newton’s Cradle and let it go. When the first SEAL exploded through the door, he was sitting back comfortably and listening to the klack-klack-klack of the steel-ball interaction. The Osrah was now almost dead in the water and beginning to wallow in the gentle seaway. He noted, and not for the first time, that the inertial interaction of the steel balls was not as smooth or precise as when the yacht was up and running and the gyro-stabilization system deployed to full advantage. Like many who engaged in complex and dangerous enterprises, when things became stressful, he noticed the little things.

  The second helo touched down to deposit the second fire team and Senior Chief Otto Miller without incident. This insertion helo did not actually land, as the Osrah could not take a helo as large as the Knighthawk fully aboard, so the pilots simply put the tip of a single skid to the deck and held a semi-hover while the SEALs scrambled aboard. The RHIBs were now close aboard on either stern quarter, but remained abaft the beam so as not to put themselves in a crossfire if the shooting started. As it turned out, there were only two more shots fired. Dmitri had not heard the call from the captain of the Osrah. He had been awakened from a sound sleep by the approach of the helicopters and raced topside. He bolted from a port-side door to the main deck with a pistol in each hand. It was a theatrical move, and his last. The lead SEAL of the port clearing team saw him, saw the pistols, and center-punched him twice. He was dead before he hit the deck.

  Miller waited patiently on the helo deck, with a single armed SEAL there for his security. The Osrah was now fully stopped and rolling gently in a modest swell. He could hear the SEALs calling out with room-clearing chatter: “Pilothouse clear! . . . Salon secure! . . . Moving forward! . . . Entering port forward stateroom!” and so on. As they moved deeper into the boat, he listened to them on the tactical radio circuit. When the platoon leader declared the yacht secure, the two RHIBs came alongside and disgorged more SEALs. Miller pulled off his headset and handed it, along with the MBITR, to the SEAL at his side. Then he made his way aft and down to the main afterdeck. There he met Vladimir, who was now on the deck facedown, with his hands slip-tied tightly behind his back and a SEAL standing over him. There was a nasty bruise on his cheekbone; he was going to have quite a shiner. Miller squatted beside him, tilting his head to one side to better bring him into view.

  “Dobraye utro. Kak pazhivayte?”

  “I’m fine, you Yank bastard,” Vladimir spat in English. “And fuck you, too, you son of a bitch.”

  Miller regarded him a moment, then, “Kak vas zafut?”

  “It’s Vladimir, and that’s all you need to know.”

  “Very well, Vladimir,” Miller continued in a reasonable tone and in English, “we have accounted for four of your men. Are there any more? I ask for a truthful reply, for their sake as well as your own.”

  “There are four besides myself, and we are a lawful contract security team employed by the owner of this boat. You have no right to board this vessel and threaten us.”

  “Perhaps not,” Miller conceded, “but all four of your men are dead. And should we find a fifth or a sixth, then I will be back to speak to you, and you do not want that.”

  Vladimir started to protest, but Miller nodded to the guarding SEAL. He put a foot into his back and a strip of duct tape over his mouth. Miller rose and stepped to the Bandito Platoon assault leader standing by the door to the solarium. The other SEALs were carefully searching the Osrah except for the solarium, which they carefully avoided.

  “Have the rest of the crew been restrained and segregated, sir?”

  “Roger that, Senior Chief.”

  “And the owner has been confined to his desk, as I instructed?”

  “Roger that, as well. Billy and Walt are guarding him, and everything is in place. We’ll be standing by close at hand and observing from where he can’t see us. He’s all yours, Senior.”

  “Thank you, sir,” and he stepped into the solarium.

  * * *

  Half a world away on the Bonhomme Richard another group of Navy SEALs were preparing for an entirely different kind of mission. They were going ashore to conduct a raid on a small village on Cedros Island. Earlier that afternoon, a platoon of SEALs from SEAL Team One had been flown aboard by VS-22 Osprey. SEAL Team One was the next team from the West Coast in deployment rotation, so the Team One SEALs were the most combat ready of the West Coast platoons. The Team One platoon, together with the Bandito squad already aboard, gave Roark Engel three SEAL squads to conduct the assault. It would be an over-the-beach operation conducted in CRRCs, or combat rubber raiding craft—Zodiac-type boats with powerful outboards that could carry a squad of armed SEALs into and through a line of surf.

  Earlier the previous evening, Lieutenant Engel and Chief Nolan had conducted their warning order, a three-hour-long briefing that covered every aspect of the raid. The warning order was attended by the SEALs, the SWCC coxswains, and the helicopter pilots that would support the operation. It was now just after midnight. The SEALs were either below in the Bonnie Dick’s well deck preparing their gear and the CRRCs, or on the flight deck preparing to board the Knighthawk helos for their insertion role. Lieutenant Engel was conducting a final briefing for his squad leaders and boat coxswains. They were crowded into the little TOC around a large flat-screen monitor. Everyone was in black night-assault uniforms.

  “Nothing has changed since the warning order,” he began. “If anything, the cell-phone chatter and thermal activity in the village has increased. Too much so. This is a very small village and a very poor one. And it’s isolated. Most of the population on Cedros lives along the southern coast of the island. Here we are some forty miles from
Cedros.” On the monitor, the island was shown as a green land mass with a blip to the west that was the Bonnie Dick. “We’re still scheduled for a zero two zero zero launch in the two CRRCs. The Bandito squad will be in the lead boat, and the Team One alpha squad, Tom’s squad, in the trail boat. A third CRRC will follow us in case one of our boats has a problem. We’ll skirt the northern tip of the island and come in from the east. Two miles offshore, we’ll throttle back to idle and make our way in as quietly as possible.” The monitor expanded to show the northeast coast of Cedros Island and a small fishing village. “Once we’re on the beach, the boats will pull back out and wait offshore. The weather guys are still calling for less than three feet of surf, so you should be able to deal with that.” The three SWCC coxswains all nodded. “After we’re ashore, we’ll go into a security perimeter and wait until just before first light.”

  The presentation again altered, and enhanced, to show just the village, a small harbor, and a portion of the beach. There were several fishing boats anchored in the harbor and several more hauled up on the shore of the small inlet. The SEALs would come across the beach just south of the town. Engel pointed to the section of beach where they would come ashore.

  “Tom, you and your squad will move out and set up two support-by-fire positions here and here, and a sniper overwatch here.” The platoon officer from Team One acknowledged. “My squad will assault only after you are in place. When and if—more than likely this will be when—the first shot is fired, Gerry and his squad will insert by helo here and set up a blocking force, okay?” The other SEAL officer gave him a thumbs-up. “Nothing fancy here, gentlemen, just rifles, radios, and basic infantry tactics. Any questions?” There were none, nor did Engel expect any. The details had been covered in the warning order. “Chief Nolan.”

  “I’ve nothing to add, sir. Just remember the basics—the element of surprise for as long as possible, then violence of action when it goes down.”

  “One last thing,” Engel added. “This is a friendly foreign country, and there are civilians and noncombatants in the mix. Believe me, the State Department is holding its breath on this one. So remember your rules of engagement and make sure of your targets.” He looked at his watch. “Okay, I have zero zero twenty-seven . . . and four, three, two, one, mark: zero zero twenty-seven. We leave the well deck of the Bonnie Dick at zero two hundred. Good luck.”

  Minutes later Engel and Nolan were back in their squad bay, donning their body armor and combat vests. The rest of the Banditos—Ray, A.J., Sonny, and Weimy—were already below in the flooded well deck helping to make ready their CRRC. Earlier, Chief Nolan had inspected them, checking their weapons, radios, and equipment. When they were ready to go, Nolan inspected Engel, and Engel inspected Nolan. SEALs always inspect each other before going to combat. As he was going over his chief, Engel fingered a dark, olive-drab patch on Nolan’s shoulder. It blended in with the dark black fiber of the assault clothing, but it was still readable. It read: ENGINE COMPANY NO. EIGHT.

  “I thought you were going to get me one of those,” Engel said.

  “Are you still busting my balls about that patch? Like I said, I got them from my uncle right after 9/11, and I gave ’em all out. Tell you what, when we get back, I’ll give you this one.”

  “No, it’s no big deal, and I don’t want to rob you of your family memorabilia.” Engel finished and stepped back to allow Nolan to inspect him and his gear. As Nolan watched, Engel chambered a round into his M4 and turned the weapon over so that Nolan could see him put it on safe.

  “No big deal, huh. Well, what about this?” as he patted a cargo pocket on Engel’s right thigh.

  “What?”

  “This. What you got in there?”

  Engel drew out a very tightly folded, forty-eight star American flag. “It was my grandfather’s flag. Dad gave it to me, and someday I’ll give it to my boy.”

  “I like that, Lieutenant. I like that a lot.”

  “And while we’re at it,” Engel continued fishing a square-folded, letter-sized sheet from a pocket on his shoulder, “I want you to hold on to this. Just in case.”

  Nolan stared at the folded paper, then at his officer. “What’s this supposed to be?”

  “It’s, well, it’s just in case.”

  Nolan stuffed it absently into a pocket and continued with his inspection of Engel. “When we get back from this op, I’m going to make that into a paper airplane. Or maybe I’ll just wipe my ass with it.”

  “Y’know, Chief,” Engel replied with a grim smile, “that’s why you’re such a damn fine platoon chief. I know I can count on you to do the right thing.”

  “You’re good to go, Boss. Let’s go to war.”

  “Let’s,” Engel echoed, and they headed for the well deck.

  * * *

  Miller gently closed the solarium door behind him and regarded Christo for several moments as Christo, in turn, regarded him. Miller glanced from side to side, as if he were not sure just how to proceed. He carefully removed his sunglasses, put them in a folding hard-case, and filed them in an inside jacket pocket. Tentatively, he made his way over to the desk and pulled back one of the chairs in front of it but stopped abruptly, raising his eyebrows to ask permission. Christo, now considering Miller with some disdain, inclined his head in approval. Miller cleared his throat to address the two SEALs standing guard.

  “Ah, would you two please excuse us.”

  “Sir, I’m not so sure about that,” one of them protested, but Miller raised a hand to silence him.

  “Please, it will be all right. And before you leave, would you also please cut his bonds.”

  One SEAL started to protest but merely shrugged and took a set of side cutters from his combat vest. He cut the snap tie that bound Christo’s wrists behind him and, together with the other SEAL, left the room. Christo, now able to sit up straighter, did so. He wanted to rub his wrists where the nylon had bit into them, but he consciously refrained. Miller took a seat across from him and again cleared his throat.

  “Zdra-stvu-eetee. Minya zavoot Otto. Kak pazhivayete?”

  Christo smiled. “Your accent is not bad, Otto, but I sense you would be more comfortable in English, no?”

  “Quite so,” Miller replied. “And you are?”

  “I am Christo.”

  “Not ‘Mikhail Troikawicz’?”

  This brought another smile. “Just Christo will do. And how am I, you ask? Well,” he looked around, “as you might imagine, I’ve had better days.”

  “Indeed.” Miller looked around as well. “This is quite a boat. The Westport Shipyard makes an excellent yacht. You seem to enjoy things of quality, Christo.”

  He paused to again regard the man across from him; he appeared to be a little more sure of himself now than when he had entered. “I have worked hard, and my business interests have prospered. You might say I have been fortunate.”

  Miller nodded. “I would agree with you, Christo—you have become a very wealthy man. Or at least you were. The many material things that you have worked so hard for are no longer yours. Not the estate in Costa Rico, not the compounds in Kuala Lumpur, in Rio, and on the Black Sea, and not your penthouse condominium in Rome. And certainly not this fine boat.” At the mention of the Rome penthouse, Miller thought he detected an almost imperceptible fracture on Christo’s bland features.

  When they were being overtaken by the American boats, Christo knew he was in for some trouble. He would have to wait and see how much trouble. But, thanks to Shabal and his plotting, he had never before been in such a liquid position. He would survive this and with a good deal of his wealth intact. Personally, he knew the Americans were great proponents of due process, and he knew they would have a great deal of trouble making a case against him—at least a legal one. If he had learned nothing else in his business dealings, it was how to cover his tracks. The Western legal systems, and the American system in particular, were a joke. But, for now, he needed to get past this increasingly disturbin
g man and the scrutiny of his now-steady green eyes.

  “Otto, here we are in the middle of the ocean, clearly in international waters. You may seize and impound my vessel, but you have no claim to it or to my other assets. What makes you think you can just take what is mine?”

  Miller seemed to hesitate and consider his question. “I think the best and only answer is simply, because we can. Your properties are being seized for tax liens in their respective locations by government officials only too willing to enjoy what you’ve worked so hard for. Our government has a way of rewarding and indemnifying those who help us. As for your other assets, well, perhaps you should take a look at this.”

  Miller took a single sheet of paper from his inner jacket pocket. It was folded lengthwise. Miller carefully smoothed the crease from the fold and placed it in front of Christo. As he read it, the blood began to drain from his face. Listed on the paper were all of his foreign bank accounts, complete with account numbers, access codes, and passwords.

  “It’s our obsession with terrorists,” Miller continued in a gentle voice. “We Americans have ceded much to the Chinese, Germans, and Koreans in the way of technology and manufacturing. But when it comes to banking, finance, and money transfer, no one knows more about it or does it better than we do. We simply put our best minds and brightest hackers to work on this particular project.”

  Miller sat forward with his elbows on the desk. When Christo looked up, the green eyes had suddenly become intense and predatory. This was definitely not the same timid man who had entered the solarium only a short while ago. Without looking away, Miller took an iPad from his outside jacket pocket and set it down on top of the paper.

  “But as we both know, there are things that are more precious than houses, boats, and money.” He tapped on the iPad, and an image came into focus. It was Christo, waist deep in the pool of their Costa Rican estate, with his daughter, Solana, on his shoulders. In the background, fully in focus, Dominga looked on. Miller reached over and moved his finger across the screen from Christo’s left to his right. A second image showed the three of them eating at poolside. Another swipe of the finger, another image. This one was of mother and daughter walking on the streets of Rome, hand-in-hand, with retainers in dark glasses walking a few steps behind. Then an aerial image taken from above the level of the penthouse showing Dominga in a lounge chair reading a magazine and Solana playing with her dolls. After several more images, Miller turned off the iPad.