Tipping Point

by David Poyer

  “General quarters, sir?”

  “I don’t like to repeat myself, Noah.” He regretted his tone instantly, but refrained from apologizing. Pardees was a little too casual, sometimes. “And I want everyone on the bridge in flash gear. Matt, give us four minutes to close in and light him up, then ask for permission to board.”

  Someone hawked and cleared his throat on the darkened bridge, but he didn’t hear any voiced questioning. Just the clank and scuffle as lockers came open, gear was distributed and pulled on. Maybe it was overkill. But still …

  He climbed down from his chair and felt his way out onto the wing. A waning moon that barely penetrated the overcast. Four-foot seas. Boat ops were always risky, and these conditions were marginal, especially at night. He unholstered the Hydra and went over risk-reduction procedures with Mytsalo and BMC Anschutz, back on the boat deck. The freighter grew, red and white running lights, and a row of lit windows.

  Savo’s lights came on, swung across the dark sea, and pinned it. Black hull, white superstructure, a shelter-decked break-bulker with pilothouse aft and booms forward. At a guess, three hundred feet, and by no means new, by the streaks of rust along the scuppers and anchor well. She flew no flag.

  “About ready for the scrap heap, looks like to me,” Noblos said, beside him.

  Dan almost winced, the guy’s appearance was such a surprise. “Bill … I mean, Dr. Noblos. Don’t see you up here much. In fact, I think this is the first time.”

  “I heard GQ being passed.” The reclusive scientist was a tall shadow. “What’re we doing?”

  “Intercepting a smuggler. Want to go over with the boat, take a look?”

  “Ha-ha! I think not. Can we talk about your crossfield amplifiers on the forward transmitters?”

  “Uh, Doctor, I’d love to, but right now I’m kind of preoccupied.”

  “It’s important. If you want to keep your Aegis on the line.”

  “Sure, but can we make it some other time? Soon, but right now.”

  “I’ve been trying to have a conversation for some time, Captain. As I’ve said before, several of your radar parameters are degraded. Others are merely nominal. Your operator proficiency is actually dropping, it seems to me.”

  Dan said, “I don’t think you’re saying my operators aren’t trying hard enough. Or are you?”

  Noblos shrugged. “The reasons are not my concern. But I’ll advise you now: I’m drawing up a recommendation that your BMD mission area certification be suspended.”

  Dan said evenly, “Thanks for the heads-up, Bill. But as I just said, can we make this some other time? Right now I’m trying to run a board and search.”

  Noblos smiled coldly. “Absolutely, Captain. Whenever is most convenient for you. Just let me know.”

  Noblos felt his way to the door, knocking something off the nav table. Dan filed him away and got his binoculars back on the nearing ship, gripping the radio handset awkwardly too. “Five hundred yards,” the OOD reported. “Matching course and speed. Ten knots, one niner five.”

  “All right … whoa!”

  Under their lights, the freighter had swung her rudder hard, rotating her stern out toward Savo. It neared and neared, looming. Pardees ordered his rudder left, but Dan cautioned him that might smash their sterns together as both ships pivoted apart. “Steady as you go. He’s gonna just miss you.”

  The 21MC: “He’s not going to cooperate.”

  “Yeah, he just turned away … Let me talk to him.” Dan pulled down the gray handset, clicked to the International Bridge to Bridge, squeezed the Transmit button. “Motor vessel Patchooli, this is commanding officer of U.S. warship. Request to speak to captain.”

  “This captain M-V Patchooli. Go on.”

  “This is U.S. Navy warship. What flag do you sail under, Captain?”

  “Bangladeshi flag vessel.”

  “Bangladesh does not acknowledge your registry. What is your true ownership and home port?”

  The answer came back scrambled and cut off, but might have been “Pakistan.” Dan cradled the handset, frowning. Pakistan, not Bangladesh? Well, he wasn’t going to wait around with his thumb up. “Patchooli, this is Navy warship. We are boarding under provisions of UNCLOS Article 108 and the Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic. Come to course one-nine-zero at five knots and stand by for boarding on your port side aft.”

  “No, Captain. You are in violate of 1988 SUA convention. Boarding us without permission is piracy under international law.”

  “Jeez,” said Staurulakis from the dark. He wondered how long she’d been there. “This is new. A smuggler quoting international law.”

  Dan grinned. “A real ‘sea lawyer’ … Okay, let’s try this again.” He lifted the handset once more.

  This time he got a different voice back. An oily, smooth spokesperson with a much better command of English. She said, “This is Patchooli. I am speaking for the master. You are in violation of international law. We are beyond territorial seas. A warship may ask us questions, but you may not board us without our permission.”

  Dan cleared his throat impatiently. “This is Navy warship off your port side—”

  “This is Patchooli. Maritime law insists you must identify yourself properly.”

  Dan said unwillingly, because the woman did have a point, “This is U.S. Navy warship Savo Island. I say again, Savo Island.” He gave her his hull number and said, “Request you cease maneuvering and slow for boarding.”

  “This is Patchooli. The Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation makes it a criminal act to unlawfully seize or exercise control over a foreign flagged ship at sea. You have no right to stop us. Therefore we will not heave to.”

  Dan snorted. In the not too distant future, every ship would have to sail with a full legal team. Beside him the officer of the deck murmured, “A shot across his bows?”

  “Just give me a minute, okay, Noah?”

  The 21MC. “Bridge, CIC.”

  Pardees hit the lever twice to say “Go ahead” and a petty officer said, “Sir, we have a distress call going out from our guy alongside. He’s saying he’s under attack by pirates.”

  “What the fuck?” Staurulakis stamped her boot.

  “Mitscher’s answered up asking for his position.”

  Dan said, “Get Mitscher on a secure circuit. Advise them there’s no attack, just this little prick jerking our chain. Tell this asshole, stop screwing around and cooperate.”

  He slid down from his chair and crossed the pilothouse, bumping into someone but not apologizing, just shoving on through until he’d undogged the starboard door and was out on the wing. He looked across to where the searchlights still illuminated the freighter. It was headed away. Froth at the rounded stern showed he was cramming on power. A heavy, oily smoke bit his nostrils, and the beams above became solid shafts, turning coffee-brown as they plunged into obscurity.

  Did this idiot really think he could make smoke and run away? He shouted into the pilothouse, “Come around to follow him. Bump up to ahead full. But don’t get too close, and watch his stern.” That was where they’d see motion first, if the freighter tried to squirm away again.

  Back on the radio. “Motor vessel Patchooli, this is Savo Island, astern of you and closing. You are placing yourself in danger by attempting to avoid a legal boarding. This is your second verbal warning. Log that, and the time,” he told the junior officer of the deck. His ROEs were clear: he had to offer a graduated series of nonlethal warnings before resorting to lethal force. But verbal cautions didn’t seem to be having much effect. He picked up the sound-powered circuit and snapped the dial to Gun Control. “CO.”

  “Guns here, sir.”

  “I may need a star shell. And break out a couple rounds of BL&P just in case. But so far, weapons tight. Can do?”

  “Aye aye, sir. Mount 51, load one illumination round to the transfer tray.” The forward five-inch gun suddenly tilted its bar
rel up, then snapped it down again. It rotated left and right, testing the train mechanisms.

  “Report on 21MC when ready.” Dan snapped off as his own bitch box said, “CIC, bridge: he’s going out on HF.”

  “Say again?”

  “M/V Patchooli is going out on high frequency to ‘any vessel this net,’ reporting attempted piracy.”

  This was too much. He told Pardees, “Six short blasts,” and waited as the horn droned out. He followed it with another warning over VHF as the cruiser, responding to increased power, surged up alongside the fleeing freighter. Huge black clouds were pouring from its stack, and a bow wave glowed in the searchlights’ beams.

  “Am I missing anything here?” he asked the exec.

  “External loud hailers. So they can’t say their radio malfunctioned.”

  “Okay, right.” He had Nuckols repeat his warning on Savo’s loudspeakers. The other still didn’t alter course. She was making about fifteen knots, which had to be close to her maximum speed, but Savo could easily double that. Dan kneaded his face. Where did this fool think he was going?

  “Bridge, Gun Control. One round illumination to the transfer tray.”

  Dan said, “Mount 51 in local control. One round illumination. Load. Thirty degrees left of his bow light. Double-check bearing. Report when ready.”

  “Mount 51, ready and standing by.”

  “Batteries released, one round,” Dan said.

  The gun thumped and flashed, and a red-hot comet arched out into the night. It ignited into a magnesium brilliance that illuminated the undersides of the clouds and glittered white off the waves, so bright he had to squint. As the rays gleamed across the water he brought the binoculars up until he was looking at the pilothouse. Through one window, just for an instant, he made out the cutout of a human figure. And behind it, what looked very much like an armed man pointing a rifle at the back of its head.

  The flare declined slowly, and the pilothouse grew dark again. He lowered the night glasses, frowning. “Did you see that, Cheryl?”

  “No, what?”

  “Rounds complete,” said the 21MC. “One round expended. Bore clear. No casualties. Refire?”

  “Negative, cease fire,” Dan said. He fingered the binoculars. Had it really been someone being held at gunpoint? Or had he taken the outline of some piece of equipment for a human figure? If there were armed men over there, this wasn’t a situation he wanted to send his boarding team into without some more advantages: such as daylight, his helo in the air, and reinforcements on tap.

  All of which meant delay. He didn’t like it, but sometimes you had to do what was prudent. He coughed. “All right … open the range, about a thousand yards. Take position off his port quarter.”

  “We’re backing off, sir?” Staurulakis sounded disbelieving.

  “Until dawn. Tell Ops we need a message to Fleet, to see if there’s an M/V Patchooli in the Pakistani registry. Maybe they sold it, or transferred flag … but I’m not sending guys over at night, into a possibly hostile environment, without backup.”

  He sneezed. Someone murmured, back in the darkness of the bridge, and men stirred. The OOD gave the helm orders in a subdued voice. “Secure from general quarters, sir?” someone asked. And slumping back into his seat, bone tired, but resigned to staying there all night, he muttered, “Yeah, go ahead. Secure.”

  11

  The East Coast of Africa

  HE snorted himself awake several times during the night. Each time, he muzzily thought of going below, but stayed in the chair instead. Each time he woke he peered out, checking the freighter’s stern light. It rode always in the same place, a yellow star low off their bow, glittering and reeling beneath clouds that were closing down again.

  The last time he woke the sky was gray. A little after 0500, and Hermelinda Garfinkle-Henriques, wilted in the half-light, was at his elbow, the radio messenger beside her. They murmured good mornings. Dan grunted and coughed, hitched himself up, glanced out—the freighter was still there. He sighed, and reached for the clipboard.

  It was from Fifth Fleet, info everybody on earth. Karachi had returned no response to the inquiry about registry. In the absence of confirmation, Dan was directed to carry out a noncooperative boarding, having regard to the warning provisions of References A through F and his ROE. He was also reminded to carry out a risk analysis of the boarding process.

  “One more thing, Captain,” the supply officer said. “We have a closing contact from the east. You might want to check it out in CIC.”

  “It’s on GCCS?”

  She said stubbornly, “You might want to check it out for yourself, sir.”

  * * *

  THERE was hot coffee in Sonar. He got a cup and a sticky bun en route to the command desk. CIC felt deserted with only a steaming watch. Empty consoles, and half the lights on, while a compartment cleaner jockeyed a broom across the deckplates and progressive jazz warbled from the EW console. He blinked up at the displays. Highlighted the contact, and studied the callout. Its extended track met Savo’s later that day. He powered up his work station and scrolled through the intel.

  PLANS Wuhan was a Type 052B Guangzhou-class guided missile destroyer, attached to the South Seas Fleet. Brand-new, displacing almost seven thousand tons, it was the first multirole, antiair-capable destroyer the Chinese had built. It reminded him of a Sovremennyy, and had a lot of the same Russian sensors, along with Grizzly surface-to-air missiles and YJ-83 long-range antiship cruise missiles. She had one 100mm automatic gun and a CIWS. Also a hangar, though his sources didn’t say if a helo was routinely embarked. His only clear advantage was Aegis. Wuhan’s E-band radar had neither the reach nor the multiple-tracking capabilities of the SPY-1.

  Still, in a medium-range engagement, it would be even-steven, YH-28s against Harpoons. Whoever fired first would have the advantage. He cut and pasted, added his own thoughts, and forwarded the collage to his TAOs, the EW chief, the exec, Chief Wenck, and Dr. Noblos. He queried GCCS for other Chinese units and got PLANS Haikou, another destroyer, farther west, near the Gulf.

  Cheryl came in and he told her what they had. Sniffling, she blew her nose into a tissue. Black smudges circled her eyes. “Are we still boarding?”

  “As directed. Nobody seems to want to own up to these guys.”

  “Black flagged?”

  “Could be. Pulled out of a scrapyard someplace.” He keyboarded around. Cameras fore and aft on the missile decks could be pivoted via joystick from the TAO’s station, but they weren’t stabilized, which made them not too useful at sea. He could look through the port or starboard CIWS cameras, but the mount had to point at what it was looking at, which could be misconstrued as a hostile act. He settled on the starboard 25mm gun camera. It was stabilized and he could move it independently of the gun.

  Patchooli rode steadily in the gunsight, the crosshairs riding just above her fantail. He zoomed in, looking for a flag, but again saw none. The ship name was so spotty and half-obliterated he could make out only the double O, but there seemed to be another beneath it, maybe outlined with a welding stick. At magnification the image dissolved into the blurry, heaving speckles of digitization. “Let’s make it after breakfast. Say, 08. Plenty of light by then. Tell Strafer we’ll need Red Hawk in the air. And we’ll go back to GQ.”

  * * *

  HE was on the boat deck, talking to Mytsalo before lowering the RHIB. The teams didn’t load there; there weren’t enough safety lines for everyone, and they’d make it too heavy for the davit. They’d drop the boat in the water, and then the coxswain would drive it to the stern. The boarding team would climb down via a Jacob’s ladder. His Hydra beeped and he keyed. “CO.”

  “Sir, XO here. VHF transmission from Wuhan. In the clear.”

  “Read it to me.”

  “‘Request delay boarding until PLANS Wuhan is on station to assist.’”

  He let up on the Transmit key. Politely phrased, but what lay behind it? He held up a restraining hand to Mytsalo,
who seemed too eager to get into the boat. “Did we acknowledge receipt, Cheryl?”

  “Uh, yessir, we did.”

  “Anything more from upstairs? Fifth Fleet?”

  She said there wasn’t. Dan cleared his throat and spat over the side. “Well, we have our orders.”

  “Shall I answer?”

  “I don’t honestly know … not sure what a message like that actually means.” He furrowed his brow. “Um, how far away is she? The Chinese destroyer?”

  “Wait one … about an hour’s steaming time.”

  He eyed the men loading into the inflatable. His current team wasn’t as highly trained as they’d been aboard Horn, mostly because marine interdiction wasn’t Savo’s primary mission. They were in black gear: helmets, flash hoods, coveralls, tactical vests, life jackets, steel-toed boots. They carried flashlights and radios as well as weapons. Aft, on the flight deck, Red Hawk’s turbines were whining into life, a higher note above the deep whoosh of the ship’s own intakes and exhaust. “Thank Wuhan for his interest. Tell him we’re proceeding with the boarding and ask him to stand clear. And let Fifth Fleet know about the exchange. Over.”

  She acknowledged and signed off. Mytsalo’s fresh young face glowed with windburn. “Max, no unnecessary risks,” Dan told him. “Stay alert for weapons. Stay in touch on your radio. Do a thorough search, but don’t split up into more than two teams, and don’t let anyone wander off alone.” The ensign nodded eagerly. The boatswain on the davit eyed them, and Dan nodded. “Get ’er in the water!” he yelled, as behind him the rotors accelerated and the noise abruptly became deafening. The SH-60 lofted off and her long dragonfly shape passed black above him, climbing for the clouds, then tilting and drifting toward the battered ship a quarter mile distant. Having a helo pointing a machine gun at your bridge usually returned sanity even to uncooperative captains. Not only that, if there was hostile activity along the decks, they could warn the boarding party.

  Which, a few minutes later, pushed off. The engines roared as the inflatable peeled away, throwing up a rooster tail as it bounded across the seas. Mytsalo rode with knees bent, clutching the center console, helmet bobbing as they hit each wave. Dan watched with both envy and relief, remembering his own days as a boat officer. Mytsalo had a Beretta, while Peeples, Benyamin, and VanDuren cradled shotguns and carbines. But their main means of intimidation, obviously, were the big guns of the warship behind them. He’d sent Kaghazchi along to translate if necessary, though whoever the sea lawyer had been spoke good English. Peeples was there to tend the engine and keep things running while the rest were aboard. The backup team would follow, standing off in the second RHIB unless needed.