Stabenow, Dana - Blindfold Game (v1

by Blindfold Game(lit)

  THEY STOOD INSTEAD OF sitting, mostly because Sara refused to take the captains chair and no one else would sit down while she was still standing. “Talk to me, Lieutenant.

  “I was watching the roll indicator before we got hit, Sams said. “Its showing at least seven degrees, and sometimes more.

  “Which means?

  “We can do it, if we pick our moment. Sams looked at Laird. “Maybe you should stay behind.

  “What!

  Sams looked at Sara. “Maybe youll need a spare pilot, if we dont make it.

  “Its a moot point, since we only have one helo, Sara said. She looked at Ryan. “Put together a team. I want them armed. Anything you can find on this ship that will shoot, stab, or explode on contact, you make sure every member of your team has two of each.

  “Aye aye, XO.

  She looked at Sams. “How many can you take?

  “Well, maybe a few less than before you loaded them down with an armory, Sams said.

  Several of them smiled, but Sara was too focused on the task at hand and too close to what had happened on the bridge for anything remotely resembling humor. “How many?

  Samss shoulders straightened at the snap in her voice. “Six boarding team members total, XO.

  Sara looked at Ryan. “Can you get the job done with six?

  He started to go with bravado, saw her expression, and ratcheted it down. “Depends on how many people theyve got on board and how well armed they are.

  She looked at Hugh.

  “I dont know, he said. “I know about the two brothers. Noortman told me that the brothers told Fang he couldnt bring all of his usual crew, that they were hiring some help of their own. Could be ten. Could be twenty, could be fifty. I just dont know.

  She nodded and looked at Ryan. “Who is your best man on the can-non?

  “Sullivan, he said without hesitation.

  “Have him report to me immediately. And then start putting your team together. Remember, the goal is to commandeer the ship, disable the launcher, and get her into the nearest port.

  “Aye aye, XO. Ryan vanished.

  “But if we have to, we sink the son of a bitch, and Im not saying thats a bad second-best. She looked at Ostlund. “Ensign, start prepping for helo launch. I imagine youll have to do another traverse.

  Ostlund shrugged. “Not like we havent had a lot of practice lately, XO. I think weve got it down.

  “Good. Go. She looked at Sams. “Anything?

  He thought, and shook his head.

  “We wont be able to bring you back on board the Sojourner Truth, not in this soup, she said.

  “I know, XO.

  “So once the boarding team is on board, you haul ass for Cape Navarin.

  He gave a curt nod.

  “Good. Go.

  The aviators left.

  “Chief, Sara said to Edelen, “I want you on the conn.

  “All due respect, XO, I want you on the conn.

  She gave a half laugh. “Go on up to the bridge. Im right behind you.

  “Wheres Cape Navarin? Hugh said.

  “About a hundred miles northwest of where we are now. Its the nearest land.

  He thought about it. “In Russia.

  “Yes.

  “That going to be a problem?

  “The fact that theyll be out of fuel before they get there is a bigger one.

  BACK OH THE BRIDGE she looked at the radar screen. The Agafia was still there, still not making enough speed to pull out of range, but enough to keep her tantalizingly out of reach. It was almost as if she were playing tag with them, which made no sense to Sara. Perhaps all terrorists were by definition mad.

  The Sunrise Warrior was lagging about midway between the other two ships. Sara looked up and out the new Plexiglas windows. She thought she could make out lights off their port bow. She noticed something else, too. “Are we making ice? she said.

  “We are, XO.

  Sara swore, a round and mighty oath. “Assemble a crew to chip ice, Chief, she said, snapping out the words.

  “Aye aye, XO, Chief Edelen said, moving with alacrity.

  Sara told Tommy, “I need to be able to talk to the Sunrise Warrior.

  “The VHF is down, XO, like almost everything else. Whatever they hit us with took out all our communications, except for handhelds.

  “I know. Hows your Morse, Tommy?

  “My Morse? The bosuns mate looked dubious. “Its okay, XO. Its not great, but I can make myself understood.

  “Good. To the chief, finishing up his pipe for the ice-chipping team, Sara said, “Get me in close enough for them to see our signal. He hung up the mike. “Aye aye, XO.

  ON BOARD THE SUNRISE WARRIOR

  “IS THAT MORSE CODE? Vivienne said.

  “It is, Vivienne, now hush up so I can read it.

  They all waited with varying degrees of impatience. No one had been very happy with pursuing the processor into the storm. For one thing, it made for horrible photography, and Greenpeace was all about film at eleven.

  Doyle lowered the binoculars.

  “Well? Vivienne said. “Whatd they say?

  “They said those explosions we heard was the Agafia firing on them, Doyle said.

  There were exclamations of disbelief all around.

  “Come on, Doyle, Vivienne said. “A fishing vessel fired on a Coast Guard cutter?

  “Thats what theyre saying, Doyle said. “And thats not all theyre saying, Vivienne. They want a favor.

  Vivienne stared at him. “The U.S. Coast Guard wants a favor from Greenpeace?

  “Not exactly, Doyle said. “They want a favor from you.

  THE FLIGHT CREW HAD finished their second heavy weather traverse in three days on the hangar deck, although this one had been a lot dicier due to the steadily increasing layer of ice that was forming on every surface above water. A crew had already been detailed to the bow with clubs, where the ice was accumulating faster than they could beat it off.

  Sams called the bridge. “Were good to go, XO.

  Sara was standing next to Seaman Royce Lee Cornell, North Carolina-born, a year out of boot camp and barely qualified on the helm.

  She could hardly see his black face in the dim light of the bridge. “Hold her steady, Seaman.

  “Holding her steady, aye, XO. Just turned twenty, Seaman Cornell had the maturity of a petty officer with twenty years in. Mark Edelen had recommended he replace Razo, and it spoke well for Cornell that he was on the bridge before hed been called to duty.

  Sara looked at the indicators hanging from the overhead. Bubbles of air in twin curving plastic tubes full of water, the bubbles rolled back and forth and pitched backward and forward with the motion of the ship, indicating degrees of pitch and roll with a gauge printed beneath. As Sara watched, the roll went to seven, and the pitch went to nine. She swore under her breath. “Let her fall off the wind a little, Seaman.

  “Aye aye, XO, Cornell said. His hands moved on the small brass wheel. A minute passed, two, and then the Sojourner Truth hit a patch of what felt like relative calm.

  “Launch, Sara said.

  On the monitor they saw the rotors increase to a blur and the body of the helo begin to lift. Sara made it to the port wing of the bridge in time to see them appear, and then Sams really goosed it. The helo shot past the bridge in a bright orange blur fifty feet off the deck.

  Sara stared after them, until recalled to where she was by the wind and the cold and the snow and the fog and the ice and, oh, the hell with it. She went back inside.

  “Will she do it, Sara? Hugh said.

  “Who? Oh. The Sunrise Warrior? Yes.

  He was silent. “What? she said.

  “I guess what I meant was, will the rest of them let, whats her name, Kincaid, do it?

  “Yes, Sara said firmly, “they will. She couldnt stand still. She paced back and forth in front of the controls console and around it several times, not an easy thing to do on a packed bridge in twenty-foot seas, until Chief Edelen said,
in a very respectful voice, “Why dont you have a seat, XO?

  She stared at him. He gestured at the captains chair. The back was ripped up but someone had cleaned off the blood and guts and bone.

  “No, she said, a little more strongly than she ought to have. Hugh, standing next to Tommy over the radar screen, looked up. She recovered, and managed a smile. “Thank you, Chief. But no.

  After that, she stood in front of one of the intact forward windows, staring through the fug on the other side of it, praying for the sun to rise.

  USCG HELO 6S

  HARRY SAMS HAD SEVENTEEN years on helos, first with the U.S. Navy and then with the U.S. Coast Guard. He was fond of quoting that old aviation aphorism, “There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. He didnt hold with that other old aviation aphorism, “Any landing you walk away from is a good landing, either. He not only wanted to bring home his people alive and well, he wanted his craft intact and ready to fly again.

  Which was why he was wondering, with the very little portion of his brain allowed to do anything so entirely frivolous, why it was that he was speeding twenty-five feet above twenty-foot swells at a hundred fifty-seven knots with a cargo hold full of Coasties armed to the teeth toward a blip on a radar screen that had already proved itself to be rather better armed than the average Bering Sea catcher-processor.

  And then the Agafias lights loomed up out of the driving snow and fog, and there was no time to think of anything but the job at hand.

  The processor was pitching and rolling and yawing worse than the Sojourner Truth, which meant it would be noisy on board with the creak and groan of the ship, the slipping and sliding and rolling of everything not lashed down, and the whip and slap of the ocean.

  “Target in sight, he said into the mike, and heard Ryan reply, “Target in sight, aye. Next to him Laird moved like an automaton, hands in constant motion, senses reaching out to listen to the bird, to what she was saying, how she was handling a tailwind of forty-five knots and gusts of over fifty.

  “Im not making any test runs, Sams said. “We dont have enough fuel for that. One shot is all we get. Everybody ready?

  “Ready, Lieutenant, Ryan said.

  “Ready, Lieutenant, Airman Cho said.

  “Okay, Sams said. “Its all going to happen very, very fast, so be ready. He took another look as the Agafias stern came into view, and added, “And shes making ice as fast as the Sojourner Truth, so watch your asses, Ryan.

  “Watching our asses, aye aye, sir.

  Sams banked rapidly to slide up her hull, slowing speed as they approached the bow. The only even reasonably empty space was a triangular section forward of the mast and boom, framed by the two massive anchors and the bow itself. He estimated a bare twenty square feet, if that. The good news was that the six containers stacked on the foredeck hid the helo from the windows on the Agafias bridge.

  “Lieutenant? Laird was looking at him.

  Sams shook himself back into the present. “Are we good to go?

  Cho had the line hooked to the hoist. The helo came around the bow and Sams popped up on a rapid flare, virtually halting the helo in midair, letting it hang there like it was painted on the fog. Cho dropped the line and out of the corner of his eye Sams saw it hit the deck. A second later a man in a Mustang suit was sliding down it. He grabbed the end, belayed it around a stanchion, and five more men, bristling with weapons, hurtled down in rapid succession. Cho disconnected the line at the hoist and let it fall and Sams let the helo fall forward.

  He stood off far enough to grab some fog for cover but not too far to be out of range of the boarding teams radios. He made a wide circuit of the ship and was rewarded when Ryans voice came over the air. “All down safely, Lieutenant. See you back in Kodiak. You did say the beer was on you, right?

  “In your dreams, Ryan. Good hunting. And watch your back!

  Laird brought up Cape Navarin on the GPS and set a course, and as he did so the Sojourner Truth loomed up out of the mist looking like the wrath of God. She was even throwing a few thunderbolts by way of the portside 25-millimeter cannon.

  The shells crossed the Agafias bow with inches to spare and were immediately followed by a voice on a loudspeaker turned up high enough to be heard on the moon, never mind over the storm. “Fishing vessel Agafia, this is the United States Coast Guard cutter Sojourner Truth. Heave to and prepare to be boarded. I say again, heave to and prepare to be boarded.

  And the guns on both sides opened up and Sams pointed the helos nose at three-five-zero and hit the gas.

  ON BOARD THE AGAFIA

  THE MEN ON BOARD the Agafia were demoralized and panicking, especially the mercenaries. They had shot at the American ship and then proceeded to lead it farther south, as Jones had instructed. The storm was hitting them hard, tossing the ship around like a Ping-Pong ball in a bathtub full of Jell-O. It never stopped, everyone was getting slammed into bulkheads, hatch handles, and other crewmen.

  Fangs men were more disciplined and had the advantage of time served at sea, but they, too, were growing increasingly alarmed. Someone had come at them out of the snow and the sleet and the hail and had begun shooting. Windows had shattered; men had been hit and were screaming in fear and pain. At first Chen thought the ships crew must have broken loose and were trying to retake the ship, and then he remembered that Jones had put them all over the side.

  And then a blue-hulled ship with a rainbow on the bow materialized on their starboard side on what looked like a course to ram them amidships. Even Jones yelled at that. Chen spun the wheel into a blur, only to find that way blocked by the Sojourner Truth. All three ships were pitching and tossing violently, adding to the feeling of an uncontrollable and imminent doom.

  During those precious minutes when the bridge crew of the Agafia was preoccupied with finding some sea room in twenty-foot seas, Ryans men were working their way aft, picking off the enemy one at a time. Later, his report would state that most of these fell overboard into the Bering Sea. Hank Ryan had helped carry Captain Lowes body below. He still had the captains blood on his uniform and he was not inclined to show mercy, especially when he didnt know what his team was facing in the way of opposition on board the Agafia. He knew that they had at least one big gun, and that was all he needed to know.

  The first man they took out was the mercenary who had run aft to man the Browning machine gun newly bolted to the Agafia s deck. Ryan disarmed the weapon by pulling the bolt securing it to its stand and letting it follow its gunner over the side.

  They were on the bridge fifteen minutes later without a scratch on any of them. One Asian guy was screaming something at them in his native tongue, which no one understood or even tried to very hard. From the way the other four surviving crew looked at him, he was the boss.

  Ryan almost shot him down where he stood before he remembered that command might actually want to talk to the boss, so he said, “Secure them all below somewhere and mount a guard. If they so much as sneeze, shoot em. The rest of you, lets start looking for Mr. Rincons missile launcher.

  An hour later, they had inspected the Agafia bow to stern, containers hold, engine room, galley, and staterooms, and they still hadnt found it.

  USCG HELO 6S

  ICE WAS BUILDING UP on the rescue hoist. No one in the aircraft said anything about it because what was the point, but the silence was getting a little strained.

  Laird pointed at the radar screen. Sams nodded without leaning over to look. The radar was degrading because ice was building on the nose of the aircraft, too.

  Theyd left the Agafia with forty-five minutes of fuel remaining in their tanks. Theyd been in the air forty-seven minutes. Sams avoided looking at the fuel gauge, concentrating instead on the horizon, a dark gray, featureless expanse. Hed put some altitude between the helo and the deck so hed have some choices when the time came.

  When it did, it came fast, and it looked like a tall iceberg, so he didnt see it at first. Laird shouted and
pointed, and there it was, a steep cliff footed with a narrow strip of beach. He eyeballed it. It ought to be wide enough for the fifty-one foot rotor.

  It had to be.

  One engine died, and they made the beach.

  The other died, and they started to fall.

  After that, they started to spin.

  JANUARY

  BERING SEA

  ON BOARD THE USC6 CUTTER SOJOURNER TRUTH

  S

  ARA WAS ICILY CALM. “I believed you, I backed your story with the captain. Now hes dead and there is no missile launcher on the ship we just boarded at gunpoint.

  Hugh was standing on the bridge, his hands dangling at his sides. “I dont understand it, he said.

  “That makes you and a ship full of Coasties who dont understand it, she said.

  There was a rumble of agreement which she stilled with a glare.

  “Noortman gave me the port, he gave me the ship, he gave me everything. Hugh stopped suddenly, brows furrowing.

  Sara waited. When he didnt say anything else, she said, “Yeah, well, your thumbnail-pulling skills must not be quite up to CIA par because it looks like he lied through his teeth.

  Hugh met her eyes and the words dried up in her mouth. Shed never seen that expression on Hughs face. “They were running with their lights on, he said.

  “Who was?

  “The Agafia. They were running with their lights on.

  “So? she said. “Its kind of, oh, I dont know, the law?

  “Why? If they wanted to run from you, why run with their lights on? Why make it easier to follow them?

  “I can find a boil on the ass of a wildebeest in Africa with our radar, Sara said. “I dont need running lights.

  “Still, it helped you find them, Hugh said. “And what about Noort-man?

  “What about your unimpeachable source?

  “They didnt kill him, Hugh said. “They may have killed Peter, but they didnt try to kill Noortman.

  “And Peter is? Sara said.

  “The arms dealer in Odessa who brokered their deal with the North Korean for the cesium and the North Korean missile launcher. Why? Why try to kill him and not kill Noortman?