Dangerous Ground: The Team Book Five

by David M. Salkin

  “A reserve force will remain here to train the next group of soldiers. You and I will also remain here. From this location, with the sultan’s help, we can run any missions in the future. No one will know where we are, and we will unleash God’s will all over the world from this humble post.”

  Hamdi smiled at the vision of cities burning and infidels torn to pieces. “God willing.”

  Mohammed continued thoughtfully. “Hazrol will lead the men to the ship. Each man will have been given his specific target, and at the correct moment, your vests will detonate. My only regret is that we won’t be able to watch it as it happens.”

  Hamdi nodded. “The blood of the infidels will turn the streets red.”

  Chapter 19

  Washington, DC

  Chris and Julia were dressed for a night out. In her little black dress and high heels, she was stunning. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun, showing off her sculpted face and glowing complexion. Chris wore dress jeans and a dark shirt under a dressy vest.

  They were ready for a night on the town.

  Or, to look like they were ready for a night on the town.

  They waited until after two in the morning to start walking to the apartment building where the secretary of state kept one of her residences. This apartment was almost twenty-five hundred square feet on the top floor of a ten-story building, and worth a few million because of its location. Dozens of embassies from all over the globe made the area their home, which is why the secretary kept her “work apartment” there. It wasn’t her official office, just where she could meet with foreign ambassadors, heads of state, and occasional international art smugglers.

  The doorman left at eleven each night and locked the front doors behind him. Only residents with a key could get in after that. Or people who had friends in the CIA. Chris and Julia walked slowly, arm in arm, like a couple who had enjoyed a night out on the town. The August weather was hot and humid, and without the excuse of coats, Julia had to carry a very large but fashionable bag. Chris had texted Darren Davis before turning on to their target street, and security cameras and alarms miraculously turned off. Chris slid his key, compliments of Darren, into the lock and opened the door.

  The building was quiet, and only dim lighting remained on in the vestibule. They got into the elevator, used their key once again to gain access to the tenth floor, and headed up to the secretary’s apartment. When the doors slid open, they were relieved to see the hallway empty. There were two large apartments that took up the entire tenth floor, and both were vacant at the moment. They quickly keyed into the target apartment and closed the door behind them.

  Julia opened her bag and handed Chris his night-vision glasses. She then put her own night-vision glasses on and changed out of her heels into flat-bottomed rubber-soled shoes. The two of them walked quietly room by room and confirmed they were alone, then began photographing every piece of art they saw with their infrared cameras. They finished their search in silence and returned to the front door, where they removed and packed the night viz, and Julia changed back into her heels.

  The elevator ride down seemed to take forever, and they held hands and prayed no one would be downstairs waiting for them when the doors slid open. They left without incident and walked quickly back to where they’d come from. The next part of their operation would be a little trickier.

  Chapter 20

  South China Sea

  The team stood at the rail of the large trawler, eyes closed and faces to the sun, enjoying the warm rays and ocean spray, as she chugged through calm seas. The men always felt much more at home on the water, other than Hodges, the lone Marine.

  Apo and Bruce would be flying out to join them at the oil platform once they were all set up. The semi-submersible was in position, having arrived from Palawan the day before, and floated next to its tender waiting for the crew to arrive and drop the long anchor cables in the exact location.

  As the hulking steel tower came into view, the team watched in silence. They were used to being the best at everything they did. Trying to anchor the semi-submersible oil platform into the correct position and act like they knew what they were doing would be stressful, to say the least. While most of the systems were set up to be fully automated by computer, there was still work that needed to be done manually, and learning how to run a multimillion-dollar oil rig typically took more than a one-week crash course.

  Ripper leaned over to Moose on the ship’s bow rail. “So, skipper—you think we’re actually going to be able to anchor this thing, or are we about to sink a few hundred million dollars’ worth of gear into the ocean?”

  Moose wasn’t smiling. “I’d rather be dropped out of an airplane behind enemy lines than do what we have to do next.”

  “Yeah, but do we know what we have to do next?”

  “You better hope so. I’ll go down with the ship. You’ll have to answer to Darren Davis.”

  Ripper smiled. “I’d rather go down with the ship.”

  “Exactly.”

  The ship’s whistle went off so loudly that everyone jumped. Moose looked at Ripper. “They’re playing our song.”

  Moose walked up to the bridge of the rusty old trawler and conferred with the captain. They would get close to the rig, and then a small skiff would transport them over. Once there, they would communicate by radio with the rig tender’s captain until they were in the exact position they needed to be in, at which time they’d drop the cables into six hundred feet of water.

  The trawler slowed until it came to a stop, about a hundred yards away from the other ship. The two ships were dwarfed by the massive steel structure that floated behind the tender. The team loaded their gear onto the skiff below and headed over to their new home, chugging through the gentle swells. The skiff stopped at the waterline platform of the rig and tied off, and the boat’s three-man crew helped the team quickly unload their gear and supplies. The group worked quickly and efficiently, the way they always did, and in fifteen minutes, their ride cast off and returned to the trawler.

  “There goes our taxi,” said Hodges.

  The team began the task of bringing the gear up to their rooms via the rig’s freight elevator, a mostly open metal cage that made the trip up and down the platform relatively quickly, if not loudly. Moose, Ripper, and Pete McCoy headed to the command center of the rig and powered up the computer system while the other four finished carrying and stowing gear and supplies. McCoy had trained on the computer system that controlled navigation and GPS, and it would be up to him to make sure they were in the right spot. The computer’s GPS had been put together by Langley’s operational and support personnel and was pre-programmed to the exact coordinates of their nuclear target. These same support personnel had also stashed weapons all over the platform. McCoy sat at the large console looking at their location on a map that was similar to Google Earth and showed their location in real time. Moose and Ripper stood behind him, watching the screens.

  McCoy turned on the sound for his headset and mic. “Tender Pissarro, this is Oil Platform Sunrise, come in, over.”

  An Australian-sounding voice returned the radio call. “Sunrise, this is Captain Emerson of the Pissarro. You can call me M. I’m ready for your instructions. Over.”

  “Thank you, M. Alex here,” he replied, referring to the name on his Canadian passport. “My GPS coordinates have our location very close to the target. Good job. Over.”

  “We aim to please, Mr. Alex. Just tell me where we need to bring you. Over.”

  “The exact location is almost half a kilometer east by northeast. Location is six degrees, eighteen minutes, and thirty-one point thirty-one degrees north, by one-hundred thirteen degrees, sixteen minutes, and forty-six point fifty-nine degrees east. That will put us in six hundred feet of water. You’ll see barges nearby. Over.”

  “Another island popping up here in the South China Sea?
Over.”

  “Affirmative. Seems to be the fashion these days. Over.”

  “Right-o, mate. I’ll have you parked on that location down to the square millimeter in about twenty minutes. These things take a little finesse, though. I’ll be off the radio unless you have an emergency. Pissarro, out.”

  McCoy looked over at Moose and Ripper and shrugged. “That’s it, skipper. He’ll tow us to the spot, and then we drop the cables.”

  Moose patted McCoy on the shoulder. “Good job. You stay on the console. Ripper, you’re with me. Let’s get these sailors in position for the cable drop.”

  The semi-submersible platform was designed to float in place, slightly submerged once the cables were dropped. By allowing some water into the ballast tanks once on location, the floating platform remained stable even in foul weather. The process of dropping the giant cables served to anchor the platform. The massive cables were extremely heavy, and once horizontally seated on the ocean floor, they would fix the platform’s position.

  Normally, a platform the size of the Sunrise would have a crew of about 120 men, but since this operation had nothing to do with drilling for oil, the skeleton crew present was all they needed to get anchored. The men moved about the platform, releasing safeties and unlocking the mechanisms that would drop the massive cables once Pete McCoy hit the buttons up in the control room.

  After a few minutes, the platform stopped moving and the Aussie skipper’s voice came back over the radio. “All right, mate. Welcome to your new home. Good luck. I hope you hit plenty of that black gold. Over.”

  “Excellent. Thank you, skipper. Appreciate the ride. We’re preparing to drop our cables, over.”

  “Right. As soon as you drop your first cable, I’ll release our towlines and you’re on your own. Cheers, mate. Out.”

  Pete pressed the button that sounded the blast horn, and smiled ear to ear. He had always wanted to do that aboard a ship. Once the blast was finished, his walkie-talkie crackled.

  “Ready on the deck,” said Moose’s voice.

  “Ready here. Dropping the first cable, stand by.” McCoy pressed the console button and a few hundred tons of steel cable began running off the giant spool. The metal roared and echoed as it spun off the spool. It hit the ocean surface with a giant splash and then just cut through the water on the way to the bottom. The massive structure rocked only a little as its weight shifted.

  McCoy spoke into his radio, “Sunrise to Pissarro, cable one deployed. Over.”

  “Right. Good luck. This is the Pissarro, cutting you free and heading off. Out.”

  The tender began releasing its cables thus freeing the platform, as its massive diesel engines chugged back to life. As it slowly moved away from the semi-submersible, McCoy began releasing the other anchoring cables. The platform rocked and swayed gently in the water as hundreds of tons of steel dropped six hundred feet. Within ten minutes, the Sunrise was firmly anchored on the seabed floor.

  From the top of the platform, the team could see the booms and massive cranes flying Bruneian flags off in the distance, busy at work making a new island in the South China Sea.

  Chapter 21

  Jungle One Kilometer West of Kampong Aht

  Zyy moved silently through the jungle with his youngest son, a ten-year-old now on his first real hunt. Although Yin had practiced with his bow and arrow on birds for several years, he had never gone with his father on a real hunt. It was an exciting day, and only the two of them had gone out, by design. Zyy was teaching his son the same way he had taught his two older sons, and the same way his own father had taught him. They were descendants of the Penan people, and were wiry and brown, wearing only loincloths, with bowl-cut black hair.

  Yin followed his father’s footsteps, each of his small footprints inside his father’s. The jungle was steamy and hot, and a mist hung in the foliage. A large pangolin moved on a tree branch, and Yin tapped his father’s leg, excited to have spotted it before his father. Zyy patted the boy’s head and smiled, but shook his head no. The large anteater was not their quarry.

  They continued in silence for another thirty minutes, until Zyy stopped and squatted. He pointed to the large hoofprint in the mud and smiled broadly. A large Bornean bearded pig had been here recently. The plants had been torn up as the animal had rooted around looking for food. Zyy removed the bow from across his back and nocked an arrow. Yin mimicked his father, so excited he could barely contain himself.

  Zyy moved along slowly and quietly, until he found what he knew he would—lots of other hoofprints. The animals traveled in family groups, and he hoped they would be able to hunt down two of the juveniles. The parents could produce more, thus not ending the source of their food, and the two smaller animals would be easier to carry than a giant wild hog.

  The two of them followed the hoofprints along the trail, speeding up their pace as they grew more anxious. They were extremely focused on the hunt.

  The sudden sound of automatic weapon fire scared them so badly they dropped to the ground.

  Yin looked at his father, terrified. He had never heard a gun before. Zyy shushed him and waited for it to stop, then took his son’s hand and ran quickly through the jungle toward the river. Yin knew better to ask what they were doing; he simply ran along with his father, anxious to know what was making the terrifying noise. It sounded like the stormy sky, but the sun was out. Zyy slowed down as they approached the river, scanning the jungle in every direction as they moved.

  Yin saw it first.

  A small child had been torn apart by the wild pigs. As destroyed as the body was, it was still discernable as a human child. Yin cried out, then put his hand over his mouth. Zyy grabbed his son to protect him, then spotted the body. He led his son past the corpse, toward the river. It was there that Zyy saw the remnants of multiple half-eaten corpses. Birds picked at them, exposing the bones to the hot sun. Zyy was horrified. There were so many. This was no hunting accident.

  He whispered to his son to be invisible and silent, and the two of them worked their way along the river until the gunfire erupted again. Zyy and Yin moved toward the sound like ghosts among the ferns. Finally, they found the source of the noise. Dozens of men were firing guns at targets they had set up in the jungle. Zyy and Yin moved around them, giving them a wide berth, until they could see the kampong called Aht. There were many men there, but they weren’t the villagers. Zyy’s face fell. These men had come and killed everyone and taken a village that wasn’t theirs. He whispered to Yin, and the two of them began racing through the jungle back to their own kampong located half a day away.

  Chapter 22

  USS John Warner

  Commander Vince Norman sat in his command chair looking at the flat-screen that showed the surface world. The first time he saw the bridge of the new submarine he would be commanding, for a split second he was a bit disappointed. He had always assumed he’d be standing at the periscope, looking out through a small window that only he could view. His disappointment vanished when he saw what the new photonic mast could do. Instead of a scene from some black-and-white World War II movie, he was now in the command chair of a Star Trek episode.

  With his finger, he used the joystick to scan 360 degrees around the surface world. It was 0200, and completely dark outside, but his monitor made the surface look like daytime, owing to its infrared cameras. When he saw the lights, he zoomed in and smiled.

  “Thar she blows,” he said with a grin.

  The new oil platform stood over 450 feet high at the top of the drill tower. It had safety lights on it that glowed bright yellow on his infrared screen. Because they were at periscope depth, they could send and receive e-mail. The captain could have just called the team on the rig by radio, but for security reasons he used the encrypted e-mail. He typed his message to the e-mail address that had been supplied to him on his last surfacing.

  JW to team. Welc
ome to the South China Sea. We’re fully briefed on your mission and position and are prepared to assist in all ways possible. We will provide security and intelligence as you operate. We will also provide escort to the trawler that will be transporting your cargo. Communications will be limited, and only at night. Should you need to alert us for comms, use infrared strobe lights on the rig, and we will contact you as soon as possible. This vessel is capable of transporting all of you in the event of an emergency. Will be able to receive reply until 0215. Good luck, JW, CO

  The computer on board the oil platform dinged as the message came in, and Moose, who happened to be on watch, entered the password and opened the e-mail. He typed his brief reply.

  Team CO to JW. Nice to have you on our six. Will commence recovery efforts tomorrow and advise. CO, Moose. Out.

  Moose leaned back in the heavy leather chair and let himself relax as he looked at the closed-circuit TV monitors and sonar and radar screen. Any ship approaching their oil platform would be spotted almost a half-mile out. Hodges was up top with his sniper rifle on “fire watch” while Moose manned the console. Everyone was trying to sleep. Jon Cohen was lying on his bunk, staring at the darkness and smiling in nervous anticipation. All the prepping in the world couldn’t prepare him for handling fifty-year-old nukes, and he knew it. He made himself breathe in and out slowly and tried his best to sleep, but visions of deep-sea creatures kept creeping into his brain.

  Chapter 23

  Oil Platform Sunrise

  The team was up at 0600. Jon Cohen’s ADS 2000 had been crated and installed on the bottom deck of the rig so that it was ready to be deployed. A few fake walls had been built around the housing unit, should anyone inspect the rig before the team got there, but the precautions had been unnecessary. The Newtsuit was attached to its support frame by the cable that would remain attached to the helmet when Jon submerged. Once he was in the suit, his team would use the support frame’s small winch to move him out over the water and begin lowering him.