Countdown: The Liberators-ARC

by Tom Kratman

  "It is confirmed by your people that the target is at home," Boxer said. "How they know this I wouldn't speculate."

  "If the old man says the Arab's home; he's home," Konstantin said. "Though I, too, wouldn't care to speculate on how." Because I know the old man has someone in the house . . . .errr . . . palace. Code Name: Lada. Or maybe his . . . or more likely her . . . real name. And that's all I know . . . .well, and that I'm supposed to get that person out when we go. Wonder why he didn't give us a picture with the target folder.

  And I shudder, because some of what the old man wants me to do . . . I just don't think I can.

  With the ship's gantry whining to the sides and overhead, Konstantin left the superstructure by the hatch most level with the container-supported flight deck. He passed between eight inward-facing, small short take off and landing-STOL-aircraft. These were idle with their pilots standing by or sitting inside or on the deck as the mood took them. Two LCMs were exposed, as were the empty space for another and the cradle that had once held the patrol boat, The Drunken Bastard. Those craft were already moving to the south, toward a rendezvous on the coast.

  Konstantin passed beside three very small off road motorcycles-dirt bikes-strapped under the helicopter's pylons. These were attached to the wing, rather than to one of the two hardpoints on this side. On the other side, he knew, was a weapons container with the arms and equipment his half of the team would need for the mission. There were extra fuel pods on each side to extend the range. The other helicopter, holding Praporschik Baluyev, plus Kravchenko and Litvinov, carried the same load. Strapped to their bellies, each helicopter carried a brace each of desert camouflage screens and poles. There were also two weapons pods between the pair, one for unguided rockets and one for guided missiles. They didn't expect to actually need the weapons, not with the chin guns armed and ready. But one never knew.

  Looking toward the ship's bow, before entering his helicopter, the Russian noted that the forward mast had been dropped. The helicopters wouldn't need the clearance, he knew, but the light airplanes would.

  Inside, Timer Musin sat next to the presumed homosexual, Galkin, in two of the seats in the cramped compartment behind the engines of the MI-28. He reached a hand out to help Konstantin through the tiny door that opened just under the jet engine's exhaust. Though the engine was idling, hot jet-fuel-stinky fumes entered the compartment. Had it not been for Konstantin's bulk filling the door space, they'd have been a lot worse. Musin handed Konstantin a pair of headphones as he settled himself into the altogether too narrow seat, closing and locking the little door behind him. He put the headphones on, adjusted the boom mike and announced, "Ready."

  The pilot didn't acknowledge. Instead, the engines began to whine with almost painful force. Then the first MI-28 leapt upward, surged forward, and twisted in air. Once it was clear of the ship, it dove for the surface of the sea, and then began the relatively short flight to the general area of the objective.

  D-2, Beach Green One, west of Bandar Qassim, Ophir

  The night was still darker than a slave dealer's soul. There were no automobiles on the coastal highway that ran parallel to the beach to illuminate things. Rather, there were no running automobiles. There was one, a Hummer stolen from a nongovernmental organization and purchased from the thieves, just off the highway, parked, idle, and dark.

  There was also an artificial light, hanging on a ten foot pole, but that light was infrared and most unlikely to be seen by anyone not looking for it and equipped to find it. Under that light, Buckwheat Fulton's world phone sat on his lap, as dark for the moment as the coast itself. He, in turn, sat on his ass, on a lonely beach not far from a lonely city, facing across the Gulf of Aden toward the Arabian Peninsula. Somewhere, not too far to the north, a landing craft bearing three men and two Land Rovers, along with enough arms, ammunition, and other more-than-suspicious equipment to earn several life sentences nearly anywhere, churned its way to the coast.

  Beside Fulton, likewise in the sand, sat Wahab. The two had sat in silence for a long time, ever since arrival, really.

  "I sometimes miss the communists, don't you know, Robert," said the African, breaking the silence. "Life was simpler then."

  "You mean the graft was better," Fulton half-joked in answer. He lifted a set of night vision goggles to his eyes and scanned the sea for a sign of the LCM or the patrol boat he suspected would escort it.

  "That, too, of course," Wahab agreed. "Being paid by the Russians to sabotage you, by the United States to sabotage them, and by the French to ensure that the sun never set on the French Empire . . . " Wahab sighed. "Those were good days. Even the Italians occasionally kicked in."

  "That's not even counting the stipend your chief got from the Catholic Church for watching out for its interests," Fulton replied.

  "Well, of course not," Wahab said, shaking his head. "Nor even what the Saudis funneled us. He always gave those stipends back anyway, in one form or another. Taking from God and actually keeping the money . . . that would have been wrong. For that matter, I can't even say with a straight face that we ever really screwed the Russians for you, or your side for the Russians."

  Fulton shook his head, unseen by his companion. He'd spent quite a bit of time by now with Wahab, and liked the African a great deal. Even so, Thank God my multi-great granddaddy got dragged onto that boat.

  Wahab went silent again. He, too, searched the sea for a sign of the landing craft. Without Fulton's goggles, he had scant chance of seeing it. On the other hand, without the goggles much more of his attention could be focused on his hearing, better than the American's, in any case, for not having grown up in the industrialized west.

  "There," Wahab announced, pointing in a particular direction out to sea. "Not sure how far off, but there's a powerful engine-no . . . two of them . . . straining and they're much closer than a merchant ship is likely to come to the shore."

  Fulton redirected his attention, returning the NVGs to his face. At first he saw nothing but the green-tinged surf. He kept looking until first one, then a pair of lights bobbed up above the waters. He picked up his world phone and pressed a button. There was a brief delay as the call was processed.

  "Buckwheat, Rattus. I see a light."

  Fulton wrapped one hand around the pole and began rocking it to and fro.

  "Correction, I see a rocking light."

  "That's me," Fulton said. "The beach is clear."

  "Coming in."

  The LCM's engines still strained, holding it and its lowered ramp snug against the shore and against the pull of the receding tide. Over the ramp came a Land Rover to thump and splash into the surf, before churning its way up to the beach. A second Land Rover followed.

  Yeah, okay, thought Fulton. Maybe they are just about the most reliable vehicles in the world and maybe three quarters of all of those ever built are still running. But the military calculation remains: If you need X at the objective you must start with at least X plus one. Since we really only need one besides the Hummer, we must start with two or Murphy's finger shall lance out and touch us with bad juju. That, or the Buddha will ensure bad karma . . . or God will just fuck us over. Same things, really. And I still remember that limey Marine's ass on fire when his Land Rover decided to spontaneously combust in Kurdistan, back in 1991.

  The vehicles pulled up and out of the water, their wheels bouncing as their frames spouted salt water downward. From the second one Rattus emerged. "Everything's packed and ready, Buckwheat. Including sterile uniforms. Not that those will help us in the slightest."

  "Who's the team?" Fulton asked.

  "Besides you, Wahab, and myself," Rattus answered, "we've got Fletcher to snipe and a Brit engineer named Babcock-Moore; ‘Vic' he goes by, to help spot. Or blow shit up if required.; we've got a demo kit for that, too. He's driving the other Land Rover. Seems pretty competent, if a little formal."

  Buckwheat Fulton shrugged. "We can deal with formality . . . even if it is a little uncomfortable." He
turned to Wahab and said, "Take the Hummer to the safe house in Elayo. We'll follow and hole up."

  D-2, MV Merciful, Gulf of Aden

  "Reduce speed to four knots," Kosciusko ordered.

  "Aye, sir," the helmsman replied, reaching out to pull back the throttles on the panel before him. The vibrations felt through the deck immediately lessened and every man aboard was leaned forward.

  It was a dangerous move, really, given that the area had been known for piracy for quite some time, and given that the Merciful's escort, The Drunken Bastard, Chin, commanding, was still far behind, escorting the LCM that had landed Rattus and party on the beach to join Buckwheat and Wahab. Dangerous though it may have been, slowing was necessary to recover the LCM, to regain protection from the Bastard, and-for the moment, most importantly-to launch the minisub.

  Biggus Dickus Thornton's crew were up next. And Biggus was not amused by it. He couldn't go. They'd tried, but there was simply no way that three ex-SEALs, plus all the diving gear and explosives, could fit inside the tiny sub if one of the three was the size of Thornton. Even if he would have fit, though, along with the required equipment, the boat's minimal life support could only handle three smaller men. Biggus Dickus used enough oxygen for any two others. Instead, Eeyore Antoniewicz and Morales, both on the short side, plus Simmons who was big but not as big as Thornton, were going. Biggus had to stay on the ship.

  He wasn't happy about it. He'd considered pressing to put just two men aboard the sub. That was, after all, her normal crew. But he couldn't do the explosives job himself quickly enough; it was a two man job . . . and somebody had to stay with the sub or it was going to be a long swim to Aden. His only consolation, such as it was, was that at least he would be spared the humiliation of riding an ex-Sea Shepherd, Orca-painted minisub.

  I shouldn't worry, Biggus thought. This is the least time sensitive of the missions. All they have to do is ensure every potentially armed boat in the harbor is mined before sunrise. Piece of cake, really.

  The mines the group were to use were called limpets. These were very special limpets, however, manufactured in fairly small lots for Soviet naval special forces, during the Cold War, then obtained by Victor and reconditioned. Each weighed about nine pounds. They were generally hemispheric in shape, and measured three and a half inches, at their thickest, by about nine in diameter. To that thickness could be added a small, round projection from which sprouted two pull pins and a small, fold out propeller. Moreover, around their edges were three eye-bolt type screws for affixing them to wooden or fiberglass hulls. Internally they mounted four rather strong magnets.

  The pull-pins armed, in one case, internal antihandling devices. These did not necessarily prevent the mines from being removed from the side of a ship or boat to which they had been attached. They did tend to ensure that the diver removing them would have very little time for self-congratulation. The other pin allowed the propellers to spin once removed, and started a preset clock ticking. The propellers, once freed by removal of the second pin, would turn as the target boats moved through the sea, fully arming the mines after about a mile of movement, and self-detonating them after about twelve miles. In theory. Victor had warned them that twelve miles could be fifty or more, or two or less, depending on both quality control at the original factory and quality control among the people he'd hired to recondition the mines.

  Those settings could be varied prior to employment. In this case, twelve miles was Boxer's best guess as to just how far the typical pirate couldn't swim. "The world has little interest in living pirates," Boxer had said, a point with which Stauer had utterly agreed.

  Namu, for so the minisub had been nicknamed, carried thirty-six limpets, four pods of nine each. The pods were a bit over nine inches in diameter, three and a half feet long, and had holes in them to permit water to displace air. In all, like the limpets, they were mildly negatively buoyant to permit easier underwater control.

  Thirty-six was rather more than the number of potentially significant boats expected in Bandar Qassim harbor. Then again, the most important factor in calculating explosive use was "Factor P, for plenty."

  Unlike The Drunken Bastard and the landing craft, the minisub Namu could not be boarded-not safely, practically, quickly, and efficiently, in any case, not with the requisite equipment-after being hauled over the side. Instead, the crew would load it aboard ship, then be raised and lowered to the water as a unit.

  It was already hooked up to the gantry by its attached lifting rings. This had been started as soon as the Bastard and the LCM had been lowered over the side, then completed as the Russian helicopters had taken off. The slack was already out of the lifting cables.

  Biggus climbed up on the cradle holding the Namu and looked down on a very scrunched up, tropical wet-suited Eeyore. He could make out Morales's black-clad back just forward of that and the backs of Simmons' legs stretching out to either side along the inner hull. Simmons drove the boat from a padded horizontal bench, on his belly, looking through a clear, round viewport. A metal frame ran from the sub forward of the view port to protect it from accidental impact. Rebreathers-Russian IDA71's, courtesy of Victor– were laid up beside the sub's driver. The limpet mine pods were likewise, but forward of the rebreathers. All the men, including Simmons, were outfitted for a dive, though there was no room for a rebreather for Simmons. There were two Russian built APS underwater assault rifles in there somewhere. These were of very limited utility in air.

  "Don't fuck it up, Eeyore," Biggus Dickus said, looking down into the boat's tiny conning tower.

  Antoniewicz strained his neck to look up. He shrugged, "What's to fuck up, Chief? Simmons gets us to within a quarter mile of the harbor and surfaces. Morales and I unass, put on the equipment, get the pods, swim in, and mine the boats. Then we swim back to the sub and head toward the Merciful. Piece of cake."

  "Nothing's a piece of cake, Eeyore." Biggus shook a cautionary finger. "Murphy has his eye on you. His pulsating prong of perversity is greased and waiting for your ass to be exposed. His dangling dong of destiny vibrates in anticipation. The reaming rod of randomness . . . "

  Antoniewicz held up a hand. "I read that story, too, Chief. I'm not a future Israeli on a distant planet. This will not be that hard. Trust me."

  Thornton sneered, then relented. "I'm just pissed I can't go."

  "We know, Chief," Eeyore sympathized.

  Biggus nodded his head, then backed off from the sub. He raised one hand, palm up. Overhead, the controller of the gantry saw and pulled back on a stick. The Chinese woman wearing the night vision goggles had had a lot of practice, both in port at Manaus and on the way here. With a whine, the sub began to rise, the cables lightly vibrating under the load. A different whine began as the gantry's arm was rotated outward.

  Once the sub was clear of the deck, Thornton scrambled to the gunwale and watched it descend to the water. When it touched and sank a bit, the cables grew slack. The sub began to pull sternward, building up a small wake. Simmons matched speed and the cables grew slack. From overhead, the Chinese woman released them at the points where they'd held the sub.

  "I'm just pissed I can't go," Thornton repeated, in a whisper, as the sub turned away and began its lonely journey to the harbor. He began to turn away, then suddenly turned back to catch a last glimpse of the Namu, whispering again, "Good luck, boys."

  Good luck, boys, Stauer thought, as he watched the Namu eased over the side. His anxiety level was high, though no one could tell it from his face. Indeed, it had gone up, rather than down, with each separate launching. And it would go up still more until the last man was recovered, back on the ship, and heading away.

  It was part of the price of command and one of the reasons so comparatively few people could be commanders.

  Nothing more I can do about it at this point, Stauer thought, not so much dismissing the Namu and her crew as compartmentalizing them into the part of his mind labeled, "Beyond your control."

  Stauer looked d
own at a number of aircraft, idling on the flight deck. Besides, I've got more immediate problems.

  D-2, MV Merciful, Indian Ocean, rounding the Horn of Africa

  The moon was just beginning to peek over the ocean to the east. The gantry was rolled all the way back, as far as it would go, towards the ship's superstructure. PSP-perforated steel planking-was laid out between rows of containers lining either side and virtually the full length of the ship forward of the gantry. The forward mast was long dropped.

  On the PSP the eight light, single engine, short take off and landing aircraft belonging to the group idled. Two of these weren't, strictly speaking, needed for the current lift. They were there, however, assembled and crewed, to serve as backups should one of the six designated airplanes for this part of the mission fail.

  Always nice to have a back up, Terry Welch thought, looking at the two extras, sitting directly under the gantry. At the same time, unconsciously, he patted the reserve parachute strapped across his stomach. It occurred to Welch that any comfort he derived from having a reserve chute was possibly false comfort; he and his men were going to jump so low that a reserve chute might activate, if at all, only after they had been driven several feet into the ground.

  Vibrations ran through the PSP. Whether that was from the airplanes or from the engines straining below to bring the ship up to full speed for the launch, neither Terry nor any of the men clustered around him could tell.

  "It's really overkill," said McCaverty, the lead pilot for the mission, glancing down and around at the PSP.

  Terry hadn't heard over the massed roar of the engines. "What was that?" he asked.

  McCaverty pointed down at the planking, then ran his finger forward toward the bow to where the steel disappeared in the darkness.