Countdown: The Liberators-ARC

by Tom Kratman

"Stand by, Mrs. Liu," he repeated into his radio.

  "Still stan'ing by, Skippah."

  "Then . . . Mrs . . . Liu . . . on my command . . . DROP, DROP, DROP!"

  The yacht was taking on water, yes, but nothing the pumps shouldn't be able to handle, at least for while. Nadif hadn't been able to break away from the merchie. He had his rudder hard to port but as the One Born Every Minute attempted even a minute turn, the swing of the merchant ship cancelled it, pinning it to the line of the merchie's hull as that hull continued to scrape by. That said, as he neared the stern Nadif could feel the force exerted against his boat lessening.

  Nadif was pretty sure his own hull was at least slightly sprung. Not too bad for the pumps, though, or that thing might have driven right over us. If worse comes to worst I can set the crew, what's left of them, to bailing by hand. Should be able to make it to shore, at least, if not to port.

  Most important to-

  Thought incomplete, Nadif glanced up and said, "Fuck!"

  The container hadn't quite passed the halfway point of its outward swing when Mrs. Liu released the gantry's burden. One corner struck the gunwale and set the thing to a slow spin. In practice, this meant that it hit the boat below almost edge on, crushing several men under its nearly four tons of weight and smashing one side of the boat to below the waterline. One of the freely swinging doors was almost vertical when it struck. This chopped sloppily through a young pirate on all fours, amidships and through the middle of his body. Blood gushered out across the pirate's deck in both directions. The boy barely had time to register what had happened to him before a corner of the container cruched his skull like a soft boiled egg.

  The container strike also listed the boat to port. Pressure from the Merciful's dance forced water in at a rate no practical pumps for a boat that size could have dealt with. The water added to the list until resistance from the water below, coupled with pressure from the Merciful above, plus the container induced list, capsized the smaller vessel.

  Kosciusko smiled at the screaming below. He really didn't like pirates. Looking down, he said, "See? I tolll' ya." Into his radio he gave the order, "Resume course. Full speed."

  "Any survivors?" Stauer asked, once Kosciusko had returned to the bridge.

  "Doubt it," the sailor answered, smiling. Turning to the helm he said, "Keep a watch out for the other reported boat. Have the forward lookouts relieved and the new ones do the same."

  Unseen by anyone, blood from the sundered young pirate, as well as from various cuts, abrasions, compound fractures, and split skulls, seeped into the water around the ruin of the yacht.

  When the container hit, it had thrown Nadif and the helmsman from the yacht's bridge into the water. The pirate skipper had gone under, at first, then surfaced to witness as the helmsman, screaming in panic, was forced under the wreck and lost. Nadif, an experienced seaman, was made of better stuff. Paddling frantically, he swam away from the ship. For a while, he seemed to be losing. But then, he had a chance, he knew, when he saw the merchant ship steer to its port.

  If I can hang on until some wreckage surfaces too, I can make it. It's a long swim to shore but not an impossible one.

  And then he felt a sharp tug from below.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The medics jumped and screamed with glee,

  Rolled up their sleeves and smiled.

  -Anonymous, "Blood on the Risers"

  D-1, three miles north-northeast of Nugaal, Ophir

  "You all right, Little Joe?" Welch asked of the swaying Tex-Mex with the pack on his back and a chute rolled up and carried in his arms. Terry's pack was on his back, chute over his shoulder. He carried a stubby and conventional looking Russian-made "Kashtan" submachine gun in his hands, a suppressor extending far past the barrel of the piece.

  Venegas didn't answer right away, as if he hadn't quite understood the question. When he did answer, his voice sounded much weaker than normal. "Hit my head on a rock, Terry. Helmet's only good for so much."

  "Can you make it to the drop-off point?" Welch asked.

  "Not a lot of choice."

  "No," Terry agreed, then lifted his goggles and consulted his watch. And not a lot of time until moonrise, so . . . "Let's get moving." He replaced the goggles and glanced again at Little Joe. "Give me the chute," he ordered. Looking around, his gaze came to rest on one of the other team members, Darrell Hammell, the Tennessee ridge runner generally known as "Pigfucker."

  "Pigfucker, take Little Joe's rifle and helmet," Welch said.

  "Roger, sir," Pigfucker replied.

  "And Ryan, get his ruck."

  "Roger."

  "And . . . let's move. Little Joe, stick by me."

  "Roger."

  The short, thin column snaked and weaved its way up the rocky hillside. Slowly. Very slowly. They moved slowly enough, in fact, that Terry began to worry about getting to their hide for the day and camouflaging everything before sunrise. He turned his torso and head to look at Venegas, following close behind. No, he's not up to bearing his own load yet. Shit.

  D-1, Bandar Qassim

  The newly-indeed just-rising moon cast long shadows across the water. It didn't provide much light yet, though in places it made the waves sparkle.

  The port wasn't really a natural harbor so much as a slight indentation into the land. It had been improved by man, however, by the addition of four jetties, though three of those actually formed one, long, dog-legged jetty jutting into the sea first to the northwest and then directly west.

  Antoniewicz and Morales had stopped and surfaced once, before reaching the mouth of the major harbor, to get their bearings. Now, swimming near the mixed mud and sand bottom, they entered the outer port very near the long jetty, then turned east. Since no rivers drained into the sea at the port, or for that matter anywhere nearby, the waters were quite clear. There wasn't even very much garbage floating at the surface, since in a place as poor as this one, the definition of what constituted garbage was quite constrained.

  Which is a pity, thought Eeyore, because with more garbage floating around we could put our heads up to get bearings if we needed to. Well . . . nothing for it. Needs must . . .

  As dark as it still was below the surface, they continued east by compass, as well as by the feel of the water, and the small currents, and the sound. The monoculars on their masks weren't a lot of use yet since they needed at least some light.

  The sound of a freighter, tied up to the dock, with waves and currents shifting it about, was distinctive, a combination of whoosh, groaning metal, and the occasional resounding thump.

  Target one, Antoniewicz announced to himself. Though it's probably harmless, part of our job is to punish the other side. He swam upward slightly, his fins propelling him and his hands reaching forward to prevent an unfortunate head-first bump on the hull. Morales followed closely.

  Eeyore's right hand touched on the barnacle-encrusted hull. Both arms flared out as he twisted his fins down to bring him to a complete stop. Morales bumped him from behind, then continued on to target two, a smaller ship farther in.

  Antoniewicz's legs sank slowly until he was approximately vertical next to the hull. Once he'd achieved that posture, those legs began automatically to pump slowly to maintain his position. His hand went to his side to draw his knife. With this he scraped away enough of the barnacle mass encrusting the surface to be sure of a good attachment. After he felt around the area he'd cleared, and was satisfied, he reached around and pulled a pod containing limpets to where he could open it and get at its contents. This he did, then he removed from the pod a single mine.

  The ship's hull, in planning, had been presumed to be metal, based on the size. This proved to be the case. As Eeyore's hands moved the limpet near the hull, the mine's own magnets pulled it inward. He placed both hands around it and attempted to move it. When it remained stuck fast to the hull, he pulled out first one pin, then the other. The thing was mined now, and woe betide anyone who tried to remove it. Just as unf
ortunate would be the ship itself once it had moved some distance from the harbor.

  And even if the ship doesn't move, the diver thought, in about forty-eight hours we're getting the earth-shattering-okay the hull-shattering-kaboom anyway.

  Satisfied with that, Antoniewicz swam off. Sensing the presence of at least a faint moonlight filtering through from the surface, he pulled the monocular over his right eye and turned it on. Ah, yes, that's much better. At the next target Morales was just beginning to scrape the hull when Eeyore nudged him. The former stopped what he was doing momentarily and gave a thumbs up. Eeyore saw that Morales, too, had activated his monocular. He continued on his way.

  These three biggies in the outer harbor, he thought, then we link up at the mouth of the inner harbor-north side-and it gets interesting.

  D-1, three and a half miles north-northeast of Nugaal, Ophir

  Terry glanced at his watch, did some mental calculations, looked around at the terrain he'd memorized, and called a halt. The team went into a cigar-shaped three hundred and sixty degree perimeter, each man taking a knee. The rear man, Grau, and the point, Semmerlin, each bearing one of the suppressed, subsonic sniper rifles, moved to the center, by Welch, and did likewise. Both used their rifles as crutches to help ease themselves down under the backbreaking load. Little Joe tried to take a knee, but ended up on all fours. He was vomiting onto the ground as Terry spoke in a whisper.

  "We're not going to make the planned hide before the moon has this place lit up like Christmas," Welch said. He pointed to the left and said, "There's a wadi-sort of a wadi, satellite imagery showed it has some vegetation-over that way, about a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty, meters, I think. We'll go there and hole up. Priorities of work remain the same. Questions?"

  "No, sir . . . None, boss."

  "All right. Back to your places and move out."

  The spot selected was actually just past the juncture of a smaller wadi with the major wadi. There were three reasons for this. One was that the confluence, and the resultant greater quantity of underground water, had made the spot rather more lush . . . for certain highly constrained values of "lush." Second was that it seemed to Welch to be less likely to be visited by a passing goatherd, since the major wadi had enough vegetation to feed a good sized herd while the minor held out the chance of losing a goat in it. Lastly was against the possibility of a flash flood, always a danger in the desert where rains, while infrequent, typically came unannounced. They could fill up a wadi very quickly and, the next thing the occupants knew, they were drowning or being carried off, or, more usually, both.

  While Grau and Semmerlin kept guard, the remainder of the team-including, somewhat inexpertly, the two translators-excavated one side of the wadi, saving the light colored spoil off in a separate pile. Once they had a place big enough to hide the chutes and harnesses, they carried their own in, placed them-really packed them-as tightly as possible and went to retrieve those belonging to the others. After that, the darker subsoil was shoveled over, to be followed by the lighter, dryer top soil. Then they clustered into three groups, one with Grau, one with Semmerlin, and, between the other two groupings, Little Joe plus the two translators with Welch. Over themselves they erected light weight sand and brown camouflage nets on very low collapsible poles. This was at least as much for protection from the sun-limited though that protection would be-as to hide from casual view.

  And then all but the three on watch went to sleep.

  D-1, Bandar Qassim

  Morales was sitting on his ass, arms folded, cross-legged, atop an underwater concrete block when Antoniewicz reached him after mining the third small freighter in the outer harbor. He moved his right flipper as if tap-tap-tapping with impatience. If the mouthpiece made it impossible to smile, still Eeyore was pretty sure his teammate was smiling inside.

  This shit's fun.

  With hand signals, Eeyore reconfirmed what had already been planned and agreed to: Morales would sweep the northern and eastern sides of the inner harbor, mining any boat as large as twenty feet in length, while Eeyore followed the north-south jetty before moving to the southern edge of the port, to do the same. Eeyore had the shorter swim but, since the inner side of that north-south jetty was tightly clustered with hulls, about the same "work load." In fact, if the ship and boat positions hadn't changed substantially since the last satellite update, by the time Morales worked his way through the northern, eastern, and southern sides, Antoniewicz would only be about half done with the western. Morales would then start with the southernmost cluster of boats on that western side.

  Reaching down to his right wrist, Eeyore twisted the dial on his wrist compass to a bearing of one hundred and fifty degrees. This was conservative, as it would bring him to a little dogleg jutting eastward from the southern jetty. He'd then follow that around to the targets.

  Dragging his underwater assault rifle and sixteen limpet mines, Antoniewicz kicked off on his set bearing. With the fins he wore, and the shape he was in, he'd crossed the roughly sixty meters in about twenty-five seconds, despite the load he was dragging. In his monocular he saw the indistinct outline of what was probably a very bored guard.

  And I'm so glad we're using rebreathers rather than tanks, Eeyore thought. Even if they are Russian and even if the slightest mistake that might let water get at the potassium superoxide would make for a really big and hot bang.

  Antoniewicz turned left and, keeping no closer to the jetty than he had to, swam the long, one hundred and eighty degree turn that brought him to a small vessel that reports indicated was a certain pirate.

  The boat was about thirty-five feet long, based on photo interpretation, and likely wooden hulled. It was most unlikely to be metal hulled, in any case. The hull, when his hands inspected it, proved to be nearly barnacle free. Again, Eeyore pulled a mine from the pod and placed it against the hull. There was no magnetic pull. Moving his fins slowly to hold himself, and thus the mine, fast, he placed the flat side against the hull. Then, while he continued to hold with his left hand, the fingers of the right sought the flange on the friendly side of the screw. No such thing as friendly, when we're dealing with explosives underwater. This he began to twist until he felt it bite into the hull. He gave it a few more twists, then adjusted his grip and took hold of the screw on the opposite side.

  D Day, MV Merciful, sixty-two miles

  west-southwest of Soqotra

  They had the LCM re-embarked. Chin's command, The Drunken Bastard, waited close by the hull, waiting for its turn. The Bastard could have made the trip south on its own, of course, and beaten the Merciful there handily. On the other hand, war vessels-and it was one, if a small one-were inherently suspicious. There was also another reason to keep a boat in the water. Thus it would be loaded and carried aboard, in its cradle. That, however, had to wait until . . .

  Dropping people off in pitch blackness using a GPS is one thing, McCaverty thought. Landing my very own mortal body on something moving, on the other hand, is a very different proposition.

  Fortunately, we've got a bit of moon to work with now.

  The ship was moving forward at about four knots, just about enough to maintain steerage and a bit more. It moved with the wind, to give the returning planes the maximum possible benefit and lift, since they were doing a bow-on landing. Somewhat unfortunately, the superstructure provided altogether too much shielding from the wind. The benefit would be there, early on, but could be expected to drop rapidly and substantially past a certain point.

  "Which means," McCaverty said to himself, "that you would be well advised to actually have landed before that point . . . easier said than done, perhaps."

  It had been a long flight and a tiring one. Though physically demanding, the little planes were a dream to fly, up to a point. That point had been reached about an hour and a half ago. Right now, McCaverty and all his pilots were bone weary. Worse, he'd taken a fuel report status from each of them and they'd reported less than twenty minutes' worth of fuel le
ft, in the worst case, and no more than thirty-five minutes in the best, which was McCaverty's own. It would have been a bit better except that the ship, for reasons McCaverty hoped to hear someday, had moved about forty miles from the originally planned rendezvous. This had burned up fuel as the flight took a slightly longer course than had been planned on.

  The radio crackled to life. It wasn't Kosciusko's voice, but another's, saying, somewhat cryptically, "Send in your first passenger now."

  It took a moment for the pilot to recognize the voice of his boss, the former Marine Aviator, Cruz.

  "Roger," McCaverty answered. "Break, break: Number Four; you're up."

  "Ro . . . Roger," came the answer back, with better than half a gulp in it.

  "Relax, Four. You've done this before."

  "Roger that. I didn't like it then and I like it less now . . . making my approach."

  Racetracking over the ship, counterclockwise, McCaverty banked his own plane to the left to watch the approach and landing. He wasn't close enough to make out the individual wands held by the deck crewman in charge of directing the pilots. He could see the lights frantically wave and then Number Four pull right and up, aborting the landing.

  "What was wrong with that one?" McCaverty asked of the bridge.

  "Partly our fault," came the answer, "partly his. Guy's speed was a little off and the deck was coming up. He would have hit it wrong; probably crumpled the landing gear."

  "Roger . . . break: Four, get on the racetrack. You'll go in next after two. Two; you're up."