Hunter Killer (2005)

by Robinson Patrick

  “Spoken like a true French officer and gentleman,” said Gaston Savary.

  Admiral Romanet seated himself at the head of the table, with Georges Pires to his left and Savary to his right. The two submarine commanding officers held the other two flanks. Almost immediately a white-coated orderly arrived and served the classic French coquilles Saint-Jacques, scallops cooked with sliced mushrooms in white wine and lemon and served on a scallop half-shell with piped potato.

  The orderly filled their glasses generously. For all four of the visitors it was much like dining at a top Paris restaurant. The main course, however, provided a sharp reminder that this was a French Naval warship base, where real men did not usually eat coquilles Saint-Jacques.

  Admiral Romanet’s man served pork sausages from Alsace, the former German region of France. There was none of the traditional Alsace sauerkraut, but the sausages came with onions and pommes frites. It was the kind of dinner that could set a man up, just prior to his blowing out the guts of one of the largest oil docks in the world.

  The golden brown sausages were perfectly grilled, and they were followed by an excellent cheese board, containing a superb Pont l’Evêque and a whole Camembert…les fromages, one of the glories of France. And only then did the waiter bring each man a glass of red wine, a 2002 Beaune Premier Cru from the Maison Champney Estate, the oldest merchant in Burgundy.

  Admiral Pires considered that, one way or another, the Submarine Flag Officer at the Atlantic Fleet Headquarters in Brest was a gastronomic cut above the hard men who lived and trained at his own headquarters, in Taverny. But Admiral Romanet, a tall, swarthy ex-missile director in a nuclear boat, was still concerned with the business of the evening. He had replaced the wine glass in his right hand by a folded chart of the Persian Gulf waters to the east of Saudi Arabia. And he now considered that he knew Captain Roudy sufficiently well to address him by his first name.

  “Alain,” he said, “I think we have established that your exit from the Red Sea can be conducted submerged. And, as you know, it’s a two-thousand-mile run from there up to your ops areas in the Persian Gulf.

  “As you know, it’s also possible to enter the Gulf, via the Strait of Hormuz, underwater. The Americans run submarines in there all the time. However, it’s not very deep, and some of the time you’ll have a safety separation of only thirty-five meters in depth, which does not give you a lot of room, should you need to evade.

  “However, I don’t think anyone will notice you because they won’t be looking. The Iranians on the north shore are so accustomed to ships of many nationalities coming through Hormuz, they are immune to visitors.

  “Your real difficulties lie ahead…up here, north of Qatar. And that’s your new ops area. You’ll need to run north, straight past the Rennie Shoals…right here…marked on the chart. You’ll leave them to starboard, but I don’t think you should venture any closer inshore. You want to stay north, right around this damned great offshore oil field…what’s it called? The Aba Sa’afah. There’ll be some surveillance there, and it’s marked as a restricted area, so you’ll stay as deep as you can.

  “Now, the main tanker route is right here…this long dogleg, about a mile to starboard. It’s half a mile wide coming out, and about the same running in. It’s deadly shallow, between twenty-five and thirty-five meters, which you don’t need. And all around it, the deep water is starting to run out. This is a dredged tanker channel and it’s the only way inshore if you want to stay submerged, at least at periscope depth.

  “It would be nice to put yourself right here…in thirty-five meters of water, north of that sandbank. But it’s too far off the Saudi shore—it would give the Special Forces team a near fourteen-kilometer run-in to this long jetty; that’s this black line on the chart…the main loading dock, one mile offshore from the huge Ras al Ju’aymah oil complex. That’s the biggest liquid petroleum terminal in the world. There’s Japanese tankers as big as Versailles pulling in there night and day.

  “And so, gentlemen, the Perle must make her run-in down the tanker route—that’s about nine kilometers—and we’ll have up-to-date data on how busy that route is at night. But the Saudi tanker docks are always busy, so we must assume a run south to our holding point will entail running between the VLCCs.

  “You’ll cut into the channel here…two thousand meters north of this flashing red light, marked number two. Then you’ll cross the tanker route, watching carefully to starboard, heading straight toward this light on the Gharibah Bank…see it, Alain, right here?”

  “Okay, sir. Six quick flashes and then the light, correct?”

  “C’est ça. And then you run south down the ingoing channel for about five kilometers to your first drop-off point. Exactly here…”

  “Do we leave the main channel to reach that point, sir?” asked Captain Roudy. “I mean when the Team One Special Forces departs the submarine?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s too shallow beyond the marked sea-lanes. The lack of depth will drive you to the surface. And we cannot have that.”

  “You mean we let them out right in the main tanker channel?”

  “No choice. But they have very speedy boats, and you’ll wait for a break in the traffic, and then move fast. It’s a two-boat mission. We’re talking minutes here. Not half-hours.”

  “So Team One will be right in the middle of the main tanker route when they set off?” asked Alain Roudy, a shade doubtfully.

  “Yes, they will. But it’s well buoyed. Plenty of lights and warnings. Anyway those SF guys know what they’re doing. But we will want two boats on that target. I think Georges thought four men in each?”

  “I did think that, Admiral,” replied Georges Pires. “Although we could probably achieve our mission with seven men in one boat. But that leaves no margin for error. We definitely take two boats, just in case we have a problem, equipment failure or something. I’m talking rescue. We can’t afford to leave anyone behind, no matter what happens.”

  “We cannot. You’re absolutely correct there, Georges,” replied Admiral Romanet.

  “Anyway, as soon as Team One is gone, the submarine turns south and runs on down the ingoing right lane. You’ll have to put a mast up from time to time for a visual. But, remember, in these waters, you have no enemy. You are le prédateur, and there’s no one to stop you. The issue here is that no one must know you exist, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Nossir. So we don’t wait around for the Special Forces at the first holding point? The one you’ve marked right here? I mean for them to return?”

  “No, you leave them immediately. Proceed south for another five kilometers, to the very end of the tanker route. Then you cut through this narrow seaway between these shoals into an area that is, again, more than thirty meters deep, two miles northeast of the main tanker anchorage.

  “Look…right here, Alain…at this point Team Two will be less than a mile from the enormous Sea Island Terminal, perhaps the most important part of this mission. As you know, we are going to blow it up. It’s a massive loading structure, stands a little over one kilometer offshore from the biggest oil exporting complex in the world, Ras Tannurah. Sea Island is known as Platform Number Four, and it pumps over two million barrels a day into the waiting tankers.

  “Now, at this second hold point, the Zodiacs have a very short run-in to the target. No more than eight hundred meters. We have been studying a progression of satellite pictures to see how light it is on that terminal. My own opinion is that the frogmen will have to swim the last three hundred meters. Just depends on the degree of darkness.

  “But they will accomplish this very swiftly. There will be six swimmers carrying six bombs through the water. Each man fixes one bomb to one of the six principal pylons. It’s a magnetic fix. Then he sets the timer and leaves, being very careful to keep the light blue wires as well hidden and as deep as possible.

  “All this must be precisely coordinated with Louis’s operation in the Red Sea. Because when they blow, they must blow
absolutely together. It is essential that these huge explosions cripple the oil industry all at one time.

  “So, the moment the timers are fixed, the frogmen head immediately back to where the Zodiacs are waiting. It should take them only two minutes to reach the submarine, climb aboard, and start back up the channel to the previous holding point, one hour north, and pick up Team One, which will be there by this time, after their much longer Zodiac journey.”

  “If that liquid petroleum terminal goes up,” said Savary thoughtfully, “Prince Nasir will have lit a blowtorch from hell. It will probably light up the entire Middle East.”

  “The Sea Island Terminal would also have a fairly spectacular edge to it,” said Captain Roudy. “Imagine a million barrels on fire out in the ocean? Ablaze. That would be quite a sight.”

  “But I am afraid you will not see it, Alain,” said Admiral Romanet, smiling. “When Team Two is back inboard, you will have the Perle steaming away, straight back up the tanker route, directly to the missile launch point, right here…thirty-four kilometers east of the terminals.

  “That’s going to take you five hours at a tanker speed of ten knots. You’ll need to be on your way by twenty-three-hundred, in order to launch the cruises at o-four-hundred. The bombs on the pylons probably want a seven-hour time delay. But you’ll work that out.”

  “And, of course, we leave the datum immediately after firing the missiles?” asked Captain Roudy

  “Of course. You target the pipeline, the inland pumping station, and the Abqaiq complex. They will explode simultaneously with the pylon bombs. At which time you will be thirty-four kilometers away, heading quietly east, well below the surface. The Saudi oil industry will blow to smithereens within four minutes of your departure from holding point three, the firing area.”

  “Sir,” said Captain Roudy, returning in his mind to the place that worried him most, “do we get the Zodiacs back inboard when the SF guys return?”

  “No time. Scuttle all of the boats. Same for Commander Dreyfus. Get the frogmen back in, and take off, back up the tanker route.”

  “And then head east, through Hormuz and south to La Reunion, submerged all the way?” asked Captain Roudy.

  “You have it, Captain. Then you have a vacation, and in a few weeks, bring the Perle home, around the Cape of Good Hope.”

  “Well, sir. That sounds like a very good plan. And of course we do have a terrific element of surprise on our side. No one would ever dream a Western nation would be crazy enough to slam Saudi Arabian oil out of the market for two years.”

  “Correct,” said Gaston Savary. “It would seem like that English proverb…er…cutting your nose to spite your face…but not in this case. I understand France’s need for oil products has been taken care of. We do not need Saudi oil for several months. And when it comes back on stream, it will effectively be ours to market, worldwide, at whatever price we fix.”

  “What about OPEC?” asked Commander Dreyfus.

  “I don’t think Prince Nasir, the new King, will want to compromise his position with France, not to placate his fellow Arabian producers,” replied Admiral Pires. “This is the most extraordinary military action, It could only have been created by a potential new King. It is also devilishly clever—a plan direct from le diable.”

  “Except that at the heart of it all lies an honorable objective,” said Admiral Romanet. “To restore the best elements of the Saudi royal family and to give the people a new, enlightened ruler: our friend, the Crown Prince.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I think we should raise a glass to the takeover by Prince Nasir, and, of course, to the…er…prosperity of France.”

  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1030

  FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION OUTPOST

  GULF OF ADEN, DJIBOUTI

  The former SAS Major Ray Kerman had made his headquarters eighteen miles north of Moulhoule, close to the Eritrean border, on the northern Gulf Coast of Djibouti. He had chosen the semi-active Foreign Legion outpost of Fort Mousea, because the training of his fifty-four-strong assault squad would attract less attention there.

  There, in one of the world’s hottest climates, even in the cool season the temperature rarely dipped below ninety degrees. They were only eleven degrees north of the equator, and in summer the heat was around 106 degrees day after day. The entire country had only three square miles of arable land, and it hardly ever rained. Ray Kerman imagined he must have been in worse places than this tiny desert republic, but, offhand, he could not recall one.

  His squad had been in hard training now for many weeks. The men had willingly driven themselves, pounding the pathways through the Taverny woods, fighting the Legion’s obstacle courses down in Aubagne, and then hammering their bodies through the heat of the rough desert tracks around Fort Mousea.

  To his men, he was known by his formal name, Gen. Ravi Rashood, Commander in Chief of Hamas. Even the more senior French officers now referred to him as General, and every day he joined them in their relentless military training. Some of them had served in the Foreign Legion and understood how hard life could be. But nothing, repeat nothing, prepares anyone for the regime of fitness required by a former SAS Major.

  They were getting there now. Many of the assault team members possessed power that bordered on animal strength. They could run like cheetahs, fight like tigers. Even the Iron Man from the Pyrenees, Col. Jacques Gamoudi, who had visited for two days that week, was deeply impressed by the level of their fitness.

  Out there on this burning shore they practiced every form of assault-troop warfare, building temporary “strongholds” designed to be attacked only by their own colleagues. All through the dark hours, they would watch, wait, study the stars and the cycles of the moon, slowly growing into their chosen roles as predators of the night.

  They learned to cut wire, silently, within earshot of their own sentries, sharp but unheard. They learned to move quietly across rough ground, on their elbows, armed to the teeth. They learned to attack from behind with the combat knife. They learned priceless skills in near-silent communication one to the other. And they learned expertise in explosives. Some were just brushing up prior knowledge and training. Others were rookies at the combustion game. But not for long.

  Above all, they learned to listen in the dark: to the soft breezes of the desert, to the approach of a distant vehicle—with the wind, and then against it, because the sound was different. They could recognize the snap of a breaking twig at forty yards, they could discern the sound of a footstep on the sand. By the end of February, General Rashood’s men were supremely attuned to the rhythms of the night.

  By day, they were trained physically, starting every morning at 0500, before the sun was up—jogging, sprinting, push-ups, and finishing with a four-mile run into the desert and back. There was a two-hour break, before a sumptuous lunch, the food flown in from France in a special refrigerated French Air Force jet. No group of combat soldiers was ever better fed. The French Republic had a very large investment in these men.

  An entire barrack room block was converted into a kitchen. Cooks and orderlies were flown in from Taverny. There was beef, lamb, sausage, fish, chicken, and duck. If a man wanted a large fillet steak every day, he could have it. But the salad, spinach, cabbage, beans, brussels sprouts, and parsnips were compulsory throughout the week. There was also fresh French bread and milk, fruit from all around the Mediterranean. Gallons of fresh fruit juice, tea, coffee, and fresh cream.

  The camp ran entirely on two large generators driven by diesel engines. Every afternoon, after the late two-mile run, there was a briefing before dinner, where General Rashood and the commanding officers would go over the plan of attack. Over and over.

  The assault on Khamis Mushayt would begin on the night of March 25. And on this evening, February 23, at 1700, General Rashood was presiding, speaking in his native English, which all the Arab warriors understood, and most of the French. He outlined the various points of departure, informing them for the first time that they
would make the 250-mile journey from Fort Mousea in seventy-foot-long Arab dhows, the traditional craft of the Red Sea, the one least likely to attract attention. Each man would be disguised as a Bedouin, dressed in traditional Arab tribal clothes.

  The dhows’ appearance was unique. They were lateen-rigged, with yardarms diagonal to the mast. Their single sails had propelled them on a million stately journeys through these waters for thousands of years; their high, peaked sails distinguished them from all other craft. As did their total unsuitability in rough water.

  General Rashood’s dhows would make this journey from Djibouti and run north, crossing one of the narrowest points of the Red Sea from west to east, and then sailing up the long coast of Yemen.

  “These things make a fairly steady seven knots,” said General Rashood. “In a light westerly breeze, that is, straight off the desert—which is what we usually get in these parts. The journey to the north coast of Yemen will take us less than two days, and we will leave in relays from here, beginning at first light tomorrow morning.

  “The first convoy will be three dhows carrying my Team Three and the command staff of our headquarters. That’s twenty-four passengers, eight per dhow. I do not want everyone concentrated together, in case of the unexpected. Each man will take his personal weapons, AK-47, service revolver, and ammunition, combat knife, and hand grenades. We will take food for seventeen days, plus water, radios, cell phones, bedding, and first-aid requirements. At no time will any dhow be out of sight of the other two.