by Andy Lucas
‘Mayday. Mayday,’ he called, keying the handset firmly. ‘Mayday. I am a British citizen in distress, being pursued by pirates. This message is to the Royal Navy vessel on duty with the McEntire salvage operation. Come in please, over.’ A hiss of nothingness was all he received back. He tried again. Nothing.
Powering out to sea, with no choice but to keep trying the radio, he knew it was only a matter of time before the cruiser would be on his tail.
This time, if ARC caught him, he did not fancy his chances at all.
30
Solomon Munambe was ready, assembled with his men, having been given personal authority by the Minister of Defence to storm the ARC facility.
Since speaking with Doyle McEntire on the phone a few days before, things had moved fast. A small troop of the army’s most experienced soldiers had turned up outside his office, in a small convoy of half a dozen trucks. Well-equipped and hard eyed, they had been assigned to Munambe, who was instructed to lead the assault personally.
Despite his lack of military experience, and paunch, he had immediately agreed. Here was a chance to extract Deborah Miles and tackle ARC. He was under no illusions that the rapid execution had everything to do with the McEntire Corporation.
All doubt dissolved a couple of hours after the troops arrived, when another call from a local military airfield instructed him to make his way there immediately, with the soldiers. Two large transport planes were waiting to take them down into the Skeleton Coast. There would be no rattling down there in 4x4s this time.
Upon arrival at the airfield, Munambe was impressed to see two black Hercules transport planes waiting for them on the runway, fuelled and ready to go. Devoid of any insignia, including that of Namibia’s own air force, they had clearly been brought in from the outside.
Without any delay, he and his team were ushered out to the aircraft, boarding the first plane. It was a bit of a squash but he was told that the second plane was already full. With what, he had no idea.
It wasn’t until they had been in the air for over an hour that Munambe finally managed to organise his thoughts into some semblance of order. There were fifty soldiers with him, all heavily kitted out with automatic weapons and a few heavy, general purpose machine guns. They did not speak at all, even to each other. They had been ordered simply to escort Munambe to an unknown destination, whereupon they would be expected to uphold the honour of the Namibian Special Forces and swiftly eliminate a threat to national security.
Munambe already knew that they would be met by someone on the ground who would take charge of planning and executing the actual assault. He assumed it would be someone that Doyle McEntire was sending to help. It made sense that this person, and perhaps others, were in the second Hercules, following a thousand feet behind them.
A niggling concern began to trouble him as the time ticked down and the aircraft showed no sign of beginning a descent. Just when he was about to unbuckle his seatbelt and leave the bench seat that he had been strapped to since take off, one of soldiers walked over to him. In his outstretched hand was a compact flotation vest.
‘You need to get that on, sir, before I can attach you to my harness.’
‘Harness?’
The tall, athletic soldier had skin like polished ebony and piercing brown eyes that spoke of having seen many terrible things.
‘The plane will begin climbing and circling in another five minutes. The pilot is coming in on the target now.’
‘Climbing?’ Suddenly, kicking himself for missing such an obvious fact, Munambe felt his heart sink into his borrowed military boots. They would not be landing at all.
All around him, in a rapid burst of activity, the soldiers donned their own flotation vests before bucking into parachutes, carried down from the front of the plane by a couple of additional aircrew. He didn’t get his own, thankfully.
‘I suppose we’re going out of the door together?’ he grumbled, standing up and slipping on his own vest. ‘Just make sure we are tied together tightly. I never signed up to throw myself out of an aeroplane.’
The soldier grinned. ‘I promise not to drop you,’ he said.
‘What’s your name, soldier? I like to know the details of anyone I entrust my life to.’
‘Private Jaen, sir. There is nothing to fear until we get near to the water.’
Munambe kicked himself again. Why wasn’t his brain working? Had it had too many shocks in the recent weeks? Of course there would be water. Why else would everyone need a life jacket? ‘So we’re not landing near the facility on land? Are we dropping in just offshore then?’
‘No, sir.’ At that point the engine drone changed up as power was added and the Hercules began a slow climb to fifteen ten thousand feet from the cruising altitude of six thousand that it had been keeping. ‘We are dropping several miles out to sea, to rendezvous with a British warship. The ship will be our base of operations. Sorry, that is all the information that we have been given. Nothing more.’
Like something from an old war movie, Munambe heard a hydraulic hum and the rear ramp door slowly opened, allowing the bright sunshine to pour inside. There would be no red or green jump lights today.
The soldiers checked each other’s chutes for a second time and then each walked swiftly to the rear and dropped out into thin air. Not having any more time to stress about what was coming, Jaen clicked him into a double harness and pulled him towards the back, smiling at him in the configuration that had them facing each other.
‘Enjoy the ride, sir.’
Enjoy was hardly the word that Munambe would use to describe the experience. Thrilling, terrifying, sickening, maybe. He was not a thrill seeker by nature and simply closed his eyes and hoped that the proficient young soldier was as good as he seemed.
Both planes disgorged fifty soldiers each and the combined force of one hundred men floated down, buffeted gently by a rapidly warming breeze. They all used flyable chutes, toggling carefully to avoid entanglements and to keep on target for the tiny blue line below them. The line gradually thickened and grew into the recognisable form of a Royal Navy type 23 frigate, anchored a thousand feet away from a squat, ugly vessel of similar size, albeit decked with cranes and towers instead of guns and missiles.
Jumping last, Hammond and Baker were old hands at this sort of thing. It was child’s play actually because both men were skilled at HALO jumps, in the dark, in poor weather. Jumping into warm skies and floating down, unhindered, towards a sparkling, azure ocean made it seem almost like a holiday jump. Only the truth of the task ahead of them kept them from relaxing.
They were both wearing radio headsets and were in contact with the warship below. Barely ten seconds after jumping, Hammond’s ear piece crackled into life.
‘We have an unknown person approaching the ship at speed. Be advised that he is claiming to be one of your men, over.’
‘One of ours?’ Hammond replied, toggling gently with his right hand to correct for a slight drift. ‘Sounds like a trick. Are you countering?’
‘Roger that,’ confirmed the disembodied voice of the ship’s bridge radio officer. ‘If he’s playing games, he will not get anywhere near us.’
‘Good job,’ Hammond heard Baker say, over the comms link. ‘Did this person identify himself by any chance?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. Claims to be someone called...er,’ the man checked his notes quickly, ‘James Pace.’
‘What?!’ bellowed Hammond, suddenly caught by a simultaneous gust of wind and shock. ‘Do not fire! I repeat, do not fire until we have confirmation, over.’
‘Operating procedures for this deployment,’ explained the ship’s officer, ‘will not allow any unknown threat to approach the ship unchallenged. Whoever he is, he’s heading for us very fast and there is another contact closing behind him. He has been warned not to approach us.’
‘He’s running from someone,’ snapped Baker. ‘I suggest you let him approach.’
‘Sorry, I cannot do that,’ cut in the
voice of the ship’s captain. ‘I will not place this ship, or her crew, in danger. Unless he is positively identified as one of the good guys, we will fire on his boat if it comes too close.’
‘Understood,’ said Hammond. ‘Baker, from this height, we should have enough distance to go and check him out ourselves.’
‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ agreed Baker. He got a heading from the ship and the two McEntire men veered away from the rest of their group, flying their parachutes beyond the fast approaching warship beneath their dangling feet, heading towards the distant yellow shimmer of the coast. Even at such a height, they could begin to make out two wakes heading out to sea.
The first one was smaller and only a couple of miles from the ship while the pursuing wake was much sharper to the naked eye and the boat itself was clearly big enough for a tiny shape to be visible already. Worryingly, the larger vessel was rapidly closing the distance on its prey.
‘And I thought we wouldn’t have to use any skill this jump?’ grumbled Hammond. ‘Do you think old man McEntire planned this? You know he likes to test us at times.’
‘Even he isn’t that bad,’ shot back Baker, carefully adjusting his flight path as the altitude bled away. ‘I hope it is James,’ he added. ‘Otherwise we’re going to be landing in the midst of the enemy, with a bloody long swim back to the frigate.’
Hammond was still reeling from the thought that somehow, maybe, his friend was still alive after all. If he was down there, they could easily identify him and stop the warship shelling his boat. If it was a ruse, then Baker was right. They would have to spot the lie and then hit their release buckles quickly, and try to swim for safety because the ordinance would surely be rapidly raining down on top of them.
One minute later, relying on hard-learned experience, the two men were down at three thousand feet and could clearly make out details of both vessels. The lead boat looked like an old wooden launch and appeared to have the tiny dot of a single person at the helm. The chase boat was instantly recognisable to Hammond as the luxurious cruiser that had ferried them over to the ARC site on their previous visit. At the speed it was travelling, it would be touch and go as to whether the wooden boat would make it to the warship before it was run down.
Another ten seconds and Hammond was convinced that the figure in the wooden boat was his friend. Whoever it was sported a brightly coloured survival suit.
‘Royal Navy vessel, can you patch me in to the lead boat?’
‘Of course, sir. Putting you through now.’
Instantly, a familiar voice exploded into his ears. ‘Mayday. Mayday. Do not fire. My name is James Pace, working with the McEntire Corporation. Do not fire. I need help, over.’
‘Royal Navy vessel,’ commanded Baker, in his earpiece. ‘You are instructed to fire upon the chase vessel immediately. Please comply.’
‘Who the hell are you to tell me who to fire on, or not?’ growled the captain’s voice, cutting in on the channel again. ‘I make the decisions here.’
‘Captain,’ Baker spoke coldly. ‘If you wish to keep your command, I am ordering you to fire. I have positively identified James Pace. He is working for the McEntire Corporation. I have also identified the chase vessel as a threat to both his life, and to the security of your ship. I say again. Fire on the chase vessel immediately.’
‘This is very irregular.’
‘Irregular but necessary. If you had the time, your superiors would authorise it, but our man has only seconds left. You need to act now.’
‘Baker? Is that you?’ came Pace’s voice again. ‘Tell me it’s you AND tell me that my own country’s navy is not going to blow me out of the sea.’
‘Affirmative,’ said Baker. ‘I am sorting that one out at the moment. Just keep your foot down, James. They are almost on top of you.’
‘Come on, you crazy bastard,’ willed Hammond. ‘How will we manage to land in your boat if you change speed, eh?’
Pace almost choked up as he recognised Hammond’s voice. At the same moment, a reflective glint from one of the rapidly falling parachutists caught his eye and he looked up for the first time. Two parachutes, closing fast. His friends.
Suddenly, a boom of the deck gun sounded and a warning plume of water fountained up a few metres in front of the bow of the pursuing cruiser. Its speed did not slow at all but the boat began to take a zigzagging course towards Pace, desperate to avoid the shells but still intent on running him down. To underline this determination, a couple of crew began firing automatic rifles in Pace’s direction, peppering the water barely three metres behind the old launch.
‘Royal Navy vessel. The pursuing boat is now engaging with small arms, over. Danger to life is imminent. Please respond.’
The response was immediate, accurate and devastating. There was no oral warning, or reply to Baker’s last transmission. The deck gun fired and the cruiser disintegrated in a gigantic, crashing, billowing pyre of flame and debris. The gunnery had been superb, anticipating the slaloming course to land a high explosive shell directly amidships.
There was no slow motion sinking to witness, or men screaming and jumping into the sea. As the smoke cleared, the boat was completely destroyed. The sea was littered with hull fragments and nobody could have possible survived. As quickly as that, the danger evaporated.
Slowing the mad race, allowing the overheating engines some respite, Pace liaised with the two approaching men, timing his speed as directed until, as if they had merely executed a display jump to delight summer crowds, both men touched down safely in the back of the launch, immediately detaching their parachutes, which whipped away and were lost in its foaming wake.
The hugs were genuine, as was the delight.
‘How the hell are you still alive?’ asked Hammond, clapping him hard on the shoulder.
‘It’s a long story,’ Pace retorted, suddenly allowing the weakness in his knees to get the better of him. Hammond caught him as he slumped forward, pulling him over to one of the long seats in the rear, leaving Baker to take over the wheel.
‘I’m afraid it isn’t over yet.’ Hammond told him. ‘We’re here to take the facility by force. We’ve come mob handed.’ He grinned. ‘I’m sure McEntire won’t mind if you sit this one out on the ship, sipping Jack and eating peanuts.
Suddenly serious, Pace gripped him by the shoulders. ‘No way,’ he said earnestly. ‘They’ve got more samples of Scorpion, and something called Dark Tide. I have to come with you. I know what it looks like. I’m not staying behind.’
Hammond knew his friend well enough to not argue. ‘Okay, okay,’ he soothed, defeated. ‘I’ll just make sure that I watch your back when the shooting starts.’
Pace released a tired breath. ‘You always do.’ He resisted the urge to close his eyes and bit down hard on his lip to stop the world slipping away into exhaustion. ‘Quickly. Tell me what’s going on.
By the time they were safely aboard the warship, sitting in the officer’s mess drinking hot tea, stories had been exchanged and eyes turned, collectively, to the end game. Pace’s head had been taped up by the ship’s doctor and he felt more human.
The final battle was about to be joined.
31
The first person that Pace had been surprised to see, upon boarding the warship, was a familiar, hard-looking soldier, who fitted in well with the fifty men specially chosen from McEntire’s security forces. They were all dressed in black combat fatigues, as was he. Nobody would have given him a second glance, including Pace, if he didn’t immediately recognise him as Yucel; the ARC mercenary and Fiona Chamber’s right hand man at Scott Base.
McEntire’s multi-ethnic team of professionals, which included at least a dozen female soldiers, was assembled on an open area of the rear deck, alongside a similar number of green-fatigued Namibian Special Forces. Together, they made for an impressive sight.
Before heading down to the mess with Baker, Hammond and Munambe, the two men had exchanged curt nods of recognition. Pace had no intentio
n of being friendly to a man who had pistol-whipped him and stood idly by while Fiona executed an innocent scientist, even though he had saved his life when he probably should have let him drown.
He had questioned Baker’s logic on bringing Yucel along but Baker wanted Yucel’s inside knowledge of the ARC facility to help improve their chances of a swift victory.
In the opposite way, Pace warmed immediately to the friendly, reliable figure of Solomon Munambe, who was still recovering from his first ever parachute jump and was drinking coffee, instead of tea, with a few shots of brandy that one of the galley staff had managed to rustle up to help steady his shaking hands.
Baker, as expected, was in charge of the operation. Having the mess to themselves, by command of the ship’s captain, the four of them sat around a large table and chewed over the plan.
‘The way I see it,’ opened Baker, ‘is that a frontal assault is the best way in. It will involve taking some casualties but, having spoken with Yucel at length, it seems that my earlier plan won’t work.’
‘What plan was that?’ asked Hammond, taking a sip of tea.
‘This is a working desalination plant,’ he replied. ‘It isn’t pumping fresh water anywhere other than some of its own underground tanks, for now, but the technology is genuine enough and ARC plans to pipe the stuff out as soon as they can clear a path through several countries, or so I have been told,’ he added.
‘That’s where Scorpion comes in,’ said Pace. ‘It is the perfect weapon to clear out nuisance wildlife and human settlements. Naturally occurring, and more common than most people realise in Africa, nobody would be any the wiser and never trace an outbreak of bubonic plague back to an apparently respectable champion of African development.’
‘Quite so,’ agreed Baker. ‘And with such a potent new strain, killing so quickly and spreading like wildfire due to its increased speed of mutation from bubonic to pneumonic plague, all eyes will be on stopping outbreaks. Nobody will even be looking for a source, possibly ever.’