Dangerous Grounds

by Don Keith

  Beaman snorted in disgust and busied himself checking his M-4 for the umpteenth time. He slammed the bolt home on a chambered round and checked the safety as Chief Johnston moved over to stand next to him. He bent to speak near Beaman’s ear.

  “See you been eyeing our new recruit,” the SEAL chief said in a low whisper, his voice carrying a mixture of mild ribbing and warning. “Wouldn’t do to have the great Commander Bill Beaman get caught in a CIA honey trap.”

  “I ain’t worried about any honey trap,” Beaman growled. “I’m just hoping she can pull her weight when it gets interesting.”

  “Yeah, right,” Johnston answered. “Just don’t trip on your tongue when you jump for the boarding ladder. May just be that having a fourth trigger puller on this caper is a good thing.” He glanced meaningfully at the woman. “And a very good looking trigger puller she is.”

  The swift little pilot boat soon swung alongside the merchant ship’s high, rust-streaked hull. A rickety accommodation ladder was already lowered to receive them.

  Beaman yanked his night vision goggles down over his eyes and leaped to grab the ladder. As he scurried up to the main deck, thirty feet above him, he could feel the ladder shudder as first Chief Johnston, and then Jason Hill made the leap. Beaman was just clearing the main deck gunwale when he realized that he hadn’t felt a fourth person climb onto the ladder.

  Where was that damn woman? Had she gotten cold feet and stayed on the pilot boat after all? Or was she just touching up her makeup?

  The ship’s master, a grizzled little man of indeterminate age and ethnicity, stood just back from the top of the ladder. Even through the language barrier, Beaman could immediately tell that the man was not happy being boarded by armed troops. Not when he expected a bar pilot and a couple of lower-level Indian bureaucrats.

  Beaman glanced quickly around the deck. There didn’t seem to be any other activity at all, just the irate master loudly complaining in a language totally unintelligible to Beaman. Johnston brushed past him and moved forward. Hall slipped aft.

  “Commander,” a soft voice spoke over his shoulder. “Captain al-Wahbir wants an explanation. He thinks you are pirates.”

  Heather Jones prattled some in the captain’s language. The man relaxed visibly. His tone and demeanor were much more accommodating.

  Beaman glanced over his shoulder at the CIA agent. She had left her night-vision goggles and battle helmet on the launch below. She stood, talking to Captain al-Wahbir, with her M-4 dangling at her side. Not really ready for battle, but a whole lot less menacing than he looked, Beaman had to admit. But how had she slipped up the ladder so lightly that he didn’t even notice?

  “He says that he will do all he can to cooperate. There is cargo both on the main deck and in the holds that fits your description,” Hope spoke to Beaman. “He only has two passengers, a pair of Arab engineers. That’s about the limits of my Farsi.”

  “Skipper,” Beaman’s earpiece boomed. “Better get up here quick.”

  Chief Johnston had found something that required his immediate attention.

  Beaman darted forward, barely noticing that Heather Jones was following a couple of steps back. He had moved little more than ten feet when the heavy rumble of an AK-47 wrecked the pre-dawn silence. The answering M-4’s higher pitched growl ripped through the damp night air.

  Beaman instinctively dropped to the deck and rolled against a heavy kingpost. The steel deck furniture would give him some cover while he sorted out what was happening. He didn’t see where the CIA lady had ducked to. The girl would have to fend for herself until he could figure out what they were facing.

  More gunfire. The AK-47 fire seemed to be coming from the O-1 level, the deck above them.

  “Skipper, I’m pinned down,” Johnston radioed. “Shooter has me trapped behind the windlass aft of the main hatch. Not much cover. He’s bound to get lucky in a minute.”

  Bullets spattered around Beaman’s hiding place, raising sparks as they ricocheted off the steel deck.

  “We’ve got a second shooter!” Beaman yelled. “Starboard bridge wing.”

  Beaman struggled to get a shot, but when he exposed just enough of his helmet to look up toward the bridge, another burst of angry lead roared just millimeters over his head.

  “Jason! You cover us?” Beaman asked the microphone at his lips. No answer. He tried again. Still, no answer.

  Another burst of fire, this time toward Johnston. The chief screamed out, “I’m hit! Couple of rounds in the leg. Guys, you got to get me out of here!”

  Beaman pulled a grenade from his harness. Maybe he could lob it up close enough to take out the shooter who had him pinned down. Or at least distract the bastard enough to get off a shot or two. He pulled the pin, counted to three, and lofted the grenade high in the air. It exploded on its downward arc, raining shrapnel onto the bridge and upper deck.

  Beaman slipped out from his protective cover even as the last of the grenade’s roaring explosion reverberated down the length of the old freighter.

  And stepped right into the sights of an AK-47 aimed directly at him from less than ten feet away.

  Bill Beaman knew instinctively that he was done. By the time he could manage to raise his M-4 to fire, the shooter would have sent a long, destructive burst through his body. Beaman tensed for the inevitable slamming from the heavy slugs.

  The spray of gunfire from the bridge house caught Beaman by surprise. It was an M-4 and it was directed at his assailant. Heather Jones stepped out of the bridge house, past the body of the man she had dispatched to hell, and then waved as if she had just delivered a nifty tennis lob across the net. She hopped down the outside ladder to the main deck.

  “Get down!” Beaman ordered. “There’s still one shooter.”

  Hope shook her head, the long golden strands glistening in the early dawn light. She pulled a wicked looking, long, curved fighting knife from her belt and wiped the blood onto her pant leg. There was still a beauty-contestant smile on her perfect face.

  “I don’t think he will be a problem,” she answered.

  The pair was busy dressing Chief Johnston’s wounded leg when Jason Hall emerged from a side hatch.

  “Damn radio died,” he grumbled. “I was down below decks, checking the crew, when I heard shooting. You guys need any help?”

  “Nope,” Beaman smiled. “Not now. The team took care of the problem.”

  The White House Situation Room was bedlam. President Adolphus Brown sat at the center of the long, oval, mahogany table, facing the multiple large-panel displays covering the far wall. The center panel was an overhead satellite shot of the area around Mecca. North and east of the city was a huge, ugly, blackened crater, probably a mile or more across, oozing smoke.

  The other displays showed troop, aircraft, and ship movements around the Middle East. Massive movements of forces were in progress or projected.

  “Just what the hell is happening?” Brown asked angrily, a perplexed look on his face. “I thought we were trying to stop a nuclear war, not start one.”

  The Joint Chiefs, gathered around the table to Brown’s left, rustled around uncomfortably, unable to answer the Commander-in-Chief’s question.

  The Secretary of State, on Brown’s right, was equally uncomfortable. He shuffled a pile of papers in front of him. He began to speak, his voice a high-pitched squawk.

  “Mr. President, the Saudis have registered the strongest possible protest with the United Nations. Our ambassador is meeting with the Saudi prime minister as we speak. They are blaming the Israelis—or agents of the Israelis—for the attack. They are demanding that we support them in responding to what they are calling ‘a dastardly, evil, sneak attack aimed at our most holy place.’ Al-Jazeera is broadcasting footage of the mushroom cloud and just about every maniac in the Mid-East screaming for jihad against Israel and us for attacking Islam’s holiest city.”

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, an Army four-star, stood and spoke.

 
“Mr. President, the Saudis are mobilizing all their forces and moving them north. They have ordered the immediate withdrawal of all of our forces in the Kingdom. Syria, Iran, and Pakistan have ordered emergency mobilizations. Even Jordan is mobilizing. India has gone to high alert in response to the Pakistan mobilization. The whole Middle East is exploding.”

  President Brown turned to his National Security Advisor.

  “Sam, what do you have to say?”

  Dr. Samuel Kinnowitz, even more rumpled and harried looking than usual, slowly rose from his seat next to the Secretary of State. He put a laser pointer on the map of the Saudi peninsula at a point about a hundred miles north and west of Mecca—the spot where the blackened crater was gouged out of the desert.

  “We inserted our SEAL team here. Their vehicle was apparently damaged during the drop so they hiked to the Jiddah-to-Mecca road to wait for the truck we suspected carried the weapon. They reported early this morning that they were setting up an ambush to intercept the truck at this point.” Kinnowitz pointed at a spot very near ground zero. “That’s the last contact we had. We surmise that they intercepted the truck. Looks like the North Koreans preferred suicide to capture. And, Mr. President, let’s not lose sight of the fact that our men saved Mecca.”

  Brown shook his head and scratched the stubble on his chin.

  “Any way to prove any of this?”

  “We can do a spectrographic analysis of the debris. That would conclusively point to the weapon’s origin. That’s the real test. Until then, we should have upper atmosphere air samples in a few hours. That will be helpful, but not conclusive.”

  The Secretary of State snorted.

  “There isn’t an Arab alive that will believe any of that evidence. Al Jazeera will be claiming that it is faked before we even have the news release out.”

  President Brown nodded in agreement.

  Admiral Tom Donnegan sat in the shadows at the far end of the giant conference table. Slowly, he rose and leaned forward, resting his big hands on the table.

  “Mr. President, the way I see it, the only chance we have is to prove that the North Koreans are behind this. The Indian weapon may help. Bill Beaman just reported a few minutes ago that he has it in hand. Unfortunately, the North Korean agents are dead, but we should be able to trace something back from them. He will be in port in Mumbai in…” He studied his watch. “…an hour.”

  President Brown breathed a heavy, weary sigh.

  “Maybe we can hold the world together for a few hours until we can analyze this weapon.” The president studied the array of whirling video screens for a moment. A new thought seemed to hit him. “Now, what about that lost submarine?”

  38

  Jon Ward was having trouble breathing. His hands shook so violently he had to struggle to hang onto the cell phone.

  His world had just been shaken to its very roots.

  What was the next blow?

  First he learned that the Navy suspected that pirates had taken over his son’s boat. Then he was ordered to find Corpus and destroy it if necessary. At that point, Ward felt the anguish was more than he could handle.

  Now came the call from his old friend, Tom Kincaid. He told him that Ellen had been kidnapped.

  It was too much. Ward slowly slumped into his seat. He dropped his elbows on the steel desk and kneaded his temples, trying to set his canted world straight again.

  There was nothing else to do but say a silent prayer.

  “Lord, don’t let anything happen to her. I need her so much. Especially now.”

  At that moment, it would not have mattered to him if everyone in the room saw his anguish, heard his pitiful plea. But every other person in the underground command center was absorbed in watching the big flat screen displays, doing his or her job, playing out the hunt for Corpus Christi. As they coordinated the massive, deadly, undersea chess game, no one took any notice at all of Jon Ward, pounding his fists on the desktop in frustration.

  There had to be something he could do. He couldn’t simply sit in this Japanese cave. Not while those bastards had Ellen.

  He grabbed the secure phone and punched in the number for Tom Donnegan’s private line.

  Admiral Donnegan answered before the first ring was complete.

  “Admiral, they’ve got Ellen,” Ward blurted out. “I got to get down to Thailand.”

  “Whoa, boy,” Donnegan told to his old friend. “Take a deep breath and start over. Who has Ellen and why are you in such an all-fired hurry to get to Thailand?”

  Ward poured out the story of Tom Kincaid and the JDIA, told Donnegan about them tracking a major drug deal, about the Thai police raid on Sui Kia Shun’s mountaintop castle. How Tom had seen Ellen and her students being herded out by a bunch of heavily armed druggies. And how Kincaid was chasing after them even as he delivered the bad news to Ward.

  “Admiral,” Ward pleaded. “I have to get over there. You can either help me, or I go on my own. I’m not going to sit here and lose the woman I love to a bunch of druggies. That just ain’t going to happen.”

  There was only a moment’s pause on the other end of the telephone line.

  “Look, Jon, I need you right where you’re at. We have to find Corpus before she gets to where it looks like she’s headed—Japan. And see if she’s involved with the mess in Saudi. And, son, you’re the best man to do that.”

  “Tom, you don’t understand. I can’t be here, not knowing what’s happening to her out there.”

  By the last, Ward was breathing heavily, his face flushed.

  Donnegan replied calmly, holding his voice at a soothing level.

  “Tom, I know how you feel. Remember, I gave Ellen away at your wedding. I’m godfather to Jim. Believe me, I hurt, too. But I faced the reality. I need to be here in D.C., doing my job. That’s the best thing I can do for both of them. There is nothing that I can do that would be better for getting Ellen and Jim back than what I’m doing. Same thing for you. By the time you get there, the whole thing will be long over. Tom Kincaid will get Ellen out. You and I both know what he can do, how he feels about Ellen and you. And that’s a hell of a lot more than you could accomplish on some airplane, racing down there like a madman. You need to stay there in Yokosuka and let’s get Jim back.” There was another pause before the old admiral made his final point. “And besides, don’t you think that would be what your wife would want you to do, Jon? Get your boy back?”

  Ward saw the logic in what his old friend and mentor was saying. But it still hurt. He needed action. He needed to get out and smash someone. Launch some torpedoes. Shoot some Tomahawks at the bad guys. Sitting here waiting while everyone else was doing something just felt wrong to him.

  He slammed his fist hard onto the desk again.

  “I know, Tom. I know.”

  The resignation was strong in his voice. Ward hung up, stood, and strode over to the flat panel display, a hard, set look on his face.

  It was time to play some serious chess on the big board.

  Lee Dawn Shun wiped the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her fatigue shirt. Mud and blood spattered her torn uniform. She shrugged the AK-47 from her shoulder and slumped down under the meager protection of a shisham tree. She simply had to rest. Her body was totally void of energy.

  For most of the night, they had raced across the jungle ridge tops, avoiding the rare open areas, always watching behind them for the pursuers they now knew for certain were there. Even Sun Rey and his small, seriously depleted team of Montengards were dragging from exhaustion. If they could just make it through the next pass, Lee Dawn knew that there was a small airfield, built by the CIA in the late 60’s and all but forgotten. Forgotten except for her small community of drug smugglers who kept the undergrowth chopped back and the hidden fuel tanks full.

  “Our pursuers are less than an hour behind now,” Sun Rey mumbled as he slumped beside her. “I still don’t know if they are government troops or your father’s men but they march as if they are not h
uman. We must move faster.”

  Lee Dawn could barely see the little man through the pre-dawn gloom and her own fog of exhaustion. She mumbled, “What do you suggest? We won’t be able to ambush them, what with our prisoners.”

  “Exactly!” Sun Rey all but shouted. “We have to rid ourselves of them. We can’t escape, and we can’t fight.”

  Lee Dawn took a deep breath. The decision weighed heavily on her. If she chose to keep the prisoners alive, there was little chance of escape. Oddly, though, she knew that the murder of innocents would be on her conscious. Still, freed of the students, she still might have a chance to escape to carry on her fight against her father.

  She rose and took a few slow, tentative steps, pacing back and forth along the narrow, ridge-top footpath. Then she glanced back over her shoulder.

  “Very well. Do what must be done. Kill them now. Do it quietly and put their bodies somewhere so they won’t be found.”

  Sun Rey rose immediately and walked back down the trail. He pulled a long knife from the sheath on his belt as he went.

  The prisoners were only a few paces behind where Lee Dawn Shun and Sun Rey spoke, around a bend in the lofty trail. A kilometer back, and almost five hundred meters below, Tom Kincaid and Benito Luna ran at full tilt. The rest of the Thai assault team was strung out behind them, unable to keep up with the brutal pace the drug agent demanded of them.

  “Tom, we gotta rest,” Benito Luna gasped. “I’m all but done in. The soldiers…”

  “Rest if you have to,” Kincaid grunted between clenched teeth. “Those bastards have Ellen Ward. I ain’t resting until I have her back.”

  He kept on running. There was not even the hint of a break in his stride.

  Luna shook his head in resignation. He gripped his M-4 closer and took a deep breath of hot, humid air. He waved to the troops to catch up. There was nothing to do but follow his friend. He knew already that when Tom Kincaid had a bit in his teeth like this, there was no way to slow him.