Ghost Target

by Nicholas Irving

“Got your back, bro,” Samuelson said. Harwood lifted Jackie and his rifle in his arms and carried both to the helicopter while Samuelson opened the engine compartment.

  “Back to the hospital, Bronson,” Harwood said above the din of the helicopter rotors. “Then go to your command center and look for a decent-sized boat heading out of the river in the last hour or two. Every type of video you can find. Get the name of it and then find it on satellite or however you guys do that stuff. Pick Samuelson and me up at the Breakfast Club where we met earlier.”

  “That’s a lot of orders for a sergeant,” Bronson said.

  “This isn’t a time to worry about rank, Bronson. Let’s focus and get this done. And keep this in the helicopter.” He patted Lindsay.

  Bronson stared at him, nodded, and pointed at the boat. “The bomb in there?”

  Harwood nodded. “We have half an hour to get the boat into the ocean. I’m not even sure we can start it, much less drive it fifty knots through the river. We’ll get it as far away from downtown as we can. Now you can either come with me or do what I asked.”

  “I got it. You got your phone still?”

  “Roger. Get moving.”

  The helicopter lifted away and because of the aircraft noise, he had not heard the boat engines start. Samuelson had figured it out.

  Jumping in the boat, he said, “Let’s drive this bitch.”

  Samuelson was at the helm as Harwood went down below and stared at the bomb. He had done some basic improvised explosive device disarming, but nothing of this magnitude. Reaching into the compartment, made for life jackets and fishing gear but now housing a nuclear weapon, Harwood ran his hands along the rim of the metal case. He found two wires and followed them to a seam in the compartment. Probably connected to the boat battery. Did the bomb need the battery or would it hold its charge even if he disconnected? More importantly, he wondered, was there an anti-handling device that would immediately trigger the bomb if manipulated?

  All of this was above his pay grade, but he felt the responsibility was his for no reason other than he was the only one now who could do anything about the situation. He felt helpless and decided that there was only one plan he could put in place that would minimize the damage.

  He checked the time remaining: seven minutes and three seconds.

  “Where we at, Sammie?”

  “Approaching Tybee. North side,” Samuelson said. Harwood felt a moment of pride that his spotter had risen to the moment.

  He slipped into the cockpit next to Samuelson, pulled up the GPS map, and typed in a lat-long destination due east. As they passed the north end of Tybee Island, the boat corrected marginally when Harwood pressed the autopilot function on the display screen. He then secured the bow line and tied the steering wheel to the seat backrest, preventing any major change in direction in the event that the boat hit something and went askew from its now-designated course.

  “Push it to full throttle and let’s go, Sammie,” Harwood said. Samuelson slid the throttle forward to full and the speedometer and tachometer showed 60 knots and 6500 rpms—both needles pegged into the red zones—respectively. Steadying themselves, Harwood and Samuelson held on to each other as they leapt into the ocean, avoiding the four 300hp Mercury motors spinning at full blast.

  Harwood skidded into the ocean. His mouth filled with salt water, he went under deep, and he thrashed for a second before finding his bearings and resurfacing. He saw Samuelson about twenty meters away, thrashing as well.

  Swimming toward Samuelson, Harwood gauged their distance to Tybee Island as maybe a half mile. That was doable, though he preferred to be out of the ocean when the bomb exploded. He didn’t know the chemistry behind a nuclear explosion on the ocean’s surface, and preferred to not learn the hard way.

  The bomb had less than seven minutes remaining when they jumped. Sixty knots an hour put the boat speed at nearly 55 miles an hour, the math placing the boat at least five miles out to sea when the nuke exploded. They swam with a low tide going to hide tide, a helping current. The island grew larger with each stroke. The two Rangers made sure they were never more than five feet away from each other.

  A light reflected off the water, like a flashing strobe. A few seconds later the explosion followed. They kept swimming. Stayed focused on the island. The chopping blades of a helicopter appeared on the horizon. It was Bronson. They were close to the north beach of Tybee and Bronson must have seen them. They emerged from the water and ran to the helicopter, the rotor wash blowing hot air onto them.

  After climbing into the helicopter, they each slipped on a set of headphones.

  “See that?” Bronson asked.

  “Yeah. Saw it. Next item. Got the boat?” Harwood asked.

  “I think so,” Bronson said. “It’s about twenty miles from here. The Breeze Machine. I’m making the call that it is within the twelve-mile radius of U.S. control.”

  Harwood understood. The boat was in international waters, but Bronson wanted Basayev as bad as he did.

  “Let’s go,” Harwood said. He felt his adrenaline pumping. He was going to have his showdown with the Chechen, after all.

  CHAPTER 30

  Harwood turned to Bronson and said, “Have the pilot hold off at a half mile.” He turned and grabbed his rucksack from the cargo webbing. He reached in and handed the thermal spotter scope to Samuelson. It was 5:30 A.M. and the sun, while threatening, was still below the dark horizon. Through the headset he said, “You know what to do.”

  Samuelson nodded and began preparing the scope for action. Harwood reached onto the floor of the aircraft and lifted Lindsay. He pulled a box of 7.62 mm rounds from his rucksack and slapped it into the magazine well, then mounted an ATN Odin 32DW Micron sight. Extending the bipods, he lay on the floor, causing the woman and Bronson to move their feet and relocate. He charged the weapon, chambering a round.

  Samuelson was on his left talking to him through the intercom. The roar of the helicopter engines drowned out any conversation outside of the headsets. Harwood looked through the scope and placed the bipods on the rattling floor of the cargo bay. There was no way he was going to get a decent shot from this vantage, but he did see the yacht cruising on a southeasterly tack. It was nearly a mile away.

  Warm night air washed through the open doors. A half-mile shot from a helicopter was no easy task, especially when Basayev would almost certainly be shooting back. Harwood switched his intercom to Bronson and Wilde and asked, “No rockets or missiles on this thing? Just blow up the boat?”

  “Nothing. This is a personnel transport, not a gunship, Reaper.”

  Harwood nodded. “You need to rethink that strategy.”

  He checked the site picture. The rattling floor and rotor wash could direct the round off course when fired.

  “You have a monkey harness in here?”

  “Roger that,” Bronson said. The crew chief appeared from the port side and strapped Harwood into a vest that zipped in the front and had a ten-foot nylon anchor line that snapped into a D ring in the floor of the cabin. He tested the strength of the anchor by leaning beyond the skin of the aircraft, feeling the slipstream push against him. He could contend with that better than a jittery floorboard. He had the crew chief tighten the nylon cord as he wedged the heels of his shoes against where the floor of the aircraft met the outer edge. His body mass was taut against the nylon anchor as he was leaning at about a sixty-degree angle into the breeze and beyond the outer skin of the helicopter.

  “More stable?” Samuelson asked.

  “Roger. No way to get a shot off that floor.”

  Harwood had always been a better pure shooter, whether from a standing or kneeling position than from the prone. Sure, the prone was more stable, and hide positions usually resulted in using that skill, but Harwood liked the feel of holding the rifle in its entirety. He trusted everything about his capacity to shoot and relied on nothing else but the spotter’s directions.

  “Whatcha got, Sammie?”

  “We
’re officially at one kilometer away at the boat’s four o’clock. I see two people on the bow of the ship. Woman and man. Fits the profile of Basayev and Moreau. Looks like they’re drinking. Just chill. Like they think they’ve gotten away. One dude in the captain’s bridge. Don’t see any other deckhands.”

  “Okay, I’m going for Basayev first, then Moreau. One-two. I need the call on Basayev and then I’m very quickly going for Moreau.”

  “Roger. Basayev is the far target, though they are intermingled. She’s got her back to us. You’ve got the top of Basayev’s head and some of his upper torso for a clean shot. Then you can nail Moreau before she knows what hit her husband.”

  “Roger.” He switched the intercom again. “Bronson, I’m good at a kilometer here. I’ve got a clean shot. Tell the pilot to get exactly astride the ship, maybe a little bit forward so I can get a better site picture.”

  “Got it,” Bronson replied.

  “And does he have chaff on here? Never sure what a magician like Basayev has on hand.”

  “That we do have.”

  “Ropes in case we want to board?”

  “Those also,” Bronson said.

  “Okay. We’re all set here. Samuelson and I are in charge. This is our sniper hide. Everyone is under my command.”

  He switched off before Bronson could argue. The helicopter pushed forward. Back to Samuelson, he said, “Focus me, Sammie. I haven’t had a chance to zero this weapon, and I’m not sure if Moreau changed the zero. So I’m going with what we’ve got.”

  “What are you seeing with borelight and thermal?”

  Harwood flipped a switch on the rail of his reliable rifle, and an infrared light emitted from the bore of the weapon. He dialed the ATN Odin 32DW Micron sight from thermal to infrared and clicked the sight aperture until the crosshairs were aligned with the steady beam of the invisible light. He painted the light on the back corner of the boat, there being no other targets in the vicinity. He was using technology to align his scope sight picture with the muzzle of the weapon so the bullet would impact where he aimed.

  “I’ve got the borelight and the scope set. I’ve got as stable a platform as I’m going to get up here. I now see the Chechen’s head. It’s a two-thirds shot, but good enough. I think I’m going for a double tap then moving to Moreau. I’ve got four rounds in the mag.”

  “Sounds good. They’re drinking champagne. Interesting that their nuke went off ten miles into the ocean and they’re celebrating. Maybe they get paid no matter what happens,” Samuelson said.

  “Okay, we are in position. I have the target. It’s a valid target. Do you agree, Sammie?”

  “Valid target, Reaper. Kill us some bad guys.”

  Harwood leaned forward, pushing himself outside of the helicopter as far as possible. He steadied the rifle against his face and immediately knew that he had made the right call. He flexed his upper body to create an ironclad firing platform. With his knees flexed he could diminish most of the rattle. The sight picture jumped marginally. Switching from infrared to thermal settings, the black-and-white world of thermal imagery provided him the best relief even though he couldn’t make out the facial features of Basayev or Moreau. The couple on the bow certainly fit the profile, though.

  But still, there was something off. Something Samuelson had said, “… they’re celebrating.” Even though the nuke had missed?

  “Just a sec, Sammie.”

  The helicopter was about two hundred meters off the ocean.

  He switched intercoms. “Confirm this is the same boat that picked up Nina Moreau from the River Market Place.”

  “It is. Same name. Breeze Machine. Same size. What’s the issue?”

  “Nothing. Hook up the fast rope just in case we need to confirm the kill,” Harwood said. He switched back to his connection with Samuelson.

  “What’s up?”

  “Something doesn’t feel right. No way the Chechen would be just lounging on the boat like that. Like you said, a nuke just went off. He had to have seen it if not felt it. He knows something is up.”

  “I like the countersniper attitude. You thinking he’s inside somewhere?”

  “Maybe. Let me try something.”

  He leaned outside of the aircraft and assumed his firing position. Back tight against the nylon cord. Upper body flexed for a stable platform. Through the optic he saw the bucket with a bottle of champagne poking out. He leveled the crosshairs on the bucket, a big enough target, squeezed the trigger, and watched the bucket and champagne explode all over the couple on the bow.

  They didn’t move.

  * * *

  “If you move you die,” Basayev said to the captain and Nina Moreau, his wife. The champagne exploded all over the frozen “couple.” He was happy to have Harwood fire first and reveal his position. He had heard the helicopter as it approached, and, as always, had elected to save himself first. Nina was special, but as he had determined, Xanadu had taken the luster off that shine.

  He had tied Nina and the captain at the ankles and wrists, and instructed them to face each other with Nina’s back to the direction from which the helicopter would be coming. A hand grenade, with pin removed but spoon still intact, was wedged between their feet. Their teamwork in keeping the spoon affixed to the grenade would determine their fate. The grenade also gave Basayev the freedom of maneuver to take aim at the helicopter with the new Russian man-portable air defense weapon called a “Willow,” or in American parlance, SA-25. This upgrade had three sensors that were less easily fooled by chaff and flares often fired by aircraft in response to inbound missiles.

  He stood half in, half out of the captain’s bridge, using the windshield and its frame as cover, took aim, armed the system, looked through the sight, and began tracking the aircraft.

  * * *

  “He’s in the bridge. Got a Stinger or some kind of missile,” Samuelson said.

  Harwood shifted his aim to the highest point on the vessel. Found what Samuelson was calling the bridge, and saw a man inside aiming a surface-to-air missile at them. He leveled the crosshairs center-mass on the man and pulled the trigger. He was more concerned with shattering the windshield the man was using to conceal himself. At a minimum it would disrupt his shot. He never counted on being lucky, so he didn’t believe he would kill Basayev on the first shot.

  He saw the windshield explode at the same time the missile left the tube and began smoking directly toward them. He took a second shot at Basayev as the helicopter spit chaff and flares and dove toward the water while simultaneously flying at max speed directly at the yacht’s nose. Harwood stayed where he was, straining against the nylon cord and feeling the salt water spray into his face.

  The pilot was smart. At Samuelson’s mention of the word “missile,” barely after Harwood had fired his two shots, he dropped flares and got low. Churned up the water and created a cool water mist shield around the aircraft so that the flares would be the hottest particles in the air. The math wasn’t in their favor. The missile flew at Mach 2 and they were flying at whatever the max speed might be, close to two hundred miles per hour. In less than ten seconds they would be at the ship. In less than two seconds the missile would know it missed the target. He knew that without contact there would be no detonation. Without detonation, the missile would continue to pursue.

  Quickly they passed over the boat, Harwood still straining against the slipstream that threatened to rip him from the anchor bolt in the floorboard. The helicopter flew so low that he saw shards of the metal bucket and shattered champagne bottle as they whipped across the bow.

  Moments later, a bright orange fireball erupted to the rear of the helicopter. The missile had returned and sought out the engine room of the yacht instead of the helicopter.

  The pilot slowed, no doubt proud that his trickery had worked. Debris littered the ocean beneath them. Samuelson spoke first: “Zodiac at nine o’clock. Moving east. Now turning to get behind the fire. He’s got a weapon.”

  “Roger. I
’ve got it.”

  They were maybe three hundred meters away. The pilot leveled the aircraft, steadied it so that Harwood could take the shot, almost willing him to finish the job, as if he were saying, “I’ve done my part, now do yours.”

  He had Basayev in his crosshairs, the fire wreaking havoc on his ability to focus the thermal scope. With no time to change, he steadied his aim. Saw that the Chechen was doing the same thing, though in the Zodiac he probably had a less stable platform. Didn’t matter. He never underestimated his enemy.

  Which was why he pulled the trigger until he was out of ammunition.

  He waited, hanging from the helicopter, tears sliding down his face from the wind. Heels dug into the cargo bay floor. Smoke drifted across the water. Noxious fumes gagged him as he coughed. The Zodiac boat bobbed in the wreckage. It was the only thing that was whole. If Nina Moreau and the ship captain had been on the bow, they were most likely dead.

  “He’s down,” Samuelson said. His spotter was still there, lying on the floor of the aircraft, talking to him.

  “Okay, take me down.”

  The pilot began to carefully maneuver the aircraft above the Zodiac. Samuelson dropped the fast rope and was first down. Harwood pulled himself inside, unhooked, and followed his teammate into the water. He held his Beretta pistol in his hand, just as Samuelson was doing.

  They swam to the Zodiac, some ten meters away. Shining his flashlight into the rubber boat, he quickly scanned and saw nothing.

  There was no dead body in the boat.

  “He’s gone,” Samuelson said.

  “Lots of blood,” Harwood said.

  “Roger that.”

  He tugged on the rope, the crew chief dropped the medevac hoist, and they each rode it back into the Black Hawk.

  The pilot flew for an hour with spotlights shining on the wreckage.

  “Nothing,” Harwood said.

  “They’re dead, Reaper. Let’s go back,” Bronson said.

  “We’re bingo on gas. That’s a roger,” the pilot added.

  Harwood nodded. “Roger.”

  He and Samuelson fist-bumped, but it was a hollow gesture. They both needed to see the Chechen dead. Confirmation provided closure.