MR. FRANK COCHRAN:
WOULD YOU PLEASE ACCESS THIS LINK IMMEDIATELY?
THIS IS A MATTER OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE.
A lengthy and underlined net address followed that Cochran didn’t recognize. He suspected it was either an invitation to a porn site or an assault by one of the new cyber evangelists. Either way, he didn’t have anything better to do at the moment. The oilman pointed and clicked.
The check light on the fastcam atop his monitor blinked on as the visionphone circuits activated. His systems tower purred and a hiss of static issued from the computer’s speakers. A test pattern flickered across his screen for a moment and Cochran suddenly found himself looking into the sober and attractive face of an auburn-haired and hazel-eyed woman. Clad in a well-worn khaki uniform, she sat outlined against what looked like the interior of some kind of aircraft cockpit.
Something was also vaguely familiar about the woman’s face. Bemused, Cochran glanced over at the CD slots of his system, wondering if he might have accidentally accessed one of his more virulent computer role-playing games. Then the woman on the screen spoke and erased that possibility.
“Good afternoon. Are you Mr. Frank Cochran, the head of systems engineering for North Star Petroleum?”
“Uh, well, yes, I am,” Cochran replied, intrigued. “And may I ask who you are?”
“My name is Amanda Garrett, Captain Amanda Garrett of the United States Navy. I’m speaking to you from the cockpit of the patrol gunboat USS Queen of the West, currently operating off the West African coast. I hope you’ll excuse this rather unconventional method of contact, Mr. Cochran, but a critical situation has developed here and we urgently require your assistance.”
This was no canned cyberadventure, much as it sounded like one. And this was no elaborate practical joke, either. He recognized that name and that face now. After the blowup in China last year, they’d both been in the newspapers and on the networks often enough.
Lord! This was just too insane!
“Uh, well, of course, Captain Garrett,” he fumbled in reply. “However I can help. But what can I do for the Navy?”
“You are a highly respected petroleum systems engineer, Mr. Cochran. Your specialty, as we understand it, is refinery and pipeline safety systems. We urgently need the answers to some questions within your field of expertise, and we need them immediately.”
Cochran nodded. “All right. What’s the problem?”
“I’m going to show a series of aerial recon images of the oil-transfer facility at Port Monrovia in the West African Union. Specifically, I’m going to show you the loading dock, the tank farm, and the pipeline linking them. We need to know if that pipleline can be cut with an explosive charge without triggering a fire or a sympathetic detonation within the tank farm. Also, where would the safest place to make such a cut be?”
Cochran frowned. “Is the line carrying a load currently?”
“Not yet.”
“Let’s see your pictures.”
As the image files transferred, Cochran split-screened his system and started calling up some of his work files. Let’s see, Shell did a lot of work down in that corner of the world. What did their standard systems package look like?
It took him roughly five minutes to reach his conclusions.
“Captain Garrett, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem. You’ve got sets of check and spill valves at both ends of that line that should catch any tube flash. I’d say you could blow a cut with a reasonable safety margin.”
“Where would the best place be to blow the line?”
“Here.” Cochran indicated a point on the screen image with his mouse. “Anywhere between the pier and this valve cluster at the center point of the pipeline. If they aren’t actively transferring fuel, they should have the manuals here closed as well. That should give you a degree of extra protection against a flash toward the tank farm.”
“Understood.” The reconnaissance photos blinked out and Amanda Garrett’s image refilled the monitor screen. “Now, a final question. How long would it take to repair a pipeline cut like that?”
“That would depend on a number of things. How big a charge was used to blow the cut. How available the repair materials are and how good the repair crew is. For our people, I’d say eight to twelve hours. For a good Third World outfit, I’d say sixteen to twenty-four.”
“All right.” The Garrett woman gave a thoughtful nod of her head, obviously moving on in her considerations. “That’s what we needed. Thank you, Mr. Cochran. You’ve been of great service to us, sir. I’m not sure what remuneration we can give you beyond a letter of commendation and my personal thanks, but I can promise you that the matter will be looked into.”
“Don’t mention it … Look, Captain … this is for real, isn’t it? I mean, this isn’t some kind of exercise or something, is it?”
She smiled back rather grimly. “It’s all too real, Mr. Cochran. We’re trying to end a war out here. God willing, you may have just helped us to do so.”
Damn, but wasn’t this going to be something to talk about over the dinner table with Amy and the kids! And then another thought occurred to him. “I suppose this is all top secret and hush hush, huh? I mean, I can’t tell anyone about this, right?”
“I don’t see why not, Mr. Cochran. By the time you could tell anyone about it, this part of the show is going to be over.”
Port Monrovia 0941 Hours, Zone Time; September 7, 2007
The Ministry of Public Morale had orchestrated a greeting celebration at the oiling pier: a crowd of dignitaries and senior government staff, a local pop band to provide music, and a busload of brightly clad girl dancers from some of the city’s youth groups. An Army honor guard stood at parade rest along the pierside, flower-bearing children interspersed between each soldier.
Obe Belewa knew that the concentration of the Union’s young people at the oil pier wasn’t for the gaiety of it alone. Using his nation’s children as living shields against the U.N. put an ache and a sickness in his gut that was going to last him for a long time. Yet, as the old European saying went, “beggars can’t be choosers.”
“We’ve gotten it through,” he murmured. “That’s what matters.”
Ambassador Umamgi thought the comment addressed to him. “We have won, General.” He smiled humorlessly. “A great victory over the Western colonialists!”
As senior Algerian representative in-country and as the instigator of the plan, it was only right that he be present at the arrival as well. Yet his lurking presence grated on Belewa’s nerves even more than usual. He served as another reminder of Belewa’s own compromised ethics.
Belewa shook his head. “No, Ambassador. We haven’t won. Not yet. But at least now we can carry on the fight for a time longer.”
“Come, Obe,” Sako Atiba interjected. “Let’s at least celebrate today’s victory for today.” Standing between the soldier and the diplomat, the Chief of Staff wore a more honest grin of triumph. He had shared in this scheme of Umamgi’s, and he did not seem too unduly concerned about the loss of honor involved.
Belewa grunted an acknowledgment.
Out at the mouth of the harbor, the Bajara edged slowly in through the entry channel. The port tug carefully shepherded her on her way and the three heavy gunboats of the Monrovia squadron trailed in her wake, ready for any last-minute intervention by the UNAFIN forces.
Port Monrovia was a man-made harbor. Two huge artificial breakwaters extended a mile and a quarter out to sea, their ends converging at the entry channel to form a triangle of protected water against the African coast. Army security patrols ranged the length of both breakwaters and a Panhard armored car sat at the end of the service road that ran the length of each causeway, its 90mm cannon aimed to seaward. Additional precautionary presences.
Hopefully, Belewa thought, such precautions were
unnecessary. Perhaps he had at last beaten the Leopard. If so, it was not in the way he would have preferred. If there had been any honor in this last confrontation, it belonged to her. And yet she had backed down. And this late in the game he could not refuse any victory, no matter how it was won.
But was there, in fact, a victory to celebrate yet? Narrowing his eyes against the sun, Belewa looked skyward and caught the flash of slender white wings high in the azure zenith. An American Predator spy drone, circling like a hungry eagle.
The Leopard’s gaze was still fixed upon him. What was she thinking?
Sako slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Come, General, let’s go out on the pier. You should be the first man up the gangway when the ship docks.”
“Only to thank her crew and our warriors, Brigadier. Men and boys alike.”
The oil-handling pier extended into the harbor from the southern breakwater, roughly seven hundred yards from the breakwater’s shoreward root. Leaving the cluster of staff and command cars at the base of the pier, the Premier General and his chief of staff strode out along it, Umamgi hastening to stay close enough to share in the approbation.
The troopers of the bodyguard force moved watchfully with Belewa’s party, not that the General felt much at risk this day. It had been a long time since Belewa had been able to give his people good news. They were hungry for it, and they cheered him as he passed through the waiting crowd, the deprivations and uncertainties of the past few months forgotten for the moment. Belewa waved and shook hands and found himself smiling.
Turning out of the central channel, the tanker stood in toward the oiling pier, its attendant tug nuzzling it slowly closer. A few minutes more and it would be within casting range of the mooring lines. The mixed Union and Algerian crew manning the rails joined in the cheering.
And then over the raised voices and blaring jincajou music, Belewa heard another sound, a hard-edged nasal whine growing rapidly in volume. He looked up just in time to see a winged and finned cigar shape flash a few hundred feet over head, angling inland. A corner of Belewa’s warrior’s mind reacted analytically.
American SeaSLAM missile. Extended Response variant. Sea and air launched. Precision guidance. Land attack …
Then the missile was past and the shock wave of a powerful explosion slapped across the crowd, turning cheers to screams. A quarter of a mile away, a mushroom of smoke rose above the harbor breakwater. Belatedly, air raid sirens began to scream.
“Down!” Belewa bellowed. “Everyone get down and stay down! Brigadier Atiba! With me!” With his chief of staff and security trailing behind, Belewa ran for his staff car, sidestepping Ambassador Umamgi, who lay cowered on the pier decking.
The only casualties were a couple of lightly wounded members of an army security patrol, and overtly, the damage appeared minor. A shallow crater blasted in the heavy stone of the causeway, lightly damaging the access road that ran atop it. However, it was obvious that the impact point had carefully been centered on the petroleum-transfer pipelines that paralleled the access road. A twenty-foot gap had been torn out of the system, and other pipe sections above and below the target had been shrapnel riddled and wrenched out of alignment.
By the time Belewa and his entourage arrived at the scene, the port’s fire brigade had extinguished the few smoldering pools of spilled residual oil. There had been only one missile launched, and only this one target struck.
“Brigadier Atiba, get the harbor fully secured,” Belewa snapped as he dismounted from the Land Rover. “Get all undesignated civilians out of the area. And get the manager of the port oil facilities out here immediately!”
“He’s on his way now, General,” the Chief of Staff replied, pointing to a battered jeep tearing up the causeway from the tank farm.
Standing beside the staff car, Belewa gave the tank farm manager and his chief engineer an impatient five minutes to assess the damage before summoning them over. “How bad?” he demanded.
The director could only shake his head. “What is there to say, General? Both the eight-inch and the twelve-inch transfer lines are cut. We can’t unload until they are repaired.”
“Could we unload the fuel from the tanker directly into the disbursement convoys?”
The director considered for a moment before shaking his head again. “Something could be rigged, I suppose, but it would be like draining a lake through a straw. It would take weeks to off-load that tanker using portable pumps. It will be easier and faster to repair the transfer lines.”
“How long?”
“It doesn’t look too bad, General. A day. Two at the most.”
“Twenty-four hours from now, those pipelines will be repaired and that tanker will be unloading. Is that understood ? Twenty-four hours!”
The chill in Belewa’s voice rendered any answer except “Yes, sir” extremely unwise.
Belewa allowed the suddenly sweating tank farm director to proceed with his urgent task. As Belewa turned away, he noted a piece of crumpled aluminum lying at his feet. Picking it up, he brushed the dust from its scorched, gray-painted surface and read the dark blue stenciling upon it: U.S. NAV.
He had been a fool to even dream of a victory. Not while the Leopard lived. He had thrown her off for a moment, yet she was already springing back upon him, her fangs still reaching for his throat.
“Brigadier Atiba! I want every man and every gun we’ve got available pulled back into the Monrovia defenses! Everything! Now!”
Mobile Offshore Base, Floater 1 1002 Hours, Zone Time;
September 7, 2007
With her upperworks blackened by booster exhaust, the Queen of the West surged up Floater 1’s docking ramp. Her squadron sisters, Carondelet and Manassas, were already in their hangar slots, their service crews swarming around them.
“Swarming” was an apt collective description of the entire platform. “All hands on deck” had been called, and the base complement was hard at work dealing with the intensifying barrage of orders that had been flowing in from the task force flag craft.
Amanda found the briefing trailer crowded upon her entry. As per her command, all senior officers and NCOs of the seafighter squadron, Fox company, and the platform service force were present. Videoconferencing links had also been established with the U.S. command cadre at Conakry Base. Also linked in were the captains of both the Santana and Sirocco, the two Patrol Craft already having been ordered to leave their stations and close with Floater 1 at their best possible speed.
Amanda worked her way forward to the head of the briefing table. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” she began quietly, turning to face her silent and intent audience. “The one thing we have the least of at this moment is time, so we’ll get right to it. I know you all have been advised on the current situation. The West African Union has broken the blockade. They’ve gotten an oil tanker through.
“If they succeed in unloading and dispersing this tanker’s cargo, we’re right back to where we were six months ago. All of our efforts, all of our sacrifices, all of the blood spilled during this operation will have been for nothing. I do not intend to see this happen.”
She scanned the faces of her officers, looking for any sign of a broken will or any hint of lingering distrust in her. Either could be disastrous during the next twenty-four hours. The structure she had tried to build here off the Gold Coast was about to face its ultimate test.
“On my own authority and personal responsibility, I have taken action to prevent the unloading of the tanker … for perhaps a day. Within that time frame, we have to develop, organize, and launch an operation to prevent the West African Union from acquiring these new oil reserves. We are not going to be able to wait around for outside help to arrive. We will have to go with the resources we have available to us right now. We will also have to launch this operation into the face of a fully alerted and mobilized enemy.
You may rest assured that the Union will be waiting for us with everything they’ve got.”
She scanned the room once more. She heard only the purr of the air conditioner and the creak of a chair. After a moment, Stone Quillain broke the silence.
“What’s the game plan, Skipper?”
“The human shields deployed aboard the tanker and around the tank farm preclude a direct hard-kill attack with standoff weapons. In fact, the presence of those hostages nullifies most of the technological edge we have over the Union. Accordingly, we’re going to try something old—in fact, a military evolution that, to the best of my knowledge, has not been attempted since the American Civil War.”
Amanda sank into the chair at the head of the briefing table, crossing her arms on the tabletop. “How many of you have ever heard of a cutting-out expedition?”
UNAFIN Operations Area September 7, 2007
Improvise, jury-rig, make it up as you go along …
“A ton of soap flakes?” The stores CPO looked up from his desk, flabbergasted.
“That’s right,” his division officer replied. “They want a ton of soap flakes or powdered soap or whatever we can find along that line out on the platform immediately.”
“A ton, sir?”
“Don’t ask me why, Simpson, I don’t know. Just pallet up what we have in the head and galley stocks. Then send a truck into Conakry to see what we can dig up there. Oh, and keep a lookout for stereo equipment while you’re about it, and no, I don’t know what they want that for either.”
Compromise, negotiate, prevaricate …
The French Corvette captain frowned from the videophone screen. “Captain Garrett, I am as displeased about these events as you are. Yet I cannot take an active role in any such action without the authorization. Maintaining a blockade is one thing. A direct involvement in a, as you say, ‘shooting war’ is another. I wager my superiors and my government will require a degree of consideration before making any such plunge.”
Sea fighter Page 44
