Ensign Sandra “Snowy” Banks had been the Queen’s first exec, and she’d ridden right seat for Mr. Lane for a lot of sea miles. That had been back when, before West Africa. Before they’d had to send Miss Banks back to her warrior’s rest in that quiet St. Louis cemetery. The skipper still remembered, though. Chief Caitlin did too.
Sometimes she wasn’t sure if it was just a slip of the tongue or if maybe Mr. Lane really was talking to the Queen’s old exec. Scrounger didn’t mind particularly either way. In fact, it would be kind of nice if Miss Banks could drop by every now and again, just so she could see that everything was being kept shipshape on the old Queen.
Scrounger smiled into the dark. “We’re taking care of business, ma’am,” she whispered.
“That was a most interesting evolution, Captain,” Commander Carberry commented with grave formality. With the old school’s dread of commenting on a superior officer’s performance, it was as close as he could come to a compliment.
Amanda gave an acknowledging tilt of her head in the screenglow. “The task force performed quite well. I’m pleased. When should we be in at Benoa Harbor? Around ten hundred?”
The chunky amphib commander didn’t even glance up at the navigation display. “We will be tying up at ten hundred hours exactly, ma’am.”
Amanda suppressed a smile. She would be willing to wager that the lines would be going over the side within one minute of that call. “Very well, then, I’ll stand down for a while. Keep me notified of any new developments.”
“Understood, Captain. Will do.”
Carberry faced forward, intent on the night beyond the bow of his ship. Amanda took a final look around the quiet, red-lit orderliness of the bridge and started aft.
A shadow detached from the bulkhead near the entryway. “Lucas couldn’t say it, but I can. A slickly executed double-shuffle, Amanda. I bet that poor bastard of a Parchim skipper is still wondering what hit him.”
“Hmm, that will just make him that harder to fool next time, Admiral.” Amanda replied. “Remember, sooner or later we’re going have to sneak Steamer and his gang back aboard again.”
“Sufficient is the evil unto the day, Captain. We’ll worry about that later. In the meantime, would you care to join me for midrats in the ward room before you turn in?”
“I’d love to, sir. Being sneaky gives me an appetite.”
“Midrats,” or midnight rations, is the fourth meal of the day for the United States Navy, either a final settling bite before turning in, or a starting jolt to the blood sugar, depending upon which end of the watch bill one is posted at.
With the Carlson standing down from action stations, a dozen other task force officers were present in the wardroom, making their selections from the trays of sandwiches, fruit, and fresh baked goods set out along the serving board.
A small napkin-covered plate had been placed behind the larger sandwich tray with a neatly lettered RESERVED FOR THE TACBOSS card set atop it. Amanda flipped the napkin back with appreciative anticipation. Welch’s grape jelly and Jif extra crunchy peanut butter on French bread. With the telepathy required of a truly first-class member of his rating, the Carlson’s senior mess steward had one of her favorites waiting.
“Coffee, milk, or bug juice?” MacIntyre inquired from the beverage dispenser.
“Milk, please. A tall cold one,” Amanda replied. “Anything else would be like serving red wine with fish. Hasn’t your daughter ever taught you the proper aesthetics of peanut butter and jelly?”
“She’s never had the chance, I suppose,” MacIntyre replied, filling a glass for Amanda. “You know how it is with the trade.”
“Very much so,” she replied, accepting the beverage. “How are things going with Judy?”
“Fine.” A hint of enthusiasm crept into Maclntyre’s voice. Amanda had learned he enjoyed speaking about his “Daddy’s girl.”
“She’s getting on well at school, her grades are good, and she’s growing into quite the young lady. She’s going to be as beautiful as her mother.”
MacIntyre tossed a roast beef on whole wheat onto his own plate and hesitated. “That’s the one regret I’ve ever had with the Navy. I’ve missed so much with my kids, with Judy and with her brothers. Sometimes I worry about their forgiving me for being gone so often.”
He glanced at her. “You were a Navy brat, Amanda. How did you take it with Wils?”
Amanda tilted her head in consideration. “Not too bad, really,” she said after a moment. “But then, one of the first lessons my parents taught me was that you have to be willing to share. I also learned early on that I had just about the bravest, most loving, most wonderful dad in the whole world. When you’re that lucky, you should be willing to be generous with it.”
They moved to the nearest of the tables and took seats across from each other.
Amanda smiled at MacIntyre. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Judy is a sensible young woman and she didn’t seem to be the stingy type to me.”
“No, she isn’t. Not a bit of it. But still …” MacIntyre hesitated for a second. “Amanda, could I ask you a big favor?”
“Of course. What is it, sir?”
She was intrigued to find her solid and craggy CO looking faintly embarrassed. “Maybe when we get back from this cruise, you could take Judy somewhere and talk to her about me being gone so much. And maybe some other things, too, the kind of topics a sixteen-year-old girl might want to talk about to another woman instead of her father. I’d appreciate it,” the admiral finished gruffly, “and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather ask to do it.”
“I’ll be happy to talk with Judy anytime, Admiral. I’m flattered you’d ask me.” And Amanda genuinely was. “I will admit I haven’t had much hands-on experience with that kind of thing, but I’ll do my best. Tell me more about her.”
Their conversation progressed little further that night, however. Christine Rendino literally staggered into the compartment, her appearance bringing Amanda and MacIntyre both to their feet.
“Chris, my God, are you all right?”
“Oh, sure, Boss Ma’am. I’m fine.” Her face wan and her voice hoarse, Christine collapsed in the chair across from them. “I just need to toke a few tanna leaves and I’ll be good to go again.”
Reaching over, Chris procured and drained Amanda’s glass of milk, then let her head thump down on her crossed arms. “It took us eleven straight hours, but Tran and I finally did it. We busted the prizemaster,” she murmured.
Midrats were forgotten. Amanda, MacIntyre, and Christine withdrew at once to the security of Amanda’s flag quarters.
“You’ve got him talking?” Amanda demanded as the soundproof door closed behind them.
“At the moment, we can’t get him to shut up.” Christine dropped onto the couch, rubbing her eyes. “The poor schmo didn’t have a clue about effective anti-interrogation techniques. He tried to play the strong and silent type, and those guys are a cinch to break down. You just have to stay on ’em long enough.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, Commander,” MacIntyre said, leaning back against Amanda’s desk edge, “but if this interrogation’s put you in this kind of shape, what’s left of him? We are dealing with a foreign national here. One that we’re going to have to give back sooner or later.”
Christine grinned feebly. “We never laid a glove on him, sir. The last thing you want in a situation like this is to reenforce an anger-defiance scenario or to give your subject a solid pain point to focus on.
“While we had him on the Duke, we hit this guy with an isolation and temporal disorientation program to soften him up. Then, when we got him here aboard the Carlson, we hammered him with a repetitive, sequential-point interrogation with positive feedback anytime we gained ground.”
“Hmm,” MacIntyre grunted. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Amanda looked at her friend with concern. “Are you going to have to go through this with all of the prisoners?”
�
��Oh, no, not even close, Boss Ma’am. We can pick keywords like place and personal names out of the prizemaster’s interrogation—his is Hayam Mangkurat by the way—and use them against the other prisoners. Once we can show that somebody else has already blabbed, the others should follow along pretty easily. Getting the first one to talk is the toughie.”
“Will he recover?” Amanda asked.
“Oh, sure,” Christine stretched. “We’ll give him his day-and-night cycle back and he’ll sleep it all off in a couple of days. He’ll be fine.”
“At least until his boss and the rest of his clan figure out that he spilled,” MacIntyre commented grimly.
Christine waved the thought away. “No problem. I’m keeping the other prisoners isolated and under temporal disorientation until after the first round of interrogations. The way I’m going to double-shuffle the questioning, nobody’s ever going to know who talked first. Not even old Mangkurat himself. Piece of cake.”
“This time I’ll take your word for it.” Amanda crossed to the couch and tilted her friend’s head back, studying the shadows under her eyes. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to just hit him with a dose of scopolamine?”
“Babble juice does just that, makes ’em babble. When you break ’em down the old-fashioned way, you get to the straight skinny faster.” Christine collapsed back on the couch, a faint smile on her face. “One thing’s for sure: That Inspector Tran really knows his stuff. It’s a real frickin’ joy interrogating someone with him.”
Amanda and MacIntyre exchanged glances. They both had come to rely on and implicitly trust Christine Rendino. Each, in their own way, had become very fond of the little blonde. But they both held to the old line officer’s adage that intels were always just a little bit strange.
“What have you got out of him so far?” MacIntyre inquired.
“That whoever is running this show, be it Harconan or whoever, has this place organized, ” Christine said emphatically. “Hayam Mangkurat’s ship is one of half a dozen raider schooners that stage out of a Bugis colony on the western peninsula of Sulawesi. It’s a village north of Parepare on Mandar Bay called Adat Tanjung. Apparently it’s a major pirate port and operating base, but if we went storming in there tomorrow, we wouldn’t find a single trace of a stolen cargo, an out-of-place weapon, or even a single rupiah that couldn’t be accounted for.”
Amanda sank down on the couch beside Christine. “How are they pulling it off, Chris?”
“They take advantage of the fact that there are about ten gajillion little islands, bays, and inlets out there, many of which have never been accurately charted. Apparently nothing incriminating is ever brought into the village area itself The raider pinisi are decontaminated before they return to base. All weapons are secured in cache sites, and the hijacked cargoes are delivered to prearranged dropoff points. The pirates themselves never see who recovers the loot.
“A reverse procedure occurs when they need to re-outfit. They’re given a pickup point along the coast or on a nearby island, and the gear they need—weapons, ammo, engine parts, whatever—is sitting there under camouflage, waiting for them. They never see who delivers it.”
“How’s this all coordinated?” MacIntyre demanded. “How do they set the pickup and delivery points?”
“It’s so ingenious it hurts, Admiral, sir,” Christine replied. “Every raider skipper is given two things: a garden-variety digital wristwatch with a month’s memory, and a hand-held Global Positioning Unit—two items that wouldn’t arouse any suspicion at all on an interisland trader. Each skipper is also given a place around his home village area where he leaves his wristwatch and GPU unit at a specific time once a month. When he picks them up again, the watch has been programmed with a set of pickup and delivery times and the GPU with drop and recovery point coordinates. There’s also a block of raiding intelligence on ships and high value cargoes passing within a given range of the clan villages. The raider captains themselves divvy up the pie according to what’s within their capabilities. The only decrees from the sea king are fair shares for all and no poaching in another clan’s territory. Break the rules and the support stops coming.”
Christine smothered a yawn with her palm. “The raider captains and the village elders all know that one of their number is the chosen agent of the raja samudra, but nobody knows who. It’s a classic cell security system. You can’t leak what you don’t know. There’s no overt chain of command to follow to the higher echelons of the organization.”
“How do the pirates get their payback?” Amanda asked.
“Any number of different ways; through material, for one: The pirate skipper leaves a wish list at his monthly drop, and the gear he needs is at his next pickup point.
“As far as cash goes, Indonesia isn’t all that primitive anymore. It’s the most natural thing in the world for the skipper of a pinisi to have a bank account on one of the interisland chain banks. Intermittently money is deposited in that account under his name, random amounts at erratic intervals. Money that can be explained away as a good haul of fish or a rich charter.”
“And what about those Bugis aid programs Harconan sponsors?” MacIntyre added. “What do you want to bet that the clans that most support the sea king get the plumpest support packages?”
“No bets taken,“Amanda replied. “And remember those so-called pirate raids on Harconan’s shipping line? That will be another mode of pay off and resupply he can use while maintaining the front of being just another harassed shipowner.”
She crossed to the porthole and stared out into the night. “He’s careful, Admiral, and so cunning it hurts. He’s subtly herding the Bugis clans under his control, building an association between the raja samudra and wealth, comfort, empowerment, and dignity. And so far he’s asked for little in return. Someday, though, he will. He’ll lead, and they’ll follow. The question is, where?”
MacIntyre gave an ironic chuckle. “It’s grown a bit from a satellite recovery mission, hasn’t it.”
“Too true, sir. Sometimes you have to tip the rock over before you can see what-all’s hiding underneath. I think the secretary of state and the National Command Authority will agree that this is a very definite and growing freedom-of-the-seas concern.”
“Tomorrow I’ll get on the horn to Foggy Bottom and brief the secretary of state on the new permutations we’re kicking up out here. I think he’ll agree this is very much a case of ‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.’ Until we at least develop a clearer image of how far this plan of Harconan’s has progressed. After that, we’ll see who gets to throw the monkey wrench into the works, us or the Indonesians.”
“Let’s hope they’ll believe us when the time comes.” Amanda turned from the port and came to lean back against the desk beside MacIntyre. “At any rate, we have a better idea of what to look for now, and we know where to aim Steamer and the microforce. Maybe they can find us the next step up the ladder.”
A soft snore came from the direction of the office couch. Collapsed in an inelegant but comfortable posture, Christine Rendino sprawled, asleep.
Amanda and the admiral swapped grins. “That reminds me”— Amanda lowered her voice to a whisper—“we’d all better get our beauty rest. We’ve got a party to go to tomorrow night.”
Benoa Port, Island of Bali
0926 Hours, Zone Time: August 15, 2008
It is said that Bali is the largest outpost of the Hindu religion outside of India; yet, this is not quite true. The religion of the Balinese, Agama Hindu Dharma (the Religion of the Holy Water) is unique unto and of itself, tempered with the ancient mysticism of the first peoples of the archipelago.
God- and demon-haunted, seemingly as delicate as a mountain mist or a butterfly’s wing, this religion/philosophy/way of life has endured through the centuries with the resiliency of tempered steel.
To Bali the Brahman priests and scholars of the lost golden Majapahit Empire retreated in the fifteenth century, and here they made their stand against the
Islamic invasion from the West. Here they held, the followers of Mohammed breaking like the waves against the stark coastal cliffs of the little island.
Here, also, the Dutch came in 1846, Bali being the last free holdout in the archipelago against Holland’s colonial empire. Sixty years of savage resistance would follow before the last battle was fought, and yet, all the Dutch could claim were the towns and villages, never Bali’s soul.
In the late twentieth century came the most insidious invasion of all, the twentieth century itself, with its tourists and commercialization and a government in Jakarta with decided ideas of what should be done “for Bali’s own good.”
And yet, the Balinese stand. Perhaps it is because the Followers of the Holy Water have an advantage over every other religion in the world: It is said they know what heaven actually looks like.
Like Bali.
The Sea Fighter Task Force arrived with the growing heat of the day, standing in through the mouth of Benoa Harbor, past Serangan (Turtle) Island and the tip of Cape Benoa.
The expected reception committee awaited them at the Port: an Indonesian army band and honor guard from the local garrison force and a small cluster of civil and military officials to say the appropriate words of welcome and to put the brightest possible spin on this visitation from the United States.
Others awaited the Sea Fighters’ arrival as well.
Cape Benoa
2019 Hours, Zone Time: August 15, 2008
Makara Harconan wheeled the Bentley Challenger convertible into the harbor overlook, parking at the far end, well away from the guided tour van and the clusters of rented motor scooters.
The sunset was flaming magnificently to the west beyond the Bukit Badung Peninsula with a flight of elaborate Balinese kites dancing against it, the excited voices of their young pilots shrill and happy in the growing dusk.
At another time, Harconan would have enjoyed watching the sky borne dance. Tonight, though, he had other affairs to tend. Thoughtfully he studied the vast cluster of glowing work lights that seemed to float in the center of the bay.
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