Target Lock

by James H. Cobb

  Harconan laughed. “You have none at all, my beautiful captive, none at all. Relax and enjoy captivity. Savor the adventure of it. Tomorrow will be an interesting day.”

  “What happens tomorrow?”

  “You’ll see. I have a surprise for you. I think you’ll be impressed.”

  Amanda thought of the thin stream of oil trailing in the schooner’s wake. And I, my magnificent bastard, may have a surprise for you.

  NAVSPECFORCE Orbital Imaging Center

  Pearl Harbor Fleet Base, Hawaii

  0835 Hours, Zone Time: August 23, 2008

  BUMP THE ARAFURA RUN AND WESTERN NEW GUINEA TO THE HEAD OF THE STACK THIS WATCH, LINDIE. MAX PRIORITY.

  Air Force Technical Sergeant Linda “Lindie” Peterson swore and set aside her cup of drink-dispenser coffee and breakfast Danish to answer the E-memo that had snapped into existence on her workstation’s secondary screen. She’d just barely made it through the door of her cubicle and her watch officer was already declaring a Chinese fire drill.

  “Go ahead,” the imaging analyst muttered under her breath. “Take the joint service assignment with the damned Navy, Lindie. It’s a good ticket to get punched and the kids will love Hawaii.”

  Savagely she clattered a reply back into her keyboard. EXCUSE ME, LIEUTENANT, BUT WE ALREADY HAVE MAX PRIS ON BOTH THE NORTHERN CHINA AND BLACK SEA RUNS. WHAT IS OUR EXACT TASKING ORDER?

  The reply scrolled back across her screen. ALL INDONESIA SWEEPS HAVE ULTIMATE MAX PRI UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. THAT’S THE WORD FROM THE MAN, EDDIE MAC HIMSELF. SAME FROM COMMANDER RENDINO. DO IT PERFECTLY YESTERDAY!

  CAN I ASK WHAT WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE LOOKING FOR, LIEUTENANT? Lindie typed.

  QUOTE “ANYTHING UNUSUAL.” GET ON IT, SERGEANT.

  She groaned and accessed the section tasking file. She found that she had been assigned a multispectral comparison run on the easternmost peninsula of New Guinea using an imaging block just downloaded from one of the big NSA Keyhole 13 reconsats. In essence, her day’s labor would be to play a titanic game of “Compare these pictures” involving a half-million square miles, seeking for terrain and environmental differences that might become apparent as images taken at various levels of the infrared, ultraviolet, and visible spectra were matched and compared. Variances in the imaging under different light forms might reveal evidence of human activity not apparent to the naked eye. For example, dying vegetation that had been cut and deployed as camouflage would reflect light differently than undamaged living plant life.

  It would be a finicky, time-consuming job that required the sharpness of the human eye and the flexibility of the human mind.

  Lindie lit off the two big thirty-inch analysis screens that overlooked her workstation console. Pausing to snap a bite out of her Danish, she called up the first sector scan.

  Some four hours later her uniform jacket was draped over the back of her chair, her blouse collar was undone, and the crumbs of her pastry-and-coffee breakfast had been replaced with the remnants of a canned-soda-and-cheese-sandwich lunch. With her eyes burning, she continued the analysis drill. Pull up a satellite photograph of a block of the New Guinea coast as seen from a high altitude baseline on her A screen, then pull up the same image in an alternative light spectrum on the B screen, matching the two for deviations. When one was found, it was coordinated for further investigation at a lower baseline.

  Lindie had completed the sweep of her block at twenty-, ten-, and five-kilometer altitude equivalencies and had found nothing extraordinary. That merely meant that now she must re-grid her block to a smaller scale and start over again from one K.

  Her eyes burned and she took a moment to rub some tear moisture back into them with the heels of her hands. Simply to look at something different for a moment, she called up the base scale image of her analysis zone on her screens; that was the view of eastern New Guinea as seen unmagnified from low-earth orbit.

  And caught something.

  The spectrum imaging on her A and B screens had been slaved together. When she had called up the standard spectrum view of New Guinea on her A screen, the B screen had pulled up an IR variant of the same image. And there was a differentiation.

  An odd little broken streak cut across the bottom of the infrared image. Nothing was apparent on the visible light photo. Possibly it was just a transmission or processing flaw.

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t.

  It was also far out of Lindie’s tasked analysis block, being well out in the Banda Sea off the coast. That, however, was irrelevant. A good photo analyst has mongoose blood, the instinctive need to go and find out. Using her computer mouse, she windowed around the irregularity, then blew it up to full-screen size.

  Minutes later she was dialing her watch officer’s office number. This wasn’t a matter for an E-memo.

  “Lieutenant Morgan, this is Sergeant Peterson. I think I may have stumbled across something pretty hot here. It’s out of my area, but it is in the Indonesian operations zone…. Yes, sir, Southeast Asian quadrant four…. Sector I-A-9 … Block 30…. Try altitude baseline 50K in the infrared …. Yes, sir, I concur, a definite surface reflectivity variant, and that has got to be an artificial pattern …. Yes, sir, I would say that counts as an ‘anything unusual.’”

  Banda Sea, Below the Bomberai Peninsula

  0717 Hours, Zone Time: August 23, 2008

  A kiss and a cupped hand over her right breast brought Amanda awake the next morning.

  The bunk in the schooner’s master cabin was wider and equipped with a better mattress. Amanda had enjoyed both amenities without shame, just as for long hours she had savored the fiery lovemaking of Makara Harconan.

  She had allowed herself to be carried here the night before, surrendering after another round of perfunctory protests.

  She returned the kiss and intimate caress, opening her eyes to Harconan’s soft chuckle. “Good morning,” he whispered, leaning in over her. “Is being a captive all that bad?”

  “I’ll let you know after I see what breakfast is like.”

  He laughed again and drew back from the bunk. Harconan had apparently been up and about for some time. He’d shaved and was clad in light khaki trousers and a short-sleeved military-cut shirt. Crossing to a wall locker, he removed a similar set of clothing.

  “Here,” he said, tossing the garments across to Amanda. “We’re not going to have to be quite so security-conscious presently. I think you’ll find these a bit more comfortable than a sarung, although you did look most charming yesterday.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she replied, sitting up to catch the clothing. “Uh, excuse me, but how about underwear?”

  “Women are never satisfied. You could be grateful that I was able to find pants and shirt aboard in your size. I might have decided to leave you in that sarung or, better yet, in just a pair of these.” He flipped her sandals onto the deck beside the bunk.

  Amanda softened her voice and looked away as she slipped the shirt on. “Excuse me, I forgot my place as your prisoner.”

  Harconan hesitated, then crossed to the bunk. Sitting on its edge, he slipped his arm around her. “I rather wish you would, Amanda. I wish that, for the next few days, you might consider yourself a guest of the Bugis people rather than a prisoner.”

  “I believe Saddam Hussein once used the same line.” Keeping her eyes averted, Amanda could only hope she was not overplaying her role in either direction. With her strategy set, she must not seem to give ground too readily; yet on the other, she must appear to be vulnerable to a seduction over to Harconan’s side.

  She felt Harconan squeeze her shoulders. “Amanda, please, there are events taking place here that go far beyond piracy and the loss of your satellite. Things are going to change in this part of the world. For the sake of your nation and mine, I ask you only for an open mind.”

  Amanda counted to three and hesitantly looked back into Harconan’s face. “Well, it never hurts to listen.”

  “It doesn’t. Now, finish getting dress
ed, and hurry; there is something you’ll want to see. This morning you’ll breakfast in the stronghold of the sea king.”

  With a final smile and a kiss on her forehead, be departed.

  A bolt was still thrown on the other side of the cabin door, and Amanda sensed the presence of a guard in the passageway.

  So far, Amanda mused as she pulled on her slacks, her act was holding her audience. Or at least to the extent that Harconan was willing to maintain his own facade.

  Or could it be more than a facade?

  As in her old cabin, a small salt-clouded mirror was bolted to one bulk head. Amanda looked into it, still mildly startled at the dark-haired visage that looked back. She studied the high-cheekboned face with its start of horizon crows’-feet at the corner of the eyes. She acknowledged being reasonably good-looking and she’d been exceptionally fortunate in having some very attractive and dynamic men in her life, but she couldn’t see how this visage could ever be a valid justification for the launching of a thousand ships. She couldn’t see it, but then, there was no accounting for taste.

  This was a duty quite different from any other she’d ever been called on to perform before. She had an instinctive dislike for both lying and for using a personal relationship in this way, even with a foe like Harconan. Stark feminine and military practicality pushed that aside, however.

  Harconan had chosen the tune, but she would interpret the dance in her own way. If it required that she lie in his arms and accept his frankly delicious passion, so be it. If, for the moment, all she could do was to serve as a distraction, drawing Harconan’s time and focus away from his confrontation with the task force, so be it. She would fight with whatever was in the shot locker.

  One factor that helped keep the taste of betrayal out of her mouth was Makara’s apparent assumption that she, Captain Amanda Lee Garrett, USN, could be seduced away from her life’s worth of duty to her nation and the Navy.

  She arched an eyebrow in the mirror. Sorry, darling, it’s very nice. But every man I’ve ever met has one.

  She found a rubber band suitable for binding her hair back. She did appreciate this offering of western-style clothing, though. But did he mean that deck security was no longer so critical?

  She slipped her feet into the sandals and knocked on the louvered cabin door. Her old friend with the Sterling machine pistol pulled the bolt and fell back.

  It was a dazzlingly bright morning, with the rising sun streaking across the oil-smooth surface of the sea. The bow wave boiled under the upswept stem of the pinisi, the spray kicking wide. The coaster was driving hard, its powerful diesel hammering at what must be close to full power. As Amanda came on deck, she couldn’t help but look aft for any sign of possible pursuit. There was none, the sea and sky being devoid of any other traffic.

  The pinisi was standing in toward a low green coast that extended out to the horizon mists to the eastward. Well inland, a cloud-capped mountain range, massive even by Indonesian standards, reared into the sky, and Amanda caught a hint of earth, corruption, and growing things on the wind.

  New Guinea. It had to be.

  Shading her eyes with her hand, Amanda could make out no sign of human habitation along the shore. There was, however, a narrow cape extruding from the bulk of the coastline. The coaster seemed to be steering for the tip of this headland.

  Patiently her guard stood back on the deck, the Sterling casually aimed at the small of her back. Amanda continued up the exterior ladder to the schooner’s wheelhouse.

  Harconan was present, along with the Bugis skipper manning the wheel. Some of the other bronze-skinned crewmen were working on deck, rolling the tarpaulins off the deck cargo and preparing to clear the forward deck hatches.

  “A beautiful morning,” Harconan commented.

  “It’s going to be a hot one, though.”

  “They all are here. You’ll get acclimated.”

  Amanda casually made her way to the port side of the wheelhouse. Looking forward, she checked to see if last night’s deliberate oil stain stood out against the accidental deck scarring.

  And that was another problem. From the look of things, they were getting ready to work cargo. Would they pass off one empty oil drum as a routine shipping loss, or might somebody figure it to be something else?

  She shot a glance at Harconan. Makara was not stupid, but then, what she had tried with the oil was so totally off the wall that it should never occur to him.

  Unfortunately, it might not occur to anyone in the task force either.

  “We seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere,” she commented, probing.

  “Quite so. We have an appointment to not keep with one of your ocean surveillance satellites.”

  Amanda’s brow knit. “You have an orbital traffic schedule for our recon sats?”

  Harconan lifted his hands and gave a boyish grin. “What can I say: I have friends in high places. One of your Keyhole spy satellites will be coming over our horizon in perhaps another forty-five minutes. Best we’re out of sight by then.”

  “That’ll be a trick.”

  “One of many I possess. Watch and be amazed, my beautiful Amanda. I’m proud of this.”

  The tip of the cape grew steadily closer. Amanda could make out towering black lava cliffs with the distinctive columnar pattern of water cooled basalt and obsidian, the facings at least three times the height of the schooner’s masts. Another mast height of verdant jungle growth topped the cliffs, while waves broke to white foam at their feet.

  As the range continued to close, Amanda could make out the moss streaks on the stone and the giant ferns overhanging the cliff edge. She frowned as she also made out the swirl of the sea around jagged lava outcroppings at the cliff base. They were working in fast and close, and this pinisi didn’t seem to run to accessories such as a fathometer.

  “Pardon me for asking you your business, Makara, but how much water do we have under us?”

  He chuckled. “Enough for a supertanker. There’s an almost sheer dropoff around the cape to a five-hundred-foot bottom.”

  She shook her head, her mariner’s instincts kicking in. “It would be hell to be caught off of this thing in a bad easterly. No holding ground for anchors. If you didn’t have the power to haul off shore, you’d be finished.”

  “Not if you know the secret, Amanda. Watch.”

  The pinisi skipper was paying off, cutting across the tip of the head land. As he did so, the stone cliffs seemed to move, to gape silently open. It was a startling effect until one realized it was an optical illusion.

  The tip of the cape was actually bifurcated into two smaller peninsulas, a narrow inlet curving in between them. The cliffs on either side of the inlet were of uniform height and coloration: Given a little distance and heat shimmer, the passage between them was all but invisible from sea level.

  The Bugis vessel was slowing and nosing into the inlet now, its skipper lifting one hand from the wheel to sound the air-horn in a sharp long-short-long.

  “There’s plenty of water here as well. We’re in a dredged channel.”

  “A dredged channel. Who dredged it, and why?”

  Harconan only smiled.

  The passage might be four hundred feet wide, the channel itself extending perhaps a quarter mile into the heart of the peninsula before coming to a dead end at yet another cliff. The muttering idle of the schooner’s engines reverberated between the inlet’s walls, and the muggy heat was magnified with the loss of the sea breeze. Lost also was the smell of the sea, replaced totally by the musty organics of the landside jungle.

  Amanda looked up from the open wheelhouse windows and studied the looming cliffs. She started as a human figure seemed to materialize on cliff edge, dispassionately looking down at the passing ship.

  He wasn’t Bugis. Amanda could tell that even from here. He was tall and slender and almost as dark as the lava rock of the cliffs, a Melanesian, one of the true New Guinea natives. He appeared naked save for a bandolier and an automatic ri
fle.

  So, Harconan and his pirates had land-based allies.

  As her perception adapted to the terrain, she began to make out other irregularities along the cliff edge: stacked lava-rock fortifications, deeply concealed in the vegetation, and the telltale straightness of gun barrels under camouflage netting.

  “Look ahead.” It was a two-word command from Harconan.

  Amanda obeyed, glancing forward. And the hair on the back of her neck stood up as again the rock began to move.

  Once more it was an optical illusion. This time a man-made one. Beneath a rocky overhang at the head of the inlet, the “cliffside” was parting like a theater curtain.

  It was a curtain—a huge, masterfully painted camouflage tarpaulin retracting on a set of powered overhead tracks. Its parting revealed a rectangle of shadow marked with sparks of artificial light.

  As the schooner drew closer, Amanda began to make out shapes within the shadow.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” she murmured. “That’s a ship in there!”

  “Very much of a ship.” Harconan agreed.

  No mere pinisi, either, but at least three hundred feet of modern oceangoing transport. Amanda could make out a massive slab-sided stern house, the stern drive-through gate of an LST- or LSM-type amphib, and a distinctive flat-topped bow structure.

  “The MV Harconan Flores, I presume,” Amanda said with rueful respect. “No wonder we couldn’t find her anywhere.”

  Harconan rested his hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t know the right rocks to turn over.”

  The radar mast had been folded flat to permit the ship’s entry into the cavern. Amanda noted another alteration as well—a restoration, actually. The ex-East German amphib’s gun turrets had been remounted on their hardpoints. Twin 37mm autocannon stood bore-sighted down the inlet approaches.

  The pinisi slid into the shadow of the cavern. Looking overhead, Amanda could make out a network of rusted cross girders helping to support the lava-rock ceiling. The cavern was apparently a combination of man-made and natural work, a sea cave almost as large as the Sea Lion Caves of the Oregon coast.