Target Lock

by James H. Cobb

  He tapped the radar print once more. “As you pointed out, this little cape is of volcanic origin, an outflow point for a series of lava flows. Well, one of them probably created a lava tube down the center of the peninsula, a natural cavern of considerable size that opened into the sea.

  “During the Second World War, the Japanese were very much into building fortifications. Likely they stumbled across Crab’s Claw and its lava tube and recognized its potential as a superb hardened basing site for submarines and small naval craft within strike range of the Australian coast. When they invaded the East Indies, a Japanese army or navy construction unit was landed on Crab’s Claw to enlarge the natural core cavern and fortify the peninsula.”

  “Like they did up at Biak off the north coast of New Guinea,” Stone grunted. I remember studyin’ about a big old tunnel complex they had up that way.”

  “They called it the Sponge,” MacIntyre acknowledged, “so named because of its ability to soak up Japanese troops and American blood. An entire six-thousand-man Japanese infantry brigade simply disappeared underground. Like Crab’s Claw, here, it was a combination of man-made and natural tunnels. We were never able to learn just how extensive it was because it was invulnerable to any kind of conventional attack.”

  “Just out of curiosity, how’d we ever take that place out?” Labelle Nichols asked from her position astride a wardroom chair.

  Stone Quillain shrugged. “In the end, MacArthur’s boys ran a pipeline up into the mountains and pumped a couple of tankerloads of diesel and aviation gasoline into the tunnel air vents. Then somebody fired a flare gun into the main entrance. Blooie!”

  The SB officer cocked a well-formed eyebrow. “That would have been something to see.”

  “Back then, we were lucky,” MacIntyre continued. “Probably before Crab’s Claw became fully operational, we counterattacked and retook New Guinea. The Japanese abandoned the facility.”

  “But you still would have found the base when you reoccupied the island, wouldn’t you?” Nguyen Tran asked.

  “Not necessarily, Mr. Tran,” Stone Quillain said. “Because we never did occupy New Guinea in the way you’re thinking. MacArthur was in charge of the showdown here during the war, and one of the notions old Dugout Doug came up with during one of his smart spells was island hopping. He figured you don’t have to dig out every little garrison and resistance point in an island archipelago, like you would block-clearing in a city. You just land and secure the main bases and you use air and sea power to isolate and starve out the smaller ones.

  “He used the same tactic on New Guinea. He’d amphib his troops along the coast to take out the main Japanese installations, bypassing the smaller outposts. With their supply lines cut, and with the sea on one side and an impenetrable jungle on the other, the little guys were just left to die of disease or starvation.”

  Stone squinted at one of the high-altitude photoprints. “From the look of it, that’s a mighty mean stretch of coast. If we didn’t think there was a reason for it, we’d likely never land troops along it.”

  “I see,” Tran agreed. “Much the same would apply after the war. The southwestern coast of Irian Jaya has its own special name, the Land of Lapping Death. If not from the saltwater crocodiles and the endemic diseases, then from the headhunters who contentedly followed their old tribal ways well into the twentieth century. A scion of one of your notable American families, Michael Rockefeller, disappeared along this coast not far from this location in the 1960’s. It’s widely suspected that his well shrunken head still graces a native rooftree somewhere in the vicinity.”

  Tran joined Quillain in studying the visual spectrum prints. “During the conflict, the Japanese would no doubt have kept their base carefully camouflaged from air and sea observation. And afterwards, the jungle would have rapidly reclaimed it, erasing all overt trace of its existence. The only ones likely to stumble across it would be either the local natives or—”

  “Or Bugis sea traders looking for safe anchorage along this coast,” MacIntyre finished.

  Tran nodded. “Precisely. Neither group being outgoing with their secrets.”

  Captain Carberry rose from one of the chairs he had claimed at the wardroom perimeter and leaned in over the table, studying one of the SA radar images. “Commander Rendino, I believe you mentioned that the primary chamber was some four hundred feet in length by one hundred wide?”

  “Yes. sir. That’s our best guess.”

  “Interesting.” the stubby amphib commander mused. “I recall that an East German Frosch 1-class LSM has a length of three hundred twenty-one point five feet and a beam of thirty-six point four feet.”

  Christine frowned. “That’s right, sir…. Oh, jeez! I get it. The Indonesian navy surplus amphib that’s part of the Makara Limited coaster fleet. The one we lost track of!”

  Carberry nodded. “Precisely. Given the bulk of the industrial satellite that was pirated, a Landing Ship Medium would be the perfect mode of transport. The satellite would be completely concealed belowdecks and cranes and other such port facilities wouldn’t be required. You could beach and off-load in a multitude of places well away from inquiring customs officials.”

  “By God, Lucas, you’re right!” MacIntyre exclaimed. “This would be the logical holding site for the INDASAT. Harconan must be gearing up to move it out of the archipelago. An LSM could shift it anywhere between the Philippines and Aden.”

  “Very easily, sir,” Carberry agreed.

  A sudden, startling voice issued from the wardroom’s overhead speaker: “Commander Rendino, please contact the joint information center immediately.”

  Christine keyed the JIC address on her command headset. “Rendino ’by. What’s happening, JIC?”

  She listened intently to the response. “We’ve got something going down,” she repeated. “The Global Hawk’s just detected an encrypted satphone going active on Crab’s Claw.”

  Two hundred and twenty miles overhead, an Iridium II communications satellite intercepted an aimed beam from the coast of southwestern New Guinea. Recognizing the phone of a listed subscriber, it accepted reception, relaying the transmission earthward to a point fifteen hundred miles distant in the central Indonesian archipelago.

  At this point another spacecraft became involved, a United States Air Force space maneuver vehicle arcing in a ball-of-yarn orbit above the western Pacific. The robotic mini-shuttle carried a Defense Intelligence Agency “Black Ferret” electronic-intelligence-gathering module in its cargo bay, the spidery antenna arrays deployed through the SMVs open back hatch.

  One of a squadron of half a dozen such vehicles, the primary focus of its six-month-long ELINT mission was the monitoring of events in the United Republics of China in the volatile aftermath of that nation’s civil war. However, a sliver of the multithousand-channel monitoring capacity of the Ferret Fleet had been retasked in flight for NAVSPECFORCE’s use and targeted upon the communications flow in and out of Makara Harconan’s headquarters complex on Palau Piri Island.

  Fortune smiled upon the Sea Fighter Task Force. One of the Black Ferrets was coming above the right horizon at just the right time.

  A minute and twenty seven seconds after the initial private satphone call was received on Palau Piri, a cellular link activated, relaying the transmission across to the Makara Limited corporate headquarters at Nusa Dua. From there, the message stream was beamed back into space and to the big Pacificom Starlink satellite in synchronous orbit 24,000 miles above the Philippines, and from there to a destination only four hundred miles away from the message’s point of origin.

  Obedient to its programming, the SMV-mounted Ferret module sorted this single electronic thread out of the multimillion-message tapestry of transpacific communications and reported the event in real time to its interested masters.

  Another voice issued from the wardroom loudspeaker. “Wardroom, this is communications. We have a call coming in on our civil access satphone from a Makara Harconan. He wishes to sp
eak with Admiral MacIntyre. He says it’s urgent and that it concerns Captain Garrett.”

  Glances were exchanged around the wardroom table. Christine Rendino nodded, speaking quietly and urgently to the joint intelligence center through her lip mike. MacIntyre donned and keyed his own head set. “Communications. This is MacIntyre. I’ll take the call. Route my voice through my headset, but put Harconan over the wardroom squawk box. And record everything. Understood?”

  “Understood, sir. We’ll have you set up in a second.”

  “Keep him talking, Admiral,” Christine said softly. “We’ll know in a minute if this is a coincidence or not.”

  “Admiral MacIntyre, are you there?” The questioning voice of Makara Harconan issued from the overhead speaker.

  “Right here, Mr. Harconan,” MacIntyre replied. “What can we do for you?”

  There wasn’t a sound from anywhere else in the wardroom.

  “I hope I can do something for you, Admiral,” Harconan’s filtered voice replied, “and for Captain Garrett. I have word of her.”

  “That’s excellent, Mr. Harconan,” MacIntyre said, playing the game, “What can you tell us?”

  Every officer in the wardroom stared up at the overhead speaker.

  “I can confirm to you that she is alive and well. I have good information on this from a source I trust. Unfortunately, I must also confirm she has been taken and is being held hostage by one of the Bugis pirate factions.”

  “That’s what we’ve been afraid of. Can you tell us where, Mr. Harconan? Do you have any idea of her location?”

  “None at all, Admiral,” the taipan replied. “She could be anywhere on any one of a thousand islands. You must understand, the situation is very delicate. I have a certain number of contacts within the Indonesian Bugis community. I am trusted to a degree by some of the clan leadership, but only to a degree. They will talk to me, but that doesn’t mean they confide in me. At best, I might be able to serve as a go-between for negotiations, but that is all.”

  “Negotiations?” MacIntyre probed. “For Captain Garrett’s release?”

  “Maybe eventually, Admiral,” the grim reply came back. “Right now, I fear we’re negotiating simply to keep her alive. The clans are angry, and please believe me, they are quite ready and willing to take their anger out on Captain Garrett.”

  Christine scribbled something on her notepad. Ripping the sheet off, she slid it down the wardroom table to MacIntyre.

  Get him to say where he is.

  MacIntyre glanced at the note and nodded. “I understand the situation, Mr. Harconan. Can you at least tell us how the pirates are contacting you? What is your location?”

  “I’m at my home at Palau Piri. The contact is through one of my Bugis trading agents on one of the outer islands. I hope you’ll understand when I say I don’t think saying which one would be either wise or productive.”

  “Why not, Mr. Harconan?”

  “Because, as I must repeat, the situation is very delicate, and because I feel somewhat responsible for Captain Garrett in this situation. I know and understand the Bugis. Maybe we can talk her out of this situation, but the slightest precipitous action on anyone’s part, your government’s or mine, will get her killed and rather horribly.”

  Stone Quillain growled deep in his chest like an angered bear. MacIntyre scowled, made a slashing “Cut it!” gesture across his throat.

  Down at the far end of the table, Christine tilted her head, listening to her own earphone, then started to scribble furiously on the notepad again.

  “Have Captain Garrett’s captors given you a list of demands?” MacIntyre inquired.

  “Yes, they have, a preliminary one at any rate. Firstly, there are certain amounts of ransom being demanded, in both cash and goods. I’m prepared to deal with that and I’m doing so at this time. Maybe I can buy her a degree of protection, at least in the short term.”

  Christine passed around her second notepad sheet. The SOB is lying like a Persian rug. This transmission is originating at Crab’s Claw. We have an emission-pattern match through an ELINT satellite. He’s relaying his call through Palau Piri to establish an alibi.

  “What else do they want?” MacIntyre inquired, stone-faced.

  “The pirates apparently lost some of their people during a recent attack on a Russian freighter south of the Sunda Strait. They want information on their fate, and if any of them are being held by the authorities, they want them released.”

  “I have no information on that, Mr. Harconan. All we can do is send inquiries to the Indonesian government and the International Piracy Center.”

  “If that’s the case, then please do so. That brings us to their final demand.” Harconan hesitated. “This one I fear could prove more … difficult.”

  “How so, Mr. Harconan?”

  “The pirates understand about your capacities, Admiral. They want your Sea Fighter Task Force out of Indonesian waters immediately. In fact, they want all United States naval forces out of the archipelago until further notice.”

  MacIntyre flipped his lip mike aside, covering the receptor head with a cupped hand. “Damn it, I was expecting this one.”

  He removed his hand and readjusted the mike. “Mr. Harconan, you have to know that’s a call that can only be made by my nation’s National Command Authority. There are freedom-of-the-seas issues here that involve U.S. global policy. I can’t make any such decision, and I doubt the President would be willing to make such a call even at the cost of a hostage’s life.”

  Harconan’s voice was earnest and insistent. “You must try, Admiral. You must convince your authorities to pull back. The Bugis will not yield on this point. If your ships are not headed out of Indonesian waters within twenty-four hours at the most, Amanda Garrett will die, and it will be execution by slow torture. This is not an idle threat. You must make your government understand.”

  “I can only take this matter up with my superiors, Mr. Harconan. You have my”—a grimace crossed MacIntyre’s features—“heartfelt thanks for your assistance in this affair. Can you keep the Bugis talking? Can you get them to speak directly with some of our State Department negotiators?”

  “I doubt it, Admiral. As I said, it’s a matter of trust. The Bugis will work through me. They aren’t interested in direct talks. I will do what I can for Captain Garrett, but I’m afraid there’s not all that much that can be done unless you clear Indonesian waters. After that, we can only wait and see.”

  “I guess so, Mr. Harconan. Will you be available for further contact?”

  “I’ll be remaining here at Palau Piri until we get some resolution on this matter. You may contact me at any time, day or night. I am at your disposal.”

  “I thank you again, sir. We are most … grateful.” MacIntyre broke the voice link.

  The wardroom was dead silent for several seconds, then Stone Quillain spoke.

  “Thank you, God, that’s real convenient of you. We got the skipper, the sat, and the son of a bitch all at the same location. We can take the whole pot with one hand. Okay, Admiral, when do we go in?”

  MacIntyre removed his command headset and tossed it on the wardroom table. “As soon as we can figure out how to do it without getting Captain Garrett killed. Ladies and gentlemen, here are your mission parameters. We have an assault on one of the most perfect natural fortresses I have ever seen. The garrison stands at between three and four hundred combatants with heavy infantry weapons and with all aspects of the terrain and environment on their side. That’s not counting the base personnel underground and the crew of the LSM. Our Marine contingent will be outnumbered by better than four to one. As for who we may be fighting, Inspector Tran, do you have any input on that question?”

  Tran’s face was ominously impassive. “My best estimation would be a mixed force of Bugis pirates and indigenous Morning Star guerrillas in the service of Harconan. You can expect the Morning Stars to be hardened jungle fighters. The Bugis will no doubt be the most trusted and dedicate
d of Harconan’s pirate cadre. With either group, you may expect resistance that will border on the fanatical.”

  “Hell, that’s not all that big of a deal,” Cobra Richardson commented from his end of the table. “Like the man said, volume of fire beats superior numbers. Between my Seawolves, the Little Pigs, and the naval gunfire support from the big ships, we can whittle those numbers down real fast.”

  Stone gave a derisive snort. “I wouldn’t know about that. You flyboys and the gundeckers always promise the moon on a silver platter when it comes to gun support, but you generally deliver a horse turd on a paper plate.”

  MacIntyre lifted a hand to cut off Richardson’s heated reply. “Stand easy, Cobra. Stone, that isn’t the point. I have no doubt we can effectively scalp that cape with the resources available to us, but it will take time. You know as well as I do that in a hostage op, we have to get a major force in there fast.”

  The admiral returned his attention to the Seawolf leader. “Cobra, how does it look for an airmobile insertion—say, at the mouths of the landward entry tunnels?”

  The lean, mustached aviator frowned and sat back in his chair. “Frankly, not so hot. You got solid double layer rain forest growth over the peninsula and everywhere else along the coast for a good five miles, palms, ironwood, and casuarina. There’s nothing even close to a good LZ, and you’d be looking at a wicked rappel or fast-rope environment, a hundred-to-a-hundred-and-twenty-foot minimum from the forest roof. The Marines would be sitting ducks dropping down the lines, and it would be even worse for the helos.”

  “I got to agree with Cobra on that,” Stone added.

  “There’s only one way we might be able to make airmobile work,” the Seawolf leader went on. “We call up the Air Commandos at Curtin and have them lug us in a Daisy Cutter. That would solve a lot of our problems right there.”

  The mention of Daisy Cutter invoked a soft chorus of whistles and murmurs.

  “What is a Daisy Cutter, Christine?” Tran asked, puzzled.

  “A bomb.” she replied. “A very big bomb. As big as it gets this side of Plutonium.”