Reprisal in Black

by Dan Fox

  It had been especially chosen because its journey took it across an area of ocean that was important to a particular mission of which the ship’s Captain would know nothing about. When he found out enough to worry him, it would be too late. The Captain who had skippered the boat for the last eight years and its crew were all from Pakistan. Before leaving Colombo, Sri Lanka, the Captain was approached by a member of the brotherhood asking him to perform a great service. This great service would not put him in any danger and also came with a good deal of money. The money it was said was to make him forget anything he saw or heard on the voyage.

  The Captain had carried illicit goods before and he had no problem agreeing to any of this. He became a little uneasy when he was told that he would have a special passenger on board who would need access to his radio room on a few occasions during the trip but was not told why this would be. As always the money won out in the end.

  The route to Singapore often encountered heavy seas which could often add days to the journey. If the ship was a little late arriving in Singapore it would not arouse any suspicions, which is why this boat and its crew had been chosen. They were manipulable and they would be in the right area at the right time for the passenger to execute the critically important job that needed to be done. It was the perfect combination.

  The ship would cross within a few square miles of a virtual mark on the ocean that was eight hundred and fifty miles due east of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka which hung like a teardrop off the south of the Indian sub-continent, on its way to Singapore. At that time the ship would be in open water, hundreds of miles from land and was most unlikely to be in sight of any other vessels. If it stopped for a short while to effect some fictitious repairs, that would be completely acceptable. No-one would notice.

  After experiencing some deliberate delays leaving Colombo, the harbour master being told there were steering problems, the Captain set a course for the Karachi Moon to skirt the southern tip of Sri Lanka. Thereafter it would head in a slightly north of easterly direction before eventually turning south east again on its final part of the voyage to Singapore. The delay had really been a timing issue and was at the behest of the very important passenger.

  The only awkward part of the journey was passing the long chain of the Andaman Islands at their southern end taking into account their submerged reefs. Whilst the freighter could hit seventeen knots for short periods when it needed to, it was good for about ten knots normal cruise speed which equated to just over eleven and a half miles an hour. In twenty-four hours it would travel approximately two hundred and seventy-five miles, so it should take a good seven days to cover the two thousand mile journey. That would give them plenty of leeway.

  When the ship was well out of sight of land at the end of its third day of travel and having well passed the southern tip of Sri Lanka, the mysterious passenger who had boarded the ship carrying a heavy sports bag, called for the Captain. Asif Iqbal, which was probably an alias, was a tall, bearded, powerfully built man with an intimidating physique and an even more intimidating stare.

  He spoke to Captain Mustapha Khan in a very serious and non-negotiable voice, ‘I want you to slow the vessel to half speed and be prepared to stop whenever I say.’ The Captain had expected nothing like this but was careful to ask the hard faced man why this was necessary rather than refuse outright. ‘There is a task I must perform’ said Iqbal ‘Which necessitates the ship being virtually stationery for a short while. It will not be for long, maybe an hour or two at the most. This is not a problem for you is it Captain?’ Captain Khan was not at all happy about the unscheduled stop, particularly in mid-ocean. He was also not impressed by having his hard won authority countermanded in this way.

  ‘Why do you want the ship to stop and what is it you need to do?’

  Iqbal replied ‘Do not question me. I am on a great mission for Allah. You have been paid well for your cooperation and I expect it without question. Do we understand each other, or would you like one of your crew to take over the ship?’ Khan was outraged by this and began to protest further. As he did this Iqbal reached into the sports bag and produced a silenced pistol which he levelled at Khan’s head. ‘Your choice?’ said Iqbal. At this Khan acquiesced and accepted his new subservient role without further comment. Seething with anger inside the Captain called the bridge and gave orders to reduce the engines to half speed.

  Iqbal then went to the radio room and once again ejected the radio operator. He locked the door behind him and began setting switches and dials so he could make his special transmission. His last transmission had been forty-eight hours ago and its reply had led to today’s happenings on board. Iqbal could feel the excitement increasing and had a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Whilst his transmission was encoded it basically asked how long it would be before he could carry out his final part of the mission. The reply was that he would only have to wait a few more hours. He called the Captain from the phone in the radio room and asked for their precise position. When the Captain replied Iqbal hung up and studied the chart on the wall of the radio room. He made a few calculations using a protractor, and called the Captain again and said ‘Captain, make seventeen knots on a heading of eighty-two degrees for the next two hours and then stop all engines.’ The Captain agreed but was becoming more and more concerned about what he had let himself in for. Iqbal then went up on deck and headed for the stern. He looked around for a moment and chose a spot behind a large air conditioning unit. When behind it he would be hidden from the bridge and he doubted that any of the crew would look for him. His reputation had spread rapidly around the ship’s crew.

  He set up his equipment and checked that all was in order. Next he performed a test run and was satisfied with the results. He put the equipment back into the sports bag and returned to his cabin. His next transmission would be made when the engines stopped which should be in about ninety minutes. Putting his equipment on charge, he set his alarm and lay on his bed to doze.

  A moment or two before his alarm sounded he felt the ship start to slow. Good, he thought to himself, the Captain had heeded his instructions and would be able to live a little longer. By Iqbal’s calculation they would be in exactly the right place at the right time. He packed his bag and made for the radio room to make his next transmission. The reply was that he should transmit again in fifteen minutes when they would have the most accurate fix.

  There was no point in going back to his cabin so Iqbal stayed in the radio room and examined the old equipment on offer. He was becoming quite nervous and constantly wrung his hands and absent-mindedly scratched his chin. Whilst it was not particularly warm in the radio room, he could feel a trickle of sweat dribbling down his back. Nerves kept you on your toes said Iqbal to himself and smiled.

  When he made his next transmission the reply said eight minutes and fifteen seconds. They were cutting it a little fine so Iqbal hastily gathered up his bag and made for the stern and his chosen point behind the air conditioning unit. He assembled his equipment and checked the power levels. He studied the cloudy sky for a moment and then set the transmission to live and waited a few seconds for the ready light to turn green. He checked his watch, three minutes, twenty-four seconds. Letting the watch count down he prepared himself to make an incredible gesture to his people.

  At the appointed second he pressed a red button. There was no sound other than a slight hint of static. The high power burst had sent a very specific short wave transmission. At approaching the speed of light the transmission would reach its objective in nanoseconds. His job was either done or not done. He wouldn’t know the answer to that for several hours. Gathering up his equipment, he placed it back in the big sports bag and made for the Bridge.

  The Captain looked at him warily and asked ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Yes, you may continue with your journey as planned. It would be wise to make up any delays made by our slight detour. Do this over the next twenty-four hours.’ Iqbal didn’t wait for a reply an
d left the Bridge for his cabin. He should be able to rest for six hours or so before he was needed again. The Captain was relieved that whatever Iqbal had come on board to do was now complete and he wouldn’t have to worry anymore or hopefully have to deal further with the ignorant bastard. The Captain should have remembered that surprises come when you least expect them.

  Chapter 28

  Pacific Ocean, late Spring 2012

  The presidential plane, call sign Air Force One continued on its way over the Pacific Ocean towards India and Chennai (Madras). The president would meet with the new Indian Prime Minister in order to have a face to face discussion on the ‘peace’ process which had been brokered between Pakistan and India. President Walker could have done without this interruption to his re-election campaign and would have greatly preferred more visibility in the United States instead of spending countless hours on his plane and being trapped into having meetings with the all and sundry who’d managed to wangle themselves on board. If he’d been at the White House he could have simply said something more important has come up, or rather one of his aides would have done it for him.

  However on the world’s political stage, this trip was critically important and at this point pretty secret. The media had only been told about it when the plane was due to leave Hawaii, everyone expecting it to turn for home. Yes, the trip had been kept a secret from most but when there is such a long journey ahead there are certain preparations that need to be made. These are carried out by the aircraft’s special maintenance crew stationed at Andrews Air Force Base and it only takes one loose tongue to turn a tightly kept secret into something which becomes common knowledge in the tight area of the base very quickly. That is all it took.

  The fact that the White House also had much earlier advance notice of the trip was enough for sufficient details to be made available to a number of unsavoury people.

  The flight from Honolulu to Chennai would take approximately fourteen hours. The president would have liked to sleep for the entire journey but might manage five or six hours if he was lucky. As they had left Honolulu at five o’clock local time most of the passengers on Air Force One were struggling to stay awake by the equivalent of midnight. Some had already made themselves comfortable and dozed off. Fortunately for him, the president was one of them. Those who were still mobile were in for an exceptionally unpleasant experience from which not all of them would survive.

  Without warning those who were asleep or dozing became instantly unconscious. Those who were still awake would have had only a couple of seconds in which to realise that their motor muscles had stopped working before collapsing into unconsciousness. That was only the start of the problems on Air Force One. The pilots, engineers and cabin crew had suffered the same consequences as the rest of the passengers who were awake at the time. Fortunately for some of the crew, they were strapped in and therefore relatively safe.

  The Automatic Pilot had disengaged and within a few seconds the controls of the plane were completely overridden by a new program. Immediately the plane had banked sharply to Starboard with its nose pointing vertically down towards the ocean. Whilst the manoeuvre was taking place the engines increased power to the normal maximum. The plane descended vertically at ever increasing speed until it had reached its absolute maximum velocity of over seven hundred miles per hour, very close to the speed of sound but importantly not over it. The plane was not built to break through the sound barrier and would probably disintegrate if it did.

  The buffeting generated by this unprecedented manoeuvre made the plane shake and rattle ridiculously and every piece of equipment or luggage that was not nailed to the floor began bouncing around the inside of the plane. The overhead lockers and cupboards broke open and showered their contents onto the unconscious heads of the passengers causing serious injury to a few people and near enough instant death to several of the plane’s complement including a couple of the president’s closest aides. Not that they would have felt anything.

  The plane had been flying at forty-two thousand feet or just under eight miles high which meant it would reach ground zero in forty seconds unless it changed its trajectory. After just a couple of seconds of full throttle the engine power was reduced to virtually nil and the plane was gently but increasingly drawn out of its dive. As its descent became shallower the plane reduced speed until it was flying in a normal manner at only two hundred feet above the sea. The engine power now progressively increasing until it was again flying at almost six hundred miles per hour. The plane had now taken on a heading of two hundred and twenty degrees which put it on course to pass the south coast of Sri Lanka about one hundred and fifty miles from visible land. At that height above the waves it would only be visible for a maximum of sixteen miles at sea level and would be ten miles further away every minute from anyone who might see a glimpse of it. The likely scenario was that anyone who spotted it would blink and it would be gone from discernible sight. In fact the most likely scenario was that no-one would see it at all.

  With its cloaking devices fully activated the plane was virtually untraceable and because it was way off its original course in a few seconds no-one would know where to look for it anyway. The initial belief was that it would have crashed into the ocean after some cataclysmic event on board. All hands would be deemed to be lost.

  When it was an equivalent distance away from Sri Lanka to the west the plane’s heading would change to three hundred and thirty-eight degrees as it turned north, north-west. It would fly in that direction for the next four hours. This route avoided the normal shipping lanes and aircraft flight paths. Everyone on the plane who was still alive would remain unconscious for quite a while longer. It was better that way. As long as the president had survived that was all that mattered.

  A phone call to Kamir Jaffri told him to activate the beacon at the end of the hastily repaired runway at the Al Gharam air base in south east Iran. He was told to prepare for the arrival of the military transport aircraft he had already been told about. He was also told that on this occasion the aircraft would land under its own controls. The pilots would not land it manually. Of course Jaffri was surprised, he had not heard of such things. The caller told him to expect a final call in thirty minutes with final and detailed instructions.

  Chapter 29

  Washington DC, late Spring 2012

  Robin Broadhead, top man of the CIA was at Blake’s Restaurant in Washington DC lunching with half a dozen of America’s most senior journalists. These key hacks were instrumental in feeding the public a middle of the road line when it came to the CIA and its operations. Broadhead needed to keep these guys sweet and by feeding them tidbits of generally unimportant secrets they stole a march on the rest of the media and were self-important enough to believe they were the elite. As the hacks should have realised, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Broadhead thought that in general they did a good and fair job. He hoped things would stay that way.

  He’d only been in this job for two years having been promoted from a couple of levels below which had ruffled many feathers and caused a pretty hostile atmosphere in the early days. Fortunately most of those who had taken umbrage at his promotion had either been moved sideways or in the worst cases they were retired early. In truth they were sacked and the CIA was better because of it.

  Whilst Broadhead had asked for no calls during this lunch, the Maitre D’ apologised profusely and told him it was an urgent call from Mario Foteggi, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This would be important. He had to take the call, but rather than be rude to his guests he asked for the phone to be brought to the table. He could always move away if he needed to and as it was not a secure line it could not be anything too important.

  A few moments later he answered the phone ‘Broadhead here Vice Chairman, what can I do for you?

  Foteggi almost shouting down the phone said ‘The president is missing. Get to the White House now’ and hung up.

  Broadhead went pale, slumped back in h
is chair and uttered the word ‘missing.’ The hacks were onto this in a trice. Broadhead, still in shock from the announcement, then silently mouthed the words ‘the president.’

  It took no more than two seconds for the hacks to realise that the president had gone missing. Broadhead recovering from his shock and realising his mistake said ‘Sorry gentlemen but I think we had better take you to Langley for a while until we clear up this confusion.’ At that he summoned his accompanying CIA retinue and gave them terse instructions. The hacks were upset at this sudden and demeaning treatment but nevertheless would eventually understand how important it was to keep this under wraps until the real situation had been uncovered. Broadhead was whisked to the White House Situation Room at very high speed.

  Part of the problem with the media food chain is that all the little fishes nibble at the bigger fishes until the line stops at the top. Accordingly there were several slightly less illustrious journalists who were lunching at the same restaurant. Coincidence, no chance. They were there to feed off any scraps left for them and noticed the situation at Broadhead’s table. Something big was happening. They saw Broadhead being whisked away and the senior journalists being escorted from the restaurant as if they’d been arrested. A couple of them thought the president might have been assassinated and then realised that at this point he would be three parts of the way to India on Air Force One. It then clicked, Air Force One had crashed or been hijacked or had been blown up. Whilst they all thought independently their training and instincts led them to grab their mobile phones and hit the White House Press Office.

  It became obvious very quickly that the Press Office knew nothing. This information was only for the inner circle which at this moment would be convening in the White House Situation Room. There would be the Vice President, as many of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as they could get hold of plus the Chairman and Vice Chairman of that group. There would also be the head honchos of the FBI, Homeland Security, and the NSA. They would need a quorum to discuss and agree any course of action deemed necessary.