Cheers of “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” were raised by Yousef and his men while they fired their assault rifles wildly into the air over the tanker. The LNG tanker was now just fifteen minutes from its final anchorage where they were to abandon ship and flee to the southern riverbank for their escape from the city—now with only forty-five minutes until detonation.
One hour after the LNG tanker passed within site of the other LNG tanker being held captive at the gas terminal, the two ships were scheduled to explode together and destroy greater Hamburg. Yousef’s only concern was how he was to escape. The authorities now knew there was a terrorist attack underway and the reason the tanker was anchored in the center of the city wasn’t a mechanical problem. His original plan was completely untenable. Without a diversion now, he was sure to achieve martyrdom, but it was no longer the first choice of service he wished to provide to Allah.
The ship slowly covered the last three kilometers until it came to a full stop under the bridge for the 265 Autobahn at Rothenburgsort. Aijaz dropped both the single bow anchor and the stern anchor, which would hold the ship in place in the river’s four knot current. The train yards were off the starboard side of the bow less than a kilometer away. From his position on the bridge, Yousef could see the trains coming and going without his binoculars. Off to the portside was a large shipyard with three ships in different states of construction, and hundreds, if not thousands, of workers scurrying about.
Next to the shipyard on the starboard side was a container depot. Large ocean-going container ships were berthed there and roughly ten thousand containers per ship were loaded and unloaded. Each container was full of products for consumer-oriented Europe.
When a container had been emptied, it was returned to the depot for a return trip to the industrial giants of China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. The containers in the depot were stacked five high in rows that stretched for over three kilometers in length. Lines of trucks and trains waited to be loaded or unloaded, as well. It was a logistical ballet or nightmare depending on your perspective. It was all so efficient! For a moment, Yousef felt sorry for the infidels who were unaware that they were minutes away from death, but that moment passed very quickly.
Overhead was a bridge, which according to the German Federal Highway’s Engineering Department of Statistics, handled almost two million cars a month, or sixty-five thousand plus cars per day—slightly less on the weekends. In a few short minutes, the afternoon rush would be in full swing, and the bridge would be packed with motorists, making a perfect target for the exploding ship.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Yousef heard the buzzing of the military helicopters arriving before he saw them. Once they appeared over the city center, there were so many of them, they appeared to fill the sky like a swarm of angry bees. After hovering there for a few moments, the three dozen helicopters divided into two groups with one group flying over to the LNG terminal and landing, while the other group landed in the rail yard east of town.
Yousef knew he really needed that diversion now, so he ordered the three remaining men, other than Aijaz, to go down to the main deck and bring back the crates they had brought with them. They were to unpack the crates in the companionway outside the bridge, prepare the equipment, and then wait for Yousef to give them instructions.
Yousef briefly studied the nearby high rises through his binoculars, looking for suitable targets. He was looking for one with a good number of people still at work and close enough to be reached by handheld rockets. He was very surprised to see hundreds of people filling the windows, looking at the ship. He wondered if they had made the network news already. He quickly decided that any window would do, and he had his men bring the rocket launchers to the portside of the bridge. Yousef instructed them to launch at any building they chose as long as it was in the business district of the city.
They only had eight rockets, but Yousef figured that it would be enough of a distraction to allow him and Aijaz to escape to the south shore, since once the rockets started to fly, the military would certainly focus their attention on the men firing the rockets and ignore the men in harbor master hats and jackets escaping on the opposite side of the ship.
As the men did their final prep for firing the rockets, two military choppers buzzed the ship. For several moments, Yousef watched them carefully, but they kept a fair distance away due to the bridges and the low hanging power lines that traversed the river at this point and made this portion of the river a no fly zone.
Yousef reminded the men about to fire the rockets that they shouldn’t stand for too long in the open because the police and now the military would be looking for any opportunity to take them out. There was no doubt that dozens of snipers were waiting on nearby rooftops. All three men stood, quietly mouthing a silent prayer to Allah, and then turned to each other and said, “Allahu Akbar! Inshallah!” Then they each picked up a rocket launcher and headed for the portside bridge wing doorway.
The first man through the door had his rocket launcher up to his shoulder even before he stepped out. He took one step to the right of the door and fired the rocket without making any great effort to aim it. He simply pointed and fired. By stepping right outside the door, the backwash of the exhaust jet burned the paint off the side of the superstructure and deflected away without setting the bridge on fire—a good move, since the rest of the rockets were lying on the floor of the bridge.
The first rocket raced off towards the business district, impacting a window in one of the skyscrapers opposite the ship. Yousef could see hundreds of horrified faces in the windows watching without comprehending as the rocket impacted the building. A large, bright orange flame burst through the window on impact sending glass, papers and a body or two raining down on the street below, causing the pedestrians to scatter for cover. The people in the windows of the neighboring buildings stood transfixed at the sight of the explosion, failing to move even when a second rocket was launched.
As the first man retreated back within the bridge, the second man lurched through the doorway. He also had a rocket to his shoulder before he stepped through and then stepped quickly to the left and fired randomly. The exhaust from the rocket once again scorched the paint and dissipated without igniting the bridge. His rocket impacted another skyscraper in the business district bursting into orange flames and sending debris raining down upon the street below. It killed dozens of stunned people who watched as the rocket raced directly towards them.
The third man was shot and killed by a sniper as he stepped through the door. As he collapsed, the rocket launcher came loose from his grip and dropped to the deck, where, upon impact, it fired.
The rocket raced off towards a restaurant on the waterfront where it exploded through the waterside windows. The explosion impacted the gas lines in the kitchen of the building, causing them to explode in a spectacular secondary fireball that rose up to the twelfth floor of the skyscraper next door. The blast shattered windows, and the flying debris killed gawkers as the flames and blast wave leapt skyward. The exhaust flames from the rocket launcher had shot backwards into the bridge. The flame scattered the hostages and terrorists alike, while setting the captain’s chair on fire.
Both of the remaining men ignored the fire and scooped up another rocket each and quickly prepared to brave the bridge wing again. As they steeled themselves to step through the door, they suddenly noticed that Yousef and Aijaz were no longer on the bridge. They were gone. They quickly raced out onto the starboard wing and looked down. The harbor master’s boat was still tied to the gangway. Yousef and Aijaz were nowhere to be seen. The men hesitated for a moment, taking another look down and then ducked quickly back inside the bridge. Snipers fired just as they moved, punching large, .50 caliber holes in the superstructure wall behind them.
Yousef had waited inside the superstructure for the right moment to make his escape. When the first shots rang out, he and Aijaz raced for the harbor master’s boat. The snipers attempting
to kill the men still on the bridge had driven them back inside providing Yousef and Aijaz with covering fire for their escape.
Reaching the boat, Aijaz didn’t waste any effort trying to untie the rope tethering the boat to the gangway. He simply cut the line with a slash of his knife as he and Yousef ran past. On board, Aijaz quickly started the engine and pulled away from the LNG tanker, turning towards the south bank of the river. As he turned, he brought the boat’s engine to full power and the race was on.
The fact that they were still wearing the harbor master’s hats and jackets saved their lives as Yousef anticipated. The military snipers dispatched to eliminate the terrorists believed they were hostages trying to escape. If the men had been briefed about the terrorists having attacked the harbor master’s offices before the ship was hijacked, it might have been different.
The two terrorists remaining on the tanker vented their rage on the three crewmen tied up on the bridge by killing them in a spray of AK47 rounds. They then crept out onto the starboard bridge wing, crouching below the top of the railings. With their weapons on full automatic, they began taking turns firing on the harbor master’s boat as it streaked towards the south shore. The men were so completely enraged at Yousef for having abandoned them that they made this reckless attempt to kill him.
Yousef and Aijaz crouched as low as they could in the small boat as their brothers peppered it with AK47 rounds. One round struck Aijaz in the right arm, just below his shoulder, then cut through to the right side of his chest, driving him to the floor. Another round found Yousef, grazing his right side just below his last rib, and another creased his left temple, which sent him to the deck seeing stars and almost blacking out. Despite the fiery pain, Yousef managed to take over driving the boat as Aijaz slumped in the corner, already going into shock from his wounds. As they neared the shore, he wondered why the snipers had not yet taken the men out, but didn’t have the luxury of thinking beyond that as the bullets kept coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Twelve hours after receiving the new intelligence from the boss at R&D, the Rip Tide was in place, twenty-five nautical miles east of the Somali Island of Ar Rak.
“Sir, I have a contact off the port bow, seventy-five miles out and closing. It appears to be a commercial vessel, probably a small freighter,” the sonar man informed the captain as they went active with the sonar and the feed from a satellite locked in orbit the Red Sea.
Prior to reaching this point, the captain had the ship rigged for silent running. There were far too many war ships crossing each other’s wakes here in the Arabian Sea for comfort. He wanted to avoid any and all efforts by anyone who might want a closer look if they knew they were there.
The Rip Tide was a converted British nuclear submarine that one of Kilauea Corp.’s subsidiaries had purchased at auction along with two other sister boats. Kilauea then had them refitted and refurbished at the naval shipyards in Murmansk, Russia. The Russian admiral who supervised the work had used former Soviet military supplies and shipwrights, as well as several hundred local men as laborers. Doing so helped the local politicians look the other way while looking good to the public because it brought badly needed hard currency and employment to the region, which helped everyone, including themselves.
The Rip Tide, like her sister boats, was painted black over a sonar-absorbing skin and had a hull configuration that gave each boat a very small sonar return. They looked kind of like a stealth bomber with the different angled surfaces making up the outer hull. On top of that, each boat was equipped with an experimental holographic stealth system which projected the colors of the bottom of the sea that the sub was passing over to the skin on the top side of the sub. It would be almost impossible to see from above, even at shallow depths, although it would leave a shadow in bright sunlight.
Each boat had been reconfigured to carry cargo, although it still had some teeth in the form of four torpedo tubes forward and two torpedo tubes aft. In addition, each boat was outfitted with the latest in targeting systems and electronic warfare systems, as well. And although the boats weren’t as quiet as the newest models of the U.S. fleet, they were quieter than the majority of subs being utilized by most of the countries around the world, making it a perfect weapon for the war on terrorism.
At first, Chip had joked with Steven that he’d have to truck them into Afghanistan if he wanted to get any real value out of them. Steven hadn’t found the joke funny and quickly reminded Chip that he was the one who had pointed out that Al-Qaeda was shipping men and supplies around the world via small freighters, utilizing the smaller ports of the Middle East, Africa and the Far East.
The Rip Tide’s motto was, “The shot not heard around the world!” which the crew took great pride in. They’d had the honor of having fired the first shot in the covert war that Chip and Steven were waging, sinking a freighter in the Indian Ocean. The vessel, The Crescent Moon, had been the vessel used to transport the leader of the terrorists back from Cuba to Libya after the attacks on Houston and San Antonio.
After closing on the small freighter to less than ten thousand yards, the captain ordered, “Let’s bring it up to periscope depth and have a look at her.”
“Aye, Captain. Periscope depth,” the XO ordered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Captain James Hodson was an African American, born and raised on Detroit’s tough Eastside across Van Dyke from Mount Olivet Cemetery and the Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport, though it had been called City Airport when he was growing up there. Hodson was not your typical sub jockey. He stood six feet five inches tall—about a half-foot too tall for the cramped quarters of a sub—and even though he was extremely fit, he weighed two hundred and forty pounds. Again, at least sixty pounds heavier than most submariners.
Hodson had graduated at the top of his class at the Naval Academy and was a captain of the midshipmen’s football team where he played linebacker. He was named to the All-American team his last three years and received the honor once again his fourth year; plus, he was the Lombardi Trophy Winner that same year. The awards and accolades led to a multimillion dollar offer to join the NFL’s Tennessee Titans upon finishing his tour of duty after graduation. Hodson, however, had said thanks, but no thanks. The NFL would have to find another perfect tackler to play middle linebacker. He had other plans.
Hodson had started his Navy career as a JAG officer, working for the Judge Advocate General, the Navy’s legal investigative unit. There he had shined as brightly as he had as a football player, earning tons of respect and the praise of the command staff. Then, he was assigned to Naval Intelligence where he worked for three years as a naval investigator and prosecutor, handling espionage investigations.
Hodson, with his streetwise upbringing, was put to work undercover on several high profile cases, and each time, his star shone brightly. His last undercover assignment was at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station. His assignment was to discover what happened to several Tomahawk missiles that had disappeared from inventory, which he did.
It turned out that the base commander had made a deal to sell the weapons to the Saudi navy for twenty million dollars each. Hodson had caught him red-handed as he was in the process of delivering the missiles. The raid netted not only the base commander, but fifteen men under his command who had taken money in exchange for their cooperation. Hudson had even managed to arrest the Saudi contact man. It was during the time he spent on this case that Hodson also learned the lesson of diplomatic immunity. The Saudi contact was an embassy grunt who Hodson was unable to prosecute because he had diplomatic immunity.
When the man was detained, the Saudi government raised a stink with the State Department, who in turn forced Hodson to release him. Luckily, someone at the State Department was smart enough to have the man deported immediately upon release at least. When the Saudi government asked for the money back that the man had delivered to the base commander for the weapons, Hodson simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “What money?” The S
ecretary of the Navy personally thanked Hodson for having “lost” the money in the confusion of the arrest. For his efforts on this case, Hodson was promoted to commander.
After the extremely high profile assignment, Hodson was offered any post he wanted. He chose to learn how to captain a submarine, which baffled his commanding officer. Despite the displeasure that his superiors expressed with his choice and the pressure they exerted on him to reconsider, he went to sub school.
By doing so, his steady rise through the ranks ended. Then, after four years of submarines, two at the command of his own boat, he resigned. He chose to leave the military because he had become disenchanted with the government’s less-than-aggressive stance against known terrorists. He couldn’t stomach the politically correct doctrine of letting them go as dictated by the Washington progressives.
Reprisal!- The Eagle's Sorrow Page 17
