Reprisal!- The Eagle's Sorrow

by Cliff Roberts

  It was while he was working in his private practice representing the seller of the estate that Howard had purchased that he met Steven Howard and General Chip Clarett. Sharing a few beers after completing the transaction, the conversation had turned to the government. Hodson was quick to express his dislikes and concerns regarding the current crop of politicians, both Republican and Democratic. He was especially unhappy over their treatment of terrorists. As a result, Steven and Chip became very interested in him.

  When Steven and Chip started Kilauea Corp.’s security force, Chip jokingly offered the job as the Rip Tide’s captain to Commander Hodson, only to have him jump at the chance. Hodson had found the law to be rather dull compared to sailing a submarine. So, here he was for the second time in four months, looking at another terrorist ship and about to make it his second official kill.

  “What’s our range?” Captain Hodson asked his XO, Martin “Chevy” Borochevich. A former Navy submariner himself, Borochevich had served for twenty years in the Navy and was Hodson’s XO on his last command.

  “Range nine thousand yards and closing,” Chevy announced.

  “Let’s close to eight thousand,” the captain ordered.

  “Close to eight thousand yards. Aye!” Chevy responded. It was for the sake of safety that the XO repeated the captain’s orders each time an order was issued. The sailor who actually carried out the order would also repeat the order in reply to the XO to ensure that order was being properly understood.

  As the Tide slipped through the sea to the desired range, Hodson flipped the periscope over to 60x magnification and began attempting to verify the name of the vessel they were closing on. The freighter was the right size to be the Emperor of the Sands, and it fit the description to a tee, so even before he saw the name, Hodson was sure he had found the right ship.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Emperor of the Sands was a small, rundown freighter, with a small forecastle and a four-story aft bridge house. It was approximately five hundred feet long, probably displaced about twenty thousand tons, and had a beam of no more than sixty feet, if that. It was clearly built in the late 1920s or the early 1930s. Its paint was peeling, and rust was eating away large sections of the hull plating well above the waterline. Its three deck cranes looked like they might topple over in a stiff breeze.

  It took several minutes of searching the vessel to find the name, which was almost completely faded away. The freighter reminded Hodson of the three freighters that Kilauea Corp. had sailing the world looking for trouble, and he couldn’t help but wonder if this ship was anything like the Kilauea Corp. vessels. Did it have the latest in electronics hidden inside? How about the weaponry? Could it easily defeat a small destroyer or frigate? God, he hoped not! The Kilauea Corp. vessels could easily detect a submarine closing in on them and then just as easily sink them with any number of the weapons at their disposal. He didn’t want to find out if it did, so he called out to Chevy to begin jamming the ship’s electronics.

  “We be jammin’,” Chevy quipped, breaking with protocol. After all, this wasn’t the U.S. Navy, and they wanted the crew to be as relaxed as possible, yet still act professionally.

  “Yes, we are!” Hodson replied with a smile on his face as he watched the ship through the periscope.

  Sometimes, when he’d had too much to drink, Hodson would take great pleasure in explaining how football was the best training for combat anyone could ever have. It required strength, training, perseverance, planning and adaptability. It required knowing your enemy if you were to have any hope to win, and it required your complete commitment. You had to play both offense and defense, reading your opponent’s formations, in order to anticipate his actions and be able to crush him before he crushed you.

  You have play tricky, like throwing the ball on fourth down and inches. You need to have an element of surprise. If you can surprise your opponent, you stood a good chance of winning, provided the other guy didn’t have a few surprises of his own. So, just like war, football required that you gave 120% of your physical and mental effort because all the planning in the world was useless without execution.

  It was funny how Hodson always found himself thinking about football whenever he faced a challenge, from the courtroom to the undercover crime world, to the battlefield and even his love life. Everything could be explained and improved by framing it in the context of a football game as far as he was concerned.

  “Bring the boat up field from the freighter, and let’s blindside the sucker at six thousand yards,” Hodson ordered. “Load tubes one and two, but keep the outer doors closed.”

  “Aye, Captain, we’re moving up the field to blindside the sucker, at six thousand yards, portside. Loading tubes one and two. Keep outer doors closed,” Chevy called out. Hodson gave Chevy a sideways glance as he felt the boat increase speed and turn as they maneuvered to reach the maximum target acquisition point as ordered.

  It was several minutes before anyone spoke, and then it was the sonar man. “Sir, I’ve a new contact off the port bow, range twenty-six miles and closing. Appears to be another commercial vessel. This is a big one. Thousand footer, double screw means it’s a large container ship. Sir, I have contact number three, off the port stern, range thirty-five miles and closing. It’s moving at a high rate of speed, and it appears to be about two hundred feet in length, a single screw.”

  “What’s their speed, Sonar?” the captain inquired.

  “Twenty-five knots! She’s flying,” the sonar man replied.

  “No need for editorials, Sonar,” the captain chided the man. “She’s probably a luxury yacht trying to avoid being an easy target for the local pirates.”

  “Aye, sir,” the sonar man replied.

  “Sonar, do we have any other contacts?” the captain asked, knowing that they were quickly being forced to stand down due to the number of witnesses about.

  “I’ve got three other contacts, all over fifty miles out and all headings are away from our position. The speedster should be out of visual in under ten minutes or so as he’s heading north. If the container ship stays on the same course as he’s currently holding, will be just inside of visual in forty to forty-five minutes, just as the freighter comes into range.”

  “Chevy, how close are we to land?” the captain asked.

  “We’re forty-one miles north of Ar Rak,” Chevy replied quickly.

  “What do you think, Chevy? Can we get away with it?”

  “I’d wait until the container ship has slipped out of visual before lighting her up. That way it’ll maybe miss all but the show’s remnants, and if they happen to spot something on the horizon, it’ll take them over an hour to swing around and come looking for survivors.”

  “Okay, you heard the man. Let’s rig for silent running, wait for this skuzzbucket and then blindside him,” the captain ordered.

  Just north of the freighter, an unexpected surprise for the Rip Tide was running silent. Even if they had been making any noises, they would have been drowned out by the louder noises of the freighter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The captain of the King Fahd was eager to demonstrate his skill at commanding the lead submarine for the Saudi Royal Navy. The boat itself was a Los Angeles-class fast attack sub which was purchased from the Americans and refurbished. It had been the flagship boat in the Saudi’s three boat fleet for the last five years. The other two were a Russian boat and a French boat, both slightly newer than the American, but only about half as stealthy and half as deadly.

  The captain, Abu Abulmalik, was the chief admiral for the Saudi Royal Navy and a cousin to the king. He had only recently returned from a training program in America. This was his first solo voyage. Prior to this assignment, he’d served as the second in command of the Navy and had only been to sea twice before, both times on a Russian built destroyer, which the kingdom had purchased several years earlier when they decided that they needed more than just a few fast attack boats and two frigates. Today, h
e had been ordered to play babysitter to a secret shipment that the king did not want any trouble with (according to his brother, the interior minister); thus, he was assigned to ensure the ship reached Somalia safely.

  “Your Excellency! I have a contact bearing twelve thousand meters and closing. It has to be submarine, although the return isn’t the right shape. The sound signature does not match any boat that we have in our library either.” His sonar man reported directly to the admiral, skipping the chain of command. He did not report to the XO as he should have because he was attempting to curry favor from the admiral.

  “It must be a pirate vessel,” the admiral declared authoritatively as he looked at the XO, who was staring menacingly at the sonar operator.

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” his XO replied, while continuing to eye the sonar operator with clear disdain. The XO knew better than to contradict the admiral’s assumption, but he doubted the pirates, even here in the most lucrative waters of the world, could afford to buy a submarine. While patrolling these waters over the years, he observed that the majority of the pirate boats he had encountered were barely seaworthy. It was extremely unlikely that the pirates had somehow managed to gain control of a world class weapon.

  He did not share this fact because if he did, his court martial would be short and not very sweet, followed by his beheading in the square in Riyadh—known as Chop Chop Square. The event would be broadcasted in prime time for the rest of the public and military to watch and learn from. You never contradicted your superior in the Saudi military, regardless of the nature of the mistake he was making.

  “Set the target acquisition sonar, load the number one and number two tubes, and prepare to fire,” the admiral ordered, clearly pleased with himself as he made his first combat command decision.

  “Target sonar set, tubes one and two loading,” his XO replied.

  “Range?” the admiral asked.

  “Eleven thousand meters, Your Excellency,” the XO replied as the admiral raised the periscope without help and looked through it into murky water. They were not yet at periscope depth, thus the scope remained under water. The XO bit his tongue at the stupidity being displayed before him.

  “Fire tube one!” the admiral shouted as he slapped the handles back into their upright position and began lowering the scope, not wanting to admit he had made a mistake.

  “Fire one,” the XO confirmed. “The fish is away.”

  “They are attempting to jam us,” the radio man called out, again not following protocol by not addressing the comment to the XO.

  “Stop them,” the XO replied curtly as the admiral watched the range click off on the tracking display monitor.

  “He’s turning and running, diving deep. He’s fired countermeasures,” the sonar man shouted after a few seconds had passed, again failing to follow protocol.

  “May Allah give you wings,” the admiral murmured, but the fish fell short of the fleeing target and exploded in the countermeasures, which was clearly a disappointment to him.

  “Faris, why did the torpedo explode after ten thousand meters?” the admiral asked the XO.

  Swallowing hard, Faris tried his best to answer the question without a hint of sarcasm or sounding patronizing. “Sir, I believe that ten thousand meters is the preset maximum range of the torpedo’s warhead. The other boat moved away too quickly to allow us to succeed in destroying it within that range.”

  “Bring us back on our original course and speed. They will move off now,” the admiral stated knowingly, though his XO knew he should pursue the other boat now that they had fired on them.

  “You do not wish to pursue the other boat, Your Excellency?” the XO asked sheepishly.

  “No. They have been warned and will move off. Return the boat to its original course and speed,” the admiral snapped.

  “Returning to original course and speed. Aye, sir,” the XO called out, not wanting to push the issue despite his training.

  “XO, escort the sonar operator to my ready room. I’d like a word with the two of you,” the admiral stated as he left the con without passing the command to another officer.

  “Chief of the boat,” the XO called out as he motioned for the sonar operator to lead the way to the admiral’s ready room, “you have the con.”

  “Aye, sir. Chief has the con,” the chief replied as he watched the two men head off. “Let’s get another operator on the sonar, right now,” the chief bellowed as the XO moved off down the companionway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Captain, we just got pinged,” the sonar man of the Kilauea Corp. sub called out.

  “What? By whom?!” the captain shouted.

  “I’ve got fish in the water,” the sonar man called out.

  “Emergency dive,” the captain ordered. “Bring her about one hundred eighty degrees and ahead full.”

  “Dive, dive, dive!” Chevy repeated. “Bring her about one hundred and eighty degrees. Thirty degree down bubble and all ahead full.” The Rip Tide practically jumped away from the torpedo attempting to catch them. “Level her out at eight hundred feet.”

  “What’s the range on that fish?” the captain called out.

  “Nine thousand yards and closing,” Chevy shouted.

  “It doesn’t sound like they have the range, but when that sucker gets within fifteen hundred yards, fire off countermeasures. Sonar, where the hell is that guy?” the captain barked.

  “He’s the other side of the freighter. It’s a sub. He was just sitting there, like a hole in the water. Wait, he’s powered up now, and he’s moving away with the freighter. Captain, it sounds like an old American diesel. The U.S. doesn’t use this type of diesel anymore—it’s a Los Angeles-class fast attack sub. I think we sold one to the Saudis a couple of years ago,” the sonar man explained.

  “You sure about that?” the captain questioned.

  “Yes, sir. It’s an old American boat,” the sonar man replied as he tried to pinpoint the direction of the boat from the pitch of the sound it made.

  “Son of a bitch. Chevy, did we really sell those sons of bitches an old Los Angeles?” the captain asked. Chevy was a navy history buff of sorts, and he could probably confirm the sonar man’s guess.

  “Launching countermeasures,” Chevy shouted before he answered. “We sold some to Brazil, Portugal, Taiwan, Greece, Peru, and yes, Saudi Arabia. Oh, and maybe one to India, as well.”

  Just then the countermeasures along with the jamming and the distance worked to the Rip Tide’s advantage as the fish exploded harmlessly some distance well behind them. A shudder from the shockwave went through the boat a moment later, which was ignored by the seasoned crew. Every ear was tuned to listening for any other sounds that would be a warning signal they were still a target.

  “Rig for silent running. Sonar, find that guy now,” the captain barked in a harsh whisper.

  Several moments passed before anyone spoke, and then the sonar man said quietly, “I’ve got him, sir. Range twelve thousand yards. He’s barely making headway, and he’s randomly pinging away forward.”

  “Sounds like he’s running picket for the freighter. I’d guess he’s a Saudi or an Indian boat,” Chevy added in a whisper.

  “How close is he to the freighter?” the captain asked.

  “The other side of it, maybe two hundred yards. That’s why I didn’t hear him before. He was riding in their sound exhaust,” the sonar man whispered.

  “Any idea why they would fire on us, Chevy?”

  “I can think of a couple of reasons. One, they might be running picket for the freighter; and two, we’re an unknown boat shadowing a commercial vessel in a known pirate zone. It could be one or both.”

  “Yeah, those are the same reasons I came up with. Sonar, when they fired, you said they were closing, and then I didn’t hear any further updates. How close did he get?”

  “He only moved about five or six hundred yards closer, and then slipped back when we drove away from him.”

  “Ch
evy, let’s slip a little closer and see what he does,” the captain said.

  “Aye, Captain. Slipping closer. Take the boat up to two hundred feet and close to eight thousand yards,” Chevy directed the crew.