Bethea shook his head. What Ward was telling him was just beyond belief. The evidence was right there in front of him, though. It all added up neatly. He whistled long and low.
“Damn, Jon, if this true, de Santiago works on an even grander scale than we thought. This is brilliant. Expensive! And the planning this must have taken! Must a’ been working on this for years. Wow!”
Ward seized the opportunity to reel him in.
“Way I see it; we ought to tag along behind her and watch where she goes. Perfect job for Spadefish. We can give you a blow-by-blow on his entire trip. If the skipper of that tub decides to cheat at cards, we’ll send you pictures of his hand.”
There was only a moment’s hesitation.
“Alright, Jon. You’ve got yourself a mission. Stay with him. Don’t spook him, whatever you do. We’ve wanted to find out where de Santiago’s distribution network is on this end ever since the deaths drove them to ground. This could be the break we’ve been looking for. You track him to the beach and we’ll root out the whole nest. He catches you, though, and you can bet that he’ll run.”
Ward chuckled.
“Don’t worry. This old gal has snuck up on some of the finest anti-submarine warships in the world, grabbed pictures and snuck back away again. I betcha we could pick his pocket and he’d never suspect a thing. We’ll be careful not to let that trash-hauler catch us.”
“Just see that you do. I’ll call SUBPAC and get the water cleared in front of you for your transit. Good luck and good hunting.”
“Thanks, John. Spadefish out.”
Juan de Santiago hopped out of the Land Rover before it even stopped and strode to the edge of the dirt road to gaze down into the valley. Smoke still drifted up from the remnants of the buildings that had been his prized cocaine-processing factory. The smell of burning wood and the sweet, sickening stench of charred flesh hung heavily in the humid jungle air. He reached down and grabbed a handful of black soil and let it dribble through his fingers, the dirt blown away by the light wind.
“Guzman!” de Santiago yelled. “Come! Stand here next to me. See what they have done! Those American dogs!” Sincere tears gleamed in the man’s eyes. He had suffered too many occasions like this one lately, standing on some jungle hillside, surveying the latest destruction wrought by the diablos Americanos. “They have destroyed it all. This factory took two years to plan and build. The lumber and equipment were transported to this spot on the tireless backs of my people. It was to be another of the weapons of their liberation. Now it is all gone, destroyed in a few seconds by those damned imperialists.”
Guzman wisely hung back a couple of steps from where El Jefe stood. With that legendary temper already at the boiling point, there was no telling in which direction he might lash out next.
“It is truly a tragedy,” Guzman said sincerely, shaking his head. “Our people have indeed suffered much.”
De Santiago slapped his thigh in anger, the dirt on his hand streaking across the perfectly creased, light khaki, custom-made jodhpurs.
“I am not a vengeful man, Guzman. You know that is true. But on behalf of our people, there must be a repayment for what the bastards have done. It is time to make them feel the sting of retribution. We must make them suffer, mi amigo. We must strike at their very hearts.”
El Jefe surveyed the valley below him. His eyes were mere slits as he glared. It was as if he were engraving a picture in his mind of the destruction he saw. A picture he could feed on and draw strength from. A picture that would only serve to feed the fires of his blazing hatred. He turned.
“I am glad I came here to see this for myself, mi amigo.” The words sounded like hail rattling on a tin roof. “God has brought me here to witness this for a purpose, to show me that I must fight back at those who attack and kill our people in such a cowardly way. Come, Guzman. There is much work to do.”
Even in the muggy air, Guzman could not suppress a shiver.
Bill Beaman stepped out of the airport into the late afternoon sunshine, the warm, dry Southern California air. It certainly was good to be back home. He drew a deep breath and stretched out his arms. Better find a cab and head down to his apartment in Imperial Beach. After a shower and a change of clothes he would be off to a good Mexican meal and a couple or three strong margaritas. He would be good as new by morning.
“Hey, Bill! Over here!”
Beaman turned to the voice. It was John Bethea waving from the driver’s seat of a black Ford Expedition.
“Well, hey, boss. Didn’t expect a welcome-home party.”
Beaman waved as he walked over to the huge vehicle.
“Where’s the rest of your team?” Bethea asked as he shook the SEAL’s offered hand.
“John, it’s good to see you. I hope you’re not planning on a debrief this evening. I’ve got a hot date with a carnitas burrito and a bottle of tequila.”
“No, no business tonight,” Bethea said with a laugh. “I just wanted to come down here to greet you guys and haul anyone who wanted to come with me up to La Jolla for a thank-you dinner. I’ve reserved us a spot at the Marine Room, down on the beach at La Jolla Shores.”
Beaman whistled.
“Either JDIA has a real big expense account or you really are grateful. That place ain’t cheap and you’ve got to know that this bunch is real thirsty.”
“I’ll hear from the bean-counters, no doubt,” Bethea chuckled. “What are they going to do to me? Make me work overtime to pay for it?”
Chief Johnston led the six remaining SEALs out of the terminal door. They sauntered over to where Beaman stood.
“Got the bags, Skipper,” he reported after a nod in Bethea’s direction. “We’re ready to roll. Dumkowski lost the last hand so he has to buy the first round.”
“Well, Chief, you may have a better offer on the table,” Beaman said with a grin. “JDIA is putting on the dog for us at the Marine Room. Any one of you guys interested in free booze?”
“Count me in!” Dumkowski was the first to bark. “I can’t afford to pay for these lushes.”
Bethea couldn’t help but notice how close-knit the team of men was. They all seemed to move and talk and whoop it up as one. He was acutely aware of those who were missing.
These warriors were the remnants of a team he had sent out on a mission. A team that had fought and died under his command. The sense of failure and guilt had never really been lifted from his shoulders, despite their eventual success. He knew that no matter what happened, he would feel he failed these men.
It was one of those things he would never get accustomed to. He doubted others in his position ever did either. He put it out of his mind as the young men crawled into the Expedition, making bets on who would drink whom under the table at the Marine Room. The argument roared on as they pulled away from the terminal and merged into traffic.
Philippe Zurko stood in the after port corner of Helena K’s wheelhouse. The night was pitch black, the stars obscured by thick clouds. The gunmetal-gray sea was kicking up, a salty mist sheared off the wave tops by a freshening wind. That caused the old scow to rock and buck as a storm built off to the southwest. The long rollers were hitting the Helena K on her port quarter. Hard enough to be uncomfortable as she corkscrewed over each one. She groaned in protest every time.
Zurko backed himself tightly into a corner, trying to steady himself on the heaving deck. He wished he had not had so much sea bass for dinner. He would never understand why people went out on the sea like this by choice. There was nothing comfortable about it, with everything moving all the time. Nothing to do but hold on and stare out at the endless, seething water, trying to keep down dinner.
De Santiago’s call was late. El Jefe had insisted they talk at this hour and demanded that no one else be able to hear the conversation. Novstad had been very annoyed at being forced off the bridge of his own ship, but he had put the Helena K on auto pilot and stalked out to go sulk in his stateroom.
The speaker crackled and
Zurko jumped at the noise of it.
“Philippe, this is Juan de Santiago.”
“Yes, El Jefe, I am here.”
“Philippe, is all as I directed?”
“Yes, El Jefe,” Zurko said into the mouthpiece. “I am here alone. All the other radios are secured. No one can hear you but me. No one can hear my voice.”
He cast his eyes about the darkened wheelhouse to make sure. He was alone. That was for certain.
“Good,” de Santiago said. “What I have to tell you is for your ears only. No one else is to know about this. Not Novstad, not Ramirez and certainly not that drunken Russian. Understand?”
“Yes, El Jefe. No one will ever hear of this discussion from me.”
De Santiago began with a question.
“My compadre, you know we have an extra supply of the additive aboard the mini-submarine?”
“Yes.”
They were shipping some of the recipe to Carlos Ramirez so he could enrich the mixture if it did not have the desired effect in the beginning. De Santiago did not want to leave anything to chance.
“Philippe, you will use that stock to double the concentration of the additive to the cargo on the Zibrus. You will do this without being detected by anyone else on the ship and you will not ask for the help of anyone else there. You will tell no one. Understand?”
Zurko was horrified. He protested without thinking.
“But we already know that much can kill anyone who uses it. Remember what happened with the trial shipment?”
He stepped back, deeper into the corner, appalled at what he was hearing. He was literally being ordered to murder thousands of people. Many of them youngsters. Some barely more than children.
Surely de Santiago was only testing his loyalty with this bizarre command. He wouldn’t order that he do anything so cruel, so murderous.
“Philippe, do you really care so much for these Norteamericanos?” De Santiago snorted, his impatience obvious in his voice when he spoke. “Your concern is touching but misplaced. You should be so troubled for your own people. For the innocent souls of those who died horribly in the hail of fire when the yanqui bombs fell on our factory.”
“You know I care nothing for the Americanos,” Zurko protested. "They are weak and decadent. But they are our customers. If we kill them, we will destroy the market.” He spoke quickly, emphatically. Maybe logic would dissuade de Santiago from this evil deed. “How will we sell our cocaine if all the users are dead? There will be no more money coming from the Norteamericanos to finance the revolution. Our people will starve in slavery.”
Zurko was impressed with his own reasoning.
“Philippe, we will have no lack of customers in the future.” De Santiago was having none of it. Zurko’s arguments were being ignored. “First, we must destroy their will to fight or they will never back off. We must teach them not to trifle with us. We are not dirt under their feet. If they attack and kill our people, we will attack and kill theirs. We are at war, my dear friend. Now do as I say and increase the dosage.” He paused for an awful beat, then added one more command as if it had just occurred to him. “And, Philippe, when Shun’s heroin is onboard, double the dosage on that, too.”
Sui Kia Shun lowered the delicate porcelain teacup onto the granite tabletop. He templed his fingers and rested his elbows on the hard surface of the centuries-old table while he gazed at the misty mountains. The morning air was light and refreshing on the patio. The sun had risen already.
Sui found comfort in the sun’s predictability. Much in this life defied prophecy. At least he could depend on the sun doing what it had done the day before, the year past, centuries back into history. If only people could be so dependable, so predictable.
He brought his thoughts back to the words of his most trusted lieutenant as she reported the latest on his cargo and its progress toward America.
“Our shipment is safely aboard the Malay Messenger. It departed Kwang Zhou two days ago. Manifested to deliver a cargo of toys and yard goods to Los Angeles. That cargo is onboard and will pay for the trip with a ten percent margin. The heroin is safely stored in several of the containers.”
The woman paused for a second to verify something in her notes. Sui marveled at how adept she was at arranging these operations. A generation ago, a lovely woman would have been a concubine in his father’s house. Now she ruled a worldwide multi-billion-dollar drug distribution system like the seasoned CEO of a major corporation.
“Yes, go on.”
“The crew is made up of our people. As you have directed, our best security team will board the Helena K at the transfer point. They will have…”
Shun held up one hand to interrupt her briefing.
“What about the weapons?”
“Master Sui, as I was about to tell you, one of the containers is filled with weapons for the team. The South Americans have been told to expect three containers of deck cargo. The fastest way to transfer that much heroin on the open ocean is to transfer the whole container.”
She punched a series of keys on the tiny laptop computer. A chart of the northern Pacific blossomed across the screen. A large cross marked a spot almost a thousand miles due west of Seattle.
Placing the computer on the table in front of Sui, she continued.
“The transfer will occur here. It is well away from normal shipping routes and away from the American coast. We can expect to be left alone there.” She drew a deep breath. “Do you have any suggestions, my father?”
The sun was especially warm and pleasant on his upturned face. His smile confirmed that he was pleased with his daughter’s report.
Tom Donnegan looked at the chart of the Eastern Pacific and glowered with anger. The chart was divided into a maze of rectangular boxes, each identified with a letter-number combination. Several narrow columns slashed through the neatly stacked boxes at odd angles.
He stood in SUBPAC’s underground operations center. The concrete reinforced room had been constructed beneath the headquarters building during World War II. It was the heart of all submarine operations for the Pacific Ocean with the exception of the eastern Pacific operating areas from the Mexican border north to the Gulf of Alaska. The San Diego submarine squadron controlled those areas.
An acetate sheet lay over the chart. It was covered with similar boxes, but these were crosshatched and each one had a label with a submarine’s name in it. Although SUBPAC used a complicated computer scheduling system to keep all the subs operating in the eastern Pacific from running into each other, Donnegan preferred this anachronism. He maintained that he could see the big picture much better than having to scroll through the same information on a computer monitor.
It was a busy and complicated piece of paper. Right now, it was even more so. The Pacific Fleet was running a major exercise in the area and had invited all of the Pacific Rim allies to participate. Dozens of American, Japanese, Australian, Korean, and Canadian submarines filled the space and the mess on the overlay sheet confirmed that many of the invitees were taking part.
One narrow column, outlined in red, crossed the area from south to north, but with several zigs far to the west around other boxes. Those boxes contained the names of other subs. “Spadefish“ was hand lettered in the slim column that cut through the middle of the entanglement.
Donnegan grabbed the phone. Within seconds he was talking with Pierre Desseaux in San Diego. The submarine squadron commodore sat in front of a computer monitor in his own expansive office, its screen an electronic version of the chart had just spiked Donnegan’s temper right off the scale.
The Admiral didn’t waste any time with pleasantries.
“Commodore, I want enough water for Spadefish to get through your operating area with no problems.”
“Admiral, we are in the middle of the largest multi-national exercise in years,” Desseaux protested. “I’ve got over a dozen subs out there. We routed her through the area with all the water we can spare right now.”
D
onnegan spat out his cigar.
“Captain, I don’t give two hoots about your exercise. Spadefish is doing something useful. Don’t you think you can manage something a little better?”
“Admiral, the only way I can do that is to have the Japanese run on the surface. They won’t like that and it will, of course, ruin the exercise.”
Donnegan snorted.
“Make it happen. Spadefish will have an operating box fifty miles either side of that freighter and a hundred miles ahead and behind. Is that very clear?”
He didn’t wait for confirmation or any more blather from Desseaux. He slammed the phone down and stormed out of the operation center. He stepped back through the door, winked at a couple of the men who had just watched him stomp out, picked up his cigar from where it had landed behind a chart table, and strolled outside once again into the Hawaiian sunshine.
27
“She still up there and afloat?” Joe Glass asked the skipper as he walked into the control room. He was still rubbing sleep from his eyes and stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. “About time I relieved you out here, isn’t it?”
Jon Ward stood next to the fire control computer, watching the dots neatly stack in a vertical line. He nodded and handed Glass a cup of coffee.
“Here, you look like you need this. Yep, she’s still there. She hasn’t changed course or speed in the last twelve hours. Still course three-four-seven, speed twelve. Come over here to the plot and I’ll show you what we’re doing.”
The plot, laid out on the navigation table, showed the history of the last six hours of following the Helena K. The freighter’s course was dead-arrow straight, heading relentlessly to the north-northwest. Bright red lines were drawn parallel to its course but fifty miles to either side. Spadefish’s course snaked drunkenly every few thousand yards as she maneuvered back and forth around the freighter, gathering more sonar data.
Final Bearing Page 33
