by Ward Larsen
It was an intractably troubling thought.
* * *
From the wing of the bridge Captain Zakaryan watched the three boats. It was a dark night, and most of Argos’ lights had been extinguished, but there was enough starlight to make out the receivers as they neared. The contingent varied only slightly from the previous night’s showing—this time there were two broad-decked fishing trawlers and a single large dhow.
Ivan was somewhere below deck, probably giving orders to crewmembers that might or might not be contrary to those Zakaryan himself had issued. He could have intervened, but the idea of confronting the Russian held little appeal—even less so given the condition he and his goons had been in earlier. He tried to take solace in the fact that there had been only minor missteps last night. Tonight the crew would be familiar with their tasks. Everyone knew their jobs, and being an experienced sea captain, he knew that interfering in a smooth operation often brought nothing more than mistakes. Mistakes, in turn, brought delays. The sooner this is done, he thought, the sooner we can make for port and throw these Russians off our ship.
To that same end, Zakaryan had meandered into the hold earlier and spoken quietly to his senior deckhand, a Romanian. He’d not bothered to ask the man what was in the crates, because he probably didn’t know. But he had asked how many were left, to which the Romanian provided a definitive answer: twelve. Exactly one half the original count. The implication was obvious, and he’d seen his own relief reflected in the deckhand’s expression. Tonight would put an end to the entire dreadful affair.
Zakaryan watched the lead trawler pull alongside, and thought, Thirty more minutes.
He contemplated whether to wait for daylight to weigh anchor, and visualized the westbound midday schedule for transiting the Suez. Unfortunately for the captain, his forward thinking was premature. He had no way of knowing that one hundred yards to port, in the warm night waters, three commandos were preparing an assault that would alter his plans considerably.
FORTY-THREE
For the team in the water, there had been no mistaking the arrival of the three boats—everyone heard their screws churning and motors rumbling.
The three divers paused at a staging point one hundred meters west of Argos. There each man took to his preset tasks. Slaton and Aaron removed weapons from their respective DPDs. Each carried a Heckler & Koch MP7, which met every requirement: reliable, compact for handling underwater, and fitted with proven sound suppressors. The H&Ks were not long-range weapons, but for what Slaton envisioned they would be more than adequate.
Tal’s job was to corral the DPDs, manage them for neutral buoyancy, and keep all three in the right place while Slaton and Aaron made their final approach. In a worst-case situation, Tal could make a dash toward Argos to assist if necessary.
Slaton referenced his wrist-mounted GPS, then backed it up with a compass heading. Both he and Aaron slid their chem lights beneath the sleeves of their neoprene wetsuits. That done, they left Tal and the DPDs behind to cover the last hundred meters. They kicked in unison through the pitch black sea, each with an MP7 in their outside hand. While no one in the world could see it, the two highly trained killers set out in the absolute darkness with their free hands clasped together like preschoolers walking to the first day of class.
* * *
As foreseen by her captain, the scene on board Argos was more organized than it had been the night before. The concept of an offload at sea had been new to the crew then, and it was with no small amount of seamanship, and perhaps a bit of trial and error, that they’d managed to swing twelve crates over the side without damage or loss. Tonight the process was more familiar, and everyone knew what to do.
Two of the three receiving boats were the same as last night, and the third retained two crewmen who’d manned the replaced dhow—that boat had faced engine trouble on arriving back in port. So it was that, within ten minutes of the rendezvous, one of the receivers lay secured to Argos’ port side, and the deck crane had the first load poised overhead.
Captain Zakaryan took in everything from a vantage point on the forecastle. He saw the heavy crate hovering high in the work lights, and deckhands laboring to stabilize the load. Ivan was somewhere on the bridge—the reason Zakaryan had gone forward. Argos’ skipper didn’t like the essence of what was taking place on his ship. It was illicit, and he had no control. But he was pleased that the operation was going smoothly—because that meant the end was in sight.
* * *
Slaton was the first to surface, and he did so with one shoulder grounded to Argos’ hard steel hull. He was treading water, his buoyancy compensator set slightly negative—stop the gentle bicycling of his fins, and he would fast disappear beneath the surface. The big ship herself was serving as cover—effectively, he had his back to the biggest wall in twenty miles.
With nothing more than his dull black mask exposed, he surveyed the scene. He and Aaron had positioned themselves near Argos’ stern, abeam the twin propellers—it was the farthest point from where the loading would take place, amidships near the deck crane. Slaton immediately saw the three smaller boats. Two were laying off to port, in holding patterns to the west—nearly right over Matai’s head. The third boat was in a loading position, lines secured fast to Argos.
There was virtually no illumination on Slaton’s position, the curvature of the hull giving a shadow from Argos’ work lights. The smaller boats displayed only low-intensity deck lights that threw off a muted glow.
Slaton reached behind his back and gave an underwater OK signal.
Aaron surfaced right behind him.
“As advertised,” Slaton said quietly into his mask-mounted mic.
“Do we wait?” Aaron asked.
Slaton weighed the pluses and minuses. The receiving boat was moored securely alongside the bigger ship. Sixty feet above her, the first load was being lowered. “I want to see at least one transfer. Then we make the call.”
“Agreed.”
Together they watched the crate descend. Based on the effort expended by the deckhands manning the guidelines, it was quite heavy. As the load neared the receiving boat, the crew guided it as far forward as possible, until the crate thumped conclusively to the wooden deck. Slaton watched closely as the hook-and-cradle assembly was disconnected, then lifted back up for the next load. The crane’s boom rotated away, out of sight from where Slaton and Aaron were treading water. Just then, Slaton noticed a man looking over the rail well forward of their position.
Slaton instinctively went still, although there was little chance the man could see them. Something about him seemed different from the other crewmen on deck. He was no ordinary seaman, but more of an overseer whose duty, apparently, was to scan the sea with a cautious gaze. He was built like a bulldog and had Slavic features. His hair was cut by a stylist whose work Slaton recognized—a bunkmate with electric clippers, number three guide on the top, number one on the sides.
He nudged Aaron and nodded toward the man.
“Yeah, I see him. Security?”
“Must be.”
The man suddenly backed away and disappeared.
“Next load?” Aaron suggested.
“I see no reason to wait,” Slaton replied.
He widened his fins to steady himself. Light seas lapped rhythmically at Argos’ hull. In ten minutes they would have their answer as to what was in the crates. And they would have it with no explosives, and hopefully no casualties—at least none that wouldn’t appear accidental.
Slaton reached to the side of his vest and unclipped the MP7. Very, very slowly he lifted it clear of the water and trained the barrel upward.
* * *
Christine watched the surreal scene on the big-screen monitor before her.
Sorensen had mentioned earlier that she was going to try for a feed from Langley to watch the mission in real time. If it worked out, she’d promised to tell Christine how things had gone soon after the fact. That had gnawed at Christine in unexpected
ways, and when Davy fell asleep she finally relented. With the help of Nick, she’d been cleared into the embassy comm room.
She’d seen her husband at work before—indeed, in the days after they’d first met there had been little else as they’d run across England like fugitives. Yet that had been a firsthand observation in which she’d been at his side. This was altogether different.
“Is there a delay in what we’re seeing?” she asked.
“A small one,” Sorensen replied. “Ten, maybe twenty seconds depending on how it’s routed and filtered.”
“And this is taking place off the coast of Saudi Arabia?”
“Yes—but I can’t tell you exactly where.”
Christine let that go, not wanting to press her luck. What does it matter? she thought.
“Can you zoom in on the aft waterline?” Sorensen said to Mike.
The scale of what they were watching changed.
Christine’s eyes combed the scene for details. The feed was from a drone, apparently Israeli, that was circling nearby. She knew little about such things, but the resolution seemed excellent. Sorensen had told her the ship’s name was Argos, and that the smaller boats around her were expected to take on cargo of some kind. The entire scene was monochrome, the sea nearly black and Argos outlined in white. Everything else was drawn in muted shades of gray. She could discern crewmen scurrying on deck, and saw tackle and machines in action.
“A team of four was sent in,” Sorensen said. “I see two of them now.”
“Where?”
She pointed to a spot along the big ship’s aft waterline, and Christine saw two tiny figures bobbing in the sea. Mike did something, and the tiny blobs once again enlarged, becoming humans in diving gear. They also acquired on-screen designations: the numbers 1 and 2.
Sorensen explained, “They’re all wearing signal locators the drone can sense.”
“Is one of them David?”
“I can’t say for sure. This mission was a scramble from the outset. According to the Israelis, the plans were changing right up until the moment the team left port in Eilat. Even then there were variables in play. I can tell you that their objective is pretty straightforward—they’re trying to find out what’s inside those crates.”
Christine thought, but didn’t say, that Sorensen had it wrong. There was nothing straightforward about the scene before them. That thought was confirmed when one of the two figures in the water lifted a short-barreled weapon and appeared to train it on the nearest small boat.
FORTY-FOUR
As smoothly as he’d raised it, Slaton lowered his gun back into the water.
“What’s wrong?” Aaron said at a whisper.
“Bad platform,” Slaton said. He was facing, in essence, a variant of the problem he’d described to Sorensen regarding the shooting of Ivanovic in Capri. Light waves that had seemed inconsequential all night were suddenly problematic. The three-foot seas collided with Argos’ steel hull, creating a roil of choppy water along the ship’s waterline. To make the problem worse, occasional trails of wake from the two boats churning in the distance added to the hydrodynamic chaos. The rough water alongside the ship was ideal for cover—their hooded wetsuits and masks, all a dull black, blended perfectly into the irregular backdrop—but what was good for concealment didn’t translate to a stable shooting platform.
“Should we move away from the ship?” Aaron asked.
“No. If we get too far from the hull we’ll be exposed, catch light from the main deck.”
Slaton looked up and saw the second pallet being lowered. He decided to try a second time. Anchoring his shoulder hard against the hull, he raised the gun and tried to train the scope on his target. It was better, but then a second problem arose—with his head so close to the ship, waves splashed across his facemask, obscuring his vision through the scope.
“Dammit!” he muttered. He was only looking at a seventy-meter shot. Unfortunately, his target was only three inches wide, and he anticipated having to hit nearly the same spot with multiple rounds in quick succession.
The second load was complete now, the sling and hook rising for the next pallet. Opportunity missed.
Slaton pulled his mask down around his neck, twisting it to keep the comm unit in a usable position.
He tried a third time, testing things by putting the scope on the radar dome of the fishing boat. Aaron tried to help, wrapping a supporting arm across Slaton’s free shoulder.
Slaton lowered the weapon. “It’s still not stable.”
“If I had a good handhold on the boat I could wrap you up,” said Aaron.
Both men looked up and down Argos’ long steel waterline. They saw nothing but flat steel plating.
Then Slaton had an idea. “What about the limpet?”
Aaron considered it. “Might work.”
Tal, who’d been listening in, realized what they were getting at. “On my way,” he said.
* * *
“What the hell are they doing?” asked Mossad director Raymond Nurin.
He said it in Hebrew, which was understood by everyone in the headquarters operations center. Perhaps because he was the director, or perhaps because no one could think of an answer, there was not a single reply from the two dozen staff around him.
Two thousand miles away, in the basement of the U.S. embassy in Rome, Anna Sorensen repeated Nurin’s words verbatim, albeit in English. She, not surprisingly, got a response from the woman who knew the shooter better than anyone.
“He’s improvising,” Christine said.
* * *
Slaton and Aaron remained submerged in place as they waited for Tal. Slaton surfaced long enough to see another crate get lowered, then watched as the receiving boat cast off and was replaced by another.
Tal arrived four minutes later, and although it was impossible to tell because he was wearing a rebreather, Slaton suspected he was huffing from his undersea sprint. Tal handed over what they were after.
The limpet mine had been included in their arsenal almost as an afterthought. It was a weapon created before World War II: an explosive charge integrated with a powerful magnet that could be attached by a diver to the hull of a ship. It was a simple concept, and had been used in combat with varying results, most famously in a foiled attack by Argentina against a British warship in Gibraltar during the Falkland Islands War. Slaton’s team had brought one tonight not because their goal was to sink a ship, but as an option for unseen contingencies. Perhaps a blast to serve as a distraction, or a method of destroying evidence—a few pounds of explosives had a way of fueling an operator’s imagination.
Aaron took the mine from Tal, who immediately swam back toward the DPDs—left untended long enough they could drift and become lost, greatly complicating a stealthy egress.
Slaton and Aaron surfaced again.
“Whatever you do,” Slaton whispered once his mask was back around his neck, “don’t arm the damned thing. If we put a big hole in Argos it might raise a few questions.”
“You think?”
The utility of the mine at that moment had nothing to do with the explosives it contained. More important was the powerful magnet, and the solid handle that was integrated in the limpet’s frame.
Aaron attached the mine to Argos’ hull at the cost of an audible clunk. Both men remained motionless for a moment, but the sound was drowned out by the loading operation nearby—the crane in action, shouts from deckhands, lines being dropped on deck. The second boat was now moored in place, and the crane’s boom appeared, a new crate swinging high overhead.
“Let’s do this,” Slaton whispered.
By tilting his head sideways, he found that he could hook his right wrist through the handle of the mine and keep the MP7 in a firing position. Aaron did his best to help, grabbing the handle as well and using long, steady strokes with his fins to stabilize Slaton’s free shoulder.
The waves were unrelenting, but when Slaton looked through the gun sight he liked what he saw—not
a motionless picture, but a manageable one. He trained the crosshairs on the crate, which had not yet started to lower. He then walked his reticle up one of the four risers. The sling was made of a composite fabric—extremely high tensile strength, but easy to manage when not bearing weight. At that moment, the four taut bands were likely supporting tons. Each band was roughly four inches wide, and Slaton selected a spot halfway up the most seaward strap. He paused his reticle where the word LIFT was stenciled. His finger began the pressure.
The first round fired with a metallic clank—with the suppressor, there was little sound beyond the gun’s mechanical action, and that was lost to the ratcheting of the crane. Slaton saw right away he’d scored a hit—one nine-millimeter hole, center-right from his aim point on the heavy strap. He’d already calculated it would take more than one. He fired again, at the moment the whole assembly began to lower. Hit. The crate was sixty feet above the boat now, descending slowly. The deckhands helped Slaton unknowingly by stabilizing the rig’s spin as it was lowered.
His third shot was a miss, a wave striking his shoulder at precisely the wrong moment. His wrist was getting numb from pressuring the limpet mine’s handle. His fourth shot was a hit. The strap now had three holes, clustered in a three-inch grouping. It was the fifth round that gave the desired result.
Slaton never saw where the bullet hit, but there was a sharp bang, almost like an unsuppressed gunshot. The crate seemed to hesitate for an instant, as if making a decision. A gentle rotation came next. Then a calamity of physical forces began as the rig’s remaining bands failed. One snapped free like a cracked whip, and the load swung violently in the opposite direction. This caused the two remaining bands to fail simultaneously.
Poised fifty feet above the fishing boat, the crate dropped like a five-ton anvil. To his credit, the lone crewman on the fishing boat’s deck saw it coming and threw himself into the sea.
Against the ship’s backlights, and with crewmen screaming in the background, the crate hurtled toward the boat like a freefalling train.
