Strike Force Alpha

by Mack Maloney

  Bingo’s CO supposedly left him an E-mail that summed up Murphy this way:

  A highly educated loose cannon. A very hands-on, very patriotic guy. He’ll get things done either quietly or with a bang. He’s brash, cocky, unpredictable, cold-blooded. He’s out for revenge against the Arab terrorists, and seems almost maniacal in that pursuit. He’s vowed not to rest until every mook connected with 9/11 has been taken out and appears as fanatical as they are in fulfilling his goal.

  Now, if you give a guy like that a billion dollars these days, what do you get? You get a guy who secretly buys a containership, turns it into something from a James Bond movie, arranges to get Harriers and choppers and Spooks and even some Delta guys onboard, all so they can go out and get down and dirty with Al Qaeda. To get down and fight at their level, with no political correctness bullshit to get in the way, and then disappear once the deed has been done. Is it a good idea? Who knows? Either he’s nuts or I am.

  How did Ryder get involved in this?

  Sometimes he wondered that himself. He’d had an interesting military career up to this point. Originally doomed to flying C-130 cargo planes after completing Air Force flight training, he somehow got slotted into fighter jets. He became so good at it, he was tapped as part of a secret program to be one of the first Air Force guys to go through the Navy’s famous Top Gun air combat school. He performed so well there, more covert assignments followed. He excelled at flying tough and keeping his mouth shut, and soon he was involved in some of the darkest secret operations ever undertaken by the U.S. military. The stories he could tell would make Ian Fleming’s hair curl.

  In between all the black ops, Ryder did airframe testing at Edwards Air Force Base, including the VTOL version of the new F-35 fighter. Later on he flew new plane tryouts at Nellis AFB, which was just outside Las Vegas and practically a stone’s throw from his front door. He was transferred to the Reserves to free up his schedule and finally started giving the black op opportunities to younger guys. Then, at the age of 44, when he had 20 years’ service staring him in the face, he got an offer to test fly for Boeing. He’d be a civilian, but it was more money than he’d ever dreamed of making.

  Then, September 11th. The day his dreamworld came to an end.

  His wife, Maureen, was an on-air TV reporter. Beautiful, blond, and smart, she’d done local news in Las Vegas but had been featured on many national spots as well. She’d flown to Boston earlier that week to do a report on a massive highway project there called the Big Dig. Her assignment wrapped up a day early. She got a seat at the last moment on United Flight 175 to LA. It was the plane that hit the second tower. Back home in Vegas, Ryder had fallen asleep on the couch the night before, typically with the TV on and his cell turned off. He woke up just in time to see it all happen in living color.

  No good-byes. No final phone call.

  His wife was simply gone forever.

  How do you live after that? How do you walk or talk or breathe? He stumbled around his house for days, smashing his phone to bits and telling the local media horde pounding on his door to go to hell. How could they ever understand what he was going through? Her running shoes were still waiting by the back door. Her tiny garden out back needed weeding. The dresses in her closet. A sweater left on the bed. He didn’t touch any of it. He couldn’t.

  Weeks went by. He didn’t work. He didn’t sleep. Eventually he moved out. He went to a motel on the other side of town and it was here, alone, that he went through the predictable stages of grief. Denial, anger, depression—wrenching, all three. But he missed one. The last one.

  Acceptance….

  That was the hurdle he just couldn’t get over. The fact that she was really gone. Just couldn’t. Booze. Sleeping pills. Even prayer, an embarrassment on his knees. Nothing worked. In his stupors, he began wondering if maybe going to heaven wasn’t a crock of shit after all, maybe it was a way to see her again, and whether it was better to go slow by the bottle or quick via the muzzle of his hunting rifle.

  That’s when the phone rang. It was very early in the dark morning, but Ryder recognized the voice from the past right away. It was a guy named Lieutenant Moon. He’d been instrumental in getting Ryder involved in many black ops over the years. Moon knew about Ryder’s loss and, in a very short conversation, solved Ryder’s problem of getting over the last stage of Maureen’s death. How? By presenting him with another option. By giving him the opportunity to leapfrog over that fourth stage of grief, that big sticking point, that deepest of human emotion, and go on to a fifth: Revenge.

  “A friend of mine is starting a program…” was all Moon had to say. Ryder didn’t even let him finish the sentence. He just asked him where and when, and Moon told him.

  He was packed and gone by noon.

  Ryder returned to his cabin now, took a shower, and did his morning business. Then he walked to the forward mess hall, looking to find some coffee. The mess was a cavernous place, low-lit and gloomy and, like his cabin, a study in dirty gray. There were a half-dozen people scattered around the 20 or so tables. No one was talking to anyone.

  Ryder took a seat in the corner, near a covered-over porthole. A galley sailor was at his side a moment later. He put before Ryder a huge platter bearing two tenderloin steaks, a baked potato, and a half a loaf of hot bread. A cup of coffee and a stick of butter also materialized. Ryder stared at the meal. His pep pills, free for the asking at the sick bay, were just beginning to kick in. Did he really want to eat all this?

  “Those are the orders,” the sailor told him. “Everyone onboard gets steak today.”

  At that moment an Army officer strolled into the mess. His name was Martinez. He was a full colonel and an obvious up-and-comer, as he was at least 10 years younger than Ryder. Martinez was tall and rugged, with a dark complexion and movie-star looks. He was rarely seen without a cigar hanging out of his mouth.

  Martinez had two jobs. He was the commanding officer of the Delta group and the intelligence officer for the ship. He did all the planning for the unit’s counterterror strikes, he coordinated the land, sea, and air assets, he researched the targets, and he made sure everyone got back in one piece. Martinez probably worked harder and slept less than anybody else onboard, Ryder included.

  The team owed a lot to Martinez already. For the first 30 days of the mission, Ocean Voyager had sailed in circles around the frigid South Atlantic, far away from the sea-lanes, burning gas while everyone onboard got their act together. Their objective was to become nothing less than invisible, at least whenever they were leaving or returning to the ship. Delta and the Air Force pilots trained endlessly during this period, especially in how to load up their special Blackhawks and take off quickly. The Marine Aviation guys also drilled hard at keeping the two choppers and the Harrier in top condition, bombed up and ready to go, 24/7—not an easy task in the salt-heavy marine environment. Ryder himself constantly practiced landing the jump jet on the moving ship, in all weather conditions, day and night, at 5 knots or 20. (This was not so easy, either. The Navy liked to brag that landing a supersonic jet on an aircraft carrier was the most difficult thing a combat pilot could do. “Like having sex during a car crash,” they said, because when you hit that arresting wire, you went from 120 knots to 0 in two seconds. But getting the temperamental Harrier to set down exactly where it was supposed to, in rough seas, at night, with no radio, no lights—that could be like a car crash, too. Without the sex.)

  It was Martinez who’d run these unorthodox training sessions. He proved to be a whiz at directing the movements of big machines flying close to each other. Gradually, the team came together. By the end of that first month, Delta could load into the choppers and be airborne inside five minutes, while Ryder could get his jump jet into the air in half that time. And upon their return, they could all get belowdecks in three minutes flat, lowering their exposure to the outside world to the barest minimum. What might have seemed impossible at first—disparate units working as one—became routine. Much of the
credit had to go to Martinez.

  So, even though Martinez was younger than him, Ryder had come to respect the Delta boss, at least from a distance. He was a by-the-book type certainly, but out here, all alone, that was the best way to be. Martinez also had a certain bearing to him, proud and refined. If you ever insulted him, though, it would be no surprise if he drew a sword and challenged you to a duel, right there on the spot.

  Because of the edict that team members refrain from too much fraternization, Ryder and Martinez had talked infrequently since coming aboard, and only about operational stuff. Ryder knew nothing about the Delta officer’s personal life. The only clue was a tiny badge Martinez always wore over his shirt pocket. Inside was a photograph of a pretty 18-something girl, bordered by a black ribbon, obviously a very personal item.

  As far as Ryder knew, no one had the balls to ask Martinez whose picture it was.

  Upon entering the mess, Martinez walked directly to Ryder’s table and sat down.

  “What do you want?” Martinez asked him.

  “To kill mooks,” Ryder replied without hesitation.

  “No, I mean for your steak,” Martinez said. “It’s from Japan. Kobe beef. Most expensive in the world. Murphy sent it to us.”

  Ryder just shrugged. “They got A-1 here?”

  Martinez motioned to someone in the galley. A coffee cup full of steak sauce appeared. Ryder dumped it all over his meal.

  “Good work last night,” Martinez told him. “I just saw the mission tapes. Can you believe all those old dudes videotaping the whole thing?”

  Ryder looked back at him strangely. This was already the longest conversation he’d ever had with the Delta officer.

  “We’ll be playing on four thousand VCRs back in the states inside a week,” Ryder finally replied with his first bite. “Not to mention all the news shows. I thought the idea was to stay secret.”

  Martinez waved his concerns away. “That’s all been taken care of,” he said mysteriously. “How’s the cow?”

  “It’s excellent,” Ryder replied honestly. “I’m glad Murphy is so concerned about our appetites.”

  “Keep that happy feeling then,” Martinez told him. “Because today is your lucky day.”

  “It is? Why?”

  “You’re getting a wingman. Murphy’s decided two jump jets are better than one.”

  Ryder was mildly shocked. He’d just assumed he’d be the lone fixed-wing in the unit.

  “Can the air techs really handle two Harriers? Keeping mine in shape seems to be a full-time job already.”

  Martinez laughed. “Hey, they’re Marines—they’re supposed to be able to handle anything.”

  Ryder took another huge bite of steak. “Do you know the new guy’s name? Or have we already fraternized for too long?”

  “We probably have—but I’ll tell you anyway,” Martinez said. “His name is Gerry Phelan. I don’t know his age, origin, or rank. He’s just out of the Marines’ hot school for Harrier training, though I understand he’s actually in the Navy Reserve.”

  Ryder thought about this for a moment, then went back to his steak. The ship started rolling again.

  “That’s great,” he said dryly. “If you’ve got to be on the water, you can never have too many Navy guys around.”

  Ryder was back up on deck 30 minutes later.

  The sun had come out and the sea had settled down again. He was able to enjoy a smoke for a change. They were still in the Med; he could tell by the color of the water. They were heading west, though, which meant Sicily was most likely just north of them and Algeria or Libya just to the south. An interesting part of the world….

  A handful of Delta guys jogged by him. The highly trained special ops troops were constantly running around the ship, lugging weights, staying in shape, working on their tans. They looked like teenagers. Bastards… Ryder thought. A few weeks ago, he’d been caught in a traffic jam in a passageway with several of the Delta operators. One collided with him unintentionally and apologized by saying, “Excuse me…sir.”

  It was like someone twisted a knife in Ryder’s chest. The way the soldier had said that word—sir. Ryder knew he wasn’t using it in the vernacular of officer and enlisted man, more the way a young student would address his elderly college professor. Excuse me…sir. Ryder had noticed his hair getting a little bit grayer every day after that.

  He glanced up at the open bridge. The Navy guys were making their breakfast. Or was it lunch? Or dinner? It was hard to tell on the ship. With so many schedules, and people dealing with events in so many different time zones, the ship had no real set time of its own. In any case, the Navy guys had a big grill on the upper deck where they would prepare food while on duty, usually bacon and eggs or grits—but today definitely steak. You could smell it all over the ship. That aroma was the unofficial start of the day for Ocean Voyager.

  But it was really closer to 10:00 A.M. His new partner was due any minute.

  No jet driver would ever turn down a wingman. Another set of eyes and ears could only help when up on a mission. But not just anyone would do.

  Ryder had had some great second bananas in his career. A guy named J. T. Woods stood out among them. He’d been a superior flier, all nuts and guts, and had been a good friend, too. Officially, he’d been lost in action during a very black op about 15 years ago. Ryder looked around the massive undercover ship now. What would old Woody have thought of this?

  A bell up on the bridge started ringing. This was a very low-tech early-warning system the Navy guys had rigged up. They had an ultraadvanced over-the-horizon radar installed in the combat center that could spot anything flying within 20 miles of the ship dead-on, even something that had been dipped in stealth paint. Whenever a bogie was picked up on this radar set, someone would ring the bell. This meant anyone who wasn’t dressed like a Filipino crewman had to clear the deck immediately, as something was about to fly overhead. The bell always set off a predictable scramble, with those crewmen wearing battle fatigues going down the chutes as if they were in a U-boat that had been told to dive, sometimes carrying their breakfasts with them. The deck could be cleared in under a minute this way, usually in plenty of time for everything to become “normal,” at least looking down from above.

  But this time Ryder didn’t bother to move. He knew the sound of a Harrier engine by now—at least he thought he did. His ears had been bothering him lately, too. He waited and the noise got louder. Then finally he saw it. A jump jet, coming out of the south, starting to curve into a long elliptical orbit around the ship.

  Someone in the combat control room was talking to the pilot by now, he was sure, not on the radio but on an SCP, a satellite cell phone. For security purposes, this was how the ship communicated with its tiny air force. Cell phone mikes and speakers had been installed in everyone’s crash helmets; the dialers had been sewn into their flight suit knee pads. Landing instructions, responses, and replies were all set in code, using words heard frequently during shipping operations. On special occasions, or when things got too hairy to speak in code, the SCPs also had a scrambler mode, which could distort any two-way conversation for up to 30 seconds. This quickly drained the phone’s internal batteries, though, and was used only as a last resort.

  The incoming Harrier got a 20-mile clearance, too, meaning nothing was within 20 miles of the ship in any direction. This was the designated time frame in which a jump jet could land or take off from Ocean Voyager. Anything closer and the pilot would have to fly away for a while and wait until he was called back for another try.

  But the all-clear was sounded, via the ship’s equally low-tech foghorn, once the CAC got a visual and confirmed that this guy was a friendly. The Harrier glided over the ship with admirable precision just a minute later. Ryder straightened a little. This speed jockey looked good, thank God. This was not a mission to have a wet noodle watching your six. Three containers had been rolled away and one of the aircraft elevators appeared from below. It arrived with a whoosh of c
lean hydraulic power. Following hand signals from a trio of Marine Aviation guys, the Harrier slotted in perfectly above the mobile landing platform, known to all as the pancake. As Ryder well knew, matching a hover with the speed of a moving ship was an art that would take even a test pilot a while to master. Yet this guy was doing it with ease.

  The plane started coming down. Like Ryder’s Harrier, this jump jet had been “ghosted,” upgraded in the area of radar avoidance. The plane had been coated with a thick black and gray paint to absorb unfriendly radar signals. Movable heat deflectors had been installed to cool its various jet exhausts. All the plane’s sharpest angles had been smoothed over, and anything that had been previously hanging off the fuselage or wings was now recessed inside them. The plane even had a specially tinted canopy, nearly opaque from the outside. In other words, the jump jet was now stealthy, and, ironically looked more like the original British version of the plane, than the current U.S. model.

  Ryder stepped back; so did the Marines. They’d seen Ryder land enough times to know that whenever a Harrier came down there was a bounce and then a flare of hot thrust deflecting off the pancake. The new pilot didn’t need their help anymore, so they’d moved off to safer footing.

  But this Harrier came in so perfectly, it touched down without anything remotely resembling a thump. Nor was there any hot kick-up. This, too, brightened Ryder’s spirits. The person behind such a smooth landing must have had at least as much flying time as he, possibly more. Chances were good he was a real veteran, in both service and age.

  “This guy will be ancient,” Ryder predicted aloud.

  The Harrier shut down, its canopy popped, and the pilot climbed out. Ryder took one look at him and nearly fell off the boat.

  He looked younger than the Delta guys.

  They met at the edge of the pancake. He was short, as many fighter pilots were. Maybe five-seven on a good day. He took off his crash helmet to reveal a cross-cropped surfer dude haircut. He also had a pair of Walkman-type earphones wrapped around his neck. The wire led into his left-side breast pocket, where a mini–CD player was located.