The Aden Effect

by Claude G. Berube

  “Do you need me to take a shift?”

  “Would I pay your commander salary or your merc salary?”

  “This one’s free.”

  “Thanks, but it might be too tough on your constitution, old man.”

  “Not as tough as my fist on your nose, Damien,” Stark warned.

  The two lieutenant commanders were already puffing on their cigars when Stark joined them near the LSO shack. The only light came from the green bioluminescent trail in their wake. The weapons officer showed up soon afterward, and the Bennington’s officers vied with one another to tell the most outrageous stories about their CO.

  “I’m surprised there hasn’t been a mutiny,” Stark said after hearing a few. “Should I be worried about this operation?”

  “That’s a loaded question, sir,” answered OPS. “He’ll follow the letter of the law, but he won’t go one bit further than he has to. As for the rest of the crew, some will do whatever’s necessary to make this mission a success; others won’t.”

  As the discussion wound down, WEPS broached the subject none of them had dared mention before. “Commander, you ought to know something about that night you first joined us.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Best you see it for yourself, sir,” WEPS said, stubbing out his cigar. “Go to the bridge after twenty-three hundred. The CO does his final quick walkthrough on the bridge at twenty-two hundred and then hits the rack.”

  “What should I look for on the bridge?”

  “Check the deck log from that night. Check it really closely.”

  The cryptic suggestion piqued Stark’s curiosity, and twenty-three hundred found him in the company of six other crew members on the bridge—the OOD, Ensign Fisk as the conning officer, two men working at the chart table, a short female helmsman, and an OS2 at the radar repeater on the starboard side of the bridge.

  “What’s your first name, Ensign?”

  “Bobby, sir.”

  “Play any sports at the Academy, Bobby?”

  “Started out playing baseball but wound up on the pistol team. I never shot before I got there. I spent a lot of extra time at the shooting range to catch up to the other mids on the team.” Bobby chose not to mention getting cut from the baseball team and putting all of his time and effort into becoming a marksman.

  “Thanks for your question about humanitarian ops,” Stark said. “Let’s get through this cycle, and then we’ll find a place to talk about force structure options—give you some things to think about for when you’re a captain or Chief of Naval Operations.”

  “Neither of those, sir. Not at this rate. I thought for sure I’d do at least twenty, but I’ll be out in five.”

  “This deployment can’t be that bad.”

  Bobby just shook his head.

  “You know, Bobby, you have a good wardroom. They’re good officers and good role models.”

  “I know, sir. They’re great. They’re not the problem.”

  “Don’t give up, Bobby. Tough times call for good people to rise to the occasion. We’ll do some good for these people on Socotra, people who’ve never heard of us and won’t ever see us again. But we’ll be helping them. It’s a good feeling. That’s one of the many positive things we get to do in the Navy. You’ll learn from this experience—what to do and what not to do. And as you rise in the ranks, you’ll look after those behind you.”

  “Thanks, sir.”

  “My pleasure, Ensign. It’s been awhile since I’ve been on a Navy bridge. Can you show me around?”

  Fisk showed Stark each of the bridge stations in turn, interrupting their conversation now and then to issue course changes and speed commands to the helm.

  “We didn’t have one of these when I was in,” Stark said, pointing to a hightech screen.

  “That’s the VMS navigational display, sir. We can preset coordinates based on the navigator’s recommendations and then see how closely our actual course has aligned with the original track.”

  Stark narrowed his eyes as he tried to read the display. Something stood out. “We’re operating in a box at this point?”

  “Yes, sir. Since earlier this evening, when all the ships arrived just north of Socotra after an eighteen-hour transit, each of the ships has been assigned a box that they’re required to maneuver within until we re-form tomorrow at zero eight hundred for the final leg to the anchorage point outside Hadiboh.”

  “Can this display zoom in and out?”

  “Of course, sir,” said Fisk, reaching down to adjust the screen.

  “While we’re in this operational box, you’re deciding on the track we follow, right?” Stark asked.

  “Uh, yes, sir.”

  Stark brought up the reason for his visit. “May I borrow your flashlight to look at the deck log?”

  “Of course, sir. Looking for anything specific?”

  “Just curious, Bobby, about the night last week when the ship picked up me and the other Kirkwall survivors.”

  “I was the conning officer that night. The captain had me pulling double duty.”

  Stark read through the times and course and speed corrections, especially at the beginning, then went to the chart table. “QM1, do you still have the marked-up charts from the night I was picked up? Here’s the exact time.”

  The quartermaster returned a few minutes later and handed him the requested chart. Stark, though out of practice, made some calculations and then straightened.

  “QM1, all of these times and data points are correct?”

  “Of course, sir. We double-check everything.”

  “I thought so. Thanks.” Stark rejoined Fisk near the window and spoke softly. “Bobby, can you tell me why the captain didn’t order flank speed immediately after you received our general hail for emergency assistance?”

  “We recommended flank speed, sir, but the CO ordered us to proceed at trail shaft. Eventually, the other officers argued the case to him and he changed the order.”

  “Why would he have ordered trail shaft in the first place?”

  “You’d probably get a better answer from OPS or CHENG, sir.”

  “I’m asking you. What the hell was the captain thinking?”

  “He’s very concerned about fuel efficiency, sir.”

  Stark shuddered as he considered what would have happened if the captain’s original order had been carried out. Then he looked back at the VMS screen. “Is there another VMS screen?”

  “Yes, sir,” Bobby said hesitantly. “In the captain’s quarters above his rack.”

  Stark manipulated the trackball and zoomed out from the intended ship’s track to display a track that followed two three-quarter circles separated by a long shaft of two parallel tracks.

  “Interesting track. What do you call it?”

  “The, uh, . . . cock’n balls track. Sir, do you want me to delete the track and the current course?” he asked.

  “No, keep it there, Bobby. Keep it right there,” Stark said.

  DAY 15

  Mar’ib, 0401 (GMT)

  Mutahar’s desk at his estate had three phones. He was talking on one of them when his chief security officer knocked softly and entered the room. Mutahar interrupted his conversation immediately and hung up the phone. “What is it?”

  “Faisal. We cannot reach him.”

  “Why not?”

  “His ship left Mukalla two days ago.”

  “So? He has a satellite phone on his ship, does he not?”

  “We tried.”

  “What is the ship’s destination?”

  “It reported no destination.”

  Mutahar stood and placed both hands flat on his ornate desk. Anger darkened his eyes. “Get me the admiral right now.”

  USS Bennington, off Socotra, 0423 (GMT)

  “RSO, DATT. Radio check.” Stark depressed the button on the radio Golzari had given him. The defense attaché, in his blue coveralls and wearing a ball cap with the ship’s crest, was standing on the starboard bridge wing.
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  “DATT, RSO. I read you loud and clear, over.” Golzari responded from one of the cruiser’s two RHIBs as it was being lowered, giving a wave to Stark. C. J., wearing a yellow life vest sat beside him.

  Stark returned the friendly gesture with his fingers touching the rim of his ball cap in an informal salute. “RSO, DATT. Good luck. DATT out.” The Motorola radio had a range of up to five miles, well within the target zone. The Bennington was at anchor three miles off Hadiboh. Most of the humanitarian operation would take place within a quarter mile of the town itself, so Stark and Golzari would be able to speak at will except for a period later in the morning when Air Boss was going to take Stark along in his helo during its surveillance mission.

  A semicircle of Yemeni ships sheltered the cruiser and the accompanying supply ship from possible danger. Beyond them were a few fishing boats, but nothing else of note showed within sight or on the radar. The aid workers were huddled on the deck waiting their turn in the RHIBs. Ten had joined the ambassador and Golzari in the first RHIB. At this rate, Stark calculated, all of them would be ashore within ninety minutes. Supplies were being offloaded on the shore from the Mukalla Ali, a small roll-on roll-off ship.

  The flurry of activity and the high-noon sunshine on the rippling water reminded Stark of his first day at sea as a newly minted ensign on the last remaining U.S. battleship making its final deployment. When the ship pulled out of Norfolk, it passed one of the new Aegis cruisers—perhaps even the Bennington. Now, it was the cruiser’s last deployment on its final mission. He hoped the Bennington would carry out this mission better than its last one.

  “Commander, you ready to fly?” Air Boss looked eager to get in the air.

  “Ready.”

  “We’ll fly Batwing 57—check with our aircrew for a helmet with a mike that actually works. We’ll fly to the east and north. Batwing 58 is scheduled to take off two hours after us for the west.”

  “Good. Are you armed?”

  “Four Hellfire missiles and an M-240 7.62-mm machine gun. Around here, it’s always better to be armed, although it took a lot of convincing to get the captain to agree.”

  “It seems he needs a lot of convincing to do a lot of things.”

  Air Boss grinned. “He does. But we have a way around that for emergencies, like when we sped up the night we took you and the others aboard.”

  “How’d you do it?”

  The lieutenant commander swiveled his head to ensure no one overheard. “OPS has a friend at Fifth Fleet. We’ve only done it a few times, but we can gin up orders to move the captain along.”

  “Otherwise he’ll take action like a snail?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I see. Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Boss. The secret’s safe with me. Remember, the only rules you shouldn’t follow are the stupid ones.”

  “I like your style, Commander. Care to join us for the rest of the deployment?”

  “With or without the captain?”

  “We can only do so much, sir.”

  “I’m trying to help, Boss. I suggested to the XO that we post more watchstanders and get a few more shooters on the deck. I don’t want what happened to my boat to happen to this ship.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Batwing’s pilot and copilot watched as an air crewman escorted the crouching Commander Stark to the rescue station seat and buckled him in. A few minutes later the OD issued the “green deck” command, granting permission for the helicopter to launch. The 53-foot rotor blades spun up to speed, powered by 3,600-shaft horsepower, and twenty-two thousand pounds lifted off the deck with four souls aboard and reported its status to the Combat Information Center.

  Hadiboh, Socotra, 0610 (GMT)

  The humanitarian operation’s hillside base camp was on the inland side of Hadiboh, on a slight rise with a clear view of the crescent-shaped stretch of coast where the locals beached their fishing boats and where the cruiser’s RHIBs were landing people and material. The RHIBs raced back and forth shuttling people from the ship, which was clearly visible at anchor out in deeper water. A narrow paved road led from the beach up to the town of nine thousand. Few of the stone buildings still standing after the earthquake had more than a single story. Functional vehicles were few, although rusting pickup trucks dotted the town, their tires and windows long since removed for other purposes. To the east were the mountains of Socotra. Golzari assigned his two assistant RSOs and two Marines to stand watch from the two tallest rooftops.

  Under the shelter of a small tent at the edge of the base camp Ambassador C. J. Sumner was looking at an oversized diagram of the operation. Bill Maddox stood to her left. To her right, Special Agent Damien Golzari stood with his back to her in order to watch for potential threats. Several Highland Maritime Defense personnel were nearby to protect Maddox.

  “I see you’ve decided to set up within sight of the Chinese archway,” commented Maddox. “Rubbing it in their face, C. J.?”

  “No more than they’d rub it in ours. I know they’re just itching to get their hands on that oil offshore.”

  “I don’t have much choice in that, C. J., unless you can think of another option the U.S. government would approve.”

  She frowned at him. “There are always options.”

  “You have an idea?”

  She shrugged noncommittally. “I’m not sure. Let’s get this set up first. We can talk tomorrow once things are rolling along here.”

  Golzari strolled around the open-sided tent, satisfied that the ambassador was safe for the moment. C. J. paid no attention to him as she leaned over the table and scribbled on the drawing, modifying where key people and supplies would be located to make the process more efficient.

  “For a place so far off the map, this island has a lot of legends connected to it,” Golzari said, his eyes moving constantly as he monitored the camp.

  “Really?” C. J. said, without looking up from her diagram.

  “According to local legend the Apostle Thomas was shipwrecked here and converted the island’s population.”

  “It didn’t stick, then.” She erased some names on the paper and moved them to a different sector.

  “Marco Polo visited here, too. He thought the locals were witches who could conjure up storms to destroy invading ships.”

  Sumner stopped working and straightened to look up at him; in flat soles, the ambassador was nearly a foot shorter than Golzari.

  “Is this idle chitchat, or is there a point?” She put her pencil between her teeth and crossed her arms.

  “A little of both. I haven’t seen much out of the ordinary on this island— aside from the Chinese, of course. But out there . . .” he tilted his head toward the Bennington.

  She took her pencil out of her mouth and tossed it on the diagram. “He has a way of finding trouble, doesn’t he?”

  “I’m more concerned that trouble has a way of finding him.” Golzari shrugged as if to shake a nagging doubt, then turned his attention to her diagram.

  “I’m intrigued by this plan, Madam Ambassador.”

  “Go on.”

  “The setup you’ve designed is a semicircle centered on your tent. To the right you have the emergency hospital tents, in the middle you have the tents where the medical personnel will sleep, and to the left the construction workers. Back behind the semicircle you have boxes for the supplies we’ll use for construction.”

  “So?”

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a perfect design for an orchestra. The violins here, the timpani and percussion back there, the woodwinds and brass over there. And that would put you—here—as the conductor.”

  She laughed, amused to be found out by her bodyguard. “Huh, well, it seemed reasonable and organized.”

  “It is. It’s a model of efficiency. It also makes my job much easier. I know where everyone is and my men are perfectly positioned in the taller buildings on both sides of us.”

  “You’re familiar with classical music, Agent Golzari?”<
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  “Yes, of course. But when I play the piano I prefer jazz. Like Brubeck.”

  “How do you feel about Chet Baker?”

  “I once stayed at the hotel in Amsterdam where he died.”

  “I have a friend who likes Chet Baker. You two have quite a lot in common.”

  A reflection from the Bennington caught Golzari’s tireless eyes as the first of the ship’s two helicopters launched.

  Batwing 58, 0632 (GMT)

  The three crew members in Batwing 58, west of Socotra at ten thousand feet, watched the traffic patterns of the ships below. None seemed to be headed toward Hadiboh, although there was an enormous ship slowly making its way east-southeast past Abdul Kori Island. The ship was escorted in a clear pattern by half a dozen dhows. Already low on fuel, Five-Eight took photos and then headed back to the Bennington.

  USS Bennington, off Socotra, 0723 (GMT)

  The XO rolled her eyes and issued the CO’s latest directive: all officers and chiefs not on watch were required in the wardroom at twelve-thirty, where officials from Socotra would explain the local culture, customs, and port requirements those going ashore would need to know. This was, of course, irrelevant. No one would be allowed ashore here.

  Bobby had the watch as force protection action officer on the bridge while WEPS manned the Combat Information Center as tactical action officer; the rest of the officers and most of the chiefs were either in the wardroom or on their way. Bobby watched as one of the ship’s RHIBs approached, carrying three locals wearing life vests straight out of an old coastal rescue photo. Instead of the single-piece flotation devices modern mariners wore, these were little more than a series of tissue-box-sized Styrofoam pads strung together with rope. He stifled a snicker.

  Hadiboh, 0724 (GMT)

  Golzari left Ambassador Sumner with one of the Highland Maritime Defense personnel, a former beat cop like himself, while he took a walk along the shoreline where the Mukalla Ali was unloading construction supplies. He noticed one of the RHIBs returning to the ship. Using his binoculars, he saw three men in the boat who, judging by their clothing, were neither ship’s crew nor aid workers.