by Tony Park
‘Jane, aim at something and pull the red trigger on the control stick.’
‘OK.’
He watched her shift in her seat and turn her head as far to the right as she could, until she was looking back at the bridge. Alex could just glimpse the tips of the cannon’s multiple barrels. Jane squeezed the red trigger and the whole aircraft shuddered. Men around them scattered when the guns roared into life and spewed hot spent brass onto the containers.
Tracer rounds flashed brightly past the bridge and others slammed through steel plating and shattered even the thick glass in front of the helm.
‘Whoo-hoo!’
‘Keep firing, Jane. Short bursts, though. Keep their heads down.’
For a minute they stayed there. Alex looked around him. The crewmen and gunslingers were slowly edging back towards the Rooivalk. Jane turned her head as far as she could to the right, then shifted position to turn to the left and the guns moved with her. However, it was impossible to get them to face rearwards. Van Zyl was quick to spot the weakness and he and most of the men disappeared out of sight under the Rooivalk’s tail boom.
Alex felt the rear of the aircraft start to lift.
‘No!’
‘Shit,’ Alex said. He pounded the instrument panel in front of him. ‘We’ve got a helicopter gunship full of missiles and rockets and nothing to shoot at.’
‘What’s that on the radar?’ Jane asked.
Alex looked at the screen and checked the name next to the blip. ‘The SAS Talana! Jane, I could kiss you.’
33
The voice on the radio being broadcast throughout the bridge of the SAS Talana was distorted by the hum of the sea boat’s engine, wind and the slap of the RHIB’s hull on the water.
‘Say again, Ironman,’ Captain Fourie said into his microphone.
Petty Officer Bruce Irons – Ironman to all ranks on his ship – was coxswain of one of the rigid-hulled inflatable boats racing towards the Penfold Son and the reported location of the crashed Rooivalk.
‘Sir, we’ve just heard what sounds like gunfire coming from the direction of the Penfold Son. Request further orders, over.’
Fourie turned to Commander Kumalo. ‘XO, get on to that bloody freighter and find out what’s going on.’ To his small boat crew he said, ‘Ironman, cut your engine and hold your position. Tell the other RHIB to do the same. Await further orders.’
Jane looked out of the cockpit to the stubby wings on the right-hand side. A pod of a dozen air-to-ground rockets hung there, along with two larger Mokopa antitank missiles. One of Van Zyl’s henchmen stood behind the wing, out of the arc of fire of the cannon under the nose, and pushed forward as the other men lifted the tail another few degrees higher. She felt the helicopter start to slide.
‘Now, Jane. Fire!’
‘Oh God, please forgive me,’ she whispered. At rest, the Rooivalk had been sitting slightly nose up, but with the men lifting from behind, the rocket pod was now sitting close to parallel with the sea surface. She could see from the radar display in front of her that the blob electronically marked as SAS Talana – F 149 was dead ahead of them. Alex had told her that in the unlikely event the unguided antipersonnel rocket hit the Talana, it would bounce off the ship’s thick hull. It had been her idea to fire at the Talana and get them to do something – anything – in a response that might buy them some time. She prayed there were no men in exposed positions, then switched the selector to ‘rockets’ and pulled the trigger.
The single rocket shot from the pod and Jane glimpsed its sleek menacing shape for an instant before her view was clouded with smoke. Over the noise of the launch, though, she heard an agonised scream.
Fire and more smoke had burst from the rear of the pod as well, and the back blast had engulfed the man who’d been pushing against the wing. He spun and dropped to his knees, his face and hands blackened, his hair and fatigues on fire. Jane shut her eyes to the horror, but his piercing yells easily penetrated the armoured glass.
The rear of the Rooivalk dropped with a thud as Van Zyl, Penfold and the others moved away from the new threat.
‘Missile inbound, missile inbound!’
The Talana’s klaxon sounded throughout the ship.
‘Hands to action stations. Launch countermeasures,’ Fourie ordered.
‘Sir, missile’s splashed into the sea, at five thousand yards by radar,’ Kumalo said.
The captain picked up his binoculars and scanned the shimmering water. He saw the plume of spray. ‘There. It’s dropped short.’ The other officers of the bridge looked where Fourie was pointing.
‘Not much bang in it, whatever it was,’ Kumalo said.
‘Damn it, that’s not the point. Someone just fired at us!’ The words had come out harsher than he’d intended, but Kumalo nodded anyway, suitably chastised.
‘We’re closed up at action stations now, sir,’ Kumalo said, steadying himself after the rebuke. ‘Still unable to make radio contact with the Penfold Son, sir.’
Petty Officer Irons’s voice came through on the loudspeaker again.
The captain picked up the radio handset. ‘What have you got for me, Ironman?’
‘Sir, it looked like an air-to-ground rocket passing over us a short while ago. Detonated somewhere behind us, by the sound of it. Permission to close on the Penfold Son, sir, and investigate.’
‘Permission denied.’ Someone was firing guns and rockets at his ship. He admired Irons’s bravery and dedication, but a RHIB could be shredded by that kind of weaponry. ‘Return to the ship.’
‘Yes sir,’ said an obviously reluctant Irons.
‘Guns, this is the captain. Fire two rounds from the number one gun, two hundred metres off the Penfold Son’s bow. Let’s show them we mean business, whoever they are.’
Alex had been fiddling with the radios inside the Rooivalk and had picked up the frequency on which the executive officer of the Talana was trying to reach the Penfold Son. Alex had keyed his radio ‘send’ switch several times and tried to explain their situation. He wanted the Talana to send a boat to them at the double.
He looked outside the cockpit. Van Zyl and his men had retreated, scared off by the force of the rocket’s back blast. He could make out only two of them now, both armed – one with a pistol and the other with the M4 Jane had dropped. Every now and then they fired a round into the Rooivalk to deter Jane and him from making a run for it. Though quite where they would run to, he had no idea. He wondered where Van Zyl had gone.
The ship itself was turning and from the radar display it appeared they were heading towards the Talana. He looked up at the bridge. There was no one to be seen through the shattered windows. He wondered if one of Jane’s earlier bursts of fire had killed the helmsman. The fact that there were no answering radio messages from the Penfold Son’s deckhouse firmed his suspicions.
Even though he couldn’t radio the frigate, if they could sit tight the Talana would be in visual range in a few minutes and would see the Rooivalk was on the deck and not lost at sea. That should prompt the captain to send a boarding party.
‘Alex!’
He looked up at Jane’s call and saw eight figures striding towards them across the top of the shipping containers. They looked like they had come from the set of a science fiction movie. ‘Fireproof suits,’ he said.
‘That means the rocket blasts won’t stop them,’ Jane said.
Alex looked at the radar screen again. The Talana was closing the gap, but was still beyond visual distance. They wouldn’t see the Rooivalk hit the water, or even hear the gunfire as he and Jane were murdered. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the naval ship might even be slowing its course or standing off. Not surprising since it had come under attack, however ineffectual, from the small air-to-ground rockets.
‘Alex, we’re moving again!’
The mercenaries and crewmen, clad in their firefighting gear, were putting their backs into pushing again. The Rooivalk was slightly skewed and its front left wheel
went over first and the helicopter’s fuselage grounded on to the metal top of a container with a sickening thud.
‘Alex! There’s a speck on the horizon. I can see a ship.’
The tail of the helicopter started to rise as the men got underneath it and lifted.
The Talana was on her way, but she was still too far away for its captain and crew to see what was happening on board the Penfold Son. He needed to show them.
‘Jane, lock onto the ship with your sight and select the Mokopas.’
‘The whats?’
‘The antitank missiles.’
Jane moved her helmeted head and scanned the horizon to their left. He strained his eyes and made out the speck in the distance. He heard a high-pitched tone as a missile locked on.
The nose of the Rooivalk started to tip forwards, and Alex could see the waters below them. He gripped the cockpit walls on either side of him. Through the scarred armoured glass he heard two explosions in quick succession.
The helicopter thudded back onto the deck on its tail again as seawater thrown up from the two geysers washed over the men pushing them and coated the chopper.
‘The Talana’s firing on us!’ Jane said. She sounded happy about it.
‘Strap into your seat. Pull your harness as tight as you can.’
The men renewed their effort and the tail of the Rooivalk began to rise again.
Jane finished securing herself and grabbed the instrument panel in front of her with one hand, the other still on the gunner’s joystick. ‘We’re going over!’
The missile tone still buzzed in their ears. ‘Fire, Jane. Shoot all four missiles!’
Jane pulled the trigger.
The first Mokopa missile leapt from the bracket under the Rooivalk’s port wing and, because the helicopter was facing downwards, as if in a dive, it splashed into the sea a short distance from the Penfold Son and exploded, sending up a huge bubble from far below the surface. While the men lifting the Rooivalk were spared most of the force of the back blast, the roar and noise of the big missile’s launch caused them to falter and the tail fell once more.
The missile lock tone still buzzed in Jane’s ears. ‘Fire, Jane. Shoot them all!’
The men on the containers were lifting again and didn’t stop this time, even as the second and third missiles left their racks, engulfing the suited mercenaries and crewmen in smoke and fire.
‘Alex! They’re not stopping. We’re going over!’
The Rooivalk’s fuselage scraped on the edge of the outermost container and they started sliding forwards. The right-hand wheel went over as the men slewed the tail around.
‘Hold on!’ Alex yelled.
Jane fired the fourth antitank missile, but like the first, this one flew straight down, and the helicopter followed it into the sea.
The alarm sounded on the Talana’s bridge. ‘Two missiles inbound!’ said Kumalo.
‘Launch countermeasures!’ Fourie ordered. ‘All guns, fire!’
Super Barricade launchers on either side of the ship sprayed out a storm of chaff away from the Talana. The small strips of metallic foil were designed to confuse and attract incoming missiles. Gunners manning the thirty-five and twenty millimetre cannons fired in the direction of the oncoming missiles, hoping a lucky shot might detonate one or more of the warheads.
One missile went wide, homing in on the chaff cloud and exploding in a fireball a hundred metres from the port side of the ship.
The second hit the hull at an oblique angle and penetrated, its armour-piercing warhead punching through the steel to enter the enclosed fo’castle.
Fourie grasped the sides of his padded chair and turned his face from the glass in front of him as the blast rocked the ship and a cloud of smoke obscured his vision.
‘Damage control party to the fo’castle,’ Kumalo ordered over the ship’s main broadcast system. ‘Damage control! Report.’
Smoke billowed from the vents on either side of the compartment that housed the anchor winch.
Fourie clenched his fists to control his anger. He was livid, but would not let his officers see his emotions. ‘Commence firing procedures for missiles one and two,’ he said.
Kumalo looked at him, the intercom handset poised near his ear. The African’s eyes were wide with astonishment. ‘The Exocets, sir?’
‘You heard me, XO. Don’t just stand there staring at me.’
‘But sir, she’s a merchant freighter . . . one of the largest afloat and . . .’
‘And she just fired two missiles at us.’ Fourie repeated the order.
Kumalo licked his lips and gave the order. ‘I’ll keep trying to contact them, sir. In the meantime, damage control reports no casualties, although the anchor winch is damaged. They’re assessing now. The RHIBs are back on board, with all hands safe.’
‘Very well, XO. Maintain present course. I want to see what’s going on with this ship. If she fires on us again, I’m going to shoot.’
Alex shook his head to clear his vision. His head had banged against the armoured glass of the cockpit when the helicopter hit the concrete-like surface of the water. His chest ached where the restraint straps had cut into flesh and muscle. He would be badly bruised, but he was alive. ‘Jane?’
‘I’m OK. What do we do?’
They were floating, but listing hard over on their right side. Alex looked down and saw water entering the cockpit. Within seconds it was swirling about his ankles. A bullet zinged through the metal of the fuselage. ‘They’re trying to keep us inside, or shoot us as we get out. Open your cockpit a little.’
‘But won’t that flood us?’ Jane asked, looking back over her shoulder at him.
‘Yes, but if we go under with the cockpit locked the water pressure will stop us from opening the hatches. We’ll flood ourselves. Take a deep breath as the water comes in, and get out before we touch the bottom. Swim as far as you can underwater towards the stern of the Penfold Son. If we can make the overhang we can hide underneath for a little while.’
She nodded. ‘Let’s hope they don’t start the engines again or we’ll be caught in the propellers.’
He knew she was right, but they had no other choice. The ship had come to a stop just as they were being tossed overboard. That meant someone was back on the bridge again. The electrical systems on board the Rooivalk were still working and Alex heard again the executive officer of the Talana, who had identified himself as Commander Kumalo, trying to raise the Penfold Son.
Alex opened his cockpit a fraction and a rush of water flooded over the side. Jane did the same.
‘Jane?’
She turned again and looked at him. ‘Yes?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to say it to you before.’
‘What?’
‘I love you too.’
An explosion beside and beneath them silenced her reply and rocked the Rooivalk further onto its side, raising the cockpit out of the water a little and slowing the inflow of water. ‘Grenade!’ Alex yelled. He looked up through the bullet-starred glass and saw Van Zyl pull the pin from another orb, hold it for a few seconds and then drop it over the side. The mercenary was counting off the fuse’s timer, trying to judge it so the next grenade would detonate just as it reached the helicopter.
‘Second vessel approaching from the north-west, sir,’ said an able-bodied seaman seated at a screen on the Talana’s bridge. ‘It’s small and fast – a motor cruiser. Speed twenty-eight knots, range seven miles, sir.’
‘Keep an eye on him,’ Fourie said. ‘Ready the guns.’ He wiped his brow.
They were in visual range of the Penfold Son now. ‘She’s stopped, sir,’ Kumalo said, holding binoculars to his eyes. ‘Explosion below the waterline, sir! Maybe she’s launching something?’
The radio on the bridge squawked to life. ‘SAS Talana, SAS Talana, this is the master of the Penfold Son, Commodore George Penfold, over . . .’ The voice had a distinct British accent.
‘Damn fool’s promoted himself now.’ Fourie
stood and snatched the microphone from Kumalo’s hand before he could reply. ‘This is the Captain of the SAS Talana, go ahead, and what the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
‘This is Penfold. My ship has been taken over by armed terrorists. They are carrying explosives and missiles on board. I suspect they are planning on attacking a port facility or another vessel, over.’
Fourie looked at Kumalo, who shrugged. ‘Patch in Tactical Headquarters.’
‘The hijackers killed the crew of your air force attack helicopter and tossed the aircraft overboard. Two of my crew and I escaped. I am broadcasting from a private motor cruiser that picked us up.’
Fourie checked the radar screen and saw the smaller boat approaching. ‘I see your vessel, Penfold. If you got away, though, why the hell did you come back?’
‘Saw you on the radar, Captain. Thought I’d better come back to warn you, in case the terrorists opened fire on you.’
‘Well, that they did. Pirates or terrorists? What about your earlier radio transmissions?’
‘I am George Penfold and this is the first time I have contacted you, Captain. I don’t know anything about any other transmissions, and if you were talking to another George Penfold, I can assure you he was a fake.’
The voice sounded different. Fourie rubbed his chin. The presence of terrorists on board the Penfold Son fit with the intelligence he had received from Tactical Headquarters.
‘Sir,’ Kumalo interrupted. ‘I can see a rotor blade sticking out of the water. Looks like the Rooivalk is still floating. Another explosion just went off . . . They must be trying to sink it. What will we do, sir?’
‘Sink my vessel, Captain,’ said the cultured voice over the radio and the words stilled even the murmured conversations going on around the Talana’s bridge. ‘I am requesting that you sink the MV Penfold Son, at my request, over.’
‘Gunfire, sir!’ called a seaman, also keeping watch on the Penfold Son. ‘I see muzzle flashes from the freighter.’
The voice from the radio came back, loud and clear. ‘Captain, there are no friendlies left on board that ship. It’s packed with explosives and weapons and it’s looking for a target to sink. It’s only cargo on board, and it’s all insured, as is the ship. I could never forgive myself if my vessel caused a loss of life. Sink it, Captain, sink it.’
