by Bob Finley
When they were outside in the passageway, Marc pulled them aside.
"Look," he said, "I didn't like what I just heard in there. It sounds to me like Jambou is starting to stir up a hate campaign toward us. I'm not sure where it's heading, but if he's decided to start getting rid of us, I think his first step would be to make sure his own people were hostile and suspicious of us enough to believe whatever he might tell them about us so they wouldn't side with us." Each face in the group reflected the concern...and fear...that agreement with the assessment would bring.
"I can't help but believe that things are about to accelerate quickly, with the navy here and the firing on the news crew. And, now, this inflammatory speech by Jambou. I don't want to preach gloom and doom, but it doesn't look good, and I think we need to start right now being very careful around any of the guards. We don't want to give them any excuse to move on us."
"Yeah," Cy said, "and we might ought to team up in pairs, so's nobody's caught by himself."
They moved away from the mess hall, where they could hear the guards becoming ever more agitated, quietly making plans to the limited extent that their circumstances allowed. By then it was already eight-thirty in the evening and they decided the safest thing they could do was to hole up in their quarters for the night and minimize their chances of contact with Jambou's goons. After finding Bill Layton fitfully asleep, and making sure everyone was safely settled in for the night, Marc and Kim closeted themselves in their room to try to anticipate what lie ahead and how to cope with it. And, especially, how to survive it.
Chapter 70
Bright yellow ear plugs worn by six of the seven men only served to render more sinister their masks of mottled black and green camo face paint. The seventh man was anchored to the cabin wall by the earmuffs of a commset. His eyes were clenched tightly closed against the deafening roar of the twin 1700 horsepower turbo engines of the CH-4B Sea King helicopter. In order to concentrate on his conversation with the copilot up on the flight deck, he pressed both earpieces more firmly against his ears. The others could see his mouth move but knew that whatever they needed to know, the major would tell them. This wasn't their first mission together. Except for Brandt, of course.
With only the seven of them in a cabin designed to carry more than two dozen troops in full battle gear, the noise that would have normally been absorbed by the additional bodies and gear instead seemed to penetrate their very bones.
Major Matthew Strickland, the only Marine in the group, stripped the headset off and handed it back with a nod to the E-6 flight mechanic. He made his way unsteadily across the erratically-moving metal deck to the cluster of men who lounged in various attitudes of repose on their burdens of packs and equipment. He shot his left sleeve cuff up and peered in the dim red light at his wristwatch. 03:55. Dawn in an hour-plus.
He squatted half-way down the line of soldiers and made a slight circular motion in the air with his right forefinger. The small group drew closer together in a semicircle before him. He had to yell to be heard.
"We'll be aboard the Washington in twenty minutes. The pilot's going to try to avoid enemy radar by using the carrier as cover, so we'll approach the ship at wave top level and from the side away from our target." He smiled grimly at the groans. Flying a big chopper like this one at extremely low altitude was just begging for motion sickness from the turbulence. Not to mention zero recovery time in case of the slightest mistake by the pilot or, more likely, a mechanical problem. But he'd long since learned to trust in the skills of the pros like the kid sitting in the hot seat up front and forget about what might happen.
"Just before we get to the carrier, we'll pop up and slide in over the side. They're going to put down directly on the elevator and take the chopper below decks before we disembark. That and the darkness 'll keep a low profile on our arrival and, if we're lucky, nobody'll know we're here 'til we want 'em to." He waited for comments but there were none.
"As soon as we're aboard, we'll be taken straight to our quarters. I want you to grab a couple of hours of sleep. They'll wake us at 06:45. Breakfast at 07:00. Briefing at 07:30." They'd been in one aircraft or another for fourteen hours straight, in order to arrive at the target zone under the cover of darkness, and were all bone-tired. Two hours of sleep wouldn't be much, but it would help dull the edge.
"Who's doing the briefing, Major?"
Matt Strickland looked over his right shoulder toward the flight deck, but the enlisted crewman was paying them no mind. He turned back to the team. He held his right hand in front of him, curled his index finger, and pretended to pull a trigger. Sanchez looked surprised, made the same motion, and pointed to the deck. "Is Trigger here?" he mimed. Strickland shook his head. With his hand, he imitated an airplane landing, then signed zero, six, zero, zero. "He's flying in at 06:00 this morning." The others nodded. Among themselves, signs and sign language seemed more natural than talking aloud. The better to surprise an enemy.
The big chopper lurched and quick hands grabbed their C.O. to keep him from rolling backward across the deck. Stomachs floated as if they were in a fast-dropping elevator. For all practical purposes they were, as the huge Sea King dived from eighteen hundred feet to level off at fifty. With almost no payload and having spent a fourth of its fuel, they'd been zipping along at 280 knots. Now, in the thicker air near the surface of the darkened sea, they slowed to just under 250. But the price for stealth was that of being buffeted about in the turbulent air near the surface, and Matt joined his men in strapping into the long row of drop-down folding canvas seats along the bulkhead. It wouldn't do to be injured this close to their objective.
The last few minutes were tense. But the Computer Assisted Navigation System beneath the pilot's feet scanned the surface below them as well as 180 degrees ahead of and to each side of the big chopper sixty times a second and virtually flew the craft. The pilot and co-pilot's night vision helmets gave them excellent, if surrealistic, visuals of their surroundings, though at this speed and this close to the surface, they knew full well their chances of successfully reacting to any emergency were fifteen per cent at best.
Twenty miles out, one of the three Hawkeyes patrolling aloft fired a short burst of recognition code at the Sea King, which responded, also with a signal only milliseconds in duration. No one was taking chances on voice interception. The Hawkeye then signaled the Washington by pre-arranged code that told the carrier to get ready for company.
This one would be unusual and dangerous. Aircraft intent on landing didn't normally approach the flight deck from abeam, certainly not from just above the water line. To do so, the air boss commented to no one in particular, was like 'baring your belly in a knife fight'.
Ten miles out, the weary passengers on the Sea King felt the massive engines back off as the helicopter began to slow so its crew could fine-tune the pre-determined approach path.
Five miles out, the sensor in the chopper's nose came to life as it detected, then locked in on, a pencil-thin, shielded laser beam that would guide them in on final approach.
A little less than three miles from the Washington, the Sea King's pilot announced that he had the carrier in sight, a strange thing to say, since it was still pitch-black outside. The small group of soldiers in the cabin began to check their gear, and each other's gear, over one final time. They'd all strapped into the jump seats along the bulkhead. Most had experienced at least one hard chopper landing somewhere along the way and were keeping promises to themselves to be ready the next time. Those who hadn't had that wonderful experience wisely took their cues from the others.
The young Captain at the yoke of the big aircraft flew his ship straight at the carrier, a little forward of the stern, until its massive bulk became a wall before them, a cliff towering three stories higher than their already fifty feet off the water. When their entire windscreen was filled with nothing but armored steel plating and rivets, the pilot tugged on the collective and jerked the now-puny-by-comparison helicopter into a 45-
degree climb. The soldiers behind him were suddenly very glad they'd belted in and, entombed and blinded as they were in their private cave, filled the air with invectives that cast doubt on the crew's lineage.
The crew waiting by the elevator were startled into an instinctive crouch when a seventy-five-foot long, throbbing giant suddenly burst from out of the darkness above the side of the ship, cleared the edge of the flight deck by only twenty feet, and then tipped toward them. It roared across the deck in a nose down, tail up attitude and, flaring at the last possible second, settled dead-center of the elevator with hardly a bounce. The whine of the turbines quickly wound down as the pilot went through shut-down. The recovery crew, overcoming their initial shock, ran forward in a crouch under the slowing rotors to chock the wheels and attach tie-down cables to the massive chopper. There were distant alarms from within the ship, the elevator lurched, and the helicopter sank from sight into the bowels of the ship within moments of arrival.
The executive officer, watching from the bridge, turned and picked up the telephone to the hanger deck below.
"Give my regards to the pilot of the helo that just landed. Tell him I said it was as fine a three-wire landing as I've ever seen. Thank you." He put the receiver back in its cradle and turned. The OOD, turning away, had almost but not quite succeeded in wiping the smile from his face.
Chapter 71
It was 7:32 in the morning. The sun had risen over British Gibraltar an hour before. The base there was on full defensive alert and bristling with weaponry ashore as well as aboard the frigate and two destroyers in the bay. It was obvious the frigate was making ready to put to sea. It couldn't afford to be caught in shallow water only a hundred miles from a sub-surface nuclear detonation. Spanish Gibraltar was even more tense, especially since the declaration of martial law late the afternoon before. Though both their countries had been targeted by "el bombardero loco", the "mad bomber", the bad blood that had existed for over three hundred years between the two countries only made things worse. The British had laid claim to "the Rock" in the early seventeen hundreds and had fought the Spanish over it for three-quarters of a century. The "peace" treaty that was finally signed brought an end to the fighting, but not peace. It did nothing to resolve the long-standing hatred the Spanish people had for what they considered to be a foreign military garrison on soil that was rightfully theirs.
Normally smoldering resentment had turned this morning to protests that were rapidly escalating into skirmishes as terrified Spanish locals mobbed the heavily defended gates at the airbase that gave access to the rest of the complex. Located on a narrow, sandy isthmus barely a mile wide, its low elevation had suddenly become of paramount importance in the past forty-eight hours. As word spread throughout the countryside of the nuclear bomb beneath the sea just off the coast, and what the effects of its detonation could mean to low-lying coastal areas, panic began to feed the already glowing embers of resentment toward the forces that held the only high ground around. Standing fourteen hundred feet above sea level, and catacombed with ten miles of tunnels, the local residents of Gibraltar immediately saw the mountain as their salvation from a raging sea should the worst happen. And the foreign power that held it, that had stolen it from them in the beginning, was now denying them their only sanctuary from unthinkable devastation and near-certain death.
A hundred miles west, the atmosphere in the Officers' Mess aboard the U.S.S. Washington was almost as electric. The breakfast dishes had been cleared from the room, as had all non-essential personnel. Only the inevitable navy coffee cups remained. Officers' country was virtually deserted, with anyone not on duty having found an excuse to be in this room. A meeting such as this would normally have been held in the CIC. But the civilian who'd arrived back-seat on a Tomcat just after sunrise this morning had declared an information blackout. He sat now with his back to the door, in a chair just to the left of the one the Admiral would shortly occupy at the end of the Formica-covered table. The Captain of the Washington sat across from him and several of the more astute among what by now qualified as a crowd sensed an aloofness in the Captain's demeanor. Talk among those who had sufficient rank to rate a chair at the table was hushed and low-key. Even among those standing around the walls, there was a decided lack of the ribald, good-natured banter and black humor that usually accompanied meetings.
The civilian who was the object of a constant barrage of discreet looks from every quarter of the room was either phenomenally unaware of the attention and murmurs of speculation he'd generated, or just didn't care. He sat quietly, his coffee cup in both hands near his lips, gazing unperturbed at nothing through the rising steam. Six-three and lean, his charcoal gray suit complimented the gray hair at his close-cropped temples. He wore no rings and the tan on the backs of his hands offered testimony that he never did. The face of the chronograph on his left arm, though, he wore to the inside of his wrist. On him, it somehow seemed to infer stark efficiency. His face was hawkish and angular, devoid of even a hint of smile lines. But it was his eyes that caused men to glance away whenever he turned his head their way. They were heavy-lidded, almost hooded, and such a pale gray that they seemed at first without color at all. Sitting totally at ease, an island awash in a turbulent surf, he seemed not so much a power as an unknown and unleashed force.
Commander Stubbins stepped into the room and announced, "Attention on deck!" Those seated instantly rose and all hands in the room came to attention. The Admiral followed close behind, moving immediately to his chair at the head of the table. The Commander, as the Admiral's aide, pulled the chair out and waited. Admiral Cochran took brief note of those in the small room and said, "As you were, ladies and gentlemen," seating himself as he did so. Commander Stubbins took up position one pace behind and to the Admiral's right.
"We have quite a group here this morning, I see. Maybe we should let the Chaplain have a go at you instead of having a meeting. I'm sure it would be a change from his usual Sunday morning crowd." Good natured laughter filled the room and the resident Protestant chaplain smiled and waved from a corner. When the noise abated, Jake Cochran continued more somberly. "Fact is, considering our reason for being here today, and the possible outcome of what we're about to do, it might be a good idea if we did ask for divine guidance and intervention. Reverend Fulton, would you mind doing that for us?"
As prayer was offered for wisdom and courage in the face of action about to be taken on behalf of all the world's peoples, even the most hardened among them yielded to a moment of quiet hope, whether under conviction of faith or superstition. Cochran suddenly remembered an old Confederate soldier's prayer he'd run across years ago: 'When Death chooses, someone loses. Who'll pay His fee? Better you than me.'
"It's always the other guy who's not coming back," he mused, stealing a look around the room as the prayer came to a close.
"Thank you, Chaplain. We all appreciate those words of reassurance." He paused and looked slowly around the room. "In a matter of a few short days," he began quietly, "the world has changed. We've seen the resurrection of an old fear we thought we'd put to bed. The third city in the seventy year history of nuclear power has been destroyed, with all the horror that accompanies it. Ten years ago we thought we'd made it impossible for political terrorists to ever use nuclear weapons to achieve their radical goals. And enough nuclear disarmament treaties have been signed around the world to wall paper the U. N. building. But the one real fear that always surfaces during simulations and in freshman political science classes is what to do about a person or a group who uses nuclear weapons for personal gain. That fear is now a reality." He picked up his cup of coffee and sipped it, carefully setting the mug back on the table.
"I think everyone in this room is aware of the nuclear destruction of Johannesburg, South Africa three days ago. Also the fact that the person or persons responsible for it claim that it was done for personal revenge and personal gain. Further, that this terrorist claims to have the capability to explode nuclear devices i
n several countries around the world, including several cities in the United States, and is threatening to do so unless his demands are met." Jake Cochran had no trouble reading the faces of those listening to him. These were men and women trained to meet force with force, and to aggressively overcome. There could be no question where their sentiments lay.
"This morning at oh-six-hundred, a representative of the United Nations Security Council arrived on board." All eyes found the man to the Admiral's left. "He'll bring you up to speed on what's shakin'." He looked at the stranger in gray for the first time since entering the room. "Mr. Coventry, the floor is yours."
The Suit placed his coffee mug meticulously on the table before him and rose to his feet.
"Thank you, Admiral Cochran," he murmured. His words were precise and so low-key those at the end of the room weren't sure he'd spoken. He glanced the length of the room before continuing in a voice only slightly louder.
"As Admiral Cochran said, I am here at the direction of the Security branch of the United Nations. That body met in emergency session approximately fifteen hours after the destruction of Johannesburg, South Africa. Based on the accomplished fact of nuclear destruction of one city, and the threatened destruction of additional cities throughout the world by a self-proclaimed terrorist, the Security Council made two recommendations to the General Assembly: first, that a state of international emergency be declared, which recognizes that the national security of all member nations is at risk; second, that there be no negotiations of any kind with the terrorists, and that a strike by the counter-terrorist forces at the disposal of the U. N. be launched with utmost discretion and expediency." He stopped talking and languidly looked around the room. "Those forces were flown in under cover of darkness this morning just after oh-four-hundred. They've had approximately two hours of sleep since then and will be joining us in a few moments. You will meet them, but you will not ask them questions about the mission. At this time, you may ask me whatever questions you have and I will answer those I'm able to answer." He turned toward Captain Carruthers and nodded once. The Captain glanced at his executive officer, who opened the door a foot and spoke to an armed Marine who came to attention as the door opened. A few seconds later, seven men in fatigues entered the room and filed around one end behind Admiral Cochran. Several men had to shuffle along the wall to make room for the new arrivals. It was a mild shock among both officers and noncoms to realize that there wasn't a single device of rank on any of the uniforms of the men who now stood unperturbed before them.
