Syren's Song

by Claude G. Berube

  Stark offered him a cup of coffee and a bottle of water, both of which the officer took. He set the coffee down and took a sip of the water before continuing. “One of our warships reported increased chatter on the radio—far above normal. Then everything cut out. Everything, Captain,” he emphasized. “We lost communication with our entire fleet. Then we lost communication with our offices in Colombo, Galle, and Trincomalee. We don’t know much about what happened next other than eyewitness accounts from civilians. People in each city reported small fireworks in the harbors and then everything went dead. Cars, phones, radios. Anything with electronics.”

  “Ah, yeah, uh-huh,” Jay said, nodding.

  “The portions of the cities closest to the port were in chaos,” the Sri Lankan continued. “Our ships were dead in the water. And then the small boats came. Some were suicide boats, armed with some sort of high-explosive device. They simply rammed our dead warships and destroyed them. There were very few survivors in our fleet.” Ranasinghe paused again to drink some water.

  “The situation is far worse than the media know, Captain Stark. Some of our military aircraft crashed as well. We suspect that the Tigers are still based somewhere in the northeast, but after the attacks they warned us that they could down any plane, stop any tank, and sink any ship we sent to the area. Our army and air force would normally go after them, but the Tigers proved so capable in striking our navy that my government is being cautious in deciding how best to move against them.”

  “Jay,” Stark said, turning to the misfit technology expert, “you have an idea about this?”

  “Yeah, boss, and it’s not good. Sounds like EMPs—a lot of them.”

  The Sri Lankan officer shook his head at the acronym.

  “Electromagnetic pulses,” Warren enumerated. “Bad shit, man. Fries fucking everything electronic.”

  The officer seemed to understand the scientist’s colloquialisms.

  “Jay, I’ve never heard of an EMP actually being used as a weapon,” Stark commented.

  “Neither have I, but a lot of folks have been thinking it was just a matter of time. And here it is. But we need to find out what kind of pulses they used. There are a few options, but it takes a lot of knowledge. Not just anyone could come up with this sort of thing. And how an insurgent group—”

  “Terrorists, Dr. Warren,” Ranasinghe interrupted. “The Tamil Tigers are terrorists, not insurgents. What they did to my navy—that was terrorism.”

  “Yeah, okay, sorry.” Warren raised his hands in surrender. “What I’m saying is that this takes a very high level of sophistication—something most home-grown terrorist groups don’t have.”

  “So you think they had outside help, Jay?” Stark asked.

  “Most likely. They’d need knowledge, sophisticated equipment, and a way to experiment and test it. And they’d need the raw materials.”

  “What kind of raw materials?” asked Olivia Harrison.

  Warren shrugged. “Depends. I need to do some testing. If we can get to Trincomalee just for a few hours I can run some tests with my equipment.”

  “Commander, what was the effective range of those EMPs?” Stark asked.

  “We believe it was between three quarters of a mile to a mile in diameter.”

  “What did they use for a launching platform?” Warren asked.

  “We don’t know. All of the security cameras in the harbor were, as Dr. Warren noted, fried.”

  “Did you search any of the ships that had entered the ports before the warning was issued?” Stark asked.

  “Unfortunately, we were not looking inward before the attacks, Captain. We closed off the ports and looked outward for the attackers. Once the attack was over, of course, we no longer had ships to conduct an investigation.”

  “Okay,” Stark said. “At least we have something. We’ll proceed to Trincomalee so Dr. Warren can conduct some tests in the harbor, and then we’ll begin our search.

  “Yes, Captain. There is one issue before we begin.”

  “What’s that, Commander?”

  “Your papers, sir, registering this vessel under the flag of the nation of Sri Lanka.” Ranasinghe pulled the papers from his bag and handed them to Stark, who browsed through them quickly.

  “Thank you. The XO will show you to your stateroom. Why don’t you get some rest now? I have a feeling we have a lot of long days ahead.”

  “Thank you, Captain, but there is one other thing.” From a pocket in his coverall Ranasinghe pulled out the ensign of his nation. “Now that you are registered under our nation, you are to fly this ensign instead of yours.”

  Stark was taken aback. But it was true. Syren was no longer operating under the flag of Saint Andrew. For the next month she would be a Sri Lankan vessel. That fact made him even more uncomfortable than he had been when he accepted the assignment in India.

  Singapore

  They had disarmed him, handcuffed him, and thrown a bag over his head when they put him in the car. The detention facility was a short ride away, though it didn’t take long to get anywhere in Singapore, particularly if you were riding in a police car. The proximity of large-body jets as they slowed at their destination told Golzari that he was in the new Changi prison complex run by the Singapore Prison Service. The last time he had visited a Singapore prison it was to question an inmate who was hanging nude over a medieval-looking rack while the police completed caning him. Americans didn’t realize that caning strips the skin and flesh off the person’s buttocks. Golzari was hoping for a luxury suite in the prison instead of the rack. But he had just killed five people in a public place.

  The police guided him down a corridor and into a room before they removed the sack from his head. He looked around as an officer patted him down to make sure they hadn’t missed anything when they seized him at Raffles. He was clearly in an interrogation room. The table and two chairs made that clear. A policeman pulled him toward one of the chairs.

  “Easy,” Golzari said defiantly as the man tugged on his jacket. “I don’t have time to see one of your city’s excellent tailors this trip.”

  The police officer ignored him and pushed him into a seat opposite a well-dressed Asian man just as two other men in suits walked in. Each of the two wore an earpiece and had a PR-21 side-handle baton at his side and a holstered .38-caliber revolver. The man at the table had only an earpiece and was better dressed. The homicide detective, Golzari thought. The room was several degrees warmer than the outside temperature. He recognized the old trick: make the interrogation room uncomfortable for the detainee. It wouldn’t work.

  Golzari spoke quickly, as if he were in charge. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I would like my weapon and credentials returned to me.”

  “First, we ask questions, Agent Golzari,” said the detective as the other two men took up places in front of the door.

  “Of course. I’m happy to cooperate.”

  “You killed five people at Raffles. It is a very popular tourist destination. That will cost us money.”

  “Screw the money,” Golzari said sitting ramrod straight. “You are detaining a federal agent.”

  “Yes . . . of the United States. You have no rights here, Agent Golzari,” the detective said coldly. Golzari wondered how it would feel when the cane sheared off his skin. Would he be able to contain his screams?

  “You shot and killed five people and nearly killed six,” the detective said as he locked his fingers together on the table.

  “I had no choice,” Golzari responded. “They had drawn their weapons.”

  “Not the sixth person.”

  “He left during the exchange.” Golzari realized that he had not mentioned the mystery man who had been sitting with the two women. How did the detective know about him?

  “It doesn’t matter. You were also responsible for a sixth death—the man you met in the bar, who was killed in the firefight. Why were you meeting with him?”

  “It’s part of an investigation. Who was he?”

>   The detective shifted and turned his head very slightly—the telltale sign of someone receiving orders through an earpiece. Most people would not have noticed the officer’s barely perceptible nod, but Golzari did. The detective had received orders and was confirming receipt.

  “We have agreements with your country in that regard, Agent Golzari. Tell us why you were meeting with him.”

  “Very well. I’m investigating the death of Special Agent William Blake of U.S. Diplomatic Security. Your office was unable to provide—useful—information, so I investigated on my own and learned this man was involved. He was an informant who apparently was told to suppress certain information.”

  “What else did you learn?”

  “That depends. Will you help in my investigation?” asked Golzari.

  The detective thought for a moment, then dismissed the two men at the door and looked in the corner at a camera and motioned with his hand to stop recording.

  “It was an unpleasant episode, Agent Golzari. My government does not condone the level of violence you displayed.”

  “The alternative was unacceptable to me. Self-defense is an inherent right for an individual or a country, wouldn’t you agree?” Golzari said, lifting his chin.

  “It is not my role to comment on political issues.”

  “One of my fellow agents was killed. Here,” Golzari emphasized. “He was tracking down stolen equipment that went to a firm here that your government’s records say does not exist.”

  “The name of the firm?” the detective asked.

  “Academic Solutions,” Golzari said.

  “I have never heard of it.”

  “The informant said another company was covering its trail. The name was Zheng Research,” Golzari answered.

  The detective tilted his head to listen again but kept his eyes on the American. “Agent Golzari, you and I are both officers of the law. Because of that, I will give you this advice: drop your investigation.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Zheng Research and Development is not a Singaporean firm. It is from elsewhere.”

  “Elsewhere as in China?” Golzari asked.

  The detective shook his head. “Leave this matter alone. That firm is an octopus with many tentacles. Leave it alone and it will not harm you. Provoke it and it will reach out, grab you, and squeeze you until your bones are crushed.”

  Golzari thought about that for a moment. A Chinese firm powerful enough to deter a nation-state like Singapore was a firm that posed a danger elsewhere as well. They had killed Blake, and that was reason enough for Golzari to proceed. What kind of R&D firm sends assassins to kill informants? he asked himself. A firm that had the reach of an octopus and could crush his bones—or Blake’s, or the informant’s whose name he had never learned. He slowly leaned toward the detective. “I need a lead. Something. Anything to help me find out what happened to our agent and why.”

  The detective thought about it. “Agent Golzari,” he said quietly, “your informant did give us some information.”

  “I’m listening,” Golzari said.

  “He told us of a shipment that was covered up by Zheng’s money and people. He didn’t tell us what the cargo was or the name of the ship, but he told us its destination.”

  “Where?”

  “Sri Lanka.”

  DAY 6

  USS LeFon, off Sri Lanka

  Rear Admiral Rossberg strutted around the bridge as he watched the two littoral combat ships keeping company with LeFon. Commander Johnson sat quietly in her captain’s chair on the starboard side and sipped her coffee, the calm amid the storm. Jaime hid her emotions well during crises. She had taken to heart advice she heard in a lecture given by the former COs of USS Cole and USS Samuel B. Roberts, men who had led their ships during major incidents. Never let the crew see you sweat, they said. Crews have no confidence in an uncertain captain, and they will perform poorly as a result. On the day she graduated from the Naval Academy her father had given her a book of Rudyard Kipling’s poems. He had put a bookmark at “If,” Kipling’s advice to his own son: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . .” At the line where Kipling had written “you’ll be a Man, my son” her father had penciled in “you’ll be a Woman, my daughter.”

  “These LCSs are the fastest and most capable ships ever built,” the admiral said proudly.

  Jaime said nothing. She suspected the admiral hadn’t read much naval history, and he clearly hadn’t read the recent GAO report on the shortcomings of the LCS. The Pentagon had been making herculean efforts to hide the ship’s deficiencies, even trying to reclassify it as a frigate.

  “Admiral,” she finally said, tucking her wiry blonde hair under her ball cap, “why LCSs?”

  “What?” he asked, spinning around and nearly tripping as the rubber sole of his boot caught on the linoleum deck.

  “I understand these ships are being transferred to the Sri Lankan navy because of the recent terrorist attack,” Jaime said, “but why LCSs? Why not the rest of our Perry-class frigates or some of the older cruisers?”

  “Clearly you know very little about the ships in your own navy, Commander.” He gestured at the two ships that had taken up station to port and starboard of LeFon. “That ship class is the future of the U.S. Navy! I helped design that class. The vice chief of naval operations himself commended me for my work. I know everything about it. I was the personal assistant to Admiral Fall when he conceived it,” he boasted. “The LCS is the perfect ship. And all the critics who sit around eating cheese doodles and writing blogs in their parents’ basements are being proven wrong.”

  “Weren’t they even a little right?” she asked innocently. “I thought there were other new ship designs in the works.”

  “No, absolutely not! Oh, there were other ships in development—like this one boxy ship some people claimed was innovative. But we killed that plan and I made sure we sold that ship for scrap!” The admiral was in full stride now, doing what he did best—patting himself on the back.

  Out of the corner of her eye Jaime saw the junior officer of the deck and the helmsman roll their eyes. She’d talk to them later about that. She didn’t like the admiral either, but open dissension among the ranks could be dangerous.

  “Where’s the navigator?” Rossberg asked. “He should be here. Get the navigator up here now.”

  “Admiral, I’m sorry, but he’s ill and I’ve confined him to his stateroom,” she said.

  “No one is sick when they have work to do. I’m not giving that order again, Commander. Now.”

  She nodded to the OOD, who called for the navigator. A few minutes later Ensign Fisk, his ball cap pulled low on his face, opened the hatch and stepped onto the bridge. He hadn’t made three steps when the admiral stopped him. Bobby had covered his face, but he hadn’t covered the name on his blue coveralls.

  “You. Pull that cover off, mister!”

  Bobby stopped in his tracks and did as he was ordered.

  “Fisk. Ensign Fisk. You,” he said pointing a stubby forefinger at Bobby, his voice rising. “You were one of the mutineers.”

  The other officers and sailors on the bridge froze at that word.

  Admiral Rossberg turned back to Johnson. “Do you know who this . . . this . . . officer is? He’s a traitor, that’s who he is. He disobeyed my orders on Bennington. He and the others took my ship from me.”

  “No, sir,” Bobby corrected.

  “What did you say? Are you contradicting me?”

  “Yes, sir. It was not a mutiny,” said Bobby firmly, now standing straight and ready to face his fate. “I warned you about those visitors. I told you to check with the regional security officer. You didn’t listen, and most of my friends—my shipmates—died on Bennington. And if Commander Stark hadn’t been there . . .”

  “Don’t you dare mention that name, Fisk. You and Stark should have been court-martialed, and I—”

  A British woman’s voice on the ship-to-ship radio inter
rupted the admiral’s rant. “U.S. Navy ships, this is the vessel three miles off your port quarter. We’ll be overtaking you on your port side, over.”

  “What? Conning officer, what’s our speed?” the admiral asked, his finger still pointing at Fisk.

  “Speed is two-seven knots,” came the reply.

  “Two-seven? No ships out there can pass us except an ocean liner. All ahead full, increase speed to thirty-five knots and pass the word to the other ships.”

  “Admiral, there’s no reason to put that much stress on the ships,” Jaime noted.

  “Is this another ship full of mutineers, Commander? You do as you’re told.”

  Jaime obeyed. She had no choice. Then she sat back in her chair and pulled a pen and small notebook from her pocket to record the time and orders. She picked up the phone to the CIC and quietly told the tactical action officer to record every movement of the ships.

  “All ahead full,” responded the helm.

  “Three-five knots, Captain,” the CONN said to Jaime.

  “Understood,” she said firmly. The ship began to vibrate as the massive GM-2500 engines reached full speed. The two LCSs kept pace with the destroyer.

  “I’ll deal with you in Sri Lanka, mister,” the admiral said to Bobby, then turned forward to watch his ships demonstrate their superiority to the unwitting commercial vessel on his port quarter. The port watch called Bobby and the OOD onto the bridge wing.

  A minute later a different voice came over the radio—this time a man’s voice. It sounded American, but some intonations suggested another influence, perhaps Welsh or Scottish. “U.S. Navy ships, this is the vessel off your port quarter. We’ll be passing you on your port side. Acknowledge, over.”