Syren's Song

by Claude G. Berube

  “What was your first clue?” he replied, trying to ignore the pain in his groin.

  “Shut up. Who are you? You’re not Sri Lankan and I’ve never seen uniforms like that before.” Both men wore the light gray shipboard coveralls of Highland Maritime. Stark also wore a khaki explorer’s vest with numerous pockets.

  “Why don’t you tell us who you are? You’re the one running away from something,” Stark returned. A closer look showed that she was covered in dirt and looked much the worse for wear.

  “Because I’m the one holding the gun.”

  “Fair enough. I’m Connor. This is Jay.”

  “You’re Americans,” she said. “But you’re too old to be with their special forces.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Jay said sarcastically.

  “So why are you here?” she asked.

  He and Jay had just been taken captive. And now came the interrogation. But was she a threat? From her accent, Stark figured her for a South African. She was running from the general direction of the mountain and the gunfire. Given the dirt and the cuts and bruises on her face, he guessed she had been a captive of the Tigers. She wore a vest similar to Stark’s. Many journalists covering international conflicts wore that kind of vest. He took a chance. If he lost, he still had his Beretta strapped to his waist, although her reaction time told him it would be a poor choice.

  “We’re with a private maritime security company hired by the Sri Lankan government to find the Sea Tigers. The guns have stopped,” he added. “They probably gave up chasing you.”

  She lowered her gun. “How did you get here?” she asked.

  “We have a ship off the coast. A small boat dropped us off to investigate the mine fire.”

  The woman looked back in the direction of the mountain. “I was there,” she said shortly.

  “Are you working for anyone, or are you a freelance journalist?” Stark asked.

  “Freelance. How did you know?” she said.

  “Educated guess. We can help you,” Stark said.

  “Really? Then why am I the one holding the gun?”

  Stark rose slowly and Warren followed his lead, both avoiding quick moves to reassure the woman holding Jay’s weapon.

  “I’m Melanie Arden.”

  “Well, Ms. Arden,” Stark said, “how about you tell us what’s on that mountain and in the mine.”

  “People enslaved. Monks. Children. And a lot of soldiers. But there was an explosion and a fire.” She quickly recounted everything she knew about the site but told them nothing about her personal experiences.

  “I need to go. I have to find my equipment,” she said.

  “Out there? Even if you can find what you’re looking for, there are more insurgents roaming around. We saw a big convoy of them heading south,” Stark said.

  “I . . . I don’t care. I have to find my equipment.”

  Stark knew the signs of exhaustion. She was running on adrenaline. At some point, and soon, she would crash.

  “What kind of equipment? And where is it?” Warren asked.

  “Basics. Food, video camera, digital recorder. I even have a mobile phone,” she said. “And I don’t know the exact location. It’s under some ferns on the way to the mountain. It was a few hours’ walk north of an abandoned village.”

  “Maybe we can figure that out,” Jay said. “You were probably going through the jungle at around a mile per hour, at best.” Jay showed her a map of the region and pointed to a valley. She pointed to several villages she had seen but said nothing about the mass grave at the last one.

  Jay got the faraway look that indicated he was dreaming up an idea. Stark had learned long ago to be quiet and wait for the moment when all would be revealed. In the meantime, he kept a lookout for any signs of insurgents.

  “Is he okay?” Melanie asked Stark, catching Jay’s expression.

  “Not really, but just wait a minute.”

  “Hey, boss,” Warren said, “I got an idea if our satellite phones are still working.” He reached into his backpack for the satellite phone and made a call to Syren’s aviation technician. He gave the tech some coordinates and mentioned a “URE module.” After he ended the conversation he took out his own mobile phone and fiddled with one of the apps. “Yeah, yeah, we can do this,” Warren said.

  “Time to fill me in,” Stark said.

  “We can find her stuff.”

  “What are you talking about? How?” Melanie asked as Stark pulled food and water out of his pack for her.

  “Boss, the bird still has a few hours of juice. She’s on her way to our coordinates now, but I just turned on the URE module.”

  “You just lost me, Jay.”

  “Remember last year when the media reported the Department of Justice was flying UAVs inside U.S. airspace with surrogate cellular base stations, essentially picking up cell phone traffic like a cell tower? Well, I started playing around with my own version in Syren’s lab. I’ve got a module that can do that and detect powered electronics like digital recorders. The other UAV is tricked out with some other sensors I’ve been playing around with.”

  “How?” Melanie asked again.

  “Simple. All equipment gives off electromagnetic radiation. They leak UREs—unintentional radiated emissions. I have a sensor that picks up on that because I was working on a deterrent for the Sea Tigers’ EMP weapons.” Three beeps on his mobile phone interrupted Jay’s explanation. The bird was already in range.

  “But that assumes the batteries are still working,” Stark said. “Melanie, were they fully charged?”

  “They were, yes, but I don’t know if they’d still be on at this point. That was ten days ago. I suppose it’s worth a shot.” She sat down in the shade of a tree and ate a protein bar and drank the water Stark had given her.

  “Jay, our bird’s been up for a while. What about its batteries?”

  “I’m showing three hours left, and this will soak up some power. We can use it safely for an hour, but then we need to send it back to the ship,” Warren replied.

  Stark continued to monitor the jungle while Melanie rested and Jay manipulated the app. The bird’s track started at the last abandoned village Melanie had pointed out on the map, then took a direct route for the mountain. “The URE module has an effective range of five miles,” Jay said, “so as long as Melanie didn’t veer more than two and a half miles off the track, we should be able to find her equipment.”

  “What company did you say you’re with?” she asked Stark suddenly.

  “Highland Maritime.”

  “Highland Maritime. I’ve heard that name. Don’t you do work off Yemen and Somalia?” she said, surprising him.

  “Yes, we do. How do you know that?”

  “I was based in East Africa for a while. I heard all about the private security companies working there when piracy was big.”

  There were more beeps from Jay’s phone. “Got it, boss,” he said with a grin.

  Stark smiled. Warren never failed him. “How far?”

  “Three hours’ walk; maybe four.”

  “Melanie, how bad do you want your equipment?” Stark asked the rejuvenated and excited journalist.

  “What’s the trade you’re offering, Connor?”

  “The three of us go and get your equipment, then you take us to the mine. Jay and I just planned to get more information on the Tigers, but if they’re using slave labor up there, I want to see if we can get those people out. That convoy we saw wasn’t a patrol. The insurgents are either getting ready or have already started an offensive to the south. That means their rear might not be well protected. Those people you saw might have a chance at freedom. Are you with us?” Stark asked.

  “Yes, absolutely,” she replied.

  Stark offered his hand and pulled her up from the ground. “Let’s go. I’ll walk point. You stay next to Jay for now.”

  North of Mullaitivu

  Golzari had stashed LeFon’s RHIB and left the beach hours ago. He had accomplished one go
al, at least. He was in Sri Lanka. All that remained now was to find a young scientist named Gala and bring him to justice—in the chaos of a full-blown civil war. He suddenly wished he had thought it through more fully. But he had confidence in his ability to get the job done. Even as a beat cop in Boston, before being accepted to the Diplomatic Security Service, Golzari had thought himself uniquely qualified to do this sort of work.

  His Boston patrol area had been in District B-2, the area that included Roxbury. The police called it “Glocksbury” for the prevalence of firearms there. Roxbury was on par with other high-crime areas such as Mattapan—“Murderpan”—and Dorchester—“Deathchester.”

  That job had also been the first and last time Golzari worked with a partner, with the exception of multiperson security details as a DS agent. Tom Sullivan was a twelve-year veteran of the Boston Police Department. Golzari had already been accepted to the Diplomatic Security Service and had three days left with BPD before leaving for training at FLETC in Glynco, Georgia. It was the middle of their shift in the early morning hours, well before the T—Boston’s subway—was operating. Golzari remembered every detail of that shift, right down to the moment they stopped a holdup at a twenty-four-hour convenience store. They ordered the two men to get down on the floor. They didn’t see the third man, the driver.

  Tom had been closer to the door and bore most of the brunt of the shotgun blast. Golzari had pivoted quickly enough to take the assailant down with three rapid shots. When the other two men started to get up off the floor, Golzari turned and paused just long enough to allow them to retrieve their weapons. Then he shot them both. Three men dead in a matter of seconds—and a lot less paperwork than arresting them would have entailed. Justice was swift in Golzari’s world. “Officer down,” Golzari had said into his radio. Sullivan lived, but the damage to his spine left him paralyzed.

  Golzari had been outnumbered many times since. There had been the attacks in the Gulf of Aden, when he reluctantly gained a temporary partner in Navy officer Connor Stark. And, of course, the Chinese assassination team in the Long Bar at Raffles and the killers outside Seattle. And with each dead man he lost another piece of his humanity. Would Gala be terrified, Golzari wondered, if he knew what kind of man was on his track?

  LeFon’s chief had set him up well for the mission. In addition to the black tactical VBSS uniform he was wearing his pack contained a tactical vest and bulletproof chest protector and an M4A1 carbine with two hundred rounds of ammunition. He carried his Glock 19 as well, along with five extra magazines.

  Golzari had never been to Sri Lanka, but his reading on the long flight to India and his antiterrorism training had made him familiar with the nation’s history. The northern region in which he now found himself had been the site of a major battle between Sri Lankan forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a leftist terrorist group founded in 1976 that had tried to carve out a separatist state for its people, the Tamils. The insurgents waged a thirty-year war against the Sri Lankan government. The Battle of Kilinochchi in late 2008, just to the north of where Golzari was now, had marked the beginning of the end for the Tigers. After the government consolidated its position the Sri Lankan air force dropped leaflets over the city of Mullaitivu urging civilians to leave for safe zones. This was the last major territory controlled by the Tamils and their maritime branch, the Sea Tigers. The city’s population dropped dramatically, in part due to migration and in part due—allegedly—to ethnic cleansing by both sides. Whatever the reason, the Tamil population in the Mullaitivu District dropped from more than 250,000 to less than one-fourth of that by war’s end.

  Golzari had given careful consideration to his plans as he made his way inland. It would require every skill he had to find one man in such a large territory. But he knew that Gala would require certain things. He needed at the very least a safe place to work, power to operate his equipment, and a logistics network to get raw materials. There were many safe places for a laboratory, and Gala would surely have his own generator. The chokepoint was logistics. He had to be able to bring in supplies. And Golzari knew one other thing, from his discussion with Dr. Abraham: Gala was interested in hafnium, which was usually found with zirconium.

  Golzari had used LeFon’s computers and Internet connections to locate several mines in central and northern Sri Lanka. Golzari dismissed the sites to the south, which were ostensibly under the Sri Lankan government’s control. There were a few zirconium mines in the north in the hills near Mount Iranamadu, home of an ancient Buddhist monastery under the protection of the Sri Lankan government, which allowed no visitors from outside. The government no longer controlled this region, though, and Golzari wasn’t sure if the monastery was even still there. In any event, it seemed a good place to start.

  He made his way north through dense flora, skirting agricultural communities because he had no idea how the local population viewed the latest insurgency. People were an unnecessary complication. He checked his gun frequently, a habit of extensive field operations, and kept it at the ready.

  Golzari finally took a chance and walked along a road with farmland to the west and tall vegetation to the east. His eye caught something in the sky moving in a straight path. It was flying low, and it was far larger than a bird but much smaller than a plane. As it passed overhead he realized it was a drone flying at an altitude of about a thousand feet. Thinking that perhaps the Tamils had adopted another piece of advanced technology, he jumped into the vegetation, but the drone simply went on its way.

  The move proved fortunate because he heard vehicles coming up the road from the south. Two small white pickup trucks passed him at high speed. Each carried half a dozen soldiers in tiger-striped camouflage and weapons. They continued north toward the hills that were his destination. Clearly something was going on there. More certain that he had made the right decision, he increased his pace toward the hills.

  Iranamadu Range

  Syren’s drone had long since returned to the ship, but before that it had led the threesome to the exact spot where Melanie had hidden her equipment. The batteries were low, but they still had enough juice remaining to serve as an unintended beacon. The three- or four-hour walk had stretched out into five hours because taking a straight line to the site was impossible. A vast plain of rice paddies lay in their path, and Stark thought it best to walk around them rather than potentially expose themselves to Tiger patrols.

  Warren’s mobile phone app had allowed him to use the UAV’s sensors to scan the area before it left. The UAV spotted several five-man patrols in paddy fields and local roads. Who knew how many more were beneath the cover of the thick vegetation? While they rested for food and water Melanie took a solar battery charger from her pack and connected it to the camera.

  “How long did it take to get to the mine from here, Melanie?” Stark asked, taking a bite from a protein bar and sipping from his CamelBak.

  “About half a mile from here is a field,” she replied. “There are a few scattered trees. Just beyond that there’s a footpath a couple of miles long that leads to the mountain and the mine—I should say the monastery. I doubt the mine’s been there long. The monks would have never permitted it. They lived in total seclusion. Locals and tourists weren’t allowed inside the monastery or even to approach it. Just before the path reaches the monastery there’s another clearing with some small, flat stones on the ground and a larger one about the size of an altar. I think the clearing is where the monks would accept novitiates or food.”

  Stark crouched as he finished the last of the protein bar. The sun in the cloudless sky was past its apogee, but there was plenty of daylight remaining to get to the mine given the distance and potential obstacles. Melanie had seen a few monks and twenty or so children outside the mine entrance and only about a dozen guards. If that held true, then maybe they had a chance to free the enslaved workers.

  As Melanie waited for the camera to fully charge, she inspected the nine-millimeter Warren had given her. Stark watch
ed how she handled it. She was no novice.

  “I haven’t known many reporters familiar with weapons,” he said as she checked the sight.

  “My ex-husband taught me. He was an expert in firearms,” she said casually, chambering a round.

  “Military?”

  “No. No, he was studying at George Washington University when I met him,” she said.

  “South African?” Stark asked.

  “No, American—sort of. He was originally from the Middle East. Can we dispense with the questions, Mr. Stark?”

  “No problem.” Stark’s mind returned to Asity. “Jay, here’s a question for you. Would the shovels, picks, sieves, power sluices, and copper wire we found on that freighter be used for mining?”

  “Absolutely. It’s primitive, but mining usually is, especially where it isn’t regulated very well,” the scientist replied.

  “I doubt this one’s regulated at all. Let’s get moving. Jay, you’ve got the rear again.”

  The three slung on their backpacks and began their trek. An hour later they were on the footpath to the monastery.

  They had just gone around an uphill a curve when Jay heard the sound of running feet behind them. He hissed at Melanie and Stark and motioned urgently toward the vegetation beside the path. They barely had time to take cover behind some thick shrubs when ten soldiers raced past them, not bothering to look to either side of the path. Ten Tigers, all armed, were on their way to the mine.

  When the soldiers were safely ahead, Stark came out and listened for the sounds of others coming up behind them. Assured there were none, he called softly to Jay and Melanie.

  Jay looked doubtful. “Might be a good time to turn back, boss.”

  “We’re not just here for answers anymore, Jay. There are people who need help,” Stark replied.

  “You still coming?” he asked Melanie. She nodded and began walking.

  They had covered another half mile when they heard a shot in the distance and then its echo. All three immediately stopped. After another shot and then a third, the way ahead erupted in the staccato sounds of several AK-47s firing at once.