Syren's Song

by Claude G. Berube

  “Bird number two is flying over that rice paddy we watched the boss run into,” Warren said as he gently pushed aside the aviation technician. “I know the lay of the land, Jerry. Might be faster if I fly her.” Warren pressed a button and zoomed in on the last spot he remembered seeing Stark running, and then had the UAV follow in that direction, zigzagging to pick up a trail.

  Melanie was astounded at the resolution of this commercially available camera. She could see individual rice plants quite clearly.

  The bird flew slowly over the paddy until Warren found footprints tracking in the same direction they had seen Stark run. The scientist maneuvered the camera and followed the prints until they stopped in a larger imprint in the mud. A nine-millimeter handgun lay just off to the side. This had to be the spot where Stark had been gunned down, but there was no body. Around the larger impression were a series of other footprints that must have been made by the soldiers who were chasing him.

  “They took his body,” Golzari said. “Unless he was still alive and they took him prisoner.” A flutter of hope entered the CIC.

  “Dr. Warren, may I film this?” Melanie asked.

  “Commander Harrison has to make that call,” Warren said.

  Melanie glanced at Harrison, who nodded her approval. “You can record the video, but not the faces in this room,” she said.

  “I understand.”

  The bird followed a path made by more footprints until it reached the dirt road nearby. The tracks stopped as the path turned onto the main paved road.

  “Dr. Warren, can you zoom out and see if there’s any general activity in the area?” Golzari asked as he inched closer to one of the screens. As the view panned out he saw a small town connected by a narrow causeway to a beach. Several vehicles and some small-boat activity were visible near a square building.

  “There,” he pointed. “Focus on that.”

  Three groups of uniformed soldiers were milling about an old building near the beach just east of what the map told him was Vadduvakal, a small village north of Mullaitivu. Two soldiers guarded the building’s door. A few other men nearby were dressed in the tiger-stripe pattern of older Tamil Tiger military uniforms. It was a style Melanie had seen before, quite recently. These men were about to enter a truck.

  “Zoom in on those men,” she said urgently. As the camera focused in, one of the men turned his head. “It’s Vanni.”

  “Are you sure, Mel?” Golzari asked.

  “Positive. That’s him.”

  “That building is too small to be a base for the entire operation,” Harrison offered. “Jay, can you see anything inside the building?”

  “I have infrared on this bird, but there’s a metal roof.” Warren dropped the UAV to five hundred feet, but well away from the area and to the south. From this vantage point the infrared detected the rough shapes of two figures inside. One was sitting against a wall. The other was hanging by his hands a couple of feet off the ground. Warren froze that image.

  With another dance of his hands he switched the screen from infrared to radar. Data began streaming in on the screen. “Two people. One larger than the other,” Warren said, then made a few changes to the controls and pointed to another image and data. The radar image showed the faint outline of a knife hugging the hanging man’s leg. “Yeah, yeah, look at those numbers . . .”

  Harrison nudged him.

  “That data, XO, tell me the basic composition of that knife—steel blade, iron plate on the sheath, and a quartz pommel. Bet you a paycheck that quartz is cairngorm found primarily in Scotland. Wait, there’s the other data now. It’s definitely quartz. The infrared spectrometry stuff is pretty easy. We beam IR out of the UAV and get a signal ID in return. It’s small but it’s definitely quartz. That’s the skipper’s sgian dubh. That has to be him. Wait, I forgot about the audio recorder.”

  This UAV carried a more sophisticated pod of equipment and sensors than the first one had, one of which could pick up conversation coming from hand-held radios. He flicked another switch, and the speakers on each side of the screens began to share voices from the ground. There weren’t many conversations, but Jay was able to apply the translation app to the data they were receiving. Most of it was typical banter from bored soldiers. They spoke of home, their next meal, and the heat. After fifteen minutes the sensors caught a different feed; that voice spoke of preparing the Americans for transfer at night.

  Americans. There were two people in that building. If one was Stark, and that was a safe assumption at this point, then who was the other? A tourist? Another journalist? Either way, the crew of Syren now knew where to focus their operation.

  “Bridge, get a signal to LeFon and Asity. Request the presence of their COs on Syren immediately.”

  When the council met again, Warren summarized the information from the UAV for Commanders Ranasinghe and Johnson. There were two people inside a wooden building at the Mullaitivu Breakers, and one of the Tigers outside had mentioned two Americans. One of the people inside appeared to be hanging from the ceiling, and the other was sitting against the wall, apparently able to move about. They weren’t certain that the hanging person was Stark, although the sgian dubh seemed to confirm that.

  “Is he alive?” Jaime Johnson asked.

  Warren shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that the temperature inside the building is 87° Fahrenheit, and at the time the UAV acquired the data both bodies were radiating a normal human temperature of 98° Fahrenheit.”

  Golzari interpreted for the group. “A body loses one and a half degrees of heat per hour after death until it matches the ambient temperature. That means that the hanging person in the image, whom we believe to be Stark, was either alive twenty minutes ago or had been dead less than half an hour.”

  The team agreed that in either case they would risk a rescue regardless of who the two Americans were. Commander Johnson decided this mission fell within the rules of engagement Admiral O’Donnell had outlined: “Fire only if fired upon or otherwise clearly and imminently threatened by the Sea Tigers. If you are protecting U.S. assets such as a U.S.-flagged commercial ship or lives, you will defend them appropriately.” Two American lives had to be protected. The only way to defend them “appropriately” was to rescue them.

  The next question was when to do it, but the biggest question was how. The UAV transmission said the Americans would be moved after dark. Sunset was only three hours away. In effect, they had two hours at most to launch a rescue. LeFon would take nearly ninety minutes to arrive close enough to conduct operations even at her top speed; her RHIBs would take about another hour after that. Syren was the fastest ship there—capable of more than fifty knots, she could be there in less than an hour. If it moved in close during daylight, however, either ship would be visible to those on shore long before the rescuers arrived, allowing the Tigers ample time to move or execute the prisoners.

  Johnson, Harrison, Ranasinghe, Golzari, and Warren sat around the wardroom table with a map of the area in the center and penciled in resources, ideas, and options. LeFon’s executive officer, operations officer, and navigation officer stood behind Johnson. Jaime placed utensils and salt and pepper shakers on one side of the map to visualize the platforms available to them. For the next thirty minutes they debated options for a military operation that should have taken hours or days to plan.

  Finally, Commander Johnson pushed back her chair and stood. “We’re out of time, and we may not have another opportunity to rescue these people. We have to move now with the resources we have regardless of the risk. Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. “Listen up, OPS.” For the next five minutes Johnson ran down the tasks for each platform, the times, and the distances involved. She concluded simply, “That’s it, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s make this happen.”

  Johnson, followed by her three-member staff, cut through the cargo bay on her way back to her small boat. Before she could reach it Melanie waylaid her and begged for some idea of
what was about to happen. Johnson held up her people and pulled the reporter aside, out of earshot. “Ms. Arden,” she whispered, “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. But I will tell you that when this is over and you’re able to file your stories, if anything goes wrong on this mission, it has been my responsibility and mine alone for any risks, mistakes, or deaths. Do you understand?”

  “I do,” Melanie responded. “Good luck, Commander.”

  USS LeFon

  By the time Johnson returned to LeFon, now positioned forty nautical miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, preparations were already under way both on the destroyer and on Syren. It was now 1545, and they had a little more than two hours of daylight remaining. Chief Petty Officer Omar Garcia and the other boatswain’s mates assembled working parties to prepare the small boats and hastily paint their exteriors two shades of blue in the old wartime camouflage pattern. The air boss was in the hangar checking out the second helicopter as the first began warming up on the landing pad.

  Thirty minutes later Johnson took her place on the bridge and signaled to the other ships to commence. LeFon broke away as she steered into the window that allowed the first helicopter to take off and head due south for its wide arc. Johnson prayed for the safety of the three souls on the SH-60R, designated Starfire One-Seven. Of all the components of this mission, she was concerned most for them because the helicopter was vulnerable to an EMP rocket.

  As soon as Starfire One-Seven launched, Starfire One-Eight was rolled out of the hangar and the eleven-meter and eight-meter small boats were launched, immediately speeding toward Syren half a mile away. Both had full complements of twenty-four and eight sailors and officers respectively—LeFon’s entire VBSS teams.

  LeFon closed on Syren as the small boats were brought up the stern ramp of the SWATH ship. As the second boat came up, the pulley system failed again and Syren’s boat handlers were forced to secure it to the kingpost with rope. Once all four small boats were on board Syren, Harrison signaled to LeFon that she was ready. Johnson gave the word, and within a minute Syren was racing away at fifty-two knots, her underwater plane keeping her steady and level in the calm seas. No one on the ship realized how fast they were going until they saw the Navy destroyer behind them doing her best speed of thirty knots and still falling behind rapidly. And so the run to the hostages began.

  Chennai

  The burly Russian passed an envelope of cash to the ship captain on the bridge of the offshore support vessel Alexander. Sergei Stepanovich Makarov despised the Ukrainian seated across from him, but the man and his ship served a purpose in the underworld of illicit maritime commerce. It wasn’t the illicit trafficking that bothered Makarov; he just hated Ukrainians. He was certain the former Soviet satellite would soon be firmly back in Russia’s control now that his country finally had a tough and competent leader—the first he had known since he joined the Soviet navy two years before the fall of the Soviet Union. He had been based in Crimea with the Black Sea Fleet then, on board the cruiser Slava before he was given command of a patrol boat as a junior officer with the Caspian Flotilla.

  “Will we have time to get supplies and extra fuel?” the captain asked.

  “No. We go now. We will get food, weapons, and fuel at one of our floating armories,” Makarov said.

  “Who will be on board? How many staterooms do you need?”

  “Three people, two staterooms.”

  The Ukrainian captain recognized that all three had arrived; an Asian man was standing near the door with a beautiful blond woman. He was about to make a comment about the arrangements when Makarov reached out and grabbed him by the lapels.

  “Captain, I have paid you well,” he hissed, “but I will kill you if you say the wrong thing right now. Of course,” he mused, “she would do even worse to you.”

  “My apologies,” the Ukrainian said hastily. “I was only going to say that it is my pleasure to do business with you once again.”

  “Very well. Get under way. We wish to rendezvous with Nanjing Mazu by tomorrow evening. Here are the coordinates,” Makarov said as he released the captain and handed him a slip of paper with the longitude and latitude required.

  Off Vadduvakal

  The rescuers had been fortunate thus far. They had seen neither commercial ships nor fishing vessels on the run in to the coast—though they knew from experience that the latter were probably back in their harbors by now. Syren arrived on station twelve nautical miles off the coast, just over the horizon from the view of any Tigers who might be watching from the beach at sea level. According to the plan, two boats—both from Syren and carrying six-person security teams—would begin the high-speed run from here, followed by Syren herself at a slower speed. Golzari was in Somers while Warren was in MacDonough. The security teams lay low, hoping the hastily painted camouflage would hide the boats from casual view for another four miles.

  LeFon followed behind at a pace ten knots slower. Her .25-caliber machine guns had a maximum range of about 7,500 yards but an effective range of only 3,200 yards. That was still too far for Johnson’s plan to work because the structure in which the hostages were being held was directly behind two groups of soldiers.

  Syren’s UAV circled two thousand feet directly above the building beaming images of the shore. The two groups of soldiers on the beach were seated around fire pits eating their dinner. Nearly all were behind the dune, focusing on their meals and guarding the shack; only two guards were looking out at the slightly choppy ocean, scanning from north to south but clearly seeing nothing out of the ordinary. The camouflage paint scheme had bought the teams the additional four miles they needed.

  Two guards stood outside the building’s only door, and three pickup trucks were parked thirty yards northwest of the structure just before the causeway. Jay radioed the UAV for an update. It would be the last transmission for Warren’s beloved bird. The controller on Syren set a timer, and the bird began to descend directly at the truck farthest from the building. Warren watched the death flight on his monitor as the UAV dropped hundreds of feet, its transmitted image of the soldiers getting larger and less stable. One Tiger appeared to hear something behind and above him and turned to look, then called out to the others. The last image Jay saw before the crash showed the two Tigers monitoring the ocean turn as well. Jay pumped his fist in victory. The distraction had worked for now. The teams had twelve minutes.

  Nearly all the soldiers ran to the crash site. They pointed at the UAV’s wings and what remained of the fuselage, mystified as to its origin. Once again the teams from Syren and LeFon were fortunate—the soldiers in the dunes, the first they would have to face, were inexperienced conscripts. Stark was not as fortunate. The men guarding the door of the wooden building were seasoned Tiger soldiers.

  When the small boats closed to four nautical miles Golzari popped his head up just enough to be able to watch the next segment of Johnson’s coordinated attack. He had difficulty distinguishing it because he was looking directly into the setting sun, but he expected it at any moment according to his watch.

  Right on time, Starfire One-Seven flew out of the sun. After corkscrewing down from five thousand feet to five hundred before leveling out west of the mountain range, the SH-60R bore down on the truck the UAV had destroyed. The helicopter slowed and pivoted directly above the structure and faced south so that the crewman manning the GAU .50-caliber machine gun faced the soldiers massed around the remains of the truck. The gunner let loose, mowing down several Tigers in the first few seconds while others tried to run for cover. A few attempted to fire before the SH-60’s pilot flew off to make another pass. The crew never saw the two Tiger guards enter the structure.

  Vadduvakal

  When Connor Stark was ten years old he had ventured through the woods of what remained of the Stark estate in Dunbarton, New Hampshire—named after Dunbartonshire in Scotland, home of his ancestor Archibald Stark, the first Stark to emigrate to America. The town had once been known as Starks town, and when C
onnor lived there it was a sparsely populated town of two thousand residents and horse farms, including the Starks’ own.

  He was more than a mile from the house and stables with his dog when they crested a hill and the dog suddenly barked. Connor looked up to see a Siberian husky slowly approaching them. Saliva dripped from its mouth and its head was weaving from side to side. When the husky saw Connor and the other dog it began to bark viciously. Connor recognized the signs of a rabid animal. Holding desperately to his dog’s collar he tried to calm his pet and send him back home, but to no avail.

  The husky first trotted and then ran toward Connor’s dog. Connor thrust his pet behind him as the husky lunged. The young boy stuck out one arm to stop the husky’s forward momentum and with the other grabbed the thick fur at its nape and yanked it back and to the ground. Boy and dog struggled on the ground as Stark tried to gain the advantage on top while avoiding the husky’s snapping teeth. He took hold of the animal’s neck with both small hands and forced the husky’s head down before squeezing, ignoring the barks of his own pet. He didn’t know how long it took, but eventually the husky breathed its last in Stark’s hands. He swore never to kill another animal after that.

  Now, decades later, Stark continued to squeeze Admiral Rossberg’s neck with all his strength as Rossberg struggled vainly to let out a scream or beg for his life. His kicked out with his short legs and Stark tightened his grip. “You worthless son of a bitch. How can you wear that uniform after what you did?”

  The admiral’s face was turning blue when Stark heard a metallic crash and then the unmistakable sound of a Sikorsky SH-60 overhead in the distance. He turned and released his grip. Rossberg rolled over and curled up into a fetal position, his hands covering the back of his neck. Stark was relieved. They had somehow found him and were attempting a rescue. But he knew a helicopter alone could not get the job done. There were too many soldiers nearby as well as the possibility of an EMP rocket. Then he heard the .50-caliber pepper the area beyond the building. Stark immediately ran toward the door, leaving Rossberg curled up like an armadillo on the ground.