“Somers is inbound, balls to the wall, about twenty-one nautical miles off our port bow, about two-eight-zero degrees,” she responded. “They’re being chased by three low-freeboard, high-speed boats painted in a blue-gray camouflage pattern. Somers saw at least fourteen boats, but there may be more. It looks like they’ve formed a line stretching over thirty or forty nautical miles.”
“They were chasing Gala and hunting for us. They found us.” Stark switched the radio to channel one-seven—the channel Asity was monitoring.
“Asity, Syren Actual. Make flank speed course zero-nine-zero immediately.” Asity responded instantly and pulled away to starboard, but Stark knew that the old freighter was only capable of fifteen knots at best. She was a sitting duck if the incoming boats got past Syren.
“Helm, all ahead flank, steer course . . . steer course zero-eight-five,” Stark ordered. The great T-foils below the pilothouse and the trim tabs dug into the water, and Syren surged forward like a thoroughbred on the home stretch. The wind was rising, but the seas were not yet high enough that Stark had to worry about slamming the ship in between two waves. He had learned that lesson as a young Navy commander of this ship.
At thirty knots the ship could turn 180 degrees in less than a nautical mile. Syren was just picking up steam at twenty knots and turned easily toward the inbound Somers. Unlike mono-hull ships, Syren didn’t heel when she turned, so the crew and security personnel about to enter battle had a stable and level platform.
Somers was keeping just ahead of a pack of three small boats. Another four were closing in, and several more were popping up north and south of the grouping. Stark counted twenty altogether. Although the seas weren’t kicking up waves, the small boats couldn’t operate at their best speed. Their shallow draft made them too unstable. That was the only thing saving Somers’ crew as the RHIB struggled to rendezvous with Syren.
The boats must have been sent out in a picket line like World War II German U-boats, Stark thought. As soon as one of the ships sighted an enemy surface ship it notified the others and the wolf pack closed in on its prey. Vanni couldn’t have known Syren’s location, but he did know the direction Gala’s boat had gone. From there he had simply sent out a line of boats a few nautical miles apart, giving them an effective search line of fifty or sixty nautical miles, like a giant net. But U-boats have to communicate with each other to search effectively. And so do those small boats. “Jay, can you set up two of those rockets aft of the pilothouse?” Stark asked.
“Easy, boss. Shouldn’t take more than five minutes.”
“Then do it now. Set both at a forty-five degree angle, both astern, with one facing our port quarter and the other our starboard quarter.”
Warren raced down the ladder to his module.
“Don’t forget what Gala said,” Golzari warned. “If a spar on one of the suicide boats taps our hull it will rip it apart.”
“We’re going to play chicken,” Stark said, keeping his eyes trained on the boats. They were close enough now that he didn’t need binoculars.
“You know, Stark,” Golzari muttered, “sometimes you’re the exclamation point at the end of a really shitty sentence.”
Stark ignored him. “No offense, Treat, but step aside,” he told the helmsman. “I have the helm. We’ll be maneuvering too quickly to issue commands.”
Treat got up and Stark took his place, strapped himself in, and quickly refamiliarized himself with the control panel. Harrison got into the OOD’s chair to his right.
“XO, tell Somers to maintain their heading as zero-nine-zero,” Stark ordered. Harrison quickly complied. Somers acknowledged, and they could hear gunfire in the background. In another two or three minutes Somers would approach Syren’s port quarter and pass along her port side. Two groups of three Tiger boats had closed their formation and were changing direction. They were now on a direct course for Syren. Harrison reported eight more boats several miles off their starboard bow and another six well south of the closest grouping.
“Golzari, tell me when Jay says we’re ready.” Golzari took up a post where he could watch the scientist set up on the aft helicopter pad. Warren’s head popped up only to watch Somers pass by.
All the security teams had been issued hand-held VHF radios, the only way of communicating locally. Harrison ordered them to stand by.
“Sir, first formation of six boats now two nautical miles,” Harrison said.
“Very well, XO. Turning to port.” Stark pulled the joystick to the left, forcing it until it would go no further. Syren began her 180-degree turn at fifty-two knots. As soon the ship’s starboard security teams saw the small boats, they began to fire.
“Tell security teams and Warren to hang on,” Stark told Harrison. Then, “All stop.” Stark had experienced rapid deceleration on the original Navy Sea Fighter before and knew exactly what to expect. When the gas turbine engines tripped off, the 1,600-ton ship would stop abruptly, creating enormous inertia. A rapid restart combined with a wide-arc turn would harness the inertia and transfer it to the water, and a huge wave would form and radiate out toward the oncoming boats.
As Syren completed the turn and sped away, the six closest boats lost their limited sea-keeping ability. Three did not try to avoid the wave and simply flipped over. The other three decelerated but were still swamped, allowing Syren’s gunners to train their weapons on the Tigers themselves.
The other two groups of boats managed to avoid the wake and were coming up astern of the ship on either side. Syren had lost the advantage of distance when she decelerated and turned, allowing the Tiger ships to overtake her.
“Dr. Warren indicates he and his assistant are ready,” Golzari said, returning the scientist’s wave through the Plexiglas window.
“Get him in here.”
One of Syren’s original weaknesses—and one reason the Navy Sea Fighter program was canceled—was the shadow zone around the ship; anything closer than 130 yards astern was invisible to those on the bridge. An enterprising young Syren crewmember had taken a commercial off-the-shelf camera and designed a monitoring system that gave the helmsman a full view of the ship’s surroundings. Stark was benefitting from that now as he fought to keep the ship away from the attackers. As Golzari had said, a single strike on the ship would at the very least slow her down enough for the others to pounce.
“Jay,” Stark said as soon as the scientist entered the pilothouse, “what’s the range of the rockets at a 45-degree angle?”
Warren shrugged. “I think about two miles, airspeed about two hundred yards per second. These aren’t exactly like the Palestinian Qassams, though, so I can’t be sure.
“I need it to be closer than that,” Stark said.
“Closer? R-squared is our friend, Captain. It gets closer and . . .”
“Jay, I want the range to be one mile.”
“Boss, we’re within the pulse’s effective envelope at a mile and a half!”
“Damn it, Jay, get the elevation so that it’s one mile and signal when you’re ready to launch.” Warren left the pilothouse and adjusted the rocket launchers.
“Sir?” Harrison asked quietly. “The sea state’s changed. Looks like the Tigers are gaining on us, trying to vector in on each side.”
“He’s ready, Stark,” Golzari said.
“XO, pull up the aft bridge camera on the second screen.”
“Aye.”
“Launch!” he ordered, and Golzari waved to Warren.
As soon as the cameras showed the two rockets launch, Stark checked the time on his watch and then increased Syren’s speed to fifty-five knots. Back when he had commanded the ship in her incarnation as Sea Fighter, with Jay Warren as one of the ship’s designers, that had been maximum speed; the gas turbine engines had been limited to the RPMs required for fifty-five knots. Warren, always trying to improve the ship, suggested they change the governor settings to allow for higher RPMs, and that boosted the speed. On her best day now, with good sea conditions, Syren was
capable of sixty-one knots. Fortunately for Stark and the crew, that day was this day.
Stark made three quick zigzag turns to create enough wake to slow down the suicide boats. Most were now only a few hundred yards behind them. He began a mental countdown. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. The rockets exploded over the Sea Tigers’ suicide boats.
Stark had managed to speed Syren up enough to get her to the edge of the mile-and-a-half radius effect of the hafnium rocket, though a few systems around the stern were fried, including the hand-held VHF radios on Somers. The EMP bubble did, however, envelop all of the suicide boats, immediately shutting down their systems. Stark turned Syren again and slowed her to fifteen knots as he offered targets to the gun teams on deck. They hit one boat, then another and another until they had destroyed all of them, and their crews as well.
Stark popped another Percocet like it was a Pez candy as he sat in his rack. At least his hand had stopped shaking. He had taken a huge risk and won. The Sea Tigers’ suicide boats had been destroyed at the cost of a few minor injuries to his ship and crew. Stark had shown the Sea Tigers as much mercy as they would have shown him and his crew. If their goal was death in battle, then he had allowed them to achieve it.
Olivia was back in command as they returned to station with Asity. Commander Ranasinghe had been informed of the outcome via hand-held radio. He offered congratulations but expressed his regret at not being involved. It was his friends and colleagues who had died when the Sea Tigers destroyed the Sri Lankan navy, and his country that was now in grave danger. He wanted into the fight. Stark promised that if the next plan worked, Ranasinghe would get the fight he wanted and the revenge he sought.
For now, all Stark wanted to do was to lie down on his side and rest, to recover from the lack of sleep, the torture, and the exhaustion that followed the adrenaline rush. He looked longingly at the framed picture of Maggie on his desk and vowed—not for the first time—to stay in Ullapool with her after this was over. A knock at the door brought him out of his reverie.
“Come,” he said loudly.
The door opened a crack. “No time to rest, old man,” Golzari said. “I’m going back to talk with Gala. You should be there.”
“I will rise and fight again . . . ,” Stark began.
“What?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
Gala was sedated but conscious. Stark looked at him impassively. This man created the new weapon we’ve been forced to fight. He is the one responsible for so many deaths, including Gunny’s. Why not just chuck him overboard right now? He shook his head. That was the fatigue speaking. Or maybe it wasn’t.
“The captain here fended off your colleagues in the suicide boats,” Golzari said.
Gala merely nodded.
“How many of them are out there?” Stark asked.
“There were twenty in the trawlers.”
“He might be lying,” Stark said to Golzari, “but that is the number that came after us.”
Golzari methodically interrogated Gala for the next fifteen minutes about Qin and Blake’s murder, but there was little the scientist could add to what he had already said. Golzari had resigned himself to accept that when Gala mumbled something about his pants pocket. Golzari reached in and took out a thumb drive.
“What’s on this?” he asked.
“Most of my research on the applications of hafnium,” Gala replied weakly.
Golzari was stunned. The small object in his hand was a treasure trove of information that would level the playing field. “Does anyone else have this information?”
“No. I deleted the files after I copied them so the Chinese wouldn’t get them. When I escaped, I took my laptop with me and threw it overboard just in case. There were several Chinese scientists helping me, but they were not allowed to leave the ship or communicate with Zheng R&D.”
“Why did you do this? And why did you leave? You must have been a hero to Vanni and the other Tigers,” Golzari said.
“The weapon was only supposed to help us regain our land. I knew nothing about Vanni’s plans to use it to attack and murder as many people as possible in Sri Lanka.”
“When we were leaving Mount Iranamadu we saw convoys of soldiers headed south,” Stark said. “Were they the main attack force?”
Gala shook his head. “Vanni and the others spent months refitting fifteen freighters at the Breakers. The rockets will be distributed among them. The ships are to leave one by one and go to ports and towns on the southern coast. Once they have used the weapons, the ships will land soldiers to complete the destruction. The Tiger army heading south is a decoy to lure the Sri Lankan army away from the coast.”
“Which is your command ship?” Stark asked. “What kind of defenses does it have? How many soldiers defend it? What is the layout belowdecks? And where is the hafnium kept?”
The rapid-fire questions seemed to bewilder Gala, who was clearly growing weaker, but he did his best to answer. “Most of the hafnium has already been used or is in the rockets we built for the final attack, but all are on a ship called Amba. Vanni restricts access to the rockets. He trusts no one. They are to be distributed just before the ships get under way.
“When is that?” Stark asked.
“Tomorrow at noon,” Gala replied.
“Where is the remaining hafnium?” Golzari asked.
Gala explained the layout of the laboratory deck. “The hafnium is in a storage room next to the second lab. There are about forty bricks.”
“All right, Gala,” Golzari said. “I think we’re finished. You will remain in this room under guard, and then you are coming to the United States to be tried as an accessory to the murder of Special Agent William Blake.”
Stark and Golzari walked out together.
“Think he’s telling the truth about everything?” Stark asked.
Golzari turned up his hands. “Who knows? He may have been intentionally shot and sent to give us false information, but I think what he said is factual.”
“If that’s the case, then we have less than a day before that first ship gets under way and a lot to do to prepare. It’s 1300 now. Don’t worry, though, I have a plan.”
“My God, how I cringe whenever you say that.”
USS LeFon
Rossberg berated Jaime Johnson and every other officer on the ship for two solid hours. He had stormed out of sick bay and up to the bridge, where he announced that henceforth he intended to review every command given on LeFon. He countermanded every decision Jaime Johnson made on the bridge, even simple orders. The ship was on a direct heading to Chennai when he asked how much fuel they had.
“Thirty percent, sir,” she responded.
“Why so little, Commander?”
“Because, Admiral,” she said, standing up from the captain’s chair, “we offered assistance to Syren and provided fuel.”
“Is Syren a U.S. Navy ship, Commander?”
“No, Admiral, Syren is not a U.S. Navy ship; however, under the circumstances—” she began to explain.
“Stop right there. Syren’s commander attacked me—an admiral in the U.S. Navy—and you didn’t take him into custody. I am the senior officer on station. He is an enemy. And you aided and abetted the enemy. Furthermore, you provided military assistance to people who were interfering in a civil war in a foreign nation contrary to the rules of engagement you were given. And you did so to release Mr. Stark from the Tamils.”
“Sir, I did,” she admitted. “But had I not done so—”
He cut her off before she could add that he would still be in their hands. “That’s enough, missy. I relieve you of command. I am now captain of this ship. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir.” Jaime Johnson was an inch shorter than Rossberg, but in the eyes of the crew who had worked side by side with her for nearly six months she towered over him. Only a few of them knew that the president of the United States himself had put her in command of this ship—as a result of Connor Stark’s influence. A
mong those few was Ens. Bobby Fisk, who stood on the bridge as officer of the deck. She loved her country passionately. She loved this ship. She cared for this crew like a mother. She regretted leaving Syren and Asity to fend for themselves, and she had nothing but contempt for the craven flag officer standing on her bridge.
Her eyes remained fixed on Rossberg as she stepped aside to the shipwide intercom and picked up the mike. “LeFon, this is the captain,” she said slowly. “As you know, this ship has been caught in the middle of a civil war while trying to remain out of it. I have made decisions that directly affected the lives of Americans, and I stand by those decisions. Rear Admiral Rossberg has just advised me that he is relieving me of my duties as CO of LeFon and taking my place. Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, we have to step aside for the greater good.”
She took a deep breath, then continued. “This is not one of those times. Admiral Rossberg is not in my chain of command. I am bound by my duties as a naval officer under the Uniform Code of Military Justice not to obey an unlawful order. I am placing Admiral Rossberg under arrest for dereliction of duty.” She straightened to her full five feet four inches. “For strength,” she said proudly.
“For courage!” a thunderous chorus rang throughout the ship, including the bridge.
“Master-at-Arms, report immediately to the bridge and take Rear Admiral Rossberg into custody,” she said.
“What? You can’t do this. You can’t—” Rossberg lunged at her in mid-sentence.
Ensign Fisk grabbed him by the arms and threw him to the deck, then threw himself on top of him so Rossberg couldn’t move. “Remember when I warned you about the threat to Bennington and you wouldn’t let me warn the others?” Bobby whispered into the admiral’s ear. “You had the sailors hold me back. I could have saved them if you hadn’t done that. You killed them, you son of a bitch.”
Rossberg continued to struggle until the master-at-arms slapped the handcuffs on him.
Johnson ordered Fisk to inform the air boss that the ready helo would be taking off within fifteen minutes, and discipline, good order, and morale returned to the bridge.
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