Syren's Song

by Claude G. Berube

  DAY 17

  Sea Tiger Command Ship Amba

  As dawn broke over a cloudless morning off the eastern Sri Lankan coast, Vanni sat on the deck in quiet meditation. This was Sri Lanka’s last day as a nation. Already Vanni and his men had resurrected fifteen freighters and tankers from the Breakers and given them new life. Smoke billowed out of their stacks, and all swung slowly southwest with the morning breeze. Just as these ships had risen from certain death, an independent homeland for his people would rise from the ashes of the south.

  He had no political structure in place yet. Only the Tigers served him. But anarchy would follow the destruction, and the people would accept the order brought by Vanni and his most loyal men and women. The Vels had not returned from their mission, but that did not worry him unduly. They were either successful or unsuccessful. It was out of his hands. But he doubted that the few enemy ships had been able to withstand the attack of twenty Vels. If the ships somehow had survived, they had certainly been dissuaded from attacking. And yet . . . there was Gala. If he had survived to pass on what he knew . . . Vanni drew another deep breath and then rose to his feet.

  The Breakers was bustling with activity. Small boats were transferring soldiers from the cruise ships to the fifteen freighters that would take them to the southern provinces. The final stores of ammunition, guns, knives, and hatchets were being distributed to each ship. A small boat from each of the fifteen freighters sat idle and unmanned. It would still be several hours before Vanni gave permission to transfer all the rockets.

  None of the freighters was supposed to be under way yet, much less heading toward the Breakers, so it was with considerable interest that Vanni saw a small freighter steaming slowly toward Amba from the east. The ship was typical of the five-thousand-ton steamships he had become accustomed to seeing after decades in this region. Its paint was long gone, though a few green patches indicated its former color.

  Two of his picket speedboats were escorting it. One zoomed ahead and pulled alongside one of Amba’s ladders. The boatman called up that the ship was one of the Tigers’ supply ships that had been delayed a week because of engine problems. Vanni signaled his approval to get the freighter’s munitions on board Amba and left to consult with his top aides in the wardroom. A handful of guards remained on deck, mostly in the stern watching the coastline prior to what might be their last mission.

  The freighter decreased speed to three knots and prepared to sidle up next to Amba. The captain was on the starboard bridge wing, but only his upper torso was visible above the metal shield plates. He was shouting orders to the crew, who were preparing the bow and stern lines and the bumpers to keep the ships apart. The captain ordered the engines to full reverse as the starboard side of the freighter pulled up on Amba’s port side. The freighter’s propellers produced a backwash as they struggled to stop the ship’s forward momentum.

  Two Amba deckhands forward and astern prepared to accept the lines, then passed them through to the cleats and secured them. The freighter’s captain ordered the engines to be cut and looked at his watch. Amba’s deckhands helped attach their ship’s gangway to the supply ship, though the old submarine tender displaced nearly two thousand tons more than the recently arrived freighter and rode higher.

  One of Amba’s deckhands crossed over to Asity to ensure that the freighter’s deckhands had secured the gangway properly before preparing for the transfer of the ammunition and guns. Just as he was about to check the open cargo hold closest to the three-story superstructure, he saw the main deck hatch swing open and a gun barrel pointed at him. It was the last thing he ever saw.

  Highland Maritime security teams poured out of the freighter’s hatches, finding every target of opportunity on Amba’s deck and in the pilothouse. Asity’s captain donned his cover—that of a Sri Lankan navy commander—and pulled out his own pistol to fire at the pilothouse across from him. A twoman team hidden behind the metal plates stood and set up their 50-mm gun and began raking Amba’s stern. Taken by surprise, the guards fell one by one.

  Eight three-person Highland Maritime teams crossed the gangway onto Amba’s now-cleared deck and took up positions. One team went to the stern to keep watch for other ships and small boats, and two other teams took up positions amidships. The others covered the hatches of the superstructure to wait for more guards to come up from below.

  Commander Ranasinghe picked up a flare gun and fired one shot to signal Syren, now seven miles away and approaching out of the rising sun. He threw the flare gun aside, picked up a hand-held radio, and issued an order to the cargo hold. A few seconds later the Tigers on the ships surrounding Amba saw the fiery plume of a Qassam rocket emerge from the hold and rise half a mile into the sky above Amba. Four seconds later—predetermined by Jay Warren’s modifications of the third and last captured rocket—a blue-green explosion silenced nearly every piece of electronic equipment within a mile and a half. Speedboats, patrol boats, freighters, and tankers—none were immune to their own weapon. Smaller boats sat helpless in the water.

  The first phase of Operation Intrepid had begun.

  During the First Barbary War, President Thomas Jefferson sent a squadron of ships to Tripoli under the command of Commo. Edward Preble on USS Constitution with orders to maintain the blockade of Tripoli harbor. The commanders of the sloops in the squadron—daring young officers such as Stephen Decatur, Richard Somers, Charles Stewart, and Isaac Hull—would later be remembered as “Preble’s Boys.”

  The Tripolitans already held one U.S. Navy ship. In October 1803 the frigate USS Philadelphia under Capt. William Bainbridge had gone in too close to shore and run aground. Bainbridge tried in vain to free the ship, even throwing the guns overboard and cutting off a mast to lighten her. When Philadelphia remained firmly grounded, Bainbridge surrendered ship and crew. The Tripolitans salvaged the guns, rearmed the grounded ship, and used her as a battery to protect the harbor. The crew were sent into slavery.

  Preble was ordered to retake Philadelphia or, if she was no longer seaworthy, destroy her. Young Stephen Decatur came up with a daring plan. Preble’s squadron had captured a local sixty-foot ketch named Mastico during the course of the blockade and had renamed her Intrepid. On the evening of February 16, 1804, Decatur took seventy men, most of them hidden belowdecks, and sailed Intrepid right into Tripoli harbor. They boarded Philadelphia, determined that the frigate was no longer seaworthy, and blew her sky high. Providing operational support to Intrepid was the brig Syren under the command of young Lt. Charles Stewart.

  Admiral Horatio Nelson described the raid as “the most bold and daring act of the age.” For his action Decatur was promoted to captain at the age of twenty-five—the youngest Navy captain in America’s history.

  M/V Syren

  The new Syren steamed into an anchorage bereft of operational ships after the EMP detonation. Five thousand feet above her Starfire One-Eight, an SH-60R helicopter from USS LeFon, stood watch. LeFon herself was now just eight nautical miles from the anchorage, which was well within the range of her 5-inch gun. She was already providing suppressing fire as shells from the main gun landed among the outermost anchored ships.

  Syren pulled along the port side of Amba, and Stark and Golzari led the last security team up boarding ladders and onto the old sub tender’s main deck. One team member fired a grappling hook up three decks to the blown-out window of the pilothouse, and Stark and Golzari scampered up the attached rope ladder, each carrying an FAL-308 slung over his shoulder and a nine-millimeter pistol holstered on his belt. Ranasinghe’s fire support team motioned the all clear to the two as they reached the deck of the pilothouse.

  “Ready for the rattlesnake’s den?” Stark asked Golzari.

  Golzari gestured, “After you.”

  Stark waved to one of the teams below that they were ready. Team members placed enough C4 on the outer hatches to blow them from their hinges in preparation for going in. The explosions both provided a distraction and masked the entrance of Stark
and Golzari into the pilothouse above. As he went through the door Starke noticed a freighter about ten miles to the north that clearly hadn’t been affected by the EMP. He hoped Jaime and LeFon would handle that one.

  Stark and Golzari raced down the ladder to the main deck. A gun battle had broken out astern. With Golzari covering his back, Stark slowly made his way aft until he could see several Tigers in the next compartment with their backs to him firing at the security teams. Stark pulled a flash-bang canister from his vest, pulled the pin, and threw it into the middle of the group, then began firing into the shooters, dropping most of them before the security teams could push through.

  With the security teams now behind them, Stark and Golzari turned around and headed forward. They passed several staterooms, a wardroom, and a galley before they found another ladder that would take them down one deck. If Gala had been telling the truth, this would be the deck with the laboratories.

  Another gunfight between a security team and the defenders was going on in a passageway on the starboard side of the ship as they stepped onto the lab deck. They inched their way forward, looking for traps and defenders. The first lab they came to was empty, although coffee cups and tools on the tables indicated that the scientists who worked there had left suddenly. Two overturned cups suggested the departure might not have been voluntary.

  Bullets flew from the next compartment as they approached. The rattlesnake’s den, Stark thought. Two Highland Maritime security personnel followed Stark and Golzari as they considered their options. Stark tossed a flash grenade through the hatch, and all four men sprayed bullets haphazardly after it. Golzari threw in another flash-bang for good measure. Silence followed. Stark, Golzari, and the team entered the second lab, peering through the smoke for tiger-striped uniforms. Some were there, but the guards were down and dead.

  Seated cross-legged atop a pile of metallic silver bricks at the back of the room was a small, dark-skinned man in khakis. He smiled at the intruders, his deep-set eyes unfathomable. Golzari pointed his weapon at the man as Stark approached him slowly.

  “Hello, Vanni,” Stark said.

  The man acknowledged the greeting with a nod. “I was hoping to have you and the admiral with me for the final attack,” Vanni said. “Now, alas, it seems there will not be one.”

  There was a bustle outside the room as security team members made way for Commander Ranasinghe, who entered and took a position at Stark’s left. “It is time to surrender, Vanni,” the Sri Lankan naval officer said.

  “No. I will not surrender to you.”

  “Very well,” Ranasinghe said. He drew his pistol and put two bullets in Vanni’s head. Vanni slumped backward, his blood spilling over the hafnium bricks.

  DAY 18

  Trincomalee Harbor

  Syren, LeFon, and Asity were tied up at adjacent piers in the harbor where the war had begun, joined by Amba, which had been taken as a war prize and towed into port by Asity. The Sri Lankan government was already making repairs to the ships’ communications and radar systems in appreciation for finding the Sea Tigers’ base and eliminating the threat. Vanni’s death and the capture of the rockets had thwarted the seaborne assaults, and the conscript army coming in from the north was easily repelled. Order was being reestablished in Tamil-held territories.

  Warren had secured the EMP weapons and the hafnium in one of Syren’s modules by Stark’s order. A security team relieved hourly stood guard over the module, even in this safe port.

  Ranasinghe had already said his goodbyes and expressed his gratitude for being allowed a part in Operation Intrepid. As one of the few surviving Sri Lankan navy officers, Ranasinghe had been told that he would be promoted to admiral—bypassing captain—and stationed off Mullaitivu with the next navy ship Sri Lanka acquired.

  A limousine bearing the official seal of the government of Sri Lanka swept up to the pier. A guard opened the rear door, and out came Ambassador Adikira, the man who had given Stark the letter of marque at the outset of the mission. Stark still wondered if he would have accepted the mission if he had known the cost to Gunny Willis and others.

  Adikira was smiling broadly and accompanied by someone even more familiar to Stark and Golzari. She was barely five feet tall, and her lavender dress made her dark complexion glow.

  “I believe you know Ambassador Sumner,” Adikira said.

  “C. J.,” Stark said with a rare smile. He had known her when she was a young foreign affairs aide in the Senate and later when she served as ambassador to Yemen. She was now the president’s national security adviser.

  “Connor,” she said warmly. “And Agent Golzari. My apologies. I didn’t realize that releasing you from my protective detail would force you to work with Commander Stark again.”

  Golzari tried to hide a smile. “Someone has to keep him out of trouble, Madame Ambassador,” he said gravely.

  Adikira spoke again. “Captain Stark, my government is so grateful for your efforts. We are now prepared to transfer the hafnium.”

  Stark shook his head. “No.”

  Shocked by the lack of respect toward a senior government official, the ambassador nevertheless managed a forced, diplomatic smile and said, “Perhaps you did not understand . . .”

  “Oh, but I did, Mr. Ambassador. No. I will not transfer the hafnium,” Stark replied. “That’s a hell of a weapon. Can you tell me unequivocally that you will be able to secure it appropriately?”

  “That is not the issue. You were operating as an agent of the Sri Lankan government, and therefore the hafnium is ours,” Adikira said, his false smile having long since faded.

  “I’m sorry, but you are incorrect. I was operating under a letter of marque issued by you for specific work. Under international law going back hundreds of years, a ship operating under a letter of marque can claim as its own any captured ship and materials on that ship,” Stark answered.

  “Unacceptable! Unacceptable!” the ambassador sputtered. “You have not heard the last of this.” He stormed back to his limousine.

  “Still making friends, I see,” C. J. observed. “So, what’s your price?”

  “You think I’m for sale?”

  “Nobody who knows you would think that. But you do have costs associated with your business. You have to sell the hafnium to someone, Connor. We both know the Chinese played a part in this. I wouldn’t want it to fall into their hands. I also know that you believe in a balance of power. The Chinese might find another lode. If you sell the hafnium to the U.S. government, then this is that balance.”

  Stark thought about it and realized she was right—again. “I have to operate this ship and maybe more like her. I want twenty-five million a brick, and I can sell you twenty.”

  “Twenty million, and you’ll sell me thirty,” she countered.

  “Done,” he said, shaking her hand.

  Golzari realized he had just witnessed Stark’s transformation into the mercenary he had accused him of being at their first encounter.

  “What of the remainder?” Golzari asked.

  “I’m not looking for more bidders. The material will be well protected.”

  “Thank you, Connor,” Sumner said. “It was good to see you again. Our people will be in touch. For now, I have to stop by LeFon. I’ll be escorting Admiral Rossberg back to the States personally and then trying to sort out this mess.” She sighed. “It won’t be easy. He has influential protectors.”

  “Take care of Jaime. She did the right thing.”

  “I know that. Don’t worry. We’ll watch out for her,” Sumner said. With that, the president’s national security adviser returned to the limo, which sped away.

  “Sorry you didn’t get your killer, Damien,” Stark said, reaching into his pocket for another Percocet.

  “I have Gala, who was an accessory. And I have a name—Qin. It’s a start.”

  “What about Melanie? I haven’t seen her since we came ashore.”

  “She has already started filing her reports about Vanni an
d the war. She did ask me to thank you for giving her access to the information. She decided not to include a lot of what happened on LeFon and Syren. She thought you deserved to keep some anonymity for now, and her real story was about Vanni and the mass murders.”

  “She’ll win a Pulitzer for it,” Stark said.

  “Very likely, but she has other work for now. She said she was taking the orphans and a Buddhist monk to Mount Iranamadu to reestablish the monastery there,” Golzari replied.

  “Did you at least make peace with her?”

  “The damage was done a long time ago,” Golzari said emotionlessly, then mused, “I wonder how much hafnium is still there. The Chinese may come after it.”

  “Not much, I think. Jay did some additional testing further down the mineshaft past the transfer station. Looks like the Tigers got most of it out. But Ranasinghe told me that he’ll be posting guards at the paths to the monastery once he takes command of the region, just in case someone else tries to come after what might be left.”

  “What’s next for you, Stark? Must I plan on getting you out of another situation?”

  “Home, Damien. Just home. That’s all I want right now.”

  “Very well, old man. Always a pleasure. Until next time.” Golzari shook Stark’s hand and then disappeared into town.

  DAY 33

  Hong Kong

  In his office high above the streets of the city, Tao Hu leaned back in the two-thousand-dollar ergonomic chair his wife had demanded he purchase if he was going to spend so much time there. He swung around toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the harbor and Kowloon and thought about the team of three individuals who had just left his office. He could fire them, but they still had value and had accepted their mistakes. They would seek redemption for having accepted two bricks of worthless zirconium from the deceptive Vanni, and they would work twice as hard on their next assignment. Despite this error, all had proven their real worth too many times for him to dismiss them.