Second Strike
( Alan McQueen - 2 )
Mark Abernethy
Second Strike
Mark Abernethy
CHAPTER 1
Flores, Indonesia, 12 October 2002
They sat like surfers waiting for a wave, the four of them dressed in thin black wetsuits facing south-west into the Indian Ocean. Huge blue-black and purple cloud formations loomed above as if declaring an end to the dry season and signalling the start of the monsoons.
The swell lapped into Mac’s rebreather harness as his eyes scanned the horizon for signs of the target through the salty humidity. Behind him the sounds of bird life and monkeys occasionally drifted from the remote southern shores of Flores.
Alan McQueen looked at his G-Shock: just past 2.07 pm. Thirty-seven minutes past schedule for the start of Operation Handmaiden, and the crew were getting restless.
‘Anything, Maddo?’ asked Mac softly.
The man to his left shook his head, not taking his eyes off the horizon. ‘Want me to call it in?’ he mumbled, lips hardly moving.
‘No,’ said Mac. ‘Sosa knows what he’s doing. If the target’s there, then we’ll know about it.’ Mac didn’t mind incoming calls, but he wanted to avoid the potential locating beacon you put up every time you keyed the mic on a radio.
The Combat Diver Team providing Mac’s escort was known as Team 4. All of them navy special forces based out of Western Australia, they’d fl own in two days ago to perform a frogman snatch at sea. It was the most diffi cult naval commando mission, which suited Team 4 just fi ne. They sat astride a partially submerged infl atable vessel known in the Royal Australian Navy as a sled and as a skimmer by the British, each man strapped into his own seat. When the sled was fully submerged it became a battery-powered diver-propulsion vehicle capable of carrying fi ve combat divers for about thirty kilometres, though there were only three combat divers with Mac on this job.
In the bow of the sled was a blond guy, Smithee, and to Mac’s right was a huge Aussie-Leb they called Pharaoh, one of the largest combat divers Mac had ever seen. The divers were usually built like gymnasts or boxers, but Pharaoh looked more like The World’s Strongest Man, as if he should be lifting balls of stone onto oil barrels. There was a large V-shaped object on Pharaoh’s back, strapped over his rebreather pack and pointing over the level of his head.
Sitting in front of Mac was the team leader, Doug Madden, known simply as Maddo. He was a medium-height, dark-haired Kalgoorlie boy who, like most special forces blokes, conserved his energy until sudden outbursts of critical violence were required.
The spare seat was for a bloke named Ahmed al Akbar. A Saudi banker and accountant, Akbar used a legitimate trade fi nance program in South-East Asia to oversee Osama bin Laden’s investments in Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Following the September 11 bombings in New York and Washington, the Americans had hit back with an Allied invasion of Afghanistan that had broken the Taliban. But the invasion had also created a diaspora of senior al-Qaeda and Taliban fi gures who’d fl ed the al Farouq camp outside Kandahar and spread out through South-East Asia. Now, intelligence agencies like Israel’s Mossad, MI6 and Mac’s employer – the Australian Secret Intelligence Service – were focusing on what were known as deceptions and provocations. That is, getting the bad guys to go after one another, with a little help from your friendly neighbourhood spook.
Akbar was making his monthly tour of terror camps, and intelligence had him using a regular sea route that started in Surabaya, hooked under Bali and Flores before heading north for Sulawesi and then Mindanao. The point of Operation Handmaiden was to snatch the fi nancier from the vessel he was in and feed a rumour back to the tango community that he’d fl ed his Jemaah Islamiyah minders and cut a deal where he ratted out the Moro separatists. There were few organisations in the world that were game enough to go after OBL, but the Muslim gangs of the southern Philippines were up there with the White House, Downing Street and the PLA generals, as outfi ts with the stones to try and hit Osama where he lived. It was a simple plan that hinged on snatching Akbar without signs of a struggle.
Mac checked his gear for the twenty-third time: face mask, hoses, harness, handgun, knife, duct tape, a bag fi lled with goodies, a hard plastic syringe case and a foil of Xanax. Breathing deep, pain fl ared in his chest. He’d joined the combat divers only a day before, straight from the Bali Sevens, a seven-a-side rugby tournament held each year at Kuta Beach. In one of the group matches he’d been tackled ball-and-all by a big Yaapie mining foreman playing for a Malaysian team and could barely breathe after the hit. He’d backed up for another match against the Darwin Dreadnoughts an hour later, playing in agony. He suspected a cracked or bruised sternum but hadn’t gone to Denpasar Hospital because his team, the Manila Marauders, had a no-piker policy: that is, you played and drank, played and drank for the whole week – no pikers.
The RAN rebreather rigs required deep and regular breathing by the divers, and Mac had no idea how he’d manage or how he might justify failure to Joe Imbruglia, the ASIS station chief in Manila who’d wanted Mac to fl ag the sevens and do the snatch. Well, mate, at least I didn’t pike on the boys, eh? wasn’t likely to go down too well.
The call came from Sosa at 2.11 pm saying he now had eyes on the target from his recon point on the headland. Maddo relayed the update to Team 4 and they fell silent as they waited for the ship.
Mac used the rising adrenaline to run through every last detail of the Akbar snatch in his mind. He visualised it, breaking it into pieces like scenes in a movie. He forced himself to imagine three different disaster scenarios and his exact response to each. The third contingency was a white fl ag – abandon the snatch and pull an ‘escape and evade’, an E amp;E, to a predetermined point.
This last option wasn’t defeatist. During Mac’s stint in the Royal Marines Commandos the chief instructor, Banger Jordan, had told them there was no such thing as a mission without an exit.
‘In a professional outfi t there’re no heroes and no cowards, only alive guys and dead guys,’ Banger had growled. ‘The alive guy knows where the exits are.’
‘Macca, your eleven o’clock,’ called Smithee.
Mac saw it immediately. A faint plume of diesel exhaust signalled the arrival of their quarry. By the look of it, the small ship would be on them in fi ve minutes. Mac looked at the others – the boys were ready.
‘Your call Maddo,’ said Mac. ‘I’m good.’
Smithee locked in on the target and Pharaoh pulled his face mask up, winking at Mac. There was a small pause as they all breathed out and in and then Maddo called the mission.
Seating their masks, they twisted their regulators to the settings Maddo called and did three tests on the mixture from the bottles on their backs. Mac tasted rubber, triggering a fl eeting memory of using a rebreather for the fi rst time, his heart going crazy, freaking out at the icy English water near Devon.
Maddo tested the comms and all three of them did thumbs-up.
When Maddo was set he gave thumbs-up to Smithee. A whining sound accompanied the slow sinking of the sled as the motors sucked water ballast into the infl atable skin, using the weight of the batteries along the keel to pull it under. Mac controlled his breathing and felt the sea water fi lling up his kit, muting all sounds except for the rasp of his own breathing.
Settling at four metres under the surface, Maddo gave Smithee a heading. The whining sound began again and a pair of enclosed props started spinning on either end of the bar that ran across the width of the sled’s bow. Pharaoh and Mac lay down on their stomachs in the rear part of the sled, while Smithee knelt behind the driving controls at the front. Kneeling behind Smithee, Maddo called the heading from a
compass built into the sled. The props angled slightly to the right
– and upwards, to stabilise the running depth – and the sled built to its top speed of ten knots.
Mac concentrated on breathing solid and long, taking his rhythm from the sound of Maddo’s breathing over the comms. Panters couldn’t be trusted with rebreathing rigs because they couldn’t properly utilise the carbon-dioxide scrubbers that gave you the four-and six-hour durations with a good military rig.
As they moved through the warm Flores waters, Maddo muttered at Smithee from time to time. Mac fought the panic urge – he hated full face masks and the sense of enclosure – and the pain building in his chest with every breath. After a few minutes of running Maddo whispered, ‘Thar she blows, boys.’
Turning, Mac saw Penang Princess moving past them, looking like a whale, its darkness ominous in the tropical waters. About one hundred metres to their left, its single prop glinted in the refl ected marine light, a trail of champagne bubbles spewing out behind it.
Mac was glad he was working with Maddo’s boys on this mission; the slightest miscalculation, a bit of bad driving, and that spinning brass disc would create what the naval world referred to as Prop Suey.
‘Bring her round, Smithee,’ said Maddo.
The sled tilted over into a big left-hand turn, the electric motors whining to keep the speed up as they came astern of the two-hundred-foot ship which was moving about eight knots faster. They held their course, waiting. If the arrangements they’d made were being followed, an Indonesian Navy patrol boat had motored out from Endeh and was about to RV with Penang Princess.
Mac had suggested the sharing deal between the fi rm and the Indonesian military intelligence organisation, BAIS. The boys from BAIS would provide the offi cial decoy, the Service would do the snatch; BAIS could detain Ahmed al Akbar, but the Aussies would join the debrief – or interrogation, if Ahmed felt the warrior stir in him.
They followed and waited, the four frogmen’s breathing now synchronised. The ship slowed visibly and Mac felt the sled lose power and then shut down. They were now drifting behind Penang Princess.
The single screw suddenly stopped and was still for three seconds.
Mac watched it sitting there with water foaming past it. Then it started turning again, in reverse, slowly at fi rst and then faster as the Indonesian Navy asked Penang Princess to stand-to.
The sled’s power came up slightly and went off again and they closed further on Penang Princess, before Penang Princess ‘s prop stopped altogether.
Adrenaline always hit Mac doubly hard when frogging and he tried to keep his breaths long and deep as they neared the ship. Pharaoh’s voice came over the radio system, breaking into his concentration.
‘Macca, watch for the loggie, mate.’
Mac was so focused on the ship, and doing what he had to do, that he didn’t quite get it on the fi rst go.
‘Repeat?’ he asked, looking over at Pharaoh, who was pointing at him, his eyes wide behind the glass plate of the mask.
Suddenly Mac sensed something and swivelled to his right to fi nd a huge black eye in his face, a massive mouth opened at him.
‘ Fuck! ‘ he yelped, whipping away from the thing, freaking at the safety belt holding him in place. He put his arms up to shield his head as a one-hundred-kilo loggerhead sea turtle – a lump of meat and shell the size of a dining room table – bore into his mask before diving down at his webbing. Mac fl ailed about, heart pounding, as the massive creature tore off one of his gear pockets with a whip of the head, and then swam away.
The sound of men in hysterics pealed through Mac’s earpiece like church bells.
‘Shit, Macca,’ choked out Maddo, crying with laughter. ‘She liked you, mate!’
‘I thought she was going for a hug,’ cried Pharaoh, ‘then she tries to get the tongue in.’
As the elite of Australia’s naval special forces shrieked with laughter, Mac tried to get his breathing back to regular – you couldn’t stuff around with rebreathers.
The laughter died as Maddo spoke again.
‘Target stationary, boys,’ said the team leader over the radio system as they closed on the ship. ‘Let’s earn our money.’
CHAPTER 2
After fi ve minutes of waiting beneath the starboard stern, Maddo whispered ‘Smithee,’ and jerked a thumb upwards. The sled rose through the clear water, Pharaoh and Maddo standing as it emerged into the light. Putting their gloved hands up on the grey sides of Penang Princess, they eased the sled into place.
‘That’s enough, mate,’ murmured Maddo, and Smithee killed the pumps but left the props turning over to keep the vessel in place.
Mac pulled his mask down, slid out of his fi ns, then released the central buckle on the rebreather unit before wriggling out of it, strapping the whole kit on to his seat with the sled’s Velcro-fastener seatbelt. Looking up at the rust-streaked sides of the vessel – a classic Indonesian coastal donkey – he tried to calm his nerves. All it would take was one tango to look over the side and they’d be blown. He hoped the Indon Navy boys knew what they were doing. It was crucial to the mission that the whole crew were assembled on Penang Princess ‘s deck for at least ten minutes.
Mac checked his weapon: a Heckler amp; Koch P9S with a suppressor.
The Heckler was unfashionable because it only used a seven-round mag and its four-inch barrel was considered inaccurate over more than twenty metres, but Mac liked the fl atness of the German handgun and the fact that it was possibly the most robust pistol ever made.
Beside Mac, Maddo had freed himself of his diving kit, knee-deep in water, while drawing his marinised SIG Sauer handgun from his webbing holster and checking it for load, mag and safety.
Behind Mac, Pharaoh swung the grappling hook on the end of a black ten-mil rope and got the bottom railing on the fi rst go. It was only ten, eleven metres away. He put his weight on it and pulled, bringing the sled closer in to the side of the small freighter.
Maddo pointed at Pharaoh with one thick fi nger, then at Mac with two fi ngers and indicated himself with three fi ngers against his own chest. Pharaoh grabbed the rope with both hands and swung to the steel side, which was curved at the stern. He got to the top of his climb with ridiculous ease for a man of his size, paused briefl y and then grabbed the white railings and pulled himself over onto Penang Princess, his enormous arms rippling through the soaked wetsuit as he fl exed for the side vault.
Maddo’s hand slapped on Mac’s back and he was up. Swinging to the ship’s side, he got a good purchase with his rubberised frogman slippers, pushed out against the rope to get the best grip and walked himself hand over hand up the ship, making the top in quick time.
He gasped with the pain in his sternum as he hauled himself over the railings onto hot teak decking. Then he scuttled across the rear poop deck to where Pharaoh was pointing and crouched in the shadow of a large venting horn, water pouring out of his wetsuit.
Maddo vaulted smoothly over the railing and made straight for Mac. They caught their breaths in the shadow of the vent and refl exively checked their guns.
Next came the part they’d walked through several times back in Jakarta. Using naval architect’s drawings of this kind of coastal freighter, Maddo and Pharaoh had put together a scenario of where a special guest would be bunked, and how they’d get there and extract him.
From the other side of the wheelhouse they could hear the shouts and commands from the Indonesian Navy. Mac’s Bahasa was pretty basic but he knew enough to pick up that the navy guys were demanding all hands on deck. Mac could envisage lots of sarungs and plastic sandals and theatrical shrugs: No more, boss – we all here, boss.
Maddo led them around the back of the wheelhouse and straight through a spring-loaded door into a dim passageway. It was hot and musty inside as Maddo led them down the steep companionway and along the low-ceilinged passage. They moved past storerooms, a sick bay and the fi rst mate’s offi ce, all the rooms tiny, steel-walled ra
t-holes. At the end of the passage was a companionway that led up, and one that dropped down. Maddo headed into the downwards companionway with Mac and then Pharaoh following close behind, all of them moving with one hand on the railings and the other on their handguns.
When they hit the next level down it was like walking into a steam room. Maddo signalled a three-way split to search down the passageway. This was where you’d fi nd the cabins on ninety-nine per cent of these coastal tubs and it was where Maddo and Mac expected to fi nd Akbar, probably hiding in a robe or cowering under a bunk.
Mac felt the sweat running freely under his wetsuit as he took the three cabins that Maddo had assigned him. He pushed the fi rst cabin door inwards and shouldered against the bulkhead. Slowly sticking his head around, he scanned the room: there were two double bunks against opposite bulkheads, a small gap between them with a mangy old tobacco-stained porthole. Each bed had a bare mattress with a sheet of Indian cotton on it and there were small piles of clothes and washcloths at the end of each bunk. Holding his breath to avoid the rancid smell of working men in the tropics, Mac crouched but there was nothing to look under: the bunks had two drawers in the base of the bottom bed.
Nowhere for Akbar to hide.
The second cabin was much the same, but someone was also sleeping on the fl oor, judging by the rolled-up mattress against the wall with a few folded clothes and a book – probably a Koran
– wrapped in a white crocheted cloth. There were exposed wires and a dangerous-looking jerry-built electrical plug that probably powered a fan when it got really hot.
Again, no Akbar.
The sweat rolled off Mac’s forehead as he came back into the cramped passageway, gulping for air, and saw Maddo at the other end. They shrugged at one another, the faint sound of sailors shouting echoing down to them before getting swallowed in the throb of the idling diesels.
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