V4 Vengeance

by Nigel Seed

  He went on to show pictures of the house, the ramp and the store buildings. “Each of you will be handed an envelope shortly containing these pictures to study while in transit. The envelope also contains your target assignments. At the back of the room there is a small team of people who will be coming with you to deal with the missiles. We believe the missiles are equipped with chemical warheads and are going to be launched at Miami. The primary objective is to disable those missiles before they can launch. Should any launch before you can stop them there are F-16s and other aircraft on standby to try and stop them, but yours is the primary mission.”

  As the envelopes were passed around the rapid briefing continued. “In just under an hour you will fly from here to the jump off point. From there you will join a flight of three CH47 Chinook helicopters for insertion close to the target. The helicopters are already loaded with the assault boats and the helmsman for each boat is being provided by the Marines. The helicopters will put you at the launch point at 0200 and you should be ashore by 0300. That gives you four hours of darkness to get the job done. Once you are ashore the boats will retire off shore and wait for your signal for a pick up. Now that we are pretty sure about the New York assault group being on the island we know that you will be considerably outnumbered, but we cannot afford to wait in case the missiles are launched. If the island is not subdued by first light the Marines will be landing in force to support you. They are on the way already so should not be late. I repeat your primary goal is to stop the missile launches. Secondary objective is to arrest Romanov and as many of his people as possible at no risk to yourselves. Tertiary objective is to secure the cash, bearer bonds and other material they looted from the bank vaults in New York. Any questions?”

  The SEALs were silent.

  Ivan leaned across to Jim, “These guys are as quiet as the Hooligans from Hereford.”

  Andrei looked puzzled so Jim explained, “One of the British Special Forces groups, the Special Air Service, is based in Hereford. They tend to be as undemonstrative as these people.”

  Andrei nodded. “The Russian Spetsnaz troops are similar until they have a little too much vodka inside them and then they are nothing but trouble.”

  Jim and Ivan were surprised when Geordie stood up. “I have a question.”

  The SEALs looked round and waited.

  Duggan nodded and gave a small smile. “For the rest of you, this is Sergeant Peters of the British Army, something of a celebrity in military circles. He was the guy who drove that bulldozer in Helmand last year. Go on Sergeant …”

  “If this group is trying to get away with the loot from New York, then why would they draw attention to their hideout by launching another attack from there? The logic escapes me.”

  The two men on the platform looked at each other.

  The briefing officer said, “That’s a good point. I will run it past the analysts. While they are chewing on it the primary mission still stands. Any more questions? No? OK, people, there is a meal waiting for you now. Eat and then a final equipment check before boarding the aircraft in forty-five minutes.”

  The meeting broke up and the men filed out of the room. Duggan, the briefing officer came over to the four of them, “That was a good point you made. It doesn’t make sense. Mr. Popov, any ideas what he may be up to since you know him best?”

  Andrei shook his head. “He may be a psychopath, but he is never stupid. Everything he does has a reason and this operation has been planned for months. Let me think about it for a while.”

  They followed the rest of the group to an area at the end of the hangar where food had been laid out for them to help themselves. They filled their plates and sat at a table that had been set up nearby.

  Andrei looked worried. “Geordie has spotted something wrong here and I do not understand it. This could be important. I feel I am missing something.”

  They ate quickly and moved to check their equipment one more time. Martinez came to find them and led them to the door of the hangar. They stepped out on to the aircraft dispersal area to find an executive jet waiting for them with a line of SEALs climbing the boarding ladder. Their equipment was taken from them as they reached the ladder and stowed in the cargo hold. They entered the aircraft cabin and found that five seats had been left for them at the back of the aircraft. The main door was slammed and locked as they walked along the aisle and the engines fired up almost immediately.

  The aircraft swung out of the dispersal and onto the taxi way to the runway. There was none of the customary queuing for take-off experienced at commercial airports and they accelerated down the runway and up into the air. They still had no idea where they were going; security was taken very seriously by this group. When asked where they were going to meet the helicopters, Martinez ignored the question and looked out of the window. In front of them the assault team were studying the photographs of the island and committing to memory every detail they could. The briefing for Jim and his team was very thin, just follow Martinez to the ramp and disable the Flying Bombs. After that they were to wait until it was time to return to the boats and leave.

  Chapter 39

  The signs in the roof panels instructed them to fasten their seatbelts, and the cabin crewman came around the aircraft collecting the briefing envelopes. No material, that exposed just how good US Intelligence gathering was, would be lost and slipped to the media, who seemed incapable of realizing that not everything should be in the public domain.

  The aircraft touched down smoothly and taxied to a hangar set well away from any others. As they deplaned they saw that three CH-47 Chinooks were waiting for them with their rear cargo doors already lowered. Personal equipment was unloaded from the cargo bay and returned to the individual team members. Martinez checked that the four men had everything and led them to the left hand helicopter. The rest had split into two teams one of five and one of six, and were heading into the remaining two aircraft. As they stepped onto the cargo ramp they were faced by a black inflatable boat with a large outboard motor. Even the motor was black with no indication of manufacturer or engine size. As they stepped past it they noticed extra piping and attachments on the engine.

  Martinez saw them looking and said, “Silencer kit. Makes us a lot more stealthy.”

  “I see your people get the best equipment too. It’s another Ribcraft. Hopefully we get to ride in this one.”

  Once they strapped in, the aircraft engines started and the huge rotors were engaged. The vibration was unpleasant, but the flight time was short. No more than an hour later they landed again and the cargo door dropped. They climbed out and found themselves on a small airfield with a view of the sea. They were led to a small hangar and allocated one of the camp beds already set up inside.

  Martinez told them “We always try to get as much sleep as possible before this type of mission. No idea when the next chance might come.”

  The hangar was cooled by air conditioning which was a welcome change from the heat outside. It was much warmer than Washington had been only a few hours earlier. Like most soldiers they knew the value of sleep and had the ability to drop off when the opportunity presented itself.

  Before he lay down Jim touched Andrei on the arm, “I haven’t had much chance to speak to you. You said that Tatiana was a colleague, what did you mean?”

  “My lovely Tatiana was a police officer. She was recruited straight out of the training school before she started her first assignment. We let it be known to others on her course that she had been sent to a distant police station so her disappearance made sense. She was working as a cook’s assistant on the Yacht and slipping me any information she picked up. Romanov must have suspected her or he was just cleaning house when he had her killed.”

  “I really liked her, she was very pretty.”

  “She liked you too, Major. She told me so the night before we sailed. She didn’t deserve to die that way, but at least you gave her some comfort at the end.”

  They were awakened later
by Martinez touching them on the shoulder. He had the good sense to stay off to one side as he did so. Men who are keyed up for a mission have a nasty habit of coming up swinging punches when awakened suddenly. The rest of the SEAL team was moving around quietly getting their equipment together and rechecking their weapons. Jim watched with a practiced eye. These were professionals to a man and he was glad to be part of such a team for this operation.

  They assembled inside the hangar door and Wallace, the imposing African-American team leader, who had still not mentioned his own name, said, “OK. Everyone ready? Everyone clear on their task?” He paused to check that he got the right answer from all of them. “Let’s go and do business.”

  They trooped out through the small door in the front of the hangar and automatically moved into their groups. As Martinez was leading them toward their Chinook Jim moved alongside Andrei.

  He touched him on the arm. “You’re quiet. Are you certain you want to do this?”

  Andrei stopped and turned toward him, waiting until the other three were a few paces off and then spoke quietly. “Major, I thank you for your concern, but you do not understand what a monster Romanov is. I have told you little of him, but there is much blood on his hands and the misery of others gives him pleasure. I have been brought along as a part of a magnanimous gesture by the Americans who will let me arrest him. But I have to tell you that, if there is a chance for me, he will not be getting arrested this night.”

  Jim looked at the Russian’s face and saw that he was calm and quite serious. He would not want to be Romanov if this man caught up with him alone. They walked to the rear of the helicopter and found the three others in their team already buckling themselves in to the canvas seats along the side of the fuselage. They climbed past the inflated rubber boat and took their seats.

  Martinez pointed to a young soldier sitting opposite him and said, “This is our boat driver. He will deliver us to the beach and then wait offshore in case it all turns bad and we need to get the hell out of there.”

  The man nodded to them, but did not speak.

  The helicopter crewman checked that they were properly belted in and then threw the switch that closed up the rear ramp. He spoke into the boom microphone of his helmet and the engines started. The rotors engaged and spun up, rocking the aircraft to start with, then settling down to give a steady uncomfortable vibration. The crewman doused all the cabin lights, explaining that it was to allow their night vision to develop before they had to disembark. Jim checked his watch, ninety minutes until they were supposed to be at the launch point. He had no idea what speed they were traveling so could not estimate distance. He settled down into his seat and tried to relax as much as possible. He must have slept because the next thing he knew Ivan was nudging him awake.

  The crewman was back and was about to climb past them to the ramp control. Martinez signaled them to put on their helmets, but to keep the night vision goggles up. The helmsman stood and gestured for them to climb into the inflatable boat, which seemed a little strange while still inside the aircraft. The Americans had been extremely efficient this far so Jim assumed he knew what he was doing and shrugging, he climbed in. Once they were aboard and hanging on to the grab handles around the inflated side tanks, the helmsman climbed in and positioned himself by the outboard motor.

  They felt the aircraft hit the water remarkably gently, then the ramp was down and the boat was being propelled out of the helicopter and onto the calm surface of the sea. There was a strong downdraft as the helicopter lifted away. Jim was watching it leave when he realized that the outboard engine had been lowered into the water and started. They were moving forward with virtually no sound. The extra sound dampening was very effective. The three black boats moved together to allow Wallace, the team leader, to see that they were all ready to go. In the starlight they could dimly see his arm wave as the signal to move toward the objective. The boats split up and moved rapidly apart.

  Martinez instructed them to lower the night vision goggles into place and turn them on. The other two boats were suddenly visible again as bright green shapes moving across a pale green ocean. There was a slightly brighter shine from the outboard engine but even the heat signature had been damped. Jim could see no sign of the island they were approaching. That was good; they had been dropped far enough away so the helicopters would not have alerted anyone on shore. Within a few minutes the trees and higher ground of the island started to rise over the horizon. The helmsman slowed the boat to allow the third boat that was to come in from the far side of the island, to get ahead of them. The second boat was keeping pace with them about four hundred meters away.

  The island was becoming clearer as they approached. They could see the heat signature of the main house and the outbuildings. Soon they could see the trawler. The motor yacht that Romanov had been traveling on was missing from the pier. The boat running alongside them had the task of subduing the two vessels. With one ship missing their job should be a little easier.

  Jim spotted the sandy bay, which his group was supposed to land in, a little left of the pier. Above it the land rose and the launch ramp should be just over the low ridge. He heard the two quick clicks through his radio headset. Boat three was in position on the far side of the small island. The helmsman on his boat and the one on the second boat had evidently heard it as well as the two boats accelerated toward their goal. As they neared the shore they slowed to what felt like half speed and the five men gathered their legs under them ready to jump clear of the boat. The helmsman stood in order to look down through the clear water to judge the depth. When Ivan looked over the side he saw that the bottom was shelving upwards quickly as they got close to shore.

  A quiet word from the back of the boat, “OK. Go now!” and they slipped over the side holding their weapons high.

  The helmsman had judged well and the water came halfway up their thighs, keeping all their equipment dry. As they waded slowly ashore the boat slid back into the darkness and out to sea. As the water got shallower they spread out to make a more difficult target. They did not pause at the edge of the water, but walked forward across the sand to the tideline at the back of the white beach. The land climbed up away from the beach and was studded with a few palm trees and bushes. Fairly open going, but enough to give them cover from watching eyes if they needed it. The night vision glasses showed no sign of any guards in their area and they continued to move forwards, keeping a watch all around them as they went.

  Chapter 40

  The black boat with its silent warriors coasted alongside the converted trawler moored to the jetty. To reduce risk just two of these modern day Ninjas slipped over the side of the boat at the low point where the fishing nets used to be hauled in. One shadow went forward and one aft. They assumed that there would be some sort of guard or anchor watch on deck even in the safe haven of the island. They were right.

  At the aft end of the trawler the guard was sitting with his chair leaned back against the deck house wall, with his M-4 rifle across his thighs. He had been staring out to sea for the last hour or so, but nothing had attracted his attention and his eyes had drooped closed as he drifted into a fantasy about how he would spend his share of the proceeds from New York. His eye shot open as the cold, hard muzzle of the silenced MP5 touched his temple. The rest of his body was frozen into immobility as he hardly dared to breathe. A hand reached to the back of his neck and slowly eased him and his chair forward so that it sat on the deck on all four legs. The hard pressure on his temple never varied. He became aware of another shadow to his left as he was lifted almost gently to his feet. The weight of his rifle disappeared from his legs and his arms were drawn behind him. His wrists were fastened with plastic restraints that bit into his skin. A gag was placed across his mouth and his ankles were secured. The barrel of the weapon left his temple and he was lowered carefully face down to the deck.

  A whisper from one of the shadows said, “Do you speak English?” He nodded. “Then understand this. On
e sound from you, of any kind and your life ends on this deck. Do you need me to repeat that?”

  He shook his head quickly. He did not know who these silent figures were, but he knew that he was not being paid enough to be a hero.

  The remaining members of the team in the boat heard the two clicks in their headsets and rose from their black and silent boat, over the side of the trawler. The rigid inflatable boat slid away from the side of the larger ship and moved off into the moonless night. The six men on the trawler’s deck split into two groups and each went to one of the entrances to the lower deck areas. The three who entered through the bridge came to the crew’s quarters first. They worked quickly and efficiently, securing each man in his bunk without a sound. They then turned their attention forward.

  The group who had entered through the forward companionway came to the two larger crew cabins. They checked both. There were too many people in an open area to risk securing them one at a time. One mistake causing a single sound, and they could have a large number of alarmed and angry, armed men on their hands. They waited for the aft group to join them, then split again to port and starboard. At the sound of the double click in their headsets, the doors to both accommodation cabins were opened slowly and a sedative gas grenade placed carefully inside. The two groups stood in the passageway outside the large cabins listening for any sound from inside. There was silence.