The Delta Solution

by Patrick Robinson

  Tanigaki would be wiring his $2.5 million in one hour when his bank opened. At which point Jerry Jackson would have the whole $10 million safely deposited—but 8,000 miles from the action. He’d heard about the ransom money for the Queen Beatrix, and he knew the transaction had been put together by Barclays Bank International via Nairobi.

  Athena had always banked with JP Morgan and had no doubt that their friends there could organize the transfer of funds to Barclays. The problem was, he needed to have the cash bagged up and flown out to the ship.

  And while he thought the bagging would not be a difficulty, he had not the slightest idea how to get hold of an aircraft with a sufficiently long range to make the flight. Or where the money should originate. There were Barclays locations everywhere, but Jerry was not keen on doing business in Africa.

  There was a large, illuminated map of the Middle East in the Athena operations room, and Jerry stood staring at it, looking for a friendly port of call. He wrote off Africa, south of the Blue Nile. And north as well, for that matter.

  He wanted somewhere relatively close, which more or less ruled out Europe, and after some study he decided the answer was the hugely wealthy United Arab Emirates. In particular he liked the trading port of Dubai, where Athena conducted a lot of business.

  For Jerry, Dubai had significant advantages. Barclays Bank sponsored the important Dubai International Tennis Championship. So Jerry knew for certain that they must have a major banking operation in the ruling Maktoum family’s glittering city. He also knew they had a substantial air force, and Jerry understood the cash to the Mustang would need to be flown out in a military aircraft. The bizarre prospect of a bunch of air stewardesses trying to heave 10 million bucks out of an aircraft door flying over a gas tanker was out of the question.

  This was, in all but name, a military operation. The cash needed to be dropped by people who knew precisely what they were doing. Jerry sent an e-mail to his clients in Dubai, the biggest seaport in the Middle East, asking for urgent help. He knew it was probably three o’clock in the morning in the emirates and did not expect a reply right away.

  But he got one. The night duty officer in Dubai’s global seaport corporation, DP World, was at his post and sensed that the tone of the e-mail bordered on desperation. He immediately picked up the phone and called Jerry Jackson in New York.

  The two men talked for ten minutes, and the night officer promised to call the sheikh in four hours when he would be awake and inform him of the problem. Meanwhile, he would insure that the air force had a Hercules on standby to make the drop that evening.

  Jerry called Athena’s bankers on the night-line for major international clients, and ten minutes later an officer from Barclays International called back. They could arrange for a cash sum of 10 million dollars to be available at Barclays’ downtown branch on Dubai’s Sheikh Zayed Road any time after 3:00 p.m.

  Jerry called back the seaport officer who was in touch with the UAE Air Force. He assured the Athena boss that an air marshal, a senior member of the Maktoum family, would stand guard at the bank while the cash was prepared. And then supervise its transfer to the Dubai International Airport and the loading on to the aircraft.

  The Hercules, crewed by two air force colonels and their staff, would fly south across the Rub’ al-Khali, the vast “Empty Quarter” of the Arabian Peninsula. They would cross the Gulf of Aden and land at the US base in Djibouti to refuel. The aircraft would then set off on its eight-hundred-mile journey to the Mustang with full tanks.

  The plan was to leave at 11:00 p.m. and arrive in the drop zone a little more than two hours later. The officer added that he very much doubted there would be any charge for the operation since he was perfectly certain Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and his brother Hamdan would wish to extend the hand of friendship to help rescue this enormous American cargo ship in its hour of need.

  Jerry Jackson had not informed any of the US security agencies about the kidnap of the Global Mustang. As the agent, he did not feel that Athena should step in and start handing out information. That should be the responsibility of the ship’s owner, Bob Heseltine.

  He called the Texan back and was quite surprised to learn that Heseltine had already contacted his Houston buddy General Hack Ryecart in the Pentagon and informed him of what was going on.

  According to Bob, General Ryecart had gone to see the chief of naval operations and gained an assurance that at least one US warship would be deployed to the area around the Mustang, mostly to insure that the crew was protected.

  There was, however, the massive problem of the bombs placed under the gas tanks. The US Navy felt completely powerless under these circumstances. Certainly they could not attack the ship or the pirates. The most they could do would be to sail out to the datum and park there, glowering at the group of savages, try to keep them in line, and make sure they evacuated the ship the instant the cash was dropped.

  One of the warships, probably the destroyer Chaffee, would let them know that if the Mustang went up in flames, there was absolutely no possibility that any of the Somali pirates would get out alive. All three of their boats would be sunk by US Navy guns.

  Peter Kilimo, with a couple of colleagues, was working late in the Athena operations center. He had picked up on some of Jerry Jackson’s conversations. And to say his blood had run cold would have been an understatement. Peter’s blood was around the same temperature as the gas tanks on the Mustang: −160ºC.

  He knew what he’d done; knew how he’d betrayed the precise course and position of the LNG carrier; and he understood that he’d done it knowingly, fully aware of the likely effect his actions would have on his own firm. Peter was not proud of this activity.

  The ransom would run into the millions, and Athena would obviously have to share some of the enormous cost. And all to give him, Peter, an extra $20,000 this month. He tried to rationalize it but couldn’t. He felt an entirely new chill of stark and awful dread when he heard Jerry Jackson yell to a secretary to connect him to the CIA.

  At that point, the boss walked over and closed his office door. Moments later, Jerry was connected to the chief of the investigation, the senior of the two CIA men who had visited him a couple of weeks ago.

  The agent had not yet heard about the Mustang; in fact, he did not think anyone at Langley had yet been informed that a major American cargo ship was being held by Somali pirates with the crew still on board and obviously in very grave danger.

  “I guess it will come out sooner or later,” said Jerry.

  “It will come out tonight,” said the government agent. “By the way, is there a complete record of its sailing and docking in your office?”

  “Hell, yes,” replied Jerry. “We’re the agents, shipping, sales, and loading . . . the Mustang’s complete details are all in here. The owner’s an old and trusted customer of ours.”

  “And how about that old and trusted employee of yours, Peter Kilimo?” he said. “Would he have been party to this information?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, that really narrows it down. Because someone told the Somali pirates exactly where to find that ship. And if it wasn’t you, it must have been him. He’s part of it. Jerry, you got a pirate on your staff.”

  CHAPTER 10

  BOB BIRMINGHAM, DEEP IN THE CIA OFFICES IN LANGLEY, COULD not believe what he was hearing. It was as if he were addressing someone who did not speak a word of English.

  He hung up the telephone and asked someone to connect him to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Zack Lancaster. He then informed the most senior serving officer in the United States armed forces that a gang of Somali pirates had captured a fully laden American-owned LNG tanker bound for Tokyo and was holding the ship and its crew hostage for $10 million.

  “Worse yet,” said Bob, “she’s sailing under an American flag, crewed by senior American officers. Even worse, the ship’s owners have agreed to pay the money.”

  Like Bob, General Lancas
ter could not believe it either. “Any idea why they agreed to pay so quickly?” he asked.

  “The pirates have placed loaded dynamite charges under each one of the four holding tanks. Apparently they took the captain down to see them—big bombs, all on a remote control.”

  “Lousy timing from our point of view. Delta Platoon’s only about three days away from deployment to Djibouti.”

  “Could they go early?”

  “Well, I suppose they could rush out there. But then what? If the pirate bombs are correctly placed, that ship is the touch of a goddamned button away from extinction.”

  “Kinda ties your hands,” replied the CIA director.

  “Sure does. If your enemy is ruthless enough. We assume their leader means what he says?”

  “Zack, these guys boarded a huge ship, climbed up the hull on ropes and grapplers, took the entire crew prisoner, set their four bombs, blew the door off the control room with a heavy machine gun, and then phoned the three principal executives at their homes asking for 10 million bucks.”

  “Bobby, that sounds to me a lot like guys who mean precisely what they say.”

  “I thought so. Right now I’m still gathering data. I’ve got a lot of people on it. Can I suggest a meeting at your place in, say, a couple of hours? We better call in Ramshawe and Mark Bradfield, right? Even if we are powerless to do anything.”

  “I’ll get people assembled. But Jesus,” said the general, “it’s just so goddamned frustrating.”

  “I’ll bring the case officer, Karl Ryland. He’s been investigating the information leaks from the shipping companies. Right now he’s our best source.”

  TWO HOURS LATER, a small group of the most exasperated men in Washington assembled in the chairman’s private conference room on the second floor of the Pentagon. General Zack Lancaster looked several degrees more exasperated than the rest of them put together.

  “I’ve said it before, and I’m darned certain to say it again,” he began, “but this pirate bullshit has to stop. Somebody has to do something.”

  “In this latest case,” said Bob Birmingham, “we are slightly hampered by the fact that the friggin’ pirates have placed four enormous dynamite charges under each of the holding tanks in the LNG carrier.”

  “It seems to me,” said the general, “that we have also lost our major card: that we do not negotiate with terrorists. When we paid up for the Beatrix, we sent a signal that if push comes to shove, we will negotiate like every other sonofabitch. I know we were all aware of it, and I know we did it reluctantly, but we still did it. And when something like this latest bullshit happens, you can’t help thinking that we should have let that first ship go. Because now they think they have us by the shorts.”

  Bob Birmingham asked how far advanced the Delta Platoon was, and Admiral Mark Bradfield told him that so far as he knew they were three days from deployment to Djibouti. But, he added, it would hardly matter if they were already there. Since the ship was dynamited, and the US did not have a warship within several hundred miles of the datum, there was little they could do.

  “Anyone makes a move, I guess they’ll just blow the damn thing,” said the general. “What a goddamned mess this is.”

  “It’s the wrong ship, at the wrong time,” said Mark Bradfield. “They’ve chosen a vessel that will go up like an atom bomb, and they’ve done it within days of our being ready to attack.”

  Bob Birmingham then introduced Karl Ryland, who had been working on the US end ever since the Queen Beatrix had been seized.

  “Gentlemen,” said Karl, “it will not have escaped you that these tribesmen from the least civilized nation in Africa show up with uncanny accuracy, hundreds of miles from shore in the middle of nowhere and immediately start calling the private numbers of the ship’s owners.

  “And that’s not all,” he went on. “For the second time in a month, the pirate chief went straight through to the private line of Constantine Livanos in Monte Carlo. And here’s the kicker: Livanos had changed his phone number after the Queen Beatrix, and this pirate guy had the new one! Sonofabitch was only three weeks old.”

  “This is unbelievable,” said Admiral Bradfield.

  “Only, sir,” said Ryland, “if you have difficulty with the obvious fact that these Somali villains have some kind of a network here in the US. Now I know the same guy filled them in about the Beatrix and the Mustang. Because the same shipping corporation, Athena, was involved with both of them.

  “But the Niagara Falls was betrayed right here in Washington, DC—almost certainly by a guy from USAID over there in the Reagan Building.”

  “Can we arrest them?” asked General Lancaster hopefully.

  “Not yet. I’ve located one of them. But he’s a very clever character. There is not one trace of a single phone call or e-mail from him to anyone in East Africa.”

  “Probably a go-between somewhere, and it could be anywhere,” said Bob.

  “I guess so,” replied Ryland. “But I have been in close contact with Jerry Jackson, the president of Athena Shipping. He’s the right-hand man to the Livanos family, and he’s been heavily involved with these latest negotiations.

  “Do you know that this pirate spoke to Heseltine, Tanigaki, and Livanos and suggested they each pay $2.5 million and that Athena, as the agents, should persuade the insurers, Lloyds of London, to pay the same, making a round total of $10 million? And that’s what they’re going to do.”

  “Well, the only American ship they took in three years was the one where the SEALs shot the pirates dead,” said General Lancaster. “And now, thanks to our new policy of paying them what they ask, they’ve hit three in a few weeks—that’s if you count the Niagara Falls, the tanker under charter to a New York shipping corporation. I guess we can look forward to more of the same.”

  “There’s one thing we do have to accept,” said Admiral Bradfield. “There are certain circumstances that make it impossible to do anything. And this is one of them.

  “The only fast way out to the Mustang is in a fixed-wing aircraft, and since we have no warship anywhere near her, the guys couldn’t get in. Not with the ship dynamited. Even now, there’s no point going out to her. You need the two prongs of your attack to dovetail—the cruising warship and the Delta guys out there fast.

  “That way you got a chance. But even then you need two helicopters, one big and one fast gunship. You can’t fly them out there. It’s too far. You gotta get them out there on the flight deck of a warship. And then you gotta get the guys out there in a major hurry. And if for any reason an air attack is not feasible, you gotta have fast rigid-deck inflatables ready to go. I’m telling you, we need all the luck and organization in the world to hit these Somalis.”

  “Tell you what,” said General Lancaster, “when we do catch up with them, and we do hit them, I want them to stay hit, okay?”

  “Roger that, boss,” said Mark Bradfield. “But if we’re going to take this seriously, I need to have some powerful hardware out there. Mack Bedford and his team will smash up any pirate attack, but we have to get them out there, and the distances are vast.”

  “Right at this minute, there is no greater priority,” said Zack Lancaster. “Because these fucking maniacs are inflicting not only defeat and financial pain; they’re also inflicting a worldwide humiliation on us.

  “How many fourth-rate banana republics do you think are out there laughing their balls off at us? The almighty Uncle Sam being given the goddamned runaround by a bunch of tribesmen.”

  “Not to mention the Russians and the Chinese,” said Simon Andre. “And I personally find that especially irritating. We’re making a few disapproving noises toward the Chinese and their aggressive moves all over Africa. And now they can smile at us with shit-eating grins.”

  “Listen,” Mark Bradfield said, “do you guys want me to station four warships out there, maybe a cruiser, coupla destroyers, and a frigate? Because there’s no other way to do it. Mack Bedford and his guys must have a platform�
��both to land and then to launch their attack.”

  “I don’t see a way around it,” said General Lancaster. “If we want to stop this crap, we need to put some real muscle behind it. Otherwise it’s going to drag on for months. I understand this Global Mustang bullshit is obviously impossible since the shipping guys are going to pay up right away. Anyone know how?”

  “Yessir,” said Karl Ryland. “This pirate has persuaded Heseltine, the owner, and Tokyo Electric Power to get the cash to Athena’s bank, JP Morgan, in New York. That’s a transaction they are both well accustomed to making.

  “The Athena owner, Livanos, has told the insurance company in London that if they don’t come up with their $2.5 million share, it will probably cost them several hundred million dollars if the pirates blow up the Mustang. Anyway they’re all agreed.”

  “How’re they moving the cash?” asked the general.

  “Through the Arab Emirates. Barclays Bank is consolidating the money in Dubai. Then it’s being flown out by the UAE Air Force, straight down to our base in Djibouti to refuel, then straight out to the ship for an ocean drop. They’ll be trying to put it right on the deck. It’s military all the way.”

  “What are the overheads?” asked Zack Lancaster. “Is Dubai asking an arm and a leg for their help?”

  “Quite the contrary,” replied Karl Ryland. “Sheikh Mohammed has been very generous, apparently charging nothing for the services of his Air Force. Says he’s glad to help a US tanker at this time. Gesture of friendship.”

  “Okay, I guess that just leaves us to wait for the next attack and to trust we have Mack Bedford’s platoon on station by the time it happens.”

  The general stood up and fiddled with the controls of the illuminated world map on the opposite wall. He zoomed in on the Indian Ocean and then zoomed in some more on the area between longitudes 56 and 66, from one degree latitude south of the equator to five north. “It looks as if the main pirate gangs, the big-ship guys, have settled on a new ops area,” he said. “Right inside this square.”