Shadows of War

by Robert Gandt

  A quick series of flashes from the attack boat.

  “They’re in the water,” said Abu. Akhmed was already throttling back, letting the boat decelerate in the choppy sea. “Find them quickly. They’re out there somewhere, close to us.”

  It took less than a minute. The two crewmen from the attack boat were no further than a hundred meters ahead, bobbing on the black water in their inflated vests, flashing the dim yellow beams of their survival lights. Akhmed idled the speedboat toward them, swinging the starboard bow around so that the pair could grab the rope ladder.

  Abu was glad they didn’t have to search for long. He had no scruples about leaving the two in the sea. Their usefulness was over, but it would be very bad if they were picked up by the Americans, who would soon be swarming over this piece of sea like birds of prey. The true identity of the attackers must remain a secret.

  While the two sailors were clambering up the rope ladder, Abu peered into the darkness after the attack boat. He could still hear the high-pitched growl of the diesel. Without the wind in his eyes, it was easier to keep the faint silhouette of the Bayou Queen in his vision.

  The crew of the tanker knew something was happening. Searchlights were sweeping the sea, looking for the target that had been detected on their radar. One of the lights found the fast-moving speedboat, holding it fixed in its beam. In the distance a voice boomed over a megaphone, demanding that the intruding boat turn about and keep its distance.

  While the two dripping-wet sailors flopped onto the forward deck, Akhmed shoved the throttles forward and swung the bow back toward the east. Abu looked back over the stern, through the spray of the boat’s wake. He saw all the searchlights on the tanker fixed now on the incoming boat. Sporadic orange flashes were twinkling from the deck of the tanker.

  Gunfire, Abu realized. Small arms, probably .30 caliber at the most. Too little and too late. It would take an armor-piercing round to penetrate the fortified hull of the speedboat where the two hundred kilos of high explosive were loaded.

  He wished he could hear the dialogue on the tanker’s bridge at this moment. The captain would be demanding to know what the hell was going on, receiving no clear answer. By now his gaze would be riveted on the specter of the boat that was bearing down on him like an avenging angel.

  Abu waited, counting the seconds. What happened to the boat? It should have impacted the tanker by now. In the inky blackness he could see only the vague shape of the Bayou Queen. Searchlights were still sweeping the surface. From the port deck came the continuous little orange blinks of gunfire.

  A pall of gloom fell over Abu. They had failed. Either the guns stopped the boat, or it missed its target altogether. After all the planning and risk, they had failed to—

  “Look!” cried Akhmed. “Allah has answered us.”

  So he had. An orange sphere of flame appeared on the waterline at the tanker’s bow. As the men on the speedboat stared in awe, the ball of fire swelled like an amorphous creature, engulfing the entire forward half of the tanker. The fireball mushroomed high into the night sky, bathing the sea in a shimmering orange light.

  Flaming debris spewed like Roman candles from the burning ship. The tower of flame gushing from the tanker’s hull lit the horizon as brightly as a new dawn. The stark silhouette of the stricken tanker was etched against rim of the sea.

  It took nearly twenty seconds for the loud whump of the explosion to reach them. A primal cheer erupted from the Sherji on the speedboat. Even Abu screamed in triumph. With the orange glow of the burning Bayou Queen shining in their faces, the men of his little unit had reason to cheer. After all the humiliation—the routs from Yemen and Afghanistan—they had managed to inflict real pain on the enemy.

  “Aircraft!” The hoarse sound of Akhmed’s voice cut through the cheering. He was hunched over his radar display. “They know where we are. Aircraft are coming after us.”

  The cheering abruptly stopped. Abu scrambled across the cockpit to peer into the radar scope. A little yellow blip winked back at him, moving on a steady track toward the escaping speedboat. Where was it coming from? A shore base or from a U.S. warship? A patrol plane or attack jet?

  It didn’t matter. He would deal with them.

  He swung to Omar, stationed on the upper front deck. “Ready the Igla battery,” he ordered.

  < >

  U.S. Navy fleet landing, Manama, Bahrain

  Some things never change.

  To Maxwell, the fleet landing in Bahrain looked like every other dock in every other port in the Middle East. Same row of sputtering taxis waiting to haul sailors to the city. Same gaggle of hawkers pushing carts filled with scarves and brassware and cheap jewelry. Same smell of oil and seaweed, the distant whiff of sewage.

  It was late afternoon and a cool breeze swept in off the gulf. The Reagan lay at anchor a mile out in the harbor. Like all hundred-thousand-ton U.S. Navy ships, the big carrier never tied up to a dock in the Middle East, not just because of its immense size but for other reasons.

  American warships had become the most coveted targets of terrorist organizations.

  As the senior officer on the boat, Maxwell was the first to step ashore. He was wearing his standard in-port liberty garb—khakis, blue knit shirt, deck shoes. In the bag was the blazer and cotton shirt he’d wear tonight. He set his faded canvas weekend duffel bag down and gazed around.

  She didn’t come. Oh, well, she was busy with network stuff, probably setting up a shoot.

  Not until he’d walked out to the street, about to hail a taxi, did he spot her. She was standing in the shade of the same towering palm where they’d met during his first cruise aboard the Reagan. Around her neck was the silk scarf he had bought for her in Dubai. She wore it like a talisman whenever she came to meet him after a long separation.

  She waved, and he picked up the bag and trotted across the street, dodging a honking taxi and a motorbike. He set the bag down and took her in his arms. He kissed her for what seemed like minutes but was, in fact, only thirty seconds. She held him tightly, her hands entwined behind his neck.

  When she came up for air, she looked at him. “Wow.”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “I had a cute little speech prepared. I forgot it.”

  He saved her the trouble of remembering by kissing her again. For the next minute Maxwell forgot about the war on terrorism and the USS Reagan and the thirteen Super Hornets of his squadron that were now lashed down on the hangar deck. None of it mattered. Not for three glorious days would any of it matter.

  He tried to remember how long it had been. Three months, a couple of weeks, and some days. They had last been together at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia, standing in a cold rain, wives and kids snuffling and waving little American flags, the pilots of his squadron looking grim before flying out to the Reagan which was already at sea, bound for Gibraltar and the Middle East and another confrontation with America’s enemies. Another farewell in what seemed like an endless litany of farewells.

  “Come back to me in one piece, Sam Maxwell,” Claire had said.

  And so he had, at least as far as Bahrain, where the Reagan was taking a week off from war. Claire had e-mailed him about her assignment to the Gulf. And yes, she would most definitely be in Bahrain when the Reagan came to town.

  “Where are we staying, Sam?”

  “The Al Hazra, a little hotel in Sitra. Off the beaten path.”

  “Will I have you all to myself?”

  “For three days.”

  “Three whole days,” she said, shaking her head. “We have to hurry, Sam. Life is short.”

  < >

  Northern Persian Gulf

  Skimming the sea at only a hundred feet, Lieutenant Jay Pfeiffer could see the choppy water through his night vision goggles as clearly as if it were daytime. The spectral glow of the blazing tanker was lighting up the Persian Gulf for a radius of at least fifty miles.

  Pfeiffer and his two crewmen were manning the ale
rt helo when the call came. The big Sikorsky SH-60R helicopter had been launched from its pad on the Aegis cruiser, USS Richmond, less than two minutes after the Bayou Queen reported being attacked.

  Attacked by what? Pfeiffer was still wondering. One of the several varieties of nutcase terrorists in the Middle East, he guessed. There were no reports that the Iranian Navy had gunships in the area. But it had to be some kind of small boat. Whose?

  This appeared to be the same stunt Al Qaeda pulled in Yemen against the French oil tanker Limburger. Somehow they were able to get in close enough with a boat full of explosives to light off a tanker full of crude oil.

  According to the Surface Watch aboard Richmond, two boats had been spotted. One was the bomber, and the other was now hauling ass back toward Iran. It was Pfeiffer’s job to catch him.

  “Wizard One-one, the target is confirmed hostile. You are weapons free, acknowledge.”

  “Wizard One-one copies weapons free.” He couldn’t keep the tension out of his voice. He had rehearsed this dialogue a dozen times in fleet exercises, but never had he received a no shit clearance to fire on an enemy.

  “Target bears zero-seven-zero, fourteen miles,” reported Lt. junior grade Jazz Mulligan, the ATO—Airborne Tactical Officer—from his station in the aft cabin. Mulligan was busy correlating the information that was being data linked from the Surface Warfare Commander aboard Richmond. “What are we gonna whack him with?”

  “We’ll shoot the 2.75 rockets to stop him in the water, then move in close with the M60 gun. We’re just supposed to cover him until a boarding party gets here from the Saipan. They want these guys alive, whoever they are.”

  Though the Seahawk was armed with the new AGM-119 Penguin ship killer missile, such a weapon was gross overkill against a small target like this one, which was probably some kind of fiberglass or wood-hulled speedboat. There’d be nothing left but an oil slick.

  The prospect of using the M60 machine gun caused Pfeiffer’s pulse rate to kick up another even higher. Damn, this was cool! There was nothing like the hard, visceral feeling you got from hosing a surface target with a machine gun.

  He had often regretted his decision back in flight training. He’d opted for helicopters instead of flying pointy-nosed jets off carriers. Then he learned the dismal truth: Fighter jocks were the only ones who ever saw real combat.

  Until now.

  “Ten miles, twelve o’clock,” reported the ATO.

  “I’m looking,” said Pfeiffer, peering through the NVG. “No visual ID yet.”

  Over his shoulder he glimpsed Buddy Jenkins, a second class petty officer and third member of the Seahawk crew, positioning himself in the door with the M60. Jenkins’s normal assignment was “Senso”— sensor operator—in charge of the helo’s submarine detection equipment. Pfeiffer felt a twinge of envy. Firing the gun was going to be the best part of the mission.

  Still, he was the guy who would shoot the 2.75s. The trouble with them was that they were folding fin rockets. After they left the launching tube, the little fins were supposed to extend and guide the rocket to where you aimed it. In Pfeiffer’s experience, they came out like a covey of quail, and accuracy was a matter of luck.

  There. Straight ahead, something on the surface, trailing a white ribbon of wake. The burning tanker was over twenty miles behind them, but the orange glow was reflecting off the fast-moving object. Pfeiffer could make out the shape of a boat. It was heading due east at something over thirty knots.

  Pfeiffer toggled his weapons display, selecting the 2.75 pod on the starboard pylon. He flipped the master armament switch on, then adjusted the reticules in the HUD gun sight. It wouldn’t take much to stop the boat. After one or two of the 2.75s ripped into them, the Iranian crew would go over the side. The trick was to not kill all of them.

  He could see the boat clearly now. It was about thirty feet in length, wide in the beam with a slick, tapered prow. Pfeiffer nudged the nose of the Seahawk off the inbound bearing a few degrees. He would make his attack from an oblique angle, rolling hard into the target, firing a couple of the rockets for effect, then let Jenkins pacify them with the M60.

  The fight would be over. All they would have to do then was—

  Something flashed from the deck of the boat. What the hell? Are the bastards shooting? If they were that crazy, he was going to give them a dose of—

  Armstrong’s voice crackled on the intercom. “Flares! They’ve got a missile in the air.”

  A wave of fear surged through Pfeiffer like an electric shock. Shit! He could see it—a reddish pinpoint of light, zigzagging like a goddamn bat. Coming at them. Why didn’t I use the Penguin missile?

  He stabbed the button for the flare dispenser. At the same time he threw the Seahawk into an evasive turn. In his peripheral vision he saw the luminous glow of the flares igniting behind the helicopter. Helicopters were easy targets for surface-to-air missiles.

  Dear God, make it go for the flares. That’s what flares are for, fooling heat seeker missiles into. . .

  The missile wasn’t fooled. The reddish point of light was swelling in intensity, pulling lead to intercept, zigzagging ever closer to a collision course with the Seahawk. Pfeiffer dumped the nose of the helicopter and reversed the turn. Make the missile overshoot.

  It wasn’t working. Pfeiffer watched the oncoming missile make its correction, then home in on the heat signature of the Seahawk’s port engine.

  For a long instant he had a view of the Igla through the windscreen, as if it were suspended in time. He glimpsed the control vanes that made the missile flit through the sky like a bat. He could even see the IR seeker head that guided it precisely to the heated-emitting turbine engine.

  Strange, he thought. He felt as if he were a detached witness to a calamity. The destruction of the Sikorsky helicopter seemed to be happening on a stage separate from him, playing in slow motion.

  It took, in fact, four seconds. The Igla missile detonated inside the compressor section of the port turbine engine, taking out the gear assembly and severing the rotor components. The front section of the Seahawk separated from the main fuselage. Alone in the cockpit, Pfeiffer watched the dark surface of the Persian Gulf whirl toward him.

  Chapter 8 — Recall

  Manama, Bahrain

  1945, Tuesday, 16 March

  A red-and-white checkered cloth covered their table. The flame of the yellow candle flickered on the table between them, casting dancing shadow’s on Claire’s face. From speakers hidden behind the curtains, Placido Domingo was hitting the high notes of the Nessen Durma, from Turandot. A half-empty ’96 Gevrey-Chambertin rested in its cradle.

  Coming to Cico’s had been her idea. If they were going to spend three whole days together, they would begin with a romantic dinner, which, in Bahrain, meant Cico’s. It was the undisputed best Italian cuisine in the Middle East.

  Darkness had descended over Manama, but it was still early evening. Only half the tables were filled. Officers from the Reagan wouldn’t start trickling in until later, after they’d made a sweep of the Hilton garden bar and the Gulf Hotel lounge and the downtown clubs.

  Maxwell didn’t want to see anyone from the air wing tonight. Or for the next three days. Life is short. Claire said it herself.

  She touched her glass to his. “To us, Sam.”

  “Just us? No one else?”

  He saw a cloud pass over her face, and wished he could take it back. It was the subject most on his mind—and the one that he promised himself he wouldn’t bring up. Her husband.

  He and Claire had fallen in love years ago when he was a lieutenant in test pilot school at Patuxent River, Maryland, and she was a fledgling reporter in Washington. For reasons neither of them understood—youth, ambition, geography—they separated. Each married someone else.

  Maxwell’s wife, an astronaut and cardiologist named Debbie Sutter, perished in a training accident one blazing afternoon at Cape Canaveral. Claire’s journalist husband, Chris Tyrwhitt, was a charm
ing and dissolute character who covered Iraq for an Australian news syndicate. He earned for himself the label “Baghdad Ben” for his pro-Saddam reporting.

  By the time Brick and Claire found each other again, she had already initiated divorce proceedings. Before the marriage was officially ended, though, she was informed that her husband had been killed in Iraq by army guards while he was trespassing in a forbidden area. Claire was a widow—and a free woman.

  She and Maxwell resumed their old romance. They spent all their free time together, and when the Reagan returned to the U.S., she transferred back to the Washington bureau so she could be close to him. They talked about getting married.

  And then their world was turned upside down. Chris Tyrwhitt returned from the dead, rolling like a flash flood back into their lives. He hadn’t died, and he wasn’t the dissolute journalist Claire thought him to be. He wasn’t really a pro-Saddam toady. It was possible that he might even be something of a hero.

  “I’m still married, if that’s what you mean.”

  He nodded. That was what he meant, but he knew better than to push it. “Sorry. I promise not to bring it up again.”

  She reached across the table and took his hand. “I don’t blame you for being impatient, Sam, but you can’t rush me. I need time to work it out.”

  He wrestled with his feelings, forcing himself to keep his mouth shut. Time? Was she divorcing Tyrwhitt or not? Or was she stringing them both along, not sure whom she preferred? The military officer in Maxwell resisted stalemates like this. Every conflict was supposed to have a resolution. Why wasn’t this one resolved? It was like the Korean war. These were questions he needed to ask.

  But not now. Tonight was their first together, and he didn’t intend to spoil it. He wanted to preserve in his memory the yellow candle flame playing on her face, showing off her freckles, making her eyes sparkle.

  Relax, Maxwell. He was a lucky man, he told himself. Sitting across from him was the woman he loved. If she needed time to sort out her life, then so be it. He would wait as long as it took.