Secret Justice

by James W. Huston

  St. James responded. “I’d send airplanes with antisurface missiles, or get the submarine up there, and sink it now.”

  Stuntz frowned. “And cause a nuclear-size explosion full of radioactivity fifty miles off the coast of Virginia? If the wind is from the east you’ll radiate the entire Eastern seaboard!”

  “Not if we do it now, while he’s a hundred miles out. We have to take the chance. To let it get any closer simply means we’re increasing the risk of something worse happening. He’s taking this ship somewhere, near something, and setting it off. If he gets near the Chesapeake, he could set it off at any time. If he gets to a city it’s just gravy. I say get the submarine or an airplane to sink it.”

  President Kendrick looked at Admiral Robinson. “Could the submarine sink the LNG ship?”

  “Yes, of course. Assuming we can identify it clearly. He has Mark 48 torpedoes, which would sink it easily. But he would have to catch up with it first.”

  Stewart Woods cleared his throat. “Would that set off the gas? Would it blow the ship up and spread the radiation?”

  “That torpedo is intended to open a ship up like a can opener. I’ve got to assume that all the natural gas would go. I kind of doubt it would blow up, but it would burn until the ship went down. It would go down pretty quick, especially if he put four fish into her side.”

  “Would that put the submarine at risk from the explosion or radiation?”

  “Not really. I wouldn’t be concerned about the submarine, but with twenty-four nuclear-tipped ICBMs of its own, we’d have to be sure first. I’d want to talk to some people.”

  “I think our course is pretty clear, Mr. President,” Stuntz said.

  Kendrick looked at Stuntz with impatience. “And what might that be?”

  “The first thing we have to do is find the ship. I think we’ve established here that it could be at the mouth of the Chesapeake before daylight. That means we have to identify it at night. Our ships and airplanes are doing their best to accomplish that, and with a few Coast Guard ships out there, we ought to be able to check every ship coming into the Chesapeake. Let’s make this hard for him if he decides to come into the bay. We ought to get every tug that’s available to be ready to drive him onto a sandbar if he shows up. Then I still think we can stop the ship without blowing it up or killing a bunch of Japanese hostages. We either run it aground, or send our Special Forces, or both.”

  St. James reacted. “We can’t do it like that. If we run this thing aground in the mouth of the Chesapeake, he’ll set it off and radiate the entire southern Chesapeake Bay for years to come. It might even cause the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to cave in, and it could radiate all of Norfolk. We can’t take that risk. We have to get to him before he gets into the mouth of the bay.”

  Kendrick sat down and leaned back in his chair. He put two fingers to his mouth and considered his options. “If we sent in Special Forces, who would it be?” he asked Stuntz.

  Stuntz glanced at Admiral Robinson for confirmation and answered Kendrick. “I think it would be Dev Group. They’re very close. They’re based in Little Creek, right at the tip of Virginia at the mouth of the Chesapeake.”

  The admiral nodded.

  St. James jumped in. “We should use Lieutenant Rathman.”

  Stuntz nearly choked. “Why in the hell would we want to use him? Isn’t he still in trial as a criminal defendant?”

  “He was assigned to Dev Group before he went to the CIA. And he’s not a criminal. He knows more about Wahamed Duar than anyone. He’s the one who tracked them into Georgia, into the Pankisi gorge, he’s the one who figured out that it was probably Duar who took the radioactive cores from the Russian power generators, he’s the one who tried to stop the ship through the Dardanelles. He briefed us. And yet all this time we’ve been prosecuting him—don’t get me started on that again.”

  “Where is that prosecution now?” President Kendrick asked.

  “The jury is out.” St. James replied with a touch of spite.

  “So we’re going to ask this guy to save the East Coast at the same time we’re asking a jury to put him in prison?” Kendrick asked.

  “Yes, sir,” St. James said.

  Kendrick was skeptical. “Does anyone agree that it should be Rathman either with his CIA people or with Dev Group?”

  “Hell no,” Stuntz said. “That guy is a criminal. He’s probably going to be convicted. Is that the guy that we want leading this operation? Why would anyone think we don’t have other men who can do as good a job as Rathman?”

  “Because he is the best, and everybody knows it. Ask Admiral Robinson. Ask Stewart,” she added. “Who would they send?”

  Stuntz asked Robinson, “How long would it take Dev Group to get ready?”

  Robinson replied, “They’re always on standby. They’re all on beepers and can be ready to go in minutes. I’m quite sure that the officers currently assigned to Dev Group can do a fine job.”

  “There you are,” Stuntz said triumphantly. “Let’s get them activated. Get them ready to go. Soon as we locate the ship, they can hit it. The farther out, the better.”

  President Kendrick looked at St. James, then responded. “It should be Dev Group. And I think Rathman should lead it. He knows this Duar character. He knows how he thinks, and he’s the one who dropped down on him in Sudan. And he’s the one who failed to get him last time. Let him fix it. Let him finish the job.” He turned to the admiral. “How should they do it?”

  “We’ll activate them right away. Somebody needs to get ahold of Rathman. We’ll need to get a jet to fly him down to Little Creek immediately. I want him and the others from Dev Group on a helicopter ready to go right now. As soon as we locate the ship, we can vector them in. Going at night will actually be to our advantage.”

  Chapter

  26

  One of Duar’s men, who had cut his hair so short that he looked almost bald, held a large handgun to the head of the Japanese captain. They stood in the radio room of the Sea Dragon, heading east as fast as the ship would go. The Galli Maru, the LNG ship, was twenty miles behind them heading west at the same speed.

  He pointed to the transmitter button and nodded. The Japanese radioman looked at his captain with the gun against his head and pressed the button. He spoke as he had been instructed, in a loud whisper. “This is Ichiro Tanaka, radioman of the Galli Maru. We have been boarded by terrorists, and are being taken out to sea. They have killed two of the crew and threaten the rest of us. I heard them telling our captain that they are to rendezvous with another ship somewhere to the east, tonight. Our current position is latitude thirty-two degrees fifty minutes North, longitude seventy-four degrees twelve minutes West. I do not think I will be able to transmit—”

  Duar’s man pulled Tanaka’s hand off the transmitter. “Good.” He put the handgun to Tanaka’s chest. Tanaka looked up at him in disbelief. He had done exactly as he had been asked. The handgun looked large and menacing and he could feel the coldness of the steel through his shirt. Duar’s man pressed the gun hard against his chest. He hesitated. “Maybe we will need you on the radio again. Come with me.”

  * * *

  Rat found himself drifting off on his comfortable couch. He knew it was rude, and he knew that Andrea would be angry, but he couldn’t help it. The trial had been more exhausting than he had expected. The idea that a few jurors stood between him and a decade in prison—or fleeing the country—was enough to cause him to lose sleep, lose confidence in himself, and question everything. He had his arm around Andrea, who seemed to be pondering the meaning of life. They hadn’t spoken in fifteen minutes.

  They had spoken about the trial at length and about the possible outcomes. He had told her of his tentative plan to be out of the country when the verdict came in. She reminded him that Skyles had told him he had to be there when they read the verdict. So if he was convicted they could put him in confinement immediately. They didn’t give criminal defendants out on bail a chance to call i
n and find out what their verdict was so they could run for it before going to prison. He had not wanted to remember that and tried to think of some way to have an escape route if he was convicted. Nothing had come to him yet.

  But Andrea went on. She thought he should have more confidence in the jury. He told her he had no confidence in the jury or the legal system. The whole thing felt rigged. He didn’t want any part of any of it. He had soured on the government at the highest level.

  Rat knew he wouldn’t get much sleep again, but he needed to start trying. He started to sit up when he heard a knock on the door.

  His body was immediately flushed with adrenaline. Nobody ever knocked on his door after midnight other than Andrea.

  Andrea was as surprised as he was. She stood slowly as he jumped over the coffee table and rushed to his peephole. She began to say something but he put up his hand for her to be quiet. He looked through the lens and saw a man in a Navy uniform. “Who is it?”

  “Lieutenant Peter Cole. CNO’s office.”

  Rat opened the door. “What’s up?”

  “May I come in?”

  Rat looked at him carefully. “What’s this about?”

  Cole looked at Andrea and evaluated how much he could say. “There’s an op on. You’re the lead.”

  Rat frowned. “Why didn’t the Agency page me?”

  “It’s not an agency op. It’s Dev Group.”

  “When?”

  “Right now. I’m to escort you to Andrews. There’s a C-9 waiting. They’re to fly you to NAS Norfolk. Dev Group will be waiting for you there.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Andrea said.

  Lieutenant Cole shook his head. “I’m instructed only to get Lieutenant Rathman.”

  Rat shook his head. “The C-9 is huge. It could carry everybody I know. She can come.”

  “No, sir. She can’t. Just you, and the others on your team who are going.”

  Rat nodded. “Then let’s go.”

  The lieutenant reached inside his coat and handed a cell phone to Rat. “The CO of Dev Group wants to talk to you on the way. He already has a plan, but wants to discuss it with you.”

  “Thanks,” Rat said, taking the phone. “What’s the target?”

  “Your good friend Wahamed Duar. They think they’ve found him. He’s taken an LNG ship.”

  “Holy shit,” Rat said. “Where?”

  “Off Virginia.”

  Rat’s anger grew; he dialed the number from memory as they walked quickly out toward the black government sedan. A driver was holding the door for them. Rat stopped before getting in. He asked Cole, “What about getting Groomer and Robby? And Banger?”

  “Yes, sir. All three.”

  “Let’s pick them up.”

  “They’re being picked up separately, sir.”

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  * * *

  The Navy C-9 taxied to the end of the runway in the darkness at Andrews Air Force Base, turned onto the runway, and kept rolling as the pilot went to full power. As the four passengers settled in on the large passenger jet, empty except for Rat, Robby, Banger, Groomer, and the flight crew, the C-9 rotated and climbed rapidly into the sky. Rat pulled out the cell phone he had been given and pressed the redial button.

  Rat put the phone to his ear and listened to the ring. A petty officer, a member of the air crew dressed in a blue jumpsuit, caught Rat’s eye and told him to turn off the cell phone. He couldn’t use it on the airplane—it was a violation of FAA regulations. Rat frowned and ignored him as the Dev Group CO answered the phone.

  “Commander Frickey.”

  Ted Frickey, Tick as he was known, was widely respected in the Special Operations world. He had been a Navy SEAL for fifteen years and had been on innumerable operations that the Special Operations community—and few others—knew about. He had taken over as the Commanding Officer of Dev Group when Rat was there, before Rat left to go to the SAS. Rat liked him immensely. He had a dry sense of humor and loved to kid people with a total deadpan look on his face. Rat liked the way Frickey’s mind worked. He thought out an operation with extreme thoroughness. Rat modeled his own operation planning after Ted Frickey’s.

  “Skipper, Rat.”

  “Rat. Good to hear from you. Where are you?”

  “Just took off from Andrews.”

  “What’s your ETA to Norfolk?”

  He glanced at his digital watch, which illuminated with a flick of his wrist. “Fifty-four minutes from now. They’re authorized to burn as much gas as it takes to get me there at their maximum speed.”

  “What big shot do you know high up in the government who thinks you’re special? We could do this without you. They must know you’re just an average SEAL.”

  “Wasn’t my idea. And whatever friends I thought I had in the government must not be big enough shots to keep me from getting tried for manslaughter.”

  “You’d probably rather stay in Washington and sweat some jury’s decision than go out and kick some terrorist’s ass.”

  “You got me there.”

  “Listen. Here’s the plan, but I want your input. Intel just reported that we intercepted a Japanese radio operator transmitting that their hijackers were taking them east at twenty knots. He gave his name, and his voice has been authenticated by the Japanese shipping company. Needless to say the ship owners have been sweating bullets ever since we notified them. The radio operator was cut off before he could finish his transmission. We got a good location on them though, and have the ship on radar. He said they’re heading east to rendezvous with another ship. There are lots of ships out there, and we have no idea which ship they’re going to rendezvous with. It does take some of the pressure off though, ‘cause they’re not heading toward the Chesapeake.”

  Rat frowned. It seemed completely inconsistent with what he had expected Duar to do. Duar must know that they would be on to him by now. They would locate his ship and try to stop him. It seemed extremely strange for him to head east into the Atlantic where he was no danger to anyone. And very much out of character to let some radioman have access to a radio, even for one minute, to disclose their location. “What’s the plan?”

  “We’re going to take the ship down. There has been a lot of consideration of just sinking the ship, or blowing it out of the water, but they think there are at least fifteen or twenty Japanese crew still on board who would be killed. Somebody from our side told the Japanese shipping company about the plan to sink it and they told the Japanese government, which immediately accused the United States of not caring about Japanese lives. They of course reminded us of the fishing vessel off the coast of Hawaii that was sunk by a U.S. submarine in an accident a couple of years ago—remember that?”

  “Sure.”

  “You knew we’d hear about that again. Anyway, they said if we think that their protests about the sinking of their fishing boat were loud, we haven’t heard anything if this liquefied natural gas ship is sunk and Japanese sailors are killed in the process. It would be hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, and lives that should have been saved just because we were too lazy to come up with a better way to do it.”

  “Great.”

  “Anyway, Washington wants us to take the ship down, with the objective of saving the Japanese sailors and not losing the cargo.”

  “Oh sure. No problem.”

  “We’ve got your gear ready. Soon as you get to Norfolk there’ll be a Pave Low helo waiting. They’ll fly you straight to here and the rest of the team will load up. I picked all men that you know. You and the he-licopter crew will be prepped with night vision, weapons ready to go, and you’ll fly right out to the ship. We’ve got a good position on her heading east, and you should get out there in less than an hour.”

  “Sir, did they tell you Groomer, Banger, and Robby are coming with me?”

  “Yeah. No problem. We’ll be ready for them too.”

  “Good.”

  “Rat, I heard all about the op in Sudan. Too bad you snag
ged his double. Don’t miss him this time. Bring him back alive if you can—I know a lot of people who want to ask him some questions.”

  “I’d like to ask him a few questions myself, but I’d probably get charged with something if I did.”

  “Get your ass down here. We’ve got to get out there right now.”

  * * *

  Duar and his men bent over the diagram of the Galli Maru. He thought he knew where to place the radioactive cores, but wanted to be sure. If he put them inside the hull, the radioactivity might not spread during the explosion. If he put them too high, for example, in the superstructure, the cylinders might not be breached in the explosion and the core containers would just be thrown a great distance for no purpose. He concluded they had to be on the main deck, outside.

  Two men on the corner of the bridge illuminated the diagram of the Galli Maru with a small flashlight. In addition to the bridge lights, Duar had extinguished the running lights, the floodlights, the interior lights, which might shine through portholes in the crew quarters, and anything else that would allow them to be seen by another ship. He had also turned off the radar, the radio, and anything else that might send out a recognizable electronic signal. He relied only on the ship’s passive GPS system to establish their position; he had even brought his own sophisticated GPS receiver to double-check that of the ship. He was confident of their position to within ten meters.

  Duar joined the two men hovering over the diagram and reviewed the explosive placement again. He marked on the charts the proper placement for the incendiary bombs to be located underneath the tanks holding the liquefied natural gas. The bombs would go off and burn magnesium at astonishingly high temperatures, but wouldn’t explode. They would heat the tanks holding the liquefied gas until the pressure inside the tanks was intolerable. The safety valves would be disabled and the pressure would continue to build until the explosive devices were triggered, rupturing the tanks and sparking the gas. It would cause the very thing all the LNG ship owners said couldn’t happen—a BLEVE—Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. It was the worst thing that could happen to liquefied natural gas, and would produce an explosion bigger than any other man-made nonnuclear explosion in the history of the world.