Dangerous Grounds

by Don Keith

  Ward called out, “Outboard indicates ‘rigged out.’ I have control.”

  “Very well, on outboard,” Devlin ordered. The officer’s voice still sounded tentative, but some of the old assurance seemed to be slowly coming back.

  Ward pushed the control button and watched as the “energized” light blinked on. He said loudly, “Outboard indicates running.”

  Gradually the submarine started to move. Ward watched as the pit log, the boat’s speedometer, moved from zero up to two knots. That was as much as the outboard could do. It was designed to maneuver the boat in tight quarters or, in an emergency in which the huge, powerful main engines and screw were damaged, to slowly push them toward help or home.

  Ward glanced around the control room, his mind racing as he tried to think of any way to foil the terrorists and whatever their plan was. More of the crewmembers were slowly coming around and drifting back to their stations, shoved, pushed and prodded there by the black-clad terrorists. They seemed to be in a state of shock, not believing what the last few hours had brought them.

  Neil Campbell appeared at the ballast control panel. The young midshipman smiled wanly at Ward as he nursed a good-sized goose egg on his forehead.

  “Jim, what’s going on?” he whispered. “Who are these people?”

  Nurizam reached over and slapped Campbell hard with an open hand, bouncing his head off the ballast control panel.

  “Silence!” he screeched. “You will only speak when necessary, and then only to me. If you disobey, I will shoot you. Do you understand?”

  Campbell slowly sat upright, nursing a new knot on the back of his head, and nodded. Just then the forward escape trunk hatch indicator light switched from a green bull’s-eye to an amber bar. Campbell swallowed hard, blinked to clear his vision, and said, “Forward escape trunk upper hatch indicates open.”

  “Chief of the Boat and line handlers topside,” Devlin ordered over the 1MC.

  “Mister Ward, train the outboard to zero-three-zero relative.”

  Ward reached down and flipped the controller until the outboard showed that it was pushing Corpus Christi thirty degrees to the right of straight ahead.

  Bryan Hilliker stumbled into the control room, shoved by the terrorist that they had called Enrique. He almost fell to the deck, but caught himself on the stainless steel rail that circled part of the periscope stand.

  Ward breathed a sigh of relief. The last time he had seen the XO, Hilliker had been a lump lying on the deck. Ward was sure that the man was dead, but now he was here in the control room, very much alive.

  Devlin ordered, “XO, lay to the bridge and supervise tying up alongside that barge.”

  Hilliker nodded. It was obvious that he had no idea what the Captain was talking about. He walked over to the ladder and slowly, wearily climbed up, out of view.

  Erinque Tagaytai nodded to his leader then followed the submarine executive officer up the ladder into the blackness above.

  The sun was just peeking over the horizon to the east when Nurizam climbed to the bridge. The American submarine was tied up alongside the huge barge. Allah had indeed been generous in his munificence. The barge was stacked high with drilling equipment. Despite the daylight, it would be easy to hide the American submarine from prying eyes for a few hours. Already his men were tossing over cargo nets and equipment to disguise the sub’s shape. The long, low black form was disappearing under the derricks and scaffolding protruding out from the barge’s high deck. Soon they would be underway, just another innocent shipment of oil well drilling equipment bound for the Philippines.

  Up on the tug, standing dead in the water a hundred meters ahead of the barge, Nurizam could see a pair of his men as they tossed several heavy objects overboard, into the calm, oily sea. Nurizam smiled.

  The last members of the tug’s crew were on their way to the afterlife.

  27

  The sun seemed to broil the tarmac, the waves of heat rising up to turn the jet way into a steaming oven. Sweat trickled down Tom Kincaid’s back, soaking through his shirt as he made his way from the crowded jet into the blessed cool blast of air conditioning inside the concourse at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The huge glass and steel structure loomed above them, its rippling tent-like roof pulling in the bright sunshine.

  Benito Luna, cool and calm, seemingly unaffected by either the cloying humidity or the crowds, hurried to keep up as Kincaid used his fullback size and football moves to make his way forward. There wasn’t time to waste in airport lines if they were going to stay on the fresh drug trail through Malaysia. They were already more than twelve hours late. Any more time might leave the scent too cold to follow.

  Luna spotted the sign first, just before they got inside Malaysian Customs and Immigration. It was nothing unusual to anyone accustomed to traveling through airports anywhere in the world; a driver sent to pick up important guests was trying to locate his passengers. A short, stout middle-aged man of Oriental extraction was holding a sign and eyeing the crowd with just a little more than casual interest.

  Luna nudged Kincaid and murmured, “See the Chinaman? I think he’s a pro, looking for someone.”

  “You mean the one with the bulge under his armpit and the sign for Smythe?” Kincaid whispered back.

  “Yeah. He’s packing and showing just a little too much interest. I think he’s some kind of a cop.”

  Just the barest flicker of a grin crossed Kincaid’s face.

  “Benito, I’m glad to see that your powers of observation are still intact after what we’ve been through lately. I see that you have deduced that an armed driver on this side of Customs might just be official.”

  Kincaid walked right up to the man and told him, “I’m Smythe and this is Jones.”

  The driver smiled and signaled for them to follow as he headed for a small door off to the side. He ignored the sign that read, “No access. For official use only,” and walked right on through.

  Benito Luna shook his head and followed dutifully.

  Five minutes later, the three were inside the cool, black-leather confines of a Lexus, headed down the broad freeway, north toward Kuala Lumpur. The cop was aiming the limo through the traffic like a missile; roaring past slower traffic, missing fenders by millimeters. The rice paddies and palm groves were a blur of green. They roared through Pudu Raya, built in the nineties as the Silicon Valley for Southeast Asia, but now looking the worse for wear.

  Kincaid leaned forward and asked, “Sam, what we got so far?” Then, before the policeman could answer, Kincaid turned back to Luna. “Bennie, this is Sam Liu Chi. He is an inspector for the Malaysian Federal Police and works part-time for the JDIA. Sam is our man in Malaysia.”

  Sam smiled as he looked back over his shoulder at his two passengers. Benito Luna grabbed the seat back with both hands and yelped in terror. Sam Liu Chi yanked the wheel to the left and then back to the right, scooting around an ancient, rust-ridden Toyota pick-up truck, its rear deck stacked high with crates of chickens. The other driver honked angrily as the Lexus shot on by.

  “Tom, old friend. It’s good to see you,” Sam called out cheerfully. His voice was an odd mixture of Oxford snort and Malay lilt. “Who is this frightened mouse you brought along with you?”

  Luna bridled.

  “Frightened mouse, my ass. I just object to being needlessly sacrificed by some crazy Chinese cop with a lead foot.”

  Liu Chi laughed and shrugged.

  “Twenty years without even scratching the paint. Anyway, we need to hurry. I have a helicopter standing by, ready to take us up to the highlands.” He yanked the wheel and shot around a busload of tourists as if the other vehicle was parked. “Tom, your info was right on. Your old friend, Sui Kia Shun, is ready to move a big shipment of heroin. Probably close to a ton.”

  Kincaid almost choked.

  “Did you say ‘a ton?’ That much stuff will rock the market. Pushers will have to give it away.”

  Liu Chi nodded and continued, �
�If you think that is something, you will love the next part. My sources tell me that he is trying to drive the competition out. And the competition is his only daughter, Lee Dawn Shun. You remember her, don’t you?”

  Kincaid shook his head.

  “Should have known that things would heat-up. We heard they had a heavy-duty break-up after that Juan de Santiago thing.”

  “You could say that there is no family love lost between the two anymore,” Chi said. “Lee Dawn is after the old man’s skin. We think she may have ties with Sabul u Nurizam and his Abu Sayuff terrorists. Probably using them for muscle against the old man.”

  The traffic thickened as they entered the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. Liu Chi yanked the wheel to the right. The big Lexus shot off the freeway and roared down an exit ramp, onto a narrow city street. The snarled traffic finally forced Sam to slow down. Ten minutes later they pulled into a walled compound and onto a small landing pad. A brand new EH101 heavy lift helicopter stood in the center of the yellow-painted landing bulls-eye, its rotor slowly turning. As soon as the Lexus screeched to a halt, the pilot spooled up to near take-off revolutions.

  The three cops piled out of the limo and dashed to the copter. As soon as the three were onboard, the hatch slammed up and the EH101 lifted off. As soon as his eyes had adjusted to the darkness inside the aircraft, Kincaid looked at who else was inside the chopper.

  It was packed full of combat-equipped troops.

  Lee Dawn Shun crawled on her stomach all the way to the exposed ridgeline. The uncomfortable camouflage uniform chafed her skin, and the green face paint was almost too much. But she knew it was necessary if she were to successfully carry out her plan. It wouldn’t do to be seen up here, so near her father’s house.

  As Lee Dawn crawled through the jungle growth, she reflected on her journey to this mountain slope. Sun Rey, the short, seemingly effete financial advisor, had led her here. The man was a mystery. He had served her loyally through the years while she grew her father’s empire into a world power, first in the drug trade and then as a legitimate industrial conglomerate. Rey had followed her without question into exile and then had stood by her as she built her own empire. But the man was always working the ledgers. Never, to her knowledge, had he ever been associated with the “operational” end of the business. The end of the business that required camouflage and face paint and crawling on their bellies.

  Now, here he was, dressed in muddy, torn jungle fatigues, toting an M-16, and crawling up ahead of her toward the ridgeline. He had introduced her to a band of twenty or so very tough looking, heavily armed fighters who were now flanked out on either side of them. They took orders from Sun Rey as if he were their natural leader.

  The jungle gave way to bare granite ten meters short of the ridgeline. Sun Rey flashed a quick hand sign. Lee Dawn assumed that it meant to stop. She quickly saw that she had guessed correctly when the fighters all dropped down and disappeared at the jungle’s edge. She had a moment’s fright that they had suddenly abandoned her there. She was alone without a sight or sound of anyone else. Lee Dawn burrowed down into the undergrowth, trying to disappear while still attempting with all her senses to find any hint that she wasn’t alone, soon to be at the mercy of her father’s henchmen. She gripped her 9mm Glock, praying that it would be enough to protect her.

  Half an hour passed. Lee Dawn had almost decided that she had been right, that she had been dumped, and that she would have to make her escape off this mountain on her own when she caught a flash of movement up on the rocks. She carefully scanned upward but saw no more. Then she spotted a familiar form as it slowly, carefully slithered across the rock, right up to the top of the ridge.

  Sun Rey glanced over his shoulder and waved her upward.

  Lee Dawn slid across the rocks, trying to emulate Sun Rey’s easy, fluid movements. The granite cut into her hands. She barked her shin on an outcropping. Lee Dawn instinctively knew that if anyone was scanning this slope, they could have easily seen her.

  Finally she was there, gasping for breath and soaked in sweat. She lay beside the little man, staring down at the familiar mountaintop home of her youth.

  “Sun Rey, where did you ever learn…?”

  “I am Montengard,” he interrupted. “I was a small boy when the Americans abandoned us in Vietnam. You either learned the jungle or died on a Vietnamese bayonet. These are men of my tribe. Does this surprise you? Did you think that I was always an Oxford-trained accountant?”

  Lee Dawn struggled for a reply then gave up.

  Sun Rey pointed down toward the old castle. People were moving about. Many people, more than she had ever seen around the castle before. And even from this distance, Lee Dawn could see that they were in a state of agitation. Several were hurrying to load a pair of trucks parked in the outer courtyard below the main house. Whatever they were loading was important. More than a dozen armed men stood guard around the workers, their eyes roaming the horizon.

  “We are just in time,” Lee Dawn whispered. “They are loading the haul. Hurry to get your men in place.”

  Sun Rey’s answer was lost in the abrupt tornadic roar of a large helicopter that suddenly thundered over the ridge directly above them.

  Captain Mick Donohue stormed into the operations center with an aggravated look on his face. Corpus Christi was several hours overdue for her check report. She should have reported that she had completed Freedom of Navigation operations in the Spratley Islands and was heading toward Singapore. FONOPS were a pain in the ass, but they were necessary to keep the striped-pants types over in the State Department happy. Otherwise, they would dream up other ways to screw with a well-run Navy.

  Probably just those damn submariners not talking again, Donohue fumed. Or maybe their radios were on the fritz. Didn’t matter, if he couldn’t tell SUBPAC where their precious submarine was, and soon, he would be in deep shit.

  Donohue chewed angrily on the stub of a cigar jutting out of the corner of his mouth. He yanked it out, spat a bit of tobacco leaf onto the floor, and wheeled around toward a sailor who was sitting in front of a large computer screen.

  “Get hold of Wilson on the Higgins,” he growled. “Tell him to drop whatever the hell it is that he’s doing and get his butt up toward the Spratlys. Pour on the coal and get there quick. Get that helo of his up and find Corpus Christi. And when he finds her, have him tell that son of a bitch Devlin to check in real fast. And he had better have one hell of a good excuse.”

  The sailor busily typed away at the keyboard, expertly turning the captain’s rant into a proper naval message. Donohue stormed out of the operations center before the sailor had a chance to push the “Send” button and get the message on its way.

  The wakes behind the three tiny pusher boats churned the muddy brown water into a frothy café au lait as they struggled to maneuver the big sub into the gaping mouth of the cave. The angry hammering from their overworked diesels bounced off the lava rock walls, echoing back into the mysterious depths of the grotto. Men stood by on the makeshift wooden pier, ready to tie the sub up when the pusher boats were finished. Still more men readied a barge, set to be moved alongside Corpus Christi once she was securely tied up. The barge carried a portable crane and two long silver cylinders, the Russian nuclear torpedoes.

  Sabul u Nurizam stood on the submarine’s bridge, quietly watching the bustling activity. The grand plan was coming together nicely. Almost too nicely. Surely the Americans must be searching for their missing submarine by now. But even with their spy satellites and amazing technology, they would never be able to look inside this lava tube to find them. And by this time tomorrow night, it would be too late.

  The nuclear torpedoes would be onboard and they would be cruising the ocean depths, invisible to their decadent war tools, until a mushroom cloud boiled up in Tokyo harbor. Then the world would know the might of Abu Sayuff. The so-called world leaders would quiver in spineless fear and beg him to build Allah’s kingdom around the South China Sea.

&nb
sp; The sub lurched a little as it ground to a halt against the wooden pilings. Nurizam climbed down the ladder to the control room and then up again, out the forward hatch to the main deck. He impatiently paced the submarine’s curved black hull, waiting for the brow to be laid across from the pier.

  Now, they were ready. Ready for the final step.

  There was much work to be done, but the rewards would justify their sacrifice.

  They were about to strike the mightiest blow in the history of mankind. And they would use the bloody tools of the wicked infidels to do it.

  28

  The shrill jangling of the phone interrupted a dream. A familiar, frustrating dream, starring his wife. She stood so close to him, so close he should have been able to reach out and touch her, but she seemed to not know he was there, that she couldn’t hear him calling her name. And whenever he reached for her, something, like the peal of the telephone, shattered the picture.

  Captain Jon Ward struggled to consciousness, vainly trying to push back the shards of his dream. He groped blindly in the dark for the phone, knocking the alarm clock and a half glass of water to the floor. Where was that damn phone? Ellen must have moved it somewhere. It took a second before his fogged mind registered that he wasn’t in his Virginia Beach bedroom. He was in a BOQ room in Yokosuka, Japan, half a world away. The cell phone was on the desk, all the way across the room, and it seemed determined to ring shrilly until he answered it.

  He climbed out of bed and padded across the cold tile floor.

  “Ward,” he growled, his voice more a squawk. His wristwatch said that it was a few minutes past 3 AM. He had only left the command post a little after midnight and now some desk jockey was yanking him out of his dream before he could get Ellen to see him. “This had better be damn good.”