Death Wave (35 page)

The man on the
Yakutsk
suddenly raised his AK to his shoulder and fired a burst down at the water, the picture sharp enough to show spent casings flash in the sunlight as they spun across the deck. A technician in the
Erie
’s CIC panned the image on the big screen to focus on one of the pursuing boats. A man in a ragged T-shirt and jeans had just stood up in the pitching craft, an RPG balanced on his shoulder. In the next instant, there was a puff of smoke from the back of the tube, flaring out over the water, and the warhead streaked toward the ship’s fantail.

The technician pulled the view back then, just in time to show the silent flash of the grenade exploding on the
Yakutsk
’s deck. The gunman there pitched backward and sprawled on the deck, dead or badly wounded. The pursuing boats, meanwhile, had drawn up to either side of the cargo vessel’s stern, and the men on board were unshipping ladders with hooks on the ends. Dean watched, fascinated, as the men hooked the ladders against the ship’s side and began swarming up onto the deck.

“Do you ever get the feeling,” Akulinin said, “that it’s 1801 all over again?”

“Barbary Pirates,” Dean said, nodding. “Only this time they’re Somali.”

“We beat them back then,” Morrisey said. “We could do it again if the damned politicians would let us.”

In 1801 through 1805, and then again in 1815, the young United States Navy had fought two wars against the Muslim city-states on the North African coast. Two hundred years later, Somalian fishermen had discovered it was more profitable to hunt for ships both close inshore and in international waters, board them, and hold ships, cargos, and crews for ransom. Most of the vessels targeted had been cargo ships like the
Yakutsk
, though the pirates had also begun capturing yachts and pleasure craft as well. As in the early 1800s, countries were finding out that paying the ransoms encouraged more and more attacks—but the lack of anything like a real government in Somalia meant that there were no courts where captured pirates could be tried, no venue for enforcing international law.

Realists like captain Morrisey, repeated pointed out that shooting captured pirates and sinking their boats would stop piracy in these waters in fairly short order. The international community, however, was unable to embrace what they saw as murder; most European states had long since abolished the death penalty, and summarily executing pirates went beyond the pale. While capital punishment was still legal in the United States, the government was not about to permit executions on the high seas, not when such measures would bring a storm of protest from the comfortable politically correct. So piracy and murder were subsidized and encourage by governments unwilling to meet force with force.

The pirates were all on board the
Yakutsk
now, racing along the decks. There appeared to be about fifteen of them, heavily armed with rifles and RPGs. Dean and the others aboard the
Erie
watched as a bearded man stepped out of a watertight door in the ship’s superstructure brandishing an AK assault rifle, only to be shot down by the boarders.

“Is this all going out to the Puzzle Palace?” Dean asked. Their implants and belt antennae didn’t work here within the shielded and electronically protected confines of the Aegis cruiser’s CIC.

“Absolutely,” Morrisey told him. “They’re seeing this at the same time we are, with maybe a half-second delay off the satellite.”

“Good.”

“And Ocean Storm is set to go?”

“Affirmative. The
Constellation
is getting this feed, too.”

Dean nodded. All of the pieces were in place.

As the
Yakutsk
had traveled farther and farther west, eventually entering the two-hundred-mile gap between the island of Socotra and the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, the carrier battle group shadowing it had begun closing the range. The
Lake Erie
now was just under twenty nautical miles southeast of the
Yakutsk
, while the aircraft carrier USS
Constellation
was about thirty miles from the target. The
Yakutsk
’s radar likely was picking up both the
Erie
and the
Constellation
, as well as the other surface ships of the battle group, but these were crowded waters, with international sea traffic funneling in toward the narrow mouth of the Red Sea. With luck, the
Erie
had been dismissed as another freighter, the
Constellation
as a supertanker out of the Arabian Gulf. Not that secrecy was of particular importance now. The
Yakutsk
’s Russian crew would very soon be learning the truth, as would the pirates attacking them.

“Can we have some more detail there?” Dean asked, pointing toward the cargo ship’s deck amidships, just forward of the superstructure. A gun battle had broken out between the pirates and a small group of shipboard defenders.

“Those don’t look much like sailors,” Morrisey commented. “They don’t even look like merchant seamen.”

“Probably JeM,” Dean said, thoughtful. “Pakistanis riding shotgun on the nukes.”

“Makes sense that the JeM wouldn’t let such a valuable cargo go unprotected. The Russian seamen don’t care if the bad guys get the cargo. It’s in their best interests to just surrender and let the ship’s owners ransom them.”

“How many men in the
Yakutsk
’s crew?” Dean asked.

“About twenty,” Morrisey told him.

“Plus an unknown number of Pakistani gunmen. The pirates have their work cut out for them.”

“Captain Morrisey?” a sailor said from a nearby console. “We’re getting an SOS from the ship.”

“Record it, Tompkins,” Morrisey told her, “and transmit to both Citadel and Xanadu.” Citadel was the code name for the
Constellation
; Xanadu was Fort Meade.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Okay,” Dean said, relieved. “We now have official permission to board that ship.”

Permission to board and search the
Yakutsk
for the missing nukes had been repeatedly refused by the White House. Dean didn’t know for sure, but he strongly suspected that Bill Rubens was behind this somehow—a hint, a suggestion, in the right diplomatic ear might have gotten the
Yakutsk
noticed by the Somali pirates. If the United States Navy was not permitted to search a Russian cargo ship on the high seas, international maritime law
required
nearby ships to come to the aid of that vessel if it sent out a distress message. Rubens had told him to keep a close eye on the ship from the
Erie
’s CIC and stand by to coordinate a Navy SEAL assault—Ocean Storm—from the
Constellation
.

It was almost as if Rubens had somehow
known
that the
Yakutsk
was going to be attacked by pirates.

“Citadel has acknowledged,” Tompkins said, “and requested permission to deploy Ocean Storm.”

Dean nodded. “Go,” he said.

ASSAULT FORCE OCEAN STORM
NORTH OF SOCOTRA
GULF OF ADEN
SUNDAY, 1612 HOURS LOCAL TIME

The leading chief, Senior Chief Petty Officer Carl Raleigh, came to his feet. “Attention on deck!”

“Okay, ladies!” Lieutenant Commander Edward McCauley said as he walked into the compartment on board the USS
Constellation
. “As you were!” The men took their seats again, chairs scraping and clattering as they settled. “We have the word,” McCauley continued. “We are go for VBSS!”

“Hoo-yah!”
Forty voices shouted back, ringing off the bulkheads of the compartment designated as the SEAL Team squad bay. The men, dressed in black and with their faces painted green, were members of Alfa Troop, SEAL Team Three, headquartered in Coronado, California; their operational area was Southwest Asia, which included the Gulf of Aden. They’d deployed to the
Constitution
from Kuwait two days ago, under orders passed down from SOCOM, the U.S. Special Operations Command. Since that time, they’d been on a constant state of alert, waiting for the order to go.

“The objective of this op is to secure the ship, which is believed to be illegally transporting a number of small tactical nuclear devices. We do not have to worry about finding those devices. That is the job of the NEST people who will be following us in. Our job is to get on board that ship, take down the hostiles, and hold it so the techies can do their thing.

“We are clear to use lethal force. The hostiles on board include Somali pirates and members of a Muslim terror group, the Army of Mohammad. In addition, it’s possible that the members of the ship’s crew may offer resistance.

“Be very clear about this, people. While we have no wish to cause unnecessary casualties among the ship’s crew, while it would be useful to capture hostile personnel for interrogation, this
is
a shoot-first order. If anyone shows a weapon, if anyone offers resistance, if anyone even
looks
like he’s going to give you an argument, take him down, and take him down hard!
The
number one objective here is to secure those nukes, not to save lives on that ship, not to take prisoners. You have one order on this op.
Secure those weapons!
Questions?”

A hand went up, and McCauley nodded. “Petroski?”

“I was just wondering, sir … is there any chance of those nukes going off?”

“Beats me, Pet. What I was told was that it takes twenty minutes to prep one of these weapons, to arm it and set it off. If they do manage to detonate one … well, the good news is we’ll never know it, and the bastards won’t be able to use them against civilian targets. Other questions? Right. Let’s move out!”

“Hoo-yah!”
The SEAL battle cry rang again from the bulkheads as the men began filing out into the next compartment, the armory, where they drew weapons, ammunition, and various items of special gear. Minutes later, they stepped out into the glare of the afternoon sun above the Gulf of Aden, hurrying across the steel flight deck to the waiting helicopters.

“Now hear this, now hear this,” blared from the 1MC. “Commence helicopter operations on the flight deck.”

The rotors on the big HH-60H helos began to turn.

ART ROOM
NSA HEADQUARTERS
FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
SUNDAY, 0935 HOURS EDT

On the big main display in the Art Room, Rubens saw the image of the
Yakutsk
being relayed by satellite from the USS
Lake Erie
. The
Yakutsk
was just over 240 feet in length and thirty-six feet wide, with a draft of twelve and a half feet. Her bridge house was positioned amidships, just forward of the single, large stack. There were two tall masts, one aft of the stack, one just aft of the raised forecastle forward. Stays and rigging connected the two masts with one another and with various points on the deck and bulwarks.

Those masts and stays could be a problem.

“The first helicopters are away, sir,” a technician reported.

“Good,” Rubens said. “What’s their ETA?”

“Range to the target is now twenty-five nautical miles. The first helos should be over the target in ten minutes, thirty seconds.”

“Very well.”

This was where the real worrying began. The SEALs and Navy Special Warfare helicopters were now committed to attack a Russian ship, and the hell of it was that the action probably would not have been approved by the White House. Rubens had set up this scenario to respond to the ship’s SOS, a tenuous legal fiction. If this went badly, it would mean an international incident, and Rubens would be forced to resign at best, face criminal charges at worst.

Nevertheless, he didn’t see any other way to get the job done.

CIC, USS
LAKE ERIE
NORTH OF SOCOTRA
GULF OF ADEN
SUNDAY, 1635 HOURS LOCAL TIME

A pitched gun battle was being waged on the decks of the freighter, covertly observed by the shadowing Fire Scout. As the observers on board the
Erie
watched, three more speedboats pulled up, and more pirates stormed aboard. The defenders were being forced forward. RPG blasts ripped across the
Yakutsk
’s forward deck, and bodies sprawled in untidy heaps.

“I hope to hell your boss knows what he’s doing,” Captain Morrisey said. “If he doesn’t, we might be about to start a war with Russia.”

“Shit,” Akulinin said, “the SEALs board the ship, grab the nukes, and get the hell out. What could
possibly
go wrong?”

“More than I care to think about right now,” Morrisey said. “Why didn’t they just send in CTF 151 and let them sort this out?”

Since January of 2009, Combined Task Force 151 had been patrolling the Gulf of Aden. Led by the United States with the USS
Boxer
as the flagship, it included vessels from fourteen nations. Many, like China and Russia, were only there to escort their own ships, but the rest, including the American contingent, had been aggressively attempting to suppress piracy in the area. Hampered by bureaucracy and by the pirates’ ability to vanish into Somalian coastal waters masquerading as fishing boats, the international force had so far achieved mixed results.