Huston, James W. -2003- Secret Justice (com v4.0)(html) (48 page)

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 in 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 helicopter 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 snagged 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.

“How long do we have?” one man asked Duar tentatively.

The light from the flashlight reflected off the sweat on the man’s forehead. “As much time as we need. But I want this done in an hour. Sunrise is in six hours. It will all be over by then.”

Several men nodded and headed down to retrieve the explosive devices from the main deck. Duar spoke to four others. “Over the side. Paint out the ‘LNG,’ change the name . . . you know what to do.”

Tick was waiting at the bottom of the rolling passenger stairway when Rat and the others descended from the C-9. He shook Rat’s hand. “Welcome to Virginia, big shot.”

“Tick, great to see you, sir. Make sure you call me a big shot when you come to visit me in prison.”

“Come on. Helo’s waiting over there. Hey, Groomer, Banger, Robby.”

“Sir,” they said in unison.

They walked under the turning blades of the large CH-53, stepped into the helicopter, and strapped themselves into their seats. The helicopter climbed into the dark sky and headed toward Little Creek Amphibious Base. They were there in less than ten minutes. The CH-53 Pave Low settled onto the helo pad next to the Dev Group building. They ran inside, right by the watch desk. The petty officer jumped up and stood at attention for the commanding officer of Dev Group.

Rat and the others followed Tick into the operations area. The rest of the team that had been selected by Tick was waiting, as were several other members of Dev Group who just wanted to be part of whatever was happening. Those who were going with him were cleaning their weapons and checking their gear. Their faces were all business. They had intense anxious looks, only partially hidden by the dark camouflage they wore on their faces. Their dark clothing had a flat luster to it to ensure it reflected no light.

Tick spoke. “Guys, Rat’s here. He decided to grace us with his presence.”

The men looked up and greeted him, but smiles were few. Rat acknowledged their greeting. He knew them from his recent time at Dev Group. Those he didn’t know, the ones who wouldn’t be going with him, he quickly evaluated with his experienced eye.

“Your gear is right over there,” Tick said.

“What’s the latest position on the ship?” Rat asked as he walked across the room.

Tick nodded. “Ever since we got that transmission from the Japanese radioman, we’ve fixed the position and tracked the ship. We have a P-3C airborne with antiship missiles aboard. Right now they’re about twenty miles away from the ship and tracking it on radar. It continues to head east at its maximum speed. They’re going to be moving in closer to use their ISAR radar and IR sensors to get a positive ID, but so far the ship is continuing east for a rendezvous that the radioman described.”

Rat looked at the chart, then looked at Tick. “How would that radioman know that?”

“He said he overheard them saying they were heading east for a rendezvous.”

Rat frowned “You have a recording?”

Tick gave a signal to a petty officer, who had a small recording device. He turned it on. Rat listened to the recording of the Japanese radioman, his whisper, the abrupt termination of the transmission.

Tick asked Rat, “What do you think?”

Rat shook his head. “Something’s wrong.” He stared at the chart, then at his commanding officer. “Duar isn’t that stupid. The Japanese radioman overheard him? In what, English? Japanese? I don’t think so. Either he wanted to be overheard, or the radioman is making this up—probably because he’s got a gun to his head. In either case it’s because that’s what we’re supposed to think.”

“Then what is Duar doing?”

“Don’t know. We know where the LNG ship is, right?”