The Weapon (30 page)

 

Dan stood by the ladder, gripping the radio and feeling more and more anxious. Where was the boat? Where was Carpenter? He leaned over and tried to judge their speed. It was dropping, but it would take a long time to get all the way off ten thousand tons of steel and cargo. “I still don't see you,” he said into the handheld. “Flick your lights.”

“Flicking.”

He picked it up, maybe half a mile off: a single scarlet throb though what still, surprisingly, wasn't yet full dawn. “I got you . . . come on in. Speed's dropping. Don't run into the stern.”

Carpenter double-clicked in return. Dan leaned again. Maybe three knots. Wind off the port bow. Really it was a lovely night. A lovely sea, beautiful stars. Just too bad they hadn't gotten what they'd come so far to find.

A stir forward. He raised the AK, but it was the team, carrying bags and totes, their tawdry loot. Wenck. Henrickson. Kaulukukui. He felt bad having to steal from seamen who had precious little anyway. “Where's the bag with the wallets?”

Henrickson held one up. “Here.”

“Leave it there. Behind the winch. Like we forgot it, as we were going over the side.”

He felt bad about the skipper as well. Scaring the guy.
Threatening him. It had turned out a fiasco. He waved for Wenck to go first. He felt low. She wasn't much of a ship, but she was a ship, and he'd almost burned and scuttled her and set her crew adrift.

He missed a face, and looked around. “Oberg. Where's Teddy?”

“He'll be here,” Kaulukukui said.

 

When the door eased open the Italian was looking right at Teddy. Big drops stood out on his forehead. He heard me come down the ladder, Teddy thought. He didn't feel angry at the guy. They couldn't let him live, though. Not after what Lenson had asked him. Nobody's fault. Just collateral damage.

He picked up the family picture and set it on the desk where the man could look at it. Siniscalchi made a smothered sound, heaved his shoulders. Trying to talk through the tape. The chair jumped, but stayed put. Taped to it ankles and chest, hands wired behind him, the guy wasn't going anyplace. Before either of them had too long to obsess about it, Teddy ripped another strip off the roll and pasted it down tight over Siniscalchi's nose.

It didn't take long. He looked away, giving the guy his privacy. When he stopped jerking Teddy tore the tape off his face and left him sagging, cheeks the color of port wine, staring at nothing now. He looked around the cabin once more, making sure none of them had left anything. He eased the door closed behind him.

The TAG West office was in a bright modern building in a new compound at Coronado, all pale brick, and dark glass, and meticulously spaced azaleas rooted in bright ocher mulch. Not unwelcoming, and a long step up from the shabby crumbling cinder-blocks shore commands usually tenanted, but anonymous as a medical center. The lieutenant who met Dan in the atrium checked his ID and handed him a pass. He said the compound was part of the new Fleet Antisubmarine Warfare Center. PACFLT was trying to revive the ASW skills that had gone neglected since the Cold War had ended. He even used the phrase “the rising Chinese threat.” Dan liked the sound of that. Somebody was paying attention, even if the White House wasn't.

They wanted him at 0830. He'd had time to shave and eat, and even felt fairly rested. He'd washed and dried a set of khakis at the Q before he went to bed, and though they felt loose—he must have lost a few pounds, on Mindanao and at sea—he looked okay in the mirror.

McDonnell
had docked back in Singapore the night after the raid on
Fengshun No. 5.
Without the Sayyaf's boat. Oberg had blown its bottom out as soon as they were aboard the T-AGS, so it and their tawdry loot rested two thousand
fathoms down in the China Sea. The team had broken up there, some flying west, others east, each on a different itinerary and airline. His tickets had taken him to Guam on a Continental Micronesia twin-engine Fokker, where he picked up a Navy C-9 to San Diego, and actually managed a nap in the air, something he'd almost never been able to do before.

Which was strange, because somewhere in those burning days down the Borneo coast he'd begun to nurse a gnawing anger, and a savage determination. He'd led twice, and failed twice. But neither time had
he
made the plans. This time, he was going to make the decisions. Or throw the whole mess back in Mullaly's lap, and tell him to get another boy.

The first thing he'd done at the BOQ last night was call Blair. She wasn't in the office, but he gave her the number at the quarters, figuring that's where he'd be that evening, unless they sent him home direct from the conference. Then he called the marina. The manager, a retired Marine, said yeah, his boat was fine, he looked her over on his walkdown every day and snubbed up her lines if she needed it. When would he be back to take her out? Dan said he didn't know; soon, he hoped.

The conference room was on the second floor. As they climbed the stairs he reflected how much time the Navy spent in conferences. Or maybe it was just that as you got more senior, you spent less time carrying out orders, and more time figuring out what those orders ought to be. Things certainly didn't seem as clear-cut as they once had. He felt like he'd been groping in the fog ever since the start of this whole Shkval tasking.

A once-seen face glanced up as he came in. Calvin Carroll Hines, the intel officer from SURFLANT. Hines nodded, but didn't offer to shake hands. Behind him and already seated around the usual table were Ted Mullaly, Dr. Pirrell—the young scientist from NUWC—and an older man with close-cut gray hair in a civilian suit. Dan knew him from somewhere but couldn't place him. His CO said, “Dan. Good to see you. Nice tan! Coffee?”

“Thanks, sir, pass for now.”

His gaze fell to the bandage. “Problem with the hand?”

“Just coral cuts, sir. They cleaned them out, nothing serious.”

“I think you know Captain Hines and Dr. Pirrell.”

“Yes, sir. Captain Hines. Doctor.”

“This is Rear Admiral Levering Spangler. Admiral Spangler is Force Defense at AIRLANT.”

The name supplied the connection. Dan shook hands. “Good to meet you, sir. I heard you speak at the Surface Navy Association symposium in Crystal City. Last July, I think. You spoke on how the shift to the littorals would affect strike warfare.”

“Actually those remarks were written for me by a very bright young woman who knows you. Claudia Hotchkiss. Served under you, I believe.”

“Uh, yessir. She was my XO aboard
Horn
. How's she doing?”

“I believe she has a future. And she speaks highly of you.”

He couldn't help remembering a different Claudia Hotchkiss than the one Spangler obviously had in mind. A night in his stateroom, in the Med, when the distinctions and demands of rank and duty had fallen away, and the creak and sway of a destroyer in a seaway had covered any noise they might have cared to make. He'd never told anyone about that night. He'd resolved firmly that for her sake as well as for his, he never would. “Glad to hear that, sir. She's the real deal, Claudia is.”

Mullaly cleared his throat. Dan looked for a chair and found he was at the foot of the table, with them all looking down at him. “All right, let's start . . . we'd do this by message, or e-mail, but Admiral Olivero wants as thin a paper trail as possible. Everyone's heard the news from the Gulf. Right?”

“News?” Dan said.

They looked at him. “Iran's closed the Strait,” Hines said. “I guess you
have
been out of touch.”

Dan swallowed and sat back. He hadn't stopped for a
paper that morning, nor had he seen a television for days. He tried to get his head around it as his skipper went on.

“That's why Admiral Spangler's with us.” Spangler leaned back, not responding; Mullaly went on. “Iran continues to build up surface and air forces opposite Hormuz. So everyone's concerned about the security of the carriers should we have to surge. Dan, I don't want you to feel this is aimed at you, or that you're on the hot seat. But the issue's getting notice. Admiral O thought we had this situation in hand. He doesn't like having to tell the Chiefs we wasted two months we didn't have.”

Great, Dan thought. He'd been around long enough to know that when they started by saying you weren't on the button, you were
really
on the button. He tried to look as if he cared. “Well, sir . . . I understand this is a priority. But we made two attempts to get our hands on the weapon. The first, the Russians didn't cooperate. The second, we were not well served by our intel. The team gained the objective, the receiving ship was standing by, but the target wasn't aboard. According to the ship's captain, it was removed just before sailing. Almost two weeks before our raid.”

The intel officer said, “Was it necessary to kill him?”

That stopped him. “Sir?”

“It's a simple question, Commander. The captain. Was it necessary to kill him?”

“I understand the question, sir, but he was in good shape when we left. Zip-tied. Scared. But not dead.”

“He was when
Fengshun
docked. Maybe you'd better read this.”

Dan looked at the fax. It was from the Asian Shipping News Web site.

PIRATES STRIKE AGAIN IN SOUTH CHINA SEA

SINGAPORE-An increase in pirate attacks is undermining commercial confidence in security in the Malacca Strait area.

After the formation of the Territorial Neighbor Task Force several years ago, marking the beginning
of security coordination between the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, attacks fell markedly. But recent occurrences have reversed that trend, raising insurance rates and shaking the confidence of shippers.

“Our attempts to keep the area east of the Malacca Strait safe for commercial traffic continue and will be increased. We are implementing aggressive patrolling, but the problem is Malaysia's refusal to cooperate in providing refueling facilities and basing rights for aerial patrols,” said Waluyo Suriadiredja, who retired last year as commander of the Indonesian Navy's Antipirate Task Force.

The most recent attack saw an estimated twenty pirates hijack the 900-TEU containership
Fengshun No. 5,
owned by the China Foreign Transport Company. CFTC sources announced that the intruders, armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, boarded from small boats, robbed the crew, and blew open safes. They destroyed radios and navigational equipment, headed the ship for a nearby shoal, and restrained the crew so tightly the captain died of a heart attack.

Dr. Soong Mei Guo of the International Maritime Bureau commented that if pirate and terrorist activity rebounds it may be necessary to place armed escorts aboard ships transiting the Straits. “Authorities must take this renewal of lawless activity seriously,” she stated. “If they do not, it is an open invitation for neighboring powers to send warships to assume security responsibilities. This would cast doubt on contiguous states' ability to protect those fishing and mineral resources they claim in the neighboring seas.”

Chinese authorities declined to comment on plans to react to the attack with deployments of the increasingly assertive Chinese Navy, but did not
rule it out. “Ideally those countries bordering the strait will provide the needed security forces,” a spokesman said. “The question of sending the Peoples' Army Navy to assist in maintaining order is, however, under review.”

But clearly China and Japan, the two countries most dependent on the Strait for trade and energy requirements, are watching developments very closely.

“Comments?” murmured Mullaly. “On the record, or off?”

“On or off the record, sir, same thing: when we left, he was alive. I'll give you my word on that. Heart attack? This is the first I've heard of it, but it's probably exactly what happened.”

They exchanged looks. “Good enough,” Hines said at last.

Dan didn't catch the handoff, but Mullaly took the chair back. “Dan, this was your first operational mission in charge of Team C. Here's what concerns me. Captain Hines assures me his intel was solid about the location of the container and it being aboard. And in fact, it's on the manifest.”

“Yessir. It was on the captain's copy, too.”

“Go on.”

“The captain said—my Italian's not that great—but I'm pretty sure he said it was taken off the day before they sailed.” Dan took a sealed envelope from inside his cap and floated it down the table. “I typed up my after-action report aboard
McDonnell
. Yessir, I know. I did it on an old Selectric, so there's nothing left on any hard drives.”

Mullaly looked at Hines. Hines shook his head slightly. Mullaly tucked it into his shirt. “Then my question is: Could there have been a leak from within the team, or within TAG? Think about that before you answer.”

Dan gave it a couple of seconds while they waited and the coffee warmer snorted in the corner. A jet passed over the building, turbines whining, coming in low. They hadn't taken Im along, so the North Korean wasn't an issue. Carpenter
had his flaws, but he didn't seem like a leaker. Donnie? No. Monty? Again no.

That left the SEALs, and about them he had to admit he knew less than he liked. Where, for instance, had Oberg come up with the rifles? He'd been evasive when Dan had asked him. Was it possible Oberg had passed info on the mission to the Agency, in return for the guns?

Motive? The impression he was getting so far in this whole operation was that it was bypassing the CIA. Which might not like being cut out. Would they go so far as to sabotage a DIA/Navy operation, to defend their turf?

It was all speculative and he was taking too long answering. “Uh, sir, I don't have anything to suggest. As far as any possible leak. Our comms were secure. We took all the usual security precautions.”