Operation Caribe (30 page)

Crash felt his eyes go wide. “Are you saying these phantom pirates have taken over a Navy ship, sir? As an inside job?”

Commander Beaux nodded grimly. “In this case, Plan 6S-S means a submarine. We don’t have many more details than that, which probably means, yes,
something
is happening aboard a sub and even the captain doesn’t know about it. Is it a mutiny? Or an insurrection? My guess, it’s the pirates. But whatever it is, we’ve got to go aboard and find out.”

“So, this sub is close by?”

“That’s where we got lucky,” Beaux said. “It’s only thirty miles from us. The USS
Wyoming.
Returning to its base in King’s Bay in Georgia after a three-month patrol. We’re heading for an intercept point right now, as you can tell, at full speed. And when we reach it, we’ll have to be ready to go onboard even as the sub is underway.”

Now, for the first time, Beaux actually looked at Crash directly.

“But when we do, you’ve got to stay behind,” he said.

Crash was crushed.

“You have to understand why,” Beaux went on. “We’ve drilled this thing many times over. Getting into a submerged moving sub has to go like clockwork. And it’s very dangerous, especially at night. And technically, you’re still a civilian. I just can’t have that hanging over my head if you got hurt, or worse.”

Crash grew angry. “If this was the case,” he said, “then why didn’t you just leave me on Turnip Cay?”

Beaux just shrugged. “We needed those blank CDs,” he replied simply.

Crash tried to hold his temper. But he wasn’t going down without a fight.

“With all due respect, sir,” he said, “I think I’ve proved myself with you these last two days. I’ve matched you step for step. Plus, like I said before, I haven’t exactly been sitting on my thumbs in my years since Delta. In fact, not two months ago, we recovered an Indian Navy warship that had fallen into the hands of pirates. So I actually have some
experience
in the real thing. I certainly won’t be a liability. And it sounds like you’ll need all the help you can get.”

There was a long silence in the control room.

“At the very least, let me run the camera,” Crash implored Beaux.

Another long silence. Elvis and Monkey were hovering over the control panels. Ghost was still driving the ship. Smash was pulling out their combat gear. But suddenly they were all looking at Beaux, wondering what he was going to say next.

Then Ghost spoke up. “If he stays behind, sir, all he’ll be able to do is tell Higher Authority what we were doing leading up to this point.”

Beaux glanced around at the rest of the team. He had a very troubled look; so did the others. Obviously, this was a real dilemma for them.

Crash took a step closer to Beaux and said, “I
have
to go, sir. This stuff is in my blood. And believe me, I don’t want to be the guy left behind to give testimony if something goes wrong.”

Beaux thought about it a few seconds.

Then he turned to Smash and said: “OK—get him a suit.”

*   *   *

THE CHASE TO catch the
Wyoming
went on for another twenty minutes. Not more than a dozen words were spoken among the 616 team members in that time. Crash had never seen a special ops team so determined, so single-minded. It was as if they were communicating with each other telepathically, talking with their eyes, their hands, via body language. These guys just never ceased to impress him.

At Beaux’s request, Crash had the video cam out again and was documenting the effort to overtake the sub. More than once, though, while looking through the lens, he felt like an interloper spying on a very exclusive club. The men of the 616 were all on the same wavelength—and he was on the outside looking in.

Crash was able to read a training spec explaining how the SEALs would gain entry into the
Wyoming
using the sub’s lockout chamber. It was a procedure Crash had done in training before—but in those cases, the sub was always stationary. The
Wyoming
was obviously underway, and Team 616’s attempts to get inside it while in motion would be like hopping onto a moving freight train.

And even if they were able to maneuver near one of the sub’s lockout chambers, the real question was, would they be able to
hook on to it
? This could happen only if someone inside the sub went through the entry procedures as well, allowing the SEALs aboard. If that happened, then at least they’d know that part of the sub was still in friendly hands.

But what if they were locked out?

That would mean, if Beaux was right, the phantom pirates would be in control of a massively powerful weapon.

*   *   *

CRASH KEPT ONE eye on the ship’s Level 3 secure computer, waiting for it to explode back to life at any moment. But the
Sea Shadow
received no further messages concerning the situation aboard the
Wyoming.
No communiqués at all from Naval Fleet Command, the
Mothership
or any of the civilian three-letter agencies.

This told Crash the security on this thing was as tight as anything he’d ever experienced. One stray word, one errant message, any misstep at all, could spell disaster. The lid
had
to stay screwed on here, at least until the SEALs could determine if they could get into the sub, and if so, find out what the hell was going on.

This meant they were facing a blind entry—going into potentially hostile territory with little or no idea what lay behind the first door, or in this case, the first hatch. From that Crash had to wonder: What would a gunfight be like aboard a moving nuclear sub, one that was carrying twenty-two massive nuclear missiles? There were so many ins and outs and places to hide on a boat like the
Wyoming
. Cabins, storage spaces, crew areas, ladder wells, weapons rooms, vents; the missile tubes themselves.

Gunplay under those conditions would be the equivalent of the worst urban fighting imaginable, shrunk down many times in size, where one stray bullet could destroy the sub and potentially detonate some of its massive weapons—and blow up half the Atlantic seaboard.

No wonder the 616 guys were being so quiet, Crash thought.

They were probably saying their prayers.

*   *   *

“ABOUT ONE MINUTE to visual contact,” Elvis announced, bent over the
Sea Shadow
’s control panel. “If that sub is where we think it is, we should see its scopes pretty soon.”

The six of them were now dressed in both scuba gear
and
battle gear. Because they would be in the lockout chamber less than two minutes, they carried small air reservoirs attached to their belts, not the usual, full-size scuba tanks. They also wore diving masks and gloves but no flippers or wet suits. Instead, they were in camo fatigues, boots and helmets. The 616 guys also had their M4 weapons, flash grenades and a sidearm, all packed in waterproof casings. There was no weapon aboard for Crash, but that was OK with him. He had his knife—and in the environment they might be entering, fighting an unknown enemy among a forest of 800-kiloton nuclear missiles, a sharp blade might prove to be the best weapon of all.

They got a visual read on the
Wyoming
just when Ghost said they would. Using their night vision equipment, they saw it was traveling due north, barely twenty feet underwater. Its speed was down to ten knots, possibly because it was entering an area off the Florida coast with a lot of sea traffic. This speed was key, though, as it was within the range of the SDV mini-sub, meaning a hookup while underway was at least theoretically possible.

It would still be the equivalent of an aerial refueling, though—the mini-sub’s speed would have to perfectly match the sub’s speed, and they would have to pray the sub didn’t change course, even a little, while they were hooking on.

*   *   *

WITHIN TWO MINUTES, Ghost had brought the
Sea Shadow
up alongside the sub, steering on a course parallel to it and matching its speed.

They were able to see it through their night scopes, but just barely. Still, it looked like a gigantic sea serpent plowing through the thick blue water. And it was huge!

Now came the tricky part.

Ghost booted the
Sea Shadow
’s speed back up to fifty knots. Meanwhile the main hatch on the SDV mini-sub, dangling between the vessel’s two hulls, was opened and the vessel made ready for deployment.

According to Beaux, Plan 6S-S called for a full complement of SEALs. This meant the entire 616 team would go on board, along with Crash. To do this, they would have to climb into the mini sub while the
Sea Shadow
was on autopilot and then disconnect from it.

Ghost drove the stealth vessel to a point about five miles ahead of the sub, and then dramatically reduced its speed to barely five knots. He put the ship on autopilot, and they all went out the bottom hatches and hastily piled into the SDV mini-sub. The mini-sub quickly unhooked from the
Sea Shadow
, leaving the empty stealth ship to drift, its ultimate fate unknown. But considering the circumstances, at the moment that was not important.

The mini-sub slipped beneath the waves, and now they waited until the huge sub caught up to them. Once they saw it coming, Ghost steered the SDV down toward the great, gray hull, and keeping pace, eased into a position parallel to its starboard side lockout chamber.

Then, with the skill of a fighter pilot, he steered the SDV to the left, trying to get positioned above the reconstructed access tube. It took a few tries, and a lot of finesse, but he finally attained the desired position and came down on top of the submarine’s starboard side lockout chamber. Almost immediately, their connection light blinked on.

They’d done it! They were hooked to the sub.

Not a second later, they could hear the rush of water filling the empty missile tube. The water pressure equalizer light came on inside the mini-sub connection collar and started flashing red. Once it turned green, it would mean the pressure inside the lockout chamber was at a point where the SEALs could safely open the married hatch and enter the chamber.

But then what? The SEALs weren’t sure.

And neither was Crash. Obviously, someone inside the sub knew they had hooked on. And someone had started the water filling the lockout chamber.

So, was this someone trying to help them get onboard? Or was it an enemy ready to kill the rescue team before it set one foot onto the sub?

Either way, Crash thought,
someone
on the other end knew they were coming.

29

Blue Moon Bay

AGENT HARRY BELIEVED the USS
Mothership
was haunted.

Or cursed.

Or both.

He had a small cabin on one of the lower decks, something usually reserved for a junior officer. Besides a bunk, the biggest thing in it was the massive computer suite, complete with three monitors, all of which were streaming continuous lines of intelligence on what had been dubbed “Operation Caribe.”

Harry tried to spend as little time in the cabin as possible, though. It felt claustrophobic and was always cold and damp, and anytime he managed to fall asleep there, he awoke to loud banging noises or the sounds of people talking in gibberish.

More than once he caught himself thinking,
What the hell did the Israelis do to this ship?

To get away from it all, he’d found a place up on the
Mothership
’s bow. It was forward of the bridge, right up on the snout, not far from the starboard side anchor housing.

He was sitting here now, just before dawn, anxiously going over a stack of intelligence reports. Too many, as it turned out—and that was a problem. There was
so much
intelligence being generated by the land and the sea missions of Operation Caribe, it would take weeks to get through it all. Yet the pirate attack was supposed to happen within the next few hours.

The
Mothership
was heading east; Harry was waiting to be bathed in the bright early morning sun when he heard an odd mechanical noise.

He looked up to see a tiny helicopter approaching from the north. It was moving at very high speed, too fast for its size. And it was heading right for him.

He knew who it was right away.

Whiskey.

“What the hell is this about,” he groaned.

The copter screeched over his head, did an abrupt turnaround and then came in hard and hot, violently slamming down on the cramped confines of the
Mothership
’s bow. Harry could see Nolan and Batman Bob Graves inside. It was obvious they wanted to talk to him.

A squad of the
Mothership
’s plainclothes Marine guards hurried up to the bow to investigate the unauthorized landing, but Harry waved them away.

Nolan and Graves jumped out of the copter and approached him.

“This better not be a complaint about your fee,” Harry told them.

“Hardly,” was Nolan’s reply. He looked around the open space of the bow. “Is this a secure place to talk?”

Harry held his hands out as if to say, Who could be listening to us here?

“Where’s your ship?” he asked them.

“It’s on its way,” Nolan replied. “But this couldn’t wait. There’s some weird stuff going down, and you’ve got to get your head around it ASAP.”

Harry just sat back down in his chair and said, wearily, “Lay it on me.”

Nolan proceeded to tell the ONI agent everything that had happened to them since they’d left the
Mothership
less than thirty-six hours ago. From their weird journey that first night and losing their secure radio antenna, to finding Ramon, hearing his story, then the trip to Big Hole Cay and finally finding the Russian sub and its murdered crew. He finished the report by quickly briefing Harry on Whiskey’s previous dealings with the Muy Capaz pirate gang and how the bizarre way they’d been killed matched the method used on the Russians.

“We’ve been trying to figure out what it all means,” Nolan concluded. “We heard a few rumblings about pirates up where we just were—but then,
wham!
we find this sub, and…”