Operation Caribe (41 page)

“So is your plan to try to force these guys to give up?” the sailor asked Nolan. “Read them their rights, that sort of thing?”

Nolan shook his head slowly. “We’re going to wait them out,” he said. “But when they do give up, we’re going to make them pay for what they did.”

“They killed a good friend of ours when he didn’t have a chance,” Harry interjected, talking more like a member of Whiskey than one of their ONI adversaries. “So, we’re going to kill them the same way, while they’re helpless and don’t have a chance in hell of escaping. Do you have a problem with that?”

The sailor laughed darkly. “Are you kidding?” he said. “Just get me a front row seat. Any idea
how
you’re going to do it?”

“We’re going to line them up and shoot them,” Nolan declared simply. “Like a firing squad. One at a time, each guy who makes it out of there alive. And we’re going to videotape it so the whole world will see.”

“Right on!” the sailor exclaimed.

“Or we might hang them,” Harry said suddenly.

Nolan shrugged. “Well, right,” he said. “We might hang them instead.…”

“Or we might drown them.” Harry kept talking. “Or slice their throats.…”

Nolan was getting slightly annoyed—in Whiskey’s overall plan, the means of the SEALs’ execution had yet to be decided. “Yes, maybe we’ll do
all
of those things, and electrocute them, too,” he said. “But whatever the way, they’re going to pay for what they did to our friend. And in the bargain, you guys get your payback, too. Just like everyone else they’ve fucked with in the past few days, all the people they killed. The score will be settled—but it will be settled our way. That’s our goal.”

“But how long will you wait for them to come out?” the sailor asked.

Nolan adjusted the ammo belt in his M4. “Until Doomsday if necessary,” he replied defiantly. “We know they’re diehards, so it might be a while before they realize they have no other choice. That’s why our guy in the copter just let them know
who
we are, finally, just to freak them out a little more. We’re hoping them knowing it’s us firing at them will make them panic and do stupid things—like trying to negotiate with us. Or at least that’s the plan; we’ll see if it works. But no matter how long it takes, we’ll be here.”

That’s when the sailor looked out at the sub and noticed something. “Well, I hate to say this, but you might have your dirty work done for you way before that.”

“What do you mean?” Nolan asked him.

The sailor pointed to a spot just in front of the sail. There was a closable vent there and puffs of nasty black exhaust could be seen shooting out of it.

“There’s an auxiliary generator right below that vent,” he said. “Those fools have been running it and a few others full blast ever since the power cable was cut. The problem is, they’re not built for that. They’re more for use when the ship is in dock, during repairs, things like that. And they’re always supposed to be properly ventilated, which at the moment, none of them are. I guarantee that one in particular is going to burn out at any minute, and when it does the fumes will be like poison. They’ll go right through the boat, because the air filtration system isn’t really working and the vents can’t handle it all. It will produce a cloud of carbon monoxide inside and whoever is breathing it in will see some smoke, but they might not realize what’s happening until it’s too late. They’ll just drop to the deck and it will be like going to sleep.”

This was
not
something Nolan wanted to hear. He wanted the 616 to suffer more than that. But he also had another, bigger concern.

He asked the sailor: “When that generator goes, how long will it take for the fumes to poison the entire boat?”

The sailor shrugged. “Ten minutes maybe—twenty tops.”

Nolan immediately looked to the front of the sub.

“Damn,” he said. “I hope all the friendlies are out by then.”

38

BATMAN WAS FACING an unusual problem for a combat pilot. He was low on fuel, but still had plenty of ammunition left. That didn’t happen very often.

Like the rest of Whiskey, his mission since taking off about ten minutes ago was to keep the SEALs on the open bridge pinned for as long as possible, this to prevent them from firing at Ramon and his security party, as well as the sailors coming out of the torpedo tube. It was also his job to finally let the SEALs know who they were dealing with, a bit of psy-ops that Whiskey was hoping might hurry the inevitable simply by screwing with 616’s collective heads.

But doing these things in the OH-6 in hurricane-force winds had been a real chore. One of the Senegals was with him, and the normally cool customer was holding on for dear life. Batman was, too. He was just grateful the plan didn’t call for him to fire directly at the SEALs. That would have required a sustained hover, tricky to do under these conditions, especially if the SEALs were firing back at him.

So, while they might have looked threatening to the 616 guys trapped atop the conning tower, it was all Batman could do to keep the helicopter in the air.

He’d made about a dozen passes on them, wounding them, scaring them, and per the plan, generally fucking with their heads. But now he had only enough gas for a few more sweeps. He hoped all the sailors would be safely out of the sub before then—and that Ramon would be done by then, too. He really didn’t want to have to land this copter once its tanks were dry, then get into
Bad Dawg Two,
and use it to provide air cover until it, too, ran out of gas. But that was a definite possibility.

He turned sharply and went to fly over the sub’s bridge again. He was about 100 feet away and coming down fast when he saw one of the 616 guys suddenly jump up out of cover and into plain view.

It was hard to tell who in Whiskey fired first. Nolan and Harry opened up from their dugout. The Senegals protecting Ramon fired from down on the deck and Gunner even fired the 30mm cannon from down near the sub’s bow.

But Batman was closer—and more accurate.

At first he thought the SEAL was going to take a shot at Ramon down on the deck, so he didn’t even think about it. He squeezed off a burst from his twin 50s and watched the rounds tear into the renegade SEAL’s body.

It was only then that he realized the man had attached a white cloth to his rifle and had actually been waving it at the helicopter.

It was too late though. The SEAL was blown off the bridge and into the water below where he was quickly swept downstream.

Batman pulled the copter up and over the bridge a moment later, missing it by inches.

“God, was that a flag of surrender?”
he asked his white-knuckled Senegal passenger. “Did I just screw up the plan?”

“
Ne vous en faites pas,”
the Senegal replied, once they had regained level flight. “
Un de moins meurtrier pour noyer tard.”

Don’t worry about it, he said. Just one less murderer to drown later.…

*   *   *

BEAUX WAS SHOCKED that Ghost was so suddenly gone.

Like Elvis, he’d known the guy for years—they all had.

But that was the final straw. It was totally useless to be up on the bridge, trying to do battle with Whiskey, while God knows what was happening in the sub below. The 616 team had already lost two men, with absolutely nothing in return. SEAL training or not, this strategy would not come to any good end for them.

Sick, dizzy and deflated, Beaux had had enough. On his order, the last of his command collected their weapons and scampered back down the conning tower ladder, slamming the hatch behind them. Their defense of the boat from up top had ended in abject failure.

They wearily climbed down to the control deck and dropped their weapons, helmets and ammunition.

Then they dragged themselves into the CAAC, only to find that all the sailors they’d left at their posts, unattended, were now gone.

*   *   *

IT WAS TOTAL confusion in the torpedo room.

Twitch had led the last group of sailors out of the CAAC, this while the SEALs were still battling Whiskey up on the open bridge.

Luckily, he didn’t have to carry any of these guys. Most could walk, and those who couldn’t were helped by those who could. The remaining sailors arrived in the torpedo room just as the last of the sick bay sailors was going out.

It took another ten minutes but once all of the CAAC sailors had gone, only the corpsman and Twitch remained. The
Wyoming
would soon be empty of friendly forces—and anything could happen after that.

“You go first,” the corpsman told Twitch. “I’ll push you along if you need any help.”

But Twitch shook his head. He had one more thing he had to do.

“No, you go,” Twitch told the medic.

The corpsman was taken aback. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked Twitch.

Twitch said, “Not yet. I have to go get my leg. I need it.…”

Before the corpsman could say another word, Twitch disappeared back into the dark sub.

39

ADMIRAL BROWN HAD just finished his eighth cup of coffee when his phone rang.

It surprised everyone in the Rubber Room. The FBI experts had predicted that after their last conversation, Beaux would not call back for hours, if at all.

But it was now 5
A.M.
, and the phone was ringing.

Brown waited for the tape recorders to be turned on and then answered by pushing the button for speakerphone.

“We are ready to adjust our demands downward,” was how Beaux started off the conversation, his voice sounding totally burned out.

“I’m listening,” Brown replied dryly.

Beaux was obviously reading his response. “I think we’ve all learned some lessons here,” he said between coughs. “We could draw up a set of security guidelines to prevent something like this from happening again. We could also give you intelligence on how an enemy could hide a ballistic sub close to the U.S. shoreline without being detected.”

“These things might be useful,” Brown said, stringing him along. “But our concern is the welfare of the men assigned to that boat.”

“The crew is no longer on the boat,” Beaux replied quickly.

A gasp went around the Rubber Room.

“They are safe, you mean?” Brown asked eagerly.

“They are no longer here with us,” Beaux said. “So, I guess in a sense, they are.”

A wave of relief washed over those gathered around Brown.

“So you’re altering
all
your demands?” the admiral asked him.

“We can come to some agreement on that, yes,” Beaux said. “This has never been about money. And we’ll even be willing to stand trial. People like prison interviews, don’t they?”

An FBI man passed Brown a note. It read: “Ask him what he wants in return exactly.”

Brown relayed the question and Beaux replied immediately. “Forget everything else. You’ve got to do one thing and one thing only: Get these freaking Whiskey guys off our backs. We know now they’re the ones who have us surrounded—in fact, they’re out there flying around, rubbing our noses in it. They
want
us to know it’s them, even though they’ve brutally killed two of my men already and they’re not doing your boat any favors, either. Now I’m sorry, Admiral—we realize now you didn’t send them. We realize now that it was probably out of your control. So we’re not blaming you. But seriously, we’re ready to throw in the towel here. So please get word to these guys somehow and tell them to back off. They’ll get paid no matter what—damn it,
we’ll
pay them, if that’s what it takes. Anything just to stop them from messing with us.”

Brown and his experts were silently celebrating—even though the Whiskey problem was totally out of their hands. But they weren’t about to tell Beaux that.

“OK, how about this?” Brown proposed. “You tell us where you are and we’ll come get you.”

“Now, that’s a deal,” Beaux said, obviously relieved. “But you’ll have to hurry…”

“We will,” Brown assured him.

They could hear Beaux let out a long sigh.

Then he said: “OK, Admiral, we are at—”

But at that moment, everyone in the Rubber Room heard the sound of a huge explosion coming from Beaux’s side of the phone.

Then the line went dead.

*   *   *

NOLAN AND HARRY finally stopped firing their weapons.

Their dugout was awash in empty shell casings and depleted ammo clips. Five minutes had gone by since they’d seen any movement from the sub’s bridge. It was obvious the SEALs had retreated inside.

“I guess they finally figured it all out,” Harry said.

Nolan took off his helmet and wiped his tired face.

“Thanks to Batman,” he said. “But at this rate, there’ll be no one left for us to whack.”

Their job was done here. They prepared to split up. Nolan would move to the front of the sub to help the last of the escaping sailors. Harry would climb up the sub’s tailfin and join the two Senegals protecting Ramon on deck.

But before they crawled out of their dugout, Harry fired off one last burst, hitting the sub’s communications antennas. A pair of long, thin tubes sticking out of the top of the conning tower, they’d somehow survived the onslaught. Both exploded now into sparkling bits of metal and glass.

“Just so they won’t be calling out for any more pizza,” Harry explained.

*   *   *

NOLAN MADE HIS way down the muddy embankment, joining Gunner and the two Senegals near the front of the sub.

The last of the sailors were just coming out of the torpedo tube; Nolan helped several get to shore. As sick as they were, they were all grateful—some were even crying—happy that they were finally out of the terrifying U-boat.

The sub’s medic was the last man out. Nolan and the Senegals caught him before he hit the water and helped him to the channel bank. The man could barely hold himself up. He collapsed to the mud, overwhelmed with relief.

Except for one thing.

Twitch was not behind him.

“Where’s our guy?” Gunner yelled to the corpsman over the howling wind.

The medic reported: “I wanted him to go out in front of me, but he told me to go first. Then he ran back into the sub.”