Corsair

THIRTY-ONE

TARIQ ASSAD THANKED HIS PILOT FRIEND AND STEPPED from the helicopter. He closed the flimsy door, gave it a tap, and scurried from under the whirling blades. The small service chopper lifted off the desert floor in a dust storm of its own creation. Assad had to turn his back to it and keep his eyes tightly closed.

As soon as the helo had lifted clear, he strode toward the team commander. The seething anger he had felt in the wake of the police raid back in Tripoli had been replaced with unmitigated joy. He embraced the terrorist leader, kissing him on both cheeks effusively.

“Ali, this is going to be a great day.” Assad grinned.

He’d radioed ahead that he was coming and saw with satisfaction that his orders had been carried out. The men were waiting at the rear cargo ramp of their Mi-8. When Assad waved, they gave him a rousing cheer. Their prisoner was bound to one of the bench seats, a rag tied over his mouth.

Ali noticed Assad’s look. “When we do not gag him, he shrieks like a woman. If he wasn’t such a supposed expert on Suleiman Al-Jama, blessings be upon him, I would put a bullet through that fat lout’s head and be done with it.”

“What a remarkable turn of events,” Assad said, Emile Bumford’s treatment all but forgotten. “A few hours ago, I was moments from being grabbed by the police, and now we will shortly discover the lost tomb.”

“Tell me again how you found it,” Ali invited. They strode to the waiting chopper, whose blades started to beat the superheated air.

“Coming in on the helicopter, I had the pilot swing south when we crossed the border into Tunisia, and as we came down the old riverbed, flying just above it, I spotted an area where it appeared that a section of the bank had been blasted into the river. Had I known about the waterfall a little farther downstream, I wouldn’t have paid it any attention, for surely a sailing ship couldn’t have navigated it. But I didn’t know, so I had the pilot set down so I could investigate.”

“When was this?”

“Moments before I radioed you. What, a half hour ago? And when we landed, I saw evidence that people had been there recently. There were four distinct sets of shoe prints. Two are women, or maybe small men, but I think one might be the American archaeologist who worked with our guest there.” He pointed across the cargo bay to Bumford.

The turbines’ whine made it so Assad had to shout to be heard by the man sitting to his left. “The prints all disappeared into a cave located behind a hill along the river. They must all still be inside. We have them, Ali, the Americans who have disrupted our plans for the last time, and Suleiman’s tomb.”

JUAN ACCEPTED A CUP of coffee from Maurice, the Oregon’s chief steward.

“How are you feeling, Captain?” the dour Englishman asked.

“I think the expression is ‘rode hard and put away wet,’ ” Juan said, taking a sip of the strong brew.

“An equine reference, I believe. Filthy creatures, only good for glue factories and betting at Ascot.”

Cabrillo chuckled. “Dr. Huxley juiced my leg so it’s feeling pretty good, and the handful of ibuprofen I scarfed down are kicking in. All in all, I’m not doing too badly.”

The one secret about pain Juan had never shared with anyone other than Julia Huxley, as medical officer, was that he felt it constantly. Doctors call it phantom pain, but to him it was real enough. His missing leg, the one shot off by a Chinese gunboat all those years ago, ached every minute of every day. And on the good days it only ached. Sometimes he’d be hit with lances of agony that took all his self-control not to react to.

So when it came to dealing with the discomfort from where he’d cut out his tracking chip, it wasn’t bravado that made him ignore it. It was practice.

Around them, the op center buzzed with activity. Max Hanley and a pair of technicians had an access panel removed under one of the consoles to replace a faulty computer monitor. The duty weapons officer was talking with teams working throughout the ship to make certain her suite of armaments was operating exactly to standards, while the helmsman maintained a steady course well beyond Libya’s twelve-mile territorial limit.

The ship and crew were ready, only, for the time being, Cabrillo had nothing for them to do.

They still hadn’t received an updated list of Libyan naval assets capable of landing a helicopter, and until they did there was nothing for Oregon to do but wait.

Juan hated to wait. Especially when he had people on the ground. His feelings toward them made it as though everything they went through exacted a physical price on him, too.

“Call coming through,” the radio operator said over her shoulder.

Juan hit a switch on the arm of his chair, and from hidden speakers came the sound of heavy breathing, almost panting.

“You’ve picked a bad time for an obscene phone call,” he said to the unknown person.

“Chairman, it’s Linc,” Franklin gasped. “We got trouble.”

“What’s happened?”

“You can forget your theories about Ali Ghami being Al-Jama.” Lincoln continued to wheeze. It was obvious he was running. “Our old buddy Tariq Assad just showed up, and after a little Arab-style kissy face with the leader of the group searching for the tomb they beat it southward in that old Mi-8 of theirs. He’s Al-Jama, Juan. I tried calling Linda but they’re still underground. I’m now hightailing it after them, but I figure I got four or five miles to go.”

“That confirms it.” Agitated, Juan stood and began pacing the deck. “A couple hours ago, we got suspicious because Hali Kasim hadn’t checked in, and his GPS chip hadn’t moved in a while. I sent Eddie to find him. Hali’d been shot at such close range, there was GSR all over him. The last person with him was none other than Tariq Assad.”

“Jesus, is Hali okay?”

“We don’t know yet. Eddie said it was bad. All he could do was stabilize him and call for an ambulance. He stuck around long enough to follow it to a hospital, but he can’t exactly barge in and start demanding answers.”

A fax machine built into the communications center started whirring.

“For Assad to bug out like he did,” Linc panted, “he must have seen something he liked in the same area as Linda and the others.”

“I can get a backup team to you by chopper, but it’s going to take a couple of hours,” Juan offered lamely, for he knew it would be over long before then.

The communications officer handed him the fax. He glanced at it quickly. It was the report on Libya’s Navy he’d been expecting for hours now.

“Nah. I’ll be okay. I’m doing eight-minute miles so I’ll have something in the tank when I get there. A dozen tangos in a cave when I have the element of surprise shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Juan was barely paying attention. He crossed to the navigation computer to punch in the GPS numbers and plot the vessels’ coordinates and recent movements.

One leapt out at him immediately. His instincts screamed at him that they had found it. The ship would have been within helicopter range of the terrorist training camp, and, while all the others were converging on Tripoli for a military review as part of the peace conference, this particular vessel was loitering near the Tunisian border.

“Linc, call me back when you reach the cave. I’ve got to go.”

“Roger that.”

“Helm, plot me a course for that ship.” He pointed at the blinking light on the overhead display. The edge in his voice caused those around him to stop their work and look. A wave of expectant energy swept the op center crew.

“Course laid in, Chairman.”

“What’s our ETA at best possible speed?”

“A little over three hours.”

“Okay, hit it.”

An alarm the crew was all too familiar with began to wail. When the ship was pushing near her maximum speed, the ride was usually rough, and every loose item from the saucers in the galley to the makeup pots in Kevin Nixon’s Magic Shop had to be secured.

The acceleration was smooth as the Oregon’s revolutionary engines came online, the cryopumps whining a high-pitched tone that became inaudible to humans but would have sent a dog into paroxysms.

Juan returned to his central seat and called up the specifications for the Libyan vessel. She was a modified Russian frigate, purchased in 1999, weighing in at fourteen hundred tons. She was two-thirds the length of the Oregon—three hundred and thirteen feet—and the Corporation’s ship outclassed the Libyan when it came to weapons systems. But the frigate Khalij Surt still packed a powerful punch, with four three-inch deck guns, multiple launchers for the SS-N-2c Styx ship-to-ship missiles, as well as an umbrella of Gecko rockets and rapid-fire 30mm cannons to ward off an air assault. The Khalij Surt, or Gulf of Sidra, could also fire torpedoes from deck launchers and lay mines from her stern.

Juan studied a picture of the vessel from Jane’s Defence Review’s website. She was a lethal-looking craft, with a tall, flaring bow, and a radio mast festooned with antennae for her upgraded sensor systems behind her single funnel. The big cannons were paired in armored turrets fore and aft, and just behind the lead gun sat her antiship missile launchers.

Cabrillo had no doubt he could take her in an engagement. The Oregon’s ship-to-ship missiles had twice the range of the Sidra’s Styx system, but blowing the Libyan frigate out of the water with a missile shot from over the horizon wasn’t the point.

He needed to board the Sidra, rescue Fiona Katamora if his hunch was right, and get her to safety.

“That her?” Max asked. He’d moved to Juan’s side silently and was pointing at the computer monitor.

“Yup. What do you think?”

“Judging by the radar specs, they’ll see a chopper coming fifty miles off. And it looks like she’s loaded for bear, with triple-A and SAMs.”

“Which means we’re going to have to lay in alongside her and do this old-school.”

“You mean go toe to toe with her, don’t you?”

“We’ll need a distraction to get in close, but, yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”

Max was silent for a moment. Naval war-fighting doctrine had changed dramatically in the years since missiles had been perfected. No longer did heavily armored battleships pound at each other with their big guns, hoping for a hit. Sea battles now oftentimes were fought with the combatants hundreds of miles apart. The power of high-explosive-tipped missiles made thick plates of protective steel superfluous, so modern navies rarely bothered.

The Oregon had built-in protection, but not against the Sidra’s three-inch cannons, and certainly not if she managed to slam a couple of Styx missiles into Oregon’s side. Juan was proposing to get close enough to the Libyan frigate to send across a boarding party under the full onslaught of the Sidra’s guns and missiles.

“When was the last time two capital ships dueled it out like this?” Hanley finally asked.

“I’m thinking March ninth, 1862, at Hampton Roads, Virginia.”

“The Monitor and the Merrimack?” Juan nodded. Max added, “They fought to a draw. We don’t have that option. And you do realize that unless we sink her as soon as we have the Secretary, we’re going to have just as tough a time getting clear again. We might get lucky sneaking up on their ship, but don’t think the Libyans are gonna let us just sail away, you know?”

“Already thought about that.”

“You have an idea?”

“No,” Juan said airily. “But I have thought about it.”

“And your distraction? Any ideas on that front?”

“Don’t have the foggiest. But since we’ll attack under the cover of darkness, we’ve got until dusk to come up with one. One thing, though . . .”

“Yeah?”

“A ship the size of the Sidra is going to take twenty minutes or more to sink, no matter how we do it. That’s more than enough time to give the Oregon a missile enema.”

Max put on a long-suffering expression. “Oh, you are just full of cheery news, aren’t you?”

“I’ll add insult to injury. Before we face the Sidra, we’re loading our new Libyan friends into our lifeboats. I don’t want them aboard when we go into battle. So if something goes wrong, we’ve got no way off the Oregon.”

“Why did I ever take that first phone call from you all those years ago?” Max cried theatrically to the ceiling.

“Chairman,” the comm officer said, “you have another call coming through.”

“Linc?”

“No, sir. Langston Overholt.”

“Thanks, Monica.” Juan donned a headset and keyed his computer to accept the call. “Lang, it’s Cabrillo.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Good. Tired, but good.”

“And your guests?”

“Grateful and ravenous. They’ve gone through half our stores in a single day.”

“I’m calling for an update and to give you some news.”

“Tariq Assad just showed up near where my people are looking for Suleiman’s tomb.”

“He’s the official who Qaddafi’s government said is Al-Jama?”

“And it would appear they were right, and we helped him escape and nearly lost a man doing so.”

“Lost someone. Who?”

“Hali Kasim, my head communications officer, was shot in the chest. Eddie Seng got him to a hospital, but we have no idea yet on his condition.”

“I’ll get word to Ambassador Moon so he’ll look into it.”

“I’d appreciate that, thank you.”

“Does this clear Minister Ghami from your list of suspects?”

“Not in the slightest. Terrorists might have taken down the Secretary’s plane without government help, but there was a cover-up afterward. It could have easily been orchestrated from the top or manipulated from the shadows. If Al-Jama’s people have infiltrated the Libyan government the way we suspect, then the tangos could have been tipped off early enough to put the cover-up in place.”

“Or Ghami is high in Al-Jama’s organization, and he ordered the destruction of the plane’s wreckage as well as the convenient timing of its discovery.”

“Exactly. And let’s not forget that the person who Ghami replaced, plus most of his senior staff, were arrested and left to rot. That could have come from Ghami, or Qaddafi himself could have ordered a purge.”

“What a mess.” The CIA veteran sighed. “Despite our warnings, the Vice President is insisting on going to a scheduled reception tonight at Ghami’s home for many of the conference’s senior attendees.”

“Bad idea,” Juan snapped.

“I concur, but there isn’t anything I can do about it. The Secret Service detail has been informed there may be an assault, but the VP is adamant he attend.”

“The guy’s a moron.”

“I concur with that, too. However, it doesn’t change the facts. On the plus side, Ghami’s house is totally isolated, and the security personnel are the same people being used for the conference in Tripoli tomorrow morning. They’ve all been vetted. Even if Ghami is somehow connected to the terrorists, I think this dinner should be okay.”

“Really? Why?”

“Would you stage a massive attack on your own home? Especially when you’ll have the same people gathered together the next day with the world’s press watching every move they make. You must remember the impact of Anwar Sadat’s assassination being broadcast nearly live. If there’s going to be an attack—”

“Not if, Lang,” Juan said.

“If there’s going to be an attack,” Overholt persisted, “it’ll be tomorrow, or sometime during the conference.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Nobody does, but there isn’t any other way. All of these leaders know they’re putting their lives at risk by attending the conference, either there in Tripoli or back home when their own fundamentalists rouse themselves into a frenzy. In these troubled times, being the president of a Middle Eastern country is a dangerous occupation, especially for those willing to work on a peace deal. They all know it and are still willing to go ahead. That says something.” Overholt then changed tack as his way of saying that was the end of the discussion, and he asked, “How are you coming with finding Secretary Katamora?”

“I think we have a lead.” Juan had already explained to Overholt about the radar blip they’d seen and his theory that she was being taken to a ship offshore. “She may be on a frigate called the Gulf of Sidra, or Khalij Surt, and we’re on our way to her now.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“Board her, rescue the Secretary, and put the Sidra on the bottom.”

“Absolutely not!” Overholt roared. Juan winced. “You will not sink a naval vessel belonging to a sovereign nation. I can’t even condone you boarding her.”

“I’m not asking for permission, Lang,” Juan retorted hotly.

“Juan, as God is my witness, if you sink that ship I will see to it that you are charged for piracy. I can authorize you to discover if she is aboard. After that, it falls on our diplomats, and possibly our military, to resolve the situation.”

“Diplomats?” Juan scoffed. “These are terrorists. Murderers. You can’t negotiate with them.”

“Then our Navy will handle an assault, if it comes to that. Am I clear?”

“Might as well pack it in now, Lang, because if you follow that plan she’s as good as dead.”

“You don’t think I know what’s at stake?” Overholt shouted. “I know her life is probably forfeit, but I also have rules, and when I have them so do you. You were hired to find her, and if she’s on the Gulf of Sidra you’ve done your job. Take your money and go.”

“Damn it.” Juan’s anger spilled into his voice. He had no idea why the conversation had veered in this direction, but he wasn’t going to take an insult. “This isn’t about money, and you know it.”

“Christ. I’m sorry,” Lang replied contritely. “That was a low blow. It’s just this whole situation.”

“I understand. Marquis of Queensbury.”

“What’s that?”

“Just something Max said a while back. Don’t worry. I won’t destroy their ship, you have my promise. But if there’s a chance I can get her back, I’m going for it. Okay?”

“All right. It’s just that we can’t handle another diplomatic incident with Libya right now. On the heels of the plane crash, they’ll see the destruction of one of their frigates as retaliation no matter who was responsible, and they’ll treat it as an act of war. You’ll scuttle the conference before it even starts.”

“We’re on the same page, Lang. Relax, and I’ll call you later.” Juan killed the connection and turned to Max. “Good thing that wasn’t a video call.”

“Why’s that?”

“He would have seen my fingers crossed.”