Pirate

Chapter Forty-four

Gulf of Oman

“YOU LOOK UNHAPPY,” HAWKE SAID TO HARRY BROCK. THEY were standing on the trawler’s stern in the dark. All the ship’s lights were doused. Ahmed was helping them get suited up in wetsuits and high-tech SEAL gear. The equipment included German Draegers, “re-breathers,” that purified and recirculated their oxygen so no tell-tale bubbles marked their progress on the surface. Now that night had fallen, Hawke was reasonably sure the recon mission could be carried out unseen and unnoticed.

Harry was upset they weren’t using the Swimmer Delivery Vehicle he’d procured from the Navy. And he hadn’t found it amusing when Hawke had said, “Don’t you think that’s a bit of overkill, Irontail? We’re just doing a light recon. We can swim it.”

The sun had set and the moon had risen while the darkened trawler Cacique poked along the northern tip of the island, looking for a suitable mooring on the rocky coast.

Cacique had to be sufficiently near the island for the two men to swim to Fort Mahoud’s entrance and back. But the trawler also had to be anchored somewhere out of sight, away from any prying eyes at the fort. After his recent experience aboard the Star of Shanghai, Hawke had a new rule of thumb when it came to unexpectedly dropping in on new friends. Always assume you’re expected, no matter what they tell you.

They’d managed a pretty good spot. The anchorage was tucked inside a deepwater cove just west of Point Arras on the northwest side of the island. Hawke figured it was maybe a half-mile swim out around the rocky point and then south two thousand yards to the fort’s entrance. The trawler would be invisible in the cove, even from atop the twin towers. He told Ali to drop anchor. Ahmed had brought up the equipment, recently arrived from the United States, from below.

“You okay?” Hawke asked.

“Yeah.” Brock was struggling with his regulator. “I’m no fucking water baby, that’s all, Your Lordship. Why do you think I went to all the trouble to get the goddamn SDV, for chrissakes.”

Hawke smiled and looked at Brock, now smearing night camo paint on his face. “Stay close to Papa. You’ll be all right.”

“Mr. Hawke, sir! Mr. Brock!” Captain Ali al-Houri was at the rail just above their heads.

“Yes?”

“A message just came in over the wire, sir. Urgent. A speech on the radio. I’ve got the shortwave tuned in to BBC, sir! It’s starting in a few minutes, sir.”

“We’ll be right there.” Hawke slipped off his tank and flippers. So did Brock, who seemed grateful for the reprieve, however temporary.

The old trawler wasn’t large enough to have a real radio room. The commo equipment was all in the main saloon, sitting on a book-crowded shelf over the nav station. When Hawke came inside the darkened room, Ali was seated at the tiny station, twisting the knob on the ancient Grundig receiver, looking for the strongest signal. They all pulled chairs from the round dining table and gathered around the radio. It was quite homey, Hawke thought.

“Somebody at Langley sent you a fax?” Brock asked Hawke, who held the flimsy two-page message in his hand, reading it in the dim light. Brock wasn’t accustomed to seeing an archaic fax machine used for the transmission of coded messages from highly sophisticated intelligence agencies.

“Your boss at Langley. He didn’t sign it, naturally, but that’s who this is from.”

“What’s he got to say?”

“Seems the new president of France is about to make a radio address to the nation. The Elysée only announced it an hour ago. According to this, Kelly believes Monsieur Bonaparte’s got some serious problems. Basically, he’s trying to put down an insurrection. He’s got the army and the navy with him, but the populace is up in arms about the assassinations and the impending invasion of Oman. The remnants of Honfleur’s old government are on the attack, too.”

“What the hell happened to liberté, égalité, fraternité?”

“According to Brick, the turmoil is a result of French bloggers having a feeding frenzy. They’re all over the chat rooms, accusing Bonaparte and his boys of selling France to the highest bidder. Namely, your little pals in China.”

“God bless Al Gore for inventing the Internet.”

“Right—hold on—here he is now…”

“—and, live now from Paris on BBC One, World Radio Tonight, this is Robert Markham…. President Bonaparte has entered this very uneasy room here at the Elysée Palace. The Salon Napoleon III, with its gilded columns and eagles symbolizing the Empire, is a hectic scene tonight. Bonaparte, resplendent in a military uniform, is shaking hands with some of his highest-ranking military officers…smiling…I must say he seems very relaxed this evening…the question on everyone’s mind is, can he hold on to the seat of power now that he’s got it? He’s stepping up to the microphone…BBC One will provide simultaneous translation of his remarks…here is the new president of France.”

There was a burst of static, and then President Bonaparte spoke.

“Good evening. A few short weeks ago, during my tragically short period as your new prime minister, I made my first appeal to France. I asked for perseverance during turmoil and I asked for courage on the road ahead.

“Tonight, as your new president, my voice is firmer. The tragic deaths of Prime Minister Honfleur and our beloved president Bocquet at the hands of France’s enemies will be avenged. France will recover. Look around you! Thanks in part to my new foreign trade policies, factories across the country are already humming. Wages are up, production is up, unemployment is down. But many Frenchmen won’t believe it. To them I say, ‘You have short memories!’

“Believe me, this is no time to engage in bitterness or reprisals…or give way to despair. You have not been sold, abandoned, or betrayed. Not to Germany, not to China, not to any country. Those who say so are lying…and throwing you into the arms of the Anglo-American fascists, capitalist warmongers whose greatest fear is the economic and military power of a resurgent France.

“Yes, we may suffer in the coming weeks. Our troops are headed into battle. We will liberate the brave people of Oman from the tyranny of terror. It will not be easy. I need your trust at this hour. The trust of your hearts and minds. I need your wisdom and patience. Those attributes you will attain only under my leadership. None but those who forget our history, or those enemies of our unity with our new allies, will seek to destroy us.

“Remember, you are citizens of an old and glorious nation. I speak to you tonight as the proud descendant of Napoleon, the emperor who restored honor and glory to France…and in his name, a name that echoes still down the corridors of history…citizens of France, in the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, I ask you to put down your arms!

“Forget your anger, your tears. Give me your trust. All for one, and one for all. I, Bonaparte, am that one. And, together with you, I promise that I will protect you from the forces of evil. That one day soon we shall emerge from the dark of the old century…and into the light of the new. Thank you very much. Vive la France!”

“Guy can talk,” Brock said as the captain reached up to shut off the radio.

“He’s a megalomaniac who wants to be emperor of Europe,” Hawke said, getting to his feet. “A megalomaniac who needs stopping. Let’s go swimming, Mr. Brock.”

Twenty minutes later, roughly five hundred yards offshore, a head popped out of the sea. It was encased in a half-head ballistic helmet, matte black, with a communication headset and night-vision goggles on a flip-up mount. What little of the face remained visible was smeared black with greasepaint. Ragged clouds scurried by the moon and the surface was choppy. Alex Hawke flipped down his goggles and trod water as he studied the target and fortifications, confident he would not be seen from the towers.

“You survived,” Hawke said into his boom mike as a second head joined him on the surface.

“Just trying to keep up, boss,” he heard in his earpiece.

Hawke said, “Okay, Brock. Simple mission. Reconnoiter, identify, infiltrate, mark it, and get the hell out. Right?”

“Sounds good.”

“But for a small problem, it is,” Hawke now told Brock. “Take a look. A new arrival.”

Brock swung himself around and saw what Hawke was talking about. There was a cutter now moored along the steel dock to the right of the entry steps. A large patrol boat with a French tricolor hanging off her stern. Twin 40mm guns on her fore and after decks. He could make out crewmen on the bow and stern, casting off lines. A powerful spotlight on the bridge was illuminated. She was headed out.

“Problem,” Hawke said. “If she turns left and heads north around the point, it’s trouble. She’ll find Cacique and probably board her. Even if we started swimming right now, we’d never make it back in time to warn Ali and Ahmed.”

“So let’s hope she turns right and heads south.”

“Let’s hope. Even if she goes south and around the island the long way, we’ll have to make this quick. Assuming she patrols at an average of five knots, she can circumnavigate Masara in less than an hour. We need to do this recon and be back aboard Cacique and under way before that or we’ve got a new set of problems.”

“Let’s go,” Brock said and submerged. Hawke followed immediately and saw the little clouds of phosporescence trailing behind Brock’s flippers. He swam easily up alongside the American and gave him a thumbs-up. If he’d been worried about Brock earlier, he now saw those fears as perhaps unfounded. In fact, the man was doing fine. He was, Hawke reminded himself, a tough, thorough, hard-bitten professional field agent who’d survived capture and torture at the hands of the most vicious secret police on the planet.

He’d been hand-picked by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to go into China alone.

Who knew what else was on his resume? In the great Kingdom of Spookdom, Brick Kelly had assured him, Harry Brock was a crown prince. Harry had walked the walk, Hawke knew. He just hadn’t swum the swim.

Five minutes later, Hawke held up his hand, signaling Brock to stop. They were hanging twenty feet below the surface, a few hundred yards from the docks, and the sound of the patrol boat’s twin screws was rapidly growing louder. She was headed straight for them.

The underwater sound was, for Hawke, a most unpleasant reminder of the incident aboard the USS Lincoln. The two men hung in the water and watched the patrol boat approach and slide overhead. The underside of the fifty-foot hull was clearly visible as it passed above. Both watched intently, instinctively holding their breath despite the re-breathers. If she made a left turn north toward Point Arras, they had serious problems.

Captain Ali and Ahmed would be caught completely unawares. They were both clever and resourceful men, but what plausible and speedy explanation could be offered for Cacique’s presence in the little cove so near the fort? And if they were suddenly boarded by armed French sailors, would one of them have the presence of mind to quickly duck below and hide or remove any incriminating evidence of documents and equipment? It wasn’t likely that there would be time.

The two men in the water breathed a sigh of relief. The patrol boat had turned right and away from Cacique. She was steaming south along the coast. Still, they had less than an hour to complete their mission and get back to the boat. They swam for the fort.

“Shit,” Brock whispered under his breath as they broke the surface simultaneously.

“Now what?”

They had surfaced as planned under the steel dock. No one had seen or shot at them. But the water was thick with jellyfish. Hawke himself could feel a few stinging welts rising across his cheek and the back of his neck. Portuguese man-of-wars. A few more of these electrifying stings could send a man into a state of shock. He decided not to tell Brock about that part.

“One of them get to you, Harry?” Hawke asked.

“Yeah. Damn it.”

“When you get back to the boat, rub some of your own piss on the welts. It’ll take the sting away.”

“What?”

“Trust me. I think the opening is just below me. I can feel it with my flipper.”

“Yeah, I feel it, too.”

“Go. I’ll mark the spot and catch up inside.”

“Kick ass. Loot and shoot.”

“Kick ass? No, Harry, we—”

Brock had disappeared below the surface. Hawke took out his assault knife and carved three horizontal slashes in the barnacles on the piling. The entrance below was now clearly marked but out of sight on the inside of the piling. He checked his stainless-steel watch. This was mean high tide. At dead low, a few hours from now, the opening in the rock would be large enough to accommodate a lighter full of men and ammo. Or an outbound vessel loaded with rescued hostages.

Then, as the tide came back in, the opening would disappear. The timing on this operation was going to very interesting.

Hawke dove down, used his knife again to mark the entrance with three slashes just above the arch, and swam inside.

He and Brock were not heavily armed. Hawke himself carried only a compass, a plumb line, and a depth gauge in addition to his knife. They weren’t here to kick ass, Hawke was thinking as he swam toward the phosphorescence that marked Brock’s rapid progress inside the tunnel. No. They were here to run away and fight another day.

Namely, tomorrow. That’s when Stokely would arrive. Along with his deadly friends from Martinique, the antiterrorist team known as Thunder and Lightning. Tonight’s objective was solely to reconnoiter the powder magazine and find a safe way inside the fortress. To figure out precisely how to kick ass when they came back. And get the women and children out safely.

Loot and shoot? That’s what Harry had said.

Hawke swam faster.

A loose cannon was one thing. But a loose cannon without a cannon was another matter entirely. Hawke made another mental note: Keep an eye on Harry.