Red Metal

CHAPTER 56

“Helm, come to one-two-nine degrees. Depth, thirty feet. Speed, four knots,” whispered the navigator.

“One-two-nine, and thirty feet, aye,” answered the pilot.

“Confirm heading and depth, aye,” said the copilot.

Commander Diana DelVecchio watched the two men at the controls. The two young men sat next to each other, working in perfect harmony with her boat to keep the submarine level and on course.

The XO leaned over to her and spoke softly, out of the earshot of others. “Ma’am. We’re doing this? We’re going to attack the port of a nation we’re not at war with?”

“I prefer to think of it as us attacking hostile forces who are in the process of invading the nation we’re not at war with.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, but DelVecchio acknowledged his concern.

“The area commander opened ROE when the shooting started in Germany. Having said that, some locals around the port are going to die if we hit one or two of those oil tankers. It will be devastating.” She remained silent for a moment, then spoke up in a louder voice.

“Weapons, status report.”

The weapons control officer responded with “All tubes loaded. Tubes two and four are still awaiting confirmation. Outer muzzle door is causing them some trouble.”

“What’s the issue?”

“Captain, we don’t know — might be barnacles crusting the outer hatch, portside. Torpedo room wants permission to flush it with air to see if they can jar the hinges.”

“No,” she said. “Get the targeting solution finished. When we fire the starboard tubes, tell them to pop air in on the portside, then immediately fire the other spread. That way we’ll only give away our position to anyone listening when the first fish are already in the water.”

“Aye, Captain,” said the weapons control officer, who turned quickly back to the two men at the digital targeting computers.

“Up scope,” she said to the weapons station officer.

With stealth and cunning and supremely accurate navigational charts, the John Warner had managed to slip through the phalanx of Russian submarines and the Iranian and Russian frigates, and was now within range of the harbor of Djibouti City. Only silent running here would keep herself and her crew alive, and she knew they’d have time to fire only one spread of torpedoes at the big ships now at dock before they’d have to turn and run.

DelVecchio now knew what everyone above the surface knew: the Russians were going for that rare-earth-mineral mine that had been such a big story in the news for a few months three and a half years earlier. She’d received word that a mechanized brigade was on board the flotilla, as well as a warning that there was almost no way to stop them once they were on land. A few companies of the French Foreign Legion and a battalion of the Kenya Defence Forces protected the mine itself, and French and American military leaders were scrambling to get assets into play; but with the shooting down of the four B-1B Lancers the day before, nobody wanted to fly anywhere near the Russians.

It was up to DelVecchio, here, now, to thin the ranks of the enemy, or there would be nothing to stop them from winning the mines and destroying everyone and everything in their way.

French spy Pascal Arc-Blanchette watched the activity at the port through his binoculars from over a kilometer away, standing outside a press box at the Stade Hassan Gouled, the largest soccer stadium in the East African nation. He had a decent if distant vantage point from here and he could determine only two things: there were a lot of Russians, and they had brought some toys.

It had been a hell of a morning. The sixty-four-year-old had spent the previous evening at the French embassy learning details about the fleet and the destruction of four U.S. bombers over the Gulf of Aden, and he’d been on the phone and met in person with local contacts, doing his best to set up lines of communication so they could stay in touch and report in when the streets were clogged with Russian armor, Russian guns, and Russian eyes.

He truly wished Paris had paid closer attention to his warning that Russian special forces were operating in Djibouti, and he blamed himself for not raising a louder alarm. But not for long. He understood that his little corner of the world here was on no one’s radar more than twenty-four hours ago, and with everything else going on, there was no alarm he could have sounded that would have allowed Paris to stop a Russian invasion.

No, this attack had been coming for some time — it was inevitable — and now all Pascal could do was that thing he did best: spy on his adversary.

To this end he turned away and left his high perch at the Stade Gouled, heading downstairs for his car. He’d relocate to the far edge of the city to put himself in position to monitor the Russians when they left town on their way to Kenya.

As he made his way down the poured-concrete staircase, his phone rang. He snatched it up, thinking it might be one of the dockworkers he’d been trying desperately to reach for the past few hours.

“Allo?”

“Hi, Papa. It’s me.”

Arc-Blanchette usually beamed from ear to ear upon hearing his son’s voice, but not now. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“Not much goes on around here I don’t know about, but in your case I got a call from a friend at the ministry involved with the evacuation. He mentioned a group that sounded a lot like yours was flying in, and then the plane would fill with those French flying out.”

“I was hoping to see you getting on that plane.”

Pascal laughed softly. “I’ve spent years down here with nothing much going on. I’m certainly not leaving now while there is some real excitement.” His tone turned serious. “I’m more concerned about you. What can you and your tiny band of lightly armed soldiers do against all that pouring off those ships?”

“The less you know, the better.”

There was silence for a moment. “Ah, my brave, brave boy. The Arc-Blanchettes have fought for France in every capacity since the time of—”

“Yes, I know — since the Battle of Montebello. You tell us all the time. Where are you? I’d like to see you.”

Pascal thought for a moment. “There is a place I use from time to time. The owner and his family are trusted friends. La Mer Rouge. It’s a kilometer south of the highway as you leave the city. But beware: Russian eyes and ears are everywhere.”

“I will, Papa. Be safe yourself.”

On the pier adjacent to where General Lazar now conferred with his staff, Colonel Borbikov was not happy. His Tigrs were just now slowly rolling off the gangway, and the Djiboutian dockworkers seemed intent on banging every crate and cargo net full of equipment during the off-loading. He told himself he’d be lucky if half his ammunition and equipment was operational after such rough treatment.

The longshoremen were being paid a considerable sum, Borbikov knew, and he wasn’t getting much out of them in his estimation. He told himself these Third World wretches would quickly start working a hell of a lot harder if he started shooting the laziest in their ranks, but he did not pull his pistol.

Instead he let the thought pass. There was a strong possibility Russia would need the use of this port again in the future to bring more equipment or troops to the rare-earth mine.

The local men passed him without a word; most looked the other way when they noticed his angry glare.

Suddenly an ugly noise jarred him out of his thoughts. The vessel’s Klaxon alarm began sounding.

What the fuck are these Iranian assholes up to now?

He ran up the gangplank as dockworkers filed past him, looking around in mild curiosity. Some Iranian sailors and Russian troops peered up into the morning sky, worried about an attack from the air.

Borbikov pushed through them. “Make way! Move your asses!”

A man he recognized as one of the junior Iranian deck officers ran onto the bridge wing above him, leaned over, and yelled down through a bullhorn.

“Hujum tuwrbid! Hujum tuwrbid!”

“Speak Russian, you fool!” he yelled back up.

The ship’s loudspeakers were already doing the job of translating, and an Iranian-accented voice yelled out in Russian, “Torpedo! Torpedo! All men brace for impact! Torpedo in the water!”

Borbikov looked out to sea. How could there be a torpedo? The mouth of the port was supposed to be filled with antisubmarine ships and three prowling Russian subs. Could the Americans really be so stealthy that they could slip through?

All around Colonel Borbikov, men began to panic, running toward the gangway to get off the ship. A GAZ Tigr, midway down the ramp, smashed into the railing, its front wheels falling off the edge, wedging it there as the driver jumped out of the vehicle and took off for the pier.

Undeterred, Borbikov ran toward the ship’s water side and looked over. A thin white sheet of wake approached at high speed. To his left, he heard two other ships’ klaxons wail.

Borbikov watched the incoming torpedo with detachment for a moment; then self-preservation kicked in and he grabbed a railing. He had just done so when a muffled boom rocked the vessel and an enormous spray of water erupted into the sky farther down the hull. Borbikov’s body shook as the explosion below the waterline vibrated throughout the ship, and then a secondary explosion rocketed him off his feet and smashed him against the deck.

More explosions came from farther down the pier as other ships were struck with torpedoes.

His brain, rattled and slowed by the impact, forced him to lie still for a moment, all but deafened. Then the sounds of bedlam erupted slowly as the ship began listing slightly to one side.

Borbikov, touching his hand to his forehead, felt a slight trickle of blood. Angered and stunned by this latest turn of events, he climbed back to his feet and grabbed an armor sergeant running by him toward the gangway.

“Halt there, trooper! Grab two men and slow the others down. No panic!”

The man looked at him with crazed eyes.

Seeing that he wasn’t getting through to the panic-stricken soldier, he reached out a hand. “Give me your fucking rifle, you idiot!”

The man handed it over reluctantly, expecting to be shot on the spot. Borbikov flicked off the safety and racked the bolt back, aimed the AK-47 skyward, and fired a burst of fifteen rounds into the air. All around him men dropped to the deck.

The blast of gunfire was a sound of destruction they all recognized. Everyone on the deck of Sabalan stared at Colonel Borbikov.

“Listen to me! If you make order, you’ll have time to get yourselves and the equipment off. I will not tolerate any more panic. You are Russian soldiers, on a mission vital to your nation. Every man is your comrade!” Either the burst of fire or his sharp words did the trick, and the sergeants and junior officers took charge and began a firm but more orderly evacuation of the ship.

Borbikov made his way to the bridge to see how long they had before the Sabalan went down. He glanced back at the gangplank, where a group of men was trying to straighten the Tigr that had halfway fallen off the ramp. An incredible explosion some way down the pier signaled another hit. He could feel a heat wave and guessed it was an oil tanker going up in flames.

The U.S. submarine chose wisely, he thought as he climbed to the bridge. Two oil tankers, the command ship, and a cargo vessel carrying tanks and ammunition. The torpedo hits on the tankers had been calculated to severely degrade his task force before it even assembled on land. The Iranian frigates were already racing out of the mouth of the bay to search for the enemy submarine, but the damage had been done.

On board the John Warner, the sonarman called out to DelVecchio. “Captain, full spread has hit. Active ping sounding now. Those frigates are coming out after us. Still more than five nautical miles distant. From their tracks, they are uncoordinated and searching blind.”

Diana DelVecchio said, “Let them come. XO, I want more than twelve nautical miles distance within the hour, but keep a good sweep searching for their subs, because you can be sure they’ll be converging on our location. Calculate course and speed to get us there. Hydrophones, confirm ship’s noise — I want silence en route. Then I want you to pick a nice sandbar. We’ll wait for them to pass over us, and only then will we go for deep water.”

A murmur of assent and pride quietly went around the John Warner as word was passed in low tones from stem to stern that Captain DelVecchio had sent four vessels to the bottom of the Djiboutian harbor.

The boat snuck along just above the seafloor as ships in all directions began hunting for it.