SeaGhost

Chapter 15

Justin Malgard had received a call at his motel in Norfolk at 4:15. A lieutenant asked him to report to the Operations Center.

His taxi arrived at the main gate by five, and he was somewhat excited about being part of the operation. That wore off quickly when the cab was stopped by Navy SPs and Marine guards at the barricaded gate. The base was closed down, and he had to get out of the taxi and wait for an escort.

An ensign in a Navy sedan pulled up a few minutes later, cleared him with the Marines, and put him in the backseat. The ride to the Operations Center relieved him of any excitement he still had.

The destruction was random, and he did not get to see much of it, since it was spread all over the base. In a couple of spots, buildings, vehicles, shrubbery, and landscaping were merged in nearly unrecognizable heaps, still smoking. He could see fires several blocks away that still raged. Ambulances and trucks and jeeps cut around corners and sped down streets in a frenzy. With the window rolled down, he heard the cacophony of sirens, yells, and racing engines. Passing one building on fire, he heard the crackling of flames, the hiss of water directed at it by pumpers standing in the street. Everything was soot covered. Emergency lights were pulsing all around him. A major conflagration near, or on, the Navy docks lit up the early-morning sky.

When he arrived at the door to the Operations Center, Rear Admiral Matthew Andrews passed him by the checkpoint. Inside, Andrews pointed at a chair in the corner.

“Sit there, Mr. Malgard. If we have a question, we want you nearby.”

He sat there for almost three hours, drinking coffee and eating donuts passed around by a seaman. He studied the intricate electronic map on the wall and began to identify the movements of some selected ships.

He could not quite figure out what was going on. Messengers came in and left. Console operators talked into their headsets, signaled officers milling around the room, took orders. The dots on the map changed. Andrews seemed to be in charge until around seven o’clock, when Clay came back. Clay’s uniform was filthy with soot and dirt, and he and Andrews had a heated exchange on the far side of the room. Malgard guessed that Andrews prevailed, because the intelligence officer was smiling when they broke up the discussion.

Clay barely acknowledged Malgard with a nod. His attitude seemed to have changed significantly. He left the room, and when he returned, he was in a fresh uniform. There was an angry bruise on his forehead, and his eyebrows had been singed.

He came directly across the room to Malgard.

“You sure you don’t know a Devlin or a Kevin Mc-Cory?” the admiral asked.

“I can’t say as I’ve ever heard of them, Admiral. Is it important?”

“Very. Kevin McCory has a Sea Spectre out there.” He pointed in the direction of a bunch of blips on the map. “He’s a fucking cowboy who thinks he can take out Ibrahim Badr.”

Damn. No wonder he had not heard from Chambers.

“I don’t understand, Admiral. This is an American who’s been attacking the coastal bases?”

“Not according to my aide, who is on board the boat with McCory.”

For Christ’s sake! “You’ve got a man with McCory?”

“I don’t believe it was planned that way, but yes.”

“So you’ve got one of the boats back?”

Clay grimaced. “We’re not certain. It doesn’t look like they’re responding to orders.”

“Well, can’t you force them?”

“You’re forgetting, Mr. Malgard. We can’t even find them.”

Clay spun around and headed for one of the consoles. Malgard’s head felt as if it were spinning. McCory did have a boat, but apparently, so did this terrorist. McCory and some naval officer wanted a confrontation.

He could only hope that Badr would put a missile right up McCory’s ass.

The Hormuz had not been where it was supposed to be.

Ibrahim Badr suspected that it had broken down in reality and required repairs. By this time, he thought that Abdul Hakim was frightened enough of him, as well as taking some pride in the accomplishments of the Warriors of Allah, so that he would not abandon them.

If it came down to it, he could abandon Hakim. The stealth boat had been fully fueled before beginning the attack on Norfolk. With conservation, he thought he could make North Africa, perhaps even Tripoli for refueling. The idiot Colonel would want to take the boat away from him if he did that, of course.

All day long, they had been drifting south, keeping the engines barely idling at six or seven knots. Badr was certain that the Hormuz could not be north of them. It was supposed to be on a direct northerly heading along the seventy-one-degree, fifteen-minute track. If he continued south, he would run into it.

Then, one more attack. Against the City of New York. Oh, the panic that would create!

Allah, rejoice!

And then they would return to the camps in southern Lebanon, heroes of the cause. Heroes with a fabulous weapon to be used against the infidels.

“I have a sonar reading,” Amin Kadar said from his place at the console. “Twin propellers, ten thousand meters.”

“Bearing?”

“I cannot yet tell.”

“Let me know if it comes closer. We will alter course to avoid it.”

“We should attack it,” Kadar said.

“Not just yet,” Badr told him.

As he had been doing regularly, Badr scanned the seas through the windows, then glanced down at the rearview screen. For all intents, they were alone on the ocean. The day could not have been better. The overcast had lowered, perhaps to a four hundred meter ceiling. The swells had shortened, the troughs had deepened, and the boat sometimes tilted alarmingly as it drifted. The bouncing was endless and becoming more abrupt. Omar Heusseini had become sick in midmorning.

His vomit was still drying on the back of the dining table bench and the deck. The deck was also littered with candy wrappings, chicken bones, pieces of meat and bread. A plastic water glass wandered back and forth beneath the table. His crew was not a disciplined one.

It did not matter. They were good at what they did. Heusseini had taken active readings on the radar twice during the day. Despite the appearance of emptiness, the sea around them contained a surprising number of ships, many of which he suspected belonged to the United States Navy.

Caution was called for. They would drift, and they would avoid any contact. Soon, the Hormuz would come into view.

Night Light also drifted, but aimlessly. McCory was trying to keep her in the area, while still eluding any probes by the Safaris Charley, Delta, and Echo.

Several times, he had gone aft and opened the hatches to let fresh air enter the cabin. The salt tang tasted good on his tongue. The waves were capping higher, a few washing over the stern deck. Once, he heard a helicopter pass by to the east.

Jim Monahan had apparently accepted his fate. He seemed to have signed on for the duration. He might even use McCory’s strained rationale — his claim on the SeaGhost and his rights as captain — to alibi himself later. McCory had slept for three hours in the afternoon, and when he climbed out of the bunk, he found that Monahan had not taken control and headed for Norfolk.

Monahan had grabbed a couple hours of bunk time in midmorning, but for the better part of the day, he had been listening to the radios, switching frequencies often, jotting notes at the communications desk. He understood the bulk of the code words being utilized.

McCory fried four hamburgers for dinner, stacking them high with Swiss cheese, onions, and dill pickles. He brought two of them and a bottle of Dos Equis to the communications console.

“Thanks,” Monahan said, pulling the right side of his headset back.

“Anything new?”

“Not particularly. I wish we had a copy of the Baker Two map grid. Best guess is that the area is becoming congested. None of the search ships are moving very fast. Safari Echo has identified three ships they’re keeping a close eye on.”

“What three?”

“A Panamanian container ship named the Morning Glory, a Colombian freighter called Nem Andes, and a Kuwaiti tanker named Hormuz.”

“Any particular reason?” McCory asked.

“Damned if I know. Probably, they’ve been on a track that makes them accessible to the Sea Spectre for the past nine days.”

“Why don’t they just board them?”

“It’s called piracy. You should know about that.”

“You sound like my lawyer.”

“Theodore Daimler?”

“Shit.”

“Hey, you didn’t think you were going to get away with it, did you?”

“I did. And I still do. This is my boat.”

Monahan took a bite out of his hamburger, but his eyes showed his disbelief.

McCory was off his rocker. Short a full deck. One elevator stop from the top floor. McCory thought Monahan was running through all the clichés.

All of them can go to hell, Devlin.

He ate one of his hamburgers while checking the sonar. Nothing. He sat in front of the radar screen, eating and wishing he could go active. He hated being blind.

The SeaGhost purred along, climbing the swells, sliding down the other side.

Monahan continued checking the frequencies. CINCLANT had tried to contact them a dozen times, but McCory had nixed any replies.

Once before noon, the Prebble had tried to reach them on the frequency Monahan called Tac-Three. They had not responded, but Monahan left the Tac-Three on standby.

When he had finished his second hamburger, McCory said, “I vote we go active on the radar and get a more recent reading.”

Monahan got up from his chair and moved forward, bracing himself against the rocking deck.

“You drive. I’ll shoot the picture.”

McCory slid over behind the wheel, disengaged the autopilot, and rested his hand on the throttles. As soon as Monahan had his sweep, McCory would scoot for a new position.

Two seconds later, Monahan said, “Hit it!”

He slammed the throttles forward.

The speaker beside his shoulder blared, “Safari Echo to all Safaris. We had an active radar at Baker Two, six-one, seven-eight.”

As the SeaGhost came on plane, McCory said, “Damn, they’re fast.”

“They want us pretty bad, McCory.”

“We’re on their side.”

“They don’t know who they just saw.”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s right.”

It was going to be an early night, Monahan thought. Already, the daylight was fading fast, deepening into gloom. The seas were rougher than before, he thought. He had listened in on some weather forecasts, but nothing scary was predicted.

He had now been aboard the Sea Spectre for almost twenty-four hours, and he thought it was a hell of a boat. Monahan knew damned well that the Prebble was within fifteen miles of them, and helpless. He didn’t know what he would do in Norman’s place. This thing was just ghostly.

A couple of times, he had daydreamed his excuse to Bingham Clay. He tried out McCory’s argument. I didn’t feel I had the authority to countermand a captain’s orders, Admiral.

The response to that was a gritty, Bullshit!

Finally, he had decided to use the truth and try to ride out the storm that followed. Probably, he would face a court-martial.

Why did you not follow your orders, Commander?

I didn’t want to follow them. I wanted to get the goddamned terrorist. Sir.

Monahan was post-Vietnam. The closest he had ever come to battle was service aboard a backup frigate during the Grenada invasion.

He had the training; he needed the action.

Bullshit, again.

The son of a bitch killed a lot of my colleagues. I wanted to wrap his head in a plastic bag and slowly fill it with water.

All right. Let’s go with that.

Monahan didn’t know all of McCory’s motives. There were probably several grains of truth behind his comment about his father. Then, too, McCory had had the SEAL training. Those people tended to be very good, very disciplined, and very loyal.

All right. Let’s buy that, too.

Monahan was at the commander’s desk, plotting on the Atlantic chart.

McCory came up behind him. “Figure it out?”

He pointed out his markings. “Extrapolating speeds from our two radar readings, I can’t tell much about the military ships. They seem to have changed courses and speeds from time to time. They’re kind of milling around.”

“Like ourselves.”

“And like Badr, if we’re thinking right. Over here, we’re showing the six commercial vessels we spotted this morning. They’re not all on the same course or track. With only two readings, we have to assume they’ve maintained their same tracks. If they have, I’ve got an approximate speed on each of them. Here, this one is making twelve knots. This one, sixteen knots. This one, eleven knots, and so on. The dotted lines project their future positions should they maintain course and speed.”

“One of the six is our bogey,” McCory said.

“I’d bet a steak dinner on it.”

“They serve steak in the brig?”

“With luck, somebody will sink us, just after we blow the fucker out of the water.”

Twenty minutes later, the Tac-Three channel sounded off.

“Night Light, Safari Echo.”

Monahan was seated in the radar position, and instinctively, he picked the microphone off its clip.

McCory, at the helm, looked over at him. “They might try to get a radio fix on our position. There are enough ships out there to triangulate us five times.”

He sat quietly.

“Night Light, if you’re monitoring, give me a click.”

He looked at McCory, who shrugged.

Monahan clicked the transmit button twice.

“Night Light, my money’s on the Hormuz. She’s tracking north on seven-one, one-five.”

Monahan clicked twice again.

Within fifteen seconds, CINCLANT was broadcasting on the command net.

“CINCLANT to all Safari elements. Both stealth boats are to be considered hostile. This is not a guessing game, and we will not take chances. By order of the president, through the Chief of Naval Operations, weapons systems are freed for Safari Charley, Safari Delta, and Safari Echo. Written confirmation to follow. Upon contact, Target One and Target Two are to be given one minute to capitulate. Failing that action, they may be fired upon.”

“Who’s Target One?” McCory asked.

“I believe we’ve been included,” Monahan told him. “You want to put this son of a bitch in gear?”

“Careful how you talk about my girl.”

McCory eased the throttles forward until the readout showed fifteen knots.

“All right, Omar. One sweep only.”

Heusseini activated the radar, then quickly shut it down.

“It is the Hormuz, Colonel Badr. Six hundred meters dead ahead.”

“Very well,” Badr said.

The night-vision screen was blurry, coated with salty water splashed against it by the heavy waves.

Several minutes passed before Badr made out the tall black shape rising from the sea. A few minutes later, he concluded from the silhouette that it was indeed the tanker.

“All of you may secure your stations. Amin, open the cargo doors and prepare to attach the lifting cables. Allah has done well for us.”

McCory and his son sat in back of the marina office in the late afternoon, drinking Budweiser, and looking out at the new main dock. Fifty yards offshore, a barge was unloading sections of the new floating docks. Over on the left edge of the marina, the floating crane had shut down for the day. The boats had all been moved out of the area, and the crane was pulling old, rotten pilings.

They were both in cut-off jeans and T-shirts, the shirts stained with the sweat of a hard day. McCory had some lines in his face, and his hair was mostly gray, but the damp shirt conformed to bulging muscles that hadn’t lost their tone. Kevin was a lot leaner but just as hard.

“Lookin’ good, Kev.” McCory pointed at the dock with his beer can.

“We should have done it ten years ago, Devlin.” About the middle of his second year in college, Kevin had dropped the “Pop,” and started calling him Devlin. McCory didn’t mind too much, but he kind of missed being “Pop.”

“Yeah, but ten years ago, we couldn’t afford it. You pay for what you get, then you take it and go home.”

McCory had paid off the mortgage the year before, then floated a new loan to upgrade the marina. It had gotten so that new paint wouldn’t cover the cavities in old wood. He had lost quite a few long-time renters to the newer and larger marinas. The shorefront lots on either side of him had become too expensive to acquire, but McCory had gotten permission to extend outward. The renovated marina would handle 250 slips, though he was still going to have to raise the slip rentals a little for most of his people. There would be some griping.

The first mosquitoes of evening moved in. McCory slapped his forearm a couple of times, then said, “Let’s go in.” 

They got up and went inside the building, where Amy Clover was tending the counter. Swede Norlich was buying two cases of beer. Kevin picked up a couple of fresh cans of Budweiser from the display case, and they went back into the private office.

It wasn’t much of a private office. A battered desk was shoved into one corner. There were three old, straight-backed chairs, a wooden swivel chair in front of the desk, and a stool in front of McCory’s high drawing table. The walls were papered with drawings of ski boats and cruisers. Centered above the drafting table was a full rendering of the SeaGhost. Above the desk in a small, glass-fronted frame was the only Navy memorabilia McCory had kept: his Navy Cross.

“We need to replace Maintenance Building One, also,” Kevin said.

“You want to take a cut in pay?”

Kevin grinned at him. “Only if you do.”

“You could move back here.”

Kevin lived in his own apartment. McCory knew he wanted the privacy because of the succession of women that went through it. Unlike his father, Kevin wasn’t a one-woman man. Not yet. anyway.

“We’ll do it next year,” Kevin said.

“Sure we will, son. Provided we fill those new docks with people payin’ good money.”

“Are you talking about the Johnsons and the Wheelers and the Corcorans, for instance?”

McCory frowned. “Some of those people have been here twenty-five years and more, Kevin. They can’t afford a big boost in their rents. And they can’t afford to go elsewhere.”

“Their Social Security checks have increased. “

“Not as much as they should have. “

“We’re going to have a state of the art marina, with a bunch of faded and damned near sinking Chris Craft museum pieces tied up in it, Devlin.”

“People have a right to their own lives. I don’t give a shit what their boats look like.”

“They need to pay, just like anyone else,” Kevin argued.

“Money ain’t everything, Kev. It runs second place to principle.”

“There are some big boys between us and them, Kevin,” Monahan said from the sonar console.

“How many?” McCory was at the helm, keeping the speed steady at fifteen knots. The digital readout gave him a compass heading of seventy-six degrees, the intercept course upon which he and Monahan had decided.

Using Monahan’s chart, they had identified the unknown ship on the seventy-one-degree, fifteen-minute track as the Hormuz, then projected her position with a dotted line. If Monahan was right, the tanker had been holding steady at around twelve knots.

Because of the overcast, the skies had darkened early. The seas were still choppy but hadn’t worsened in the last few hours. McCory figured the naval ships were running without lights. He hadn’t seen a one.

“The tanker should be about sixteen miles away,” Monahan said. “I’ve got readings for ships at eight-five hundred yards, nine-three hundred yards, and I think, at ten thousand yards. There are a few more of them out there, but I can’t pinpoint them on passive sonar. Somebody is looking for us on sonar. We got pinged a couple times, but I don’t think the return was strong enough to alert them.”

“Who’s the closest?”

“It should be the Prebble, just north and east of us.”

“And closer to the Hormuz?”

“Yes.”

“Well, hell. I want to be the first one there, Jim.”

“So do I.”

McCory punched the throttles.

“Safari Echo, Deuce Two.”

“Go, Deuce Two,” Perkins said.

The CIC felt hypersensitive. The technicians manning the consoles leaned forward in their chairs in anticipation of something, anything.

Norman stood near the plot, watching the shifting symbols. Target Two, the Hormuz, was eleven miles away. The group with Knox was seventeen miles north of the tanker. Safari Delta was coming up fast from the south, just over six miles out.

“Echo, Two has a Target One on infrared at Baker Two, five-nine, eight-one, bearing seven-six. We make the speed at six-two knots.”

“Copy that, Deuce Two,” Perkins said, turning to look at Norman.

One of the console operators keyed the data in, and a new, red symbol appeared on the plot.

“She’s closing on us,” Norman said.

“Yes, sir. And fast. Less than six minutes away. Do I alert the gun and missile stations?”

“Yes, Al. Do that.”

While Perkins spoke into his microphone, Norman studied the plot. He looked up to the bulkhead where repeaters registered the Prebble’s speed and heading. They were making thirty knots on a heading of eight-four degrees. Both the destroyer and the stealth boat were aiming for the Hormuz. At her speed, the Sea Spectre would pass them and reach the tanker first.

Unless Norman released a couple of missiles.

On the command net, he heard one of the Oliver H. Perry’s ASW helicopters reporting a sonar contact.

On his last day in the Navy, Devlin McCory stood in front of Norman’s desk, holding his baby boy in his arms, and grinning that big, Irish grin. “I’m sure as hell going to miss the Navy, Mr. Norman, but I’m proud to leave it in your hands.”

“We are prepared to fire on your command, Captain,” Perkins told him. He did not sound happy about it.

Barry Norman did not know Devlin McCory’s kid, and it would not have mattered if he had. His orders were to blow either of the stealth boats out of the water.

His duty was to protect the United States of America, including its ships. If that was Badr out there, Mini-Harpoons could be flying at any second.

The blip showing on the plot could be Badr heading for his support ship, or it could be McCory and Monahan.

He reached out for Perkins’s headset, and the commander handed it to him quickly.

“Give me Tac-Three.”

“Aye aye sir,” a technician told him.

“Night Light, if that’s you, I want a barber shop set of clicks.”

Dut, dut-dut-dut-dut-dut… dut-dut.

Norman returned the headset to Perkins, spun away from the plot, and headed for the hatchway. “Secure weapons, Commander. I’ll be on the bridge.”

As he entered the light trap, he heard one of the console operators reporting, “The Perry’s launched missiles.”

Norman did not think he would get a battleship. And he would probably lose his destroyer, too.

The missile bay doors were open, and Badr, Kadar, Heusseini, and Rahman were in the bay, groping for the tanker’s lifting cables.

Abdul Hakim leaned over the railing above, grinning down at them. “The news on the radio is glorious, Colonel,” he yelled.

Badr nodded. He had been listening to the newscasts, also. The reports from Norfolk and Langley Air Base were gratifying. The fatality count was high. There would be fewer soldiers to harass Allah’s believers.

“You know, of course, that American ships surround us?” Hakim yelled.

“I know that, Captain. It is not a concern.”

“They are headed toward us.”

That was new information. Though Heusseini had begged, Badr had not let him activate the radar in the last few minutes.

Badr was about to ask Hakim if his ancient radar had determined the speed of the ships, when he heard an explosion to the southwest.

Then, quickly, two more.

He spun around, peering into the darkness, but he could see nothing. Salt spray whipped over him.

Amin Kadar gripped the top edge of the missile bay door to steady himself against the surge of the sea. He stared out into the night. “They are coming, Colonel. We will die.”

“If we die, Amin, it is Allah’s will. But we will take many American devils with us.” Badr released the cable he was holding.

“We will attack the ships now?”

“We will attack the ships. You will load missiles on the launcher.”

“At once.”

Rahman joined him eagerly as Badr and Heusseini headed back into the cabin.

Six minutes later, Ibrahim Badr turned away from the tanker and picked up speed toward the southwest.

“I may go active?” Heusseini asked.

“Yes. Choose your targets wisely, Omar.”

“Son of a bitch!” Monahan had yelled. “Hard to starboard! Kill the engines!”

McCory wasn’t good at taking orders, but he took those immediately, slamming the wheel over to the right, reaching out to stab the ignition defeat on each engine.

The SeaGhost heeled over, was battered upright by an oncoming wave, and began to lose speed. She bounced hard in the troughs.

White arrows streaked overhead. One, then two more.

McCory didn’t see the impacts, but he felt the concussion of the explosions as they echoed through the sea and against the SeaGhost’s hull.

“They had us targeted on infrared,” Monahan said. “Light ’em up, again.”

“Where in hell did they come from?” McCory asked as he started the engines.

“Safari Delta.”

“Your boss means business.”

“He usually does. But I’d bet that Andrews is pressing him on this, citing technicalities. Andrews tends to be a regulations man.”

“It’s still lethal.” McCory spun the helm back and picked up speed. “You want to risk the speed again?”

“Hell, I don’t… ”

The command net channel sounded off. “Safari Echo to all units. Echo has two incoming missiles. Delta, you’ve got two headed your way.”

“That’s him!” McCory yelled.

“Full bore,” Monahan shouted back.

McCory shoved the throttles in. “Open the cargo doors.”

“Shit, Kevin,” Monahan said, “you’ve fired one of these before. I haven’t.”

McCory rose from his seat, and Monahan slid behind the helm. McCory dropped into the center chair, activated the armaments panel, and saw four green LEDs. He punched the pad for the doors, then raised the launcher. He felt an urge to go aft and check on them, but suppressed it.

Through the windshield, he saw two missiles cross the horizon ahead of them, headed south.

The command net was overrun with excited, but orderly, reports. Ships dodging missiles, mounting missile defenses.

“Maybe Safari Delta will forget about us?” McCory said.

“Don’t count on it.”

The SeaGhost took the choppy seas easily. By the time she had reached fifty knots again, the up-and-down rhythm had steadied.

McCory’s screen was on night-vision video, but no ships or boats were visible. He tried infrared. Nothing. Well, no. A small red dot. Probably an aircraft.

Thumbing the keypad, he switched the radar to active and selected the thirty-mile scan. The screen immediately lit, and the scan displayed fourteen solid targets within the thirty-mile diameter. Three tiny, fast-moving blips would be missiles. Where was the fourth? “MITS,” “PRBL,” and “PERR,” were still identified, remembered by the computer.

McCory picked out the Hormuz. The other stealth boat was not shown.

On the radio, one of the ships in Safari Charley reported a missile hit on the fantail.

Another reported a new active radar.

“I’m going to eliminate Badr’s support ship,” McCory said.

Monahan hesitated. “Hell, why not? I don’t think any of the others will do it.”

Activating the radar-targeting link, McCory manipulated the orange target blossom until it was centered on the tanker’s blip, then keyed the target lock.

“LOCK-ON” appeared on the screen.

He pressed the launch keypad.

The computer launched immediately.

WHOOSH.

“Goddamn,” Monahan said as the solid booster ignited and kicked the missile off the rail. The white flare burned McCory’s night vision.

Safari Echo and Safari Charley ships reported the last three hostile missiles destroyed.

“New launch! New launch! From Target One. I think.”

As his vision returned, McCory checked the screen. He blinked and checked it again.

Two moving dots.

“I’ve got incoming,” he said. The adrenaline was pumping through him, but he felt like he was settling in. Another night exercise. He was onstage, and the butterflies had flitted away.

“Go passive,” Monahan ordered, turning hard to the right and reducing speed. He counted aloud to ten, then turned left again.

The missiles passed overhead.

“Bet they were Harpoons,” Monahan said, “targeting on our active radar. What’s our range to target?”

“I read it as five miles.”

“Badr’s close by, judging by the launch.”

“He doesn’t know we’re around, though,” McCory said.

“Probably not.”

The Safari command net reported four more missile launches and gave Baker Two grid coordinates for the launch point.

“That doesn’t help us a damned bit,” McCory complained.

A sudden explosion brightened the darkness. A yellow-white globe appeared on the northeastern horizon.

“Hot damn!” McCory said. “That’s got to be the tanker.”

“Was.”

The reports coming over the command net confirmed their strike.

“Maybe that will spook Badr,” McCory said.

It may have. Either that, or Badr was running from his last launch point. The Tac-Three channel came alive. “Night Light, Echo.”

Monahan grabbed his microphone. “Go.”

“My choppers have got him on IR at three-six, one-one, seven-one, one-four. He’s heading home at six-zero knots.”

McCory switched the armaments panel to infrared targeting.

“The ships will never catch him,” Monahan said. “There’s no coverage to the east.”

“What about the choppers?”

“If they get close, Badr will just shut down. He can outlast their fuel.”

“Let’s have some more turns, Jim.”

Monahan shoved the throttles all the way in. “Plot it.”

“Plotting,” McCory said, pulling the chart from the top of the instrument panel. He found the coordinates Norman had given them, estimated Badr’s speed and their own position, then said, “Take it to eight-four degrees.”

“Turning now.”

Switching the monitor to the infrared, McCory scanned it for any sign of the other stealth boat. There was a heat source to the right edge of the screen, but he thought it was likely created by a ship in Safari Delta. Another red spot was high and probably an aircraft.

“CINCLANT, Safari Echo.” Command net.

“Echo, CINCLANT.”

“CINCLANT, I’m prepared to provide positive ID on both Sea Spectres. My helicopters have both of them targeted. Request that firing on the western boat cease.”

After a momentary hesitation, a new voice came on the air. “Echo, your request is approved. All Safari elements, cease fire on the western boat.”

“That’s my boss,” Monahan said.

A minute later, McCory heard another new voice on Tac-Three. “Night Light, this is Deuce One. I was told to contact you on this channel.”

Monahan pressed his transmit button. “Go, Deuce.”

“I’m closing on Target One.” The pilot provided the coordinates.

McCory plotted them. “Three and a half miles away, Jim.”

“We won’t catch him, if we’re both making the same speed, Kevin.”

“How do we slow him down?”

Monahan went back to his microphone. “Deuce, Night Light. Can you drop a torpedo on him?”

“Affirmative, Night Light. Checking with Echo.” After a pause, the pilot reported, “Dropping a Mark-46.”

McCory hoped no one would shoot at him and activated the radar. He found the chopper ahead of them on the first sweep, but the stealth boat wasn’t visible. The ships of the Safari task forces were falling behind.

“He’s taking her hard starboard, evading the fish,” Deuce reported.

Monahan eased his wheel to the right. If Badr maintained a southerly heading for a while, they would close quickly.

The seconds ticked away.

“Two miles,” McCory reported.

“The fish exploded, fuel depleted,” Deuce reported. “He’s too fast for them.”

“Try the infrared,” Monahan said. “By now, Badr knows he’s got another stealth boat after him.”

McCory switched over.

And the center of the screen held an orange glow. A hot red spot to the upper left was the chopper.

“Got him. I’m launching. Watch your eyes.”

McCory brought up the infrared targeting circle, centered it, then launched all three of his remaining missiles, one after the other.

He shut his eyes until they were all away.

“Coming your way, Deuce,” Monahan said on the Tac-Three channel. “Better back off.”

“Wilco.”

Ticking.

Ticking.

“Hey, Night Light! He’s launched two.”

McCory could see the three white dots that were his own missiles. They were curving down toward the sea far ahead.

But two growing black dots with white halos were headed his way.

“Shut her down, Jim. They’ll be infrared-targeting.”

Monahan pulled the throttles back and turned to port.

“Night Light, Deuce. I’ve lost both of you.”

All five missiles missed their targets. The two from Badr’s boat shrieked past on their right.

Monahan returned to his course and ran the throttles up.

“Night Light, Deuce. Two bits this sucker’s headed for home again.”

“You think east, Deuce?” Monahan asked.

“Damn betcha.”

“Good as any direction,” Monahan told the helicopter pilot

“He’s got to hold it under fifteen knots to avoid wake and a heat signature,” McCory said.

“We’ll close fast. What then?”

“I’m not going to have time to load a missile.”

“You’re a spendthrift with missiles, you know that, Kevin?”

“Lack of practice. Under your right thumb? On the wheel?”

“I’ve got it.”

“That’s your cannon. I’ll activate it.”

McCory leaned over and pressed the two pads on the helm panel that enabled the gun. He switched both Monahan’s and his own screen to night-vision video. A targeting circle with distance elevation markings appeared in the center of the screen.

“Under your left thumb is a rocker switch, Jim. It increases or decreases the target range, raising or lowering the cannon aim.”

“Is it accurate?”

“Damned if I know. I’ve never tried it. I’ll bet you a million bucks it’s skittish as hell at this speed and in these seas.”

“You got a million bucks?”

“No. So I don’t mind losing it.”

“Heads up!” Deuce One shouted.

Less than a mile away, one, then another missile blossomed. The black circles encased in a white border-exhaust flare surrounding the nose cone from McCory’s view — grew rapidly. They never exceeded thirty feet off the sea.

Monahan threw the helm over so quickly that the SeaGhost almost went over. The starboard side rose to a fifty-degree angle, throwing McCory out of his seat.

The boat banged back down, took a wave over the bow that drenched the windshield, then popped back up. McCory came to rest on the deck against the banquette.

Monahan hung onto the wheel, then reached forward to kill the engines.

The SeaGhost had not come to rest when the first missile plowed into the sea off the port side and detonated. The erupting charge of water heaved the boat clear of the sea, canting her over to the right. When she slapped into the surface again, the impact threw Monahan against the wheel, then into the starboard window.

The second missile went somewhere else.

The SeaGhost came to rest, wallowing in the troughs.

Monahan sagged and slipped to the deck.

Shaking his head to clear it — his ears were ringing from the concussion — McCory struggled to his feet and crossed the deck.

Monahan was out cold. He pulled him out from under the helm, slipped into the seat, and started the engines.

He had a vague idea of where the other boat was.

“Night Light, Deuce Two. You all right?”

He didn’t answer. Shoved the throttles in.

The boat skittered up the front of a swell, canted over the top of the wave, picked up speed.

Rolled the wheel back to the left, then straightened it.

Wondered if the SeaGhost’s skin had ruptured anywhere.

Hang on Devlin. You and me, we’ll get this son of a bitch.

At forty knots, the fuzzy image appeared on the screen. Two seconds later, he could tell it was the other SeaGhost. She was stern on to him. She was tinted green by the enhancement of the night vision. Two hundred yards.

He retarded the throttles.

Badr must have seen him in his rearview screen. The stealth boat leaped ahead as Badr ran up power.

McCory rammed the throttles forward again. The SeaGhost lurched, slid into a wave, came up on plane. She danced on the wave tops.

McCory pressed the firing stud with his right thumb. With his left thumb, he slowly brought up the arc of the gun.

The thunder of the cannon was deafening within the fiberglass boat. Ahead he saw shells ripping into the sea, creating miniature white fountains, advancing on the other boat, but erratically, due to the rocking of the SeaGhost.

Too short.

Thumb the rocker switch.

Too far to the left.

He brought the wheel slowly right.

Dance.

Dance.

Into the transom. That’s one.

A second shell slammed home.

A brilliant silver-white mushroom.