Target Lock

Sabalana Island Group Flores Sea, Indonesia 0143 Hours, Zone Time: August 20, 2008

Even though the lonely coral spit lifted only a few feet above the surface of the sea, Cobra Richardson had to climb to avoid dragging Wolf One’s skids across the beach. Whipping up a whirlwind of sand now instead of a wake, he eased the ground-effecting Super Huey forward at a walking pace, a Marine ground guide with a pair of infrared lumesticks spotting the smaller helo in beside the two larger grounded Cargohawks.

Its turbines spooling down, Wolf One’s rotors slowed, whickering into silence. When all that remained was the sound of the breaking surf and the disturbed cries of the nesting terns, the helicopter’s side hatches slid open and Amanda Garrett and Christine Rendino disembarked.

Stone Quillain’s looming shadowy presence awaited them. “Evenin’, Skipper. Evenin’, Miss Rendino. We hit something funny out on this weapons hide. Sort of what Miss Rendino wanted us to keep an eye open for; I thought you might want to check it out for yourself.”

“We do, Stone. Lead on.”

The Marine headed inland, although there was little “inland” to this place. A double spine of sand dunes ran down the center of the spit. Even by starlight, the entire tiny island could be made out from either dune crest. There was no sign of life save for a whispy hint of salt grass and a scattering of birds’ nests — no reason to land here at all unless one had a set of coordinates downloaded from a pirate captain’s Global Positioning Unit.

“Which one is this?” Amanda asked as they trudged upslope through the feathery sand.

“We’ve coded it Star Bravo,” Christine wheezed. “We’ve been wondering what the addition of the star symbol meant with the hide site designations we picked up at Adat Tanjung. Looks like our resident leather neck found out for us.”

A shallow hollow ran between the twin row of dunes, and the landing party was at labor at its bottom.

Amanda had an AI2 visor hung around her neck like a pair of binoculars, Taking a breather on the sand crest, she switched the visor on and studied the weapons hide.

At some time in the recent past, a long trench had been dug down the center of the hollow. Packing cases and bundles heavily wrapped in plastic sheeting and tightly tape-sealed bad been stacked along its bottom. Once recovered, the sea winds would have swiftly smoothed away all trace of its presence.

By the invisible light of IR lumes, the Marines were reopening the trench, learning and exposing its secrets with engineer’s probes and mine detectors.

“Were there any booby traps?” Amanda inquired as they shuffled down into the hollow.

“Naw, they just weren’t figuring on anybody finding this place. No sense risking blowing up one of your own people by accident and maybe setting the whole shebang off. We got one of ’em fully set up over here.”

Stone snapped on a white light flashlight and shined it on his prize, half smothering the beam with his hand.

It was a compact rocket artillery piece, twelve up-angled launcher tubes in three rows of four, mounted on a light two-wheeled trailer.

“I don’t recognize the system offhand,” Quillain commented. “It fires a four-point-two-inch spin-stabilized rocket, and all the case and weapon nomenclature and manuals look to be in Chinese. It’s a secondhand piece. It’s been fired and used in the field.”

“It’s a Type 63,” Christine said, sinking down on her knees beside the launcher. “An older Chinese system, ex-PLA. How many launchers are there?”

“Four of ’em. Plus about a thousand rounds of HE and incendiary ammo. Plus a cache of what looks like maintenance gear and spare parts. It’s a whole field artillery battery set to go.”

Christine’s fingertips brushed the launcher’s tubes in a near caress. “This is what I’ve been wondering about. No way are these any kind of naval ordnance. Somebody’s planning a land war.”

“Boy howdy, I’ll say. Let me show you this other stuff.” Quillain stepped off into the darkness and returned dragging a couple of flat wooden cases.

“We got land mines here,” he said, lowering the cases flat on the sand. “Oops, ’scuse me, Princess Diana, I mean ‘area denial munitions.’ These I do recognize. These here are good old Made-in-the-US.A. M-21s, heavy antitank mines that can give just about any armored fighting vehicle in the world a bellyache. These others are C3A1 Elsies, Canadian-made antipersonnel mines. Mean little buggers, too, impossible to pick up with a standard electromagnetic detector. The Canucks swore up, down, and sideways they’d disposed of ’em all. I guess they must have missed a few.”

“How many mines in all, Stone?”

“We guess about fifty of the M-21 ATs. Maybe four hundred Elsies. We’re still digging up cases.”

“This has got to be what the stars mean,” Christine insisted. “They denote hides that aren’t Bugis resupply points. They’re arms depots being built up for somebody else. But why? Harconan can’t be doing this just because of his generous nature.”

Amanda didn’t reply; instead she turned away and walked a short distance up the hollow. With arms crossed, she looked up at the sky and the haze of glittering stars. What are you planning, Makara? Who are you buying these armaments for? Who do you mean to kill?

No answer came back to her save the hiss and caress of wind-blown sand particles flowing low over the dune surface. She had gone to Palau Piri hoping to learn the man. Instead the taipan had read her secrets while remaining as darkly enigmatic as his smile.

I lost to you on your beach that day, Makara, and accepted the defeat. I swear that will be the only time.

She moved back to the trench. “How are you coming with the site documentation?” she demanded.

“Best we can. We’re collecting all the paper, manuals, logbooks, and such. We got low-light videos taken of the hide site and the ordnance, and we’re recording all case and serial numbers.”

“Good enough. Finish up and rig this place for demolition. Blow it all.”

“Like the others?”

“Just like the others.”

Five miles to the north of the coral spit, a small fishing prahu circled with slatting sails. The fishing here in these particular waters was not good, as the prahu’s three-man crew knew full well. Yet, they had loitered here at the trailing end of the Sabalana group for two full days.

A few hours before, the man on watch at the tiller had heard the faint flutter of helicopter rotors in the distance. He had awakened his comrades and with fishermen’s patience they had waited. Now they heard the flying machines echoing across the still waters, taking their departure.

Then came the prolonged flash like heat lightning on the horizon and the rumble like matching thunder.

The three Bugis seamen exchanged grim looks. It had been as the raja samudra had said it would be. The war had begun. The prahu’s captain brought the waterproof transceiver up from the tiny cabin along with its solar-charged battery and began setting up the antenna. The word must be sent.

On the lonely sand spit, the fires died down and the smoke plumes faded. The tireless trade wind began its task of refilling the smoldering trench and burying the myriad fragments of jagged metal one coral grain at a time. It would have a fair start on the job by dawn.