Target Lock

Bridge of the Frigate Sutanto 15 Miles Southeast of Crab’s Claw Cape 0721 Hours, Zone Time: August 25, 2008

MacIntyre looked over as Stone Quillain stepped out onto the starboard bridge wing.

“Got your riggin’ inside, sir,” the Marine said. “Flak vest, a MOLLE harness with a set of radios, and an M-4 carbine. You got half a dozen magazines in the pouches and one in the well. I could get you a spare SABR if you want one.”

MacIntyre shook his head, allowing the binoculars to drop to the end of their neck strap. “No, the carbine will be fine, Stone. I wouldn’t know what to do with a SABR if I had one. Too many gadgets.”

“Yeah, that’s the truth. But they’ll sure be the ticket for this show.” Quillain dug into his shirt pocket and produced a yellow packet of Beechnut Juicy Fruit. “Stick of gum, Admiral? Good for keeping the thirst down, don’t you know.”

“Thanks. Why not?”

Quillain took up a lean on the rail beside MacIntyre and the two men stripped the foil from the confection and chewed in silence for a moment. Below them on the forward gun deck, a Marine work detail, bare to the waist in the growing sultriness of the day, labored to strip the shells out of the turret magazine of the frigate’s bow autocannon. A bucket brigade of men led to the rail, a steady stream of brassy 57mm rounds going over the side into the sea.

The main Magazines had already been emptied. Likewise jettisoned had been the Exocet in the Sutanto’s missile cells and the torpedoes in the deck tubes. The bulk of the frigate’s fuel supply had been pumped overboard as well, to reduce both her draught and the chance of fire and explosion.

Other preparations were going on inside the wheelhouse. A spalling curtain. a thick multilayer sheet of bullet- and fragmentationproof Kevlar fabric armor, had been crossdecked from the Carlson. Now double-folded, it was being bolted into place across the front face of the Sutanto’s bridge below the windscreen.

“Shouldn’t be too far now, should it, sir?” Stone remarked.

“No, not far at all. We should pick up Crab’s Claw visually when we clear this next headland.”

MacIntyre pointed ahead along the coastline. The Sutanto was steaming at good cruise with the verdant and heat-hazy shore passing some three miles to starboard, the ship striving to look like a routine Indonesian naval patrol.

Christine Rendino had learned that such interdiction operations were commonplace against the Morning Star rebels, a factor that shouldn’t arouse excessive concern at the pirate base. At the moment, of all the fleets in the world, Makara Harconan had the least to fear from Indonesia’s.

Quillain paused between chews. “Good enough. Admiral, this really isn’t a question for a company commander to put to a flag officer, but would you mind if I asked you something?”

“Stand on, Stone. Go ahead.”

“Thank you, sir. Then, would you kindly explain to me just what the hell you’re doing here? I mean a three-star on a special operation just isn’t common, Admiral. In fact, it just doesn’t happen unless there’s something dang odd going on. If this is the case, as the landing force commander, I’d appreciate knowing about it now before we commit.”

That was just the question Elliot MacIntyre had hoped no one would ask, at least until this operation was over.

“It’s a matter of command-rated officers, Stone. I can’t pull Carberry off the Carlson, and Ken Hiro’s the new TACBOSS, now that we’ve lost Captain Garrett. We need a ship driver out here.”

Leaning on the rail, the Marine considered for a deliberate moment before replying. “Yeah, I can see the admiral’s point, except that you’ve got an SB officer at the con in there who could put wheels under this tub and drive it to Atlanta without getting a parking ticket. And at the rush hour at that. And if it wasn’t Lieutenant Nichols, you got a dozen other deck officers in the task force who could do this run just as well. If you’re running this operation from up front like this, there has got to be a better reason than that.”

There was another reason, but as to how much better it was was open to skeptical interpretation, even by MacIntyre himself. But, given who was asking the question, and why, MacIntyre had to answer.

“Request permission to speak off the record, Captain.”

Quillain returned the wry grin. “Permission granted, sir.”

“You’re absolutely right, Stone. It’s decidedly not SOP for a flag officer to lead this far forward. By all rights and sound and sensible doctrine, my place is back in the flag plot on the Carlson, calling the shots from the rear. That’s how I’ve been doing things for a long time now. I commanded the entire Second Fleet from LANTFLEETCOM in Norfolk and I’ve commanded NAVSPECFORCE from Pearl Harbor.

“It’s the way things are done, Stone, and I’m good at it. But that isn’t the only way I’ve ever done it.” MacIntyre removed the battered lieutenant commander’s cap he wore. Turning it in his hands, he studied it intently. “Like Steamer Lane and Lieutenant Nichols in there, I got my start in the Special Boat squadrons, Mark IVs in the Persian Gulf, SEAL HSBs in the Adriatic, Cyclones off Colombia for the drug wars. When I first caught duty with Amanda’s dad on his destroyer, I thought the old Charley Adams class was the size of a battleship.

“That’s where NAVSPECFORCE got its start, in my head anyway. I’ve done quite a bit of special-operations work in one place or another. Things that nobody heard about at the time. Some I can’t even talk about now. The point I’m getting around to is that once I did things like this, from up front — leading — and not just making suggestions from a glorified television studio.”

MacIntyre found himself lightly tracing the anchor insignia on the cap badge with his fingertip. “For a variety of reasons, I want to see if I can still do it, from up front.”

Eddie Mac donned the cap again and tugged it down over his eyes. “There’s the stark truth, Stone. I’m coopting this entire military operation to get me through a goddamn midlife crisis. Why can’t I just buy a red Corvette like everybody else?”

A soft rumbling laugh rolled out of Stone Quillain’s chest. “You know, sir, back when I was a boot, I could do five hundred sit-ups in an hour?”

“No. Stone, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, I could. I still can, too, just not as easy and I walk funny for a while longer. The point I’m makin’ is that when things start to pile up on me or whatever, I find myself sayin’, ‘Shit, I can do five hundred sit-ups in an hour; how bad can this be?’”

MacIntyre laughed aloud. “Thanks for the gum, Stone.”

“My pleasure, sir. I’m glad you’re up here with us. This is going to be a great day, Admiral. We’re going to kick ass and take names.”