Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (23 page)

"No. I'm still not certain about letting some tents be lit while others have to stay pitch black."

Boxer shook his head. "The Brazilians know we're here, at least in the abstract and even if they don't know what we are, how many we are, or how many we'll be. If we light everything up they'll get suspicious; a small battalion is way out of line for what we're allegedly doing here. By the same token, though, no lights would also be suspicious."

Stauer shrugged. "I suppose."

"You don't seem very upset that the boy wasn't on the Galloway."

Stauer shook his head. "If I'd thought he had been, I wouldn't have launched such an ad hoc ‘rescue' mission. We'd have hit with more force and a lot more prep. And then our little holiday in paradise"-he sneered at the surrounding jungle-"would have been prematurely terminated. So, no, I'm not sorry. We had to try, as an ethical matter, given the information we had. That it didn't work out is all to the good."

Stauer scowled. "What do you make of those thirteen girls Biggus Dickus found?"

Boxer shook his head. "I'm not sure what to make of it. There were too many for just the crew and the ‘passengers' to need. Four girls would have been enough for forty or fifty men. Biggus Dickus says the girls, themselves, don't seem to know where they were going or why. I suspect they were going to be sold to help fund an operation."

"What's the going rate on a young and pretty female slave these days?" Stauer asked.

"Varies," Boxer shrugged. "A few hundred dollars a head-no pun intended-in some parts of Africa. Maybe seven thousand in Bosnia. More, maybe twelve to twenty thousand, in the European Union or the US. What the fuck are you going to do with them?"

"I dunno," Stauer replied. "Can't let them go. Feel bad holding them against their will, if it is against their will."

"Biggus says they seem happy enough to be free of the Galloway. Most of them are only fifteen or sixteen, he thinks." Boxer shook his head with disgust at the innate depravity of Man. "Enlist them, maybe?"

"I can train a decent nurse's assistant in the time we have," Doc Joseph offered. "Maybe even make them full LPNs. Or," he looked pointedly at Master Sergeant Island.

The stout, black mess sergeant shrugged. "Yeah . . . maybe some of them can cook, or be taught to. But, you know, sir, you're already sticking me with some Chinese women. I don't speak Chinese, either version. And I sure as hell don't speak Romanian."

"I speak Italian, four-four Italian, as a matter of fact," Lox offered, with a smug grin. "They're pretty close, closer than Italian and Spanish or Portuguese."

Stauer nodded. "Tomorrow, Lox, try to get a radio link with The Drunken Bastard. See what the girls want or are willing to do. Make clear to them that we can't release them for a few months. Tell ‘em they'll be paid at . . . shit . . . what rate should we pay them?"

"What the market will bear, sir," the sergeant major replied. "Not a penny more than the market will bear."

"All right, Top," Stauer replied, turning from the screen and jungle to the well lit interior of the tent. "But what's the market price for silence?"

To that, the sergeant major had no direct answer. Instead, he asked, "What's the market price for freedom?"

Stauer considered that for a moment, then called for his operations officer. "Waggoner?"

"Here, boss," Ken Waggoner answered, entering the main ops tent from his little side office tent, the two connected by saplings and tarps.

Stauer pointed at a set of three really large chartboards on one wall of the tent. One had a map of the world. Another showed a coastal area of Africa. Between the two was a operational matrix with one hundred and twenty half inch lines running side to side, and a score of lines about four inches apart running top to bottom.

"I see that the Merciful has picked up the PSP at Manila, and is supposed to receive the helicopters this evening. Is Welch going to be aboard the choppers?"

Waggoner shook his head. "No. Welch, his team, and the Russkis that are part of Victor's business operation are going by air through Port of Spain. Victor says he needs his people in Guyana to help sort and forward what he's going to be sending us there. And I wanted ours here soonest to begin prep for the next stage."

"Any word on the Elands?"

"We haven't updated that part of the board yet, but Victor's charter ship will finish loading them in a few days. They'll be containerized. The Israeli mechanics posing as sailors are already aboard, along with the parts required. Those were loaded in containers, too."

Stauer looked worriedly at the charts. "What's bothering you, boss?" Waggoner asked.

"Just not a lot of slack in the plan, is all."

Waggoner rocked his head from side to side a few times, then admitted, "That's true, but we do have some backup plans if there's a delay in something critical."

"What's your backup if we lose a helicopter while loading or enroute?" Stauer asked.

"Bend over and kiss my ass goodbye."

"Good plan," Stauer conceded, sagely. "A better one might be to have Gordo get a line on a replacement."

D-105, 173 miles east of Kota Bharu,

Malaysia (South China Sea)

The sea was extremely calm, little more than a glass sheet, with perhaps a few minor imperfections.

Moving at about four knots, just enough to maintain steerage, the ship was one hundred and seven feet in beam, plus a few insignificant inches. The rotor of Cruz's helicopter was just under seventy feet. Subtract from that one hundred and seven feet another sixteen feet for the double stacked containers lining the gunwales of the Merciful, plus about four more for the space between the exterior containers and the hull, and it left damned little space to land a helicopter in. They'd move both helicopters and containers once they were well out at sea, but for now Cruz and Kosciusko both wanted the things hidden from casual observation.

Six feet on a side sounds like a lot, Cruz fumed, until you try to land one of these things in it. Well, at least the bitching ship's long enough . . . that, and the wind's not bad.

Cruz flew low, his landing gear only a few feet above the water, the better to keep off anyone's radar. To either side of him, in a V formation, the other two Hips, one flown by Borsakov, the other by one of his old comrades, a Cossack by the name of Sirko, likewise flew low. The wash from his main rotor, and theirs, flattened the water below them, pushing it out into little, rimmed and smooth ponds within the sea. Ahead, the Merciful had normal running lights glowing, normal except for the infrared chemlights, visible only to someone with a night vision device, lining the side of the hull. That was his near recognition signal. His helicopter, too, showed infrared to the ship's bridge, though his was a design feature, not a hastily tacked on and highly temporary modification.

These waters were among the most disputed bodies of sea in the world, with the Peoples Republic of China clashing with Indonesia over the area northeast of the Natuna Islands, with the Philippines over the Malampaya and Camago gas fields and Scarborough Shoal, and with Vietnam over the waters west of the Spratly Islands, not to mention disputes, sometimes flaring into violence, between Vietnam, the PRC, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Philippines over the islands, themselves, plus the Paracel Islands. To mention just a few. And then there were the pirates, who generally avoided the contested areas like the plague, preferring to stalk or lie in wait for ships out in the main sea lanes . . .

The local pirates had proven capable of making entire cargo ships disappear from public view under new names and paint schemes. Yachts were easier.

This yacht, about the size of The Drunken Bastard, though narrower in beam, had been simplicity itself to rename and repaint. The pirates had not, however, then sold it. It was too innocent looking, too quiet in operation, above all too fast to let go. Instead, once having disposed of the owner, his family, and their crew, the pirates had kept it, the better to advance their own operations.

Tonight the pirates planned a fairly low key operation. They intended to board the container ship they'd tracked since it left Manila, seize the petty cash in the ship's safe, and leave. They really weren't interested in cargo or holding the crew for ransom; their scouts at the docks who had seen the crew reported that it was, by and large, American. Seizing an American ship in waters where the U.S. Navy frequently operated was dangerous enough; taking the crew hostage was up there with swimming in shark infested waters with chunks of meat tied to one's ankles for sheer risk factor.

Why this should be the one area that the Americans were willing to be forceful over as a matter of course, the pirates didn't know, not being devotees of domestic American politics. It was, in fact, that even a less than entirely successful hostage rescue proved a plus to presidential job approval rating, and the more a plus the more pirates were killed, while the less so as some were saved for trial.

The ship ahead, with the white painted gantry moved almost all the way back to the superstructure, was barely moving. The yacht, on the other hand, was moving and closing the distance between them quickly. At a range of about a kilometer, the pirate skipper lifted a night scope to his right eye. This was a single intensifier version, once intended for mounting on a light anti-tank weapon.

"That's odd," said the pirate. He pulled the scope away from his eye, closed that eye, and looked again. Nope, just the running lights. He put the scope back to his eye. But there are a dozen other lights that pop up in the scope. And what the hell's that sound?

The skipper turned the scope toward the sound and spotted the helicopters, three of them in formation, rotoring in.

"Turn around!" he shouted to the helmsman. "It's a trap!"

Borsakov called Cruz on the radio. "There's a boat out there, maybe eighty or ninety feet long. It's turning around and running like hell. What do you think it is, Mike? Police? Somebody's navy?"

"We saw it," said Kosciusko from the Merciful's bridge. "I even readied a party in case it was pirates. Probably not navy or police or they wouldn't be running. Might have been a case of mistaken identity."

"Might have," Cruz agreed. "No matter, Merciful, I'll be on station, ready to land in about forty seconds."

"Ground guides are on station and waiting, Mike," Kosciusko replied. "Your spot is marked as Alpha in IR chemlights."

The helicopter passed above the superstructure and gantry, the turbulence caused by them, even at the current low speeds, causing it to shudder and buck. Cruz saw the letter "A" outlined with, he guessed, about twenty-five or thirty chemlights. Still other lights marked the inside edges of the rows of containers lining both sides, rear, and front of the landing area. He didn't bother counting the lights as he was much too busy lining his helicopter up.

Russian helicopters tended to vibrate a bit more than western ones. Thus, Cruz's feet were encased in reverse stirrups to hold them to the pedals. He moved these up and down, slightly, to control the speed of the tail rotor and thus his orientation with respect to the ship. He pushed the cyclic, the control stick, forward, moving his Hip a few meters in that direction, and then pulled it back to stop motion. Satisfied with that, his left hand played with the pitch control, changing the pitch of the main rotor and bringing the bird down several feet.

A quick glance left and right told him that his was going to clear the containers easily enough. He again lowered himself several feet.

At that point, however, Cruz encountered a somewhat more serious surface effect than he was used to. Naturally, helicopter pilots were used to surface effect; they encountered it every time they landed and took off. Normally, however, the air had free means of escape to all sides. In this case, the containers created an open topped box that allowed less air than usual to escape to the sides, hence forced more of the air than usual upward, largely negating the changes in pitch Cruz made.

The helicopter began to shake alarmingly at the violent updraft. Ugh! Suckage! They never covered this at Kremenchug. With a nervous sigh, Cruz eased the collective still further, but gently, gently. This had the unlooked for effect of reducing the updraft, causing the chopper to lurch downward. Cruz's heart jumped into his mouth. Fuck!

"Artur," he called over the radio, "this is trickier than we planned. The containers have created a sort of up-facing tunnel. You still disperse air forward and back, but there is more of an updraft. Watch out for that and watch your pitch."

"Roger, Mike," came the answer. "I ran into something like this in a draw in Afghanistan a long time ago. Be really careful to keep level; any lateral variation can potentially spill all the air out one side and send you crashing into the other."

"Roger," Cruz replied, with a calm he absolutely did not feel. Double fuck. An inch at a time it will have to be.

Again Cruz nudged the collective and again the Hip dropped until the updraft cancelled out the reduction in effective power. Again . . . again . . . again . . . again . . .

And then the helicopter was sitting on the flight deck, rocking up and down. Mike breathed a sigh of relief and began the shutdown cycle.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within."

-Patricia de Lille,

South African Politician, quoting Cicero,

with regards to a corrupt arms deal

D-103, Durban, South Africa

They came to the port in fifty-three foot shipping containers; the vehicles within driven up on log ramps to reduce the space taken up inside, and with commercial boxes at each end to cover against the chance of a casual inspection. Additional containers had nothing each but three turrets mounting 90mm guns inside. A further two contained ammunition, one with a mix of anti-tank and anti-personnel, the other with a hefty load of TP, or training practice, and a small amount of high explosive. Not a one of the containers was properly and accurately marked.

Victor, Dov, Viljoen, and Dumi were all present for the loading. Only Victor planned on leaving the ship before its departure. The others, billeted in what would nominally have been crew's quarters and in containers, would stay aboard through the rebuild.