Strike Force Alpha (31 page)

Now it was Ryder who took a troubled breath.

“The mooks kill our civilians because they want us to change,” he went on. “We kill their civilians as a way of saying, ‘Fuck you.’ You can’t drop a nuclear bomb on this problem and have it go away. The solution is not in air strikes, or cruise missiles, or turning Iraq into our own personal gas station. The solution is fire for fire and eye for an eye. The only way to make these guys pay is to come at them as mirror images of themselves.
That’s
what scares them. And Murphy knew that, too.

“The night we saved that cruise liner—just before you flew onboard—I saw an amazing sight: The people on that boat went crazy when they realized who was actually saving them from the mooks. They saw the flag on the side of the choppers and they knew we were Americans and that we had delivered them. Old people pumping their fists—can you imagine what that looked like? Finally someone was
taking care
of them,
watching over
them. I could hear those people that night. My engine was cranking; my helmet was on—but I heard them. They were chanting,
‘USA! USA!’
I still hear them. I’ll
always
hear them. And if it means I’ve got to go to hell so they can go to heaven, then so be it. That’s what all this means to me.”

He took out his last two pep pills, placed them on the end of his tongue, but then just as quickly spit them away.

“Now there are about five thousand Americans who could be in body bags inside an hour,” he concluded. “Or more likely at the bottom of the sea. Guys on that carrier. Guys on those support ships.
They’re
the ones who need our help now. What little we might be able to give. Whether we’re angels or devils, they’re
our people
. We might be like the guys who dropped the A-bombs on Japan. Kill a lot of people, so a whole lot more
won’t
be killed. Or maybe when history judges us, it won’t be so kind. I don’t know. But for now let’s leave the psychoanalysis to the shrinks. We got one more thing we’ve got to do.”

He gathered himself back up and sucked in some long, deep breaths. For the first time the sea air felt good going in. And he noticed the ship was rolling again, but it didn’t bother him. He put his helmet on and turned back to Phelan.

“So what do you say, partner?” he asked. “Bump the jumpers, one more time?”

But Phelan still didn’t move. There was no way Ryder could know if anything he’d just said had actually sunk in. He wasn’t too sure he believed all of it himself. Even now he was thinking,
What the hell did I just say?

But then finally Phelan put his helmet on, too.

“OK,” he said softly. “Let’s go.”

Aboard the USS
Abraham Lincoln

Lieutenant Commander Ken Gwinn had just reported to the bridge when the mysterious black helicopter crashed onto the
Lincoln
’s forward flight deck.

The impact had sent a violent shudder through the ship, but the crew recovered quickly. The intercoms were immediately screeching with fouled deck warnings. All flight operations came to a halt. The carrier’s fire suppression teams were rushed to the top. The ship’s flight surgeons were told to stand by.

There were 18 people on the
Lincoln
’s bridge when it happened. The floating behemoth was run from here, the place where all commands affecting the ship’s movements originated. The helmsman steered the ship; the lee helmsman told the engine room how much speed to make. There were also lookouts and boatswains and the quartermaster of the watch who assisted in navigation, weather readings, and kept the ship’s log. All flight operations were conducted one level up in the Primary Flight Center, essentially the air traffic control tower for the carrier.

Gwinn was the bridge communications officer, a new duty recently installed on the
Lincoln
. He was in charge of handling all messages flowing on and off the bridge. Stationed three feet to the right of the captain’s chair, Gwinn was equipped with a secure laptop called a Q Fax, used in times of sensitive maneuvers or combat ops. Only the most important messages, from around the ship, from around the world, showed up here, printing out on long strips of bright yellow paper with the push of a button. It was Gwinn’s job to make sure these messages got in front of the captain as quickly as possible.

From his vantage point high on the carrier’s superstructure Gwinn had watched the rescue crews extract the pilot from the burning helicopter and then push the wreckage over the side. The fire crews washed down the deck and a quick foreign object sweep was done. All launchers were declared safe. Planes would soon be taking off again.

Not long after, an urgent message from the ship’s surgeon blinked onto Gwinn’s screen. The person flying the helicopter was seriously injured. He couldn’t talk, but he could write. He was claiming to be a U.S. special operations agent, but his supposed outfit was not on a list of special commands held by the
Lincoln
’s intelligence officer. Still, the man came bearing some startling news: a large number of Arab airliners were in the process of being hijacked all over the Gulf. The hijackers would soon be trying to crash these planes into the
Abraham Lincoln.
What’s more, he had a CD-ROM with him to prove it. Somehow, the disk had survived the crash.

Gwinn audibly gulped when he read the message. Could this be true? The carrier was not even halfway through its transit of Hormuz. There was very little room to maneuver, and the big turn to port would be coming up quickly, requiring the carrier to slow to less than 10 knots. This was the worst situation to be in if someone was trying to crash something into you, because this was when the ship was its most vulnerable.

Gwinn passed the message to the CO. The captain read it twice. At almost the same time, a report appeared from the carrier’s radio shack. Someone was sending messages to the
Lincoln
over shortwave radio claiming the same thing, that a number of hijacked airliners were heading for the carrier. The person sending the messages did not identify himself or his location, for security reasons, or so he said. And now the ship was even getting phone calls from equally reticent persons, claiming to have the same information.

The captain took this all in and thought it over—for about two seconds. Had it just been phone calls or radio transmissions, he might have been of a different mind. But combined with the mysterious copter pilot’s suicidal dash to get to the ship and his claim to have evidence on a CD-ROM…well, that was enough for the captain to act.

Nine F-14 Tomcats were on deck, standing by in case the CAP already airborne had some dropouts. The captain ordered these planes into the air immediately and told the Air Boss upstairs to prep and launch as many other fighters as humanly possible. Then the captain called the ship to a general alert.

Then he pulled out a secure sat phone and called the Pentagon, using a top-secret scrambled number given to him in the event of something like this. Gwinn could tell from the captain’s side of the conversation that he was delivering unexpected and frightening news to Washington. The Pentagon told the captain to keep the sat line clear and open; the CO ordered the communications shack to make it so.

The captain called down to the carrier’s air defense section next, asking for its status. The news here was not good, either. The
Lincoln
’s massive security bubble had engulfed so many different types of aircraft by now, the computers were having a hard time tracking them all. Blaring out over the comm speakers, this report only added to the tension building on the bridge. Minutes before, the fleet’s vaulted defense had been unable to stop a lone helicopter from reaching the carrier. How were they going to stop a large number of airliners?

The captain sat back and began chewing on the end of his pipe. Gwinn noticed his hands were shaking. Not a good sign. His Q Fax screen blinked again. Another message was coming in.

It was from the ship’s radar suite. An airliner had just been spotted straying off-course over Saudi Arabia, about sixty miles northwest of Hormuz. It had turned south and was heading for the carrier. Gwinn quickly handed the message to the captain. The pipe nearly fell out of the Old Man’s mouth.

This airliner might be having engine problems. Or its navigation computer may have malfunctioned. But the captain couldn’t take any chances. He directed two Tomcats to intercept the wayward airliner and take appropriate action. Those three words again. The moment the captain broke his radio connection, another report blinked onto Gwinn’s screen. A second airliner had veered off-course, 30 miles to the north. It, too, was heading for the carrier.

Before Gwinn had a chance to pass this second report on, he received another message. A third airliner was now heading for the ship, coming straight down the Gulf. Gwinn hastily passed the two reports to the captain; his screen blinked yet again. A
fourth
plane had turned in their direction; this one was coming from the west.

The captain immediately called the ship to Condition Zebra. This meant an attack was imminent. Everything onboard was to be locked up tight. Thousands of sailors went rushing to predetermined positions, places they were supposed to be when a nuclear bomb, or something nearly as catastrophic, was about to hit the boat. Those last planes lined up on the carrier’s catapults were launched; then the deck was cleared. Everyone on the bridge donned oversize helmets and life-saving gear, the captain included. Transparent blast shields were lowered over the bridge’s huge windows, darkening everything inside.

The captain sent a message to every pilot in the CAP. It was the same order he’d just given the two F-14 pilots. Any aircraft, civilian or military, entering the carrier’s protection zone was to be shot down, no questions asked. He then relayed the gist of his orders to every other ship in the battle group. They, too, began zipping up.

Gwinn was trying hard not to show his alarm. People up here were counting on him. Many more of the carrier’s planes were in the air, thanks to the mysterious copter pilot and the ghostly radio and phone calls. And all those jets had the capacity to shoot down an airliner. But it was a question of time and numbers: Could the carrier’s planes find all four airliners before the airliners found the ship?

Gwinn’s comm screen blinked again. The radar team had detected a fifth airliner veering toward the battle group. As soon as Gwinn ripped this message, another one popped onto his screen. A sixth airliner was heading for them.

It was Gwinn’s hands that were shaking now. He passed the new information to the CO. The captain immediately asked the navigation officer how much more time before the ship passed out of the strait. “At least another ten minutes,” was the reply, and that was only before the carrier reached a point wide enough to start basic evasive maneuvers. Until then they had no choice but to keep going straight ahead, as fast as they could.

Gwinn could sense a fog of disaster starting to swirl around him. The tension on the bridge became very heavy. Many people up here were equipped with binoculars; they were pointing them in every direction. The visibility was absolutely clear.
That’s good, right?
Gwinn thought. Or did they want to see what was coming their way?

While all this was going on, Gwinn’s screen began blinking yet again. A new message popped on-screen.

Two more airliners had been spotted heading for the carrier.

Above the Persian Gulf

Sergeant Dave Hunn knew something was wrong when he heard the awful scream.

It was a chilling sound, like from a woman but definitely coming from a man. High-pitched and mortal, it was cut off suddenly, the last vibrations from a set of torn vocal cords. The male flight attendant, his throat slashed, fell backward in the aisle about ten feet behind Hunn’s seat, a tray of hot tea scalding him as he went down. Two men were standing over him. They were the al-Habazz cell members. One stepped on top of the dying attendant, put a gun to an old woman’s head, and pulled the trigger. Her brains were blown out. Screams from the woman’s family. Five shots later, they were all dead, too.

But none of this was computing for Hunn.

Why were the terrorists doing this? Why weren’t they waiting until they made their connecting flights?

Why were they killing their own people?

There was only one explanation.
This thing is happening right now….

This was not good. Hunn hadn’t expected to have a confrontation with the would-be hijackers, or at least not so soon. But here they were, carrying huge handguns, waving around banana knives, and killing passengers at random. Hunn, on the other hand, was armed with nothing more than a .22 handgun, one of the pistols from the shoot-out at the Royal Dubai. The Algerian popgun was small but was the only weapon he thought he could hide under his
madras
. Problem was, it only had two bullets left.

The terrorists began screaming at the passengers to stay in their seats and that they were now in control of the airplane and that they were all going to make Allah proud of them. At the same time, they stood up an old man right behind Hunn and shot him in the throat. He collapsed back into his seat, bleeding furiously.

The plane itself was small, a two-engine job; this was the flight going to Crete. It had a cramped compartment, with very low overheads and narrow aisles. Plus, they were flying at 22,000 feet, high enough where one shot-out window could implode the plane. These were not conditions conducive to gunplay, not that the inside of any aircraft was.

The terrorists had stood up another woman and were now marching her backward down the aisle, heading for the cockpit. They seemed to be carrying out a step-by-step plan: kill a few passengers, suddenly, horribly, to stun everyone else. It was a quick and economical way to get control, and it was working. An eerie quiet came over the cabin as many passengers saw their fervor for Islam go south. Literally losing their religion. Hunn had a very difficult choice to make now. He didn’t know why the terrorists had acted when they did, but he had to do something. Yet for every bullet they used on the passengers, that was one less bullet he would have to worry about later on. The terrorists both had handguns, though, with a capacity for nine rounds in each clip and probably more clips in their pockets. Hunn would have given anything for his M16 right now.