The Delta Solution (12 page)

“So what do we do?” said Mack.

“We need to form a kind of anti-pirate platoon, a highly trained, specialist force that is geared only to attack pirates. Guys who are at home on the high seas, guys who will become world experts at taking pirate ships, recapturing hijacked vessels, and then going in on land and knocking out their headquarters and beating the shit out of their high command. I’m thinking the most ruthless professional fighting force in the world.”

“If you want it secret, where do you plan to put it? Qatar? Diego Garcia?”

“I haven’t decided yet. But first this new platoon will need some intake from DEVGRU itself—guys who are already experts on boarding moving ships. Like the pirates, they will use grappling irons, and they will climb hulls and come in from the air in attack gunships—one to deploy our boarding party and one to give them heavy covering fire.”

“Training them where?”

“Right here in the San Diego base. There are warships and submarines running in and out of here all the time. It’s ideal. We can work with both
stationary and moving ships, and we can establish this platoon and its senior command to form an outfit that deals with pirates only. The training will be absolutely sharp end, no distractions. And people in the base will hardly notice, since we work there fairly often anyway.

“This new Pirate Platoon will become the unchallenged experts on the subject. They say yes, then it’s a go. They say no, and we reconsider. But at least we won’t have politicians and journalists telling us what they think.”

“You have any ideas about who might command this fighting force? As if I didn’t know.”

“That’s my boy, Mack. This would be right up your alley. Take you back to the old days, oil rigs in the Gulf and all that.”

“Well, it might. But they were swim-ins from the mini-subs. This is entirely different. Boarding a moving target.”

“That’s why you’re here, Mack. Because we believe you can do what would be impossible for other men.”

“Hmmmm. Let’s give it our best shot. Which platoon am I having?

“Alpha, Beta, and Charlie are busy. I want to reform Delta. So from now on Delta is the anti-pirate force, and you’re its commander. There’s probably some special guys you want with you, and I regard this coming challenge as so urgent you can have anyone you like.

“But for the first time, Mack, we’ll have a specialist group, ready to go in and attack the pirates, show ’em what happens when the SEALs move onto the international stage. But we better not fuck it up.”

Mack was thoughtful. “Andy, we cannot just go in if a situation is honest-to-God hopeless. We’ll get no marks for failing. And there will be situations that are beyond us—mostly because they’re too far away offshore, and we cannot get there in time.

“Equally, we don’t want to go in heavy-handed and start shooting pirates when it’s not necessary. Our missions need to be chosen with care. But when we go in, we hit hard.

“As Navy SEALs, we are sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves, so every mission is a mission of mercy, to rescue prisoners, to reclaim ships and property, to protect the innocent.”

“Couldn’t have said it better, Mack. I’m calling a meeting of senior instructors and commanders this evening. And then we go to work. Line up some top-class guys for the Delta Platoon. These goddamned pirates want to fuck about, we’ll show them how to
really
fuck about.”

NINE THOUSAND MILES FROM CORONADO, the Navy’s P-3C Orion took off from Nairobi’s Wilson Airport right on time, bound for a remote stretch of dark sky high above the Indian Ocean, 0.75 degrees south on the GPS, 52.36 east. Behind the captain and the navigator sat the four navy guards. Between them were five large zip-up mailbags, fluorescent orange in color.

Inside those bags was a total of $5 million, packaged in stacks of fifty $100 bills. There were two hundred of these small, manageable stacks in each of the five bags, the handles lashed together with a wide unbreakable nylon strap.

On each bag, there was a flotation device and a satellite location beam, just in case the drop missed the deck of the
Niagara Falls
and landed in the water. The state-of-the-art locator, which would begin transmitting as soon as the bags landed, was similar to those carried by all combat SEALs operating behind enemy lines.

Their route took them over land, directly east, straight along the equator from Nairobi to the coast. And almost immediately the light began to fade, even before they reached the ocean, flying fast, making 400 knots away from the sun setting behind them over Kenya’s Great Rift Valley.

By the time they reached the coastline, the inshore waters below were a dull pink color and then, almost immediately, they turned inky dark blue and then black. Out in front, high to starboard, they could already see their own personal badge in the sky, the bright constellation of stars that form Orion’s Belt—their aircraft having been named after the mythological hunter.

The Orion’s computer system was already showing distance to target. Right now it showed 483 miles to the drop zone, and the aircraft was knocking off one mile every nine seconds. Lt. Ray Rossi was opening maritime radio comms on the agreed frequency directly to the bridge of the
Niagara Falls
. Admiral Wolde had accepted this must be done between Captain Corcoran and the incoming aircraft that was transporting the ransom cash.

Ray Rossi had the connection as the computer ticked off the miles, now down to 420, only sixty-three minutes to the target, not allowing for the drop in speed over the final ten miles.

On the bridge, a tired Captain Corcoran spoke slowly: “Receiving you, Bankers One. We have speedboats ready to proceed to pickup at five minutes’ notice. Both standing by, with Mombassa, one mile off our stern. Over.”

“Roger that,
Niagara
. We show four hundred miles, ETA 2105 hours. Planning low-level flight drop, no parachutes, fluorescent orange night bags with flotation. We’ll aim for the ship, margin for error no more than one hundred yards. Over.”

“Roger that, Bankers One. We have your approach course two-sevenzero degrees. The wind’s light southwesterly. I’ll turn
Niagara Falls
into it. You’ll come at us from astern, two-two-five degrees. Over.”

“Roger that,
Niagara
. We will come in downwind and then swing around the ship on your portside about four miles south. You’ll see us okay. Probably at 2,000 feet and losing height. Over.”

“Roger that, Bankers One. Check in thirty minutes. Over.”

It was completely dark now and the Orion cut through the tropical night, still at her cruising height, crossing the earth’s easterly lines of longitude. They’d been aloft a long time with a very small crew, and two of the guards were shifting the moneybags toward the internal bomb bays under the front fuselage.

The Orion is designed with external sonobuoy launch tubes, but no one was keen to have 5 million bucks in paper money hurtling through the windswept stratosphere outside the aircraft, beyond reach. Lockheed had not, of course, designed the great airborne warhorse of the United States Navy to deliver cash.

Half an hour later the computer showed fewer than two hundred miles left, and now, it seemed, the miles ticked away even faster. The cash was in place, and Lieutenant Rossi opened up communications to the bridge of the
Niagara Falls
. Simultaneously Aaron Marshall began his descent into the drop zone, coming five degrees south in readiness to bank left for the final approach.

Captain Corcoran came on the line to receive the terse message from the incoming US aircraft: “Bankers One–one-nine-zero miles. Steering course nine-five. ETA twenty-one-hundred and five hours.”

“Roger that, Bankers One. Over.”

The Orion was losing height. Minute by minute it slid down through the sky. With fifteen minutes to go it was at 15,000 feet and descending.
Ten minutes from the target, which it would overfly, it was sixty-seven miles west-southwest of the US freighter and flying at under 10,000 feet.

Seven minutes later it was slowing down, only twenty-six miles from the ship, which was now plain on the radar screen. It was flying at only 2,000 feet, and four minutes later the pilots could see the lights of the
Niagara Falls
, six miles off through their portside cockpit window.

Lieutenant Rossi again opened the Orion’s comms to the bridge. “Suggest you launch speedboats. Bring them in close to the vessel, port and starboard. That’s us six miles off your starboard beam. We’re running up for our one-eighty turn. You’ll see the approach. Descending to one hundred feet for the drop . . .
stay
on the line, captain.”

Standing right next to the ship’s master, the pirate chief, Admiral Wolde, called the
Mombassa
and ordered Captain Hassan to send the boats away. Immediately the helmsmen, Hamdan Ougoure and Abadula Sofian, gunned the two skiffs directly at the distant freighter in readiness for the drop.

By now the area was becoming crowded and very noisy. Both the destroyer
Roosevelt
and the frigate
Ingraham
had arrived on station and were positioned close in to the captured freighter, lights blazing. On the stern of each warship was a Sikorsky Seahawk, rotors howling, ready to take off. Essentially there was enough US Navy hardware within a couple of hundred yards to conquer a small country—guided missiles, bombs, torpedoes, naval artillery, and machine guns.

The Orion was down to two hundred miles per hour. She was three miles past the ship, and Lieutenant Commander Marshall began the turn. The portside wing dipped as he banked hard left. He held her at 1,000 feet and then descended again, in 220-foot drops.

Rossi’s last message to Captain Corcoran went through: “Coming in now at one hundred feet for the low-level drop. Will aim directly for the deck.”

Inside the cockpit, Marshall held the huge aircraft steady, flying straight at the stern lights of the
Niagara Falls
. Her four turboprops screamed in the night, as Lieutenant Rossi called back: “Two miles . . . thirty-six seconds . . . twenty seconds . . .”

Marshall could see the outline of the freighter now, and he heard Ray Rossi’s final call. His voice rose to a shout as he ordered: “
Okay, we’re right on her . . . NOW! NOW! NOW!”

The bomb bay flashed open and the orange bags fell out, tumbling
straight down one hundred feet as the Orion thundered overhead. It was a great shot, but a rising gust on the southwester just caught it, and the five roped bags swooped over the starboard rail and landed in the Indian Ocean only ten feet from the ship’s hull.

Abadula Sofian, his skiff positioned only a hundred yards away, watched the bags tumble from the giant aircraft, and he saw the bags hit the rail and almost slide down the hull of the stationary ship. He could see the bright fluorescent light floating on the surface of the water. He steered his narrow boat right onto the big waterproof bags and rammed a boat hook into the middle of the mass of handles and the nylon rope.

Abadula heaved, and the orange bags gripped. His crewmate leaned over to help, and there on the moonlit waters the two Somali pirates hauled aboard their five-million-dollar catch. In the far distance the lights of the Orion were back in view as Lieutenant Commander Marshall made his second 180-degree turn and headed back to Diego Garcia.

Back on the bridge, Admiral Wolde, on his cell phone, ordered his two skiffs to close in on the freighter, where the crew was already fixing nets for the disembarkation. On the other line, Admiral Mark Bradfield in the Pentagon was giving the orders, and he told Wolde to take his two guards and report to the deck. When the two skiffs pulled alongside, all three men were to disembark, using the nets, and proceed directly to the
Mombassa
.

When Wolde asked the admiral if he was permitted to have a word with his helmsman just to check the bags were actually full of money, he was given a curt but unexpected answer.

“No,” snapped America’s chief naval officer. “But I do have a couple of words for you personally. One’s ‘fuck’ and the other’s ‘you.’ Now get off our ship, and consider yourself damn lucky we don’t blow that tin-can fishing boat of yours clean out of the water with all of you on board.”

Ismael’s grasp of colloquial English was not bad but by no means perfect. Even so, he definitely understood Admiral Bradfield’s drift, and, secretly, he did consider himself lucky to be getting out of there alive.

“Sir, I have kept my word to you. No one has been harmed since we first spoke. The
Niagara Falls
is returned to you as it was when we found it.”

“That’s the only reason you’re still breathing,” gritted Admiral Bradfield, ungraciously.

“Then I bid you good-bye, sir,” replied Ismael Wolde.

“For your sake, I hope I do not come across you again,” rasped Mark Bradfield down the line from Washington, with an equally ungracious flourish.