The Delta Solution (41 page)

“That way you got a chance. But even then you need two helicopters, one big and one fast gunship. You can’t fly them out there. It’s too far. You gotta get them out there on the flight deck of a warship. And then you gotta get the guys out there in a major hurry. And if for any reason an air attack is not feasible, you gotta have fast rigid-deck inflatables ready to go. I’m telling you, we need all the luck and organization in the world to hit these Somalis.”

“Tell you what,” said General Lancaster, “when we do catch up with them, and we do hit them, I want them to stay hit, okay?”

“Roger that, boss,” said Mark Bradfield. “But if we’re going to take this seriously, I need to have some powerful hardware out there. Mack Bedford
and his team will smash up any pirate attack, but we have to get them out there, and the distances are vast.”

“Right at this minute, there is no greater priority,” said Zack Lancaster. “Because these fucking maniacs are inflicting not only defeat and financial pain; they’re also inflicting a worldwide humiliation on us.

“How many fourth-rate banana republics do you think are out there laughing their balls off at us? The almighty Uncle Sam being given the goddamned runaround by a bunch of tribesmen.”

“Not to mention the Russians and the Chinese,” said Simon Andre. “And I personally find that especially irritating. We’re making a few disapproving noises toward the Chinese and their aggressive moves all over Africa. And now they can smile at us with shit-eating grins.”

“Listen,” Mark Bradfield said, “do you guys want me to station four warships out there, maybe a cruiser, coupla destroyers, and a frigate? Because there’s no other way to do it. Mack Bedford and his guys must have a platform—both to land and then to launch their attack.”

“I don’t see a way around it,” said General Lancaster. “If we want to stop this crap, we need to put some real muscle behind it. Otherwise it’s going to drag on for months. I understand this
Global Mustang
bullshit is obviously impossible since the shipping guys are going to pay up right away. Anyone know how?”

“Yessir,” said Karl Ryland. “This pirate has persuaded Heseltine, the owner, and Tokyo Electric Power to get the cash to Athena’s bank, JP Morgan, in New York. That’s a transaction they are both well accustomed to making.

“The Athena owner, Livanos, has told the insurance company in London that if they don’t come up with their $2.5 million share, it will probably cost them several hundred million dollars if the pirates blow up the
Mustang
. Anyway they’re all agreed.”

“How’re they moving the cash?” asked the general.

“Through the Arab Emirates. Barclays Bank is consolidating the money in Dubai. Then it’s being flown out by the UAE Air Force, straight down to our base in Djibouti to refuel, then straight out to the ship for an ocean drop. They’ll be trying to put it right on the deck. It’s military all the way.”

“What are the overheads?” asked Zack Lancaster. “Is Dubai asking an arm and a leg for their help?”

“Quite the contrary,” replied Karl Ryland. “Sheikh Mohammed has been very generous, apparently charging nothing for the services of his Air Force. Says he’s glad to help a US tanker at this time. Gesture of friendship.”

“Okay, I guess that just leaves us to wait for the next attack and to trust we have Mack Bedford’s platoon on station by the time it happens.”

The general stood up and fiddled with the controls of the illuminated world map on the opposite wall. He zoomed in on the Indian Ocean and then zoomed in some more on the area between longitudes 56 and 66, from one degree latitude south of the equator to five north. “It looks as if the main pirate gangs, the big-ship guys, have settled on a new ops area,” he said. “Right inside this square.”

“They’ve moved offshore alright,” said Mark Bradfield. “Probably because they know ships are less suspicious of attack way out there. But also because it’s hard to get assistance. That European mercy fleet, or whatever the hell it’s called, has proven more or less useless, mostly because it’s always in the wrong place.”

“So,” said the general, “if we’re going to make a serious impact, we need warships patrolling inside that square. It’s 360 miles by 736 miles. What’s that? 265,000 square miles. I guess that sounds like a lot. But you can look at it another way. North/south we can have a ship every seventy miles, and lengthwise we can have them each 140 miles apart, forming a diagonal across the datum.”

Mark Bradfield, a former surface-ship commanding officer, had been following the general’s numbers on a writing pad in front of him, translating the words into a picture. He now had a rectangle longer than its height. And across the middle he drew a diagonal line of four small crosses, the four US warships.

“The fact is, sir,” he mused, “if an atrocity occurred at the farthest point from our nearest ship, there would still be a maximum of only three hundred miles to steam. These things make a comfortable 30 knots through the water, so the most it could take us to get on station would be less than nine hours.”

“Right!” said the general triumphantly. “They hit after dark at 2100 hours, and we’re on the scene before dawn a little after 0530, with Mack and his boys flying out for the drop. That’s beautiful. Four warships it is,
Mark. Get ’em out there, with the helos, right in that little box with the crosses.”

“Let’s get these bastards,” he added. “Let’s show them who they’re really dealing with.”

FOR THE FIRST TIME for several months, the office of the CNO looked like the engine room of a nation at war. Somehow the words of General Zack Lancaster had added a new dimension to America’s view of piracy on the high seas, and it was a battlefield mentality. Anyone within thirty yards of Admiral Mark Bradfield’s suite of offices on the fourth floor of the Pentagon could sense the urgency in the air.

There were navy personnel coming and going. Phones were ringing, computers humming, lights flashing, and staff calling out data. The lines to the Norfolk yards were open. Lt. Com. Jay Souchak was trying to locate the 10,000-ton guided missile cruiser
Port Royal
.

This was normally a ten-minute task. But Admiral Bradfield wanted to know right away. So far as Jay could tell, the warship should have cleared the Malacca Straits, running north, and ought to be fifty miles southwest of the Nicobar Islands.

But “should have” and “ought to be” were not acceptable. The
Port Royal
was probably 1,400 miles from Diego Garcia, and Admiral Bradfield wanted to know precisely when she was expected to dock. Before the evening was over, the admiral would organize the deployment of four ships: the
Port Royal
; the guided missile destroyer
Chafee
; a second destroyer, USS
Momsen
; and the Harpoon missile frigate
Reuben James.

All four of them would head directly to the US Navy base at Diego Garcia for resupplying and then head out in convoy to the 265,000-square-mile stretch of ocean where the next Somali pirate attack was expected to occur. Lt. Com. Jay Souchak also needed to check for helicopters and their availability.

So far as he knew, the four selected ships were already equipped with helos. But Admiral Bradfield wanted to insure that the
Port Royal
could carry a Sikorsky CH-53D Sea Stallion. If not, he’d have to start thinking aircraft carrier. And that put his back to the wall time-wise because the US Navy did not have a flattop within striking range of Diego Garcia, and
it would take three days for the
Harry S. Truman
to get there from the South China Sea.

Also, a Nimitz-class carrier was a very hefty piece of gear to deploy against a group of pirates. But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs himself had decreed that this was a priority, and if the CNO had to move a carrier to help clear up the problem, then that carrier would swiftly be on its way.

There was no doubt in Jay Souchak’s mind that there were unusual forces at work. The pure frustration of the apparently unsolvable pirate problem was profoundly irritating the best minds in the US Navy. This latest seizing of an unarmed ship, the
Global Mustang
, had injected anger, short tempers, and an element of overkill into the equation.

It was as if everyone understood that the US was wielding a sledgehammer to crack a nut. But that’s how it was. And these goddamned tribesmen from East Africa were about to be severely slammed by the sledgehammer of the United States Navy—Special Forces, aircraft carriers, destroyers, missiles, and whatever the hell else it might take, to quote General Lancaster. It was, in a sense, a formal announcement that Uncle Sam was done with this piracy bullshit, so hang on to your hats.

Meanwhile millions of dollars were flying not only through the banking ether but also in the face of every instinct the US military possessed. On Fifth Avenue in New York, preparations were being completed to pay off these goddamned hooligans. And from Zack Lancaster down, no one in the Pentagon approved of the system.

Because there was only one surefire method . . .
NEVER pay off these bastards because they will come straight out and do it again. They have to be stopped, slammed, and obliterated. That way no one’s in any doubt about the consequences of attacking the United States or its allies or its possessions. That’s anything or anyone operating under the American flag.

THE $10 MILLION REQUIRED to free Captain Pitman’s ship was, thanks to the miracle of interbank wire transfers, safely in the ground-floor vault of Building Six, Barclays of Dubai, at the downtown end of Sheikh Zayed Road.

Five tellers were counting, stacking, and packing the $100 bills into ten heavy-duty mailbags. The UAE Air Force would strap them together and fit the huge package with four luminous flares, which would fire on impact
with water should the drop from the aircraft miss the deck of the
Mustang
. Sheikh Mohammed’s air force personnel would also take care of the flotation device, which would prevent the bags from sinking.

At 6:00 p.m. (local), the bank was closed, but waiting for the mailbags outside was a Dubai military truck and six armed guards, ready to deliver the money to the airport.

At 6:15 the guards lifted the bags into the truck and drove out to Dubai International. Its $10 million cargo was swiftly loaded and the Hercules took off, flying southwest, deep into the Arabian Desert toward the burning sands of the Rub’ al-Khali.

It was a long, 1,200-mile haul down to Djibouti, across the widest part of the Arabian Peninsula, and then over the southern mountains of Yemen to the narrow waterway where the Red Sea flows into the Gulf of Aden. Djibouti lies right on the coast, and the Hercules touched down at 10:00 p.m.

The Americans were waiting to refuel her, and two members of the catering staff were at the end of the runway, together with the tanker, to serve Sheikh Mohammed’s pilots and crew hot coffee and sweet pastries. On the return journey they would land here again, probably close to 2:30 a.m. and spend the rest of the night at the US Navy base before flying home across the Empty Quarter.

The Hercules took off on the last leg of her journey to the
Global Mustang
at 11:00 p.m. She hurtled down the sand-swept runway into a cool southwest wind directly off the Ethiopian highlands and then banked hard around to the southeast, climbing toward the Somali coastline, and out over the dark waters of the Indian Ocean.

By midnight they were at the halfway point, having covered almost four hundred miles over the ocean.