Allah's Scorpion (28 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

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It took him completely by surprise. “No.”
“Well, she’s been telling anyone who’ll listen that she is,” Elizabeth said. “So if you’ve come here to ask her to help you, just be careful, Daddy. She’s an intelligent, beautiful woman, and I think she’d do just about anything to seduce you.”
McGarvey had to smile, despite the seriousness of the situation. “Is this a subject that a daughter should be talking to her father about?”
Elizabeth wanted to argue, but after a moment she lowered her eyes and nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m going back to Guantanamo Bay, and I want Gloria along to put pressure on the ONI guy she’s already had a run-in with,” McGarvey said. “When I find out where bin Laden is hiding, I’m going after him alone. I’ve always worked that way.”
Elizabeth looked up. “That’s another part I don’t like,” she said. “You’re getting too old for this kind of stuff.”
McGarvey shook his head ruefully. “Too old for fieldwork and too old to turn the head of a pretty woman. Good thing I’m going back to teaching when this is over. And it’s even better that I’m in love with your mother.” He smiled. “She’s practically ancient too, you know.”
Elizabeth laughed lightly. “You make a good pair,” she said. “A dotty old bastard and the only woman on earth who can tell him what to do.”
 
 
SS
SHEHAB
Captain Tariq Ziyax leaned against the chart table in the control room of the aging Foxtrot diesel-electric submarine, studying the medium-scale chart of the Mediterranean Sea from the Libyan coast across to the island of Sicily. It was coming up on 2200 Greenwich mean time, which put it at midnight local, eighty-five meters above on the surface.
The
Shehab
had left her base at Ra’s al Hilal three days ago on what the crew had been told was a routine patrol mission, but no other Libyan ship had accompanied them, nor since reaching their patrol station two hundred kilometers off Benghazi had they participated in any torpedo or missile drills, and the crew was getting restless. Only Ziyax and a dozen of his officers knew the real orders.
He was a small man with narrow shoulders, and a sad face that was all planes and angles, like someone out of a Goya painting. His eyes were puffed and red because he’d not slept well since he’d been handed this troubling assignment by Colonel Quaddafi himself four days ago, and his nerves were jumping all over the place, especially now that they were at their rendezvous point.
He wanted nothing more at this moment than to be home with his wife and three children, rather than here in the middle of the Mediterranean, carrying four anthrax-tipped torpedo-tube-launched cruise missiles.
To be caught out here in international waters with such weapons of mass destruction, which actually had belonged to Saddam Hussein before the war, would mean certain arrest and imprisonment. It would also go very badly for Libya if it were discovered that Quaddafi had hidden Hussein’s weapons in the weeks before the Allied forces had attacked.
The secret to leading men was never to allow a subordinate to see your inner fears. Remain calm in all circumstances. Be a man of iron. It was what he had been taught by the Russians at the Frunze Military Academy.
This is especially true aboard a submarine where a man’s worst fears always hovered just a few meters away at the pressure hull.
The
Shehab
was one of the last Foxtrot Class submarines that the Soviets had built in the early eighties, eight of which had been delivered to Libya. Because of shoddy maintenance practices by the Libyan navy, and because of a scarcity of spare parts since the collapse of the Soviet Union, only three of those boats were still serviceable, and the
Shehab
was most definitely on her last legs.
But, Ziyax reflected, in an effort to steady his nerves, she was still a potent warship. Under the right command, with the right crew, she was capable of dealing a sharp blow whether to a sea or land target.
At 91.5 meters on deck,
Shehab
displaced 2,600 tons submerged, and at cruising speed had a range of twenty thousand miles. She was fitted out with ten 533mm torpedo tubes; six forward and four aft. And she had been modified five years ago, two of her forward tubes modernized so
that they could handle the ZM-54E1 missiles that had a range of three hundred kilometers, and could carry a variety of payloads, including normal high-explosive warheads, or air-burst canisters of anthrax. Even a small nuclear warshot with a yield of a few kilotons could be mounted to attack a ship or even a shore installation.
Ziyax shuddered to think what the outcome would be if a Libyan submarine ever made such an attack. It would be the end of their nation, and certainly the same fate that Hussein had suffered would befall Colonel Quaddafi. It was why this assignment was so vitally important.
“You will kill three birds with one stone for me, my dear Captain,” Quaddafi had told him. It was early evening, and they were walking in the desert, a half-dozen bodyguards trailing twenty meters behind.
“I and my crew will do our best for you,” Ziyax had promised. He had graduated with a degree in electronic engineering, with honors, from King Farouk University in Cairo, and after two years working for Libya Telecommunications Corporation, helping build an all-new telephone system for the country, he’d been drafted into the navy. He was smart, he was dedicated to his nation, and knew how to follow orders as well as give them. After four years of intensive training in Libya and in Russia, aboard a variety of submarines including Kilos and Foxtrots, he’d been appointed as executive officer aboard a sister submarine of Shehab’s.
He’d also gotten married and started his family, which made him want to finally quit the sea and return to his first love, electronic engineering.
“When you have completed this assignment for me, I will release you from the navy, if that’s what you still want,” Colonel Quaddafi promised.
Ziyax had felt a sudden flush of pleasure. “Yes, sir, but only to return to my old position.”
“You’re needed there as well as here,” Quaddafi said.
They walked in silence for a while, Ziyax thinking about regaining his old life. But then it occurred to ask what task he was being assigned to do. “The three birds with one stone, sir?” he prompted.
“You have read the newspapers, seen the international television broadcasts, so you know that I have promised the West to reduce our military forces in exchange for new trade agreements. The boycott against our people has been lifted.”
“Yes, sir.” Life in Libya, especially in the capital, Tripoli, had markedly improved over the past few years. The nearly universal sentiment held
Quaddafi in high regard, even though it had been his arrogance in the first place that had landed them in so much trouble with the West.
“You are to take your submarine into the Mediterranean, and so far as the world is concerned, scuttle her.”
Ziyax’s breath had caught in his throat when he understood
exactly
what Quaddafi was telling him, and the reason for telling him out here in isolation where there was no possibility of prying ears. “If I’m not to scuttle my boat, what am I to do?”
“You will make rendezvous with a civilian vessel so that your crew can be taken off and replaced by a scuttling crew, to whom you will turn over the boat.”
Ziyax knew exactly whom the scuttling crew worked for, and his blood ran cold, but he didn’t give voice to his thought.
“Since we have made an appeasement with the West, certain of our brothers in prayer have criticized us. This gesture will spread oil on the waters. The second bird.”
Al-Quaida, the thought crystallized in Ziyax’s mind. Still he held his silence.
“You may tell your officers the truth,” Quaddafi instructed. “It may be that you will have to remain aboard for a few days to familiarize the new crew, though I’m told their captain is English. A graduate of their Perisher school.”
Ziyax could not have been more astounded at that moment. “I’m to turn over my submarine to an infidel?”
“Precisely,” Quaddafi said. “Although the West, as well as your crew, will believe that your boat was destroyed and sunk.”
“We will be asked why we didn’t simply dry-dock her and cut her apart for the steel.”
“Because there was a dreadful, unforeseen accident,” Quaddafi shot back, somewhat irritated. “But that is diplomacy, my concern. Yours is to do as you are ordered.”
“Yes, sir,” Ziyax replied.
“Which brings us to the third bird, what has been an anchor around the neck of Libya since oh-four. Certain weapons will be loaded aboard
Shehab.
The exact nature of those weapons will be kept from your crew.”
“Am I and my officers to know?” Ziyax asked.
“There is no need, my dear Captain,” Quaddafi said. “And when you return home, your reward will be greater than you can imagine.”
Ziyax had replayed his surreal conversation with Quaddafi over and over in his head, each time running up against the one flaw in the plan. The crew might be kept ignorant of what had actually become of
Shehab,
but he and his officers would know. Quite possibly that could mean their death sentence, no matter how it turned out. That fact alone he had kept from his officers.
The sonar operator ducked his head around the corner. “Captain, I have a slow-moving target on the surface at our station, keeping position,” he said.
Ziyax looked up out of his thoughts, catching the eye of his executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Assam al-Abbas. In addition to being a fine officer and a friend, al-Abbas served as the Purity of Islam officer aboard. Most of the men feared him.
“What is his bearing and range, Ensign Isomil?” Ziyax asked.
“Bearing two-six-five, range one hundred meters.”
“What is he doing? Is he a warship? Are we being pinged?”
“No, sir, it’s not a warship. I think it’s a freighter. He’s making less than five knots.”
“Are there any other targets? Anything we should be worried about?”
“No, sir, my display is clear to ten thousand meters.”
“Very well,” Ziyax said. He turned back to his XO. “Turn right to two-six-five, make your speed five knots, and bring us to periscope depth. Five-degree angle on the planes. I want this to go very slowly.”
“Aye, Captain,” al-Abbas responded crisply and he gave the orders to the diving officer, who relayed them to the helmsman, and then turned to a series of controls at the ballast panel that blew air into a series of tanks. Immediately the submarine began rising to a depth of twenty meters.
There was nothing about this assignment that didn’t worry Ziyax. At the very least he would do everything possible to prolong his life and the lives of his officers. Whatever it took. “Assam, if this is the wrong ship, I want to get out of here as quickly as possible.”
“Aywa,”
al-Abbas replied.
Yes.
“Prepare for an emergency dive to two hundred meters on my order, All Ahead Flank.”
Al-Abbas repeated the order and the other crew in the control room glanced at their captain, but just for a moment, before they went back to their duties.
Ziyax stepped over to the periscope platform and, as he waited the few
minutes for his boat to reach the proper depth, he examined his feelings for the untold time since they’d left base. He trained his entire career in the navy to fire warshots. But so far he’d not done so. Praise Allah. But tonight he was expected to deliver this boat and her weapons to a group he thought were madmen, little better than savages, religious zealots who had done more harm to Islam with their stupid
jihad
than all the holy wars through history.
“Two-zero meters,” al-Abbas called out softly.
Ziyax raised the search periscope, and turned it to a bearing just forward of
Shehab
’s starboard beam. They were slightly behind the freighter and on a parallel course.
For several long seconds he could make out little or nothing but the empty sea. Panning the periscope a few degrees left, the ship was suddenly there, very close. It showed no lights, but he could identify the silhouettes of several containers on deck, which was what he was told he would see.
He stepped up the scope’s magnification and turned to the stern of the freighter. She was the
Distal Volente,
out of Monrovia, Liberia.
Ziyax stepped back, his heart suddenly racing. It was the ship he was to rendezvous with. He looked through the eyepiece again, but there was no movement on deck that he could discern. For all appearances, the
Distal Volente
could be a ghost ship.
“Rig for night operations,” he said. He folded the handles and lowered the periscope as the lights through the ship turned red. “Surface the boat.”
 
 
DISTAL VOLENTE
First Officer Takeo Itasaka looked up from the radar screen and shook his head. “We have arrived at the rendezvous point but there is nothing inside the ten-kilometer ring, and nothing heading in our direction.”
Only he, Captain Subandrio, and Graham were on the bridge. The other
three of the ship’s crew plus Graham’s people were out of sight belowdecks. The navigation lights had been doused sixty minutes ago, and the only lights on the bridge came from the radar screen and the few instruments clustered above the wheel. Graham had ordered even the red light over the chart table switched off.
“Stop the ship,” Graham ordered, not bothering to raise his voice.
“But there’s nobody here, Rupert,” Subandrio replied. He had taken the helm, which he’d always done when the situation became tense. He was a wise old bird who could smell trouble even before it developed.
“There will be,” Graham said. “Stop the ship, please.” Graham had developed an understanding and a certain respect for the captain in the several years he’d worked with the man. It was obvious that Subandrio suspected that he and his ship might be sailing into some kind of danger.
“We’re not early.”
“No, we’re here spot-on,” Graham said. “Please stop the ship now.”
Subandrio exchanged a look with his first officer, but then shrugged and rang for All Stop. Moments later, they could feel the change in the diesel’s pitch through the deck plating, and the
Distal Volente
began to lose speed.
Graham walked to the window and looked out at the black sea, but there was nothing to see except for the stars above; even the horizon was lost to the darkness.
He took a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and keyed the Push-to-Talk button. “We’re here,” he said.
“Have they arrived?” al-Hari asked. He and eight of the Iranian crew were crouched in the passageway one deck below the crew’s quarters. The remainder of Graham’s submariners were dispersed throughout the ship.
“Not yet,” Graham radioed. “Stand by.”
“Stand by for what?” Subandrio asked.
“You’ll see, old friend,” Graham replied mildly. He needed the captain and crew in case the submarine never showed up. If that happened they would pay Subandrio for his trouble, and he could take them to Syria, where they could safely wait until another submarine could be enlisted.
There’d been other delays before, and Graham had learned patience very early on. Bin Laden had once called Graham a scorpion because of his stealth and because of his lethal sting.
“You will be as Allah’s scorpion for me.”
It was the only mumbo jumbo from any of the Muslims that Graham had
ever found amusing. He smiled now. Once he took control of the Foxtrot more people than bin Laden would think of him as a scorpion. A lot more people.
Itasaka suddenly hunched over the radar screen. “Son of a bitch,” he swore. He looked up.
“Where?” Graham asked.
“To port,” he said excitedly. “It just showed up next to us.”
Graham stepped out to the port-wing lookout, Subandrio right behind him, as the distinctively stubby fairwater and long, narrow hull of a Foxtrot Class submarine rose out of the sea one hundred meters away.
Subandrio was clearly impressed. “Who does it belong to, Rupert?”
“Me,” Graham said. He took a small red-lensed flashlight out of his pocket and flashed QRV in Morse code, which meant,
Are you ready?
Moments later the QRV flashed from a red light atop the periscope; I am ready. It was the agreed-upon signal and response.
“What have you gotten yourself into?” Subandrio asked. He was staring at the submarine. “This is a very bad business. That’s not a machine for hijacking ships. It’s meant only to kill.”
“Indeed it is,” Graham said. He brushed past the captain and went back inside. He keyed his walkie-talkie. “Now,” he said. “When you’re finished meet me on deck, we’ll take the gig across.”
“Roger,” al-Hari replied crisply.
Graham pocketed the flashlight and walkie-talkie, at the same moment gunfire erupted from the crew’s quarters, and elsewhere throughout the ship. He pulled out his pistol and turned around, but the port-wing lookout was empty. Subandrio had jumped overboard.
“Son of a bitch,” the first officer swore behind him.
He spun around in time to see Itasaka desperately trying to get the gun locker open. Graham raised his pistol and fired three shots at the man, the second and third hitting the Japanese officer in the back of the neck and base of his skull, killing him.
The firing belowdecks intensified fivefold; then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. A second later one lone pistol shot came from directly below, and then the ship was silent.
Graham went back out onto the port-wing lookout and searched the water below, but in the darkness spotting someone would be impossible. He slapped his hand against his leg in frustration. Everything had gone
exactly as planned to this point, except for Subandrio jumping ship. Something at the back of his head had told him to be wary of the wily old Indonesian. The man had survived in a very risky business for a very long time because his instincts were good.
Al-Hari called on the walkie-talkie. “We’re clear down here.”
Graham pulled his walkie-talkie out of his pocket. “Clear up here. I’ll meet you on deck.”
“Roger.”
Graham lingered for a few moments on the port-wing lookout, holding his breath to listen for any sounds; someone splashing in the water, perhaps. But it was a long way down, so it was possible that Subandrio had been knocked unconscious when he’d hit the water, and he’d drowned. But even if he survived the fall they were two hundred kilometers offshore, and that was a very long swim.
The captain would certainly not survive. Nonetheless, the lack of precision bothered Graham. He did not like loose ends.
 
 
SS
SHEHAB
Approaching the Libyan submarine in Subandrio’s gig, Graham almost ordered al-Hari to return to the
Distal Volente,
and immediately get under way for Syria. The warship was a piece of junk. Even in worse shape than the rust-bucket freighter they’d just left. Large off-color patches in the hull, where repairs had been made, dotted the side of the boat like a patchwork quilt. Two of the hydrophone panels on the forward edge of the fairwater were missing, and it appeared as if something—a piling or perhaps another ship—had scraped a large gouge nearly the entire length of the boat just above the waterline.
“We’re submerging in this piece of shit?” al-Hari asked.
“At least it’s not a nuke boat with a leaking reactor,” Graham said, his hopes momentarily sinking. He had originally wanted a Kilo Class submarine, something more modern and certainly much quieter. And yet if this boat could be repaired once they got under way, it would give them the advantage of range. The Kilo would not make it across the Atlantic without refueling. It was a problem that Graham had been working on, but without a solution so far.
“We’re looking at a death trap,” al-Hari insisted.
“A Libyan crew brought her this far,” Graham replied as they approached the submarine’s starboard side just below the fairwater. Two men were waiting on deck.
“Aywa,”
al-Hari said.
Yes
. “But those bastards are fanatics.”
Graham could scarcely believe what the man had just said, and with a straight face. He almost laughed. “We’ll make do. When we transfer crews bring anything you can think of to make repairs. And bring all the stores that your people haven’t already eaten.”
“Some of that garbage isn’t fit for humans.”
“I think ten days from now you’ll feel differently,” Graham said. He was beginning to wonder if he had picked the wrong man to be his XO. But there wasn’t much to choose from.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re taking this piece of dung?”
“In due time, Mr. al-Hari,” Graham said. “In the meantime we have work to do.”
He stood up and tossed a line to the men on deck as al-Hari throttled back and came up alongside nicely.
The shorter of the two Libyans caught the line, and Graham clambered aboard.
“I am Captain Tariq Ziyax,” the taller of two men said. “And this is my executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Assam al-Abbas.” He held out his hand, but Graham ignored it.
“My name is Rupert Graham, but you may call me Captain. I’m taking command as of this moment.”
Al-Abbas made as if to say something, but Ziyax held him back. “This vessel is a gift to the
jihad.
We wish for you to use him well.” The Foxtrot was a Russian-built boat, and Russians called their ships by the masculine pronoun.
“Insh’allah,”
al-Hari called up from the gig, meaning it as a sarcasm that both Libyans caught.
“I will require you and your officers to remain aboard,” Graham said before either of them could reply to al-Hari. “How many of your crew will need to be transferred?”
“Twenty-eight,” Ziyax answered without hesitation. He’d obviously been expecting it. “There will be myself and seventeen others at your disposal for as long as need be.”
“Very well, I’ll let your XO see to their immediate transfer,” Graham said. “I want to be under way within the hour.” He turned back to al-Hari. “Get our people and supplies over here on the double. I want the Libyans in the crew’s mess for their debriefing. Do you understand everything?”
Al-Hari gave him a wicked smile. “Yes, sir. Everything.”
Al-Abbas tossed the painter to al-Hari, who immediately gunned the gig’s engine, and headed back to the
Distal Volente.
“Now, Captain, I would like to inspect my boat, and meet my officers and crew,” Graham said.
Al-Abbas shot him an evil look, but hurried forward and disappeared down the loading hatch in the deck.
“Can you tell me your plans for my … for this boat?” Ziyax asked.
“Colonel Quaddafi wasn’t clear, except that I was ordered to assist you and the
jihad
in any way I could. But that does not include an attack on any target. Before that happens we must be allowed to leave.”
“I have been led to understand that the struggle belongs to all Muslims,” Graham said indifferently.
“The struggle has many forms,” Ziyax responded.
Graham laughed disparagingly. “This is a warship, and that’s exactly how I intend to use her.”

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