Allah's Scorpion (29 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Allah's Scorpion
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SS
SHEHAB
Standing on the bridge of the submarine with Captain Ziyax, Graham was nearly consumed with anger and impatience, though he let none of that show. It had been nearly two hours since al-Hari had returned to the
Distal Volente
to get their crew squared away, secure the transferring crew of the
Shehab,
and ferry over the repair supplies and consumables. And still the forward-loading hatch had not been closed.
Every minute they remained out here increased their risk of discovery,
though the sonar and radar officers reported no targets within twenty kilometers. But there was always the risk of a chance discovery by an American or British satellite.
The interior spaces, machinery, and electrical and electronics systems aboard were only marginally better than the hull. But nearly everything worked or seemed to be repairable. The officers seemed competent; at least they appeared to know their jobs, although their resentment had become palpable the moment they’d been informed that their captain was being replaced by an infidel.
But anger was a useful tool to mold a ragged mob into a cohesive crew, Graham thought. It was a tool he’d used often.
Though not for himself. He needed to remain calm, in control, superior, the leader of men, no matter how badly he wanted to lash out at all of them; bastards who had allowed his wife to die utterly alone.
Graham keyed his walkie-talkie. “What’s your situation?” he radioed tersely.
“Five minutes, Captain,” al-Hari responded. He was still aboard the
Distal Volente
with two other Iranian submariners.
“Trouble?”
“La,”
al-Hari came back.
No.
Graham pocketed the walkie-talkie and picked up the boat’s communicator handphone. “Sonar, bridge, has anyone taken notice of us?”
“Bridge, sonar. My display is still clear, sir.”
He switched to the radar-electronic support measures officer. “ESM, bridge. What’s it look like?”
“Nothing hot within one hundred kilometers,” the young Iranian officer responded. He was one of Graham’s. “Three minutes ago, I picked up something very briefly, but it was way east, and high. Probably Egyptian air force, and it turned away from us toward Israel.”
“Keep your eyes open, Ahmad, we’ll be running on the surface for most of the night,” Graham ordered, then he switched to the control room which for the moment was being manned by Ziyax’s XO. “Conn, bridge.”
It took several moments for al-Abbas to answer, and he sounded surly.
“Aywa.”
Graham’s anger spiked, but he held himself in check. For now he wanted to get under way. He would deal with the lieutenant commander later, though not much later. “Prepare to get under way.”
“Submerged?”
“Negative,” Graham said. “We’ll run on the surface for as long as we can. But I want the boat prepared for sea in all respects, including emergency-dive procedures.”
“Aywa.”
Graham replaced the growler phone in its cradle beneath the coaming. Ziyax had been watching him closely.
“Assam is a good officer,” he said.
“We’ll see,” Graham replied. Al-Hari and the last two Iranian submariners appeared out of the darkness in one of the rubber boats from the
Shehab.
The
Distal Volente
’s gig had been winched back aboard the freighter and would remain there.
He looked up. The sky had gone cloudy and the night had become even darker than it had been at midnight. But there wasn’t much time until dawn, when they would have to submerge, and he was seething because of the unexpected delay. He wanted to be as far away from here as possible before daybreak.
Graham turned to Ziyax and fixed the man with a hard stare. “I suggest that you counsel him. If he or any of your officers decide they’d rather not cooperate, there will be a solution that will not be much to their liking.”
“Does that include me?” Ziyax asked.
“Especially you, Captain,” Graham responded.
The Libyan watched the rubber raft approaching. He nodded toward the
Distal Volente.
“What about the rest of my crew? Are they to be returned to Ra’s al Hilal? It wasn’t in my orders, nor was it made clear to me. I was told that you would explain where they were to be taken.”
“They cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of any Western intelligence agency, or Mossad.”
“Yes, I understand this,” Ziyax said. It was obvious that he was beginning to suspect that something drastic might be about to happen. “Of course they can be held on base until your mission develops.”
Graham said nothing, watching as al-Hari and the two crewmen reached the submarine, scrambled aboard, and deflated the rubber raft.
Al-Hari looked up and nodded before he went forward to the loading hatch, and disappeared below, closing the hatch behind him.
“They can be taken to one of your training camps in Syria,” Ziyax argued. “They would be safe from capture there.”
“We can’t take the chance, Captain,” Graham said, taking the walkie-talkie out again. “I’m told this was Colonel Quaddafi’s suggestion, actually.”
“Place them under arrest,” Ziyax implored. “Give them a chance. They could join the
jihad.
”
Graham switched channels, and glanced with supreme indifference at the Libyan captain. He held out the walkie-talkie. “They were your crewmen. Would you like to do it?”
“This is monstrous,” Ziyax said, backing away.
Graham depressed the Push-to-Talk switch, his eyes never leaving the Libyan officer’s.
The sound of a muffled bang came across the water to them, and then three others in rapid succession. The first explosive device had been placed directly beneath the mess where the
Shehab
’s crew had been locked up. It was a bit of common decency that al-Hari had insisted upon.
“They’re not our enemy.”
“But they could betray us,” Graham had explained, though it had been unnecessary for him to do so. Al-Hari would cooperate now, no matter the task. But sometimes it was interesting to see how far a man would go for his petty little feelings of squeamishness.
“Yes, they must die, Captain. But not by drowning,” al-Hari argued. “Every submariner hates the thought of drowning more than anything else.”
“As you wish,” Graham had magnanimously agreed.
Now everyone aboard the
Distal Volente
was dead, and the ship immediately began to settle, bow down, her bottom ripped open by three explosive charges that had been placed very low in the bilges.
The growler phone squawked. “Bridge, sonar.”
Graham picked it up as he watched the freighter sinking. “Bridge, aye.”
“There were four small explosions close aboard, sir,” the Libyan sonar operator reported excitedly.
“Insh’allah,”
Graham replied, and he couldn’t help but chuckle as the
Distal Volente
disappeared.
 
 
GULF OF SIDRA
A large gray object popped to the surface a few meters from where Captain Subandrio was treading water. Other bits and pieces, the remains of his ship, appeared farther away in a widening trail of oil slick.
He could just make out the humpbacked form of the submarine one hundred meters away, and although he had been raised in a Buddhist home to have tolerance and forbearance for his enemy, he swore he would have his revenge. For that he needed to survive, and to remember exactly what he’d witnessed out here tonight, and for the past days since Tunisia.
There’d been four explosions, which he’d felt in his chest through the waterborne shock waves, and his ship had sunk in a remarkably short time.
But Graham was an expert demolitions man; as ruthless as he was handy with all forms of weapons and things that went bang. His first act on coming aboard the
Distal Volente
was to kill one of his own men, to prove a point from the beginning, Subandrio supposed, that Graham was a serious man whose orders were to be obeyed without question.
From what he’d been able to piece together over the past days, and from the sudden appearance of the submarine, Subandrio realized that the rumors about Graham working for al-Quaida were probably true. Now the fanatics had a terrible machine of war at their disposal with a highly trained submarine commander; a man who knew how to use such a warship to its greatest advantage.
The water was reasonably warm, so Subandrio did not think he would have much trouble surviving this night, and possibly all day tomorrow. But after that his life would be in the hands of the capricious gods.
He swam slowly over to the large gray object, conserving his strength, and keeping a wary eye toward the submarine in case someone came back in a rubber raft to search for him.
As he approached he could see that it was a table from the crew’s mess. One end of it was blackened and twisted, while along one side was a broad streak of blood.
The cold-hearted bastards had killed his crew, and for that, if for nothing else, there would be retribution. Rupert had been a man such as others, possessed by his own devils, but he had been like a son. This now was a betrayal of trust.
There would be fishing boats out here during the day. Or, if he was lucky, perhaps a pleasure boat from Crete, maybe even a sailing vessel. He did not want to be picked up by anyone’s navy, especially the Libyans. He wanted to get ashore without entanglements and, as quickly and as anonymously as possible, call the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate and report what had happened. Perhaps even a reward could somehow be arranged.
Subandrio gingerly pulled himself onto the table, but the balance was precarious and it tipped over, dumping him into the sea. He took a mouthful of contaminated water, and came up sputtering and coughing.
In the very dim light he could see that a man’s limbs from the hips down had been snagged by a ragged edge. The man’s clothing had been blown away by the force of the blast, his skin horribly blackened.
Subandrio vomited as he backed away, unable to take his eyes from the gruesome sight that he knew would stay with him for the rest of his life.
 
 
SS
SHEHAB
“Bridge, ESMs, I have an inbound target, designated Romeo One,” Ahmad Khalia reported excitedly.
Graham had been about to order them to get under way. He snatched the growler phone. “ESMs, bridge, what do you have?”
“Captain, it’s low and slow, bearing one-two-five, range ninety-five miles, and closing at a rate of two-hundred-ten knots. I think it might be a Libyan patrol aircraft.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Ziyax said. “Someone wants to know if we’re still out here.”
Graham switched channels. “Conn, bridge. Prepare to dive the boat.”
“Conn, aye,” al-Hari responded crisply.
“Clear the bridge, Captain,” Graham told Ziyax, who immediately scrambled down the hatch into the boat.
For just a moment, Graham remained on the bridge, searching the dark sea where the
Distal Volente
had gone down. There was some debris, as he expected there would be, but not as much as he had feared. His men had done a fairly good job of securing anything loose on deck, and making sure all the hatches were dogged shut before they blew the bottom out of her.
Subandrio was out there somewhere, or maybe it was his body floating in the sea. Whatever the case, there was no time to search for him.
Graham slipped through the hatch, closing and dogging it behind him, and then descended into the control room.
The boat stank of diesel oil, unwashed bodies, and what was probably a defective head that no one had bothered to repair. That, among other things, would change very quickly.
“There is pressure in the boat,” al-Hari announced from his control panel near the helm station. “My board is green. We are ready in all respects to dive.”
Graham went over to stand next to Captain Ziyax at the periscope pedestal. In addition to al-Hari, as the COB or Chief of Boat, the Libyan executive officer al-Abbas was temporarily acting as dive officer. Although he still had a major attitude, he seemed ready at the ballast control panel to execute Graham’s orders. One of the Libyan junior officers was seated at the helm, and two of Graham’s people were manning the navigation and weapons consoles. Just forward of the control room, one of his people and one of the Libyans manned the sonar displays, and just aft, Khalia manned the bank of ESMs instruments.
“Very well, dive the boat,” Graham ordered.
“Dive the boat,” al-Hari repeated the command.
“All Ahead Flank,” Graham ordered. “Fifteen degrees down angle on the planes, make your depth—”

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