Brass Monkey: A James Acton Thriller Book #2 (15 page)

He heard the engine cut as it neared Chernov. He and Koslov swam for the boat as Chernov was hauled aboard. As Dymovsky neared the edge a hand reached over the side of the rubber dinghy and pulled him aboard. He rolled unceremoniously into the bottom of the boat. Koslov rolled in a moment later, falling on top of him. He heard him laugh over the comm as he rolled off Dymovsky and moved to the side of the dinghy. Another set of hands seized Dymovsky and hauled him to a sitting position against the side. It was Chernov. He had his helmet off, tucked neatly under his arm beside him. Koslov removed his helmet and handed it to a crewmember manning the boat, then leaned forward and disconnecting the seal, removed the helmet from Dymovsky’s head.

He gasped at the pressure change, and the roar of the sea and boat engine around them. The salt air smelt wonderful, a smell he hadn’t experienced in years.

“Congratulations, Agent Dymovsky. You’ve joined the Ten Kilometer High Club!” said Chernov.

Koslov smiled. “So, what’d you think?”

“I think I need to change my shorts!” yelled Dymovsky.

Both Chernov and Koslov roared in laughter.

“The real question is, would you do it again?” asked Koslov.

Dymovsky couldn’t believe the words he heard coming from his mouth.

“I’d do it again, right now!”

RFS Pyotr Velikiy, Nuclear Battlecruiser, Red Sea

“We’ve found the ship,” said Captain Baranski of the Pyotr Velikiy, Russia’s pride and joy of the Black Sea Fleet, a nuclear powered battlecruiser nearly three football fields long, with enough armament to start, and finish, a small war. Dymovsky and Chernov sat with him and the commander in charge of the Russian Naval Infantry detachment onboard, Captain of the Third Rank Rakov. They sat in a briefing room with no windows, buried in the ship’s bowels to protect against electronic eavesdropping. On the wall in front, a map of the area was projected with several flashing dots. “We are here,” said Baranski, using a laser pointer to indicate a flashing dot just east of the northern Sudanese border. “And the MS Sea Maiden is here”—he moved the pointer to the north—“about one-hundred nautical miles from us.”

“Any communication, anything unusual?” asked Dymovsky.

“Depends on what you mean by unusual,” said Baranski. “I personally think it is unusual that a merchant vessel is sitting stationary near some of the most dangerous waters in the world, under radio silence, with no running lights.”

“We’ve had a drone monitoring the ship since we found her yesterday,” explained Rakov.

“I also find it unusual that a chopper left its deck and headed into Egyptian airspace sixty minutes ago,” finished Baranski.

Dymovsky leaned forward. “A chopper left that ship?”

“Affirmative.”

“Do we know exactly where they went?”

“No. The only reason we know about the chopper is the UAV happened to be over the target. They had the helicopter in a storage container. Dropped the walls of the container and had the thing powered up and in the air in less than five minutes. We lost them as they crossed into Egyptian territory. Their trajectory was pretty straight however.” Baranski hit a key on the notebook in front of him and a near perfectly west-by-north-west line was drawn ending in Egypt. “We couldn’t send our drone in afterward without risking an international incident.”

“You said she’s one-hundred miles away?” asked Chernov.

“Yes,” nodded Baranski.

“Are you heading for her?”

Baranski nodded. “We’ll be within firing range in three hours.”

“We need to get there sooner. If the package was on that chopper, it may already be too late,” said Dymovsky.

Baranski grunted and crossed his arms. “Perhaps if I knew what the
package
was, I could get us there quicker.”

Dymovsky looked at Chernov who shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?”

Yes, why not?
Dymovsky sighed and leaned forward, lowering his voice. “What I am about to tell you does not leave this room, understood?”

Baranski and Rakov nodded, the slight rolling of their eyes giving Dymovsky the idea they weren’t sufficiently impressed with his warning. Everything nowadays was a state secret.

“The package is an American tactical nuclear missile, with compromised arming codes.”

“Bozhe moy!” exclaimed Rakov.

Captain Baranski jumped from his seat and hit the comm button on the wall. “Bridge, this is the Captain. Give me flank speed, now!”

“Acknowledged, Captain, flank speed.”

An alarm sounded throughout the ship and Dymovsky instinctively reached for the table edge when a slight surge pushed him forward as the powerful 160,000 shaft horsepower engines spun up to full power.

“You damned bureaucrats!” muttered Baranski as he sat back down. “If you had told us we were after a nuclear bomb, we could have been there by now.”

“How much time will it take now?”

“Still over two hours.”

“We need to get there quicker,” said Dymovsky.

“The only alternative is the choppers,” said Rakov. “We can send in a team, be there in thirty minutes from lift-off.”

“Won’t a chopper tip them off?” asked Dymovsky.

“No more than a battlecruiser pulling alongside,” said Rakov.

Chernov chuckled. “Let’s take the choppers within a couple of klicks, drop two inflatable Zodiacs, use the engines then switch to oars and paddle the rest of the way in. As long as we can get there before dawn, we’ll take them by surprise.”

Rakov nodded in agreement. “It can be done, but we need to leave immediately.”

Baranski nodded. “Make it happen, Captain.”

Dymovsky turned to Chernov. “Coordinate with Captain Rakov. I want you, Koslov and myself to accompany them, plus however many of your team you feel is necessary.”

Chernov nodded and rose to join Captain Rakov who was already at the door. As they opened the door, the comm on the nearby wall wailed for attention then a voice came from the tiny speaker. “Captain Baranski, please contact the bridge, over.”

Rakov hit the button to activate the comm as Baranski rose.

“This is the Captain, go ahead.”

“Captain, we are monitoring an Egyptian Air Force intercept of an unidentified chopper. Thought you might like to know, over.”

Baranski jabbed the button. “I’m on my way.” He opened the door to the briefing room and motioned for the others to follow. “Captain Rakov, you and the Colonel prep for the assault, Mr. Dymovsky and I will be on the bridge.”

Egyptian Airspace

“AWACS Command Echo to Falcons One and Two, come in, over.”

Captain Azim switched his comm to the command frequency. “Command Echo, this is Falcon One, over.”

“Command Echo to Falcon One, prepare for re-tasking, this is not a drill, over.”

Azim checked his Heads-Up-Display as new orders fed into his flight computer.

“Falcon One to Command Echo, new target coordinates received, over.”

“Command Echo to Falcon One, proceed full burn to intercept unidentified target. Identify target, do not engage, confirm, over.”

Azim pushed his throttle fully forward then hit the afterburners, shoving him into the back of his seat as his F-16 accelerated toward Mach 2.1. He glanced to his right and saw his wingman not far behind. “Falcon One to Command Echo, proceeding at full burn to intercept unidentified target. Am to identify and not engage, over.”

The ground rushed by as he angled his aircraft to slowly descend as he approached his target. At this speed he would be there in less than five minutes. He eyed the HUD. His target was at three hundred feet, travelling at two hundred miles per hour.
Small prop? Helicopter?

He switched his comm over to talk to his wingman. “Do you have the target?”

“Confirmed, two miles off the coast at three hundred feet?”

“That’s it. What do you think? Helicopter?”

“Certainly fits the profile. HUD should be able to tell us when we get in range.”

“I think he’ll be pretty close to international waters.”

“Affirmative. Probably just a private plane or helicopter that didn’t file a flight plan. Tourists probably.”

“Or it could be Israeli, Jordanian.”

“Saudi maybe?”

Azim eyed the range indicator quickly counting down as they neared the target. They would be there in less than two minutes. “Come on, come on!”

“Command Echo to Falcon One, do you have eyes on target, over?”

Azim scanned the horizon, searching for running lights, beacons, anything in the dark sky that might indicate a civilian aircraft. As he searched, the coast line rapidly approached then ripped by as if never there, the water now a black mass blending with the horizon. They were now at less than five hundred feet, approaching the altitude of their target.

“Falcon One to Command Echo, negative, I have no visual, over.”

“I see it!” yelled his wingman. “Eleven o’clock.”

Azim looked over and at first didn’t see anything, then he noticed the black outline as it moved in front of the stars. “Falcon One to Command Echo, I have it, over.”

“Command Echo to Falcon One, can you identify the target, over.”

Azim turned slightly to the left, quickly overtaking the target. He rolled to the left and banked around the shadow, getting a clear view. “Falcon One to Command Echo. It’s a helicopter, repeat, a helicopter, over!”

“Command Echo to Falcon One, can you identify it, over?”

“Falcon One to Command Echo, negative, there are no running lights, I can’t make out its registration, over.”

“Command Echo to Falcon One, try to signal it, over.”

Azim switched his comm to broadcast on the standard civilian frequency. “Unidentified helicopter, unidentified helicopter. You are in Egyptian airspace. Identify yourself, over.”

Nothing.

“Unidentified helicopter, if you are unable to transmit, signal visually, over.”

Again, nothing.

“Captain, we’re about to hit international waters.”

“Falcon One to Command Echo, they do not acknowledge our signals, there’s no way they missed us, request permission to engage, over.”

There was a pause. “Command Echo to Falcon One, permission to fire warning shots.”

“Falcon One to Command Echo, firing warning shots, over.”

He flipped the weapons selector on his stick to his cannons and lined up his sights to fire ahead of the helicopter. He squeezed, sending several dozen rounds, including tracers, past the helicopter’s nose, lighting up the fuselage briefly.
What was that?
Azim eyed the tail as the helicopter swerved to the left, then resumed course. He swung around for another pass, and fired another salvo, this time training his eyes on the tail section. The flash lit it up and this time he was certain.

 “Falcon One to Command Echo, they took evasive maneuvers then resumed course, but, I saw something…” He trailed off, wondering if he should report it. It was too late.

“Command Echo to Falcon One, did not receive your last transmission, over.”

“Falcon One to Command Echo. I saw the tail. It was Soviet, over.”

There was a pause as he pictured the crew in the AWACS processing this new information. The Soviet empire had been defunct for over twenty years. Who would use their hardware now with the old insignia still intact? Several popped in mind immediately. Israeli’s, they’d do anything. Eritreans, Somalis. He couldn’t see the Jordanians or Saudi’s doing it.
Mercenaries?

“Falcon One to Command Echo, should I engage, over?”

“Command Echo to Falcon One, negative, you are now in international waters, disengage, repeat, disengage, over.”

Azim cursed under his breath as he slowly banked his aircraft back to Egyptian soil.

“Falcon One to Command Echo, disengaging, over.”

He glanced back at the target and suddenly all its running lights blazed on, the red hammer and sickle in clear view against the black of the helicopter.

Now that you know you’re safe you show yourself. Yaatak Darba fi 'albak!

Nubian Desert, Egypt, UNICEF Camp

Cole couldn’t believe what he was seeing. One of his men, Arnold West, whom until this moment he had thought fairly bright, was carrying someone over his left shoulder, his MP5 grasped by the barrel in his right hand, and a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Lookey what we’ve got here!” he said proudly, dropping his human cargo unceremoniously on the desert sand. As the torso flopped onto the ground, the face was revealed, along with a spray of blood from a broken nose, cascading on the yellow desert sand that thirstily consumed it.

“Professor Palmer!”

West smiled, resting his weapon on his shoulder, finger on the trigger guard. “Found the nosey bitch up on the hill, watchin’ the goings on.”

Cole’s chest tightened as a rage boiled within. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he growled, startling West.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“Do you realize what you’ve done?”

West shook his head, looking around at the others as if to see if he were alone in his confusion.

“Now, thanks to you, they’ll know we were here.”

“But she knew already!”

“She knew a lost UN NGO was here yesterday, an NGO that was leaving this morning.”

“But she saw—”

“But she saw what? She saw a helicopter, some guns, a crate, and not much else. She didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything she’d be able to explain, and in fifteen minutes, we would have been out of here, with no one the wiser.”

“But—”

“But now, thanks to you, she’s been assaulted, which means we’re not some innocent NGO, we’ve obviously got something to hide!”

“I thought—”

“No, you didn’t think.” Cole spun around, turning his back to West and gripped the back of his neck with both hands, his fingers interlaced. “Aargh!” he yelled, his head tossed skyward. He turned back to face West, lowering his hands and taking a deep breath. “Okay, now we need to figure out what to do with her.”