Operation Caribe (20 page)

But Perry and Tripp were still baffled. The whole thing didn’t seem real.

Perry began thinking these people might be terrorists, possibly
homegrown
terrorists.

He reached down, intent on pulling the ski mask off one of them. But then he heard a thump and saw his partner’s body crumple beside him. He turned just as the butt of a rifle came down on top of his head.

Then everything went black.

When both cops woke up about ten minutes later, the four men were gone. The bank window was closed. The greasy handprints had been cleaned off, and even the pieces of grass that had been torn up had been replaced and tamped down.

It was as if nothing had happened at all.

17

Eleuthera
The Bahamas

THE ULTRA-LONG-RANGE BUSINESS jet landed at Rock Sound International Airport and taxied over to the lone terminal.

Despite its impressive name, the airfield was tiny, with just a single runway long enough to handle large passenger planes.

Located on one of the more northeastern islands of the Bahamas, the airfield was primarily used by sportsmen who wanted to avoid the hustle and bustle of the more populous parts of the islands.

This was fine for the ten passengers aboard the private jet. The aircraft had been leased to Kilos Shipping’s Import-Export Analysis Division. On board were Team Whiskey and the five Senegals—and the fewer people who saw them here, the better.

They’d just completed their third trans-Atlantic crossing in a month, and their second trip to the Bahamas, concluding a fourteen-hour nonstop flight from Aden. But this time, their stay in the islands would be brief.

They were here only to recover the
Dustboat
. With the
Georgia June
as their escort once again, they would sail the little coastal freighter back to Aden, where they expected to return to what they did best: providing anti-pirate protection for shipping in and around the Indian Ocean.

They were all still exhausted from their mission to Shanghai. Their low-level escape from China in the Arado seaplane had been uncomfortable, but uneventful; no one had pursued them. Once out of Chinese airspace, the seaplane made a series of mid-ocean stops, rendezvousing with prepositioned Kilos vessels to take on fuel until they finally made it back to Aden.

Nolan had gone back under the knife there. Stevenson and Mace removed the hidden stitches around his eyes, and the not-so-hidden ones around his neck. They also replaced his missing incisor with a single false tooth. By this time, the skin-darkening agent had also started to fade, and he was back to wearing his eye patch.

But he felt awful. His muscles, his bones, his brain. He felt as if he’d played a game of tackle football without pads. The Shanghai mission had been a success. The world had one less super-criminal to worry about, and a major force in Asian piracy was now gone. But Nolan was so blown out, physically and mentally, after his one night in Shanghai that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be the same again.

The plan now was to lease a helicopter, which would bring them back to the tiny island of Denny Cay, where the
Dustboat
had remained. A mini-hurricane had roared through the Bahamas while the team was on the other side of the world, a harbinger of things to come when hurricane season started in earnest on June first, not that far away. But from all reports, Denny Cay had survived unscathed.

*   *   *

ONCE REACHING DENNY Cay, the team planned to get the
Dustboat
ready for its long journey home, which would begin the next day.

That idea vaporized, though, as soon as the team filed off the plane. Instead of finding their baggage inside the terminal, they were met by two Bahamian policemen who said the team had to report to the airport’s security office. Here, they found not a Bahamian security agent sitting behind the desk, but a middle-aged, balding man wearing a bad suit and cheap sunglasses.

They groaned when they saw him. He was Agent Harold Harry of the Office of Naval Intelligence, the seaborne version of the CIA. Simply put, the ONI had been a thorn in the side of Team Whiskey’s anti-pirating business from just about day one.

“I thought they fired your ass,” Batman told him bluntly.

“They did,” Harry replied. “But once you guys got my dickhead partner canned, the brass had to bring me back.”

Harry was drinking a cup of coffee. He tipped it their way in a mock toast.

“Thanks for that, by the way,” he said. “It means I’ll get my pension back as well.”

Nolan was in no mood for this—none of them were. Anytime the ONI showed up, they always tried to get Whiskey to do something they didn’t want to do. Not happy that ex-Delta guys were operating a paramilitary business right under their noses, the Navy intelligence group had harassed the team throughout their first few jobs in and around the Indian Ocean, threatening them with arrest or worse if they didn’t spill the beans about their operations and tactics. At one point they even suggested that, for geopolitical reasons, Whiskey
not
go after the murderous Zeek the Pirate. In fact, the team believed it was Harry’s young protégé who’d been responsible for arranging a near disastrous air attack on the
Dustboat
by two unwitting Navy F-18s. So, there was no love lost between the two groups.

“We’re busy,” Nolan barked at the ONI agent. “So—you gotta check our passports or something?”

Harry turned serious.

“No,” he said. “Actually, I want to hire you.”

The entire team laughed, even the Senegals.

“The freaking ONI wants to hire
us
?” Crash said in astonishment. “You wanted to kill us not two months ago.”

“Look, I apologize for that,” Harry said, his voice turning grave. “But an extraordinary situation has come up. It’s the strangest thing I’ve seen in my twenty-five years of doing this—and every available special ops group is needed, including you guys.”

Batman studied him with much skepticism.

“What’s the gig?” he asked. “Have you hooked up with one of the casinos? Someone using slugs in the slot machines?”

Harry didn’t smile.

“You need to come to a top-level intelligence briefing,” he told them. “It will all be explained there.”

It took a while for this to sink in for the weary team members. They just wanted to get to Denny Cay and get some rest before the long sea voyage back to Aden.

Batman finally shrugged dismissively and said, “OK—have your people call our people and maybe we’ll work you into our long-term schedule.”

But Harry shook his head. “No, I mean now,” he said. “This briefing starts in an hour. We have two copters waiting out back. One to fly you guys to the briefing, and one that will bring your crew back to your ship.”

That was it. Whiskey started to walk out of the room. They had no interest in staying in the Bahamas, and certainly no interest in working for the ONI.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Batman called over his shoulder.

Harry stood up and said: “I want to reemphasize this is a very urgent national security matter. And if you sign on, you can name your price.”

But Batman still waved him off. “We got enough money already,” he said.

Harry didn’t miss a beat. “How’s three million sound?”

The team came to a halt.

“Not as good as five,” Batman replied.

Harry didn’t hesitate a moment. “Five it is then. And we’ll get you a special license to buy that Harrier jumpjet you’ve been drooling over?”

Without prompting, all five members of the team said, “Done.”

*   *   *

THE HELICOPTER FLIGHT lasted about an hour, flying generally south, but with lots of security-mandated zigs and zags along the way.

Finally, Team Whiskey found itself approaching a tiny, isolated cay. It was so remote, there was not another island in sight, a rarity in the Bahamas.

Doing some rough triangulation, Nolan guessed they might be somewhere between Cat Island and San Salvador. But after all the aerial twisting and turning, they really could have been anywhere. Wherever this island was, it was well hidden.

There were a few ordinary utility boats anchored off the island; several other helicopters had landed on the tiny beach as well. But there were no exotic “Cheeseburger-in-Paradise” accoutrements here. The cay had but a single building: a plain gray concrete structure that looked like nothing so much as a giant fallout shelter poking out of the thick tropical jungle.

Their copter landed on the hard beach. The team unloaded and followed Harry up the hill and into the bunkerlike building.

There was one big room inside, with a large table and a huge video screen behind it. There were thirty-six seats around the table. Nolan noted eleven were empty. Intelligence types wearing civilian clothes occupied the others. Bad suits. Cheap sunglasses. It was always easy to spot the spooks.

Hastily written name cards were placed in front of each chair. All the usual suspects were represented: NSA, CIA, National Reconnaissance Office, DIA, Office of Naval Intelligence. There were even four representatives on hand from Blackwater, now known as Xe, the controversial private military security firm.

What the place
didn’t
have was champagne, exotic food, palm trees or mist falling from the ceiling. And certainly, no gorgeous women. It was the exact opposite of the BABE meeting.

“I wonder if this is a trap,” Twitch said under his breath.

When Whiskey walked in, everyone looked up. They took their assigned seats at the far end of the table, leaving five chairs still open.

There was some hushed discussion among the spooks, and finally they decided to start the meeting without the missing party.

A man in a plain white shirt, a dark tie and sunglasses stood up and, without any introduction, started the briefing. Nolan tagged him as CIA right away.

“We have three major national security problems happening at the moment,” he began. “These problems are classified under Level Code Red, and I’m assuming everyone here has that clearance.”

The Whiskey members stayed frozen. They hadn’t been given any security clearances since their days back in Delta nearly ten years before. But they weren’t about to tell anyone that now.

“My friend here from the NRO can confirm this,” the CIA man went on, “but the Director of Intelligence has determined that there is unusually big trouble brewing in North Korea, on the Pakistani-India border, and, of course, in Iran—all at the same time.”

The screen behind him came alive with a map of the world. By way of confirmation, it displayed a blinking red dot in the vicinity of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea; the suspected nuclear weapons plant at Bushehr, Iran; and the Kashmir region on the India-Pakistan border.

“Each of these flashpoints involves potentially unsecured nuclear weapons,” the briefing officer went on soberly. “And what we’ve been told is that, though unrelated, at any moment, any one of these crises could go in any direction, with rogue elements trying to get control of either nukes or nuclear material for immediate use.

“These are three very unstable situations, and as you can imagine, the Pentagon and the President are struggling to prevent a catastrophe—or even three simultaneous catastrophes.

“However, this is
not
what we are here today to talk about.”

The map on the screen behind him changed to show a grainy aerial photograph of a submarine.

“This is the Russian training sub,
Irktisk
,” the briefer went on. “It’s old and it carries no weapons. As you know, a so-called mini-hurricane went through these environs a few days ago, and we heard through back channels that this sub, on its way to either Cuba or Venezuela for training purposes, might have been lost or damaged in the storm. The Russians are trying to get their act together to look for it, something they insist they do on their own. But so far, they’re just telling everyone it’s ‘overdue.’

“Of course, this is all top secret and sensitive, too—but
it
has nothing to do with what we are talking about here either, other than to say that if you see pieces of wreckage with red stars on them in your travels over the next few days, don’t get alarmed, just call the Russians—I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”

There was nervous laughter from around the room. “Their problem!” one person said.

The screen changed again, and now they were looking at something completely different and surprising.

It was an image of a skull and crossbones. The Jolly Roger. The universal symbol of pirates.

The CIA briefing officer pointed to the Jolly Roger and said, “
This
is why we are here.”

At that, Batman leaned over to Nolan and said, “Finally, it’s getting interesting.”

“I’ll make it simple,” the briefing officer went on. “The Director has been made aware of chatter that a gang of pirates is planning a huge operation in the Caribbean or off the U.S. East Coast sometime in the next three days. We are talking about a high-priority target. A supertanker. A big cruise ship. Maybe an LNG vessel. Whatever it is, it will be extremely valuable and/or volatile—and will pose a great danger if anything goes wrong. The chatter says these pirates intend to ransom it—and destroy it if their demands are not met.

“And, before you ask, we have no idea who these pirates are. Or where they’re from—other than they are
not
the type of local Bahamian pirates this area sees on occasion. These people are planning to hijack a capital ship, not some yacht or sailboat. They plan to hold it for ransom, not just ransack it for drug money.

“Now, for reasons we can’t get into at the moment, we can’t divulge the exact source of this intelligence. And while we’re fairly sure they’re not Somalis operating thousands of miles away from home, anything is possible, including an al Qaeda connection.

“But again, the chatter is fairly specific. Something is going down in the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”

He looked out on the people gathered. Then he said, “Our job here is to prevent it from happening.”