Moonlight, filtered by the clouds, gave the sea a dark pewter cast. The tall sail, with its horizontal hydroplanes, looked like a giant robot from a science-fiction movie. Austin squinted through the gloom at the silhouetted yacht. Unlike its appearance in Boston Harbor, where it had been lit up like a Mississippi riverboat, the yacht was dark, except for a few lights on its radio masts and the yellow glow of cabin windows.
The satellites had watched the yacht change its course along the coast of Maine and head south, until it finally stopped off the coast of Massachusetts about fifty miles from the Ataman Explorer /, which was due-east of Boston. The other two Ataman ships had halted eastward of Charleston and Miami.
The men grabbed their paddles, pushed the boats off the slippery deck into the water and clambered aboard. Donning their night-vision goggles, they silently dipped their paddles, using precise strokes that propelled the bobbing craft through the mounding seas.
The cool air stabbed like an ice pick through Austin's layers of clothing and he almost regretted not taking a slug of vodka himself to warm his innards. He turned and looked back at the sub, which had slipped under the sea with hardly a gurgle. The sub would remain on station with only a few feet of its conning tower above the surface.
Within minutes, the boats were nudging the towering steel walls that formed the ship's sides. Austin felt like a minnow next to a whale. Ordinarily, he would say that the odds against the mission were considerable, but Max had leveled the playing field. As Yaeger had poked around in the yacht's electronic nervous system, he'd come across two very important connections. The first was the vessel's troubleshooting program. It was similar to the visual displays used in cars, only far more sophisticated. The system could tell the people running the yacht the status of the watertight doors, and the performance of the gas turbines, power flow and the other electronic veins and sinews that kept the ship running. Most important, Yaeger had located the central control room. Everyone in the raiding party carried a water- proof map of the ship, based on Max's snooping.
The second breakthrough was more prosaic but equally important. The yacht's payroll records had the names and titles of practically everyone on board. Since the yacht served as Razov's home and corporate center, he had a full complement of housekeeping staff, cooks, bookkeepers, accountants and secretaries. The ship's crew was unexpectedly small, indicating that the vessel was loaded with automated systems. Austin's interest had centered on a category that Petrov had translated to mean: "nonregular crew." In other words, Razov's private shipboard army of thugs, like those who had come after Austin in Boston Harbor. There were fifty of them, and their ruthlessness and loyalty were not to I be ignored. Petrov insisted that the odds were nothing his men couldn't handle.
Stealth would be their primary weapon. They would silently slip aboard the yacht and race to the control center, which they would destroy with well-placed explosives. Opposition would be quietly neutralized. If they had to fight their way out, they had enough firepower and the element of surprise to put them on an even footing. At the same time, Austin and Petrov were realists. They knew that the odds of discovery were high, and casualties were likely on both sides. But given the stakes involved, it would be worth the losses.
The night-vision goggles the boarding party wore gave the ship and the sea a greenish tinge. Austin could see the water-level door he and Kaela had entered to attend Razov's party. It would be too risky trying to gain access through that door because the open portal would show up on the ship's visual display. Instead, they would employ the time-tested method used by pirates, castle stormers arid commandos alike. Grappling hooks. In their folded position, the hooks were tucked into metal tubes. When the grapple was launched like a mortar round, the hooks opened. The prongs were covered with foam rubber so that even someone standing a few yards away wouldn’t hear them grab onto the rail of a ship.
Two grapples shot out of their mortars with quiet coughs of compressed air. The lines were tested. The ropes were taut, indicating that the grapples had engaged. Petrov's men pointed guns equipped with silencers toward the rail where anyone looking over would get a rude surprise. All was quiet, and they moved on to the next phase of the operation.
Austin and Petrov made the first ascent, not an easy task with their packs. They lunged awkwardly over the rail, surveyed the deck and saw it was deserted, then signaled the others to come aboard. Within minutes they were squatting on the deck like a flock of black and heavily armed ducks. Two men stayed with the boats.
The raiding party split in half. The group led by Austin took the starboard side. Those under Petrov's command crossed to the port side. Both units would advance and meet at a ladder at the base of the bridge. From there, the plan was to climb three decks to the control center located in a small room behind the wheelhouse. At this hour, only a skeleton crew should be manning the bridge. Austin gave Petrov the okay sign. Crouching low, their guns at the ready, both groups began to move forward.
Austin was encouraged at their swift progress, but they had just passed the grand salon where Razov had held his Boston bash, when a door opened without warning. Light spilled onto the deck, flaring in their night-vision goggles, Austin pushed the goggles back on his head and saw one of Razov's guards standing like a deer frozen in the headlights. The man clutched a bottle of vodka and his arm was around the shoulders of a young woman in a maid's uniform, his hand under the unbuttoned front of her dress. Her dyed red hair hung down over her face, and her bright lipstick was smeared. Austin realized he had provided for every eventuality except the human libido.
The man's drunken grin faded at the sight of the intruders with their painted faces and automatic weapons. As a professional gunman he knew exactly what was expected of him: silence. His female companion had no such restraint. Her mouth opened wide, and she let out an ear-piercing scream. Her lung power was opera-star level. Her second shriek was even louder, the howl easily drowning Austin's curses. She finally ran out of breath, her eyes rolled up and she crumpled to the deck in a faint.
As the echoes faded, the ship lit up like a pinball machine. Doors flew open at every level, and yells seemed to come from all directions. There was the sound of running feet and rough voices shouting orders, with a few more high-pitched screams thrown in for variety. Those were only the preliminaries. A second later, all hell broke loose.
-35- THE SIKORSKY HH 60-H Seahawk helicopters raced side by side over the ocean like twin Valkyries, skimming so low their landing gear was splashed with spume from the cresting wave tops. The aircraft were painted in low-visibility gray, their insignia and markings toned down and almost invisible.
As he stared out the window of the right-hand helicopter, the platoon commander, Navy Lieutenant Zack Mason, reflected on the urgent phone call from Washington and the orders to scramble a special warfare task unit for a secret mission.
With his classic profile and soft-spoken manner, Mason could have passed for an investment banker. Under the patrician looks was a tough and competent warrior who had not simply survived the rugged SEAL training, but thrived on it. Still only in his thirties, Mason had been involved in missions that ranged from an aborted plan to shoot down Saddam Hussein's helicopter to security at the Olympics in Atlanta.
Officially, he was the leader of a SEAL group on the East Coast. Unofficially, he was liaison to the Joint Special Operations Command, an amalgam of SEALs, Delta Force and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment known as SOAR. The shadow force maintained its own helicopter support. The assault teams specialized in attacking at-sea targets such as shipping or oil rigs. The joint command was authorized to conduct preemptive strikes against terrorists and terrorism.
The orders for the mission had bypassed the normal links in the chain of command. This job had been directly authorized by the secretary of the navy, who had handed the problem off to the admiral in command of the Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, California. The admiral had been told to avoid the usual red tape, and have the operations decisions made at the lowest possible level. Mason would report directly to Coronado from the field.
After Sandecker talked to him, Sid Sparkman had gone to the president and told him the truth about his connection to Ataman. He'd admitted to being seduced by the chance to make billions of dollars, but he'd said he had no inkling of Razov's plans against the United States. He'd handed in his written resignation, to be announced at the pleasure of the president. And he had offered himself up as a sacrificial lamb. If the operation blew up in their faces, Sparkman would take responsibility for the rogue action to contain the damage. Ever the pragmatist, the president pocketed the resignation, accepted Sparkman's offer and told him to call the naval secretary.
Based in Little Creek, Virginia, Mason's SEAL team was chosen because it had been trained in boarding a ship at sea. The mission goal was simple: Swarm aboard the ship without warning and deactivate a bomb. Mason knew that reaching that goal would be the hard part.
"Coming up on target," the pilot said, with a lazy drawl, interrupting Mason's meditations. "T minus ten minutes."
Despite his calm demeanor, Mason couldn't avoid the adrenaline rush and excitement of a SEAL mission. He was what was known as an "operator," one who had joined the navy for action. He glanced at his Chase-Durer Swiss watch, turned and gave the men behind him a ten-fingered signal like a basketball player making a two-handed free throw.
Dressed in black uniforms, their exposed faces streaked with war paint, the SEALs were barely visible in the cabin's dim light. As an elite force, SEALs were given leeway in dress and weapon. Some wore "drive-on rags," Rambo-style around their heads, others the more traditional floppy hats with the brim turned up at front.
There was a rustle as the SEALs patted the pouches of their assault vests and laid reassuring hands on their automatic weapons. Most in the team carried Colt automatic rifles, the shortened version of the M-16 that fired rounds with no cartridges, allowing them to carry more ammunition. One man, who was built like a bull, carried the M-60 E3, a light machine gun that normally requires two men to operate. Another was armed with a 12-gauge shotgun whose slugs could penetrate metal. In addition to his own rifle, the explosives expert carried a rucksack that contained C-4 plastic charges and fuses.
Mason commanded the sixteen-man platoon that would board the starboard side. His executive officer, "2IC," for second in command, headed the group that would secure the port deck. No matter how heavily armed they were, thirty-two men composed a small attack force for a target as huge as the Ataman Explorer. The last thing the SEALs wanted to do was get into a firefight with a vastly superior force. Their main weapon would be surprise; their allies would be confusion and shock.
"Comm check," Mason said. Like the men in his platoon, he carried a Motorola MX300 radio with throat mike and earpiece. The men answered in order of their seating. Mason counted the answers. Sixteen. Everyone was connected. His 2IC called in from the other helicopter. He and his men were ready.
Mason slipped a cell phone out of his assault vest and punched out a number. The phone used a special encryption algorithm that connected Mason directly to the other assault teams.
As Mason's unit headed due east of Boston at the chopper's maximum speed of one hundred forty-five miles per hour, the other squadrons were on similar missions to the south. The Delta Force was in the group off of Charleston, South Carolina, and an air force special operations regiment was in the southernmost track east of Miami. On this mission, the navy would be in charge. Which meant Mason was calling the shots. If he got taken out of action, the Delta leader would take charge, then the SOAR officer.
"This is Omega One," he said. "Come in, Omega Two."
"Omega Two, and how are you?"
Mason smiled at the bad rhyme. On joint training exercises, he had come to know and respect the Delta Force leader, a wisecracking African-American named Joe Louis, after the great champion boxer.
"We're right on schedule, Joe. T minus ten."
"Roger. Hey, Zack, couldn't the navy brass come up with something more imaginative than Omega. Maybe something like the Three Bears?"
"Doubt if the admiral would like being called Goldilocks. Besides, it was the air force's turn to name this mission."
"Figures. Fly boys. T minus eight."
"Call when you make visual contact."
"When we do, I will call you. Over and out."
Mason punched another button and got Will Carmichael, leader of Omega Three. In contrast to Louis, Carmichael went by the book. Even his spontaneous comments seemed to be programmed. He reported that his team was right on schedule, then added, "Pieceacake."
Mason knew from hard experience that dropping out of the sky onto a huge and possibly heavily armed moving ship in open ocean and disarming an unknown explosive was not exactly a piece of cake. They had rehearsed boarding vessels at sea dozens of times, but this was the real McCoy. The mission depended on delaying detection until the last possible moment. The HH 60-H helicopter was ideal for the job. It was relatively quiet, had an infrared jammer and suppressor system, a radar threat-warning receiver and other electronic eyes and ears. In addition, the helicopter had sharp teeth: two M-60 machine guns and a Hellfire missile system.
