Operation Sea Ghost (10 page)

Alpha Squad’s mission required a lot of moving parts. If just one of them ran into a snag, it would mean an unsuccessful mission and good-bye to Whiskey’s big payday.

It might get them all killed, too.

*   *   *

THEY ARRIVED OVER Gottabang just before midnight.

The
Shin-1
was flying at 20,000 feet. Once on station, the Stormos throttled down to just 120 knots and started a long, slow circle high above the notorious ship-breaking beach.

Nolan was looking out one of the plane’s many observation blisters via his specially adapted one-eye nightscope. The many fires he saw below made Gottabang look even eerier and more noxious than he’d imagined. It really
was
like looking down on another planet.

The best for all concerned would be if Nolan was able to spot the missing
Pacific Star
from this height. That way, Alpha could set down close to it, dispatch a boarding party, pop any pirates they could find and then, ideally, reclaim the Z-box, all in a matter of minutes.

But this notion was quickly dismissed when Nolan realized Gottabang’s highly polluted bay was absolutely crammed with ships waiting to be broken, many more than he’d expected. There were
so
many, it wasn’t possible to concentrate on just one for very long from this height, never mind trying to read the name on its hull. Making a bad situation worse, the wind was blowing the lethal smoke in swirls over both land and water, further obscuring the soon-to-be-broken fleet.

Under these conditions, and the fact that the CIA, even though they’d arranged for the
Pacific Star
to be used in the botched Z-box operation, never bothered to record its dimensions or any recognizable characteristics, trying to find it from four miles up was virtually impossible.

So Nolan and Alpha had no choice. They would have to set down and look for the missing ship up close.

*   *   *

NOLAN WENT FORWARD to the Shin’s cockpit and briefed the Stormos.

Gottabang was some distance away from any airport or Indian military bases, so the chance of them being picked up on local radar at the moment was remote. But just to be safe, the Stormos would have to bring the Shin almost straight down to the water’s surface, so as not to show up on the edge of someone’s long-range radar.

With this in mind, the pilots announced that everyone on board should strap in. Then they put the
Shin-1
into a long, slow spiral dive, aiming for a point about a mile off Gottabang’s north side. Nolan went back to his observation blister for a moment, his night-vision scope on full power as the big plane fell out of the sky. The closer they got to Earth, the more apparent it became that the waves off the breaking beach were indeed turbulent, again a by-product of the extra-high tides that ran the dying ships up onto the sand for their final disassembling.

Add to this an ink-black night with all the smoke obscuring an otherwise bright three-quarter moon. Nolan swallowed hard. He got nervous anytime he had to fly one of the team’s copters at night. Now he was plunging almost straight down, toward a dark, unruly sea, in a multi-ton airplane, its four propeller engines absolutely screaming in protest.

He finally scrambled back to his high-quality leather seat and strapped in—but he was quickly pressed up against its back cushion, absorbing g-forces like those in a supersonic jet. Only once did he manage to look across the compartment, and that was to see distress on the faces of the Senegals.

Normally very cool customers, if
they
were concerned, then everyone should be.

It seemed to take forever, but then one of the Stormos yelled over the plane’s intercom:
“Preparatevi a dire una preghiera!”

Brace yourself and say a prayer.…

They hit the water a moment later.

It was like going through an airplane crash in slow motion. The giant flying boat bounced once, came down again, bounced a second time, more violently than the first, came down a second time, skidded left, skidded right, bounced again, went nose up, then came down hard for a third time.

But this time, it stayed down.

They careened along the choppy water, still banging around violently, but at least they didn’t go airborne again. The engines were screeching so loud, Nolan couldn’t imagine anyone within a hundred miles not hearing their arrival. But that didn’t matter to him at the moment. He just wanted the big plane to come to a stop.

And it did, finally. Out of nervous habit, the first thing Nolan did, after exhaling, was check his watch.

It was exactly midnight.

“Right on schedule,” he thought.

He looked around the cabin, wondering how all the luxury items had managed to survive landings like that. Everyone gave him a reassuring thumbs-up.

“Les prières ont travaillé!”
one of the Senegals said. Rough translation: The prayers worked.…

Now, on to phase two. Alpha had given themselves five minutes to get ready for their recon. They began by aligning their GPS units. Then they would start climbing into their standard armored battle suits.

But first, Gunner went looking for the head.

That’s when things started to go wrong.

*   *   *

GUNNER HAD MADE his way almost to the front of the huge plane, when he spotted a door with Arabic writing on it. The door was unlocked, so he went in.

But instead of finding the lavatory, he realized he was in one of the plane’s private cabins.

And it was here that he found Emma Simms.

Feet propped up on a chair, iPod earbuds in place, she was calmly painting her fingernails.

She looked up at him nonchalantly, seeming neither concerned nor frightened. Even after the violent touchdown, not one hair was out of place.

Gunner couldn’t believe it.

“Have we landed yet?” she asked him, taking out the earbuds.

“What
the hell
are you doing here?” he roared back at her.

She ignored his question. Instead she asked him, “Can you bring me a chilled water then?”

“What are you
doing here
?” Gunner demanded of her again.

She went back to doing her nails. “I decided I wanted to see this Banging Place you girls were going on and on about. It will be good character research. End of story. Now—five ice cubes in that water, please.…”

Gunner called out for Nolan: “Snake—get up here
quick
!”

The Whiskey CO arrived seconds later—but he couldn’t believe what he saw either.

Even as he stood in the doorway, looking at her in her silk top and tight jeans, all baubles and bling, in full princess mode, his brain refused to process what his good eye was taking in.

“She says she wanted to see Gottabang,” Gunner told him feebly.

Nolan was speechless for ten long seconds.

Then he finally growled at Gunner, “Tell them…”

“Tell who … what?” Gunner replied, confused.

“The pilots,” Nolan said through clenched teeth. “Tell them to take off again and go back.…”

But Gunner asked: “Go back? Go back where?”

He was right. Turning around and leaving now would fuck up everything. They’d have to return to Yemen, land, refuel, take off, find her yacht somewhere in the Red Sea, land, refuel, take off, fly back to Yemen, land, refuel, take off, then fly all the way back to the west coast of India.

They’d lose at least twenty-four hours screwing around like that. And with this mission, time was of the essence.

When all this became clear, Nolan gave Gunner a look. He got the hint and left the cabin, closing the door behind him.

“Is he still getting my water?” she asked once he’d gone.

Nolan was beyond furious.

“This cannot be,” he told her sternly enunciating every syllable. “You
cannot
be here. This is a serious mission, for serious money, and…”

She laughed a little, interrupting him. “
That
depends on what you consider ‘serious money’ home-boy. I made a hundred million last year just on DVD rentals … and I didn’t have to lift a finger.”

Nolan was so livid, he had to fight for his next breath.

“
Why
are you here?” he managed to ask her. “And spare me the bullshit about seeing one of the worst places in the world.”

She blew on her recently coated fingernail. “OK, how about this then: Maybe I just like helping out the common people.”

“Like those hostages, you mean?” Nolan shot back at her. “For all you know, that ferry sunk on the way back to Aden.”

“I’m sure we would have heard if it sank,” she replied in an annoying sing-songy voice. “And for your information, I believe I gave them all airfare home, too.”

“Well, considering many of them were from the Gulf area anyway, that must have set you back, what? A few hundred bucks?”

“They should be grateful they got out with their lives,” she said, blowing on her nails again. “They were rotting away there until I got kidnapped. If it wasn’t for me, they’d still be with those Somali monkeys.”

Again Nolan had to fight to take a breath. It came slow and hard, but he used it to calm down. Then he started again. “OK, please explain to me why you’re here. The real reason.”

She shrugged again as she applied more polish. “Maybe that whole kidnap thing was kind of a rush. I mean, skydiving? Bungee jumping? Doing meth? Same old stuff gets old pretty quick. And I get bored easily, so I got to keep feeding the monster.”

“So you’re an adrenaline junkie? Is that it?”

“Is that so hard to believe?” she replied. “Swimming with the sharks. Running at Pamplona. Getting kidnapped. Getting rescued. Real stuff gets the heart pumping—and it’s good for the street cred. Plus, it looks great on Twitter.”

She blew on her fingernails again. “Hey, what do you think is in that Z-box thing?” she asked him out of the blue. “I’ll bet it’s porno of Kennedy or someone.”

Nolan still couldn’t believe this was happening. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is going to be?” he asked her sharply.

“They’re just pirates,” she replied. “I read a pirate movie script once. They’re not so scary.”

“These pirates have guns,” he corrected her. “Just like the last ones you saw. And they’re desperate people. If you really thought deeply about this…”

She cut him off. “No one in my business ever ‘thinks deeply’ about anything,” she said. “You should remember that. My world is all surface and bullshit. I do what I want to do—and that’s the way I like it.”

“But you have to realize what we do
is
real,” he shot back. “You saw it for yourself in that pirate camp. Bullets fly. Explosions go off. Things go zipping through the air and when they hit you they can kill or maim you for life.”

He pointed to his eye patch. “How do you think I got this?”

She looked him up and down for a few moments.

Then she said: “I’m guessing in your business you have to make a lot of deals? Come to terms with unsavory people?”

“What’s your point?”

“OK then,” she said, dropping the whole wealthy Valley Girl affectation. “You asked what the catch was? Well, here it is. I may be queen of the ball now, but I have three coke-sniffing whores nipping at my heels back in LA. One of them went to Afghanistan last month and was lucky enough to be there when they bombed her air base. Another one just bought her sixth AIDS baby. The third got grazed by a bullet in a shoot-out at a hip-hop club last week. And
then,
some asshole told
People
magazine that I was the little damsel in distress while those Somali apes had me tied up, after I wanted to tell them I fought back.

“There’s a script making the rounds about a female CIA agent from the future who kicks ass. I want that script, but I also want a lot of money to do it. Which means I’ll do anything to make those two things happen, and going on a real CIA mission will ace it for me.

“Now, you got to use my yacht. And now you’re using my seaplanes. You’re getting to use
my people,
and anything else that goes along with my name. So in return for all that, I get to go with you to this Banging Beach place. And you’re going to take pictures of me there, helping you out on this mission thing, whatever you’re doing. And if you say no, then
I’ll
tell
my
pilots to turn around—in both planes. Or did you forget they serve at my pleasure, not yours.”

Nolan was frozen to the spot, stunned by her arrogance.

“You realize that this isn’t a movie, don’t you?” he said. “This is real life. Can you understand that?”

She looked up at him and smiled. “Listen, my very dopey one-eyed friend. When you’re in my business,
everything
is a movie…”

She painted one more fingernail, then said: “So … is that guy coming back with my water or not?”

Nolan just shook his head.

“What a bitch…” he said.

*   *   *

NOLAN RETREATED TO the rear of the plane and explained the situation to Gunner and the Senegals. They already knew Emma Simms had stowed aboard. But now she was demanding to go with them to Gottabang and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The Africans were more astonished that she’d somehow made it through the harrowing descent and landing without making a peep.

“
Elle est probablement tres médicamenteux,”
one of them said. “She is probably heavily medicated.…”

“I’ll have what she’s taking then,” Gunner commented.

They agreed they had to think of a way to dissuade her from coming with them. The mission was going to be dangerous enough as it was. Having her along could turn it into a disaster.

But it was a short discussion. In all their years of special ops work, they’d never faced a situation like this. She held all the cards. It
was
her airplane, her pilots.

So, they were stuck with her.

She finally emerged from the cabin, designer jeans, silk blouse and thousand-dollar sneakers—everything she’d been wearing before, including her bling. She was also carrying a digital camera.