Strike Force (2 page)

   As Ospreys were tiltrotor aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and a short takeoff and landing (STOL) capability, they were essentially half conventional helicopter and half long-range turboprop aircraft. Harrier IIs also had V/STOL making them very capable ground attack and armed recon fighters. Seahawks were capable combat helicopters equipped for naval warfare missions as well as search and rescue operations.

   In the tight quarters, the crew practically had to crawl over each other at times. Midshipman Tinsdale was overly formal. She hadn't said a word as she sat across from Scott in the ship's mess. Scott's mood was such that he wasn't really hungry, but he had eaten because he knew his body needed the sustenance.

   Now the midshipman was mutely leading Scott back to infirmary, but he didn't want to go back to infirmary. He didn't want to sit beside Edie as she clung to life. What he wanted was answers. Answers he would only get if he made his way to the operations room. Serious obstacles to that though were his escort and the civilian clothes he wore.

   Scott suspected the clothes were donated by someone of a similar build, but he didn't know by whom. The black, long-sleeved t-shirt, the gray sweat pants, and the white sneakers all seemed to be someone's idea of after-hours dress. He was thankful for dry clothes after his ordeal in the water, but he really wished he was in uniform now.

   If he was wearing a uniform, he could go just about anywhere on the ship. Looking down at the shirt that he'd hastily pulled on earlier, he grinned when he saw the Kearsarge's insignia over the right breast with the "Proud – Trustworthy – Bold" motto stitched beneath in white letters.

   One good thing about the seat he had chosen in the mess was that the ship's diagram had been on the wall directly opposite him. The diagram, meant to show evacuation routes, helped him deduce the location of the operations room relative to the mess and the infirmary. If his assessment was correct, the passageway ahead ran nearly bow to stern. The midshipman would turn and follow the passageway toward the stern and to the infirmary. He'd turn the opposite direction and follow the passageway toward the bow.

   He took careful, measured steps behind the midshipman, awaited his chance. The turn came. The midshipman turned right. Scott took two steps in her direction before turning sharply on his heel and then steadily pushing his way through toward the bow as fast as he could. He expected to hear shouts at any moment. He waited, steeled himself for it, but the shouts never came. Instead, he soon found himself standing outside "Sit 1." Sit 1, he assumed, stood for Situation Room 1, which he was certain was the Kearsarge's main operations room.

   Scott was contemplating whether to enter when he noticed the sentries standing on either side of the closed door. As he looked over at one of the sentries, a uniformed officer pushed past. As the door opened, he followed the officer into the room without hesitation.

   The situation room was filled nearly to capacity. Scott joined the uniformed officers and crew standing at the back of the room. A uniformed officer at the front of the room was slapping a situation map with a long pointer. The officer's back was turned to him, so Scott couldn't see the officer's name tag.

   "As you know search and rescue recovered the second inflatable in waters near
Sea Shepherd
some hours ago," the officer was saying. "We've rejoined the main strike group. Gettysburg and Bulkeley are performing protective maneuvers for Harry Truman. Mason and San Jacinto are under way and will rejoin the strike group by 18:00.

   "Aboard Harry Truman, Carrier Air Wing 3 is on full alert. Strike Fighter Squadron 32, the Swordsmen, are on CAP now, with four fighters performing continuous protective ops while the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron, the Checkerboards, continues seek and destroy ops.

   "The Seahawks are up performing airborne early warning. AWACS and EC recon are on route from Naples. ETA 18:30. Full theater security and response will be in place at that time."

   Scott studied the e-wall on the far side of the room as he listened to the briefing. While the e-wall itself was a single paper-thin screen covering the wall completely, it was comprised of many individual display areas. The main display, which dominated most of the space, was a real-time tactical map of the Mediterranean Sea showing the locations of Naval vessels and items of interest like the last known position of the
Bardot
and the
Shepherd
.

   As the speaker stepped aside, Scott saw a Navy captain. The name tag said Howard, but Scott didn't need the name tag to recognize the captain.

   "Thanks for the update, lieutenant," Captain Howard said, as he stood to address the room. "Well, gentlemen, ladies, that's the current situation in a nutshell. Full response, with ongoing seek and destroy. Rest assured, we will find those responsible, and when we do they will know the full might of the U.S. of A."

Chapter 4

Ligurian Sea
Afternoon, Tuesday, 19 June

Fifty miles off the coast of the French Riviera, the 65-meter luxury yacht
Il
Ferdinand
motored through gently rolling swells toward Nice, France. The ship's sleek hard-chine hull featured a pelican-beak bow and was painted snow white, ensuring it would reflect the shimmer of the waves and the froth of the ship's wake.

   The $180 million vessel featured all the usual amenities. Cabins on the lower deck, including a VIP suite. Social areas and formal saloon on the main deck, along with an owner's suite. An upper deck with alfresco seating and a circular sky lounge with a magnificent 270
o
panoramic view. A 30-meter sundeck with a shaded bar, sunbathing areas and luxurious Jacuzzis.

   The ship's owner, who had taken delivery of the vessel three years ago, spent much of his time on the lower deck. Here, he'd retrofitted the space and removed half of the original cabins. These standard cabins he converted into offices. The VIP cabin he converted into a control room. Together, they became his electronic command center whenever he was at sea.

   The control room was the heart of the ship. It's where the dedicated satellite feeds and redundant arrays from terrestrial relay stations could be monitored by the technical staff, which included an operations coordinator, three technicians and two analysts. The small technical staff was complemented by a security detachment of former Royal Marines Commandos and support staff--cooks, service team and cleaning crew. Including the ship's captain and the first mate, there were twenty who lived on board and shared quarters on the lower deck.
Il
Ferdinand
was in fact the owner's floating office suite and he ran it more effectively than his actual suite of offices in Nice.

   To his employees, the ship's owner was known as "the director." He was a large, tall man with a full head of dark hair that was turning gray at his sideburns, the tanned skin of one who spent too much of his life outdoors, and eyes of a green so deep they seemed to speak of the ocean's depths. His gruff mannerisms were well suited to one who had begun his career as a Special Forces Officer and later made a vast fortune providing discreet services to elite clientele.

   He was a soldier of fortune to some, a facilitator of the illicit to others. To those who sought to right perceived wrongs and injustices, he was God's just instrument. In truth though, he was none of those things. He was simply a man who understood the dangerous dynamics of wealth, power and inevitable iniquity.

   He provided services for a price, often in support of causes he believed in. He built his reputation as one of the best in the business on three basic tenets.

   
Never take a job you do not intend to see through to the end.

   
Never pass judgment on those who hire you.

   
Never reveal your client's identity.

   
Never. Never. Never.

   The director had lived up to those tenets for over two decades. His clients knew his firm handshake that sealed every deal was an absolute guarantee that not only would the job be done, but it would be done exactly to the specifications negotiated.

   This afternoon, as he walked along the sundeck and stared out at the vast expanse of sea before him, he felt a deep disquiet that was settling in his bones and he knew there was nothing he could do to ease it.

   He'd had contracts that had gone wrong before, contracts that he'd regretted, but he'd always seen them through and made things right. His years of successes had made him many powerful friends and allies. Friends and allies who would do anything for him. He had only to ask.

   Today, however, as he stood out under the hot afternoon sun and stared at the endless sea, he felt utterly alone and broken. Almost as if it were Judgment Day and he was standing naked before God. It wasn't that he was Godly person, rather it was because of the weight of his conscience on his every waking thought.

   Contrary to what his detractors said, the director wasn't soulless or without conscience. He didn't only take jobs to expand his fortune and influence. He did in fact try to follow a moral and ethical code--a code he'd just broken and perhaps irrevocably, even if not knowingly.

   He only knew the truth of the events because Alexis had broken protocol and reached out to him. He pictured the lithe, short-haired operative. She'd been with him for many years and he'd chosen her for this mission because she was one of the best. A flawless marksman. A perfect commando.

   Except she'd missed her target, not once but twice. Her first error she claimed was the result of plain old-fashioned bad luck. The target had unexpectedly ducked behind a riot shield as she fired on him with her 7.62mm semi-automatic rifle. His own ship had a sizeable armory, anti-missile weapon systems, a hidden radar-guided 20 mm Gatling gun, but not a single riot shield. Who has the foresight to bring riot shields onto a ship anyway?

   Her second error was due to someone else getting in the way. A red-haired woman, who had jumped ship with the target and had gotten clipped in the shoulder instead of the target. No matter, collateral damage was to be expected. But two lost opportunities were not to be expected, nor were they the result of bad luck. He'd simply chosen the wrong operative and now it was too late to do anything about it.

   The director realized he was obsessing over details--details that no longer mattered. What mattered was what else Alexis had told him when she'd broken the golden rule of radio silence until mission complete. Something that made him certain that whatever part of his soul wasn't already blackened was now as dark as the rest.

   He'd spent hours trying to figure out how to correct her mistake, how to distance himself and his enterprise from what had happened. After all, he had not known what was going to happen. He'd been hired to do a job--a simple termination of a rogue asset.

   According to Alexis everything had gone sideways quickly and things had been done that couldn't be undone. Knowing what had happened and how it had happened, he felt used. It was a terrible mistake, an oversight, but there was nothing he could do to change choices already made.

   His only remaining tack was a clean and burn. He needed to clean up the loose ends, to make it so it was if he and his organization never had any connection to what had happened. He needed to disappear his operative once she was no longer of use. After all, what was done was done and there was no way to undo it.

Chapter 5

Mediterranean Sea
Afternoon, Tuesday, 19 June

A master chief pushed his way into the briefing room. From the wide berth given and insignia, Scott assumed the man was the ship's Command Master Chief. "One more," the chief announced. "SAR inbound now. That makes six."

   The statement was short and simple but it was met with reserved cheers that quickly spread throughout the operations room. To Scott, inbound search and rescue and "one more" meant hope. Search and rescue teams were still finding survivors and pulling them from the dark waters of the Mediterranean. But how many more would they find? How far off was sunset? Or had the sun already set? And why were there so few survivors?

   "Thank you, Command Master Chief," Captain Howard said. "Any status update on the others?"

   "Cooper's still in surgery. He was tore up pretty bad, but I hear the field medic did a damn fine job. Damn fine job. Saved Cooper's life for sure."

   Being the unnamed field medic, Scott stood a little taller and some of the day's weariness fell away. His thoughts went to the USS Harry Truman, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier that was the heart of the strike group. Truman was a floating city: 1092 feet in length and 252 feet abeam, with about 6,000 crewmembers aboard. In addition to 90 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters aboard, Truman had three radar-guided 20 mm Gatling guns; two short-range anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapon system; and two infrared homing surface-to-air systems.

   No doubt, USS Harry Truman could take care of herself, but the job of USS Bulkeley, USS Mason, USS Gettysburg, and USS San Jacinto was to ensure nothing and no one got close enough to cause any actual damage to the floating city. All four warships carried a standard complement of about 350 crewmembers.

   While the destroyers were 509 feet long and 66 feet abeam, the cruisers were 567 feet long and 55 feet abeam. Like the aircraft carrier, all four warships had top speeds of 30 knots or more--the equivalent of 35 miles-per-hour--which was pretty impressive considering the warships had displacements of around 9200 long tons and even more impressive when the 103,900 long-ton displacement of the USS Harry Truman was considered.

   USS Bulkeley and USS Mason were Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyers that carried big guns and batteries of missile systems. USS Gettysburg and USS San Jacinto were Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers that carried so many big guns and missile systems of so many different classes that they were essentially floating armories.