Syren's Song (29 page)

DAY 18
DAY 18

Trincomalee Harbor

S
yren
,
LeFon
, and
Asity
were tied up at adjacent piers in the harbor where the war had begun, joined by
Amba
, which had been taken as a war prize and towed into port by
Asity
. The Sri Lankan government was already making repairs to the ships' communications and radar systems in appreciation for finding the Sea Tigers' base and eliminating the threat. Vanni's death and the capture of the rockets had thwarted the seaborne assaults, and the conscript army coming in from the north was easily repelled. Order was being reestablished in Tamil-held territories.

Warren had secured the EMP weapons and the hafnium in one of
Syren
's modules by Stark's order. A security team relieved hourly stood guard over the module, even in this safe port.

Ranasinghe had already said his goodbyes and expressed his gratitude for being allowed a part in Operation Intrepid. As one of the few surviving Sri Lankan navy officers, Ranasinghe had been told that he would be promoted to admiral—bypassing captain—and stationed off Mullaitivu with the next navy ship Sri Lanka acquired.

A limousine bearing the official seal of the government of Sri Lanka swept up to the pier. A guard opened the rear door, and out came Ambassador Adikira, the man who had given Stark the letter of marque at the outset of the mission. Stark still wondered if he would have accepted the mission if he had known the cost to Gunny Willis and others.

Adikira was smiling broadly and accompanied by someone even more familiar to Stark and Golzari. She was barely five feet tall, and her lavender dress made her dark complexion glow.

“I believe you know Ambassador Sumner,” Adikira said.

“C. J.,” Stark said with a rare smile. He had known her when she was a young foreign affairs aide in the Senate and later when she served as ambassador to Yemen. She was now the president's national security adviser.

“Connor,” she said warmly. “And Agent Golzari. My apologies. I didn't realize that releasing you from my protective detail would force you to work with Commander Stark again.”

Golzari tried to hide a smile. “Someone has to keep him out of trouble, Madame Ambassador,” he said gravely.

Adikira spoke again. “Captain Stark, my government is so grateful for your efforts. We are now prepared to transfer the hafnium.”

Stark shook his head. “No.”

Shocked by the lack of respect toward a senior government official, the ambassador nevertheless managed a forced, diplomatic smile and said, “Perhaps you did not understand . . .”

“Oh, but I did, Mr. Ambassador. No. I will not transfer the hafnium,” Stark replied. “That's a hell of a weapon. Can you tell me unequivocally that you will be able to secure it appropriately?”

“That is not the issue. You were operating as an agent of the Sri Lankan government, and therefore the hafnium is ours,” Adikira said, his false smile having long since faded.

“I'm sorry, but you are incorrect. I was operating under a letter of marque issued by you for specific work. Under international law going back hundreds of years, a ship operating under a letter of marque can claim as its own any captured ship and materials on that ship,” Stark answered.

“Unacceptable! Unacceptable!” the ambassador sputtered. “You have not heard the last of this.” He stormed back to his limousine.

“Still making friends, I see,” C. J. observed. “So, what's your price?”

“You think I'm for sale?”

“Nobody who knows you would think that. But you do have costs associated with your business. You have to sell the hafnium to someone, Connor. We both know the Chinese played a part in this. I wouldn't want it to fall into their hands. I also know that you believe in a balance of power. The Chinese might find another lode. If you sell the hafnium to the U.S. government, then this is that balance.”

Stark thought about it and realized she was right—again. “I have to operate this ship and maybe more like her. I want twenty-five million a brick, and I can sell you twenty.”

“Twenty million, and you'll sell me thirty,” she countered.

“Done,” he said, shaking her hand.

Golzari realized he had just witnessed Stark's transformation into the mercenary he had accused him of being at their first encounter.

“What of the remainder?” Golzari asked.

“I'm not looking for more bidders. The material will be well protected.”

“Thank you, Connor,” Sumner said. “It was good to see you again. Our people will be in touch. For now, I have to stop by
LeFon
. I'll be escorting Admiral Rossberg back to the States personally and then trying to sort out this mess.” She sighed. “It won't be easy. He has influential protectors.”

“Take care of Jaime. She did the right thing.”

“I know that. Don't worry. We'll watch out for her,” Sumner said. With that, the president's national security adviser returned to the limo, which sped away.

“Sorry you didn't get your killer, Damien,” Stark said, reaching into his pocket for another Percocet.

“I have Gala, who was an accessory. And I have a name—Qin. It's a start.”

“What about Melanie? I haven't seen her since we came ashore.”

“She has already started filing her reports about Vanni and the war. She did ask me to thank you for giving her access to the information. She decided not to include a lot of what happened on
LeFon
and
Syren
. She thought you deserved to keep some anonymity for now, and her real story was about Vanni and the mass murders.”

“She'll win a Pulitzer for it,” Stark said.

“Very likely, but she has other work for now. She said she was taking the orphans and a Buddhist monk to Mount Iranamadu to reestablish the monastery there,” Golzari replied.

“Did you at least make peace with her?”

“The damage was done a long time ago,” Golzari said emotionlessly, then mused, “I wonder how much hafnium is still there. The Chinese may come after it.”

“Not much, I think. Jay did some additional testing further down the mineshaft past the transfer station. Looks like the Tigers got most of it out. But Ranasinghe told me that he'll be posting guards at the paths to the monastery
once he takes command of the region, just in case someone else tries to come after what might be left.”

“What's next for you, Stark? Must I plan on getting you out of another situation?”

“Home, Damien. Just home. That's all I want right now.”

“Very well, old man. Always a pleasure. Until next time.” Golzari shook Stark's hand and then disappeared into town.

DAY 33
DAY 33

Hong Kong

I
n his office high above the streets of the city, Tao Hu leaned back in the two-thousand-dollar ergonomic chair his wife had demanded he purchase if he was going to spend so much time there. He swung around toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the harbor and Kowloon and thought about the team of three individuals who had just left his office. He could fire them, but they still had value and had accepted their mistakes. They would seek redemption for having accepted two bricks of worthless zirconium from the deceptive Vanni, and they would work twice as hard on their next assignment. Despite this error, all had proven their real worth too many times for him to dismiss them.

His problem now was the board of directors. He had invested in two major projects that had failed. He could not fail a third time and retain his position. Fortunately, his scientists were already exploring a new weapon that would change the face of naval warfare in the twenty-first century and catapult the Chinese navy to its rightful place as the undisputed hegemonic force in the world.

He turned back to his glass desktop and looked one more time at the nugget of hafnium as he closed the lid of the velvet-lined black box.

Ullapool

Syren
still had two weeks before reporting for patrol duty in the Gulf of Aden. Stark advised the authorities in Yemen that the ship would arrive at the agreed-upon time. Meanwhile,
Syren
slowly glided back to Scotland and Highland Maritime's island off Ullapool, where she would resupply and Jay would have
time to work on some of the ship's modifications. The rain was driving hard off the coast of Scotland, but Olivia Harrison had expertly piloted Royal Navy ships in far worse weather.

Doc was satisfied that Connor's back was healing properly, though Stark still hadn't decided how to explain it all to Maggie. It would work out or it wouldn't. She would understand that he had done what he had to do, or she wouldn't. He would do his best to convince her that she mattered more to him than any other person on earth—and then wait and see what happened. He knew she would see the scars—how could she not—but she would never ask about them. He looked again at her framed picture knowing he was now only hours away from seeing that red ponytail. He picked up a half-full pill bottle, looked at it for a moment, then tossed it into the waste can and reached for her family's
sgian dubh
. Without thinking he unsheathed it, and reddish-brown flakes of dried blood fell on his desk. In the weeks since he had been taken prisoner, he still hadn't cleaned the dagger of the blood.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Just as John Donne wrote that “no man is an island unto himself,” no author writes without learning about the world through the friends, acquaintances, and colleagues with whom we all travel in life. I am indebted to the following people who supplied answers or put me on the right path.

For information about EMPs I turned to a friend and fellow officer, Cdr. James “Milhouse” Calpin, USNR, who discussed the effects of a possible EMP rocket. When I wanted a rare earth element, “Big Al” Zalewski, a real Youper, narrowed it down to hafnium. Although hafnium does not exist in the state discussed in the book, interesting work was done on it by then-captain Hyman Rickover at Clinton Laboratories in 1947. Readers seeking more information may be interested in U.S. patent number 5,160,482, “Zirconium-Hafnium Separation and Purification Process” and “Applications of Liquid Anion Exchangers for the Separation of Zirconium and Hafnium,” by Manjusha Karve and Srhipad Khopkar; “Separation of Hafnium from Zirconium and Their Determination: Separation by Anion-Exchange,” by Lawrence Machlan and John Hague; and “Corrosion of Hafnium and Hafnium Alloys,” by D. R. Holmes and A. T. I. Wah Chang. “Big Al” also helped me understand more about mines.

Although the Breakers in this book is a fictional place, readers can learn about a real breakers in Bangladesh in the May 2014 issue of
National Geographic
magazine. Other sources included the November 24, 2014, issue of
Atlantic
magazine. There are also several excellent documentaries on this subject.

Lucien Gauthier worked with me in war-gaming one of the scenarios in the book. Greg Harris and Whit Hauprich read an early version and, as they did with
The Aden Effect
, offered helpful suggestions. Cdr. Josh Brooks also lent his expert advice.

Don Preul, ship model curator at the Naval Academy Museum, showed me an early model of FSF-1,
Sea Fighter
. I was intrigued by the ship's design and capabilities and was even more convinced that this ought to be the ship commanded by Connor Stark when I spoke to two experts. I am deeply indebted to Vice Adm. Jay Cohen, USN (Ret.), the former chief of naval research who conceptualized, designed, and built this ship. I am also very grateful to Cdr. Brandon Bryan,
Sea Fighter
's first CO. Our discussions helped me understand some of the realities of the ship, her capabilities, and small details. The Navy is very fortunate to have had these two officers. If I have deviated from their specifications, it was either in the interest of the story or because I simply got something wrong.

My thanks also go to Cdr. Paul Povlock, professor at the Naval War College, who spoke to my maritime security and irregular warfare class at the Naval Academy several years ago about his research on the Tamil Sea Tigers. I recommend his paper in
Small Wars Journal
, “A Guerilla War at Sea: The Sri Lankan Civil War.”

As always, I appreciate the outstanding work of those at the Naval Institute Press—Rick Russell, Claire Noble, Adam Nettina, Mindy Conner, Emily Bakely, and Judy Heise—as well as other U.S. Naval Institute staff. I am especially grateful to Mary Ripley, the “Borg Queen.”

Mary LeFon is a gracious woman, and she kindly allowed me to continue in this book with the USS
LeFon
. As I noted in
The Aden Effect
's acknowledgments, I named the fictional Navy destroyer after her late husband, Capt. Carroll “Lex” LeFon, a military blogger and superb writer who blogged as “Neptunus Lex.” The ship's name is a tribute to his talent and character. For strength, for courage.

NOTES

Readers will struggle to find Mount Iranamadu on any map of Sri Lanka. This is fiction, and I needed a little leeway with geography. In the original draft the mine was set at Mount Ritigala, but that range is too far south for the purposes of the storyline. The same is true of the Mullaitivu Breakers, which is actually based on similar breakers in Bangladesh and India. For more information on these, watch National Geographic's
Where Ships Go to Die
.

Jay Warren's UAV has several sensors on board. In one scene the sensor is able to detect the cairngorm quartz crystal on Stark's
sgian dubh
. In reality, the UAV's fly-by would be a problem because of the size and weight of a transmitter and detector, the maximum payload, communications, electrical power, drag from outboard sensors, response time, etc. But as with much of “science fiction” technology, it's likely just a matter of time before these are all resolved.

With the publication of
The Aden Effect
I held an online contest. I would name two characters in the book after the winners. Jay Warren and Melanie Arden won with the best photos of readers with a copy of the book. Neither character in any way resembles the real Jay and Melanie.