“We will be asked why we didn’t simply dry-dock her and cut her apart for the steel.”
“Because there was a dreadful, unforeseen accident,” Quaddafi shot back, somewhat irritated. “But that is diplomacy, my concern. Yours is to do as you are ordered.”
“Yes, sir,” Ziyax replied.
“Which brings us to the third bird, what has been an anchor around the neck of Libya since oh-four. Certain weapons will be loaded aboard Shehab. The exact nature of those weapons will be kept from your crew.”
“Am I and my officers to know?” Ziyax asked.
“There is no need, my dear Captain,” Quaddafi said. “And when you return home, your reward will be greater than you can imagine.”
Ziyax had replayed his surreal conversation with Quaddafi over and over in his head, each time running up against the one flaw in the plan. The crew might be kept ignorant of what had actually become of Shehab, but he and his officers would know. Quite possibly that could mean their death sentence, no matter how it turned out. That fact alone he had kept from his officers.
The sonar operator ducked his head around the corner. “Captain, I have a slow-moving target on the surface at our station, keeping position,” he said.
Ziyax looked up out of his thoughts, catching the eye of his executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Assam al-Abbas. In addition to being a fine officer and a friend, al-Abbas served as the Purity of Islam officer aboard. Most of the men feared him.
“What is his bearing and range, Ensign Isomil?” Ziyax asked.
“Bearing two-six-five, range one hundred meters.”
“What is he doing? Is he a warship? Are we being pinged?”
“No, sir, it’s not a warship. I think it’s a freighter. He’s making less than five knots.”
“Are there any other targets? Anything we should be worried about?”
“No, sir, my display is clear to ten thousand meters.”
“Very well,” Ziyax said. He turned back to his XO. “Turn right to two-six-five, make your speed five knots, and bring us to periscope depth. Five-degree angle on the planes. I want this to go very slowly.”
“Aye, Captain,” al-Abbas responded crisply and he gave the orders to the diving officer, who relayed them to the helmsman, and then turned to a series of controls at the ballast panel that blew air into a series of tanks. Immediately the submarine began rising to a depth of twenty meters.
There was nothing about this assignment that didn’t worry Ziyax. At the very least he would do everything possible to prolong his life and the lives of his officers. Whatever it took. “Assam, if this is the wrong ship, I want to get out of here as quickly as possible.”
“Aywa,” al-Abbas replied. Yes.
“Prepare for an emergency dive to two hundred meters on my order, All Ahead Flank.”
Al-Abbas repeated the order and the other crew in the control room glanced at their captain, but just for a moment, before they went back to their duties.
Ziyax stepped over to the periscope platform and, as he waited the few minutes for his boat to reach the proper depth, he examined his feelings for the untold time since they’d left base. He trained his entire career in the navy to fire warshots. But so far he’d not done so. Praise Allah. But tonight he was expected to deliver this boat and her weapons to a group he thought were madmen, little better than savages, religious zealots who had done more harm to Islam with their stupid jihad than all the holy wars through history.
“Two-zero meters,” al-Abbas called out softly.
Ziyax raised the search periscope, and turned it to a bearing just forward of Shehab’s starboard beam. They were slightly behind the freighter and on a parallel course.
For several long seconds he could make out little or nothing but the empty sea. Panning the periscope a few degrees left, the ship was suddenly there, very close. It showed no lights, but he could identify the silhouettes of several containers on deck, which was what he was told he would see.
He stepped up the scope’s magnification and turned to the stern of the freighter. She was the Distal Volente, out of Monrovia, Liberia.
Ziyax stepped back, his heart suddenly racing. It was the ship he was to rendezvous with. He looked through the eyepiece again, but there was no movement on deck that he could discern. For all appearances, the Distal Volente could be a ghost ship.
“Rig for night operations,” he said. He folded the handles and lowered the periscope as the lights through the ship turned red. “Surface the boat.”
FORTY-FOUR
First Officer Takeo Itasaka looked up from the radar screen and shook his head. “We have arrived at the rendezvous point but there is nothing inside the ten-kilometer ring, and nothing heading in our direction.”
Only he, Captain Subandrio, and Graham were on the bridge. The other three of the ship’s crew plus Graham’s people were out of sight belowdecks. The navigation lights had been doused sixty minutes ago, and the only lights on the bridge came from the radar screen and the few instruments clustered above the wheel. Graham had ordered even the red light over the chart table switched off.
“Stop the ship,” Graham ordered, not bothering to raise his voice.
“But there’s nobody here, Rupert,” Subandrio replied. He had taken the helm, which he’d always done when the situation became tense. He was a wise old bird who could smell trouble even before it developed.
“There will be,” Graham said. “Stop the ship, please.” Graham had developed an understanding and a certain respect for the captain in the several years he’d worked with the man. It was obvious that Subandrio suspected that he and his ship might be sailing into some kind of danger.
“We’re not early.”
“No, we’re here spot-on,” Graham said. “Please stop the ship now.”
Subandrio exchanged a look with his first officer, but then shrugged and rang for All Stop. Moments later, they could feel the change in the diesel’s pitch through the deck plating, and the Distal Volente began to lose speed.
Graham walked to the window and looked out at the black sea, but there was nothing to see except for the stars above; even the horizon was lost to the darkness.
He took a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and keyed the Push-to-Talk button. “We’re here,” he said.
“Have they arrived?” al-Hari asked. He and eight of the Iranian crew were crouched in the passageway one deck below the crew’s quarters. The remainder of Graham’s submariners were dispersed throughout the ship.
“Not yet,” Graham radioed. “Stand by.”
“Stand by for what?” Subandrio asked.
“You’ll see, old friend,” Graham replied mildly. He needed the captain and crew in case the submarine never showed up. If that happened they would pay Subandrio for his trouble, and he could take them to Syria, where they could safely wait until another submarine could be enlisted.
There’d been other delays before, and Graham had learned patience very early on. Bin Laden had once called Graham a scorpion because of his stealth and because of his lethal sting. “You will be as Allah’s scorpion for me.” It was the only mumbo jumbo from any of the Muslims that Graham had ever found amusing. He smiled now. Once he took control of the Foxtrot more people than bin Laden would think of him as a scorpion. A lot more people.
Itasaka suddenly hunched over the radar screen. “Son of a bitch,” he swore. He looked up.