But Graham was an expert demolitions man; as ruthless as he was handy with all forms of weapons and things that went bang. His first act on coming aboard the Distal Volente was to kill one of his own men, to prove a point from the beginning, Subandrio supposed, that Graham was a serious man whose orders were to be obeyed without question.
From what he’d been able to piece together over the past days, and from the sudden appearance of the submarine, Subandrio realized that the rumors about Graham working for al-Quaida were probably true. Now the fanatics had a terrible machine of war at their disposal with a highly trained submarine commander; a man who knew how to use such a warship to its greatest advantage.
The water was reasonably warm, so Subandrio did not think he would have much trouble surviving this night, and possibly all day tomorrow. But after that his life would be in the hands of the capricious gods.
He swam slowly over to the large gray object, conserving his strength, and keeping a wary eye toward the submarine in case someone came back in a rubber raft to search for him.
As he approached he could see that it was a table from the crew’s mess. One end of it was blackened and twisted, while along one side was a broad streak of blood.
The cold-hearted bastards had killed his crew, and for that, if for nothing else, there would be retribution. Rupert had been a man such as others, possessed by his own devils, but he had been like a son. This now was a betrayal of trust.
There would be fishing boats out here during the day. Or, if he was lucky, perhaps a pleasure boat from Crete, maybe even a sailing vessel. He did not want to be picked up by anyone’s navy, especially the Libyans. He wanted to get ashore without entanglements and, as quickly and as anonymously as possible, call the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate and report what had happened. Perhaps even a reward could somehow be arranged.
Subandrio gingerly pulled himself onto the table, but the balance was precarious and it tipped over, dumping him into the sea. He took a mouthful of contaminated water, and came up sputtering and coughing.
In the very dim light he could see that a man’s limbs from the hips down had been snagged by a ragged edge. The man’s clothing had been blown away by the force of the blast, his skin horribly blackened.
Subandrio vomited as he backed away, unable to take his eyes from the gruesome sight that he knew would stay with him for the rest of his life.
“Bridge, ESMs, I have an inbound target, designated Romeo One,” Ahmad Khalia reported excitedly.
Graham had been about to order them to get under way. He snatched the growler phone. “ESMs, bridge, what do you have?”
“Captain, it’s low and slow, bearing one-two-five, range ninety-five miles, and closing at a rate of two-hundred-ten knots. I think it might be a Libyan patrol aircraft.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Ziyax said. “Someone wants to know if we’re still out here.”
Graham switched channels. “Conn, bridge. Prepare to dive the boat.”
“Conn, aye,” al-Hari responded crisply.
“Clear the bridge, Captain,” Graham told Ziyax, who immediately scrambled down the hatch into the boat.
For just a moment, Graham remained on the bridge, searching the dark sea where the Distal Volente had gone down. There was some debris, as he expected there would be, but not as much as he had feared. His men had done a fairly good job of securing anything loose on deck, and making sure all the hatches were dogged shut before they blew the bottom out of her.
Subandrio was out there somewhere, or maybe it was his body floating in the sea. Whatever the case, there was no time to search for him.
Graham slipped through the hatch, closing and dogging it behind him, and then descended into the control room.
The boat stank of diesel oil, unwashed bodies, and what was probably a defective head that no one had bothered to repair. That, among other things, would change very quickly.
“There is pressure in the boat,” al-Hari announced from his control panel near the helm station. “My board is green. We are ready in all respects to dive.”
Graham went over to stand next to Captain Ziyax at the periscope pedestal. In addition to al-Hari, as the COB or Chief of Boat, the Libyan executive officer al-Abbas was temporarily acting as dive officer. Although he still had a major attitude, he seemed ready at the ballast control panel to execute Graham’s orders. One of the Libyan junior officers was seated at the helm, and two of Graham’s people were manning the navigation and weapons consoles. Just forward of the control room, one of his people and one of the Libyans manned the sonar displays, and just aft, Khalia manned the bank of ESMs instruments.
“Very well, dive the boat,” Graham ordered.
“Dive the boat,” al-Hari repeated the command.
“All Ahead Flank,” Graham ordered. “Fifteen degrees down angle on the planes, make your depth—”
Al-Hari repeated the orders, and the boat accelerated as it started its dive.
Graham turned to Ziyax. “How much water do we have under our keel?”
“Thirty-five hundred meters.”
“Make your depth three hundred meters,” Graham ordered. He walked over to the navigation station where a chart of the Mediterranean Sea was spread out. He quickly plotted a course that would take them west, missing the island of Malta, while keeping well clear of Crete to the north and the African coast to the south.
“Come left to course two-eight-five,” he ordered, and al-Hari repeated the command.
Ziyax was at Graham’s elbow. “Where are you taking us?” he asked softly enough so that no one else in the control room could hear.
“Gibraltar,” Graham replied indifferently. Running that bottleneck, which was more than 1,500 miles away, would be their first serious test. It gave him approximately 100 hours to mold his crew into a cohesive fighting force.
For that he would need an incident.
FORTY-SIX
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Higgins was getting set to go over to the O Club for lunch when the phone on his desk rang. It was General Maddox’s secretary.
“The general would like to have a word with you before you go to lunch.”
“I’ll be right up.”
Higgins grabbed his cap, and on the way out told his ops officer in the Watch that he was seeing the general, and afterwards was going to the club. “If the Cubans come over the fence, ring me on my cell so I can go home and pack a bag,” he said. It was a standing joke at Gitmo that any time the Cubans wanted to take the base back, there wouldn’t be much that could be done to stop them.
Upstairs, the general’s secretary told him to go straight in. Maddox was studying something out his window with a pair of binoculars. When he turned around, Higgins got the impression he was on the verge of a famous Icewater explosion.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” Higgins prompted when it seemed as if Maddox was too angry to talk.
“They just landed across the bay,” the general said, his tone surprisingly mild.
“Who would that be?” Higgins asked. A little alarm bell began to jingle softly at the back of his head.
“The CIA. Same pair as last time, including the crazy bitch who beat the shit out of Tom Weiss. And we’ve got to cooperate one hundred percent this time.” Maddox shook his head as if he’d just said something that was utterly unbelievable. “I got that personally from Newt Peyton, who got it direct from LePlante.” Marine Major General Newton Peyton was boss of Gitmo, and Bob LePlante was the secretary of defense.