The Middle East was like a sieve. Very few things happened that weren’t spoken about somewhere by someone. Qank was sure that the American troops coming to get the gunship would show up somewhere. But after a long day on the phone, he was left with an odd fact: None of the Third Ring spies had seen anything. It was business as usual at all their locations. No extraordinary activity at American air bases, no aerial tankers taking off in unusual sequences, no areas cordoned off for classified flights. Nothing.
The ring reported no unusual shipping activity either. No assault ships had been spotted, no vessel at all that might be carrying the size of the force Qank and Zim were expecting. In fact, there was little U.S. military shipping happening anywhere at all. This was very strange.
A bit desperate, Qank commenced scouring the Internet, searching the web pages of all the major U.S. newspapers on the East Coast. He was looking for any stories that would have indicated a small specialized military unit moving out, farewell celebrations at a military port or at an air base—that sort of thing. But this turned up nothing as well. He had one of his men do the same thing for all newspapers in the U.K., Italy, and Germany—perhaps the Americans were moving troops down from Europe to do the job. But this proved a dead end too.
Finally, he had his men check their informants in place in the handful of American bases in the Persian Gulf itself. Maybe some specialized troops already in the region would be called on to retrieve the gunship. But again, there was nothing to indicate that was taking place.
After thirty-six straight hours of this, Qank was stumped. If something was happening, the Third Ring would have sniffed it out simply because when it came to covert military operations, the Americans were not very good at sneaking in the back door.
Yet the man in Room 6 said they were coming.
So, where were they?
Chapter 17
Delaney was sick. Very sick.
Possibly sicker than he’d ever been.
He’d been riding the rail of the freighter for days, watching as waves that appeared to be the size of skyscrapers rose and fell before him. He’d lost all track of time, didn’t know what day it was, or even what body of water he was on. All he knew was that he’d thrown up so many times he couldn’t believe his stomach could hold any more.
It was embarrassing. Of the entire unit, he was the only one who was still expelling bits of food he’d eaten weeks ago. He’d tried all sorts of things to stop. Holding his breath. Drinking warm water. He had even tried prayer. Nothing worked. He felt as if he’d been throwing up his entire life.
And that was a shame, because this trip had started off so differently.
Upon leaving Seven Ghosts Key, the unit, contained in three C-5’s—men, choppers, and all—had flown to an even more exotic location: a place called Xetu on the outer Canary Islands. The C-5’s set down at a large privately run airport on the island’s secluded northern end. Because the unit had not been briefed about the details of their transit, everyone just assumed that the C-5’s were simply refueling there, and would leave as soon as the gas-up was complete.
But as Delaney and the others learned that day—and would learn many times in the next week—they had assumed wrong.
The C-5’s sat on the runway for hours, not moving, their insides getting hotter with each passing minute. Finally the unit was unloaded, aircraft and all. It was dark by this time. A half mile away was a small port facility. At its dock was the lowliest, crappiest-looking cargo freighter Delaney could have ever imagined.
Under instructions from Smitz, the unit pushed the choppers over to the dock, which, despite much grunting and groaning, took under an hour. Once they were at the dock, an ancient crane lifted the choppers onto the freighter, putting the Hinds into the hold first, and then settling the big Hook and the even bigger Halos onto the deck. Once they were in place, the crew covered the helicopters with black tarpaulin and then arranged empty metal containers on top of them, hiding them completely. Then the unit itself was loaded aboard.
Then they sailed.
Delaney had gotten sick soon after chow the next morning. At first he thought it was the food. The freighter was so dirty and grimy and rusty, Delaney was convinced the CIA had dressed it up to look that way, and the food was absolutely horrible. When Delaney found himself bent over the railing an hour later, he would have bet his lunch the greasy eggs had made him sick.
But then he noticed the ship was rolling. Up and down, up and down. And then he noticed that there was a nauseous rhythm to this motion. And once that thought was firmly entrenched in his mind, there was no turning back. He became sick and had remained sick ever since.
He’d spent so much time on the rail, he actually had a favorite spot to throw up from: about midships, port side. Crew members—when he saw them—totally ignored him. Members of the unit did too. The Marines had done their morning calisthenics no more than fifty feet away from him and no one had given him a sideways glance. He was insulted and relieved at the same time.
Only Norton showed him any sympathy, bringing him pints of water so he wouldn’t get totally dehydrated. But vomiting was a solitary practice, so Delaney just took the water and waved off any of Norton’s attempts to converse or distract him.
After more than one hundred hours of this, Delaney was convinced that Hell actually floated on an ocean.
It was now the fifth day and though Delaney didn’t know it, his nightmare was about to end.
It was Norton who brought him the news. The pilot arrived on deck with a pint of water and, for the first time, a cup of coffee.
“You don’t expect me to drink that, do you?” Delaney asked, looking at the steaming mug.
“Yeah, I do,” Norton replied.
Norton looked different. It took Delaney a moment to realize why. Finally it hit him. Norton was unshaven, in need of a haircut, and his clothes weren’t exactly spiffy. For the first time ever, his friend actually looked unkempt.
“Look in a mirror yourself,” Norton told Delaney, reading his thoughts. Then he passed the coffee cup into Delaney’s shaking hands.
“What makes you think I can actually keep this down?” Delaney asked him.
“Because I have good news for you,” Norton replied.
Delaney stood up straight for what seemed like the first time in years. “And that is?”
Norton pointed to something just off their bow. They were in a thick fog, and Delaney tried hard to focus his bleary eyes. After a few moments, he could just barely make out the outlines of something floating in the middle of the bluish-green water. It looked like an extremely large sludge barge.
“What the hell is that thing?” he managed to blurt out.
“It’s our destination,” Norton told him. “We’re finally here.”
Their destination was named Heaven 2. It was presently anchored near the island of Halul, about fifty miles off the coast of Qatar in the lower Persian Gulf.
It was an old sludge barge, 250 feet long and sixty feet wide, and originally built to move all kinds of unsavory cargo up and down the Red Sea. It was rusty, what paint that remained was peeling, and the vessel had a distinct 15-degree list to the port side. There was a small control house at its bow, and a steering hut/chart room on its stern. Belowdecks there was room enough for a crew of six, a mess, a head, and little else.
The CIA had purchased the barge in 1987, and brought it into the Persian Gulf in order to run small amphibious operations against Iran. But it hadn’t seen active duty since 1993. And it hadn’t been cleaned since 1991.