Hawke was going to war, but first he had to do battle with the Saudi king, Abdullah, and his yacht, Kingdom. He had little interest in the outcome of the match itself. He was far more interested in other things. For one, seeing how his new Blackhawke performed under sail in a real blow. The weather during the sea trials on the Bosporus had been insufficient to put her through her paces; light winds punctuated by periods of dead calm had provided endless frustration for the megayacht’s new owner. He had wanted to see her heeled hard over, charging forward into the teeth of the wind.
And he was still turning over the details of how he would take this leviathan to war, sail her in harm’s way, and get her safely home.
His captain, Laddie Carstairs, appeared beside him at the rail. He was a tall fellow, all sinewy strength, close-cropped grey hair, and flinty grey eyes. He had the well-tanned hide of a man who’d spent his life at sea, the deeply lined visage of a fellow who’d long been storm tossed by sea, battle, life.
“Morning, sir,” the coxswain said.
Hawke replied, “Morning, Cap. Sleep well?”
“Like a babe in his mother’s arms. Always do, the night before a fight.”
Carstairs had commanded a light cruiser during the Second Gulf War and was one of the most decorated men in the Royal Navy. Then he’d retired and come to work for Alex Hawke. He’d resided in Istanbul during the entire period of the new yacht’s build-out, from conception through construction. His nautical experience and intellect played a key role in turning Blackhawke from a luxury toy into a fearsome fighting ship. Hawke had felt very lucky to have such a man now signed on as skipper.
“I saw King Abdullah out doing a bit of tacking to windward yesterday afternoon, sir. Beautiful white yacht, with that enormous golden sword on her transom just below her name. Kingdom. She looks formidable enough, I must say.”
Hawke said, “Right. Her sloop rig will most likely allow her to sail closer to the wind than us. Close-hauled, she’ll have an edge on us for sure, Laddie. But on the reaches and downwind, she’ll be in our wake, falling farther behind, I’d wager. Not that anyone has ever raced a high-tech three-masted square-rigger against a traditional sloop rig before, so who the hell knows.”
“You seem fairly sanguine about the whole thing, sir. Not your usual competitive obsession with the finish line.”
“We’re not headed for the finish line, Laddie.”
The man’s face fell, surprise and dismay in his eyes.
“Sorry? We’re not? Where are we headed then, for God’s sake?”
“Iran.”
“ Iran? With all due respect, sir, may I ask why?”
“To find and kill a phantom.”
“A phantom?”
“Yes. An evil force whose presence you can feel, but cannot see or hear.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“This is a spec-ops CIA-Red Banner mission, Laddie. I was forbidden to tell you about any of this until this moment. An Iranian scientist named Darius Saffari is the target. He’s got a hilltop fortress on the Iranian coast, the Ram Citadel, about fifty miles south of Bandar-e Bushehr. That’s why we’re headed to Iran. We’re going to infiltrate that citadel and kill him. In many ways, he’s a far bigger fish than either Bin Laden or Ghaddafi.”
“Good God, I’ve never even heard of him.”
“You’re now part of an extremely small circle. I’ve got the Citadel’s precise coordinates, when you’re ready.”
“I’ll get the navigator right on it, then.”
“Laddie, forgive me for not bringing you into the loop sooner. I hate to drop all this on you at the last minute. I know this last-minute stuff is tough. But we’re operating strictly black-out under orders from the CIA. Black ops of the utmost secrecy due to ‘political sensitivity,’ as they call it in Washington. Two squads of U.S. Navy SEALs are arriving this afternoon to augment our own assault forces. Also Stokely Jones and Harry Brock, whom you know.”
“And the race?”
“A cover story. To explain away our inexplicable presence here in the Gulf. Even though the boat’s got a Maltese registration and Valletta as the hailing port on her transom, this is a high-profile yacht. Her presence in the Persian Gulf has surely not gone unnoticed by Al Jazeera and other media. The Iranians know we’re here. News of the race has been leaked. But they don’t really know why. I needed a pretext to get as close to their shores as possible without arousing suspicion. Thus, a sailing race with the king of Saudi Arabia.”
“As you well know, the Iranians have got warships patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. And heavily armed patrol boats up and down the entire coastline.”
“Absolutely. I’m counting on it, to be honest. We’ll need to be on our guard constantly. I’ve a dossier for you below in my stateroom. A profile of the commander of the Iranian Frontier Guard in the Eastern Province. He’s the guy whose patrol boat seized four Saudi fishing vessels when they accidentally entered Iranian territorial waters last week. The fishermen are in prison now, or dead. We’ll deal with him, sooner or later, I suspect.”
“Okay. I’ve got the picture now. Too bad about the race, though. I was looking forward to it. So was the sailing crew I hired.”
“Looking forward to a bit of racing myself. I’ve got an American friend, America’s Cup winner named Bill Koch. Someone once asked him if this wasn’t a rich man’s sport. Bill said, ‘No it isn’t. There’s one rich man on board and there’s twenty-five poor men on board and they all enjoy it a hell of a lot more than the rich man does.’ ”
“Something in that, all right.”
“People say it’s expensive and they’re right. But these huge yachts give a hell of a lot of people a hell of a lot of jobs. Look what Blackhawke did for the Turks. People call boats like this maxi yachts. I call them ‘Marxi yachts’ because they redistribute the wealth.”
Carstairs laughed, “Game, set, and match, Alex.”
“Laddie, a word of caution. What your crew says or does, or even what they say they see on their screens, may have been planted there by the enemy. Trust no one aboard, even me. Follow your gut. Saffari was able to take over an entire Russian submarine. Don’t believe anything you see, hear, feel, or touch without talking to me first. Other than that, full speed ahead.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Hawke returned his captain’s salute and headed below. He had work to do. The plans for the assault on Saffari’s redoubt were in the final stages. He and the SEAL team commander, Stony Stollenwork, had come up with what they both believed was an ingenious way to breach the impenetrable fortress walls. But Hawke still wasn’t satisfied with the plan. As he’d said last evening when the meeting broke up. “It’s not enough that it’s ingenious, Stony, it has to bloody well work!”
“If it’s to work in this instance, sir, it bloody well better be ingenious,” Stollenwork replied. Hawke smiled. He genuinely liked the man. He was a bit slouchy and craggy faced, and he had a phenomenally deep voice, perfect for command. Wry, dry, and bombastic, sometimes all at once, he was also fiercely intelligent.
T he race signal flag was hoisted and the gun fired. The two yachts entered at either side of the starting line in a traditional America’s Cup match racing start. The course would follow the one used for twelve-meter yachts for years. A windward leg, followed by a downwind leg, another upwind leg followed by a triangular reach, and then a final downwind leg. Hawke, who had the topside helm, knew that with the wind out of the east, he was perfectly positioned for his race across the Gulf to Iran. The other two men in the afterguard, Laddie Carstairs and Steve Hall, agreed. The sun was shining above and the fresh salty air, finally blowing at suitable strength, felt wonderful on his cheeks. He’d always had an innate sense of the wind. It was going to be a good passage.