Cautiously he raised his head to peer over the top. He could make out a swath of trees on the down slope with the odd trail marked by breaks in the wood. He couldn’t see the man he was hunting. Sean made a huge effort to reduce his own rapid breathing to listen for the sound of Schaeffer’s progress.
There was nothing.
Slowly Sean felt for his rucksack and untied the PSG1 sniper rifle from its straps. Tucking it into his shoulder he peered through the telescopic sight. Dark leaves leapt into view. He quartered the area through the sights, moving in a regular pattern, forward and back, checking every part of the scene.
Several minutes went by and Sean was afraid he had lost his prey. Then a movement caused him to double check and sweep the sights back. He spotted a shape in the undergrowth. Even under the highest magnification it was difficult to make it out. The shape moved slowly and stealthily through the trees from left to right.
Sean gripped the rifle and quietly eased a round into the chamber. At this distance he was not confident of a lethal shot — he had no idea how the rifle had been set up.
The ground provided a steady platform and Sean gradually took up pressure on the trigger. Breathing lightly he moved the sight to keep track of the moving form. Then he stopped breathing and applied a little more pressure to the trigger. The gun went off with a sharp ‘crack’. Sean continued to look through the telescopic sight but nothing moved.
Slowly Sean slithered over the ridge. When he felt it was safe he stood up, shouldering the rucksack and carrying the rifle trail style. He approached the target area carefully. Initially he didn’t see anything. Crouching down he used his penlight to search the forest floor. He could see a disturbance in the littoral and light glistened from a thin trickle of blood on a green leaf. Sean followed the trail, swinging his penlight left and right. This wasn’t good practice — his quarry could use the light source to target Sean. But Sean felt he had made a significant shot and expected the man to be seriously injured.
For what seemed like hours, but was probably only ten minutes, he cautiously followed the trail. It lead around to the right and crossed back over the ridge lower down. He must be trying to find his way back to his car, thought Sean.
A few minutes later he heard the guard he had tied up earlier. The man was trying to attract attention through his taped mouth with inarticulate mumbling.
Sean listened carefully. The last thing he wanted was for his quarry to release the guard, because then he would have two men to contend with. On the other hand he needed to know what Schaeffer had in mind. Sean could hear the faint squeaks from the car’s suspension, as though someone had just climbed in. Schaeffer must be looking for the car keys.
Sean glanced around. The path was littered with pine cones. Apart from the PSG1 he had no other weapons. He crept back up the path and found a fallen branch with a knobbly end.
Sean hefted the stick and went back along the path towards the car. His quarry had given up the hunt for the car keys and was bending over his tied-up colleague, about to peel off the tape from the guard’s mouth.
Sean stepped around the car quietly. Some sixth sense made the man straighten up but Sean had allowed for this and the knobbly end of the branch hit the man squarely over the head. Sean took no chances. He had already hit him enough times tonight to have killed him three times over. He followed up quickly with a kick to the man’s calves, dropping him onto his knees. A punch to the base of the neck and Schaeffer keeled over slowly.
Sean had been tricked before and he wasn’t about to make the same mistake again. He placed his boot firmly on the man’s back and forced his hands together, swiftly cuffing them tight. Next he placed his boot over both of the man’s legs. He noticed congealed blood around the thigh where he had wounded him with the rifle. He cuffed the man’s legs.
Going back to the car he pulled out some nylon rope. Dragging Schaeffer to the nearest tree, Sean wound the rope around the base, each time looping it over the plastic cuffs. When he was satisfied, Sean rifled through the man’s pockets carefully out of range of a head butt. As expected there was no personal identification.
This posed a dilemma. It was unlikely the man would volunteer any information about how and why he had been sent. Yet the capture of four men tonight represented the best chance Sean had of finding the chief architect of the opposition and the real heart of his mission.
Sean’s experience of torture was fairly extensive. During his army days he had seen the effects on men in his regiment. At one point he himself had been at the receiving end over a five day period. But one thing he knew was that under torture the bravest men could spin a web of lies which would not be broken easily. Less brave souls would volunteer anything. Whether a man was brave or not, their story could not be relied on.
Sean sighed. He knew that torture would not achieve anything with this man, but there was no need to tell Schaeffer that. Sean withdrew his knife.
Captain Sheering could always tell when his XO was alarmed — his eyebrows would draw together making him look like a male version of Frida Kahlo.
‘What is it John?’
‘Sir, you never launched the torpedoes.’
‘Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. It’s just that I’ve had second thoughts about them. Imagine we did fire — which way would they go?’
The XO looked perplexed. ‘Why, towards the target of course.’
‘And what’s between us and the target?’ asked the Captain patiently.
‘Oh, I see what you mean sir. The torpedoes would be flying through the sound energy beam. They might explode before reaching the target.’
‘Correct John, I think that’s why the British sub found it so difficult to deal with.’
Captain Sheering studied his XO closely. ‘So what else can we hit him with?’ The Captain could almost see the cogs moving.
‘Well sir, there’s nothing else that is suitable.’
‘Is that so?’ asked the Captain.
The man’s forehead crinkled and his eyebrows knitted together. ‘You don’t mean the Tomahawks?’
Captain Sheering remained quiet.
‘You do mean the Tomahawks, don’t you sir!’ exclaimed the XO. ‘But TLAM’s are meant for long range work — not something as close as a mile away!’
‘They’re also only meant for surface or land targets’ said the Captain. ‘But there’s nothing to stop us using a Tomahawk anyway we want to — whatever gets the job done.’
‘How could you program the TLAM to explode under water — it’s never been done before!’
‘You should talk to the Weapons Officer. But I thought we might be able to offset the Tomahawk’s altitude gauge. Make it think it’s flying higher than it is. Then program it to ignore terrain following and dive onto the target at the last moment. That should do the trick.’
The Executive Officer scratched his scalp. ‘There’s another problem’ he said emphatically, as if this was the deciding point. ‘TLAM’s need a static target. They’re designed to hit fixed objects on land. Our rogue sub is moving all the time.’
The Captain nodded, pleased that his first officer had thought it through. However all his points so far were negative ones and he hadn’t been forthcoming with any solutions.
‘Well done John, you’ve spotted the real problem with this. We need to make sure that sub is in the same place we program into the Tomahawk. It’ll require some fancy footwork if we’re going to manage that — we’ll have to lead Cetus into the killing zone.’