Drummond touched the computer screen at his elbow, calling up the Gulf’s merchant schedule for the week. Yep, there it was, the Ocean Trader. It was indeed due in the Gulf waters at this time, but according to the schedule, it wasn’t a tanker. Yet here it was, an oiler and low in the water with its belly full of what was most likely crude stolen from Iraqi fields. And it was attempting to make a run for it, for Christ’s sake. How stupid was that?
‘What does Franklin D say?’ the captain asked. The American battle group to which the Arunta was attached, headed by the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D Roosevelt, was steaming in the opposite direction, keeping an eye on Iran and Syria.
‘Sir, they have no record of Ocean Trader being challenged. This one’s kept its nose clean.’
The captain continued to keep his eyes on the quarry. ‘Officer of the Watch, what other surface contacts do we have on radar?’
‘Sir, there’s nothing much in our immediate vicinity. Aside from the Ocean Trader, there’s a fishing boat in its lee, currently heading in the opposite direction.
‘What’s the separation between them?’ asked Drummond.
‘Three miles, sir, and it’s roughly on a parallel course.’
‘What are you silly buggers up to?’ Drummond said to himself. The tanker was still churning the water. ‘What do you think, X?’
Angus Briggs stood beside Drummond and glanced again at the monitor behind him. ‘Nothing makes a lot of sense here, sir. We’ve raised its master on the radio, but it doesn’t look like he’s got any intention of heaving to.’
‘Okay, enough already,’ said Drummond, his mind made up. ‘We’ll board her. And get that fishing boat on the line and tell him to get the hell out of there in the nicest possible way.’ Drummond turned back to their quarry and considered the closing angles of the two vessels. ‘Nav, bring us round on a parallel course.’
Briggs waited till the course changes had been completed and then said, ‘Quartermaster, get the gunner of the watch up here.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Teo, the only Australian of Asian origin in the ship’s complement of sixty, and nicknamed ‘China’ by the crew.
‘Who’s on today, China?’ Briggs asked.
‘Sean Matheson, sir,’ said Teo from memory.
Briggs then called up Leading Seaman Mark Wallage, a twenty-year-old electronics whiz-kid in the ship’s operations room. ‘Mark, get us a firing solution on our tub.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ he said. Wallage touched the computer screen on the steel bench in front of him, activating the weapons system. A small pair of crosshairs appeared on the screen and Wallage repositioned them amidships on the Ocean Trader’s waterline. It was as simple as that. The Arunta’s weapons systems could attack several ships at once, all while defending itself against hostile aircraft and their inbound missiles, track enemy submarines, and lay chaff and electronics countermeasures to confuse opposition attack systems. Dropping a couple of shells on this old girl’s hull was a doddle.
Moments later from up on the bridge, Briggs observed the barrel of the frigate’s foredeck-mounted 127mm Mark 45 Mod 2 gun swing forty degrees clockwise and drop almost level with the horizon.
‘Gunner of the Watch, Leading Seaman Matheson, sir,’ announced a tall nineteen year old appearing on the bridge.
‘How’s it going, Sean?’ asked Briggs.
Matheson relaxed slightly, the hint of a smile on his sunburned lips. ‘Good, sir.’
‘Glad to hear it. We need you to stitch the water ahead of our noncompliant friend over there.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Matheson. He’d been watching the chase, helping the boarding crew get kitted up, waiting for the summons to the bridge for a good fifteen minutes. He enjoyed firing the Browning, the power of it never failed to amaze him. Matheson stepped out of the bridge onto the port wing and into the salt-loaded twenty-five-knot wind generated by the Arunta’s passage. He fitted the earplugs and slipped on the anti-burn balaclava and gloves, followed by the Kevlar helmet. The Browning .50 cal heavy machine gun was locked in place on its gimbals, the cover removed and folded. Being the gunner of the watch, Matheson had checked this weapon, so he already knew that the gun was serviceable, well oiled and the barrel clean and clear. Nevertheless, he quickly gave it another once-over, removing its red-flagged safety pins as he went. Matheson unlocked the gimbals and checked that the weapon’s movement was full and free. ‘Ready, sir,’ he said to Briggs, who had joined him on the wing.
The executive officer nodded and stepped back onto the bridge. The Ocean Trader now loomed large in the captain’s binoculars. Into his boom mic Briggs said, ‘Captain, gunner of the watch is ready. Operations also have a firing solution with the one-twenty-seven.’
‘We getting any compliance from the Trader, X?’
‘Negative, sir. Still proclaiming innocence. Tractor and irrigation parts, apparently.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said the captain to himself. There was something that just didn’t add up about this chase, something more than the obvious.
‘Sir,’ said Briggs, ‘operations ask if we want fish tonight?’
‘Pardon, X?’
‘Have a listen to this, sir. It’ll make your day. Channel twenty-seven.’
Drummond touched his command screen to change the communication channel on his phones.
‘I have lovely peesh! You love peesh! You buy from me! Very good!’ The man was yelling into his microphone in order to be heard over the unsilenced diesel chugging away beneath him. ‘You buy, you buy!’
‘It’s the fishing boat, sir,’ said Briggs.
‘Great timing,’ said Drummond. It happened occasionally, or rather, used to happen. The locals would sell their catch to the allied warships on Gulf duty, and then one blew itself up while alongside a British navy supply ship in port — an oiler loaded with diesel that went straight to the bottom with most of its hands. Everyone had wised up since. Under the brilliant sky, steaming on a perfect blue ocean, it was easy to forget sometimes that they were fighting World War III, a different kind of war that didn’t distinguish between soldier and civilian, fought out with increasing brutality and guile across the globe.
The Ocean Trader’s master, a Pakistani, had his binoculars trained on the warship now steering a parallel course off his starboard stern. It’d been closing at a fifteen-degree angle. The course change, along with the final warnings over the radio, could only mean one thing. He shifted the view to take in the fishing boat. It would be touch and go, he thought. ‘Give us more speed,’ he said through the intercom to the ship’s engineer.
‘That’s it. I’m very sorry to tell you, but we’re going as fast as we can,’ said the engineer, who also happened to be the master’s brother-in-law. It wasn’t his fault that the tanker’s massive engines were long past their use-by date.
‘Well…do what you can,’ said the master.
Briggs spoke briefly to Drummond through his mic and then nodded at Matheson. The gunner of the watch pulled back the Browning’s bolt, arming it, and sighted the barrel on a point roughly seventy metres ahead of the Ocean Trader’s bow. He squeezed the trigger and the Browning bucked. A burst of tracer spat from the weapon’s muzzle.
The master brought the binoculars back to his eyes in time to see the muzzle flashes from the warship’s bridge. Moments later, red tracer arced through the air well ahead of his bow. If this went on, the warship would get serious and, rather than a machine gun, the large gun on its bow would be employed. If that were to happen, he would probably lose his life, as would his crew. The Americans and their allies were becoming increasingly impatient these days. His ship would burn for days if it didn’t sink, leaking a million barrels of oil into these beautiful, deadly waters. ‘Have I been paid to die?’ the master asked himself aloud. No, I have not. Indeed, there were now two million American dollars in a Cayman Islands bank account waiting for him. The fishing boat was out of harm’s way and his job was done. ‘Give us full astern,’ he said distractedly into the intercom, keeping the binoculars trained on the warship.