Red Squadron had been called into action more quickly than expected, but the intelligence that they were being fed by JSOC was real-time, and nobody knew for sure how long the agent providing it could stay in place for.
And the intel was good; photographs of the river, the surrounding area, the cave entrance, the disposition of buildings within the cavern, the Fu Yu Shan itself. Whoever was sending it over must be one hell of an operative, Navarone considered.
JSOC was even able to patch through to them up-to-date thermal imagery from infra-red cameras that the agent had somehow managed to set up throughout the cavern. A gift of exquisite operational value, it allowed the SEALs to see where each and every person was in the cavern.
It appeared that the hostages themselves were being held together in a room off the main cavern. It wasn’t clear from the thermal imagery, but Treyborne and the analysts back at JSOC believed that it was likely to be a smaller side-cave, probably sectioned off with steel bars.
What was clear was that there were eleven bodies in that room — identified as hostages by their limited and restricted movements — whereas the ship had originally had a complement of twenty-two, including its armed security element. Navarone and the other SEALs wondered what that meant for the missing eleven.
Navarone could guess about the six men who had been charged with protecting the ship; they had probably all been killed during the initial assault. But the other five? They might also have been killed during the raid, or after — perhaps as an example to the others, maybe because they tried to fight back. Or else they may have died subsequently from illness, dehydration or starvation, or any number of other complications.
But there were eleven live hostages left, and to Navarone and the rest of the Red Indians, that was a hell of a lot better than none.
The thermal imaging also allowed the SEALs to track the movements of the pirates; who was on sentry duty, when and where, as well as a wealth of further information about their general habits within the lair.
The on-site agent was also sending back analysis of the lair’s fortifications and defensive systems, which seemed formidable. JSOC specialists were running through it all now, and Navarone knew that he would probably learn more at the briefing for troop leaders later on.
But they had an intelligence goldmine, and that would make their work a lot easier.
‘I spoke to Commander Lewis before setting off from Subic,’ Treyborne continued, referencing Chad Lewis, the Commander of Task Force 73, Logistics Group Western Pacific, who was the officer-in-charge of the base, ‘and he’s already been setting up an ad hoc training facility based on the general layout of the river and cave system, so we can get some situation-specific rehearsal in.’
There was a general murmur of approval amongst the man; they couldn’t wait to get started, knowing that time spent rehearsing was never wasted.
‘So get yourselves squared away and back here in thirty minutes ready for our first run-through,’ Treyborne instructed. ‘We don’t have the mission green light yet, as it needs approval from above’ — at this there were the expected moans and groans, and Treyborne raised his hands for silence — ‘but we need to be ready when we get the call. Any questions?’
‘Just one,’ Navarone said. ‘Who the hell do we have out there? Who’s getting us all this intel?’
Treyborne shook his head. ‘I’ve got no idea, son, and I probably never will. But if I do ever find out, I’ll be buying him a cold beer, that’s for damn sure.’
The young woman was pushed roughly to one side as Arief Suprapto sat up in his bed, running a hand through his long hair, head pounding from too much moonshine whisky. There had been plenty of alcohol being shipped aboard the Fu Yu Shan, but Suprapto had never been one for labels, and generally found that he preferred his own concoctions anyway. Besides which, the expensive bottles had already been sold at great profit to a dealer on the supposedly tee-total mainland.
In fact, most of the cargo had already been sold on, just one part of his deal with Jemaah Islamiyah. He didn’t normally like to sell on the cargo until after the hijacking negotiations had been concluded one way or another — selling products from hijacked ships was one way that his gang could be traced, and he had survived so long by not giving into impatient greed. But the terrorist group had offered him a princely sum — both for the single crate, and to offload the rest of the cargo as quickly as he could — and just this once, Suprapto had agreed to throw caution to the wind.
He was surprised by the amount offered by his Jemaah Islamiyah contact — a sum far greater than what was typically available for the fairly small regional Islamist group — but had never been a man to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Although he had agreed to sell the cargo, he had made sure that his men travelled far and wide to do so. Goods had therefore been traded all through Sumatra, as well as to connections in Java, Malaysia and Singapore.
It had brought Liang Kebangkitan hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Suprapto was not interested in the money; or at least not for its own sake. Money was only good because it motivated his men, and allowed him to purchase equipment that enabled him to go on pirating.
It also bought all sorts of tasty equipment for his gang’s hideout, including marine radar systems which were used by several of the world’s most advanced naval forces. It was this sort of perimeter security which allowed him to relax in his luxurious private cabin without fear of a sudden raid; any such attack would be picked up a long, long way away.
He had sonar too, in case of a submarine insertion, and airborne radar to warn him of unfriendly breeches of the channel’s airspace.
The remote cavern was loaded with means of defending the gang if attacked, too — torpedo launchers and anti-aircraft guns to take care of naval and air assault, and the entire island was rigged with mines and other nasty surprises in case anyone was stupid enough to approach on foot.
The fact that the Chinese shipping firm hadn’t yet paid the ransom that he’d demanded didn’t trouble him unduly; negotiations like this often took a lot of time, months in some instances. He was aware of the strong line being taken by both the Chinese and the US governments, but he knew — sooner or later, when the ships and her crew still hadn’t been located, and everyone was tired of the story in the world media — they would open up and agree to Suprapto’s terms. Especially if he began sending back pieces of the hostages; a finger here, an ear there, and they would soon pay him what he wanted.
Not that he was in a hurry; the money from Jemaah Islamiyah was more than enough to tide them over for years to come.
The hooker in his bed, one of a group he’d brought over from Dumai as a reward for him and his men, reached out to caress his thigh, but he cast her hand away and stood, strolling naked to the bathroom to relieve himself.
His phone rang then, and he returned to his bedside to pick it up. It was Umar Shibab, his contact with JI. What the hell did he want? Suprapto thought gruffly as he answered; their business should be concluded.
The answer came moments after he picked up the call, although the possible ramifications of the information took a while for his moonshine-addled brain to process.
It seemed that his arms broker had ended up dead in Jakarta, hurled from the top of the National Monument. It might not have seemed so strange in and of itself — arms brokers dealt with some pretty unreputable people, and such instances were not particularly uncommon — but a second body had been found right next to Wong Xiang. This man was unknown, with no ID or distinguishing features, but the rumor appeared to be that he was a Korean agent of some sort. And the bodies of three more Orientals — also thought to be Koreans — had also been found scattered throughout the city.