Countdown_ The Liberators Part 15

"Never mind, in any case, Victor. I can't sell you any. No, not even for a really big bribe."

"That's okay," Inning said, his head nodding which made his fake curls swish back and forth. He found that extremely annoying. "I predicted this. I don't want you to sell sell me any. I want you to rebuild the ones I need from some I will get. And I need them rebuilt overseas or aboard a s.h.i.+p. Maybe both. Now does your government have a really big problem with that? You don't need a legitimate end user certificate for mere services rendered and some dual use parts provided, or if you do, you can fudge it. You don't need an end user certificate for giving me the name of the contact there that, I have no doubt, provides you with derelicts in remarkably good shape to rebuild. Because we both know South Africa doesn't use a lot of anti-armor ammunition to train with." me any. I want you to rebuild the ones I need from some I will get. And I need them rebuilt overseas or aboard a s.h.i.+p. Maybe both. Now does your government have a really big problem with that? You don't need a legitimate end user certificate for mere services rendered and some dual use parts provided, or if you do, you can fudge it. You don't need an end user certificate for giving me the name of the contact there that, I have no doubt, provides you with derelicts in remarkably good shape to rebuild. Because we both know South Africa doesn't use a lot of anti-armor ammunition to train with."

Dov chewed at the inside of his cheek for a while, his head occasionally rocking from side to side. "End user certificate? Mmm...maybe not. Done at sea, you say? Or right in South Africa? Or both. And just how big a bribe are you offering? And how much for the name of my contact?"

"That's all negotiable," Victor said. "It will be large enough. Now tell me what is possible in upgrades."

Dov shrugged. "It's a pretty extensive rebuild: New steering-hydraulic, new disc brake system for all four wheels, new diesel engine-a Toyota, and new wiring. We can put in air conditioning . . . day-night fire control . . . laser range finder . . . armor upgrade for standoff protection from HEAT warheads. Non-explosive reactive is also possible. There's also an option to upgrade the gun to the new high velocity 60mm, basically the same thing we did for the Chilean Shermans. Nice gun, by the way, but we have to modify the turret hugely."

A slender, delicate hand with painted but chipped nails grasped one of the unoccupied chairs and pulled it from the table. Into the chair sat an extraordinarily attractive, slender, wave-haired, and olive-skinned woman. She was dressed in mechanic's coveralls that completely succeeded in failing to hide her figure.

"h.e.l.lo, Lana," Dov said, with a frown. "Victor, let me introduce . . ." Dove stopped speaking for a moment when he realized Victor was simply paying him no mind at all.

"They say of many women," Victor said, as if from very far away, "that her hair 'cascades.' I think you are the first one I have ever seen of which the compliment is true. I-"

Victor stopped speaking when he realized than a group of Ha.s.sidim had begun to pa.s.s, except for one of them who was standing by the railing looking directly at him and chiding him with a waving finger. Victor hunched his head down as if in shame until the finger stopped wagging and the genuine Ha.s.sid had walked on with his group.

"Forget it, Victor," Dov advised. "Lana's a d.y.k.e."

"Not at all," the woman said, adding, matter of factly, "Tried it; didn't much like it. I've just met very few men I thought worth the trouble and Dov here is bitter that he wasn't one of them. Lana Mendes," she announced, offering her hand.

"You're very beautiful, Lana Mendes," Victor said.

"Don't tell her that," Dov advised. "Tell her she's a great armored vehicle optics mechanic. Tell her she's a first cla.s.s tank gunner. Tell her she's a fine officer. But never, never, never tell Ms. Mendes she's beautiful."

Lana sighed with exasperation. "As a matter of fact, I used to teach tank gunnery, and now I work as an optics mechanic. And I am a first cla.s.s reserve officer. But try and prove that in a place like this." She looked around in such a way as to indicate the entire country, not just the local environment. "Dov's right, by the way, you should take the upgrade to 60mm high velocity."

"I don't know about the gun," Victor replied. "I just don't have the authority. I'll check, though. And everything else sounds about right. Now, how mobile and accommodating can you be?"

"We can work anywhere." Dov said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.

-Ernest Hemingway, "On the Blue Water"

D-108, Londonderry Port, UK

It was already dark when the boat finally entered Lough Foyle, in the only place where the South, the Republic of Ireland, was north, and the north, the Six Counties, was south.

Biggus d.i.c.kus appreciated the darkness. It's just as well, he thought. Even a disarmed and civilian painted ELCO eighty-one foot patrol torpedo boat is inherently suspicious. If it hadn't been so fast and so cheap, I'd probably have turned it down.

"Biggus d.i.c.kus" had booked a berth for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d at one of the marinas dotting the sides of Lough Foyle. This did not prevent the boat from taking a slow spin around the Lough, through darkened gray-brown waters that were almost without any natural waves.

"There she is," said Eeyore, pointing leftward with his chin. Eeyore laughed softly.

"I see her," agreed Biggus standing at the wheel of the boat. "And what's so funny?"

"I looked it up. George Galloway is a Brit politician. He's probably an atheist, himself, but he latched onto the Islamics there to launch and support his political career. He even married one of them, a really hot Palestinian girl, though I think she divorced him. He is, in any case, a defensive mouthpiece for Islamic terrorism and an offensive, in both senses, speaker for the gradual subordination of Great Britain to Islam. No wonder they named a boat after him. And naming a boat after him suggests very strongly that that is no innocent s.h.i.+p."

"I always presumed that," Biggus said. "Simmons?"

"Here, Chief," answered the former boatswain standing by what once would have been a mount for a .50 caliber machine gun . . . and would soon be again.

"When we berth, you and Morales go ash.o.r.e. Get a rental and scout out that s.h.i.+p."

"Wilco, Chief."

"And remember to drive on the wrong side of the road."

"Forty-one . . . forty-two . . . forty-three . . . forty-four," Simmons counted aloud as the last group boarded the Galloway. "Your count agree with that, Morales?"

The Puerto Rican former SEAL nodded, then added, "There's no way that s.h.i.+p needs a crew that size. That's twice as many as they need, maybe more."

"Which smells like trouble even if they're perfectly innocent," Simmons agreed. "But where else have you seen young men who looked just like that lot?"

Morales laughed. "Well, besides Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan . . ."

"Exactly. Those aren't sailors and they aren't mostly illegal immigrants. Those are fighters. We need to bring this back to the chief. But first some measurements. I make it as twelve feet from waterline to top of the hull near the bow."

"A little less," Morales corrected. "No more than ten and a half."

"Nah; it's twelve. Look at the containers. In any case, we can two-man-lift a boarder over it. She carries, max, seven hundred TEU."

"Agreed."

Simmons did some mental gymnastics. "I make her as roughly four hundred feet in length and maybe sixty-five in beam."

"About right," Morales said. "She's Antigua registered. Any issues with that?"

Simmons shrugged. "None I can think of. Maybe Oprah Winfrey or Eric Clapton would object to our taking it. But f.u.c.k them."

"Not Oprah," Morales said. "I think she's supposed to become Secretary of Cloying Sweetness under the current administration."

"Sweet," said Biggus, though his tone of voice didn't suggest he found anything too sweet in the news. "I'd thought to get two of us aboard, then wait for the Galloway to get out into the sea lanes. Those two could have taken the radio room and bridge, then the rest of us would have intercepted and boarded. With forty-four men aboard, half of them with no likely jobs, the odds of even one man being found are just too good."

"Simple boarding and seizure at sea, then, Chief?" asked Simmons. He looked around the inside of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d at the mounds of carefully netted and tied down gear provided by the s.h.i.+pping container in Paldiski. "It isn't like we lack for materiel." Simmons held up a radio-controlled detonator, by way of ill.u.s.tration.

Thornton shook his head. "I don't know there'll be anything simple about it. And it'll be tough to do without them getting the word out. Though you're right about the materiel."

"They'll be leaving soon, Chief," Simmons said. "Otherwise they wouldn't have brought the extra people aboard yet."

"I still don't think we can hide two men aboard with all those extra f.u.c.kers roaming the s.h.i.+p out of boredom."

"If not two, Chief, how about one?" suggested Antoniewicz. "I'm a little dude; I can find a place to hide if you can get me aboard."

Biggus shook his head doubtfully. "Bad form to send a lone man off," he said.

Eeyore stood to his full five feet, four inches, held his arms out invitingly, and answered, "h.e.l.l, Chief, I'm not even a full lone man. So if we can't send two, let's send three quarters or a half. Bound to confuse 'em."

The Russian rubber boat made not a sound as its electric motor forced it through the watery gloom. It pa.s.sed by Galloway's stern, then drove in under the pier. Once under cover, it weaved between the wooden pilings to the bow. There, it pa.s.sed under the steel wedge and came around the bow to its port side. The boat came to a stop as it b.u.mped up, still soundless, against the hull. The man at the tiller, Bland, dialed down the power to just enough to keep the rubber tight against the target.

Forward in the rubber boat, Simmons was at the bow, followed by Morales, followed by Antoniewicz. All four men in the boat wore Russian night vision goggles strapped to their heads. These were not the best, perhaps, but they were good enough for this. Without a word all three forward stood low and shuffled to the rubber boat's rounded bow. Antoniewicz leaned forward and put both gloved palms against the hull. Simmons and Morales locked arms and bent low to allow the boarder to get one foot up. They then stood, rocking the rubber boat and almost causing Antoniewicz to lose his balance. He pinwheeled his arms a bit, moving his center of ma.s.s forward to balance again against the hull.

Eeyore felt his heart beating fast and hard as his balaclava covered head peeped over the side of the s.h.i.+p. There was a container marked "Cosco" just in front of him. He could see the letters clearly enough even in the grainy image of his NVGs.

He felt Morales' hand s.h.i.+ft to take a position under his right foot. Simmons did so a moment later with the left. Eeyore's upward motion continued until he was nearly waist high to the top of the hull. His hands, gripping that top, moved downward relative to his torso. A push, the swing of a leg, and the boarder was over the top and easing his feet down to the deck below. It was a tight fit between hull and containers. He waited a moment, listening, then leaned over the side to haul up some ordnance the other two pa.s.sed to him.

And now to find a place to hide and then scout a bit.

He took from his shoulder holster a Makarov pistol, test and familiarization fired on the voyage from Estonia to Northern Ireland. This pistol had some odd features. It had, for example, an infrared laser aiming device, invisible to the naked eye but quite visible to the Russian-issue NVGs. For another thing, there was a shroud around the barrel. Biggus had said the barrel was drilled to allow gas to escape into the shroud, thus lowering a standard bullet's velocity to something less than the speed of sound. From under his right armpit Antoniewicz removed a cylindrical object, the suppresser, and screwed it to the front of the Makarov. The thing would be silent now, except for the working of the slide. And that, over normal s.h.i.+p and port noise, was nothing.

That was one weapon. Across his back Eeyore had strapped another Russian arm, a Kiparis submachine gun. It, too, was silenced and used the same ammunition as the pistol. Thoughtfully, Victor's cache had provided frangible ammunition for both. Less thoughtfully, while the pistol would be very quiet, due to the reduction in velocity below the speed of sound, rounds fired from the submachine gun would be supersonic, consequently rather noisy.

In addition, by his right side was strapped Eeyore's own, handmade, knife. Lastly, in various pouches and pockets, the former SEAL carried eight RGO defensive grenades, a radio transmitter and beacon, extra batteries, a piece of thin wire with wooden handles on each end, sundry odds and ends (a small drill and a fiberscope, a fiber optic camera, for example), a couple of pounds of smoked meat and some cans with Cyrillic writing and pictures that suggested food.

The boarder looked left. Nothing. Then, pistol and eyes reoriented to the right, he sidled along between containers and hull about a dozen feet. There he came to a s.p.a.ce between s.h.i.+pping containers of about two and a half feet, or perhaps a bit less. There he doffed his combat harness, submachine gun, and most of the ancillary gear. He kept his pistol as he kept the NVGs.

Just aft of the bow, the container configuration changed, with the outside edges of the above-hull exterior containers resting on double steel pylons, red with rust. It was that kind of a s.h.i.+p. This also left a more or less covered pa.s.sageway that s.h.i.+elded Antoniewicz from observation from the windowed bridge that spanned the full beam of the s.h.i.+p.

Getting to the stern-really to the superstructure-was tricky. There almost was no telling when someone might round a corner. Antoniewicz solved the problem by ducking in between a row of containers and listening to be certain there were no footsteps or talking. Then he'd come out again, pad quickly to the next row, duck in, and listen some more. Five times he did this before reaching the penultimate gap. At that point there was only one row of containers between himself and the superstructure. There he waited for perhaps half an hour, accustoming himself to every normal sound the s.h.i.+p might make in this area. Thus, when he heard an other than normal sound, two men, chatting in what sounded like Arabic, their feet ringing on the steel deck, Antoniewicz's heart again began beating fast. He made himself as small as possible in the s.p.a.ce, his hand automatically tightening around the pistol. Through his NVGs he caught a brief glimpse of the men as they walked past. They were holding hands. Their other hands were empty.

Doesn't necessarily mean anything, thought the former SEAL. Not if they're Arabs. Not like it would back in the states.

Still, I am stuck here until they go back inside.

It seemed like hours to Eeyore, waiting in the cramped little s.p.a.ce, before the two men walked back to the superstructure. When they did, it was on the other side of the s.h.i.+p. It was only slightly later that the deck was flooded with men, casting off and reeling in lines. Shortly thereafter the engines thrummed to life and the s.h.i.+p began moving away from the pier.

The deck stayed pretty active for some time, thereafter. Gradually though, as the banks of the lough disappeared and the Galloway turned west, the sailors went back to their business. Only then could Antoniewicz come out from his hide and go searching for a place to spend the night and for any signs of Adam. In the latter, he was to be completely disappointed.

The little Russian drill was nearly silent. It went through the thin wall of the first container Antoniewicz elected to try in moments. Through the hole, the former SEAL slid the fiber section of the fiberscope along with another small fiber to provide a minimal light.

The scope had a lot of built in distortion, but not so much that Antoniewicz couldn't see the contents of the s.h.i.+pping container. Perfect. Boxes. With his knife he snapped off the inspection seal, opened the container, and removed the first box. This was, like the others, a mid-sized television. He carried the TV to the edge of the bow and dumped it. He watched the progress of the box as the s.h.i.+p moved onward and before it sank, judging, Eighteen knots. The b.i.t.c.h is faster than we thought.

He then went back and did the same with another. A third, fourth, and fifth went the same way. The TV sets were heavy. On the other hand, while Eeyore was small; he was not weak.

Crawling into the s.p.a.ce thus vacated, Antoniewicz pulled all his gear in behind him and then closed the container's doors. He rearranged the boxes so that, even should someone open the container, they would be presented with a solid set of TV boxes, three by four, while creating for himself a small cubby further into the container.

Then, with the drill, the SEAL made a dozen small air holes on top, plus three or four high along each side.

If it gets too stuffy, I'll make more.

With that, he checked his watch. Running a small wire antenna out of one of the air holes, he sent to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, "I'm aboard and safely hidden. I looked for some sign of the kid, but there's nothing, not a hint. And, you know, a prison has routines. There aren't any here, that I could see. FYI, s.h.i.+p's speed is about eighteen knots. See you at sea." He then drank some water from one of his canteens, wolfed down a bit of smoked meat-not bad, considering it's not really a Russian specialty-and went to sleep, one hand wrapped around the silenced Makarov . . .

D-107, MV George Galloway George Galloway

. . . and awakened to the sound of ma.s.sed firing-full automatic, too-coming from somewhere sternward of his little hide. The sound was m.u.f.fled by metal walls and cardboard boxes, but was distinct for all that.

"What the f.u.c.k!" Antoniewicz exclaimed as he sat bolt upright. His head was saved from a painful impact only by the fact he was so short. "Did the attack start and I slept through it?"

Almost he exited the container to join in. He was fumbling with the inside handle when the firing ceased. He heard something shouted out in Arabic and the firing began again.

They're familiarizing on their weapons . . . or keeping in practice . . . or test firing, he thought. This pretty much ends the possibility that they are comparatively innocent illegal immigrants.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.