“And exfiltration”

  “It’ll depend on the circumstances. We don’t know how many hostages you’ll be able to free. The chances are we’ll need to use everything, the Ospreys, if they’re available. There is also a unit of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment on board for a training exercise, and they’re flying Black Hawk MH-60Ks, the new stealth helos. Maybe they’ll use those, but it’ll depend on the circumstances.”

  He didn’t like the way she said ‘available’ when she mentioned the Ospreys. He was already aware of their reputation, and it wasn’t something he wanted to dwell on. It was good to know the MH-60Ks would be available to them. The 160th, The ‘Night Stalkers’, had used advanced helos for the operation to kill bin-Laden, using their stealth capabilities to infiltrate Pakistan and carry out the kill.

  Rovere made one last pass at her. “It must be lonely up here on the flight deck, Captain. Maybe you’d like some conversation. I’d be happy to stay with you.”

  She gave him a cold look. “I’d sooner be lonely, thank you, Lieutenant.”

  “A man would run through fire and water for such a kind heart,” he replied.

  She gave him a puzzled frown. “I thought the quotation said woman, not man?”

  He shrugged. “I had to improvise, my dear.”

  Talley smiled as the Italian flushed with embarrassment. Caitlin looked back at Talley and continued. “One more thing, we’re equipped with a Blue Force Tracking capability, so Colonel Hakim will be able to monitor the situation on the ground and call in any kind of support you need. Just in case you’re in a hot zone it’s a good system, and should prevent any blue on blue incidents,” she smiled.

  “That’s good to know.”

  Blue Force Tracking was the military term used to describe the recent GPS-enabled systems provided to military commanders to give them location information of both their own and hostile forces. In the confused situation of a hot exfiltration it could, and already had, make a huge difference when pulling troops out of battle zones.

  With an effort he wrenched his mind back to the present. They’d flown for four hours over the flat, featureless desert, and now they were over an endless expanse of ocean that seemed to go on forever. He’d spent some time in the cabin where he relived some of the monotony by going over the mission brief in his head. They were flying fast and low across the Arabian Sea, and it appeared to be almost empty of craft; the sea was empty of the masthead lights that would have indicated their presence.

  That’s strange, Talley thought.

  He’d heard that nighttime was when fishermen made their best catches. Perhaps they’d swapped jobs. Piracy sure paid better. He was half dozing when he heard over the intercom their first contact with their destination, the Abraham Lincoln.

  “NATO V22, this is Abraham Lincoln, we have you on visual. Approach from the stern and follow the Landing Signal Officer’s orders. Speed and angle of approach are all looking good. Vector one three zero degrees when you’re two klicks out.”

  “Copy that, Abraham Lincoln.”

  A few seconds later, the radio burst to life again.

  “Er, NATO V22, the Skipper requests that you transition to hover mode no less than one kilometer from the flight deck. He said to tell you more would be better if you can do that.”

  Talley grinned to himself. The reason was obvious, that infamous safety record of the Osprey. The commander of the Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t want pieces of the big Boeing twin engine helo littered all over his flight deck, with the attendant risks of burning fuel and exploding ammunition to potentially cripple his expensive warship.

  Caitlin’s voice replied. “Copy that. We’re transitioning now, five klicks out from the flight deck.”

  Talley smiled at the sharp edge to her voice. She sounded less than impressed.

  “Acknowledged, NATO V22. We have you at five kilometers off the aft flight deck, height two thousand meters.”

  The aircraft slowed and seemed to swing in the air almost like a fairground ride as the huge wings began to tilt, so as to point the huge propellers straight upwards to become helicopter rotors. At one point, it seemed to drop like a stone as the propellers struggled to achieve sufficient thrust. But slowly, the descent ended, and the Osprey hovered in the air, still moving forward, carried by the momentum of the winged flight. It slowed more as the propellers, which had now become the rotors, got control and the V22 became a helo. Even though the operation was largely computer controlled, Talley admired the skill of Caitlin Walker. Getting checked out on these birds required a detailed understanding of the complicated transitioning process, and an ability to take over manually when any part of the computer control failed.

  She’s a good pilot, one hell of a good pilot.

  The aircraft drifted in at a more controlled speed over the Arabian Sea, dropping lower, and then out of the side window he could see the carrier. The helo dropped lower and lower, and the carrier loomed larger. And then the alarm horn began to wail, along with the grating noise coming from outside. The vibration began to shake through the airframe.

  “NATO V22, we see smoke from your starboard wing.”

  Her reply was short. “You don’t say! I’m trying to bring the ship back to level flight. Please stay off the air.”

  The V22 began to seesaw in the sky as she struggled with the controls, oscillating from side to side as the uneven power between the two engines threatened to pull the aircraft apart.

  “NATO V22, the Skipper says you are not to land on the flight deck. Repeat, not to land on the flight deck. You are to ditch in the sea.”

  She muttered under her breath, “Jesus Christ!” Her reply came a few seconds later.

  “The fuck I will. I’m not deep-sixing seventy million dollars of aircraft on his say so. Stand by the crash teams. I’m heading straight in for a landing.”

  “But, the Skipper says…”

  “This is a flight emergency, Sailor. Stay off the air.”

  The cabin speaker system clicked on, and he heard Caitlin’s voice, calm, cool, and with no sign of any panic. “This is the pilot. We are about to make an emergency landing. We have sustained damage to the starboard interconnect shaft, and the aircraft is breaking up. Strap in if you can, and hold on tight.”

  Talley watched the flight deck grow larger and larger. They seemed to be coming in far too fast, but the vibration and grating noise was worsening, and he understood she was getting down as fast as possible before the damage to the transmission interconnect shaft tore the aircraft apart completely. The Osprey came to a stop fifty feet above the flight deck. Below them, the LSO was frantically waving them off. Talley could see the anti-aircraft guns trained on them. The Skipper was apparently pissed enough to consider shooting them out of the sky before they dented his flight deck, real pissed. And then she landed the crippled Osprey, literally dropped the aircraft straight down on the deck, and she almost pulled it off. Fifteen feet above the flight deck, the starboard nacelle shuddered and almost sheered away the stubby wing as the shaft finally gave way completely and snapped. The helo sagged at an acute angle, touched the deck, bounced once, and then crashed back down on the deck. They had landed.

  It was chaos, the helo’s alarm systems were wailing, the shriek of the ship’s alarms added to the ruckus, and men in silver fireproof suits were racing toward them. Foam sprayed first over the smoking starboard engine, and the fuselage door was wrenched open. A fireman was shouting, “Out, out, get out now!”

  Talley made sure his men were all moving, and then it hit him. No one had come from the flight deck. He raced forward and opened the door. Caitlin was working with an axe to free the copilot. He was trapped beneath the rudder pedals that had bent and warped in the crash, trapping his right foot. He rushed to help, and while she attacked the hardened aluminum of the pedal, he looked around for a lever. He ran back into the cabin and found a pry bar he’d seen latched to the side of the hull near the fuselage door. The fireman looked at him, his face angry inside the respirator.

  “You have to get out. This bird could go up at any minute!”

  “The copilot is trapped. We have to help get him out. Come with me.”

  The man nodded and followed him. Caitlin looked up gratefully as they arrived. The axe was not making any impression. It was one of those times when brawn could not be replaced by brain. He leaned down and shouted at her.

  “Get out of the way. We’ll get this.”

  She moved aside, and they inserted the bar under the pedal, leaning their weight against it. At first, it didn’t make any difference; the pedal was bent solid.

  “Be careful, his leg looks as if it’s broken,” Caitlin warned them.

  The fireman was still putting all his weight on the bar. “That’ll be the least of his worries if this ship goes up,” he murmured. He kept pushing and looked at Talley. “It’s not moving. We need help!”

  Caitlin twisted her body and threw her weight behind Talley so that the three of them were pushing up against the bar. Suddenly, the pedal gave way and bent upwards at an acute angle. She shouted at them.

  “He’s free. Get him out of there!”

  They didn’t need any encouragement. The cockpit was already full of smoke, and they were coughing and spluttering as their lungs sucked in the burnt kerosene vapor. They dragged the copilot back into the cabin and out the fuselage door onto the flight deck. White foam was everywhere, and more asbestos-suited crewmen ran forward to drag them from the vicinity of the crashed Osprey and into the shelter of the island, the superstructure that contained the bridge and command centers.

  They lay slumped on the deck as medics helped the copilot onto a gurney. An officer approached, wearing khaki working uniform bearing the rank epaulettes of a US Navy Rear Admiral. He was an officer they recognized, Admiral Guy Alexander, former commander of NATFOR, and new commander of the US nuclear carrier Abraham Lincoln.

  “Admiral Alexander, Sir,” Talley greeted him, standing up to salute his former boss.

  Alexander ignored him. The new commander of a nuclear carrier took his job very seriously. The man was red faced with anger. He stared at Caitlin.

  “What the fuck do you mean by landing the piece of junk on my deck, Captain Walker? I thought you knew better than that.”

  Despite their former working relationship, Alexander was incandescent with fury that a junior officer, one he’d respected, had threatened the safety and security of his beloved new command. Talley sensed the situation was deteriorating rapidly. He misread the signs and for a moment thought he was going to physically attack her. He stood over Caitlin to protect her and pushed the Admiral away. Alexander stared at him in shock and astonishment. Then he shouted at the nearby sailors.

  “Arrest this officer. Put him in the brig.”

  He stood watching as they hustled Talley away. “This is a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, Mister, the most powerful ship afloat. And that makes the skipper something special. You assault him at your peril.”

  Dear God, how easily command could change a man; literally overnight. Maybe it’s the power to devastate whole countries that changes a man’s thinking.

  Chapter Three

  They were hurtling inshore with the squad split between two inflatable RIBs, ten men in two five-man squads for each boat. Talley was in command, but it had required a rapid exchange of signals between NATO, the Pentagon, and the Skipper of the Abraham Lincoln before he’d been released from the tiny cell deep in the bowels of the carrier. He’d spent the entire day in the cramped prison. Just before nightfall, a Marine Captain appeared with two tough-looking jarheads. He unlocked the door and signaled for Talley to come out.

  “You’re to report to the operations room, Lieutenant. It looks as if you’re going in.”

  He nodded. “Has the Admiral calmed down?”

  The Captain grimaced. “He nearly had that pilot tossed over the side for disobeying an order not to land on his flight deck.” He grinned. “Afterwards, she explained the value of the aircraft and said how she was confident about getting her down in one piece. That, and a lot of political pressure, changed his mind. I guess he finally accepted she had good reasons for what she did. But I’m not sure how he feels about you. Come with me, Lieutenant. They’re waiting for you.”

  He followed the officer up narrow, gray steel stairways, along narrow passages lined with bundles of steel pipes, conduits, and cables. They squeezed past men and women hurrying to and from their duty stations, until he felt as if they’d walked a half dozen city blocks. Finally, they reached a door marked ‘Operations Room’, and he went in. The Marine Captain gave him a last look, nodded to his men, and walked away. Inside the room, the men of Echo Six sat listening to Colonel Ishaq Hakim. Caitlin stood next to him, looking none the worse for her recent crash-landing. They looked up and grinned; a couple of them chuckled at their leader’s temporary incarceration. There was a huge LCD display on the wall; the largest he’d ever seen. At present, it was blank. Hakim nodded a greeting.

  “Ah, Lieutenant Talley, glad you could join us. Take a seat, we were about to start the briefing. We had a temporary hold from NATO. They were pressured by elements inside the UN to wait, but they’ve decided to go ahead anyway.”

  He grimaced.

  Politicians again. NATO’s pretty good and runs a tight ship, but the United Nations! I know the civilized world needs the UN, but Jesus Christ, at times it’s like dealing with a barrel of rattlesnakes. I’d best keep that thought under my hat!

  Hakim continued. “We have current, up-to-date reports from satellite and UAV overflights, so you won’t be going in completely blind. The Navy has put two fast RIBs at our disposal, and they’ll put you straight on the beach. You’ll have constant feeds from the UAVs downlinked to your tactical tablets, and the guide will lead you to where we believe these people are being held. As far as numbers go, we estimate…”

  “Guide?” Talley stood up. “What’s this about a guide? The last thing we need is some local raghead telling his pirate buddies we’re on the way.”

  “The guide is not a raghead, as you call them, Lieutenant Talley. We would agree that a local Somali might not be ideal for the job because of possible security leaks. But that’s not your problem. Captain Walker spent time in that area during a previous operation. She is to be your guide.”

  He stared at Caitlin. “You’re not serious? This could be very bloody. If those Somalis see or hear us coming, it’ll be a bloodbath in there. It’s no place for…”

  “A woman?” Caitlin Walker finished the sentence for him. “You think it’s only right for men to undertake this kind of mission?”

  “No, it’s not that, I…”

  But she hadn’t finished.

  “Let me tell you something, Lieutenant Talley. I’ve done my share of survival and SpecOps training. There’s nothing we’ll encounter over there that I haven’t experienced.”

  “How many men have you killed, Captain?”

  She flushed bright red, but Colonel Hakim came to her rescue.

  “Lieutenant Talley, while you were in the brig, I looked at the reports of the gearbox failure that caused the Osprey to crash land on the carrier deck. I can assure you that Captain Walker saved our lives, without a doubt. That was an incredible piece of flying, and I doubt that many pilots would be capable of bringing the Osprey down with such critical damage. If she’d landed in the sea, the chances are that we’d have gone down like a stone. The Osprey, as I’m sure you’re aware, cannot autorotate like a conventional helo. In fact, in a crash landing, the experts call it a death trap. She saved us from almost certain death.”

  But it didn’t answer my question. How many men has she killed? We’ll have our fair share of killing to do on this op. The Somalis are not going to give up their valued hostages easily. Tell us how many men have you killed, Caitlin Walker? And when the shit hits the fan, how ready will you be to pull the trigger?

  “Captain, take no notice of the Lieutenant. I’ll be glad to look after you when we go ashore.”

  Talley glanced sourly at Domenico Rovere. The Italian was getting on his nerves with his constant passes at Caitlin. But she was more than ready for him.

  “I’d sooner take my chances with the Somalis, thank you.”

  The squad erupted in loud jeers and catcalls at his discomfiture. He grinned ruefully. “I doubt you mean that, but if you do change your mind, I will be ready to assist.”

  Hakim cleared his throat. “Next, rules of engagement. We need to…”

  “You’re not serious?” Sergeant Karl Brenner, the former German Kommando Spezialkräfte, called out incredulously. “Rules of engagement? Verdamt! These Somali pirates have lost any right to expect us to follow ROEs. We go in, we kill them, and we get the hostages back. What else is there to know? They are animals, these people. Subhumans!”

  Hakim looked irritated. “The German word for subhumans is ‘untermensch’. I recall that was a term used by the Nazis.”

  Brenner glared at him for a few moments and then relaxed. “Those were different times, Colonel. I meant no offense.”

  “Of course not. We have to move on with the briefing. Captain Walker will stay in contact with me, maintaining a communications presence between Echo Six and this operations room. I will ensure that you have all the support you need. As I said, she has been in the area before, so her local knowledge will be invaluable.”

  “I trust you have a plan for getting us out,” Sous Lieutenant Michel Dubois muttered. “And it had better not be those fucking Ospreys. I don’t want to gamble with my life in one of those contraptions. I can think of easier ways to die.”

  “Point taken, Lieutenant Dubois. The plan is for exfiltration by Black Hawk MH-60Ks, courtesy of the Night Stalkers, the 160th. They’ve been conducting training in the region, and the Pentagon has put them on standby for this op. We don’t know yet how many hostages you’ll bring out, but whatever the numbers, we will get everyone out. If there is any hostile action you’re unable to deal with, the Abraham Lincoln carries a large number of Marine F/A-18 Super Hornet strike aircraft, as you all know. They’ll be ready to help out, always assuming Admiral Alexander doesn’t bear a grudge after you tried to strike him.” He smiled. “I’m sure that won’t be the case. He has his orders too. Any questions?”