Counter Poised (25 page)
Authors: John Spikenard
“You cold-blooded bitch! You killed Freddy!” Dwight started toward her without a serious plan, just wanting to rip her head off.
George grabbed Dwight around the neck and pulled him back. “Hold on, Dwight. Back off.”
Ronnie didn’t flinch. Tommy and Bill both had weapons pointed at Dwight.
“These sons-a-bitches just killed Freddy! You assholes are dead meat!”
Ronnie calmly pointed the Glock at Dwight’s head. “I said he made a pass at me; we struggled, and my gun went off.”
“That’s a bunch of crap—Freddy’s gay!”
“Oh, my! Well, then I guess I lied. Tommy, let’s get out of this wind and go inside!”
Tommy waved his pistol toward the control room. “OK, you heard her. Control room. Now!”
Dwight and George turned around and started to walk toward the control room. The three from the
Dorothy
followed about three yards behind.
George signaled to Dwight as if to say, “Walk a little slower and follow my lead.”
Dwight nodded.
George stopped and turned around, as did Dwight.
“Keep moving. Stay alive a little longer guys; you might get lucky,” as Tommy raised his weapon and pointed it at Dwight’s head.
Dwight, seeing everything clearly now, said through clenched teeth, “What do you filthy assholes want on your tombstones?”
Tommy, slightly amused, smiled. “Maybe that’s the question I should ask you? Right, Bill?…Bill?” He turned his head to the right where Bill had been standing, and Corporal Williams was silently laying Bill’s body on the deck, blood streaming from a huge gash across his neck. Tommy started to turn back to shoot Dwight, when he felt a sharp searing pain in his wrist, and the gun fell to the deck with a muffled thud. He grabbed his wrist while turning to the left to get help from Ronnie, only to find Sergeant Ramirez crouching over her now lifeless body.
Tommy started to lunge for his gun, but began screaming as he saw a stump where his hand used to be. He looked at the deck and saw his gun, still gripped in his now-severed hand. Sergeant Ramirez began wiping the blood off his knife blade with the sleeve of Tommy’s jacket. He stopped as Tommy fell to his knees.
Dwight stepped in front of Tommy and glared down at him. “Oooh,” he said in mock sympathy. “I bet that’s gonna leave a mark!”
Sergeant Ramirez turned to George. “Captain Adams, sir! I apologize for the late arrival. These two—” indicating the recently deceased Bill and Ronnie—“took too long coming up the stairs, and we wanted to cover our backside. So we hit the boat first. We found Freddy. She shot him in the back of the head. Must have had a silencer on that Glock. We took out the other hostile.”
“YOU ASSHOLE! WHY DID YOU KILL FREDDY?” Dwight grabbed Tommy by the throat.
As Dwight started shaking him, Tommy moaned, “Ronnie did it. She did it. Help me, I’m bleeding to death!”
“Yeah, she did it, but it was your idea.” Dwight released Tommy’s neck, letting him fall back to the deck.
George stepped in. “Dwight, we’re going to have company soon when these guys’ drug ship arrives. Take the marines down to the boat and get Freddy’s body.”
George then spoke evenly to Tommy, “If you want to save your life, tell me about the ship that’s coming.”
Tommy, grasping at anything, babbled out the whole plan about the trawler arriving in about an hour and the five pleasure boats, which would be arriving in three hours. He knew he was dying, in pain, and bleeding badly.
George leaned over Tommy and gently stood him up. He took a wiping rag and tied it in a tourniquet around Tommy’s arm above the wrist. “Now Tommy,” George said close to Tommy’s ear, “I want you to go down to your boat, start her up, and leave this rig. It’s only twenty miles north to the next rig. Hey, you might make it.”
Tommy looked at George, “You mean it? You’re letting me go?”
“Yes.”
Tommy started backing toward the ladder as Dwight, Sergeant Ramirez, and Corporal Williams arrived on the deck with Freddy’s body.
Dwight stood over the body with his fists clenched. “George, you’re not lettin’ this son of a bitch go!”
George blocked Dwight from going after Tommy, as he watched Tommy, cradling his right arm, start down the ladder, grasping the rail with his good hand. When he was about halfway down, George stepped back and pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket. He keyed the mike, “XO.”
“Yes, sir! Is everything all right?”
“It is now. We had a little run-in with some drug runners. Prepare to launch SF-2 for an attack mission. Give her a full load of rockets, armed and ready. We’ll recover you with the net.”
“Aye-aye, sir. What are we going after?”
“Your first target is this pleasure boat about to pull away from the northeast corner of the rig. He’ll probably head south-southeast to rendezvous with another bad guy—a fake fishing trawler that’s about ten miles out, headed this direction. Take them both out.”
“It’ll be our pleasure, sir.”
George chuckled. This was valuable training for the XO and his sonar man. They were going to need some combat experience down the line, and this would give them confidence in the sub-fighter’s capabilities. “There will be three additional targets, pleasure boats, converging on the platform in approximately three hours. They’ll probably be coming from the north. They’re all bad guys—druggies—and they have to be taken out. Got it?”
“Yes, sir! We aim to please!”
“One more thing…make sure you take them out as far from Platform Alpha as possible. We don’t want any survivors swimming up or paddling up in rubber dinghies.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
George looked out as the
Dorothy
was moving at a high speed across the chop, headed south-southeast from the rig.
He turned to Dwight. “Tommy will be lucky to stay conscious long enough to rendezvous with that trawler. SF-2 should take him out long before that, though, and a one-armed man isn’t going to swim very far.”
“Yeah, but he could warn ‘em by radio.”
“No, Sergeant Ramirez disabled his communications, so he won’t be able to warn them until he gets on board…
if
he gets on board. I expect that about the time he would be getting there, SF-2 will be making its presence known once again. The folks on that trawler will never know what hit them. Hell, Dwight, even though we’re about to challenge the whole world, we can’t let that evil white powder get into the U.S. now can we? That’s just plain wrong! You know? Plus after SF-2 finishes with them, there will be five fewer boats and crews bringing that stuff in.”
Dwight was fighting back tears.
“Hey, Cousin, I didn’t know you were so emotional about the drug trade.”
“Very funny. I was just thinking about Freddy. The poor guy was just back from his third tour in Iraq. It’s a shame to think about surviving that, only to die a pointless death on an out-of-commission oil rig!”
George looked at the lifeless body lying on the deck and, to his surprise, found himself fighting back tears as well. George put his arm around Dwight’s shoulders. “I’m truly sorry about Freddy. It’s a shock to me, too. After seventeen years in the military, he’s the first person who has died carrying out one of my orders. I never knew how I would react, and I hoped I would never find out.”
Leona came and stood at George’s side. “It’s awful, George, but if it’s any consolation, his death was by no means pointless. He helped to keep our mission secret.”
“I know. Still, I feel responsible.”
“She’s right, you know,” said Dwight. “Helping to keep our mission secret and to defeat these drug-running scumbags may well be the most important thing Freddy ever did.”
George nodded. “We’ll include Freddy and his family in our prayers tonight.”
“Thanks, George. I’ll make sure his remains get back to his family and that they know he helped put these scumbags out of business.” Dwight turned to the crew who had gathered around the bodies of Bill and Ronnie. “Toss this trash over the side, boys. The sharks need to eat, too. And weigh ‘em down. We don’t want ‘em floating up. And get the recovery net down—we’ve got a fighter to recover in about three hours.”
At 1800 hours, the captain called a meeting of all crewmembers, including the twelve teams going ashore from Platform Alpha.
“Ladies and gentlemen, to repeat the phrase of a famous American president, this is it—a date that will live in infamy. To those of you leaving us here, may you have fair winds and following seas. You’re all highly trained, highly skilled, and highly dedicated. You are a testament to those who make a positive difference in the world. You can forever be proud of the part you are playing to maintain world peace and to save perhaps millions of lives.
After you leave here, there can never be any communication with another team. You are on your own. You all know your targets, but as you have been briefed, there is only one thing that can trigger your use of the weapons for which you take responsibility. Should such an event take place, God forbid, do not hesitate—perform the duty you have been trained to carry out.
Never reveal the location of your warheads to anyone other than your teammate. Do not reside with your teammate. Within your team you may develop your own protocols and your own means of communication. If each team develops its own protocols, there will be no pattern that can be detected by those searching for us. Remember to contact your teammate at least every other day. A missed communication may indicate your partner has been captured. Should such an event occur, move your warheads to an alternative location, and go into hiding immediately. If you are the captured teammate, resist your interrogators for as long as possible, at least twenty-four hours. Give your teammate time to relocate.”
George looked around the room at his dedicated team members. “If anyone has any questions, comments, misgivings, or doubts please see me after the meeting. Godspeed and good luck to us all.”
After the meeting, John Ellis, the nuclear weapons expert, approached the captain and said, “Captain, I’d like to go with you on the
Louisiana
. You are still going to have twelve teams and sixty warheads aboard, and you’re going to be dropping off teams periodically over the next several weeks. I’d like to be there to watch over the warheads and to refresh each team’s training regarding arming and disarming procedures before they disembark.”
The captain had reviewed the information from John’s background investigation in great detail and had not found anything negative in his history. He liked John, and in the two days they had spent together on Platform Alpha, the captain had come to respect his knowledge and professionalism.
“Thanks, John,” answered the captain. “We would love to have you. If you don’t mind, we will keep you aboard until all of the warheads have been sent ashore.”
“No problem, Captain. It will be an honor to serve under your command.”
That evening, the captain and the XO each recorded a video message on DVDs. The captain and the XO each took his own DVD and left a copy of each with Dwight as a backup in case the
Louisiana
was sunk before completing her mission.
The captain ordered the XO, “If anything happens to me or my DVD, use yours.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
Once darkness came, SF-1 was mounted on the
Louisiana
’s deck, and SF-2 was remounted following her successful first combat mission. As the last deck hatch was closed, and George descended the stairway from Platform Alpha to the top of the
Louisiana
’s conning tower, Dwight looked down from above and with a parting salute said, “Adios, George. Live long and prosper.”
At 0300 hours, the
Louisiana
got underway for her final mission.
Dwight stood at the head of the ladder and watched the
Louisiana
take on ballast and begin to submerge. He visually swept the horizon and the sky overhead and could not see any lights or any stars. It was still overcast. On Platform Alpha, only the deck edge lights were on to keep the men from falling off the deck. There were only a few men up and moving around. One of those men was Remy McGillivray, a good old Alabama boy, and Dwight called out to him, “Remy! Hey Remy!”
Dwight had recruited Remy especially for this mission. He wasn’t well educated, but what Remy lacked in book learning he made up for in common sense. Remy laid down the line he had been coiling. “Yeah, Dwight?”
“We need to get the RV crated. Let’s get started.” The RV was an empty reentry vehicle taken from one of the
Louisiana
’s ballistic missiles. This particular RV, a cone about forty-eight inches long, was the last one to have its DOE package removed and disarmed by John Ellis the night before. Although the RV itself was not a radioactive component, it carried a slight amount of residual radioactivity picked up from the now-removed warhead. “Get Junior and pack it up for a long trip.”
Remy smiled at the mention of a long trip and shouted back, “You bet!” Remy was descended from Creek Indian warriors, and although he was not getting in the fight personally, he knew what the plans were for the RV and approved. If he couldn’t take the battle directly to the enemy, he would do whatever he could to assist those who were.
“Junior!” Remy shouted in the direction of the storage shed. “Hey Junior. Let’s get packin’.”
Dwight watched as Remy walked over to the storage shed and grabbed the handle of a pallet jack, which was supporting a crate marked with the familiar yellow and black radiation label: “DANGER—RADIOACTIVE”—and on another line—“Radiation Probes—Count: 36”. The probes were used in downhole drilling operations to log the oil and gas content of the different strata. This particular shipment was headed for the new wells being drilled by GenCon in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia.
Remy and Junior opened the crate and loaded the RV into the bottom, nestled between support blocks. Over the top, Remy placed a layer of rigid foam. The rigid foam had pockets, which Junior filled with six radiation probes. Remy and Junior placed two more layers of rigid foam and probes on top of the RV, bringing the total contents of the crate to eighteen probes covering and concealing one empty RV. They screwed on the wooden top and sealed the edges with sealing tape.
Dwight said, “Very good, men! Anybody who runs a Geiger counter over this box will definitely find some radiation. If they open it, they’ll have to go through three layers of probes before gettin’ to the RV. That’s not likely to happen. Let’s get that crate loaded onto the
Flash
as soon as you can. Got to make a run to Galveston at seven o’clock in the morning.”
The crate was quickly loaded onto the
Flash
, a crew boat that carried oil rig crews and supplies back and forth to the rigs in the Gulf. The
Flash
set off for Galveston harbor at precisely 0700 hours. They were timing the arrival of the crew boat in port to coincide with the departure of several large cruise ships, thus ensuring that the port authorities would be busy.
GenCon’s pier was just up the shipping channel from where the cruise ships docked. GenCon traffic between the airport and the GenCon dock was constant, so one more delivery truck bringing a crate of downhole logging tools for shipment to one of the GenCon oil rigs somewhere in the world was not going to garner any special interest. The crate was scheduled to be air freighted out on an Al Arabiyah Boeing 747 the next morning. The shipment was routed across the Atlantic to Durban, South Africa, and then to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, a city of one and a half million people. This, however, was the time of the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to the Ka‘abah, when the population of Mecca swelled to over three million.
Dwight watched the
Flash
leave Platform Alpha. Hopefully, everything would go as he and George had planned. This was going to be one big surprise for some people who were used to doing the surprising!
Ahmed Farouk, the maintenance supervisor on the twelve GenCon jack-up rigs located in the Red Sea, waited for the arrival of Flight 2003 from Durban. He and two other men were in a parking lot in the freight receiving area of the King Abdul Aziz Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The airport was strategically located where it could serve both the city of Mecca and the freight needs for the oil companies working the many rigs in the Red Sea. Not far from the airport, the Jeddah Islamic port facility was the main base for all the crew boats that worked and serviced the offshore rigs. Ahmed watched as the Al Arabiyah cargo plane landed and taxied to the international cargo terminal.
Angel Piro and Juan Salamanca, both originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, were standing near Ahmed. All three men, unsmiling and serious, worked for Dwight, not just GenCon, and they were all dark skinned with bushy beards. Frequently, Saudi natives mistook the Puerto Ricans for Arabs.
Ahmed Farouk was born in Medina, Saudi Arabia, not far from Jeddah and had emigrated with his parents to Houston, Texas when he was twelve. The Farouks were Christians and as such had been persecuted in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and their hired thugs, the Mukhabarat, had repeatedly threatened the family before Ahmed’s father, a well-educated man, had moved the family to the U.S. to stop the Saudi harassment.
Angel and Juan had moved from San Juan to New York City before the age of ten. Although they had not known each other while growing up in New York, they both left the city about the same time and ended up working for GenCon in Galveston. Both Puerto Ricans lost family members in the attacks of 9/11.
The big 747 shut down its engines, and a contingent of Saudi customs agents converged on the aircraft to begin inspecting Flight 2003’s cargo as it was offloaded to a customs inspection warehouse. Ahmed drove the van to the freight loading docks to wait for the customs clearance. As the three men stood beside the van, they watched the customs inspectors going through the cargo. The inspectors methodically checked each item against the flight’s cargo manifest. Some of the crates were merely checked off on the manifest without further inspection while some were opened and the contents were verified.
GenCon had been shipping freight into Saudi Arabia for years, and most days, their crates were merely counted and checked off on the manifest. Today was not one of those days.
When the customs inspectors reached the GenCon “probe” crate, they studied the manifest and the crate. One of the inspectors appeared to check off the shipment. Then, the supervising inspector said, “Stop. We’ll open this one.” The junior inspector shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the crate while talking with the warehouse worker who was opening and closing the crates for the inspection team. The supervisor turned around and strolled over to the GenCon crew.
“
Salaam Alakum
, Ahmed.”
Ahmed returned the greeting “
Alakum Salaam
, Faizal. I am curious, why are you opening our cargo this time? I know you are doing your job, but we must get the equipment to the maintenance boats, and I have to go into Mecca, all before dark.” Ahmed noted Faizal was not smiling as he usually did. And he seemed to be tense.
“Ahmed, you know the trouble that is caused by the missing American submarine. You also know the rumor this submarine is on a mission to destroy the Muslim world. I don’t have a problem, but the Mukhabarat were here this morning, and we were told to make sure there are no nuclear weapons smuggled into our country.”
“Faizal, we are interested in producing oil not blowing up the world. Besides, even if we tried, we couldn’t smuggle in one of those missiles—they must be forty feet long!”
“Nevertheless, I have my instructions, and your freight has radioactive devices. I would be remiss in my duties if I ignored the possibility.” Faizal seemed to be staring a hole in Ahmed. His gaze didn’t flinch.
“Inspector Faizal!” shouted the junior inspector opening the crate.
“I will be back,” he said as he quickly moved toward the crate.
Ahmed looked at Angel and Juan. Beads of perspiration stood out on their foreheads as they tried to contain their emotions and appear nonchalant. Inspector Faizal said a few words to the junior inspector, then turned around, paused, and walked back to the GenCon team.
“He is new. The Geiger counter picked up the radiation. He doesn’t read English, so he didn’t know the probes were radioactive. I have explained to him the purpose for the probes, and he will open the crate so we can finish this. Okay?”
“Yes, that’s good.”
Ahmed tensely watched as the inspector and the warehouse man removed the top of the wooden crate. Since the inspector was new, it was likely he would do a thorough inspection to impress Inspector Faizal. This was not good. Definitely not.
The inspector and the warehouse man removed a top layer of rigid foam, exposing six probes nestled side by side across the width of the crate. They lifted the probes out, one by one, and carefully laid them in a row on the concrete floor of the warehouse. They then removed the next layer of foam, exposing six more probes. Once again, they lifted the probes out, one by one, and carefully laid them next to the others on the concrete floor.
Ahmed exchanged glances with Angel and Juan. Only one more layer of probes lay between the inspector and the hidden RV. If it was discovered, there would be no way for Ahmed to explain it. They would be taken into custody and interrogated in ways known only to the Mukhabarat. Their techniques would never find their way to the headlines of any Saudi newspaper. The editors knew too well what would happen to them, and their families, if such a story were ever published.
The inspector and the warehouse man removed the next layer of rigid foam. The last six probes lay before them in the crate, with supposedly three more layers under them. The inspector and the warehouse man got on each end of the first probe and slowly lifted it out of the crate. They carried it to the line of probes on the concrete floor and carefully laid it alongside number twelve. As they returned to the crate, Ahmed ostensibly looked at his watch and sighed loud enough for Inspector Faizal to hear.
The gesture was effective enough to cause Inspector Faizal to look at his own watch.
“Four more layers, Faizal. At this rate it will be dark before they finish inspecting one crate!”
The men lifted the second probe of the layer out of the crate and began carrying it across the floor of the warehouse.
Faizal looked irritated at the slow pace of the inspection. “Ahmed, have you hidden a missile in that crate?” Faizal asked jokingly.
“Me? No I haven’t,” smiled Ahmed. “A camel, maybe, but no missile.”
Faizal laughed. “Okay, that’s enough!” he shouted to the inspector. “We have to inspect all this cargo before evening prayer. Ahmed, I suspect you can close the crate? Good, I thought so.”
“Yes we can, Faizal. Thank you for your help.”
“
Salaam Alakum
, Ahmed.”
“
Alakum Salaam
.”
With that, Faizal placed an inspection sticker on the top of the crate and then moved with the inspection team to other crates in the warehouse. Ahmed and the two Puerto Ricans were left alone to reload and close the crate.
Juan and Angel jumped to the task of carrying the probes back to the crate and reloading them. They both had drips of sweat that the heat had not caused. They filled the crate, replaced the wooden top, and secured it in place with a couple of screws. They ostensibly replaced all ten screws so as not to cause any suspicion even though they knew they would be opening it again very soon. They loaded the crate into the back of the GenCon van, and Ahmed drove to a holding area where dozens of GenCon crates awaited further transportation to the offshore oil field.
“Whew, that was close!” Angel said, as they pulled the crate out of the back of the van.
“Yes, it was very close,” Ahmed responded. “But you know what? Close is no cigar, my friend. The fact is, they missed it. That means we’re on. So don’t think about the past; stay alert because we still have a lot to do.”
Behind a tall stack of GenCon crates, Angel and Juan reopened the probe crate and quickly unloaded the probes, revealing the RV stored below.
“Get it out and put it in the back of my Land Cruiser over there,” ordered Ahmed. “Cover it up with the pile of dirty laundry I put back there. If we get stopped, it would raise suspicions to have a crate in the back, and the authorities would want to search it. Dirty laundry would be par for the course for three GenCon workers!”
Within ten minutes, they were on their way to Mecca, about an hour and a half away on a four-lane highway.
It was a dark, moonless night. On the highway to Mecca, there was little traffic, so thousands of stars were brightly visible overhead. As they approached the city, the light pollution from Mecca became visible low on the horizon, and the fainter stars began to disappear. Soon, the traffic began to pick up, and only the brightest constellations could be seen in the night sky.
There were just a few days until the beginning of the hajj pilgrimage, and most of the country’s security forces were in Mecca to maintain traffic flow and to direct pilgrims to the streets designated for the walk to the Ka‘abah.