Syren's Song (23 page)

“Did you at least win your rugby match?” he said grudgingly. “It's been a while since I've seen a decent one.”

She was immediately taken with the worldly and suave Iranian American who was studying foreign affairs at George Washington University. After
a short courtship they eloped. It took her a few months to realize her mistake. Damien spent his days and weeknights studying. On Saturdays he took her to a firing range and taught her how to shoot various guns. Sunday afternoons were spent at one of the museums in Washington. During their brief, cold marriage, however, he flew to England no less than five times for long weekends. When she finally learned more about his background and came to understand that neither she nor any other woman was Damien Golzari's type, she divorced him. This was the first time she had seen him since.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I should have said hello first.”

He smiled wryly. “Very well, Melanie. I'll give you a little information.”

He was interrupted forty minutes and ten stories later when Commander Harrison walked into the wardroom and advised them that Dr. Warren needed to see them immediately in the CIC. When they arrived, Warren was providing guidance to the aviation technician piloting the UAV. Both wide-screens displayed imagery from the bird.

“What are we seeing, Dr. Warren?” Golzari asked.

“Bird number two is flying over that rice paddy we watched the boss run into,” Warren said as he gently pushed aside the aviation technician. “I know the lay of the land, Jerry. Might be faster if I fly her.” Warren pressed a button and zoomed in on the last spot he remembered seeing Stark running, and then had the UAV follow in that direction, zigzagging to pick up a trail.

Melanie was astounded at the resolution of this commercially available camera. She could see individual rice plants quite clearly.

The bird flew slowly over the paddy until Warren found footprints tracking in the same direction they had seen Stark run. The scientist maneuvered the camera and followed the prints until they stopped in a larger imprint in the mud. A nine-millimeter handgun lay just off to the side. This had to be the spot where Stark had been gunned down, but there was no body. Around the larger impression were a series of other footprints that must have been made by the soldiers who were chasing him.

“They took his body,” Golzari said. “Unless he was still alive and they took him prisoner.” A flutter of hope entered the CIC.

“Dr. Warren, may I film this?” Melanie asked.

“Commander Harrison has to make that call,” Warren said.

Melanie glanced at Harrison, who nodded her approval. “You can record the video, but not the faces in this room,” she said.

“I understand.”

The bird followed a path made by more footprints until it reached the dirt road nearby. The tracks stopped as the path turned onto the main paved road.

“Dr. Warren, can you zoom out and see if there's any general activity in the area?” Golzari asked as he inched closer to one of the screens. As the view panned out he saw a small town connected by a narrow causeway to a beach. Several vehicles and some small-boat activity were visible near a square building.

“There,” he pointed. “Focus on that.”

Three groups of uniformed soldiers were milling about an old building near the beach just east of what the map told him was Vadduvakal, a small village north of Mullaitivu. Two soldiers guarded the building's door. A few other men nearby were dressed in the tiger-stripe pattern of older Tamil Tiger military uniforms. It was a style Melanie had seen before, quite recently. These men were about to enter a truck.

“Zoom in on those men,” she said urgently. As the camera focused in, one of the men turned his head. “It's Vanni.”

“Are you sure, Mel?” Golzari asked.

“Positive. That's him.”

“That building is too small to be a base for the entire operation,” Harrison offered. “Jay, can you see anything inside the building?”

“I have infrared on this bird, but there's a metal roof.” Warren dropped the UAV to five hundred feet, but well away from the area and to the south. From this vantage point the infrared detected the rough shapes of two figures inside. One was sitting against a wall. The other was hanging by his hands a couple of feet off the ground. Warren froze that image.

With another dance of his hands he switched the screen from infrared to radar. Data began streaming in on the screen. “Two people. One larger than the other,” Warren said, then made a few changes to the controls and pointed to another image and data. The radar image showed the faint outline of a knife hugging the hanging man's leg. “Yeah, yeah, look at those numbers . . .”

Harrison nudged him.

“That data, XO, tell me the basic composition of that knife—steel blade, iron plate on the sheath, and a quartz pommel. Bet you a paycheck that quartz is cairngorm found primarily in Scotland. Wait, there's the other data now. It's definitely quartz. The infrared spectrometry stuff is pretty easy. We beam IR out of the UAV and get a signal ID in return. It's small but it's definitely quartz. That's the skipper's
sgian dubh
. That has to be him. Wait, I forgot about the audio recorder.”

This UAV carried a more sophisticated pod of equipment and sensors than the first one had, one of which could pick up conversation coming from hand-held radios. He flicked another switch, and the speakers on each side of the screens began to share voices from the ground. There weren't many conversations, but Jay was able to apply the translation app to the data they were receiving. Most of it was typical banter from bored soldiers. They spoke of home, their next meal, and the heat. After fifteen minutes the sensors caught a different feed; that voice spoke of preparing the Americans for transfer at night.

Americans. There were two people in that building. If one was Stark, and that was a safe assumption at this point, then who was the other? A tourist? Another journalist? Either way, the crew of
Syren
now knew where to focus their operation.

“Bridge, get a signal to
LeFon
and
Asity
. Request the presence of their COs on
Syren
immediately.”

When the council met again, Warren summarized the information from the UAV for Commanders Ranasinghe and Johnson. There were two people inside a wooden building at the Mullaitivu Breakers, and one of the Tigers outside had mentioned two Americans. One of the people inside appeared to be hanging from the ceiling, and the other was sitting against the wall, apparently able to move about. They weren't certain that the hanging person was Stark, although the
sgian dubh
seemed to confirm that.

“Is he alive?” Jaime Johnson asked.

Warren shook his head. “I don't know for sure. What I do know is that the temperature inside the building is 87° Fahrenheit, and at the time the UAV acquired the data both bodies were radiating a normal human temperature of 98° Fahrenheit.”

Golzari interpreted for the group. “A body loses one and a half degrees of heat per hour after death until it matches the ambient temperature. That means that the hanging person in the image, whom we believe to be Stark, was either alive twenty minutes ago or had been dead less than half an hour.”

The team agreed that in either case they would risk a rescue regardless of who the two Americans were. Commander Johnson decided this mission fell within the rules of engagement Admiral O'Donnell had outlined: “Fire only if
fired upon or otherwise clearly and imminently threatened by the Sea Tigers. If you are protecting U.S. assets such as a U.S.-flagged commercial ship or lives, you will defend them appropriately.” Two American lives had to be protected. The only way to defend them “appropriately” was to rescue them.

The next question was when to do it, but the biggest question was how. The UAV transmission said the Americans would be moved after dark. Sunset was only three hours away. In effect, they had two hours at most to launch a rescue.
LeFon
would take nearly ninety minutes to arrive close enough to conduct operations even at her top speed; her RHIBs would take about another hour after that.
Syren
was the fastest ship there—capable of more than fifty knots, she could be there in less than an hour. If it moved in close during daylight, however, either ship would be visible to those on shore long before the rescuers arrived, allowing the Tigers ample time to move or execute the prisoners.

Johnson, Harrison, Ranasinghe, Golzari, and Warren sat around the wardroom table with a map of the area in the center and penciled in resources, ideas, and options.
LeFon
's executive officer, operations officer, and navigation officer stood behind Johnson. Jaime placed utensils and salt and pepper shakers on one side of the map to visualize the platforms available to them. For the next thirty minutes they debated options for a military operation that should have taken hours or days to plan.

Finally, Commander Johnson pushed back her chair and stood. “We're out of time, and we may not have another opportunity to rescue these people. We have to move now with the resources we have regardless of the risk. Here's what we're going to do,” she said. “Listen up, OPS.” For the next five minutes Johnson ran down the tasks for each platform, the times, and the distances involved. She concluded simply, “That's it, ladies and gentlemen. Let's make this happen.”

Johnson, followed by her three-member staff, cut through the cargo bay on her way back to her small boat. Before she could reach it Melanie waylaid her and begged for some idea of what was about to happen. Johnson held up her people and pulled the reporter aside, out of earshot. “Ms. Arden,” she whispered, “I can't tell you what's going to happen. But I will tell you that when this is over and you're able to file your stories, if anything goes wrong on this mission, it has been my responsibility and mine alone for any risks, mistakes, or deaths. Do you understand?”

“I do,” Melanie responded. “Good luck, Commander.”

USS
LeFon

By the time Johnson returned to
LeFon
, now positioned forty nautical miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, preparations were already under way both on the destroyer and on
Syren
. It was now 1545, and they had a little more than two hours of daylight remaining. Chief Petty Officer Omar Garcia and the other boatswain's mates assembled working parties to prepare the small boats and hastily paint their exteriors two shades of blue in the old wartime camouflage pattern. The air boss was in the hangar checking out the second helicopter as the first began warming up on the landing pad.

Thirty minutes later Johnson took her place on the bridge and signaled to the other ships to commence.
LeFon
broke away as she steered into the window that allowed the first helicopter to take off and head due south for its wide arc. Johnson prayed for the safety of the three souls on the SH-60R, designated Starfire One-Seven. Of all the components of this mission, she was concerned most for them because the helicopter was vulnerable to an EMP rocket.

As soon as Starfire One-Seven launched, Starfire One-Eight was rolled out of the hangar and the eleven-meter and eight-meter small boats were launched, immediately speeding toward
Syren
half a mile away. Both had full complements of twenty-four and eight sailors and officers respectively—
LeFon
's entire VBSS teams.

LeFon
closed on
Syren
as the small boats were brought up the stern ramp of the SWATH ship. As the second boat came up, the pulley system failed again and
Syren
's boat handlers were forced to secure it to the kingpost with rope. Once all four small boats were on board
Syren
, Harrison signaled to
LeFon
that she was ready. Johnson gave the word, and within a minute
Syren
was racing away at fifty-two knots, her underwater plane keeping her steady and level in the calm seas. No one on the ship realized how fast they were going until they saw the Navy destroyer behind them doing her best speed of thirty knots and still falling behind rapidly. And so the run to the hostages began.

Chennai

The burly Russian passed an envelope of cash to the ship captain on the bridge of the offshore support vessel
Alexander
. Sergei Stepanovich Makarov despised the Ukrainian seated across from him, but the man and his ship served a purpose in the underworld of illicit maritime commerce. It wasn't the illicit trafficking that bothered Makarov; he just hated Ukrainians. He was certain the
former Soviet satellite would soon be firmly back in Russia's control now that his country finally had a tough and competent leader—the first he had known since he joined the Soviet navy two years before the fall of the Soviet Union. He had been based in Crimea with the Black Sea Fleet then, on board the cruiser
Slava
before he was given command of a patrol boat as a junior officer with the Caspian Flotilla.