Operation Caribe

34

NS Norfolk

0200 hours

IT HAD BEEN twelve hours since Admiral Brown had spoken to Commander Beaux.

Except for trips to the head, Brown had not moved from his seat in the Rubber Room, praying for the phone to ring again.

In the meantime, despite a lot of bad weather, a growing fleet of search planes was scouring the Atlantic and the Caribbean looking for the Wyoming. So, too, was every available U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ship. But so far, there were no results.

Brown had even arranged to have some spy satellites drawn away from other missions to join in the search, but again, he knew what they were up against. U.S. subs were so quiet, they were almost impossible to detect while underway. And the experts in the Rubber Room were convinced the Wyoming was underway.

What Fleet Forces Command faced now was waiting for whatever supplies the sub still had on board to run out, forcing the hijackers to reveal themselves. But that could still take days, even a week or more. And in his previous phone call Beaux had indicated that whatever was going to happen, was not going to take that long.

Everyone with a need to know had been briefed on the Wyoming problem, right up to the White House. But this was just one more crisis on the President’s plate. There were still dangerous situations ongoing in North Korea, in Iran and on the India-Pakistan border, all of them involving rogue elements trying to get control of nuclear weapons. When word of the Wyoming’s seizure reached the White House Situation Room, only one definitive question came back: Is this connected to the other three crises? Brown had to reply that no, he didn’t believe so. So the White House basically replied: “Keep us apprised, but solve it on your own. We’ve got our hands full already.”

After that, an idea was floated around the Rubber Room that maybe the best way out of the dilemma was to quietly agree to the hijackers’ demands. Pay them the money, get the sub and the crew back, then deal with the fallout later. After all, that’s how the majority of Somali hijackings were resolved.

As time dragged on, opposition to this idea became less and less.

* * *

THE RUBBER ROOM had already gone through numerous pots of coffee and two deliveries of food that no one bothered to eat. It was now 2 A.M. and, resigned to a long stay, Brown was about to request some cots be brought to the basement office when his phone rang.

The caller ID indicated it was coming in on Narrowband IP.

It was Beaux.

The FBI men started their recorders. The other experts gathered around, pens and paper at the ready. The room became absolutely quiet.

Brown answered the phone.

Beaux’s opening comment was: “I thought we had a deal, Admiral…”

Brown was thrown for a moment. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he replied.

“I told you what would happen if you sent any special ops teams against us,” Beaux said. “That was the agreement.”

But Brown really didn’t know what Beaux was talking about. He looked at the gang of experts and shrugged. They all shrugged back. The Navy had no idea where the sub was. How could they send any special ops units against them?

“I assure you, Commander,” Brown said, “we have not dispatched any special operations forces anywhere. How could we? We don’t know where you are.”

“I don’t believe you, Admiral,” Beaux shot back. “One of my men has been killed already, someone set off a bomb inside the boat, and we’re in the middle of a God damned firefight outside. These aren’t freaking ghosts doing these things. So you must know where we are!”

The people in the Rubber Room were more confused than ever. A SEAL had been killed? A bomb had gone off on the sub? Gun battles outside? Where the hell were these guys?

Beaux started coughing, and didn’t stop for ten long seconds. This was noted by the hostage experts. Finally, he spoke again. “I’ll be honest with you, Admiral. Before all this started I would never have fired these nuclear missiles—at my own country or anyone else’s. But I can’t guarantee that anymore.”

Brown said, “But to do that, you need the launch codes.”

Beaux replied, short of breath, “I have the codes and the launch keys—and the weapons officer’s firing mechanism. And after some persuasion, I managed to convince one of the crew members to show me how it all works.”

There was another long coughing spell. A FBI man put a note in front of Brown. It read: “He’s sick. Probably the flu.”

Beaux recovered and went on: “Now, let’s stop playing games. In an effort to hurry this thing up, we might be willing to adjust our demands. We can come down to fifty million dollars for our fee, and we’d be willing to split any profits from any TV broadcast or movie production with a charity, possibly for the families of people killed in unfortunate sinkings earlier. But we still insist on total immunity from prosecution.”

Another FBI agent passed a note to Brown. “He’s bending. Keep him talking.”

But then those in the Rubber Room heard a loud noise coming from the other end of the phone. Something had just happened aboard the sub.

Beaux’s tone changed instantly. “If you say there are no Special Forces guys around us, what the f*ck do you think that was?”

More sounds in the background. Gunfire—and explosions.

Then Beaux said, “Back these guys off, Admiral! I’ll fire these goddamn missiles and maybe I’ll start shooting sailors, too. Call off your special ops guys or else!”

And with that, Beaux hung up.

Brown just looked around the room at a dozen stunned, bewildered faces.

“Who the hell are they fighting?” one of the FBI men asked. “And where?”

At that moment, one of Brown’s aides came into the room. He had a freshly burned DVD in hand.

“You should see this, sir,” he said. “Everyone here should.”

He fed the DVD into one of the computers, and they were soon looking at aerial footage taken above the unmistakably clear waters of the Caribbean.

“We just got this from our drone unit,” the aide explained. “It was shot yesterday. It shows a special ops team working on Operation Caribe recovering the body of one of their members. Apparently Team 616 killed this guy before they took over the Wyoming.”

The footage, cloudy, shaky, and in black and white, showed a small helicopter diving down to the surface of the water to pick up what appeared to be a drowning victim. The helicopter then fired on two vessels nearby, identified in the video footage as “Abandoned by hijacking suspects.” Then the video ended.

“What special ops team are we talking about?” Brown asked the aide.

“They’re private contractors,” the man replied. “Those Team Whiskey guys? You know, the whole ex-Delta Tora Bora thing?”

Brown felt his heart sink to the floor. He knew all about Team Whiskey from his contacts in ONI.

“Those guys are crazy,” he moaned. “They’ve been off the reservation for years and were only called back because we were all so shorthanded on this Caribe thing. But they’re like the freaking Band of Brothers. If these SEALs killed one of them, they’ll be relentless in getting their revenge.”

“So these Whiskey guys probably know where the SEALs are?…” one of the FBI men asked.

Brown nodded grimly. “They must. But believe me, from what I know about them, they’re not going to call and tell us. If one of them has been whacked, they’ll want their own pound of flesh, no matter what.”

The FBI man said, “Are you saying that wherever the hell they are, this Whiskey unit would risk a nuke launch just to get payback?”

Brown thought for a long moment, worry lines creasing his face.

Finally he said, “We’d be crazy to bet against it.”