Chief Jones looked up from the receiver and saw the Commander standing behind him. “Here Skipper, listen to this,” he said, turning to the tape deck. “We picked this up a few minutes ago. Same two that are still talking. Their communications security really sucks. Must think they are safe with a simple commercial streaming encryption algorithm. Took us about five minutes to crack it. Thought you would want to hear it right away.”
Putting on the head set, Hunter could hear the two terrorists talking. The first few minutes appeared to be a precursor to the meaningless conversation that they were currently listening to. Suddenly the Commander’s ears perked up.
Terrorist number one was talking. “Did you hear what happened to Mjecka after the Major found out that he tried to rape that American girl? The Major gave him to Dr. Aswal to experiment with. I hear Dr Aswal put him in one of those glass cells and sprayed in some of the new smallpox NX. He was dead in twenty-four hours. The screaming was horrible. The body wasn’t even recognizable as human.
Terrorist number two chimed in, “I hear that there is no cure. If you get it, you die. I sure will be happy when that stuff is gone off the island. Any word on when the ship will be here?”
“What I hear is that it arrives tomorrow night. Hope we don’t get assigned to load it. The farther I stay away from that stuff, the better.”
Chief Jones reached over and turned off the player. “Skipper, that’s the part that I wanted you to hear unless you want to hear more barracks rumors.”
The Commander put down the headset and digested what he had just heard. This verified both the presence of the smallpox and the delivery schedule. And it looked like it was going to be transported by ship.
How was he going to deal with this information getting out among the crew? Although submariners are renowned for their silence outside the pressure hull, there is very little secrecy among the crew. The best that he could hope for was to warn the electronics technicians and hope that they at least passed the level of concern along when they inevitably talked with their crewmates.
He turned to the four people assembled there and said, “Guys, what you heard here didn’t happen. This does not go beyond here. This is extremely sensitive and highly classified. Understand?”
They had all routinely been involved in working with information that was classified at a much higher level than Top Secret and fully understood the implications of the Captain’s words. They all nodded affirmatively.
21
21 Jun 2000, 0430LT (20 Jun, 2130Z)
This was the blackest part of the night, that time just before dawn. The sun was still well below the horizon, not even a faint glow to the East. The moon had set hours ago. The night darkened into near total blackness as they came under cloud cover that obscured even the faint starlight.
The island was darker even than the night. A looming, haunting presence. It was difficult to shake the feeling of dread that grew as the team approached the beach. They could just barely make out the white surf line against the black volcanic sand. The fetid smell of rotting vegetation drifted out to greet them.
The long tow was at an end. After the excitement and exertion of the lockout and the periscope snag, the squad was attempting to get what rest they could in the cramped and uncomfortable inflatable boats. In the manner of battle-hardened warriors, they were resting to store energy because they knew that they would soon need every bit of it. Their survival and the mission success depended on it. A microsecond delay caused by fatigue could be the vital difference between success and failure; between life and death.
The comforting presence of the two periscopes disappeared below the surface.
“All right, start paddling. This is a little too far out to swim in yet,” Chief Boatswain Mate Sergiavich hissed, his gravelly voice barely above a whisper. “And keep the noise down. Sound travels forever over water this quiet.”
Silently the two CRRCs full of deadly professional killers approached the black sand shore. When they were 500 yards from the beach, the SEALs rolled into the tepid water. The last man in each CRRC pulled lanyards, dumping the CO2 from the floatation tubes. The now useless, weighted boats slid quickly beneath the surface; settling on the bottom some 200 feet below.
The SEALs descended below the surface themselves, but only a few feet. Their Draeger LAR V re-breather systems fed them pure oxygen and, most importantly, didn’t leave the telltale stream of bubbles inherent to scuba regulators. Grabbing their wrist compasses, they swam on until the bottom came up to meet them.
They then followed the bottom until Boats, in the lead, had his head just above the surface. He was at the surf line, just a few yards from dry sand, an almost invisible black head amongst the crashing waves. He spent almost half an hour there, scanning carefully for any sign that they had a reception committee. The remainder of the team stayed fully submerged, lying flat on the bottom, awaiting his signal to either cross the beach or scurry back out to sea.
20 Jun 2000, 1100LT (2200Z)
Commodore Calucci was in a quandary. His normal weekly staff meeting was set for noon. Yet she called just minutes ago to say that her classes had been canceled for the rest of the day and she
