Harry raised his binoculars. He could see the swarm of pirate scows, and the digital rangefinder in his lens had them at three miles dead aft and closing on the minefield.
The explosion was so brilliant in his lenses he had to turn away. It was as if a massive circular section of the sea itself had just become one giant explosive device, annihilating everything on the surface in one blinding instant. A second later, the shock wave hit, staggering Harry, who grabbed a stanchion and held on.
“Damn, Stoke.”
“Something else, huh?”
The two men stood and watched as the floating sea of fire gradually extinguished itself and the smoke dissipated, leaving the ocean as it was before, free of debris, pristine and beautiful in the sunlight.
“That’s some serious shit right there,” Brock said.
“You know what I’m thinking about right now, Harry?” Stoke said, a look on his face Harry could only describe as wistful.
“God only knows.”
“No, not only God; I know, too. It’s my damn idea, Harry.”
“Okay, okay, tell me. Jesus.”
“Back in Moscow I started to get into this Hollywood shit, y’know? So. What if I bought me an old movie theater in downtown Mogadishu? Put posters up around town of local Somali kids in Johnny Depp costumes. You know, Pirates of the Gulf of Aden with Captain Abdullah ‘Jack’ Sparrow, kinda thing. But get this. Every young Somali in town gets in free! Right? Free popcorn, candy, nachos, wings, Diet Coke, pig eyes, crow’s feet, you know, whatever the hell they like over there. And then I’d show them the movie. We open. It’s midnight. The sea is black and empty except for a huge white yacht. Look! Here come the brave pirates! Close up on all their little baby-Depp faces hiding beneath the gunwales of the longboats, AK-47s clenched in their hands, ready to attack the big bad yacht. But then, what? Omigod! A blinding flash of light, the big bang, ear-shattering explosion in surround sound, right, all that smoke and fire on the water. Closing shot of the empty sea, all the brave little pirates gone to the bottom. Fade out. What do you think? Seriously. Would you invest in an idea like that? I’d give you an Executive Producer credit, man.”
Harry Brock, for once in his life, could think of absolutely no reply.
Blackhawke lay some two miles in the distance.
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow, strategically critical waterway between the Gulf of Oman in the southeast and the Persian Gulf. It is inarguably one of the world’s most dangerous choke points. On the north coast lies Iran, Hawke’s recent point of departure. On the south coast are the United Arab Emirates and Musandam, an enclave of Oman. On an average day, about fifteen supertankers carrying roughly seventeen million barrels of crude oil pass through the strait-or roughly 40 percent of all the world’s seaborne oil shipments. Every single day.
Hawke, finally back aboard his yacht and standing alongside Carstairs on Blackhawke ’s bridge, looked at the maritime chart of the strait for the tenth time.
When the next war starts, it will start here, he thought to himself. And when it did “Helm, Sonar. New contact, sir. Bearing two-zero-eight.”
“Sonar, Hawke. What’ve you got?”
“Midsize vessel, sir. Not a tanker. Approaching from the strait, I’d say she’s an Iranian Bayandor class, large patrol corvette. They operate two of them in these waters, the Bayandor and Admiral Naghdi.”
“Armament?”
“She carries four C-803 antiship missiles, a single 76mm DP naval cannon, one dual 40mm antiaircraft, and two triple 324mm torpedoes.”
“Keep an eye on her.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Hawke raised his battle radio. “Stony, Hawke, we’re approaching the strait, bearing one-eight-zero. We’ve already picked up an enemy contact. I thought we might get lucky but it looks like we might have to fight our way through. I’m sure there are more surprises out there waiting for us. I want you to prepare the ship and battle crew and wait for my signal to go to General Quarters. Unless we’re attacked first, we do not, repeat, do not, show our true colors until we’re right in the middle of them. Aegis picking up any suspicious air traffic?”
“Negative, Commander. Nothing airborne inside our defensive perimeter.”
“Good. Stay tuned. Things could get very spicy in a hurry.”
“Helm, Sonar, new contact, bearing two-seven-zero. Estimate vessel is a Thondor-class missile craft, operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. She carries four C802 SSM missiles, two 30mm cannons, and two 23mm-sir, sorry, new contact bearing two-six-zero, big one, Vosper MK5 frigate, very, very fast.”
“How fast?”
“Very fast. Engine turns for thirty-nine knots as we speak, sir; she’s got boost gas turbine engines. If she maintains course, current bearing will intercept ours in approximately twenty minutes.”
“Helm, maintain course,” Hawke said. He wanted to find out who’d blink first.
“Maintain current heading, aye.”
“Sonar, is this typical naval military traffic in the approach to the strait?” Hawke said.
“Sir, it’s hard to say. There’s nothing typical about Iranian military behavior. Especially the navy. But based on what I’m seeing, I’m guessing they know who we are, what we’ve been up to, and why we’re coming.”
“Sound General Quarters,” Hawke said quietly.
The sirens began wailing throughout the ship. Gun crews scrambled forward, manning the ten cannon placements on both the port and starboard sides. Protective covers remained on deck cannons, rocket launchers, depth charges, and heavy machine guns fore and aft. When the cannons rolled out, the covers would come off, too.
Stollenwork moved rapidly about the covert combat quarters in the stern of the yacht, shouting orders to his naval combat crew for the coming fight. Inside the narrow concealed corridors running from stem to stern, gun crews were loading the cannons with both high-explosive and armor-piercing rounds. The crews were pumped. Ten guns lined each side of the vessel, and all fired at a rate of two hundred rounds a minute. That meant the starboard gunners alone would be throwing lead at two thousand cannon rounds every single minute.
Stunning firepower, by any standard.
Blackhawke was going to war.
And, by God, she was ready.
Fifty-seven
The sun rose into skies dominated by towering rain-heavy clouds, the sea a vast flat pool, but gently heaving, and nearly colorless; it was the dead color of lead. Just after midnight, an electrical storm brewing up from the south had moved over the boat. The clouds carried a squall and the crew prepared for a soaking. But just before the storm struck, the tips of the gun barrels and the ship’s antennas buzzed with St. Elmo’s fire, blue sparks and streamers of static electricity discharging into the heavy night air.
A portent of things to come, Hawke thought.
The crew had spent the long rainy night preparing for battle: serviced weapons, tied down loose items, secured hatches, restocked medical kits, and readied damage control and firefighting gear.
Now Hawke stood alone at the highest point of Blackhawke ’s towering superstructure, a 360-degree round observation tower mounted on a hydraulic piston. Intended for spotting, range-finding, and directing fire for the ship’s primary gun batteries, this was the first time it had seen use. Normally, it was lowered inside the superstructure, completely concealed.
He raised his old Zeiss binoculars to his eyes and studied the array of enemy vessels in the misty distance, lying in wait for him, standing between him and the Strait of Hormuz. Like the crew now standing at GQ stations, he’d been wondering what would be waiting for him. Now he knew.
The number of enemy vessels lurking at the entrance to the strait had grown during the night.
Sleek grey wolves, circling, hungrily licking their chops, diesel hearts pounding below decks, red bloodlust in their feral eyes… or… perhaps that was just their portside navigation lights? So easy to get carried away when he
