Biggus Dickus Thornton's crew were up next. And Biggus was not amused by it. He couldn't go. They'd tried, but there was simply no way that three ex-SEALs, plus all the diving gear and explosives, could fit inside the tiny sub if one of the three was the size of Thornton. Even if he would have fit, though, along with the required equipment, the boat's minimal life support could only handle three smaller men. Biggus Dickus used enough oxygen for any two others. Instead, Eeyore Antoniewicz and Morales, both on the short side, plus Simmons who was big but not as big as Thornton, were going. Biggus had to stay on the ship.
He wasn't happy about it. He'd considered pressing to put just two men aboard the sub. That was, after all, her normal crew. But he couldn't do the explosives job himself quickly enough; it was a two man job . . . and somebody had to stay with the sub or it was going to be a long swim to Aden. His only consolation, such as it was, was that at least he would be spared the humiliation of riding an ex-Sea Shepherd, Orca-painted minisub.
I shouldn't worry, Biggus thought. This is the least time sensitive of the missions. All they have to do is ensure every potentially armed boat in the harbor is mined before sunrise. Piece of cake, really.
The mines the group were to use were called limpets. These were very special limpets, however, manufactured in fairly small lots for Soviet naval special forces, during the Cold War, then obtained by Victor and reconditioned. Each weighed about nine pounds. They were generally hemispheric in shape, and measured three and a half inches, at their thickest, by about nine in diameter. To that thickness could be added a small, round projection from which sprouted two pull pins and a small, fold out propeller. Moreover, around their edges were three eye-bolt type screws for affixing them to wooden or fiberglass hulls. Internally they mounted four rather strong magnets.
The pull-pins armed, in one case, internal antihandling devices. These did not necessarily prevent the mines from being removed from the side of a ship or boat to which they had been attached. They did tend to ensure that the diver removing them would have very little time for self-congratulation. The other pin allowed the propellers to spin once removed, and started a preset clock ticking. The propellers, once freed by removal of the second pin, would turn as the target boats moved through the sea, fully arming the mines after about a mile of movement, and self-detonating them after about twelve miles. In theory. Victor had warned them that twelve miles could be fifty or more, or two or less, depending on both quality control at the original factory and quality control among the people he'd hired to recondition the mines.
Those settings could be varied prior to employment. In this case, twelve miles was Boxer's best guess as to just how far the typical pirate couldn't swim. "The world has little interest in living pirates," Boxer had said, a point with which Stauer had utterly agreed.
Namu, for so the minisub had been nicknamed, carried thirty-six limpets, four pods of nine each. The pods were a bit over nine inches in diameter, three and a half feet long, and had holes in them to permit water to displace air. In all, like the limpets, they were mildly negatively buoyant to permit easier underwater control.
Thirty-six was rather more than the number of potentially significant boats expected in Bandar Qassim harbor. Then again, the most important factor in calculating explosive use was "Factor P, for plenty."
Unlike The Drunken Bastard and the landing craft, the minisub Namu could not be boarded-not safely, practically, quickly, and efficiently, in any case, not with the requisite equipment-after being hauled over the side. Instead, the crew would load it aboard ship, then be raised and lowered to the water as a unit.
It was already hooked up to the gantry by its attached lifting rings. This had been started as soon as the Bastard and the LCM had been lowered over the side, then completed as the Russian helicopters had taken off. The slack was already out of the lifting cables.
Biggus climbed up on the cradle holding the Namu and looked down on a very scrunched up, tropical wet-suited Eeyore. He could make out Morales's black-clad back just forward of that and the backs of Simmons' legs stretching out to either side along the inner hull. Simmons drove the boat from a padded horizontal bench, on his belly, looking through a clear, round viewport. A metal frame ran from the sub forward of the view port to protect it from accidental impact. Rebreathers-Russian IDA71's, courtesy of Victor– were laid up beside the sub's driver. The limpet mine pods were likewise, but forward of the rebreathers. All the men, including Simmons, were outfitted for a dive, though there was no room for a rebreather for Simmons. There were two Russian built APS underwater assault rifles in there somewhere. These were of very limited utility in air.
"Don't fuck it up, Eeyore," Biggus Dickus said, looking down into the boat's tiny conning tower.
Antoniewicz strained his neck to look up. He shrugged, "What's to fuck up, Chief? Simmons gets us to within a quarter mile of the harbor and surfaces. Morales and I unass, put on the equipment, get the pods, swim in, and mine the boats. Then we swim back to the sub and head toward the Merciful. Piece of cake."
"Nothing's a piece of cake, Eeyore." Biggus shook a cautionary finger. "Murphy has his eye on you. His pulsating prong of perversity is greased and waiting for your ass to be exposed. His dangling dong of destiny vibrates in anticipation. The reaming rod of randomness . . . "
Antoniewicz held up a hand. "I read that story, too, Chief. I'm not a future Israeli on a distant planet. This will not be that hard. Trust me."
Thornton sneered, then relented. "I'm just pissed I can't go."
"We know, Chief," Eeyore sympathized.
Biggus nodded his head, then backed off from the sub. He raised one hand, palm up. Overhead, the controller of the gantry saw and pulled back on a stick. The Chinese woman wearing the night vision goggles had had a lot of practice, both in port at Manaus and on the way here. With a whine, the sub began to rise, the cables lightly vibrating under the load. A different whine began as the gantry's arm was rotated outward.
Once the sub was clear of the deck, Thornton scrambled to the gunwale and watched it descend to the water. When it touched and sank a bit, the cables grew slack. The sub began to pull sternward, building up a small wake. Simmons matched speed and the cables grew slack. From overhead, the Chinese woman released them at the points where they'd held the sub.
"I'm just pissed I can't go," Thornton repeated, in a whisper, as the sub turned away and began its lonely journey to the harbor. He began to turn away, then suddenly turned back to catch a last glimpse of the Namu, whispering again, "Good luck, boys."
Good luck, boys, Stauer thought, as he watched the Namu eased over the side. His anxiety level was high, though no one could tell it from his face. Indeed, it had gone up, rather than down, with each separate launching. And it would go up still more until the last man was recovered, back on the ship, and heading away.
It was part of the price of command and one of the reasons so comparatively few people could be commanders.
Nothing more I can do about it at this point, Stauer thought, not so much dismissing the Namu and her crew as compartmentalizing them into the part of his mind labeled, "Beyond your control."
Stauer looked down at a number of aircraft, idling on the flight deck. Besides, I've got more immediate problems.
D-2, MV Merciful, Indian Ocean, rounding the Horn of Africa