“Anything else?” the naval attaché asked.
“What groups are bargaining for ransom demands?”
“Demands? It should be one demand, right?”
“Maybe three ransoms,” Cuthbert interjected, holding up as many fingers.
“Why abandon the American ship? Hostage logistics? Something didn’t go as planned, like Peder killing Samatar?” Merk wondered. “Alan, what’s your story? Why are you here?”
“If you haven’t heard, I got set up in Yemen.”
“By whom?”
“We thought he was a good CIA asset. We vetted his background, his education in the West, his family tree, his business associates. For a Yemen businessman he was clean. Clean, legitimate business. No ties to AQAP or the Islamic State,” he said. “The other night, one of our drones took out a building he told us was a terrorist safe house. But it ended up being a school. Children’s bodies were pulled from the rubble, all videotaped for the world to see.”
“You’re kidding? No terrorist affiliation, but the asset sets you up to fail,” Merk said.
“It happened on the same night you were on the Strait of Hormuz with Lt. Azar,” the naval attaché pointed out, adding, “Really sorry about what happened to Morgan.”
Merk half nodded, his eyes retreated in a pensive stare. “Same night? The night Iranians planted sea-mines. The drones were retasked to Yemen that night, Azar and I knew that. And the CIA doesn’t have any assets in Iran either, do you?”
“Merk, the FBI hostage rescue team is being flown from Cairo to a town in Sudan, across the Somaliland border,” the naval attaché said. “The White House summoned a private contractor to make contact with the pirates and the shipowners in Virginia and Norway.”
Cuthbert elbowed Merk, saying, “Your former SEAL CO Dawson in Coronado and his partner, retired Delta Force commando Christian Fuller, are the private negotiators.”
“Dante Dawson? The last I heard he retired.”
“Affirmative. From the navy, not from action,” the attaché said. “His new co is called Azure Shell.”
Alan Cuthbert nodded in deep thought. He ran his finger round and round the table surface, eyeing the grain of the wood, looked up and said, “Is there a link?… A link between what you stumbled on in the strait and my asset setting me up in Yemen?”
Merk nodded: “There has to be.”
Chapter Fifteen
When the CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter landed late that afternoon on the stern deck of the USS New York, the XO greeted Merk and escorted him to the Combat Direction Center, or CDC.
Merk refused to go. He wanted to stay behind to watch the NMMP veterinary team unload Tasi and Inapo, take them down on the elevator, and transfer them from the stretchers into inflatable holding pens in three-foot-deep salt water draped by tall safety nets.
Merk trusted few Navy personnel and fewer subcontractors with the care of his dolphins; he was especially protective of the Pacific bottlenose dolphins from Guam. Prior to a mission, he wanted their stress levels reduced. That included indoor air quality being particulate free; that loud noises wouldn’t disturb, startle, or harm them; and that they wouldn’t be exposed to passive pressure from nosy, camera-clicking ensigns or become amusement for small crowds.
What concerned Merk about new naval vessels? They tend to carry heavy metals in the air in the form of dust and filings on the floors, walls, ceilings, and vents, if the rooms, corridors, and stairwells weren’t fine-cleaned before launch. He followed Tasi and Inapo down into the dank industrial storage hangar of the ship. As soon as the hardboxes rolled off the lift, the odor of hydraulic fluid permeated the air. The hairs on the back of Merk’s neck stood up and his skin grafts started to itch, reminding him of the sense of danger he felt the night an oil-slick fire burned in the harbor off mainland China in the Taiwan Strait.
Merk surveyed the below deck chamber. To the rear, he saw the source of the acrid smell. In the backlit hangar, the silhouette of the ship’s other Sea Stallion sat idle with a battery of mechanics working on the main rotor. He strode toward the helicopter and noticed hydraulic fluid dripping in a puddle next to an open gangbox. Parts, tools, and hoses were strewn across a plastic sheet on the floor. Covers and couplings from the rotor were piled on carts, as engineers inspected the rotor blades. Merk knew it would be hours before they finished the repair and reassembled the helicopter to fly. He figured the floor would be washed down with ammonia cleaner — an abrasive odor that he didn’t want the dolphins exposed to. And with the mission details still undefined, Tasi and Inapo could be holed up in the bowel of the ship for days, depending if and when the Black Lit op would be launched or the order to abort was called.
Not willing to wait on a request going through the chain of command, from the cargo deck up to the USS New York’s commander, to move the dolphins to a new temporary location, Merk sought out the cargo master, who was busy scanning barcodes with a handheld device. The young officer took inventory of the NMMP supplies before they were moved by forklift to a storage bay. The cargo master, a lanky marine with a Southern drawl, gave Merk a once-over look and continued to scan the boxes and coolers of fresh fish, as if Merk weren’t there.
“How long is the chopper repair going to take?” Merk asked.
“Well, fuck me, bud, looks like you got one helluva request,” the cargo master said with a shitless smirk. “Let me see if the mechanics can’t speed things up. You know, salt air triples maintenance time on helos and such.”
Merk began to speak when a mechanic dropped a lug wrench in a loud clang, startling Tasi to thrash about. The sight of the stressed dolphin rippled through Merk. He clenched his fists, cleared his throat, and growled, “You wouldn’t let your mates sleep down here with the hydraulic piss leaking on the floor, would you?”
The cargo master scanned the last box, waved the forklift operator to store the supplies, then locked Merk in a stare. “You, your flippers are on board my ship. We have one bird down and I’m running a tight schedule with the combat cargo master. He’s not navy blue like you and me. He’s an ornery leatherneck planning to send the Marine Expeditionary Unit into Somalia…”
Merk folded his arms and listened. He recalled tolerant thoughts of how he held it all in when his alcoholic navy father used to erupt like a volcano in a drunken rage. He thought about the autistic teenager who helped map out the sounds of dolphins with music and math. And he thought about holding his girlfriend’s hand as he looked in her black pearl eyes.
“…That means I have to coordinate supplies, food, weapons, and ammo with the CCM and his assistant for hundreds of action-starved marines. You land here out of the blue, waste no time demanding the red carpet for your diva dolphins,” he said, jabbing a finger in Merk’s chest.
Merk snatched the cargo master’s hand, twisted it over, and pulled him in close, saying in measured anger, “I’ve had a bad fucking week. My friend died. My dolphins came out of combat. I lost my laptop in the drink. Now, where are you going to store my fins?”
Grimacing in pain, the cargo master yelped, “Ouch. Shit… okay, okay. Back up to the flight deck they go.”
“Roger that?” Merk squeezed harder, applying more pressure.
“Oh, yow, yes… roger that.”
Chapter Sixteen
The petty officer guided Merk through half of the 684-foot-long USS New York toward the CDC, the communications nerve center located under the antenna tower of the ship, where he would join a meeting in progress. Merk pulled the petty officer aside to call the XO to get permission to visit the Norwegian sniper Peder Olsen in sickbay before entering the CDC.