“Lt. Toten? Really?” the Asian American agent said.
“If I were you, I’d focus on the dolphins in the photos, not the Iranian guards.”
Frustrated with the answers, the case officer turned on a digital wall map showing two large islands off the coast of Zeila. Sacadadiin Island was the larger of the two islands, about half the distance closer to shore of the bombed ancient city. Dense vegetation and thick mangroves covered most of the terrain, partially inhabited, visited daily by fishermen, tour boats, and others.
A few miles into the gulf stretched a sandbar-like spit of an island called Ceebaad. That forlorn land was sparsely covered with a quilt work of scrub pine, low green bushes, and wind-swept sedge grass. Barren and sandy in some spots, a rubble coast surrounded the elongated triangle-shaped island.
The case officer said, “There’s no fresh water on Ceebaad, little on Sacadadiin Island.”
“We’ll setup a camouflage blind to provide cover for Toten and the dolphins to operate,” Kell Johnston said.
The agents showed the SEALs the locations of where they should position perimeter cameras to watch for boat traffic around the island. The Asian American agent gave Merk a flash drive with a one-page document that identified several targets for the dolphins to carry out surveillance activities.
The case officer took a remote and clicked on a split-screen showing Korfa and the Korfa Double. “You need to study this,” he told Merk.
“Why? I’m a marine mammal recon guy, not a cold warrior SEAL,” Merk said.
“Hey, Toten, you’re the one who asked to conduct an exit interview of the Norwegian sniper before we send him back to Norway,” the case officer said, getting annoyed.
“Run that by me again.”
“Lt. Toten, on the right is the real pirate warlord Korfa. We are one 100 percent sure with our facial-recognition software from photos taken by one of our assets—”
“Nairobi?”
“Yes. Based on her work for the past five years.” The agent took a laser pointer and ran the red dot on the 81 percent match of the facial features in the double’s face. His cheeks were millimeters too high; the nose five degrees more crooked; the lips thinner and mouth one size smaller, among other features from the hairline, including distance between eyebrows across the bridge of the nose. “It was a close match. It fooled the hostage negotiators. But they secretly filmed Korfa’s double. Sunglasses in a dark room became a dead giveaway.”
“What are you going to do with Nairobi?” Merk asked.
“Break off contact until we need her again,” the case officer said.
“If her cover is blown, are you going to let her be raped and tortured?” Merk asked. “She has children. Young beautiful kids.”
“Like the navy, we follow orders. Not from sunny San Diego, but from the analysts and directorates in Langley,” the case officer countered.
Merk looked at the lieutenant commander, saying, “Kell, maybe you want to get word out to CO Gregorius. Nico is still in Berbera. Have you heard from him?”
“Toten, stay the fuck out of this. You’re not a SEAL anymore,” the case officer snapped.
Frustrated by the careless disregard for the professionals who put their lives on the line, Merk pounded the table and stormed out of the meeting, saying, “You better pray I drown.”
At zero dark hundred, Merk and the dolphins were loaded on board the Black Hawk; a cell of four navy SEALs and Lt. Commander Kell Johnston joined the flight. The helicopter swooped over the Mandab Strait heading toward a rendezvous with the Shining Sea.
Chapter Fifty-One
Within half an hour the helicopter reached the insertion point in the gulf, crossing some invisible border between Djibouti and Somaliland that stretched across the dark water to Yemen.
The cargo bay opened. A basket lowered a pair of SEAL divers into the bay north of Ceebaad Island, some eight miles offshore. They checked the surroundings, saw a laser-signal from the cargo master, and the basket lowered the SEAL sniper with Lt. Commander Kell Johnston into the water.
The divers escorted them on shore, pulling a floatation box of guns and ammo, and dragged it onto the rock-strewn beach. As Kell took out infrared binoculars and panned the northern half of the island to make sure they were alone, the divers swam back to the drop zone. Once clear, they signaled the cargo master to lower the dolphins, one at a time, followed by Merk, with the biosystems’ supplies stowed in an inflatable rubber boat with an outboard motor.
Using night-vision goggles, the SEALs cleared the island one area at a time.
Above, the Black Hawk pilots deployed the FLIR system, scanning the distance of the long island, which narrowed to a point in the south. The infrared didn’t pick up any heat signature of man or animal. Merk and the SEALs backup team stood alone on Ceebaad, at least until the next morning. Lt. Commander Johnston and the SEAL sniper dragged the boat and supplies on shore. They dug three pits in the patches of sand, placed the supplies in the holes, and covered the objects with camouflage cargo nets.
Once set, the Black Hawk hoisted the divers on board and banked away in stealth mode, flying back to the forward naval expeditionary base in Djibouti.
While Lt. Commander Kell Johnston discussed the night sentry duty with the sniper, from mealtime to sleep time, how and when to search the barren island with no fresh drinking water, Merk waded into the sea. He splashed the water with his hand and, within a minute, Tasi and Inapo emerged from slumbering in the black water.
Merk waded deeper to check the dorsalcams. He tested them on a smartphone screen to make sure they worked. Next, he examined the GPS tracking tags at the base of the dorsal fins and pinged them like a dating app on a satellite map of Ceebaad Island. Once confirmed the geocoords were accurate, Merk flashed a hand-sign to Tasi and Inapo. The dolphins squealed and fluked off, swimming around the north side of the island, heading toward the silhouette of the low hills and mounts of Sacadadiin Island in the near distance.
Merk waded back onshore. He sat down with the laptop and used a biometric scan of his eyes’ veins to grant access to the laptop hard drive, in-memory chip, as well as the navy’s Blue Cloud. Within seconds, he tracked the navy dolphins heading to the moored hijack ship on the other side of Sacadadiin Island off the Zeila coast. They cruised at a leisurely pace of six to seven knots, or about a third of their top swimming speed.
As he waited for the dolphins to reach the container ship, Merk took a short break. He stretched his limbs and peered up to the heavenly bodies that dotted the black dome sky. He remembered when he was a boy, he used to search the heavens for answers to his broken bond with his father, the loss of the mother he never knew. For the first time, he made the connection that he had fallen into the flypaper of another broken relationship with his love for Jenny King. It would be that way, if it lasted, until either they retired or took new jobs. For Merk, his bond with the dolphins was the glue in a relationship he coveted the most.
Merk made out the silhouette of the SEALs patrolling the middle of the island and heading toward the southern tip. He rolled on one knee and checked the progress of the dolphins. To his surprise they were swimming slower than before, at three knots an hour. Why?
He opened blowhole charts, heartbeat rates, lab results on blood samples — negative. He scanned the veterinarian’s meticulous notes for any obscure comment or observation about the physical health and well-being of either dolphin. Merk read through the food charts — mackerel, squid, herring, worm eel — and then the list on amino acids, glutathione, and nutrients with heavy doses of vitamins. Nothing leapt off the page. Were the dolphins tired? Was it something in the water? He closed out the medical fitreps and sent a Dolphin Code message directing Tasi and Inapo to split apart and swim faster to the container ship.