The team broke into four groups of four. Each had the latest high-tech version of an ion mobility spectrometer. The devices were designed to detect the presence of explosives, particularly plastique, C4, and Semtex. Developed in the wake of terrorist attacks on American soil, the technology had come far in five short years. The devices could pick up Semtex if there were even a few parts per million present. If there was any on this ship, or in its containers, the SEALs were certain that they would find it.
The Americans spent most of the day crawling over, under, and through the ship and its cargo. Fortunately it was a small ship. Its load was only 100 containers, and the soldiers went through each one. They worked hard, sweating profusely in the rising tropical sun. They were not particular in how they opened the containers, or how they sorted through the contents. They left chaos and disarray behind them, but they hadn’t received orders to be neat about the job. Their orders were to find the Semtex. Vince got plenty of excellent photographs.
The sun was directly overhead when the USS Curtis Wilbur, a new Arleighe-Burke class destroyer, pulled alongside the Haramosh Star. “Reinforcements and lunch,” joked one of the soldiers. The hot, thankless job continued, taken on by the new boarding party. Down into the cargo holds, into the engine room, behind the hydraulics, underneath the diesels, into the stern; they went into, under, over, and behind pretty much everything on the ship. There was some brief excitement when one of the teams thought they had picked up traces of something near the port hull, beside the engine room, but it was transitory, and was chalked up to another faulty reading.
Things became more interesting when, at three, the Rajput, a Ranvir class destroyer from the Indian Navy, sailed into view. Vince saw her coming, and knew that she was responding to his earlier distress call. He also knew that the modifications made to the Haramosh Star at the Karachi Drydock and Engineering yard had served their purpose. No crew of American soldiers, or any soldiers for that matter, would find the cargo that had been placed aboard his ship scant hours ago. And now the Indian Navy was getting involved. This was going to be delightful. Vince picked up the microphone and hailed them on the international frequency.
“I have visual contact with you. We have been illegally boarded in international waters by the American Navy for God knows what reason. We request assistance.”
This kind of situation simply didn’t occur very often on the international stage. An Indian warship was about to court danger to assist a Pakistani vessel. For whatever reason, an American warship from the mighty John C. Stennis Carrier Group was harassing a pitiful little civilian container ship. Few countries in the world could resist an opportunity to show up the Americans when given the chance.
Things escalated rapidly. The commander of the Rajput got into a shouting match with the commander of the Curtis Wilbur. The Curtis Wilbur called for backup, and the John C. Stennis scrambled another squadron of Tomcats. The testosterone was starting to fly.
The United States was by far the largest military power in the world, and had, without question, the largest air force. India, by comparison, had only the fourth largest air force on the planet. The problem for the Americans that day was that most of her mighty military force was elsewhere. There were but four squadrons of aircraft on the John C. Stennis. India, on the other hand, was local, and had thousands of planes in the area. It put the Americans in a difficult position.
The dispute continued to escalate. Ten Tomcats flew by the Haramosh Star. A few minutes later, 20 Mig-21’s with Indian markings appeared in the sky. Fortunately, the parading and chest thumping stopped before it got completely out of hand. High-order American officials talked to high-order Indian officials, and a conflagration was averted, but not before Vince had a wealth of photographs. More than 100, all told — the final shots being composed of American and Indian warplanes roaring low overhead. Then the SEALs left, the Curtis Wilbur left, and the Rajput left. In the almost deafening silence that followed, Vince’s men surveyed the mess on their ship. The disrupted containers, the torn wall and floor panels, and the general mayhem left behind by the SEALs painted a far-from-pretty picture.
“I guess we start cleaning it up?” one of them asked.
“No,” said Vince. “We wait.”
Then the reporters came. First, a crew by helicopter from the Sri Lanka Times, whose reporters had monitored most of the exchange on short-wave radios. Then reporters from the Mumbai Herald arrived, then Reuters, CNN, News Corp, the London Times, the Washington Post, and all the rest. Vince let them all download the contents of his camera. He gave all of them the run of his ship. He said to all of them, in broken English, somewhat faked, “No explosives here. None. But still they destroy this little ship.”
Back in Langley, the Pentagon, and the White House, the wise men and spin doctors knew that they had a complete disaster on their hands. The word “clusterfuck” was used liberally and with intensity when no explosives showed up. The frequency of its use notched upward when the Rajput came on the scene. When the Indian Air Force made its appearance, “goatfuck” replaced “clusterfuck.” The media feeding frenzy was beginning. Then came the icing on the cake.
Somehow CNN, with its immense resources, was able to score an interview with His Excellency, the president of Pakistan. “I have no idea what the Americans were thinking,” he said, smiling sagaciously into the camera. “We told them that there was no Semtex on that ship. We told them that the Karachi Star Line is a model corporate citizen and represents one of the finest examples of Pakistan’s new and growing economy. We told them that we sympathized, and that we would do everything to assist them. But they insisted on looking in the wrong direction.”
The reporter was no fool. “Semtex you say, Your Excellency. What Semtex?” Up until that point, every official account had used the word “explosives.”
“Why, sir, that plastic explosive, that Semtex, that came from Libya. That is what the Americans say was on board the Haramosh Star.”
“But, Mr. President, the Semtex was all destroyed a few days ago. We all saw the footage of that dramatic blast at Bazemah.”
“Well, young man, according to the Americans, not all of it. Obviously, not all of it.”
It went downhill from there. In the course of explaining the theft of the explosives en route from Benghazi to Bazemah, the President’s press advisor was forced to disclose that there were American casualties during that theft. The Presidential cover-up was uncovered, and it was admitted that various soldiers from the Theodore Roosevelt Group had died, not on further covert missions in Iraq, but on covert missions in Libya.
Further questioning and probing by reporters during the press conference revealed that there had been more troop deaths in the Sudan, in the raid at Yarim-Dhar. This in turn led to a Sudanese complaint to the United Nations about the USA unlawfully invading its airspace, and a demand for sanctions.
When things could not possibly have gone any worse, they did. Al Jazeera received a copy of a DVD showing the interdiction of the Mankial Star by the USS Cushing. The camerawork had been skillfully done, and made good use of the image of the USS Cushing looming high over Yousseff’s yacht. It picked up the politeness of the banter coming from the Mankial Star crew, and the invitation to sit down and have tea on board the yacht. It prompted a further complaint by Pakistan, protesting the fact that the US government seemed to be waging a vendetta against one of the country’s corporations, for no apparent reason. There were protests and parades, and the usual burning of American flags in Karachi, Islamabad, and elsewhere.