“Okay. That sounds more like it. You heard her, Arnold. I’m going to take the dog now. You just be cool and nobody gets his head ventilated.”
As a precaution, Stoke ground the gun barrel deeper into the German’s ear canal while he unwound the dog leash from his hand and wrapped it around his own. Instantly, the barking and snarling animal attempted to rip Stoke’s arm from the socket. He was getting jerked around so badly by the lunging Doberman it was hard to keep the Schmeisser aimed at Arnold’s head. It wouldn’t take Arnold long to figure out that now was his chance.
“All right, I got the dog. Now what?”
“Just let him go, Stoke,” Jet said. “It’s okay.”
“Jet, seriously, have you lost your mind?”
“She’s my dog, Stoke.”
“Your dog.”
“Right. Her name is Blondi. She’s just happy to see me, aren’t you, girl?”
“Your funeral,” Stoke said and dropped the chain. He was all out of argument with the woman. The big dog bounded across the floor and, instead of going for her jugular, immediately began lathering Jet’s cheeks and forehead with wet sloppy kisses.
“Good dog, Blondi,” Jet said, patting his head and nuzzling her cheek against the dog’s neck. She put both arms around Blondi’s neck and hugged the big Doberman to her.
“You believe this?” Stoke asked Arnold, the two of them standing there looking down at her.
“Not really,” Arnold said in surprisingly good English.
“Schatzi gave her to me when she was a puppy,” Jet said. “Didn’t he, baby? Right? Who’s my buddy?”
Stoke and Arnold just looked at each other.
“Hey, Arnold,” Stoke said, “You think I could fit in your uniform?”
Arnold looked at him.
“Little tight across the shoulders, maybe?” Stoke said. “What do you think?”
Chapter Forty-one
Gulf of Oman
CACIQUE ROLLED HEAVILY IN THE SIX-FOOT SEAS. THE SIXTY-four-foot trawler, under the command of Captain Ali al-Houri, had seen better days. Her old diesel was moody. Temperamental. But Brock’s new sidekick Ahmed had assured Hawke that she was at least seaworthy enough for their current purposes: a surveillance circumnavigation of the island of Masara and a closeup look at Fort Mahoud itself.
Ahmed had found and chartered the old trawler for them, assuring them that she normally did a milk run along the coast from Ras al Hadd down to Salalah. The theory was that since she’d frequented these waters for years, no one on the island or the mainland would pay her any mind. With a checklist prepared and supplemented by Brock, he’d made sure she was properly provisioned.
Properly, in Brock’s parlance, included weapons, explosives, experimental optical equipment, hi-res digital video and still cameras with telescopic lenses, a dozen SEAL scuba rigs, a bottle of Gosling’s Black Seal for Hawke, and a case of Budweiser for Brock.
Between the wily Ahmed and the well-connected Brock, it seemed, anything on earth was attainable. Watching the supplies arrive on board, Hawke imagined that if he told Ahmed he simply could not proceed with the hostage rescue until he had the original of van Gogh’s Sunflowers under his arm, the framed painting would appear a few hours later.
As it was, a brand-new U.S. Navy SDV minisubmarine was hidden under an old tarp, lashed to blocks on the stern. The SDV, a Swimmer Delivery Vehicle developed by the navy for the SEALs, had been just part of the shipment arriving at Muscat on a Hercules C-130 the night before.
At the moment, Cacique was steering a northeasterly course along the Masara Bank, a good fishing spot lying roughly a mile off the eastern coast of the island of Masara. They were doing a leisurely eight knots in the rough seas. Hawke had been outside at the port rail with his high-powered Zeiss binoculars for the last hour. Finally, he’d grown weary of reconnoitering endless miles of bleak grey rock being pounded by heavy waves and stowed both the Sony video camera and the Zeiss Ikons.
The sun was already dipping below the yardarm of the stubby mast for’ard of the pilothouse. The only thing of interest Hawke had seen all afternoon was a herd of green turtles and a small blue fishing boat chugging along towing a string of white dinghies behind her. He’d counted ten of them bobbing along like baby ducks behind their mother. It was something he’d not seen in any other part of the world.
Hawke and Brock sat inside the pilothouse at a small table strewn with maps, satellite photos, and thermal-imaging photos of the island and Fort Mahoud itself. A dedicated U.S. bird launched six hours ago had shot the Oman recon photos Hawke was looking at now. The mood inside the pilothouse was grim. It had rapidly become obvious to both men that their early plan of getting the hostages out by air would be well nigh impossible.
Ahmed, having grown weary of the endless strategizing, had wandered out onto the afterdeck and found himself a comfortable patch of precious shade. Despite all the pitching and rolling, he was now lounging in one of the old-fashioned steamer chairs lined up along the stern rail. His chair was carefully aligned amidships for minimum yaw, facing aft. He was reading a ten-year-old copy of Architectural Digest, happily flipping through the pages. He seemed to have decided that, since he was going to be living aboard this old tub for a few days, he might as well make himself as comfortable as possible.
The desolate island of Masara lay just off their port beam, bleak and, so far, uninhabited. It was basically little more than a large rocky outcropping situated a few miles off, and lying parallel to, the coast of Oman. So far, the only island residents Hawke had observed were massive flocks of white flamingos. Ahmed had told him that morning that the bird-watching in the afternoon would be spectacular. Oman was the central corridor in the migratory pathway of thousands of exotic birds journeying between Asia and Africa.
Hawke had thanked him for this very useful information but said that he was far more interested in whirlybirds at the present moment. He was searching for some place, hidden from the spy cams above, where he might put a chopper on the ground. A wide spit of sand revealed at low tide might even be sufficient. Hell, anything remotely flat would do.
So far, nothing. No smooth hilltops, no elevated plateaus, no roads. Hawke saw nothing remotely resembling a place to set even a small bird down. Nor did the surveillance photos reveal any flat surfaces within or atop the fortress that looked large enough to accommodate a helicopter.
Finally, there were no large interior courtyards, a thing that Hawke had been hoping for. He concluded there was simply no place to land aircraft of any kind on Masara. This “simple snatch,” as Brock had come to call the mission, would clearly have to be accomplished from the sea. Getting this job done was, to all appearances, going to be an extremely difficult proposition.
Somehow, he and Brock had to figure out how to storm this bloody fortress, subdue a few dozen French mercenaries, rescue the sultan and his harem, and get them safely back out to Cacique. And they had forty-eight hours to figure it out. Brick Kelly had called Alex on the sat phone earlier in the day. He said events were moving very rapidly in Washington and London. The president and the British prime minister had just issued a joint statement saying that any invasion of Oman by any foreign government would have serious consequences.
“Don’t let us get to that point, Alex,” Brick had said before he hung up. “And don’t get caught. Brock’s already a no-name NOC. As you well know, you’re an honorary one. The U.S. has no dog in this fight. Got it?”
Hawke now looked over at the man standing at the old-fashioned wooden wheel, feet planted wide apart, eyes peeled for shoals.
“Captain, how do they get supplies out to this island? Food and drink for the museum staffers, I mean?”