Guided initially by the distant electronic impulses of an orbiting GPU satellite, the first SeaSLAM ER howled in toward the Union coast, passing over Port Monrovia and heading for the city beyond.
As the missile approached the north bank of the Mesurado River estuary, it bobbled minutely in its flight. Miles astern, aboard the Queen, Gunner’s Mate Danno O’Roark’s hand closed around the joystick of his fire-control station, overriding the missile’s onboard navigational system and assuming manual control.
The SeaSLAM pushed over and dove, the thermographic imager in its nose broadcasting a video image of the terrain ahead and below back to the Queen and to O’Roark’s targeting screen. With sweat burning in his eyes and his jaw set, O’Roark locked the crosshairs of the system’s sighting grid onto a specific geometric pattern he’d been studying all afternoon in aerial recon photographs.
The geometric pattern on the ground grew and resolved into a fenced compound. High-tension towers led to and from the area and a double row of rectangular shapes clustered at its center, a bank of heavy electrical transformers. As the thermographic image of the power relay station exploded toward him, O’Roark put his heart and soul into holding the death pip centered on those insulator-horned outlines right up until his screen went blank.
The golden flash of an explosion split the African night, followed by the sharper blue-white glare of a massive electrical discharge. Sudden, total darkness engulfed Port Monrovia.
“Go!”
Even as she issued the command, Amanda’s CRRC surged forward in a silent rush for the pier. They had only moments to work with, the brief time that confusion would reign among the port’s defenders. Conning his way in via night-vision visor, the coxswain steered for the Union Banner.
The head of the ore-loading dock loomed clifflike over the little craft and then the float and the low stern of the tug emerged out of the darkness. Bumping quietly alongside, Amanda and the coxswain grabbed for holds on the barnacle-studded truck tire fenders that shielded the flank of the harbor craft.
Unlike the other assault boats in the boarding force, Amanda’s carried a split party. There was a single four-man Marine fire team plus the small prize crew for the tug; Amanda herself, a veteran boatswain’s mate to handle the towing gear and a pair of enginemen who knew their way around Marine diesel plants.
The quartet of Marines swarmed over the tug’s rail in a noiseless rush, their first task to deal with both the tug’s night crew and any security forces aboard. Securing the raider alongside, Amanda and her people followed the Marines onto the deck a few moments later.
“Moonshade to Palace. At objective. I say again. At objective.” Lifting her finger from the touchpad, she let the SINCGARS system go to receive.
“Acknowledged, Moonshade.” The reply was breathed back into her earphone from Operations. “Strongbow also reports at objective. Sun Village maintaining firing sched. Operations continue nominal.”
Again it was a matter of so far, so good. Standing adjacent to the bulky dark mass of the tug’s towing drum, Amanda found herself momentarily at a loss for what to do next. The weight of her pistol tugged at her belt. However, she left the weapon where it was with the holster flap buttoned. Drawing it would accomplish little, and actually firing a shot could prove catastrophic. With the other Navy hands clustered warily behind her, she stood poised and listening.
Beyond the hiss of the waves around the pier pilings, she heard only a scattering of sound from the port, a yelled order, the racing of a truck engine, the crash of a warehouse door closing. In the distance came the thud of another heavy explosion. The seafighters were continuing their SLAM bombardment of the city, spacing the rounds out to provide a further diversion away from events in the port area.
From aboard the tug itself, there came other noises. A swift and stealthy rush of footfalls. A thump that could be felt through the deck underfoot. An exclamation that trailed off into a faint whimpering sob. Then silence, followed by two muffled splashes near the tug’s bow.
The Marine fire team leader materialized out of the shadows. “All secure, ma’am.”
“Very well,” she replied softly. “Boats, check out the towing gear. Buckley, Smith, go take a look in the engine room. Get me a report on how soon we can get her under way. I’ll be in the wheelhouse.”
Whispered “aye ayes” came back.
Amanda followed the Marine team leader forward down the tug’s starboard side. “Four men aboard all told, ma’am,” he reported. “Two soldiers and two civilian crewmen. We’ve got the soldiers taken care of and over the side.”
“And the crewmen?”
“Awaiting your call, ma’am.”
Amidships they came to the entry of the tug’s main cabin. A second Marine stood a silent sentry beside the half-open hatch. Inside, the last two members of the fire team guarded the prisoners.
The tug hands were a pair of lean and weathered African seamen clad only in ragged shorts. They had been shoved down onto the bench of the mess table, facing the deck entry. With their hands bound behind their backs with nylon riot cuffs and their mouths sealed by strips of camo tape, only their eyes could express their terror.
Amanda paused in the hatchway for a moment. The fear she read in the expressions of the two men were an aspect of her profession that she didn’t enjoy. These two sailors were not enemies of either herself or of humanity as a whole. Nor did they have anything to do with the course being steered by Obe Belewa or the West African Union.
There was nothing to be done about it, however, except to brush them out of the way as gently as possible. “Put them under,” she said.
The Marine guards dug yellow injector tubes out of their cargo pockets. Before the two Union seamen could realize what was happening, the injector tips had been socked against their thighs. Heavy-gauge, spring-loaded needles punched into flesh and a massive drug charge followed. After a few moments of struggle, the eyes of the two sailors rolled back into their heads and they collapsed against the mess table, no doubt wondering if they would ever wake up again.
They would. The injectors had originally been designed to carry doses of atropine as an emergency counter to nerve gas exposure. These, though, intended for use by Special Forces personnel, had been loaded with a carefully metered dose of barbiturate potent enough to knock an adult human unconscious and keep him so for several hours.
“Dump them on the float, Corporal,” Amanda ordered, “and throw a tarp or something over them so they won’t be too obvious. Then stand by to cast off all lines.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
Alone, Amanda climbed the weather ladder to the wheel house atop the fore end of the superstructure. The tug’s small bridge smelled of diesel, salt mildew, and stale cigarette smoke. The only illumination filtered in faintly through the wheelhouse’s 360-degree sweep of windows or trickled up the interior ladderway from the cabin night-lights.
Amanda had a night-vision visor, a flashlight, and several glowsticks distributed around her harness. However, she was on the bridge of a ship now. This was her world. She didn’t need vision to find her way.
Stepping carefully, she crossed to the center console, her fingertips touching, exploring, and identifying. Wheel… binnacle… throttles… propeller controls… engine-ready lights… auxiliary switches… engine-room interphone. The position of each control grafted itself into her brain.