Amanda cast a sour glance of her own. “You,” she said with great deliberation, “are totally insufferable.”
“Hell, woman. You’re supposed to be hitting what you shoot at. Don’t expect any hoorah out of me because you finally got around to doing what you’re supposed to. Reload those clips and let’s try it again.”
“You know, Stone, you’re beginning to sound just like my father,” Amanda grumbled, picking up a fresh box of .45 hard ball.
“Captain! Captain Garrett!” The call was muffled by her ear protectors. She looked around to see Scrounger Caitlin trotting toward the shooting stage from across the platform.
“What’s up, Scrounge?” she inquired, removing the headset.
“Operations sent me over when they couldn’t get you on the interphone link, ma’am. We got a blockade runner.”
Amanda stiffened. “Specifics?”
“The barrier patrol’s intercepted an Algerian oil tanker entering the exclusion zone. It’s refusing to heave to and it’s running at flank speed straight for Port Monrovia. The French corvette making the intercept is calling for backup.”
A cold chill trickled down Amanda’s spine in spite of the growing warmth of the day. The waiting was over. “Scrounger, go find Commander Lane and inform him I want the Queen readied for an immediate launch.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am!” The turbine tech bolted away on her new task.
Amanda glanced up at the helipads, checking to see what air assets were aboard and available. “Stone, I want two squads outfitted for boarding operations. One to come with us on the Queen, another rigged to fast-rope down from that CH-60 for a deck assault.”
“You got ’em.” He snatched his utility shirt and headed for Marine country, bellowing for Sergeant Tallman. Amanda scooped her mobile command interphone up off the shooting bench and settled the headphones over her ears.
“Operations, this is Captain Garrett. I have the word on the blockade runner. Take us to full alert. Flash Red, all task force elements! I say again, Flash Red, all task force elements!”
The Queen of the West howled southward into the open Atlantic, the Gold Coast fading to a haze line on the horizon behind her. At the navigator’s station in the cockpit, Amanda worked to bring herself up to speed on the developing crisis.
“Talk to me, Chris. What do we have?”
“We’ve got the tanker Bajara, boss ma’am. Algerian registry, twenty-four thousand tons displacement. The Lloyd’s database indicates she cleared Oran ten days ago with a mixed cargo of refined-petroleum products. Her listed destination was South Africa. However, I’ve just checked with Soucan Customs Control and with the harbor masters at both Cape Town and Durban. Nobody down there’s ever heard of her or is showing any Algerian oil inbound.”
“Right. Can you give me a visual on the target?”
“We have an Eagle Eye arriving over her now. Real-time imaging is up on your datalink. We are passing camera turret override control to your station.”
Amanda’s main monitor filled with an aerial view of the Algerian oil carrier: rust streaked, black hulled, and with a grimy buff-colored deckhouse right aft. At 24,000 tons displacement, she was far from being a supertanker, yet she dwarfed the petite 3,000-ton French corvette dogging her heels. Likewise, she carried enough fuel in her cargo cells to power the West African Union for half a year.
Amanda noted that the Bajara was running at nearly twenty knots. Smoke streaked thickly back from her stumpy funnel and the sea boiled beneath her stem and stern. Whoever was at the con of the Algerian tanker must be driving her until her engines lifted off the bedplates.
The Eagle Eye came to a hover over the blockade runner. Using her joystick controller, Amanda zoomed the little RPV’s camera in on the tanker’s decks. Stone Quillain silently leaned in over her shoulder and together they studied the image on the screen.
Not a soul was visible aboard the Algerian vessel. She might have been a ghost ship. For some reason, those empty decks and bridge wings magnified Amanda’s already growing apprehensions.
“Chris,” she said into her lip mike, “are you seeing this?”
“Yeah, I see it, “the intel replied, “I’m getting grody vibes off this one, boss ma’am. Grody to the max.”
“Acknowledged. Are we seeing any other Union activity anywhere else?”
“Roger on that. The Predator we have circling over Port Monrovia is observing a definite ramp-up in activity. A lot more security and a line-handling crew is standing to at the oil pier. We’re also monitoring an exchange of communications between the Bajara and Union naval headquarters. It’s some kind of verbal numeric code that we can’t read. Probably another one of those one-use, tear-pad ciphers.”
“What about the Union’s heavy gunboats? Are they moving out?”
“Not yet. They’ve got their crews aboard, however, and they’ve singled up all lines. They’re ready to haul out fast. For the moment they’re still alongside the docks, though.”
“Keep an eye on them, Chris. If they sortie, I want to know about it. What’s the status on Manassas and Carondelet?”
“They have both aborted patrol and are inbound. The Carondelet will be a factor in about an hour. The Manny in about two.”
“Very well, Operations. Keep us posted.”
Amanda glanced over her shoulder at Quillain. “Observations and suggestions, Captain?”
Quillain shook his head slowly. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but let’s not screw around with this guy. Let’s take him down hard and fast. Direct-action drill.”
“Are you smelling an ambush too?”
“I’m smelling something. Whatever it is, I figure the less time we give ’em to get set up, the better.”
It was Amanda’s turn to nod. “I concur. In the vernacular of the Corps, hey diddle diddle and straight up the middle.”
“There you go, Skipper.”
Steamer Lane called back from the front of the pilot’s station. “Target bearing off the bow, Captain. Enemy in sight.”
The sea and sky had grown crowded around the racing Algerian vessel. The La Fleurette hung back a quarter of a mile off the tanker’s port quarter, paralleling her course. The fast motor launch carrying her thwarted boarding party held midway between their mothership and their intended target.
The French warship’s dark blue Sea Lynx helicopter buzzed angrily overhead, accompanied in the sky by the flashing marker strobes of the small American Eagle Eye recon drone and the more massive CH-60 assault chopper carrying the Marine fast-rope team. Higher yet, a French Atlantique ANG patrol plane loitered, circling watchfully on its throttled back turboprops.
The Queen of the West moved in on the tanker’s starboard quarter, her tail ramp dropping as she launched her own boarders.
“La Fleurette, La Fleurette, this is Little Pig Leader. What is your situation?”
Glancing out of the windscreen, Amanda watched as the hovercraft’s miniraider sheered away toward the tanker, its snarling outboard ripping a white foaming gash across the dark blue of the wavetops.
“Captain Garrett, this is Commander Trochard,” the Corvette captain replied. “We have no change. We have hailed on all standard ship-to-ship radio bands for forty-five minutes. We also attempted contact via blinker and loud-hailer. We have received no reply or response of any nature. However, when we attempted to go alongside, they turned into us, trying to ram. At that point, I considered discretion the better part of valor and called for assistance.”