Given the nature of the coming confrontation, it would be good to remind certain individuals that both he and NAVSPECFORCE as a whole had friends in high places.
Secretary of State Harrison Van Lynden returned a smile at the gambit. “Good morning, Eddie Mac. She’s doing fine and she’ll be expecting you to come by for spaghetti next time you’re in town. Good morning to you as well, Commander Rendino. I’d like you both to meet Senator Walter Donovan. Senator, this is Admiral Elliot MacIntyre, the commanding officer of U.S. Naval Special Forces, and one of his intelligence officers, Lieutenant Commander Christine Rendino.”
The senator responded with the briefest of nods. Intel and admiral alike could read the leashed truculence in his demeanor.
Van Lynden continued smoothly. “It seems that interests within the senator’s constituency have a strong involvement in the INDASAT program. They have requested that he approach the State Department concerning the incident that occurred off Australia earlier this month. As NAVSPECFORCE has become the lead agency involved in the investigation, I thought that a direct conference would be the best way to respond to these inquiries.”
“Understood, Mr. Secretary,” MacIntyre replied. “Commander Rendino has been in charge of the intelligence task force we’ve created to work the problem, and they’ve completed their preliminary investigation. We’re ready to respond to any question for which we have an answer.”
Senator Donovan cut in abruptly. “I hope you have plenty of them, Admiral. There were a dozen American citizens on that ship. And not just your average men off the street, either, but some of our best scientists and technicians. This above and beyond the billions invested in this project by both the government and American industry. All I’ve gotten from the State Department and the Pentagon up to this point is a lot of runaround! Now I want some straight talk on how, why, and who!”
The secretary of state lifted a hand. “You’ll get it, Senator, you have my word on that. But for now I suggest we allow the admiral and Commander Rendino to bring us up to speed on this matter in their own way. Proceed, Eddie Mac.”
MacIntyre nodded his acknowledgment. “Here’s the situation, Senator. As has been released to the press, the wreck of the INDASAT Starcatcher has been located on the ocean floor, not far from the designated recovery point in the Arafura Sea. The satellite is not aboard, but we fear that the entire crew is. The Australian navy has a salvage vessel on site at this time, and they are endeavoring to recover the bodies. Given that the wreck is resting in almost a thousand feet of water, this will likely be a protracted and difficult process.
“A survey of the wreck by Remotely Operated Vehicle indicates that there is no chance of this being an accidental sinking. The INDASAT Starcatcher was attacked, fired upon, and deliberately scuttled. We may presume the intent was to steal the Industrial Applications Satellite it had just recovered and the payload the satellite carried.”
“I think that many of us concluded that a long time ago, Admiral,” Donovan replied caustically. “What took the Navy so long to be convinced? And why did it take more than a week to find this ship? There had to have been an oil slick, wreckage. Who was asleep at the switch? The Australians? Us? Who?”
“No one, sir,” Christine Rendino interjected. “The ship wasn’t found sooner because someone went to a great deal of trouble to make sure it wouldn’t be found.”
“How’s that?” Donovan lifted a bushy eyebrow.
“We’re dealing with an exceptionally sophisticated and capable group of people here, Senator. The sinking of the Starcatcher was deliberately concealed. The Australian navy’s ROV survey indicates that the ship was neither blown up nor burned but underwent a controlled scuttling via the opening of its sea cocks. Buoyant materials topside on the recovery vessel were also stricken and secured belowdecks so there would be no floating debris field from the sinking. The fuel must have even been emptied from the ship’s bunkerage tanks into another vessel so there would be no large oil slick.
“Accordingly, the Australian navy’s search problem was vastly complicated. They couldn’t tell if the Starcatcher had been sunk, hijacked, or had just sailed away. They had to cover all of the possibilities. When an extensive air and sea sweep by their assets failed to turn up anything, they requested our assistance.”
“How did we find the wreck?” Van Lynden inquired, leaning back in his chair.
“An Oceansat, sir, a Navy Ocean Surveillance Satellite. We conducted a scan of the Arafura Sea from orbit, using varying filtered light spectra, and we picked up a reflectivity shift on the ocean’s surface. There was an oil slick after all, but only a faint residual, so thin and dispersed it was invisible to the naked eye.
“We backtracked the oil plume upcurrent to its source, and the Aussie salvage vessel started working the area with a side-scan sonar. After a brief search, they acquired the Starcatcher.”
Christine turned to her laptop, opening a pair of insert windows in the videophone display. “In the right corner of your screen, gentlemen, you will see a chart of the Arafura Sea with the sinking site indicated. In the left I’ll be showing an imaging series taken by the Remotely Operated Vehicle sent down from the salvage ship.”
Christine executed the call-ups, narrating as each flashed before its small audience. “Okay, here you can see the distinctive bullet-hole patterns of heavy machine-gun fire on the Starcatcher’s upper works…. Here’s a view of the empty well-deck bay. Obviously no INDASAT…. Here’s a very indicative picture of one of the ship’s Boston Whaler power launches. It’s been lashed down in its deck cradle and you can’t mistake the ax blows that caved in its flotation tanks…. And here is a view through one of the portholes into the crew’s quarters…. By this time the body had been worked over pretty badly by the local sea life but the wound in the skull is still quite distinctive. Pathology confirms that she was shot in the head, execution-style, at point-blank range, with a military caliber weapon.”
Even Senator Donovan was momentarily suppressed.
Christine closed out the windows. “All evidence confirms that the INDASAT Starcatcher was attacked and boarded and the satellite she was carrying was stolen. Her crew was massacred, right down to the last man and woman, and the recovery ship was scuttled deliberately in a way to conceal its location and fate.”
“Do we have any clue as to the identity of the terrorist group or nation responsible for this act of barbarism?” Van Lynden asked quietly.
MacIntyre fielded the question. “In our opinion, Mr. Secretary, it was neither a nation nor a terrorist group as you may mean the term.”
“Then who, Eddie Mac?”
“Pirates, Mr. Secretary,” MacIntyre replied levelly. “By our best estimation, the INDASAT recovery ship was attacked and its satellite seized by pirates.”
Senator Donovan’s scowl deepened. “You are aware, Admiral, that this is the twenty-first century? Captain Kidd has been out of business for a long time.”
MacIntyre raised his brows. “And are you aware, Senator, that you are living in the new golden age of high-seas piracy? That today, piracy is a major international criminal concern, with shipping and cargo losses that run into the hundreds of millions of dollars each year? Or that more than five hundred incidents of piracy are reported annually and that those numbers have been growing steadily for the past decade?”
“And the operative word here is reported incidents, Senator,” Christine Rendino added. “The ones with survivors left alive to file a report.”