“Wilco,” the reply hissed back.
“There’s still those last two schooners left,” Stone commented.
“Very true.” MacIntyre scowled in the screenglow. “But they’ve been out there a long time.”
On distant Sulawesi, Ives read their minds. “Captain Quillain, request instructions. Should we extract at this time or move on to the next pair of ships?”
Amanda looked back to Tran. “What about it, Inspector? How much longer will those ceremonies ashore continue?”
“An excellent question, Captain, for which I wish I had an answer. They could end in the next three minutes or go on all night.”
No one else had anything to add.
Quillain keyed his mike. “Linc, this is Stone. You’re the man out there, son. Make the call and we’ll go with whatever you decide.”
The circuit was silent for a minute. Then: “We’re going for it, sir. We’ll secure things here, then I’m taking both parties across to Five and Six. Stand by.”
Moving with quiet haste, the Marines erased all traces of their boarding the schooners. In the LFOC there was brief consideration of the weapons in the concealed gun lockers. They could be aimed at U.S. sailors in the near future, and the temptation to attempt a little sabotage was strong. It was agreed that the risk of discovery was too great.
Taking departure from the first two sets of gunships, the Marine Force Recon platoon converged on the third. This time the boarders had gained experience with their environment: Disembarking from their rafts, they knew what they were looking for this time. They moved faster and with more confidence. Amanda began to hope that they might pull it off.
The helmet cam of Lieutenant Ives panned around the interior of a small cabin. They watched his gloved hands open lockers and dip into drawers, probing under carelessly folded clothing, shoving aside a hodgepodge of cheap personal effects.
“Hold it! Hold it! Hold it!” Christine Rendino squealed into her lip mike. “You got one!”
In the center of the monitor, the Marine held up a brick-size and shaped plastic unit with a small CRT screen, a retractable antenna, and a keypad.
Christine clawed through a hard-copy file. “Ives, listen to me. I can see that’s a Fuji model Globemaster III. Read me off the serial number.”
“You got it, ma’am.” The unit was turned in the Marine’s hand. “One… six… six… seven… oh… nine… oh… Foxtrot… Golf”
“Okay, good.” Christine spoke in an aside to the others in the operations center. “Score! That’s one of eighty units lifted off a Harconan freighter. Okay, Ives, turn it on. The disk switch is on the right side…. Now hit Memory.”
The little screen of the GPU lit up, the numerals and letters displaying ghost-white on the low-light monitor. Ives scrolled the memory and a long string of latitudes and longitudes flowed past. Places the pinisi had visited or was bound for. Amanda noted that a few of the coordinate sets had a star symbol marking them.
“Jeez, are we going to have fun with that,” Christine whispered.
“All elements, all elements,” Steamer Lane’s voice barked from the overhead speaker. “Be advised we have movement in the moorage area.
All eyes snapped over the tactical display. A small-craft symbol was moving among the other anchored vessels of the village.
“Steamer, where did he come from?” Amanda demanded.
“He took off from one of the other moored schooners. It looks like a small motor dinghy. I don’t think it’s big enough for more than two or three guys. It’s heading out toward the gunships!”
“We see it,” Amanda snapped. “Steamer, stand by to start engines! Ives, get those schooners cleaned up and get out of there.”
“We’re on it, ma’am. What about this GPU?”
“Shit!” Christine yipped. “We can’t take it! It’ll blow the whole deal!”
“We can’t leave it, either,” Amanda said grimly. “We need those position fixes. Lieutenant Ives, hold the screen of that GPU up to your helmet camera. Scroll through the memory slowly, several times. Somebody, make sure this is being recorded!”
A babble of softly shouted orders sounded over the Marine tactical channel as the recon men scrambled to evacuate, the number and letter clusters jerking past on Ives’ helmet cam feed. The platoon sergeant was on deck, his camera view sweeping the moorage area. The temperature seemed to skyrocket in the LFOC.
“Carlson, I confirm that dinghy is headed for the gunship moorage. You got about two minutes.”
“This is going bad,” Quillain said lowly. “They aren’t going to make it. We can’t get ’em clear in time to not be spotted.”
“Options,” MacIntyre demanded.
“Take ’em prisoner if they board Five and Six. Burn ’em if they hit for the other schooners. Our guys got silenced weapons.”
“Those could simply be innocent fishermen, Captain,” Tran pointed out.
“We got nothin’ else, Mr. Tran. A couple of fishermen spotting us aboard one of those ships will blow this soft probe sky-high.”
“So will a couple of shot-up corpses or vanished villagers.” Christine shook her head, her blond bangs glinting silver in the blue battle lights. “We are so screwed.”
Amanda stayed silent. Mentally she visualized the possible shattering of her plan, rearranging the fragments that might survive it, seeing how to make a new successful pattern of them. The concept that she might “lose” in this situation did not occur to her; there was only the hunt for a different way to win.
Onscreen, Ives deactivated the pirate GPU. Throwing it back in the drawer, he slammed the drawer shut and raced topside.
It was too late. In his sergeant’s helmet cam, the dinghy could be made out, a black blotch on a gray sea, the chugging of its single-cylinder outboard caught by the earphone pickups. Silhouetted in the background village glare, three figures could be made out huddled in the rowboat. It was apparent now that the Bugis were headed for one of the other pairs of rafted gunships and that they would cross the bow of the vessels occupied by the Marines by about a dozen yards.
Ives whispered orders to his men. Marines carrying MP-5 submachine guns with the bloated cylinders of silencers screwed to their barrels moved forward.
Amanda’s fingertip touched her Transmit key. “Lieutenant Ives, this is the TACBOSS. Lay low and hold your fire. Ultra-hush. They might not notice your boats tied up alongside in the shadows and they might… just… go… on past….”
Frozen in place, the Marines crouched unmoving behind the gun wales and high bows of the pinisi, Ives lifting his head just enough to track the dinghy with his helmet cam.
For a moment they thought they might make it. The small boat chugged past ten yards… twenty, then the onboards picked up the hint of a shout. Someone in the dinghy pointed back at the rubber raider craft tied up alongside the schooners. The outboard motor revved and the boat turned sharply toward the beach.
Quillain threw a pen down angrily in the console. “That’s it. Show’s over.”
“Carlson, we have been spotted,” Ives called excitedly. “Do you want us to engage?”
This time Amanda slammed her hand down on her keypad. “Negative, negative, negative. Do not engage! We have a change in the ops plan! Go back and grab that GPU and any charts you saw lying around, then disembark and stand by for pickup. Expedite!”
“Aye, aye, ma’am!”
She toggled over to the command channel. “Steamer, are you still there?”
“Right here, ma’am,”
“Execute an immediate pickup on the Marines! Fast and dirty. Start engines and go in on the pad! Move it!”