The pedestals swiveled and trained aft. Designation lasers lanced out from the Sea Fighters’ mastheads, painting the targets as they fell away astern, pointing the way for the venom to follow.
The Hellfire salvos arced high on golden flame and dove in. The last two pirate vessels dissolved.
“It’s like the Fourth of July,” Scrounger commented as she studied the receding fires in her sideview mirror. “You always shoot off the big one last.”
The people of Adat Tanjung stood on the beach, watching until the last flickering bit of floating wood extinguished itself. No one considered taking one of the village trucks to the nearest polisi post. No one considered appealing for aid to the nearest farm village inland. They were Bugis, and the clan affairs stayed in the clan, even the disasters.
All were silent as they withdrew to their darkened huts. The lament for the lost ships would begin tomorrow. The residents of Adat Tanjung were nominally Muslim, but the old gods stand close behind every Indonesian. First they had lost their men on the Piskov raid. Now their finest war pinisi had been eaten by a strange and terrible foe. It was as if the vested spirit of the sea had turned its back on the clan.
For a Bugis, nothing could be more fearful.
One among them hurried back to his chandler’s shop and to the two-way radio concealed in the storeroom.
Landing Force Operations Center, USS Carlson
0121 Hours, Zone Time: August 17, 2008
“How do you want to work it with the microforce now, Skipper?” Quillain inquired. “Have ’em go into hide as per the old ops plan?”
“Yes… no, hold on that.” Amanda was suddenly finding it very hard to think as she tipped back over the edge of the combat adrenaline rush. “Tell them to go stealth and to clear the area, avoiding contact with Indonesian surface traffic. Then bring them home. Tell Steamer to proceed directly to Benoa Harbor for recovery. He has enough fuel remaining for a direct transit.”
The Marine nodded. “Might as well. The bad guys sure know they’re out there now.”
“Exactly: We’re not going to gain any advantage in holding them out there. When Steamer shows up tomorrow morning, we’ll tell the harbor master they’ve been conducting training exercises in international waters. We’ll let the Indonesians worry about just what that may mean.”
The operations team in the LFOC were standing down, securing systems and preparing to hand things over to the skeleton duty watch. Standard white lighting snapped on, replacing blue battle illumination.
Amanda rubbed her burning eyes with her palms, a sense of unreality washing over her. Had Palau Piri been just that afternoon? It seemed like a different world altogether, a different reality, some incredible fantasy spun in a half dream state.
It had been real though, something to be confronted and lived with.
God, but she was so tired.
She sensed someone standing beside her. Admiral MacIntyre, stolid and impervious as always. Remembering the way she had spoken to him during the engagement made her suddenly feel like a very awkward little girl.
“I’m sorry, sir, for getting a bit emphatic back there. I apologize for getting out of line.”
“You were running a combat engagement, Captain, and at that moment you didn’t have the time to worry about the formalities. Getting the job done has the priority. I need to apologize for lagging on you for a second there. You were correct in your assessment. This was a good mission save and an acceptable calculated risk for the return.”
“I hope so, sir.”
He smiled at her. It was a good smile, sure and safe and approving. “Midrats?” he inquired.
“That sounds good. Last time, you were telling me about Judy.”
Palau Piri Island
0725 Hours, Zone Time: August 17, 2008
Mr. Lan Lo stood waiting beside the breakfast table in the central lanai. He had known for an hour already of the night events at Adat Tanjung and of the loss of the fleet units, but he had kept the knowledge to himself. There was no immediate action that could be taken, and it would be better for Mr. Harconan to be centered from his morning swim and run before he was apprised.
It was unfortunate.
Lo was not a man of overt passions, but he did have a profound understanding of the human condition. His employer, Makara Harconan, was a man in the total and classical sense of the word. Thus he required a mate for completeness, the proper balancing of Yin and Yang. More than that, however, Mr. Harconan was a man of extraordinary capabilities. Such men frequently require extraordinary women to match them because they rapidly become bored and unsatisfied with the frivolous or the commonplace.
Over the past few days, Mr. Harconan had given every indication of having found one such extraordinary woman. Regrettably she was also his blood enemy, who was striving with her own considerable resources to destroy both him and his works.
Truly a tragedy on a par with any told in the wayang poems of the Ramayana. No doubt resolution would be… difficult.
Mr. Harconan strode into the inner garden looking enervated and happy with his world. Lo allowed him to take his chair and then related the events of the night, telling of the secrets presumed lost to the Americans and of the slash at the heart of the Bugis fleet.
When he was finished, Mr. Harconan stared at the tabletop. “She must have known,” he said. “She must have had the entire attack set up and in motion before I brought her here. She looked me in the eyes and never a hint. Never a slip. Not even when…”
“Quite so, Mr. Harconan.”
Port of Call Bali
August 2008
Three days passed for the Sea Fighter Task Force. Three days of sight-seeing temples under tropic skies and drinking beer on the beach at Kuta Bay. Three days of ushering curious Balinese around the decks of the Carlson and the Cunningham. Three days playing the Bahasa Indonesia tour tapes provided by the Department of Defense School of Languages and of answering questions asked in hesitant English. Three days of performing their open mission, showing the flag, and demonstrating America’s military presence on the Pacific Rim.
Three nights as well. Three nights of sitting behind closed-up defenses, watching the dark. Three nights of the Sea Fighters slipping out of the Carlson’s well deck to moan away beyond the Island of Turtles. Three nights of helicopters clattering away into the darkness to skim the wave crests at radar-evading altitudes. Three nights of the same explanation being offered to the port master and Bali ATC. “Units launching to conduct routine training exercises in international waters.”
The Indonesian naval air and surface units that attempted to track the stealthed and evasive Yankees knew this to be a sophistry. Fragmentary fixes and sighting reports indicated the Sea Fighter elements to be plunging deeper into Indonesian territory. Yet, their commanding admiral dared not ask the question “What are the Americans up to?” either to his own government or to the United States. He feared being asked a question in return: “Who asked you to find out?”
Sabalana Island Group
Flores Sea, Indonesia
0143 Hours, Zone Time: August 20, 2008