Tran joined Quillain in studying the visual spectrum prints. “During the conflict, the Japanese would no doubt have kept their base carefully camouflaged from air and sea observation. And afterwards, the jungle would have rapidly reclaimed it, erasing all overt trace of its existence. The only ones likely to stumble across it would be either the local natives or—”
“Or Bugis sea traders looking for safe anchorage along this coast,” MacIntyre finished.
Tran nodded. “Precisely. Neither group being outgoing with their secrets.”
Captain Carberry rose from one of the chairs he had claimed at the wardroom perimeter and leaned in over the table, studying one of the SA radar images. “Commander Rendino, I believe you mentioned that the primary chamber was some four hundred feet in length by one hundred wide?”
“Yes. sir. That’s our best guess.”
“Interesting.” the stubby amphib commander mused. “I recall that an East German Frosch 1-class LSM has a length of three hundred twenty-one point five feet and a beam of thirty-six point four feet.”
Christine frowned. “That’s right, sir…. Oh, jeez! I get it. The Indonesian navy surplus amphib that’s part of the Makara Limited coaster fleet. The one we lost track of!”
Carberry nodded. “Precisely. Given the bulk of the industrial satellite that was pirated, a Landing Ship Medium would be the perfect mode of transport. The satellite would be completely concealed belowdecks and cranes and other such port facilities wouldn’t be required. You could beach and off-load in a multitude of places well away from inquiring customs officials.”
“By God, Lucas, you’re right!” MacIntyre exclaimed. “This would be the logical holding site for the INDASAT. Harconan must be gearing up to move it out of the archipelago. An LSM could shift it anywhere between the Philippines and Aden.”
“Very easily, sir,” Carberry agreed.
A sudden, startling voice issued from the wardroom’s overhead speaker: “Commander Rendino, please contact the joint information center immediately.”
Christine keyed the JIC address on her command headset. “Rendino ’by. What’s happening, JIC?”
She listened intently to the response. “We’ve got something going down,” she repeated. “The Global Hawk’s just detected an encrypted satphone going active on Crab’s Claw.”
Two hundred and twenty miles overhead, an Iridium II communications satellite intercepted an aimed beam from the coast of southwestern New Guinea. Recognizing the phone of a listed subscriber, it accepted reception, relaying the transmission earthward to a point fifteen hundred miles distant in the central Indonesian archipelago.
At this point another spacecraft became involved, a United States Air Force space maneuver vehicle arcing in a ball-of-yarn orbit above the western Pacific. The robotic mini-shuttle carried a Defense Intelligence Agency “Black Ferret” electronic-intelligence-gathering module in its cargo bay, the spidery antenna arrays deployed through the SMVs open back hatch.
One of a squadron of half a dozen such vehicles, the primary focus of its six-month-long ELINT mission was the monitoring of events in the United Republics of China in the volatile aftermath of that nation’s civil war. However, a sliver of the multithousand-channel monitoring capacity of the Ferret Fleet had been retasked in flight for NAVSPECFORCE’s use and targeted upon the communications flow in and out of Makara Harconan’s headquarters complex on Palau Piri Island.
Fortune smiled upon the Sea Fighter Task Force. One of the Black Ferrets was coming above the right horizon at just the right time.
A minute and twenty seven seconds after the initial private satphone call was received on Palau Piri, a cellular link activated, relaying the transmission across to the Makara Limited corporate headquarters at Nusa Dua. From there, the message stream was beamed back into space and to the big Pacificom Starlink satellite in synchronous orbit 24,000 miles above the Philippines, and from there to a destination only four hundred miles away from the message’s point of origin.
Obedient to its programming, the SMV-mounted Ferret module sorted this single electronic thread out of the multimillion-message tapestry of transpacific communications and reported the event in real time to its interested masters.
Another voice issued from the wardroom loudspeaker. “Wardroom, this is communications. We have a call coming in on our civil access satphone from a Makara Harconan. He wishes to speak with Admiral MacIntyre. He says it’s urgent and that it concerns Captain Garrett.”
Glances were exchanged around the wardroom table. Christine Rendino nodded, speaking quietly and urgently to the joint intelligence center through her lip mike. MacIntyre donned and keyed his own head set. “Communications. This is MacIntyre. I’ll take the call. Route my voice through my headset, but put Harconan over the wardroom squawk box. And record everything. Understood?”
“Understood, sir. We’ll have you set up in a second.”
“Keep him talking, Admiral,” Christine said softly. “We’ll know in a minute if this is a coincidence or not.”
“Admiral MacIntyre, are you there?” The questioning voice of Makara Harconan issued from the overhead speaker.
“Right here, Mr. Harconan,” MacIntyre replied. “What can we do for you?”
There wasn’t a sound from anywhere else in the wardroom.
“I hope I can do something for you, Admiral,” Harconan’s filtered voice replied, “and for Captain Garrett. I have word of her.”
“That’s excellent, Mr. Harconan,” MacIntyre said, playing the game, “What can you tell us?”
Every officer in the wardroom stared up at the overhead speaker.
“I can confirm to you that she is alive and well. I have good information on this from a source I trust. Unfortunately, I must also confirm she has been taken and is being held hostage by one of the Bugis pirate factions.”
“That’s what we’ve been afraid of. Can you tell us where, Mr. Harconan? Do you have any idea of her location?”
“None at all, Admiral,” the taipan replied. “She could be anywhere on any one of a thousand islands. You must understand, the situation is very delicate. I have a certain number of contacts within the Indonesian Bugis community. I am trusted to a degree by some of the clan leadership, but only to a degree. They will talk to me, but that doesn’t mean they confide in me. At best, I might be able to serve as a go-between for negotiations, but that is all.”
“Negotiations?” MacIntyre probed. “For Captain Garrett’s release?”
“Maybe eventually, Admiral,” the grim reply came back. “Right now, I fear we’re negotiating simply to keep her alive. The clans are angry, and please believe me, they are quite ready and willing to take their anger out on Captain Garrett.”
Christine scribbled something on her notepad. Ripping the sheet off, she slid it down the wardroom table to MacIntyre.
Get him to say where he is.
MacIntyre glanced at the note and nodded. “I understand the situation, Mr. Harconan. Can you at least tell us how the pirates are contacting you? What is your location?”
“I’m at my home at Palau Piri. The contact is through one of my Bugis trading agents on one of the outer islands. I hope you’ll understand when I say I don’t think saying which one would be either wise or productive.”
“Why not, Mr. Harconan?”
“Because, as I must repeat, the situation is very delicate, and because I feel somewhat responsible for Captain Garrett in this situation. I know and understand the Bugis. Maybe we can talk her out of this situation, but the slightest precipitous action on anyone’s part, your government’s or mine, will get her killed and rather horribly.”