Stone Quillain growled deep in his chest like an angered bear. MacIntyre scowled, made a slashing “Cut it!” gesture across his throat.
Down at the far end of the table, Christine tilted her head, listening to her own earphone, then started to scribble furiously on the notepad again.
“Have Captain Garrett’s captors given you a list of demands?” MacIntyre inquired.
“Yes, they have, a preliminary one at any rate. Firstly, there are certain amounts of ransom being demanded, in both cash and goods. I’m prepared to deal with that and I’m doing so at this time. Maybe I can buy her a degree of protection, at least in the short term.”
Christine passed around her second notepad sheet. The SOB is lying like a Persian rug. This transmission is originating at Crab’s Claw. We have an emission-pattern match through an ELINT satellite. He’s relaying his call through Palau Piri to establish an alibi.
“What else do they want?” MacIntyre inquired, stone-faced.
“The pirates apparently lost some of their people during a recent attack on a Russian freighter south of the Sunda Strait. They want information on their fate, and if any of them are being held by the authorities, they want them released.”
“I have no information on that, Mr. Harconan. All we can do is send inquiries to the Indonesian government and the International Piracy Center.”
“If that’s the case, then please do so. That brings us to their final demand.” Harconan hesitated. “This one I fear could prove more… difficult.”
“How so, Mr. Harconan?”
“The pirates understand about your capacities, Admiral. They want your Sea Fighter Task Force out of Indonesian waters immediately. In fact, they want all United States naval forces out of the archipelago until further notice.”
MacIntyre flipped his lip mike aside, covering the receptor head with a cupped hand. “Damn it, I was expecting this one.”
He removed his hand and readjusted the mike. “Mr. Harconan, you have to know that’s a call that can only be made by my nation’s National Command Authority. There are freedom-of-the-seas issues here that involve U.S. global policy. I can’t make any such decision, and I doubt the President would be willing to make such a call even at the cost of a hostage’s life.”
Harconan’s voice was earnest and insistent. “You must try, Admiral. You must convince your authorities to pull back. The Bugis will not yield on this point. If your ships are not headed out of Indonesian waters within twenty-four hours at the most, Amanda Garrett will die, and it will be execution by slow torture. This is not an idle threat. You must make your government understand.”
“I can only take this matter up with my superiors, Mr. Harconan. You have my”—a grimace crossed MacIntyre’s features—“heartfelt thanks for your assistance in this affair. Can you keep the Bugis talking? Can you get them to speak directly with some of our State Department negotiators?”
“I doubt it, Admiral. As I said, it’s a matter of trust. The Bugis will work through me. They aren’t interested in direct talks. I will do what I can for Captain Garrett, but I’m afraid there’s not all that much that can be done unless you clear Indonesian waters. After that, we can only wait and see.”
“I guess so, Mr. Harconan. Will you be available for further contact?”
“I’ll be remaining here at Palau Piri until we get some resolution on this matter. You may contact me at any time, day or night. I am at your disposal.”
“I thank you again, sir. We are most… grateful.” MacIntyre broke the voice link.
The wardroom was dead silent for several seconds, then Stone Quillain spoke.
“Thank you, God, that’s real convenient of you. We got the skipper, the sat, and the son of a bitch all at the same location. We can take the whole pot with one hand. Okay, Admiral, when do we go in?”
MacIntyre removed his command headset and tossed it on the wardroom table. “As soon as we can figure out how to do it without getting Captain Garrett killed. Ladies and gentlemen, here are your mission parameters. We have an assault on one of the most perfect natural fortresses I have ever seen. The garrison stands at between three and four hundred combatants with heavy infantry weapons and with all aspects of the terrain and environment on their side. That’s not counting the base personnel underground and the crew of the LSM. Our Marine contingent will be outnumbered by better than four to one. As for who we may be fighting, Inspector Tran, do you have any input on that question?”
Tran’s face was ominously impassive. “My best estimation would be a mixed force of Bugis pirates and indigenous Morning Star guerrillas in the service of Harconan. You can expect the Morning Stars to be hardened jungle fighters. The Bugis will no doubt be the most trusted and dedicated of Harconan’s pirate cadre. With either group, you may expect resistance that will border on the fanatical.”
“Hell, that’s not all that big of a deal,” Cobra Richardson commented from his end of the table. “Like the man said, volume of fire beats superior numbers. Between my Seawolves, the Little Pigs, and the naval gunfire support from the big ships, we can whittle those numbers down real fast.”
Stone gave a derisive snort. “I wouldn’t know about that. You flyboys and the gundeckers always promise the moon on a silver platter when it comes to gun support, but you generally deliver a horse turd on a paper plate.”
MacIntyre lifted a hand to cut off Richardson’s heated reply. “Stand easy, Cobra. Stone, that isn’t the point. I have no doubt we can effectively scalp that cape with the resources available to us, but it will take time. You know as well as I do that in a hostage op, we have to get a major force in there fast.”
The admiral returned his attention to the Seawolf leader. “Cobra, how does it look for an airmobile insertion — say, at the mouths of the landward entry tunnels?”
The lean, mustached aviator frowned and sat back in his chair. “Frankly, not so hot. You got solid double layer rain forest growth over the peninsula and everywhere else along the coast for a good five miles, palms, ironwood, and casuarina. There’s nothing even close to a good LZ, and you’d be looking at a wicked rappel or fast-rope environment, a hundred-to-a-hundred-and-twenty-foot minimum from the forest roof. The Marines would be sitting ducks dropping down the lines, and it would be even worse for the helos.”
“I got to agree with Cobra on that,” Stone added.
“There’s only one way we might be able to make airmobile work,” the Seawolf leader went on. “We call up the Air Commandos at Curtin and have them lug us in a Daisy Cutter. That would solve a lot of our problems right there.”
The mention of Daisy Cutter invoked a soft chorus of whistles and murmurs.
“What is a Daisy Cutter, Christine?” Tran asked, puzzled.
“A bomb.” she replied. “A very big bomb. As big as it gets this side of Plutonium.”
“Its official nomenclature is the BLU-82,” Cobra added. “It’s a fifteen-thousand-pound fuel-air explosive too big to be carried by any conventional bomber. You have to roll it out of the tail ramp of a C-130. It doesn’t matter what kind of forest you drop it into: when the toothpicks stop raining out of the sky, you’ve got four or five acres of beautiful landing zone, bare naked and flat as a pancake. What’s more, anyone aboveground for a quarter mile in any direction is instantly converted to raspberry jam. But people deep underground in a tunnel complex should survive okay.”
“Maybe,” MacIntyre replied. “But would this particular tunnel complex survive? The Japanese didn’t know about FAE’s when they built this place. Would the natural cavern roof be stressed to take that kind of shock wave without caving in?”
Richardson could only shrug. “It would depend on how it was reinforced, sir. We’d have to get inside and look the place over to know for sure.”