But the fact that someone had managed to take over the Sabres — had proven they were more advanced and smarter than OSP, Dreamland, Rubeo, and everyone else — that was a little unnerving.
And that, he decided as he checked his course, had to be the problem.
The Sabres were grounded until the brain trust figured out what was going on, but Turk had to now wonder if they could take over the Tigershark as well. It used a completely different intelligence system to help him fly, but its interface connected with that of the Sabres. Maybe these bastards could worm their way in through the UAVs’ interface.
Rubeo had insisted it was impossible — but wouldn’t he have said that about the Sabres as well?
“Whiplash Shark, we need you to take another pass at high altitude,” said Danny Freah over the radio. Freah was in one of the Osprey assault aircraft, heading toward the ships.
“Roger that, Colonel. Stand by.”
Turk brought the Tigershark through a bank and came back over the two ships a lot slower this time. He zoomed the infrared image on the left side of his screen, using the computer’s filter to identify where the people were. There were about twenty on the deck of the cargo carrier, and only eight topside on the tug. The infrared could get no images of anyone belowdecks.
“The cargo containers are shielded from the penetrating radar,” noted Danny. He was looking at his own set of images. The tops of the containers were lined with multiple layers of material arranged to confuse the penetrating waves of lower-powered units such as those carried by the Tigershark. “We need you to keep an eye on them.”
“Roger that.”
Turk selected the array of cargo containers on the forward deck, then instructed the computer to alert him to any physical change in that section. He took some more slow circuits of the area, extending his orbit to a five mile radius around the cargo ship. She was moving at about twelve knots, a decent pace for the vessel, though as far as Turk was concerned she could have been standing still. Satisfied the area was clear and the sensors hadn’t missed anything obvious, he pushed down to 15,000 feet and started a run directly over the two vessels. Nothing had changed; the same number of people were on the decks of each ship.
“All right,” said Danny, watching the feeds. “We’re ten minutes from go. Make your last pass at H minus 02 minutes.”
“Roger that,” said Turk, checking his time.
Danny Freah forwarded the image of the tugboat to the helmets of the rest of the Whiplash assault team.
“We have eight people on the deck of our ship,” he told the troopers. “No weapons are visible. We go in exactly as we planned. Secure the bridge and work down. Everyone good?”
One by one the Whiplashers chimed in. Achmoody, now the team leader with Boston back at the base, pointed out that six of the crewmen were on the stern deck. He suggested they land some of the Marines with the two Whiplashers assigned there, assuming the crewmen on deck remained roughly where they were.
“That way it will be easier to hold them without having to shoot anyone,” he explained. “If they see a bunch of people, they’re more likely just to stay put and not make a fuss. Safer for them, easier for us.”
Danny agreed. He went over to the Marines and showed them the setup using his tablet, then asked if they’d have a problem fast-roping down.
“Fast-roping is our middle name,” said Sergeant Hurst, the Marine NCO in charge.
Danny rolled his eyes, then called over Baby Joe and Glenn Fulsom to work with the Marines.
“Four Marines go in on the stern,” he told the sergeant. “The rest remain aboard as reserve; we use them on whichever ship needs support. These guys will lead you down.”
Cowboy took his position on Greenstreet’s wing, then checked his systems one last time. The plan was to buzz the cargo container ship fast and low, a show of force ahead of the assault. They’d ride bow to stern, with about twenty feet clearance directly over the deck — assuming, of course, that Turk didn’t see something happening before then.
If he did, they’d deal with it. Besides the small-diameter bombs, two of the four F-35s in the squadron formation were carrying “Slammers” — ARM-84 SLAM-ER Block 1Fs, long-range antiship missiles capable of sinking the large cargo ship with a single hit. While not quite as capable as the newer ALAM-ATA Block 1G — a Slammer with the ability to change targets and “reattack” following other missile hits or misses — the weapon was more than capable of dealing with a lumbering cargo vessel.
Cowboy was not carrying a Slammer; tasked to be on the lookout against the drones, he had a pair of AMRAAMs and Sidewinders to go with his small-diameter bombs.
Satisfied that his aircraft was ready for the fight, Cowboy pushed his head back against the top of his ejection seat and tried to slow-breathe away the growing tension and adrenaline. He needed to stay loose and relaxed — nearly impossible tasks this close to showtime. He was like a football player waiting for the Super Bowl to begin; it was just too damn important, too damn exciting, to calm down for.
He loved it.
Working for Whiplash would be like this all the time. Whatever it took, he was going to find a way to get there.
First, this, Cowboy reminded himself. Let’s get this show on the road.
Turk watched the numbers marking his altitude drain on the screen. He’d taken the Tigershark down to 5,000 feet above sea level — low enough to get 4k images of every bolt head on deck.
It was also low enough to get him blown out of the sky if he wasn’t careful. So even though this looked like a cake walk, he knew he couldn’t take it for granted.
“Two minutes,” he told Danny over the Whiplash circuit. “Moving in.”
The Flighthawk bucked a bit as he started out of his turn toward the stern of the cargo carrier, shaking off a burst of turbulence. The sun glinted off the waves, round and bright and big. The back end of the cargo container looked like the squashed bulbous rear of a hippopotamus. The ship sat high in the water, fat and awkward. It was large enough to fit three stacks of containers top to bottom on the stern deck behind the superstructure, eight across. But there were only two there now, brown rectangles whose sides and tops were dotted with patches of rust.
The superstructure, which included the stack for the engine exhaust and all the important crew compartments from the chart room to the bridge, rose high above the stern deck, some eight stories — or container equivalents — high. There was a man on the rail at the starboard side, looking out toward the stern.
There were two large crane structures on the long forward deck. They looked like massive beams or pieces from a suspension bridge; they made it possible for the ship to load and unload containers and other items in ports unequipped to handle large-scale container operations. Turk went straight over the middle of the structures, drawing a line that split the ship in half.
Three dozen containers sat on the forward deck area, arranged in an irregular pattern from one to four high, which left plenty of room not only on the deck itself but on each successive layer, except for the highest, where a single container sat near the centerline of the vessel.
Turk’s flight over the ship lasted no more than a second or two. Rising as he cleared the vessel, he slid left, riding his wing into a tight twist that got him headed back toward the two ships. This time he put his nose on the tugboat’s bow and let his altitude bleed down to 3,500 feet, exactly. His airspeed had slowed as well, though at 250 knots the Tigershark wasn’t exactly standing still.