“Appeared to them?” Hunter said. “How?”
The man shrugged again. “They said they saw his face,” he said. “In the sky, last night … ”
Yaz was much relieved when Hunter later found him sitting alone in the messhall and told him about the boat people and their claim of a vision.
“I saw the same goddamn thing!” Yaz said. “I thought I’d gone around the deep end. The frigging thing spun itself right out of the stars. All red. Strange. Like a movie.”
“And you’re sure it was Lucifer’s face?” Hunter asked.
“One hundred percent, major,” Yaz said, downing his third cup of coffee. “It was weirdly distorted. Like it was changing back and forth. But it was definitely Lucifer. I’d know that face anywhere. And it was horrifying. I’ll never forget it.”
Hunter shook his head. Yaz was a tough kid and still the vision had chilled him. Was there no end to Lucifer’s psycho-weapons?
“He’s somehow convinced the people of Crete that he is this giant Briareus,” he said, anger building inside him.
“But why?” Yaz asked.
“Well, he probably wants the island as a base of operations,” Hunter theorized, downing a cup of joe himself. “He can control a lot of the eastern Med from that island.”
“But we haven’t heard anything from the radio intercepts that Lucifer has gone anywhere,” Yaz pointed out.
“And he probably hasn’t,” Hunter said. “This is probably something he’s entrusted to his allies. It’s a preinvasion tactic, spooking the population to get them out of the way.”
Yaz shook his head, then said, “But the question is, how the hell does he do it? How does he make his face appear in the sky like that?”
Hunter could only shake his head. “Right now, it beats the hell out of me … ”
Chapter 30
It was about noontime when Hunter got an urgent call to report to the CIC.
Heath was there, looking very worried as he and the rest of the CIC group stared into a radar set.
“We’ve got big trouble,” he said as Hunter entered.
“How big is big?” Hunter asked, looking down at the green screen. He soon had his answer. The radar sweep indicated a large concentration of vessels off to the east, coming out of Crete and heading right for the Saratoga.
And as if that weren’t bad enough, another, similar-sized force was also heading right for them, approaching from the southwest.
“Christ … ” he whispered. “They ain’t fishing boats, are they?”
“They’re warships,” Heath told him. “Everything from cruisers to frigates to missile boats according to their radar signatures. Probably some armed supply ships and tankers too. Everything but a battleship and a bloody carrier.”
“The way they’re formed up, they must be acting in concert,” Hunter observed.
“And not a peep out of them on the radios,” Heath said.
“Damn!” Hunter swore. “They’re coordinating an attack and we’re caught in the middle.”
“This might have something to do with those escaping civilians,” Heath said. “These ships could have been what really scared the hell out of them, along with Lucifer’s face-in-the-sky bit, of course.”
A thought suddenly leaped into Hunter’s head. “How many ships?” he asked. “How many … exactly?”
The radar operator took ten seconds to count the blips. “Fifty coming from the east,” the sailor told him. “And another fifty from the southwest. Exactly a hundred ships, major.”
“The hundred arms of Briareus maybe?” Hunter theorized.
Heath thought for a moment. “Could be,” he finally drawled out in his British accent. “Ready to put on a stranglehold. We’re in trouble if we are in the noose. Those small missile ships alone could really muck us up.”
“And we have to assume they are allies of Lucifer,” Hunter said. “No one with fleets of this size could survive this far east in the Med without playing footsies with that snake.”
“They are still twenty-five miles off in each direction and moving fairly slow,” Heath said. “If we start turning to the southeast now, and tell O’Brien to go full speed up, we might avoid the major warships for the time being.”
“And we’ll most likely blow out most of the tug engines,” Hunter said. He thought it over for a moment, then said, “But we’ve got no choice. I’d rather have these guys on our tails than on either side of us.”
He reached over to the ship’s radio and buzzed the lower deck where the carrier’s aircraft were stored.
His voice was calm, steady, forceful. “Prepare all aircraft for standby to launch,” he said. “Get the Jags fitted with antiship missiles. They’ll be the first to go, if we have to go. Put the radar-homing air-to-surface jobs on the Viggens. Harriers get the same thing.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the reply came back immediately.
Heath then hit the battle stations’ klaxon. Instantaneously, they could hear the emergency bells and sirens going off on the nearby surrounding ships.
“I hate to risk our airplanes and crews on something we can avoid,” Hunter said. He turned to one of the CIC technicians and asked. “What kind of a course do we hit going southeast?”
The man punched a handful of computer buttons, then read out the answer from his computer terminal. “On a straight southeast course, we would pass right by an offshore oil facility, major,” the man reported.
“God, that’s just the kind of place we want to avoid,” Hunter said, adding, “Got any more info on it?”
The man pushed more buttons and waited for the lines of words and numbers to jump up on the screen.
“Turkish-controlled, apparently,” the tech said. “Crude oil. Unrefined, of course. No good for fuel. Their refinery is back on Crete.”
“Turkish, you say,” Hunter said, hand on chin. “Why do I have the feeling that those platforms are the real target of these hundred ships?”
“It’s a good theory,” Heath said. “The Turks have been strictly neutral since the big battles died down. Neutral meaning they’ll do business with anyone. They also control a lot of the oil in this part of the Med. Lucifer and his allies have dealt with the Turks before. But it’s strictly business.”
Hunter nodded. “That means that Lucifer would attack them in a second if it suited his needs,” he said. “Those oil platforms would be very valuable for his warships once they’ve broken out into the Med. They’ve probably already taken over the refinery of Crete.
“Lucifer could have hired these hundred ships — the arms of Briareus — to take both Crete and the oil. And that light show last night could be part of the plan. I mean, what better way to secure those facilities than by not having to fire a shot?”
“You mean spooking the platform crews?” Heath asked, shaking his head. “Making local fishermen and old people think you are a reincarnated god with some kind of nighttime projection is one thing, Hunter, old boy. But are the men on those platforms so easily fooled?”
“It’s hard to say,” Hunter replied. “Fooled might not be the right word. The face of Lucifer — as Briareus or not — still is quite a powerful psych-warfare weapon. If the platform guys are just hired help, Lucifer’s ugly face appearing to them in the middle of the night might be just enough to convince them of his overwhelming power. Cause them to just throw in the towel. And quickly.”
He thought for a moment then added, “Of course, then again, for all we know, the platform crews are probably armed to the teeth.”
“Aye,” Heath concurred. “I imagine it would be easy to slap a couple of Exocets onto a oil rig.”
Hunter was worried. There were too many unpredictables in this one. His mind flashed back to Peter. They could use his blathering but accurate foresight right now. Oddly, it seemed as if he’d been gone for ages.