Worse, thousands of gallons of marine diesel fuel were spilling from ruptured tanks now, and the fuel had caught fire. The surface blaze looked tiny alongside the huge vessel, but the clouds of greasy black smoke roiled into the blue of the tropical noon sky. The blaze was spreading quickly, providing the men trapped on board with their choice of deaths — by fire or by sea.
Ul Haq could now hear a strange, ongoing noise echoing through Shuhadaa Muqaddaseerts steel hull, a kind of clanging, clashing sound, part drumbeat, part crash. It took him a moment to figure out what that noise was… hundreds and hundreds of cars and trucks, torn from their fastenings as the deck tilted sharply beneath them, slamming ten, twenty, fifty at a time into the port-side bulkheads. The crashing sound was accompanied by another sound that submariners knew well — those who'd been in combat, at any rate… a shrill, piercing squeal, almost like a woman's scream.
It was the death cry of a ship, the sound made by twisting, tearing steel.
As he watched, the Innoshima Maru shuddered, rolled suddenly, and literally fell full on her port side in a colossal cascade of white spray. The shriek of tearing metal grew suddenly sharper and louder, and then with a wrench, stern separated from bow, the rear half submerging rapidly, the bow rolling and settling a bit, still afloat, but going down fast. For a time, the blunt prow of the Innoshima Maru remained jutting above water like a red-and-black-painted island, almost engulfed by black smoke.
Ten minutes later, it was all over. With a final rattle of steel and cargo spilling into the depths, a final rumble of water flooding internal compartments, the last of 52,000 tons of ship and cargo vanished beneath the waves.
Shuhadaa Muqaddaseen had scored her first major seagoing kill.
"Thank you for coming ashore, Commander," Captain Theodore Summers said. "I know you're damned busy."
"It did catch me by surprise, Captain," Garrett replied. "My orders are quite explicit about wrapping things up here and moving on to our next waypoint with all possible speed."
Garrett was standing in Summers's office, clad in his dress white uniform, as protocol demanded.
"Quite right," Summers said. He was a heavyset man with a mustache, close-cropped hair the color of steel, and the brusque manner of a corporate CEO. Captain Summers was in fact the senior Naval Intelligence officer at Yokosuka, and a member of Admiral Montgomery's personal staff. Montgomery was the CO of Fleet Activities, and an order from his intelligence officer was as good as an order from the Man himself. "But I thought you would want to see these…."
He handed Garrett a string-tied messenger envelope, marked top secret and eyes only. Garrett read the security classification warning box, then looked up at Summers, questioning.
"You have the proper clearances, Commander. I arranged it."
Garrett undid the fastening and pulled out two 8x10 black-and-white photographs. Both appeared to have been shot from the air at an oblique angle. Both showed the surface of the ocean in almost crystalline detail and clarity. One showed a large cargo or container ship of some kind, partly sunk and engulfed in the stain of oil and black smoke. The other was more difficult to identify. It looked like a building — was that a heliport on one end? — or possibly a large ship of some sort, twisted, broken, and aflame.
Identifiers at the corners showed that the photos both had been taken by KH-12 reconnaissance satellites. According to the time and date stamps, one — the strange-looking structure — had been taken five days ago. The other had been taken… my God! Less than three hours ago. That was astonishingly fast work for this sort of intelligence dissemination down the ladder from NPIC and the CIA. Someone at the very top must think that it was very important that Garrett see these.
"That," Summers said, pointing to the first photo, "is… was, I should say, the Vietnamese oil exploration base on Amboyna Cay, in the Spratly Island Group. I gather Washington flashed you about that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. And this one was taken this afternoon about 175 miles west of Amboyna Cay, halfway between the Spratlys and the southern tip of Vietnam. It's a Japanese commercial car carrier. Panamanian flag, but it had the name 'Nissan' spelled out in giant letters down both sides, so there's no possibility that her attackers didn't know who she was. That ship was sunk deliberately and without warning. Now, look at this."
He pulled a standard marine navigational chart from its storage tube and unrolled it on his desk. The chart showed the South China Sea, from the Philippines in the east to Malaysia in the west, from the northern shore of Borneo in the south to southern China in the north. Six Xs marked the chart, each neatly labeled. Five lay clustered among the central
Spratly Islands, and another was located well out of the archipelago and off to the west, almost due south of the bulging belly of Vietnam.
"These two," Summers said, "the Vietnamese exploration rig and the Innoshima Maru, that Japanese cargo ship, are apparently just the last two of a number of sinkings in this region. Reports are still filtering through, and we may not have all of them yet. These first three… here, here, and here, represent the last reported positions of one Vietnamese and two Filipino fishing trawlers. The first went missing sometime last Saturday, 27 May."
"Somebody thinks those sinkings were connected with Amboyna Cay?" Garrett asked, one eyebrow giving a skeptical lift. "I imagine fishing boats go missing in those waters all the time."
Summers nodded. "The South China Sea is one of the most dangerous areas for boats and small craft in the world. You wouldn't think it in this day and age, but piracy is not a thing of the past."
"Yes, sir." Garrett had read reports of whole fleets of pirate vessels — mostly fishing boats and trawlers disguised to look like harmless working craft — operating out of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Their victims tended to be fishing boats and trawlers, small commercial craft, and the like; sometimes, though, when political shifts sent hordes of refugees fleeing their native countries in overcrowded rafts and boats, the pirates indulged in bloody orgies of robbery, rape, and murder. "But…" Garrett held up the photographs. "You don't think these were the work of pirates, do you? A major base and a Nissan carrier are pretty big targets. Besides, what's the payoff?"
"Correct. Pirates go after weak and defenseless targets… and they're only going to do it if they get something out of it. Amboyna Cay and the Innoshima Maru are part of something else, something bigger. Someone may be trying to disguise them as piracy. Or … maybe the pirates have some new players on their team."
Garrett studied the photos a moment longer. "What kind of weapons are we looking at here?"
"What's your guess?"
"Torpedoes. The car carrier looks like her back was broken. That suggests an explosion under her keel. Since when do pirates in the South China Sea use torpedoes?"
"That is why the Pentagon is assuming Chinese involvement. We know they have attack subs in the region. We also know they want the Vietnamese out of the Spratly Islands. Amboyna Cay could be a first move on their part in that direction."
"But then… why sink the Maru?"