Don Brown - Black Sea Affair

"Right out here, Mrs. Callahan."

"Bill's on the phone, Zack. He says it's urgent."

Zack broke into a slight jog toward his hostess. She handed him the cordless phone.

"Yes, sir?"

"Pack your bags. Washington's got a high-profile assignment for you. I'll pick you up in one hour and brief you on the plane."

Zack's heart jumped. Finally, a ticket back into the action. Right now, anything sounded good. "Aye, aye, sir! I'll be ready!"

British lookout post

The Rock of Gibraltar

Lieutenant Jeremy Tomlinson, Royal Navy of the British Empire, swung his telescope down into the broad channel separating the north wall of the Rock from the Spanish coastline.

The telescope swept the waterway. The bow of the long, low-lying freighter sailed into view.

The ship was churning from right to left. Tomlinson flicked the telescope just to the right to keep the ship in view.

The stern came into full view. From it fluttered a horizontally divided red-white-black flag with the so-called eagle of Saladin in the middle of the white stripe.

Tomlinson picked up the phone. "Gibraltar Lookout to HMS Sabre."

"HMS Sabre. Go ahead, Gibraltar."

"We've got an Egyptian freighter entering the channel. Can't make out the name on the stern. I'll leave that one to you, ole boy."

"Roger that, Gibraltar. We are on it."

HMS Sabre

The Straits of Gibraltar

Lieutenant Stephen Stacks, commanding officer of the HMS Sabre, scrambled his four-man crew. Within minutes, the patrol boat was cutting through the waters at Gibraltar Harbor.

Flash message traffic indicated that Britain's closest ally was on the hunt for an Egyptian freighter, the Al Alamein, and that such freighter might try escaping the Mediterranean either via the Suez Canal or the Straits of Gibraltar.

Stacks pushed down on the throttle, and the fifty-two-foot Royal Navy patrol boat planed out into the open water at more than thirty knots.

Sabre cleared the huge Rock's south side. A few minutes later, the freighter came into view, steaming west toward the Atlantic.

"Let's go have a look, " Stacks announced. The British patrol boat sped out into the Straits, and then sliced a path across the rolling swells, straight for the slower-moving freighter.

Sabre closed to within one hundred yards, drawing a long blast from the freighter's horn. She veered to the right, shooting down the port side of the ship, then swung acoss her wake into the churning water behind her stern.

Stacks brought his binoculars to his eyes, aiming for the stern, just under the flapping red, white, and black horizontally striped Egyptian flag.

Al Alamein.

"We've found her."

The Al Alamein

Straits of Gibraltar

The British patrol boat is breaking off, Kapitan, " one of the deckhands announced.

"The British are always pestering freighters, especially Arab freighters, around Gibraltar, " the first officer said.

"Very well, " Captain Hosni Sadir muttered, looking out the bridge at the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. No other escort vessels were anywhere in sight. No aircraft were overhead.

His first officer was probably right. He'd seen it before himself. The Brits liked buzzing around the Straits in their speedboats like they owned the place – as if they were reminding the world that Lord Nelson had won the Battle of Trafalgar against the Spanish in these very waters hundreds of years ago.

Good.

Let them live in the past. They had no clue that his ship was now a floating hydrogen bomb.

Sadir looked over at Salman Dudayev, who was fiddling with some electric wires inside a black metal box over on the right side of the bridge.

"How is the detonator coming, Salman?"

"My work is nearly complete, Kapitan. Should you like, we could vaporize the Rock of Gibraltar from this very bridge."

Sadir smiled at that thought. If they ignited the bomb now, at least the British would no longer pester Arab freighters entering or exiting the Straits.

"Save the fireworks for our real target. Perhaps one day the Rock will bear a monument that we sailed past it on this day toward our glorious mission."

"Praise be to Allah, " Salman Dudayev said.

"Radar officer, what do you see out there?"

"Nothing unusual, Kapitan. No one is paying us any attention. I predict smooth sailing all the way to our target."

"Very well, " Sadir said. "All ahead full."

"All ahead full."

Al Alamein surged ahead in the water, planing slightly as she headed into the open waters of the Atlantic.

The USS Charlotte Straits of Gibraltar

Alert one! Alert one! Incoming emergency action message! Alert One! Alert One! Incoming EAM!"

Commander Steve "Puck" Puckett, captain of the American nuclear submarine USS Charlotte, looked up at the loudspeaker blaring the announcement into the control room.

"XO, take the conn."

"Aye, Captain, I have the conn, " Lieutenant Commander Todd Swanson said.

Puckett barreled through the narrow passageways, passing sailors who stood back and shouted, "Make way for the captain!"

Puck stepped into the radio room.

"Attention on deck!"

"What have you got?" Pete barked.

"The Brits have spotted the freighter. They're right on top of us, sir."

Puckett took the message from the radio officer's hands.

EMERGENCY ACTION MESSAGE

FROM: NATIONAL MILITARY COMMAND CENTER – WASHINGTON, D.C.

TO: USS CHARLOTTE

SUBJECT: ACTION MESSAGE

REMARKS: British Patrol Boat HMS Sabre has spotted Egyptian freighter Al Alamein in Gibraltar Straits fifteen minutes ago, course bearing two-seven-zero degrees.

Sabre reports Al Alamein making run for open seas of Atlantic at fourteen knots.

Your orders are maintain surveillance of Al Alamein until ordered to break off by National Command Authority.

Be prepared to attack or board by SEAL team on orders of National Command Authority.

Commander Puckett rushed back to the bridge.

"Attention on deck!"

"I have the conn!" Puckett said. "Up scope!"

Puckett grabbed the periscope and swept the horizon. Within minutes the freighter came into view. She was cutting through the water about a mile to the submarine's east, making a run for the open sea.

"Down scope!" Puckett shouted, then picked up the microphone and dialed the sonar room. "Sonar, do you have a read on that freighter?"

"Aye, Captain, we've got her loud and clear. Single screw. Distinctive whine."

"Stay on it. Don't let her out of your ears."

"Aye, Captain."

"XO, get the navigational chart out for Gibraltar."

"Aye, sir." Lieutenant Commander Swanson complied, and the chart was rolled out on a small drafting table.

"Chief of the Boat, OOD, everyone gather around." Puckett called the officers in the control room around him. "All right, let's mark this for the log, " Puckett said. "Here's our position." With a grease pencil, he marked the positon of the submarine. "Here's the position of the freighter. She's headed west." He marked the freighter's position.

"We don't know where she's going, but Washington wants us to follow her and find out. If necessary, we're ordered to board her, or even sink her. So here's the plan. We'll let her pass over us, and then we'll maintain a depth of one hundred fifty feet, and we're going to follow in her wake. We'll use her noise to help camouflage our presence. Be ready and be alert." Puckett eyed his crew. "Any questions?"

There were none.

"Very well. Let's get on with it."

Pulkovo International Airport St. Petersburg, Russia

In a brown leather bomber jacket and blue jeans, and carrying a small black briefcase, Zack Brewer stepped out of the British Airways 767 into the enclosed jetway.