Frederick Forsyth - The Afghan

“Jesus, would you look at that,” murmured an operator to no one in particular. While the freighter was at sea, someone had gone over the stern with a brush and white paint and daubed a crossbar over the letter i in Maria. It attempted to rechristen her the Dona Marta, but the white smear was simply too crude to dupe any onlooker for more than a few seconds.

There are two Coast Guard cutters operating out of Charleston, South Carolina, both Hamilton class, and both were at sea. They are the 717 USCG Mellon and her sister ship, the Morgenthau. The Mellon was closer, and turned toward the hijacked fugitive, moved from optimum cruising speed to flanking speed. Her navigator rapidly plotted her intercept at ninety minutes, just before sundown. The term “cutter” hardly does the Mellon justice; she can perform like a small destroyer, at 150 meters in length and 3,300 tons deadweight. As she raced through the early-April Atlantic swell, her crew ran to prepare her armament-just in case. The missing tanker was already rated as “likely hostile.” Then two figures appeared from the door of the sterncastle, just behind the bridge. One had an M6o machine gun slung round his neck. It was a futile gesture, and sealed the tanker’s fate. He was clearly North African, and clearly visible in the setting sun. He loosed off a short burst of gunfire that went over the top of the Mellon, then took a bullet in the chest from one of the four M16 carbines being aimed at him from the deck of the Mellon. That was the end of negotiations. As the Algerian’s body slumped backward, and the steel door through which he had stepped slammed shut, the captain of the Mellon asked for permission to sink the runaway. But permission was denied. The message from the base was unequivocal.

“Pull away from her. Make distance now, and make it fast. She’s a floating bomb.

Resume station a mile from the tanker.”

Regretfully, the Mellon turned away, powering up to maximum speed and leaving the tanker alone to her fate. The two F-16 Falcons were already airborne, and three minutes distant.

There is a squadron at Pensacola Air Force Base, on the Florida panhandle, that maintains a five-minutes-to-scramble standby readiness round the clock. Its primary use is against drug smugglers, airborne and sometimes seaborne, trying to slip into Florida and neighboring states with mostly cocaine. They came out of the sunset in a clear, darkling sky, locked on to the tanker west of Bimini and armed their Maverick missiles. Each pilot’s visual display showed him the SMART… MISSILES… LOCK on the target, and the death of the tanker was very mechanical, very precise, very devoid of emotion. There was a clipped command from the element leader, and both Mavericks left their housing beneath the fighters and followed their noses. Seconds later, two warheads involving some 135 kilograms of unpleasantness hit the tanker. Even though the Dona Marias cargo was not air-mixed for maximum power, the detonations of the Mavericks deep inside her petrol jelly were enough. From a mile away, the crew of the Mellon watched the Dona Maria burn and were duly impressed. They felt the heat wash over their faces and smelled the stench of concentrated gasoline on fire. It was quick. There was nothing left to smolder on the surface. The forward and stern ends of the tanker went down as two separate pieces of molten junk. The last of her heavier fuel oil flickered for five minutes, then the sea claimed it all.

Just as Ali Aziz al-Khattab had intended.

Within an hour, the president of the USA was interrupted at a state banquet with a brief, whispered message. He nodded, demanded a full verbal report at eight the next morning in the Oval Office and returned to his soup. At five minutes before eight, the director of the CIA, with Mark Gumienny at his side, were shown into the Oval Office. Gumienny had been there twice before, and it still impressed the hell out of him. The president and the other five of the six principals were there.

The formalities were brief. Marek Gumienny was asked to report on the progress and termination of a lengthy exercise in counter-terrorism known as Crowbar. He kept it short, aware that the man sitting under the round window overlooking the Rose Garden, with its six-inch bulletproof glass, loathed long explanations. The rule of thumb was always “Fifteen minutes, and then shut up.” Marek Gumienny telescoped the complexities of Crowbar into twelve. There was silence when he finished.

“So, the tip from the Brits turned out to be right?” said the vice president. “Yes, sir. The agent they slipped inside Al Qaeda, a very brave officer whom I had the privilege of meeting last fall, must be presumed dead. If not, he would have shown sign of life by now. But he got the message out. The terror weapon was indeed a ship.”

“I had no idea cargoes that dangerous were being carried around the world on a daily basis,” marveled the secretary of state in the ensuing silence. “Nor I,” said the president. “Now, regarding the G8 conference, what is your advice to me?”

The secretary of defense glanced at the director of National Security and nodded. They had clearly prepared their joint advice to go ahead. “Mr. President, we have every reason to believe the terrorist threat to this country, notably, the city of Miami, was destroyed last night. The peril is over. Regarding the G8, during the entire conference you will be under the protection of the U.S. Navy, and the Navy has pledged its word that no harm will come to you. Our advice, therefore, is that you go ahead to your G8 with an easy mind!”

“Why, then, that’s what I shall surely do,” said the president of the USA.

David Gundlach reckoned he had the best job in the world. Second best, anyway. To have that fourth gold stripe on the sleeve or epaulette and be the captain of the vessel would be even better, but he happily settled for first officer. On an April evening, he stood at the starboard wing of the huge bridge and looked down at the swarming humanity on the dock of the new Brooklyn Terminal two hundred feet below him. The borough of Brooklyn was not above him; from the height of a twenty-three-story building, he was looking down on most of it. Pier 12 on Buttermilk Channel, being inaugurated that very evening, is not a small dock, but this liner took up all of it. At 1,132 feet long, 135 feet in the beam and drawing thirty-nine feet so that that whole channel had had to be deepened for her, she was the biggest passenger liner afloat by a large margin. The more First Officer Gundlach, on his first crossing since his promotion, looked at her, the more magnificent she seemed. Far below, and away in the direction of the streets beyond the terminal buildings, he could make out the banners of the frustrated and angry demonstrators. New York ’s police had with great effectiveness simply cordoned off the entire terminal. Harbor police boats skimmed and swerved round the terminal to ensure that no protesters in boats could come near. Even if the protesters had been able to approach at sea level, it would have done them no good. The steel hull of the liner simply towered above the waterline, its lowest ports more than fifty feet up. So those passengers boarding that evening could do so in complete privacy. Not that they were of interest to the protesters. So far, the liner was simply taking on board the lowly ones: stenographers, secretaries, junior diplomats, special advisers and all the human ants without whom the great and good of the world could apparently not discuss hunger, poverty, security, trade barriers, defense and alliances.

As the notion of security crossed his mind, David Gundlach frowned. He and his fellow officers had spent the day escorting scores of American Secret Service men over every inch of the ship. They all looked the same; they all scowled in concentration, they all jabbered into their sleeves where the mikes were hidden and they all got their answers in earpieces, without which they felt naked. Gundlach finally concluded they were professionally paranoid-and they found nothing amiss.