Dale Brown - End Game

‘I’m not positive it’s a seaplane,’ said T-Bone.

‘Thanks. Stand by.’

He glanced at the video screen at the lower left of his control panel. Storm was still busy, so Dog used the circuit to talk to Starship. ‘Wisconsin to Werewolf One. Starship, this is Colonel Bastian. How are you?’

‘Busy, Colonel; just coming up to the Indian destroyer now. But OK, sir.’

‘Can you give us anything else on that aircraft? Was he aboard that tanker? Next to him? Had he been in the air and en route south?’

‘Don’t know on any of that, Colonel. I’m sorry.’

Starship broke to answer a communication from the destroyer; Dog heard him being directed to the starboard side of the ship, where the destroyer had several men in the water.

‘All right, Werewolf One’ said Dog. ‘Contact us when you get a chance.’

‘Werewolf,’ said Starship quickly.

‘Bastian?’

‘Yes, Storm. Go ahead.’

‘Concentrate on the submarine. Where’s the Piranha?’

‘The aircraft carrying it will be taking off in about an hour.’

‘Hurry it up. Get it over there ASAP.’

‘Roger that.’ Dog switched over to the interphone. ‘T-Bone, continue to track that aircraft Werewolf was after. Update me every few minutes.’

Starship could see the Indian destroyer listing heavily to its starboard side as he approached. The torpedo had exploded close to the hull, but either by deft maneuvering or good luck, the Indian warship had sustained only a glancing blow. That was still enough to do heavy damage, however, and the crew was working feverishly to block off sections of the ship that were being flooded.

The Werewolf’s searchlights made small circles on the foaming waves near the crippled ship. A small boat had disembarked from the destroyer and was approaching the area. Starship dropped the robot aircraft into a hover, concentrating on illuminating the area near the boat.

The Indian ship radioed to ask that he move toward the bow of the destroyer. It took a few seconds for Starship to understand what the radioman was saying through his accent.

‘Roger that. Moving toward bow.’

Large bits of debris floated near the ship. The Werewolf’s search lamps caught a twisted pipe sticking out from the side of the ship, an obscene gesture directed back at whoever had attacked it.

Something bobbed at the far right of his screen, just outside the area he was illuminating. He nudged the stick, moving the robot helo toward it and zooming his optical video feed to full magnification.

A head bobbed in his screen.

‘Calcutta, I have something,’ he told the destroyer. ‘Have the boat follow my beam.’

He waited anxiously, lights trained on the seaman. The boat reacted in slow motion. Starship lost sight of the man for a second and started shouting. ‘Get over there, damn it! Get over there! Get him before he drowns! Come on! Come on!’

As the prow of the rescue boat came into view, the head bobbed back up. Starship saw someone in the boat reaching with a pole, but the man in the water didn’t take it. The boat got closer; one of the sailors leaned out toward the stricken man. Starship kept the Werewolf steady, trying to stay close enough to give them plenty of light but not wipe them out with the wash of the rotors.

The man in the boat grabbed the stricken sailor by the back of the shoulders. He hauled him into the boat.

Starship’s eyes were glued to the screen. He saw the head coming out of the water, and then the arms and the top of the man’s back – and nothing else.

The man had been severed in two by the explosion.

Bile ran up Starship’s throat. He threw his hand over his mouth but it was too late; some of the acid spurted out over his shirt. Eyes tearing, he tried choking it back down, struggling with his other hand to control the Werewolf.

Storm paced the bridge, anxious to get his ship south. The Abner Read was built for stealth, not speed; still, she could touch forty knots, a good speed for a small craft.

Right now she was doing 38 knots. Even if they held that speed, it would take roughly five hours to reach the destroyer.

‘I’m going out for some air,’ he told the others. Then he walked out onto the flying bridge at the side.

No more than a platform that could be folded into the superstructure, the design of the flying bridge had been carefully calculated to have minimal impact on the Abner Read’ s radar signature. Not only was it the highest point on the low-slung ship, but it was one of the few dry and flat surfaces outside. The main deck sloped down and was often lapped with waves.

The salty breeze bit Storm’s cheeks. The wind was coming up and he felt a chill. But it was a good chill, the sort of wind that reminded him why he’d wanted to join the Navy in the first place.

The aircraft the Werewolf had seen near the oil tanker bothered him. It seemed similar to the ones they’d spotted the night Port Somalia was struck. If it had been a little bigger, he supposed, it might have launched the torpedo itself.

Maybe it was working with the submarine that made the actual attack. Or maybe the tanker.

There’d been a tanker nearby when he lost the other submarine as well. This was a different ship, but the parallels had to be more than a coincidence.

Didn’t they?

The submarine might be the same vessel he had chased the other night, able to hide along the coast because its clever captain knew the waters so well. A Chinese Kilo, maybe.

But then what was the aircraft doing? Was it Chinese as well?

Storm decided the submarine was the key to the mystery. He would find it and then – since he couldn’t attack – he’d give the exact location to the captain of the Indian destroyer, who no doubt would be anxious for revenge.

Assuming his ship didn’t sink before then.

Storm allowed himself one more deep, luxurious breath of air, then went back inside.

Dog nudged the Megafortress into position to launch the first sonar buoy twenty miles north of the stricken destroyer. The Megafortress would set a large underwater fence around the area, waiting for the sub to make its move.

‘What’s the destroyer’s situation?’ Dog asked Jazz.

‘Nothing new,’ said the copilot. ‘Still fighting the damage. They’ve had a couple of sonar contacts but they seem to have been false alarms.’

As Dog and Jazz launched the buoys, Dish searched for the submarine’s periscope. A half hour later they had covered every inch of the target area without finding anything.

‘Best bet, he’s sitting down about three hundred meters, just about as low as he can go, holding his breath and waiting for the destroyer to limp away,’ said Jazz.

‘He’ll be waiting a long time.’

‘He won’t get by the buoys without us knowing.’

Dog wasn’t so sure about that. In theory, the hunters had all the advantages – the buoys could find anything in the water down to about 550 meters or so, and an extended periscope or snorkel could be easily detected at this range.

But the reality of warfare was never quite as simple as the theory, especially when it involved a submarine. Dog had worked with the Navy on sub hunts before, and they were always complicated and tricky affairs. In NATO exercises, submarines routinely outfoxed their hunters.

‘Just a waiting game now, Colonel,’ said the copilot. ‘We’ll get him eventually. We just have to be patient.’

‘For some reason, Jazz, being patient has always seemed the hardest thing to do,’ Dog said.