Power Play (47 page)

It was a little after ten o’clock in the Donegal SEAL compound, and Mack saw no point waking everyone on this Thursday night when no one was going anywhere until next Wednesday. The
Koryak
was almost six days away, buffeting through the notoriously rough Barents Sea in deep water, off the far-north coast of Norway.

The Russians had almost two thousand miles still to cover, and the
Koryak
would be well in the sights of US surveillance all the way. Mack and his team were trained to the minute for this. Mack would have a conference with Commander Farrell in the morning, and he’d give the guys the weekend off, since there was no way the Russian ship could get anywhere near them until next week.

Wednesday night was the very earliest they could make contact. They’d store the ship on Monday and Tuesday with fresh produce and water. Departure time: 0600, Wednesday. ETA ops area: 1800 hours, same day. Contact
Koryak:
2100.

Time was on Mack’s side because the
Róisín
was a fast patrol boat, highly streamlined, and even in a heavy sea would cut through the water at twenty knots, all the way out to meet the killer freighter from the North.

While the Russian freighter fought its way over vast ocean depths, south past the endless islands and fjords of the twelve-hundred-mile Norwegian
coastline, Team 10 tried to relax. The SEALs were thousands of miles from home and still in lockdown mode, since the mission was imminent. They had not been permitted phone calls, e-mails, or any contact with the outside world, so highly classified was the project.

They spent Sunday night watching movies and eating pizza, sent in hot from the Bruckless village store. On Monday they went back to work, helping with the final organization of the ship. They were also packing up their personal gear. When they pulled out of Donegal Bay at first light Wednesday morning, they were not coming back.

Not one of them truly understood the escape plan. And the prospect of rampaging into an armed Russian vessel, capturing it, ransacking it for its most valuable cargo, and then sinking the bastard, was quite sufficient to occupy the minds of most of them.

Mack Bedford received a computer printout of the route taken by the
Koryak
every day from the NSA via Admiral Carlow’s office. The mission had been planned as well as any mission ever could be. They went to bed early on Tuesday night and were awakened by Cody Sharp and Barney Wilkes at 0430.

Every man, carrying only his personal knapsack, reported to the
Róisín,
where Captain Farrell and Mack Bedford were already on the quay. Mack took the roll call himself, and SEAL Team 10 was officially embarked at 0530. Right on time, 0600, they pulled off Jetty Number 1, into the sunrise, leaving behind the roofed dock and the little villages they had never really seen.

No one saw them leave; there were no cheerful ships’ horns or farewell waves as they stood fair down the channel to outer Donegal Bay. There was an element of sadness to the entire scene, as the unknown warriors from Coronado set off on their mission to put the world back on its proper axis, safe once more from the ravings of the unbalanced Russian president.

Some of these Americans may die, others may be shot or otherwise injured, but no one in the villages of Killybegs, Dunkineely, Bruckless, Inver, and Mountcharles would ever know who they were, or that this naval facility had been built in Ireland, essentially for them.

In years to come, in times less stressful, members of SEAL Team 10 would perhaps visit and sample the Guinness and the local salmon and the Irish whiskey and maybe even fish the local rivers gushing out of the
Donegal mountains. But today, the visitors from California were going to war, and no one knew. Or ever would. That was the stark and deadly nature of their business.

There was a chill in the air as they pushed on west, running close to the north shore, out past Carrigan Head. The
Róisín
was a good ship in this short, choppy sea, made less freezing by the ever-present western tides of the Gulf Stream.

Right now Mack Bedford plotted the
Koryak
some 180 miles north of the fifty-fifth parallel and still steaming on an unvarying course, straight through the GIUK Gap, and picked up electronically by the brand-new SOSUS listening station, which was dug hard into the hillside on land a half mile before St. John’s Point.

This was a low building on the windward side of the peninsula, where only the roof and a few aerials could be seen from the road. It was staffed by ten US Navy electronic technicians, radar and sonar, and they lived as civilians in the Central Hotel, Donegal Town, their work so secret not even Mack Bedford knew of their existence or of their building.

The US SOSUS men reported all contacts and findings directly to the NSA, Maryland. If Admiral Alexander Ustinov, back in Severomorsk, had known how much these intercept experts knew about the
Koryak,
he would probably have shot himself, just to dispense with the oncoming grief.

The
Róisín
was 6 miles south of the fifty-fifth parallel, pushing west about 180 miles from the ops area. The weather was overcast with a hard sou’wester gusting across the ocean. But the horizon looked very gloomy, and Captain Farrell thought it might “rain like the blazes, before we’re much older.”

The sea was iron gray in color, but the wind proved a blessing, blowing the distant storm system away to the north and leaving the surface relatively calm, choppy but still easy going for the
Róisín.

Mack’s main preoccupation remained the battle for control of the Russian ship’s interior. He was certain his SEALs would conduct the assault phase of the operation impeccably, getting aboard and taking out any Russian personnel on the decks.

The next phase was the difficulty, because the companionways inside the
Koryak
were narrow, too enclosed for four-man SEAL teams to work. The teams would need to split in two, working in pairs, moving forward
to the front of the ship, covering each other, firing very deliberate shots at any target in their sight.

Mack’s fear had been, and remained, the danger of loose bullets ricocheting off the steel walls of the hull and hitting his guys. The last thing the SEAL commander needed was wounded men, lying in the ship’s passageways, needing to be evacuated before they could enter the final phases of the operation.

He called a briefing right after lunch and once more tried to evaluate the forthcoming mission inside the ship. “Look,” he told them, “the big sections of the operation, capturing the bridge and taking the hold, seizing the nuclear warheads and getting them out of there, well . . . that’s all out in the open, and clear to everyone.

“It’s those fucking companionways that bother me, and I can’t stress too much how careful the first assault troops need to be. Their job is to clear the way, to intimidate the Russians, take out anyone who gets in the way, and carve out a path for our attacking troops to charge through and get control of the bridge and the cargo hold.”

Mack talked to the men who would scale the hull on the grappling irons. Once aboard, they must regroup and then advance slowly through the passages, two at a time, with special care at the corners, opening every door and tossing in a hand grenade to stun or wound.

“Your meticulous work will decide whether this mission succeeds or fails,” he said. “So don’t, for Christ’s sake, leave any cabin unchecked. Clear the way for the complete capture of the
Koryak,
and then fall back to guard what you’ve done and keep the escape route open, just so we all get off safely.”

At this point one of the junior team members, a twenty-three-year-old already assigned to the opening assault group going up the side of the ship on the knotted ropes and grapplers, asked, “Sir, are you in the first climbing party, soon as the ships are secured together?”

“Correct, Charlie. I’m going up the ropes with you four guys. At the top, I peel off and organize the safety of the ropes on the rails, and then I fix and drop down two more rope ladders that I’ll carry up the hull with me.”

“Jesus, sir. They’re heavy.”

“Tell me about it.”

Mack then described the SEAL Command Center, which would be on
the bridge of the
Róisín
. “Lieutenant Commander Josh Malone will be in there. As the mission moves ahead, he’ll be the only man who knows where everyone is. He’ll have an assistant, our comms guy, Robbie Damon, and that’s where you check in . . . Punch in
CC
on your phone, report your name and position, and then state your problem.

“Josh will also man the heavy machine gun in an emergency. Captain Farrell has it rigged on the port side of the bridge aimed at the Russian ship.”

By 1700 the
Róisín
was still cutting through the water at twenty knots and was now within 24 miles of the ops area. Hour by hour Mack Bedford was receiving satellite communications direct from the NSA, pinpointing the precise position of the
Koryak
as it steamed south down the Atlantic.

It was four hours from the fifty-fifth line of latitude—56 miles. Sometime during the next sixty minutes it would show up on the new, high-powered American radar screen on the
Róisín
’s bridge, specially fitted under orders of the Irish prime minister, under heavy urging from Admiral Morgan.

The two men had become good friends, and Neil McGrath loved his knowledge, particularly enjoying the bewilderment of his own colleagues when he displayed deep understanding of naval warfare.

The cooks prepared sirloin steaks for everyone at 1830, and immediately afterward, Mack Bedford and Captain Farrell went to take a long look at the position of the approaching Russian freighter. Her speed and course remained steady, and Mack’s graph showed she had been holding course southwest, ever since she’d angled slightly away from the mountainous southern peninsula of Norway.

Koryak
had left the Faroe Islands 45 miles to starboard, with the Shetlands 150 miles to port. She’d pressed on past the remote and mysterious jutting hunk of granite named Rockall (83 feet long), at which point she was 162 miles west of County Donegal.

At 1900, she was less than 30 miles from what Mack believed would be the datum—55.00N 13.48W; 190 miles due south of the Rockall rise.
Róisín,
heading in dead-slow now on an east-northeast course, was a mere 4 miles out, and now it was clear the Russian ship, at this speed, would cross the bow of the Irish patrol boat about 3 miles ahead, a little more than two hours from now.

Captain Farrell ordered the buoyancy tanks to flood down, and the sea valves were opened at 1910. They increased speed slightly and began to
make a racetrack pattern, before moving slowly forward toward the datum. Captain Bedford was watching the approach of the
Koryak
on the screen and resolved to do nothing until darkness fell shortly after 2000.

The boat went to Action Stations at 2030 with the Russians still 10 miles from the datum and
Róisín
now less than 2 miles away.

At 2040 the Irish patrol boat, now wallowing forward at a thirty-degree angle as the tanks grew ever heavier on the starboard side, issued an urgent SOS distress signal to all shipping in the area.

The ship’s radio officer opened up the 500kHz radio frequency used for distress signals and began the time-honored Morse code sequence—SOS ( . . .–––. . . )
dit-dit-dit-daah-daah-daah-dit-dit-dit
—all run together, an unmistakable sound in any comms room, the
only
Morse signal with
nine
elements.

Immediately, he broadcast a full signal
: SOS—SOS—SOS—This is Irish cutter
LÉ Róisín
—PSN 50.00N 13.48W—Ship holed starboard side after engine room explosion—Sinking fast—Will abandon in thirty minutes—One lifeboat damaged badly. AR and K. Dit-dit-dit-daah-daah-daah-dit-dit-dit.

On the other radio transmitter the
Róisín
operator sent out a Mayday signal, again to all shipping in the area, calling out the old French phrase—from
M’aidez!
(Help me!), dating back to the days when French was the international language in the early twentieth century—
MAYDAY! . . . MAYDAY! . . . MAYDAY!

In the comms area of the
Koryak
(the back wall of the bridge), the signal came through loud and clear. But with a ship carrying illegal nuclear warheads, Captain Sergei Gromyko was not overjoyed at going to anyone’s rescue. But he understood clearly that if anyone ever found out he had totally ignored a distress signal from a sinking vessel a few miles away, he would probably be jailed for twenty years in an international court of law and never be granted license to command any ship ever again.

If there’s one cardinal sin in international shipping, it’s to turn a blind eye to fellow mariners in peril. Hardly anyone has ever tried it. No one has ever got away with it. Kapitan Gromyko instantly ordered his engines all ahead, course now more southerly. The
Koryak
accelerated to the aid of the “stricken” Irish Navy patrol boat.

Night falls very quickly in the northeastern Atlantic, and it was pitch-dark, under lowering skies, as the two ships steered onto an intersecting
course. In broad daylight the
Koryak
could probably have picked up the Irish ship on the horizon at around seven miles. It was no more difficult in the dark, but the distance would be a lot closer before the Russians could pick up the Irish running lights.

Gromyko’s lookout was seeking a port-side red off their port bow at around three miles. He planned to knock off the first seven miles in a little less than twenty-five minutes, which should give his crew time to start the rescue before the Irish ship went down. Also, he was carrying lifeboats for more crew than he had on board, and he had the deck crew immediately begin preparations to lower away as soon as they made contact.

In one way, Kapitan Gromyko found the entire exercise a gigantic pain in the ass, but another part of his brain was telling him, this was no bad thing. In time everyone would know the merciful Russian freighter had steamed to the rescue in the middle of the Atlantic and heroically saved a stricken Irish crew.