' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) (45 page)

Montebello Islands

now unrecognisable with cropped hair and an absence of earrings and eye shadow. 

The thin wand of the ECM mast and both the attack and search periscopes were made of the same stealthy material as the F-117A and B2 bombers were constructed from. The ECM detected powerful search radar emissions from the supply vessel that would possibly have ‘seen’ the previous ECM mast and periscopes that the TT had carried. They had been replaced at the time of the boats extensive repairs.

“Raise ‘Search’.” Captain Pitt ordered and danced the 360° waltz a time or four as he visually checked for surface and air threats both near and far.

Satisfied for the moment, he swung the periscope on to the Kilo’s bearing.

“Lo-lite…magnify.” He muttered to himself, adjusting the controls set into the periscopes handles. “And record.”

There in a lagoon was indeed a support vessel; a converted North Korean flagged whaling factory ship,
Jeonseung,
in civilian livery, although Green Peace would have been pleased to learn of her conversion to a role other than its original one.

“Well I don’t know if she is a genuine NK or not, but we will send all this footage off, just in case those people are going to pile in now.”

“Captain?”

Rick turned to look at the speaker, sat at the ECM board.

“It isn’t much, but I am detecting a higher than normal radiation count, sir.”

“Well it isn’t coming from Sydney as the wind has been easterly, as near as dammit, and it is not a Russian boat with paper thin
reactor shielding.” Rick said, but to his crewman’s puzzlement he did not expand upon that answer.

His Exec was looking at the lo-lite monitor screen and checking with Mr Hannigan as to the Kilo’s precise position.

The Chinese diesel boat was on the surface and riding high with her ballast tanks completely filled with air, but even so with the tide as it was the lagoon should still have been far too shallow for it, indeed the ‘whaling factory ship’ should have been almost scraping the bottom, and she drew less than the submarines she serviced.

As hiding places went, it was an ideal location; the island was shielding vessels in the small lagoon from radar surveillance, even from the air. Ground radar clutter showed what any operator would expect to be there, rock and sand

“How are they doing that?” he asked.

“Add another twenty five feet to what is written on the chart and you will see that there is sufficient water under their keels.”

The Exec frowned.

“Can I ask where you are getting your information from Captain?”

“History books, young man. Those and additional navigation notes for mariners” Rick smiled. “Up until 1952, the 3
rd
of October to be precise, the depth of the Trimouille island lagoon was forty feet. And then of course Great Britain anchored the frigate HMS
Plym
in the very spot the Kilo is now occupying and set off a 25kt nuclear weapon in the ships magazine. It created a bowl in the rock floor of the lagoon that left the anchorage twenty five feet deeper than it had previously been.” He pointed at the chart. “Look at the curving shape of the shoreline there on the chart, a half century ago or so, it was a pretty straight line. And now check the navigation notes and you will see that the date of the last depth finder recording was the day before the blast, on the 2
nd
October 1952. The test results were classified top secret, including the crater dimensions, and the area is still ‘hot’, as the ESM has confirmed. Only a few ‘Rads’ higher these days, but enough to discourage most visitors, and all ocean survey vessels.”

Rick noticed the looks on the faces of crewmen who were trying work out if their captain was a genius or an ace bullshitter.

“And that, Gentlemen, is the reason why the information is out of date around the Monte Bello Islands group, even on the most recent charts.”

The Exec checked and looked up in surprise.

“Well I’ll be!”

“Always check all available information on navigation. That way you won’t have the embarrassment of hitting a shoal that was lifted during a recent sea quake, or a wreck from a previous storm.”

The fuelling and replenishment at sea procedures had begun under the cover of darkness and the typhoon.

“Signal our friends with the GPS coordinates, and inform them that they can exact revenge for the brown trousers that the Kilo gave them last Thursday. We will provide the necessary damage assessment.”

HMS
Hood
had remained seaward, beyond the horizon, during the USS
Twin Towers
stalk to cover the American vessel against the possibility of another enemy boat sneaking into her blind side, her baffles.

The Royal Navy submarine launched a single UGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missile in the direction of the lagoon. As it neared the target the missile popped up to 2000 feet where its IR seeker located the two vessels. Switching to terminal attack mode the Harpoon dived into the North Korean vessel, detonating the sixty three torpedoes and submarine launch missile re-loads it still carried, along with its almost full fuel tanks.

Once satisfied that the Kilo had also been destroyed in the massive explosion the USS
Twin Towers
put about and returned to the deep waters to continue the interdiction of the supply lines.

Arbuckle Mountains, Oklahoma.

Wednesday 31st October, 0210hrs

The President entered the secure briefing room behind General Carmine. He was nursing a cup of coffee and looking tired, but he still kept a weather-eye open for any sign of the doctor, Admiral Glenn. The physician knew damn well that the President was being supplied with coffee against his direct instructions, but he had not yet discovered the source. It was a little like a hackneyed scene in an old 70s cop show, with the President disappearing to meet his ‘dealer’ once a day and palming a small bag in some shadowy corridor. The difference was that no cash changed hands and no drugs were involved, just enough ground coffee to provide the President with an illicit mug of Java once a day after the admiral had turned in for the night. Henry Shaw had caught a brief look at the supplier one time and he had confided in General Carmine. It was a little anticlimactic to learn the mystery man’s secret identity, but looking at it logically it was unlikely to be anyone else given the circumstances they were all currently living under. ‘Huggy Bear’ was the man with the key to the catering supply store, the Presidents chef.

“Good morning Mr President, I am sorry to disturb you at this late hour but there have been developments that required an unscheduled, though limited
choir practice
.”

The President looked around the room and saw that it was just three of them; Terry Jones was also present but not Joseph, Sally Peters or Alicia O’Connor from the NSA.

“A Soldier and a Spy.” The President observed. “So does that make me the Tinker or the Tailor?”

“I thought we were a choir, sir.” General Carmine said with a smile.

“Choirs don’t have cool titles General, in fact I never heard of a solo tenor having anything like a street credible nickname.”

Terry Jones sat quietly without joining in; he had seen the President in jovial banter mode before, and it usually meant that he knew bad news and difficult decisions were on the way. It was the
Presidents way of dealing with it, of staving off the grey moods that always followed meetings such as the one they were about to have now.

“Street gangs used to get the best nicknames, but when they started to call nicknames ‘tags’ they got predictable. Too many zees and letter eez, they may as well throw away the rest of the alphabet.” he seated himself and took a sip of coffee. “The old time gangsters had the best nicknames. You’d be ‘Carbine’ Carmine, Terry would be ‘Slippery’ Jones,
whereas Joseph would be ‘Brains’ and the ladies would be ‘Slinky Sal’ and ‘Red’, naturally.”

“And you, Mr President?”

“Just call me ‘The Boss’, Carbine.”

Terry Jones tapped a keyboard and the mood evaporated as a map appeared upon the screen.

“Mr President, this is
Vespers
objective, the island of Mactan, and we have added all the data collected by some very brave men from the Pakistan navy.”

“How wide are the Cebu Straits?”

“Nineteen miles wide, at that point.”

“That is one awful lot of mines that they have laid.”

“In the region of four thousand, at our best estimate anyway, Mr President.”

“What is the revised estimate to clear a channel to the beaches General, I assume it is longer now than the previously promised twenty four hours?”

“Ten to fourteen days, sir.”

The President went quiet.

They had expected that there would be some minefields laid, both at sea and on the beaches, but this was an extraordinary operation that the Chinese had undertaken.

“What about this channel here, the one the Chinese vessels use. Surely we can fight our way along that?”

“Unfortunately not, as it would seem that the Chinese have developed a sea mine that recognises friend from foe, Mr President. It can detect the stealthiest vessels without those vessels being aware of the mines presence.”

“How do we know this?”

“The submarine that mapped the minefields reported that they intended to follow the inner safe channel to check on any additional defences.” Terry explained. “She was lost with all hands, sir.”

Terry Jones went on to report the discovery of a device by a policeman working for the Philippines underground on Cebu.

“The Chinese call it Língjiǎo, the Caltrop mine, obviously named after the spikes on a rope that can be quickly deployed to prevent access, and as quickly retrieved.”

“We aren’t going to be able to relieve those paratroopers on the same day they jump in, are we General?”

“No sir, but we are working on a revised plan, and we may have to do it the British way.”

“Please enlighten me General; it has been a long day.”

“The Falklands War sir, the Argentinians fortified the capital, Port Stanley, and dug in facing the sea, with sufficient forces to defeat a landing and mining the shoreline heavily.”

The President nodded, now aware where the General was heading.

“They did the unexpected; they landed on the far side of the island and fought their way across.”

“So where is our San Carlos Water, General?”

“The Tañon Straits sir, to the north of Cebu, and they land at a small ferry port called Toledo. From there they cross the mountain spine of the island and take them from the rear, as it were.”

“Is it feasible?”

“Sir, the Japanese Imperial Army took Cebu the same way back in world war two.”

“I’m betting that the defenders didn’t have a mechanised brigade and close air support in 1942.”

The Presidents face took on a very grim visage as he looked at the terrain that the 3
rd
Marine Expeditionary Force would have to cross.

“Is this the only road?”

“It is the only direct road, but there are two others, sir.”

“Do they have sheer drops at the side too?”

Neither the general nor the spymaster answered that one.

“Okay, time estimate?”

“It is just thirty miles, so it is possible the marines will cross the island the same day.”

“I think gentlemen that the airborne force needs to be increased by another brigade.”

“That is not possible sir, we are staging out of Phanrang and Vũng Tàu air bases in Vietnam and the use of those bases is strictly time limited. The aircraft would need to make a second drop and the Vietnamese want us gone after the transports have refuelled.”

“Really?” the President was surprised. “When was this time limit tagged on, and what reason did they give?” The President had of course been briefed on the original offer.