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Aboard the Abner Read, off the coast of Somalia 2345

Starship steadied the Werewolf a mile in front of the small boat’s bow. The Abner Read was now less than two miles away, but the warship sat so low in the water that even if the smugglers had infrared glasses they probably didn’t know it was there.

‘Werewolf, we’re about to radio them to stop,’ said Eyes. ‘Go ahead and turn on the searchlight.’

‘Roger that,’ said Starship.

The halogen beam under the Werewolf’s nose caught the bow of the little boat dead on. Starship looked at the image from the Werewolf’s video feed; he saw shadows in the cabin but couldn’t make out much else.

A warning was broadcast in English, Arabic, and French on all of the maritime radio channels. Starship came over the craft and fired a ‘log’ – an LUU-2 illumination flare – which lit up the boat and the sea around it. At the same time, a boarding party pushed off the Abner Read in a rigid-hulled inflatable boat.

Called a SITT, or shipboard integrated tactical team, the specially trained team of sailors was heavily armed and well-versed in dealing with smugglers. Starship’s job was to get a good look at the boat so the boarding party would know what to expect. He would train his weapons on the smuggler’s craft. The boat was so small it was likely the Hellfire missiles or even his 30mm cannon could sink it within seconds if he fired.

So could the Abner Read – its forward deck gun was already zeroed in.

‘I have nobody on the forward deck,’ Starship reported. ‘Uh-oh, here we go – two guys coming out to the stern. Going to the boxes.’

‘Are those weapons?’

‘Negative – looks like they’re trying to cut the crates loose. Want me to strafe them?’

‘Unidentified ship has failed to acknowledge,’ said Eyes, whose remarks were being recorded as evidence of the encounter. ‘Abner Read SITT team is en route. Werewolf, see if you can stop the smugglers from throwing the contraband overboard.’

‘Roger that,’ said Starship. He selected the aircraft’s 7.62 machine gun and sent a string of bullets into the rail of the small boat. He saw the people on the boat ducking as he flew past; wheeling the helicopter around, he steadied the nose to spray the stern again, using his weapon to keep them away from the back of the vessel.

A man emerged from the cabin. A second later the Werewolf’s flight control computer sounded a tone in his ear – the smuggler had fired a rocket-launched grenade at the small aircraft.

Starship jammed his throttle, ducking the grenade. Then he reached to the weapons panel, dialing up the Hellfire missiles.

‘I have hostile fire,’ he told Tac. ‘Permission to launch Hellfires?’

‘Negative, negative,’ said Eyes. ‘Don’t sink him.’

‘I’m under fire,’ Starship repeated. The men at the rear had gone back to the large crates.

‘Do not sink that boat. We want the cargo intact.’

Stifling a curse, Starship keyed back to the light machine gun. As he nudged his stick forward, the man near the cabin picked up an automatic rifle and began firing. The tracers gave Starship something to zero in on as he pressed his own trigger. With the second burst, the man crumpled to the deck of the boat, sliding toward the low rail as it rocked in the water.

Starship returned his attention to the rear deck, where the two crewmen had succeeded in pulling one of the crates from its tie-downs and were shoving it over the side. As it went over, the entire boat began to tip as if it were going to capsize. Starship continued northward and banked back around, dropping the small helicopter to ten feet over the waves. The men continued working on the crate. If he wanted the cargo, he would have to shoot them; warning shots would no longer do.

He got close enough to see the worried scowl on one of the men’s faces before he fired; the man fell limp on the deck as he passed over. Still, the other crewman refused to give up. He struggled with the chain that held the crate down as Starship zeroed in, finger dancing against the trigger. When the bullets caught him, they spun him in a macabre death dance, a large part of his skull flying off as if it had been a hat. The man danced off the side of the boat and disappeared.

‘Defenses have been neutralized,’ Starship said, taking the Werewolf back over the boat slowly. ‘I think the crew’s all dead. They got one of the crates over the side but I saved the other.’

‘SITT is en route,’ said Eyes.

A spray of water hit Storm as he stepped out onto the flying bridge. The smuggler’s boat was two hundred yards away, off his starboard side; the SITT crew was aboard inspecting her. Storm’s communications gear could connect him instantly with the team as well as everyone on his own ship, and he had the crew’s frequency tuned in; he listened to the boarding party as it went about its work. The Werewolf hovered just over the bow of the little boat, its nose slowly moving back and forth as its pilot trained its weapons on the vessel.

‘Captain Gale to SITT – Terry, you there?’

‘Here, Captain.’

‘What do you have?’

‘RPGs. Crate’s filled with grenades and launchers. Have some heavy machine guns in the hold.’

‘Get it all on video. Make sure we have a good record. Then get back here and we’ll sink it.’

‘Aye aye, Captain.’

Storm went back inside. He was just about to see if he could hunt down a cup of coffee when Eyes’s excited voice erupted in his ear.

‘Port Somalia has just been attacked!’ shouted Eyes. ‘There’s a fire on the artificial island, and the sonar array picked up the sound of a large explosion.’

Storm’s mind jumped from shock to reaction mode, sorting the information, formulating a response. The airplanes they’d seen before – they had to have been involved.

What would Admiral Johnson say now?

‘Get Airforce down there right away,’ said Storm. ‘Bring the SITT crew back, then sink the smuggler’s vessel, cargo and all. Prepare a course for Port Somalia,’ he added, speaking to the navigational officer. ‘I’ll be in my quarters, updating Admiral Johnson.’

Off the coast of Somalia 6 January 1998 0023

The commando Sattari rescued had broken his leg falling from the decking to the rocks, but had not been shot. He slumped against the captain as the men paddled against the current. They attacked the waves like madmen, pushing against the spray, which seemed to increase with every stroke.

Sattari could hear the explosions behind them and saw the yellow shadows cast by a fire, but dared not take the time or strength to look back.

‘Another kilometer,’ yelled the coxswain. He was referring not to the rendezvous point but to the GPS position where the boat would turn to the north; the pickup would be roughly four kilometers beyond that.

Still, Sattari repeated the words aloud as a mantra as he worked his paddle: ‘Another kilometer to go. One more kilometer to success.’

Aboard the Abner Read, off the coast of Somalia 0023

The smoke from Port Somalia rose like an overgrown cauliflower from the ocean, furling upward and outward. It was so thick Starship couldn’t see Port Somalia itself.

If the aircraft they’d seen earlier had deposited saboteurs – not a proven fact, but a very good guess – it was likely that the planes would be returning to pick up the men. The Abner Read had activated its radar to look for them.

Starship’s job was twofold. First, scout the water and see if he could find any trace of the saboteurs. Second, check the nearby shore, which was the second most likely escape route. And he’d have to do all that in about ten minutes, or he’d risk running out of fuel before getting back to the ship.

He saw the Indian corvette to his right as he approached the outer edge of the smoke. The ship looked like an upsized cabin cruiser, with a globelike radar dome at the top. Designed for a Russian Bandstand surface targeting radar, the large dome held a less potent Indian design. But it was the small dish radar behind the dome that got Starship’s attention – the Korund antiaircraft unit extended its sticky fingers toward the Werewolf, marking a big red X on it for the ship’s SS-4 antiaircraft missiles.

‘Werewolf One being targeted by Indian vessel,’ Starship reported to Tac. He hit the fuzz buster and tucked the little helicopter toward the waves, weaving quickly to shake the radar’s grip. ‘Hey, tell these guys I’m on their side.’

‘We’re working on it, Werewolf One. They’re having a little trouble identifying targets.’

‘Duh. Tell them I’m not a target.’

‘We’re working it out. Stay out of their range.’

‘It’s ten kilometers,’ protested Starship.

‘Head toward the shore and look for the raiding party. We’ll let the Indians look at the water.’

‘Yeah, roger that,’ he said, jamming his throttle to max power.

Off the coast of Somalia 0028

The light looked like the barest pinprick in a black curtain, yet everyone aboard the raft saw it instantly.

‘There!’ said the coxswain. He lifted a small signal light and began signaling.

‘Go,’ said Sattari, pushing his oar. ‘Stroke!’

The little raft heaved itself forward as the men pushed at the oar. Sattari felt the commando he had rescued stirring next to him.

‘Rest,’ he told the man. ‘We’re almost there.’

‘Ship!’ said the coxswain.

Sattari swept his head back, though he continued to row. The low silhouette of the Indian patrol boat had appeared to the northeast; it was perhaps three kilometers away.

‘Stroke,’ insisted Sattari. The pinprick had grown to the size of a mayfly.

Sattari had personally told the commander of each of the four midget submarines to leave if threatened – even if that meant stranding the team he was assigned to retrieve. He did not regret the order, nor did he curse the Indian ship as it continued to move in the direction of the light. He only urged his men to row harder.

His own arms felt as if they were going to fall off. His head seemed to have tripled in weight, and his eyes ached.

‘Two hundred meters!’ called the coxswain.

A searchlight on the Indian ship, barely a kilometer away, swept the ocean.

‘Stroke!’ yelled Sattari. ‘Stroke!’

And then they were there, clambering over the rail at the stern. The sleek conning toward the bow looked like the swept cabin of a speedboat, and the entire craft was not much longer than a runabout.

‘Get aboard, get aboard,’ said Sattari.

He pulled the raft close to him, then plunged his knife into its side. As it began to deflate, he saw the Indian patrol boat bearing down on them, its lights reaching out in the darkness.

One of the other commandos took the raft and began to pull it down into the hatch.

‘No. Let it go. It will give them something to look at,’ said Sattari. He tossed it off the side, then pulled himself down the hatchway. The submarine’s crewman came down right behind him, securing the hatch.

‘Commander, we are aboard. Dive,’ Sattari said loudly, though the command was clearly unnecessary; he could feel the small vessel gliding forward, already sinking beneath the waves.

Aboard the Abner Read, off the coast of Somalia 0032

‘The Indians have spotted a commando boat about five kilometers from Port Somalia,’ Eyes told Storm. ‘Empty.’

‘Submarine?’

‘Unsure. They don’t carry sonar. That’s a Russian Project 1234 boat. I’m surprised it made it across the Arabian Sea. I don’t envy their sailors.’

Storm studied the hologram. The Abner Read had a world-class passive sonar – the Littoral Towed Array System, or LITAS – which was carried on a submerged raft behind the ship. Built around a series of hydrophones, the system picked up and interpreted different sounds in the water. In theory, LITAS could hear anything within a twelve-mile radius of the ship, even in shallow waters where sounds were plentiful and easily altered by the sea floor. Very loud vessels – such as the Indian ship, which the system identified even though it was thirty-five miles off – could be heard much farther away.

The Abner Read also carried an active sonar developed by DARPA as part of a project known as Distant Thunder. The sonar was designed to find very quiet electric submarines in what the engineers called ‘acoustically challenging’ waters. The Abner Read had used it with great success to find a submarine operating on battery power in the canyonlike Somalian waters to the west. Like all active sonar, however, the device not only alerted the prey that it was being hunted, but told it where the hunter was, an important concession against a wily captain. Storm preferred to hold it in reserve if at all possible.

The northwestern tip of Somalia loomed about fifteen miles ahead. By altering course slightly, Storm could cut off the most likely escape route north and still be in a good position to chase a submarine if it headed west.

What to do when he caught it was a separate problem. Admiral Johnson had not answered his message, and Storm needed his permission before engaging.

Given that Port Somalia was an Indian installation, the submarine might be Pakistani. They had exactly six subs – four French Daphne-class boats well past their prime, and two Augustas, modern boats that could sprint to about 20.5 knots while submerged, and could be extremely hard to find in coastal waters – worthy adversaries for the Abner Read.

Of course, if it was a Pakistani boat, he wouldn’t be allowed to attack at all; the Paks were in theory allies.

The Iranians had Kilos, even more potent submarines, though they hadn’t moved from their ports in months.

‘We’ll move closer to shore, close down the distance with the submarine, if there is one,’ Storm told Eyes. He glanced at the hologram to see where the Werewolf was. ‘Have Airforce check the area where the raft was spotted, look for others.’

‘He’s low on fuel.’

‘Well, tell him to get moving.’

Starship slid over the village five miles inland from Port Somalia, following the road as it wound back toward the coastline. Six small buildings stood next to each other, shouldering together between the road and a nearby cliff.

Nothing.

Nothing on the road either.

The computer gave him a warning tone. He was at ‘bingo,’ his fuel tanks just full enough to get him back to the Abner Read.

‘Werewolf to Tac – I’m bingo, heading homeward.’

‘Negative. We need you to scan the area near the Indian warship.’

Naturally.

‘I can give you five minutes,’ he told Eyes, planning to cut into his reserves. ‘Am I looking for something specific?’

‘They found a raft. See if you can spot anything similar. We believe there may be a submarine in the area, but we haven’t heard it yet.’

Ah, an admission of mortality from the all-powerful Navy, thought Starship as he whipped the Werewolf toward the Indian patrol boat. The ship’s radar remained in scan mode; they saw him but were no longer targeting him.

‘Couldn’t the patrol boat pick him up on sonar?’ Starship asked.

‘A boat that class isn’t always equipped with sonar. And this one is not.’

Starship took the Werewolf a mile and a half north, then turned to the west, sweeping along roughly parallel to the shore for nearly three miles before sweeping back. The flight control computer gave him another beep – he’d used half of his ten minute reserve.

‘Not seeing anything, Tac.’

‘How are you on fuel?’

‘One more pass and then I absolutely have to come home,’ said Starship.

‘Acknowledged.’

Storm stared through the binoculars, watching the Werewolf as it came toward the ship. The helicopter had turned on its landing lights, and it looked like a sea anemone trailing its tentacles through the ocean.

It was a good little machine. It would be even better if it were equipped with a sonar system like the AQS-22 – a suggestion Storm had sent up to the chain of command weeks ago. The idea had yet to be acknowledged as received, let alone considered.

What he needed were a few short circuits up the chain of command, just like the Dreamland people had.

‘We think we have something, Storm,’ said Eyes. ‘Very light contact, has to be a battery-powered propeller, six kilometers west of Port Somalia. At this range, with the Indian patrol boat so loud, it’s hard to tell.’

‘Let’s head down there. I’ll put in another call to Admiral Johnson. Maybe he’ll answer me sometime this century.’

Off the coast of Somalia 0108

The helmsman controlled the midget submarine from a seat at the nose of the craft, working at a board that reminded Captain Sattari of the flight simulator for American F-4 Phantom jets he’d practiced on years before. The craft was steered with a large pistol-grip joystick; once submerged, it relied on an internal navigational system. The vessel was run by two men; the vessel’s captain sat next to the helm, acting as navigator and watching the limited set of sensors.

The four submarines in Sattari’s fleet had been designed by a European company as civilian vessels, intended for use in the shallow Caribbean and Pacific coastal waters. Converting them to military use had taken several months, but was not particularly difficult; the work primarily included measures to make the craft quieter. The acrylic bulbous nose and viewing portals had been replaced and the deck area topside stripped bare, but at heart the little boats were still the same submarines that appeared in the manufacturer’s pricey four-color catalog. They could dive to three hundred meters and sail underwater for roughly twenty-eight hours. In an emergency, the subs could remain submerged for ninety-six hours. A small diesel engine propelled the boats on the surface, where the top speed was roughly ten knots, slower if the batteries were being charged. The midgets were strictly transport vessels, and it would be laughable to compare them to frontline submarines used by the American or Russian navies. But they were perfect as far as Sattari was concerned.

He called them Parvanehs: Butterflies.

The captain glanced back at the rest of the team, strapped into the boats. Among the interior items that had been retained as delivered were the deep-cushioned seats, which helped absorb and dampen interior sounds. Three of the men were making good use of them now, sleeping after their mission.

Sattari turned to the submarine commander.

‘Another hour, Captain Sattari,’ the man said without prompting. ‘You can rest if you wish. I’ll wake you when we’re close.’

‘Thank you. But I don’t believe I could sleep. Are you sure we’re not being followed?’

‘We would hear the propellers of a nearby ship with the hydrophone. As I said, the Indian ship has very limited capabilities. We are in the clear.’

Sattari sat back against his seat. His father the general would be proud. More important, his men would respect him.

‘Not bad for a broken-down fighter pilot, blacklisted and passed up for promotion,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Not bad, Captain Sattari. Thirty-nine is not old at all.’

Aboard the Abner Read, off the coast of Somalia 0128

‘What kind of submarine? A Pakistani submarine?’

‘I’m not close enough to tell yet, Admiral,’ Storm told Johnson over the secure video-communications network. ‘We’re still at least twenty miles north of it. There are two surface ships between us and the submarine, and another oil tanker beyond it. They may be masking the boat’s sound somewhat. I’ll know more about it in an hour.’

‘You have evidence that it picked up the saboteurs?’

‘No, I don’t,’ admitted Storm.

Johnson’s face puckered. ‘Pakistan, at least in theory, is our ally. India is not.’

Storm didn’t answer.

‘And there are no known submarines in this area?’ said Johnson.

‘We’ve checked with fleet twice,’ said Storm, referring to the command charged with keeping track of submarine movements through the oceans.

‘I find it hard to believe that a submarine could have slipped by them,’ said Johnson.

‘Which is why I found this submarine so interesting,’ said Storm. While it was a rare boat that slipped by the forces – and sensors – assigned to watch them, it was not impossible. And Storm’s intel officer had a candidate – a Pak sub reported about seven hundred miles due east in the Indian Ocean twenty-eight hours ago. It was an Augusta-class boat.

All right, Storm. You have a point. See what you can determine. Do not – repeat, do not – fire on him.’

‘Unless he fires on me.’

‘See that he doesn’t.’