Phantom force the uss cu.., p.18
Phantom Force (The USS Cunningham Quintet Book 5), page 18
They had completed their fourth day of spying and the duty was beginning to wear. They were living on the fish they caught, eaten raw for the most part, and they drank the water from the passing rain squalls caught and rung out of their ragged shirts. What was worse, this miserable remnant had been their last cigarette.
Still, he and Mahmud were Bugi and they obeyed the commands of their ship’s captain as he obeyed their clan chief and as the clan chief, in turn, obeyed the Raja Samudra. They had been ordered to watch the big merchant ship and to watch for the red-haired foreign woman aboard it. They would continue to do so.
Regretfully, he flipped the butt over the wooden gunwale of the prahu, hearing it hiss out over the lap of the wavelets against the hull. Their mothership would return soon to collect what they had learned and they would have more cigarettes. Sengosari allowed his eyes to close.
Thump!
They snapped open again. Something had struck the hull of the boat. Lifting his head from the wadded blanket he’d been using for a pillow, the Bugi swiftly looked about.
They still lay forty yards off the mangroves, beyond the reach of mosquitoes. The waters of the inlet were glassy smooth, and to westward, beyond the mouth of the inlet, the anchor lights of the moored merchant ships twinkled.
It must have been nothing. Sengosari let his head sink back to his pillow.
Thump!
A harder blow.
The corsair came up onto his knees. Ripples were spreading out from around the prahu. Under the water there was a faint, moving luminescence. Sengosari groped for the pistol under the wadded blanket.
From up in the bow, he heard Mahmud scream.
Startled, Sengosari looked up. Powerful arms suddenly burst out of the water around the prahu’s low set stern, clawing at him, gripping him, dragging him over the side. Sengosari tried to scream as well, but the dark waters closed over him, gagging his cry as the black demons drew him down into their wet hell.
Somewhere within the Muluku Island Group
The Indonesian Archipelago
2210, Hours; Zone Time, October 24, 2008
The captain of the Karel Satsuitubun thought he had been miraculously lucky to survive the sinking of his ship. Now he wasn’t so certain.
Blown over the side in the first moment of the attack that had destroyed both his vessel and the LST they had been escorting, he had witnessed and escaped the systematic massacre of the survivors by the rogue missile boat.
For black, endless hours, he had clung to a piece of floating wreckage, listening to the screams of the other survivors as the sharks had closed in. When they had come for him, he had beseeched Allah and beaten them off with his fists, his flesh tearing on their thorny skin.
The captain had been on the verge of yielding to his death when the rising sun had revealed the graceful silhouette of a Bugi pinisi bearing down upon him.
He had survived the blood-sodden night, only to find himself a prisoner. Roughly bound and blindfolded, he had been carried aboard the schooner to somewhere. There, he had been loaded aboard a small amphibian aircraft and carried to somewhere else, to this small windowless cinderblock room that smelled of copra and the sea.
Here, his bonds and his blindfold had been removed. His wounds had been treated and he had been given food and drink. But two silent, heavily armed Chinese guarded the door and his final fate seemed very much in question.
Then came his interrogator, the tall, handsome near-European with the pencil line moustache and the crisp safari suit. Outlined in the glare of a hissing gasoline lantern, he sat across the room’s rickety table from the captain, asking questions. The Indonesian naval officer answered them. He had no reason not to.
“Why?” the stranger asked finally.
The captain shook his head. “I do not know. I swear by the sacred names of Allah, I do not know. Our own ship, our own men, murdered us. There was no warning. No reason. If you know the explanation, I beg you to tell me why my crew and all of the others were so betrayed.”
The big man was silent for what seemed a long time. “I honestly don’t know either,” he said finally.
He rose and started for the door. Then he hesitated and looked back for a moment. “You will not be harmed, Captain. You will be my prisoner for a time but you will be well treated and you will see your home and family again. You have my word.”
For the first time since the sinking, the Captain of the Karel Satsuitubun dared to believe this might be true.
Makara Harconan walked slowly back to the lanai of the plantation house, his security team hanging back in the shadows, vigilant but unobtrusive. Harconan made no note of them, nor of the piercing stars overhead, nor of the susurrus of the trade wind in the palm groves. He was lost far too deeply in thought.
Lo waited on the lanai, a spare black-suited shape standing at parade rest in the flickering light of the candle lanterns. Harconan gestured his factotum into one of the rattan chairs drawn around the table before taking one himself. “The missile boat that conducted the attack, do we have any sighting reports on it?”
Lo shook his head. “No sir. The archipelago is extensive, even for our people. It has apparently withdrawn to some island base unknown even to the Bugi.”
Harconan smiled without humor and waved away the servant who had appeared at the plantation house door. “I believe this is what is called being hoist on one’s own petard. This is a strange turn of events, bapak, very strange.”
“I must agree, Mr. Harconan, but possibly it is also compatible with recent events in Bali.”
“What’s the latest from our people down there?”
“More strangeness, sir. Indeed, as per your orders, our operatives have been seeking to avoid discord there. The potential for an ethnic and religious holocaust is too great. However, someone is most definitely seeking just that. Intelligence Group Bali has identified a number of covert action cells that are apparently attempting to promote such a conflict.”
“Who are they, Lo?” Harconan demanded. “Who do they belong to?”
“Unknown at this time, sir. The operation appears to be well-organized and its personnel skilled in covert activity. As yet, our Intelligence sections have been unable to penetrate their organization. Beyond knowing they’re there, and that they are inspiring confrontation between Muslim and Hindu, we know little about them. Clearly, however, there is a third agenda in play.”
Harconan interlocked his fingers and leaned into his joined fists, tapping his chin lightly. “Suppositions then, Lo. Who might they be?’
“I have no concrete hypothesis. However, their level of expertise and the recent events in the Banda Sea suggest some cabal within the Indonesian military or government, although obviously one not supporting President Kediri.”
“Have these cells cropped up anywhere else?”
The Chinese nodded. “There are hints that they may be in place on some of the Christian islands of the archipelago such as Timor and the Ambion group, although they do not yet appear to be active. This hints at a possible theory about this third faction’s motivation.”
“Which is?”
“We must assume that some individual or group of individuals is attempting to co-opt your concept of revolutionary change within the archipelago. But for reasons of their own, they’re seeking to take events one step farther. They are not merely endeavoring to foment the collapse of the standing Indonesian governmental structure, but they are seeking to promote a large-scale conflict among the peoples of Indonesia, pitting race against race and religion against religion.”
“But for what reason, Lo?”
“No doubt they pursue some goal they perceive as beneficial to their interests. Possibly they believe that an Indonesia occupied by only a single religious or cultural group would be easier to control than an Indonesia occupied by many. I believe the current popular geopolitical term for this is ‘ethnic cleansing’.”
It made sense. Lan Lo did not speak unless his words made sense.
“Damn them!” Harconan’s fist exploded onto the tabletop, cracking the wood. “Whoever they are, damn them!”
“Sometimes,’’ Lo said quietly, “when one plows a field for planting, the intruding weeds grow faster than the intended crops.”
MV Galaxy Shenandoah
2340 Hours; Zone Time; October 24, 2008
“All secure! Take her up!”
Hoist motors howled and the brick-shaped hull of the Remora lifted out of the moon pool, water cascading off her camouflaged casing. The cradle arms swung down and engulfed the Advanced SEAL Delivery Vehicle, locking it into hard dock. Grillwork decking sections swung down from the sides of the big sea lock, fitting around the secured minisub.
“Recovery completed, Captain,” the CPO bossing the hangar crew yelled up to the gangway that ran overhead. “All secure.”
“Very good, Chief. Carry on,” Amanda called back. At her side, Christine Rendino almost danced in impatience. Earlier that evening, a utility flight helicopter had lifted her out from Point Man Base to the Shenandoah. The Intel had insisted that she conduct this particular field interrogation personally.
The dogging wheel atop the minisub’s stumpy conning tower spun open. A wetsuited man, with the solidly muscular, almost chunky build of a Navy SEAL, swung the hatch open and jackknifed out onto the deck. Looking up to the gangway, he lifted a fist with the thumb extended. “We got ‘em, Captain.”
Christine couldn’t wait. “Did you get them clean?”
“Clean and sweet, ma’am. We put ’em in a sleeper hold the second we got ’em underwater. They never knew what hit ’em.”
“Are they alive?”
The SEAL team leader looked slightly offended. “You wanted ’em alive. You got ’em alive. We got ’em into the sub and breathing again inside of three minutes. Doc’s put ’em on your soup as per the ops plan.”
Even as he spoke, a team of pharmacists mates were working around the Remora’s hatch, maneuvering an intravenous bag and the limp body attached to it up onto the deck where a basket stretcher awaited it.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Christine yipped with glee and slapped the gangway rail. “I love it when a plan comes together.”
Amanda gave her friend a dubious glance. “I’m still not exactly sure just what this plan all constitutes.”
“I suppose you could call it an experimental interrogation technique. If we can make it work right, nobody’s going to know these guys have ever had their brains drained. Not even them.”
*
Idly, Malang Sengosari wondered if he was dead. Not that it mattered greatly, for he found death quite tolerable: a relaxed float in a warm, pulsing darkness to a backdrop of distant celestial music. And, as the Prophet had promised his warriors, the seventy virgins awaited him in this paradise.
So far, there had only been the one – but she was a most pleasant virgin, beautiful, naked and pliant, with fingertips like warm living silk. It boded well for his future as a dead man.
Or perhaps he wasn’t dead. For pleasurable though she was, his comely companion was not quite what he had expected as a celestial virgin. He hadn’t visualized them as being pale blue with silvery hair.
Possibly she was a sea jinni. Didn’t he recall something about being drawn down into the water? And this place he was in seemed to waver as if with the sweep of the waves. He must be a captive of the sea jinni as it was told in the sagas of the Bugi storytellers. For a lusty fellow such as himself, such captivity didn’t promise to be too onerous.
That was it. His comely companion must be a jinni. That would explain not only the odd color but the odd inflection and accent. Who could expect one of the jinn to speak Bahasa Indonesia perfectly? It would be amusing to teach her; she seemed most eager to learn.
Indulgently, he murmured answers to her childlike questions …
*
Christine Rendino, clad in a beach jacket, bright blue body makeup and a thin hazing of silver glitter pushed through the outer door of the interrogation space’s light and sound lock.
“How did it go?” she asked.
The two civilian interrogation specialists manning the biomedical console didn’t at all look like CIA agents. The man far more resembled a skinny, balding insurance salesman, while the woman had the look of a motherly, graying RN.
“Very good, Commander,” the male half of the team replied. “Even under stimulation, we were able to maintain the psychopompic dream state. He remained disengaged but reactive throughout the interrogation sequence.”
He activated the printer unit of the lie detector and let it rasp out a long strip of hardcopy. Christine tore it loose and ran an expert’s eyes down the jagged response lines, matching Sangosari’s biological responses to the carefully phrased sequence of questions she had asked.
“He wasn’t stressing,” she said finally. “There are no fear-anger peaks and he sure didn’t seem to be fighting me in there. I’m seeing an over-all truth reaction. I’d say he was giving me the straight stuff.”
“I’d agree,” the interrogator nodded.
“Then let’s call it a good run.” Christine folded the print-out and set it on the console. “What’s the current status on both subjects?”
“When you gave us the prompt word for the first subject, we edged him back down into true sleep,” the female specialist replied. “Subject two is holding in the sleep state and we can surface him whenever you’d like.”
Christine glanced at the military clock on the bulkhead. “Okay, we’re still good on time. Hit number one with the ’scop, take him deep and package him for transport. Then bring the second subject up to interrogation level. I want to try for some cross references.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem, Commander.” Keeping her eye on the EKG and heart monitors of the subjects, the female tech typed a series of commands into her control display, making minute alterations in the complex drug cocktail feeding in through the intravenous needles.
At the rear of the workspace, Amanda Garrett, an unspeaking and somewhat bewildered observer until now, got out of a metal-frame folding chair. “What have you got?” she demanded.
“We have indeed been graced by the personal emissaries of the Raja Samudra,” the Intel replied, parking a lightly clad hip against the edge of the console. “The name of our friend in there is Malang Sengosari – or Sengosara – and his sidekick is Mahmud, no last name. They’re Bugi pirates from the same village on Mataram.
“Their raider was diverted to Pulau Sebus within twenty-four hours of our anchoring here. They were ordered to keep the Shenandoah under observation and specifically ‘to watch for a European woman with red hair’. They were to get photographs of her. They even received special instruction on how to operate a telephoto camera.”
Amanda nodded. “We found the camera, along with a couple of pairs of high-powered binoculars, in their boat. What we didn’t find was any kind of radio or communications equipment.”
“That makes total sense. Harconan is clearly interested, but he’s also suspicious. He’s figuring that any radio transmissions in the vicinity of the Shenandoah might be monitored. According to Malang, their mothership circles back every two or three days to collect their Intelligence and issue new orders. They’re due through tomorrow.”
“We can designate the ship and establish RPV surveillance when they do,” Amanda replied, crossing her arms. “So far so good, but how much closer will this get us to Harconan?”
Christine shrugged. “It’ll be a start. We’ve pierced the first cell of Harconan’s network and we’ve found the second. We’ll just have to see how it goes.”
“We have a time factor, Chris!”
“I know we do,” the Intel replied calmly. “But, as you have often said, Boss Ma’am, ‘Softly softly, catchee monkee.’ Working up the chain of a tight cell-type security system can only be done one step at a time. There aren’t any short cuts.”
Amanda caught her breath. “I understand that, Chris, but damn it, we still don’t have anything!”
“Sure we do. We know that Harconan is interested and that he’s sniffing the bait. We’re also inside his network and, with a little luck, he won’t know about it.”
“I’m still not sure just how that’s supposed to come about. Just as I’m still not sure about what you think you’re doing.” Amanda gestured at the Intel’s decidedly distinctive appearance.
“Oh, this,” Christine, glanced down of herself. “It’s a little exercise in reality disassociation.”
“Reality disassociation?”
“Well, say you’re walking down the street one day and suddenly you’re grabbed by a number of large, decidedly unsympathetic men who drag you off to a grimy back room somewhere and ask you a bunch of very pointed questions. You would assume you were being interrogated, correct?”
“Correct,” Amanda nodded.
“But what if you’re walking down that street and you suddenly just sort of drift off to sleep. When you wake up again, you find yourself in bed with … oh, say, Errol Flynn, Johnny Depp and Sean Connery, who entertain you with casual conversation between bouts of passionate dalliance.”
“I’d say that I was either drunk, stoned or had totally lost my marbles,” Amanda replied flatly.
