The radar and sonar operator, who had just retired a month before from the US Navy, where he had done the same job, could not believe what he was viewing on his screen. He had to report it quickly. It was nighttime, so he couldn’t confirm it by line of sight.
“Captain! Captain! Torpedo hot and fast, amidships, take evasive action NOW!”
“Full right rudder! Full speed ahead! Swing her fast!” To everyone on the bridge, the former Navy commander did what had to be done, but a 1200-foot-long behemoth wasn’t a ski boat. It did turn enough so that the projectile heading directly for the center of the giant ricocheted off the monstrous hull. A few minutes later, it turned away and the proximity fuse caused the aged torpedo to explode. The ship actually rocked from the concussion wave that followed.
Captain Kirby Petersen had retired from the US Navy twelve years earlier. The conflict in Iraq had put his Perry Class Frigate in the thick of battle. He had sent cruise missiles into downtown Bagdad and targeted attacking aircraft with tomahawk missiles. Now he effectively had a large bathtub from which to fight. No guns, no submarine depth charges—nothing but a wheelhouse filled with radar and sonar screens and a crew of twenty-three seamen armed with Penthouse magazines and iPads.
Maybe he should have fled, but Kirby’s next move was to head directly towards the submarine by following the path of the torpedo. His ship was the MV COSCO Development, and it had a draft of forty-six feet. If the submarine hadn’t begun her dive yet, he might ram it and sink it. If he didn’t try, the sub would send more torpedoes until they sent the big vessel to the bottom of the sea. If the submarine captain had sent two deadly torpedoes initially, it would have been over quickly.
Jarrah Youssef had been following the torpedo through the ancient periscope. Suddenly there was a colossal vessel heading right for him. They were at periscope depth. His orders were clear. One torpedo. One ship. He just realized that philosophy would get him killed.
“Dive! Dive! Dive!” Jarrah yelled, and ballast tanks started blowing, but he didn’t have much time.
Kirby’s ship was doing over 20 knots, which seemed impossible. He could only maintain that speed for a few minutes or he would burn up his engines. Even through the blackness of the night, the experienced captain could feel the presence of the old sub. He had chased them before. His men must have thought he was crazy chasing a streamlined U-boat type with a fat-assed freight humper the size of a small city.
Jarrah didn’t think he was crazy. He knew what the cargo captain was doing and admired the maneuver. His submarine was nose down as the huge ship passed over. He felt he was in the clear, then suddenly a horrible scraping sound reverberated at the stern of the submarine. The propellers and rudder had been ripped off. Jarrah’s whiskey class submarine wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t going to sink, but he would have to bring it to the surface for repairs.
But there was no one around who could repair an antique. The Russians had reverse-engineered the last models of submarines designed by the Nazis for this type of submarine. They served pretty well at the beginning of the Cold War but fell behind the Americans very quickly. The scud missiles were basically German V-2 rockets with a better engine. The Russians took apart a B-29 that had an emergency landing during WWII and refused to give it back to the Americans. After reverse-engineering it, they built one so closely a duplicate that their model had the same mechanical problems the Army Air Corp had experienced. After a while, the Soviets built their own war machines that began to rival the Americans. They had long abandoned the Whiskey Class submarines.
Kirby knew he had struck the submarine. If he came around and faced the sub from a T-bone perspective, then all he would have to do was wait till it surfaced, head towards it, and crush it. What if the sub’s deck guns worked? Kirby knew the submarine came with 57mm rapid fire cannons. The thought of having those shells exploding in his wheelhouse made him respect, even fear the weapon. What if they had a way to move the boat around to face the cargo ship, then fire off more torpedoes while on the surface? The enormous size of the COSCO Development might be able to dodge one torpedo but not multiple ones. He got on the sat phone and marine radio and asked to be patched into the nearest naval vessel. He was only a few miles from the Balboa entrance to the Panama Canal on the Atlantic side, so he knew the removal of the Islamic militant from his ship by SEALs meant the Navy couldn’t be that far away.
*****
Lester led his group of four along the edge of the road and took steps that were brisk, but soft and soundless. They hadn’t planned a great deal for the attack. He and Rick had said such things as, “You take the people on the south of the road and we’ll do the north.” They had also discussed the element of surprise. Both the road warriors were to file out in the jungle and slowly go through the foliage until both sides were at the edge of the clearing. They would use trees as shields from incoming rounds, while they hid and took down their prey. Jordan and Monte were to toss grenades towards the back side of the missile launcher to clean out the personnel there. Rick kept pointing out that charges needed to be placed on the missile and the launcher. He changed the delayed detonator to ninety seconds, to give them more time to clear the area. If, for some reason, the missile’s warhead exploded, nobody would survive unless they were over fifty yards away. Even a missile full of liquid propellant would be hard to escape from during the explosion. Lester and Rick were to fire an RPG at both the upright missile and the launch vehicle. Even though everyone had communication devices, no one explained to the rookies that after the first explosion, everyone would pretty much be deaf. Chaos is a hard thing to visualize or explain, but the entire group was destined to experience it in real time.
They had walked about thirty minutes when they could make out the clearing in the distance. Lester and Rick could see men with flashlights about 150 yards out but couldn’t see what they were doing. Lester and Rick moved into the thick jungle, and the rest fell in behind them. The vegetation was mainly big, wet leaves that would slap the person behind them in the face unless it was eased back. It concerned Lester that the trees and plants were not mature and seemed to consist of saplings and young palm trees. There would be very little protection from AK47s.
Rick noticed that there were few trees on his side of the road. He said, “If there are no trees, we will take the prone position and shoot to kill. I’ll give the command to fire once everyone gets in place.”
The movement through the jungle was very slow, and after another ten minutes, they could see the clearing in more detail through the piles of brush. It appeared to Lester that the open space had been bulldozed recently, and all the cleared brush was pushed to the edge of the clearing. It might have been a good thing, except it was so high the group couldn’t see over it. To climb on top of it would give them a great vantage point, but they would give themselves away if branches were snapped on the way up.
“Lester, you and I will carefully climb to the top and hit them with RPGs and grenades. The rest can climb up after us and start shooting,” Rick said, as he carefully started his stealthy ascent.
“Safeties off; be ready to join us,” Rick said softly and heard several safeties click. He wondered to himself if anyone would have gotten their weapons in a ready mode on their own. He had checked to make sure there was a round in all the chambers, and the guns were set on semiautomatic.
Five minutes later, Lester and Rick had mounted the pile of brush. They could see several men milling round the huge rocket. Two more missiles were in a prone position on portable launchers behind and some distance to the left of the one preparing to launch. Vapor seemed to be forming around the missile. Most of the personnel appeared to be moving to the safety of the cab of the launch truck. Neither Rick nor Lester had ever seen a missile launch, but it appeared it was about to happen. Rick keyed his mic. “Lester, you ready?”
“Yeah, I’ll take a shot at the missile if you get the cab of the launcher.”
“Roger that.” A few seconds later two rockets flew through the night jungle air. One hit the missile but bounced off to the left and exploded at the edge of the clearing south of the road. The other rocket left a red-orange streak of exhaust gases and hit at the back of the truck cab, blowing it off the chaises. Both then tossed grenades where the men were milling around the launch area. The men dove for cover and heard screaming even through the ringing in their ears.
Debi, Maria, and Jordan moved to the top of the brush pile and started shooting at warm red blotches they saw in their scopes. The fire from the burning truck made objects hard to distinguish, so they tried aiming without the scope and using three-round bursts as they were taught. Lester loaded another round in the RPG launcher, but laid it aside to use his MAC-10. He saw two men get up, return fire, and jump behind the missile pad. Four men ran to the right of Rick’s position to try to flank him. Rick called on everyone to take them out. Simone and Monte stood up and killed two, and Rick got the others. Rounds were still coming in on both sides, but it was hard to find the targets. Lester saw a muzzle flash under the burning truck. He clicked his weapon on full auto and sprayed under the truck. There was a momentary muffled scream. As he reached for another magazine, a spray of automatic gun fire peppered his team. Debi and Maria had hits on their Kevlar jackets. Jordan and Lester were nicked, both minor shoulder wounds.
“Jordan, did you see the muzzle flash?” Lester asked.
“It was by all that equipment, dead center of the clearing,” Jordan said. “Maybe a real machine gun.”
“I’m going to light it up,” Lester said, and fired a rocket directly into the equipment pile.
Bodies flew into the air, and still more incoming rounds exploded from behind the missile launch pad, and all four of Lester’s team threw grenades in that area. More deafening explosions.
Suddenly, fire began to emit from underneath the huge rocket. It became stronger and more powerful.
“Rick, they’re launching the mother fucker!” Lester yelled into his mic.
Let’s try and shoot it down before it gets much off the pad,” Rick replied.
Lester reached for Jordan’s pack, which had a couple rounds in it, and found one to shove in the launcher.
“Rick, all these people need to get behind the brush pile if we do hit it—all that fuel could kill us all.”
“They need to get off the hill and run like hell—which is exactly what I plan to do,” Rick said.
Both men readied their rocket-propelled grenades, as both teams were blasting out of the jungle and down the dirt road.
The reverberation of the big rocket’s engine was horrific and the blast from the missile nearly reached the brush pile. The three-story tall rocket lifted of the pad—slowly at first but began to pick up speed.
“Rick, you ready or did you leave with the others?”
“No, like an idiot I’m still here.”
“I don’t want this fucking thing blowing us up, so give it a minute to get going. How many rounds do you have—I’ve got two.”
“Two,” Rick answered.
Lester sent his round after the missile and grazed it but didn’t cause it to explode. He watched as Rick’s missile went right into the fire from the propellant, and the powerful exhaust turned it away to explode in the jungle. They had two more shots left. Lester and Rick fired at the same time and both hit the missile as it rose several hundred feet in the air. The rocket-propelled grenades exploded on opposite sides of the missile, causing it to change direction and fall south of their position several hundred yards in the jungle. The explosion was unbelievable and knocked Rick and Lester off their perches.
As they recovered, they saw the whole area around the missile launch light up. Sitting on the other side of the clearing and on the dirt road leading away from it, were two more missiles lying flat on launch trucks. Rick grabbed a small pack containing C-4 bricks and scrambled over the brush pile, running toward the trucks, with Lester directly behind him providing cover fire if needed. Lester saw one wounded man moving towards a weapon under one of the trucks and double-tapped his weapon to take him out.
Quickly, the two attached detonators on the C-4 putty on both missiles, set the timers, and turned toward the underbrush. They grabbed their backpacks and guns and ran through the jungle until they met the others on the road. It was only a few moments until the explosions lit up the sky from the last two scud rockets.
Once they were at their pickup, LS, as Rick called it now, they began checking for wounds. Rounds hit Debi’s and Maria’s Kevlar vests but didn’t penetrate. Other than bruises, they were okay. Both Lester and Monte had shallow shoulder wounds but nothing serious. The ladies patched them while they waited to be picked up. Rick had a nicked ear to match the other banged-up ear he got in Iraq. Simone didn’t have a scratch, but Monte had a minor head wound and a bullet hole in his helmet. Juan had the worst wound. A round went through his thigh. They stopped the bleeding, but he would need a doctor.
Maria poured some water over her head to cool down as everyone watered up. Rick heard a sound in the distance and grabbed Lester’s arm. “It’s that other vehicle we left there.” It was louder now and coming right for them.
“Into the ditch—guns ready. Anybody got an RPG round left?” Rick asked
‘I do!” Juan said and pulled it from his pack.
Lester was sitting right next to him, so he grabbed the round and put it in the launcher, just as the jeep rounded a curve and started shooting automatic weapons. From the ditch, Lester took careful aim, as rounds kicked up the dirt around him. Debi was next to him with her MAC-10 on fully automatic, sending thirty-two rounds into the jeep. Lester pulled the trigger and watched the jeep drive right into the path of the rocket propelled grenade. The whole vehicle was lifted off the ground. The concussion from the blast and the automatic fire from Debi killed all three men aboard.
Everyone was okay, except Rick, who got another nick in his ear.
“What’s this thing about ear nicks?” Simone asked.
“Girls think it’s sexy,” Rick chuckled.
In about twenty minutes, the helicopter picked them up along with the automatic weapons they salvaged from the jeep. The conversation on the helicopter on the way back was constant, even though some didn’t have earphones. They were on an after-combat high. Rick said he was proud of his kick-ass warriors and glad that Simone didn’t have to talk to her guts.