The Delta Solution Read online

  Every hour of their training both at Coronado and on the Horn of Africa had been geared for this moment. In fifteen minutes the men were in one of the trucks transporting them to the end of the runway. Five minutes later they were piling into a Lockheed C-130, one of two kept permanently at the Djibouti base. Its engines were already running, well . . . howling.

  As the last man climbed on board, the big doors slammed shut, and the SEALs got down on the floor for takeoff. They faced a two-and-a-half-hour flight to the rendezvous point with the Chafee. Most of the journey would be dedicated to preparing for the jump. Limited seating would be organized, but the main part was to fix the parachutes on forty men, check them, and check them again.

  The loadmaster and the dispatcher worked with Mack Bedford while he briefed and talked to his team. In the cockpit of the aircraft there were two pilots, a navigation officer and a special communications operator, whose task was to make contact with the Chafee ASAP.

  The huge aircraft hurtled down the runway in a cloud of drifting sand and screamed into the night sky, banking left over the coastline of northern Somalia and out over the Indian Ocean, heading east.

  It took an hour to make contact with the American destroyer DDG-90, but both the aircraft and the ops room of the Chafee were receiving satellite signals advising each on the other’s position. The warship’s journey from the northeast corner of the box took twelve hours and she was running through the night for three of them when the C-130, flying low, came through: Delta SEALs on time making 400 knots . . . ETA Chafee 0630.

  Chafee’s ops room picked them up instantly: Low-flying contact 5,000 feet . . . speed 250 . . . course zero-nine-zero . . . range sixty miles . . . IFF transponder code correlates Delta SEALs.

  “LAUNCH THE INFLATABLES!”

  Up on deck the crews began to lower away, easing four rubber Zodiacs down to the water. Within moments the two-man crews were aboard, the engines running, moving away from the ship, out to the designated landing area 1,000 yards off the portside beam.

  In the C-130 the dispatcher assumed command: Okay, get ready now—we’re heading right toward the zone . . . another four minutes . . .

  The SEALs, hoods up, flippers clipped to their thighs, began to move toward the aircraft doors, port and starboard. Each man was struggling aft, hauling his backpack and rifle and the parachute pack. Commander Bedford took the lead and would exit the aircraft first at the head of his team.

  Coming to the drop zone now, right on our nose . . . action stations . . .

  The dispatcher opened the aircraft door on the starboard side, and the sudden roar of the wind was a shock even to those who were prepared for it. The SEALs grabbed for the static line, and Mack looked down at the ocean gleaming far below in the early dawn light.

  Again they checked their lines and pushed forward to the area immediately in front of the opening.

  ONE MINUTE!

  Mack braced himself for the next command.

  STAND IN THE DOOR, NUMBER ONE!

  He was trained for this and he was ready. A feeling of exhilaration swept over him as he gritted his teeth and the light above him flickered.

  Red on!!

  Mack knew they were just about over the zone and the dispatcher confirmed it:

  Green on . . . GO, GO, GO!

  The dispatcher slapped him on the shoulder, and Mack Bedford plunged out of the aircraft, sweeping clear in the slipstream and then dropping swiftly sideways.

  Back in the aircraft the radio operator snapped into the secure VHF encrypted: Delta SEALs go.

  Chafee came back on: Roger and out.

  Suddenly there were two sticks of eighteen parachuting SEALs swaying thousands of feet above the Indian Ocean, remembering their hundreds of hours of training and realizing at last what it had all been for.

  Mack stared down from about two hundred feet and prepared for splash down. At 150 feet he could see the Zodiacs circling around a wide area, deliberately left clear, he knew, in case one of the SEALs crashed straight down and landed in the boat.

  He pulled the harness forward under his backside and banged the release button on his chest, which allowed the straps to fall away, leaving him in a sitting position holding on to the lift webs above his head. If he let go, he’d fall out of the chute and drop straight down.

  He realized there was a light southwesterly blowing across the water, and he was literally hurtling across it, coming down fast. At fifty feet Mack was gripping the chute with all of his strength: At twenty he was ready, and at ten feet he let go and crashed into the ocean.

  The Zodiac was on him in seconds, and big, friendly hands grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him aboard.

  “Hello, sir,” said one of the seamen. “Nice jump.”

  At which point Barney Wilkes landed in his lap as they dragged him over the wide, inflatable sides of the Zodiac.

  “Morning, boss,” said the ace swimmer of the platoon. “Think they might give us some breakfast?”

  The helmsman answered for him. “You guys can have any darned thing you want.”

  And then Chief Brad Charlton came tumbling aboard, followed by Shane Cannell. The other three Zodiacs were revving and seamen were grabbing and hauling, and the SEALs were being rescued hand over fist. It took little more than eight minutes to land them all in the boats, and Chief Cody Sharp, in charge of the final roll call, yelled over to Mack, “All thirty-six men assigned on board, sir. Ready to leave.”

  The little convoy of inflatables set off over the last half mile of the SEALs’ journey out to the Chafee, and up ahead they could see the destroyer cruising slowly, waiting for them to climb aboard. On her stern helicopter deck, they could see the huge Sikorsky Sea Stallion, which would land them on the captured Ocean Princess, the cruise liner that held the parents of Admiral Andy Carlow, the hugely popular SPECWARCOM C-in-C, the Emperor SEAL.

  They reached the Chafee and split, two boats port and starboard. Fixed to the hull there were rope ladders and cargo nets. The SEALs were up and into the warship in five minutes flat, greeted by the commanding officer, Captain Tyron Marks.

  Marks was all business. “We unloaded everything from the aircraft in DG and stowed it below,” he said. “Everything you need is in an area designated for your operation. Right now we’re about eight-and-a-half hours from the Ocean Princess. We’ll be there by 1530. Port Royal, with the gunship aboard, is catching up fast. She’s probably only fifty miles behind right now and making 40 knots. We’ll probably get there together.”

  “Thank you very much, sir,” said Commander Bedford, deferring to Marks’s rank. “We really appreciate everything you’ve done. It’s a highly dangerous mission as you know. And I expect you also know it’s very important to all of us.”

  “I do know, commander. Andy Carlow’s parents, right?”

  “Yessir.”

  ON BOARD THE OCEAN PRINCESS, Wolde laid down the ground rules. All passengers would surrender their cell phones. There would be no contact with the outside world. Anyone indulging in any form of communication, or carrying a firearm, would be executed immediately. All passengers, no exceptions, would be escorted to the lower deck lounges next to the dining room. Meals would be served as usual, and anyone not moving toward the assembly areas would wait in their cabins for his men to collect them. No passengers or crew would be allowed to move about the ship without escort.

  Wolde said he was continuing negotiations for the ship’s release and would be speaking to the ship’s owners in the next twenty minutes. He repeated: Cell phones must be surrendered. Anyone found in possession of one would be shot. This was not an empty threat. It was a promise.

  Admiral Tom Carlow heard the instructions on the ship’s intercom system, and he spoke very sternly to Miranda, telling her that when the knock on the door came, she was to go with the pirate escort while he hid in the big wardrobe—with his cell phone sealed in a hidden pocket in his old navy bag.

  Miranda protested, telling him not to be a damn
fool. But the blood of a seafaring commander coursed through Admiral Tom Carlow’s veins, and he told her quietly, “That’s an order.”

  Two minutes later, there was a sharp bang on the door and someone called out, “Anyone in there?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” replied Mrs. Carlow, as she opened the door to Kifle Zenawi, the man who had slain Sam McLean.

  “Cell phone?” he asked.

  Miranda, trembling, handed over her phone.

  “Anyone else in here?” asked Abdul.

  “No. My husband was picked up outside and taken to the dining room. I was getting dressed.”

  “Okay, ma’am,” said Kifle. “I need to search your handbag.”

  Miranda handed it over and the pirate, slightly intimidated by this very important American lady, rummaged for a moment and then handed the bag back without even taking her money or her watch.

  Deep inside the wardrobe, Tom heard the cabin door slam shut, and he muttered, “That’s my girl.”

  Then he climbed out, locked and bolted the cabin door, and rummaged in his bag for his state-of-the-art satellite cell phone. He dialled his son’s private number at SPECWARCOM Coronado and heard the familiar tones of the younger Admiral Carlow.

  “Jesus Christ, Dad, where the hell are you?”

  “Right now I’m in my cabin on board the Ocean Princess. How much do you know?”

  “I know more or less everything,” he replied. “Are you in danger? Where’s Mom?”

  “She’s with the other passengers. Now listen. At least five crew members have been shot, the ship is almost stationary, but every passenger except me is in the lounges. I’m telling you she’s definitely susceptible to attack. Especially the bridge area and the offices below. The passengers are far away at the stern end of the Riviera Deck, main-deck level.”

  “Delta’s on its way in.”

  “Mack Bedford’s guys, right?”

  “You got it, Dad. Can I have your number?”

  “Sure. I’m staying right here; there’s a big wardrobe. Nobody knows where I am.”

  “I’ll have Delta make contact as soon as possible. Keep your eyes and ears open. You’re our advance man!”

  Tom cleared the line and hid the cell phone back in the bag, muffling any sound with a couple of big sweaters. He placed it in the wardrobe, unlocked the cabin door, and sat in an armchair reading a book. If the pirates should look in, he was a picture of uninformed innocence.

  MACK BEDFORD SAT with the captain marvelling at the rate the Port Royal was catching them. They’d be level by 3:00 p.m.

  “The Zodiacs are serviced and fuelled if you should decide on a sea attack,” said Tyron Marks. “But I was told by the Djibouti command that you favored a strike from the air.”

  “I’ve decided the air is better. Mostly because it’s quicker and we can assess the risk much better. Coming in from the ocean in broad daylight we are completely dependent on no one seeing us. And that’s something we can’t control. If some fucking tribesman spotted us incoming, we would certainly face sustained machine-gunfire and take losses. I guess you know how well-armed they are, especially out of Haradheere.”

  “What time do you want to go in?”

  “Just as soon as the Port Royal gets here, soon as they can fire up the gunship. I’d like to embark my guys in the Sikorsky no later than 1530.”

  “No problem,” said Captain Marks. “The helicopter will be ready as soon as you are.”

  By 1430 Commander Bedford was in communication with the cruiser, speaking to the commander of the AH-1 Cobra, one of the most lethal attack weapons in the United States armed forces. The helicopter packed FEAR rockets and antitank missiles on the stub wing pylons, with a twenty-millimeter cannon in the gun pod beneath the nose.

  The Cobra was only lightly armored, but she had a very slim profile head-on. She was thus a tough target to track and even tougher to hit. Her cockpit panels were made of bulletproof glass. With her back to the wall, the Cobra could fire up to fifty-two rockets, and her three-barrel M197 Gatling gun blazed seven hundred rounds per minute. She carried a two-man crew, with the pilot above and behind the gunner. Her 1,400-horsepower engines rattled her along at 165 miles per hour. She was fourteen feet high with a wingspan of only ten feet. The Cobra’s range was almost three hundred miles, and that afternoon she would stand guard over Mack Bedford’s SEALs as they made their treacherous descent, probably under fire, onto the deck of the Ocean Princess.

  The operation was standard SEAL air-attack procedure. The commander of the Cobra had trained for such a mission for years. His gunner, CPO Billy Ray Conners, a native of Alabama, was a Gulf War veteran who had also flown gunships in Afghanistan. He was known locally as the Helo Squadron’s top gun.

  By 1445 they could see the Port Royal steaming over the horizon. They were thirty miles north of the Ocean Princess, tucked in behind one of the atolls. When Delta Platoon took off, they would come unseen across the islands, running due south, and then fly into the open waters of the ops area, with maximum surprise to the pirates.

  Commander Bedford was still in conference with the Cobra crew when the SEALs began piling into the Sea Stallion, and loading two heavy machine guns, which would be lowered onto the deck when the assault force was aboard.

  By 1520 they were embarked and ready to go. They had the signal from the Port Royal: The Cobra had no more questions and was ready for immediate takeoff. Commander Fritz Halliday, who would pilot the Sea Stallion, already had Admiral Tom Carlow’s cell phone number for a final check on the whereabouts of the passengers and any other behind-thelines information.

  At 1525 the Delta SEALs, sitting in lines inside the huge helo, lifted off from the stern deck of the USS Chafee. They were less than ten minutes from their target, and way out off their left side, they could see the Cobra flying lower. Even in a nonurgent situation, the heavily armed gunship looked nothing short of menacing.

  Commander Bedford had elected to fly south across the Maldives’ western atolls for the approach, and Fritz Halliday came in low over both North and South Nilandu and then came rocketing over the Kudahuvadhoo Channel directly to the north side of Haddumati Atoll.

  Approaching the southern shoreline, they got their first glimpse of the Ocean Princess in the choppy waters of the One and a Half Degree Channel, and the radio operator opened up the line to Admiral Tom Carlow.

  Deep inside the wardrobe, the cell phone played its ring tone, “Anchors Aweigh,” and the admiral swiftly locked the cabin door. Mack Bedford’s voice greeted him but there was no chitchat: “Tom, do you favor a stern or bow landing for Delta?”

  “Definitely bow,” said the veteran admiral. “The stern’s full of staterooms, and every one of the passengers is in the aft lounge. I’m assessing there are four pirates on guard in there. The rest are on the bridge. If you have to fight your way in, the bridge makes a proper target. The stern area of this ship is a goddamned mess. Stay away from it.”

  “Roger that!” shouted Mack. “Over and out.”

  The Sea Stallion hurtled toward the cruise liner. Mack Bedford yelled above the din: “GO FOR THE STERN, THEN MAKE A LAST-MINUTE SWING TO THE BOW END!”

  “Roger that!” shouted the pilot.

  The SEALs immediately went to action stations and lined up at the doors, port and starboard. Chief Sharp checked the ropes while the enormous helo made its descent to fifty feet, then forty. With both rotors pounding the hot ocean air, the doors were opened and the thick ropes dropped down to the deck.

  Mack Bedford scanned the wide bridge that stretched the entire width of the ship, right in front of the enormous yellow funnel. It was probably eighty feet from the point of the bow, white-painted and glass-fronted.

  There was no sign of life on the foredeck of the Princess, and Mack ordered the SEALs, “DESCEND TO TARGET!”

  One by one they gripped the rope, leapt out of the doorway, and started down. There were three of them on each rope when Mack spotted the portside bridge window smash,
and the barrel of a heavy machine gun come jutting out. Wolde’s defenses, not surprisingly, were up, and the pirate chief had ordered the gun to open fire on the SEALs at their most vulnerable point.

  “FUCK!” yelled Mack as he viewed an assault commander’s nightmare—they’d been spotted and would be fired upon by the enemy as they made their descent. Instinctively, he raised his rifle and sent a volley through the door, straight over the heads of the SEALs and into the bridge.

  But he was too late, way too late. With two sirens blaring loud enough to frighten the bejesus out of a passing school of porpoise, the Cobra came swooping in from the port side, thirty feet above the deck, as subtle as a train crash, and ripped a pair of antitank missiles straight at the bridge windows of the Ocean Princess.

  Chief Conners watched them fly, slashing through the air with a white tail behind, before slamming through the glass and instantly killing Ismael Wolde and Elmi Ahmed and blasting the control room to smithereens, blowing out the entire front end.

  The lead SEALs were pouring out of the Sikorsky. And down the ropes they came, sliding, shouting, and gripping with their leather gloves but landing like snowflakes, moving deftly away from the landing square and grabbing for their rifles.

  Mack Bedford and Chief Sharp came last, one on each rope holding their heavy gun in a sling between them in an outrageous display of strength. There was no return fire from anywhere on the ship, not after Billy Ray’s rockets, and Mack ordered the advance, two teams of eighteen moving down the deck, port and starboard.

  No one knew where the pirates were. There was, apparently, no one in the upper works of the ship. Everyone must have been at deck level or below.

  “Okay, guys,” ordered Mack, “fan out in teams of three and take the corridors one by one, usual house-to-house procedures. Any door doesn’t open, blast it. We assault the big room together. Order the passengers to hit the deck and then take out the terrorists. Shoot to kill.”

  “Is that no prisoners, sir?” asked Lt. Josh Malone.