Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5) by George Wallace (different ereaders .txt) 📕

Finally, the UUV’s inertial navigation EP agreed with the programmed position for “event one.” A small hatch on the submersible’s bottom opened and a sensor package dropped out. The package sank to the muddy bottom where it gently rested in the silt. As the UUV circled and passed by again, a float deployed from the package, rising up until it stopped a couple of fathoms from the surface. Then the device on the bottom emitted one short ping informing the hovering UUV that all was operational. With that confirmation duly noted, the unmanned submarine turned further to the northwest and headed for its next drop point.

Ten hours later, the yellow UUV completed its first mission and headed back out to deeper water. There it reported home, confirmed its success, and waited patiently for the code that would give the submersible the details of, and send it off on, its next mission.

Back at the command center, lights blinked on as the stretch of sensors began to come to life, completing a virtual set of tripwires across the Iranian coast. They covered what appeared to be an uninteresting and unimportant stretch of shoreline from Gurdim to Beris, across the backwater Chabahar Bay.

But to some, this remote arc of sand and seawater constituted some of the most important geography on Planet Earth.

9

Jim Ward set the ambush up in a narrow valley just on the Somali side of the Ethiopian border. The location was for tactical advantage. An imaginary line meant nothing out here in this desolate back-forty of nowhere. But this spot was about the best he could hope for. The twisting dirt roadway wound its tortuous route through the wadi, bouncing from side to steep side as it circumvented boulders and particularly deep ruts left from generations of those who had trekked this path through desert wilderness, humans and animals alike. The SEAL team had their firing pits hidden high on opposite walls so that they could cover every square inch of the valley with a deadly crossfire and still have the best chance to hastily slip out the “back door” if need be.

Getting to this garden spot had not been easy. When Admiral Tom Donnegan called, Ward’s SEAL team was just standing down from their little trip into Sudan to observe the big terrorist hookup. The men were already looking forward to a little R&R on Djibouti’s Moucha Island. Instead, they had to change plans, build the strategy, scrub every detail, and hightail it out to this lovely little bit of sand and rock that would never appear on anybody’s tourist brochure.

An Air Force CV-22B Osprey dropped them thirty miles from their destination so they would not risk frightening any goats or alerting the locals, under the assumption that any aircraft out here were not welcome. The hike over the acacia scrub-filled sand pile had consumed the better part of two exhausting days and nights. As they marched, Ward quickly determined that they need not have bothered with the high-altitude parachute jump or the taxing hike in. Neither locals nor goats were anywhere to be seen.

Admiral Donnegan provided Ward’s team with every bit of intelligence that he could gather. Clearly Sheik al-Wasragi was being very protective of his hoard of precious metal. Satellite tracking showed that he now had three more technicals—armed, camouflaged pickup trucks—escorting the Toyota truck that carried the gold. The caravan was traveling only at night, evidently to make it more difficult for anybody to track their progress across the East African wastelands. In the unlikely event anybody else on the planet knew about the meetup and the treasure swap and the extremist’s chosen route home.

At sunrise each day, al-Wasragi and his caravan holed up in small villages or isolated herder huts out of view from the sky or space. A few times they resorted to the cover of rock outcroppings and slept the day away on gravel and dust. That meant they were averaging just better than two hundred miles a day. And Donnegan and his spook team assumed his destination would be a journey of almost two thousand miles.

The terrorist leader was unaware of one crucial fact. The latest model spy satellites’ high-resolution radar imaging really did not care if it was day or night. The pictures they snapped were equally dramatic and telling.

This night was almost pitch-black. A waxing gibbous moon had long since disappeared below the western horizon. It would be another hour before the sun began painting the opposite quadrant of sky. The only illumination in this inhospitable part of the Horn of Africa came from millions of stars twinkling overhead in a cloudless sky.

“Skipper, got company coming.” Master Chief Johnston’s voice was a raspy whisper through Ward’s tiny earbuds. Johnston—nobody but the US Navy knew his real first name so everyone assumed it actually was “Master Chief,” as well as his pay grade—had stationed himself almost a mile up-track. His job was to be on the lookout for al-Wasragi’s little convoy. “Looks like four technicals and I make out sixteen shooters. They’ll be in the kill zone in a couple of minutes. Boss man’s in the second truck. Betting that’s where the cargo is.”

Ward turned to Jason Hall, the team’s communications expert. “Jase, check the uplink. We need to make real sure that Reaper is ready when we light up Wasragi’s little parade.”

The big black SEAL, invisible behind some scrub a few meters from where Ward lay, clicked his mike twice. The systems were up and active. The MQ-9 REAPER, an unmanned aerial drone, was waiting for the command to zoom in and brutally put an end to Wasragi’s sojourn.

The terrorists’ four pickups, each with a heavy machine gun mounted in its bed, came into view, paused at the mouth of the narrow valley, and then, satisfied all was clear, eased slowly downward in the direction of the far end.

Jim Ward carefully aimed the laser designator