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  Other Putnam/Berkley books by James H. Cobb

  CHOOSERS OF THE SLAIN

  SEA STRIKE

  Sea Fighter

  James H. Cobb

  JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  SEA FIGHTER

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with G. P.Putnam’s Sons

  PRINTING HISTORY

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons hardcover edition / February 2000 Jove edition / November 2000

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2000 by James H. Cobb.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 0-515-12982-8

  A Jove Book®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Dedication

  To the men, and now the women,

  of the gunboat navy.

  From Lake Erie to the Mekong Delta,

  from Vicksburg to the Bismarck Archipelago,

  frequently it has been required that they do

  the most with the least.

  Mobile Offshore Base, Floater 1

  13.5 Miles off the African Gold Coast 2218 Hours, Zone Time;

  September 7, 2007

  With the sun down, the small and overstressed air conditioner set in the housing module’s window at last started to make headway against the equatorial heat. Still, the Marine utilities she wore, the smallest set available within the task group, felt tentlike and oppressive. Ignoring the chafing discomfort of the perspiration-damp camouflage cloth, Amanda Garrett studied the screen of her personal computer, reconsidering what she had composed.

  Dearest Arkady:

  This is one of those special letters that we of the profession of arms find necessary to write on occasion. If you are reading it, it will mean that I am dead.

  Hopefully, I will have been lost while bringing my mission to a successful conclusion. Also hopefully, I will have died alone. As always, my prayer before action this night will be that no weakness or failing on my part will cost the lives of any more of those I command. The blood price for this operation is already far too high.

  I also regret the other costs, the personal ones we share. I wish that some of the things we dreamed of during our brief time together could have become a reality. I also wish that it could have been in me to accept all of the good things you offered. Remember that, Arkady. I thank you with all my heart for all of your selfless love, courage and companionship. Also for all the times you stood at my side when I needed someone. I will carry those memories with me on this, my last and longest voyage. In return, all I can say is that I loved you and that I’m sorry it couldn’t be.

  Good-bye, love. Find happiness.

  Amanda

  There was no more to be said. Or there was far too much to say in the time she had remaining. Amanda initiated “File Save” and downloaded the sterile words. Two other letters, one to her father and a second to Christine Rendino, were already on the disk in her laptop. Chris would know where to find them and would see they were delivered.

  This was the last task she’d set for herself. Everything was as ready as it could be made.

  Amanda allowed herself a moment of quiet neutrality, staring past the screen of the personal computer to the dull white painted wall of her quarters. Somehow, even after five months, it still didn’t feel right to call it a “bulkhead” on this ship that wasn’t a ship.

  Hanging from hooks on that wall were the unaccustomed items of equipment she had drawn: the MOLLE load-bearing harness with the radios and flares already clipped to it, the pistol belt and ammunition pouches, the bulky Marine flak jacket, and the ballistic helmet with its camouflage-pattern cover.

  She gave a start as the document on the monitor disappeared, replaced by the nautical imaging of a Navy League screensaver. Glancing at the militarily formatted clock hack in the corner of the flatscreen, she noted the time: 2221 hours.

  2200 … had it started only seventeen hours ago? Less than three-quarters of a single day?

  No. Not really. This current crisis was just the latest link in a long and tortuous chain of events. One that had been initiated long before Amanda Lee Garrett, former Commander and now Captain, U.S.N., had ever been called to duty in this strange place. Long before she had ever heard of the West African Union. Long before there had even been a West African Union of which to hear.

  Origin

  Monrovia, Liberia 2140 Hours, Zone Time;

  June 14, 1994

  Liberia.

  Once it had been the oldest participatory democracy on the African continent, maintaining a Constitution and Bill of Rights modeled upon that of the United States. Once its economic growth rate had been second only to that of Japan. Once its John F. Kennedy Hospital had been honored as one of the most modem and sophisticated medical research facilities in the Third World.

  Once, Liberia had been a nation.

  The Land Rover roared through the rank, tropic night, following the potholed pavement that climbed Mamba Point. In the darkness beyond the fan of the vehicle’s headlights, there was scuttling movement. Shadowy forms sprang aside off the road, seeking deeper pools of night to hide in. Other figures huddled animal-like in the shanties and half-ruined buildings that lined the trash-strewn street.

  In recent years, the citizens of Monrovia had learned that the people with the cars were also frequently the people with the guns. Likewise, they had found that those guns were often used for no more reason than to make blood spray.

  Fear was not a factor restricted to pedestrians, however. The Nigerian soldier manning the Land Rover’s pintle-mounted Bren gun was nervous as well. He traversed the muzzle of the weapon in short nervous arcs, covering the road-sides ahead. Death frequently walked abroad in the streets of Liberia’s ruined capital. You never knew when he might step out from around a corner to greet you.

  The howl of the Land Rover’s engine faded to a grumble as it rolled to a halt in front of what had been Monrovia’s Masonic Hall. Dismounting from the doorless 4 × 4, Captain Obe Belewa issued a short, curt command. “Keep your engine running, Corporal.”

  Clad in the same worn jungle camouflage as his men, the tall African army officer double-timed past the bullet-chipped statue of some long-ago Liberian Grand Master and up the marble steps to the entryway of the massive old building. The cracked Ionic columns guarding the portico glowed palely in the starlight, like part of some ancient Roman ruin.

  ECOMOG (the Economic Community of West African States Military Observation Group) had taken over the building as its headquarters. A pair of lax sentries at the doorway fumbled to attention as Captain Belewa stormed past them, not bothering to reply to their hasty salutes.

  A single generator-powered safety light illuminated the looted and stripped reception hall. One of the staff lieutenants attached to Headquarters Company sat at a gray metal field desk, reading a British sports magazine by its pulsing light.

  “I need to talk to Colonel E
ba,” Belewa demanded, looming out of the shadows beyond the desk. “Now!”

  Startled, the duty officer dropped his magazine, recoiling under the intensity of the speaker’s words.

  Broad-shouldered, hard-muscled, and grimly handsome, Belewa was an impressive figure under normal circumstances. Now, with his face set and the fires of rage burning behind his dark eyes, he was beyond impressive and well into frightening.

  The duty officer knew that the Browning automatic pistol and the razor-honed jungle knife on the Captain’s belt were not mere symbols of authority. They were the arms of a warrior, well-maintained and ready for instant use. The same could be said of the mechanized infantry company Belewa commanded. It was freely acknowledged to be an elite unit, the best formation of the battalion and of the Observation Group. Some dared whisper even of the entire Nigerian army.

  Captain Belewa also had the reputation of being a very bad man to cross.

  “The Colonel is off duty, sir,” the lieutenant stammered. “He has left instructions not to be disturbed unless it is an emergency.”

  Belewa’s fist slammed down onto the desktop with an oil canning boom. “Then consider this an emergency! I will speak with Colonel Eba now!”

  The duty officer hastily summoned a runner to guide Belewa to the Colonel’s quarters. The lieutenant knew that in doing so, he would draw the eventual ire of his battalion commander down upon himself. However, at the time, that seemed the lesser of the two evils.

  Belewa followed his guide up the curve of the grand stair-way to another patch of generator light on the second floor of the vast old structure. Like most of Monrovia’s major buildings, the Masonic Temple had long before been pillaged of everything that could be stolen, down to the doors themselves, and the illumination leaked from around a cloth curtain drawn across an empty entryway.

  The sound of music and women’s laughter also issued from behind the curtain.

  Responding to the summons of the runner, Colonel Eba stepped out into the shadows of the hall. Belewa caught a glimpse inside the Colonel’s quarters as the curtain was drawn aside. Several of the other Battalion officers lounged there, along with a couple of young Liberian women. Attractive women, clad in bright, cheap dresses, who swayed in time to the rhythmic Nigerian Afro-Pop issuing from a tape player.

  Eba was a heavyset man, thickening toward a stoutness that pulled his camouflage fatigues taut. In one hand he carried a coffee mug half-filled with whiskey. “What’s this about, Captain?” he demanded, scowling.

  Belewa held at a rigid parade rest, his eyes focused over the head of the squat Eba. “Sir, I have received word from one of my scouting teams that the village of Simonsville, fifteen kilometers northeast of the city, is under attack by an unidentified armed force. I have sent two reports concerning this event to this headquarters.”

  “We thank you for your efficiency in bringing this matter to our attention, Captain,” Eba replied archly. “I am sure I will be most interested in reading your reconnaissance reports in the morning.”

  “Sir,” Belewa continued lowly, “I also dispatched two requests for the release of the Mobile Reaction Force to respond to this event. I’ve received no answer to either request.”

  “Perhaps that is because none was required.” Eba took a sip of whiskey from his mug. “Simonsville is on your morning patrol route. You can check the situation out then. There’s no sense in our people tearing about in the darkness chasing rumors.”

  “Sir, this is not a rumor! I have a scout team on a hill over looking Simonsville now. The village is being torn to pieces! I can have my men there in twenty minutes!”

  “No, Captain, no.” Eba chuckled patronizingly. “You young bull officers are all the same. Always prone to charge at every little sound in the bush. That’s not proper military thinking. We must not waste our strength by becoming involved in every little squabble the locals have.”

  The Colonel chuckled again and took another sip from his cup. “Remember, Belewa. We are here as a peacekeeping force. How would it look if we go about getting into fights all of the time.”

  “I thought we were here to help these people.” Belewa made no effort to control the contempt in his voice.

  Eba’s face hardened. “You are here to obey my orders, Captain. You may investigate these events in Simonsville on your morning patrol and not one moment sooner. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand very well.”

  The sky was barely touched with pink in the east when the column of Land Rovers and Steyr 4K-7 armored personnel carriers roared into Simonsville. But by then it was far, far too late.

  There had never been much to the little village, just a small cluster of huts and shanties along a dirt track, surrounded by upland rice fields and the low scrub left behind by logging and slash-and-burn agriculture. Now only ashes remained. Ashes and a few guttering remnants of flame curling around blackened frames of buildings.

  There had been people here, though. Their remnants had been left behind as well. Charred forms lay in the wreckage, twisted grotesquely, frozen in midwrithe. The nude body of a young woman stood nailed in place against the last intact wall of the village. Given the extent of the bloodstains, she had been alive as the nails had been driven home. However, some one eventually had granted the girl as much mercy as could be found out in that scarlet night. Her head had been stricken from her shoulders with a blow from a machete.

  Possibly the attackers had been part of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia. Or possibly it had been one of the splinters of the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy. Or an element of “Prince” Yormie Johnson’s Independent Patriotic Front, or remnants of the dead President Samuel Doe’s Armed Forces. Following the Taylor-Doe civil war and the collapse of the Liberian government, a dozen different factions had sprung up to gnaw at the corpse of the fallen nation. Each was little more than a loosely organized armed rabble, hiding its inhumanity behind a high sounding name.

  Somewhere, a child cried, not with the cry of a child but with the agonized shrieks of a small, trapped animal in agony. Possibly the men who had created this carnage had a valid reason for annihilating Simonsville. More than likely, however, they didn’t.

  Seated in the front seat of the command Land Rover, Captain Belewa snarled his orders into his radio handset. “All elements deploy by the action plan! First Platoon—establish a security perimeter! Second Platoon—search the village for survivors! Weapons platoon, set your pickets around the vehicles and get the aid station established! Third Platoon—start a sweep beyond the village area! Look for any of the wounded or injured who may have crawled off into the bush! Move!”

  Carrying their long-barreled FALN assault rifles at port arms, the Nigerian mobile troopers dismounted and streamed away on their assigned tasks. Commanding the company’s headquarters section, Lieutenant Sako Atiba was kept busy for several minutes inside the Steyr communications track, notifying ECOMOG headquarters of their arrival and establishing the tactical radio net with the platoon leaders.

  With those tasks accomplished, the compact and panther lean young officer stepped down the tail ramp of the big Austrian-built APC. Walking forward along the line of parked vehicles, he went to report personally to his commanding officer, military mentor, and friend.

  A faint morning breeze stirred the humid air, but it served only to stir the miasma of corruption, burnt flesh, and charred wood. This was something Atiba had long ago learned about serving in Liberia. You could never get away from the evil, sweet scent of the dead. Perhaps that was the cause of some of the savagery that had infected this land. You inhaled death with every breath. A Housa tribesman, native to Nigeria’s Sahel uplands, Atiba sometimes dreamed at night of the dry, clean winds blowing in from the Sahara.

  Approaching the command Land Rover, Atiba was surprised to find Captain Belewa sitt
ing in the vehicle, looking out across the burned-out funeral pyre that was Simonsville. The tall warrior still had the radio microphone gripped in his left hand. The right, though, was clinched tightly into a pale knuckled fist, a fist that beat slowly and deliberately against the heavy metal of the Land Rover’s dashboard. Atiba was even more surprised to see the tears streaming from his company commander’s eyes.

  “We have got to stop doing this to ourselves, Sako,” Obe Belewa murmured tightly. “We have got to stop doing this!”

  Monrovia, Liberia 0635 Hours, Zone Time;

  June 6, 2002

  “Ann, can you hear me?”

  “Yes, Ian. Quite well.”

  “Very good. We have our satellite phone set up here on the roof of the Ambassador Hotel. We’re still attempting to establish our video link. Not much luck yet, I’m afraid. Until then, we’ll try to describe what’s been going on here in Monrovia since this morning’s … incident.”

  “What is happening, Ian?”

  “Honestly, not a great deal that we can see. Our hotel is on the beach near the British Embassy and we are looking north toward Mamba Point and the Mamba Point Hotel, the current seat of the provisional Liberian ruling council. This appeared to be the focal point of the heavy gunfire that broke out shortly before dawn this morning. Nothing much is happening now …. There is a faint haze of smoke around the tall, white hotel building … that appears to be all.”

  “Have there been any other outbreaks of fighting in the area, Ian?”

  “We’ve heard rumors of some gunfire around both the ECOMOG base outside of the city and at the Barclay Training Center, the headquarters of the Liberian Armed Forces. We have not been able to verify this, however. There is a security cordon thrown up around the hotel, and none of the press here have been able to get into the field yet today.”