“Are you listening to me, Roberto?”
107
CYBERNATION
smiled at her. “I am listening, though I do not see I should bother. A trained monkey with a stick of lite could do this.”
he’d be cheaper and would eat less than you,” I. “But we aren’t going to blow up anything. We i out a section, no matter how big, they can fix it in a of hours. Even if we took the bridge down, a boat lay a temporary cable in a day or less. No, we cut six places, each break many miles apart They fix still doesn’t work. They find the second one and it still doesn’t work. By the time they find the eak-which will be in a remote area and booby, tempers will be very short at the phone company, y’ll have to hue more inspectors, more security. We a week, then do it again, in six different places, y’ll be tearing their hair out” good plan,” he said, more to keep her happy than he really cared. Cutting plastic cables was no for a fighter. A man needed challenges, real chal- from other men. Facing off, one-on-one, or one- it-many, that was worthwhile. But such work ved him to amass wealth, and that was a goal to be I for the long run. followed her with half his attention, nodding or tig now and then so she would see that he was but considering with more of his thoughts the ; important question of acquiring more gold…
i Francisco Bay
t Francisco, California
Howard’s assault team swam through the cold and waters, using rebreathers instead of scuba to better 1 their exhaust bubbles. The wetsuits and gloves were best quality, but the chill still seeped in around the
108
NET FORCE
seals. They used flippers and muscle power, no sleds or scooters, to make sure they didn’t make any noise a sound sensor listening for motors might pick up.
The target was two hundred meters ahead, and they wouldn’t be able to see it until they were almost there. Not that they would miss it-an oil tanker almost as long as three football fields and riding deep and heavy in the water wasn’t something you were going to swim around or under with it laying broadside to you-it drew more than ten meters. At five-meters approach depth, what they would see would be a wall of steel plates above and below.
The tanker had been hijacked in Indonesian waters by Tamil terrorists and sailed to a spot just outside San Francisco Bay to draw attention to the terrorists’ cause, whatever the dickens that was. If their demands were not met, they would, they threatened, blow the vessel to kingdom come, allowing hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil to escape along the California coast
Such an event would be an ecological disaster, not to mention very bad for tourism from Big Sur to Santa Barbara, at the least.
This wasn’t going to be allowed to happen. While authorities negotiated and delayed the terrorists, Howard and his team moved. The plan was simple: Get to the ship, scale the hull, prevent the terrorists from rupturing the bays holding the cargo, by whatever means possible. They would have to be quick, and they would have to be perfect -one psychotic with a fast hand would be disastrous.
They weren’t expecting enemy frogmen, but they were prepared, just in case. Their dive suits were equipped with the latest high-tech toys. They had LOSIR corns, infrared sensors, and bubble comps that fed heads-up displays in their full-face masks. Aside from that, each member of the six-man team carried weapons that would work in water or in air. Primary defensive arms were the Russian 5.56mm APS underwater assault rifles. These were
109
CYBERNATION
:-fire, gas-operated weapons. The firing mecha- ; for these were based on the Kalashnikov rotating em, and except for the oversized magazines that ^twenty-six rounds, they looked a lot like an AK ast rifle. The projectiles were drag-stabilized darts, the based on 5.56 X 45mm NATO rounds. The i were twelve centimeters long. The effective soft tar- ng range in air was slightly over 100 meters. The water range at this depth was about thirty meters. In this murky, if you were close enough to see an ‘ diver, you would have more than enough punch to out-the flechettes would blast through a face or wetsuit, no problem.
i of Howard’s divers also carried 7.62 X 36 H&K : pistols, five-barreled weapons with sealed cham- |The effective’range of these was much less than the assault rifles, about thirty meters in air, half that underwater. Furthermore, once you’d fired your to reload the weapon you had to send it back i armorer-it was a factory-only procedure. Howard 1 if it came to that, things would be pretty bad-if * dozen-plus rounds from the Russian weapons weren’t to do the job, another five from the handguns “ly weren’t gonna help too much. Still, it was better \ it and not need it…
iy Howard got a shimmery red sig on his heads- play. His team’s transponder-coded heat-sigs were olored blue, so red meant company. A beat later, a red image came into view. His display told him were thirty meters out, right at the limit of their as. guns. The pair of reds moved slowly from east to
t patrol, he figured. And they haven’t seen us yet.
sibility was no more than seven or eight meters in
old water, with nightfall coming on fast and about to
i that to almost zero. They wanted to be at the tanker
f soon, where they’d use the gecko-foot climbing pads.
110
NET FORCE
As soon as it was dark, they’d ascend. Timing was critical; they couldn’t afford to mess around out here.
Howard stopped swimming forward and used hand jives to signal his men, all of whom but the tail were in visual range. He could have used the line-of-sight infrared corns, but it was possible the enemy had LOSIR, too, and even though his transmissions would be coded, the unfriendlies might pick up a stray signal. They wouldn’t know what it said, but that it was there at all would let the cat out of the bag.
Howard pointed into the murk, held up two fingers, then pointed at his eyes, ending with the jive for a question.
/ see two enemy frogs ahead. Everybody see them?
He got affirmative hand signals from everybody.
He pointed at his two best men, in the direction of the enemy divers; he pointed at his watch, then made the classic fingertip drag sign across his throat.
His two men affirmed the order and quickly swam off into the gloom.
Howard turned to watch them go, following them visually for the few meters he could still see them, then with his sensors.
The two blue forms slowly closed on the two red ones. When they were within visual range of each other, the enemy divers apparently noticed his men. They took evasive action-
It seemed as if it took a long time, but in reality it was over in a couple of heartbeats. He didn’t hear it, and he couldn’t see it, except for the sensor images, but the two red forms stopped moving. The blue forms approached, merged with the red, and formed an odd-looking purple as his suit computer tried to figure out what color to paint. Then the two red forms began to sink, vanishing from the sensor’s range in a few seconds.
Howard waved at the rest of his team. Time to move in…
111
CYBERNATION
I Force HQ
o, Virginia
priority call bell chimed and automatically cut the ; scenario as it had been programmed to do. Since only people had that priority code number-his wife and i boss-Howard was quick to answer. He did so with| checking the caller ID. fes?”
John, it’s me,” his wife said. Her voice was tight, on ge of panic.
it’s wrong?”
it’s Tyrone. He’s been in a car wreck. He’s at Mercy 1. I’m on the way there now. The nurse who called he’s banged up and his leg was broken, but he’s to be okay.”
award’s sudden fear, launched like a missile by her words, dropped fast. Thank you, Jesus, for sparing
$i>øy-
I’m on the way,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.” toward touched a button on his virgil as he stood and
: off the VR gear. “Alex Michaels. What’s up, General?” |”Sir, this is John Howard. My son has been in an au- obile accident. He is injured but not critically so. I’m Qg to the hospital.” |”Take a copter,” Michaels said. “It’ll be a lot faster this
: of day.” “Sir, it’s personal business-”
“Take the aircraft, John. Consider it an emergency read- drill. We’ll eat the cost if anybody kicks.” ‘”Thank you, sir.” “Call me when you can.” “Yes, sir, I will.”
Howard ran toward the helipad, calling ahead as he did “. It was good that nobody got in his way as he moved- would have had trouble slowing down.