Ghost War Read Free Page A

disappeared. But to where? No one knew—so they, too, were officially tagged “missing but operational”.
    These battleships made for a formidable enemy. With a displacement of 58,000 tons fully loaded, each was more than 880 feet long. Each had a weapons complement of twenty 5-inch guns, sixty pairs of 40-mm Bofors, and nine gigantic 16-inch cannons, whose powers of destruction were quite evident to all in the room. In fact, the concentrated firepower aboard one of the highly automated battleships could nearly mimic a nuclear strike. And there were twenty-four of them. With a maximum cruising speed of 30 knots and a range of 15,000 nautical miles, this fearsome extension of the brutal Cult slash-and-kill doctrine could go just about anywhere—and do just about anything it pleased.
    Hunter was as much in the dark about the exact whereabouts and intentions of the battleships as everyone else. But obviously at least one of them had paid a visit to Xmas Island recently.
    “If they are establishing a sphere of influence in one particular area by leaving their calling cards,” Hunter went on. “The populations down there must be close to panic. There’s no military good or bad to protect them.”
    “Easy pickings,” Toomey summed up.
    Again, everyone in the room nodded in grim agreement.
    “If they are intent on destroying island after island,” Toomey added, “they could be down in that part of the world for months.”
    “Is it enough time for us to get our act together?” Frost asked. “We have to do something about it. After all, we’re the only power in the world that could come to the defense of these people in the South Pacific. If we don’t do it, who the hell else will?”
    “Wait a minute,” JT interrupted, “maybe we need to take a step back and consider one thing.”
    The room fell into silence.
    “Is it really our job to stop them?” he asked. “We dealt with them here in America, and we finally got rid of them. What we’re talking about now is a danger that is all the way around the other side of the planet,” he paused, then quietly asked, “Is it really our job to be the policemen of the world?”
    No one said a word for a long time. It was Hunter who finally addressed the hypothetical question.
    “Freedom is the most cherished thing anyone can have,” he began. “After what we’ve all been through, we here know that better than anybody. We have to fight for it, constantly. As Americans, we have to know its value.”
    Hunter stared into the eyes of each man seated at the table, then looked downward. “For me, it’s simple. If one person in the world is not free, then no one is entirely free.”
    Every man in the room, in turn, nodded without the slightest hesitation.
    “It’s true,” JT said quietly. “But you know what that means …”
    They all did. They were going to war. Again. Yet another leaden silence enveloped them.
    “So what the hell do we do?” JT finally asked.
    For the first time in a while, Hunter’s face actually brightened.
    “I think I might have an idea,” he replied.

Chapter Three
    Fiji
    C OLONEL UBU IKEBANI STRODE briskly through the lush garden of the heavily guarded compound, heading toward an elaborate grass hut.
    The morning dew made the thousands of red flowers lining the path glisten in the dawn’s early light, and their sweet scents perfumed the air. But Ikebani did not revel in this natural beauty. Instead, he was doing the best he could to suppress the fear boiling in the pit of his stomach. He had a right to be nervous—he was on his way to deliver important information to the man named Soho, the rather irrational Supreme Warlord of the Asian Mercenary Cult.
    As each guard he passed snapped to attention and saluted briskly, Ikebani knew the authority he had over these men was absolutely nothing compared to the power of life and death that his leader inside the hut possessed. Ikebani reminded himself to stay on his toes, to keep his mind razor