Archeology and Espionage

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I don't own Castle, Beckett, Nikki Heat, the Middle East…but you know that. Rating: K Time: in the near future after the story The Treasure of the Penelope.

USS Wake Island (LHD 10) in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

There was one nice thing about being on a Navy ship, Rick thought. When you were off duty you could find a space on the flight deck, grab a chaise longue, and work on your tan. The sun was bright, the skies were blue and cloudless, and the sea was like a sheet of glass. Life was good.

"Excuse me, sir. Do you mind if I sit next to you?"

Rick looked up.

The speaker was a woman, tall and slender. In fact, she had a figure any twelve-year-old boy would envy. She had no hips, no boobs and her hair was cut extremely short. He decided that at best she could be called cute.

"It's not my ship." He said with a smile. "You're welcome to get a tan anyplace."

She smiled and he decided that she was cute.

"Thank you, sir. Um, you're Colonel Rodgers, the commander of the Special Forces, aren't you?"

"Guilty as charged. You're one of the Marine helicopter pilots, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir. Lieutenant Lauren Graham. They left me here to fly a plane guard bird in case any of yours go down around the ship."

"I imagine you're happy to be here since all the rest of the Marines have been chasing around the Middle East for a month. I think your ground combat element is in the Negev Desert of Israel and your fighters are exercising with the Royal Jordanian Air Force. You're pretty much all alone on the ship."

"I'm glad to be here, sir, but not for that reason. I've been hanging around your special operations helicopters. They're fantastic. They're ten times better than anything the Marines have."

"You should try to talk the Navy or the Marines into standing up a special operations helicopter unit of their own. Our special ops aviation regiment is pretty badly stretched."

"I'm not sure anyone will be interested in what a first lieutenant has to say, sir."

"As my wife once told me, you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take."

"I'll remember that, sir. You're just about done here, aren't you?"

"That I am. And none too soon, although I enjoyed most of it."

"Problems, sir?"

"I'm honchoing special forces teams from thirty-three different NATO countries and special ops aviation units from five countries. And no matter how hard we try to standardize everything, and make everyone and everything interoperable, when you get out in the real world there's always someone who has a different procedure, or weapon, radio or something that just won't work with everyone else."

"That'll even happen in the Corps, sir."

"Plus, every one of the teams that was sent there was supposed to be fluent in English. Some people think fluent means they can say, "Let's have another round," or "Darling, of course I don't have a wife back home," in English. In fact, I have a British SBS NCO from Scotland who insists that what he's speaking is English, but I only get about every third word." Rick laughed. "Oddly enough, I have a sergeant from the backwoods of West Virginia someplace that I can hardly understand, but he and the Scot communicate just fine."

Lt. Graham laughed.

"That's about all male Marines ever learn in a foreign language, sir."

"At least they're used to being at sea." Rick said. "We have teams from landlocked countries like Hungary, the Czechs, Slovaks and North Macedonians who have hardly ever seen the ocean before let alone tried to operate there. It took some of their troops almost the whole training period to get their sea legs."

"It must be tough being a colonel, sir."

Rick laughed.

"I manage, Lieutenant. I manage. You may find out what it's like one day."

"I hope so, sir."

They were interrupted by a sailor.

"Excuse me, Colonel Rodgers, sir?"

"That's me. What can I do for you?"

"The captain would like to see you on the bridge. It seems you have visitors."

Rick stood up.

"I'd better get myself changed into my uniform and go see who my visitors are. Did anyone mention who they are?"

"Not to me, sir."

"Lieutenant Graham, nice talking to you and have a good day,"

"Same to you, sir."

Rick trotted back to his quarters and quickly changed into his cammies. As he headed for the bridge, he wondered who his visitors might be. He wasn't expecting anyone, but it was always possible that someone in special ops from one of the NATO countries wanted to see how their people were doing.

He got to the bridge and found the captain there. She was staring at a flight deck full of helicopters she had no control over.

"Good day, Captain Gates. You wanted to see me? Something about visitors?"

"They're waiting for you in my day cabin, Colonel. Right through there."

Captain Gates wasn't the friendliest person Rick had ever met, but they had a civil relationship.

Rick headed for her day cabin.

He recognized one of his visitors at once.

"General Witte, what brings you here?"

Witte was in command of special operations for the US Central Command.

"Business, as usual, Rick. I'd like to introduce Mr. Lapid. He's with the Israeli government."

As they shook hands, Rick looked Lapid over and was looked over himself. Lapid was tall, rangy and white haired and seemed to be in excellent shape. Rick guessed he was in his fifties, although he wasn't that sure. He knew that almost all Israelis served in the military, and he was sure that Lapid had spent more time in the Israeli military than most.

"Good to meet you, Colonel Rodgers. We were rather pleased with your exploits in Niger a few years back. And elsewhere."

Since Rick had been collocated with an archeology expedition in Niger, publicity had been an unfortunate side effect. However, there had been no publicity about his activities "elsewhere".

"Just doing my job. May I ask what you do for the Israeli government?"

Lapid smiled.

"My job covers a wide range of things, Colonel. Too many to go into right now."

Rick nodded.

"I understand."

"Rick, have you ever heard of the Classis Alexandrina?" Witte asked.

He thought for a moment and then shook his head.

"No, sir. I'd imagine it has something to do with Alexandria, Egypt, but that's about all I can come up with."

"It means the Alexandrian Fleet, Colonel." Lapid said.

"I wasn't aware the city of Alexandria had their own fleet."

Witte laughed.

"Your wife could talk your ear off about it, I imagine. It's the old Imperial Roman fleet that was based in Alexandria and looked after the Eastern Med, the Red Sea, and points east."

Rick had no idea what this had to do with him and said so.

"The Roman's main fleet base was at Alexandria in Egypt, but like all navies they had bases elsewhere, including the Red Sea, or the Mare Rubrum, as the Romans called it." Lapid added. "They held what is now the port of Aden in Yemen and even garrisoned the Farasan Islands, which are near what is now the border of Saudi Arabia. The Romans had quite an economic interest in the area, mainly because ships sailed into the Indian Ocean and traded with India and bought products in India from all over Asia: Spices; silks; jewels; perfumes; metals and many other things. Some one hundred and twenty Roman ships sailed to India each year they say."

"And this is relevant how?"

"Look at the map here, Rick." Witte said, pointing to a map on the table. "The Romans had a major Red Sea base here on the coast of Saudi Arabia back in the day. When the Empire collapsed, it was abandoned, of course. According to early Islamic sources, there were a series of major earthquakes around 800 AD and the old Roman port sank into the sea."

Rick looked at the map and suddenly saw what was so important.

"And the old Roman port is right across the Red Sea from the new Chinese navy base in the Sudan. You want to use an archeology expedition as a cover to keep an eye on the Chinese. Just like we did in Africa."

"Correct."

"I need to point out that my wife is a civilian. You can't just order her to go off on an expedition. I happen to know she's planning on…"

"She's already volunteered to lead the expedition."

"Of course, she has." Rick said under his breath.

"You'll also be going with an Israeli archeologist." Lapin smiled. "Don't worry, Colonel, she's an actual archeologist. In fact, she knows your wife. They both specialize in Imperial Roman frontier defenses and activities of the Romans beyond the Empire."

"We'll be taking some people from here to assist you." Witte said. "Captain Fellowes, Royal Marines, will be taking some Special Boat Service people along and we also have some Italian naval commandos, under Lieutenant Commander Borghese. I believe you know him quite well."

"That I do, sir." Rick had no idea what kind of clearance Lapid had, if any, and wasn't about to say anything about how he'd come to know Borghese.

"He and his people can keep their mouths shut as can the Brits. We'll also be sending a two-ship aviation detachment under CWO Wozniak."

"One problem, general." Lapid said. "Your people all look like special forces people. They'll stand out a mile."

"We have a group of Saudi archeology students who'll comprise most of the group. If anyone asks, and we hope no one does, we can just say that people who work underwater and fly in the rougher parts of the world tend to be a rough lot themselves." Witte said.

Rick had an idea.

"There's a Marine helicopter pilot I've met on this ship, a Lieutenant Lauren Graham. She's fascinated by our special ops birds. She might volunteer. She doesn't look special ops at all."

"We can try that. I'm not sure how the Marines will feel about that but being a general does have some advantages."

"We're probably going to need a ship, sir. I doubt if any navy vessel would do."

"No problem. We have a ship from the Explorers' Club of California. A lot of very rich people looking for a non-profit they can support. It's been used on underwater archeology missions before and is well known. You'll also have a USN mini-sub and two swimmer delivery vehicles. If they're seen with you, they'll be hard to convince anyone that they're not US Navy, but if anyone asks, direct them to the Saudi representative. He's a Colonel Nayef. He and his men have been working along the Yemeni border. He's no one that a jihadi would like to meet in a dark wadi. He didn't become a colonel because he's part of the royal family, although he is."

"You'll meet up with the ship and your wife at the port of Haifa. The mini-sub and the SDVs are at the Israeli naval base there and will meet up with you in international waters. The birds will fly from here to an Israeli air force base and join you once you sail."

"You'll also need civilian clothes, Rick. Everyone will have to be in civvies. You will be taking weapons, body armor and other military gear with you, but that'll be hidden in a cargo container. If anyone opens it, all they'll see is a lot of archeological gear. Your stuff will be hidden behind that."

"You're also getting a cargo container being shipped in from Germany with an electronic warfare crew to eavesdrop on the Chinese."

"I have plenty of civvies, sir. I was planning to take a little time off and spend some time with Kate in Israel."

"There's one more thing, Rick. We don't want Joe Flood and Nikki Heat getting involved in anything like this in any of your books. Okay?"

TBC