Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (45 page)

Stauer shot the captain a questioning look.

"He's-whoever he is-not going to know we're the same boat he's been after. Too dark to pick out colors and we're almost head on to him. I don't want them to have a clue about how fast we can go if we want to," Kosciusko explained. "Not until it's too late, anyway."

"Fair enough."

"Wish we had a couple of barrels of fish guts and blood," the captain said.

"Why's that?" Stauer asked.

"Chum the water."

"Huh?" Kosciusko didn't normally give Stauer the impression of bloodthirstiness.

Kosciusko shrugged. "I'm a sailor. I don't like pirates."

D-1, Yacht
One Born Every Minute
, off the coast of Ophir

Life's so unfair, Nadif thought. Ordinarily, we're lucky to get a good haul once in two months. But tonight, we've got two ships and only my little command to take them. And the other boat reported engine trouble and that they were heading back to port. No help there. Damn. Decisions, decisions.

"No matter," he said. "Better a bird in the hand than ten in a tree."

"What's that?" Nadif's helmsman asked.

"What? Oh. We'll take this beneficence and forget about the other. Steer for the target." Nadif listened to the engines for a few seconds, then shook his head with mild disgust. "They're too noisy," he tsked. "Drop speed to one third. After all, it's not like they're not heading our way anyway."

D-1, MV
Merciful

"Mrs. Liu?" Kosciusko queried over the intercom.

"Here, Skippah," came a lilting voice back.

"You understand the mission?"

"Sho' t'ing, Skippah. You say which side. I swing containah ovah. I wait. You tly ram mothafuckahs. You say drop. I drop."

"By George, I think she's got it," said Boxer. "I also think she's been listening too closely to the deck crew's invective."

"She's loaded every container and piece of heavy equipment we have aboard," the captain answered. "Flawlessly. She's always had it." He heaved a sigh, "And, yes, she picked up the slang pretty quickly. I think she thinks ‘mothafuckahs' is a term of endearment . . . "

Kosciusko picked up a small radio from a charging station not far from the ship's wheel, and then turned toward the hatchway.

"Where are you going?" Stauer asked.

"Tight timing," the captain explained. "Hard to control from here. I'll let the helm know when."

The bow of the target loomed above the small pirate craft. The target was maybe seventy-five meters off, making way slowly.

"Speed to one quarter," Nadif ordered, very quietly. "Gently now, gently. They don't know we're here and I don't want them to until we're swarming over them. Grapple, ladder and tie off men forward . . . quiet, damn you!"

Even this close, the pirate was hard to see until Kosciusko pulled on his NVGs. If there'd been much distance between the two vessels, depth perception would have been an issue. As was, with the Merciful well elevated over the pirate, gauging distance was relatively easy.

The pirate was veering to come alongside his ship to starboard. Possibly, thought Kosciusko, to pin us and prevent escape. Possibly, too, as an instinctive move to avoid being silhouetted by any light on the shore. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

He glanced down and said, softly, "But you're going to die harder."

In his goggles the captain saw two men, one to either extreme side of the pirate craft, spinning what he suspected were grappling hooks.

"Mrs. Liu?" he whispered.

"Stan'ing by, Skippah."

"Starboard side. Amidships."

"Logah."

The gantry began to whine as the Chinese woman moved it slightly forward while pivoting the crane to the right. The wheel bearing the cable, too, squeaked as the steel passed over it.

Nadif gave the order, "All stop . . . astern, half power." At the slow speed of the merchie he thought to match its speed to allow his men to grapple and board. Once he was grappled, of course, the target would provide a perfect match for course and speed, at least it would once the One Born Every Minute was swung around and tied off with a heavier line.

"What's that sound?" Nadif asked of no one in particular. It seemed to come more or less from above and drew his eyes upward. There, he thought he could see, or almost see, a head looking down at him.

"No clue, boss," the helmsman answered. "Maybe routine . . . oh, shit!"

At his helmsman's cry, Nadif looked down again. The target was turning. Worse, the wash was suddenly spurting rather higher than it had been, even as the port side seemed to boil.

Without another word, effectively on autopilot, Nadif's hand reached over and pushed the throttle fully forward. The engines, not that well maintained at the best of times, began to give whatever they had to give.

First, however, they had to overcome the rearward inertia. For a long moment, therefore, the yacht hardly moved at all.

"Hard right rudder! Full starboard bow thruster!" Kosciusko ordered into his hand-held radio. The captain kept his enhanced vision on his intended victim. He could see, or perhaps only sense, that the pirate below was straining to avoid being rammed.

"But you're not going to make it, you bastards."

By inches and by feet, the Merciful's bow closed on the pirate.

Nadif knew, within a few moments, that he was not going to be able to avoid the merchant ship's bow completely, not with this boat and these engines.

"So let's limit the damage."

Limiting the damage, in this case, consisted of keeping the merchie from harming the engines or propellers, or crushing in the gunwales or hull. Shoving the helmsman off to one side, Nadif took the wheel himself and twisted it hard to port, to spread out the coming blow. It was almost enough. The impact, when it came, was still on the starboard quarter. He and all his men were thrown from their feet as the yacht was struck and then partially lifted up on the bulbous bow. Several screams from the port side told that a number of men had been pitched overboard. They were cut off as the merchie forced the yacht over them, driving them under, probably with serious injuries.

Nadif struggled to his feet and returned to the wheel, though he kept his eyes locked on the hull scraping by his own vessel. He noticed that the merchant vessel's water line was well above the surface, indicating a very light load. Well, maybe we won't have lost much of a haul. As a good seaman, even though one who had never been in quite these circumstances before, he intuitively analyzed the forces in play.

I'm pinned against that hull by its swing. But its swing is greatest and strongest here. If I can force my way back, I've got a fair chance of breaking free and away, especially since their rudder's swinging their stern a lot more than their bow. I don't know what I'll do about the men overboard.

He snarled up at the ship looming over his own. Damned idiots! Do they think they own the sea? Don't they realize there are other boats on the water?

Cursing that he'd missed-Well, not quite missed, and it was only a best hope, anyway-Kosciusko raced to a point just forward of the gantry's base, then stuck his goggled face over the gunwale once again. To his right, a container swung slightly from port to starboard and back again. It reached, on the middle of its swings, just overboard. Doors on both ends swung freely.

"Stand by, Mrs. Liu," he repeated into his radio.

"Still stan'ing by, Skippah."

"Then . . . Mrs . . . Liu . . . on my command . . . DROP, DROP, DROP!"

The yacht was taking on water, yes, but nothing the pumps shouldn't be able to handle, at least for while. Nadif hadn't been able to break away from the merchie. He had his rudder hard to port but as the One Born Every Minute attempted even a minute turn, the swing of the merchant ship cancelled it, pinning it to the line of the merchie's hull as that hull continued to scrape by. That said, as he neared the stern Nadif could feel the force exerted against his boat lessening.

Nadif was pretty sure his own hull was at least slightly sprung. Not too bad for the pumps, though, or that thing might have driven right over us. If worse comes to worst I can set the crew, what's left of them, to bailing by hand. Should be able to make it to shore, at least, if not to port.

Most important to-

Thought incomplete, Nadif glanced up and said, "Fuck!"

The container hadn't quite passed the halfway point of its outward swing when Mrs. Liu released the gantry's burden. One corner struck the gunwale and set the thing to a slow spin. In practice, this meant that it hit the boat below almost edge on, crushing several men under its nearly four tons of weight and smashing one side of the boat to below the waterline. One of the freely swinging doors was almost vertical when it struck. This chopped sloppily through a young pirate on all fours, amidships and through the middle of his body. Blood gushered out across the pirate's deck in both directions. The boy barely had time to register what had happened to him before a corner of the container cruched his skull like a soft boiled egg.

The container strike also listed the boat to port. Pressure from the Merciful's dance forced water in at a rate no practical pumps for a boat that size could have dealt with. The water added to the list until resistance from the water below, coupled with pressure from the Merciful above, plus the container induced list, capsized the smaller vessel.

Kosciusko smiled at the screaming below. He really didn't like pirates. Looking down, he said, "See? I tolll' ya." Into his radio he gave the order, "Resume course. Full speed."

"Any survivors?" Stauer asked, once Kosciusko had returned to the bridge.

"Doubt it," the sailor answered, smiling. Turning to the helm he said, "Keep a watch out for the other reported boat. Have the forward lookouts relieved and the new ones do the same."

Unseen by anyone, blood from the sundered young pirate, as well as from various cuts, abrasions, compound fractures, and split skulls, seeped into the water around the ruin of the yacht.

When the container hit, it had thrown Nadif and the helmsman from the yacht's bridge into the water. The pirate skipper had gone under, at first, then surfaced to witness as the helmsman, screaming in panic, was forced under the wreck and lost. Nadif, an experienced seaman, was made of better stuff. Paddling frantically, he swam away from the ship. For a while, he seemed to be losing. But then, he had a chance, he knew, when he saw the merchant ship steer to its port.

If I can hang on until some wreckage surfaces too, I can make it. It's a long swim to shore but not an impossible one.

And then he felt a sharp tug from below.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The medics jumped and screamed with glee,

Rolled up their sleeves and smiled.

-Anonymous, "Blood on the Risers"

D-1, three miles north-northeast of Nugaal, Ophir

"You all right, Little Joe?" Welch asked of the swaying Tex-Mex with the pack on his back and a chute rolled up and carried in his arms. Terry's pack was on his back, chute over his shoulder. He carried a stubby and conventional looking Russian-made "Kashtan" submachine gun in his hands, a suppressor extending far past the barrel of the piece.

Venegas didn't answer right away, as if he hadn't quite understood the question. When he did answer, his voice sounded much weaker than normal. "Hit my head on a rock, Terry. Helmet's only good for so much."

"Can you make it to the drop-off point?" Welch asked.

"Not a lot of choice."

"No," Terry agreed, then lifted his goggles and consulted his watch. And not a lot of time until moonrise, so . . . "Let's get moving." He replaced the goggles and glanced again at Little Joe. "Give me the chute," he ordered. Looking around, his gaze came to rest on one of the other team members, Darrell Hammell, the Tennessee ridge runner generally known as "Pigfucker."

"Pigfucker, take Little Joe's rifle and helmet," Welch said.

"Roger, sir," Pigfucker replied.

"And Ryan, get his ruck."

"Roger."

"And . . . let's move. Little Joe, stick by me."

"Roger."

The short, thin column snaked and weaved its way up the rocky hillside. Slowly. Very slowly. They moved slowly enough, in fact, that Terry began to worry about getting to their hide for the day and camouflaging everything before sunrise. He turned his torso and head to look at Venegas, following close behind. No, he's not up to bearing his own load yet. Shit.

D-1, Bandar Qassim

The newly-indeed just-rising moon cast long shadows across the water. It didn't provide much light yet, though in places it made the waves sparkle.

The port wasn't really a natural harbor so much as a slight indentation into the land. It had been improved by man, however, by the addition of four jetties, though three of those actually formed one, long, dog-legged jetty jutting into the sea first to the northwest and then directly west.

Antoniewicz and Morales had stopped and surfaced once, before reaching the mouth of the major harbor, to get their bearings. Now, swimming near the mixed mud and sand bottom, they entered the outer port very near the long jetty, then turned east. Since no rivers drained into the sea at the port, or for that matter anywhere nearby, the waters were quite clear. There wasn't even very much garbage floating at the surface, since in a place as poor as this one, the definition of what constituted garbage was quite constrained.

Which is a pity, thought Eeyore, because with more garbage floating around we could put our heads up to get bearings if we needed to. Well . . . nothing for it. Needs must . . .

As dark as it still was below the surface, they continued east by compass, as well as by the feel of the water, and the small currents, and the sound. The monoculars on their masks weren't a lot of use yet since they needed at least some light.

The sound of a freighter, tied up to the dock, with waves and currents shifting it about, was distinctive, a combination of whoosh, groaning metal, and the occasional resounding thump.

Target one, Antoniewicz announced to himself. Though it's probably harmless, part of our job is to punish the other side. He swam upward slightly, his fins propelling him and his hands reaching forward to prevent an unfortunate head-first bump on the hull. Morales followed closely.