The Devil's Waters (27 page)

Doc settled next to Wally. He, like all the PJs, stole a look at the pirate’s corpse.

Doc asked, “You okay?”

“Mouse bet against me.”

“Dow did, too.”

“Did you bet?”

“No. I got mouths to feed in Vegas. But I would’ve bet on you.”

Wally didn’t delude himself. These were LB’s guys, no one questioned that. But Quincy had bet on him. And Doc would have. That was something.

He folded the NVGs over his eyes to read his watch: 0112 hours. The team was on the LZ, on schedule. Wally gestured to the catwalk running behind the bridge.

“Stay low. Go.”

Doc waggled a hand for Mouse to follow to the starboard wing. The pair stooped and disappeared around the corner, beneath the smokestack.

Quincy, Jamie, and Dow flanked Wally, M4s fixed on the pilothouse door. The night breeze mixed with low throbbing hums out of the radar array rotating above the bridge. Wally crept to the white pilothouse wall. He pressed his back under a window.

Oh-one-fourteen hours.

The radio clicked. “Juggler, Doc.”

“Go.”

“Starboard wing secure.”

“Roger. Assault positions. On my mark.”

Wally let seconds pass to test if the pirates were still oblivious. Slowly, he lifted his head above the bottom of the window.

Inside the control room, the glowing radar and computer screens were more than enough to light up Wally’s NVGs with the green figures of humans. Two armed pirates stood at opposite ends of the wide bridge. Another paced between them, plainly nervous, weapon at his hip, finger on the trigger. Two more leaned against the long dashboard. Gathered on the floor below the main wind-shield, huddled against each other, sat the two dozen hostages.

Wally whispered into the mike at his lips. “Doc, hold.”

“What’s up?”

“The hostages are in the control room. There’s five guards with AKs.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Gimme a sec.”

“Holding.”

Wally tamped down a spur of anger with himself at not preparing for this possibility, that the hostages would be front and center for the firefight. He’d been ordered not to consider them his prime directive, so had left them out when planning the raid, focusing only on regaining control of the ship. Now, faced with twenty-four helpless men menaced by armed pirates, Wally knelt at the brink of the actual and inevitable body count, the blood on the floor General Madson had barely mentioned.

What could he have done differently? Even if he’d planned for the hostages to be right where they were, he still had to assault the control room. He had less than an hour to do it. There wasn’t time for both a hostage negotiation and a siege.

Wally dropped below the window, sliding down the wall. He lifted the NVGs from his eyes.

“Doc.”

“Go.”

“I got orders.”

“I know.”

“What do you think?”

Doc paused before answering. “I think we got orders.”

The gun barrels of Quincy, Jamie, and Dow dipped while Wally sat in front of them. All three PJs, men he admired, shrugged behind their weapons. Orders.

“Doc, how much med supply we got?”

“Not enough if it goes bad.”

“Damn it.”

“What next?”

“We press the mission. Check your door. See if it’s locked.”

Keeping his arm out of sight, Wally twisted the higher of the two watertight chocks. He waited to be sure the motion was unseen, then rotated the lower chock. With both seals undone, he put pressure on the door handle. It moved. Wally stopped before it clicked.

“Port door unlocked.”

Doc responded, “Starboard unlocked.”

“Flashbangs, on my mark.”

Quincy scurried next to Wally, flashbang in hand. Dow and Jamie, the team’s youngest and best shooters, readied to be the first ones in. Both lowered NVGs over their eyes to see through the smoke after the blinding light of the grenades, and to read the infrared targeting beams off their M4 scopes.

Wally reached for the door handle. “Break break!” The radio sizzled. “Break, break! Juggler, hold!”

Wally dropped his hand. “Go, LB.”

“Don’t do it, Wally. Don’t do it.”

Beside Wally, big Quincy laid a hand over his arm, making LB’s radio plea physical.

“I don’t have a lot of time, LB.”

“You’ve got hostages in there. You can’t raid the bridge.”

“This isn’t your mission. You stay secure. We don’t have any choice.”

“You do. Listen to me. There’s another way.”

Leaning close, Quincy nodded.

Doc cut in. “Give him a chance.”

“Okay. Tell me, fast.”

“Even if you take the bridge, you might not hold it. There’s fifteen more targets out here on the ship. They got AKs and a bunch of rocket grenades. If they try to take the bridge back, they might do it. They might not, but either way it’ll be bloody. You’re holed up on exposed high ground with twenty-four civilians, or however many you’ll have left. They’re gonna panic. A lot more of ’em are gonna die. You’re outgunned and outnumbered.”

From the other wing, Jamie spoke for the first time. “Let’s cut the pirates’ numbers down first.”

LB said, “That’s what I’m thinking. Juggler.”

“Go.”

“I know where they all are. I know the ship. If we take down the targets around the deck first, the ones in the wheelhouse might give up without a fight. Look, I can guess at your orders. Believe me, I know we have to take this ship back. But we gotta try to do it without sacrificing the hostages. I think we can.”

Wally checked the time: 0117.

Quincy, Jamie, and Doc waited to charge into the bridge on his order. On the opposite wing, Dow and Mouse crouched, ready.

If they stuck to the plan, they’d have control of the bridge in under a minute, plus the likelihood of several dead and wounded hostages. They’d deal next with the casualties. Before he could clear the rest of the ship, Wally would have to leave three men behind to deal with the wounded and defend the bridge. That left only three plus LB to go after the remaining fifteen Somalis. And he couldn’t call off the Predator, that ticking bomb, until the ship was secure.

What if the pirates below heard the battle for the bridge? The team’s weapons were suppressed, but AK-47s would make a ruckus. If the guards and their guns and RPGs decided to retake the bridge, the mission would become a siege, like LB said, with a countdown to a missile.

In LB’s plan, they might save a lot more lives. But could they really clear the freighter first, then negotiate with the five Somalis inside the control room, all in under fifty-three minutes? What if the pirates started killing off hostages? What if the deadline got too close? At that point, whatever was left of the team would have to assault the bridge anyway.

“All right, everyone. Listen up.”

Wally crawled away from the pilothouse wall. He stood just enough to peer over the rail to the main deck six stories below. The two figures there stood back-to-back along the port rail.

“Doc.”

“Go.”

“Look down to the main deck. How many targets you see?”

“One.”

“All right. LB, you copy?”

“Go.”

“We’re going to do both plans. Dow and Mouse stay on the starboard wing. Quincy and Doc hold on the port wing. Jamie and me link up with LB at the foot of the starboard stairs. The three of us will neutralize the pirates on the main deck. Once it’s secure, we come back up here, either to negotiate with the pirates inside the bridge or to press the assault. We’ll make that call when we get to it. If things go south on the main deck, or we run out of time, Doc leads the assault on the pilothouse. Questions?”

Quincy, Jamie, and Doc shook their heads. “Juggler.”

“Go, LB.”

“Who handles the target at the bottom of the starboard stairs?”

Jamie spoke again. “I will.”

LB replied. “Roger.”

Wally pointed at Jamie. The young PJ looked back through night goggles and fell in behind him. Quincy put his back to the rail, weapon leveled at the bridge door. Dow took position guarding the stairwell.

Wally led Jamie over the catwalk behind the bridge. A soiled, sooty warmth from the smokestack grazed his cheeks. Reaching the starboard wing, Wally patted Dow and Mouse on the shoulders.

Dow said, “Good hunting.”

Mouse added, “Fast hunting.”

Wally put Jamie in the lead descending the first of the six staircases. His watch read 0121. Forty-nine minutes.

Jamie led with his gun barrel down the metal stairs, pausing at every corner, close-quarters technique. Wally let the young PJ set the pace, and watched their tail.

Out on the gulf, a shimmering key of silver lay on the ripples, the first touch of the rising quarter moon.

On board CMA CGN Valnea
Gulf of Aden

“What is that?”

Yusuf spun his cousin by the shoulder, quickly, before the shade disappeared.

“Where?”

“There.” Yusuf pointed over the rail, up and toward the stern. “See? The stars black out. Something floating away.”

“Yes, I think. Yes.”

A piece of the night twisted around itself as though in agony, then was gone. Yusuf brought up his flashlight, too late.

“What was it?”

Suleiman put fingers into his beard before he spoke. Yusuf scanned the sky east for more dark swirls. Now he had blood on the boat, ghosts in the air.

Suleiman dropped the hand from his beard, keeping his gaze skyward. He waited, measuring what he had seen.

He asked, “Have you been to Qardho?”

The town lay on the road south to Eyl, in a bleached riverbed.

“I’ve been through it.”

“Did you visit the stone hole?”

“No. I don’t know what that is.”

“Outside town, in a limestone hill, the rock is split wide enough for a man to walk. Inside, where the stone is cool, there is a pit so deep the locals say it reaches hell. At night,
jinn
appear above the pit. Sometimes they are like beasts, hairy and hideous. Or they take the shape of ostriches and run into the desert.”

“Have you been there?”

“Yes. Many times.”

“Have you seen this?”

Suleiman sighed, the indulgent manner of an older kinsman. “What does it matter that I have not seen a
jinn
when the Qu’ran says they exist?”

Suleiman eyed the night where the black flutter had been and disappeared.

“They are real. They are
ayat.
” Miracles. “So was that.”

In the tales Yusuf’s mother told, the spirits were always beautiful. They looked like men, they loved or hated men. Even the evil
jinn
in her tales were never horrible to behold, not like the beasts and ostriches Suleiman described. She schooled him as a child that
jinn
could be killed with a date or a plum stone shot from a sling. He had none of these.

In the east where the moon would rise, a pearly blush crept along the horizon. Time did not pause to worry over Yusuf or to recall the stories of his mother. Another minute of silence carried him closer to whatever this long night was going to be.

He said, “They will not send regular soldiers to take this ship back. There will be killing.”

Suleiman held his gaze into the stars. “The
jinn
has come to watch.”

“This is what the signs say? That the soldiers are coming?”

“No, cousin.” Suleiman lowered his eyes to the ship. He shrugged his Kalashnikov into his hands. “They are not coming. They are here.”

Yusuf leveled his own rifle to the dark corridor at the base of the bloodstained steps.

Behind his gun, Suleiman whispered, “I should like to see a
jinn
before I die.”

Yusuf would not ignore his cousin’s portents or the memory of his mother’s tales. But he let Suleiman watch for signs.

Yusuf watched for men.

From the cargo deck, LB monitored the short exchanges between Wally and Jamie. Doc and the others surrounding the bridge would be listening too.

“Clear.” Jamie had just arrived at the next landing down, checked it, found it empty.

“Go.” Wally moved on his tail, watching their backsides.

As he’d done an hour earlier, LB slipped in and out of the companionway, forging his way toward the stern. He dropped down off the cargo deck, lay flat, then crept in shadow below the level of the steel rail. LB gained as much distance as he could, then scurried up another dark ladder until the next guard had passed or turned away.

He reached the aft corner of the cargo deck, ducking behind the last lashing bridge to catch his breath. The gray face of the superstructure seemed a giant tombstone. The radio buzzed in his ear.

“LB. In position?”

“Roger.”

“Hold.”

Moments later, Jamie spoke.

“Target down.”

LB hustled to the ladder. Landing on the deck, he spun the Zastava across his back. Jamie had detached the magazine from the dead man’s Kalashnikov to drop it overboard. He dug hands under the pirate’s armpits. LB hurried to take hold of the sandaled feet. Hefting the body, he noted the callused heels. The Somali’s blouse bore twin punctures in the chest. Black blood seeped into the linen.

“Over here,” LB whispered. They lugged the body to a gloomy corner. No need to risk dumping it overboard. The corpse didn’t have to stay hidden for long. It was going to be one of many very shortly.

LB shook hands with Jamie. “Sorry about this.”

“Me, too. Later. Hey, did the engineer move his legs?”

“A couple of toes.”

“Nice.”

“Hey, kid. Next time I say I got it by myself, kick me.”

“I’ll let Wally do it.”

LB didn’t follow the reference. It didn’t matter. Wally crouched, waiting in the companionway. LB and Jamie took knees beside him.

“Which way?” Wally asked.

“Good to see you, too.”

“I know. Which way?”

“Hit the stern first. Lock down our six. Three targets. The wind’ll carry the sound backward.”

Wally tapped the Serb’s unsuppressed weapon hanging off LB’s shoulder. “Keep that quiet as long as you can. Jamie, take point.”

The young PJ entered the narrow passage to the stern, coiled and athletic, holding the M4 ready. Wally gestured LB to the center, then took the rear.

They moved quickly, keeping close and low. Nearing the corner of the stern, Wally whispered to LB, “Hold.”

LB stopped. Wally edged past in the narrow corridor.

Jamie eased the final distance to the corner, Wally tight behind him. Jamie dropped his NVGs over his eyes and lay flat. He edged his face forward. Directly over him, Wally hugged the wall, ready to step out and fire. Jamie murmured into the radio, “I got the far one. You take the close one. We’ll both get the middle.”

Jamie skittered back. He gathered to a knee, night goggles down to rely on the IR beam of his weapon.

Gun barrels tilted up, Wally said, “Now.” The two whirled around the corner, Wally high, Jamie bent low, M4s leveled into the open. They found their targets fast. Both guns jerked in tandem. The suppression tubes cloaked any flashes; reports were dulled to pops and the clacks of chambering rounds. The wind blew most of the sound out over the water. Jamie fired three times, Wally four. Without lowering their carbines, the two slipped around the corner. LB scurried behind them in support.

Wally and Jamie hastened along the stern rail, the only two silhouettes in motion. Wan moonlight dusted the three downed pirates. Wally leaned over them to fire once into each. He heaved two AKs and an RPG overboard. Three towed skiffs bounded on the
Valnea
’s wake, attached to grappling hooks over the rail. Jamie trained his M4 on the starboard corner while Wally mopped up. LB pivoted away to do his part and guard the starboard passage.

Six pirates were dead so far. One Serb. More to come. No one and nothing could stop the tempest of this night. Jamie, the youngest of the PJs, was handling himself well in close combat. This underscored how foolish LB had been to separate from him. There was no such thing as a milk run.

Wally and Jamie moved beside LB. Wally checked his watch. Even in the poor light, blood dotted the rim of the suppression tube on his M4.

LB asked, “Something you said before. On the radio.”

“What?”

“You said Doc assaults the bridge if we run out of time. What’d you mean?”

“I should’ve told you earlier.”

“Told me what?”

“We got forty-four minutes. At oh-two-one-oh, a Reaper’s going to sink us if we haven’t secured the ship.”

“Us? You mean, like, us?”

“Hostages, pirates, us. Presidential order. It’s got to be done in deep water and before we get in range of the coast. They’ll blame the pirates for blowing up the ship. All very neat.”

That it was. With a drone locked and loaded, invisibly high, the PJs had no choice down here on the ship. They were locked in, too, along with the Somalis. Neither side had any way out but to kill the other. This was worse than combat. It was gladiatorial.

Jamie asked LB, “You know what’s on this ship?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Don’t tell me. But does this make sense to you? To blow it up rather than let the Somalis keep it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” the young PJ said, “at least that’s something.”

Jamie flipped the NVGs over his eyes. He crouched, facing the bow, instantly ready. “Where’s the next one?”