Dark Hunt: A Ryan Weller Thriller

by Evan Graver

  “You need to call Captain Mikkelsen for an accurate number.”

  “Okay, but I predict these guys will try again. They know I’m alone, and right now, it’s a numbers game. I don’t have enough ammo to sustain a prolonged gunfight.”

  “Okay. I’ll get you some help,” Greg replied.

  “Get Rick and Gary on a chopper with as much firepower as you can send.”

  “I’ll do that. What else do you need?”

  “More food, beer, cigarettes—oh, and some Mountain Dew. Those lousy bastards drank all of it.”

  Greg laughed. “Sorry, I can’t help you with the Mountain Dew. I gave you what I had, and it’s hard to find down here.”

  “Tell me about it. How soon can I expect the cavalry?”

  “I’ll need a couple of hours to arrange everything and get Gary from Peggy Lynn.”

  “Keep me in the loop.”

  “Will do. In the meantime, keep your head down.”

  After Ryan finished talking to Greg, he pulled out the GPS and turned it on before dialing Anders Mikkelsen. The Dane answered immediately with, “What’s your location?”

  After reading off his current GPS coordinates, Ryan asked, “What’s your ETA?”

  A long moment passed in which Ryan figured the captain was calculating the arrival time. Mikkelsen finally said, “Fourteen hours.”

  “The wind has shifted, and I think it’s blowing the ship inshore. I’m abreast of Prinzapolka.”

  “I’ve had to slow down,” Mikkelsen said. “My fuel burn is greater than I expected.”

  “I understand,” Ryan said, disappointed the tug wouldn’t arrive sooner. He ended the conversation by saying, “I’ll see you soon.”

  He collected the food cans and stowed them in one of the gear bags, fired up the stove, and heated some meat with a can of mixed vegetables. What he wouldn’t give for a steak or even some fresh fish. He was hot, tired, and ready to stretch out on a comfortable bed in an air-conditioned room. Beside the bag of canned goods was half a case of water to quench his thirst, but, after the excitement of the firefight, he craved a cold beer.

  After eating and storing his leftovers in the locked cooler to keep the rats out, he walked to the crane cab. Ryan paused as he climbed the short ladder, looking toward the pulpit. Between the crane cab and the pulpit stairs was a raised hatch. Curiosity got the better of him. He jumped down and went forward to open it. He pulled out his flashlight and descended the ladder into the chain locker.

  As Ryan stood in the small, hot locker, shining his light along the jumble of thick anchor chain links, he wondered why he hadn’t had this idea before. The Galina was nearly three-hundred-feet long and most ships carried their length in chain, if not double. He just needed to drop her anchor to keep the Galina from running aground or even changing course with the wind, waves, and tide.

  He’d been stupid. This was the answer to half his problems, and he should have done it as soon as the Galina Jovovich had slipped off Compass Reef.

  “Wish in one hand, spit in the other, and see what you get,” he muttered to himself as he climbed from the locker. Back on deck, he studied the anchor windlass mounted between the crane and the hatch he’d just come out from, determining how to drop the anchor.

  He dialed Greg again, and when he came on the line, Ryan said, “Can you look up water depth for my coordinates?”

  “Give me a minute to get to the computer.”

  Ryan closed the starboard bridge door to cut down on the wind noise before leaning against the bridge console. “When’s the Quick Reaction Force going to arrive?”

  “The QRF is not so quick. This place is so backwater that I can’t even rent a helicopter here. It has to come from Managua.”

  “So, when will Gary and Rick get here?”

  “They’re getting ready to leave on Dark Water right now. At top speed, they should be to your position in another three hours.” Greg paused. “Okay. I’ve got the computer running. Give me your coordinates.”

  Ryan read them off, adding, “I’m about twenty-five miles off Prinzapolka.”

  In the background, he heard the keyboard rattling as Greg typed the numbers into his program.

  “Looks like you’re in water between ninety-five- to one-hundred-and-ten-feet deep.”

  “What’s the bottom like?” Ryan asked.

  “Sand and mud. Why?”

  “I’m going to drop anchor on this tub and keep her from going anywhere else.”

  “That’s a good plan,” Greg said. “I should have thought of it sooner.”

  “You and me both. I’ve got work to do. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Do you have Rick’s number?”

  “Yep. Oh, have them bring a generator and a pump so we can dewater this tub.”

  “Roger that,” Greg replied.

  Ryan pocketed the phone and went forward to the chain stopper, yanked out the pin on the lashing, and flung the bar over to release the chain. At the windlass, he pulled the lever to disengage the dog clutch and turned the brake wheel. After a few fast turns, the anchor began rattling through the spurling pipe, and Ryan used the brake to slow the violent passage of the chain, but the chain only increased in speed. He hoped that the chain’s bitter end was bolted to the ship or it would fly right over the side and he’d keep drifting toward shore.

  Ryan cranked the brake as tight as he could, but the windlass continued to spin. Smoke poured off the brake shoes as they ineffectually pressed against the steel drum. The racket was deafening as the deck beneath his feet vibrated. Mud, dried seaweed, and rust flew off the chain, pelting his feet and legs. Unable to rein in the anchor chain, Ryan ran for cover. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the windlass when the bitter end whipped through the windlass’s wheel snugs.

  He dove behind the safety of the steel bulkhead of the main deck cabins just as a loud thunk reverberated through the deck. He poked his head around the corner and saw the chain had stopped paying out. From below came a giant pop as metal ripped apart, followed by the sound of heavy chain beating against the inside of the chain locker as the bitter end whipped around.

  Without thinking, he ran to the chain stopper, threw the bar into place, and locked it. He then threaded the stopper cable through the links and pinned it in place. The motion of the ship changed as he worked, and when he looked up, she was turning bow-on to the waves. Ryan opened the chain locker hatch and shined his light down to see the last link of the chain and its clench hanging free. It had ripped off the collision bulkhead and whipped around the locker, leaving large indents in the metal with each impact.

  Stepping up onto the pulpit, Ryan saw the chain trailing off to the east, its long bend—called the catenary curve—provided a low angle of pull on the anchor flukes which would have dug themselves into the mud as the ship dragged the anchor backward. He knew it wasn’t the anchor that kept the ship from drifting but the weight of the chain running along the seabed, and, with almost three-hundred-and-fifty-feet out according to the counter on the windlass, it would take one hell of a blow to move this ship again.

  Now all he needed to do was wait for the pirates or Dark Water, and he hoped like hell that his friends were the first to arrive.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The sun was low on the western horizon, turning the water dark-blue and black under thick white clouds shot through with rays of orange and red. Ryan stood on the aft observation deck of the Soviet-era cruise ship, Galina Jovovich, as she pitched in the low swells marching in from the east to crash against Nicaragua’s marshy lowlands, which lacked barrier reefs to protect the shoreline and allow for deep-water ports. The seafloor shoaled quickly along the coast, and the current often changed direction without explanation.

  That same current was now pushing the Galina’s stern south as Ryan trained his binoculars on the horizon, searching for the pirate boats he knew were coming. Now that the ship was at anchor, it was easier for them to approach and board the old vessel. He had his Mo
lotov cocktails and his guns for protection, but if two boats approached from opposite sides, they could quickly surround and overwhelm him.

  Day slipped into night as Ryan remained at the railing, searching the darkness after switching the binoculars to night vision mode. They had the latest version of software installed, which allowed the night to appear in vivid color instead of the monotone greens of the previous versions. The new binoculars were a joint effort between DWR and FRT Innovations, owned by former Navy SEAL Jacques Kilbourne. Greg had invested in the company, and, as he jokingly liked to put it, he was helping to put the research in Dark Water Research.

  Ryan rolled the switch on the binoculars, changing them to a thermal imaging sensor. Coming out of the last of the setting sun were three pangas. There was too much body heat and solar energy clustered around the boats for him to get an accurate count of how many pirates were in each, but it didn’t really matter.

  A more helpful tool would have been a sniper rifle to pick off the pirates or to disable their engines before they could get close to the Galina, but Ryan didn’t have such a luxury, which was making him rethink the weapons he normally carried.

  Unfortunately, he had to fight with what he had, and he’d been busy since dropping the hook. He’d checked the water level in the engine room and verified it was still rising. Then he’d decided which room to sequester himself in if he had to fall back under heavy fire from the pirates. Once he had his gear stashed there, he worked to fortify the space and to provide some surprises for the invaders as they followed him into the bowels of the ship. He now had several booby traps made from fire extinguishers. None of them were deadly, but they’d help to slow his enemy.

  Before he retreated to his panic room, he wanted to do as much damage to the pirates as he could, and now Ryan lay sprawled on the deck, watching the boats through the binoculars while dialing Rick Hayes’s number.

  “What’s up, brother?” Rick asked after two rings.

  “Pirates inbound to my location. What’s your ETA?”

  “Thirty-five minutes.”

  “Put the hammer down,” Ryan urged.

  “Look at me, saving your ass again.”

  “Your life would be so dull without me getting into trouble,” Ryan said. “I’ll let you buy me a beer or six later.”

  Rick laughed before turning serious again. “How many tangos?”

  “Three boats full. Somewhere between fifteen and thirty guys.”

  “We’ll limber up the old shootin’ irons.”

  “Hurry up, Cowboy Rick.” Ryan thumbed the End button while Rick was still sputtering about his new nickname. It was better than the last one: Short Rick.

  Ryan pulled the KRISS snug against his shoulder. According to the laser rangefinder built into its holographic sight, the pirates were still beyond the limits of the nine-millimeter projectiles he would sling down range at them.

  He settled into the ship’s rhythm as she strained against her anchor. The Galina rode fat and heavy in the swells with her belly full of water, which helped to stabilize her as a shooting platform. As the pangas grew steadily closer in his sight, Ryan willed himself to become calm, to become one with the gun and the ship, and to remember everything he’d learned about making long distance shots.

  Slowly, the range numbers counted down, and he began to distinguish features on the men as they became more visible in the low light. They looked like a rag-tag bunch of farmers or fishermen. There was little work for men like them on the marshy coastal plains of eastern Nicaragua. The fishing and lobster fleets were hiring fewer men as they overfished the waters and the lobsters moved into deeper waters, making them harder to dive for and catch.

  They were desperate for jobs, money, and food to feed their families. The Galina Jovovich represented a large score for them, and with just a single man guarding her, she should have been easy to capture, and they probably wanted revenge for the two men Ryan had already killed.

  As the boats entered the range of his rifle, two of them peeled off, one to starboard and the other to port, while the third came straight for Galina’s stern. Ryan moved to focus on the boat moving to his right. As it turned, it gave Ryan a shot at the high-horsepower motor. Training the sights on the engine cowling, he tracked the up-and-down movement of the panga’s stern. Once he had a gauge of the boat’s movement, he squeezed off a two-round burst. He waited for the sight’s crosshairs to move through his mark again and depressed the trigger a second time. This burst smacked the engine and caused it to splutter.

  Ryan rolled to his left as the men in the middle boat returned fire at his bright muzzle flashes. Bullets struck steel. They sparked and sang as they ricocheted away, but none hit near where Ryan had just been. He took aim at the boat racing for the Galina’s stern. Ryan let off three quick bursts at the men clustered on the panga’s seats and gunwales, knocking several into the water before he was up and moving again, this time taking the stairs down to the main deck where he’d placed his two Molotov cocktails.

  If he could eliminate two boats, it would be a productive use of resources, but Murphy always had a way of kicking his ass, just like when the cocktail he’d thrown at the first pirates had bounced out of the boat. Now he wished he hadn’t dropped the others into the sea. He’d contributed to the ocean’s pollution and maybe his own demise by wasting valuable resources.

  These thoughts played through his mind as he squatted near the opening in the rail, waiting for the panga to draw near. He would have to wait until the last second to throw the bombs, and even then, the pirates might see the spark of flame as he lit the fuel-soaked rag and veered away from the Galina. It was a chance he’d have to take. He couldn’t squander any more ammunition than he already had. The Molotov cocktails were the most efficient way to destroy the pangas.

  The small boat drew alongside the Galina’s stern, and a man at its bow tossed a grappling hook over the railing and used the rope to pull the panga alongside the bigger ship.

  It was now or never. Ryan shielded the flame as best he could as he flicked the lighter. The rag sparked instantly, and Ryan rose to throw it overboard. Shouts erupted from the panga as they saw the white devil holding the burning bottle over his head before slamming it down. The bottle shattered in the panga’s bilge and the little boat blossomed with fire, igniting both wood and flesh.

  Ryan turned away from the gruesome scene and ran to the other side of the cruise ship. She rolled heavily in the waves, shifting uneasily beneath his feet as if trying to shake off her chain to roam free once again.

  Night had completely fallen and there was insufficient light for Ryan to see the pirates, save for the flickering flames of the burning panga. One panga had gone to rescue the survivors. The other had restarted its outboard and was making a run toward the Galina. Ryan braced his submachine gun on the rail and put several rounds into the men, hoping to deter them.

  Then he saw something that made his blood run cold. A man stood in the panga and raised an iron tube to his shoulder. Ryan recognized it instantly as a rocket-propelled grenade.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ryan Weller stood transfixed on the deck of the Galina Jovovich, staring at the man in the panga holding an RPG. He didn’t wonder for too long about how they’d gotten their hands on such weaponry. Nicaragua had been at war for decades, and the U.S. had armed and trained the men of various regimes in an attempt to defeat the communists trying to gain a foothold in the Central American country.

  He raised his KRISS Vector, again wishing he had something with a longer range, and aimed at the man holding the RPG. He centered the holographic sight on the man’s chest, let out half a breath, and depressed the trigger, sending a burst across the water.

  It seemed to have no effect.

  As he lined up for another shot, the night was rent by a loud buzzing sound, and the panga he’d been aiming at exploded into flames. Men flew off the boat like the hand of God had punched them.

  Ryan lowered his rifle and watch
ed in awe as Greg Olsen’s Hatteras GT63, Dark Water, charged through the black water, a Minigun blazing on its bow, throwing a long tongue of flame into the darkness. Red tracers streaked across a sea already ablaze with two burning boats, chasing after the third panga as it sped away from the carnage.

  The roar of the rotary machine gun died, and the Hatteras idled toward the cruise ship. As she passed the burning panga, Ryan saw Gary Bartwell holding the twin grips of a General Electric M134 six-barreled mini Gatling gun mounted on a post where the Zodiac’s davit fit into the hull. The Zodiac wasn’t on the bow, giving Gary a clean arc for the gun to swing through.

  “You okay?” Gary shouted as the Hatteras came alongside the Galina.

  “I’m good.” Ryan tapped his fist against the top of his head to make the large O of a diver’s okay signal.

  A few minutes later, Gary had Dark Water tied to the Galina’s stern, and Ryan jumped down to its bow. He helped Gary break down the Minigun and store it in a custom case in the engine room.

  When they were back on the bridge, Ryan said, “Do you have anything for long range shooting?”

  “Got a Springfield M1A in 6.5 Creedmoor,” Rick said. “It’s a twin to the one you used in Mexico to miss the drug lord.”

  Ryan dismissed Rick’s dig and said, “Get it.”

  Rick retreated into the Hatteras’s cabin and returned with the rifle and several magazines full of hollow-point boat tail cartridges. “Here you go. Hope you hit what you’re aiming at.”

  “You know I didn’t take a single shot with that gun, right?”

  “So you say.” Rick winked at him.

  Ryan had snuck into Mexico last Thanksgiving and tried to snipe the former leader of the Aztlán Cartel, José Luis Orozco. He hadn’t taken the shot because Orozco had stepped out of his SUV and taken a baby into his arms. Ryan would not risk shooting an innocent kid.

  “Hopefully, we won’t need it,” Gary said.