His sudden stillness immediately attracted the captain’s attention, and the senior officer swung round to stare at him.
‘What is it?’ he demanded.
The officer of the watch didn’t reply, just took a pace back and again stared down at the radar picture. In the narrowest part of the screen, the area behind the ship, two fast moving contacts were now clearly visible. But that made no sense, and for perhaps another second the officer of the watch simply stood there, his mouth opening and closing. Then he found his voice.
‘Two contacts, sir,’ he almost shouted. ‘Directly astern of the ship, both range three miles and closing.’
‘What?’ the captain demanded, then stepped off his high chair at the back of the bridge and strode out onto the starboard wing to look behind the ship.
And at that moment, everything suddenly fell into place. The antics of the search and rescue helicopter had never made sense. No unsupported aircraft would travel so far from land to perform the kind of manoeuvres that he and his crew had been witnessing. They were the kind of activities that would normally be performed in a dedicated training area that would be, crucially, close enough to a shore establishment to allow for rescue if things went wrong. He had been right all along: the helicopter had just been a distraction, an unusual sight that would ensure that the attention of everyone on board his ship was on the aircraft and not on what they should have been looking out for, which was any kind of danger or threat.
And without any doubt, the two fast moving boats – they looked like RIBs, rigid inflatable boats – that were rapidly overhauling the Semyon Timoshenko, each carrying what looked like a dozen men, were a clear and present threat. But the captain knew very well that he and his men had the advantage of size and height, and the attackers were immediately going to discover that the vessel they were approaching had adequate defences.
The captain stepped back into the bridge, pressed a button that sounded an alarm, then bent forward over the console, selected all groups on the switchboard and began speaking into the microphone, while holding down the transmit key.
‘All positions. The ship is under attack. Two fast moving targets, approaching from directly astern. Guards, take up your stations with loaded weapons and fire when ready.’
* * *
The crew of the Merlin had been continuously watching the display of the Selex Galileo Blue Kestrel 5000 surveillance radar while the pilot carried out his successful landing on the sea. They had been waiting for one thing, and the moment they saw the two smaller radar contacts separate from the larger return that was the Greek freighter, the pilot immediately began to lift off from the waves, and at the same time turned away from the Russian ship.
He increased speed as quickly as he could, winding the Merlin up to its maximum velocity of 165 knots, only two knots below the aircraft’s never-exceed speed, just in case the Russian ship mounted some kind of anti-aircraft weaponry and decided to engage the helicopter. But he also kept the Merlin as low as he could, because that would make engaging it much more difficult.
* * *
The Russian captain’s broadcast echoed around the ship through the loudspeaker system. It was slightly distorted, but Richter understood every single word, and gestured to the other men.
‘Now we move,’ he said.
The group split into two sections of three men, Richter the third man in the group – the two SEALs were named Matthews and Simmonds – that would approach down the port side of the ship, because that was where the DEVGRU SEALs wanted him. He was, after all, only a kind of passenger, and unfamiliar with their battle and combat tactics, hand signals, verbal orders and the like.
The first three men stayed as close as they could to the line of containers on the ship’s port side as they made their way aft towards the living accommodation and the bridge, the second group of three matching them on the starboard side of the vessel.
* * *
The captain’s broadcast electrified the Spetsnaz soldiers, and they reacted immediately in the way they had been trained. Their weapons were stowed in a small storage space just inside the door on the starboard side of the aft accommodation, magazines loaded and already inserted, safety catches on. One man entered the room, grabbed a couple of Kalashnikovs and passed them to a second Spetsnaz soldier straddling the doorway, who immediately handed them to a couple of soldiers outside. That was faster, by far, than the soldiers all crowding inside the storage space together, and in less than a minute the men detailed to guard the Semyon Timoshenko against all threats were ready to do just that.
They lined the rail at the stern of the ship, weapons in hand, and stared at the two approaching craft. And for perhaps a minute, nothing else happened. There was no point in them opening fire, the Kalashnikov AK-47 being both comparatively short range and notably inaccurate, and the two Zodiacs were probably about a mile or so behind, and now closing slowly.
And that didn’t make sense. The small boats should have been able to overhaul the ship in minutes, but for some reason they had slowed down and were now almost matching its speed.
Maybe the attackers had given up once they’d seen the armed soldiers on board the vessel. Or perhaps something entirely different was going on.
Yuri Sebonov, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the Spetsnaz troops, decided to make them keep their distance while he tried to work out what was actually happening. He walked across to the weapons store, picked up one of the RPG-7 rocket propelled grenade launchers, slotted the OG-7V fragmentation grenade into place, and then strode back to the stern rail. He handed the loaded launcher to one of his men and told him to fire it at the pursuing boats.
‘It probably won’t explode,’ the Spetsnaz soldier objected. ‘No hard target.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Fire it anyway, just to make them keep their distance.’
The soldier shrugged, checked that no one was behind him and then took aim, elevating the weapon so that the grenade would cover most of the distance to the targets. He pulled the trigger, and the launcher roared as the grenade soared into the sky before arcing down towards the boats. As he had expected, the round fell some distance short, but did explode on contact with the surface of the sea, which he hadn’t anticipated.
‘That should do it,’ Sebonov said. ‘If they get within range, ventilate them with the Kalashnikovs. Otherwise, just keep your eyes on them. And get every weapon we have, including the SAMs, out here on deck. Then prep and load them, because this isn’t over yet. You three,’ he added, pointing at a trio of his men, ‘come with me.’
Then he turned away from the stern and the four of them began heading forward, looking for trouble, their Kalashnikovs loaded and cocked.
* * *
‘What the hell was that?’ Reilly asked, as the fragmentation grenade detonated some distance in front of them, though in reality he already knew the answer.
‘Probably an RPG,’ one of his men suggested. ‘But we’re still out of range back here, and they must know that.’
‘I’m sure they do,’ Reilly responded. ‘I guess they’re just showing us that they’ve got teeth. Don’t get any closer,’ he called out to the helmsman, somewhat unnecessarily.
* * *
As far as Richter could tell, they were still invisible from the bridge because of the bulk of the stacked containers, and they were by then at least halfway along the deck towards the aft accommodation. And so far nobody on the ship knew they were there.
But the flat crack of the grenade detonating, preceded by the roar from the launcher, told him that the two Zodiacs must have been spotted, which had, of course, been a part of his plan. Another piece of deception to allow him and the other members of Team 1 to get as close to the bridge as possible before they started having to fight their way there.
With a bit of luck, if most of the crew were standing on the stern wasting their time firing RPGs at the Zodiacs, they might make it all the way.
What happened next made it clear th
at this hope was wildly optimistic.
* * *
‘You two,’ Sebonov ordered, ‘patrol the port side of the ship. Make sure we haven’t picked up any passengers, and check inside the container stacks and over the side as well. If you see anyone, don’t call out. Just shoot them.’
‘Understood.’
The four men separated just in front of the accommodation section and made their separate ways along the opposite sides of the ship, checking between the containers as well as along the narrow length of open deck in front of them.
* * *
Even as Richter cautiously made his way aft, the two soldiers he was following suddenly seemed to melt into a couple of the gaps between the stacked containers, and he took a few rapid steps backwards to the nearest opening and did the same. He peered around the end of the metal box that was forming his temporary refuge to try to see what they had spotted.
And as he looked, a man stepped into view at the end of the line of containers, holding a Kalashnikov as if he knew exactly how to use it. He was followed by a second man, carrying an identical weapon. Richter knew that if either of these men opened fire, their tenuous element of surprise would be gone, and then they would be both outnumbered and outgunned. Six men, no matter how motivated and well-trained, could not realistically defeat an entire ship’s company, even a small ship’s company, of equally motivated, well-trained and armed men.
They needed to take these two men down, as quickly and as quietly as they could.
What Richter knew, but the approaching Russians clearly did not, was that there were two American soldiers hidden between the containers just a few yards in front of them. And there was one possible way that he could make sure they didn’t find out until it was too late.
He took a deep breath and stepped out from between the containers and into the clear view of the two men, stood there for perhaps a second or two, and then stepped back into hiding.
A shouted command in Russian told him that they’d seen him, but because he was no longer anywhere in sight, they had nothing to fire at. So they reacted exactly as he had expected, and began pounding along the deck towards the spot where he had disappeared. The sound of their footsteps was suddenly interrupted by two distant thuds, followed almost immediately by two more. It was a sound that Richter knew well: the noise of a suppressed HK 416 firing double-taps, two shots really close together and fired into the target’s centre mass.
He looked around the side of the container again, and saw exactly what he had been expecting to see: the two Russians were lying flat on their faces on the deck plating, unmoving, as one of the DEVGRU soldiers picked up their Kalashnikovs and lobbed them over the side rail into the ocean.
Two were down, but they had no idea how many other crew were on board the ship, though Richter guessed it could well be another 20 or 30. Long odds, by any standard.
And then, from somewhere on the starboard side of the ship, Richter heard the sound he’d been hoping not to hear: a short burst, perhaps five or six shots, from an unsilenced weapon, almost certainly a Kalashnikov based upon the sound alone.
* * *
Yuri Sebonov was an unimaginative man, but he was thorough. As far as he could see, there was no way that any enemy forces could possibly be on board the ship.
He had personally checked every space on board when he had joined the vessel in Severodvinsk, and had inspected every single container before it was loaded, as a basic and obvious precaution, and since then the vessel had made landfall nowhere. It had not been approached by any other vessel of any type during its voyage, apart from the two RIBs that he assumed were still holding position some distance behind the ship, and those he knew he could discount. An undetected approach from the air was out of the question. It would simply not be possible to parachute onto a vessel of such a small size without being seen.
Logically, therefore, there could not be any stowaways or enemy forces of any kind on board the ship. But nevertheless, he was going to check. Just in case.
But less than a minute after he and his companion had separated from the other two men, they both saw movement ahead of them, about halfway along the deck, as some shape moved between two of the container stacks. It was movement where no movement could be, but Sebonov knew he hadn’t imagined it, and he reacted instinctively, thumbing the safety catch on his AK-47 one position down to automatic fire, and pulled the trigger to loose off a short burst. He didn’t expect to hit anything, but what he did expect was to alert the rest of his men to the fact that – somehow – the ship had been boarded.
Two seconds later, both Sebonov and the second man were dead, cut down by a figure that emerged from between two entirely different stacks of containers just in front of them and fired four precisely aimed and almost silent shots.
* * *
The shots from the Kalashnikov were clearly audible to the men on the Zodiacs, just under a mile away.
‘Sounds like the party’s already started,’ Reilly said.
As they looked at the stern of the Semyon Timoshenko, they could see some of the men there move away quickly, presumably summoned to confront whatever danger they faced on the ship.
‘Now we need to give them a hand. Take us in,’ he told the helmsman, ‘but no closer than half a mile to keep us out of range of those Kalashnikovs for as long as possible. Just be ready to go to full speed on my order.’
* * *
Back at Funchal, Richter had explained what actions they would take in certain circumstances, one of which was their detection by the ship’s crew before they reached the accommodation at the stern of the ship. In fact, that possibility was one of the reasons why he’d briefed that they’d divide into two groups and head aft from the bow along opposite sides of the ship. If one of the two group was detected, then those men were to engage the ship’s crew, making as much noise as possible, to allow the other group to try to make it to the bridge undetected, or nearly so.
And as Richter and his two companions began moving towards the stern again, they heard the sound of at least two Kalashnikovs opening up, one on the starboard side of the vessel and one slightly further aft, as far as they could tell from the noise.
‘Quick as we can, now,’ he said. ‘The bridge is the key.’
* * *
Captain Vadim Pankin had been standing on the starboard bridge wing when Sebonov had ordered his man to fire the RPG, and he hadn’t immediately understood why. Then it became clear that the Spetsnaz NCO knew what he was doing, as the two RIBs maintained about the same distance behind the ship. It had been a warning shot, just to keep the enemy at bay.
Then he’d watched from the same position as Sebonov had taken three of his men to start a search of the ship, which seemed to Pankin a completely pointless exercise. That belief had been shattered seconds later as the firing had started.
‘Secure the bridge,’ Pankin ordered, stepping back inside and slamming closed the door to the bridge wing. His action was mirrored immediately by the lookout on the opposite side of the bridge. The internal door to the bridge from the accommodation section was already locked. That was done automatically as soon as the door closed.
From the secure citadel, Pankin prepared to watch his Spetsnaz guards dispose of whoever the intruders were. The only real question on his mind was how they’d managed to get on board.
* * *
As the firefight raged along the narrow strip of deck between the stacks of containers and the starboard side of the ship, Richter and the two DEVGRU SEALs accompanying him darted from one gap between the containers or any other cover they could find to the next refuge, constantly aware that they might at any moment be spotted and engaged. They used a basic leapfrog technique, one man covering the area ahead of them while the other two moved.
They made it to the end of the container stack without being seen, and faced only a narrow section of open deck to reach the port-side door leading into the accommodation section. There were half a dozen armed men on the starb
oard side of the deck, but their attention was clearly fixed on engaging the intruders, and none of them so much as glanced in their direction.
Then Richter looked up and found himself staring at a grey-haired man looking straight down at him from inside the bridge, a man who almost immediately disappeared.
‘That could be the captain,’ Richter said. ‘If it was, any second now he’s going to let the world know where we are, so we need to move right now.’
Even as he said that, they heard a distinct hum as somebody activated the outside loudspeaker system. But before the captain had said the first word, the three of them were already running across the deck.
As they reached the steel door, a burst of fire cracked across the deck and blasted the paint off the steel a few feet behind them.
And then they were inside the superstructure and safe. At least they were safe until somebody followed them in.
Matthews led the way up the staircase at a virtual run because he was the man who’d breach the door when they got to the top. He was carrying a shotgun over his shoulder as well as his HK 416. Richter followed, with Simmonds bringing up the rear.
Seconds after they’d started to climb, the steel door at the base of the superstructure slammed open, and a hail of bullets from a Kalashnikov sprayed around and up the interior staircase. It wasn’t an aimed volley, just a burst of fire to clear the way. The three men were already two flights up, and so the bullets just ricocheted harmlessly around the steel staircase below them. But they knew the man or men below would be following, so Simmonds took a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and simply dropped it down the staircase behind him as they reached the top landing. The explosion below them was strangely muffled, and was immediately followed by a scream of pain.
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