By then Matthews was already unslinging his breaching device, a Remington Model 780 Special Purpose Marine Magnum shotgun loaded with solid shot, effectively a 12-gauge lump of lead rather than individual bits of shot. He racked the slide to chamber the first round, then fired it at the top left-hand side of the bridge door, the noise of the shot an assault on the senses. The second and third shots, just as loud, followed as fast as he could rack the slide and pull the trigger.
Matthews stepped back to shoulder the Remington as Simmonds stepped past him and kicked the heavy door bodily out of its frame and straight onto the bridge, where it crashed into the wheel, the helmsman presumably having taken cover somewhere when Matthews had opened fire.
‘Clear,’ Simmonds said, checking the bridge and the occupants. ‘Four Tangos, none of them armed.’
Richter followed immediately behind him, his own HK 416 swinging round to cover the occupants.
* * *
‘Go,’ Reilly ordered, and the Zodiac surged forward again, the second boat matching speed a dozen yards behind and displaced about the same distance out to the starboard side.
The number of men lining the rail at the stern of the Russian ship had dropped to only half a dozen or so, and that was about as good odds as they were likely to get.
‘Covering fire when we get to about three hundred yards,’ he ordered the two men sitting in the bow. They both nodded and checked their weapons, ready for action, but only one was holding his HK 416. The other man was holding what looked like a massive six-shot revolver. This was a Milkor MGL, the three letters standing for Multiple Grenade Launcher, and the variant he had was the M32A1 short-barrelled version, known in the United States Special Operations Command as the Mk 14 Mod 0.
This was an amazingly versatile piece of kit, able to fire as fast as the user could pull the trigger, the huge spring-driven six-shot cylinder rotating automatically each time the weapon was fired, meaning that in skilled hands – and there were no more skilled hands than those of a Navy SEAL – it could manage three rounds every second and up to 21 rounds a minute, including the reloading time. It was an impressive force multiplier, able to handle a huge range of ammunition from pyrotechnics and non-lethal baton rounds up to high explosive and even anti-tank rounds. In view of the assault they were carrying out, Reilly had ordered that only high explosive rounds would be used, and the SEAL was carrying six in the weapon and a further 24 – four full reloads – in his uniform pouches.
The men on the ship opened up before the Zodiacs got that close, but the boats were not an easy target, bouncing over the waves as the helmsmen deliberately weaved them from side to side.
‘Steady us up,’ Reilly ordered the helmsman, ‘then grenades.’
When the Zodiac had more or less stabilized, the SEAL with the MGL immediately opened up, doing his best to keep the stern of the Russian container ship lined up with the reflex sight mounted on his weapon, a difficult task because of the way that the Zodiac was still bouncing around.
He fired the first three rounds in under a second, then changed position slightly to give himself more stability before he continued. As he fired the sixth grenade, Reilly saw one of the first rounds detonate against the aft superstructure of the Russian ship, while another one exploded in the sea just astern of the vessel. The MGL was not an especially accurate weapon even in ideal conditions, but the idea was to make the people on board the ship keep their heads down to allow the Zodiacs to approach closer. If the explosives took out a few of them, that would be a bonus.
The second salvo was better, two of the grenades impacting the ship, both on the superstructure but much lower than the first round.
On the second Zodiac, another SEAL opened up with his identical weapon as soon as the first man had stopped firing, giving him time to reload, and the two boats then began a kind of leapfrog action. Each travelled fast but erratically while the SEAL in the bow inserted new cartridges, then slowed and stabilized while he was firing, allowing the other Zodiac to make ground.
It seemed to be working. They were still taking fire from the ship, but this was getting less and less concentrated because of the almost constant rain of high explosive grenades detonating against and near the stern of the vessel, impacts that were getting more and more accurate as the Zodiacs closed the distance between them.
And as they closed with the ship it wasn’t just the grenade launchers that the SEALs were using. Engaging a target in the open ocean was exactly the kind of task the SEALs trained for, and their HK 416s – they had the longer range model with the 14-inch barrel – were much better and more accurate than the AK-47s. When they began firing, two of the Russians fell almost immediately, and the other men darted left and right, obviously looking for cover. But they continued to return fire, bullets cutting into the water around the Zodiacs, and at least three or four found their marks, and three of the SEALs in the second boat fell backwards as they were hit.
A final salvo of grenades laid down a carpet of high explosive across the stern of the vessel and suddenly the firing from the stern of the ship stopped.
‘Now we’re cooking,’ Reilly said, as the two Zodiacs powered up to the ship and held position there, their outboard motors keeping the bows of the boats pressed firmly against the steel of the Semyon Timoshenko‘s hull while they were secured to its stern. One SEAL at the back of each boat covered them, just in case another Russian appeared with his Kalashnikov, while in the bow other SEALs lobbed rubber-covered grappling irons over the stern rail and shimmied up them.
In less than two minutes, all the SEALs, as well as Jackson, Barber and Mason, were on board, apart from the three wounded men who were being tended by one of their companions in the Zodiac, now tethered to the ship, alongside the second boat, while another SEAL kept a watchful eye on the ship, his HK 416 at the ready.
* * *
Apart from the gaping hole in the back wall and the door lying partially across the helmsman’s position, it all seemed strangely calm on the bridge when Richter stepped in. The grey-haired man he’d seen from the deck below was just sitting down in a high chair at the rear of the bridge, while three other men, one wearing a junior officer’s uniform jacket over blue jeans, stood in a line in front of the windows, their hands in the air.
Richter swung his HK 416 to point at the man he assumed was the captain, who simply stared back at him.
‘My name is Richter, and this operation is over right now,’ he said in fluent Russian.
If the captain was surprised at being addressed by an attacker in his own language, he didn’t show it.
‘By "this operation" I assume you mean this entirely illegal act of piracy on the high seas,’ Pankin replied. ‘This is a Russian merchant ship, carrying a legitimate cargo for delivery to ports in Africa and elsewhere. My government will no doubt be making the strongest possible protests to the British and the American authorities. I presume that’s who you three are working for, from your accents.’
‘And do all Russian merchant ships have guards embarked, armed with Kalashnikovs and RPGs, Captain?’
Pankin shrugged.
‘We will be entering dangerous waters, infested by pirates, when we begin heading north up the east coast of Africa,’ he replied. ‘Having a team of armed guards on board is a sensible precaution to protect our cargo, and those men themselves decided on the type of weapons they would carry.’
This wasn’t making sense to Richter. The Russian captain was too calm and far too controlled, because he must have known he was facing the ruin of the mission he had been tasked with completing.
‘It’s because of your cargo that we’re here,’ Richter said, stepping closer to the grey-haired man in the high chair, and still covering him with the HK 416. Behind him, Matthews was aiming his weapon at the three other men, while Simmonds stood outside the bridge at the top of the internal staircase, just in case any other members of the crew decided it was a good time to pay the captain a visit.
‘I thou
ght most pirates simply ransomed the ship and crew, so why are you interested in my cargo?’
‘We aren’t pirates, Captain, as you well know,’ Richter replied. ‘We are here, on your ship, with the blessing of the governments of the nations that would be most directly involved if your mission had succeeded. So the American, British, Spanish and Portuguese authorities all know why we are here and what we’re doing, and we’re not interested in all of your cargo, just one item. The Status-6 weapon, though you may know it better as Poseidon, that you have been told to launch at the southern end of the island of La Palma, to blow apart the Cumbre Vieja volcanic system.’
The captain gave him a slight smile.
‘I don’t suppose you would believe me if I claimed to know nothing about that,’ he said, ‘so I won’t. But what I will say is that all that you have done here is much too little, and far too late.’
* * *
The Spetsnaz guards had fired a lot of rounds towards the location about halfway along the starboard side of the Russian ship where the three SEALs had taken refuge, but the steel containers provided almost perfect cover for them and, less than five minutes after the first shots had been fired, two more Russians lay dead. One of the SEALs had taken a bullet through his left bicep, and that hurt like a bitch, but it didn’t stop him firing his SiG pistol whenever a target presented itself.
When the rest of the SEALs swarmed onto the ship over the stern rail the odds changed, but the fight for control of the ship still wasn’t over. Where the SEALs had boarded was directly behind the aft superstructure, out of sight of the main deck, and the first that the Spetsnaz troopers knew about it was when two SEALs stepped into view around the starboard side of the accommodation section, weapons raised as they looked for targets.
Mason and Barber, accompanied by another two SEALs, headed in the opposite direction, around the other side of the superstructure, and engaged the Spetsnaz troopers as soon as they saw them.
But almost immediately, now faced with armed enemies attacking them from three different directions, the Russians disappeared into the maze of containers, their steel sides and doors acting as extremely efficient bullet-proof shields as they scattered.
John Mason made his way along the port side of the container stack, while Barber and the SEALs headed deeper into the maze, because the only way to get the Spetsnaz troopers out of the stack was to go in after them. On the starboard side of the ship, other SEALs mirrored their actions. The deck echoed with shouts and shots as the mopping up operation began.
Jackson remained tucked into the starboard side of the accommodation section, covering the rear of the deck cargo with her borrowed HK 416, matched by another of the SEALs on the port side. Suddenly, a volley of shots rang out from between two of the rearmost containers, and she heard a grunt of pain from the opposite side of the deck. Two Russian troopers stepped out from the stack and started walking quickly towards where the SEAL had been standing. Jackson made an immediate decision, turned and ran back towards the stern of the ship.
One of the Russians obviously saw her, shouted out and then fired a couple of shots at her, but she already had the steel of the superstructure between herself and them. She ran around the rear of the accommodation section and reached the port side just as one of the Spetsnaz troopers aimed his Kalashnikov at the fallen SEAL.
Jackson was less than 20 yards away, lifted her 416 and fired a double tap directly at the Russian. He fell backwards, the assault rifle tumbling to the deck beside him, and she immediately ducked into cover beside a hefty square steel box holding some kind of machinery, because she had no idea where the second Russian was.
Moments later, he stepped into view from the rear of the accommodation section, his Kalashnikov at the ready. He had obviously followed her all the way round.
Only a sucker gives anyone an even break, especially in a firefight, and as the Russian walked past her Jackson shot him twice in the back.
Then she ran forward to check on the SEAL. He’d taken three rounds and was clearly unconscious. The two on the chest had knocked him down, but the bullets had been stopped by his ballistic vest and it was the one he had taken in the thigh that concerned her, because of the amount of blood he was losing. Jackson looked round. Her eyes settled on the first Russian she’d shot, and more particularly on the belt that he was wearing.
She strode across to him, undid the buckle and pulled the belt out of the loops on his trousers. Then she clicked the magazine release on his Kalashnikov and pulled it out. She walked back to the fallen SEAL, slid the belt under his upper thigh, did up the buckle and then stuck the Kalashnikov magazine into the loop she had created. She turned it until the belt tightened on the man’s leg and she could see the blood flow diminish. Then she slid the magazine under his thigh, hoping that his weight would keep the rudimentary tourniquet in place, because there was nothing else she could do for him.
And then, quite suddenly, all of the firing stopped. The last half-dozen of the Spetsnaz troopers had realized they were effectively surrounded, and simply gave up, because the only other option was to die.
At last the SEALs were in complete command of the ship, with the opposition all either disarmed or dead; it had happened far quicker than Reilly or any of his team had expected. But this was, after all, the kind of operation that the DEVGRU SEALs spent their lives training for.
* * *
Richter stared at the Russian captain for a long moment, unease flooding through his body as he realized they had all somehow missed a trick. He stepped across to the windows of the bridge and looked out across the ranks of stacked containers, but he saw no sign of the weapon that he was certain had been concealed on board the ship. But it didn’t make sense that they had already fired it, because the warhead had to impact the southern end of La Palma, and even his very rough mental picture of their location convinced him that they had to be at least 200 nautical miles north of the island, maybe even further away than that. And if his deductions had been correct, the release point specified by the planners in Moscow required the Semyon Timoshenko to be somewhere south of the island of La Gomera, and well south of La Palma.
He suddenly realized something else, that he had no idea of the maximum range of the Status-6 weapon. But if they hadn’t already fired it, where the hell was it? Had they fitted the ship with a massive torpedo tube under the waterline? Bearing in mind the size of the weapon, or what Western intelligence sources believed were its dimensions, that seemed unlikely. It was far too big for that kind of launch mechanism. Even the huge Russian Oscar-class submarines were believed to be configured to carry it in a pod on deck.
Richter turned back to look at the Russian captain, who still appeared to find the situation amusing.
‘We will find it, you know,’ Richter said, ‘wherever it is. And then I’m sure a team of American technicians will spend a few happy months tearing it to pieces so that we can develop proper countermeasures to it.’
‘No they won’t,’ the Russian said, and there was such utter certainty in his voice that Richter knew something was very wrong. There was something that they had all missed. Either the Russians had already fired the weapon, though that made no sense, or his reading of the entire situation was wrong, and the Status-6 device was on a different ship entirely. Maybe the Semyon Timoshenko was just one part of the operation, an obvious vessel for Western forces to intercept, while the ship actually carrying the device somehow sneaked into position. But that made no sense either.
‘What the hell’s that?’ Matthews asked. He had herded the unresisting three men to the port side of the bridge and was looking down through the windows at the activity on deck below.
‘That,’ Captain Pankin replied, presumably having understood what the SEAL had said, ‘is the reason why the American eastern seaboard will cease to exist in about seven or eight hours, or about three hours after the southern counties of England are inundated.’
Richter took two rapid strides to the bridge window
s and looked down.
On the starboard side of the ship, what looked like a double-length container was slowly rotating so that it angled outwards, driven by two hydraulic arms, one at each end. As he watched, it appeared to lock into place, and four supporting legs began to extend steadily downwards towards the deck, while at the same time the double doors at the far end or the extended unit began to swing open, again driven by some kind of machinery.
Richter knew immediately what he was looking at and whirled round to confront the captain.
‘Stop it,’ he yelled in Russian. ‘Stop it right now.’
‘That’s the thing about automated systems,’ Pankin said calmly. ‘Once they start, sometimes you can’t stop them.’
‘Find a way.’
‘As I said a couple minutes ago, you’re much too late.’
Richter pulled the Smith from his belt holster and pulled back the hammer, aiming the muzzle of the pistol at the Russian’s groin.
‘Are you sure about that?’
Pankin nodded.
‘You can’t stop it, or you won’t stop it?’
‘Both. I follow my orders, Mr Richter. I know my duty.’
‘Then you’re no use to me,’ Richter said, shifted his aim slightly and squeezed the trigger. The bullet slammed into the Russian captain’s stomach, toppling him backwards out of the chair to lie in a tangled heap on the floor of the bridge, clutching himself and alternately screaming and moaning.
Immediately, Richter turned the pistol to point at the junior officer being guarded by Matthews.
‘You,’ he snapped. ‘Abort that launch sequence.’
The Russian officer shook his head despairingly from side to side, and Richter saw that he had just wet himself in terror.
‘I can’t,’ he stammered. ‘The control unit is in the corner over there—’ he pointed at the other side of the bridge ‘—but the captain wanted it to be irreversible, in case we were ever boarded.’
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