by David Bruns
One of the other pirates watched him closely, giving Kim the feeling the man had understood him. Using the muzzle of his rifle, the pirate motioned for Kim to join his crew huddled by the door. As he replaced the PA handset, Kim reached down and switched off the power to the radar.
The green blip faded from the screen.
The captain and his bridge team were hustled onto the mess deck where the rest of the crew was already waiting. The pirate leader poked Captain Kim with his rifle muzzle. “Crew all here, Captain?”
Kim did a quick head count and nodded.
“Good. In there. Now.” He motioned toward the dry stores area. The space was just large enough to hold all twenty of his crew members. The pirate leader pushed the last North Korean into the room. “Two guards outside. No problems.” The designated guards raised their weapons.
The pirate leader snapped off the light and slammed the door shut.
Kim felt the ship turning. Toward the mysterious blip on the radar.
Please, let it be a warship. Please.
The man next to him shifted out of the way and someone else took his place. “Captain?” It was his first mate. Kim grunted.
“You miscounted. We’re missing Lee.”
Kim cursed to himself. He’d forgotten about the mess cook they’d brought on just before leaving port. He hadn’t even seen the kid once since they’d left North Korea.
The ship steadied on its new course.
Please let it be a warship.
CHAPTER 23
USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93), South China Sea
10 September 2013 – 0430 local
The Arleigh Burke–class destroyer ran silent and dark through the humid night. Two RHIBs hung over the water on davits, rocking gently.
“Standby, sir,” the chief petty officer operating the winch said to Brendan.
“Very well, Chief.” Brendan adjusted his bulletproof vest and took a deep breath to still the butterflies that always crept up on him before a mission.
The sailor on the sound-powered phones acknowledged an order and said to the chief, “From the bridge. Launch both boats.”
“Launch both boats, aye.” The chief’s smile was visible in the night. “Happy hunting, sir. Go get some bad guys.” He activated the winch and Brendan’s team dropped toward the dark water. The SEALs fore and aft unclipped the lines, and the driver gunned the engine.
“Boat one away,” Brendan said into his mike.
“Boat two away,” came the reply.
“On me, Starkie,” Brendan said, switching to the secure channel.
“Aye, sir.”
The RHIBs, rigid hulled inflatable boats, rocketed across the water at thirty knots, blowing humid wind in Brendan’s face. They overtook the North Korean ship quickly. The merchant vessel was well lit and he could make out the name on the fantail: BE GAE BONG. He wondered what that meant in English.
Their attack plan was to come at the ship from behind and launch the assault from both sides. When they were about a hundred yards out, Brendan keyed his mike. “Break and engage, Team Bravo.”
“Break and engage, Bravo, aye.” The boat behind them slewed to the right and made for the starboard side of the North Korean freighter. Brendan’s team took the port side. The driver cut the engine to half-speed when they passed the fantail.
“Standby for boarding,” Brendan called. The other two SEALs stood in the centerline of the RHIB. They rapidly extended long telescoping poles with rope ladders affixed to the ends.
“Now,” Brendan said.
The driver threw the engine into reverse, and the SEALs raised their poles up the side of the freighter. Brendan heard a quiet thud as the rubber-coated hooks on the end of the rope ladder made contact with the railing. The man nearest to him disappeared up the side of the ship, Brendan close on his heels. As he threw an arm over the railing, he found himself looking right into the face of one of the pirates.
The man pulled his bandana down, revealing a wide grin. “Little slow, sir. Bravo’s already all onboard.”
“Bite me, Martinez,” Brendan replied. “We’re all secure?”
“Tighter than my little sister on prom night, sir. I’ve got them locked in the dry storage area with the lights out. They pretty much shit themselves when we showed up.”
Brendan nodded and changed the channel on his radio. “Control, this is Alpha. Ship secure. Commencing phase two.”
“Acknowledged.” The reply had a tiny bit of distortion that came with secure satellite comms.
The SEALs from his boat had already pulled up two black Pelican cases and were standing by. They followed Martinez through the nearest watertight door. Brendan tried to keep a sense of direction, but he always found it difficult to do onboard ship. Martinez slid down yet another ladder and hauled open a steel hatch.
“Your patient awaits, gentlemen,” he said in a mocking tone.
Three TELs were lashed to the steel deck of the hold under the glare of floodlights. The vehicles were about forty-five feet long and at least twelve feet high. The launchers stood empty, just giant curved rails the size of a waterpark slide, waiting for a missile—maybe even a nuclear-tipped one.
His two men ran to the front of the nearest vehicle and climbed on top of the cab. Brendan passed them the Pelican cases. “You’re on the clock, guys,” he said, setting his watch to fifteen minutes.
He could hear one of the men knocking on the top of the vehicle, looking for the hollow space the intel guys told them was there between the cab and the engine compartment. The body of the TEL was made of some kind of composite material that Brendan supposed was designed to reduce the radar signature of the vehicle. Somehow, the intel geeks had figured out there was a void between the two compartments which would be ideal for their purposes.
The sound of power tools echoed in the hold. The second team arrived with cameras and began to document all aspects of the TELs.
The men on top of the first launcher called down to Brendan. “Boss, we’re ready to close her up.”
Brendan hoisted himself to the top of the vehicle. They had opened a hole about as big as his hand. One of the SEALs shined his flashlight into the hole. The sensor was glued to the wall of the void, as close to the top as possible. Below it, a battery pack was glued in place. “Run the self-test yet?”
The SEAL nodded. “Self-test sat, sir. Ready for the sat comm check.”
Brendan keyed his mike. “Control, Alpha. Standby for sat comm check.”
“Ready,” came the reply.
The SEAL slipped the dip switch into the up position. A green light on the sensor glowed once, then went out.
A full minute went by before Brendan got a response from the radio. “Test sat. Standing by for nuclear detector check.”
“Let’s do it,” Brendan said to the second SEAL.
The man blew out his breath. “If I end up being sterile from carrying this shit around, I’m gonna sue the Navy.” He pulled a small lead tube out of the case and stepped back to the launcher rails. “About here?”
Brendan nodded. The SEAL snapped open the lid of the tube and counted: “One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi.” He snapped the lid shut and hurriedly replaced the lead tube in the case.
Brendan tapped his foot and keyed the mike to make sure it was still working.
“Nuclear detector test sat.”
“Alright, let’s close it up,” Brendan said. He checked his watch. “We’re a minute behind schedule, so let’s get a move on.”
“You can’t rush art, sir,” one of the SEALs muttered. He fitted the piece they’d cut out of the truck body back into place and glued it. Then he filled the gap with quick-drying epoxy resin and dried it with a heat gun. The second man was standing by with a Dremel sanding tool. He smoothed out the epoxied piece, stopping to put his face next to the cab and look for any remaining ridges in the light.
The SEAL with the sander sat back. “That’s good. Give it a quick paint job, Ricky.”
>
While his partner was completing the sanding job, Ricky had been matching paint colors. He made one final adjustment to the blend and, after a few quick passes with the wand, stepped back to survey his work.
“I knew my time at Maaco would come in handy someday,” he said.
Brendan jumped to the deck. “Alright, gents, let’s move,” he called to both teams. “Everyone topside in five for the big finale. Petty Officer Rickson, you’re on cleanup detail.”
“Aye, sir,” Ricky replied over the whine of a tiny vacuum cleaner. His job was to sweep the area to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind from the operation.
Brendan waited for Ricky at the door. The SEAL held up a trash bag and flipped Brendan a mock salute. “All trash present and accounted for, sir.”
Brendan ignored him and keyed his mike. “Control, this is Alpha. Phase Two complete. Ready for Three.” Brendan snapped off the light switch, plunging the room into darkness.
By the time Brendan reached topside, he could hear the helo coming toward them. It hovered over the deck for about a minute before swinging out over the water and releasing a torrent of live fire into the sea next to the ship.
Brendan found Martinez in the group of pirates. “You’re sure they can hear this down there?”
Martinez smiled. “Oh, yeah, they can hear it.” He pulled his bandana up over his mouth and nose.
Brendan keyed his mike. “Alright, Alpha and Bravo teams, let’s go Hollywood on this piece of shit.”
The pirate teams and the SEAL teams ran to their staging posts on the ship. Live fire echoed throughout the superstructure as the “good guys” put on a show of gunning down the pirates. He listened to the “pirates” scream in mock death.
Brendan mentally checked off the bursts of fire. “Alright, let’s paint the crime scenes and get back on the main deck so we can release our guests.”
He gave a thumbs-up to the petty officer who had been in charge of the shooting on the main deck. The man unscrewed a Nalgene bottle filled with blood and painted the bulkhead where he had “killed” one of the pirates. If the North Koreans ever tested the blood, they would find it was human—compliments of a US Navy hospital blood bank.
Brendan looked past the petty officer to a watertight door that stood ajar. His heart stopped. A face looked back at him, a thin, pinched face with almond-shaped eyes and a gaping mouth in need of dental work.
The North Korean saw Brendan at the same time. The face disappeared into the ship.
Brendan charged after him, hitting his mike as he did so. “Martinez, we have a runner. I’m on the main deck.”
Ahead of him, the man spun around a post and slid down a steep stairwell without touching any steps. Brendan raced after him, cursing in a steady stream.
The fleeing man entered a long passageway, lit infrequently from lights set in the base of the wall. He was throwing terrified looks over his shoulder, and Brendan could hear him breathing in high-pitched, ragged gasps. He reached the end of the hall, his hand out for the door handle. Brendan put on a burst of speed and launched through the air.
He crashed into the man, smashing him flat against the door. It’s a kid, Brendan realized as he grabbed the skinny shoulders and slammed him facedown onto the deck. He put his knee on the boy’s back and gripped his chin. If he snapped the kid’s neck, no one would question it on a mission like this.
But he couldn’t.
He yelled into his radio. “Martinez, get down here. Third deck. Forward. Port side.”
Brendan flipped the boy over so he was facing up. The kid held up his hands in front of his face. He was crying and snot ran out of his nose. He was maybe fifteen years old and small for his age at that. Brendan eased his knee off the boy’s chest so the kid could breathe.
“You speak English?” Brendan demanded.
The terrified blank look in the boy’s eyes told him the answer was no.
Martinez came thundering up the hallway. Brendan glared up at him. “You told me this fucking ship was secure! Now I find this kid roaming around. Who knows what he saw.”
“Are you gonna waste him, sir?”
Brendan got to his feet, leaving the crying boy on the deck. “No, I’m not going to waste him. Get me a set of zip ties, we’re taking him with us.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the kid move, and Martinez started to yell. Then a white-hot stab of pain ran through his right knee. He looked down and saw the handle of a knife protruding from the back of his leg. Brendan moved the joint and felt the point of the knife scrape against the inside of his kneecap.
Martinez let loose a burst from his AK-47 and a wet slapping sound hit the floor behind Brendan.
Brendan leaned against the bulkhead and slid to the ground, keeping his right leg out straight. His ears rang from the gunfire. His vision tunneled inward to blackness.
CHAPTER 24
Bandar Lengeh, Iran
02 November 2013 – 0330 local
Hashem lit another cigarette even as he crushed the last one under his heel. In the glare of the pier lights, he could see the bullet holes in the bulkheads of the Be Gae Bong.
How could this have happened? Pirates operating that far out in the South China Sea? It was rare, but not unheard of. Still, as an intelligence officer, it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
The merchant ship had pulled alongside the pier more than fifteen minutes ago and the dock crew was still fussing with the lines on the massive white-painted bollards. The men moved at a snail’s pace, clearly not accustomed to working this late at night.
Hashem made a rolling motion with his index finger to Mansour, the head of his security detail. His team was outfitted as working men, in dirty green coveralls, and as their foreman he wore an open-necked polo shirt and trousers. He wished for a breast pocket to stow his cigarettes.
Mansour drew the crew leader of the dock workers aside and was reaching into his pocket. Hashem smiled. Mansour had learned that greed is a better motivator than fear. The pace of work on the dock increased, and within minutes the crane lowered the gangway into place. Hashem crossed before they had even disconnected the crane hoist lines.
The North Korean ship captain met him on the main deck, a short, thin man with a shaggy gray crew cut and black-framed glasses. The man bowed and extended his hand. “You must be—”
“Not here,” Hashem answered curtly. “Inside.”
The captain’s smile vanished and he nodded. That was the one thing Hashem liked about working with North Koreans: they understood how to obey orders.
He followed the captain’s painfully thin shoulders into the superstructure of the ship and up three flights of steep steps. The man’s cabin was about the size of Hashem’s walk-in closet at home, with a narrow bunk, a fold-down desk, a washbasin, and a picture of the Great Successor. Hashem looked from the pudgy jowls of Kim Jong-un to the skin stretched sharply over the captain’s jawline, and he shook his head.
The captain offered Hashem the only chair and sat on the edge of his bunk.
“Tell me,” Hashem said, in English. “Everything.”
The captain spoke in passable English, describing the pirate attack. Hashem interrupted him immediately and demanded to see the chart. The captain scurried from the room and returned with a dog-eared nautical chart. Hashem drew out a tablet and compared the latest intelligence reports with the captain’s information.
He grimaced. The location was a bit beyond the operating area for pirates in that region, but not improbable. “How did they board your ship?”
The captain squirmed. “They boarded from the stern, where the lookouts could not see them,” he said finally.
Hashem frowned. “What about radar? Did you have radar operating?”
The captain nodded.
“Well?” Hashem said. “Why didn’t you see them?”
“The radar operator was asleep on watch.” The captain hung his head.
“Asleep? Are you serious? What did y
ou do to him?”
The captain squirmed again. “He is the son of a central committee chairman . . . there is nothing I can do.”
Hashem lit a cigarette. “Show me where you were confined.”
The captain led him to the galley and the dry stores area. Hashem tested the strength of the door. “How long were you held?”
The captain shrugged. The pirates had taken their wristwatches. “Maybe two hours,” he said.
“And then what happened?”
“We heard helicopters, then the sounds of gunfire—heavy caliber—then small arms fire on board. After about twenty minutes, we were freed by the Americans, Navy SEALs.” The captain extended his arms and flexed his muscles as he recalled them. “They were taking body bags off and two of the pirates were in handcuffs. And one SEAL was injured. He was in a stretcher being lifted off by the helicopter.”
Hashem flicked his cigarette into a nearby sink and tapped another out of the package. The captain was clearly infatuated by the Americans, and even worse than that, he believed every word of what he was telling Hashem.
“And all of your men were accounted for?”
The captain shook his head. “We lost one. A mess cook, just a boy. I didn’t even realize he was missing until after we were locked up.”
“Dead?”
“The pirates killed him. That’s what the Americans said. We stopped in Singapore to ship his body home. It delayed us almost two weeks.”
“And the Americans, they looked at your manifest?”
The captain puffed out his chest. “My documents are the best. Your buyer made sure of that. The stupid Americans matched the manifest to the cargo and left.”
“Did they do anything else?”
Captain Kim shrugged. “They took pictures.”
“Nothing else?” Hashem pressed him. “Were they alone with the cargo for even a few minutes?”