“My phone was trashed when I went in the water,” Ahmed said. “I was about to take Diriyi’s when you shot at me.”
“I already took his phone.” She grimaced in obvious pain as she worked her left arm out of a makeshift sling and free of tape wrappings to dig in her front pocket. She produced a phone and held it out with a shaky left hand, all the while keeping him covered with the Glock in her right.
“Call whoever you need to,” she said, “but don’t say a word. I don’t want you warning anyone or giving away our position. You hand it back to me as soon as it starts ringing, and so help me God, if I hear as much as a peep out of you, you’ll get a bullet in the head. Is that clear?”
“Very clear,” Ahmed said, as he dialed.
A moment later he held the phone out, and the woman took it with her left hand and held it to her ear.
Arnett glared at Traitor and listened to the phone ring, her finger on the Glock’s trigger. She was about to hang up when a man answered, his accent distinctly American.
“482-5555,” he said.
“Who is this?” asked Arnett.
There was a long silence, then the voice asked, “Who’re you calling?”
“I’m calling anyone who can verify there’s a guy in Somalia pretending to be a pirate when he’s actually a sergeant in the US Army Special Forces,” Arnett said. “And you better talk fast, because I’m about to put a bullet in his head.”
There was a long pause. “Captain Arnett?” asked the voice.
Arnett’s heart jumped, but she caught herself. It could still be a trick. “That’s me,” she said. “Who’s this?”
“Agent Jesse Ward, Central Intelligence Agency, ma’am. And I must ask you, are you having a storm there?”
Storm? What was he talking about? Then she remembered.
“No, Agent Ward. I believe good weather are the words you’re waiting for.”
“They are indeed, Captain,” Ward replied. “I take it you’ve met Sergeant Ahmed. Please don’t shoot him. He’s one of my most valuable assets.”
Arnett realized she was still pointing the Glock at Ahmed and lowered it as Ward continued. “Hold one, ma’am. There’s someone I know wants to talk to you.”
Arnett listened as she heard connection noises, then a phone ringing.
“Marie Floyd, Captain Blake speaking.”
Relief washed over Arnett in waves, and for the first time in days, she believed she was going home.
Drillship Ocean Goliath
Arabian Sea
Dugan stood on the open deck and braced himself against the roll of the ship as he nodded to Borgdanov.
“All of them,” he said. “We need to get as much oxygen to the fire as possible.”
Borgdanov nodded back and opened fire, rounds from his assault rifle stitching holes in the thick shatterproof glass of the crew-lounge windows. He worked his way down the row, stopping to pop in a fresh magazine, and Dugan followed behind him, beating the remnants of the shattered glass out with a fire extinguisher. When they’d finished, Dugan moved to the two fire hoses stretched out on deck, and bent to double-check the nozzles. He’d opened both to fog position, and wrapped the levers with wire from his backpack to prevent accidental closure. Satisfied, he nodded to Borgdanov, grabbed one of the hoses, and fed it through a glassless window, nozzle first, as the Russian did the same with the second hose farther down the row of windows.
“I don’t know how much they’re going to dance around when we pressurize them, and we don’t them want popping out,” Dugan said, “so feed in plenty.”
Borgdanov nodded, as Dugan finished and duct-taped his own hose to the storm rail just below the ruined window. He used half a roll, wrapping the hose and rail repeatedly. Ugly but strong, at least strong enough to help prevent the hose from backing out of the broken window. He moved to Borgdanov’s hose and repeated the procedure, then looked out at the building seas. The ship had a perceptible port list now, as Dugan’s ballast adjustment began to manifest itself—perhaps a little too soon. He gave the ocean a last worried look, and hurried into the deckhouse with Borgdanov at his heels, fighting their way uphill as the ship took a roll.
They found the sergeant outside the crew lounge using the safety line to lash oxygen and acetylene cylinders to the passageway storm rail. Dugan looked into the open door of the crew lounge and nodded. Dead crewmen and pirates covered the deck, and trapped between the bodies were the gas cylinders. Scattered about the large room were cans of various shapes and sizes—paint thinner, alcohol, cooking oil, anything and everything flammable. Zigzagging across the room was a fire hose leading through the open door and arranged over the bodies. The nozzle at the end of the hose was wired shut and firmly secured to a table pedestal. Visible along the length of the hose were punctures Dugan had made with his knife. Not bad for a jury-rigged crematorium.
“I do not see why we need torch, Dyed,” Borgdanov said. “I think alcohol and other things are enough.”
Dugan shook his head. “All that stuff will burn fast. We need the diesel to keep feeding the fire, and diesel’s not like gasoline—it’s damned hard to get going. The torch is our insurance.” Dugan glanced over at the sergeant. “Looks like Ilya’s finished. Let’s get it done.”
Borgdanov nodded and spoke to the sergeant in Russian, as Dugan opened the valves on the oxygen and acetylene cylinders and plucked a friction striker from where it hung on a loop over one of the valves. The Russians moved up the passageway to the fire station that served the perforated fire hose.
Dugan stepped through the door and followed the oxygen and acetylene hoses down a narrow path through the bodies to the center of the room. The hoses terminated at a cutting torch taped to the leg of a coffee table inches away from a five-gallon can of cooking oil. Dugan squatted, opened the valves, and then struck a spark at the head of the torch. A flame flared to life against the silver side of the oil can. Dugan adjusted the valves on the torch to maximize the heat, dropped the striker, and raced from the room. He nodded down the passageway to Borgdanov, who opened the valve on the fire station a single turn, just enough to send diesel coursing through the hose to leak through the perforations over the pile of bodies. They fled the deckhouse.
“I think something is wrong, Dyed,” said Borgdanov five minutes later, as Dugan and the two Russians balanced on the pitching deck some distance from the broken windows of the lounge.
“Give it a minute more,” Dugan said. “When the cooking oil ignites, flames will spread to the rest of the more volatile stuff fast, then we’ll see result—”
They all flinched at a loud explosion, and a ball of flame rolled out the farthest of the broken windows of the crew lounge. In seconds, flames were licking out of all the windows.
“There we go,” Dugan said. “Time to add a little more fuel to the fire. Remember, open the valve wide.”
Borgdanov nodded and rushed to the far fire station, while Dugan manned the nearer one. He twisted the valve open and diesel rushed into the flat hose, inflating it like a thick white snake, and Dugan watched the bulge at the leading edge travel down the hose and through the broken window into the lounge. In moments, there was a loud whomp, as diesel misted from the fog nozzle and ignited in a violent burst, followed by another as the spray from the second nozzle ignited. Flames boiled from the windows, topped by smoke that rose in a thick black cloud, caught and ripped away by the increasingly violent wind.
The fire was roaring now, and Dugan had to once again shout to make himself heard through the suits and masks. “That should do it. Let’s get the hell off this thing.”
Dugan started aft along the pitching main deck, starting down the port side, then changing course to traverse to starboard. There was a definite port list now, with the vessel rolling more to port than starboard, and the layer of silver coins had started to shift across the open deck, leaving surer footing to starboard. Even as Dugan rushed aft, he knew something was wrong. When he reached the stern, he moved across t
he ship and looked down the port side.
He cursed as the two Russians joined him.
“What is wrong?” Borgdanov asked.
“I wanted to give the fire plenty of time to burn,” Dugan said. “So I set the ballast system up to slowly give her a port list. I figured that, being top-heavy, she’d capsize in an hour or so.”
Dugan pointed to the Yemeni fishing boat, awash to its main deck and tight against the side of the larger vessel, hanging off half a dozen thick mooring hawsers. “I didn’t figure on this. That friggin’ boat’s sinking, and she’s heavy enough to increase the list, at least until those mooring lines part. Now it’s a crapshoot.”
The Russian looked confused. “What means ‘crapshoot’?”
“It means we got to get the hell out of here. Now!” Dugan said, turning to look out at the increasingly violent sea. “Where the hell is Kwok?”
He swiveled his head, and a moment later, spotted the Kyung Yang No. 173 in the distance, listing to starboard and headed away from the drillship. Dugan looked at Borgdanov and started to speak, but the Russian was already digging the radio from his backpack. His hands in the thick gloves were clumsy, but he pressed the radio to his hood near his ear and shouted through the facemask. After several attempts, he lowered the radio.
“Anisimov does not answer,” Borgdanov said. “I think is big problem.”
Dugan stared at the distant boat in disbelief. “Wonderful. The son of a bitch is abandoning us. Can it get any worse?”
The sergeant pointed into the distance, in the opposite direction from the Kyung Yang No. 173. Dugan saw a flash of white on the crest of a wave, and recognized it as a small craft headed their way, fast. As he watched, there were more flashes, until he’d counted eight, all undoubtedly loaded with pirates.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kyung Yang No. 173
Arabian Sea
Kwok looked out across the building seas at the drillship and cursed Dugan. He glanced back down at his radar and cursed again, as the flickering display went black, and he slapped the side of the cabinet with his open hand. The display blinked back to life and Kwok stared in disbelief, then rubbed his eyes and looked again.
Eight targets were closing on his position, not more than ten miles away, and closing fast. They were small and fast, their radar signatures indistinct. He had no doubt who they were. He turned to the impassive black-clad Russian, who watched from the rear of the small wheelhouse.
“Many pirates come!” Kwok said. “We must leave. Now!”
The Russian stepped forward and studied the display, then spoke into the radio mike clipped to his web gear. After several attempts, it was obvious he’d received no response. He looked at Kwok and shrugged.
“Major does not answer. I think maybe he is in noisy place and cannot hear radio in backpack,” he said. “So. We must wait. He will call soon, I think.”
Kwok looked across at the drillship. She was rolling more now, but also seemed to be developing a port list. He spotted faint traces of smoke rising from the deckhouse.
“We cannot wait! If we stay, pirates will catch us too.” Kwok spoke to the helmsman in Korean, and the man began to turn the wheel.
“Nyet!” The Russian leveled his rifle. “We wait for others. Stay here.”
Kwok raised his hands in surrender, and spoke over his shoulder to countermand the order. Kyung Yang No. 173 returned to her previous course, creeping along in the lee of Ocean Goliath at two knots. She’d hardly settled back on course when the chief engineer rushed up the short stairway and into the wheelhouse.
“We’re taking on water,” he said to Kwok in Korean. “A lot of water!”
“What? How? Where?” Kwok asked.
The engineer shook his head. “I can’t tell yet,” he said. “But I think when you struck the drillship you disturbed one of the concrete patches. I’m pumping most of it out, but the pump can’t keep up. We’re already developing a starboard list.”
“Can you repair it?” Kwok asked.
“Possibly,” the engineer said. “If I can find it.”
“Show me.” Kwok started to follow the engineer down the stairs.
“Where you go?” the Russian demanded, stepping in front of Kwok.
“Hole in hull. Ship sinking,” Kwok said. “I go look. You get out of way now.”
The Russian stepped aside, confused, then fell in behind the Koreans.
Kwok turned over the situation in his mind, even as he raced downstairs after the engineer. He’d been with the Americans and the Russians when many pirates had been killed, and now he was—for all the pirates knew—voluntarily helping them. Eventually the pirates would find out about their dead colleagues and figure out who killed them. It wouldn’t go well for him if he was their prisoner when that happened. Kwok reached that conclusion just as he stepped into the engine room, and the stench of diesel filled his nose and the engine assaulted his ears. He knew what he had to do.
Kwok followed the chief down the starboard side, and nodded as the man played the beam of his flashlight over the rising water in the bilge. Kwok turned to the Russian and motioned for him to stoop down, then spoke into the man’s ear.
“Much water,” Kwok shouted, to make himself understood over the engine. “We have leak. There.” He pointed to a random place in the bilge. “You look. You see. You must bend down and look under that pipe.”
Kwok motioned for the chief to shine his flashlight on the place where he pointed. Confused, the engineer did as ordered.
As the Russian bent to peer into the bilge, Kwok slipped a wheel wrench from a holder along the handrail and cracked him in the back of the head. The Russian collapsed, unconscious, and Kwok shouted in the chief’s ear.
“Get two men to bind him and carry him to the wheelhouse, where I can keep my eye on him,” Kwok said.
“Are you crazy?” the chief shouted back. “The other Russians will kill us!”
“And if we wait around for those fools, the pirates will kill us instead. We’re getting out of here, so do as you’re told. And I want full power from the engine when I ask for it. Now, take care of the Russian and find that leak. Understood?”
Kwok had just reached the wheelhouse when he saw a fireball rise from the deckhouse on the drillship. He ordered the helmsman to point the boat’s bow southwest and increased speed to full power before he moved to the radar. The pirates would be on the drillship in less than ten minutes, but he figured their initial reaction would center on the silver, and he hoped to slip away in the confusion. Even if that miserable engineer couldn’t get the leak fixed, floating around in a life raft awaiting rescue was a better alternative than being killed by pirates.
Kwok decided to improve his odds. He twisted the dial on the VHF to channel sixteen and keyed the mike.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” he said, then repeated the name of his vessel and location. “Ship sinking. Many pirates come. Mayday, mayday, mayday.”
He was on his fourth repetition when two crewmen dragged the Russian up the stairs and dumped him on the deck. The Russian moaned, and Kwok looked down at him, momentarily distracted. His head snapped back up as the VHF squawked.
“Kyung Yang No. 173,” said an accented voice. “This is Russian naval vessel Admiral Vinogradov. We acknowledge your mayday and are coming to assist. Over.”
Kwok looked back at the bound Russian, and blood drained from his face.
Drillship Ocean Goliath
Arabian Sea
“We have assault rifle,” Borgdanov said. “But most of ammunition I use to break windows. I have part of magazine left. Also the Glock with three magazines. But eight boats means twenty or thirty piraty at least. I think we have big problem, Dyed.”
“Agreed,” Dugan said. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to surrender just yet. Maybe we can—Jesus Christ!”
Dugan lost his footing and slammed into a mooring winch as the Ocean Goliath rolled to port on a particularly large wave. This time she lingered
at the bottom of the roll, as if deciding between righting herself and lying on her side on the storm-tossed surface. Dugan held his breath at metallic clanging from the derrick as the drill pipe shifted, then let it out as the big vessel shuddered and rolled upright. But just upright, she was hardly rolling to starboard now. He regained his balance and moved back to where the Russians gripped a set of mooring bitts, bracing themselves against the roll.
“This baby’s going over anytime,” Dugan said. “The pirates might not recognize that right away, or realize everyone is dead. They’ll come at us from the port side because it’s lower and they can board easier. Then they’ll either get distracted by all that silver or they’ll head forward to the bridge and quarters to seize control of the ship. Either way, I don’t think they’ll head back aft, at least not initially. I figure we squat out of sight back here behind the machinery casing and see what develops.” He looked up at the darkening sky. “There’s bound to be a lot of confusion, and this storm will hit anytime. Maybe we use that to our advantage.”
As if responding to Dugan’s words, a raindrop hit his facemask, and in seconds, they were in a downpour. He looked forward at the smoke and flames billowing from the starboard-side lounge windows. Strangely enough, the wind was decreasing, and the smoke was rising in a black, greasy column. He turned away, reassured. No rainstorm, no matter how fierce, would quench the diesel-fed fire now, and when the ship went over, the lounge would be on the high side. She’d burn right up until she sank.
Dugan moved to the port side, and squatted out of sight behind the machinery casing. The Russians followed suit as the rain came down in sheets and collected on the pitching deck to form small waves on its way to the deck scuppers and overboard. The water accumulated on the exposed top deck of the machinery casing as well, faster than it could drain. Running to port because of the list, the water spilled over the edge of the upper deck like a minor waterfall, surging stronger with each roll of the ship.
Deadly Coast (A Tom Dugan Novel) Page 23