Six

by Charles W. Sasser

  Bear Graves’s six-man Delta team supplemented by an Echo team crouched at the rails in black wet suits and swim hoods, armed and ready. They were almost invisible in the darkness. When anyone moved, it was like a part of the night shifted.

  Tonight would be a swim only, no air tanks. Just masks, suppressed weapons, and balls.

  Graves scanned the docked ships through a night-vision scope. The oil tanker was tied up just where techies said it would be. Damascus II. The name seemed to leap out at him.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  Caulder confirmed the target through his own scope. “What do you say, team leader?”

  It was up to Graves to make the final go–no go decision. “Let’s take it down.”

  The trawler pulled power, its wake catching up and lapping at the hull as it drifted in the direction of the oil tanker. Its red-green running lights were purposefully dimmed to prevent illuminating its passengers while at the same time, to avoid the harbor patrol, complying with international law. Senior Chief Graves passed the go signal. Black-clad SEALs oozed over the gunnels and down a fishing net to slip silently into the dark water, merging with it and becoming nothing more than additional unnoticed flotsam. Fins propelled the twelve swimmers through the oily harbor toward Damascus II.

  Caulder on point utilized the tanker’s contours and configuration along with his NVGs to approach the ship’s low-riding stern. Some careless deckhand had left a line dangling over the side, which made boarding that much easier. Caulder shinnied up the three-inch hawser to the main deck railing. His eyes and the pistol in his fist appeared first. He searched the deck for movement. The greenish shine from his NVGs made his eyes glow like a predator’s.

  Adrenaline pulsing in his temple sharpened his senses, put him on full danger alert. Sometimes, he thought he was only fully present and alive at times like these. Buddha accused him of being a “risk junkie.” But, then, wasn’t that a requirement for becoming a SEAL?

  The ship’s main deck appeared unoccupied, most of the crew either ashore getting drunk or asleep belowdecks. A deck light shone dimly up at the starboard bow where the stationary sentry was supposed to be. Twin diesel stacks and the ship’s superstructure obstructed Caulder’s view of the pier area. Apparently, the sentry and the roving patrol never anticipated thieves boarding the ship from the seaward side. They were probably dozing off somewhere anyhow.

  Hanging precariously from the railing by one hand, Caulder hung the rope ladders and let them unroll to the still water below and the waiting SEALs. With a final scan of the deck, he slipped through the railing ropes like a cat and merged into the deeper shadows by the diesel stacks to cover for the raiders.

  Like ethereal beings, SEALs poured up the ladder and into the shadows where Caulder waited. Echo, accompanied by Fishbait, led an external element forward to take out the ship’s communications and eliminate sentries. Bear and the internal Delta element headed for the hatch that led into the ship’s interior and to the cabin where Intel reported the HVT was assigned.

  Caulder halted the team within view of the hatch and waited until he was sure the way was clear.

  “Delta is at set point,” Graves radioed Echo and other command elements, speaking softly with his lips next to his headset mic. “Three … two … one … execute!”

  The team, with Caulder still on point, descended in a carefully choreographed combat stack with assault rifles prepared for action from any quarter. Pure adrenaline pumping through the heart provides a high like nothing else. Their padded swim booties made scarcely a whisper. The tanker stank of diesel and man sweat. Intermittent overhead lights buzzed faintly and flickered with generator surge.

  Distant voices sounded from down an intersecting dimly lighted passageway. Caulder checked the quarterback playbook attached to his wrist and turned toward the voices. The team followed, moving through pools of shadow and light like a single organism. The voices from an unseen source muted into silence.

  Just ahead lay the cabin door—21A—where Lieutenant Fung’s Intel spooks claimed the HVT should be holed up. The plan was to grab him if he was home, wait for him if he wasn’t. So far, ISR reported him still aboard the tanker.

  A dim interior light leaked from around the edges of the door. The stack prepared for entry. Caulder pushed the unlocked door wide and immediately stepped forward and to one side to allow the rest of the team to spread into a defensive/offensive posture. A small, academic-looking, middle-aged man sitting at a desk underneath an office lamp startled and emitted an involuntary cry. He must have felt safe here, judging by the unlocked door.

  Barely had the intruders digested the sight of their presumed quarry than four burly bodyguard types entered through the door from the adjacent cabin. It must have been they whose voices Caulder heard earlier. Caught unaware, also apparently having felt their man was safe here, they reached for their weapons; the SEALs had surprise on their side.

  Graves, Caulder, and Buckley fired simultaneously with their stubby MP-7s. The smack of bullets eating flesh made louder sounds than the suppressed muzzle blasts. All four bruisers fell to the deck, their bodies all mixed up and on top of each other, blood pouring from fresh orifices. One man continued to move. Caulder finished him off with a single shot to the head. Now was neither the time nor place for Marquis of Queensbury rules. Rip Taggart could have said it best: Fuck ’em.

  The little man at the desk with a map and a drink in front of him immediately lifted his hands in surrender.

  “Those men you murdered, they had families,” he accused.

  Caulder yanked him to his feet and frisked for weapons. Graves compared his face to the photo he carried.

  “It’s him,” he confirmed.

  Caulder indicated Ebo Buhari’s drink. “Too bad you didn’t get to finish that. Laphroaig. Best Scotch in the world. I can smell it from here.”

  “I can smell you from here,” Buhari retorted.

  “That’s funny,” Caulder parried. “About as funny as that photo we have of you sucking Jewish cock.”

  That set Buhari off on a rant. “You frigging fag infidels. I’ll spoon your brains out of your skulls. I’ll—”

  Bear slammed the terrorist courier’s face against the desk, spilling his Scotch. Caulder, who could always find amusement or diversion at the most unusual times, laughed.

  “I like that,” he cheered. “‘Frigging fag infidels.’ Alliteration.”

  Buddha Ortiz and Buckley stepped outside into the passageway to cover while Caulder, Graves, and Chase secured the prisoner and swept the room for intel. They quickly shoved maps, computer laptops, cell phones, and papers into a carry bag. Buhari, afraid to move, remained where Bear had pounded his face against the desk and then zip-tied his wrists behind his back.

  Bear thrust a laminated photo of Rip Taggart into Buhari’s face. “Where is this man?” he demanded with implied threat.

  Buhari turned his head away. Caulder called out that the intel sweep was completed. “We’re good. Let’s get off the X, Bear.”

  Bear grabbed Buhari by the neck and forced him to look at Rip’s picture. “I’ll ask you again. Where is he?”

  Buhari sneered. “In the ground, by the grace of Allah.”

  Graves hooked a thumb into the courier’s eye socket. The terrorist fell out of his chair and to his knees, gagging and slobbering with pain and shock.

  Outside in the semi-dark passageway where Ortiz and Buckley had set security, one on either end of the hall, Ortiz chanced a quick look back toward Buhari’s door. What the hell was taking so long?

  He returned to his vigil just as a man, apparently another bodyguard, exited the lavatory-head from a door down the passageway. He giggled to himself while he danced and shadowboxed. White powder under his nose and in his beard provided a clue to his frivolity. The bastard was so spaced out on blow he barely knew where he was.

  His eyes seemed to pop out of their skull when he realized he wasn’t alone. This was a good way to lose a buzz.
He dived for the open door of the head. The muzzle of Buddha’s MP-7 flickered and thumped two rounds into the bodyguard’s torso before he disappeared into the head. A third shot splintered the doorjamb.

  Buddha charged forward to finish off the man. A live frag grenade, fuse sizzling, sailed out from the head and bounced down the passageway toward him. The wounded man was determined to exact revenge.

  “Grenade!” Ortiz shouted and wheeled around to haul ass. Buckley dived into Buhari’s cabin just as the grenade detonated with an eardrum-busting blast. Buddha Ortiz disappeared in black smoke and flame.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lagos, Nigeria

  Chase darted into the smoke-filled passageway and located his mentor crumpled on the deck, gagging and choking. He slung his rifle and dragged Ortiz into Buhari’s cabin. The acrid taste and odors of the grenade explosion trapped in tight quarters gave him a fit of coughing and made his eyes water, but the smoke thinned enough that he saw Ortiz had by some miracle escaped virtually unscathed except for a wrenched knee. It seemed when Buddha whirled around to run, he stumbled over a fire extinguisher left on the deck and fell flat. The shrapnel-filled blast from the grenade chewed out the bulkhead above his head.

  Dazed and momentarily in La La Land, Ortiz heard bells from the Mormon Tabernacle playing in his ears. He sat up on the cabin floor and shook his head to clear it. He looked as though he had survived a plane crash. He was scratched and nicked all over and covered with soot and insulation from the blown bulkhead. Pain in his knee caused him to wince when he moved it. Otherwise, he seemed to have retained all his parts. Except now he was pissed. If he hadn’t already wasted the cokehead who nailed him with the frag, he’d go out and shoot the bastard again.

  “I’m good, I’m good,” he assured Chase, who hovered over him.

  Caulder had been right when he proclaimed “It’s showtime!” Except he had missed the time of first curtain call. There was now no further need for sneaking and peeking. The curtain had gone up. Places, everyone!

  The tanker seemed to be overrun with Boko Haram. Through the dissipating smoke in the passageway, Graves and Caulder on watch at the door detected two armed fighters staring in at the dead man in the head and trying to figure out what went wrong. Graves nodded at Caulder. The two SEALs cut them down with bursts of fire from their suppressor-equipped weapons. Sayonara, motherfuckers. May your seventy-two virgins all be hideous.

  From farther down the hall, the muzzle of a responding AK-47 hammered frantically from a narrow passageway intersection. Rounds tore into the bulkhead inches from Graves’s face, shattering the door facing. Splinters exploded into the air and the two SEALs ducked back inside.

  “Caulder, take us out of here,” Graves called out.

  “Oh, so now you’re in a hurry.”

  Fishbait Khan’s voice came up on Bear’s comm headset. “That you guys?”

  There was no time to answer him. More fighters were rushing to the fray. As General Custer remarked at the Little Big Horn: “Damn! Where’d all these damned Indians come from?” Something big must be going down somewhere for so many Boko Haram to be aboard the ship. Navy Intel and the spy in the sky had missed something.

  Untrained guerrillas, terrorists, and others of that ilk were seldom disciplined. Rather than expose themselves to rush the door, they hid in the passageway intersection, stuck their weapons blind around the corner, and sprayed bullets, depending upon luck to score.

  Buckley joined Caulder and Graves at the door and the three of them laid down hellfire while Chase kept tabs on the prisoner and Ortiz recovered. Their bullets spanging off the steel-and-wood bulkheads caught an AK creeping out of hiding and shot it out of the shooter’s hand. The weapon skittered down the deck, its trigger mechanism smashed and a severed finger lodged inside the trigger guard. The nine-fingered victim howled like a dog passing razor blades.

  “We’re engaging multiple targets,” Graves informed Fishbait by radio. “Getting ready to move.”

  “Coming to you,” Fishbait radioed back. Apparently, the exterior element had completed its mission of destroying the ship’s communications and putting the sentries out of action.

  “Negative, negative,” Bear radioed back. “They’re throwing grenades. We’ll meet you topside.”

  In the lull resulting from the terrorist losing his weapon and his finger, Caulder scouted the cabin for an alternate way out. He discovered a door leading off the cabin opposite the one through which the four bodyguards had entered and paid for with their lives. The SEAL raid was starting to seriously stack up bodies.

  Caulder shouted, “This way!”

  The SEALs crept out the back way down an even narrower passageway with Buhari in tow and Buddha hobbling painfully along in the rear. The passage was unlighted. Only NVGs kept them oriented.

  They came upon a ladderway leading down. Caulder checked the plaque on the wall and consulted his wrist playbook. He headed down the ladder. Graves balked.

  “Down? We’re not going down.”

  “Got to go down to go up,” Caulder informed him.

  Bear cast about for a second option. From behind and beyond Buhari’s cabin came loud gunfire and hoarse, frantic shouting. Assholes must be shooting at shadows.

  Not waiting, Caulder disappeared down the ladder. Bear followed and descended into the tanker’s bowels, the rest of the team and their prisoner following.

  The ladder emptied into the engine room. The stench of diesel and stagnant seawater from leaky bilges permeated the black air. The tomb of pipes, great engines now dormant, and a maze of steel walkways as seen through the greenish hue of NVGs formed a horror Neverland where there might be monsters. The enemy had a thousand places to hide.

  Caulder checked another plate on the wall and kept moving forward, cautiously but controlled as always. No panic lived in these disciplined warriors.

  Distant shouting echoed through the pipes and air conditioning as the hunt for the intruders spread through the ship. Ortiz lagged behind to pull rear security, trying not to limp. Injuries did not preclude a team member pulling his own weight in a crisis.

  Caulder led the way up another ladder to a cluttered cabin at the top, apparently reserved for the engineman. He moved in to check it out. There was an unmade bunk in the corner with a pair of rubber boots and a set of fireman’s coveralls on the deck alongside. A nudie cutout tacked to the bulkhead was bent over with her bare butt exposed. Bear quietly relayed their location through his radio headset.

  “We’re on Bravo 204 Alpha.”

  He received only static in reply. He tried again. “Any Echo element respond.”

  Nothing came back except indecipherable garble ending in silence. They had lost comm with Echo, either because of their being encased in the steel confines of the ship or for some other reason that could not be determined.

  The passageway through which the team passed didn’t looked to be well-traveled. It dead-ended at a rusted steel door welded shut. Caulder rubbed crust off a tiny age-fogged window and peered through in his NVGs. Beyond lay a small empty cabin with a ladder off to one side. According to the ship’s drawing, the ladder led up and out onto the main deck.

  “It’s good,” he decided. “We go through the door.”

  He checked it and found it solid. “Breacher up,” he requested.

  “Buddha?” Graves hissed.

  Ortiz made his way forward, hobbling from his bum knee. Chase took the initiative and stepped ahead of him.

  “I got it,” he volunteered, then announced, “Going explosive.”

  Graves and Caulder exchanged questioning looks as the New Guy hastily began working to attach a charge to the door’s locking mechanisms, exactly as he had trained to do under Ortiz at the Kill House.

  “You gonna blow in here?” Caulder asked disbelievingly.

  Ortiz arrived and pushed Chase roughly aside. “Move!”

  He had no time to explain to the Harvard man the mechanics behind an explosion in a tigh
tly confined space. He tested the door handle and then bent over to inspect the door for weld points.

  “Get the hoolie ready,” he instructed Chase.

  He extracted a small exothermic torch from his possibles kit and began work on the door handle after turning off his NVGs to prevent being blinded. The torch emitted a bright blue hissing tongue of flame that traced a triangle cut around the door handle. Sudden shouting erupted from below the ladderway they had just climbed. Ortiz quickly extinguished the torch. Tension filled the passageway. As long as the door remained sealed, the team had no other avenue of escape except to fight their way through hostiles coming up the ladder.

  Buckley edged toward the ladder landing and peered down the dark well.

  “Any time,” Bear urged Ortiz, whispering.

  Buddha stoked up the flame and returned his attention to the door. Going through it was the only viable option. Chase stuffed a first-aid pressure bandage into Buhari’s mouth to keep him quiet and taped it in place.

  Seconds ticked by. Tension continued to mount until the flame from the torch seemed to cut deeper into their own presence than into the steel door.

  Ortiz completed the cut and pushed the doorknob through. It fell to the steel deck on the other side with a clank that seemed to reverberate throughout the ship. Damn!

  Chase hurriedly wedged a Halligan tool, a hoolie, through the opening and yanked hard on it, trying to lever the door open. Buddha gripped the handle with Chase and the two men pulled. The welded door cracked open about an inch. They kept pulling. Voices coming up the ladder grew louder. It had become a race against time—and time always won when there was a tie.

  Gunfire unexpectedly erupted from inside the room, some asshole blindly shooting through grating from the opposite side of the sealed room. Bullets pinged and ricocheted off the steel door. A moment later, Buckley opened up down the ladderway at the gunmen approaching from that quarter. Graves’s old pappy often used the expression “between a rock and a hard place” to describe a lack of choice. That was where the team found itself now—between a rock and a hard place.