“The freighter,” he announced, “will be in the Internationally Recognized Transit Corridor. Warships will be close. Suleiman has a plan to trick the guards. If that doesn’t work, we have two dozen RPGs to convince her to slow down.” The men all nodded; this was the only way any of them had ever taken a ship, by violence and intimidation. None of them had ever boarded an armed vessel before.
Yusuf raised a hand, as if in blessing. “This may be the most dangerous hijacking any of us have done. But believe me, the ransom will make each of you a king.”
The men stood silently with hands at their sides. They were not the sort to question. If Yusuf Raage said they would be kings, they would follow and be kings.
Deg Deg was the first to break ranks, headed to the pilothouse. He released the wheel from the rope to take the dhow in hand. The others returned to their chores, chipping away rust, painting, or boiling rice or tea and rolling subaayad patties for lunch.
Suleiman and Guleed stayed behind only long enough to pat Yusuf on the shoulder. They moved to the stern to sit on weathered crates. With a blade, Suleiman showed the boy how to cut and tie cords of the new hemp rope into ladders.
Deg Deg motored toward the protected corridor that ran the length of the Gulf of Aden. Yusuf stepped to the bow with binoculars and a handheld GPS, tracking the dhow’s speed and course. The two thin men scraping rust left him alone.
Yusuf did not scan the horizon. It was too soon; the transit corridor lay thirty more miles ahead. He saw no great cargo ships on bad-weyn, just smaller Somali and Yemeni craft truly fishing, or trafficking in refugees or guns, or other pirates. He could not discern these ships’ business and had no wish to.
Yusuf lay on a warm, bunched net. He closed his eyes to rest and wonder about the secrets of the freighter that, in a few hours, he was going to seize, then sell.
Chapter 8
Camp Lemonnier
Djibouti
Jamie clapped when told he was coming on the mission. Doc went straight to work. Mouse grumbled about his losing streak at Ping-Pong.
The four set out their med rucks on the riggers’ table. Each PJ’s pack was laid out the same way: three large pockets, A, B, and C, airway, bleeding, circulation. On this op they had the advantage of knowing the injuries in advance. The issue on the ship would be to determine the severity of the burns and the extent of the paralysis, then instruct the crew how to treat them.
LB and Jamie raided the medic’s closet. LB stocked up on nonstick dressings, IV fluids, antibiotic ointment for the burns, and two catheters. Jamie filled his ruck with bags of Solu-Medrol, a corticosteroid anti-inflammatory, plus extra vials of morphine and fentanyl. Both those sailors had to be in considerable pain.
As team leader, LB belted himself into his Rhodesian vest, satellite and team radios snug to his ribs. All four PJs grabbed flight helmets, shouldered their packs and carbines. Before heading out to the choppers, LB told the team what Torres had said: that this was, in fact, a milk run. They were not headed into an isolated zone; there were no combat nor enemy lines to drop behind, no severe weather. None of them wore armor or carted extra magazines. This was not an extraction but a humanitarian mission.
“These are the jobs,” he said to Doc, Jamie, and Mouse, “the milk runs, where shit happens. Stay focused. Do the job. Get back. Let’s roll.”
They headed for the Barn door, held open by Robey. When LB passed, the young lieutenant put out a hand.
“Hoo-ya, LB.”
LB shook firmly. “If I can’t handle this one, you come and get me.”
Robey grinned. “I’ll bring hell.”
“Hoo-ya, LT.”
Quincy waited for them in an ATV cart. He smacked each on the helmet, a throwback to his football days, then drove them to the airfield and the warming MH-53s.
The tarmac radiated morning heat. Wally waited between the two choppers. LB tapped Jamie on the shoulder to come with him in Detroit 1; Doc and Mouse would follow aboard Detroit 2.
Wally approached.
Detroit 1’s jet engine whined louder, the blades flipping slowly. Wally took down his sunglasses. LB pulled off his helmet.
Over the chopper noise, LB shouted, “What?”
Wally shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You came out here to tell me nothing?”
“Torres doesn’t want you on the boat. She says send Doc.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“I said I don’t make that call. She doesn’t either. You do.”
LB grimaced at the sun blazing over the gulf. He screwed on his helmet. Wally stepped away. Before climbing into the bay of Detroit 1, LB faced Wally, standing outside the wash of the propellers, racing now and building lift.
Haphazardly, LB saluted.
In the vast cargo bay of the MH-53, LB divided the ride over the gulf into thirds.
For the opening hour he talked with Jamie about how they would diagnose and treat severe burns and a spinal injury. Jamie, in three years as a pararescueman, hadn’t yet seen a bad burn case. LB described the changes heat could work on human flesh and reviewed the distressing effects on the body’s functions. The Ukrainian cadet had been blasted by steam, so they could expect red, swollen, blistering dead skin and a raw, repellent smell. The broken back would be hard to analyze without an X-ray. They’d try to reduce the swelling in the sailor’s spine to see if his symptoms eased. Both injured would need pain relief. Neither would have control of his urine or bowels.
Lying on the vibrating floor of the big chopper in smooth air, head on his ruck, LB slept through the second hour. Jamie, always eager, stood behind the cockpit, watching the pilots and the streaking water below.
In the third hour, LB wondered about the Valnea. Torres said the ship was empty but guarded. Steaming at twelve knots instead of twenty. Operated by Russians, Romanians, Ukrainians, Filipinos, guarded by Serbs, an odd mix. And why the blatant command to ignore the ship’s cargo if it had none?
This was obviously a spook ship bound for Lebanon. No question, something big and under the radar was going on with her, big enough for word to come down through the chain of command that the PJs were to show no curiosity.
When Detroit 1’s pilot finally announced he had the freighter in visual range, LB joined Jamie behind the cockpit to peer out the windshield. The Valnea swelled out of the distance to appear just as she had in the color brochure photos, riding high, her three cranes with no cargo to loom over, baring much of her painted hull that would be below the waterline if she were running loaded. At the bow, the great bulb should have been under the surface, too, but raised a pretty wake pushing the gulf aside. Valnea seemed effortless, cruising on the vast blue. She did not look wounded.
The two copters circled the ship while Detroit 1’s pilot hailed her. In lightly accented English, the Valnea answered, taking instructions for the chopper’s approach. The vessel would maintain course and speed.
Jamie and LB climbed into their med rucks and M4s. Detroit 1 leaned back to slow and match the freighter’s speed. The chopper crept up from behind while Detroit 2 kept pace a hundred yards to the right. LB tested the fast rope, tugging hard where it attached to the MH-53’s frame.
The pilot bled off altitude, closing the distance to the peak of the ship’s great superstructure, a six-story white building. LB peered into the sooty maw of the Valnea’s smokestack behind the wide pilothouse. Left and right, steel wings extended from the superstructure. Detroit 1 descended, settling in above the starboard wing.
The chopper’s pilot murmured in LB’s helmet, “LZ is below.”
LB answered, “Roger that.” He and Jamie unhooked from the intercom to plug into their team comm. Both PJs radio-checked.
Jamie kicked the fat green rope out the door. The line snapped taut, with its bottom half coiled on the wing’s deck twenty yards below. The wheelhouse door struggled to open against the prop wash; two sailors pushed their way out to watch the giant helicopter hover beside the smokestack. The
MH-53’s downward gale pushed them back against the door.
LB gave Detroit 1’s pilots an okay signal. He gripped the rope with gloved hands, pinched it between his boots, and slid down to the Valnea. On deck, he held the line taut for Jamie. When both were down, the rope was reeled back in by the chopper’s flight engineer. LB and Jamie knelt to keep from being blown overboard while Detroit 1 backed away.
With the big chopper beating into position to join Detroit 2 alongside the ship, the two sailors walked forward. The shorter one, blond and pasty, sported a potbelly. The taller man approached lean and blackbird dark, a white captain’s hat on his head.
The tall one reached out in greeting. LB shook hands, struck by the firmness of the clasp, the sinews in the arm. This was a scrawny but strong Russian.
“Pazhalusta. I am Captain Anatoly Pavelovich Drozdov.” The captain beamed down on LB, pleased. His face crinkled around a knobby, veined nose. Drozdov was, or had been, a prodigious drinker. “You are welcome aboard the Valnea. And such a dramatic arrival.”
Drozdov motioned to the heavyset sailor beside him. “This is First Mate Grisha Mikhailovich Pravdin. It was his notion to call for help.”
LB took the mate’s hand, also a memorable grasp.
“First Sergeant DiNardo. This is Staff Sergeant Dempsey.”
LB took a moment to glance around, high above the waterline of the great freighter. Forward, the boat had the length of one and a half white football fields; to the stern, another fifty yards. From the helicopter, the ship had seemed easy in the water; here on her deck, she felt anxious, tippy, missing the two thousand containers that would normally stabilize her.
A brisk breeze nudged at LB, cooler than on the tarmac at Lemonnier. Out to sea on all sides, no other vessels studded the horizon—no convoy, warship, or pirate.
Before LB could ask Drozdov to take them to the patients, Jamie tapped at his elbow. With his chin, the young PJ indicated the distant bow. There, a pair of dark figures walked the rail.
“Two of the guards we have been given.” Drozdov spoke with obvious distaste. “I do not like guns on my ship.”
LB jerked to hear a new voice at his back.
“Nor do I.”
He spun to a man taller than Drozdov, paler than the first mate, swathed in black from head to toe, an odd choice under a stark sun. The man’s torso widened to shoulders broader than LB’s. What made his statement ominous was the Zastava M21, heavy and lethal, the assault weapon of the Serbian army, hanging off his shoulder.
“This sneaky creature,” said Drozdov, indicating the guard, “is Bojan. Mr. Bojan, these are American sergeants—”
“I will take your weapons.” The Serb extended a big hand.
Jamie hooked a thumb inside the strap of his own M4. “No.”
Bojan’s hand did not waver.
“I must control all weapons on this ship. I have been given that order.”
LB stretched an arm to silence Jamie. “Mr. Bojan. Sergeant Dempsey and I are in the United States Air Force. We were invited aboard this ship, weapons and all.”
“I have no instructions for exception. Not for US Air Force. Not for no one.”
“We don’t surrender our weapons to civilians.”
“I have not been civilian very long.” Bojan lowered his meaty palm. “Please, Sergeant. The two sailors are in great pain. I do not want to put you off this ship without your help. But I will. The captain knows I have this authority.”
Drozdov bobbed his white captain’s hat to grant the point.
LB considered what he was facing. Guns in the hands of others was why Bojan had been put here in the first place. While LB didn’t embrace the notion of turning over his M4—no soldier would—he’d surely do the same in big Bojan’s place. And the Serb was right. The two injured sailors needed his and Jamie’s help and the medicines they’d brought. How could he go back to the Barn and report to Torres and Wally that he’d left a couple of Russians in agony because he refused to give up his weapon?
“It’s cool,” LB told Jamie. He unslung his own carbine, holding back only the four-inch blade under his pants leg in the holster above his boot. No one got that.
Jamie followed suit with his own M4. From his med ruck, he pulled a stashed 203 40 mm grenade launcher and a Beretta 9 mm sidearm.
LB’s jaw hung. “Dude.”
Baby-faced Jamie glared at the Serb. “I’ll want these back.”
The captain flattened a hand to his own breast. “I will be accountable for your weapons, gentlemen. You have my word, they will be returned to you.”
Bojan collected the arsenal. With a nod, he pivoted for the wheelhouse and, hardly encumbered by the guns, was gone.
Jamie spread his hands at LB. “What?”
“Nothing, Rambo.”
First Mate Grisha affably patted his belly. Neither he nor the captain gave any hint that they were the officers of a massive, seagoing puzzle.
Grisha spoke into the wind. “Mr. Bojan and his Serbs have not added personality to our long voyage.”
Jamie asked, “Are the wounded in the infirmary?”
Drozdov replied. “Come.”
Stepping inside the superstructure, both PJs shivered to a jolt of air conditioning. These former Soviets liked their air chilly. The captain sealed the door, throwing two watertight handles to stop its whistling.
The wheelhouse spread into an expanse of radar screen, dials, toggles, compasses, and monitors. Two padded leather chairs oversaw the controls. Between them the steering wheel was comically small, as if for a child’s car. A wide windshield of shaded impact glass provided a cool panorama of the distant bow and seas ahead. Behind, a map table and wooden shelves gave the bridge the feel of a library with an ocean view.
In one leather chair sat a pale, long-limbed woman. When she turned to LB, she moved with an uncoiling grace. She swung down her legs to stand and greet LB and Jamie. Her face was all angles and circles, black eyes and prominent nose, bangled earlobes, heavy eyebrows to balance a sprawling smile. She was dressed in a white linen cargo shirt over khaki pants, the clothes of a traveler. She wore her jet-black hair close to the scalp.
Drozdov escorted the two PJs to her. LB and Jamie pulled down their helmets, and the woman extended a lanky arm, striding to meet them. Her long fingers enveloped LB’s. She stood at least three inches taller.
Drozdov said, “This beautiful woman is counter to Mr. Bojan. She is our passenger. Iris, these are air force Sergeants DiNardo and Dempsey. They are pararescuemen.”
She withdrew her hand from LB’s, offering it to Jamie.
“Dobriy den’, gentlemen.”
Both PJs said, “Ma’am.”
“I very much liked your entrez. Like gods.”
LB and Jamie exchanged looks. Jamie muttered a shy “Thank you,” and let go of her hand.
LB said, “You’re Russian?”
“Yes. You have spent much time there?”
“Obviously not enough.”
“Wonderful.” She almost loomed over him. “I know you must go attend to the men. I understand they are very hurt.”
LB liked her version of English better than Drozdov’s. All the hard edges of the language were smoothed on her lips.
Jamie poked him in the back to reply.
“Yes. Yes, ma’am.”
The captain removed his billed cap. He mussed his own hair, short and black as Iris’s. He motioned both PJs to follow Grisha, then took one of the leather chairs. Iris slid into the other.
The first mate led them past the map table, into a down stairwell. One floor below the bridge, he punched the button for an elevator. The rotund officer’s eyes widened with mischief.
“She is pleasant, no?”
LB nodded. “Pleasant, yes. What do you know about her?”
“Iris Cherlina? Very little. She is passenger.”
“That’s it?”
Grisha tapped a finger to his lips. “I know what I am told. And that is nothing.”
The elevator arrived, and the door hissed aside. Inside, Grisha patted Jamie on the shoulder affably.
“Thank you, both of you, for giving your weapons to Bojan. I know this was uncomfortable. But on cargo vessels, there is a long tradition against guns. They are not wanted.”
The elevator descended slowly from F deck five floors to A. LB shrugged.
“You got pirates all over the place. Why not arm yourself?”
“We are at sea for months. Ten, twenty thousand ocean miles. We are family on this ship. We argue, make errors, like family. What does captain do with crewman who drinks too much or misses shift, who is unhappy he must be disciplined, if there are guns on board? What does captain do with crew who decides they want to take cargo for themselves and mutiny? What if man cannot stand argument with shipmate and wants to fight with gun? These are not first-time questions here in twenty-first century, you understand? These are asked by captains for many centuries.”
The elevator arrived at A deck. Grisha led them into a long wood-paneled hall without windows. The floors had been mopped spotless; every shiny surface gleamed under fluorescent lights. Captain Drozdov ran a spick-and-span ship.
Leading them to the infirmary, the mate continued, “As for pirates, listen. If we shoot at them with rifles, they will come with cannons. If we use cannons, they will use missiles. If we kill one, they will kill two. Who would want to get into bidding war with such people? We are merchant sailors. We train for seas, not guns.”
LB asked, “What about the warships?”
“Yes, if there is time to call. But understand, countries with warships in the Gulf of Aden are not coordinated. They meet once a month in hotel in Bahrain, they cooperate through online chat room. This is not proper approach to pirates.”
Jamie spoke up. “So hire guards instead. Like Bojan.”
Grisha stopped in the hall to shake a pudgy finger.
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