The Devil's Waters

by David L. Robbins

  Gripping the Serb by the wrist, he dug his other arm between the man’s splayed legs. He drew his knees in close for the fireman’s carry.

  “Never too late, pal. This is gonna hurt.”

  Bojan hissed when LB hoisted him. The Serb lay on his wounds across LB’s shoulders. Standing under the weight, LB broke into a jog. Each step drew another Serbian curse. Below, one Somali had already cleared the grappling hook and dropped to the mooring deck. The other rope ladder had no barefoot pirate on it. Bojan must have taken that one out. Two more climbed onto the first rungs. The others in the skiff held the ropes taut or kept gun barrels searching over their heads. The Valnea’s dodging did nothing to dislodge them. They, too, were being towed.

  LB freed a hand for the walkie-talkie. He hit the talk button.

  “Drozdov, DiNardo. Copy?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “A couple dozen pirates at the stern. At least one already on board, the rest on their way.”

  “What about the guards?”

  “Bojan’s down. The other two are watching the skiffs. Get your people to the engine room.”

  “Yebanat.”

  “I know. Get moving.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “The infirmary.”

  “I have not heard from Iris Cherlina.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yes, I know. Out.”

  LB crab-walked down the skinny passageway with Bojan astride his shoulders, careful not to bang the Serb’s head. The deck leveled out and did not swing the other direction. LB pictured no one at the wheel now.

  He prickled with the advent of action. This was a container ship; not a jungle, desert, or ice storm, it was unfamiliar territory. One man had already been shot. The warship’s helicopter was going to arrive too late. LB didn’t know the protocols of the Valnea, barely knew her layout. He had no plan. All he could do was protect the injured, kick himself for giving up his weapon, then letting Jamie go home on the chopper, lock himself in the engine room with Drozdov and the crew, then leave the rest to the cavalry.

  He made it through the passageway, figuring he was no more than a minute ahead of the pirates. He reached the guard stationed on port. The Serb fumbled his weapon, alarmed at the sight of Bojan across LB’s shoulders.

  “What has happened?”

  “There’s pirates on board. We gotta move. Now.”

  “Bojan.”

  “He’s been shot. There’s no time. Go get the other guard. Meet me in the infirmary. Fast.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Not yet. But we’re all gonna be if you don’t hump it. Move.” The Serb tore across the ship to the starboard rail to collect the other guard. LB ducked Bojan into the superstructure, bumping him on the steel portal. Bojan grunted, “Sergeant, I hurt enough. Really.”

  LB lurched past the infirmary, running out of steam nearing the elevator. He stabbed the down indicator, then shed Bojan to the floor.

  Lighter by two hundred pounds, Serbian blood on his shoulders, LB raced back to the infirmary. Nikita, unable to turn his strapped head toward LB bursting in, reached wildly.

  “What is going on? I heard general alarm.”

  LB pushed down the engineer’s hands. “Listen. We’re gonna move you to the engine room. Pirates are on the ship.”

  LB ignored the engineer’s spurt of questions. The man’s feet quivered while he fought down his shock. LB unclipped Nikita’s bag of anti-inflammatory, then stacked three more on his chest. He loaded the engineer with two boxes of bandage wraps for Bojan and four bags of fluids. The last thing he slapped on Nikita was the half-filled catheter bag. “Hang on to these, buddy.”

  The two black-garbed guards surged in. LB was glad to see both keeping their composure. He instructed them: “Lift this one outta here. Get him to the elevator. Take Bojan and him down to the engine room. Stay with the crew. Protect them. Got it?”

  Both nodded. One asked, pointing to the unconscious, bandaged cadet, “What about him?”

  LB held open the infirmary door, hitching a thumb down the hall at the elevator and the sagging Bojan. “I’ll bring him. You go. Go. Send the elevator back to A deck.”

  The guards lugged Nikita on his board, trailing the sheet that covered him. LB shut the infirmary door. By now, pirates were definitely crawling over the mooring deck and headed up the stairs.

  With no time to be gentle, LB stacked the remaining bags of saline and fentanyl on the cadet’s bandaged chest. The kid seemed unaware except for a flinch of the fingers. Unclipping the catheter bag from the bed, he noted that the cadet’s urine remained brownish, a sign of continued dehydration. He might not survive a long siege in the engine room, the hottest and least antiseptic place on the ship.

  LB rolled the cadet and the medical supplies in the blanket. The boy stiffened against LB’s arms sliding under him. A deep groan crossed his rounded lips.

  LB lifted the kid. He turned for the door to see it opening, with no hand free to reach for his gun or knife. He could not drop the cadet.

  Drozdov flew into the infirmary, leaving the door open.

  “Put him down, Sergeant.”

  “What?”

  “I will take him to engine room. You must go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Iris Cherlina is missing. If they find her, they will have their hostage. She is not in her room, not in accommodation. She may be again on the bow. I don’t know. But find her. Hide her. You are not on ship’s manifest. Pirates will not look for you.”

  The captain dug fast hands into the cadet’s clothes hanging on a hook. He dug out a key on a ring. He slapped this on the cot where the cadet had lain.

  “This is master key. Every lock on the ship. If you must hide, this will take you places. Now.”

  Drozdov stepped forward to extend his arms next to LB’s beneath the wrapped cadet. Tugging the cadet out of LB’s arms, he held the boy well enough, though he turned red with the burden.

  “I must speak quickly, Sergeant.”

  “Go.”

  “I do not know the secrets on this ship,” the Russian urged. “I do not know the lies of Iris Cherlina. Wed’ma, she is not just passenger. You have guessed this?”

  “It wasn’t tough.”

  “I was told, no questions.”

  “Maybe you should’ve asked a few.”

  “Too late for that. Now listen to me. The people who put her here, and Bojan, me, all the bullshit on this ship, are not going to let it stay hijacked. They will come. You have radios. You have gun. Help them. And remember.”

  “What?”

  “Someone has sabotaged the Valnea. Trust no one. They may do same to you.”

  “All right. Get bandages on Bojan fast. And make sure the kid—”

  “Grisha knows.”

  “All right, all right. Be safe.”

  “Otyebis safe. Run.”

  LB swept the master key off the cot, pocketed it, and flew out of the infirmary. He lapped his finger over the Zastava’s trigger. The elevator waited at the long end of the hall for Drozdov. Bojan, the guards, Nikita, were gone. Behind him, the captain staggered under the cadet. LB wished them all luck, and himself.

  He moved to the door leading out to the main deck. He swung the heavy portal as quickly as he dared, judging time more important than stealth. Outside, LB flattened his back to the wall, listening. High-pitched voices flitted over the ship’s hum.

  He squatted to present the smallest profile. Stepping onto the open deck, LB swerved eyes and gun together, left and right. In the narrow, dark passageway, men crept his way, Kalashnikovs at their hips. LB could take a knee and drop the first two or three, framed in the passage with nowhere to hide. That would leave a dozen more flowing up both sides of the Valnea. In a gunfight, he’d be flanked and finished in seconds. Somali pirates weren’t soldiers, but they weren’t known as cowards, despite Bojan’s disregard. The big Serb’s blood on his shoulders told him the Somalis would shoot back.

 
; Iris Cherlina. Where was she that she didn’t hear the alarms? Had the woman gone to the bow, like Drozdov said, or had she been on the stern for some reason? Did the pirates already have her—was that why she’d gone missing?

  There wasn’t time to figure any of that out now. He had to keep himself on the loose, or he’d be no help to Iris or Drozdov.

  The pirates bore down on LB’s position. Only one way to go. He drew a deep breath and came out of his crouch.

  He lit out across the open steel deck, momentarily exposed until he reached the starboard rail, banked hard left, and pelted forward. He heard nothing but his own hurtle and the ever-present whisper of the ship’s wake. LB braced for a bullet in the back. After a hundred meters, halfway to the bow, he slowed, bringing the Zastava around to check if he was pursued.

  His eyes adjusted better in the dim passage. More by motion than shape, he discerned Somalis behind him. They came his way without hurry or caution, thirty meters back, calling to each other, confident in their weapons and number. LB was maybe twenty seconds ahead of them.

  He scurried forward to the bow, not sure if the pirates had seen him in the long passageway. He stayed low, below the glow of stars across the rail.

  Reaching the open bow, he hissed Iris’s name, running beneath the steaming light past every place she might hide. He kept an eye on the rail where the pirates would emerge in moments. He considered again squaring them up in the Zastava’s sights and standing his ground. If he had Jamie with him, he’d do it. The two of them back-to-back could hold off the pirates for twenty minutes until that chopper arrived. One more time, he damned himself for being in this mess on his own.

  Iris wasn’t on the bow. LB had no more time. If the pirates had her, he was already too late. If not, she was holed up somewhere better than he could find in the next ten seconds.

  He needed to get off the open bow. Dodging hawsers, anchor rodes, and life-raft barrels, darting in and out of the shadows, LB dashed along the port rail, scanning for hiding places. The Valnea had plenty of dark crannies he could cram himself into, steel dead-ends with no back door. He needed a secure place to regroup and think, make a plan, move if discovered, not a spot for a siege.

  He couldn’t stay in the passageway. Even if he managed to keep ahead of the Somalis behind him, another pack was sure to come hunting from the other direction. He’d be caught between the two. Six more pirates waited in the pair of spotlighted skiffs roped around the ship’s nose. In minutes there’d be twenty-plus armed bandits on board, more than enough to ferret him out.

  LB had to duck out of sight. Now.

  He stood in front of the short ladder leading up to the empty cargo deck beneath the forward crane. Other than jumping overboard, the ladder was the only way out of the corridor. LB strapped the Zastava across his shoulder, then leaped up the rungs.

  On the broad cargo deck, he took in his surroundings and chances for cover. In the wide spaces between the lashing bridges, the bare deck was not a place he could hide for long. He’d be spotted minutes after the pirates got the same idea and climbed up to tramp around. LB needed a better lair.

  The answer lay just ahead, an access hatch leading down to the cargo hold. Hurrying to it, he dug into his pocket for the master key Drozdov had thrust at him a minute ago. Torres had said no curiosity. This wasn’t a violation of that order. This was survival and evasion.

  LB braked to his knees, reaching for the door’s padlock with the key.

  The lock was not there.

  In the dark, on the white deck beside the hatch cover, the lock stood opened.

  Was this where Iris was hiding, belowdecks? Did she have a master key, too?

  LB had no more time to ponder. He heaved open the hatch cover to swing his legs onto the ladder leading down. Once his head had dropped below deck level, he pulled the hatch down against its spring hinges, then spun the watertight wheel to dog it shut.

  LB flicked on the flashlight. He dropped the rest of the way down the steel ladder to a narrow metal catwalk. Working the light, he was greeted by a gigantic catacomb of rails and beams, columns, platforms, and more ladders stretching forward and aft, many stories down. A grottolike quiet reflected every step and rustle of his creep along the catwalk high above the hull.

  A second pale glow filtered from below, deep in the steel cells of the Valnea. LB found the next ladder and, shielding his flashlight behind a cupped hand, descended into the freighter’s secrets.

  Chapter 13

  Pirate skiffs

  Alongside CMA CGN Valnea

  Gulf of Aden

  The cargo ship stopped swerving. Yusuf’s skiff closed against the great hull behind the long rope, jostling over foam.

  Minutes later, the searchlight went out.

  Yusuf and his gunner kept weapons in hand, sights on the rail above. The Valnea drove ahead, droning and deafening. Yusuf’s night vision, spoiled by the spotlight, reasserted itself. Stars emerged. He left his gunner to guard the skiff and admired the constellations.

  The helmsman gunned the skiff’s engines, bending Yusuf’s knees to make him sit. The skiff angled away from the hull, away from the long gangway dropping where the boat had been. Yusuf moved to the skiff’s bow. With his onyx-handled blade he slashed the tow rope. Guleed on the other side would be cut loose. He would know they had taken the ship.

  On the descending staircase Suleiman stood, arms raised in triumph. He looked foolishly pleased with himself after so much reluctance to take on this hijacking. When Yusuf stepped onto the platform, he embraced his tol.

  “Are you all right?” he asked close to Suleiman’s ear.

  “Yes, of course. Why?”

  “All those teeth. I thought you might be in pain. I see it’s a smile.”

  Suleiman shouted, “We did it, cousin.”

  “You did it. All I did was hang on and ride.”

  “We lost only one. There was shooting. It’s safe now.”

  “What about the ship’s crew? Do we have them?”

  “We have enough.”

  On the black gulf, a white wake carved from behind the Valnea’s stern. Guleed’s skiff motored their way. The two waited on the platform for the third cousin, to circle him in their arms, then climb the stairs to the captured ship.

  Yusuf led them up the gangway. The long walk winded him and amazed him, that they had taken this massive freighter. If she’d been steaming at flank speed, Yusuf might only be nipping at the Valnea’s heels right now, flinging grappling hooks that fell short, firing rocket grenades at her, and screaming threats over the radio. They might be drowned after flipping in the vessel’s much bigger wake. Maybe shot dead by her guards or a warship’s helicopter. Or fleeing.

  Yusuf let the mystery of the Valnea’s speed go unsolved for now. He stepped onto the deck, out of his sandals, to feel her under his soles. She was his, if only until daybreak, when he anchored her off Qandala. Robow would be waiting there. The sheikh had his intentions for her, as well. But tonight, plowing the sea, Yusuf was her master.

  Suleiman took him by the arm. “I have five men on the bridge. Guleed will turn us for Qandala. I have six others out searching. Someone’s loose on the ship.”

  “Who, a guard?”

  “I don’t know. So far he’s done nothing against us. We’ll find him. I have eight more waiting in the engine room.”

  “Is the crew locked in?”

  “Most of them.”

  Suleiman sent Guleed to the pilothouse. Then he led Yusuf not to the engine room but into the accommodation. They stopped at a door with a red cross on it. Suleiman nodded to the guard he’d posted there.

  Inside sat a raven-haired man. Standing, his dented face rose as high as Yusuf’s. The man winced; some pain shot through him. He seemed unhurt. Was it a thought?

  Behind him on a cot lay a naked lad wrapped in bandages. The unconscious boy looked bad, cooked red and blistered. One bag of clear fluid fed into him, another, of dark urine, led out.

  Suleiman
motioned with the introductions. “Yusuf Raage, this is Captain Drozdov. We caught him carrying this boy to the elevator.”

  Drozdov eyed Yusuf, pushing his tongue behind his lips.

  “Yusuf Raage, the pirate. I recognize this name.”

  Yusuf inclined his brow. “How do you know me, Captain?”

  “How do the Americans say? This is not my first rodeo.”

  “I am flattered.”

  “Don’t be. You are svoloch’.”

  Yusuf folded his arms, leaning against the infirmary wall to wait.

  Drozdov translated. “Bastard.”

  “Keep that in mind. Now come with us to the engine room.”

  “No.”

  Yusuf stepped closer, assessing the captain. Drozdov seemed of Yusuf’s age, a slighter build, but alcohol kept a man thin. Powerful hands, a dark eye.

  “You have seen misery, Captain.”

  “From the likes of you, yes.”

  “Then you understand what I have to do. Suleiman. The boy.”

  Yusuf’s kinsman stepped to the cot. Before he could slide arms under the young sailor, Drozdov shoved him away. Suleiman backed off and drew his pistol.

  Drozdov asked, “Why?”

  “My cousin here can put that gun against your head outside the engine room, or this boy’s head. I prefer the boy only because he will stay quiet. But you, we do not have to carry. Your crew will come out either way, and we can go about our business. Besides, one of your guards shot one of my men. It seems fair.”

  Drozdov did not shift his defiant posture.