Commandeered (Mercury Black Authority Book 2)

by Finian Blake

  “I need to know who is going to pay for the fuel that we dumped.” An argument ensued with the four parties finally agreeing that the party in the wrong would pay for the fuel. Frank received a message on the radio to get the matter settled. He insisted that all of the cargo be removed so that it could be properly inspected. The matter was finally settled about six PM, that evening. The Russians wanted to know where their arms were. Frank jumped in the conversation.

  “I do not give a damn about your arms. You have personally inspected the full cargo certifying that they are only humanitarian supplies and you are delaying them. Just pay for our fuel and we will be on our way.” It was obvious that both of the 747’s only carried American relief supplies destined for Pakistan for the Afghan refugees, and after an extended argument the Russians grudgingly paid for the fuel. By this time the Patna was cruising through the Aegean Sea. The two seven forty sevens proceeded to Karachi, Pakistan as planned.

  The Patna had put six hundred miles between them and Trabzon before the Russians were satisfied that the missing arms were not on the aircraft. Five hundred thousand pounds of munitions had been airlifted out of Georgia and the person that signed for them had been assassinated in a State owned compound with military precision using a Russian Spetsnaz team. It was rapidly becoming obvious why she had been liquidated.

  Marc joined Noah and Frank in the galley for a cup of coffee wanting to discuss the next leg of their journey.

  “The Somalian pirates in the Red Sea have been a real pain in the ass. I understand that you have some toys for this occasion.”

  “We have night vision, star light scopes, Dragunov 7.62, AK 47, AK74, RPG 7, RPG 12 and some fragmentation grenades,” Frank smiled. “Where would you like my men?” Marc appreciated that Frank did not try to take over his security.

  “I have twenty armed men. We will concentrate on the stern and protect the wheel house. You can cover the bow. The forecastle is extra high with a protected area and its rail sits on inch and a half steel plate. Your small group should be able to cover both sides of the bow. We have some radios and hard lines for communications. Our big problem will come if they attack under cover of darkness.”

  “Marc, I forgot to mention that our small arms are silenced, and we do have some armor piercing RPG 12 launchers besides the RPG 7 launchers.” Frank had one more surprise for Marc. “The good news is that we have night vision.” He handed Marc two of the night vision goggles.

  “That is good news, Frank. We keep a personal arsenal on board, but never turn down the chance to improve it. Can you get more of the silenced weapons?”

  “We have our own gunsmith with the crew.” Frank indicated Tom at the other table. Marc went over to Tom instantly striking up a conversation.

  The only incident going through the Suez Canal was paying the toll. Adam was astounded to find that it was seventy thousand US dollars. They remained in the Great Bitter Lake for a few hours waiting for the south bound convoy to start. Adam, Frank and Anna took a water taxi to use a hard line. Marc went with them to talk to the Suez officials. He knew a few tricks and wanted the front place in the line. When the Patna came out of the canal, Marc wanted to go to full ahead wanting to get a large separation between the Patna and the other ships which were much slower. The pirates knew the schedule of the canal and placed themselves to match that timing. If the Patna had to defend herself, Marc did not want a lot of witnesses.

  Adam called the Inn finding it at a standstill with Ralph and Roger delaying their departure to Oman until they checked their instructions. Suki, Lynn and Susan were working hard to hold things together. Jeff, Sarah and Cassandra were in the studio working with Jeff on the papers. With three forgers on the job the only thing that was left to do was to work the background and that could be accomplished on the fly. Noah recognized a break when he saw one asking Roger and Ralph to deliver the finished papers to him in Karachi. Martin helped the coroner checking out the horse which was not injured. The coroner was in the process of doing autopsy on both Terri and Gregory. Adam could not bear to look at Terri after an autopsy requesting a cremation and Anna made the same request for Gregory. The markers were finished for Terri, Milo, Promise, Liz and Gregory. Susan thought to order two more markers. Adam was all of a sudden reluctant to return to the Inn. Every time he thought about the Inn, he thought about what would be missing. The thoughts of everybody at the Inn were on those aboard the Patna. The ship was at its final critical point of the voyage.

  The movie studio called arranging to send their front team to prepare for filming. Terri was one of the driving forces behind the project and without her it lost its priority. Susan reluctantly agreed to the needs of the movie studio. It would be difficult, but life must continue. Susan found it necessary to force her thoughts to business. Terri was a board member and a ten percent owner and Susan was wondering what Adam would do about that issue. Susan never gave serious thought to any of the girls dying and there was nothing in the business plan to address a death of a board member. Terri’s ten percent would bring Adam up to twenty percent and put him on equal footing with Lynn. She would have to rely on Adam being reasonable, but still and all he was entitled to Terri’s shares. Terri had two million pounds in assets besides the shares. The Knoll was Terri‘s and it was not officially part of the Inn. Adam had always been reasonable, but with Terri gone there was no guarantee. Susan decided to hear Adam’s thoughts before she made any suggestions. Adam knew that Susan would be devastated by Terri’s death. He was the father of Susan’s baby and knew that the Inn was also her life.

  Adam spoke first, “I would like to discuss a plan for the Inn. I am leaning toward making the Knoll part of the Inn. When Terri was alive, there was no question of continuity and I believe that we need to secure the overall dream. Have Lynn check out the best way to work this into the plan.” Adam had not yet included Susan on his full plans for the Refugees yet. “I do not trust the generals and I am thinking that it would be a mistake to have this group go to the Inn, or anywhere near England. Have Roger deliver Sarah and the completed papers to Karachi. I will have them leave the Refugees in different countries and have them fly directly back to the states commercially. I called Sean, he and Jeff can set everyone up in their preferred situation. Anna and I discussed things and she would prefer that they were far away from her, so I am having them look at Chicago.”

  Anna had the last message. “Tell Susan we have the help that we discussed. Six women will be coming directly to the Inn.” Adam looked at her closely. Anna explained herself, “Susan could never get enough help for full service. So, I arranged for some imports. Sarah knew several women that were tired of banging Generals for better jobs and good will. We took six of the best for full service at the Inn.” Anna and Adam didn’t want to be the reason for a delay so they cut the conversation short and joined Marc for the trip back to the ship.

  When they returned to the ship Anna took Adam to meet the girls that he just recommended to Susan. Anna pointed to the table with six women eating quietly. All six women were Gregory’s daughters by other women as a result of different affairs. He put them under the authority of the general known as Victor who used and abused them. Nina, Filipa, Irina and Lilia were strikingly beautiful but the two stand outs were, Nadia and Angela. Nadia was a six foot six raven haired Amazon she was physically strong and perfectly proportioned head to toe. She did not look extremely thin, like most extremely tall people. Nadia’s smooth natural gate was unusual for her height and she had excellent muscle tone. She was a truly beautiful woman. At four foot nine Angela was shorter than Suki with almost white blond hair. At first Noah mistook her for a young girl, but her thirty two C breasts and the rest of her figure announced that she was a woman. Angela moved with a smooth confidence that made her standout and like Suki there was Napoleon fierceness to her personality. Angela and Nadia were both combat qualified having served together in Afghanistan on a sniper team. Sarah recently had Angela, Nadia and the rest of the girls tra
nsferred to her administrative division just a few weeks ago. Because her success in Afghanistan caused the Taliban to put a bounty on her head. Both Nadia and Angela were thoroughly familiar with small arms.

  “Nadia and Angela can help with the watch at the bow. They are solid observers and crack shots.” Anna sounded as though she was thoroughly confident of the two women’s ability and Frank had to admit that the extra eyes would help plus he wanted to test Anna’s appraisal, so Adam and the ladies joined the 'Old Men' in the forecastle for the bow watch.

  The Patna proceeded to the Red Sea with security watches being set as soon as they left the canal. There were reasonably comfortable quarters in the forecastle which was equipped with both a radio and a hard line. Frank and Tom took the first watch. Mark and Ryan took the second watch. Nadia and Angela took the night watch since it was the time that they did their best work when they were in Afghanistan. The passage through the red sea went well until four in the morning. Angela using the night vision spotted a large fishing vessel a mile and a half out on the port side with two small boats on either side. Nadia spotted three smaller vessels on the starboard side. They instantly alerted the rest of the bow watch and the captain. Nadia picked up one of the Dragunov rifles with the starlight scope keeping the boats sighted in as they approached. Nadia was familiar with the Dragunov rifle having learned how to use them proficiently in sniper school and applied their use in Afghanistan frequently. Nadia spotted five men on each of the small boats with AK forty sevens and one man on each boat with a RPG 7. Frank called the captain informing him of the six vessels watching them approach the Patna stealthily to within a few hundred meters. Frank could see someone in the bow of the larger vessel with a RPG announcing to everybody on the bow crew, “We will take out the RPGs with our first shot and hit them with ours for an opener.

  Nadia went to the Starboard side of the ship to work with Anna, Adam, and Brent. Frank and Angela stayed on the port side to work with Mark, Tom and Ryan. Tom kept a RPG 12 trained on the base of the wheelhouse of the large vessel.

  Frank called the captain and received the go ahead for action. He took up the other Dragunov sighting in the man at the bow of a large fishing boat holding a RPG. Angela shot with Frank. The rifles were silenced, and the man with the RPG took the hit from both rifles flying over the side into the sea. The pirates were still not aware that they were sighted in. Angela and Frank took out three more of the armed men on deck before they knew that they were being fired upon. Everyone opened up as soon as the pirates realized that they were being targeted. Frank switched to an AK 47 and Angela went for her AK 74 and they both swept the deck of the larger vessel methodically. Since everybody was using Russian weapons and the Patna was blocking the view of each group of pirates neither group realized that the other was being targeted. The pirates thought that they would board the ship with little opposition. Tom moved down the portside with an armor piercing RPG 12 firing at the base of the wheel house of the larger boat. The rocket was armor piercing and did not at first meet heavy metal, so it did not explode until it hit the keel of the vessel. The damage was catastrophic with the explosion opening a huge hole in the bottom of the vessel forward of the engine room. The engine room flooded almost instantly and its decks were awash in a few minutes. Frank and Angela took one of the small boats with Mark and Ryan taking the other. Tom fired a RPG 7 into the boat that Mark and Ryan were targeting with catastrophic results. The four shooters targeted the final boat while Tom hit it with an RPG 7 causing the middle of the boat to disappear in a fountain of water.

  Because the Patna was between the two groups, the three boats on the starboard side did not know what happened to their mother ship and continued with their attack on the Patna. One boat took a direct hit from a RPG 7 fired by Anna and sunk. Nadia targeted their out board motors with the Dragunov rifle while Brent and Adam sprayed them with automatic fire from their AK 74s. Tom equipped the AK 74‘s with short 3 power scopes, and Adam made excellent use of them selecting targets in the third boat. Anna hit another boat with a RPG seven and that left one boat riddled with bullet holes floating in the sea. Marc had the captain do a hard turn to port and the stern of the Patna slipped over the third small boat converting it in to splinters. Marc was sure that the boat would not foul their propellers when he saw that there were no nets on board. The Patna was unique for a smaller cargo ship since it had twin props. Marc searched the sea with the night vision and was unable to detect any sign of survivors.

  Frank was proud of his crew. He waved to Nadia. The top of his head came up to her shoulder and Frank found himself talking to her chest. “That was some nice shooting.”

  “These are some well-tuned weapons,” Angela said confidently. “Why did you pick Dragunov rifles?”

  “Everybody in this corner of the world seems to use Russian weapons and we want to stay with what they will buy,” Frank said. The only country that uses American arms is Iran and the US has cut them off.” Frank explained. “Tom does our tuning and he silenced the rest of the gear. He has a nice little gun club at the Inn and we shoot there regularly. Where did you learn how to shoot?”

  “I learned in sniper school. Unlike western armies we Russians send women to Sniper School.” Nadia’s comment sounded like a boast. “I believe that it has something to do with our patience. Why didn’t you take the rifle from me?”

  “I thought that I might have to fight you for it, and you seemed to know what you were doing. Several of those shots were at six hundred meters and I believe that they were head shots.”

  “The target is smaller, but you do not have to worry about body armor. Those were not regular loads.” Nadia said approvingly.

  “Tom set us up with fragmentation rounds. They will take out a target even with a partial hit, and when you do a head shot it is a guaranteed kill.”

  Frank looked up and down her six foot six muscular frame. He was sorry that she was going on to the States, Nadia would fit in well at the Inn. He looked Angela over next and except for her blonde hair she looked to be very similar to Suki. She was short and well-muscled with an amazing body. She was not the soft woman that he normally saw picking through the racks in the clothing shops back in England. Under fire her moves were smooth and precise not letting the excitement carry her away. Her personality matched Suki’s exactly. Angela was already breaking down her weapon and looking for a cleaning kit.

  “I believe that they are in the forecastle.” Frank said.

  “What are in the forecastle,” asked Angela.

  “I’m talking about the cleaning kits. You handle that AK 74 like a surgeon.”

  “I do have to admit that I prefer the 5.45 ammunition. I weigh ninety five pounds and it is easier to stay on target and you have a nice selection here. I see that you have starlight scopes.” Angela said approvingly. “I thought that they were restricted technology. Did I hear that you have a gun club where we are going?”

  Frank did not try to disguise his surprise. “Where are you going? I thought you were going to the States.”

  “No, we are going to work for someone named Susan.” Frank brightened right away. He thought that Suki might have some new friends with similar interests. If she was going to the Inn, Frank would train both her and Nadia up for bodyguard duty. He wanted capable women to escort their female guests, and from his brief encounter with these women they were more than capable.

  The Patna turned west seventy miles after passing Bab el Mandeb. When they were past Yemen, they put their weapons away in Marc’s hide.

  Adam was on the bridge as they were coming to the Gulf of Aden heading for the Arabian Sea. “Marc you can keep the weapons and the night vision as an added bonus.”

  This was greatly appreciated by Marc. “Can you get me more of the silenced ones and more starlight equipment?”

  “That would be Frank’s area of the business.” Frank jumped into the conversation.

  “We have an export license for small amounts. My expert Tom can tune an
d silence the weapons. We also have access to low light technology. If some of your associates are interested we can train and equip some of your crews for this type of work.”

  “Why don’t you come to my cabin,” Marc showed immediate interest in the offer. “I think that I can throw some business your way.”

  Tom and Nadia struck up an animated conversation about small arms receiving an invitation to workout with the 'Old Men' after she settled in at the Inn. Tom explained about the security business and moved on to explain the business of the Inn. Nadia and Angela were completely enthused by the prospect of getting away from the generals. He found Nadia was eager to hear more also finding that Angela had a definite edge to her. She would be a true competitor for anyone. They all moved back to the galley of the Patna. The refugees would make it through in good shape. The four other women heading to the Inn kept separate from the others. The Generals kept themselves aloof from them because they did not want to associate with their merchandise, since the generals had every intention of turning them into whores.

  There were four state rooms. The Generals claimed three of them and Anna claimed the last one. Noah took a regular cabin as did the rest of his crew. Nadia and the other girls were in regular cabins on a different level. Tom and Nadia seemed to form a strong bond, since Nadia proved to be extremely knowledgeable about small arms. Frank held a strong interest in Angela. Ryan and Mark were taking bets on whether or not Tom would survive a sexual encounter with Nadia. In twenty hours they would be done with their part. The empty 747 would make a fuel stop in Manchester and deliver Frank’s crew and the six women directly to the Inn proceeding to Ontario nonstop with Noah and Anna going on to the states on the other 747, with the payment.