"Forward berthing area, good to go."
Schmidt looked down at a few dates in a bowl and reached in, grabbing a handful. Tossing one to Sexton, he stuffed the rest of them into his mouth and chewed.
"Gross," Sexton observed with distaste. "Aren't you chewing gum?"
"Yup," Schmidt answered through a large grin. "Isssgood!"
Sexton shook his head and pointed toward the next area.
"C'mon. We got a lot of deck to cover still."
Dominic and Hahn walked carefully while below deck. This was definitely much different than an American Naval vessel. They weren't used to wandering around in dark corridors, filled with any number of tripping hazards. Dripping water was a constant problem here, too. It appeared that plumbing and engine pipes were just hemorrhaging water in places without even a modicum of concern for the possible problems this could cause.
They approached the engine room and the area just seemed to get darker as they progressed farther into the guts of the ship. At the door, they clicked on the barrel light attachments mounted to their shotguns and opened the watertight door. The room was pooled with a half-inch of water, oil and grease. There were rusted pipes and engine equipment everywhere they looked.
"Gee-eye party tonight," muttered Hahn in a light tone. Dominic chuckled.
The beams of their lights crisscrossed the room.
"Clear," Hahn announced as he saw that his half of the room was empty.
"Crates," Dominic answered, as his beam caught several large wooden crates in its luminance.
They trained their lights on the crates and carefully stepped through the pools of machine ooze, their boot soles sticking in place as they walked. Nearby, a small workbench came into view, and Hahn noticed that there were nails, a hammer, and a crowbar sitting upon its surface. Grasping hold of the latter, Hahn handed the tool to his partner. Dominic allowed his shotgun to hang from his wrist by its sling as he received the crowbar and approached the first of the crates. Jamming the crowbar into the very soft wood, Dominic easily pried open the box.
"Wood's rotting," he observed as he pulled the lid aside. Reaching into the box, he pulled out a quart can and shook it slowly. "Some kind of oil."
A small sound of splashing came from behind them and Hahn swung around quickly, throwing the beam of his weapon light across the room. A large grey rat was scurrying under a pipe.
"Aww, fucking rats!" Hahn exclaimed.
Without turning, Dominic laughed softly.
"What's the matter? Scared of Mickey Mouse?"
Hahn turned back around and put the lights back on the work at hand.
"No," he replied. "I just can't stand the filth. Grew up with those things. Didn't think I'd ever see one again."
"Ah, yes," Dominic chided. "The projects."
"Bet your ass," clarified Hahn. "Make these things look like field mice."
Dominic moved on to the next crate and easily removed its lid as well. Once the top was removed and they peered down into the box, the sound of a metal screw or washer pinged on the deck in the room somewhere behind them. A jumpy Hahn swung around again, his light catching several more rats skittering along the floor.
"God damn rats are everywhere!" he complained as the sweat began to run down his face. "C'mon, Seputa, let's hurry this shit up!"
"Relax," Dominic came back easily. "Graft said to make careful sweeps."
"Fuck Graft," answered Hahn with frustration growing. "Let's just get this done."
"Heard that," said the armorer as he peered back into the second crate. "More oil." Moving on to the third crate, he thumped the elbow of the crowbar with the heel of his palm, forcing the flat edge of the tool between the lid and the box. "Damn, if they didn't nail this one shut!" he threw out with a grunt as he levered the bar up and down. "Somebody wanted this one to stay shut."
Finally, with a great effort and a high-pitched creak that echoed in the darkness, the lid loosened, revealing a hundred nails puncturing the bottom surface of the lid. Inside the box were a mass of newspapers.
"Russian?" Hahn said as he looked down at the print and move them with his hand.
"Could be," said Dominic. "What's under them?"
Moving a bunch of the papers out of the way, they both collectively held their breath for a brief tense moment.
"What they fuck is…" began Hahn. "Is that…a…" He didn't finish the statement because Dominic was already pulling his hands and his weapon slowly away from the contents of the box as his face drained of blood.
"Don't…tough…nothing," Dominic said softly and dramatically.
"Jesus," was all Hahn could produce as he slowly grabbed for his radio and raised it to his face. Dominic spotted him out of the corner of his eye and he snapped.
"No!" Dominic slapped the radio down away from his face. "Don't use the fuckin' radio, you imbecile!"
Hahn was dumbfounded and nodded in a temporary stupor.
"S-Sorry," he apologized gently.
"Let's clear the room and get back to –" Dominic began as he turned Hahn by the shoulder. But the rest of the sentence caught in his throat as they rounded to see a crewmember standing directly in front of them, wet and filthy, and dripping in grease.
He leveled a semiautomatic weapon cleanly in their direction and put the muzzle to Dominic's forehead. The sailors raised their hands slowly in surrender.
"U.S. Navy –" started Dominic nervously, but the Iraqi pulled didn't stop to listen. He pulled the trigger. Dominic flinched, but the only sound was that of a click as the round jammed in the chamber. Dominic's eyes exploded in anger and fear. "You muth'a –"
Before the crewman can clear the chamber, Dominic slammed the man's wrist with the crowbar. The weapon popped from the man's grip as he howled in agony, the sound of bone cracking occurring as the man's wrist was shattered. The crewman partially collapsed, holding his lame hand and wailing. With quick-thinking, Dominic took the moment's opportunity to kick the man in his injured wrist with all his might. The sound of popping occurred again and, this time, the broken wrist bone protruded gruesomely through the skin, blood splattering the man's face and chest. As the Iraqi screamed, Hahn sprang to life.
"He'll alert all the others!" Hahn yelped. The crewman screamed again. "Shut the fuck up, bitch!"
With that, he put the shotgun muzzle to the man's face. Dominic kicked him in the face hard. At that moment, seemingly from nowhere, the bodyguard appeared behind them. In his hands, he grasped a heavy length of iron pipe like Barry Bonds and swung it into Hahn's back and neck, dropping him to the ground like a ragdoll. Hahn immediately struck the floor face down on top of his weapon. Dominic turned to face the attacker, but was met with the pipe in his mid-section, knocking him to the deck, his back coming to rest against one of the heavy crates. Dominic's eyes went wide in panic as he realized that he couldn't breathe.
The no-nonsense bodyguard tossed the pipe aside with a loud clattering and, ignoring the deckhand who was still screaming in agony, groveling in the grease and rusty water, he pulled a large knife from his belt behind him and lurched toward Hahn. Grabbing him by the back of his vest with his left hand, the bodyguard hoisted him off the deck. Hahn recovered just in time and thrust one leg to the ground and turned himself over, jamming the barrel of his shotgun under the chin of the large man. He pulled the trigger, but was just a second too late as the seasoned fighter looming over him managed to get himself out of harm's way. The blast from the weapon echoed through the ship's hull.
Meeks thumbed through the ship's manifest slowly and meticulously as he tried to determine what records were accurate and which entries had been doctored. Joe stood away from them as he continued to stare down the lone rider. A sudden, muffled gunshot reverberated through the ship and Joe felt his stomach jump. Aziz's eyes narrowed and he cocked his head at an odd angle toward the captain. Meeks looked up from the manifest.
"What the hell was that?"
The captain inched along the bridge's wall ledge where charts
and weather journals were stacked and his hand slipped slowly under the wooden outcropping. Joe's alert eyes saw that he was reaching for a weapon and everything suddenly made sense. Darting a look toward Aziz, he recognized the lone rider in the Suez who had shot Calen. The captain whipped around and pointed a pistol in the boarding officer's direction and pulled the trigger.
Sexton and Schmidt had just finished inspecting the forward galley when a gunshot rattled the air. Looking at each other in a moment of panic, they bolted for the door. Rounding the corner, they realized that they had no idea from where the shot originated. Standing still in a moment of indecision, Schmidt became nervous.
"Well? Where?" he shouted toward Sexton.
Looking up the stair and then toward a door to the lower hull, he blinked twice.
"This way!" he answered as he ran toward the bridge.
Hahn was momentarily startled that his blast had missed its target and he jacked another round. The bodyguard raised his knife and quickly stabbed downward. Hahn pulled his hand from the barrel of the weapon and caught the sweaty wrist of the bodyguard, holding the knifepoint at bay through great effort. Grunting and using all his weight to push the knifepoint closer toward Hahn's throat, the bodyguard did all he could to kill his adversary. He had not met another man in battle yet who could best him. This day would be different. Hahn raised his knee toward his chest and kicked the bodyguard hard in the shin below the knee. A cracking noise sounded as the large man toppled over and fell with a great thud.
Joe's face was frozen in horror as Meeks' head exploded from the gunshot. The boarding officer's limp body fell to the floor, his blood and brain matter staining the wall, desk, and manifest. Farina, in a completely unexpected move, ducked and rolled, unclipping the nine-millimeter from the dead boarding officer's thigh holster and taking cover behind the desk.
"Shit!" Joe shouted as he came back to his senses. Aziz had already run for cover past the captain and dashed into a small, windowed office off the bridge. Joe whirled around with his own pistol and took aim at the captain who continued to fire off rounds in the direction of Farina. Joe leaned to his right as he popped off two rounds, catching the captain square in the chest. The gun in the captain's hand continued to fire in all directions as his body slumped noisily to the floor. Bullets ricocheted in a few places inside the bridge before silence occurred.
As Joe squatted behind another table, he could see Farina across the room, hiding behind the desk. He put his finger to his lips and gave her a "quiet" hand gesture as he slowly and carefully raised his head to peer toward the small office. There, Aziz had picked up a radio receiver and was shouting into the microphone in Arabic.
"Set it!" he shouted. "Set it now!"
Then, in another moment of silence, Meeks' radio came to life.
"Alpha Team, this is Charlie Team!" yelped Sexton in a fury. "Shots fired! We're heading to the bridge. No response from Team Bravo!" Then, after a quick pause, "We're comin', Pigz!"
Aziz put the radio down and his head jerked toward the bridge. Through the window, he and Joe locked eyes and the Sudanese terrorist leader reached for a weapon hidden in a compartment nearby.
Thompson stood by the console with his senior staff and a few radio operators as they monitored the radio traffic on board the Samra. Directly after Sexton's transmission, MacLeod and Graft peered toward the captain with steely eyes. Thompson stared absently at the console for a long moment. Then, more shots were heard over the radio.
Turning toward MacLeod, the captain's face told the entire story.
"Get them out of there!" he implored, as would a worried father.
Without a word to Thompson, the Master Chief turned to three guards by the door and pointed to them.
"You three!" he ordered in an urgent tone. "With me!"
As they watched them depart the communications room, Graft gazed at Thompson's haggard face and placed a strong, reassuring hand upon his shoulder. Thompson eyes found his XO's face.
"We can't let any more of them die," he murmured.
"MacLeod'll get 'em out," Graft answered with assuredness.
Hahn quickly grabbed hold of the bodyguard's knife hand and twisted it by the wrist to force him to drop the blade. The bodyguard was unnaturally strong and proceeded to roll on top of Hahn in a slow arching of his back. As he turned his body and came face to face with Hahn, he head butted him twice in the face until Hahn's nose bled. Releasing his grip on the knife hand, Hahn scurried backward in a crab walk as the body scrambled easily to his feet. Limping on his injured leg, the bodyguard held the knife in an offensive stance.
Assessing the situation, Hahn could see that his weapon lay only feet away on the floor and Dominic was still grabbing long gasps of air from his broken sternum and damaged ribs. He leapt for the shotgun, but the bodyguard was as quick as a ferret and sliced through the air with his long blade, catching Hahn in the midsection. For a moment, he didn't feel anything. His hand stretched out for the weapon as the bodyguard stood back from him. Then, his vision suddenly blurred and he felt a weird warbling in his head and a ringing in his ears. He pants suddenly felt warm and he peered down. There, at his belt line, he could see in waves of panic that his intestines had begun to poke through a seven-inch-long horizontal slash. Blood was pouring from the wound and splashing the floor.
Hahn's first reaction was to clasp both hands to the wound in order to staunch the flow of blood. The innards continued to ooze through his sticky fingers and he struggled to tuck them back into his stomach wound, but to no avail.
The bodyguard stepped toward him as Hahn sank to his knees in defeat and began to whimper.
"Pig Americans…" he grunted in English.
A gunshot blast occurred and the bodyguard's chest exploded outward as blood rained down upon Hahn. The bodyguard's corpse dropped heavily to the deck. The Iraqi deckhand shrieked more loudly now as he realized that he was alone with these men. Dominic shuffled across the floor on his knees, grasping his firearm in one hand and, with his other, had wrapped his arm across his ribcage for support. Placing the weapon on the ground in the blood and grease next to him, he reached down and cradled Hahn's head.
"Buddy?" Dominic called. "I'm gonna get you outa here." He paused as Hahn's eyes began to roll back in his head. "No, no, no, Hahn!" he barked. "C'mon, look at me! Look at me, buddy!"
Hahn coughed up blood and Dominic chanced a quick glance down at his friend's midsection. He swallowed hard as he realized how extensive the wound actually was and gazed up at the ceiling for strength of will. Suddenly, Hahn's body began to convulse. Dominic looked down, his eyes wide as Hahn's eyes stared blankly up at the dim LED lights in the ceiling.
"Hahn!" was all he could manage as he attempted to steady his partner. Hahn's body continued to seizure in heart failure due his massive blood loss and Dominic teared up, unable to alleviate his suffering. Holding him until he stopped moving, Dominic listened and heard the last breath exhale from Hahn's lungs before shutting his eyes tightly and grasping his friend's hand.
"I'll remember, Hahn," Dominic said softly through clenched teeth. "I won't forget about you."
For a long moment, he stared at the ceiling, holding his friend and thinking about their many laughs together. Then, a scurrying sound occurred behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he could see that the Iraqi deckhand had gotten up and was running toward the door. Taking up his weapon, Dominic turned and fire off a blast from the shotgun, hitting the crewman. The Iraqi stumbled forward, but continued to make his way toward the portal. Another blast sent the man sprawling forward. He managed to trip through the doorway, shutting the door behind him tightly.
"Fuck!" shouted Dominic as he climbed painfully to his feet.
The rapid pop-pop-pop of the AK-47 shattered the glass between the bridge and the small office as Aziz began firing off his weapon at Joe. Farina began shouting in fear as the bullets pinged around the room. Spent shells continued to ring on the deck of the office as the Arabian Knight fi
red indiscriminately into the bridge. In a panic, Farina stood and dashed quickly across the open space toward a squatting Joe.
"No!" screamed Joe to stop her, but it was too late. The moment she entered the open space, Aziz nailed her with rapid fire and she slammed face-first into the decking, right next to Meeks' corpse. Their bodies shook as the lone rider continued to spray them with bullets. "Son-of-a—" Joe yelled through gritted teeth as he stood and fired off a few rounds toward the terrorist.
Behind Aziz, the window to the outer decks shattered and crashed down around him. Aziz stood again from his ducking position and raised his rifle to return fire. However, the muzzle was red-hot and his chamber had jammed. The click-click that sounded was a welcome noise for Joe and he stood again to fire off a few more rounds.
Aziz threw the useless weapon to the ground and turned to hop through the broken window. Joe fired and clipped him in the side directly below his armpit and Aziz tripped and fell through the opening. Regaining his footing, Aziz bounded forward toward the rail as Joe fired off another round. Then, in a moment, the lone rider had vanished, having leapt over the railing and fallen thirty feet to the ocean surface below the deck. Joe scrambled toward Farina and Meeks, but with merely a glance, Joe knew them both to be dead.
Raising the radio quickly to his mouth, he pushed the transmit button.
"Man overboard portside! Just took out Farina and Meeks!"
MacLeod and three of his guards were racing toward the tanker when, through the driving rain and rough waters, they saw something fall from the deck above.
"Looked like a body, Chief!" said the forward guard as he pointed toward the Samra.
The Master Chief's eyes darted toward the area.
"Get there now!"
The sailor turned the rudder and they ripped through the choppy waters in the RHIB. The shamal had become steadily worse over the past three hours and the senior staff sensed that the decision to go through with this mission had now possibly turned into a complete disaster.
A SEA STORY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE U.S. NAVY RESPONSE TO 9/11. Page 16