The Pirate Hunters ph-1

by Mack Maloney

  By the time the Filipino captain got off the radio, all ten members of his deck crew had been subdued. They were made to kneel against the starboard railing, hands on their heads, facing out to sea.

  One pirate appeared on the bridge. He began waving his gun around, making it clear that he wanted the captain to open the ship’s safe. The Mindanao Star had just offloaded twenty tons of tuna in Oman and had been paid in cash: $46,000 that was soon in the pirates’ hands.

  The pirate then led the captain down to the main deck to join the other crewmen. Speaking in Filipino, the captain repeated to his men what the French naval officer had told him. Stay calm. We won’t get hurt. Let them do what they want. He added an apology for not knowing better than to fall for the hijackers’ simple ruse.

  As two of the pirates kept the crew under guard, two others went below to the ship’s hold. It was full of freshly caught bigeye waiting to be rough filleted, a process in which the heads and tails were chopped off with long machete-type knives, and their bodies placed on large industrial-size cutting machines.

  The eight-man cutting crew, involved in the noisy operation, was not aware of what was happening up on deck. They were surprised to see the two black men climb down into the cutting room waving machine guns at them.

  The pirates made the cutting crew stand along the bulkhead and proceeded to rob them of their valuables. Then one pirate demanded to see their footlockers, located at the far end of the cutting room. The pirates thoroughly searched the lockers, finally coming away with a heavy white plastic bag.

  The pirates found an empty crate and started filling it with the long tuna knives. They also took the cutting crew’s supply of industrial earmuffs. The cutting crew was led up onto the deck and lined up with the others.

  There was a long discussion among the four gunmen. It was as if they were waiting for something. That’s when another vessel suddenly appeared out of the night and came alongside the Mindanao Star.

  At first the Filipino captain thought it was the French warship, improbably arriving even before its helicopter, and much sooner than expected. But as the vessel drew closer, he realized it was actually a large sea-going tug, newly painted black and red. The pirates waved to people on the tug, and they waved back. Collaborators…

  This made sense in a way, the captain thought. Maybe the pirates planned to use the tug to tow them back to Somalia, just as the French officer had told him. And while he had no desire to take the next two weeks off waiting for his company to ransom back the ship, he supposed there were worse things to do in the world.

  He was about to relay these feelings to his men when, without warning, the pirates began firing their guns into the backs of the crew. Some of the victims fell over the railing and others slumped to the deck, bleeding.

  The captain, who was at the end of the line, got up and started running.

  Two pirates gave chase. The terrified captain scrambled up the foredeck ladder, quickly reaching the bridge, where he grabbed the radio microphone, pushed the IDF button, and started screaming: “Mayday! Mayday!”

  The same French naval officer came on the line. He asked the captain for his position — but the captain ignored him.

  Instead he began yelling: “They are killing us!”

  As this was happening, the other pirates waved the tug closer. One of the gunmen held up the crate containing the knives and a dozen industrial earmuffs and shook it like it was a prize of war, causing the people on the tug to cheer. The other did the same with the white plastic bag, getting more cheers from the tug. They passed their booty over to people on the tug and then found the gas can the trawler crew had filled for their motorboat. After splashing the gas around the trawler, they lit a Bic lighter and threw it on the deck. The gas exploded instantly. In seconds, flames were spreading around the ship.

  That’s when the two other pirates finally caught up to the captain. They fired at him through the bridge window. An explosion of glass and bullets hit the officer like a broadside. He fell to the deck, bleeding profusely from multiple wounds as the two pirates joined their colleagues in jumping off the burning ship to the waiting tug.

  The captain still held on to the microphone.

  “They’ve killed us,” he gasped into it, using his last breath. “We are all dead… ”

  * * *

  The captain of the Danish cargo ship Dolphin had been following the Mindanao Star drama on his ship-to-ship radio.

  He was ninety miles off the Yemeni coast, heading toward the Suez, and only about twenty miles from where the Filipino fishing boat had been attacked.

  His 255-foot ship was bound from South Africa to Malta, its hold filled mostly with cheap furniture and off-brand computers and TVs. The seas had been growing around them, as a weather front was moving in. Waves were cresting at six feet, and every few minutes, the freighter was drenched by a rain squall.

  The captain had hoped the unsettled conditions would give him protection against pirates known to frequent this area, but thirty minutes after the last broadcast from the Filipino trawler, one of the Dolphin’s crew members spotted two small speedboats fast approaching from the starboard side.

  Counting on bad weather to deter the pirates had been a foolish decision. But unlike the crew on the Mindanao Star, the Dolphin’s captain was prepared.

  He blew the ship’s fire alarm four times. This was the predetermined signal for his crew that a pirate attack was in the offing.

  The twenty-two men on board went to their trouble stations. Eight reported to the engine room, the most important place on any ship in an emergency. Four more reported to the bridge, charged with turning the freighter around and laying on speed in an effort to outrun the pirates. The rest manned the fire hoses.

  Of these, the captain took his five best men and went down to the foredeck. Here, wrapped in a cotton bag and sealed inside a life raft trunk, was his secret weapon.

  It was called an LRAD, for long-range acoustic device. It was a round piece of hardware, similar in appearance to a large black frying pan. When activated it could produce a noise similar to that of a smoke detector, but at 145 decibels — enough to cause permanent ear damage. This sound could be directed at targets up to 900 feet away.

  The captain and crew set the LRAD on its tripod and attached its power cable. By this time the speedboats were within a quarter mile of the ship. Even though the Dolphin had turned 180 degrees and poured on the speed, the pirates continued to gain — fast.

  On the captain’s signal, the crew put their fingers in their ears and he turned on the LRAD. Its sound was instantly loud and painful, even though the majority of it was being directed at the oncoming pirates. The captain put on his night-vision goggles, focusing them on the pair of speedboats. But he was puzzled to see that the men driving the speedboats didn’t seem disoriented. Nor had they slowed their approach one bit.

  He zoomed in and was disheartened to see the pirates were wearing industrial earmuffs.

  “Why are they picking on us?” one of the crewmen asked the captain anxiously. “We got nothing in our hold but junk.”

  The captain ignored his question. He pushed the man out of the way, ran up to the bridge, and finally sent out a Mayday. The same French warship that had communicated with the Mindanao Star received his call. It was approximately twenty-eight miles from the Dolphin’s position but was adjusting its course and coming to the ship’s aid. It also had just launched its helicopter.

  “Just stay calm,” the French officer said. “The pirates will not harm you. Just give them what they want. If they hijack you, you will be taken…”

  But the Dolphin’s captain cut him off. “That’s what you told the Filipinos,” he said. “And look where it got them.”

  He threw the radio mic across the room and ran back down to the deck. The speedboats were just 100 feet off his starboard bow and still coming fast. He ordered two crewmen to ready the nearest fire hose, the anti-pirate weapon of last resort.

  He tur
ned to say something to one of these men when he saw a bubble of blood shoot out of the man’s nose. Another bloody bubble was gurgling from his mouth. The captain’s first thought was that the LRAD had burst something inside the crewman’s head.

  Only when the man pitched forward and landed face first on the cold, hard deck did the captain realize what was happening. Behind him were four young black men with machine guns. They had stolen aboard the ship from the stern while everyone’s attention had been drawn to the pair of speedboats threatening from the front.

  All four pirates were wearing industrial earmuffs.

  The two original speedboats then pulled around to the back of the ship and fired rocket-propelled grenades directly at the rudder, blowing it off the ship and damaging the propellers in the process.

  At this point, about half of the Dolphin’s crew jumped over the side, either to swim or drown. There was no other choice.

  The pirates rounded up the rest of the crew and lined them up on the railing. There were soon eight armed men on the Dolphin’s deck. While two held guns on the crew, two others ransacked the captain’s quarters, taking $4,000 from the ship’s safe along with the captain’s personal valuables.

  The other four pirates went below. One soon reappeared with a handful of large-caliber bullets, causing the other pirates to let out a whoop of triumph.

  One of the pirates walked up to the captain. He was holding a long machete-type knife. He stood nose to nose with the ship’s commanding officer, looking him up and down. He commented on the captain’s massive gold ring, worn on his right pinky finger. Then he took the captain’s night-vision goggles from around his neck.

  In thickly accented English, the pirate said: “Your things will fit me just fine.”

  * * *

  By the time the French warship launched its refueled helicopter and reached the last reported position of the Mindanao Star, all that was left of the trawler was a smoky oil slick and some bobbing wreckage. The copter circled the area for five minutes, but spotted no bodies, no survivors.

  It had turned back to its ship and landed — but no sooner was it down when the news arrived that a Danish ship close by also was being attacked by pirates. Not hijacked. Attacked.

  The helicopter took off again and headed for the Dolphin. The copter’s crew tried hailing the Danish cargo carrier many times on the way, but to no avail.

  When the helicopter reached the Dolphin, it found the vessel still afloat but obviously not under control. Three armed crewmen rappelled down to the ship and searched it thoroughly. They discovered that while the cargo of cheap furniture and electronics was intact, there was a large empty space in the hold, as if something had been taken. Also, the ship’s bridge had been stripped of its GPS system, its satellite phones, its fax machine and its weather computer.

  Blood just about covered the foredeck, but the French sailors could find no sign of the crew.

  Retrieving its men, the helicopter once again turned back to its ship. The French had been doing anti-pirate duty in these waters for more than a year, and while they’d seen their share of incidents, they were always just hijacking attempts — not willful killings or the intentional sinking of ships. These things were firsts.

  In just one night, the pirate problem in the Gulf of Aden had become a lot more dangerous.

  3

  The next night

  0100 hours

  The Global Warrior was way off course.

  It was sailing 425 miles east of Somalia, heading for the Gulf of Aden. One of its engines had been disabled, so it was moving at barely half speed and drifting more with each passing hour.

  The immense, 720-foot cargo carrier had sent a message to officials of the Suez Canal Authority earlier in the night. Its scheduled transit of the waterway in two days would have to be delayed due to its propulsion problems. This was troubling news.

  An Italian Navy frigate on anti-piracy patrol had contacted the ship around midnight to inform the crew that it would be without protection from pirates for at least five hours; that’s how far off the normal shipping lanes the cargo carrier had drifted. The Italian warship advised the Global Warrior that the closest vessel of any consequence was the sea-going tugboat Yabu. It suggested that if the big freighter needed any assistance, it should contact the tug.

  * * *

  In fact, the Yabu had been stalking the Global Warrior for hours, trailing fifteen miles behind it, just over the horizon. Big, powerful and fast, the Yabu was one of many sea-going tugs plying the waters of the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden — the perfect disguise for a pirate mother ship. Its crew was made up of Somali and Kenyan fishermen, handpicked from the myriad seafaring gangs along the East African coast. They’d spent the night up on deck chewing qat, the stimulant plant that grew rampant in Somalia. It was their way of getting ready for what lay ahead.

  Certain it was the only other vessel within fifty miles of the Global Warrior, by 0200 hours, the tug had drawn to within 3,000 feet of the crippled freighter. Five speedboats were lowered over the side. Two armed pirates climbed aboard each and set out toward the big cargo ship. A few of them still had blood on their clothes from the attacks the night before. The seas were calm and the moon was near full.

  Joseph Mdoobi was the chief of this small navy. A Kenyan with extensive experience on the water, he maneuvered his speedboat in front of the others and led them toward the Global Warrior. Once they were within 1,000 feet of the ship, Mdoobi signaled his men to put on their earmuffs. Seconds later, they heard, just barely, the bleating sound of an LRAD being aimed in their direction. It had no effect on them.

  Mdoobi’s speedboat was the first to reach the Global Warrior, which was limping along at barely five knots. This, too, worked to Mdoobi’s favor, as it would make it that much easier to climb onboard.

  His speedboat circled the ship once. As planned, two of his other boats shot to the front of the ship, where a gangway was partially retracted in an attempt to draw the pirates in. As the two boats approached, they were hit with spray from two fire hoses.

  Meanwhile, Mdoobi and the two other boats went around to the back of the ship and threw a grappling hook with a rope ladder attached up to the stern handrail. In seconds, his men were clambering up to the ship’s main deck.

  Mdoobi was the last to climb the rope ladder. On reaching the top, he found all his men were onboard and the crew had fled belowdecks. Three of his men were already securing the main deck; four more were ready to go below to search the cargo hold. One pirate had disconnected the LRAD, ending the annoying sound for good and allowing the others to take off their earmuffs. Another was waving to him from the bridge. Mdoobi immediately took out his sat phone and dialed his boss back on the tug.

  “All is OK,” he reported. “No problems at all.”

  * * *

  The pirate captain, Turk Kurjan, sat a quarter-mile away in the tug’s wheelhouse, watching the Global Warrior through night-vision goggles. A middle-aged Indonesian with a long scar splitting his nose in two, he wore his years at sea on his weathered face. He didn’t dress like the Somali pirates, who favored American-style ghetto chic once they had some money in their pockets. Turk always dressed in puffy rayon shirts, tight leather pants and combat boots. He wore earrings in both lobes and his head was shaved, except for a long, braided ponytail in back.

  He’d been a pirate all his adult life, not in the Gulf of Aden or off Somalia, but in and around the Java Sea. Born of a long line of pirates, he and his brother had spent years attacking ships moving through the Strait of Malacca, stealing everything from SUVs to iPods to food aid meant for tsunami victims. It had made them wealthy men.

  But with the number of ships transiting the waters of the Gulf of Aden increasing every day, Turk, the older brother, had decided to move his operations westward. He stole the tug, gathered a crew and quickly went to work. Now, flush from his deadly attacks the night before, he was ready to go for a bigger prize.

  But the Global Warrio
r was not just any victim. Turk had selected tonight’s prey very carefully. In his hold were the spoils from the previous night. From the Danish ship, not cheap furniture and brand-x computers, but five tons of 7.62mm ammunition being smuggled to Hamas on the Gaza Strip. From the Filipino fishing trawler, not tuna or fish bones, but fifty pounds of pure China White heroin, found secreted in one of the cutting crew’s footlockers.

  Turk had known about these things prior to attacking the ships because, before moving his operations to this part of the world, he had set up a network of spies that stretched from Mumbai to the Suez. Eyes and ears in just about every major port reported which ships were going where and which vessels were carrying things they shouldn’t — which, truth be told, was the majority of flagged vessels sailing these waters. Smuggling by sea was as old as seafaring itself. And so was stealing from the smugglers.

  Turk was not interested in hijacking tankers or cargo ships and becoming entangled in lengthy negotiations with their owners, just to squeeze a two-million dollar ransom out of them. He’d leave that to the Somalis. He could get twice that amount selling the valuable ammunition to the highest bidder, and probably three or four times more than that by selling the heroin to his contacts in Sicily.

  Turk was a real pirate. He didn’t hijack ships, he attacked them. He took booty, not hostages. He had just one hard-and-fast rule: Leave no witnesses in your wake.

  A slew of stolen electronics surrounded him in the wheelhouse. Sat phones, a GPS system, a ship-to-shore shortwave radio, a long-range portable radar. One supreme piece of eavesdropping equipment was the military-issue communications suite known as the ANQ-202, which could monitor the shipboard communications of just about any vessel anywhere on the globe.