The Pirate Hunters ph-1

by Mack Maloney

  But it was as if someone had read their minds, because an instant later, a great crash came from the ship and a large part of the hull facing them fell open. At first they thought it was the result of the brief but vicious battle they’d just fought with the people remaining on the ship, a buckling of the lower decks or something. But then they saw this section of the hull was actually connected to a massive set of hydraulic hinges. It was supposed to open this way — courtesy of its previous owner, the Playboy of Java.

  Out from the cavity behind it came a large, sleek motor-boat, twenty feet long or more, its engine already running. It hit the water with a splash, turned a violent 180 degrees, and then headed out of the harbor at incredible speed.

  “Son of a bitch!” Crash yelled. It had all happened so fast, none of them had been able to react. “There he goes!”

  “Right under our noses!” Twitch cried.

  It was true. In the instant he glimpsed it, Nolan saw Zeek, long hair flowing, hunched over in the back of the motorboat with what looked to be about a half dozen of the Pasha’s sailors surrounding him. A seventh man was actually driving the boat. All of the sailors appeared to be armed not just with AK-47s, but with at least one rocket-propelled grenade launcher. They were creating a human shield around the Pirate King.

  Nolan, Crash and Twitch finally got their weapons up and began shooting at the motorboat, but it was quickly out of range.

  Then they heard gunfire coming from the DUS-7. The Senegals had spotted the escaping speedster and were firing at it, too. But it was swerving mightily and going too fast for them to get a good bead on it.

  Then, just as suddenly, the work copter came out of nowhere, roared over the beach and began strafing the motor-boat.

  “Fucking Batman!” Crash yelled in triumph. “Right place, right time!”

  But just as he was saying this, they saw a flash from the motorboat and a streak of light shoot up at the copter. There was another, brighter flash, and suddenly the copter began staggering in the air. The team knew what had happened: Someone on the motorboat had shot an RPG at the work copter. The missile had exploded — not inside the copter, but very close to it.

  The copter wobbled to a complete stop in midair as the motorboat roared through a hail of bullets and out of the harbor completely. Somehow the tiny aircraft flew its way down to the end of the Dustboat and made what amounted to a controlled crash landing on the back of the ship.

  “Damn!” Nolan yelled. “They got Batman.”

  The next thing Nolan knew, he was swimming. He had to get out to the Dustboat and this was the quickest way. He swam like crazy and before he could even think about it, he was being pulled up to the deck of the freighter by one of the Senegals. Crash and Twitch were right behind him.

  Nolan immediately ran to the back of the ship where the copter had come down, and saw a gruesome sight. Gunner and the other Senegals had pulled Batman from the copter, which was damaged but far from destroyed. But Batman was not in such good shape.

  The RPG had taken his left hand completely off.

  He was lying on the deck, bleeding and in shock. Gunner was trying to apply a tourniquet to the horrendous wound, but it was tough going.

  Nolan knelt down to say something to Batman, but the pilot used his one good hand to grab him by the collar instead.

  He said just one thing to Nolan: “Go kill that bastard.”

  * * *

  The work copter was leaking fuel.

  A thin slice of shrapnel from the RPG blast had torn a slight hole in a fuel line under the passenger compartment, and aviation gas was spurting from it.

  The copter’s navigation system had also been blown out, as had its GPS antenna. And its radio battery was drained to nearly zero.

  But it could still fly — and now Nolan, with Batman’s blood still on him, was strapped into the pilot’s seat. As he lifted off very unsteadily from the Dustboat, a great wash of anxiety and dread came over him.

  His head was spinning; he was almost dizzy. He couldn’t get the sight of Batman’s mangled stump out of his mind. Of all the death and violence he’d seen just that morning, this is what sickened him the most.

  He also hated flying the work copter. Hated the way it smelled; hated that he was now alone in it, unprepared, going off on what might be a one-way mission.

  But his honor was at stake, and so was the team’s. And, most of all, they needed revenge.

  He headed out to sea, hoping the glare of the rising sun would help him find a tiny speck in a very large ocean. But it was still foggy in spots, making his search more difficult. He figured Zeek probably had at least a ten-minute head start on him. The pirate’s escape boat was built for speed. In those ten minutes, he could have gone quite a ways, in any direction.

  But Nolan guessed the Pirate King would head west, toward the African mainland. So he turned the copter in that direction, becoming almost overwhelmed with the smell of the leaking fuel as he did so.

  He flew along like this for twenty minutes, but between the fog and his hands trembling on the controls, searching the water below was almost impossible. He kept losing the horizon and thinking he was turning upside down. The engine had already sputtered a couple times, and the smell of leaking fuel was growing worse.

  Then he spotted something, about 1,000 feet below. It was a body, floating atop the waves, blood leaking out of it.

  Nolan brought the copter down to a shaky hover directly over the body. It took him a few moments to realize it was actually one of the Pasha’s sailors. He’d been shot in the head.

  Nolan continued on, flying low, now through dense fog and a minute later, found another dead sailor floating in the currents. A half-mile away, he came upon a third body, and then a fourth about a mile away from that. All had been shot in the head and left to bleed into the ocean.

  Only then did Nolan realize what Zeek was doing. Just like Team Whiskey had done while nursing the Dustboat to Calzino, Zeek was gruesomely lightening his load so his getaway could be faster and his fuel could carry him farther.

  * * *

  Nolan found the fifth and sixth sailors floating about five miles to the west of the last.

  He was flying at just a hundred feet now, still furious, hands still shaking, the copter’s engine popping every few seconds, and the smell of aviation gas almost choking him.

  He finally broke out of the fog bank only to see a fusillade of tracer rounds coming at him. Before he knew it, he was looking straight up into the morning sky — strictly on instinct he’d pulled up on the copter’s controls and avoided getting perforated by about a nanosecond.

  He leveled out quickly and began shaking even worse than before. “Fuck me,” he swore. “That was close… ”

  When he looked below, he finally spotted Zeek’s boat. In fact, he’d just flown over it. And indeed, it was moving very swiftly to the west.

  Zeek was at the controls now; all but one of his loyal crew was dead and this last one was holding an AK-47. Nolan could see bloodstains and spent shell casings all over on the motor-boat’s rear deck.

  Using up the remaining bit of the copter’s radio power, Nolan called back to the DUS-7, now at least twenty-five miles to the south of him. He gave the Senegals his coordinates and told them he’d found the motorboat and was going to attack it.

  That would be the last the DUS-7 heard from him.

  Nolan had his M4 out. He checked the gun pod’s readout and swore: It had exactly four shells left in its cannon.

  He swooped down out of the sun and fired the four cannon shells at the motorboat. Only two hit, but fortunately they smashed into the boat’s engine, setting it on fire. The last remaining sailor sent another barrage of bullets Nolan’s way, but he was moving too quickly to get hit. The AK rounds passed by him harmlessly.

  He swung the copter around and lined up on the motorboat’s nose. With the gun pod empty, he stuck his M4 out the open door and squeezed the trigger. He didn’t have to move the gun; the copter was d
oing all the moving for him. He went right over the motorboat, his rounds perforating its forward deck.

  Nolan went around a third time and opened up again. This time his bullets pinged off the rear of the boat, close to where Zeek was sitting. He emptied his gun on this pass, and a few seconds later the motorboat’s engine finally blew up.

  Nolan shakily swerved the copter out of the way of the explosion. By the time he turned and made his way through the cloud of smoke and spray, he saw that the boat and the last sailor had been blown to pieces. But he could not see Zeek.

  He began a frantic search for the Pirate King, endlessly circling the wreckage, but found nothing.

  Then, out of the corner of his good eye, he saw a glint of light.

  It was yet another escape boat. Smaller, and made of rubber, it had been ejected from the motorboat and instantly inflated just seconds after the engine blew up.

  This escape boat had a remarkably large electric motor, and Zeek was at the controls. He was going west, heading for a shoreline that was now in view. Some part of terra firma was out there, the coast of Somalia perhaps, forty miles off in the haze.

  Nolan knew if he allowed Zeek to get to shore, he’d never find him.

  But what could he do?

  His gun was out of ammo. His fuel was almost gone. The radio had lost all its power and the copter’s engine sounded like it had blown a gasket or two.

  Nolan didn’t even think about it; he flew the copter about a hundred feet in front of Zeek’s boat and jumped out, falling fifty feet to the ocean. The copter chased him down, as if it was angry at him for so suddenly ending its life.

  He hit the water hard and wisely started swimming downward, not toward the surface. The copter hit a moment later, making an ungodly sound as the hot metal, the sparking electricity, and the still-spinning rotors smashed into the cold water.

  The copter followed him down, seemingly unwilling to let him get away with its murder. Nolan abruptly changed direction and started swimming sideways. He felt one of the rotor blades hit the heel of his boot, one last blow of defiance as the machine kept sinking.

  Nolan hastily kicked his way back up to the surface, breathing in a bit too soon and getting a mouthful of salt water for his effort.

  He spit out the water and took another deep breath, mostly air this time. But the salt water had gotten up under his eye patch and was stinging his eye socket mercilessly.

  Then he heard a noise behind him. He turned to see Zeek in his rubber escape boat bearing down on him.

  The pirate was coming on fast — but this is exactly what Nolan wanted.

  He drew out his combat knife, kept it below the surface. When Zeek sped by, he jabbed the knife into the boat and felt the satisfying sensation of the blade puncturing the rubber. He slashed it as deep as he could in the microsecond the opportunity allowed.

  It nearly broke Nolan’s wrist, but he was able to put a huge gash in the boat, losing the knife in the process.

  The rubber boat started losing speed almost immediately. He saw Zeek look behind him, wondering what was wrong, then discovering that his getaway craft was losing air and was on the verge of collapsing.

  Nolan actually felt a smile crack his bloody, salty face.

  This ends right now, he whispered to himself.

  He started swimming madly toward the sinking boat, and as he closed in on it, he could clearly see the terror in Zeek’s eyes. At that moment he thought that maybe Zeek, the murderous Pirate King, was actually afraid of the water. He certainly stayed aboard the collapsing raft much longer than he should have. As it deflated and it started folding in on itself, a large chunk of it caught in the dying engine’s propeller, quickly tearing the back half of the raft to pieces.

  By the time Zeek finally bailed out, Nolan was on top of him.

  Fueled by fear, Zeek became vicious. He pulled a knife and slashed wildly at Nolan, who came at him with only fists flying. Zeek wasn’t sinking, but it was obvious he couldn’t swim very well. Nolan just kept hitting him, trying to avoid his knife, then hitting him again.

  This went on for what seemed like forever, Zeek swearing at him and screaming: “You? You?” as if he had known that it would come to this.

  Finally Zeek lunged forward in an attempt to cut open Nolan’s chest, but the blade of his knife got caught in his own long, stringy, wet hair.

  When the entangled knife would not come out, Nolan saw his chance. He grabbed hold of Zeek’s collar and began pummeling him about the neck, face and head. But the pirate was stronger than he looked and he managed to get his hands up on Nolan’s face. He started to gouge out Nolan’s remaining eye. Nolan was terrified and instantly felt a rush of adrenaline. The thought of being made blind way out here gave him the extra strength he needed to push the pirate away.

  With this action, the knife finally fell out of Zeek’s hair. They both dove for it as it started to sink, and in the process, knocked heads violently.

  It was almost comical, but Zeek got the worst of it — and this allowed Nolan to grab him around the neck.

  He was exhausted, as was Zeek. But Nolan would not be denied.

  With his one free hand, he managed to grab the ends of the pirate’s two gold chains and twist them under his throat. Zeek began thrashing wildly as he realized what Nolan was doing — but it was too late. Nolan was able to wrap the chains completely around Zeek’s neck and yank them tight.

  The pirate fought back ferociously, but after a few seconds slowly began to lose strength. Nolan heard him start to gurgle.

  He screamed in the pirate’s ear: “Do you have any more brothers?”

  Zeek started wailing. “No — none!”

  That’s when Nolan used the last of his strength to pull the gold chains as tight as he could. Zeek battled mightily one last time, but then he could fight no more. A spray of blood came out of his mouth and he went limp.

  Nolan hung on, though. He didn’t loosen his grip for at least two minutes. Only when he saw Zeek had voided himself did he finally let him go.

  Then he watched as the body slowly slipped beneath the waves.

  * * *

  Nolan could barely breathe.

  He kicked off his boots, took off all his clothing except his shorts, then rolled over on his back, not sure if he could stay conscious. He was cut, he was bleeding, he had water in his lungs, and he felt like he was dying of pure exhaustion. How was he going to get out of this?

  Then he thought, what was the point in hanging on? He was out in the middle of the ocean, with no raft, nothing to cling to. The nearest land was at least thirty miles away, probably much more. He couldn’t swim it. He could barely move.

  So, was this how it was going to end? he thought.

  Drowning in the Indian Ocean…

  He lay back, gasping for breath now. The faces of his colleagues flashed before his eyes.

  Good-bye, guys…

  Then other faces from earlier in his life.

  His family. His friends. That girl he should have married. Good-bye to all…

  He closed his eyes and began to sink.

  But then he heard something pop up right beside him. He looked to his left and was stunned. It was Twitch’s Coke bottle, still capped, rising to the surface after escaping from the sinking work copter.

  Nolan actually laughed. In low morbid humor, he managed to grab the bottle and uncap it and pretend to pour the air out of it onto himself, appreciating one last time the huge cosmic joke.

  That’s when he heard a great gushing sound behind him. He turned just in time to see, incredibly, the work copter come roaring back from the depths and dramatically return to the surface.

  Nolan couldn’t believe it. He stared at the copter for the longest time, bobbing in the waves, trying to make some sense of it. The aircraft was made of lightweight materials. And the closed part of the cockpit held a fair amount of air, he supposed. Plus the fuel tank, one of the biggest things on the copter, was empty, so full of air as well.

>   But he stopped questioning it at that point and just swam over to it and hung on tight.

  It would be his lifeboat.

  27

  Italy

  Three Weeks Later

  The U.S. Navy hospital at Percino was located in the south of Italy, on a cliff overlooking the warm Mediterranean Sea.

  Though it was open to anyone serving in the Navy, it was mostly high-ranking officers who came here to recuperate from combat wounds or other medical issues.

  There were six main buildings, all designed in a faux monastery style, fitting in with their lush, scenic surroundings.

  There was a large recreation area here, too, featuring swimming pools, handball courts and a professional-size soccer field. On this warm, pleasant afternoon, a team made up of American servicemen was playing a local Italian club.

  On a terrace atop the highest building in the hospital complex, a tense meeting was about to take place. A rectangular table had been set up with an umbrella providing shade. Several pitchers of ice water and lemonade were brought out. An ashtray was also provided.

  On one side of the table sat Mikos Kilos, owner of Kilos Shipping. Beside him sat his Middle East security manager, Mark Conley, and the Kilos company attorney.

  Sitting across from them and already sweating bullets was a rear admiral representing the U.S. Navy’s Persian Gulf Fleet, a representative from the Department of Defense, and a high-ranking official from the CIA.

  One seat at the table was still empty. The others waited in uncomfortable silence for the seventh person to join them.

  Finally he appeared. Dressed in plain blue fatigues, a straw hat and sunglasses, he carried a bottle of wine and a cigarette pack in his right hand. His left arm was in a sling. Protruding from it was a wrap of heavy bandages where the left hand might be. Sticking out of the bandages was a five-inch, bright metal hook.

  Batman Bob Graves took his seat at the table. He poured himself a glass of wine, lit a cigarette that smelled suspiciously like marijuana, and then leaned back in his chair and said, “Ready when you are.”