by Carl Bowen
At the same moment, Staff Sergeant Shepherd rose from prone position a dozen or so yards away. His bipod-mounted M240L machine gun had nothing to suppress the sound or flash as he opened fire.
The automatic weapon’s roar frightened even the bravest of the pirates. Lucky for them, Shepherd didn’t target any of the pirates specifically. He was using the thundering machine gun fire in order to corral them into the mess hall.
Shepherd stitched a few lines in the dirt around the couple of pirates who were still trying to return fire. The automatic fire drove those pirates back as well. Soon, all six remaining pirates had taken cover inside the mess hall.
One of the bravest of the pirates leaned out low with his pistol raised. He quickly squeezed off a couple of rounds at Brighton and Larssen as they approached the hatch near the center of the compound. The soldiers dove out of the way just as the shots bounced off the metal and concrete. Shepherd opened fire one more time, spraying the entire front of the mess with bullets. No one could tell if the pirate was hit or not, but he disappeared back inside and stopped firing.
Cross emerged from his cover position. “Hold fire!” he called out. Shepherd ceased fire at once. From within the longhouse came the sound of someone crying. Cross silently prayed that none of the bullets had hit any of the hostages inside — or his own men. “Anybody hit?”
“We’re good,” Brighton said as he and Larssen rose to their feet. Brighton wore a maniacal grin that was part adrenaline, part terror, and part relief.
Chief Walker emerged from the shadows. “All clear,” he said calmly. His eyes and his M4 stayed focused on the single doorway leading out of the mess. “Form up.”
There was no further aggression from inside the mess, but they could hear the six remaining pirates moving around inside. At least three of them were still armed, and none cried out as if seriously hurt.
“Sew them up, Chief,” Cross said, nodding to Walker.
Walker returned the gesture and joined Brighton and Larssen in front of the mess building. In heavily accented Somali, he ordered the men inside to throw out their weapons and come out with their hands up. A lot of fast murmuring could be heard, but no weapons or pirates emerged. Walker repeated his demand in Arabic as Brighton and Larssen silently rushed to the door and took positions on opposite sides.
Walker waited. Again, he received no response. He approached the door and produced an M84 flashbang grenade from his belt. Larssen and Brighton nodded.
Walker pulled the pin on the grenade but kept the spoon down. “Last chance,” he warned, his voice grim. He counted down slowly from five inside his head. At zero, seeing none of the pirates emerge, he shrugged.
The grenade clattered through the doorway. A bright flash exploded within. A second later, Larssen, Brighton, and Walker snaked into the building.
Cross turned toward the longhouse. With a tap on his earphone, he said, “Keep us covered, overwatch.”
“Sir,” Yamashita and Shepherd answered from their respective cover positions.
Cross approached the longhouse door to find Williams already there. He was carefully checking the bodies of the dead guards slumped over in the dark. After briefly fishing through one pirate’s pockets, he produced a key to the longhouse. The corpsman handed it to Cross, who deftly opened the padlock on the door.
“Coming in,” Cross said, pushing the door open. He led with his M4 just in case any pirates might be holed up inside with the hostages. Williams followed, equally alert.
There were no pirates inside the building. Only the terrified hostages they’d expected to find were present. Six men and two women were huddled in the back against the rear wall.
Cross thought there were supposed to be nine hostages, not eight. “Is anybody hurt?” he asked, lowering his M4.
The hostages looked back and forth at each other, then shook their heads. Some were still shivering. They were dirty and disheveled, and a few had bruises that looked to be a couple of days old.
“Clear,” came Walker’s report in Cross’s earpiece. Larssen and Brighton echoed the sentiment.
“Well done,” Cross replied to them all.
Williams slung his rifle over his shoulder and moved past Cross. “Got a man down over here,” he said. The hostages parted, revealing a prone figure at the rear of the building. The man was a dirty and covered in bruises, cuts, and dried blood.
“Is he hit?” Cross asked, his voice heavy with concern.
“No,” one of the hostages said, finding her voice. “They beat him. Every day, they hurt him for trying to call for help.”
“It’s Smithee,” Williams said. He knelt beside the man and broke out his first-aid gear. “He’s stable, but he’s in bad shape. Let me patch him up and he’ll be able to move in a little while.”
“All right,” Cross said. “Do what you can for him. We’ve only got a few minutes.”
With a hand to his earphone, Cross stepped outside. He walked toward the hatch at the heart of the camp. “Overwatch, we’re all clear here,” Cross said. “Reel in.”
Yamashita, Paxton, and Shepherd all acknowledged the order and began to head toward the rest of the team. Meanwhile, Brighton had emerged from the mess building, his combat shotgun held low and casual in front of him. He’d removed his night-vision goggles. He was all smiles as he came out, but the expression disappeared as he saw the dead pirates sprawled in the dirt between the buildings.
“The barracks is empty and the mess is all clear, Commander,” Brighton reported, eyes still on the bodies. “Chief’s talking to the pirates now.”
“How many of them are still alive?” Cross asked.
“Five,” Brighton said, making eye contact. “Shepherd iced the one taking shots at Larssen and me. The rest are fine.”
“Which one is our so-called King of the Sea?” Cross asked.
“Malik al-Bahar?” Brighton asked. “The pirates were trying to say that the dead guy inside is him, but the Chief wasn’t buying it.” He shrugged.
“The Military Intelligence guys can sort all that out,” Cross said. “Let’s just make sure we get everybody.” He pointed at the hatch. “Did they say what’s down here?”
“Store rooms and their command center,” Chief Walker said, emerging from the mess. “Beyond that is the dock in the cave down at the bottom.”
“Any more pirates left?” Cross asked. “Other than the one guarding their boat, that is.”
“They wouldn’t say,” Walker grumbled. “They’re pretty disciplined, all things considered. They wanted me to believe their leader is dead already, but two of them pointed out different corpses before they got their story straight.”
“Either you’ve got him in there —” Cross began.
“Or he’s down the hole,” Brighton finished.
“Or,” Walker said, shooting Brighton an annoyed glance, “he’s down the hole.”
“Maybe I’ll go help Williams with the hostages,” Brighton suggested, backing away quickly. Brighton went over to the hostages and began speaking to them in friendly tones.
Shepherd arrived, lugging his machine gun. “The others are just behind me, Commander,” he reported. “Should be here shortly.”
“Looks like everything’s squared away up here,” Chief Walker said. Then he nodded at the hatch. “I’ll take a couple of the boys down there and —”
“Negative,” Cross cut in. “I want you to stay and see what else you can get from the prisoners. Your Somali’s better than mine.” In fact, Cross didn’t speak Somali at all. “And make double sure we haven’t missed anybody. I’ll take two of you down with me to clean up and secure their boat. You get everybody up here ready to depart.”
Walker’s jaw line hardened. “It’s your call,” he said flatly. It was obvious that he wasn’t happy about it, but orders were orders.
Brighton was busy showing o
ff his combat shotgun to a couple of the hostages. They looked more nervous than impressed.
“I need you, Brighton,” Cross called, waving him down. “You too,” he told Larssen, as he spotted the Ranger herding five zip-cuffed Somali pirates out of the mess. Cross turned to Shepherd. “Take over. Keep them covered.”
“Sir,” Shepherd said. He grinned, hefting his M240L up as if to fire from the hip and spray the pirates at the first sign of provocation. It was a terrible firing posture, but the pirates were still intimidated. Taking his cue, Chief Walker barked at the pirates to sit. The men practically threw themselves on the ground trying to comply.
“What are the orders, sir?” Larssen asked.
“We’re going down the hole,” Cross said.
Cross reached down for the hatch. It was roughly twenty inches in diameter and opened easily. Inside, a metal shaft shot straight down into darkness. The top of the narrow ladder could be seen a few feet from the opening.
Cross nodded at Brighton. He went first, holding out his AA-12, muzzle down, in case they met any resistance while bottled up on the ladder. Cross went second, and Larssen brought up the rear. The cool air was a brief relief from the heat and humidity topside.
They made it down without incident to find a cinder-block storeroom full of food and medical supplies. It wasn’t clear whether it belonged to the recently captured World Food Program vessel or was simply part of the pirates’ private supply.
“This seems rather well stocked for a tiny island in the middle of nowhere,” Lieutenant Larssen said.
“Piracy’s good business, man,” Brighton said. “And this al-Bahar guy’s been hiding out here for years. He’s had plenty of time to do all this. I’m surprised it’s not more built up.”
Without offering his own opinion, Cross put a finger to his lips, then pointed at the door that led out of the room. The soldiers took the hint and silently moved out the door into a short hallway. Cross stepped across the hall and found a second storeroom as big as the first. Rather than food and medicine, however, this storeroom was full of crates of weapons and ammunition. They were mostly AK-47s, although there were several RPG-7s, too. Automatic pistols, Soviet-era hand grenades, and C-4 plastic explosive rounded out the rest of the inventory.
Brighton’s eyes went wide. “Good thing we caught them with their guard down,” he said.
Cross nodded soberly. He was troubled by the sheer volume of firepower present in the storeroom. There were more weapons here than the pirates they’d killed and captured above could possibly ever use. Why did they have so much? Was it just a stockpile, or was there an army of pirates they had yet to encounter? The mess and barracks up top were suitable for the small numbers they’d seen. But maybe the Shayatin al-Bahar were trying to turn their island hideaway into some sort of resupply station for more pirate bands than just their own.
No use in trying to guess, Cross decided. He signaled for his fireteam to move out. They stepped out of the storeroom and turned left, continuing down the hall.
At the end of the hallway was a much smaller room crammed with fans, flat-screen monitors, and surprisingly high-end computers. The monitors were all asleep and the computers were in power-saving mode. However, as they entered the room, a cheap motion-sensor in the ceiling brought the machines to life.
Images of the shipping lanes through the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea dominated the monitors. Differently colored dots — likely representing the different ships — blinked and moved slowly along the white lines that represented shipping lanes.
“Wow,” Cross said. He turned to Brighton. “I want this. All of it. Start copying files and . . . tracing IPs . . . or whatever.”
Brighton cocked an eyebrow, but managed to refrain from laughing in Cross’s face. Cross would be the first to admit he was no computer genius.
“How about I pull the hard drives, Commander?” Brighton offered diplomatically.
“Go for it,” Cross said. Brighton plopped down in the chair to shut the computers down.
Cross turned to Larssen. “Let’s head back to the armory and start setting the explosives,” he said. “I don’t want anybody to recover those weapons after we’re gone.”
“Sir,” Larssen said eagerly. He turned in place as Cross joined him, but suddenly flinched back.
A man stood at the other end of the hallway, pointing an AK-47 into the room. His eyes met Cross’s just as Cross realized he was there.
All in the same second, Cross raised his M4, Larssen shoved Cross aside with one hand, and the furious man opened fire with his AK-47.
Despite the snarl of rage on his face, the man fired with control. He put a single shot into Larssen’s chest and a second into Brighton’s back. Cross stumbled into a low table at Larssen’s shove.
By the time Cross had regained his balance, the shooter was rushing down the hall. The pirate’s automatic rifle was low and at the ready. Cross took cover behind the door frame and fired a couple of shots down the hall. He just missed the pirate gunman as the man dove into the weapons storeroom for cover.
Brighton gasped, groggy and breathless. He pushed himself up off the desk. “Which one of y’all just shot me?” he said.
Cross hated to take his eyes off the hallway, but he spared a quick glance at his men. Neither Larssen nor Brighton was seriously injured thanks to their ballistic armor, though they’d be feeling every bruise and cracked rib in the morning. Larssen was still gasping from having the wind knocked out of him, but there was no permanent damage. Cross didn’t even see any blood.
“Keep working on the computer,” Cross told Brighton. The sergeant nodded but shook his head a few times to clear it.
Cross looked to Larssen next. “Lieutenant, are you —”
Larssen nodded, looking more annoyed than injured. Like Cross, Larssen knew that leaving the pirate alone in that armory was one of the worst things they could do. “Go,” Larssen croaked, finally getting his wind back. He struggled to stand. “I’m right behind you.”
“No, cover Brighton,” Cross said firmly. “I’ll be right back.”
Cross drew out an M84 flashbang and removed the pin. He peeked out into the hall, hoping to surprise the pirate before the man had a chance to dig out one of the more lethal fragmentation grenades from the armory. If the pirate chucked one of those down the hall, Cross and his men were done for. But as Cross spied out the doorway, he saw that the pirate hadn’t realized his advantage. Instead of picking up a grenade, he’d opted for grabbing a second AK-47. He was emerging from the armory with a machine gun tucked under each arm like an action movie hero.
The pirate hustled backward toward the door at the far end of the hallway. When he saw Cross peek around the door, the man opened fire with both guns, filling the hall with flying lead.
Most of the shots went wide from the less-than-stable double firing positions, but Cross ducked back reflexively anyway. Without looking, Cross flung his flashbang over his shoulder and down the hall.
The burst disoriented the gunman and put a stop to his wild spray of fire. It didn’t do enough to incapacitate him, though, as he bumped and staggered the rest of the way to the far door. Although he had to drop one of the machine guns to do it, he pulled the door open and fled.
Cross threw one last glance to confirm that Brighton and Larssen were okay. Then he charged out the door in pursuit of his prey.
Cross expected machine gun fire to greet him as he exited the room. However, all he found was a discarded empty magazine, indicating that the pirate had at least reloaded before moving on.
Cross moved quickly, his eyes darting left and right. Ahead of him lay a stone stairway that zigzagged down through the island’s interior. Cross peeked down through the central stairwell. The pirate’s running footsteps echoed up from the bottom.
Cross only saw the pirate’s shadow when the man reached the bottom level. Howe
ver, the shadow passed out of sight before Cross could even think to throw a second flashbang.
There was no option but to plunge ahead after him.
Cross broke into a controlled sprint. “Overwatch!” he said with a tap on his earphone. “I’m flushing a hostile out the bottom of the cliff! Tell me if he tries to make for the sea!”
“Sir,” Yamashita answered calmly.
Running as fast as he could while keeping his breathing calm, Cross reached the bottom of the stairs. An open doorway was between him and his prey.
Cross resisted the instinct to just barrel through the door and continue the chase. Instead, he kicked it open from the side, then immediately took cover behind the wall next to the doorframe.
That flash of caution saved Cross, as the fleeing pirate had been waiting a dozen feet back for Cross to appear. With a shouted curse in Somali, the pirate opened fire the moment the door swung open.
Bullet by bullet, a full clip of ammo ripped into the walls and the stairs behind Cross. The pirate kept firing at full auto until his AK-47 finally clipped out.
At that moment, Cross popped around the corner.
Cross shot back in the direction where he thought the pirate would be. The bullet hit the pirate in the arm. Cross saw the pirate drop his rifle and turn to flee.
As Cross gave chase, he realized he’d emerged into a cave that had to be somewhere near sea level. Electric generators, tools, and barrels of fuel filled half the space. Cross could hear the sound of the ocean in the direction he was running, as well as the revving of a boat engine.
Cross picked up speed as he exited the mouth of the cave. It led into a much broader cave that opened directly to the sea. A metal catwalk ran to a dock where the pirates’ mother ship was just beginning to pull away.