Merk waded deeper to check the dorsalcams. He tested them on a smartphone screen to make sure they worked. Next, he examined the GPS tracking tags at the base of the dorsal fins and pinged them like a dating app on a satellite map of Ceebaad Island. Once confirmed the geocoords were accurate, Merk flashed a hand-sign to Tasi and Inapo. The dolphins squealed and fluked off, swimming around the north side of the island, heading toward the silhouette of the low hills and mounts of Sacadadiin Island in the near distance.
Merk waded back onshore. He sat down with the laptop and used a biometric scan of his eyes’ veins to grant access to the laptop hard drive, in-memory chip, as well as the navy’s Blue Cloud. Within seconds, he tracked the navy dolphins heading to the moored hijack ship on the other side of Sacadadiin Island off the Zeila coast. They cruised at a leisurely pace of six to seven knots, or about a third of their top swimming speed.
As he waited for the dolphins to reach the container ship, Merk took a short break. He stretched his limbs and peered up to the heavenly bodies that dotted the black dome sky. He remembered when he was a boy, he used to search the heavens for answers to his broken bond with his father, the loss of the mother he never knew. For the first time, he made the connection that he had fallen into the flypaper of another broken relationship with his love for Jenny King. It would be that way, if it lasted, until either they retired or took new jobs. For Merk, his bond with the dolphins was the glue in a relationship he coveted the most.
Merk made out the silhouette of the SEALs patrolling the middle of the island and heading toward the southern tip. He rolled on one knee and checked the progress of the dolphins. To his surprise they were swimming slower than before, at three knots an hour. Why?
He opened blowhole charts, heartbeat rates, lab results on blood samples—negative. He scanned the veterinarian’s meticulous notes for any obscure comment or observation about the physical health and well-being of either dolphin. Merk read through the food charts—mackerel, squid, herring, worm eel—and then the list on amino acids, glutathione, and nutrients with heavy doses of vitamins. Nothing leapt off the page. Were the dolphins tired? Was it something in the water? He closed out the medical fitreps and sent a Dolphin Code message directing Tasi and Inapo to split apart and swim faster to the container ship.
For the next several minutes Merk monitored the blinking GPS dots as they moved across a digital map toward the known satellite location of the box carrier Shining Star. It didn’t take long for Merk to deduce that Inapo, who swam ahead tripling his slow speed, appeared fine, and yet something was wrong with Tasi. Knowing daylight would arrive in three hours, Merk had to intervene—Tasi would never make it to the target and back to Ceebaad Island before daybreak.
He closed the laptop, stuffed it in a waterproof backpack, and sprinted to the rubber boat. Merk pushed the craft into the sea, lowered the outboard motor, and started it.
Merk guided the boat down the coast, opening the throttle, ramping up speed.
He saw Lt. Commander Kell Johnston and the SEAL sniper sprint across the island, waving him to stop, calling his name.
Merk slowed the craft and flashed a chemlight sign to Kell that one of the dolphins was down and that he would return soon. The second chemlight sign told Kell to have the SEAL extraction team at Camp Lemonnier on emergency standby.
Chapter Fifty-Two
WHEN NIGHT FELL on Berbera, Nico Gregorius climbed down from the roof of the oil storage tank. He trailed close behind the guard and, when the armed man turned the corner walking around another tank, Nico snipped a hole in the fence and slithered out.
Like a cat, he moved across the seaside city, staying low, ducking behind trees and bushes and parked vehicles when people strolled on the street or when cars drove by. In the neighborhood across from the oil facility, the CO moved through yards and houses, up one dirty street, and down a junk-strewn alley. He checked the cars—most were locked—of course, he thought. Very few people in northern Somali trusted the pirate scourge.
Then down a side street his luck changed. He found a beat up Russian-made car with the door open and the keys under the seat. He turned on the engine and drove off, noting that half a tank of gas would be enough to get him to Hargeisa. As he turned the corner onto the main road, he flipped on the headlights. Within minutes, Nico followed road signs that led to the Hargeisa-Berbera Highway, an arid stretch of roadway that would take him inland.
After traveling an hour, Nico reached the outskirts of the capital city, where he saw a haze of lights floating over Hargeisa like a halo. He pulled over and turned on his smartphone, to ensure the CIA and ONI could track his movements. He needed to see if there were any updates to the intel he sent earlier in the day. Nico clicked on a video file in the mission cloud, showing Dante Dawson meeting with Korfa.
Notes from the cash-for-hostages ransom negotiation included the geocoords of the fish processing plant in the street market, in the run-down shanty part of the city. The Danish captain had escaped, but was re-apprehended. And that Nairobi hadn’t been seen. The update was a couple of hours old. Nico drove on to the slums.
He entered the deserted alley that ran parallel with the street market, slid out, and walked on foot to the green building, where the hostages had been kept, across the alley from the fish plant. Nico took out an audioscope, unfolded the stock, inserted an earpod in his ear, and aimed the scope at the plant door. Adjusting a knob, he faded down the low alpha wave hum of the freezers and refrigerators and heard male voices speaking the local Somaliland dialect.
Nico eavesdropped not on the contents of the conversation—the CIA would decipher the recording of what they discussed—but to figure out the number of men in the room. What was he up against? Five men? Eight? A dozen? Who else was inside the plant?
He listened and noted four different male voices; perhaps one of them was Korfa. He couldn’t tell. He figured there had to be another pair of guards in or near the room, maybe more if the warlord was inside. The SEAL CO folded the stock, dismantled the audioscope, and slid it in the pack. Nico took out two pistols, holstered them, and then armed an Uzi machine gun and removed the safety latch. He stuffed an extra ammo clip inside his belt.
Nico played with the door handle and found it unlocked. That meant the pirates would use the door for an exit in case Korfa’s facility was raided. He slipped inside and saw, to his surprise, no guard stationed by the door or around the corner in the dimly lit hall. Nico followed the voices to a hidden room. A tall bookcase had been pushed aside on rails. A sliver of light fanned out from the cracks around the wood door and jamb. He put an eye to the crack by the hinge and peeked inside, moving his eyeball around until he saw the tall pirate standing by the wood table, speaking to whom he thought was Korfa.
Nico took a flash grenade from his vest, turned the doorknob ever so gently, and pulled the door back an inch. When he heard a slight creak in the doorjamb, he yanked the door open and tossed the grenade inside the room, turning his back to the door, looking away from the blinding light.
In a star-bright burst, the grenade stunned those inside, temporarily blinding the pirates.
Nico lunged into the room and ducked. Holding his eyes with one hand, the tall pirate sprayed the door with a staccato burst of gunfire with the other. Nico fired the Uzi, clipping the tall pirate in the knees and thighs, dropping him to the floor where he shrieked in pain.
Another guard at the door, who didn’t appear to be blinded by the flash, chopped the Uzi out of Nico’s hands … the guard grabbed him by the vest and whipped out a dagger … Nico pulled out a pistol and fired three shots into Korfa’s chest, blowing him out of the seat … just as the guard plunged the blade in Nico’s other arm.
Hearing footsteps of another pirate behind him, Nico spun the guard around, who took the blow of a cleaver to his neck and shoulder. Pulling the hacked guard down with him to the floor, Nico fired several rounds into the cleaver-wielding pirate. He and the squirming guard hit the floor hard. Nico pushe
d the corpse off, rolled away, got up on one knee and, through the haze of hot smoke, saw Nairobi sitting on the floor on the other side of the room. As he scrambled toward her, two simultaneous shots burst. One bullet struck Nico in the back above his kidney, dropping him to the floor. The second shot, fired by the injured Nairobi, hit the guard who entered the room behind Nico. That shot pierced the guard’s heart, killing him instantly.
Nico slumped to the floor. Dazed, he tried to gather his senses, bracing against the knifing pain, feeling strength drain from his chest and limbs. He shook his head, pulled out the Satcom, and sent a text message that Korfa was dead and that the CO was going to die with Nairobi. Hearing footsteps thumping down the hall, Nico pressed an emergency code on the Satcom, erasing its disk and wiping data clean off the in-memory chip.
As his focus became blurred, the dying SEAL CO saw the dead Korfa lying across the floor, clutching a pair of sunglasses. To Nico’s surprise, the real warlord Korfa burst into the room, aimed an AK-47 at Nairobi, and shot her dead before she could fire the next volley. Her death broke the bond with her children, who would never get to see her again, or hear her voice, or share her joy and laughter. Akello and Fathiya were motherless and didn’t know it yet.
Korfa kicked the bottom of Nico’s foot. The SEAL CO rolled over, blood streaming from his wound, his eyes rolling back in his forehead—whites. Unable to see the warlord standing over him, he could only listen.
“You shot the wrong Korfa,” the warlord said, picking up the Satcom as Nico died.
Bahdoon entered the room unarmed. He surveyed the firefight. The dead: double agent Nairobi, Korfa Double, and the US SEAL CO, among a half dozen pirates. He asked, “Korfa, what are you going to do with the American body?”
“Ransom, of course. Money, money, money. Bahdoon, you handle psy warfare. I will demand twice the ransom for the treachery the Americans committed in trying to assassinate me,” Korfa said, bristling in anger.
The guards lifted Nico’s lifeless body and slumped it in a chair. Korfa put his arm around the dead SEAL and posed for a digital picture, which Bahdoon captured on a smartphone and would then upload on a social media platform to go viral.
“This reminds me of the TV crews last week in Jaar. The show I put on with the dead children on TV was fantastic,” Bahdoon said with dark glee. “We’ll blame ISIS. The US lost the propaganda war with the drone strike. Now they’ll lose the psy war before the attack.”
“Bahdoon, remember I’m the Ferryman, not a butcher. So how are you leaving Somalia?”
“My Indian passport is waiting for me in Paris, along with an airline ticket,” he said.
“I’m heading out through Nigeria and from there as an oil trader,” Korfa said.
Chapter Fifty-Three
MERK SPED THE rubber boat tight to the dark mangrove-clad coast of Sacadadiin Island. He eyed the digital map on the laptop screen showing Inapo closing on the hijacked ship, while Tasi had just cleared the southwestern point of the island.
Swimming at fifteen knots, Inapo breached the black water, the dorsalcam capturing the broad stern of the vessel. As the dolphin approached the Shining Star, the starboard side came into view, the multicolored container boxes stacked skyward like child’s blocks. At that point, Merk made the decision to go with only one MM system conducting reconnaissance that night. What he needed to do beside fish Tasi out of the gulf was figure out why she became belabored while swimming to the target.
When the rubber boat approached within one hundred meters of Tasi, the dolphin splashed furiously. The dorsalcam view bounced around—choppy shots of the sea, the island edge, a rotating night sky. Merk cut the engine and glided over. Her dorsal fin sank below.
In full view of the Shining Star, forming a towering silhouette against the low lying horizon of Zeila bay, Merk took the chance of being spotted. He grabbed a flashlight and circled the beam around the water, looking for any sign of Tasi—foam on the surface where she thrashed about, a disturbance of air bubbles ejected from her blowhole. Some clue, but found nothing.
“Jesus Christ. C’mon, c’mon, Tasi … Where are you? …?” he muttered, frantic.
Merk moved the flashlight back and forth across the surface, and then reached for the sonar-whistle. He grasped it and, about to lower it in the water, felt a thump under the rubber boat. He looked around, and Tasi floated upside-down out from under the bow. Merk tethered a rescue line to his ankle and dove in the water. He swam to Tasi, rolled the stunned dolphin over, and began to pound her side hard, stunning her to wake up. He blew a powerful breath into her blowhole, causing her to eject water and then pinch several breaths. The dolphin came to, opening an eye, glancing around, yet she was dazed and weak.
“Tasi, I’m going to lift you up. But you need to help by jumping in the boat.” With that Merk pulled the rubber boat over, pulled the slack out of the line, holding the now short cord in his mouth, and hoisted the mammal up. Tasi fluked hard, rising up where Merk pushed her into the rubber boat. Exhausted, he hung on to the side. When his strength returned, he pulled himself into the rubber boat, sprawled flat on his back next to Tasi. He wiped water out of his face and howled like a wolf with victory.
Merk rolled the tarp over her, sliced a hole for the dorsal fin to stick through, and then headed back to Ceebaad Island, letting Inapo conduct the survey of the ship’s hull alone.
* * *
AT THE STERN of the Shining Star, Inapo broke the surface, cleared his blowhole, and dove underwater. The navy dolphin swam to inspect the vessel’s props. The massive propellers were intact, but with a lone haunting scar. A crewman from the hijacked ship had been tied to a massive blade. His hands floated gently in the current; his hair flowing upward like strands of sea-grass; his face and body bloated. A corpse to serve as a warning sign for the US Navy.
Inapo shot a burst of sonar clicks from his melon into the chest of the victim to confirm the heart was not beating. The dolphin detected no pulse, no sign of life. Inapo swam around the starboard side, panning the long hull. He found a metallic object floating beneath the surface.
Swimming by the object, the dolphin dove to the seafloor and came up under the sphere with a hard metal shell of a sea-mine. Inapo clicked the object, as the dorsalcam captured the contact spikes. The sonar feedback told the dolphin that the mine was armed. Relaying the intel back to Merk via the Dolphin Code, Inapo swam around the ship to locate more mines.
* * *
THE LOW-SCRABBLED TOPOGRAPHY of Ceebaad Island came into view. Merk opened the throttle racing the rubber boat with Tasi to the far side of the island. As the boat turned the corner, Kell Johnston and the SEAL sniper flagged Merk over. He swerved the craft around the north end of the island, shut off the engine, and glided to shore. Merk lifted the tarp and noticed Tasi was low on energy. He rolled the heavy creature over the side into the water.
Tasi drifted away. She peeked her head above the surface waiting for Merk to give instructions. He flashed the sign to stay at rest. Merk told the SEAL sniper to bring the cooler over so he could feed the dolphin, while he and Kell tracked the progress of Inapo surveying the Shining Sea. Unsure how to feed the mammal, the sniper held up a mackerel and looked at Merk for guidance.
“You know how to aim a firearm and squeeze the trigger, don’t you?” Merk said.
“Sure I do,” the SEAL sniper said, gingerly lowering the fish to Tasi’s mouth. The dolphin reached up and snatched the mackerel out of the sniper’s hand, grazing his fingers with her conical shaped teeth. Startled, the sniper stumbled backward and fell in the water.
“Toten, what’s wrong with your animal?” Kell asked.
“Don’t know. But I can’t have a liability out there with daybreak coming,” Merk said, carrying the laptop over to a storage area and placing it on another cooler of food. He typed in commands on the color-coded keyboard, opening a split-screen that showed a live shot of the dorsalcam with Inapo looping under and around a third sea-mine. The other half of the screen
showed images the system had caught earlier. Merk opened the clip of the dead crewman bound to the propeller; the first sea-mine off the starboard side; and a second mine near the bow.
“We have a murder,” Kell said, pointing at Inapo poking the corpse’s head.
“The pirates wouldn’t mine the harbor if they wanted to keep the cargo,” Merk said, carrying the laptop to the stone beach. He placed it on a rock, turned up the volume so he could hear an alert ping in case Inapo tried to contact him. He waded into the shallows and dove underwater, swimming out to Tasi.
For the next ten minutes, Merk and Tasi gently swam together, mirroring one another. They played, splashed, and frolicked; all the while he examined her from beak to tail. He felt for wounds, scrapes, gashes and sores under the belly, the most sensitive part of a dolphin’s skin, but found nothing. He ran his palms down her sides, but again didn’t find any wounds, scars, cuts, scrapes, or bruises. He eyed the dolphin; she stared back at him.
Merk wasn’t any closer to figuring out what was wrong with the MM system. Did she suffer from a virus or illness? Did the back-to-back-to-back missions exhaust her? He sloshed out of the water with Kell asking, “You find anything?”
“No. She appears clean,” he said, puzzled. “Maybe a virus.”
“Well, that’s life. Wait till you take her back to the bioteam at Camp Lemonnier.”
“‘Life’?” Merk repeated, looking at Kell, then asked, “Do you have an audioscope?” Merk waved the sniper to join them. He led the SEALs into the water, pushed the rubber boat out, handed the tarp to Kell and the sniper to unfold, and then tapped Morse code on the hull.
Tasi surfaced. She moseyed over and, with help from the SEALs, slid inside the craft. Merk and the sniper rolled Tasi on her side. He motioned Kell to aim the audioscope on the belly of the dolphin, moving the nozzle from her chest, then along the digestive tract to the tail. Merk waded around, pulled the receiver out of Kell’s ear, motioning him to aim the audioscope.
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