by David DeLee
“You got a plan?” McMurphy called out.
“Nope.” Bannon reached the accommodation section. It rose four stories from the Naeem’s main deck. Attached to the port and starboard sides were exterior metal stairwells. They resembled a building’s fire escape but were painted battleship gray, not black. Their boots hitting the metal treads clanged loudly as they clamored up the steps. Stealth wasn’t a concern.
Bannon reached the bridge door at the top level first. His .45 clutched in two hands, he waited a half a beat for McMurphy to join him. Huffing, McMurphy threw his back to the wall on the opposite side of the door. He held his Sig in two hands and nodded his readiness.
Bannon charged through the door. “U.S. Coast Guard. Hands where I can see ’em!”
There were three men inside.
The captain was a thin man with dark Middle Eastern features, a narrow face, and white two-day stubble. He wore a light blue shirt with black shoulder board epilates. He held his hands high in the air, a walkie-talkie in one. Two crewmen sitting in chairs near the bridge controls did the same. Bannon crossed the room and patted the captain down while McMurphy circled around the console and loomed over the two frightened men sitting there.
“On your feet. Stand up.” He repeated the command. “Kharē hō jā’ō!”
The men stood and put their hands on their heads. McMurphy patted them down. “They’re clean.”
“We are a simple merchant ship,” the captain said. “Of course, we have no weapons.”
“No?” Bannon asked. “What was your crew using to shoot us out of the sky? Water pistols?”
“They are not my crew,” the captain insisted. “I was forced to bring them on board.”
Bannon didn’t believe a word of that. He pushed the captain around the console to join the others. “What’s your name?”
“I am Captain Karim Amar. A legitimate ship’s captain in the employ of the Oceanport Shipping Company from Durban, South Africa.”
“And I’m Santa Claus,” McMurphy said.
“Skyjack, bring us to all stop.” To Amar, Bannon said, “You’re under suspicion for transporting dangerous cargo into the United States. I want to know what it is.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Bannon shoved him into a chair. “Don’t play games with me. What is it?”
“No games. I swear. I do not know what you speak of. We have no dangerous cargo. You can check our manifest. It is on the computer.” He started to get up, but Bannon pushed him back down in the chair.
“Tell me,” Bannon said. “What is it?”
The bridge had a wide one-hundred-and-eighty degree view high over the ship’s midsection and bow deck of the surrounding ocean. Before the captain could answer Bannon, McMurphy called out, “The Bowman’s making its approach.”
“You got these three?” Bannon asked.
“In my sleep. Where are you going?”
“To take a look around.” Bannon slipped out the door and using the metal railings, slid down the four flights of stairs to the deck below. There he ducked through a passageway and proceeded into the bowels of the ship. He was curious about what the Naeem was transporting and why Grayson had been so cagey about it.
Familiar with the basic layout of a dry goods hauler, Bannon made his way quickly to the forward cargo holds. The low, cramped corridors were eerily quiet. His footfalls echoed loudly. The normal hustle of crewmen going about their day was absent as the companionways were void of people. Had Chief Johnson and his men been that good at clearing the ship? Or had the crew of the Naeem seen the writing on the walls and surrendered without further resistance.
Either way, it didn’t matter.
He could feel the ship slowing down. The vibration from the engines through the metal decking had ceased. The Bowman would be slipping up alongside the Naeem any minute and dozens of Coast Guardsmen would be onboard, securing the ship from stem to stern. The contraband, whatever it was, would be found. The threat it posed had been neutralized.
Still, Bannon’s curiosity sent him deeper into the holds. He wanted to know what it was Amar was smuggling into the U.S. What dastardly plan had been hatched, even if they had successfully thwarted it?
A bullet pinked off the bulkhead inches from his head. The gunfire boomed in the narrow chamber. He ducked, though his instinctive reaction had little to do with not getting shot. He had the shooter’s bad aim to thank for that.
He drew his .45 and jogged down the corridor toward where the shot came from, crouched and a hell of a lot more cautious than he’d been minutes earlier. He heard footsteps running on the metal plates ahead. The sound reverberated in the metal corridor. He caught sight of a figure in an all-black outfit darting through a passageway and into a cargo hold up ahead.
He reached the open passageway and stepped through.
He was rewarded with a kick in the gut that tumbled him back into the corridor. He landed on his backside with a grunt. His already bruised ribs voiced their protest at the abuse.
The figure, clad in black slacks and a billowing black top, leaped through the open passageway holding a pistol aimed at Bannon’s face in two gloved hands. “Who are you?”
Bannon hesitated for two reasons. First, realizing his adversary was a woman. Like the captain, she had dark Middle Eastern features. Her long black hair was loose and a wavy mess. She wore a black shawl that had covered her head but now only draped her shoulders. Loose bangs covered her forehead. She brushed the hair from her face. The stern look in her green eyes told him she’d have no problem pulling the trigger.
But what really struck Bannon and caused him to momentarily freeze was the woman’s more than passing resemblance to Tarakesh Sardana, his co-worker and long-time friend.
As time slowed around him, the woman’s eyes narrowed and Bannon could actually hear the creak of her slim, black leather gloves as she tightened her grip around the gun, as she began to squeeze the trigger.
Bannon twisted to his right and savagely swung his leg to the left, kicking the gun from his would-be assassin’s hands as it went off. The bullet struck a pipe releasing a billow of hot steam near his head. That was two close calls, he thought. Two too many. The woman’s gun went flying. It clattered into the bulkhead and skidded out of reach of both of them.
Before the woman had a chance to react, Bannon kicked his foot straight out, crippling her knee. It popped. She cried out and went down on her good knee. He scrambled to his feet but was quickly doubled when she swung her arm up, delivering a vicious karate chop to his manhood. He cupped himself and dropped to his knees. The woman swung a fist at his face. He blocked it with his arm. She connected with a follow up punch that landed from the opposite side.
Between the cheap shot and the well-placed punch to his jaw, Bannon saw stars—again. He twisted, putting his arm out to arrest his fall. He spit blood and cursed.
The woman used the open passageway to pull herself up to her feet. She turned and awkwardly limped into the cargo hold.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Bannon scrambled to his feet and hobbled after her.
The hold was filled with cars. Rows of them, parked. Brand new luxury BMWs.
He lost sight of the woman for a moment but picked her up again as she darted out from behind the front fender of a black BMW M6 Hurricane. He ran after her, if you could call it that. More of a hobbling shuffle as he pushed off the fender of car after car. He winced with each aching step he took. Still he closed the gap between them relatively quickly. Her injured knee slowed her down way more than his did him.
At the far passageway, he grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around. “End of the line.”
“Unhand me!”
She threw a straight jab aimed at his throat. Her knuckles slammed into the side of his neck as he turned, avoiding the worst of the punch. It still hurt like hell.
He lashed out and grabbed her by the throat. He drove her back, slamming her into the bulkhead behind them. She
hit the wall with a thud. She grunted. Still she swung her arms and kicked at him like a wild beast. With his free hand he blocked her swinging arms. By twisting his hips as quickly as she could kick, his thighs absorbed the worst of her ferocious footwork.
He tightened his grip on her throat and shook her. “Settle down. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She snarled. Her eyes began to bulge.
“Quit it. It’s over.” Bannon struggled to keep her pinned against the wall while not getting his bell—or other parts of his anatomy—rung a second time. He had no zip ties or handcuffs, no way to secure her except by physical restraint.
From the far side of the cargo hold, he heard the rushed footfalls and the clicking military equipment made when soldiers rushed into a space, looking to secure it. At least he hoped that’s what the sounds were, and not members of Amar’s crew come to finish the job they’d started up on the ship’s deck.
He risked a glance over the roofs and hoods of the BMWs and smiled with relief.
Tarakesh Sardana led a group of armed, urban camouflaged Coasties into the room. He gave the woman he held pinned to the bulkhead another look, again struck by the resemblance between his friend and this woman.
Egyptian and in her early thirties, Tarakesh Sardana had dark skin that had been bronzed by the sun. Long, raven black hair, a narrow straight nose, and a lean physique that was deceptively strong. And a fondness for edged weaponry that had earned her the nickname Blades.
“This way,” Tara said to the squad she led.
“About damn time,” Bannon complained as he released his hold on his prisoner. He leaned over breathless, holding his hands to his knees.
Tara kept the woman pinned in place with one side of a double-bladed knife pressed to her throat. She fisted the weapon, known as a haladie, holding the bone-carved center grip between its two curved blades. The weapon was a favorite of the Raput, India’s ancient warrior class known as the samurai of India.
“Who told you to go charging off all by yourself,” Tara asked, “without backup?”
Bannon looked up at her and arched an eyebrow, wondering as he often did who was really in charge between them. “Good to see you, too, Blades.”
“Are you hurt?”
“A few bumps and bruises.” Bannon straightened up and winced. “The landing was a little bumpy.”
“So I heard.” Tara handed the woman off to two Coasties. They pulled her hands behind her back and ratcheted handcuffs around her wrists.
“Which is why you should have waited for the Bowman to catch up before you dropped in here guns blazing.” The new voice came from behind the remaining Coasties, who parted like the Red Sea—and snapped to attention—for the approaching Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Elizabeth Grayson.
A former senator from Louisiana and four-star General in the U.S. Army, Grayson had served the current administration as the Deputy Secretary of Defense for two years before being tapped to head up Homeland Security. A formable woman in her early sixties, she had friends and enemies in equal measure on both sides of the aisle and enough political clout to get stuff done without compromising her position or her principles. That was something Bannon admired in great measure, and the single biggest reason he’d agreed to work for her when she’d asked.
“Madam Secretary,” Bannon said in greeting. “I take it the rest of the ship’s been properly secured.” In charge or not, she wouldn’t have been allowed onboard the Naeem if it hadn’t been.
“It has.”
“Then the only thing left to do is find this dangerous cargo everyone’s so worked up about.”
“Which you have done quite admirably, Brice.”
Surprised by that, he said, “I have?”
Grayson waved a hand toward the dark-skinned woman now properly secured. “Allow me to introduce Miss Safiyyah Zayd. She’s the reason we’re here, Brice. She is the dangerous cargo we’re after.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE COAST GUARD TOOK control of the Naeem. The crewmembers still alive were held under armed guard in one of the cargo holds, the bodies of the dead were covered, and with the Bowman providing escort, they altered the ship’s original course. Rather than proceed straight to Boston Harbor as scheduled, Secretary Grayson ordered the ship to dock sixty miles north in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Back on the Bowman, Grayson ordered Bannon to see the medic they’d brought onboard. Along with his objections, he peppered her with questions about the mission, which she refused to answer. She assured him there would be a mission debrief when they reached Portsmouth. With a stern finger she directed him to sickbay while she commandeered the CO’s private cabin and remained behind closed doors the rest of the trip.
After diagnosing Bannon with a possible cracked rib and assuring him he’d still be able to have children, the medic prescribed a few days’ rest. Bannon went to the galley for a cup of coffee. There he found Seaman O’Neil with his arm in a navy-blue sling, sitting alone at the long mess table enjoying a glass of orange juice.
With his coffee in hand, Bannon joined the young man.
O’Neil told him the medic had removed the bullet from his arm. “Said it wasn’t very deep. Used a pair of tweezers to pluck it right out of there.” O’Neil grinned. “Told me the damn thing might’ve fallen out on its own if we’d left it be.”
Bannon doubted that but was glad the kid was okay.
O’Neil said, “Still gotta get checked out by the real docs at the Naval Hospital when we reach port. Otherwise, a clean bill of health.”
“That’s good to hear. How long you been in the Guard?”
“Less than a year, sir. I’m stationed out of Cape Cod Air Station. It’s been a dream of mine since I was a kid.”
Bannon smiled at that. To him, the boy was a kid still, barely old enough to drink.
“Where’s home?”
“Nebraska.”
“The most landlocked state in the country,” Bannon said. “Did they have to teach you how to swim at Cape May?”
Training Center Cape May, New Jersey was the Coast Guard’s eight-week boot camp. O’Neil laughed. “Pretty much. Guess that’s why I wanted to be on the water so badly. I never had it growing up.”
“Well, you did good out there, O’Neil. And now you’ve got a hell of a war story to tell.”
Bannon got to his feet, holding his arm around his ribs as he got up. He patted the kid’s shoulder. “You’re ever in Hampton Beach, look me up. You can find me at the Keel Haul. First round’s on me.”
“The Keel Haul, sir?”
“It’s my bar.” At O’Neil’s quizzical expression, he added, “It’s a long story. Take care of yourself, Seaman.”
“Yes, sir.” Before Bannon reached the door, O’Neil called out, “Commander?”
Bannon turned.
“Thank you, sir. You saved my life out there today.”
“And you’ll do the same for the next guy.”
O’Neil grinned. “You can count on it, sir.”
Bannon smiled. “I’m sure I can.”
After leaving O’Neil to go up on deck, Bannon literally bumped into Chief Petty Officer Johnson exiting the pilothouse. The Chief had changed from his tactical gear and jumpsuit to his ODU, the solid, dark blue operation dress uniform that was standard dress for the Coasties. He wore a bush-style boonie hat rather than the regulation baseball-style ball cap. They had gained in popularity in recent years. A folded pair of sunglasses hung from his left breast pocket.
“Commander.”
“Hey, Chief.” Bannon shook the man’s hand. “Glad I ran into you. Wanted a chance to thank you again. You and your men did good work out there.”
“Our pleasure, sir.”
“No problems securing the rest of the ship?”
“None at all.” He grinned. “Once word spread about what took place on the deck, the rest of the crew fell all over themselves to surrender after that.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-two, not counting the five dead on deck. That includes the captain and his two-man bridge crew.”
Bannon clasped the man on the shoulder. “Like I said, good work all around.”
“Thank you. May I ask you a question, sir?”
“Sure, Chief. What is it?”
“I heard…was just wondering if it was true. You commanded a DOG unit?” He added, “Back in the day.”
Johnson was referring to the Deployable Operations Group. A command created over a decade earlier. They’d been the Coast Guard’s answer to the Army’s Special Forces and the Navy’s Seal program, born out of the aftermath of 9/11 and to assist in the War of Terror. They ran high-risk, high profile counter-terrorism missions, dive operations, shipboard takedowns, and conducted thousands of threat assessments involving nuclear, biological, and chemical concerns, and combatted Middle Eastern piracy operations overseas. The group had been decommissioned after six years. That had been the catalyst for Bannon to put in his papers and retire from the full-time Guard.
“I did. Why?”
Johnson shook his head and grinned. He shook Bannon’s hand again. “No reason. It’s just I admired those guys. What they, what you, all did. I was bummed when I heard they decommissioned the command.”
“Me, too, but what you’re doing in MSST isn’t much different.”
“No, I suppose not,” Johnson said. Then he smiled. “Except the work you all did, that was the stuff of legends.”
Bannon didn’t see it that way. “Just a bunch of Coasties doing our jobs.”
“If you say so, sir. Anyway, wanted to say we enjoyed working with you today. If you ever find yourself in need of MSST support again, just give us a holler. It’s been an honor.”
“Same goes for me, Chief.”
After watching Johnson disappear inside the pilothouse, Bannon smiled and slipped on a pair of Ray-Bans. He spent the rest of the trip out on the bow deck, enjoying the warm sun on his skin, the spritz of cool water, and the salty breeze gently blowing through his hair. Nothing made him feel more alive than when he was on the open water. This was as close to heaven on Earth as it got.
