by Bobby Akart
“This is Captain Garland. The Victory has been captured by pirates. You will obey every order given to you by them or they will kill you. This you must understand …” His voice trailed off for a moment. He subconsciously contemplated correcting the poor English syntax but chose to continue when one of the pirates stuck the barrel of an AK-47 in his ribs.
“Obey orders and everyone will live. Disobey them and all of us will die.”
He paused again, drawing his captors’ ire. The rifle barrel twisted into his rib cage.
“Continue!” shouted Abduwali.
“All crew members will remain at their workstations and continue their duties. Engineers shall remain in their spaces but are cautioned not to tamper with the ship’s controls. Off-duty crew members will be confined to quarters. All passengers are ordered to remain in their staterooms until further notice. No exceptions or the pirates will kill you. That is all.”
“Good, Captain Garland,” said Abduwali with a snarl. “Now you will sit in the corner. The bridge, and your ship, belongs to me.”
Chapter Nine
Tangier Island, Virginia
“Come on, Bear! Get the lead out!” Cameron Mills didn’t cut her fellow operative any slack. The sun was setting over Chesapeake Bay, and the haze of a hot summer day obscured the Virginia shoreline a dozen miles away. The Steven Thomas dinner cruise boat was sailing slowly toward the south, and the festive sounds of Caribbean steel drums carried across the serene waters. Cam added sarcastically, “I’d like to open a beer in this lifetime, if you don’t mind.”
The burly Barrett King dropped a heavy box of books and turned around on the dock to face Cam. “If you’re so dang thirsty, why don’t you swim out to the party boat and have a beer?”
“Don’t start with me!” she shouted back.
“You started with me, Cam!”
Inside his new home, Gunner Fox shook his head at the grown-up children’s sniping and smiled. He stood in his bedroom and set a box on the mattress of his bed. He gently unwrapped a picture frame containing a picture of his deceased wife, Heather, taken during their honeymoon.
“Well, we had to move,” he whispered as he set the frame on his nightstand. He turned the switch on the lamp and sat on the bed to study the photo. “I really didn’t want to leave Dog Island, but the logistics simply didn’t work out. They needed me closer to Fort Belvoir. Anyway, I got us the next best thing. I mean, hey, it’s an island.” Gunner kissed two fingers on his right hand and planted it on Heather’s photo.
For several years after the Gray Fox team had been reconstituted under the umbrella of the Activity at Fort Belvoir, Gunner, Cam and Bear had lived at Dog Island off the Gulf Coast of Florida. However, the frequent meetings and operations required their presence in Virginia more often than initially contemplated. The helicopter travel became untenable, and eventually it was decided the trio should make the move closer to the base.
Cam and Bear, who were more socially active than Gunner, opted for homes on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. Gunner, whose psyche was meant for secluded island living, found a place on Tangier Island located just southeast of the mouth of the Potomac within the heart of Chesapeake Bay.
The island was first discovered by Captain John Smith in the early 1600s, but the first permanent settlers didn’t arrive until the latter part of the seventeenth century. It was once occupied by the British during the War of 1812, who built Fort Albion on the beach to house its twelve hundred troops. The redcoats used the island as a forward operating base to attack Washington, DC, during the war. Today, the site of the fort was under water.
The population of the island, which has steadily lost its land mass due to erosion and other factors, was now less than seven hundred. With the shoreline receding, it was estimated the entire island might have to be evacuated within fifty years. When this information was disclosed to Gunner by the real estate agent, he simply shrugged. In his line of work, he might not be alive in fifty minutes, much less fifty years.
Gunner had fallen in love with the island the moment he stepped off the boat at the County Dock. Tangier Harbor was dotted with idyllic crab shanties of all colors, with weathered wood being the norm. They were essentially detached sheds sitting on pilings in the water. Some appeared decrepit, but all had functioning utilities and were often lived in during the spring through fall months.
The watermen were active that day, bringing in another large catch of soft-shell crabs. They woke up every morning at three, gathered with their friends for a smoke and coffee, and then checked the pens holding the live crabs. Those who’d grown too large for their hard shells shed them. Once they did, the now soft-shell crabs were scooped out of the pens and shipped around the world.
The entire town of Tangier revolved around the watermen’s schedules and the ferries connecting the island with the mainland. The local shops opened when the visitors arrived by ferry and closed immediately thereafter. The only restaurant and bar closed at eight.
Gunner had enjoyed eating oysters when he lived near Apalachicola, and after having lunch with the Realtor, he gained an affinity for Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. After he closed on the property and began packing for the move, he learned a second bar was announced. It was to be called the Broken Hart Raw Bar.
Gunner found the name amusing, but the Realtor explained it might be a play on words. From the sky, during high tide, the bay waters encroach deeper onto the island, lending the appearance Tangier Island was shaped like a broken heart. As Gunner sat on his empty bed and stared at the photo of Heather smiling back at him, he realized he’d come to the right place.
Bear entered the bedroom, with Cam close behind. “Okay, big guy. The boat’s emptied, and the pilot headed back to Norfolk.”
Gunner stood and wiped his face with his right hand. He hadn’t been sweating, but it was more of a habit to erase his melancholy mood when he missed his wife.
He exchanged fist bumps with Bear and Cam. “You know what that means, right?”
“It’s beer thirty, mon!” shouted Cam in her best Caribbean accent. She immediately looked down to her watch. “Dammit. It’s past eight.”
“No worries, sistah,” said Bear in his baritone islander voice. “I picked up a case of a local craft beer at the bait shop on the way in. It’s on ice, ice, baby.” He sang the last line as if he were a black version of the rapper-turned-house-flipper, Vanilla Ice.
“Really? Ice, ice, baby? How old are you?”
“Old enough for you to call me daddy,” said the flirtatious Bear.
Cam stood with her hands on her hips and stared at her teasing nemesis. “I’d break you, pal. Get me a beer before I show you how bad it will hurt.” She turned her body into a martial arts attack stance, something Bear had seen before. He quickly scampered out of the bedroom toward the kitchen.
Gunner laughed. “You should really give him a break, you know.”
Cam shook her head defiantly. “No way. Not after bustin’ his balls all these years. He might get the wrong idea.”
“He’s got a girlfriend, right?”
“Hell, Gunner. You know that doesn’t mean jack. He burns through them in weeks. Or they grow tired of him.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
“You know. Have you scoped out any of the locals near your place?”
Can shook her head and gestured for him to follow her to the kitchen. “I’ll find a toy at some point, but nothing serious. It’s a distraction, you know.”
Gunner nodded. It probably was.
“Hey, guys!” bellowed Bear. “Check out the news.”
Cam and Gunner picked up the pace. CNN was reporting a cruise ship had been hijacked and possibly boarded by pirates. Cam found the remote and was about to turn up the volume when all three of their cell phones rang simultaneously.
It was Ghost. They’d been called to the Den.
Chapter Ten
The Den
Fort B
elvoir, Virginia
The US Coast Guard amphibious helicopter made a gentle landing on the glass-like waters of Chesapeake Bay. The pilot expertly floated up to the end of Gunner’s dock, leaving plenty of clearance between the aircraft’s hull and Gunner’s Donzi 41GT sport boat. The transportation of the boat to Tangier Island had proved far more difficult than the logistical difficulties of moving a household of furniture from one island to another. The boat transport company came through and didn’t allow a scratch on her.
It only took a couple of minutes for them to load into the plane and race up the Potomac River to Fort Belvoir. The U.S. Army installation housed more than thirty government agencies, both on and off the books. Gray Fox was the newest of its tenants. Although it was included within the Department of Defense’s black-ops budget, and therefore fell under the overall purview of the Activity, Gray Fox was given its own operation center that the team dubbed the Den.
Gunner led Cam and Bear into the Den, where Ghost immediately acknowledged their arrival. He lifted his index finger to his lips before pointing to the eight-foot-wide monitors mounted on the wall in front of the Gray Fox support team. Several news networks were covering the story, but the volume to Fox News was turned up for all to hear.
“As we’ve been reporting—and keep in mind, this is breaking news and the situation is fluid—the Mexican navy has released a statement that an American-based cruise ship, the Victory Casino Cruise operating out of Galveston, Texas, has come under siege.
“In an apparent pirate attack carried out by several armed men from as many as two boats, the cruise ship is no longer in control of its crew. Initially, no demand for ransom had been made, but we’re told in the last two hours that situation has changed, with details to follow.
“The southern Gulf of Mexico has seen an increasing number of pirate attacks on oil platforms and boats in recent years. Last spring, the Italian-flagged Romulus was boarded by heavily armed assailants reputed to be part of Mexican drug cartels. Two Italian crew members were killed before the ransom was paid to the hostage takers.
“The demands for ransom represent an escalation in the piracy activity in the Gulf. For years, oil and diesel stealing has been an accepted risk for doing business in the Gulf. Of late, as many as two million barrels of oil are stolen per day, bringing millions of dollars into the coffers of Mexican criminal organizations.
“Also, from time to time, pleasure craft have been robbed. The Mexican navy has pledged in the past to monitor these waters through increased patrols, but analysts claim the problem has only worsened as the pirates become emboldened by their successes.
“Now, for an update on a complication that is floating around on social media, let’s go to our Los Angeles newsroom and—”
Ghost furrowed his brow and ordered the volume to be turned off. He turned to the new arrivals and gruffly ordered, “My office.”
They dutifully followed Ghost. Gunner and Cam exchanged looks of concern. They’d handled many operations since the Gray Fox team had come together following the asteroid mission. But Gunner had never seen this level of concern on their boss’s face.
Ghost stepped aside to allow the three operatives to enter his office first. “Jackal!” he barked. “Join us.”
The bespectacled young woman scampered out of her station and hustled into the office just as Ghost was closing the door. Theodora “Teddy” Cuccinelli was the lead analyst of the Gray Fox team. During an operation while the team was on the ground, Jackal, a nickname bestowed upon her because of her information technology expertise, acted as the eyes and ears for the team. She would monitor satellite feeds, radio chatter, and provide data to Gunner, Cam and Bear in real time to assist them on their missions.
Ghost, whose real name was Gregory Smith, was formerly a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. He’d trained Gunner at the Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field, Florida, years ago. After a distinguished career, he was pulled into the world of black ops by the Department of Defense. His skillful handling of Gunner and his team during the asteroid crisis had earned him the opportunity to reconstitute the Gray Fox unit under the umbrella of the Activity.
Formed half a century ago during the Iranian hostage crisis, the Activity was a highly secretive intelligence unit rumored to handle self-contained, off-the-books missions. Its secretive nature was designed to do the types of things the law wouldn’t allow and to shield politicians from the ramifications if an operation went bad.
The first Gray Fox unit had operated in Afghanistan and was well-known for its abilities to aggravate the Taliban. Its operatives were absorbed into other units within the Activity after the U.S. began to pull its troops from Afghanistan, leaving the unit empty until Gunner and company were offered the opportunity to resurrect it.
“Sir, I gather there’s more to this than a hostages-for-money swap,” began Cam.
Ghost was pacing the floor with his hands shoved in his pocket. His face revealed his concern.
“That’s right. We know more than the news networks do at this point. I wanted to discuss it with you before we go out in the ops center to formulate a rescue plan.”
“Sir, may I interrupt with an update in that regard?” asked Jackal.
“Please do.”
“Everyone, one of the passengers on the ship is the daughter of Congressman Michael Larkin from Houston. He sits on the House Appropriations Committee.”
Gunner interrupted. “I know the chairman of that committee. Good guy. Has the congressman been notified of his daughter’s abduction?”
“Yes,” replied Jackal. “His daughter, college age, was locked in her cabin along with her aunt, the congressman’s sister, and her cousin. She had the presence of mind to fire off a series of emails to her contact list. Then she took it a step forward and began to post live video from her stateroom to Facebook and Instagram.”
“Brave girl,” said Bear.
Jackal nodded. “Well, and this is speculation, but she was discovered somehow either through a review of the ship’s passenger list or the monitoring of social media. Either way, we believe the pirates’ goals changed from robbing a casino cruise and the passengers of any valuables to a very large ransom demand.”
“How much?” asked Gunner.
“Fifty million,” Jackal replied as she rubbed her temples.
“Jesus,” muttered Cam. “So what’s the plan? Are we going in?”
Ghost took the floor. “We need to assess our options, but there are several factors in play. For one, Lloyd’s of London has asked the Mexican government to stand down while they determine whether they’re going to pay the ransom.”
“Yeah, sure,” groaned Bean. “Y’all take your time, okay? I mean, those pirates got nothing better to do except wait for your dumb asses.”
“I tend to agree, Bear, and so does the congressman,” interjected Ghost.
“Sir, you said Mexican government. Where does Washington stand in all of this?”
Ghost grimaced. “Currently, the Victory is adrift in the Gulf about a hundred miles east-southeast of Brownsville. Technically, it’s in Mexico’s territorial waters.”
“Who gives a shit?” asked Cam. “That’s never stopped us before.”
“Which is why we’re all here,” answered Ghost. “We’re gonna take care of our own, but we can’t send in our acknowledged special forces. It’s gonna be up to us.”
Gunner stood from his chair. “That’s all I need to hear. Let’s figure this thing out.”
Ghost agreed and the group exited into the operations center. Cam was the first to lay out the potential problems with a hostage rescue.
“I’m gonna make some assumptions,” she began. “We don’t know how many pirates have commandeered the ship, correct?”
“In part,” replied Jackal as she motioned for the group to follow her to her workstation. She was positioned in the center of the room at a U-shaped desk. There were two computers attached to six monitors wrapping their way from
one end of the desk to the other. At the moment, all screens revealed one aspect or another of her monitoring efforts. “We’ve gone back to monitor radar and satellite footage of the time leading up to the ship issuing its Mayday calls. We can confirm that two powerboats approached the Victory from the south simultaneously. However, we cannot confirm how many pirates are involved in the attack.”
Gunner turned to Bear. “Whadya think, a dozen?”
“If even,” he replied. “If those fast boats are anything like your Donzi, seating six might be a stretch. They’re a hundred miles from the coast. That’s a long haul sitting on the aft sundeck, you know what I mean?”
“I agree,” replied Gunner. He turned to Cam. “They’re gonna see us comin’.”
“No doubt about it. The bridge will have radar to spot any approaching surface craft. We could try to come from below, but the moment we pop our heads out of the water, they’ll put a bullet in them.”
Gunner rolled his head around his neck. He wandered away from Jackal’s desk among the support team.
“Sir?” said one of the analysts as he spun in his chair to address Ghost. “The internet connection to the ship was cut off in the middle of the latest live feed from the Larkin girl. There was the sound of gunfire and shouting in Spanish. Then the feed abruptly ended.”
“Shit!” exclaimed Ghost.
Gunner continued to think. As he walked behind the chairs of the support team, he stopped behind one of the analysts and pointed at one of her monitors. “What’s that?”
The attractive young woman turned and smiled at Gunner. “Oh, hello, sir,” she said in a soft voice.
Cam lowered her eyes and elbowed Bear, who was standing next to her. She nodded toward Gunner and the analyst.
Gunner blushed and he stood a little taller. “Um, hi. Is that the weather radar for the tropical storm?”
“Former tropical storm, sir. Now it’s been upgraded to a category one and is expected to be a two when it makes landfall in Brownsville.”
