War Tactic

by Don Pendleton

  They did their best to avoid any obvious light sources on the deck of the ship. These included brief flares they had been tracking as they made their way from a Filipino patrol boat that had paused far enough away not to tip their quarry that they were approaching. So far the cooperation they were getting from the Filipinos was a testament to Brognola’s ability to cajole, persuade and smooth over potential international incidents.

  “There it is again,” James whispered. His voice was so quiet he almost wasn’t making any sound at all. You had to be extremely careful when maintaining noise discipline on open water. The water carried sound incredible distances. Something as innocent as a muffled cough could give them away if the soldiers on the deck of the freighter were alert.

  McCarter nodded. One of the men on the deck was chain smoking, and every so often he would light up a new one with a lighter that might as well have been an acetylene torch. The thing gave off a bright yellow beacon that was easily visible from across the water. If these blokes were Chinese military, McCarter couldn’t believe it was the kind of behavior troops weren’t taught to avoid.

  The Chinese uniforms worried McCarter. None of it fit, and he couldn’t see the Chinese making a mistake like that. There was no denying the Chinese flag the attackers had run up on the Bapor na Pangkargada, but that in itself was suspicious simply because there was no denying it.

  It didn’t make sense for the Chinese to tip their hand like that. They weren’t above muscling into the region, of course. They had already planted oil rigs in territory claimed by other nations, pretty much daring anybody who wanted to make an issue of it to come and try. But always, with the Chinese, was the idea of flexing their might. They had an awful lot to prove. Essentially, everything they did was geared toward saying to the world, “We are a superpower,” and they conducted their affairs accordingly. Capturing hostages on a Filipino freighter was the kind of thing that drove the Filipinos crazy and created diplomatic tension with the Chinese, especially among NATO nations who were looking on in anxiety over the South China Sea and China’s expansion into it. But it didn’t project strength. Strength would have been sending off their new aircraft carriers here to flex China’s might, daring any other nation to risk taking on the largest conventional army in the world.

  So who gained from this? And why?

  They aimed for a section of the freighter as far as possible from the enthusiastic smoker. Once they were as close as they could get, it was time to break out some of their specialized gear. While it was not always possible for the Farm to supply or relay equipment for the teams to points around the world, the SOG had access to assets around the globe. Some savory, some not, the teams could usually call a courier for specialized weapons and equipment when time was critical. It was one of these couriers who had brought the men of Phoenix Force a TAIL system.

  The Tactical Air Initiated Launch unit was one used by the American Navy SEAL teams. Actually, McCarter knew, the Navy had since moved on to a somewhat more sophisticated system, the RAIL, which was intended for rescue operations as well as for the tasks the TAIL system was used to perform. Beggars couldn’t be choosers in this situation. McCarter doubted the pirates, whether Chinese soldiers or not, would know or care about whether the most advanced, latest version of counterterror equipment was being used to facilitate their deaths.

  Technically, what Phoenix Force did had nothing to do with death. They were not a death squad and their goal was not to kill the invaders who had seized the Bapor na Pangkargada. Their task was to neutralize those enemies by whatever means necessary. If there was a way to do that without killing the pirates, so be it…but McCarter did not think that likely. Nor was he going to invest a great deal of time trying to find a solution that preserved the lives of men who had taken the boat’s sailors hostage. The fastest way to neutralize those attackers and preserve the lives of the ship’s crew was to put bullets in the attackers’ brains as quickly and efficiently as possible.

  With his Tavor slung across his back, McCarter press-checked his Hi-Power and made sure the suppressor was screwed on tightly. He also made sure it was straight. You could cross-thread a suppressor and get it out of alignment with the barrel, which would end up fouling your shot or jamming the gun…or worse. He didn’t fancy having a finger or two blown off because he couldn’t be bothered to check the little things.

  When he thought about it…that was what combat was. It was a lot of planning, a lot of attention to detail, including logistics, your plan and its backups, contingencies, and equipment. You did everything you could to stack the odds in your favor and to reduce uncontrolled variables. You planned things down to the tiniest detail and you tried to make provision for even the things you could not anticipate.

  And then you made contact with the enemy and your whole plan would be shot to hell, so you did what you could with what you had, and trusted that your preparations would enable you to cope with the fluidity of a combat operation while accounting for and protecting the lives of your men.

  James took the magnetic clamp and its attached cable, fixed one end to the plastic cleat built into the rubber attack boat and wound the cable around it a couple of times. Then he affixed the magnetic clamp to the hull of the freighter, drawing the lines snug so the rubber boat would stay close to the target ship. Then it was time to deploy the TAIL.

  “All set,” James announced.

  McCarter nodded. It was time to tell their Filipino friends to make the distraction they needed.

  The patrol boat that had ferried them in was only supposed to wait long enough for them to launch. It had started moving away as soon as they cleared it. Now it was waiting some distance away, close enough to be able to provide a distraction, but not so close that the pirates would think an attack was imminent.

  McCarter took the walkie-talkie from his gear that one of the navy honchos had given him. He keyed it. “Now,” he said.

  He would have to hand it to the Filipinos. Their response was almost immediate. Only fractions of a second after McCarter sent the signal, the patrol boat’s warning siren began to wail. Then emergency flares cut through the sky and illuminated the scant clouds.

  James triggered the TAIL. The grappling hook fired out and cleared the railing on the freighter. It did not take long for the Phoenix Force man to secure the line and make it ready for the climb up.

  While this was happening, there were shouts on the deck. The little display had caught the attention of the armed pirates aboard. None of the shouts were in Chinese, at least not that McCarter could tell from this distance. That was an interesting data point.

  “Up the line, lads,” McCarter instructed. “Let’s get moving.”

  One after another, the Phoenix Force commandos hauled themselves up the line. McCarter did it easily, but he could feel the strain on his muscles, could feel the exertion that it took to haul an entire adult male decked out in web gear and carrying combat weaponry up the side of a freighter. He thanked whatever merciless gods of combat there were for small favors, however. The seas were relatively calm tonight, which meant they weren’t fighting a pitching, roiling surface as they tried to make their way up to the target.

  McCarter was the last one up the line. He joined the rest of Phoenix Force on deck and took cover with his teammates behind a formation of metal shipping crates lashed to a pallet on the deck. Now they would need to work their way across the ship, first to seize control of the deck, then to make their way below. The attack had to take place in stages, for with the hostages being held below somewhere, they would need to search belowdecks. That meant precision, which required time.

  “Fan out,” McCarter said. “Take targets of opportunity. Our priority is to get below and get to those hostages.” The considerable size of the force on the freighter meant that Phoenix Force was wildly outnumbered and outgunned. “Neutralize as many as you can,” he added. “Leave no one operational if you can put them down.”

  There was a chorus of assent, amplified t
hrough his earbud transceiver. “Calvin,” McCarter said, “you’re with me.”

  Encizo, Hawkins and Manning peeled off to the left while McCarter and James went right. The two groups of Phoenix Force soldiers would circuit the ship and, once they had completed their ring, would be ready to make the transition to belowdecks.

  McCarter and James half crouched, half walked, gliding along in the combat step that allowed them to make stable firing platforms of their upper bodies while continuing their forward motion. The grip of the Hi-Power in his fist felt very familiar. He wondered, for a moment, just how many thousands on thousands of rounds he had put through weapons like this. How many times had men stood between him and his goals—evil men, predators, who would be eliminated, had to be eliminated, because they were willing to hurt others to get what they wanted?

  These ideas floated through the back of his mind even though his principal consciousness was on the mission at hand. Every muscle was primed. Every nerve was live. He saw everything at once as he scanned the deck ahead of him. In the distance, the fireworks continued to go off, and the majority of the pirate invaders, whoever they were, seemed to have clustered near the bow of the ship. There were, however, still sentries patrolling further aft.

  A man in a Chinese uniform, who was clearly of African descent, rounded a corner of the superstructure and nearly walked straight into McCarter while gazing back over his shoulder. He had time to open his mouth to register his surprise. So close were they that McCarter could smell the man’s body odor and hear the intake of breath as the dark-skinned man made ready to shout the alarm.

  McCarter shoved the nose of the suppressor up under the man’s chin, turned his head and pulled the trigger.

  The warm, wet spray brushed his cheek and the front of his combat fatigues. There was nothing to be done for it. They were going to get a lot bloodier before this was all over. The Briton eased the body to the deck and stepped over it. Fortunately, the proximity of the body to the weapon had muffled the shot. A suppressor and subsonic ammunition could reduce the noise of a gunshot to a dull clap, rather than a sound-barrier-breaking bang, but no suppressed weapon was truly silent.

  James saw another sentry. This one was smoking, too. Whether he was the man they had seen lighting up on the deck, or a different man, there was no way to know. This man, too, was about as far from ethnic Chinese as it was possible to get. He was Caucasian, with a nasty knife scar that wound from above his right eye and across his face. His nose was a cleft ruin. His teeth were mostly rotten. If these weren’t actual pirates, disguised as Chinese operatives, McCarter would eat his watch cap.

  The ugly man was that much uglier when James was done with him. The smoker was leaning casually on the railing, oblivious to anything but the fireworks in the distance, when James crept up behind him and put the blade of his combat knife into the scarred man’s neck. That was when the dying man turned to fix McCarter with a death stare. James finished his bloody work and then wiped his knife on the sentry’s uniform shirt.

  “David, this is Rafe,” Encizo said through the transceiver link.

  “Go,” McCarter said.

  “We’ve taken out three men here,” Encizo said. “Moving forward to the bow.”

  “Looks like we’re slipping, partner,” James commented quietly. “Three to our two.”

  “Anything noteworthy?” McCarter whispered.

  “None of them are Asian,” Encizo noted. “They’re in poor health, scrawny, and two of our three looked like they had substance abuse problems. These are hired help. Mercenaries, maybe. Or pirates.”

  “That was my thought, as well, mate,” McCarter agreed. “Continue your sweep. McCarter, out.”

  “Got it,” Encizo said. “Out.”

  James led the way as he and McCarter continued their circuit. Soon they were within earshot of the men clustered at the bow. It was terrible discipline, but these men were not Chinese military by any stretch. The implications were staggering: A false-flag operation that targeted the Chinese and tried to start a war in the South China Sea? He could not imagine what anyone, not even the Chinese, would want with that.

  “This is Gary. I’m in position,” Manning said. “We have eyes on the bow.”

  “So do we,” McCarter said. “Get ready.”

  “Rafe, standing by,” Encizo said.

  “T.J., ready,” the Texan said.

  The Briton eased his pistol back into its holster. The suppressor hung low beyond the drop-leg rig itself. He eased his Tavor into position on its sling, disengaging the safety. James, next to him, was doing the same. The time to be covert was over. It was time to take this ship back from the men who had stolen it…and show them what happened to those who preyed on those who had done them no harm.

  From his gear, McCarter took a smoke canister. “Smoke, ready,” he reported.

  “Smoke, ready,” Encizo echoed from the other side of the ship.

  “Now!” McCarter barked. He pulled the pin on his smoke grenade and let it fly, tossing it into the middle of the group of uniformed men. The canister was joined by Encizo’s grenade. When they blew, they filled the area with thick, purple smoke. “Fire!” the Briton ordered.

  The men of Phoenix Force triggered their Tavors in short, accurate bursts. The pall of smoke that filled the bow, combined with the gunfire and the scant return fire the uniformed gunman managed, turned the area of the bow into complete bedlam. An explosion ripped a hole in the railing and left a splintered crater in that section of the decking.

  “Somebody’s playing with high-explosive grenades,” James said.

  “Must have gotten tagged before he could throw it,” McCarter said, still firing from his Tavor. “Or he dropped it. Poor lad. Embarrassing. We should make his shame worse.”

  “I’m down with that,” James said.

  “Move in, lads. Move in. Calvin, Rafe, hang back, watch the rear and make sure nobody skirts around and tries to come up behind us.”

  McCarter, joined by Manning and Hawkins, moved in on the targets. The Phoenix Force men fired as they walked, still employing short, aimed bursts, tightening the noose around the disorganized knot of men battling the smoke and the shadows as much as the counterterrorist squad. Finally the last man was down. The three men knelt, keeping their profiles low and their silhouettes small, and waited to make sure they were clear.

  “David,” Encizo warned, “we’ve got activity belowdecks. They’re coming up the man-way on this side.”

  The transmission cut out briefly. McCarter could hear automatic gunfire from Encizo’s position. The earbud was filtering the sudden decibel increase from the gun battle.

  “This is Calvin,” James said. “Here, too, although they’re not as brave as on Rafe’s side.”

  “Hold them there,” McCarter said. “I’ll join you on that side. Gary, T.J., back up Rafe. Let’s get down there and assess the hostage situation. Move quickly, lads.”

  “David, something’s—” James began.

  Whatever else he might have said was cut off in a massive explosion.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Lyons had been holding his breath. He let it out when cutting the wire didn’t set off anything that went boom. Leaning against the door for a moment in relief, he shot a look at Schwarz, who returned it with a wide grin.

  “See?” Schwarz said. “I told you.”

  “You did not tell me,” Lyons replied. “You said fifty, fifty.”

  “But those are great odds!” Schwarz insisted.

  “We’re not done talking about this,” Lyons growled. He threw the door open the rest of the way and gestured for his two teammates to follow him.

  “Wait,” Schwarz said. “If the wire wasn’t to a bomb…” He knelt to take a look at the doorjamb.

  Lyons, meanwhile, took in the lay of the land in this new section of the building. It was a large storage area. There were wooden crates piled high, some all the way to the ceiling. A path, of sorts, stretched out ahead of them. Something a
bout it immediately set off Lyons’s instincts.

  “It’s a maze,” he said. “And we’re the rats. No way. No way we’re going through there. Head back the way we came. We’ll try to the other side.”

  “Wait!” Schwarz called out. As Lyons took a step forward, Schwarz threw his smaller body at the big, former L.A. cop. Lyons looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “The wire,” Schwarz said. “It’s connected to a solenoid of some kind.”

  Lyons nodded. He reached into his war bag, took out one of his empty shotgun drums, hefted it and tossed it at the door hard enough to make the door move.

  A pneumatic hiss accompanied the movement of a sheet of metal. It whistled into place, effectively blocking the door back to the office space, striking the floor hard enough to crack it.

  “Holy crap,” Schwarz said.

  “Yeah,” Lyons agreed. “Holy crap.”

  “Some kind of pneumatic guillotine?” Blancanales ventured.

  “Designed to stop us from going back the way we came,” Lyons said. “Not cool. We’re blowing this door.”

  “No good,” Schwarz said. “This is a solid sheet of tempered steel.” He rapped his knuckles against it. “The door poppers we’ve got won’t take it out, and anything large enough could collapse this part of the building.”

  “Defeating the purpose of blowing the door,” Lyons concluded. “All right. Fine. We go forward. But everybody stay on the lookout. Check for wires. Check for pressure plates in the floor. And make sure you don’t line yourself up with a hole or gap in the crates that could be a fire lane. I don’t want any of us taking a bullet like that.”

  “Have I mentioned I’m allergic to bullets?” Schwarz said.

  “Aren’t we all,” Blancanales added.

  “Let’s go,” Lyons said. “I’ll take point. Pol, you watch the rear. Gadgets, keep an eye on our flanks.”