It was a desperate moment. Drake and his friends all knew that Hayden and her team needed more time, as much as they could possibly get. If they could catch Salene or at least prevent him from contacting the ocean liner before they captured him, then there would be no way out for the hostage takers, no safe haven. Even now, he worried that Rear Admiral Robert Ryder would send in the SEALs, which would be a big mistake. There were troubling questions hovering over the safety of this boat—questions that centered on Kobe’s words of last night and the involvement of the Devil. Drake’s gut told him that the Devil’s orders were to shoot every last one of the passengers.
Drake threw his hands in the air, the signal to stand down. Alicia and the others wouldn’t attack now. They would leave him to take care of this himself. If he could draw four pirates away that left just three operating in the restaurant.
It was a lifeline for Alicia, Mai and Luther.
Drake folded when Gogh punched him in the ribs, but it was all for show. His only chance of survival now was to appear weak in front of these men. The floor came up fast as he fell, groaning for good measure.
Predictably, Gogh and Olive laughed at him. “If he is a cop, he’s a spineless one,” Olive sneered. “Look at him go down.”
“Let’s take him,” Gogh said.
“We should shoot him in the knees first,” Pigswill said, “and make him crawl.”
Gogh grinned, a feral light in his eyes. “I like it, but that’d take too long. We still gotta find fucking Volkov.”
“Shit, yeah, don’t remind me.”
The other pirates looked downcast, reminded why they were here. Drake stayed on his knees.
Pigswill turned to the room. “Keep interrogating the herd,” he grated. “I don’t care who you kill or how. Just find Volkov.”
“Where you going?” a short pirate said, looking offended.
“We’ll be back in five minutes.” Gogh grinned. “If one of you finds Volkov in that time you can have your pick of the women.”
Drake heard nasty cheers go up but saw nothing else as he was dragged off to almost certain death.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Dahl and Kenzie split from the others and looked for a way to climb up onto the corrugated metal roofs.
“There,” Kenzie cried.
Dahl saw a sturdy table in one of the rooms they passed and slung his HK over his right shoulder. He leapt onto the table, jumped and hit the corrugation, making it slide askew. It was a gamble, but a loaded one. He couldn’t imagine Salene or his goons would waste time and money nailing the metal roofs down outside the area of his own HQ at least.
Dahl pulled on heavy gloves and jumped for the top of the nearest block wall. He gripped the rough edge and hauled himself up. It was hot out here, the blinding sun relentless. He threw on a pair of Aviators and surveyed his surroundings.
Ahead and down, several hundred feet away, a group of men were running across the roof.
They were way below him, the slope running downward at a sharp angle, so he could see their destination. Beyond the roofs was an extensive patch of earth, brown, rutted and sunworn, and then the docks, which were nothing more than several wide jetties jutting out into the horseshoe bay. Beyond that, rippling waters reflected the dazzling sun.
Kenzie joined him. “Where are we?”
“Ahead, fifteen men. Assume one is the kingpin, Salene. We can catch them if we’re quick.”
Kenzie nodded and raised her MP5. “I think it’d be easier to let my friend here do the legwork.”
“Only problem with that is your friend isn’t exclusive. Salene’s men have similar friends.”
“So you’re saying . . . what . . . ? I’m confused now.” Kenzie rose to her feet.
“Just follow me.”
Dahl took off at a sprint, his boots coming down on the metal roof with loud smashing noises. Kenzie ran at his side. Bright sunlight reflected off the metal, blinding them even with their sunglasses on. The hillside sloped at a sharp angle, the way ahead always down. As they hit the roofs, many of the sheets twisted, unstable and unpinned. Dahl stumbled twice. Kenzie fell headlong, slid across the corrugations and managed to pick herself up without injury.
Dahl threw her a glance. “Have fun?”
“Yeah, it was fucking brilliant. When we’re done chasing these goons, I’m gonna come back and do it again.”
“It looked entertaining.”
“I can think of a few better things to do.”
Dahl raised his MP5. “Me too.”
They were closer now, only thirty feet behind the fleeing men. Not one had turned as yet, and none of the runners appeared too hurried. Clearly, they thought they’d outfoxed the Special Forces team and left enough civilians and guards behind to hinder any progress. Dahl pushed until he was several feet closer.
“Ready?”
“Always.”
Strike Force teams were the best of the best. They went into the hardest places and faced the worst dangers. They fought the worst of the worst, and sometimes the men they fought were their equals in battle.
Thus, there were no warning shots.
Dahl unleashed the Heckler and Koch, aiming for legs and firing indiscriminately. The lead volley smashed through the runners ahead.
Men went down, screaming, their weapons flying from their hands as they smashed into the hot corrugated roofs. Where their exposed flesh hit the metal, it burned. Their blood splashed everywhere. Those men not hit whirled in surprise.
Dahl saw the pecking order immediately. Three men gathered around a tall, black figure which had to be Salene. The figure wore white trousers and a light blue shirt. Gold flashed at his neck and fingers. He had a beige Stetson jammed down over his forehead. Dahl could see nothing of his face.
When Salene saw three of his men go down, writhing in agony, he said nothing. Just turned on a heel and continued running, albeit this time much faster.
Dahl fired again. His bullets took out another man. Kenzie felled one more. They were within ten feet now and facing several rifles.
“Go!”
Dahl dived headlong to the left, Kenzie to the right. To be fair, Kenzie did it better but then she’d already had a quick practice. She hit the burning metal and rolled at speed, coming up onto her knees, the HK at her shoulder and switched to full auto. Her bullets slammed into the waiting men and distracted them from Dahl’s somewhat clumsy roll. Three were dead in just a few seconds. The others dived out of the way.
Only three remained alive.
Dahl’s roll ended up with him lying flat on his back. He hadn’t judged it right. To make up he continued rolling and hit the three men like an enormous Swedish bowling ball. Kenzie yanked her gun barrel up before she fired on him.
“Mad bastard.”
Dahl did a full strike on the men, knocking them all off their knees. Two held on to their weapons but the third lost his. Dahl grabbed a gun and pulled, almost breaking his opponent’s wrist. He received a punch to the face but shrugged it off. The sun beat down hard, furnace-like. His sunglasses flew off, making him squint. He didn’t see a haymaker coming but felt it strike. He staggered sideways and fell back onto his spine, blinking straight up at unbelievable brightness.
Then Kenzie was among them, a wicked blade in her hand. It was bigger than the standard military blade that Dahl and the others used. Theirs were tough knives made of a strong polymer manufactured by Glock. Hers was fashioned by a specialist: curved, utterly deadly and entirely bespoke.
Especially in her hands.
It sliced across a man’s throat, drawing a curtain of blood that splashed down across his stomach. It was then buried in a second man’s shoulder, and withdrawn to be jammed into the side of his skull. Dahl was already rolling back to help when Kenzie shot the third man in the face, her handgun still in her free hand.
“You’re welcome,” she said, wiping her knife on one of the three dead men.
“Remind me never to piss you off.”
“Again,” K
enzie shot back. “I’ll remind you never to piss me off again.”
Dahl made a face then rose. Salene and his remaining three bodyguards were still running across the rooftops, leaping from one roof to the next much further down the slope. Several roofs twisted and collapsed inward. Dahl saw one man almost fall. Nobody turned to help him as he somehow managed to grab a wall and haul himself back up.
Dahl touched the comms. “Hayden? How you doing?”
“It’s fucking crazy down here, but we’re surviving.”
“Guards?”
“Yeah, and civilians. Salene has them under his thumb.”
Dahl imagined the African kingpin employed heavy intimidation, inducing outright fear in his subjects. These warlords were equipped to rule with little else because they had nothing except brute force to offer. They were lower than the lowest animal and didn’t deserve to survive.
“I have Salene in my sight,” he told Hayden. We’re going to catch this bastard and make him squeal.”
“Good. Meet you outside. Is he headed for the docks?”
“At the moment . . . yes.”
Hayden signed off. Dahl started running once more down the rows of metal roofs, Kenzie at his side. They discarded spent mags and reloaded. Dahl had retrieved his sunglasses and shoved them over his eyes once more.
Salene was 100 feet in front of them.
He was going to reach the end of the roofs before Dahl could catch up with him. That wasn’t a bad thing. There was still the large patch of sunburned earth before the docks and very few people standing around the jetties.
Dahl spied four boats out on the water, two tied up and two plying the harbor. If they caught Salene before he reached the dock area they would be able to take the pirate leader down without too much of a struggle.
Together, he and Kenzie poured on the speed.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Hayden fought in mud and dust.
After Dahl headed upward, she, Kinimaka and Molokai darted to the end of a passage before finding another that led downhill. This was a wider thoroughfare and appeared to lead all the way to the bottom of the hill. She thought she might be able to see a patch of sunlight a long way off, and despite the distance, the sight boosted her spirits.
The trio paused to eject magazines and slam in fresh ones. They took a breath and started down the long slope. The walls to left and right were made of rough gray blocks. The earth was hard-packed soil and stone. Dust swirled in the air, kicked up by passing feet. The air itself was a stifling mix of heat and unpleasant smells.
She saw many groups of people as she progressed downhill, all engaged in different activities. Open doors looked in upon men and women working, packing more of the tiny plastic bags before sealing them shut and adding them to various piles; pirates lifting golden ingots from one table to another, a surreal sight; families seated cross-legged on a floor, spooning watery soup into their downturned mouths, no laughter between them; men loading weapons, throwing knives and working out.
But there was worse. Much worse.
From one room came high-pitched screams. Hayden looked in on her way past to see a filthy man clad in rags and carrying a scythe threatening a dark-haired female who had been thrown across a bed. Hayden stepped in and shot him in the back, then, without speaking, stepped out to rejoin Kinimaka and Molokai.
“Trouble?” Kinimaka asked.
“Just ridding the world of one more predator hiding behind power.”
The men nodded. Hayden pulled up as a gang of knife-wielding men burst from a doorway ahead, crying out something unintelligible, their bare feet churning up the dirt. A cloud was thrown up among them as they converged on the Strike Force team.
Hayden dropped and opened fire. She wasn’t clear if these were guards attacking or civilians being forced to attack, but men wielding knives couldn’t be reasoned with and she saw no guns at their backs. She took down three, Kinimaka and Molokai doing the same, before the horde was upon them and slashing with deadly blades.
Hayden spun, fell to one knee and then rose again. She clubbed a man with her rifle, then fired two point-blank shots. Men fell at her feet, their blood mixing with dust and churning it up. Her boots became coated with it and stuck to the floor, making it hard to move. Blades glanced off her stab vest. One almost thrust into the area that was unprotected at her armpit, but she fell sideways at the last possible moment without ever knowing death had passed her by.
Kinimaka and Molokai took the brunt of the attack. To be fair they blocked most of the passage, making the bulk of the attackers gravitate toward them. Smaller men bounced off them and hit block walls, unconscious. Larger men struck then shuddered, falling to their knees as they hit the immovable force. Knives were thrust and punches were thrown. Both Kinimaka and Molokai used their brute strength to throw men aside, clearing space for themselves.
Then they opened fire.
They advanced through the mass. Once on the other side, with a dozen opponents broken and bleeding in their wake, they started to run, putting distance between the knife-wielders and themselves, dashing for the far light at the end of the tunnel that promised at least a few lungfuls of fresh air.
Hayden saw the trip wire ahead, its silver line stretched across their path. Molokai dropped and defused the grenade trap in seconds, adding the fragmentation device to his arsenal. Ten feet further on and they saw a fresh ditch covered with earth, then filled with rocks. A rudimentary ankle-breaking trap that had been dug in a hurry.
Ahead, much further down the long passage, Hayden saw a group of guards running at pace.
“Seems they’re trying to keep up with Salene from inside,” she said.
“Yeah, they’re planning to meet up,” Molokai said.
Hayden squinted, counting heads. “Fifteen?”
“Exactly.”
They didn’t shoot yet, preferring to get closer. The guards were still some way off the entrance, carrying their AK47s loosely at their knees, and jogging along freely, with no discipline. Hayden watched their surroundings closely. Doors in the block walls opened onto empty rooms and a rough kitchen. The corrugated metal roof became less uniform, panels were laid askew and some had even fallen into rooms as if, down here, the civilians had lost all hope. The ground was smooth and hard-packed. Kinimaka watched out for traps as they closed the gap to the jogging guards.
One took a leisurely glance over his shoulder and, seeing his pursuers, let out a yell. Before he could slow and raise his weapon, Hayden greeted him with a head shot, the bullet forcing him backward and into his colleagues. Others slowed and started to turn. Molokai and Kinimaka opened fire, their bullets shredding the men. Bodies collapsed to left and right, blood spraying the walls and the metal roof panels. Six died instantly. Those that remained finally managed to squeeze their triggers, firing back up the passage at Hayden.
She dove and rolled through a door and into a room. She came up onto her knees, gun ready, but the room was empty. She swiveled back to the door, peering around the block frame.
The guards had already resumed running, the group now only eight strong.
Hayden picked one off from her vantage point. Kinimaka and Molokai were still recovering, the latter having been struck in the vest by a bullet. They both lay inside a room across the passage from Hayden. She signaled them.
“Moving.”
“Wait.” Kinimaka looked torn between helping Molokai and joining Hayden.
“That’s not possible. Drake’s trying to prevent a massacre on the Rabot. Molokai can catch up.”
Hayden ran in pursuit of the seven remaining guards, taking careful aim. At that moment a group of civilians were herded out of a far room and thrust behind the gun-toting men, shoved into clear view to protect their backs. The civilians cowered and fell to the floor, but Hayden didn’t dare shoot. By the time she reached them, the guards had grabbed and thrust another group into the passageway.
She ran through them, shouting that the innocent should tak
e cover. She glanced back. Kinimaka was close and Molokai was coming, just twenty feet behind. Hayden didn’t let up. She focused her weapon on the guards and burst through the second wave of civilians.
Ahead, the guards were nearing the end of the passage.
Aiming high, she fired a quick volley. Bullets smashed into the blockwork and metalwork above their heads, sending many diving for cover. Several shouted, some tried to twist in the dirt and fire back. Hayden dropped headlong, her body hitting the floor, her rifle aimed ahead. She took potshots now, pinpointing one pirate at a time. It was a fair distance for a standard military weapon. One enemy was struck in the shoulder, another in the knee. She tagged him again as he squirmed in the dirt. They fired back, their bullets flying high above her head, most exiting through the roof. For several minutes she had them pinned down as she shuffled forward. Kinimaka and Molokai crawled to her side.
“Good job,” the big Hawaiian said.
“It’s far from finished,” Hayden said, firing two more shots.
At the bottom of the passage the six remaining pirates had realized that the exit was their only salvation and were attempting different ways to reach it. They crawled, shuffled and inched. They opened fire as they went, covering themselves. They made sudden sprints and rolled. They leapt.
Hayden missed two of them but Kinimaka got one more. After that the pirates were out of sight. Hayden jumped to her feet and started sprinting. Above, a blinding sun blazed down between broken corrugated panels. She thought she saw someone running up there but heard nothing over her own heavy breathing and the pounding of the men next to her. She wondered if Dahl and Kenzie were up there, but it could just as easily have been Salene.
She slowed, nearing the exit.
“Cover,” she said.
Dahl called her on the comms and they spoke briefly before signing off.
“Looks like Salene is heading into that big patch of scorched earth that leads to the harbor,” she said. “For me, that’s the perfect killing ground for us.”
Kinimaka nodded. “Ready?”
The Sea Rats Page 13
