The Devil's Waters

by David L. Robbins

  LB and Wally stepped over corpses, on crunching glass and slick blood, hunting out the last smoky hiding places on the bridge. Six Somalis had held the room when the assault started. Four were down.

  “LB.” Wally did not turn from his sweeping IR beam.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hail that warship. Tell them we’re secure. Have them contact AFRICOM. Stat.”

  LB hurried to the dash. Drozdov lay dead at the foot of his captain’s chair. The digital clock on the dash read 0204. Six minutes left.

  LB pressed talk on the ship’s VHF.

  “USS Nicholas, Nicholas. This is Air Force Guardian Angel team on board Valnea. Over.”

  The warship answered immediately. LB interrupted the sailor’s response.

  “Valnea is secure. Repeat, Valnea is secure. Request you contact AFRICOM immediately to relay this. Repeat, immediately.”

  Over the loudspeaker the frigate’s radioman said he’d take care of it. He asked if any other assistance was needed.

  From around the bridge, Wally, Quincy, and Doc yelled, “No!”

  LB sped his words. “Not now. Just call AFRICOM. Urgent. Confirm when done.”

  “Roger. Nicholas out.”

  Mouse and Dow entered from the starboard wing, leaving the portal open. Mouse joined Doc and Quincy in tending to the hostages. Dow checked for a pulse on Drozdov, then the downed Somalis.

  Wally finished searching in the departing mist. He moved beside the captain’s chair, ignoring Drozdov’s corpse. LB joined him. Both lifted their night goggles. The radioman on Nicholas called back to confirm. LB handled the contact. The one-word message from AFRICOM was “secure.”

  Dow called out that all four Somalis were dead.

  Wally answered. “Casualty report on the hostages.”

  LB scanned the carnage of the bridge. Bits of impact glass and bullet casings glittered on the floor, lit by the ship’s gauges and the moon through missing windows. Blood would not color in the sparse light and stayed black on the pirates and Drozdov. Doc worked on hostages’ wounds, wrapping limbs and scalps. The hefty first mate, Grisha, lay with his head in another’s lap; Quincy was busy cutting away the shirt over the man’s bulbous belly. Dow knelt beside one downed Filipino, then moved to another. All the hostages’ senses remained clobbered. The ones who found their voices cried for help and answers. None tried to stand.

  LB’s skin prickled after the ten seconds of combat. He unlatched his hands from the rifle for it to hang loose at his chest, his first step in letting the world restore.

  Dow came close. “All four targets are dead. Plus the captain and two crew. One of the Russians has a sucking chest wound; we’ve got to evac him. Quincy took one through the wrist. He’s a bull. Says he’ll wrap himself.” Dow tapped a finger on the red coin seeping through the bandage around Wally’s biceps. “We ought to take a look at that too, Captain.”

  Wally dismissed him with a nod. The PJ hesitated.

  “What?” Wally asked.

  “Weren’t there six targets in here?”

  “Two got out.”

  Dow surveyed the mess of the bridge. “Lucky.” He moved to station himself in the center of the room, standing guard should the two missing pirates take another turn at them.

  LB said, “We got lucky, too.”

  Wally pinched the bridge of his nose, showing strain. “No.”

  “Three hostages. Quincy got winged. Could’ve been worse.”

  “Robey makes it worse.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s Yusuf Raage?”

  LB had lied to the Nicholas when he reported that the freighter was secure. It wasn’t. Two pirates remained at large. And a female scientist.

  Wally fingered his talk button. “Jamie? Sandoval? Respond.”

  The last of the smoke slipped along the ceiling, seeping out the busted windows and open doors. Wally hailed again.

  His answer blared through the wall at the back of the bridge, a long, emptying rip from a Kalashnikov in the stairwell.

  Chapter 48

  The blast of the Kalashnikov did not drown out Guleed’s frightened cry.

  A dozen bullets threw the captain against his chair. The man was dead before he settled in shreds to the deck.

  The rifle’s reports pounded the bridge into a stunned silence. Yusuf’s gun hovered. Guleed’s hands stayed in the air as if the moment of Drozdov’s killing needed more time to complete itself.

  Yusuf whirled on the port door, taking fast aim at the large soldier standing in it. The soldier flew backward as if struck before Yusuf loosed a long blast, sweeping the barrel across the door, shattering the heavy pane and windows. The door slammed shut while Yusuf hammered it and the wall until the drum of his AK-47 clicked empty.

  The dented bridge, its captors and hostages, paused while the racket and gunsmoke lingered.

  The radio in Yusuf’s hand barked.

  “Now! Throw!”

  Yusuf stood panting, exhilarated and blanked by the long burst from the gun. Guleed screamed again, jarring Yusuf back to action. He did not wait for the next gush of air or the bounce of grenades. He lunged to grab Guleed by the scruff of his blouse. The boy, thin like Suleiman, came to his toes in Yusuf’s grasp. Suleiman had died to save the two of them; nothing was left to Yusuf now but to honor that.

  “Run!” he belted in his young cousin’s ears. “The back stairs!”

  Yusuf flung the boy ahead of him. Guleed, rigid with surprise, stumbled, not fathoming that they were escaping. In the next moment, he gained his feet to dash past the chart table for the rear door and steps. Yusuf did not turn to look at the hostages or the men he was abandoning to save Guleed, his kin. Yusuf had seen all his men dead on this ship; not the least honor lay with any of them. He, too, was without honor, just a pirate. Only Suleiman had died for something more than ransom.

  At Yusuf’s back, something small and metallic bounced against the floor, then another.

  Guleed yanked open the door to dive through. Behind Yusuf, an immense bang erupted, so loud that it shoved him the last stride through the doorframe. The stairwell walls flashed with the light of a starburst. Yusuf feared the bite of shrapnel chasing him. Guleed recoiled, hands to his eyes. Yusuf barged onto the landing, pulling the door shut just before a second explosion.

  Guleed gulped for breath, Yusuf listened through the door. The detonations faded fast, replaced with the shouts of the pirates left behind. “I can’t see,” they screamed. “Where are they?” Ratcheting noises, claps more than gunfire, snapped in twos and threes, silencing the bursts of Kalashnikovs. When the weapons quieted, the Americans were the only ones left shouting.

  Yusuf pulled his small cousin into an embrace. He spoke in a whisper to the top of the boy’s head.

  “Listen to me. There are two American soldiers waiting on the floor below. When we come to the next landing, they will see us. We will have to fight past them. Can you do this?” He moved the boy to arm’s length, leaving his great hands across Guleed’s shoulders.

  Guleed pushed Yusuf’s hands down, as if bothersome, or as if he did not deserve them. He sniffled along his sleeve, trying to right his nerve.

  “I’m sorry, cousin. I was afraid.”

  “I’ll settle the score when you’re old enough to marry. I will pick your first wife.”

  Guleed snorted, making him wipe his nose again on his khameez.

  Yusuf laid down his empty Kalashnikov. The flight of stairs below led to the landing and doorway for F deck. In the hall there, the soldiers were surely gazing down gun barrels, an excellent and protected view of the stairwell.

  “Give me your gun. I’ll go first. I’ll fire and keep them busy. You run behind me and go down the rest of the stairs as fast as you can. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Guleed nodded. “Then what?”

  “We’ll get off this ship. The skiffs are still tied to the stern, but the warship will stop us. We’ll head for the bow and throw a life raft over. We’ll j
ump in it.” Yusuf showed the radio the Americans had slid to him inside the bridge. “Deg Deg’s behind us. We’ll call him. The old man and that cat will come find us.”

  Guleed dug a tear from his eye. “That’s not a story, is it?”

  “Yes. It is. And we’ll tell it at your wedding to your ugly wife.” Guleed shrugged his Kalashnikov into his narrow hands. His line was closer to Suleiman’s, carrying their family’s leanness and courage. The boy arranged himself beside Yusuf on the landing, facing the stairs.

  Guleed said, “You did not surrender.”

  “No.”

  “I would have.”

  Yusuf stroked the back of his kinsman’s smooth neck. “You are wrong.”

  Guleed smiled up at this. “Tell the story that way, cousin. Allahu, jixinjix.”

  Allah, have mercy.

  With his gun still in his hands, the boy bounded away, racing down the staircase. Yusuf leaped after him, vainly stretching to pull the boy back. Guleed jumped in the air, crying like an eagle, to land spread-legged in the doorway. Throat in full battle cry, Guleed leveled his Kalashnikov into the hallway. He braced the rifle at his hip, laying down a withering cover fire. The boy swung the flaming muzzle left and right; the soldiers must have been on both sides. Yusuf rounded the banister in time to hear Guleed shout above the gun, “Go, go!”

  The first rounds made Guleed backpedal, but nothing more. He leaned forward into the blows as if into an ocean wave. The Americans struck the boy again, staggering him without silencing the Kalashnikov.

  Yusuf took the last image of his young cousin with him into the stairwells below, Guleed screaming the name of Allah alongside their clan, Harti of the Darood.

  Chapter 49

  There seemed hardly a place on the ship without blood splashed on it.

  LB gazed down at the bullet-riddled Somali boy. Jamie shifted back and forth, both legs hurting. The young PJ flicked an open hand at the body.

  “What kind of son of a bitch sends out a kid to get shot up so he can run off?”

  From where he slumped against a wall, Sandoval agreed, cursing in Spanish.

  Wally took LB aside. “Take care of Sandoval and Jamie. Defend the bridge. Get one of the crew to stop the freighter. I’ll radio when I’m done.” He strode for the stairs leading down.

  LB halted him.

  “Move aside,” Wally said. “I’ve got orders.”

  “And whoever gave you those orders wasn’t thinking you’d have to chase him down by yourself on a dark freighter with how many wounds in you? Let me organize a search party; it’s a big ship. We’ll do it right. But if Raage is gone, he’s gone.”

  “Do it right. Is that LB talking?”

  LB ignored the jibe. Wally was hurt, tired, and not his cheerful self.

  “And another thing. We’ve got to find Iris Cherlina, maybe before he does. You can’t do that and hunt him down by yourself.”

  While Wally weighed this, LB added one more reason. “PJs don’t work alone.”

  Wally nodded. LB rapped him lightly on the good shoulder. Quickly he stepped beside Jamie to loop the young PJ’s arm across his shoulder. “Let’s get you fixed up.” To Sandoval, he said, “I’ll send Dow and Mouse down for you.”

  “Roger, LB.”

  LB helped Jamie up the flight of steps to the pilothouse, Wally following. Inside the bridge, Quincy rushed over to lay the young PJ against a wall. Quincy set to cutting away both pants legs to dress the thigh wounds. Jamie, with two bullets through him, reached for the med ruck to grab bandages for Quincy’s dripping hand. LB dispatched Dow and Mouse to fetch Sandoval up the stairs.

  The bridge had shed the last of the flashbang smoke. LB and Wally crossed to the huddle of hostages. Two Filipinos wore Doc’s gauze around their arms; a third held still while Mouse swathed his head. The chest-wounded Russian was already bandaged and plugged into a saline drip held up by a dazed shipmate. The pair of dead crewmen lay covered, one by a cloth from the coffee table, the other under a shirt from one of his Pinoy mates. Most of the hostages were still fuzzy from the flashbangs. Wally knelt before one Russian who looked clearheaded.

  “Can you drive the ship?”

  The man tapped his ear. “What?”

  Wally leaned close. “Can you drive the ship?”

  The officer raised the finger, understanding. “Yes.”

  “I want it stopped. Can you put it in neutral or something?”

  “Of course.”

  The tall officer unfolded from the sheen of broken glass on the floor. “I am Razvan. Chief engineer.”

  LB said, “We can hear you. Don’t shout.”

  “Sorry.”

  LB escorted the tall engineer around the dashboard. The ship’s captain lay ruined there. Razvan hesitated.

  “Can he be moved?”

  Wally joined LB to lift the captain away. LB had watched and listened to this man’s death; it had been gutsy. The lightness of the corpse, like a sack of sticks, saddened him. Such an end should reside in a man somehow, leave him weightier. This was LB’s fear, the fear of every warrior—to die well but yet be insignificant. They carried the captain behind the map table, and LB dragged down several long paper charts to cover him.

  He walked to where Jamie rested against a wall.

  “Can you stand?”

  “Sure.”

  “Take the port wing. Quincy, put him on his feet.” LB pointed at the big PJ’s bandaged wrist. “How’s the hand?”

  “Good to go.”

  “Mouse, you’re on the starboard wing.”

  “Roger.”

  “Dow, stay with the bridge. Keep an eye on Sandy and the hostages. Call Nicholas. Have them stand off close on starboard until we bring them in for evac. Doc, Quincy, listen up. The three of us and Wally are going to secure the ship. There’s one Somali left. You see him, shoot him. Plus a civilian out there somewhere, a woman. Be on the lookout for her. Questions?”

  Doc asked, “What if the pirate surrenders?”

  Wally answered. “If he throws his gun down, you keep him there for me. Then you walk away.”

  “But, Captain—”

  Wally cut Doc off. “Those are your orders. I’ve got mine, and I’m done with having them questioned. I’ll answer for them later. Not now.”

  Wally split them into two teams, Doc and Quincy on the port rail, him with LB along starboard. LB took the lead onto the wing, down the external stairs. He moved quickly, believing Yusuf Raage was not interested in making a stand, only in getting off the ship. As they reached deck level, the hiss of the wake had fallen away. The Valnea was slowing.

  LB turned for the stern, using more care now. Wally kept an eye behind them. All three pirate skiffs were still attached to the rail, trailing on the freighter’s fading momentum. The trio of Somali bodies lay undisturbed. Wally alerted Doc and Quincy on the radio, told them to watch for life rafts.

  “What’s Raage doing?” Wally asked.

  LB pushed forward to find out. He lowered his NVGs to scan the dark waters for an inflated raft or floating container. The gulf lay flat and moon-dappled. The goggles provided a panorama of the heavens, every star highlighted.

  LB let Wally take the point. They passed the midship crane, stepping over corpses every forty yards. The Valnea sat dead in the water now. With no masking headwind or wake, the bodies asserted themselves in silence and pitiful odors.

  The radio buzzed. Quincy reported no movement in the port companionway.

  Wally answered, “Stay cool. Push forward.”

  The pain in LB’s leg grew more jabbing, his limp more pronounced. He and Wally passed another skinny body with Wally’s bullets in it. LB was glad Wally had taken the lead, or, like the Valnea, he might just stop, drained of momentum.

  Chapter 50

  He ran from the boy’s death. Guleed had died the same way as Drozdov, on many bullets.

  Gone from Yusuf’s grasp were both cousins, the ship, twenty-one clansmen, Qandala; these hounded him down th
e steel corridor. He slowed to hear if the soldiers chased him. They had control of the ship; would they just allow him to escape? No, they could not. Yusuf knew what was on this freighter and where it was going. They wouldn’t let that knowledge loose in the hands of a pirate.

  Yusuf made his way forward along the starboard corridor. He passed three life raft canisters but let them alone. He jumped over four corpses. None had weapons. Yusuf was left with only his knife.

  He ran the full passageway to the bow, not knowing how much time he had. Where was Suleiman’s body? Both cousins had died to save Yusuf. He could do nothing for brave Guleed, but he would try to take Suleiman home for proper burial and honor. If Yusuf could do this, he would not have lost all.

  He carried the American radio in one hand, the onyx-handled knife in the other. The Americans would have to move more slowly than he did, afraid of ambush. The thought of ambush made Yusuf calculate what Suleiman might have done.

  Where could his cousin have hidden, from where could he spring?

  Or drop?

  Yusuf leaped onto the closest ladder to the cargo deck.

  The moon, high and peering white, lit the vast field. He gazed as far as the cluttered deck allowed, seeing no sign of Suleiman. Dropping to the corridor, Yusuf bolted to the next ladder, climbed again to the deck to find no trace, then ran forward to climb another. There, in the center of the white steel expanse, lay the dark blotch of his kinsman’s body.

  Yusuf ran across the open steel. Hatred stoked in his heart, anger hardened his grip on the knife. He knelt in Suleiman’s blood without words or time to mourn. Those were for later, on Somali ground. The soldiers who’d done this and more, who would put a bullet through his heart too, could not be far behind. Tucking hands under his limp cousin, Yusuf bit his teeth to stop himself from shouting.

  The body was light enough. He carried Suleiman quickly to set him beside the ladder well. He did not use the rungs but dropped down into the narrow passageway, choosing speed over silence.