by Marc Cameron
Lupe regained consciousness the moment they reached the edge, animating with a fury as if under some voodoo spell. She ducked her chin, sinking her teeth into his forearm, surely aiming for bone. Clark’s shoulder caught hard against the concrete edge of the pool, sending even more pain through his body.
“Enough!” he roared. Images of the dead girls in the field, strangled and whipped, mixed in his mind with awful memories of Pam Madden’s tortured face in the morgue. He reached for a gun—either one, it didn’t matter. His hand closed around the grip of the Glock and he brought it around quickly, ending Lupe’s reign of cruelty with a point-blank shot to her neck.
Breathing hard now, as much from pain as exertion, Clark pushed the woman away and pressed himself up to the pool deck. He leaned forward, one hand on a knee, the other trailing the Glock by his side.
“I am old.” He coughed, clearing his throat. “But an old SEAL still loves the water . . .”
Any death was tragic, and watching Lupe’s body float facedown in the pool, Clark felt a certain amount of remorse about killing her. But ten minutes later, after he’d freed the two cowering teenagers chained to five-gallon buckets of concrete—and then walked through a tall red door to watch even a few seconds of the horrific videos—he wanted to go outside and shoot her again.
28
Electrician’s mate Petty Officer 2nd Class Raymond Cooper sat wedged against the bulkhead on the long booth seat. The USS Rogue, a Cyclone-class patrol ship, or PC, was not a huge vessel at fifty-five meters, but what she lacked in size she made up for in personality. Her crew of twenty-eight, including four officers, had multiple jobs. The lack of real estate on board made each space pull double—or even triple—duty as well. Meals were eaten, briefings given, and movies watched in the padded booths just around the corner from the one-oven galley.
Finished with chow, Petty Officer Cooper—Coop to his peers—pored over an open notebook, using the space to study for his next systems exam. The five sailors sitting in the booth around him were all coming off duty and lingered for a few minutes before hitting the rack for a few precious hours of sleep.
“You’re pissed because you believed the stories about the tennis balls,” a petty officer 3rd Class named Goldberg said, wagging a spoon full of chocolate pudding at the sailor across the table.
In truth, most of the newer men on the Rogue were more than a little upset about the lack of female attention they’d suffered in the Port of Darwin. They’d all heard stories from older hands about Australian girls who would scribble their phone numbers on tennis balls, then line up on the docks and throw the balls at arriving Navy ships.
As exciting as the prospect was of willing women lining the docks in order to spend the evening with an American sailor, Australian girls turned out to be pretty much like girls everywhere. Some of them were gorgeous and some were not. Much to the heartbreak of the sailors of the USS Rogue, the gorgeous ones didn’t have to hunt the docks for men—and nobody showed up to throw so much as a glance.
Coop looked up from his studies. “Don’t listen to him, Peavy,” he said. “Goldie’s as disappoint—”
The XO’s voice came across the intercom on the bulkhead above the table.
“Set, Counter Piracy Condition Bravo. Set, Counter Piracy Condition Bravo.”
All the men in the booth felt the telltale shift in power as Rogue picked up speed.
The teasing around the table stopped, and the sailors slid out of the booth, each moving to his predetermined battle station. They might have been new to the port call in Darwin, but they’d all spent time on this tour conducting counterpiracy ops, training with the Malacca Straits Patrol. Condition Bravo meant a pirate vessel had been reported. They were in hunting mode.
The intercom squawked again.
“Petty Officer Cooper, report to the foredeck.”
The other men made a hole, allowing Cooper to hustle forward. None of them had to ask why.
• • •
Six minutes later, Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Akana, the skipper of the USS Rogue, stepped out of the bridge and made his way forward, to where Petty Officer Cooper was busy with the contents of two large OD green Pelican cases. What looked like an oversized model airplane sat on the deck beside Cooper as he busied himself with a boxy viewfinder.
The sun was well below the horizon and the apparent wind from Rogue’s thirty-two knots caused a stiff breeze across the deck.
“Let’s get that bird in the air,” the skipper said.
“Aye, aye, sir.” Cooper gave a nod to a petty officer 2nd Class named Rich Davies. “Ready to launch.”
The cook aboard Rogue, Davies was responsible for feeding the twenty-eight-man crew, but like every other pair of hands on board, he pitched in where he was needed. A Cyclone-class patrol ship was not a lazy sailor’s vessel.
“Ready to launch,” Davies repeated. He picked up the bird from the deck next to him and held it above his head like a javelin, facing into the wind.
The “bird” was an AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma unmanned aerial vehicle—commonly called a drone. Weighing in at thirteen pounds with a wingspan of nine feet, two inches, the RQ-20 carried a sensor suite known as Mantis i45, boasting powerful cameras capable of daylight, low-light, and night visibility.
The aircraft control system itself was a series of buttons and a joystick. But Cooper told the aircraft only where to go; the computer did the flying. Cooper had already programmed in Lucky Strike’s GPS coordinates, confirmed by the sailboat’s AIS signal after the numbers were given with the distress call. A Pocket DDL—digital data link—made it possible for Lieutenant Commander Akana, or anyone else with the access to the coded gateway, to view the images the Puma sent back.
The small but powerful electric motor whirred on the RQ-20’s nose. Cooper gave the signal to launch, and Davies used both hands to throw the Puma into the wind. The UAV turned sideways, pushed aside momentarily by the breeze. It recovered quickly and began to pull away at once from the slower ship, gaining altitude as it sped above the waves toward SV Lucky Strike.
The sailboat lay ten miles away, just outside the nine-mile control range of the drone, but Rogue was right behind her, cutting the waves at a respectable thirty-three knots.
Cooper looked up from the controller hood.
“She’s making a steady fifty miles an hour, Skipper,” the petty officer said. “Twelve minutes to target.”
AeroVironment reported a top speed of fifty-two miles an hour, but Cooper had been known to coax out an extra two if the winds were right. Unfortunately, today, the breeze was directly on her nose.
The skipper looked at his watch. “Very well.”
He glanced down at the tablet computer in his hands. The Mantis i45’s low-light camera was sending back nothing but ghostly green-black images of waves two hundred feet below. The RQ-20 Puma would arrive on station a scant four minutes ahead of the ship, providing Akana with the equivalent of an extremely serviceable pair of flying binoculars.
In addition to putting the UAV in the air, Counter Piracy Condition Bravo set Rogue’s VBSS team in motion. The crew was already gearing up and readying the launch of the seven-meter rigid-hull inflatable boat. Visit, board, search, and seizure teams were made up of sailors from virtually all ratings. Those selected were trained at one of the Navy’s Security Reaction Force and VBSS schools.
Larger ships had multiple larger teams, but Rogue’s smaller crew necessitated a five-man team commanded by a lieutenant, plus the boatswain’s mate acting as coxswain, driving the boat. Each VBSS team member carried at least fifty pounds of gear, including a Kevlar helmet with NVGs, radio headset, body armor in a tactical vest that doubled as a life preserver, flexible restraints, pepper spray, a Beretta M9 pistol, and an MK18 rifle. One member of the team traded the carbine for a Mossberg twelve-gauge in anticipation of the need to breach locked hatches.
&
nbsp; Five minutes from target, Lieutenant Junior Grade Steven Gitlin, the ship’s communications officer, ordered his team into the twenty-four-foot RHIB. Petty Officer 2nd Class Marty White, the VBSS team’s usual coxswain, had sprained his ankle while on liberty in Darwin, so Chief Boatswain’s Mate Bobby Rose was at the helm of the rigid hulled inflatable boat. Two minutes later, the ship’s hydraulic aft doors opened, jerk lines were pulled, and the RHIB slid down the aft ramp into the frothy black sea. The 248-horsepower Steyr diesel burbled in the water, and the chief boatswain’s mate, called “Boats” by the crew, brought the inflatable up along Rogue’s starboard side. Gitlin looked at his watch.
Four minutes out. The first images from the Puma would just be streaming in.
• • •
The seas swelled in long, rolling trains, but there was hardly any chop, and it was a simple matter for Awang to bring the fishing vessel alongside Lucky Strike and tie off to fore and aft cleats. Rubber bumpers squealed and squeaked as Jemaah Islamiyah men moved steadily back and forth, moving quickly to load a dozen twenty-five-pound canvas bags from the skiff to the sailboat.
The women cowered belowdecks, clutching pitiful kitchen knives and wailing uncontrollably. Their flimsy, whorish clothing made it easier for Mamat not to pity them. Those who would act less than human deserved to be treated like dogs.
It was an easy matter to swat the knives out of the way and drag both woman topside. Awang suggested they rape the women to teach them a lesson in piety. Mamat looked at his watch and shook his head. There was no time for that.
The smaller woman with dark hair remained stoic as the boy dragged her forward and tied her to the bow rail. The redhead spat and fought as they lashed her to the mast. Mamat had to club her in the face to shut her up. One hand he tied at her waist, the other Mamat fixed to a thin length of cord that ran up to a pulley above her head and then down again, leading into the cabin. Though the woman’s arm was free, Mamat could raise or lower the hand by taking up or releasing the tension on the line.
As planned, the boy remained on the sailboat with Mamat and the infidel women—and the RPGs. Awang and the other men climbed back aboard the fishing skiff, the bow of which was packed with three pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel-oil explosive—half the load they’d brought with them.
Mamat gave a solemn nod to the men and then followed the boy below. The ship would be here in minutes. For this to work, he needed to be out of sight.
• • •
A fishing skiff appears to be moving away from the sailboat, sir,” Petty Officer Cooper said, his eyes glued to the hooded viewfinder. He’d issued the Puma a command to loiter two hundred feet above Lucky Strike. “I count two females on the sailboat’s deck.”
“Let’s get a closer look,” the skipper said. “Zoom in. It may give us some indication of these pirates’ state of mind if they didn’t kill their hostages.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Cooper said, increasing the magnification by seven.
“They’re still alive,” Akana mused, studying the images streaming to his tablet. “They’re bound in place and gagged, but one appears to have gotten a hand free. Looks as though she’s waving.”
“I see it too, Skipper,” Cooper said.
A sudden gust of wind blew the Puma off for a moment, disrupting the image. The bird reacquired quickly, but Akana was already giving orders.
“Bring us up to a hundred fifty meters off the stern.”
The XO nodded and relayed the order to the helmsman.
Akana got on the radio with the team. “Lieutenant Gitlin, this is Rogue. Pirate vessel appears to be bugging out. The Puma shows two survivors on the sailboat’s deck. Head on a swivel, Steve. Something feels wrong about this.”
Chief Rose kept the RHIB tucked in beside Rogue, using her as cover and concealment as they approached, veering off to speed forward only after the larger vessel hove to, a hundred fifty meters off Lucky Strike’s stern rail.
“Pirate vessel . . . departing . . . to the northwest.” Gitlin’s voice came in stops and starts as the RHIB bounced across waves. “I count four . . . scratch that, five skinnies on board.” Skinnies was the term sailors used for pirates off the coast of Somalia. Some, including Gitlin, who’d worked Task Force 151, used it for pirates no matter where they were. “Sailboat’s dark,” he added. “Just the two females so far.”
Chief Petty Officer Bill Knight stood to the right of the coxswain’s post. “I concur,” he said. At thirty-eight, the Alabama native had more time in the Navy than all the men on the team—and Gitlin trusted his opinion implicitly.
“Skipper’s right, though,” the chief continued, peering through a pair of marine binoculars. “Somethin’ about this whole thing gives me a case of the creepin’ red ass.”
The two chiefs stood side by side, Rose driving, Knight watching out for the safety of his men. Neither was more than five feet from Gitlin, but they all spoke into the small boom mics on their comms gear to be heard over the roar of motor, wind, and waves.
“Boats,” Gitlin said, addressing Rose. “Take us by for a closer look.”
Chief Rose pushed the throttle all the way forward, standing off fifty meters and racing the RHIB up the starboard side of the sailboat. Once he came abeam the bow, he stood the RHIB on its side in a tight U-turn and pointed it back behind the sailboat again to swing around her stern and then jet up the port side, all the while holding a fifty-meter standoff. The maneuver was known as a “horseshoe,” and it allowed the VBSS team a good look at the target vessel from a distance while traveling at a high rate of speed.
“Rogue, Gitlin,” the lieutenant said.
Commander Akana’s unflappable voice came back across the radio.
“Go ahead, Steve.”
“Any more intel from the Puma, skipper?”
“Pirate vessel is still moving away to the northeast,” Akana said. “Approximately eight knots. Boarding the sailboat is your call.”
“Aye, sir,” Gitlin said. The woman tied to the mast continued to wave at him. “We plan to board.”
“Very well,” Akana said.
“Boats,” Gitlin said. “Bring us up on the port side, slowly. Chief Knight, Cartwright, Ridgeway, cover the approach.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Knight said, then muttered under his breath as he aimed in with his carbine. “Yep, creepin’ red ass, all right . . .”
The bobbing sailboat was a green hulk against the black sea through the NVGs. Something was off about the woman at the mast. She was mechanical, puppetlike.
Rose eased back on the throttle.
Thirty feet out, Gitlin looked toward Peavy on the bow hook. “Ready with—”
Chief Knight’s voice crackled across the radio. “Movement on the bow!” he barked. “She’s standing up . . . waving us off. Repeat, waving off!”
The woman was indeed standing. She’d ripped away her gag and screamed something unintelligible at the approaching RHIB. When they kept coming, she held her arms up in a raised X, the universal sign for NO!
“Boats!” Gitlin barked. “Get us out of here!”
The muffled rattle of rifle fire erupted from inside the cabin of the sailboat. Bright flashes illuminated the portholes. The woman at the mast slumped as bullets shredded the deck beneath her.
The woman at the bow screamed, diving over the lifelines.
“Return fire!” Gitlin shouted above the noise. He turned to face aft with the rest of the team as Chief Rose shoved the throttle forward, pointing the RHIB directly at Lucky Strike’s bow.
The woman in the water went under once, then bobbed to the surface. Only the top of her head and her flailing arms were visible in Gitlin’s NVGs. Knight leaned over the side while Gitlin grabbed his rigger’s belt to steady him, as if they’d planned it that way. The RHIB’s pontoons were huge, nearly two feet in diameter, forcing Knight to lean well
out over the water in order to grab the woman when they sped past. Top-heavy from the extra fifty pounds of gear, he would have slithered over the slick tube into the drink had Gitlin’s weight not provided a counterbalance.
“Got her!” Knight yelled above the hiss of spray and the roaring motor. Both men fell backward in unison, hauling the sputtering woman over the pontoon and into the chief’s lap, Knight clutching a handful of her hair and the back of her swimsuit.
The two men farthest aft in the RHIB opened up in earnest with their rifles, strafing the side of the sailboat.
A green head peeked around the corner from the cabin hatch, followed by a bright flash. Gitlin had never seen a rocket-propelled grenade coming directly at him, but his instincts said that’s what this was.
“RPG!” he screamed. “Cover! Cover! Cover!”
Rose jerked the RHIB hard to port. They were so close that it wouldn’t have made much difference, but thankfully, the shooter had rushed the trigger under the fusillade of oncoming gunfire. The rocket-propelled grenade hit the waves well to the left, skipping along the surface to explode well in front of the inflatable, throwing up a plume of spray.
When Gitlin looked back, Ridgeway was slumped, chin to his chest, weapon dangling from his single-point sling, arms hanging to the deck.
Chief Knight, ever aware of the men in his charge, pushed the woman away so her back rested against the side of the pontoon. He slid to the back of the speeding RHIB on both knees, lifting Ridgeway’s head. A moment later, he turned and gave Gitlin the harrowed look that all good leaders dread.
“Pirate vessel returning,” Gitlin heard over his radio. “Nineteen knots and accelerating.”
The traffic was followed by the rhythmic thump of the Mk 28 chain gun, firing from Rogue’s foredeck. There hadn’t been time to tell them about the RPG, but they’d obviously seen it. Twenty-five-millimeter high-explosive tracer rounds creased the night air, chewing the fishing skiff into kindling. An instant later a bright flash blossomed up from where the pirate vessel had been. Gitlin and his men jerked their heads away, temporarily blinded in their NVGs.
