by Mack Maloney
This forced Gunner to move the big gun quickly to the stern, to try to get a shot at the Vidynut’s propellers, the one remaining component from their original plan that might work. But again, the firing angle was all wrong—and as a result, they’d taken out the ship’s exhaust stack and a large portion of the stern main deck. And they’d also started a fire. This on a ship they were supposed to be recovering intact.
But they couldn’t think about that now. The real question was, what to do next?
The rules had changed. The warship’s crew was still alive, or at least some of them were. Whiskey had to save them. But how could they get over to the warship to do this? There was no way they could use ladders or gangplanks. And it was too long of a jump from where the Dustboat had lodged itself in the Vidynut. Plus, trying to use the unarmed helicopter, either to drop them on the ship or to actually land on it somewhere, would be too dangerous. This left only one way to board it: swinging over by a rope.
That’s why Nolan was up on the cargo mast.
One way the team had tried to stay in shape during their dash from Yemen to Indonesia was shimmying up and down the DUS-7’s cargo masts, a throwback to their old Delta obstacle-course days. So hanging from the top of the forty-foot-tall mast was not foreign to them. But swinging from one ship to another? That would be different.
Nolan was dressed in his black camouflage suit and had his M4 slung over his shoulder. He was carrying a bag of hand grenades: some flash, some frags. He also had a large knife given to him by the Senegals.
Crash was similarly dressed and equipped, though he still had a bandage around his head. Nolan yelled over to him: “Are you ready?”
Crash yelled back: “Absolutely!”
Their ropes were attached to the tops of portside cargo masts. They had knots on the ends for them to hold on to. They would have to jump off the starboard mast, swing over the deck of DUS-7, past the portside mast, back up into the air, then let go and land on the Indian warship. Even during the most extensive Delta Force training, Nolan had never done anything like this.
He signaled the Senegals below. On his call, they raked the Vidynut’s decks with fire from the cannonade machine. It used the last of their valuable ammunition, but caused lots of noise and smoke, and the ricocheting rounds kept the already-panicking pirates off balance.
The fusillade lasted just six seconds. When it ended, that was Nolan’s cue.
He squeezed his onion bag, put the knife between his teeth and thought: “Here goes nothing.”
Then he jumped off the mast.
He was airborne for only a few seconds and then he was down again. He’d swung over to the Indian warship perfectly, landing on the deserted stern, barely scraping his knees in the process. He couldn’t have done it better.
Crash was a different story. He, too, had swung over, but he’d done so with too much force, too much velocity, too much enthusiasm. And he held onto his rope for too long. As soon as Nolan landed, he looked up to see Crash sailing through the air—and right over the ship, landing with a splash on the other side.
“Damn,” Nolan cursed. “We should have worked on that a little more.”
BATMAN AND TWITCH were more successful getting aboard the hijacked ship.
They’d both scrambled up to masts as soon as Nolan and Crash had vacated them, grabbing their ropes as they came back. With no hesitation, they swung over to the Vidynut, too. Batman, in particular, lived up to his nickname, flying through the air like an acrobat, landing on two feet like a pro. Twitch was right behind him, also arriving gracefully despite his artificial leg. Like two superheroes, they had their weapons up and ready—which was good, because a half dozen pirates were huddled under the superstructure’s overhang not fifty feet away from their landing spot near the bow. They all had their heads down or were looking the other way, but they were armed to the teeth.
It was up to Batman and Twitch to disable the Vidynut’s deck gun; that was their role in the new plan. While they had no idea whether the pirates knew how to operate the highly automated bow-mounted gun, the team couldn’t take the chance that it would be used against the DUS-7. Luckily they landed within an arm’s length of the weapon and were quickly all over it, looking for ways to render it inoperative without destroying it.
But suddenly the air around them was full of bullets. Batman and Twitch hit the deck to discover the clutch of pirates huddled below the superstructure had finally spotted them and were now firing at them.
“How many of these guys are on this fucking boat again?” Twitch cried as he and Batman competed for the little cover the deck gun afforded them.
“I think we’re going to find out,” Batman yelled back.
He looked over his shoulder and all he could see was the bow of the ship and the foggy water beyond. Unless they wanted to get wet and leave the deck gun to the pirates, they were trapped.
They tried to attract the attention of Gunner and the Senegals on the DUS-7, which was riding only a few feet away, still stuck into the side of the warship. But their colleagues were down around the freighter’s stern, providing cover for the five Indian sailors who’d just escaped execution. The same men who, just seconds before, were lined up to be beheaded were now huddled at the rear of the warship, hiding from the pirates.
This was distracting them, so Batman and Twitch had no choice but to use what little ammunition they had to fire back at the group of pirates, causing the pirates to intensify their return fire.
“What are we going to do?” Twitch yelled to Batman. “I had more ammo back in Tora Bora than I have now.”
“Keep firing,” Batman replied. “I’ll think of something.”
But no sooner were the words out of his mouth when Twitch ran out of ammunition.
“OK, this is serious now,” he yelled over to Batman, who was running very low on ammo himself. Meanwhile, the pirates firing at them seemed to have an endless supply of bullets.
Again, Batman knew if they jumped overboard, there was no guarantee they’d be able to get back up again. Plus, there would be nothing stopping the pirates from shooting at them while they were floundering in the water.
So they had to disable the gun somehow and then seek cover. Batman took out a pair of wire cutters and began desperately looking around for a power cable or a hatchway that led to a power cable, something he could cut to immobilize the deck gun with minimum fuss.
But the weapon was self-contained. There were no wires or cables or anything running in or out of it. The gun and its covering were flush with each other and to the deck itself. Even the gun’s swivel mechanisms were flush with the deck. Batman couldn’t find a space where he could fit a credit card, never mind a pair of wire cutters.
“This isn’t going to work,” he yelled over the gunfire to Twitch. “Can you check your end?”
Twitch knew what he meant. As Batman laid down a barrage of gunfire, Twitch popped up and looked into the weapon’s forward-pointing barrel. It was clear for as far down as he could see.
“It’s not capped, if that’s what you mean,” he reported back to Batman.
Batman contemplated the deck gun for a moment. Like everything else on the ship, it was swept back, as if it was being permanently buffeted by a stiff breeze. And it also looked expensive. But he couldn’t worry about that now.
He slid his M4 over to Twitch, then took out a frag grenade and pulled the pin. While Twitch fired another barrage toward the pirates, Batman popped the grenade’s safety, jumped up, and dropped the grenade down the gun’s barrel. He and Twitch hit the deck.
The grenade blew up a moment later. The sound was more muffled than Batman would have thought, and for a moment, as he lay there with his hands over his head, he thought that maybe he’d disabled the weapon without causing too much damage.
But then there was a secondary explosion—something inside the gun had lit off, possibly a shell. This time the explosion rocked the entire ship, covering him, Twitch, and even the pirates with a ra
in of burning shrapnel. When Batman dared to look up again, all that was left of the gun was a smoking hole in the ship’s deck.
“Damn,” Batman said. “Another million down the drain.”
The explosion finally got Gunner’s attention. He’d just reloaded the M102 gun when he saw Batman and Twitch frantically waving at him. They pointed to the band of pirates that was slowly advancing toward them from under the super-structure.
Gunner held up his hands, as if to ask, What should I do?
“Shoot them!” Batman screamed over the noise of the waves and the gunfire.
Gunner didn’t hesitate. With his tremendous strength, he turned the small artillery piece around, did a rough aim at the unsuspecting gang of pirates, and fired. The shell exploded just thirty feet in front of Batman and Twitch, again bringing a shower of hot metal cinders down on them.
But when the smoke cleared, the pirates were gone, vaporized by the powerful blast. Unfortunately, a large portion of the ship’s lower superstructure was gone as well.
“Put that on our tab too,” Twitch said dryly.
They were safe for the moment and their immediate task was complete. The naval gun wouldn’t be a threat to the DUS-7. But the ship was still full of armed pirates, and Batman and Twitch were out of ammunition.
They scrambled over to the forward anchor housing and hid behind its tall, flared enclosure. From here they could see the results of the team’s actions so far: a gaping hole in the side of the warship’s hull, another gaping hole on its main deck with a small fire burning within, and a third smoking hole where the naval gun used to be. A quarter of the superstructure was gone, another part of it smoldering. The rear exhaust housing was gone and the back of the ship was in flames.
All this in a span of about two minutes.
“God damn,” Batman said. “By the time this is over, we’ll owe them money.”
THERE WAS JUST no way Nolan could go look for Crash.
Though he had landed cleanly, the team CO’s arrival had not gone unnoticed. There were pirates all over the deck, confused and in small groups hiding from the chaos of the past two minutes. But they weren’t so bewildered that they’d held back shooting at Nolan, who looked like he’d just fallen from the stars and into their midst. No sooner had he reached the ship and gotten to his feet when he was dodging a blizzard of bullets. He immediately went back to hugging the deck.
In the new, hastily conceived plan, he and Crash would have set about finding the rest of the Indian crew—if they were still alive, that is. But the main deck was now a free-fire zone, and Nolan could hardly move without inviting a hail of gunfire. It would have been suicide for him to crawl to the port side and look over the edge for Crash. A ladderway about ten feet away from him led belowdecks, where the rest of the Indian crew might be. If he could make it there, he might be able to press on with his mission. But at the moment, even that seemed impossible.
But then a shell from the DUS-7’s field gun went over his head and smashed into the rear starboard side of the super-structure wall. Nolan thought it might have been another errant shot by Gunner, but at least it killed several of the pirates who’d been firing at him, at the same time knocking a trio of lifeboats sky high and into the water.
Nolan was up and running even before the dust had settled, moving like a madman. He dove into the ladderway and went down headfirst, a stream of gunfire following him so closely one bullet took off the heel of his boot. He landed on the second deck in a heap, bruised and battered but in one piece.
“Sorry, Crash,” he whispered.
He got to his feet and started running down the second-deck passageway, his M4 up and ready even though he had fewer than a dozen rounds in his magazine. The smoke from the many fires they’d started had mixed with steam from broken pipes down here, and the combination made navigating the passageway difficult. Even worse, water was pouring out of the bulkheads and down ladderways, and he could hear electric wires shorting out. Some kind of red hydraulic fluid was also leaking out of the ceilings. It looked like blood mixing with the water beneath his feet.
He came upon two pirates who’d been wounded by shrapnel and had managed to crawl into a stairwell before dying. Nolan made certain they were dead, then took their AK-47s and moved on.
He checked every cabin, every compartment, every passageway he came to, looking for more crewmembers, but finding none. His gut was telling him they were all probably in one small place, and according to the blueprints, the smallest compartments on the Vidynut were at the bottom of the ship.
He headed deeper into the ship, going down two more ladderways. The lower he went, the more breathing became a problem. He was sure a lot of plastic was used to build the futuristic warship, and now it was burning unabated, filling the ship with toxic smoke. Soon he couldn’t see his hands in front of him.
He somehow found a ladder that led to the very bottom of the ship and climbed down into this passageway. Moving as fast as he could, he felt as if he was seeing everything through a fish-eye lens. Breathing heavily, coughing in the smoke, the lights blinking on and off. The noise coming from above was deafening as the artillery piece roared away—once, twice, a third time. Gunner, shooting at God knew what.
“There’ll be nothing left,” Nolan said to himself.
Then, amid this symphony of sounds, he heard something different: people crying. He moved toward the noise and found himself at the end of the passageway. He stopped for a moment to wonder what would happen now if one of Gunner’s shells hit below the waterline and this expensive piece of shit just collapsed in on itself. Would he even have a chance to get out?
The wailing was coming from the last hatch in the ship. Nolan gave its wheel lock a spin and the door opened with a whoosh. He stepped back and a mass of bodies fell out.
At first Nolan was sure they were corpses—and some of them were. But some started gasping for breath as soon as they hit the deck, each gulp bringing little more than a lung full of smoke. Nolan had found his sailors. He was amazed so many were still alive.
He helped up those who could get to their feet, leaning them against the bulkhead and shaking some back to reality. There were ten in all, but some were babbling incoherently. Others were crying. Still others were throwing up. Nolan tried calming them down, telling them they were OK, that he was going to get them out. But most seemed oblivious to what he was saying.
The ship’s commander finally found his way out of the putrid compartment. His face was streaked with dirt and tears. He wrapped Nolan in a massive bear hug, weeping uncontrollably and overjoyed that help had come.
But then he looked around and asked: “Where is the rest of your rescue force?”
Nolan just looked him in the eyes and said: “I’m it . . .”
Captain Vandar was stumped. “You are U.S. Special Forces? Army? Navy SEALs?”
“I’m a private contractor,” Nolan replied quickly.
Vandar’s enthusiasm waned for a moment when he realized his rescue party was just one man, in a dirty combat suit, carrying three battered rifles and sporting an eye patch.
“Let’s get your guys up to the deck,” Nolan told him, handing him one of the AK-47s. “If we’re lucky, they can get over to my ship.”
Vandar hugged Nolan again. “We owe you a huge debt of gratitude,” he said. “We will not forget this act of kindness and bravery in saving us and our ship.”
“We’ll see about that,” Nolan said under his breath.
Nolan lined up the sailors. The ones in better shape he put at the front, the others were at the back. He urged each man to take hold of the shirt of the man in front of him, this way they would stay together. He was hoping all of them had the strength to reach the top deck, but at the moment, he wasn’t sure any of them would make it.
Still, they had to get moving. The ship was rocking back and forth mightily now.
“Are you ready?” Nolan asked Vandar.
The ship’s captain also took stock of his men�
��wounded, sick and disoriented. He turned back to Nolan and said, “OK, you lead. We’ll follow.”
BACK UP ON the deck of the DUS-7, Gunner was moving around like a madman.
The M102 field gun was normally assigned a five-man crew. While that was mostly for set up and break down, just loading the gun was an intensive five-step process: open the breech, let the spent shell fall out, load in the new shell, close the breech, pull the activation cord and fire the round. This didn’t take into account aiming the two-ton weapon and re-aiming it after the recoil from the previous shot inevitably knocked it off its mark.
Gunner’s first two shots back when all this began were pure misses. Impossible angles, rolling seas, bad aiming. He never even came close to hitting the Vidynut’s propellers, which was why both ships were still tooling along, still making fifteen knots, still awkwardly joined at the hip. His next few shots were attempts to save the lives of the five freed Indian sailors, and Batman and Twitch, caught alone on the bow of the warship. Another shot unintentionally allowed Nolan to get belowdecks to do his thing.
From there it had just devolved into battle between the pirates firing at him with AK-47s and him firing back with unguided, high-explosive shells better suited for taking out tanks and pillboxes. He screamed “Damn!” every time he saw another piece of the expensive Vidynut disappear in a fiery flash. The gun was so powerful, whenever a shell hit the ship, it nearly pushed it over on its side. And every time he actually hit any pirates, the destruction was so complete he would blow up their weapons, too.
He imagined he could see a ghostly calculator, floating in space next to him, adding up the toll for the damage he was causing. A hundred thousand dollars for this, two hundred thousand for that, a million for that other thing.
