The Pirate Hunters ph-1

by Mack Maloney

  But Zeek was getting anxious. Who was in the helicopter?

  Who was watching him?

  * * *

  This time the copter stayed above them for more than an hour. Tension ran through the ship the whole time. The bodyguards were forced to sit in the sweltering sun, looking extremely uncomfortable. The pirate army was told to stay below, out of sight. Meanwhile Zeek spent all this time on the bridge, looking into the sun, burning his retinas.

  Once again he discussed with Li shooting down the copter — or at least trying to — and taking their chances with anyone who saw them. But again, Li talked him out of it. It would be impossible to keep other eyes from seeing such an action, and then reporting it. Zeek reluctantly heeded his advice.

  At exactly 1330 hours, the copter disappeared again.

  The tension eased, and for a moment, Zeek actually thought he could finally retire to his quarters and get some sleep.

  But that idea was crushed when, at 1331 hours, the ship’s radio screeched to life. The initial message was garbled and spoken in broken English, but the gist was clear. The Pasha was being told it should stand by and prepare for boarding by a NATO ship on anti-piracy patrol.

  Zeek was instantly furious — this was the last thing he needed. This wasn’t a typical vessel they were sailing here. Only a few members of European royalty had yachts that resembled military ships, and he was sure they didn’t have compartments belowdecks filled with illegal weapons and newly recruited pirates. Political connections or not, Zeek was nervous at the thought of real military people tramping through his new ship.

  The Pasha received three more messages via the radio, telling them to stand by, that the anti-piracy boarding party was on its way. During this time, Zeek made calls back to his friends at Indonesian naval headquarters and to Sunny Hi’s personal phone, leaving frantic messages each time.

  Waiting for the boarding party stretched on into the late afternoon. No NATO ship ever appeared. Replies to the radio frequency used by the mysterious caller went unanswered. The Pasha passed through a series of rainsqualls, but upon coming out of each one, they could still see no NATO ship, no changes at all, except that the Filipino ship that had been traveling behind them had been replaced by a rusty, broken-down coastal freighter.

  Finally, Zeek and Li came to realize they’d been the victims of a hoax. There was no NATO boarding party on its way. The question was: Who would do this — and why?

  By 1800 hours, Zeek was so wound up he could barely talk. It had been a bad day for him. He stormed back to his expansive cabin, determined to get some sleep, when he received yet another message from the bridge.

  The helicopter was overhead again.

  Zeek could not be contained this time. He signaled the crew to what amounted to battle stations, then climbed into his own battle gear and rushed back to the bridge, ready for war.

  He told Li he had only one question: What was the best way to shoot down the helicopter — with the ship’s machine guns or by sending their own copter aloft?

  Li knew that, despite his deep connections, the wrong answer might get him a short trip over the side. But it was his job to stay cool and rational.

  “If you want to shoot it down, I recommend shooting it down with the machine guns,” he told Zeek. “Because launching our copter would give it a clue something was up. But…”

  “But what?” Zeek asked.

  “But we mustn’t do it in front of witnesses,” Li emphasized. “It would be too rash, and it would cause a lot of suspicions.”

  “What do you suggest then?” Zeek asked him.

  “Let’s move out of the shipping lanes,” Li advised. “See if this pest follows. Once we are out of sight of prying eyes, you can do what you want with him.”

  Zeek saw the wisdom in this right away.

  “Do it then,” he said. “Move us — and hurry.”

  * * *

  The Pasha made a long, slow turn to the southwest at 1810 hours. They were now a few hundred miles west of the Maldives. Diverging here was not so unusual if the ship’s destination was South Africa or even South America.

  When the Pasha changed course, the trailing helicopter did as well. By the time the pirate ship passed over the horizon and beyond the sight of other vessels in the major shipping lanes, there was still an hour of sunlight left.

  That’s when Team Whiskey struck.

  * * *

  It had been a shoestring plan, badly stitched together with suggestions from all of them, yet somehow the team accomplished exactly what they wanted: They’d maneuvered Zeek out of the shipping lanes, away from any witnesses. They had him just where they wanted him, at least for the moment.

  Sending the work copter to harass Zeek and radioing the phony NATO boarding message had been perfect ploys. The Pirate King was impulsive, paranoid, narcissistic and quick to anger. Making him aware that someone knew what he was up to, that someone was throwing a monkey wrench into his plans, had caused him to act irrationally, just as they had hoped.

  And while his eyes, and those of everyone else aboard his ship, were looking skyward, focused on the strange little helicopter, they barely noticed that instead of the Filipino freighter following them, as it had all day, after going through the line of rainsqualls, the Dustboat had moved in behind them instead.

  So, the trap had been set.

  But right away, there was a problem. It had to do with the Copperhead shell Conley had given them. It was longer and narrower than a typical artillery shell and had two sets of steering fins, one near the middle and one on the end. These fins folded against the shell’s body when it was being loaded into the gun and opened once the shell was fired. But this particular shell had been kicking around for so long, the fins would not stay flush when loaded into the M198 howitzer’s breech. It wasn’t a question of muscle power and jamming the shell in; it was more a surgical operation that Gunner, the weapons expert, just couldn’t accomplish. Even with Nolan’s help, he failed to squeeze the shell into the beastly M198.

  This wasn’t good, because the Copperhead was central to their plan against Zeek. Get him out in the middle of the ocean and sink his ass with the smart bomb/artillery shell from twenty miles away — that was the extent of it. As veterans of many asymmetrical engagements, the team knew few things went 100 percent right in combat. But all things considered, this was a good place to start.

  But now it was getting dark, Zeek’s ship was getting farther out of range, and Batman and Crash — in the work copter, still pacing the pirate ship — were watching the Pasha’s crew taking the tarps off their 50-caliber machine guns. But try as they might, those back on the DUS-7 just couldn’t get the Copperhead shell to cooperate.

  Finally, Twitch came up with an idea: Why not wrap rubber bands around the fins just long enough to get the shell inside the gun? Then they could snip the bands off once the shell was in place.

  They took four rubber bands and put them in place as Twitch suggested — and the shell slid right in. Then, using the long, thin blade he always carried in his prosthetic leg, Twitch delicately snipped off the rubber bands and removed them from the breech.

  It worked — but it had used up ten precious minutes. By the time the Copperhead was loaded, Zeek’s ship was about twenty-two miles away, at the very limit of the smart shell’s effective range.

  Nolan called up to Batman in the work copter to tell him the gun was finally loaded.

  “It’s your show now,” he told the copter pilot.

  But no sooner had Batman received the message that a furious barrage of 50-caliber machine gun fire rose up from the Pasha. At the same moment, they saw the ship’s helicopter gunship start its rotors, intent no doubt on coming up to challenge them. It was official: Zeek was trying to shoot him down.

  “Are you ready to do your thing?” Batman yelled to Crash as he started dodging the storm of tracer fire.

  “More than ready,” Crash yelled back.

  The ex-SEAL reached not for his snipe
r rifle, but for the team’s laser designator. According to the manual, if Crash could hold a laser marker on the Pasha’s hull long enough, the Copperhead shell would lock onto the laser beam and follow it right down to the target.

  But it was easier said than done, as the copter crew soon found out.

  “We can barely hold steady over the boat,” Batman yelled into his sat phone to Nolan. “And because these assholes are shooting at us, we can’t stay in one place for very long.”

  “What do you recommend, then?” Nolan asked him.

  “Just fire the goddamn thing!” Batman yelled in reply.

  Nolan turned to Gunner. “Are you aimed?”

  Gunner checked the M198’s computer-assisted aiming calculators. “I’m in the ballpark,” he said. “The readout says the ship is in the crosshairs.”

  “Then fire it,” Nolan told him. “Before Batman has kittens.”

  Gunner didn’t have to be told twice. He pulled the firing cord and the Copperhead shell exploded out of the gun with such sound and fury that, at first, they thought it had detonated inside the barrel itself. But that fear subsided as they watched the shell zoom toward the horizon, its steering fins extended.

  Batman and Crash actually saw it coming, a flare of red fire arching across the sky. Now came the time to show some real fortitude. Batman stopped his aerial dancing act and put the work copter into a dive, ending up just 250 feet above the stern of the minesweeper. Holding on to his safety harness for dear life, Crash hung way out the copter’s open door, pointed his laser marker at the Pasha’s rear deck, and did his best to keep it there.

  Batman and Crash had both envisioned they’d have to stay like this for a substantial amount of time, but they were wrong. The Copperhead shell arrived just seconds after it was fired. It perfectly followed the beam of light shone on Zeek’s vessel and struck with astonishing force. The shell sliced through the stern of the pirate ship, taking out the Bo-105 helicopter, its crew and its landing pad, then drove deeply into the hull and exploded in the engine room. The blast was so tremendous, it blew a hole out the back of the ship, utterly destroying one of its engines and disabling its main steering column.

  Buffeted by the resulting shockwave, Batman and Gunner were astounded that the shell actually worked.

  “Jesus freaking Christ,” Batman cried. “Right on the freaking money!”

  “We hit it,” Crash kept saying. “We hit it!”

  They hit it, yes — but they soon realized that they did not sink it. The pirate ship was going up the side of a wave when the missile struck. When it came off that same wave, propelled by the force of the blast, a great spray of seawater went through the blown-out hole, extinguishing the fire in the end of the ship with cosmic efficiency.

  And incredibly, the Pasha motored on. It had lost half its power, smoke was billowing out of every orifice, and blown-apart electrical cables were sparking all over the deck. But the ship was still afloat and moving nevertheless.

  Batman couldn’t believe it; neither could Crash. When they relayed the news back to Nolan on DUS-7, the team leader couldn’t believe it, either. If the Copperhead shell had hit just ten more feet toward the front of the ship, it would have sunk it like a brick.

  “But we still got him by the nuts!” Nolan yelled back to them on the sat phone. “He’s wounded. He’s hurting. Now, we just got to finish the job.”

  “Roger that,” Batman radioed back. “Let’s hit ’em when they’re down.”

  Crash put the laser designator aside and pulled his sniper rifle from the backseat. Batman put the work copter into another screaming dive. They passed through the smoke pouring out of the back of the pirate ship and saw the deck was a scene of mass confusion, the crew trying to fight what was left of the fire and collect their dead and wounded. Batman turned the copter sharply right, which put Crash and his weapon almost even with the ship’s wheel house.

  Crash fired directly into the bridge. At the same time, Batman turned the copter so it faced the wheel house, and opened up with the gun pod. The combined barrage lasted only a few seconds, but caused extensive damage. Everyone in the control room — including the ship’s Chinese captain and his two executive officers — took bullets to the head and chest. Twelve were killed outright. The bridge’s main radio and communications suite exploded, and a main electrical buss blew out every light on the ship.

  Batman pulled the copter up and away and fired a barrage at the smoking hole in the back of the ship, hoping to hit the vessel’s remaining good engine. He sprayed the deck itself, killing some of those pirates who’d been firing the 50-caliber machine guns at him. Finally, he and Crash ran out of ammunition. Batman pushed the copter’s controls forward and they quickly flew away.

  On the DUS-7, Nolan had ordered the ship to full double ahead, meaning their diesel engines were revved up to full power and the small gas turbine was also running, increasing their speed to in excess of forty knots. Within five minutes, the Dustboat was just two miles away from Zeek’s burning, smoking wreck.

  Nolan had Gunner load the big M198 again, this time with a conventional shell. He fired and the first shell landed just a few feet off the nose of the pirate ship. The explosion lifted the front of the vessel out of the water and knocked it sideways.

  Nolan helped Gunner reload, and the gun fired again. This shell missed to port, but showered the pirate ship with shrapnel and a rush of superheated salt water.

  A third shot — this one skimmed the bridge and nearly took out the forward gun. The DUS-7 was now less than a mile away, and the M198 was firing shells with incredible power and violence. Nolan and Gunner reloaded the gun and fired it again. The pirate ship was turning wildly, and this shot went right through the main mast, blowing it to pieces.

  “In the old days, ‘de-masting’ your enemy was the end of a battle,” Gunner yelled to Nolan. “So we’re getting close.”

  But no sooner were these words out of his mouth than they saw a flash from the pirate ship, and a five-inch shell streaked over their heads, landing in the water on their starboard side. The near-hit rocked the DUS-7 back and forth, causing a small tidal wave of seawater to wash over them.

  Whether by fluke or defiance, the pirate ship was firing back.

  “God damn!” Gunner yelled. “Too fucking close!”

  Twitch yelled down from the bridge: “The Senegals want to know which way should we go?”

  “Stay on his tail!” Nolan yelled back. “No matter what — stay right in back of him…”

  This was the smart move. The pirate ship — though wounded — was still heavily armed. But no matter what condition it was in, it couldn’t fire its heavy weapons backward.

  Nolan and Gunner loaded the gun and fired again. This shot came even closer to hitting the pirate ship’s forward gun, scraping it and taking out the entire bow railing before exploding in the sea on the other side.

  The pirate ship went sharp to port. “Stay on him!” Nolan yelled, and the Senegals did just that.

  The DUS-7 was now just a quarter-mile from the pirate ship and gaining fast. Nolan and Gunner could feel victory within their grasp. They loaded the gun and fired it again. The shell hit the pirate ship square on its main deck, blowing off half the port-side rail.

  “Muthafucker!” Gunner screamed. “We got this asshole now!”

  Nolan couldn’t disagree. The burning ship was losing speed as the DUS-7 was gaining on it. The Senegals continued following Nolan’s order to a T and stayed glued to the Pasha’s tail, not allowing the crippled vessel to fire any of its weapons.

  Nolan and Gunner loaded another shell, and in aiming the gun, had the pirate ship’s bridge in its sight. They knew it would be a direct hit. Nolan told Gunner to fire. But before he could pull the firing cord, there was a shout from the ship’s bridge.

  “We got company!” was all Twitch said.

  Nolan and Gunner looked up into the gathering dusky sky and immediately saw what Twitch was talking about.

  “I
don’t believe this…” Nolan gasped.

  * * *

  Batman and Crash were about halfway back to the DUS-7 when they saw what those on the ship saw.

  They couldn’t believe it, either.

  Two U.S. Navy jet fighters were hurtling toward the DUS-7 at supersonic speed, flying in extremely low from the north.

  They went by the ship so fast and so low, the Dustboat was rocked back and forth, buffeted violently by the combined shockwaves.

  “What the fuck are these guys doing?” Batman exploded.

  The planes were F-18 Super Hornets, the most powerful warplanes in the U.S. Navy and among the top fighters in the world.

  Batman watched as the two jets pulled up and screamed off to the west.

  He called Nolan on the sat phone. “What the fuck was that about?”

  “I can only guess,” Nolan shouted in reply. “The freaking ONI…”

  It was the threat made good. The world would be better off if Zeek wasn’t in Indonesian waters anymore — and killing him was not an option, because no one wanted to piss off the Chinese. So once again, Team Whiskey’s intentions were being held hostage to the seamy machinations of international politics.

  The question was, how far would the Navy jets go?

  The two F-18s swung back around the DUS-7 and once again streaked over the freighter so low, the ship shook from one end to the other.

  Then they turned yet again…

  * * *

  Navy Captain Randy Lynch was the flight leader of the F-18s. He and his wingman had left the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln in the Persian Gulf ninety minutes earlier after being assigned a classified anti-piracy mission in the Indian Ocean.