The Devil's Waters

CHAPTER 19





Camp Lemonnier

Djibouti

Wally charged through the Barn, beneath the tall shelf where Doc and LB lived.

“Everybody!” He jogged into the common area where the entire PJ team was assembled. “Briefing room. Now.”

All nine filed into the small room used for briefings and movies. Wally shut the door. Quickly the team spread onto the two tiers of beat-up sofas and leather chairs. Wally stayed in front.

“We got a mission. Set alert thirty.”

Dow said, “Whoa,” at the thirty-minute notice. Jamie whistled. Every man hardened his posture in his seat.

“One hour ago, Somali pirates hijacked a freighter out in the gulf. The ship is the CMA CGN Valnea.”

On the back row, Jamie’s feet shot under him. He gripped the arms of his chair. Wally motioned for him to stay down.

“That’s right, it’s the same ship LB and Jamie boarded this morning. LB’s still there. That hasn’t been confirmed, but we all know him, and we know he’s pissed off. The freighter’s carrying some kind of highly classified cargo. The bottom line is, these pirates have taken the wrong ship. I’ve just come back from the JOC. I spoke with very high brass on the phone. We’ve been given the order to take the Valnea back before she reaches the Somali coast.”

Dow asked, “They’re sending a PJ team? Where are the SEALs?”

“We got the job for two reasons. First, there’s a tight window on this one. We’re sitting alert four hundred miles from the target. There’s no combat-capable team in range but us. We can get there faster than SEALs, Special Forces, anyone else. Second, one of our own is on that ship.”

The team stirred. Each looked at another, bonds of training and action asserting themselves. They showed each other balled fists. We’ll do this. You, and you, and you, and me.

“Yep.” Wally addressed this to Robey. “LB needs rescuing.”

He explained the situation. The pirates were lethal, that much was known. There’d already been one acknowledged killing. He made no mention of the concern that the victim might have been LB. He gave the location, speed, and direction of the freighter, one hundred miles from the Somali coast. A US warship was tracking her. The number of pirates on board was still indeterminate, but they could expect at least twenty armed targets, likely more.

Doc asked, “What about the crew?”

“Hostage.”

“How many?”

“Twenty-seven. That includes a couple guards and one passenger.”

“Passenger? Who gets on a freighter as a passenger?”

“Don’t know. It’s odd.”

“Where’re they being held?”

“Don’t know that either.”

“Got to have that.”

Wally tapped the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other. Unease filtered among the team. Most of them knew Wally well enough to notice anytime he pulled up short.

Big Quincy asked, “Now’s not the time to dance, Captain. What’s up?”

“This is where it gets tough.”

Mouse said, “Okay.”

“Our orders are to regain control of the ship.”

“And?”

“According to the orders, freeing the hostages is a secondary objective.”

Jamie spoke first above the buzz in the room. “That’s dicked up.”

“I know.”

“They’re civilians.”

“They are.”

“The brass don’t care if they die? What the hell?”

“They care. Just not as much as they do about the ship.”

Doc asked, “What about LB?”

“Settle, everyone. I don’t know. We’ll do everything we can to find him and limit casualties. But the orders are clear. There’s something on that ship that can’t be left in pirate hands, pure and simple. Our priority is taking the Somalis down. Retake the ship. At all cost.”

Dow piped up. “At all cost. I hate that f*cking phrase. You notice nobody going on the mission ever says it?”

In the front row, without turning, Robey said, “Wally’s going.”

Wally stopped the dialogue. “We’ll brief on the plane. Wheels up in twenty-five. We’ll go in two teams. Team One, with me, will assault the ship. This’ll be a HALO jump. Eighteen thousand feet. Open at three thousand. Team Two will drop with the RAMZ at five thousand to an LZ two miles downwind. Anybody on Team One who misses the ship, Team Two picks them up. Pack extra rounds. Weapons suppressed. Lighten your med rucks.”

Doc shook his head. “I’m taking all of mine.” Jamie, Mouse, and another PJ, Fitz, agreed.

Wally backed off. “All right. But we stow ’em at the LZ. This is close quarters.”

“Roger.”

“The target’s a cargo ship moving twelve knots at night. The freighter’s under guard. The LZ is a wing to the left of the pilothouse. We won’t have a lot of room. Who’s had anything to drink?”

Wally lifted his own hand first. Doc, Robey, Mouse, and Jamie, the team on alert tonight, did not lift theirs. The rest put hands in the air.

“Who’s had two or more?”

All hands went down.

“I need straight answers.”

Fitz and the only PJ on the team as big as Quincy, a Tex-Mex named Sandoval, stuck their hands back up.

“How many?”

“Three.”

Fitz and Sandoval were well inside their tolerances, but not for combat.

“You’re both on Team Two. Man the RAMZ with Robey. Coffee before you kit up.”

The pair said, “Roger.”

Robey stood, a muscular kid.

“Let me go with Team One.”

“No. I need CQB experience.”

“I can do it.”

“And you will. But not tonight. Sit down.”

“Sir.”

“I don’t have time, Lieutenant. You’ve got your team and your orders. Sit down.”

Robey took his chair, reining himself in.

Doc asked, “Why HALO? It’s a tough jump to be opening low. Let’s go HAHO, get some more time to line it up. It’s a moving target.”

“We don’t have forty minutes to spend under canopy. That’s the next thing I have to tell you.”

Quincy muttered, “Uh-oh.”

Wally pointed to the big PJ. “That’s about right. We got three and a half hours from wheels up. With a two-and-a-half-hour flight, that leaves a sixty-minute window for us to take the ship down.” Wally consulted his watch. “That’s oh-two-ten hours. That means we move fast, every step of the way.”

Jamie asked, “What happens at oh-two-ten?”

Wally removed everything from his voice but the words. “The United States government is going to sink the Valnea. There’s an armed Predator en route.”

On the chairs and sofa, every head jerked.

“Sink it? With us on it?”

“If they have to. Yeah.”

“The hostages, everybody?”

“It’s got to be before the ship gets in view of land. No witnesses. Deep water. They’ll claim the pirates blew it up.”

The team grew quiet. Their excitement for the mission changed. It didn’t disappear but turned inward, where each man reminded himself privately of his pledge to serve as called upon.

“If it gets to that, jump overboard. Robey will pick you up.”

Quincy asked, “You gonna jump overboard? Leave the hostages with the pirates?”

“No.”

“Then don’t f*cking bring it up. Sir.”

Doc snapped, “Quincy.”

Wally waved it away. “It’s okay. Anything I missed?”

The elder PJ wiped a hand over his crown. “What the hell is on that ship?”

“Don’t know.”

Doc rose. “I’ll bet LB knows,” he said to the team. “Let’s go ask him.”

Wally opened the door. “On the tarmac in ten.”

The Barn became a hive. Loadmasters drove in a forklift to snatch a RAMZ package and haul it to the flight line. Doc, team leader in LB’s absence, stormed among the lockers, checking every man’s preparation. In shouts he repeated Wally’s orders for suppression tubes on all weapons, extra mags, counted down the minutes until wheels up. Robey’s team changed out of their cams into wetsuit shorties and dive gear. Doc tugged straps, checked gauges, weapons, packs. He growled at the men to do this now, do that later on the plane, move it.

“Everyone! Remember to take whistles, buzz saws, strobes, extra water. The LZ is a moving goddamn ship in the middle of the night! We’ll inspect chutes on the plane. Quincy, grab an extra.”

Doc visited each locker with a smudge can to grease up every face.

Wally geared up. He clamped the suppressor tube to the barrel of his M4, checked the charge on his radios and night-vision goggles. He stuffed four extra ammo magazines into his backpack, made sure he had all water survival items. Doc stopped last at Wally’s locker to black his face.

When Doc finished smearing the grease, Wally reached for his helmet.

“Get the men together.”

“Roger.”

Wally took a moment before stepping away from his locker. Putting a pen to the notepad he kept handy, he wrote a fast note to his mother and father in Nevada, another to his sister in San Francisco, and lastly an apology to Major Torres for being late to dinner. He set his Air Force Academy ring on top of the pages. He shut the locker door.

The team waited for him in a semicircle. Wally stepped to the center. Over a dozen years, in the minutes before a hundred missions, he’d never said these words. He swallowed once to make sure he didn’t choke them back.

“Before we head out, each man go to your locker. Leave behind something your families will want from you. A note, wedding ring, picture, you figure it out. Take two minutes. Go.”

Turning away, Dow made the team’s only comment. He breathed, “Holy shit.”

Wally stood alone with Mouse in the suddenly quiet Barn.

“What about the cheerleader?”

Mouse grinned. “She knows.”

Wally let a few seconds pass.

“You really have a—”

“Yeah, I do. With the Oakland Raiders. Jesus, Wally. You think this is a good time?”

From his locker, Doc said, “Shut up, both of you.”

Mouse mimicked an annoyed swing of a Ping-Pong paddle, mouthing how he was going to kick Wally’s ass when they got back.