The Devil's Waters

CHAPTER 24





CMA CGN Valnea

Gulf of Aden

Short-legged and thick, LB was not built for scrambling in tight places. The rows of lashing bridges across the cargo deck made for great cover if he stood still, but he couldn’t.

After clambering over and through the first two sets of gates and cables, LB paused to gather himself. He remembered what it was like to be younger and leaner, when he could have slung himself over this landscape, leaped and landed, leaped again. There was a time he was so quick that even if he was spotted, no one would believe they’d seen a man, not just a trick of the eye.

He squatted in an alley between two lashing bridges, at the base of the forward crane, stuck with a beat-up, squat forty-two-year-old soldier’s body. If he continued to stumble over the obstacles every twenty feet on the cargo deck, he’d be a sitting duck for anyone watching from the bridge, even in starlight. His camos and clumsiness would mark him against the white-painted field.

If he was going to get a count of the pirates, their weapons and positions, no other way presented itself. He’d need to take a closer look. If possible, without compromising himself, he wanted a peek, too, at the location and condition of the hostages.

Why had Wally skipped over the hostages? What did he mean, “need to know”? LB didn’t like where that pointed. He was out of the loop, but accepted that was how it should be. If the pirates captured him, it’d be best if he didn’t know the whole plan.

Twenty years in the military; this was his first time on the wrong side of the PJ equation. Being the one waiting for the cavalry, on the ground, on the run, in danger and scared, he blessed every man on those HC-130s rushing his way, taking his peril for their own. LB hoped all those times he’d been the one blessed added up, and paid off tonight.

He slung the Zastava to his back. He didn’t expect to use it; with more than an hour until Wally and the team dropped in, he stood no chance of surviving a gunfight with dozens of pirates. He tugged his pants leg out of his boot to take in hand the quietest weapon, his four-inch blade.

LB had a few things in his favor: it was the darkest part of the night, the Somalis didn’t know he was here, and he knew what he was doing. With a deep and uneasy breath, he crept to port for the ladder off the cargo deck.

He approached the opening on hands and knees. Slowly, he dropped his head first, glancing both ways along the narrow steel corridor. LB would recon only one side of the ship; logic indicated the pirates would assign guards equally left and right.

Ten feet away, the outline of a single pirate shuffled toward the stern. The path to the bow looked clear. LB eased down the ladder, lay flat. When he was sure he could move, he coiled into a low crouch.

Carefully, he coaxed every corner and crooked line of the passage to hide him. He kept watch forward and aft, should the guard behind him come back his way. The Milky Way cast enough light to betray him, so he crawled in the murk beneath the rail. Far below, the wake water made enough noise to hide his small jangles and footfalls.

After forty yards, LB emerged from the companionway, stepping from under the cover of the cargo deck. He stopped to rest his legs, on fire from the long walking squat. Ahead, high on its mast, the steaming light glowed over the open bow. With many places to hide, he hurried behind a hawser meant to hold docking lines thick as his arm. Along the rail, four pirates kept watch over the broad gulf. LB slunk back into the portside companionway.

Immediately he ducked into a dark nook, kneeling behind a life raft canister. The guard he’d avoided minutes before strolled his way. LB peered from behind cover until the Somali ambled back toward the stern. Softly, careful to stay in the shadows below the rail, LB followed the pirate for thirty meters, as far as he dared, before scampering up another ladder to the cargo deck. There he waited, getting a sense of the distance this guard covered and the pace of his patrol.

Waiting a minute, LB poked his head through the ladder opening. The Somali had passed, returning to the bow. LB crept down the ladder, hunched low, and made his way toward the stern, head on a swivel, until he caught sight of the next target in the passage.

Twice more, he stole up ladders to lay low on the cargo deck, keeping an eye through the opening until the pirates sauntered past. LB descended to move sternward, invisible and soundless.

Nearing the foot of the superstructure, the glowing red dot of a cigarette sent him scuttling behind the nearest cover, a metal staircase. One more Somali came his way from the corridor behind the superstructure. The pirate paid more attention to the cigarette than to his vigilance. He walked past LB to the port rail, dropping his spent butt on the deck. LB huddled in the shadows, watching through the louvers of the stairs while the pirate tried to light another in the breeze.

The Somali could not get his cigarette going. He moved away from the open wind that snuffed his matches to the cover of the superstructure. With his back only five feet from LB’s hiding place, the pirate managed to light his smoke. With a deep drag, he took a seat on the stairs.

LB tightened his grip on the knife. The pirate’s blouse hung loosely around him; he was thin and young, redolent of the odor of days without a bath. He enjoyed his cigarette as a luxury, a poor man’s savor. LB concentrated on his own balance, the pirate’s rib cage under the blowing tunic, and a heartsick prayer for him to go away.

Someone had put LB in this position—Wally and the team, too. Somebody very high up had decided that politics and schemes were bigger than the PJ oath. LB was going to have to kill, probably a lot, before he got off this ship. He made himself a promise to square that up with someone, first chance he got.

The Somali tipped back his head to finish the cigarette. When he’d drawn it down to his fingertips, he tossed the glowing nub under the steps.

The butt bounced off LB’s shoulder, showered sparks, and landed out in the open.

LB came out of his crouch.

The pirate looked down.

LB surged forward. He shot his left arm between the open stairs, wrapping the pirate’s waist to lock him in place. His right hand drove the knife into the Somali’s back, aiming for a lung. The pirate’s legs and arms heaved, he shrieked in shock. LB hauled him down harder, pulled out the knife, and rammed it again to the hilt between the pirate’s ribs. In wounded panic the Somali found the last of his strength, jammed his feet and hands under him to push off the steps. The sudden move lifted LB hard into the stairs, slamming his face and chest against the metal edges. The pirate flailed to get away.

LB’s grip slipped around the pirate’s waist. The man pivoted, straining away from the reaching arm and blade. He twisted fast, wringing his torso from LB’s grip. Still at close range with his knees on the stairs, not yet mortally wounded, he reached with shaking hands toward his dangling Kalashnikov.

With no other choice left, LB flung himself against the stairs, extending his arm as far as he could. His fingertips found the fabric of the pirate’s blouse. LB grabbed, yanked the Somali off balance, chest down into the steps, and plunged the knife. The pirate lay on the Kalashnikov, unable to bring it to bear. His last gasp came in LB’s face.

The man had screamed, only once but enough to alert any other pirates in earshot. LB drew out the knife. He skittered from under the steps, swinging the Zastava into his hands. He shoved his back against the superstructure to check all directions. Nothing pricked his senses. The headwind must have blown the pirate’s shout backward. The stern, right over the propeller and wake, would be the noisiest spot on deck. Maybe the guards there hadn’t heard their mate’s killing.

LB approached the corpse splayed on the stairs. The man’s heart had spilled over LB’s hands. Wiping blood on his pants legs, he stood over the pirate, whose blood oozed onto the stairs, dripping where LB had hidden.

He rolled the Somali over. The dead man’s features had relaxed from their last spasm on the point of LB’s knife. The mouth and eyes had shut, slack and final.

He whispered, “Can’t leave you here, pal. Sorry.”

LB hefted the corpse across his shoulders. Keeping to the shadows between the stairs and port rail, he checked for any trace of other pirates. The way was clear. He dumped the body overboard, throwing away the Kalashnikov too. LB didn’t watch the corpse and rifle tumble but stooped to hustle into the passage. He found a cranny there. No one came his way. The pirate’s thin body had landed unseen in the froth three stories below; the splash it made didn’t rise above the sounds of the freighter under way. Except for his blood, dark in a dark corner, he was gone.

LB crept to find three more Somalis at the stern rail. That made three targets on port, three on the stern, four on the bow; he supposed another four down the starboard rail. He checked his watch. The recon had taken forty minutes. He returned to the base of the superstructure and the steps, but could not consider going up them. He had valuable intel for the operation. Wally and the team would need to incorporate the locations of the guards on deck into their assault plan. There wasn’t time to hunt for the hostages.

LB picked his way forward along the companionway, stealing as far as he guessed the dead pirate might’ve had as his patrol. He hoped the man’s absence wouldn’t be noticed for another hour. Even if it was, it would take the others a while to figure out he wasn’t just off sleeping somewhere.

LB mounted a ladder to the cargo deck. With Iris’s master key, he unlocked a cargo hatch and lowered himself into the utter blackness below.

Standing on the top step, he donned his headset, spreading the sat-comm antenna, found his satellite, and reported to Torres what he’d found. Fourteen Somalis, plus their locations, all with AK-47s. He estimated five or six more somewhere in the super-structure, possibly on the bridge or guarding the hostages. She asked if he knew the location of the hostages. He had nothing.

Torres inquired whether he was undetected. He told her about the pirate he’d taken down, dumping the body overboard. She mentioned her regret and commended him. LB told her to stow it, then added, “Ma’am.”

He folded the antenna and closed the hatch. Behind his flashlight, he descended six levels to the bottom of the ship. Putting his boots on the hull, he worked his way forward through the maze of pillars and railings.

Walking in the buttery glow of the flashlight, LB came to the first railcars. He glanced ahead; no light came from the forward cargo bay. He called out to Iris. She answered from high on a catwalk with her own flashlight beam.