The Devil's Waters

CHAPTER 47





LB yanked Quincy out of the doorway and down. Doc slammed the door just before a burst from an AK shattered the window-pane. Bullets blistered over their heads, banging the rail. Glass shards showered the ducking PJs.

“Now!” Wally’s radio voice cut across the gunfire. “Throw!”

From his back, Quincy pulled the pin to toss a flashbang through the busted window. LB shut his eyes behind the goggles and clapped hands over his ears.

The first detonation thumped deep in the steel. A second followed instantly.

Quincy scrambled off the deck, quick as a tiger. LB opened his eyes, gathering himself to move fast. Doc pulled the door wide open. Coils of smoke spilled out. Wally bulled into the cloud first, his M4 immediately sparking. Quincy moved in his wake, angling toward the windshield and hostages. LB jumped to his feet to rush into the bridge.

His goggles pierced the mist, every detail left hazy but identifiable. Emerald beams slashed back and forth, searching. The last traces of the grenades’ roars rang in the metal surfaces. Near the windshield, a Somali staggered, stunned and blind. From ten feet away Quincy pinned his chest with the IR beam, put a fast pop on the dot, then plugged him again as he fell. Another Somali lurched near the hostages, hunched and holding his head. Before LB could target this one, the pirate pulled his trigger to loose a wild arc of bullets, intending to die firing into the hostages. All of the sailors pressed chests to the floor, flattened by the grenades and gunfire. The pirate had no bearings in the smoke, deaf to the hostages shrieking at his feet. His first volley dented the wall behind them and blasted out a windshield pane, spattering glass on the crew. LB whipped his IR beam to the pirate’s chest and fired. The Somali wobbled from two speed rounds to the breast but did not go down. Fading, the pirate lowered the gun’s muzzle as his last act and raked the gun blazing into the hostages. From the chart table, Doc finished him with two more rounds to the rib cage. The Kalashnikov fell silent with the pirate. With more Somalis alive on the bridge, LB tore his attention from the wailing, injured hostages.

Bathed in the lights of the dashboard, another stumbling pirate went down to Wally’s M4. Folding to his knees, the pirate let off a quick burst. Across the room Quincy whirled, stung. LB put two more rounds in the dropping pirate from close range. This last Somali collapsed in a heap beside the first pirate killed when Wally charged the room.

The bridge echoed like a spent bell. The PJs stabbed their targeting beams into every corner of the room. A dark ooze spread into the Somalis’ blouses, drizzling onto the deck. The hostages moaned or shouted urgently through the chemical haze, unable to hear or see. Doc hustled to them, skidding on his kneepads to assess casualties. “Quincy,” he yelled, “med rucks!” Big Quincy, shaking blood off his left hand, bolted for the port wing’s shot-up door.

LB and Wally stepped over corpses, on crunching glass and slick blood, hunting out the last smoky hiding places on the bridge. Six Somalis had held the room when the assault started. Four were down.

“LB.” Wally did not turn from his sweeping IR beam.

“Yeah.”

“Hail that warship. Tell them we’re secure. Have them contact AFRICOM. Stat.”

LB hurried to the dash. Drozdov lay dead at the foot of his captain’s chair. The digital clock on the dash read 0204. Six minutes left.

LB pressed talk on the ship’s VHF.

“USS Nicholas, Nicholas. This is Air Force Guardian Angel team on board Valnea. Over.”

The warship answered immediately. LB interrupted the sailor’s response.

“Valnea is secure. Repeat, Valnea is secure. Request you contact AFRICOM immediately to relay this. Repeat, immediately.”

Over the loudspeaker the frigate’s radioman said he’d take care of it. He asked if any other assistance was needed.

From around the bridge, Wally, Quincy, and Doc yelled, “No!”

LB sped his words. “Not now. Just call AFRICOM. Urgent. Confirm when done.”

“Roger. Nicholas out.”

Mouse and Dow entered from the starboard wing, leaving the portal open. Mouse joined Doc and Quincy in tending to the hostages. Dow checked for a pulse on Drozdov, then the downed Somalis.

Wally finished searching in the departing mist. He moved beside the captain’s chair, ignoring Drozdov’s corpse. LB joined him. Both lifted their night goggles. The radioman on Nicholas called back to confirm. LB handled the contact. The one-word message from AFRICOM was “secure.”

Dow called out that all four Somalis were dead.

Wally answered. “Casualty report on the hostages.”

LB scanned the carnage of the bridge. Bits of impact glass and bullet casings glittered on the floor, lit by the ship’s gauges and the moon through missing windows. Blood would not color in the sparse light and stayed black on the pirates and Drozdov. Doc worked on hostages’ wounds, wrapping limbs and scalps. The hefty first mate, Grisha, lay with his head in another’s lap; Quincy was busy cutting away the shirt over the man’s bulbous belly. Dow knelt beside one downed Filipino, then moved to another. All the hostages’ senses remained clobbered. The ones who found their voices cried for help and answers. None tried to stand.

LB’s skin prickled after the ten seconds of combat. He unlatched his hands from the rifle for it to hang loose at his chest, his first step in letting the world restore.

Dow came close. “All four targets are dead. Plus the captain and two crew. One of the Russians has a sucking chest wound; we’ve got to evac him. Quincy took one through the wrist. He’s a bull. Says he’ll wrap himself.” Dow tapped a finger on the red coin seeping through the bandage around Wally’s biceps. “We ought to take a look at that too, Captain.”

Wally dismissed him with a nod. The PJ hesitated.

“What?” Wally asked.

“Weren’t there six targets in here?”

“Two got out.”

Dow surveyed the mess of the bridge. “Lucky.” He moved to station himself in the center of the room, standing guard should the two missing pirates take another turn at them.

LB said, “We got lucky, too.”

Wally pinched the bridge of his nose, showing strain. “No.”

“Three hostages. Quincy got winged. Could’ve been worse.”

“Robey makes it worse.”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s Yusuf Raage?”

LB had lied to the Nicholas when he reported that the freighter was secure. It wasn’t. Two pirates remained at large. And a female scientist.

Wally fingered his talk button. “Jamie? Sandoval? Respond.”

The last of the smoke slipped along the ceiling, seeping out the busted windows and open doors. Wally hailed again.

His answer blared through the wall at the back of the bridge, a long, emptying rip from a Kalashnikov in the stairwell.