The Devil's Waters

CHAPTER 54





CMA CGN Valnea

Gulf of Aden

LB squatted on his heels, facing Yusuf Raage and Iris ten yards away. The pirate kept a big arm around the woman’s waist, knife under her chin. She was clever enough not to wriggle or speak. He hunkered his great frame behind her in case Wally had sent back a sniper. Every few minutes, Yusuf lifted the NVGs to scan the ship. LB watched, tapping the blade of his knife into his palm.

Minute by minute, Yusuf rose higher, riding the rearing bow. He kicked off his sandals for the better grip of bare feet. He dragged Iris closer to the port hawser so he could brace one leg against it. LB kept low to hold his position.

Behind him, the navy frigate idled. Rescue craft shuttled back and forth while the freighter’s crew and his PJs abandoned ship. With a thud in the steel underfoot, the steaming light overhead fizzled out. The Valnea’s engine room was flooded now, her power gone. The moving searchlight off the frigate became the only illumination, making the shadows on the bow shiver and stretch.

For long, silent minutes, LB and Yusuf pondered each other. Yusuf stared down from white eyes. LB read nothing in those eyes and gave the same back. He was afraid for his life, but he had been so before. He rapped the blade against his hand over and over to keep his mind away from it. Iris Cherlina needed rescue, Yusuf had been ordered killed, and LB was well trained to do both. He centered himself there.

The deck rose to a precarious tilt, the freighter straining and croaking as she stood herself on end. Far below on the water, unseen, all the rescue craft were done except one. A lone out-board cruised alongside the Valnea’s hull. That would be Fitz.

The deck climbed faster. Gushing sounds crept up both corridors. The horizon behind Yusuf had disappeared; all that framed him were stars.

Twenty minutes had passed since LB had last spoken. He rose from his crouch.

“Let her go.”

With no word, the pirate lowered the blade from Iris Cherlina’s throat. He unwound his arm from her waist to let her stumble away. LB caught her. Iris’s sudden arms around his neck almost pulled him backward. He steadied himself and tried to let her loose, but Iris clung.

“Jump with me,” she said, pent-up fear in her voice.

“Go on. Now.” LB pushed at her ribs to make her stand free. “Yes, Sergeant, jump.” Yusuf glared down from the height the dying ship gave him. “I will jump the other way. And damn you for a coward.”

Iris tugged. “Don’t listen to him.”

LB pushed her away. “I don’t give a f*ck what he says.” He heard himself growl. Anger was no better than fear; he shut this down, too. “I got orders. That’s it. Now get off the ship.”

LB put his back to Iris Cherlina. He sensed her suspended there a moment. Then, in his periphery, the frigate’s spotlight followed her along the starboard passage and over the rail. She splashed, the lone outboard motor revving to pluck her from the water. Yusuf kept looking down on LB, until the search beam went out.

In the darkness, the warship rumbled and pulled away. Quickly, LB and Yusuf were left with only the sounds of creaks and bursting bubbles in the water.

The slant had grown too steep to stand on the deck any longer. Yusuf climbed to the back of the port hawser. LB did the same on starboard. They faced each other three yards apart, knives in hand.

A pillar of released air blew high beside the hull. The freighter belched and gulped, shuddering as she drowned. The top of the stern crane and the last of the superstructure went under. Water rushed across the cargo deck and lashing bridges, covering the base of the midship crane.

Yusuf squared his big shoulders to LB, done with gazing at the black, claiming waters. He lifted his chin. Bloody and ragged, he reeked strength.

“I am Harti, of the Darood.”

LB had no idea how this ritual worked.

“I’m from Vegas.”

A grin split Yusuf’s face that was still there when he launched himself at LB.

Thrusting out his knife, LB braced for the collision. In midair, the pirate slashed his own blade in a blurring arc. LB barely dodged, the pirate’s blade ripping through his sleeve. Yusuf’s shoulder caught LB by the hip, plowing him off the hawser. LB fell to the sloping deck, hacking as he tumbled. His knife sliced the back of the pirate’s leg.

LB landed hard on his ribs. He slid down the deck toward the giant windlass, catching himself on the machine beneath the rusty anchor chain. He hung on, regaining his breath.

Overhead, Yusuf dangled by a long, powerful arm from the hawser. Blood dripped off one bare heel. The Somali let go, bounding against the angled deck to land with knees bent on the great windlass, an act of incredible balance.

LB scrabbled for a foothold. Again, the pirate considered him from above.

More moans sobbed in the submerging ship; another fountain of air burst beside the hull. The bow had ridden high enough to cover the moon.

Yusuf Raage jumped off the windlass, out of sight.

Before LB could turn, a hand gripped his ankle. He was yanked backward to skid down the slope into shadow. On his back, he thudded against the wall at the base of the cargo deck. A snarling Yusuf Raage loomed over him.

The pirate pounced. He raised his knife and dove, hammering the blade down at LB’s heart. LB heaved up an arm to deflect but could not push the blow completely aside. The pirate’s dagger raked his left shoulder, gashing the muscle. LB’s arm burned but stayed in the fight. He grabbed Yusuf’s wrist, forcing the knife against the wall. Yusuf coiled lower to snatch his arm out of LB’s wounded grasp. The Somali was immensely powerful; he jerked himself loose, but not quickly enough. LB drove his own blade into Yusuf’s exposed left side.

The pirate leaped back with the blade still plunged in his torso. LB tried to hold on, but the knife yanked from his hand. The Somali reared up, reeling back another step. With a guttural rumble, he drew the blade out of his ribs, then hurled it away.

LB scrambled to his feet. The dark ship had risen almost to vertical; the cargo wall beneath them had become their floor. LB’s left arm throbbed, sapping blood and strength with every second.

Yusuf Raage shook his head to clear it. He squared off against LB, working his knife in small pendular movements, deciding how to attack.

The pirate strode forward. LB thrust out his bare hands to defend. Yusuf’s tunic hung soggy with blood from the hole in his side. The man should have been on his last legs. He wasn’t.

LB retreated, needing to buy seconds.

The Somali lowered his head, preparing another charge.

“Come, Sergeant. We don’t have much time, either of us. Let’s decide things.”

LB lacked anything to say. He retreated another step. His boot landed in water, what he was waiting for.

Yusuf lunged. LB twisted sideways, parrying the thrust slowed by the onrushing, foaming gulf instantly around their ankles. He spun past Yusuf before he felt the sting of another cut, across his right forearm. LB worked his fingers, again testing to see how much he had left. No cords were severed in the arm, but he bled from one more gash.

In the instant Yusuf took to set himself for a last rush at LB, the chilly gulf rose to their waists. Valnea burbled, emptying herself as she dropped away below their feet. Yusuf surged at LB.

The pirate whipped the knife wildly and missed, hindered by the flooding waters. LB saw his one chance and sprang. He leaped at Yusuf before the pirate could swing his right arm back. He wrapped the big Somali in a bear hug, trapping Yusuf’s arm and the knife between them. The water climbed to their chests. LB linked hands around Yusuf Raage and squeezed with the last of his strength.

The flood reached LB’s shoulders; foam licked his chin. The pirate bellowed in anger, that he could not shake LB loose. In seconds the deck slid away beneath their feet. The two floated, locked together.

The pirate’s eyes and mouth widened with fury. LB answered with a deep breath before his head sank underwater.

Yusuf Raage kicked madly to raise his own head above the surface for one sharp gasp. LB held tight, weighing the pirate down. His own arms would fail in the next few moments. His wounds pained him enough that he could not fully feel his clasp around Yusuf. If the pirate got loose, they were in close quarters, Yusuf could stab him. One more good cut would likely be the end.

The bow slid away around them. LB kicked once with Yusuf to lift both their heads above water. The pirate, surprised, gulped air greedily. LB filled his own lungs.

The port windlass sank to his left. Without easing his clinch around Yusuf, LB lashed out a leg at the receding machine. The toe of his boot caught inside a link of the thick anchor chain. LB was hauled under, dragging Yusuf Raage down with him.

The pirate fought with everything he had left. He pricked at LB’s hip with the trapped knife, but could stab only nicks. LB rode the freighter deeper, eyes open and blurry in the salt gulf. The Somali thrashed, panicked and gaping. He worked his mouth for air that was not there while the growing depth swallowed the last of the thin light. LB clutched the pirate hard, keeping his ear pressed to the Somali’s chest. He staved off his pains, fought for focus, and preserved his air.

Yusuf Raage writhed inside LB’s grasp, his throat uttered muffled cries. With no notion of how deep the Valnea had towed them, LB pulled his boot out of the chain. The tip of the great bow slipped past in the dark, sucking at them as it disappeared.

Yusuf shuddered again. His head jerked in every direction, confounded and desperate. LB held tight until the pirate shook a last time, became sluggish, then went limp.

LB pushed the corpse away, weightless into the ghostly, tranquil water. The two drifted above the last groans of the freighter falling invisibly below them. Yusuf Raage, spread-eagled, receded into the dark.

LB followed bubbles fleeing the ship to show him the direction to the surface, but could only use his right arm to swim. His left shoulder was done.

His depth was unknown. LB kept his upward rhythm steady, expelling small breaths as he ascended. His lungs shrank, squeezing out every bit of oxygen to keep him conscious. He made his mission in the world as narrow as possible, to swim, stay alive, fight his own screaming body. Years of training lined up in his head to tell him he could do this. Memory added its images, a decade of jungle warfare, dozens of combat rescues, natural disasters, frightful conditions, always against odds. He’d done tough things in his life so that some would die and many others would live. Now was his time, LB, to take another stroke and kick upward, stroke and kick again, so that he could live.

To his salt-stung eyes, the water began to lighten. This meant starlight, moonlight, nearing the surface. LB released breath, bottoming out, easing for the last time the blaze in his lungs.

He swam as hard as he could. Behind this last push for the surface, he had nothing. Panic tripped inside his chest, his thoughts clouded. His mouth opened to draw an airless breath.

He pushed through the panic as if it were more water. On the other side, LB found calm.

He’d done his job, a proud thing. But he was alone, the place a PJ should never be.

LB stopped kicking. He floated, gazing up at the rippling surface he could not reach.

With his finished strength he made a last sound, a whimper.

The water hushed.

In a span of time he could not name, the silence lingered, but did not last. An outboard engine roared past just above him. The dappled surface overhead did not stay smooth; a shallow hull cut a pale, fast swath through it.

His team was searching for him.

He was not alone.

LB, emptied, kicked one more time. It did not lift his head into the air. He kicked again, bringing both dead arms into a truly final, sweeping pull upward.

He broke the surface.

His mouth gaped to inhale the entire night. Salt water spilled down his throat with the air. He coughed, gasped, his limbs flailing to keep him afloat. A flashlight beam found him, splashing, barking coughs. The RAMZ pivoted and sped his way.

LB trod water until Fitz motored beside him. Every one of his wounds throbbed now that he was safe, and his pulse banged in his temples. LB was glad for the night; he didn’t need to know how red the water was around him.

Mouse lent a hand to haul him into the Zodiac. LB kicked onto the side of the raft, but stopped before he swung his legs on board. Robey’s corpse lay in the bow, facing away from him.

The team waited. Soaked Iris Cherlina prodded, “LB? Are you all right?”

He slumped back into the water. Fair was fair. LB had been the one rescued.

He gripped a rubber handle with his left hand. The ride to the frigate was less than a mile.

Quincy shook his head. “What the hell. Come on, man. You haven’t had enough?”

LB said to Fitz, “Not too fast, okay?”