JET V - Legacy (3 page)

Ari was by his side three minutes later, an excited expression on his face, and handed him two spare magazines and a pistol.

Barry raised the neoprene-sheathed binoculars, scanned the water, and pointed into the distance. “There they are. I can just make them out. They’re definitely hostiles. Boats are bristling with guns. And it looks like they’ve got binocs, too. Shit. They’re splitting up now. Probably going to try to get one on the starboard side while the other one takes the port. Tricky bastards, I’ll grant them that. They’ll try to approach more toward the stern. That’s what all the latest reports say is the standard M.O. What’s the range?” Barry asked.

“About nine hundred meters. I’d give it another minute and then let them have a few rounds. That should put the fear of God into them. Oh, wow. They also have RPGs. Nice.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the grenade launchers. Those things are all but useless over a hundred yards. Two hundred would be a prayer,” Barry said.

“You want me to move to the other side?”

“Nah. Not yet. I have a feeling this’ll be over before it starts.”

“I wish the cheap pricks at the company had equipped us with Barretts and scopes. This kind of sucks. There’s nothing I hate worse than a fair fight,” Ari griped.

“The scope wouldn’t have done you much good with the seas like this. They’re bobbing around pretty good, and we’re not exactly standing still. Besides, it won’t matter. Once they hear my rifle and see the bullets shredding the water around them, they’ll back off.”

“Be nicer if we had a .50 caliber machine gun. That would make short work out of them.”

“Or ack-ack guns. Like the Navy. Kaboom. Party over.”

They waited as the ship continued plowing north, their nerves hyper-tuned by the prospect of their first real engagement. Barry squinted down the barrel of his assault rifle and prepared to fire.

“Range?”

“Maybe six hundred, but closing fast.”

“That’s my guess too. All right. Let’s get this show on the road.”

The stuttering report of the AKM echoed off the topsides as Barry fired four bursts at the nearer of the two boats, breaking his promise to himself to try to avoid hitting them with the warning volley. Once he was actually trying to sight the bucking rifle on the boats, he realized that he would be lucky to get within a dozen yards of the bouncing skiff.

Ari peered through the glasses and then swallowed hard. “They aren’t turning.”

“Shit. Dumbasses. Well, time to open up on ’em, then…”

“Damn. And they don’t just have AKs. Now that they’re closer, I can make out some other weapons. Looks like at least one sniper ri–”

A rain of slugs hammered the metal around them as the lead boat opened fire, eight guns blazing on full automatic, hurling hundreds of rounds at their position. Most slammed harmlessly above and below them, but one caught Barry in the neck and ripped through the side of his throat, sending a spray of arterial blood onto Ari’s face. Barry grunted as he dropped his rifle and clutched at the wound, his eyes surprised and then panicked, his life burbling through his hand as he groped blindly for his weapon.

“Oh, God, Barry–” Ari’s expression had changed from eagerness to horrified fright, and for a few seconds he froze, torn between doing something to help his friend and continuing to fire at the rapidly approaching boats. Barry groaned as he weakened, deciding the priority – Ari needed to repel the pirates before he did anything else, otherwise they were both going to wind up dead.

He drew a bead on the closest skiff and fired, his weapon now on full auto, and saw two men collapse in the lead craft as three of his rounds found home.

That was the last thing Ari registered. A ricochet shattered the back of his skull, instantly liquefying his brain, killing him before he even realized he’d been hit. Slugs continued to pepper the ship, and another bullet shredded through Barry’s chest, ending his agonized struggle as his limp, blood-soaked hand fell lifelessly at his side.

The mate watched the gunfight from one of the bridge side windows, and when he saw the two guards get shot he made a snap decision and abandoned his position with a yell to the watchman and the pilot.

“They’re hit. I’m going down. No way am I going to spend months in some Somali shithole,” he warned, sprinting by them.

“Wait. That’s not your job. Don’t get involved or they’ll shoot you too,” the watchman cautioned. “This is bad enough as it is. Two already dead…”

“The only way we’re going to avoid being taken hostage is if we keep shooting. I’m not about to be tortured for months before they kill me. I’ve heard the stories,” the mate said, ending the discussion, and then he ducked through the door and descended the stairs at a run.

When he reached the deck, the two pirate boats were only a hundred yards away. Ducking to present a smaller target, he bent down and picked up one of the rifles, taking in the carnage at his feet with a determined expression. He’d spent time on the battlefield years before in the military and was no stranger to death, but the slick blood pooling on the deck was a stark reminder of its reality. The pirates spotted him, and three of the shooters began blasting away at his position. He dropped to the deck next to the dead men and returned fire, and then watched in horror as one of the attackers shouldered an RPG and launched the grenade directly at his position.

The shell went wide, but the blast rocked him, destroying his hearing and blowing a hole in the metal superstructure. He blinked dust out of his eyes and then the pain hit – his leg was bleeding where errant shards of shrapnel had torn through it, leaving a burning mess of mangled flesh and oozing blood in their wake.

He fought to keep the rifle steady as he fired again and again at the approaching boat, and grinned with satisfaction when two more of the assailants slammed backwards from his bullets; and then his expression froze as a row of slugs shredded his torso from his shoulder to his ribcage. The Kalashnikov fell from his grasp as he convulsed in shock. He watched helplessly as another RPG hit the top of the superstructure above him and detonated, blowing all of the communications antennae and radar arrays into the sea and showering the bridge below with a rain of deadly debris.

The first skiff reached the port side of the ship, near the stern, and one of the pirates swung a grappling hook at the end of a knotted cord and let it fly. It clanked against the deck until it found purchase on the steel rim. After a cautionary pull on the rope, the first gunman climbed up the ship’s side, followed closely by three more. The second boat repeated the procedure, and two minutes later ten heavily armed pirates stood on the deck, surveying the destruction. One of the men approached the fallen security guards and the mate, and after toeing them and confirming they were dead, confiscated their weapons, sliding one of the pistols into his belt with a leer before passing the remaining guns to his fellow pirates.

The crew stayed inside. Nobody wanted to risk the wrath of an angry boarding party that had sustained casualties by doing anything that could be construed as defiance. A merchant seaman’s duties didn’t include taking on armed murderers, and not a man among them wanted to join the dead.

When the leader of the pirates reached the bridge, the watchman and the captain were lying amidst the wreckage, bleeding from their noses and ears, the second grenade’s detonation having wreaked as much havoc inside as it had above. The pilot’s body was a shapeless heap in the far corner, his neck broken, eyes staring sightlessly into eternity. The leader pulled his newly acquired pistol from his waistband and grinned malevolently, and after a quick perusal of the wheel and transmission levers, turned and shot both men in the head.

“Open the engines up, full throttle, and head for land. We should be able to make the cove before dark tonight. We’ll drop anchor and then deal with the crew. Maybe they’ll be worth something more than the ship, maybe not. Nadif, you take first watch. The rest of you, go gather the crew and search them, then lock them in one of the storage rooms and mount a guard outside the door. I don’t want any surprises,” he instructed, and his men rushed to obey.

The leader was a different kind of pirate than those who had come before: born in the war-torn south, brutal, vicious, and completely remorseless. While many plying the trade were ex-fishermen or local villagers fallen on desperate times, he was a new breed of professional criminal who had sought out his current vocation for the riches it could bring – and as he’d just proved, he was willing to kill and be killed to achieve his ends.

The big ship increased speed, edging to twenty knots as Nadif set a course for the eastern shore of Somalia – a windswept desert pounded by huge surf and plagued by radiation from the toxic waste that European and Indian firms had been dropping in the coastal sea for years, unhindered by any Somali naval force and unmoved by the blight of disease their deadly refuse left as its legacy leaked out along the poisoned coast. One of the men radioed to the fishing boat and it set a course for land as well, its usefulness for the time being at an end, the fate of its crew uncertain as the reluctant owner negotiated with the pirates for its return.

Chapter 3

Ten years ago, Baghdad, Iraq

Rifle fire chattered as fires burned out of control from the battles that had been fought for the last five days between Iraqi forces and invading troops. A pall of black oil smoke hung over the city from wells that had been ignited to hide troop movements, and the fighting raged from street to street as the Coalition forces advanced through the city. The night was a near-constant series of explosions and gunshots as soldiers loyal to Saddam Hussein battled with the invaders in fierce building-to-building fighting. Whole tracts of the city were out of control, with looters running unchecked through the streets as gunfire erupted in sporadic bursts.

Three men wearing civilian clothes, toting American-made M16 rifles, sprinted toward a bunker on the outskirts of the downtown area, Coalition forces only blocks away. The surrounding structures belched fire from the latest bombing runs and occasional stray tank rounds. An Iraqi scooted past with a television on his shoulder, and two young boys followed him carrying stereo components, their faces alight with the excitement that only great adventures can bring.

Two of the men exchanged a grim glance while the leader checked a handheld GPS transmitter, peering at the small backlit display. He pointed two fingers at an entrance on the far side of the large concrete building in front of them.

The leader flipped night vision goggles down over his eyes as they approached the darkened edifice, one of countless official strongholds now abandoned yet still possessing the peculiarly menacing quality that prisons did even decades after closure. The other two men did the same, and the trailing man turned to face the street as the other two edged along the side of the hulking structure, down a dank alley that reeked of human waste and rotting garbage.

At the far end, two oversized iron doors stood bolted shut, the entryway pocked with bullet scars from a skirmish only a few hours earlier as loyalists had moved through the district, doing their best to inflict as much damage as possible on the better-equipped Coalition soldiers. The lead gunman patted his companion’s backpack and both stopped, the third man sweeping the vicinity with his rifle, which was equipped with an infrared scope. The distinctive rattle of Russian-made weapons sounded from the near distance, down the street, answered by a barrage from the higher-pitched smaller caliber M4s of the U.S. troops.

“This is it. Ready to get to work, Joseph?” Solomon, the leader, whispered through clenched teeth.

“Let’s do it,” Joseph replied.

Solomon waited as Joseph reached into the backpack, pulled out an explosive charge in an adhesive pack, and swiftly moved to the door and mounted it in the center, where the bolt would be. He flipped a switch, and a red LED light began blinking, at first every three seconds, then accelerating to one blink per second. Ten blinks later the charge detonated, the doors buckled, and then the right one swung open with a groan.

Two loud explosions sounded from the ongoing battle down the street – grenades – and then the heavy stutter of a large-caliber machine gun joined the fray. After a final look around the alley, the three men ducked into the building. The last pushed the door closed and positioned himself further inside, from where he would be able to defend the entry should anyone try to come in. The other two stopped, looking around, and then Solomon pointed at a stairway descending into the bowels of the building.

They took the stairs cautiously, leading with their weapons, prepared for anything. When they reached the lower level, two stories below the street, Solomon switched on a PDA and stared at a hand-drawn diagram on the dimly lit screen. Pausing to orient himself, he looked down each of the three corridors before choosing the one on the left and pacing off a measured distance. He paused at the fifth door and signaled to Joseph, who was still at the landing. When Joseph approached, his Vibram-soled boots nearly silent on the rough concrete floor, he hesitated as he arrived at the door, and then, after a nod from Solomon, reached out and tried the lever.

Locked, as they’d been told it would be.

Nobody but a few trusted confidants of Saddam Hussein’s regime knew what was stored behind any of the doors, and even fewer knew the truth about this one. The construction of the lower levels was more akin to that of a bank vault than a military bunker, the walls six feet of high-density concrete reinforced with several inches of Russian steel plating and enough rebar to be able to sustain direct hits from all but the most advanced “bunker buster” bombs. None of which was evidenced by the recessed steel doors, deliberately anonymous and unassuming.

Their source had given them detailed instructions in return for his life, safe passage out of the country, a new identity, and five million dollars – a paltry sum by his current standards among the Iraqi elite, but the promise of a new life on a beach in Malaysia was more than adequate compensation, considering the circumstances. His captors were waiting for a confirmation call from the incursion team to spirit him away, never to be heard from again – on pain of death.