Hunt the Scorpion (4 page)

“I don’t feel lucky.”

He turned to Davis. “Give him something to cry into while I wrap this baby up.”

Opening the emergency medical kit he wore on his back, Crocker first wiped away the blood, then sprayed the wound with disinfectant. Next he wrapped the whole hand in a bandage that he secured with tape.

All the time he was aware that the launch was getting away.

With the wounded man providing cover with his automatic pistol held in his left hand, Crocker and Davis took the grenades Akil was carrying and got into position to toss them at the target, which was approximately forty feet off the
Contessa
’s port side and slightly in front.

“Aim for the stern,” Crocker said. “We don’t want to damage the barrels up front. Might be yellowcake.”

“Okay, boss.”

On the count of three they stood together and threw. Once, twice, three times in succession.

Seeing the Americans, the guy manning the .50-cal on the launch’s deck opened up.
Whack-a, whack-a, whack-a…
Fortunately his aim sucked, and Crocker and Davis had time to crouch behind the foremast. Hot, angry rounds glanced off the metal around them. Then a series of six explosions ripped into the air and lit up the night sky.

The .50-cal paused for a few seconds, then started firing again.

A seventh blast stopped it altogether.

“What was that?” Davis asked.

Crocker hazarded a look. It appeared that one of the grenades had hit a barrel of extra fuel, because flames were rising from the attack boat’s stern. Seeing dark figures scurrying around the deck, he leveled his MP5 and started firing. Then another blast lit up the deck, throwing a burning man into the ocean.

The concussion was strong enough to kick Crocker and Davis back, too. By the time Crocker righted himself enough to steal another look, the launch’s stern was almost completely engulfed in flames. If they reached the dozen barrels of what could be yellowcake along the bow, it could set off an explosion that would be the equivalent of a dirty bomb, releasing dangerous radiation that, depending on the wind’s direction, could kill many thousands of people.

Crocker turned to Davis and shouted, “Cover me. I’m going down.”

“Where?”

“Into the water. After the launch.”

“But—”

Before Davis could get the rest of his words out, Crocker handed him his weapon, flung off his pack, and was diving off the
Contessa
’s port rail.

He sliced into the water, came up to take a quick breath and establish direction, then started swimming underwater using the combat swimmer stroke he’d been taught in Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) and had practiced with his team once a week when not deployed. He’d progressed thirty-five feet when his lungs felt like they were going to explode. Crocker knew that the carbon dioxide receptors in his brain were telling him it was time to exhale because he had too much CO
₂
in his system. So he breathed out a little, releasing some of the air in his lungs.

This enabled him to swim the last ten feet or so without too much discomfort. Coming up near the launch’s stern, he breathed in the smoke-filled air but held back a cough. Immediately he was confronted with another challenge—the fire made it too hot to board at the stern. So he dove under the boat’s hull and, following the stem, where the two planes of the hull had been welded together, surfaced near the bow.

The boat was moving slowly, at 1.5 knots, so boarding was relatively easy. He simply grabbed the anchor port and pulled himself up to the windlass and deck, where he crouched with the rain pelting his back and head.

On closer inspection the launch reminded him of an old navy PT boat or a British motor torpedo boat—light and simple, with a displacement-type hull and a small superstructure pitched toward the stern.

No one had spotted him so far. In fact he didn’t see anyone, except for a badly burned man he stepped over as he headed for the wheelhouse. Much of it had been destroyed—the windshield completely shattered and many of the gauges in the console cracked.

Crocker pulled back the throttle to idle, then looked for the switch to cut the engine.

The rain picked up, propelled by strong gusts of wind. He wasn’t sure if these conditions would extinguish the flames or fan them. It all depended on whether the fire was oil based, which was something he had no time to determine.

His immediate concern was the barrels along the bow. He had descended three steps into the cabin in search of a fire extinguisher when he ran into two men starting up, then saw a third, shorter man behind them. All three had soot-covered faces. One was holding his right arm, which appeared to be injured near the shoulder. A piece of bone protruded.

The man behind them had fierce eyes, deep set like a falcon’s.

When the man to Crocker’s right reached for something in his belt, Crocker reared his right leg back and kicked him hard in the face. Then, brandishing his KA-BAR knife, he threw himself at the group. Teeth sank into his arm.

Fucking savage!

The pain didn’t stop him from grappling with arms and legs on the wet floor and slashing his knife blindly in the dark; it only added to his determination. Less than a minute later two men lay bleeding to death, grunting. Crocker couldn’t find the third one. Possibly he’d escaped up the stairs.

The cabin was a smoke-filled mess, disgusting-smelling. The fire from above had started to burn through the deck in the forecastle bunks. It was only a matter of minutes before the flames would reach the fuel tank and the whole damn boat would explode. He did the only thing he could think of, which was to reset the vessel’s engine and turn the wheel so it was headed away from the
Contessa
.

Then he ran to the bow and tried to push the orange barrels overboard. This required using his bloody knife to cut through the ropes that secured them, then angling one at a time against the low railing, pushing the top enough to wedge an empty ammo box he found on the deck under it, then lifting the barrel from the bottom until it flipped over the railing into the ocean.

It was hard work, but the hundreds of thousands of squats and dead lifts he’d done in the gym helped.

With the muscles in his arms and upper body burning, Crocker dove into the water and swam back to the
Contessa.
He was reminded of the summer nights he’d spent with his brother, sneaking into the neighborhood pool, fireflies creating magic around them. The sea was dark and turbulent, pulling him in one direction, then another. Instead of calling to Davis to throw him a line, he swam to the starboard side and came up the caving ladder, which was still in place.

Wiping ocean scum from his face, he noticed that a small fire was burning on the ship’s bridge, lending the radar mast and funnel an eerie red-orange glow.

Davis called from behind him, “Boss, you okay?”

“Good. And you?”

“Fine.”

“Where’s the rest of the team?”

“They’re all inside.”

“Where?” he asked, trying to catch his breath.

“Mancini’s trying to extinguish the fire and get the bridge in order.”

He recovered his MP5 and reloaded as they talked. “Has anyone seen the captain?”

“Don’t know. It’s real ugly in there.”

“How come?”

“The pirates hacked up some of the crew. At least one man is still alive but badly injured.”

“Get on the horn. Tell the folks on the
Vinson
to send a medical team and a helicopter to take us out of here. We’re also going to need a salvage team and some divers. There are six barrels of some kind of sensitive nuclear material sitting on the bottom of the ocean at eleven o’clock off the
Contessa
’s bow.”

“A medical team, a rescue helicopter, and a salvage crew. You got it.”

“Then meet me inside.”

He hurried to the superstructure and climbed the steps two at a time, his MP5 at his side. On the first deck he ran into Ritchie standing over three pirates bound with TUFF-TIES at their wrists and ankles.

“Where are the rest?” he asked.

“At least two of them are holding the captain and his wife hostage.”

“Where?”

“In the captain’s dayroom, two decks up.”

“Show me.”

Ritchie led the way up the narrow steps. On the next deck they ran into Mancini, whose face was black with soot.

Crocker asked, “What have we got?”

“Five crew dead, another two injured, two survivors.”

“How bad are the injured?”

“One’s barely alive; had his head bashed in. The other’s got a bullet wound. They’re both in the hallway one deck up.”

“Cal?”

“He’s with Akil.”

“Where?”

“Outside the captain’s quarters. That’s where some pirates are holding the captain and his wife.”

“Show me!”

One more flight up, Crocker stopped to examine one of the ship’s officers, who had been shot. A bullet had entered his lower back and appeared to have fractured the right side of his pelvis. His breathing was normal and his pulse steady, so Crocker smeared QuikClot around the entry and exit points, then wrapped them tightly with a bandage and gave the officer 800 milligrams of Extra Strength Tylenol.

“Swallow these. You’ll be fine. Medevac is on its way.”

On the next deck, Ritchie led him down a narrow hallway where they found Akil standing outside a door marked
DANGEROUS SPACE, TEST AIR BEFORE ENTRY.

“What’s that mean?”

“Unclear.”

“What’s the situation?”

“Two armed pirates, possibly three, claim to be holding hostages.”

“Have you spoken to the hostages?”

“No.”

“So you don’t know if they’re alive?”

“That’s correct.”

“Have you tried talking to the pirates?” Crocker asked Akil, who spoke both Arabic and Urdu, which is close to Persian.

“They only speak some local Somali dialect. Some of the words are similar. I understood enough to know they’re threatening to kill the captain and his wife and blow up the ship.”

“Where’s Cal?”

“He’s with one of the crew members on the deck above, looking for access through the ceiling.”

“Where?”

Akil pointed over his head. “The chart room, I believe, behind the wheelhouse, upstairs.”

“Okay.” Crocker turned to Ritchie.

“Boss, I can breach through this sucker if you want me to.”

“Can you do that without killing everyone inside?”

“Since I don’t know the position of the hostages, there’s no guarantee.”

“Alright, then, look…Check your watches. Give me five minutes. If you don’t hear me shoot off a couple of rounds, that means I’m going in through the ceiling. You guys create as much of a diversion as you can, starting now. Shout, pound on the door like you’re trying to break through.”

“Copy, boss.”

The bridge, one flight up, was hot and thick with smoke. He found Mancini, Cal, and a Filipino crew member in a little room behind the wheelhouse. Mancini was using a screwdriver to remove a metal panel in the wall.

“What you got?”

“Access, hopefully.”

When the panel was pulled aside, Crocker saw an opening to an aluminum vent that looked too small to squeeze through. Mancini quickly enlarged it, removing a metal flange, then carefully cutting around the vent with his knife to expose its full width, roughly four feet in diameter.

Crocker looked down at his Suunto watch. Four minutes exactly.

Mancini stuck his head inside and illuminated the space with a small flashlight.

The crewman whispered, “See where the vent makes a sharp turn? Right after that, the first opening should be directly above the dayroom.”

“That’s where they are?”

“The captain and pirates. Correct.”

Crocker tapped Cal on the shoulder and whispered, “Follow me.”

Navigating through the vent with their MP5s would be too awkward, so they took their handguns instead. Each man carried a smoke grenade and an extra magazine of ammo.

Crocker had to squeeze his shoulders together to get through. The bend at the bottom was tight, but after he twisted past, it was only five feet to a rectangular vent cover.

He stopped and pointed. Cal nodded.

The vent, which was approximately three and a half feet by one and a half, presented another challenge—namely, the noise they would create by trying to remove it.

He waited and listened, with Cal behind him. No discernible sound from the room below, just muffled pounding in the distance and the low hum of the ship’s engine.

Crocker indicated that he was going to cross to the other side of the vent and wanted Cal to position himself where he was now. Cal nodded. Assuming a catcher’s crouch, he turned sideways and reached his leg across. Then, lying on his stomach, he peered through the opening.

All he saw was a pair of bare feet that looked to belong to a woman, the legs of a chair, and a blood-covered shirt on the floor.

He took a series of deep breaths, knowing he had one chance to dislodge the metal vent opening before attracting the pirates’ attention and getting them all killed. Checking his watch and seeing that he was within ten seconds of his five-minute limit, he pulled himself up into a crouch, readied his pistol, signaled to Cal, then sprang sideways onto the aluminum vent. His weight immediately dislodged one side, causing his right leg and arm to slide through the ceiling. But his entire left side and torso were stuck. So he twisted his shoulder and reached with his right hand, grabbing the edge of the hanging vent cover with his fingers and pulling it free.

When it came away, he had nothing to hold on to and fell, hitting the floor awkwardly so that his right leg slipped out from under him. The impact stunned him.

He heard shouting and pulled himself up onto his right elbow. Saw the woman tied to the chair, another man bound and gagged, lying on a bed.

He wasn’t in the dayroom. It was the captain’s cabin.

Two pirates rushed through the door and charged. One of them held a machete.

Crocker didn’t have his weapon. It had dislodged from his hand and was pinned under his left shoulder. He turned to grab it, and as he did he looked directly up into the pirate’s face and saw the machete.