The Devil's Waters (20 page)

“I hear you, sir.”

“There’s more. Only for your team’s ears.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I cannot describe this as a hostage situation.” The general paused. “I’ll be plain. Freeing the ship’s crew is a secondary objective. Your primary directive is to liberate that ship from the pirates. In four hours.”

Madson allowed another gap, longer than the first. Wally listened to him breathe. The general cleared his throat, and continued.

“I don’t know how many others can live this time, son. We’ll see. You still want the job?”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant DiNardo’s still on board.”

“That remains a good answer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re a brave soldier. I’ll make sure people know that.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“No curiosity about the cargo, Captain. Look the other way, if you can. Once you’re on board, do not disable the ship to gain more time. We don’t want it towed to some port for repairs; we don’t want it on the news or on anybody’s radar. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“After you gain control, you’re to stay in place until relieved. We’ll send helmsmen over from the naval escort. Now, I got one more order. This one’s for your ears only. Repeat, your ears only.”

Wally turned from the Falcon View to the officers at the table, eyeing him. He flattened his voice to imply nothing with his response.

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

“The president does not like the idea of a Somali pirate taking his ship. This was supposed to be a quiet little piece of diplomacy, under the radar. Now it’s a cluster fuck. The president has looked into the dossier of this pirate chief Yusuf Raage. He has determined this is a dangerous man. A sadistic man, who may have al-Qaeda contacts. I am authorized to order you to terminate Yusuf Raage, with prejudice. Understood?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Questions?”

“No, sir.”

“All right. Good luck. I’m going to say a prayer for you. I will look forward to shaking your hand.”

“My whole team, sir.”

“Hell, we’ll have a party. Hoo-ya, Captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wally set down the cell phone. Torres, McElroy, and Flinger all cocked their heads, inquisitive.

Wally pointed at the pad and pen in front of Torres. “Major, may I?”

He scribbled while he spoke.

“I need a complete schematic of the
Valnea
. Copies of those photos. All the intel you’ve got on the pirates, strength, arms, whatever Goldberg saw. Weather forecast for the flight route and over the target fifty miles out. Have two planes ready, one rigged for a RAMZ drop, the other for a HALO.”

Wally planted the pen in the middle of the pad. He skidded them back to Torres. He stood too fast for the others to rise with him.

“I’ll brief my team in ten. I want to be loaded in twenty. In the air in thirty.”

Torres said, “I’m on it.”

Colonel McElroy raised a palm. “Slow down, Captain.”

“Sir?”

“I don’t like being in the dark. Brief us first.”

Wally slid the cell phone over to the camp CO.

“No disrespect, sir. Dial oh-three-ten. I’ve got my orders.” Wally stayed in place only long enough to smile at Torres. “Dinner when I get back.”

CMA CGN Valnea
Gulf of Aden

Drozdov sat with his officers and the Filipinos beneath the long windshield of the darkened wheelhouse. Yusuf came for him, asking that he take the captain’s chair.

“Please,” Yusuf said.

“
Spasiba.
No. I will sit with crew.” Since Yusuf had come aboard twenty minutes ago, the Russian, already thin and angular, had grown more pallid. Duskiness deepened his eye sockets.

“But you are the captain.”

Drozdov mimed spitting on the floor. “And you are murderer.”

Suleiman was on the ship’s deck, putting guards in place. Guleed, younger and more hot-tempered, took a stride forward behind his Kalashnikov.

Yusuf said, “Then, with that in mind, please come to your chair.”

A chubby, whispering officer prevailed on Drozdov to rise from the floor. The Filipino crewmen approved with nods that he retake his place while they sat herded and hostage in front of Yusuf’s guns. Drozdov stood, and Yusuf ushered him around the wide dash to the leather chairs.

The two sat side by side. The bridge remained gloomily lit to preserve night vision, the only radiance coming from the gauges and radar screens. The ship coursed darkly across the gulf, save for red and green running lights fore and aft, and a white steaming light atop the bow mast. Amber glows off the dash made Drozdov appear even more cadaverous.

From the copilot seat, Yusuf surveyed the ship’s instruments. Compass heading 110º SE, engine turning rpms at twelve knots. The radar showed the
Valnea
with
her naval escort
Nicholas
holding off the port beam. Eighty miles of empty sea stretched ahead to the Somali coast.

“Captain.”

“What?”

“I want to ask you for
waawaan
. A truce.”

“Not possible.”

Yusuf leaned into the space between the pilots’ chairs. He lowered his voice.

“I was not born into a violent world. I had parents who taught me stories and poems. I’m sure you understand, Africa is a changeable land. In the last twenty years, Somalia has changed more than others. We have seen civil war. We’ve been invaded by foreigners, driven them off, and fell again into civil war. We are torn apart. Little men have become lords of little lands. The greed of greater nations has made us beggars. Some of us cannot beg, so we chose instead to become thieves. I have no course but this, Captain. I cannot choose what I do, only how. I do not wish for more violence, but you must know it is a tool at my command. I want your cooperation to be willing. But I will force it.”

Drozdov listened without looking at Yusuf, fixing his gaze forward into the night.

“Yes, I know begging.”

“Do you.”

Drozdov nodded, solemn.

“Three years ago, I am captain of MV
Stanislaus
. Crew of twenty-two. Malta to Mombasa, five thousand containers, famine relief. We carry nothing but food for starving people. Somali skiffs came at dawn, rockets and guns. They took half hour to get on board, not so good as you. We were taken to Somali coast, to Eyl.”

Drozdov swung his head heavily, sadly, to Yusuf.

“We anchored there eight months. Pirates and shipping company, insurance, negotiators, all bosses, played games with ransom. The crew, we wait on
Stanislaus
with hunger, illness”— Drozdov tapped a finger into his temple—“a boredom that could kill a man. And the Somalis? Our hosts? They chewed
qaat
and slaughtered animals, entertained themselves by pretending executions of the crew. They said to me your company will not pay. We must convince them. A dozen times, I am put on my knees with gun to my head.” Drozdov set his finger to the middle of his forehead, crooking the thumb to mimic a pistol. “Click. The last few times I begged them to put a bullet in the fucking thing. I could not stand another day. Then, surprise. I had to stand one more day. For eight months.”

Yusuf leaned onto his elbow, closer, eye to eye with Drozdov. “What kind of dogs do you have in Russia, that you can beat them for years and they will not bite you? We do not have those dogs in Somalia.”

“You have lost, Yusuf Raage? Yes?
Eto mnye do huya
. I have lost! Three years, I lose my family, job, my health. And never did the begging stop. I had to beg for this damn ship.”

Folding his arms as if closing a door, Drozdov sat back.

Yusuf leaned away, returning the span between them. He’d known of the
Stanislaus
. The pirates were Abgaal of the Hawiya clan from the south. The eight-month negotiation in Eyl showed that they were poorly organized; to Yusuf’s knowledge, that crew took no more ships. Yusuf believed Drozdov’s story, if for no other reason than the ruin of the man sitting beside him in the captain’s chair.

“Yes,” he said mildly to ease the temper of their talk, “this damn ship. In seven hours, you will be anchoring again, Captain, this time off the coast of my village, Qandala. You have my word the ransom will be arranged quickly. Under my orders you and your crew will be treated as
misafir
, guests, so long as your own conduct warrants. I promise you also I will not blink to execute you or anyone who challenges me. I will not apologize for the pirates of the
Stanislaus
. As you say, they were not as good as me.”

Drozdov glowered, silent and set against Yusuf. The dim wheelhouse was hushed, marked only by the drone of the engine and the hostages shifting beneath the windshield. Guleed paced their length.

“I want to confide something in you,” Yusuf said. The captain shot him a glance, keeping himself upright. “If you’d been going twenty-four knots, we might not have been able to board you without a fight. You should know I did not sabotage this ship. I had nothing to do with it.”

Drozdov’s head snapped around. “This is true?”

“Yes, Captain. I wish I could take credit; it would have been a brilliant move to have someone on board working for me. But I am not so clever.” Yusuf aimed an accusing finger at the sitting seamen but locked his eyes on Drozdov. “One of them is responsible. One of your crew wanted me on this ship.”

Yusuf pushed out of the copilot’s chair.

“I do not like being manipulated. You do not like being betrayed and hijacked. In this, we have a common interest. Stand up, Captain.”

Drozdov got to his feet. Silently, he moved around the dash to stand in front of his men. All of them had heard Yusuf’s words. On the floor, the Filipinos looked to each other, to find someone among them with an explanation. The officers shook heads at their wrathful captain glaring down on them; they all denied guilt.

Behind him, Yusuf said, “Let’s find out who is working against us. For this, again, I ask a truce.”

“
Da
.”

“Cousin.” Guleed stepped up. “Watch them.”

“Where are you going?”

“The captain and I are off to see why this damn ship is so important.”

Drozdov tried with his stare to burn a confession from the crew. Yusuf turned him away.

“We are going to have a look belowdecks.”

Camp Lemonnier
Djibouti

Wally charged through the Barn, beneath the tall shelf where Doc and LB lived.

“Everybody!” He jogged into the common area where the entire PJ team was assembled. “Briefing room. Now.”

All nine filed into the small room used for briefings and movies. Wally shut the door. Quickly the team spread onto the two tiers of beat-up sofas and leather chairs. Wally stayed in front.

“We got a mission. Set alert thirty.”

Dow said, “Whoa,” at the thirty-minute notice. Jamie whistled. Every man hardened his posture in his seat.

“One hour ago, Somali pirates hijacked a freighter out in the gulf. The ship is the
CMA CGN Valnea
.”

On the back row, Jamie’s feet shot under him. He gripped the arms of his chair. Wally motioned for him to stay down.

“That’s right, it’s the same ship LB and Jamie boarded this morning. LB’s still there. That hasn’t been confirmed, but we all know him, and we know he’s pissed off. The freighter’s carrying some kind of highly classified cargo. The bottom line is, these pirates have taken the wrong ship. I’ve just come back from the JOC. I spoke with very high brass on the phone. We’ve been given the order to take the
Valnea
back before she reaches the Somali coast.”

Dow asked, “They’re sending a PJ team? Where are the SEALs?”

“We got the job for two reasons. First, there’s a tight window on this one. We’re sitting alert four hundred miles from the target. There’s no combat-capable team in range but us. We can get there faster than SEALs, Special Forces, anyone else. Second, one of our own is on that ship.”

The team stirred. Each looked at another, bonds of training and action asserting themselves. They showed each other balled fists. We’ll do this. You, and you, and you, and me.

“Yep.” Wally addressed this to Robey. “LB needs rescuing.”

He explained the situation. The pirates were lethal, that much was known. There’d already been one acknowledged killing. He made no mention of the concern that the victim might have been LB. He gave the location, speed, and direction of the freighter, one hundred miles from the Somali coast. A US warship was tracking her. The number of pirates on board was still indeterminate, but they could expect at least twenty armed targets, likely more.

Doc asked, “What about the crew?”

“Hostage.”

“How many?”

“Twenty-seven. That includes a couple guards and one passenger.”

“Passenger? Who gets on a freighter as a passenger?”

“Don’t know. It’s odd.”

“Where’re they being held?”

“Don’t know that either.”

“Got to have that.”

Wally tapped the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other. Unease filtered among the team. Most of them knew Wally well enough to notice anytime he pulled up short.

Big Quincy asked, “Now’s not the time to dance, Captain. What’s up?”

“This is where it gets tough.”

Mouse said, “Okay.”

“Our orders are to regain control of the ship.”

“And?”

“According to the orders, freeing the hostages is a secondary objective.”

Jamie spoke first above the buzz in the room. “That’s dicked up.”

“I know.”

“They’re civilians.”

“They are.”

“The brass don’t care if they die? What the hell?”

“They care. Just not as much as they do about the ship.”

Doc asked, “What about LB?”

“Settle, everyone. I don’t know. We’ll do everything we can to find him and limit casualties. But the orders are clear. There’s something on that ship that can’t be left in pirate hands, pure and simple. Our priority is taking the Somalis down. Retake the ship. At all cost.”

Dow piped up. “At all cost. I hate that fucking phrase. You notice nobody going on the mission ever says it?”

In the front row, without turning, Robey said, “Wally’s going.”

Wally stopped the dialogue. “We’ll brief on the plane. Wheels up in twenty-five. We’ll go in two teams. Team One, with me, will assault the ship. This’ll be a HALO jump. Eighteen thousand feet. Open at three thousand. Team Two will drop with the RAMZ at five thousand to an LZ two miles downwind. Anybody on Team One who misses the ship, Team Two picks them up. Pack extra rounds. Weapons suppressed. Lighten your med rucks.”

Doc shook his head. “I’m taking all of mine.” Jamie, Mouse, and another PJ, Fitz, agreed.

Wally backed off. “All right. But we stow ’em at the LZ. This is close quarters.”

“Roger.”

“The target’s a cargo ship moving twelve knots at night. The freighter’s under guard. The LZ is a wing to the left of the pilothouse. We won’t have a lot of room. Who’s had anything to drink?”

Wally lifted his own hand first. Doc, Robey, Mouse, and Jamie, the team on alert tonight, did not lift theirs. The rest put hands in the air.

“Who’s had two or more?”

All hands went down.

“I need straight answers.”

Fitz and the only PJ on the team as big as Quincy, a Tex-Mex named Sandoval, stuck their hands back up.

“How many?”

“Three.”

Fitz and Sandoval were well inside their tolerances, but not for combat.

“You’re both on Team Two. Man the RAMZ with Robey. Coffee before you kit up.”

The pair said, “Roger.”

Robey stood, a muscular kid.

“Let me go with Team One.”

“No. I need CQB experience.”

“I can do it.”

“And you will. But not tonight. Sit down.”

“Sir.”

“I don’t have time, Lieutenant. You’ve got your team and your orders. Sit down.”

Robey took his chair, reining himself in.

Doc asked, “Why HALO? It’s a tough jump to be opening low. Let’s go HAHO, get some more time to line it up. It’s a moving target.”

“We don’t have forty minutes to spend under canopy. That’s the next thing I have to tell you.”

Quincy muttered, “Uh-oh.”

Wally pointed to the big PJ. “That’s about right. We got three and a half hours from wheels up. With a two-and-a-half-hour flight, that leaves a sixty-minute window for us to take the ship down.” Wally consulted his watch. “That’s oh-two-ten hours. That means we move fast, every step of the way.”

Jamie asked, “What happens at oh-two-ten?”

Wally removed everything from his voice but the words. “The United States government is going to sink the
Valnea
. There’s an armed Predator en route.”

On the chairs and sofa, every head jerked.

“Sink it? With us on it?”

“If they have to. Yeah.”

“The hostages, everybody?”

“It’s got to be before the ship gets in view of land. No witnesses. Deep water. They’ll claim the pirates blew it up.”

The team grew quiet. Their excitement for the mission changed. It didn’t disappear but turned inward, where each man reminded himself privately of his pledge to serve as called upon.

“If it gets to that, jump overboard. Robey will pick you up.”

Quincy asked, “You gonna jump overboard? Leave the hostages with the pirates?”

“No.”

“Then don’t fucking bring it up. Sir.”

Doc snapped, “Quincy.”

Wally waved it away. “It’s okay. Anything I missed?”

The elder PJ wiped a hand over his crown. “What the hell is on that ship?”

“Don’t know.”

Doc rose. “I’ll bet LB knows,” he said to the team. “Let’s go ask him.”

Wally opened the door. “On the tarmac in ten.”

The Barn became a hive. Loadmasters drove in a forklift to snatch a RAMZ package and haul it to the flight line. Doc, team leader in LB’s absence, stormed among the lockers, checking every man’s preparation. In shouts he repeated Wally’s orders for suppression tubes on all weapons, extra mags, counted down the minutes until wheels up. Robey’s team changed out of their cams into wetsuit shorties and dive gear. Doc tugged straps, checked gauges, weapons, packs. He growled at the men to do this now, do that later on the plane, move it.

“Everyone! Remember to take whistles, buzz saws, strobes, extra water. The LZ is a moving goddamn ship in the middle of the night! We’ll inspect chutes on the plane. Quincy, grab an extra.”

Doc visited each locker with a smudge can to grease up every face.

Wally geared up. He clamped the suppressor tube to the barrel of his M4, checked the charge on his radios and night-vision goggles. He stuffed four extra ammo magazines into his backpack, made sure he had all water survival items. Doc stopped last at Wally’s locker to black his face.

When Doc finished smearing the grease, Wally reached for his helmet.

“Get the men together.”

“Roger.”

Wally took a moment before stepping away from his locker. Putting a pen to the notepad he kept handy, he wrote a fast note to his mother and father in Nevada, another to his sister in San Francisco, and lastly an apology to Major Torres for being late to dinner. He set his Air Force Academy ring on top of the pages. He shut the locker door.

The team waited for him in a semicircle. Wally stepped to the center. Over a dozen years, in the minutes before a hundred missions, he’d never said these words. He swallowed once to make sure he didn’t choke them back.

“Before we head out, each man go to your locker. Leave behind something your families will want from you. A note, wedding ring, picture, you figure it out. Take two minutes. Go.”

Turning away, Dow made the team’s only comment. He breathed, “Holy shit.”

Wally stood alone with Mouse in the suddenly quiet Barn.

“What about the cheerleader?”

Mouse grinned. “She knows.”

Wally let a few seconds pass.

“You really have a—”

“Yeah, I do. With the Oakland Raiders. Jesus, Wally. You think this is a good time?”

From his locker, Doc said, “Shut up, both of you.”

Mouse mimicked an annoyed swing of a Ping-Pong paddle, mouthing how he was going to kick Wally’s ass when they got back.