Stephen Coonts - Pirate Alley

My leg wasn’t bleeding too badly, and I could flex it, but it burned like hell. I rubbed the rat shit off my face and hair and spit on the floor, just in case.

Ben and Zahra came down the stairs. They glanced at the dead pirate, then ignored him. They went into the other room with their pistols out and ready. I kicked some of the trash around, looked for odd wires. Some rats scurried out of one pile and ran into another.

The generator had a fuel line gravity-feeding from a huge tank sitting beside it, against an exterior wall, mounted up on some kind of wooden supports. There was a valve on the line. I was looking it over when Zahra came back for me. “Carmellini!”

I went. In addition to the crates in the second room, in one corner were stacks of AKs, hundreds of them. I examined some of the crates while the Mossad agents scanned the others. The writing on the crates was in Cyrillic. A few of the wooden crates were open, so I looked in. The first box I looked at contained belts of machine-gun ammo. So did the second. The third one contained boxes of AK stuff, 7.62 x 39 mm. Hundreds of RPG-7 launchers were stacked like cordwood along one wall, with piles of warheads, and there was box after box of MON-50 mines, Russian claymores. They weighed maybe five pounds each, were packed with hundreds of steel bearings that the explosive propelled out like a shotgun blast. They were deadly as hell within fifty yards, and hit-and-miss out to maybe three hundred. I estimated that at least a hundred of them were piled here.

“Look at this.”

Ben pried the lid off one of the large boxes.

“PVV-5A,” he said. “Several tons of it, I think.”

“Detonators?”

“In this lot somewhere.” He stood looking around. “Over here are a couple of machine guns.”

I went back to the generator. Started cranking the fuel valve. The engine sputtered. The lights in the basement flickered, and died when the generator did.

The two Israelis already had their flashlights out and on. I hadn’t been smart enough to bring mine. I followed them back up the stairs.

They were pros. They held the flashlights out in their left hands while they scanned them around the lobby of that dump. It was still empty. I talked a bit on my headset with the SEAL team leader, Red One, or as he called himself, Red Leader.

“Check out the north room on the second floor,” he said. I clicked my mike and motioned to Ben. We headed up the staircase, Ben leading with his flashlight.

The second-floor north room was the com center. A modern shortwave set sat on a table. Ben didn’t waste much time-he used his pistol to put three rounds through the main radio. There were radio controls for model airplane rigs and garage door openers, all right, and batteries. Also two dead men. The Israelis looked them over, but they didn’t recognize either of them. They settled in to examine the radio controls, one holding the flashlight while the other scrutinized them.

I checked in with Grafton on the net.

“Grafton, Tommy. Found the radio room. A shortwave set and batteries and RC control units.”

“In the com center?”

“Yes.”

“Ragnar will have the hot one in his pocket. Get it and bring it to me.”

“I’m trying to figure out why they didn’t push the button to blow the fortress when the shooting started.”

“Thought we were Shabab, maybe,” Grafton said. That Grafton! He didn’t sound too interested. Fucking guy had ice cubes for balls. Everyone was still alive, so …

“Red Leader, I’m coming on up,” I said.

Heard some more gunfire above me. “Come on,” he said.

* * *

It was a nice early November evening in Washington, not too cold, with almost no wind. The president and his leadership team huddled around a television in the Ops Center in the basement. They sat silently listening to Ricardo-he was using his microphone now, he said-and watching war on television. Real war. In a shitty little place. Mostly the show consisted of random flashes and a cacophony of small-arms fire, overlaid by Ricardo’s fevered descriptions.

In London it was past midnight, and the prime minister and his lieutenants were similarly engaged at 10 Downing Street watching the local Fox network. On another television tuned to the BBC, they had only audio from the satellite telephone of the BBC’s man in Eyl, Rab Bishop. A scrolling legend on the bottom of the screen pleaded technical problems and promised video momentarily.

“All that money for the BBC,” someone remarked, “and this is what we get.”

Both the prime minister and the president had satellite telephone connections with Admiral Tarkington aboard Chosin Reservoir . The admiral had apprised them several hours ago that the action would soon begin, but they had expected that when they read Mike Rosen’s first e-mail.

“Wouldn’t it have been better to wait until the marines were ashore tomorrow before launching this party?” the foreign minister asked the PM.

The prime minister knew little of military affairs, a fact he was willing to admit publicly, and he had learned not to trust generals and admirals, who were, in his opinion, far too quick with victory predictions and clueless about political realities. Today his misgivings over the handling of this crisis grew with every machine-gun blast and Hellfire impact on the screen in front of him. Still, he wasn’t going to call the admiral for reassurance. If he had any to give. Or those ninnies at the White House. The bald fact was the horse had left the gate and was running the race.

He contented himself with the comment, “If anything happens to those Sultan people, there will be bloody hell to pay.”

On the far side of the Atlantic, the president was also examining his hole card. Giving Grafton command of this operation looked smart last week, but if this thing turned into a civilian bloodbath … A congressional investigation was the least that would happen. His handling of the military would be questioned. Foreign affairs … His enemies, of whom he had many, would wave the bloody shirts as proof of his and his administration’s incompetence, which would have incalculable political effects.

He felt like a man on a runaway horse, with no control whatever, just trying to keep from being thrown.

The president glared at Sal Molina, who had lobbied hard for Grafton.

As machine guns chattered and muzzle flashes strobed on the television screen and that nincompoop Ricardo had oral sex with his microphone, the president dug a packet of cigarettes from a drawer and lit one. Blew smoke at the NO SMOKING sign. Mouthed a dirty word but didn’t say it.

* * *

The SEALs were certainly thorough clearing Ragnar’s lair. I counted five bodies as I climbed the stairs. Passed a troop of women and kids going down the stairs. I knew from the net that the SEALs had found them upstairs in the living quarters below the penthouse and were sending them down. Eight women, eleven kids, three being carried. I saw no blood. Just scared helpless people.

The penthouse was a helluva mess. The four SEALs were standing around looking for someone to shoot while Nora Neidlinger sat on the floor, working in near darkness cutting rope. Fifty dollar bills and C-notes were scattered everywhere.

“One alive, these other two are dead,” the SEAL team leader reported.

“Got a flashlight?” I asked.

He gave me his.

“Have you searched them?”

He handed me a small RC control unit with three little arms and a red button. “Ragnar had it on him. No battery. The battery was in the other pocket.” He gave me the battery and I pocketed it. Stuck the controller in my other pocket. It just fit.

I took a look at the pirate still alive. Ragnar! He was trying to talk. Had stuff covering his feet and hands, and one eye didn’t focus. Concussion. No weapons in sight. The SEALs had confiscated them.