Stephen Coonts - Pirate Alley

“What with you here, we’ll go back to Plan A.”

“The airport?”

“Yep. The Shabab boys are sitting up there looking mean. Kinda too bad about the pirates. When the Shabab came in shooting, the pirates’ machine guns split their barrels when the first round was fired. The battle was a little lopsided. Very tragic.”

I set about making the satellite phone do its magic. By the time the task force ops officer was on, I was halfway through my second can of beer. Even warm, it tasted delicious.

While I talked the guys worked on my leg. Got an antibiotic on it and a coagulating pad, then a tight bandage. At least now it wouldn’t bleed. Damn thing was sore, and the best I could do was a hobble.

When the ops officer was finished and had answered my three questions, I turned off the phone. I looked at my little band and told them, “We eat, then get at it. Timetable is unchanged. The airplanes are in the air.” They knew all that, of course. “E.D., you and Travis are going to cover me with the Sakos.”

They just nodded and handed me some MREs. I began wolfing them down. Damn, I was hungry.

E.D. sat down beside me. “I heard some shooting last night. Did you guys get any kills?”

He shrugged. Looked around to see who was listening to us. Apparently no one. “We missed,” he allowed in a low voice.

“Oh, come on!”

“Shit, Tommy. Shooting at people running around like crazy in the dark isn’t like shooting at a damn target. You know that! The damn guys wouldn’t hold still.”

“I thought you guys-”

“For the love of Christ!” he hissed, trying to keep his voice from carrying. “Of course I’ve been in combat before. A dozen times. Sprayed lead and threw grenades and called in air strikes and patched up wounds and all that soldier shit. We got those guys about to do you on the road, didn’t we? Sure, we were trying last night, but the crosshairs kept dancing and those guys wouldn’t hold still. You know what I’m saying?”

“It’ll be my neck on the chopping block tonight,” I pointed out.

“We scared ’em last night. Kept their heads down. When they got their heads down they’re outta the fight. We’ll take care of you.”

“Yeah. Sure. Anything happens to me, you’d better get off this planet. Shoot straight, damn your eyes.”

“Oh, of course, Tommy. Sure as shootin’.”

“Fuck you, Erectile Dysfunction.”

“ Hey! Watch your mouth.”

“Fuck you, Limp Dick. Is that better?”

“Cocksucker.”

“Don’t drink any more of this horse-piss beer before we go, either.”

Properly motivating people is a fine art. It comes natural to me. It’s a gift.

* * *

We sorted our gear, made sure everyone had what he needed. Willis Coffey was leading the rest of the guys to the airport. Since they had farther to go, they left early. E.D. and I helped ourselves to more water. The sun had slipped below the hills to the west, but still made the ocean sparkle. When the sun was gone and the ocean turned gray, we started sneaking.

For some reason, the sky turned bloodred as the night came on. Perhaps the upper atmosphere was full of dirt from the desert to the west. Some kind of lensing effect, I suppose.

We finally reached our position just after dark. E.D. settled in beside me and set up the legs of the Sako’s bipod. Got his spotting scope beside him, focused it on Ragnar’s lair, used the laser range finder …

“Two hundred ninety yards,” he whispered.

That was well within the capability of the night scope on the rifle. Unfortunately it was too close for comfort. One of the advantages a sniper enjoys is that he can kill from beyond the range of enemy weapons, and it is this edge that often is the only thing keeping the sniper alive.

Using the night scope, we checked for other positions. After a couple of shots, E.D. was going to have to move. Probably retreat, if the opposition tried to encircle him with more people than he could take down. We picked out places.

“Just don’t shoot unless you have to,” I told him. “But if you do shoot, kill the son of a bitch. One shot, one kill.”

He didn’t say anything. The dumb bastard. Shooting and missing last night! Jesus! Sniper my ass.

I lay there stewing as I looked over Ragnar’s lair with binoculars. I could see people in some of the windows, and people in the penthouse. A couple on the balcony. None of them was Grafton, not that I expected to see him. They probably had him in one of the back rooms under guard.

In the plaza were six pickups with machine guns, technicals, tastefully arranged around the burned-out hulks of the two trucks that caught fire last night.

The gunners in the trucks were nervous, and kept looking out to sea, scanning. They weren’t stupid. The truck carcasses and side of the building had plenty of.50 caliber bullet holes. Anyone with eyes could see that a heavy weapon had been used. From a patrol boat? A launch? Or from the Sultan ?

Even as I watched, two squads of armed men, about eight in each bunch, walked out to the beach and carried two boats into the surf, where they climbed aboard. Other men brought them machine guns, one for each boat, which the people in the boat mounted on a tripod. They didn’t waste any time, but set sail immediately for the Sultan . Once there, the first boat went alongside while the other laid off about a hundred yards and covered it. Six or so of the Shabab warriors went aboard. Truth is, these guys should have done this twelve hours ago. Maybe el-Din just thought of it, or maybe he was too busy praying or writing reports to his superiors to attend to business.

I hoped the SEALs were ready. It was a couple hours too early for the party to begin. A shootout aboard ship would alert this bunch here, complicating the problem of extracting Grafton. And the Sultan passengers. And crew. Plus my snatch team. And me.

* * *

Bullet Bob Quinn saw the boats set off from the beach and assumed the worst. Like Carmellini, he knew that shooting at dusk would jeopardize the entire operation. He and the men could just go over the side and swim away … but there was the big fifty on the bridge. One look at that gun and its ammo and the Somalis would catch right on. At least now they were only suspicious.

He sent a runner to the e-com center to warn Rosen and High Noon. The Somalis expected them to be there, so that was fine. Indeed, that was where some of them would go first, just to check. He stationed two men there.

He and the other SEALs took up positions here and there throughout the ship. He hoped to take out the holy warriors one at a time, if they would just cooperate.

Bullet Bob stood just around a corner from the pilot landing, which of course was still open. He heard the boat bump against the grate and heard them clamor aboard. These guys weren’t silent. Didn’t know how. People were supposed to flee from the righteous violence of their guns, from the wrath of Allah.

The pirates hadn’t, and their corpses were lying in a pile between Eyl East and West. Of course, most of them had been ambushed, but …

Quinn waited until the last man had taken a ladder upward, then followed him. At the top of the staircase he saw the guy looking around, slightly awed at the size and opulence of the ship, and apparently undecided about which way he should go. The man paused to listen, held his rifle tightly.

He made a selection and walked along, looking at this and that, obviously ready to shoot someone if only he could find someone. Anyone.

Bullet Bob kept low, stayed behind, as quiet as a shadow. His chance came when the pirate thought he heard something behind a closed door and approached it, intent upon it.

Quinn’s garroting wire went over his head and the SEAL pulled with all his strength. The rifle fell, the man grabbed at his throat. They all did that. It was instinct.