Cold Shot

TWELVE YEARS LATER

Rappelling onto the ship was a terrible risk.

The enemy surely was carrying rocket-propelled grenades that could knock a helicopter from the sky and the entire team would die either in a fireball or in the water. But there is no good way to board a hostile ship on the open sea save to come alongside with grapnels or caving ladders and climb aboard. It was night and a rare squall cut the visibility across the waves, but the enemy might hear an outboard motor and the operation would then become an assault on an elevated, fortified position. The enemy would be crouched behind metal rails, shooting AK-47s down at men trying to climb wet ropes with no cover.

Rappelling was the only option.

The enemy was not completely foolish. Lookouts stood fore and aft, but the man keeping watch on the foredeck was half asleep, smoking cigarettes to stay awake, and couldn’t see more than fifty feet out into the ocean. There was no moon and the Markarid’s own deck lights didn’t illuminate far in the rain. The rush of the bow through the water muffled the sound of the Bell 214 helicopter until it was close enough.

A single round from an Austrian Steyr .50 rifle punched through the lookout’s chest and buried itself in the deck, and the pirate went down without a sound.

The first four men dropped their rope bags out the door, pushed out of the cabin, and fast-roped to the deck. There was movement on the deck aft of their landing zone. The enemy had spotted them now and panicked Somalis were rushing around the bridge. A hostile rushed out from the ship’s island carrying a long tube and lifted it to his shoulder. The Bell’s door gunner saw him, swiveled his GAU-16 toward the man and opened fire. Ten .50 rounds hit the target and spun him sideways, spraying blood. The pirate’s dying reflex was to press the RPG-7’s trigger. The warhead fired down at the deck, then ricocheted off at a flat angle. It flew wildly in a crazy arc until it struck a cargo container and exploded, blowing bits of other men into the sea and onto the bulkheads.

The sniper saw it through his Steyr’s scope and cursed. The fireball left a burning hole in the deck with smoke rolling off into the wet air. There were no other ships within visual range in this storm and the rain would quickly snuff the fire, but satellites could see such things and this mission was covert.

The second four-man stick slid down to join their brothers and the sniper followed. He unhooked his harness, pulled the Steyr over his shoulder, then waved. The door gunner released the ropes, then yelled to the pilot, who made the helicopter a moving target again, flying slowly along the starboard side toward the cargo ship’s stern.

The sniper knelt on the roof of a cargo container and extended the bipod under his rifle. The other men raised their carbines and moved aft.

One of the braver pirates stood from behind the rail, shouldered his rifle and fired, hitting nothing, then yelled and waved at other men, trying to direct them forward. The sniper put the crosshairs on the man’s chest. It wasn’t a long shot — the Markarid was only 199 meters long. The Steyr’s barrel erupted and the .50 round took out much of the target’s chest when it passed through his center mass.

The pirates were in a panic now. They’d seen men go down in one gory spray after another, which left most of them afraid to stick their heads up. One raised his AK above the metal rail and pulled the trigger, firing blind and waving the gun in the general direction where he thought the soldiers were. The gun kicked high and most of the bullets landed somewhere in the Gulf.

The sniper reached for another bullet tucked into his vest, an armor-piercing round. The Steyr was a single-shot, bolt-action rifle, which forced the sniper to reload each round by hand. He slid the black-tipped slug into the ejection port and pushed the bolt forward. He stared through the Leupold Ultra M3A scope mounted on the Picatinny rail above the Steyr barrel.

The pirate hiding behind the rail raised his AK again and began waving it over the railing as he fired. The Steyr roared, the bullet punched through the metal barrier, and the sniper saw the pirate’s blood paint the bulkhead behind in a red spray.

The assault teams reached the superstructure. Now they would have to shift to urban warfare tactics. The ship was the length of a skyscraper and full of narrow passageways, metal doors, and hatchways — countless places to hide and barricade and ambush. They would control the bridge in a few minutes, but clearing the ship would take much longer.

Time to abandon the Steyr. The sniper had his own MPT-9. He checked the carbine and started to move forward. It took him more than a minute to reach the strike teams waiting for him at the superstructure.

Sargord (Major) Heidar Elham of Iran’s Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution took the lead position, raised his rifle to eye level, nudged open the hatch, and stepped inside.

Elham stomped up rusting metal stairs that swayed slightly under his feet. The vessel struck a hard wave and the soldier’s stomach twinged a bit. Drugs alone were keeping his dinner down and he wondered why Allah would leave it to the Great Satan to invent something so useful as Dramamine.

Elham loosened the strap on his carbine, which hung vertically in front, his right hand resting on the pistol grip. He pulled his balaclava off his head and stuffed it into one of the pockets on his vest, which was already heavy with his radio and other kit. The humidity in the Gulf of Aden held the heat like a sponge and he thought about pulling his gloves off, but decided against it. It was dark, pitching ships had an infinite number of exposed metal surfaces, corrosion was everywhere on this one, and he had no desire to risk tetanus.

The sound of gunfire ripped the air behind him, echoing up from belowdecks through some open hatch closer to the ship’s bow. Elham didn’t flinch. He knew the sound of his own men’s weapons.

Pirates were vicious people, but they had no training, no coordination, no organized tactics. Like all bullies, the pirates had been terrified to face someone more capable than themselves. It had been the slaughter he’d expected and Elham was fine with that. Now his men were clearing compartments, looking for cowards hiding under some bunk or inside some locker or cargo container. His own team had taken no casualties beyond a sprained ankle when one of his men had lost his footing on a ladder trying to reach cover.

Elham reached the top of the ladder and found three of his men smoking Russian cigarettes. It was a foul habit for a soldier, Elham thought. A man who tried to stay in shape for ten-kilometer forced marches and then smoked to relax was a fool, though he kept such thoughts to himself. He kept his disapproval to a short look and a grunt.

“Is he aboard?” Elham asked. Maybe he changed his mind, the soldier thought. Maybe he won’t come—

“Inside,” one of the men answered. “He arrived ten minutes ago, while you were below.”

Elham gritted his teeth, then pushed open the metal door and stepped through onto the bridge.

Eight Somali pirates were kneeling on the floor in a circle facing inward, hands behind their heads. Most were teenagers, maybe in their early twenties at the oldest. He knew their type, arrogant and cruel as long as they were the only ones with guns. They weren’t arrogant now and they’d had no practice at hiding their fear.

The bridge reeked of blood and khat, the foul weed that these Somali pirates chewed. They’d had two days’ control of the ship during which to spit their juice all over the floor. Whether the blood belonged to any of the other pirates or to the missing crew, Elham didn’t know yet. Somali pirate crews had general orders from their warlord patrons not to kill hostages needlessly, but they weren’t always faithful to them and Markarid’s captain had been under specific orders not to surrender the ship.

Another burst of gunfire sounded from the deck, then a pair of screams erupted somewhere behind one of the deck cranes. His men fired again and the screaming stopped short. Ammunition was held cheap tonight.

Elham looked to the pirates and studied their reactions as they heard the violent deaths of their comrades. None of them soiled their pants, which surprised him. Several probably had done so earlier, before being brought to the bridge.

He was not here for them. Elham turned to the forward windows, through which he could see the entire forward deck of the ship. A man stood by the helm, midfifties, slim, gray throughout his beard. Hossein Ahmadi clearly was not a soldier. Both his clothing and his physique confirmed that. The man was smoking his own Russian cigarette and Elham knew where his men had gotten their supply.

“Dr. Ahmadi.”

“Are we secure?” Ahmadi took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled the smoke through his nose. Only then did he turn to face Elham.

“Secure enough.”

“What was their course?” Ahmadi asked, nodding his head slightly toward the prisoners.

“Bound for Eyl.”

“Of course.” Eyl was the major pirate haven on Somali’s eastern coast. Dozens of seized vessels and a few hundred hostages were held there at any given time. Ahmadi turned and stared out the windows down at the smoldering hole in the middeck just forward of the conning tower. “And that?”

“A thermobaric round fired from an RPG. Several of the TBG-7V warheads were missing from the cargo hold. We recovered all but one.”

Another drag of the cigarette. “How do you find the crew?”

“I find them not well. Eight dead and another six wounded. Fifteen more safe, but suffering from dehydration and contusions. We’ve moved them to the galley for treatment. This scum”—Elham nudged a pirate’s head with the barrel of his rifle—“pitched the dead over the side and locked the survivors in the galley. I’ve ordered a second sweep to be sure, but I think we’ve found all of the crew that we’re going to find.”

“And the captain?” Ahmadi asked.

“Dead.”

Ahmadi said nothing for almost a minute as he sucked the cigarette down to the nub. “He was the son of a dear friend,” his voice almost flat. “And the pirates?”

“Besides this rabble there were twelve belowdecks. We executed eleven. Their remains are lined up on the deck for your inspection.”

Ahmade frowned. “Only eleven?”

“The twelfth was the leader.” Elham turned and shouted an order. Two members of his team maneuvered their way through the entry onto the bridge carrying another Somali by his armpits. They dropped him in a shivering heap onto the deck, where he groaned for a second, then started whimpering.

Ahmadi knelt by the man. “He found the cargo?” he asked.

Elham turned his head and looked out the forward windows. He’d known that question was coming and wished he could lie about the answer, but doing that would stop nothing in the long run. Perhaps it would have bought him time to get away from this mission but he’d never been one to avoid his duty. “One container breached in the forward hold,” Elham said.

Ahmadi hissed through his teeth. “This one went through it.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. One squad discovered the damage while searching the hold for pirates.”

“How did he breach the casings?” Ahmadi asked, furious.

“It seems that he used some of the other equipment we had stored below.” Elham shifted his rifle in his hands and stared down at the captives kneeling on the deck. “Your orders?”

Ahmadi stood and looked around at his men. “Clear the bridge of this garbage and seal the hold. Change course, heading one-eight-five until further notice.”

“We’re not going home?” Elham asked. His surprise was an act. “We should return for a proper crew—”

“You know what this vessel carries?”

“Not precisely,” Elham admitted. “But I know who you are, so I can guess.”

“Then you know that there is too much invested here,” Ahmadi answered. “Sargord, take charge of the ship and proceed on course to the destination port, best possible speed.”

You mean you have too much invested, Elham thought. You were stupid to send this ship and crew out so lightly armed. This entire operation was a gamble not worth taking in his view, but he kept the thought to himself. Ahmadi was a connected man — connected at Tehran’s highest levels — and crossing him would be unwise.

Ahmadi turned to the windows and stared out over the massive vessel. “Can you repair that?” he asked, pointing at the smoking hole in the deck.

“No,” Elham told him. “Even if we had the engineers, we don’t have the equipment or materials needed to fix something of that size.”

“Hide it, then,” Ahmadi ordered. “Cover it with something.”

“Someone might see it before we can finish the job. Their satellites might have already spotted it,” Elham protested. “We should—”

“Don’t presume to tell me what we should do,” Ahmadi said, cutting the major off.

Elham paused and thought carefully about his answer. “Very well. And them?” He nodded toward the Somalis.

Ahmadi stared at the captives for a few seconds, then shrugged. “We are fortunate that the security of the operation and justice demand the same thing, so let justice be done.” Then he nodded at the pirate curled up on the floor. “Except that one. A commanding officer is responsible for the actions of his men, is he not?”

“Always,” Elham agreed.

“Then we will leave that one to Allah.”

Foolishness, Elham thought. Rumors were that Ahmadi was not a religious man. Elham had no problem believing that. He had seen Ahmadi’s kind before. No matter. Elham wasn’t an overly religious man himself, but in this case he was perfectly ready to accept God’s judgment. These pirates had killed his countrymen. Mercy was for the merciful. Christians had that much right at least.

Red sky at morning…

Captain “Dutch” Riley had always paid attention to that old adage. It wasn’t true for every sea in the world, but old wisdom survived for a reason and technology didn’t change a sailor’s job as much as junior officers liked to think. A few hundred generations of sailors had lacked any better way to forecast storms than staring at the sky and Riley wondered which captain had finally cracked the weather code. Whoever that man was, he’d stood on the deck of his wooden vessel morning after morning, maybe for years, staring at the horizon until something clicked in his head. That was the key. Man had spent enough time connecting with the sea and sky around him to finally understand how his world worked. The sea was always trying to talk, but too many sailors weren’t listening anymore.

It was just too easy to get disconnected from the sea these days, especially on the bigger ships. He’d gone whole days without seeing the sky as a junior officer on the Bunker Hill and the Leyte Gulf. Those days could turn into weeks, easy, on a carrier where stepping onto the flight deck was a life-threatening exercise. Riley didn’t even like thinking about what life on a submarine would be like. So he walked the deck at dawn, enjoyed the slight rolling of the ship under his feet, and thanked heaven that he could suck in the fresh air whenever he felt like it and listen to the water.

Not that there was much to hear at the moment. The sky was clear today and the only breeze came from Vicksburg’s own forward motion. It’s September, Riley reminded himself. Another few weeks before the monsoons. Vicksburg would be on her way home by then—

“Good morning, Captain.” Riley turned his head without lifting his arms off the rail. Command Master Chief Amos LeJeune was a tall man, half a head taller than Riley, and thin with a frame built from a life of eating bayou food. He carried the usual second mug, which he delivered to his commanding officer, reserving his salute until the captain took the offering.

“Yet to be determined, Master Chief,” Riley said, returning the salute. He took a swig of LeJeune’s brew into his mouth — good stuff. “But the coffee’s decent, so we’re off to a good start.” Decent was an understatement. He was sure he tasted chicory.

“Nice to see that I don’t have to start digging out of a hole so early in the day,” LeJeune agreed. The Cajun took a small swig from his own cup.

“Six months aboard today,” Riley observed. “You miss the Blue Ridge yet?” The Blue Ridge was the command ship for the Navy’s Seventh Fleet in the Pacific.

“The Hotel Blue Ridge?” LeJeune asked. “No, sir. She’s a fine ship, that one. Good chilimac. But it’s nice to be on a ship armed with something bigger than a .50 cal. Command ships run at the first sign of trouble and they do it proud. Thought it would be fun to ride toward the trouble for once.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Riley said. “This isn’t exactly a hotbed, is it?”

“Hot, anyway,” LeJeune told him. “Not your fault, sir. Just luck of the draw on the orders. Not that I mind chasing pirates. Oldest naval duty that ever was. But I wouldn’t mind pushing the button to launch a Harpoon at somebody who deserves it.”

“Me too, Master Chief—”

“Sir!”

Riley didn’t remember the name of the female seaman apprentice running toward him along the starboard rail. He’d met every member of the crew but it was tough to keep four hundred names in his head. These kids all came and went too fast.

The seaman slowed to a halt and saluted. “Captain. Master Chief.” Salutes returned, the seaman caught her breath for a second. “Sorry to disturb you, sirs. We’ve got a life raft, maybe three hundred yards off, passing port side aft. Can’t see if there’s anyone in it, but I don’t have glasses.” By which she meant binoculars. “Sorry ’bout that, sir.”

Life raft? Riley thought. There hadn’t been any reports of ships in distress in these waters. “Very well.” He turned to LeJeune. “Master Chief, orders to the bridge, all engines stop. And get Winter up here. We might need the doc.”

“Aye, sir.” LeJeune took Riley’s coffee mug and his own into one hand and threw the contents of both over the side before jogging off toward the ship’s towering superstructure.

Riley faced the seaman again. “Show me.”

“Aye, sir.” The seaman turned and ran aft with her commanding officer behind.

That young lady has some good eyes, Riley thought. The seaman had underestimated the distance, easy to do on the ocean, where there were no landmarks to help the eye judge size or range, but seeing the raft at all had been a feat. It was a good five hundred yards away and he struggled to make the rescue craft out with his middle-aged eyes until someone fetched him binoculars.

A pair of petty officers guiding their own dinghy dragged the raft by a towline back to Vicksburg. Riley could tell from their body language that there was a smell coming off it that could wither a sailor’s nose. They pulled alongside, Riley could see a single body in the raft and the bloating told him everything he needed to know about the castaway’s current state.

LeJeune leaned over Riley’s shoulder. “I think we’re coming a bit late for this one, Captain,” he offered.

“I think you’re right,” Riley agreed, following with a private curse. He looked behind him. Most of the crew on deck had heard the scuttlebutt and the few whose duties left them close enough wandered over to see the recovery, morbid though it was going to be. “Master Chief, clear these kids out of here. I don’t want them to see this. Then call the officer of the deck. All engines ahead two thirds as soon as we’ve got this thing aboard. Get some breeze going to carry this smell off the ship.”

“Aye, sir,” LeJeune said, quiet enough for only Riley to hear. “We’ll be seeing this in our sleep for a while.” He turned to the assembled crew and began barking orders that Riley didn’t hear for his focus on the corpse. Smart man that he was, LeJeune started herding the crew toward the far end of the fo’s’cle.

The raft came aboard and the sight was something that Riley wished he could erase from his brain the moment he took it in. The carcass was that of an African man, he presumed, but Riley couldn’t discern any more than that. The face was unrecognizable, the skin blistered, and the arms and legs were twisted at bizarre angles at the knees and elbows. How long has this guy been out here? he wondered. A couple of weeks at least.

The chief medical officer, Thane Winter, stepped up next to Riley and offered him an open tub of Vicks VapoRub. “Put some of this under your nostrils, sir, and breathe through your mouth. It’ll help.” Riley took the CMO’s advice, then handed the tub over to the closest crewman and it began to make the rounds. Winter was right, almost. Riley could still smell the corpse but the mint odor lessened his stomach’s urge to dredge up his breakfast. One of the other petty officers on deck wasn’t so fortunate. The tub didn’t get passed around fast enough and he lost his morning meal over the rail.

Winter pulled on a pair of latex gloves and stepped forward to examine the new passenger, passing through the other sailors who were retreating in the other direction to a safe distance. “I think he’s dead, sir,” one of the officers called out. It was a poor joke and no one laughed.

There’s another candidate for med school, Riley thought, and silenced the heckler with a look. The few remaining sailors began to disperse of their own accord. Morbid curiosity couldn’t survive long in the face of the smell, it seemed.

Riley felt the ship surge under his feet, the engines pushing her ahead. He saw LeJeune working his way back to the ship’s bow. Winter stood and pulled the gloves from his hands. “Shot through both knees. And someone crushed his hands before they threw him into the raft. He couldn’t have launched it and he certainly couldn’t have steered it even if he had paddles aboard, which he didn’t. No means of propulsion. No navigation or signaling equipment either. No food, just a couple of water bottles. He didn’t even drink one of them. Probably couldn’t get the caps off.”

Riley winced. “Somebody wanted this guy to hurt.”

“Somebody got their wish,” Winter agreed. “He’s also got burns under his clothes that weren’t caused by exposure.”

“Torture?” Riley asked.

“Maybe,” Winter replied. “I won’t know until I can do a work-up on him.” Riley grimaced at the thought of keeping the corpse aboard.

“It wouldn’t be the first time pirates got into an argument over the loot,” LeJeune offered.

Winter shrugged. “This was a murder, Captain,” he said. “We need to document the evidence, then transfer the body to Bahrain for autopsy.”

Riley took a deep breath through his mouth, then stared back down at the body. “Okay. You can get everything up here on deck?” Winter nodded. “Good,” the captain said, relieved. “It would take us a month to get the smell out belowdecks. Get your pictures and get ’em fast. Then call Naval Support in Bahrain and get me an answer within the hour. If they don’t want him, we’ll do a burial at sea. And make sure we’re handling the body according to the local traditions.”

“Aye aye, sir. I’ll round up the chaplain.” Winter marched off.

LeJeune watched the doctor go, and then turned back to his captain. “I’m afraid to ask, sir, but what’re my orders?”

Riley gave the senior enlisted man a rueful look. “Somebody’s got to get this guy into a body bag, Master Chief. Maybe it’ll help keep the smell down.”

“Aye, sir. That’s what I thought.” LeJeune jogged away to catch up with Winter.

Riley exhaled and looked down at the corpse. He finally saw the blood and vomit dried on the bottom of the raft. The body had covered the gory stain until Winter had shifted the bloated man and exposed it.

… Sailors take warning, Riley thought, finishing the adage that had started his morning walk on deck. Can’t wait to make this one somebody else’s problem.