Countdown: The Liberators-ARC

CHAPTER FORTY

Corsairs against corsairs;

there is nothing to win but empty casks.

-Italian Proverb

D-1, Yacht One Born Every Minute, off the coast of Ophir

The pirates had kept the yacht's original name because it just seemed to fit so well, once it had been explained to them.

Times have been better, mused the captain of the yacht and leader of its seventeen man crew. Not that the yacht itself needed seventeen men to run it, of course, but somebody had to man the machine guns, do the boarding, secure the captives, and inventory the haul.

The captain, Nadif, as with almost all of his crew and most of his people, was tall, slender, and fairly light skinned, with features a mix of Arab and African. Gray at the temples, he was just beginning to sprout gray, by single, curly hairs, all over his head. He thought he was probably about forty-five, but couldn't be quite sure. As a young man, he'd been a fisherman, and a good one. It was that, that knowledge of the sea, that had brought him to the pirates who were, by and large, landlubbers or, in any case, young men with very little knowledge of seamanship.

Rather, the knowledge of the sea had made him an asset to the local pirate group, made them seek him out. He'd have had nothing to do with them, ordinarily. But as a fisherman, years before, he'd found he just couldn't compete with the western, Chinese, and Japanese commercial fishers who had taken so much of the local stock that it had become hardly worth the expenditure of gas for the few fish he could catch. Necessity is a harsh mistress, and with a family to support, pirates flashing altogether too much money, that money driving up prices . . . Well, what was I supposed to do?

Victims of our own success, though, Nadif mused. Oh, for a while we were raking it in. And the whites' and squint-eyes' navies were by and large helpless. Yes, they had their successes, as did we. But they never really understood, or would admit to understanding, how to stop us. Until, in the face of their failure, the fat merchant ships simply started avoiding us, avoiding our coastline, at least, unless the cost of fuel was greater than the likely ransom they'd have to pay.

I suppose we were "overfishing," too. Nadif patted the console of his little command. Of course we still manage to take the occasional idiot yachtsman.

Fortunately, we never became political, or not too political. I can just imagine what kind of reaction we'd have caused if those Arab lunatics on the other side of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden had had their way. Sure, chop off somebody's head for the televisions? Then watch the westerners get serious.

Thank Allah we managed to avoid that.

Beneath the deck the engine shuddered and coughed before catching its timing again. A fine fisherman Nadif may have been. He was not, however, a marine engine mechanic. And Allah? If You could see fit to make the motor run for just a couple more days? Just a couple? Yes, yes, I know: The camel limps from its split lip. But what can one do?

Oh, and thank You for sending that fat prize our way. We appreciate it.

D-1, four miles northeast of Nugaal, Ophir,

and about eight hundred feet over ground

On McCaverty's command, the flight had shifted formation from a staggered trail to a broad V. This took very little time. It had also increased its height over ground, which hadn't taken much more.

The image in his NVGs was so grainy that Welch almost missed the final landmark before jumping, a thin dirt airstrip with perhaps four thousand feet of useable runway. The team had considered simply airlanding at that runway.

Which probably would have worked, he thought, for a part of one night. Since we had to go in a day early, we couldn't leave the planes parked there in the intervening day. Sooo . . .

We jump.

The seat next to the pilot was missing, in order to allow two jumpers to get to the door in turn. In the open space crouched Little Joe. Terry's butt was still half inside, but he had his legs out of the plane with his feet resting on the strut that supported the wing.

"Go!" McCaverty shouted over the roar of the engine and the rush of the wind.

Everybody with normal human emotions had a different point at which the reality of impending danger tended to set their heart to racing and their stomach to fluttering. For underwater demolitions people, that might be when they actually entered the water. For regular infantry it might be when they crossed the line of departure, or LD. For paratroopers, it was often at some point in the jump sequence: "Hook up!" for example. Terry had jumped a lot. His heart didn't start really pounding until he got the command to "Go."

Ignoring that pounding, and the fluttering in his stomach, Terry stood and swung his rear end so that he faced forward, wind against his face. Then he scrunched down and . . .

It wasn't a jump so much as a letting go. The plane was moving slowly, which had advantages and disadvantages. Chief among the disadvantages was that the forward speed of a plane, in effect, helped the parachute to deploy. Chief among the advantages was that at the current speed, the tail of the plane wouldn't take his head off before he cleared it.

That, and one got a relatively soft opening of the chute.

Falling face toward the ground, Terry felt a slight tug at his back. As he typically did, he counted off aloud: One thousand . . . two thousand . . . three . . . "

When he got to "four thousand" and still hadn't felt the opening shock, his right hand began automatically questing for the ripcord. He forced it to stop.

And then there was an opening shock. Not bad. Not bad at all. Terry's hands went to grasp the risers. His stomach settled and his heart rate dropped.

D-1, Yemen

"Not bad; not bad at all," Konstantin whispered as he finished his circuit of the sand-colored camouflage nets he, his men, and the four air crew had put up over the helicopters. The image in his goggles, at this range, was good enough to tell that the nets were properly staked down, that their edges blended smoothly into the dunes, changing the shape of the dunes but not their essential quality.

He walked forward now, coming in the same way he'd left. Behind him he trailed a short length of netting to distort and disguise his footprints. At the end of the net he went to his belly and slithered forward. Sergeant Musin lifted the net for him, making his entrance easier.

"Everyone here?" Konstantin asked of Baluyev.

"All present, Comrade Major," the praporschik answered. The warrant officer now wore a long flowing dishdasha and had an Arab headdress, a keffiyeh, in one hand. "The bikes, arms, and clothing from the other helicopter are here, tested-except for the motorcycles-and functioning."

"Radio check with the ship?" Konstantin asked.

"Yes, Comrade Major," Baluyev answered. "And with the old man, back in the Lubyanka. That last was via the helicopter's radio."

Konstantin nodded, satisfied. He pointed and said, "Galkin, set up shop inside this helicopter. Check everyone's makeup. Then everyone, sleep, except for the guard. One in six on alert. Pilots just sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow."

D-1, MV Merciful

While Kosciusko and the bridge crew were restricted to small, hand-held or face-worn night vision devices, the two observers on either side of the bow had much more powerful, tripod-mounted scopes. Thus, it was no surprise when the speaker on the bridge sang out with, "Captain, this is Wilcox on the starboard side. I've got 'em at about one o'clock. Two and a half to three klicks away. Looks like a fishing yacht, maybe fifty or sixty feet, hard to say. About twenty in beam or a bit less. Armed men-I think-at the bow. She's making good speed."

"Drop speed to eight knots," Kosciusko ordered. "Bearing: zero-two-zero."

"Aye, sir . . . Aye, sir." The engines' throbbing reduced as every man aboard was slightly but forcibly leaned toward the bow and to port.

Stauer shot the captain a questioning look.

"He's-whoever he is-not going to know we're the same boat he's been after. Too dark to pick out colors and we're almost head on to him. I don't want them to have a clue about how fast we can go if we want to," Kosciusko explained. "Not until it's too late, anyway."

"Fair enough."

"Wish we had a couple of barrels of fish guts and blood," the captain said.

"Why's that?" Stauer asked.

"Chum the water."

"Huh?" Kosciusko didn't normally give Stauer the impression of bloodthirstiness.

Kosciusko shrugged. "I'm a sailor. I don't like pirates."

D-1, Yacht One Born Every Minute, off the coast of Ophir

Life's so unfair, Nadif thought. Ordinarily, we're lucky to get a good haul once in two months. But tonight, we've got two ships and only my little command to take them. And the other boat reported engine trouble and that they were heading back to port. No help there. Damn. Decisions, decisions.

"No matter," he said. "Better a bird in the hand than ten in a tree."

"What's that?" Nadif's helmsman asked.

"What? Oh. We'll take this beneficence and forget about the other. Steer for the target." Nadif listened to the engines for a few seconds, then shook his head with mild disgust. "They're too noisy," he tsked. "Drop speed to one third. After all, it's not like they're not heading our way anyway."

D-1, MV Merciful

"Mrs. Liu?" Kosciusko queried over the intercom.

"Here, Skippah," came a lilting voice back.

"You understand the mission?"

"Sho' t'ing, Skippah. You say which side. I swing containah ovah. I wait. You tly ram mothafuckahs. You say drop. I drop."

"By George, I think she's got it," said Boxer. "I also think she's been listening too closely to the deck crew's invective."

"She's loaded every container and piece of heavy equipment we have aboard," the captain answered. "Flawlessly. She's always had it." He heaved a sigh, "And, yes, she picked up the slang pretty quickly. I think she thinks ‘mothafuckahs' is a term of endearment . . . "

Kosciusko picked up a small radio from a charging station not far from the ship's wheel, and then turned toward the hatchway.

"Where are you going?" Stauer asked.

"Tight timing," the captain explained. "Hard to control from here. I'll let the helm know when."

The bow of the target loomed above the small pirate craft. The target was maybe seventy-five meters off, making way slowly.

"Speed to one quarter," Nadif ordered, very quietly. "Gently now, gently. They don't know we're here and I don't want them to until we're swarming over them. Grapple, ladder and tie off men forward . . . quiet, damn you!"

Even this close, the pirate was hard to see until Kosciusko pulled on his NVGs. If there'd been much distance between the two vessels, depth perception would have been an issue. As was, with the Merciful well elevated over the pirate, gauging distance was relatively easy.

The pirate was veering to come alongside his ship to starboard. Possibly, thought Kosciusko, to pin us and prevent escape. Possibly, too, as an instinctive move to avoid being silhouetted by any light on the shore. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

He glanced down and said, softly, "But you're going to die harder."

In his goggles the captain saw two men, one to either extreme side of the pirate craft, spinning what he suspected were grappling hooks.

"Mrs. Liu?" he whispered.

"Stan'ing by, Skippah."

"Starboard side. Amidships."

"Logah."

The gantry began to whine as the Chinese woman moved it slightly forward while pivoting the crane to the right. The wheel bearing the cable, too, squeaked as the steel passed over it.

Nadif gave the order, "All stop . . . astern, half power." At the slow speed of the merchie he thought to match its speed to allow his men to grapple and board. Once he was grappled, of course, the target would provide a perfect match for course and speed, at least it would once the One Born Every Minute was swung around and tied off with a heavier line.

"What's that sound?" Nadif asked of no one in particular. It seemed to come more or less from above and drew his eyes upward. There, he thought he could see, or almost see, a head looking down at him.

"No clue, boss," the helmsman answered. "Maybe routine . . . oh, shit!"

At his helmsman's cry, Nadif looked down again. The target was turning. Worse, the wash was suddenly spurting rather higher than it had been, even as the port side seemed to boil.

Without another word, effectively on autopilot, Nadif's hand reached over and pushed the throttle fully forward. The engines, not that well maintained at the best of times, began to give whatever they had to give.

First, however, they had to overcome the rearward inertia. For a long moment, therefore, the yacht hardly moved at all.

"Hard right rudder! Full starboard bow thruster!" Kosciusko ordered into his hand-held radio. The captain kept his enhanced vision on his intended victim. He could see, or perhaps only sense, that the pirate below was straining to avoid being rammed.

"But you're not going to make it, you bastards."

By inches and by feet, the Merciful's bow closed on the pirate.

Nadif knew, within a few moments, that he was not going to be able to avoid the merchant ship's bow completely, not with this boat and these engines.

"So let's limit the damage."

Limiting the damage, in this case, consisted of keeping the merchie from harming the engines or propellers, or crushing in the gunwales or hull. Shoving the helmsman off to one side, Nadif took the wheel himself and twisted it hard to port, to spread out the coming blow. It was almost enough. The impact, when it came, was still on the starboard quarter. He and all his men were thrown from their feet as the yacht was struck and then partially lifted up on the bulbous bow. Several screams from the port side told that a number of men had been pitched overboard. They were cut off as the merchie forced the yacht over them, driving them under, probably with serious injuries.

Nadif struggled to his feet and returned to the wheel, though he kept his eyes locked on the hull scraping by his own vessel. He noticed that the merchant vessel's water line was well above the surface, indicating a very light load. Well, maybe we won't have lost much of a haul. As a good seaman, even though one who had never been in quite these circumstances before, he intuitively analyzed the forces in play.

I'm pinned against that hull by its swing. But its swing is greatest and strongest here. If I can force my way back, I've got a fair chance of breaking free and away, especially since their rudder's swinging their stern a lot more than their bow. I don't know what I'll do about the men overboard.

He snarled up at the ship looming over his own. Damned idiots! Do they think they own the sea? Don't they realize there are other boats on the water?

Cursing that he'd missed-Well, not quite missed, and it was only a best hope, anyway-Kosciusko raced to a point just forward of the gantry's base, then stuck his goggled face over the gunwale once again. To his right, a container swung slightly from port to starboard and back again. It reached, on the middle of its swings, just overboard. Doors on both ends swung freely.

"Stand by, Mrs. Liu," he repeated into his radio.

"Still stan'ing by, Skippah."

"Then . . . Mrs . . . Liu . . . on my command . . . DROP, DROP, DROP!"

The yacht was taking on water, yes, but nothing the pumps shouldn't be able to handle, at least for while. Nadif hadn't been able to break away from the merchie. He had his rudder hard to port but as the One Born Every Minute attempted even a minute turn, the swing of the merchant ship cancelled it, pinning it to the line of the merchie's hull as that hull continued to scrape by. That said, as he neared the stern Nadif could feel the force exerted against his boat lessening.

Nadif was pretty sure his own hull was at least slightly sprung. Not too bad for the pumps, though, or that thing might have driven right over us. If worse comes to worst I can set the crew, what's left of them, to bailing by hand. Should be able to make it to shore, at least, if not to port.

Most important to-

Thought incomplete, Nadif glanced up and said, "Fuck!"

The container hadn't quite passed the halfway point of its outward swing when Mrs. Liu released the gantry's burden. One corner struck the gunwale and set the thing to a slow spin. In practice, this meant that it hit the boat below almost edge on, crushing several men under its nearly four tons of weight and smashing one side of the boat to below the waterline. One of the freely swinging doors was almost vertical when it struck. This chopped sloppily through a young pirate on all fours, amidships and through the middle of his body. Blood gushered out across the pirate's deck in both directions. The boy barely had time to register what had happened to him before a corner of the container cruched his skull like a soft boiled egg.

The container strike also listed the boat to port. Pressure from the Merciful's dance forced water in at a rate no practical pumps for a boat that size could have dealt with. The water added to the list until resistance from the water below, coupled with pressure from the Merciful above, plus the container induced list, capsized the smaller vessel.

Kosciusko smiled at the screaming below. He really didn't like pirates. Looking down, he said, "See? I tolll' ya." Into his radio he gave the order, "Resume course. Full speed."

"Any survivors?" Stauer asked, once Kosciusko had returned to the bridge.

"Doubt it," the sailor answered, smiling. Turning to the helm he said, "Keep a watch out for the other reported boat. Have the forward lookouts relieved and the new ones do the same."

Unseen by anyone, blood from the sundered young pirate, as well as from various cuts, abrasions, compound fractures, and split skulls, seeped into the water around the ruin of the yacht.

When the container hit, it had thrown Nadif and the helmsman from the yacht's bridge into the water. The pirate skipper had gone under, at first, then surfaced to witness as the helmsman, screaming in panic, was forced under the wreck and lost. Nadif, an experienced seaman, was made of better stuff. Paddling frantically, he swam away from the ship. For a while, he seemed to be losing. But then, he had a chance, he knew, when he saw the merchant ship steer to its port.

If I can hang on until some wreckage surfaces too, I can make it. It's a long swim to shore but not an impossible one.

And then he felt a sharp tug from below.