Target Lock

Southern Approaches to the Sunda Strait 0111 Hours, Zone Time: August 11, 2008

They stood in her dreams as they often did when action was in the offing: Erikson, Chief Tehoa, Snowy Banks, Fry Guy, Danna, the Marines from the decks of the Bajara. Telling her that another reckoning loomed. Speaking no recrimination, but reminding her of the price to be paid. Always reminding her…

Amanda’s eyes opened and she looked into the blue-lit dimness of the cramped two-berth cabin. There was a momentary disorientation. She was back aboard the Duke, but these weren’t her quarters.

Full recall came swiftly. She was an outsider aboard the Cunningham now, and the captain’s suite belonged to Ken Hiro. After a long evening’s wait for action, she had gone below to the transients’ quarters assigned to her for a few hours of sleep.

Yet, what had brought her awake? What was happening with the ship? Maybe the Duke was no longer her personal command, but she still knew the feel of the cruiser down to the last pump resonance and plate vibration. Reaching down from her bunk, Amanda pressed her hand flat against the deck.

The power rooms were spooling up. The cruiser had gone to all ahead full and was coming hard about. Amanda could feel the lean of the hull. She was out of her berth and pulling on her slacks as the call to general quarters sounded.

“Battle stations, Aviation! All hands, stand by to launch aircraft! All aircrews and aircraft handling details lay to, on the double! Marine boarding detail, stand by to embark! All stations expedite! This is not a drill! I say again, this is not a drill!”

The cabin phone buzzed and Amanda snatched it from its cradle. “Go. Ken.” She didn’t have to ask who would be on the other end of the circuit.

“We’ve got one, Captain. The Russian RO/RO Piskov is reporting she is under pirate attack and is being boarded at this time. She is requesting assistance.”

“Whereaway?”

“In the Sunda approaches, fifty-four miles southwest of our current position. The Piskov reports she is taking fire from four Boghammer-type gunboats. As per the plan of engagement, we have gone to flank speed and are closing the range. Gunships and boarding helos are prepping to launch. Do you have further orders at this time, ma’am?”

“Very good, Captain Hiro.” Amanda wedged the phone between her head and shoulder as she fumbled the buttons of her shirt closed. “Contact Global Hawk control and have them commence an expanding concentric search around the Piskov’s location. Those Bogs probably have a mother ship nearby. I want it spotted and tracked. Also, jam the Piskov’s distress call.”

“Say again. ma’am?”

“You heard me, Ken. Jam the Russians’ transmissions. Broad spectrum and full power. Take down all communications in this area. I don’t want anyone else showing up for the party.”

“Very good, ma’am.”

“And notify Commander Richardson he’ll be having a ride-along.”

“Aye, aye.”

She slammed the phone back into its cradle and reached for the equipment racked up beside the cabin door. First the pistol belt with its Navy Mark 4 survival knife, its clip pouches and the obsolete leather holster carrying the MEU Model .45 automatic. Then the Model 1-C combined flotation and flak vest, studded with survival gear. A touch at her throat made sure her dogtags were in place, and she was ready to face the night.

Topside, a warm gale whipped across the Cunningham’s decks as she gained way, the sea roaring in her wake as it boiled under the thrust of her hard-driving propellers.

On the helipad, aviation hands peeled the RAM shrouds back from the two pre-spotted Seawolf Hueys. Rotors deployed for flight and dim blue-green instrument lights snapped on as flight crews raced through preflight checklists.

“Crank!” A voice yelled the single warning word through a cockpit window and the first turbine lit off.

“Hey, Skipper!” Over the rising clamor on deck, Amanda heard the shout. Stone loomed at her side, his considerable size enhanced by body armor and a load of personal electronics and ammunition. “The boarding party’s loading down in the hangar now and the lift bird’ll go on the elevator the second you guys clear the pad. We’ll be five minutes behind ya!”

“Right. We’ll fade back and let you close to two minutes’ separation. Hear that, Cobra?”

“Two minutes.” A third tall figure in a flight suit and helmet stood out of the shadows. “Got it.”

“Just like in the planning sessions, gentlemen. The first pass drives off or destroys the pirate craft and traps the boarders on the ship. Second pass suppresses the deck and clears the way for our counter-boarders. Then we clean up the leftovers. Let’s all remember the purpose of this exercise is hard intel and prisoners.”

“Aye, aye!”

“This is our first fight of a new campaign. Good luck to us all!”

She lifted her hands palm out and received a matching pair of stinging high fives in return.

Quillain disappeared back into the superstructure while Amanda followed Richardson to the waiting Wolf One. As she climbed into the cabin and settled in the jumpseat behind the pilots, the crew chief passed her a flight helmet. Donning it, she jacked the combination power and intercom lead into the overhead connectors, testing both the integral head set and night-vision visor.

Wolf One’s pair of armor-clad door gunners were the last crewmen aboard. With their heads grotesque in Head’s-Up-Display targeting helmets and their bodies asymmetrically distorted by the MX-214 miniguns they lugged at their hips, they resembled the grim special-effects creations of some science-fiction filmmaker.

The reality was as strange as any fiction, however. These men were cyborg warriors, literally a physical merging of man and gun into a single weapons system.

One of the lessons learned during the long years of helicopter warfare in Vietnam had been that no fixed aircraft gun mount was as fast or as flexible to use as a weapon directly wielded by a human. Accordingly, the veteran airmobile gunners of that conflict learned to strap their machine guns to their bodies with a carrying harness, making themselves living gun mounts.

The Seawolves remembered the lesson.

Stiffly the door gunners lifted themselves into the bench seats that faced outward through the side hatches. Their monkey-harness straps were locked into overhead hardpoints, and feeder tracks connected the miniguns to the ammunition magazines built into the cabin roof. Power links clicked home — intercom, laser sight, Helmet Mounted Display, gun drive. Systems cycled through checkout mode. Fighting men and fighting aircraft became one entity.

Amanda found the sequence a little chilling.

Flickering rotors occulted the stars, and Wolf One trembled on her skids. Cobra Richardson twisted around in the command pilot’s seat, his rakish Errol Flynn mustache a dark smear across his paler features in the dim light. “Flight ready to launch, Captain. ETA over target approximately twenty minutes.”

Lieutenant Commander Richard “Cobra” Richardson was a unique individual. Formerly of the Coast Guard’s elite Caribbean-based drug interdiction gunship squadron, he had service-transferred to the Navy and to the Seawolves. His motivation had been the same as when he had previously made the jump from the U.S. Air Force’s Air Commando Wing to the Coasties: an unending hunger to go where the action was.

Vince Arkady had recommended Richardson to Amanda. “Cobra is made for your outfit, babe. He’s a solid leader. He can fly any helo you can name right out to the limits, and he loves to operate. You’ll just have to live with the fact that he’s also just a little bit crazy.”

Amanda smiled to herself. Coming from you, Arkady, that’s high praise indeed.

“Get us in the air, Cobra,” she said aloud.

“Aye, aye. Cunningham AIRBOSS, this is Wolf One. Executing departure now. Wolf Two, follow me out.”

The tremble grew into a chest-deep vibration as the collective came back and the rotors caught air. Wolf One gingerly eased off the deck on the lift cushion of ground effect, the tight spotting on the cruiser’s small helipad giving Cobra and his copilot barely an arm’s span of clearance between their rotor tips and those of Wolf Two, Cobra coaxed the Super Huey into a hover, station keeping and bobbling slightly in the ship’s slipstream, then he sheered away sharply. As they cleared the cruiser’s deck and lost the ground-effect lift boost, the heavily laden helicopter fell out of the sky.

Amanda had been warned about this move, but her stomach still knotted through the dive and swoop almost to the wave crests as Cobra deftly exchanged his few feet of altitude for forward flight speed.

“No problems, ma’am,” he commented without bothering to look back over his shoulder.

“I’ll take your word for it, Commander.” Twisting in her jump seat, Amanda looked aft out the open side door. Wolf Two had already tailed them into the air and now was jockeyed into formation. Flying without running lights, the gunship was a shadow against black velvet, only the faint, glowing smear of its cockpit instrumentation marking its position.

Farther away astern, the Cunningham was momentarily outlined against the shimmering path of the setting moon; then she, too, was taken by the darkness. With their engines shrieking at full war power, the Seawolves put their noses down and loped into the night.

Another aircraft reacted to the emergency as well.

From where she circled at sixty thousand feet, the islands of the Indonesian archipelago were black velvet patches against a pewter sea, spangled with the glittering sparks of towns and villages. Global Hawk Teal-Niner was ten hours into her mission profile with another eight to go before her relief bird came in from Australia.

With her turbofan throttled back to minimum cruise, the recon drone had been lazing in a wide racetrack pattern over southern Sumatra and western Java, waiting for a reaction command. So the time on station would not be a waste, her programmers had instructed her to conduct a series of secondary missions while loitering. She had monitored maritime traffic patterns, conducted infrared and low-light scans of some of the more isolated island groups in the area, and maintained a signal intelligence sweep for unusual radio traffic. Nothing particularly challenging for Teal-Niner’s onboard artificial intelligences.

As the data had been acquired, it had been encrypted, packaged for microburst transmission, and fired off through a MILSTAR communications link to Curtin Base and to the drone’s secondary control node aboard the USS Carlson.

So far, nothing of exceptional import had been noted. Intermittently, the Global Hawk would be painted by Indonesian air defense radar, but this was not a matter of undue concern. The Indonsians had nothing that could reach her altitude, and at most, the stealthy drone was a faint, intermittent ghost at the extreme limits of their detection capacity, an easily disregarded UFO.

Abruptly, a command channel opened over the MILSTAR link, a distant human systems operator overriding the autonomous onboard computer. Spooling up to fast cruise, the drone broke away from its preplotted course and swooped toward a new objective. In its belly, sensor and camera turrets swiveled and panned downward, zooming in on a tiny cluster of lights isolated on the sea far below.

“Ah, be advised, TACBOSS, Seawolf Lead, and Dragon 6, this is Raven’s Roost. We have a situational update. Stand by to copy.” The intel officer’s voice sounded in Cobra Richardson’s earphones, tersely clipping off the data.

“Target ship is Russian motor vessel Piskov, twenty-four thousand tons displacement, six hundred and ten feet in length. She is a Finnish built roll-on/roll-off trailer carrier…. Outbound from Vladivostok to Haifa, Naples, and Marseilles. All cargo decks loaded. Stern offside ramp, starboard side… high deckhouse aft… short mast at break of forecastle…. Midships decks are clear except for a double row of ventilator housings…. Vessel is dead in the water, but illuminated.

“We can see approximately eight armed hostiles topside…. The crew is apparently being held belowdecks…. We have three Boghammers tied up alongside, starboard side aft…. A fourth Bog is holding off the stern…. Heaviest weapons apparent are assault rifles and light machine guns.”

Richardson found himself grinning in an appropriately wolfish manner. It would be a challenging tactical setup, but a fair first bag.

Amanda Garrett, leaning forward between the pilots’ seats, must have read his mind. “Remember, Cobra,” she warned, “I want pieces to pick up afterwards.”

He glanced across his shoulder at her. “Three out of four adequate?”

“I can live with that.”

“Got it covered, then.”

“And not too many holes in the Russian,” she added. “I need her seaworthy.”

Cobra shot another glance down his shoulder. “You do enjoy doing things the hard way, don’t you, ma’am?”

She gave a wry grin. “If you wanted things easy, you could have stayed with the Air Commandos.” Reaching up, she toggled her lip mike from Intercom to Radio. “Dragon 6, are you back there?”

“Roger that, Skipper,” Stone Quillain’s radio-filtered reply came back. “We got you on our FLIRS. We’re about two miles astern of you.”

“What do you think of the setup?”

“Sounds like we’ll have to fastrope aboard. We’re going to need a weatherdeck saturation with gas and flashbangs, then we’ll go in amidships. Kinda tricky, but I think we can swing it okay. The big thing is fire suppression when the lift ship is in hover, especially from the freighter’s deckhouse and bridge. We’ll need the bad guys kept off of us for about thirty seconds.”

Richardson thumbed the Transmit button on the end of his collective lever. “Consider that the least of your problems, buddy. The Wolves will be present and accounted for.”

“Roger that. ’Preciate ya.”

Amanda keyed her lip mike again. “Sounds like we have a plan, gentlemen. Raven’s Roost, this is TACBOSS. Do you have any other suspicious surface traffic in the area?”

“Acknowledged, TACBOSS. We have what look like a pair of good sized Bugis schooners loitering about eight miles astern of the Piskov. There’s a high probability these are your pirate mother ships.”

“I concur. They’re holding off until the boarding parties have the target secure, then they’ll close to take aboard the loot. Stay on those mother ships, Raven’s Roost. They are your new top priorities. I want to know where they head after we intervene at the Piskov.”

“We’re not taking them down too, ma’am?” Richardson inquired.

Amanda shook her helmeted head. “Not this time, Co. I want the mother ships to run home to Papa.”

“Ah, nuts.”

At that moment, Wolf One’s copilot lifted a hand and pointed beyond the windscreen. “Lights on the horizon. Bearing zero off the bow!”

Amanda glanced down at the Active GPU display, then she flipped down her nite-brite visor for a fast visual verification. “That’s it. Target in sight. All strike elements, guns clear! Gentlemen, the show is yours!”

“You heard the lady. Wolf Two, heat ’em up. We’re going downtown.”

Cobra felt Wolf One bobble slightly as internal weight shifted. In his sideview mirrors, he saw his door gunners step out onto the small metal grid platforms mounted outside of the Huey’s doors. Supported only by their monkey harnesses, they hunkered against the hurricane blast of the slipstream, targeting visors down and miniguns braced.

Ahead, the lights of the Piskov drew closer.

On the decks of the big Russian freighter, the pirate deck watch paced slowly, assault rifles slung. They were not lax, but they were relaxed. The difficult part of the night’s work was over. The rest should be an often-practiced routine.

The boarding had gone well. A few bursts of machine-gun fire at the bridge had coerced the crew into stopping their engines. The Russian seamen had been herded into their quarters and safely locked away. Prizemaster Mangkurat and his cargo handlers were already below on the vehicle decks, prying open the locks on the trailers listed in his orders. Soon it would be time to call up the pinisi for loading. By the dawn, they would be sailing for home with wealth packed in their holds.

More than one man smiled at the thought of joyous families to greet, of young women to impress, of gifts to bestow.

And then came the thudding drone from out of the darkness, growing in intensity.

Cigarettes were flicked onto the deck. Rifles slid off of shoulders. Bolts ratcheted back. Dark seamen’s eyes narrowed, seeking to pierce the wall of darkness beyond the freighter’s deck lights.

There shouldn’t be any threat or danger out there in the night. The raja samudra had promised it would be so.

Cobra keyed his lip mike. “Wolf Two, this is Wolf Lead. That one Bog trailing astern of the Piskov is yours. Kill him with a Hellfire. I’m taking the guys alongside. I will engage, overfly the freighter, then break left. You break right, cross behind me, and come down the freighter’s starboard flank. Clean up anything I might miss.”

“Roger D.”

The Super Huey shuddered in its shallow dive, redlining just below rotor stall. The Piskov was no longer a glowing constellation on the horizon. Now she showed herself as a gaunt, long-lined freighter, outlined in the glare of her deck arc lights.

“Vajo,” Richardson barked. “You got the twenty-five. Load lethal and arm for proximity airburst.”

Wolf One’s copilot lifted a hand to the overhead ordnance panel, calling up one of the two turret magazines for the grenade launcher and setting the system configurations. A computer graphics cartwheel sight materialized in front of his eyes, projected on the visor of his Helmets Up display.

As his head turned and his point of vision shifted, the chin turret indexed, the muzzle of the Crew Served Objective Weapon tracking on the death pip in the center of the helmet sight. The copilot stared at his target, his thumb flipping the combination safety guard and arming switch open on his pitch lever.

“Turret up! Proximity set! I got arming tone!”

“Acknowledged. Ten to range.”

“This is Wolf Two,” a voice interjected over the radio. “We are opening fire!”

Blue-orange flame glared from beyond the windscreen. A navalized Hellfire missile slid away from beneath one of Wolf Two’s snub wings. Blazing toward the pirate gunboat loitering astern of the freighter, the hundred pound PGM bobbled along the path pointed by its guidance laser.

The targeted Boghammer dissolved in a pulse of flame and spray. The fight was on.

A tracer stream arced up from alongside the Russian ship, a second and a third following as the pirate gunners engaged the airborne threat. Additional muzzle flashes sparked and danced along the freighter’s rails as the boarding party joined the battle. For the moment, there wasn’t much that could be done about the deckside riflemen, but it was definitely time to deal with those gunboats.

“We got range! Burn ’em!” Richardson roared.

The OCSW jackhammered, spewing high-velocity 25mm grenades. As each round was fired, the inductance coil wrapped around the barrel of the OCSW armed and programmed the proximity fuses of the deadly little projectiles for antipersonnel airburst.

The fire stream reached out for the row of moored Boghammers but didn’t quite touch them. The grenades detonated a few feet short of their target, each round producing a focused blast of shrapnel. Holding down the trigger button, the copilot ran his eyes over the trio of pirate craft, brushing the life away with a whisk broom of high-velocity fragmentation.

Amanda saw the airbursts dance like popping flashbulbs above the gunboats. She also noted the shimmer of moonlit wavetops beneath the helo’s skids. Trapped hair follicles ached under her helmet as she realized the racing aircraft was sinking below the level of the Piskov’s deck, the freighter’s steel flank looming like a cliff before them.

“Cobra?” The cry was a half-strangled one.

The pitch and collective levers slammed back. Wolf One gathered herself and sprang like a Thoroughbred leaping a fence, a skid heel tracing a line across the sea for a split second.

For another split second, a stunned Bugis pirate looked in through the side hatch as the helicopter screamed across the Piskov’s deck between the deckhouse and the foremast.

Amanda’s hands locked onto the jump-seat frame as the gunship flared up and over into an incredibly steep banking turn. All that could be seen outside of the left-hand door was the moonlit surface of the ocean. The door gunner, still standing on his platform outside of the aircraft, hung casually from his safety harness with the sangfroid of a commuter waiting at a bus stop.

With the Piskov’s superstructure deftly positioned to block the fire of the pirate deck gunners, the Super Huey snapped level again, racing away into the night.

“Did you say something back there, ma’am?” Cobra Richardson inquired, glancing back over his shoulder.

“Nothing important,” Amanda replied, trying to make her aching fingers release their grip.

With his eyes and face shielded by his gas mask, Stone Quillain gripped a safety strap and leaned out of the open side door of the HH-60 Oceanhawk transport helicopter. As he studied the approaching objective, Amanda Garrett spoke through the tiny inductance speaker taped behind his ear.

“Dragon 6, we are positioning for deck suppression run. State your position.”

“Ninety seconds out and inbound,” he replied into his throat mike, his words relaying via the PRC 6725 Leprechaun transceiver clipped to his chest harness. “Looking good.”

“I concur. It’s your show now, Stone. Secure the ship and crew and get me prisoners!”

“Copy, Skipper. Lord a’mighty woman, I heard you the first time.” Stone was careful to murmur the second phrase only after lifting his thumb off the Transmit key. Stone might have his doubts about some of this newfangled, nonlethal warfare gear they’d be using, but he could understand the need for human intelligence.

Rocking his thumb across the communications touch pad, he toggled over to the cigarette-pack-sized AN/ PRC 6725F squad tactical radio clipped to the side of his helmet. “On final. Lock and load!”

Within the darkened fuselage of the helicopter, well-drilled hands fingered magazines out of harness pouches, socking them home into magazine wells, two per weapon. As did Stone himself, all members of the fifteen-man Marine Force Recon platoon carried the new Selectable Assault Battle Rifles.

Stone wasn’t sure yet about all of the gee-whiz electronic gadgetry built into the new weapons, such as the laser-ranged proximity fusing system or the Heads Up display sighting link with their night vision visors. But Lord, he could sure appreciate the firepower.

The SABR was a composite weapons system, like the old M-16 assault rifle/M-203 grenade launcher pairing. It mated two superb Heckler & Koch designs, the G-36 assault rifle and a 20mm grenade launcher variant of the CAWS semiautomatic combat shotgun, into a single, lethal whole.

The SABRs were perfect for the kind of work to come. All sorts of useful things could be fired out of those 20mm tubes beyond mere high explosives.

Leaning out of the open side hatch again, Stone refreshed his situational awareness. Shattered and half-sunken, the pirate gunboats trailed alongside the freighter on their mooring lines, their weapons silenced and their crews dead. The Bugis boarding party, denied their escape route, must be frantically trying to organize a defense. Even as he looked on, the Piskov’s deck lights abruptly went out, plunging the vessel into darkness.

“Why, thank you kindly gentlemen,” Stone chuckled. Lifting his voice, he spoke over the tactical circuit. “Platoon! Vision up!”

With his free hand, he lowered his AI2 nite-brite visor, settling it into place over the lens interface of his gas mask. The world went bright in tones of luminescent green as the visor photomultipliers boosted the star and moon glow into the equivalency of broad daylight.

Now Quillain could pick out the two Seawolf Hueys converging on the Piskov, making their suppression run. As they got the range the 25mm turrets began to belch once more. This time, however, the gunships were firing anti-riot munitions. Stone’s night-vision visor overloaded as a flickering wave’ of blinding light washed over the freighter’s upperworks.

Aboard the Piskov, havoc rained from the sky. A barrage of proximity-fused flashbang grenades burst overhead, producing an eye-piercing magnesium glare and battering waves of concussion. Most of the topside gunners were thrown to the deck, the wind knocked out of them. And when they gasped for their lost breath, they found themselves inhaling a lung-scalding mixture of military-grade CS teargas and capsicum dust. Gas grenades had alternated with the flashbangs in the OCSW belts.

In seconds, a choking cloud of chemical vapor engulfed the Russian freighter. With their eyes swelling shut, the stunned and agonized Indonesians staggered through the haze. Retching, weeping, and cursing, they were incapable of reacting effectively to anything, even to the growing roar of rotors overhead.

The big HH-60 flared out and went to hover over the midships weather deck of the freighter.

“Stand up!”

The assault platoon rose to their feet, hunching against the curve of the helicopter’s fuselage.

“Rope out!”

The helo’s crew chief rolled the carefully coiled fastrope out of the hatch. With one end connected to the boom of the helicopter’s winch, the other snaked freely to the deck. Stone shot a last glance downward to verify that the aircraft wasn’t drifting laterally and that the end of the cable had indeed touched down forty feet below.

“Go!”

He was the first man out of the hatch. Throwing his arms and legs around the cable, he slid down it like a fireman descending a fire station pole. It was a tricky move, and a missed grip could mean trouble, but it lived up to its name: fastrope.

Stone grabbed loose and dropped the last couple of feet to the deck. Unslinging his SABR, he ducked aside, clearing the way for the next man coming down two seconds behind him. Whipping his weapon to his shoulder, he scanned for threats, both to himself and to the Oceanhawk overhead. A good chalk, well trained in fastroping, could clear a hovering liftship in thirty seconds. But in a combat zone, that could be twenty-nine seconds too long.

Stone caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The rotorblast had momentarily dispersed the haze of riot gas, and Stone spotted a figure moving out on the wing of the Piskov’s bridge. Instantly the Marine recognized the dangerous straightness of a rifle barrel. Not incapacitated by the gas, thanks to his position high in the superstructure, a pirate leveled an AK-47 at the station-keeping helicopter.

Stone thumbed his fire selector to Autorifle and lined up on the target, but someone else beat him to the draw.

Wolf One lifted from behind the deckhouse. Her portside door gunner had also caught the move made by the Bugis boarder, and the multiple muzzles of his minigun swung to bear on target.

A powerful helium-neon laser sight had been married to the frame of the weapon. Its beam was invisible to normal human vision, but readily apparent in the gunner’s Helmet Mounted Display visor. To aim, he pointed the finger of coherent light at his target. Where the beam touched, his bullets struck.

The door gunner brushed his firing switch, and the minigun sang its death song. It wasn’t a clatter or a rattle but rather a brief, piercing tone, as from a giant tuning fork. The rotating gun barrels of the miniature Gatling gun blurred, a foot-wide ball of flame dancing before them. A needle-fine beam of light, visible to the eye this time like some science fiction blaster bolt, lanced from the heart of this fireball, linking the weapon with its target.

Indeed, this was a kind of death ray. The light marked a stream of tracer bullets. Even firing at low rate, the MX-214 delivered four hundred rounds a minute, better than six rounds of 5.56mm NATO per second.

The human frame is not designed to have congress with such a concentration of kinetic energy. The pirate did not merely die. He exploded.

The last Marine hit the Piskov’s deck, and the lift helo nosed down and hauled away into the safety of the night, leaving the two smaller gun ships to orbit watchfully.

Breaking down into two-man rifle teams, the Force Recon platoon dispersed. Each Marine had his SABR’s grenade launcher loaded with nonlethal riot munitions, but each also had thirty rounds of 5.56mn NATO on call for an instant, deadly backup.

Helium-Neon targeting lasers probed unseen through the lingering smog of tear gas. Foam-soled combat boots scuffed lightly on deck plates. Filtered American voices whispered terse progress reports over the squad radiolink. Other voices, choking and pain-wracked, cried out in Bahasa Indonesia, cursing or calling for aid.

Contact was swift in coming.

With their night-vision systems and gas masks, the Marines had the edge, a small one. A pair of SABR launchers roared, with the hollowness denoting “jellybag” rounds going out. A pirate gagged as the high-velocity blobs of dense polymer caught him in the gut and slapped him off his feet. Seconds later, the Bugis’s agony was compounded as nylon “disposacuffs” bit around his wrists. Then it was eased as a spring-loaded injector fired a potent dose of fast-acting barbiturate into his buttock.

“Bravo Team Two here. Hostile secured. Portside forward.”

“Roger. One down.”

Two figures in the murk recognized each other as enemy at almost the same second. Almost. The one in the Marine utilities brought the over-and-under barrels of his weapon up first. The one in the sun-faded denim caught the massive jet of concentrated capsicum powder full in the face. His assault rifle clattered to the deck and he followed, incapable of doing anything except scream.

“This is Charley One. Hostile secured at forecastle break. Forecastle clear. Working aft.”

“Roger.”

A sharp metallic ping sounded as a grenade safety lever flicked clear and a thumping rattle followed as a flashbang bounced across the deck. The two Bugis crouched in the theoretical shelter of a ventilator housing goggled at the little cardboard cylinder that rolled to stop at their feet.

WHAM!

“Double header. Portside quarter.”

From somewhere aft, an Uzi machine pistol cut loose, spraying the night, the wild shooting of a panicked gunner seeking to suppress his own growing fear with fire and noise. A SABR snapped back an angry three round burst in rifle mode.

“Able Two. Boloed one at the base of the deckhouse. Sorry ’bout that. Had to do him fast.”

“Shit happens, Able Two. FIDO.”

The front facing of the superstructure loomed through the dissipating gas screen. Quillain went flat against it. With his back against solid steel, he paused to regain his situational awareness. Over the next few seconds, Lieutenant Brice Donovan, the force recon platoon leader, his senior sergeant, and his communications specialist all scuttled in to join Stone against the bulkhead. A few feet away a body lay sprawled on the deck, the blood soaking the dead man’s ragged shirt black in the nite-brite visors. Stone and the other Marines ignored the fallen pirate. They had other, more critical points of concern.

“How are we doing, Brice?” Quillain inquired through the speaking diaphragm of his mask.

“Looking good, sir,” the younger man murmured back. “Weather deck sweep completed and all personnel hatches padlocked for’rard. All fire teams positioning to enter the superstructure.”

“Good ’nuff. Able takes the bridge. Charley goes for the engine room. Bravo goes for the crew’s quarters. We’ll try for officers’ country from this side. Let’s look lively. I bet somebody’s thinkin’ hostage about now.”

“Aye, aye.”

As Donovan relayed his orders over the squad circuit, Quillain cut over to the command channel on his Leprechaun transceiver, his own transmission paired down to the stark minimum of verbiage and a maximum of information. “Dragon Six to TACBOSS. Deck secured. Prisoners taken. No blue casualties. Going inboard.”

“Acknowledged, Stone. Good luck,” Amanda Garrett replied, taking the two-word luxury of a human concern.

An entry hatch was set into the superstructure bulkhead two meters outboard and to starboard of their position. Stone took a second to eject the jellyround magazine from the grenade launcher of his SABR, replacing it with half a dozen loads of good old-fashioned double-ought buck shot. Unhooking a flashbang from his harness, he glanced at the platoon sergeant and nodded toward the hatch.

Ducking low to stay out of the line of sight of the inset porthole, the noncom slithered along the bulkhead to the hatch. Flipping open the locking dogs, he crouched, ready to yank the hatch open and duck back.

“All teams ready to effect entry, sir,” Donovan reported.

“Okay,” Quillain replied, “we go on my mark. Three… two… one… mark!”

The sergeant flung the hatch open and Stone flipped his concussion grenade inside. Four seconds later the blaze and slant of the detonation made the seed of bulkheads ring. More hollow thuds reverberated through the ship’s structure as the other assault teams opened their paths into the deckhouse.

Stone and his section instantly followed the flashbang in, SABRs shouldered and leveled.

Nothing. Stone flipped up his night-vision visor. The interior lights were still on and the grilled fixtures in the narrow passageway overhead revealed chipped green paint and oil-grimy linoleum decking. The ventilator fans had apparently been cut off along with the deck work lights, so the internal atmosphere of the ship was comparatively gas free.

Directly ahead, down the passage, a metal frame ladderway extended up to the next deck. And from that level came the sound of slamming doors and angered, frightened voices.

Lifting a hand, Stone issued a series of wordless commands, swift, concise gestures that silently deployed his team. All hands pressed back tightly against the sides of the passageway. While Donovan and his R/T covered the front aspect of the ladder, Stone and the platoon sergeant slithered along the bulkheads. Staying out of the field of view of anyone peering from the deck above, they positioned behind the open structure ladder.

The wait that followed was a brief one.

“You down there!” It was impossible to tell if the speaker using the unfamiliar English words was asking a question or making an accusation.

“You down there!” The Marines made no move. No sound. Instinct whispered that lives were at stake.

Suddenly a submachine gun raved from overhead, a stream of 9mm slugs and a rain of shell casings pouring down into the passageway. Bullets whined and screamed off steel, ricochets and metal fragmentation filling the air.

The Marines held. Stone smothered a grunt as a reflected projectile caught him under the ribs, the multiple layers of Kevlar in his interceptor vest reducing the death blow to a savage punch in the guts. Down the passage, the Marine radioman staggered, then caught himself, silently forcing his weight back onto his damaged limb, blood soaking the leg of his utilities.

The rattle of the autoweapon ceased as the magazine emptied.

Not a sound in the passageway, not the shift of a boot or the hiss of a breath. The platoon sergeant slowly lifted a hand and touched a flashbang, looking at Stone questioningly. Quillain shook his head. For the next few seconds, half measures wouldn’t be adequate. Stone indicated the steel sphere of a fragmentation grenade. The noncom nodded and unhooked one of the deadly little hand bombs.

The ladderway creaked. A pair of seaboots and blue serge trousers appeared, descending the steps, their wearer moving awkwardly with his hands raised, a Caucasian, a ship’s officer, four tarnished gold bars on the shoulder straps of his uniform shirt.

As the Russian captain’s eyes came below the level of overhead, he saw the two Marines facing the ladder, and he hesitated. The sight must have been an unnerving one. Two big men, helmeted, camouflaged, bulked out in body armor, battlefield electronics, and load-bearing harness, both with exotic weapons leveled.

Urgently, Donovan gestured for the Russian to stand on. Comprehending, the ship’s officer continued his descent to the passageway deck.

Again Donovan gestured. Get forward! Get behind us!

The Russian obeyed. As he passed beyond the field of view from the deck above, he tapped his chest, pointed upward, and held up three emphatic fingers. Three more friendlies!

The first, second, and third mates of the Piskov followed their captain down the ladder, the last being a stocky young blonde woman. However, the next set of legs to descend was thin, barefoot, and clad in ragged dungarees, the darkness of the skin marking the non-Slavic origin.

There was the softest of clicks as the sergeant pulled the pin from his grenade.

Stone caught the gleam of an Uzi barrel tracking the last officer down. Angling the SABR upward, Quillain slid the barrels between two of the ladder steps. Aiming at the back of the pirate’s knee, he squeezed the 20mm trigger, conducting a very swift and violent amputation.

The roar of the grenade launcher and the scream of the falling pirate merged. As the Bugis plummeted the rest of the way to the deck, Stone snatched for the rags of Russian he knew.

“Spetsnaz!” he bellowed. “Amerikanski spetsnaz!” Whipping around the ladder, he aimed upward, hosing buckshot into the faces of the other startled hostage-takers. The safety lever of the platoon sergeant’s grenade clattered on the deck, and Stone heard the noncom yell out his timing count. “One… two… three!”

At “three,” the noncom hurled the frag up to the next level. Both he and Stone ducked back from the shrapnel that sprayed down the ladderway.

No further sound or action came from topside. Now the Marine R/T could swear savagely and sink down to the deck, clutching at his wounded calf. The pirate lay still in a pool of scarlet at the base of the ladder. With no chance to yank him clear of the grenade pattern, the fragmentation had finished what Stone’s buckshot load had started.

Donovan and his sergeant rushed the ladder, climbing swiftly to secure the upper deck, their boots leaving blood marks on the treads.

As Stone socked a fresh magazine into the grenade launcher, he found himself surrounded by the Russian ship’s officers, all of who had mistaken his one warning yell for a working knowledge of the Russian tongue.

“Yeah, whatever. Dos vedanya, y’all. Donovan, what’s going on up there?”

“Two hostiles down. Officers’ country and wardroom clear,” the yell came back.

Waving the Russians back, Quillain keyed his comma pad. “Ship’s officers secured. All elements, report status. Charley Team, c’mon back?”

“Charley Team here. Engine room secured. No contacts. But we got open hatches into the vehicle decks”

“Roger that. Hold position and keep ’em covered. Able Team, go.”

“Bridge and radio room secured. Two hostiles. One up, one down. We also have the helo carrying the intel team orbiting and requesting instructions.”

“Tell ’em to hold. We still got a party going on down here. Bravo, go.”

“Crew’s and engineer’s quarters secured. According to the chief engineer, all hands are present and accounted for. Some of them are a little roughed up, but nothing major.”

“Good ’nough. We’re in the starboard deckhouse passageway, for ward, on the main deck. We got the captain and the mates with us. Come and collect ’em, then move the crew to the fantail and hold ’em there. Also, signal the lift ship that we need a dustoff. Private Lingerman caught one…”

Stone glanced over at the wounded Marine. The Piskov’s female third mate, who was actually kind of cute, now that Stone had a second to study on it, was helping Lingerman apply a first-aid pack to his leg. The R/T’s eyes showed the grin he wore behind his gas mask, and he gave Stone a thumbs-up.

“… not bad, though. No rush.”

“Aye, aye, Skipper. Doin’ it.”

Stone switched back to his Leprechaun transceiver. Dialing through the alternate command channels, he found one that would induct through the steel bulkheads surrounding him. “Dragon Six to TACBOSS. You copy?”

“TACBOSS here, Stone. Go.”

“Crew secured alive and well. Prisoners taken. One man lightly wounded. Superstructure, weatherdecks, and engine room secured. I think we still got hostiles on the vehicle decks. Starting to sweep now.”

“Well done, Marine. Stand on. The prizemaster will likely be with the cargo. Get him alive for me, Stone.”

“I’ll discuss the matter with the gentleman, ma’am, and see what he has to say about it.”

The Piskov was, in effect, a giant seagoing parking lot. She had been specially designed to carry her cargo preloaded onto semitrailer vans and flatbeds to expedite a rapid port turnaround. The open vehicle decks within her main hull were interconnected by ramps that permitted the cargo trailers to simply be driven aboard and spotted. Hence, the ship’s nomenclature of RO/RO (roll on/roll off).

Peering forward from the open personnel hatch, Stone judged that this final phase of the ship clearing was going to be hell incarnate. The vehicle deck was a long, dimly lit steel cavern, the tightly packed ranks of semi-vans providing for a multitude of hiding places and point-blank ambush points for any hostiles that might be present.

And there were hostiles present. The listening watch posted at the access hatches had reported hearing sounds of movement forward in the trailer bays. The pirate prizemaster and his team had been trapped belowdecks by the Marine onslaught. They were in there somewhere, waiting.

Stone held out a hand, and one of the members of Bravo team passed him a loud hailer. Unsnapping his gas mask, Quillain aimed the mega phone through the hatch and held down the trigger switch. “Attention! Attention! This is Captain Stone Quillain of the United States Marine Corps. We have retaken this vessel. Your boats have been destroyed and the rest of your party has been taken prisoner. All deck hatches are locked and guarded. You cannot escape. Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up. You will not be harmed. I say again: Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up. You will not be harmed.”

“Think they’ll listen, sir?” the Bravo team leader asked.

“Nope,” Stone resealed his mask. “Not even if they can understand what I’m saying. We’ll give ’em five minutes anyway.”

The creeping numbers on Stone’s watch proved him right.

“Well, I guess we’re going to have to go hunting,” Quillain said philosophically after the sixth minute had passed.

“Should we call topside for more riot gas, sir?” the Bravo team leader inquired.

Quillain shook his head. “Nope. This tub’s interior and cargo are not to be contaminated with a gas concentration unless absolutely necessary. Direct orders from the Lady.”

“Christ! What’s she got against doing things easy?”

“Generally, that gal has her reasons. Anyway, there’s still some tricks we can pull.” Stone keyed his throat mike. “All Dragon elements, this is Dragon Six. Stand by to go on night vision. Bravo Lead, you there?”

“Bravo Lead here, Cap’n.”

“You got anything that looks like a master power panel in that engine room?”

“There’s what looks like one over in the auxiliary compartment, sir.”

“Good. Then get over there and start pulling the breakers. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

“Aye, aye, sir. On my way.”

Stone lowered his nite-brite visor, switching the unit back on. “Get set, boys,” he murmured to the other four members of the fire team. “Vision up and light ’em.”

Reaching up, he pinched a small gray plastic tube attached to his MOLLE harness. Even the best photomultiplier in the world required some light to function, and in moments the interior of the Piskov would become as dark as the lower levels of Mammoth Cave. However, the special chemical lumesticks the Marines were activating would provide more than enough brightness to permit the AI2 systems to function.

The luminescence involved was also filtered to a portion of the spectrum not visible to the unaided human eye, but readily usable by the nite brite systems. The lumesticks would provide both vision and an instant IFF (identification friend or foe) reference for the Marines, while giving no aid to their enemies.

The freighter’s interior lighting snapped off. To an observer not equipped with night vision, things went totally black, the darkness so dense that the hand literally couldn’t be seen in front of the face. The Marines, however, merely reverted to the familiar green-lit world of night vision.

“Okay, Bravo Lead, that’s got it. Keep those lights out till we give you the word,” Quillain murmured. “Taylor, Smitty, you take the starboard side. You other two boys come with me. Able Team, you ready to go up there?”

“This is Able,” the reply whispered back from the upper vehicle deck. “We’re set.”

“Okay, everybody. Let’s go. Slow and easy now.”

They moved out.

Each step was a miniature military evolution in itself. Scan the environment for hostile activity. Plot movement. Make sure of your footing and verify there would be no random noise-producing contacts with the bulkhead to one side or the trailers on the other. Lift one boot, then ease it down again. Refresh situational awareness. Repeat.

A random current of air would make a greater disturbance in its passage.

One member of each fire team scanned the roof edge of the trailers and the shadowed gap between the trailer tops and the overhead. The other sank into a crouch, sweeping his gun barrels across the space beneath each trailer and between the axle assemblies. Whispered words over the squad link kept the search teams coordinated.

Complicating each foot of movement was the network of steel cable and nylon strap tie-downs that bound the trailers to the decking, a thousand potential trips and falls for the individual who let his focus wander even for a moment.

Slow, slow work, performed with nerves stretched piano-wire taut.

A short distance on toward the bow, Stone and his party picked up signs of the others’ presence. Locks had been broken. Metal-strip customs seals had been twisted off trailer door latches, and the doors themselves stood open. At one point the looting had already begun. Plastic-wrapped bales had been offloaded from one trailer and stood stacked on the deck, ready to be carried topside. Stone’s probing hand disclosed an almost ethereal softness. Siberian sable furs, a small fortune’s worth.

A battered, paper-stuffed clipboard sat atop the bales. Stone collected it. Squinting through his nite-brite visor, he made out the writing on the top sheet. Numbers. Neat computer-printed listings of trailer identification numbers and bill-of-lading cargo codes.

Score! Stone unzipped his interceptor vest and stuffed the papers, clipboard and all, inside. Resecuring his armor, he gestured on.

At the forward end of the vehicle deck, a half-spiral ramp climbed to the level above. Stone ordered a halt at the last trailer tier and the team went to cover, hunkering down behind the big tire trucks.

“Team Able, report your situation,” Stone breathed into his mike

“We’re at the head of the bay. We have the head of the ramp covered. No sign of hostiles.”

Stone scowled inside his mask. “Same here. We got the bottom end of the ramp under observation. We’ve got no contact, either.”

“You think we missed ’em, Cap’n?”

“Christ, I hope not. Stand by, Able. Lieutenant Donovan, you by?”

“Roger that, sir.”

“You got an English-speaking Russian back there?”

“Acknowledged. I have the chief engineer with me.”

“Ask him if there’s any way into the bow from the vehicle decks.”

Impatiently, Stone crouched in the dark, waiting for the answer.

“Negative, sir. There’s a heavy anticollision bulkhead just for’rard of the vehicle decks, separating them from the bow compartments. No personnel hatches. All access to the bow spaces is downward through the forecastle.

“But,” the static spattered voice continued, “he says there is a small storage compartment underneath the vehicle ramp. It’s used as a cable tier for storing the trailer tie-downs.”

Peering around the tire, Stone noted a single man-size hatchway centered in the curved bulkhead beneath the ramp.

“Got it, Donovan, thanks. Able Team, hold position. Charley Team, let’s check this out. Point men, go to port of that hatch on the forward bulkhead. I’ll go to starboard. Cover men, cover us. Go!”

The three Marines rushed silently across the gap to the forward bulk head, going to ground on either side of the hatchway. Stone had just pressed his back against the rust-gritty steel plating when the hatch gapped open and he found himself eye to eye with an Indonesian pirate at a range of barely three feet.

Instinct screamed to whip the SABR up for a snapshot. Discipline froze every muscle in place and seized up Stone’s breathing.

Quillain realized that he and the Bugis raider were living in two different dimensions. Thanks to his night-vision system, Stone’s world was as brightly lit as a summer twilight. The pirate stared out into a pitch darkness as deep as any night could ever be.

Unmoving, unblinking, Stone stared into the face of the Asian, a gaunt, scarred face with high cheekbones and a cruel twist to the thin mouth. Tracking downward, Stone could also make out the short sleeve of a worn cotton shirt, a thin, wire-muscled arm, and a gnarled fist clinched around the grip of a Beretta automatic. The Bugis’s head was tilted, listening intently, responding to some trace of sound.

After possibly a century, the face withdrew and the hatch closed again.

Stone let his breath trickle out from between his clinched teeth. Enemy found and fixed. Now to finish them.

Lifting a hand, he waved the two cover men over to his side of the door. Touching one of the flashbangs attached to his harness, he held up two fingers in a V Both men unclipped concussion grenades from their harnesses.

To the Marines across the hatch from his position, he made a hand gesture like the closing of a book and received responding nods.

In most military or quasimilitary organizations, the carrying of a pistol frequently denoted a position of authority or advanced rank. Stone theorized that the pistol carrier on the other side of the hatch was probably the leader of the pirate boarding party and the owner of the clip board stowed inside his vest. If so, he was the prizemaster so intensely desired by Amanda Garrett. Stone staked the man out for his personal attention.

Quillain lifted his fist and pumped it once as an action notification. Then, shifting his SABR to his left hand, he reached down and tapped the butt sharply on the deck, just once.

Slowly, the hatch creaked open again.

For the Indonesian, it must have been a startling experience to have a hand lance out of the darkness to engulf his shirtfront. With an explosive heave, Stone yanked the pirate out of the hatchway. Hurling him sprawling to the deck, Quillain bellowed, “Do it!”

Coordinated by training and instinct, the grenadiers hurled their flashbangs into the confines of the small storage compartment. Then the second rifle team slammed the hatch shut, bracing the watertight door closed with their shoulders. Two deep, reverberating booms, like cherry bombs set off in an oil drum, echoed through the vehicle decks, and white light leaked from around the hatch edges as the door tried to kick open.

Another crash and flare followed as the prizemaster fired his pistol blindly at the blackness surrounding him. Then a size-twelve Danner combat boot smashed into his face. Stars burst behind the pirate’s eyes and the darkness grew even deeper.

Following the flashbang detonations, Charlie team had rushed the interior of the storeroom, meeting no resistance. “Three more down in here, Skipper,” the team leader reported. “Bleeding from the ears but livin’.”

“This old boy too. He didn’t really need that nose all that much any way.” Stone kicked the Beretta away from the pirate’s flaccid hand. Rolling the man over with the toe of his boot, Stone knelt and applied a pair of disposacuffs. With that accomplished, he keyed his throat mike. “Bravo Lead. We got the last of ’em secured. You can turn the lights back on. The show’s over.”

With a riding-on-rails meticulousness, Cobra Richardson eased the Super Huey in over the Piskov’s amidships deck. Setting a single landing skid atop a ventilator housing, he held a stable hover.

Giving a farewell wave to the helo crew, Amanda hopped down to the top of the housing, then made the longer leap to the wet decks of the Russian freighter. The RO/RO’s bos’n already had a work party sluicing the riot gas residue from the decks with a saltwater hose.

Amanda was pleased to see that. The Piskov was rapidly becoming a functional ship again.

Cobra’s helicopter lifted and thundered away toward the cluster of deck lights standing off the freighter’s bow. The Cunningham had arrived on scene a few minutes before. The big cruiser now loitered warily, ready to intercept and warn off any other inquisitive vessel that might approach. Beyond the Russian work details, Amanda’s own people were busy beneath the deck lights as well. Armed Marines encircled the band of captured pirates. The Bugis, drug groggy and sullen, squatted on the deck, their wrists bound behind them. Pharmacist’s mates treated the wounded while intelligence section personnel searched for documents and personal papers. Another intelligence team worked stacking captured weapons and ammunition, identifying armament types and manufacturers, and recording serial numbers.

A third raven team worked from the Cunningham’s Rigid Inflatable Boats, examining the semisubmerged wrecks of the pirate launches moored alongside the freighter.

Amanda armed off her flight helmet and shook out her hair. So far, so good. With a little luck, they could be out of here before first light. Looking around, she noted a familiar figure striding toward her across the deck.

“Well done, Stone. Exceptionally well done.”

The Marine shrugged. “Oh, pretty fair for make-it-up-as-you-go along. We got you your prisoners, including the guy I guess is the prizemaster. He hasn’t admitted the point yet, though. He hasn’t said much of anything except to cuss us out in Sanskrit or whatever.”

“We’ll worry about that later. Are you ready to transfer them to the Duke?”

“Soon as the corpsmen are done. We’ll sling lift the stretcher cases over by helo first, then move the unwounded.”

“Okay. Sling lift all of them by helicopter, even if it takes a little extra time.” Amanda started aft toward the deckhouse, Stone keeping at her side. “These Bugis are born seamen. If you even let them near a small boat, they may try something. On the other hand, helicopters are a bit outside of their experience. Dangling them underneath one on a cable should keep them spooked and amenable.”

“Will do, Skipper. Anything else?”

“Yes, status of the freighter and its crew.”

“Pretty much good. The Russkies have a few bangs and bruises, but they seem to be a pretty rough-and-ready bunch. They already have their bridge and engine room watches reset. The ship’s in good shape too. No apparent engineering or navigational casualties and no water coming in. Most of the damage seems to be of the chipped-paint and busted glass kind.”

“Very good indeed. Where’s her captain?”

“In his cabin, Skipper. He’s looking forward to talking with you.”

“That’s good. I need to talk with him.”

Captain Teodore Petreskovitch looked the way a Russian freighter captain should, stocky and bearlike with grizzled, gray-frosted hair and beard. Clad in blue uniform trousers and a sweat-stained white shirt, he reached across his battered desk to pour three fingers of a clear liquid into the water glass set before Amanda.

“Israeli vodka,” he said sadly, taking care with his English. “Muck from my last voyage, but I have no better. I thank you, Captain, for the saving of my ship and cargo.”

Amanda nodded and diplomatically lifted the glass to her lips, suppressing the wince as the liquid fire burned down her throat. “Speaking on behalf of the United States Navy, we’re pleased we could help. I’m glad none of your crew were seriously injured in this event.”

“As am I.” Captain Petreskovitch casually tossed off his own drink. “In the merchant ships, we hear more and more of the pirates returning. You come through these waters, you know sooner or later you will have no luck. These damn monkeys will come for you.”

“How did it happen?” Amanda was careful to keep her glass cradled in her hands to evade a refill.

The Russian shrugged. “One minute, nothing. The next, the damn little boats are all around us, shooting across the bow with machine guns and the rockets for killing tanks. We can do nothing except stop the engines. The owners will not let us carry guns. We have nothing to fight with except the deck hoses. We can only call for help by radio and watch them crawl over the rails.

“But then our luck returns and a most attractive American devushka, a lady, comes racing to our assistance.” Israeli vodka or not, Petreskovitch poured himself another hefty hit from the bottle. “If there could be any way we might pay you back for your rescue, only ask.”

“Actually, Captain, there is,” Amanda replied carefully. “You see, my ship and I were not in these waters by coincidence. The decision has been made by higher powers to do something about the pirate threat. We’re going after them, and you and your crew can be of great service to us in this matter.”

Petreskovitch slapped the desktop. “Tell us what to do and it shall be done.”

“Essentially, what we wish you to do is nothing.” Amanda leaned forward in her chair. “Your ship is seaworthy and your crew is intact. We wish for you to get under way and continue on your voyage as if none of this had ever happened. Say nothing to anyone, not even your owners, until after you have returned to your home port. If you are contacted by the authorities concerning the distress call you sent, deny it: Say it was a hoax by someone. If there are problems about your broken cargo seals, have your agents speak with the United States embassy. Beyond that, say nothing to anyone.”

A smile appeared in the midst of Petreskovitch’s beard. “Ah,” he nodded, “a konspiratsia. Russians understand such things, You have my word. We will deny this. It has not happened.”

“Will you make this clear to your crew? Sailors love to talk in port, and our enemies may have ears anywhere.”

“My crew is Russian as well,” Petreskovitch said grimly. “They will know that if one word is said out of place, its speaker will swim back to Vladivostok.”

The freighter skipper reached for the vodka once more. “Another drink, Captain. To seal this pact of silence.”

Amanda managed a polite smile and held up her glass.