The Orpheus Legacy

CHAPTER ONE

The bow of the offshore raiding craft smashed up and down in the breaking waves of the Aegean. On board, a crew of mercenaries gripped automatic weapons, their determined faces hidden behind black ski masks. At the front of the former military boat, a tall, well-built man raised a Minox marine monocular to his eye and surveyed a formidable fault scarp cliff twisting away to the south. Beyond, the Mediterranean sun flashed on the water and momentarily dazzled him. He blinked it away and slid the lightweight magnifier into his tactical vest.

“It’s in the next bay,” their leader, Joseph Kashala, called out. “Just behind those cliffs.”

A few nods, but no words. Each man was making his own preparation for the mission ahead. If everything went to plan, it would be done and dusted in less than ten minutes. The easiest million dollars any of them ever made.

At the stern, the twin Steyr high-speed diesel engines roared as the merc piloting the craft increased power for a hard-starboard turn. Clearing the southern tip of the island, they now saw their target. The man at the tiller peered ahead across the water as he

turned to port and steered the craft into the bay. “It’s the Electra,” he said. “Dead ahead.”

Kashala turned away from Demotte at the stern and turned to look over the bow. Directly in front of them, a blue and white cargo ship sailing under the Barbadian flag was anchored less than a kilometer off the coast. Just as expected. At well over two thousand tonnes and nearly eighty meters in length, it was more than capable of fulfilling its task here today.

But so were they.

“Exactly where they should be,” Demotte said.

Kashala laughed. “Too bad for them.”

In the middle of the boat, Mukendi was anxious to get started. “Have they seen us yet?”

“Not yet,” Kashala said. “You’ll know when they do.”

In the ever-closing hazy distance, several men on board the Electra were operating a heavy-duty marine boom crane in the process of winching a submersible out of the sea. They swung the bright yellow craft forty-five degrees until it was hanging precariously over the center of the main deck, salt water sloshing off its sides and splashing up over the men’s canary-colored oilskins.

Close enough to hear their voices, Kashala pulled his balaclava down tighter and gave his men the final signal. The attack was imminent. The former Congolese general savored the moment and considered the long, hard path that had led to this moment. Soldier. Special Forces Operative. Broken alcoholic. Failed politician. Wife out of the door. Kids in tow. Recovered alcoholic. Guarding diamond mines in Sierra Leone. Training presidential bodyguards in Uganda. Hard work. Gun grease and hush money and sleepless mosquito nights.

But all of that was over now. When this mission was done and their employer had paid them off, it was plain sailing for the rest of his life. He and the rest of the notorious Blood Crew could retire in luxury.

“It’s nearly time, boys!” Mukendi broke into an insane laugh.

Watching his teammate, Demotte rolled his eyes and let out a disapproving sigh. “How many guns are there?”

“Half a dozen or so, maybe a few more,” Crombez said from the bow. He was scanning the Electra’s decks through a chunky pair of military binoculars. “Just as we were briefed.”

“ID?” Block asked.

Crombez lowered the binoculars and turned slowly. Bobbing up and down with the vessel he gave Demotte a grin. “Jagger’s men.”

“We’re better,” Kashala said. “And we have the element of surprise.”

Demotte pointed off the bow. “Not anymore!”

Kashala turned and saw Jagger’s mercenaries fanning out on the deck and taking up defensive positions. “Faster! They know we’re here and they’ve got the submersible on board! They’re heading back to port.”

Demotte increased speed and swung the boat around to come alongside the Electra. The engine revved and roared as they roughly cut into the choppy bow waves of the larger cargo vessel. The sound of defensive gunfire coming from the deck was thin and weak against the much louder and deeper noise of the raiding craft’s engine and the roar of the waves crashing up the sides of both vessels.

Some of Jagger’s men leaned over the side of the deck and fired on them, instantly killing two of Kashala’s men, but the Congolese warlord was unfazed. “Return fire and kill the engine!”

His men obeyed. Mukendi, Crombez and Block returned fire with their Kalashnikovs, savagely peppering the deck with hot lead. At the bow, Kashala shouldered a Russian RPG while Chumbu slotted a rocket into its launcher.

Chumbu gave his boss a hefty pat on the shoulder. “Ready!”

Kashala aimed and fired the weapon at the Electra’s portside deck. A puff of white smoke as the rocket ignited and fired. It screeched through the hot sky at the head of a twisting trail of white exhaust smoke and slammed into the main deck just below the foremast.

The explosion blasted a car-sized hole where the side of the ship met the deck and blew several of Jagger’s men into the air, arms and legs akimbo. As they tumbled through the air, Kashala ordered his men to fire on them, just to make sure. Mukendi laughed as he raked their falling bodies with bullets.

With the raiding craft’s engine cut, the Electra was now pulling ahead of them in the waves and they were rapidly approaching the cargo ship’s stern. Kashala knew the next few seconds were critical to the mission but he watched the vessel’s progress with calm nerves. She was quite low and the draft was reasonably high. Just as the briefing said. Maybe Dimitrov wasn’t such a fool after all. “Power back on and keep her at the stern.”

Demotte fired up the engine and followed Kashala’s orders.

Their leader silently counted the seconds. “Get ready.”

No one was surprised to see that Mukendi was first with the rocket-propelled grappling hook. At the Electra’s stern now, he fired the modified harpoon at the davit crane’s cantilever and watched with growing excitement as it caught hold of the join between the main support column and boom pivot.

Beside him, Crombez aimed at the other side of the crane and repeated the exercise. When the ropes were secured, Kashala was first to start climbing. Turning to his men, he called out over his shoulder. “This is it. All men into battle except Demotte.”

The men obeyed, easily snaking up the two ropes one by one until they were climbing up taffrail at the Electra’s stern. Riding the waves up and down, they followed Kashala as he reached the top of the fantail and jumped down onto the deck.

Instantly met by more defensive fire by the surviving members of Jagger’s mercs, Kashala saw the man himself taking up a position on the starboard side of the bridge.

“Kill them all!”

Chumbu swept his Kalashnikov over Jagger’s men. “They’re coming from all over the ship!”

“Not all of them,” Crombez called out. “Some are still back at the submersible. They’re taking up a position behind the derrick mast.”

Kashala laughed as he picked off another of Jagger’s mercs. The bullet blew out a chunk of his shoulder and knocked him clean off the portside guardrail. “That’s their last line of defense!” he called out.

Mukendi and Block were at the vanguard now, almost pushing past the cargo ship’s bridge as they took cover behind a lifeboat. “I see Jagger!” Mukendi called out. “He’s retreating back to the submersible.”

“It must still be on board the sub!” Crombez cried out in the chaos.

“Forward!” Kashala glanced at the countdown on his watch. “They’ll be on the radio. We have less than five minutes.”

The men snaked forward in formation, taking up a new front in the cover of the cargo manifold. Jagger was cut off from the bridge and down to his last two men. They had no chance against the Blood Crew and they all knew it. Excitement grew as bullets traced over the deck and the treasure finally came in sight.

Jagger and two of his men had retrieved the mission’s target from the submersible and were sprinting away down the starboard side of the deck on their way to the bow.

“They’re stalling for time!” Block said.

Kashala agreed. The port was in sight. Maybe Jagger had word over the radio that help was on the way or maybe he thought he could swim the distance back to safety. Neither of these things were going to save him.

“Storm the bridge and kill the captain and the senior officers,” Kashala called out to Chumbu and Block. “We’re going to get Jagger.”

They chased them down to the bow and another brutal exchange of fire crossed the enormous deck. Out of rounds now, Jagger thought on his feet and turned the foam monitor on Kashala and his men. Designed to fight fire on the deck, the English merc now sprayed them with the foam jet in a desperate bid to keep them at bay for another few seconds.

It wasn’t enough, and Kashala’s merciless response ended the battle. As Mukendi and Crombez killed his two mercs, the Congolese general watched Jagger clambering over the guardrail. The canvas bag from the submersible was over his shoulder. With his infamous calm under pressure, Kashala raised his weapon and shot Jagger in the head, killing him instantly. The English soldier crashed to the deck with the bag still in his grasp.

“Get the bag,” Kashala ordered Crombez.

The Belgian merc snatched it up and began to open it.

Kashala grabbed his hand and forced the bag shut. Pulling it away from the merc’s blood-stained hand and swinging it over his own shoulder, he stared him out. “Not your business, understand?”

Crombez bristled but gave a single nod. “Whatever you say, King.”

Mukendi radioed Demotte and seconds later the raiding craft was alongside the bow, pulling in tight. Block and Chumbu returned from the bridge, secured rope ladders on the bow guardrail and then dropped them over the side.

“We need to get out of here, King,” Mukendi said.

“Yes,” Kashala said. “Our work here is done. Nothing, and no one, can stop us now.”