Deadly Coast (29 page)

But quantity didn’t trump quality. Only the pirates who boarded with the clan leaders were armed, and even if they outnumbered the Russians more than four to one, the result of any firefight was far from certain. The Russians’ superior weapons, body armor, and fire discipline made them formidable adversaries, and no pirate was eager to deal with them, despite the numerical imbalance.

By agreement, Dugan and Blake stayed aboard—hostages until the exchange was complete. It had begun early in the morning, starting with the release of
Phoenix Lynx
and her surviving crew, followed by release of the captive ships in the out ports. The freed vessels carried not only their own crews but those of ships Dugan allowed the pirates to keep. Each vessel released was met by a warship from the Western powers, and the identity of each hostage confirmed against a master list. When all the hostages were verified safe,
Carney
relayed the news to Dugan and escorted
Phoenix Lynx
a safe distance away. They waited now, out of sight just over the horizon.

Blake glanced nervously over the side, to where
Luther Hurd
rode at anchor, a half mile away. “I feel a bit naked without
Carney
in sight.”

Dugan shook his head. “I had to lean on Ward to get them to leave in the first place. If we can’t see them, they can’t see us. Plausible deniability. Besides,
Carney
’s skipper already has his neck stretched out a bit by talking the SEALs into forgetting those boats.”

Blake nodded and glanced down over the rail at two big high-speed Zodiacs tethered to the small landing at the bottom of the accommodation ladder. They rode there among half a dozen empty pirate launches of assorted shapes and sizes, clustered around the little landing like nursing piglets.

Dugan turned. “Well, we always knew this would be the tricky part,” he said to Borgdanov. “Recommendations?”

“They will not attack until after we go down, I think,” Borgdanov said. “I stay on top with six men while Ilya takes six more down ladder and prepares boats,
da
?
Dyed
, you and Captain Blake go with Ilya. When all is ready in the boats, Ilya signals me and we come down very fast, while Ilya and his men keep weapons pointed up at edge of the main deck. If any
piraty
leans over the main deck to shoot, Ilya’s men kill him. Then we escape. Simple plan,
da
?”

“
Sounds
simple,” Dugan said, hoping it would be.

“Good,” Borgdanov said, and barked orders. The sergeant nodded and motioned Dugan and Blake to the ladder, then followed with his six men. Dugan moved down the sloping aluminum steps and into the first Zodiac, and Blake moved into the second. They fired up the outboards, as the Russians divided themselves between the two boats and trained their assault rifles up at the rail. The sergeant gave a sharp whistle and the remaining Russians rushed down, Borgdanov in the rear. By prearrangement, the second group also divided, filling both boats to capacity. The last Russian to board each boat cast off the lines, and Dugan and Blake backed the boats out of the cluster. Dugan looked up at the sergeant’s shout.

Half a dozen pirates reached the rail, forced back by Russian fire. All the Russians targeted the rail, except Borgdanov and the sergeant, who were pulling the pins on grenades and tossing them into the pirate boats.

“GO! GO! GO!
Dyed!”
screamed Borgdanov, as he and the sergeant finished and raised their weapons to target the rail.

“HANG ON!”
Dugan screamed, as he spun the boat around and hit full throttle, and Blake followed suit. Heavily loaded, the boats bucked in the water and bogged down as the propellers cavitated, but almost simultaneously Dugan and Blake realized their mistake and backed off the throttles a bit. In seconds, the boats were up and planing across the water, as Dugan felt the concussion of the grenade blasts on his back and heard the earsplitting explosions.

The pirates aboard
Marie Floyd
rushed back to the rail, pouring wild, undisciplined fire after the boats, joined by freed pirates on the deck of the nearby
Pacific Endurance
. But the boats were already difficult targets—too difficult for the marksmanship of the pirates.

Borgdanov pointed to the
Marie Floyd
, where three pirate launches clustered unharmed at the bottom of her accommodation ladder. Dugan shrugged.

“We’ll just have to let those go,” Dugan yelled over the noise of the outboard. “They’re all stirred up now. If we go back to toss grenades in those boats, someone might get killed.”

Borgdanov smiled. “We do not have to return,” he yelled back. “Just because
piraty
are terrible shots, does not mean we are. Stop. I think we are safe here.”

Dugan cut power to an idle, and the boat drifted to a stop. Blake did the same and the boats drifted together, the powerful outboards muttering.

“Just as well,” Dugan said. “I wasn’t going to go much farther anyway. I’m not totally sure of the range of the remotes.”

Borgdanov nodded, then shouted orders to his men. The Russians opened fire on the distant boats, a steady
rat-tat-tat
of aimed three-round bursts from a dozen weapons. In minutes, the three pirate boats were riddled with holes and sinking. Dugan opened his mouth to congratulate Borgdanov on his men’s marksmanship, but was distracted by an unexpected vibration from his pocket.

M/T Marie Floyd
At anchor
Harardheere, Somalia

Omar stayed to one side and tried to make himself small as Zahra paced the deck and screamed curses after the fleeing Liberians.

“Those steaming piles of goat dung have the effrontery to betray me?” Zahra screamed. “To shoot my men and destroy my boats? They’ve reneged on the agreement, and we’ll bring boats from ashore and hunt down this
Luther Hurd
! She can’t outrun us! We’ll blow them up and sink them all, and if the navy ships come back, we’ll claim it has nothing to do with us! Tankers blow up all the time.”

Omar didn’t think it wise to point out that their men had been shooting at the Russians first.

“Omar!” Zahra screamed, and Omar scurried over.

“Call this Dugan on the cell phone you gave him for the negotiations. I want to let him know he’s about to die so he can enjoy the anticipation,” Zahra said.

“But Zahra—”

“DO IT!”
Zahra screamed, and Omar pulled out his phone and hit a preset.

After a moment, Omar took the phone from his ear and spoke. “I have him, Zahra,” he said.

“Good,” Zahra said. “Tell him that he’ll soon be dead.”

Omar nodded and spoke into the phone, then looked back at Zahra.

“And now ask him if he knows what I’ll soon be doing,” Zahra commanded, preparing to launch into a long description of the slow torture he intended to inflict on Dugan and all his men.

Omar translated Zahra’s words, and listened to the phone a moment. His face took on a strange expression, then morphed into a fearful look as Zahra continued.

“Tell him I’ll—”

“I … I can’t tell him anything, Zahra. He hung up.”

“
WHAT
? He just hung up? What did he say?”

“Well, after I asked him if he knew what you’d be doing, he said … he said …”

“Out with it, you fool! What did he say!”

Omar was trembling now. “He … he said, ‘I suggest the backstroke,’ and then he hung up,” Omar said.

Zodiacs
Harardheere, Somalia

“—suggest the backstroke,” Dugan said, then tossed the phone over the side. “Let’s do it,” he shouted across to Blake in the next boat.

Blake fished a small electronic device from his pocket and flipped up the guard over the single button. He thumbed the button and multiple explosions bloomed along the hulls of both
Marie Floyd
and
Pacific Endurance
, well below their waterlines. They caused small but obvious boils of white water, sending spray into the air as dull thumps echoed across the sea.

Dugan nodded and pulled a remote from his own pocket. He stared at the device a long moment, then looked back at the ships.

“These are very bad people,
Dyed
,” Borgdanov said. “I think you should not worry about their fate. Whatever chance they have is better than chance they give people they burn to death and shoot in head,
da
?”

Dugan nodded and hit the button, sending a single signal to turn on half a dozen battery-powered jammers hidden on each ship. It was a one-time thing. As soon as the jammers came online, they blocked the signal that had activated them. Along with everything else.

M/T Marie Floyd
At anchor
Harardheere, Somalia

The deck vibrated under Zahra’s feet from a series of muffled explosions, and he looked across the water to see the water roiled by a similar series of explosions along the hull of the
Pacific Endurance
.

“They’ve sabotaged us,” Zahra said, his mind racing. “Very well. Forget the Liberians for now, Omar. Organize the seamen among our men. We’ll ground the ships in shallow water to save the cargo. Get them started, then call all available boats from ashore, just in case.”

Zahra actually had good cause for optimism. Contrary to popular perception, tankers typically have a great deal of reserve buoyancy and can survive significant damage, given calm water and fair weather.

But this wasn’t a casualty. This was destruction orchestrated by a man who spent his life keeping tankers floating, and who sure as hell knew how to sink one. So as much as Woody had griped as he crawled through tank after tank watching Dugan mark places to cut with a can of spray paint, he’d followed instructions to the letter. As had the Russians when Dugan showed them where to place the shaped charges for maximum effect.

The ships were going down, and they were going down fast.

Omar rushed from the deckhouse to where Zahra stood, watching the main deck a foot above the water.

“Zahra,” he said. “The engine room is flooded. We can’t move the ship!”

Zahra nodded, never taking his eyes off the water. “Have you managed to reach anyone ashore?”

“No,” Omar said. “No phones. No radio. No nothing. We’re being jammed.”

Zahra looked up. Pirates boiled out of the deckhouse, alerted to the fact the engine room was flooded and that sinking was imminent.

“We must escape,” he said, quiet urgency in his voice. “There aren’t enough lifeboats. It’ll be every man for himself when this mob realizes that. Go get them started launching the boats, then pick four of our most loyal men and sneak away to meet me on the stern. I saw a small life raft near there. We’ll launch it and escape while the rest of these fools kill themselves over a place in the boats. Go now!”

“At once, Zahra,” Omar said, and scurried away.

Zahra moved calmly, reassuring men as he met them. Telling them that tankers took a long time to sink, and that boats were on the way from shore, and that they were readying the lifeboats as a last resort.

He lied his way aft, then slipped from sight into the alleyway between the deckhouse and the machinery casing. He waited there impatiently until Omar arrived with four men in tow.

“Here,” Zahra called, and motioned them aft to where the life-raft canister rested in its cradle near the ship’s rail. “Quickly now,” Zahra said. “Two men on each end. Lift the canister and toss it into the sea on my count of three. Omar, hold the rope, and don’t let go!”

The men positioned themselves as instructed and prepared to heave.

“One. Two. Three. Heave!” Zahra shouted.

The men heaved on command, and an almost-weightless fiberglass canister shot ten feet in the air and plunged the short distance to the sea, splitting in two halves and revealing—nothing.

“It … it’s empty,” Omar said, holding a rope attached to nothing.

Zahra looked farther up the deck, where two other pirates intent on survival had attempted to launch another life-raft canister. It too was empty.

“They’ve sabotaged all the rafts,” Zahra said. “That leaves only the lifeboats. Listen to me, all of you. We’ll go to the nearest lifeboat. As soon as it’s launched, shoot down anyone who gets in our way and get aboard. Is that clear?”

The men nodded, and Zahra led them up the port side to the lifeboat station. But they soon found they had no cause to use their weapons.

“It’s welded!” Zahra heard a man cry as he neared the lifeboat. “The lifeboat davit is welded together! We can’t launch the boat!”

Zahra looked around. The main deck was awash now and the tank vents were starting to go under, water boiling around them as the last pockets of air were forced from the tanks. He raced up the exterior stairway to the bridge wing, his underlings close behind. They gained the bridge wing and flew across it to the stairway up to the flying bridge above the wheelhouse, the highest spot on the ship.

And there they stopped.

Soon they were joined by others, and the small space was an island of humanity, its population staring down at the sea rushing to claim them, each knowing there was no escape.

Zodiacs
Harardheere, Somalia

Dugan watched the main deck of the
Marie Floyd
dip below the water, with that of the
Pacific Endurance
not far behind. He did his best to ignore the masses of humanity collecting above the bridge on both vessels.

“Seen enough?” he yelled over to Blake.

Blake nodded, and headed toward the
Luther Hurd
, undoubtedly thinking of dead shipmates. Dugan gritted his teeth and fell in behind.

Halfway back to the
Luther Hurd
he saw them, two large black triangles cutting the water. He turned as the sharks swam past, and looked out over the water at a dozen fins converging on the sinking ships.