Task Force Desperate (12 page)

He shook his head. “They’re still scrambling to get enough assets together. To be honest, it may well be the Aussies that have to come get them. They’ve at least still got a decent force, if not the power projection we used to have. The new Bundeswehr is getting stronger, but the administration has managed to thoroughly piss the Germans off, not to mention that they’ve got their own problems.”

There was a long, slightly stunned silence. It had really come to this. The United States had covertly hired a small private military company to do the job it had rendered itself unable to do. Holy shit.

The conversation continued for a while, as Alek and I picked Danny’s brain about every sordid little detail of the situation. Before we knew it, it was almost dawn. We wanted to get back, but trying to insert into that mess in daylight was less than advisable. We bedded down on the ship to get some fitful sleep, while we waited for dusk.

Chapter 9

W
e didn’t get much sleep, as it turned out. It had only been a couple of hours when Matt rousted us out.

“We’re being followed,” he said. We grabbed kit and rifles, and headed topside.

The sky was clear and brassy, the sun beating down on the water. We got up on top of the superstructure, where Salomon was sitting post, behind his VEPR .308. He looked over at us as we came out of the ladderwell, and then pointed. I took the proffered binoculars, letting my rifle hang from its sling in front of me.

There were three boats on the water, about half a nautical mile behind us. It looked like two dingy skiffs and a brightly-painted blue dhow. The dhow was pretty big, probably about a hundred feet long. Even from this distance, with the binos I could make out the KPV 14.5mm heavy machine gun mounted in the dhow’s bow. Pirates.

I handed Alek the binos. “This job just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?” I said dryly. He peered through the binos and grimaced.

“We’d better be ready to take out that 14.5 gunner fast,” he said. “He could ruin our whole day.” He studied the view a little longer. “I think I see a couple of RPGs in the smaller skiff. This could be fun.”

He lowered the binos, and handed them back to Salomon. “How do you want to play it?” I asked.

His jaw set. Anger sparked in his eyes. “We lie low until they get close, then fuck ‘em up. I’ve had it with this shit. I want those fuckers dead.”

I knew how he felt. After the metric ton of shit we’d had dropped on us already, this was the last fucking straw. I grinned humorlessly, and headed below for the weapons locker. I wanted something a little bit more substantial for this, at least to kick things off.

The weapons locker was really little more than a cargo container, fitted with multiple racks for various weapons that we carried with us as a matter of course on these sorts of high-risk jobs. I cranked open the doors, and headed for the back.

It took a little bit of shuffling, but I was able to come out with a bandolier, and a long drag-bag, which I slung over my shoulder and headed back topside, securing the doors behind me as I went. I trotted up the ladder wells, breathing hard, and came back out at the lookout on top of the superstructure. Alek and Salomon were already bent over their rifles, peering through optics at the oncoming pirate vessels. I went over next to Alek, and unzipped the drag-bag.

One of my MOS’s in the Marine Corps had been 0317, Scout/Sniper. My first job in the high-risk contractor world had been as a “Defensive Designated Marksman” which is a fancy way of saying “sniper” that doesn’t get the plant-eaters’ hearts all aflutter. I had kept current, and was one of the top shots in Praetorian Security, if you don’t mind my saying so.

The rifle I pulled out was my baby; a Sako TRG-42, chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum, with a Surefire muzzle brake and HorusVision scope. I could reach out and touch someone out to over a mile with that baby, and I loved it. I hadn’t taken it ashore before, but was already planning to when we headed back. I quickly scrambled up on top of the flat superstructure, to the side of the lookout post, and laid out the drag bag for the bipod legs. The five-round box mag slid into the weapon, and I worked the bolt, locking the first round into the chamber, and settled behind the gun.

The wind was fairly calm, but there was still enough swell for it to be a tricky shot. I would have to time it just right, taking into consideration the flight time of the bullet. The boats were getting closer, and I’d let them get closer still. I wanted that KPV gunner, and I wanted him before he could get anything like an accurate burst off.

Of course, pirates being what they are, they’d probably start ripping bursts off high, to try to frighten the poor, defenseless merchies into surrendering, to be ransomed to their company. Suckers.

Danny had appeared back on top of the superstructure, carrying a Mk 17, and settled in the prone a few feet from me. I glanced over briefly as he climbed up, and then went back to my scope.

The dhow was rising and falling on the swells, but I thought I was getting a pattern established. A couple hundred more yards, and he was mine.

Of course, no sooner had I thought that than he opened fire. I saw the ten-foot muzzle flash of the heavy machine gun a split second before the rounds cracked by overhead. A couple seconds later, the
thud thud thud
of the gun rolled across the water.

I dare anybody not to flinch at least a little bit when something that big is being shot at you. Those rounds are the size of my thumb, and packing half again as much punch as a .50 BMG round, and the tracers look like someone had set baseballs on fire and started throwing them at your head. It is not a happy experience to be on the receiving end.

Even as I picked my head up off the deck and put it back to the scope, I could hear the helo spooling up behind me. Alek was serious about taking the fight to these assholes. Good.

It was hard to see the gunner past the enormous flash of the weapon, but I breathed slow and easy, and settled my hold on him, using the Horus grid. I had to adjust slightly for the extra heat coming off the barrel; it would raise the impact of the bullet, however slightly. The .338 laughs at turbulence that would throw a .308 round high and right.

One more breath, and my finger slowly tightened on the trigger.

The gunner stopped firing, and turned to shout something to his buddy on the port side, laughing. The trigger broke.

Even with the muzzle brake, the .338 had a hell of a kick. It slammed back into my shoulder, with a hammering
boom
that echoed out across the water. I lost sight picture for a split second, through the flash and concussion of the shot. When I settled back in, the KPV was unmanned.

“Good hit,” Danny called out. “Went into his upper left chest. Tango down.”

I worked the bolt and moved to the next target. One of the pirates, wearing a loose, flowered shirt and carrying an AKS, was looking toward the heavy gun in shock. I took in the slack on the trigger again. Another bone-rattling
boom
. Another pirate gone when I got back on the scope.

By now they had figured out that something wasn’t right, that this placid bulk carrier had teeth. The dhow slowed, and started to turn to port. The skiffs scattered to either side. Behind me, the 407 came to full roar, and I felt the wind as it started to lift off.

In spite of their sudden realization that they were in a bad situation, the pirate vessels were now close enough for Alek, Salomon, and Danny to start firing. Two more pirates toppled into the bottom of one of the skiffs, as I blasted a third off his feet and over the gunwale of the dhow.

There was a lot of yelling going on down there now, and I saw one of the pirates on the larger skiff start waving his AK in the air and shouting. He smacked his coxswain with the back of his hand, and gestured threateningly at the others in the boat, then pointed his AK at us and ripped off a burst. Apparently, he was either very brave or coked out of his mind, and was determined to take the ship. Whichever it was didn’t matter to me. I swung my muzzle around to line him up.

That’s where things got problematic. The skiff was coming on fast, as the coxswain laid on the throttle. The bow came up out of the water, and rooster tails sprayed up behind the boat. I had a split second to line him up for a shot before he was going to be too close, and under my horizon.

I didn’t make it. Cursing, I abandoned the sniper rifle, grabbed my M1A, and rolled off the roof of the superstructure and back down into the lookout, barely missing Salomon. Alek was already coming off the lip, and heading for the hatch, while Salomon and Danny continued engaging the farther skiff. One of Salomon’s casings hit me in the cheek as I went past, and I brushed the hot brass off with another curse. I don’t think he even heard me.

Alek and I rattled down the ladder well as fast as we could, kitted up and carrying rifles. The narrow, steep steps were a pain in the ass when speed was an issue.

We got to the main deck, and ran through the cramped passageway toward the port side. Alek slammed through the hatch, reeling a little at the impact with the heavy metal. I was right behind him.

The pirates already had a boarding ladder hooked onto the lip of the gunwale, and sporadic fire was snapping up toward the top of the superstructure. I hadn’t heard of pirates being this aggressive with a defended ship before, but like I said, maybe this guy was just doped out of his mind.

Alek and I got to the gunwale, just as three more bullets smacked into it. The helo roared by overhead, and I heard Alek speak into his radio, saying, “No, they’re too close to the ship. Go handle the others further out.” That was when I realized I hadn’t turned my comm on. I did so hastily. Alek looked over at me, and I nodded. With that, we popped over the lip of the gunwale, following our rifles over.

There was already one pirate on the ladder, starting to climb up. Alek and I shot him simultaneously, and he folded in on himself and dropped back into the skiff, landing on one of his compatriots. The aggressive jackass with the AK was yelling incoherent hate up the ladder, when I shot him in the throat. I had been aiming high chest, but high angle shooting can get interesting. He dropped to the bottom of the skiff, clutching his spurting neck, his gurgles lost in the cacophony of our fire. Alek shot the coxswain and two more pirates at the stern with a series of hammer pairs, so fast it all blended together into a roar of sound. I finished off the pirate who was lying under the fallen climber, as he tried to crawl out.

The roar of the Bell 407 was joined by the stutter of automatic weapons fire, and I looked to the stern to see Sam bring the helo in a long, slow turn over the second skiff, while one of our guys leaned out the door with an M60E4, and raked the boat. There was some sporadic return fire for a second or two, but it didn’t last long. Fragments of wood and fiberglass flew up as the stream of 7.62 rounds hammered the boat. The gunner ceased fire, and I could see, even from this distance, that the skiff was lying a bit lower in the water, and starting to list to one side.

The helo made one more slow turn around the skiff, then pitched forward and went for the dhow.

There was some more serious opposition coming from the pirate mothership, as they had gotten a gunner back on the KPV. Fortunately, they weren’t very good shots, especially as Sam was keeping the helo weaving through the air, until he suddenly came nearly to a halt, flaring up and presenting the gunner’s side to the ship. The KPV tracked away from the helo, and the M60 opened up, hammering the KPV gunner to the deck.

Sam made three passes, each time low and slow, letting the gunner work the ship over from bow to stern. When he pulled pitch for the
Lynch
, the dhow was sitting dead in the water, with some smoke starting to rise from its stern. As we stood and watched, the smoke thickened, getting black, and flames started to lick up from the cabin in the back. I don’t know what he’d hit, but there wasn’t going to be much left of the dhow in an hour or so.

Alek took hold of the boarding ladder and heaved it off the gunwale, where it clattered against the skiff before flipping into the ocean. Then, as the skiff started to drift away, he shouldered his rifle, and put a mag into the hull, keeping his group as tight as he could. Water started to pour into the skiff, stained red as it lapped around the bodies.

For a moment, he and I just stood there, watching the skiff sink. The bloodletting hadn’t changed the ultimate suckiness of our situation. Nor had it really assuaged the anger at the hard place we found ourselves in. I just stared at the bloodied bodies as they were taken by the ocean, and felt nothing.

Alek clapped me on the shoulder as the helo flared overhead, coming in to land on the helipad, and I followed him back into the superstructure.

Behind us, the sharks gathered for their feast.

Chapter 10

D
anny had set up next to the comm station, at the far end of the team room. He was poring over imagery while keeping a pair of earbuds in, plugged into the SIGINT scanner he’d brought along.

I came in from another fruitless night reconnaissance. We didn’t dare go out in the daytime anymore. While Alek, Danny, and I had been out on the
Lynch
, an Issa militia had attacked a group from
Medicins Sans Frontieres
, and killed two of them with tapangas, while screaming about foreign infidels. The third, a French national, had been rescued by a squad from the Legion, which had been dispatched only because the team had been from France. Overall, the Legion was still holding to a strict “hands-off” policy as far as the civil unrest went.

Danny looked up as I dropped my gear on my cot. “You guys are back early.”

I slumped onto the cot, my rifle across my knees. “It was come back early, or get in a firefight,” I replied. “Too many militia out there tonight. We don’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves, at least not until we’ve got a target site for the hostages.” I grabbed a water bottle and pounded about half of it in one pull. “You getting anywhere?”