Deadly Coast (21 page)

“We’ve got an injured man—”

“Hands on your head and don’t move!” said a black-clad figure, his face obscured by goggles, unlike the assault rifle pointed at Milam, which was quite visible.

Milam hesitated, confused.

“Hands on your head! Now!” the man shouted again. “And have someone open the forward door.”

“Christ on a crutch,” Milam said, putting his hands on his head. “Somebody open the bow door before this moron shoots me,” he called over his shoulder.

He heard the bow door open, and after a moment a voice from the bow called to the SEAL holding him at gunpoint. “Clear. No bad guys inside.”

The SEAL lowered his weapon. “Sorry,” he said. “It could’ve been a trap. What’s your situation?”

Milam’s anger vanished. “We got an injured man. Gunshot wound. Everybody else is OK.”

The SEAL nodded. “We’ll leave our medic with you.
Carney
’s sending out another boat. Any hostages left aboard the ship?”

“No,” said Milam. “But they took the captain ashore. And there’s a US Army guy aboard, but he looks like a pirate.”

“We know,” the SEAL said, and keyed his mike.

M/T Luther Hurd
At anchor
Harardheere, Somalia

Ahmed raced down the stairwell, feeling strangely exhilarated. It was good to have a taste of his own identity, but now he had to be Gaal again, if only for a few moments. He reached main-deck level and ran out the starboard door of the deckhouse, and into a confused melee of pirates. He ran up the starboard side of the main deck toward the accommodation ladder, shouting as he ran to gain attention.

“Everyone listen!” he yelled, as he stopped on the main deck and pointed back toward the deckhouse. “The hostages overpowered me and escaped, and the Americans will attack any minute. Everyone back to the deckhouse. It’s more defensible. We can hold them off long enough for boats to rescue us from shore.”

Ahmed turned to the nearest pirate. “The infidels took my phone,” he said. “Give me yours so I can call and arrange the boats!”

The pirate hesitated.

“Now! You idiot,” Ahmed yelled, and the man pulled a phone from his pocket and handed it over. Ahmed pocketed it and turned back to the milling crowd.

“What are you waiting for?” he screamed, and fired a burst from his AK near the feet of the nearest group, sending bullets whining off the steel deck and into the darkness. “Go now, or by the Beard of the Prophet, I will shoot you down myself.”

The startled pirates started running toward the deckhouse, and as soon as they were all in motion, Ahmed turned and ran for the accommodation ladder. As he started down the sloping aluminum stairway, his heart sank as he heard an outboard crank and saw a man in the remaining Zodiac untying the boat from the ladder. One of the pirates was a bit smarter than the rest.

“Stop!” Ahmed screamed, and brought up his AK, but the pirate twisted the throttle and the boat roared off. Ahmed’s burst hit him in the back and he toppled out of the boat, which slowed abruptly and veered against the hull, thirty feet away from the bottom landing of the accommodation ladder.

Ahmed slung his AK on his back and flew down the ladder, hardly hesitating at the bottom before diving in. He reached the boat in half a dozen strong strokes, and pulled himself aboard as angry shouts reached him from the main deck above. Their attention drawn by his gunfire, even the dullest pirate understood Ahmed was abandoning them.

He twisted the throttle and veered away from the ship in a series of erratic turns to avoid the fire of two dozen assault rifles on full automatic.

Airborne over Luther Hurd
Harardheere, Somalia

“Christ! I think that’s our guy they’re shooting at,” the SEAL lieutenant said.

“What should I do?” the pilot asked.

“Fire a burst over their heads,” the SEAL said, picking up the mike.

“Roger that,” the pilot said. The chopper swooped down, gun blazing, to hover just off the ship.

“This is the United States Navy,” the speaker boomed. “Lay down your weapons and raise your hands.”

Weapons clattered to the deck below and hands shot in the air.

“Well, that was tough,” the pilot said. “Ah, what do we do now?”

“Damned if I know,” the SEAL said. “I guess we hold them here until the guys in the boats arrive.”

“What about our guy in the Zodiac?”

“They didn’t hit him, and he can see what’s going on. I figure if he needs help, he’ll either circle back or call.”

Ahmed looked back over his shoulder at the chopper hovering beside the ship. He considered going back for help, but dismissed the idea. If he had any chance of finding the woman at all, he must act now. If he returned, he knew he’d be forced into a planned, structured mission, and there wasn’t time. He reached over in the darkness to feel the firmness of the starboard inflation tube. It had been hit, but the leak wasn’t too bad. He’d be ashore long before it was a problem.

Halfway to shore, he was no longer as confident. The starboard tube had lost over half its buoyancy and the little craft was listing. The strange trim was causing the boat to track to starboard as well, so to compensate and maintain course, he had to steer continually farther to port. The maneuver cut his forward speed by half, and the scattered lights of the harbor didn’t seem to be getting any closer. That’s when he noticed the port tube was leaking as well.

Reflexively, Ahmed reached into the pocket of his sodden pants and pulled out the pirate’s phone, hoping by some miracle it had survived the dunking. The screen was dark and resisted all efforts to revive it. He cursed and tossed the phone over the side and stared ahead at the lights, willing the boat forward.

A half mile from shore, he figured he could still make it, even as the tubes lost most of their buoyancy and let the transom sag to the point of drowning out the outboard. There was still air left in pockets and he could ride in the collapsed mess, propelling himself with the paddle.

Unfortunately, he neglected to think about the weight of the outboard until it was too late to jettison it, and the motor pulled the whole mass from beneath him, leaving him treading water. No worries. He was a strong swimmer.

A hundred yards away, a dark fin broke the water.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Drillship Ocean Goliath
Arabian Sea

Mukhtar stood swaying at the control panel, clutching the storm rail to steady himself, as he stared at the bank of brightly lit displays and bewildering profusion of controls. He concentrated, trying to remember why he was standing here, and it came to him. He was the only one left, far too weak to transfer the cylinders or man the fishing boat alone, even if he’d had the strength to throw off the lines.

That’s why he was here, staring down at the controls of the dynamic positioning system, watching it work its magic unattended. He didn’t understand it, but knew it contained powerful computers. Computers that monitored a satellite, then automatically adjusted the vessel’s thrusters to keep her rock steady over her chosen work area more precisely than any human hand.

And somewhere in his fever-racked brain, he knew the thrusters that held the ship steady also moved her. If only he’d paid more attention when he watched the drillship crew do it. He fingered the joystick and sent up a prayer for Allah to guide him. He must get the Great Cleansing Plague ashore!

Kyung Yang No. 173
Arabian Sea

“Piece of shit!” Dugan said, as the screen of the ancient radar went black for the fourth time in the last hour. He gave the cabinet a hard whack with the flat of his hand, and nodded when the screen jumped back to life.

“You break my new radar! Radar OK till you come! I say Phoenix replace.”

Dugan sighed and cursed his own stupidity. Ever since he’d attempted to shut Captain Kwok up by offering to charter the fishing boat on behalf of Phoenix, the little Korean had been compiling a massive repair list, which, through some tortured logic, he had deduced was the charterer’s responsibility.

“Look, Kwok,” he said. “This friggin’ radar was
new
about twenty years—”

He was interrupted by the trill of his sat-phone. He fished it out of a pocket.

“Dugan.”

“Tom. This is Jesse.”

“I’m glad you called. We’re almost at the location you gave us and—”

“And the drillship’s not there,” Ward finished his sentence.

“That’s right,” Dugan said. “What’s up?”

“I wish I knew,” Ward said. “An earlier sat photo showed her off location, but I wanted to get a follow-up on another pass to confirm. She’s moving. Looks to be ten or twelve miles north of you, moving northeast at two knots.”

Dugan looked back at the blinking radar, and suppressed an urge to kick it.

“I see her now. I saw that target earlier but didn’t realize it was her,” Dugan said. “Ah … this kind of shoots our hang-around-and-pretend-to-fish plan in the head. What do you want me to do, Jesse?”

“I don’t see we have a choice,” Ward said. “Just pretend you’re on the same course, overtake her, and get as good a look as possible.”

“Roger that,” Dugan said, as he caught Kwok’s eye and pointed to the radar screen. Kwok leaned over from the wheel and looked, and Dugan mimed turning. Kwok nodded and made the course change.

“We’re turning for her now,” Dugan said.

“ETA?”

“If she’s doing two knots, we should be able to overtake her in a couple of hours if the weather holds.” Dugan eyed a building thunderhead on the horizon. “But I can’t guarantee that. It looks like we have a storm building to the south.”

“OK. Let me know,” Ward said, and hung up.

“Son of a bitch,” Dugan said, as the little fishing boat overtook the drillship and moved even with her port side. The larger vessel wallowed in the moderate swells, and the top of her towering derrick cut a regular arc through the air. She was typical of her class, with an engine room aft and deckhouse and navigation bridge forward, topped with a cantilevered helipad that jutted out over her bow. But the ship design wasn’t the cause of Dugan’s concern.

“Sea is not so bad. Why is ship rolling so much?” Borgdanov asked.

Dugan raised his glasses and studied the ship.

“Christ,” he said. “There’s a lot of pipe racked back in the derrick. She’s got to be top-heavy as hell. With the swell, that’s got her rolling pretty good.”

“What do you mean?” Borgdanov asked.

Dugan pointed. “You see that dark vertical shape inside the derrick? That’s drill pipe, and it’s heavy. When they’re putting pipe down, it’s faster if they keep sections screwed together into what they call a stand. They keep a few stands stored vertically in the derrick. But that’s when they’re sitting in one place. They normally lay everything flat on deck when they’re moving. And she’s got way more racked back in the derrick than I’ve ever seen.” Dugan glanced over his shoulder to the south. “When this storm hits, she may capsize.”

He raised the glasses again, studying the drillship as they grew closer. He started at the bow and moved aft, lingering on the fishing boat tied to the port side. The smaller vessel was bobbing erratically as it was dragged along, straining at the thick hawsers that secured it, as the two vessels intermittently banged together with hollow booms. He spotted a pile of rags on the open aft deck of the drillship, and adjusted the binoculars until the pile jumped into focus—a dead man, between two large gray mounds. There were other, smaller mounds scattered on the deck, and as he examined them more closely, Dugan realized he was looking at piles of silver coins. Coins slid from the piles as the big ship rolled, covering the deck with a fortune in silver. A fatal temptation moving toward the Omani coast, the derrick top swinging through the sky like a gigantic metronome of death.

Dugan’s hand trembled as he reached for his phone.

Ward answered on the first ring.

“We got a little problem here,” Dugan said.

CIA headquarters
Maritime Threat Assessment
Langley, VA

Ward studied the latest satellite imagery. The front was more defined now, moving toward Dugan’s position, but the more imminent threat was to the west. He was reaching for the phone when it rang.

“We got a little problem here,” Dugan said. “From the looks of it, everyone is dead, and I’d say the virus is definitely onboard, along with a huge pile of silver.” He paused. “But on the positive side, given the condition the ship’s in, this storm will probably sink her within a few hours at most.”

“You don’t have that long,” Ward said. “We’ve picked up what we think are two pirate mother ships west of you, on a course for the last position of the drillship. I don’t know if they’re al-Shabaab or garden-variety pirates, but they’re headed your way. As soon as they pick up the drillship on radar, they’ll figure out it’s moving and launch their high-speed attack boats.”

“It doesn’t matter who they are,” Dugan said. “If they’re after the virus, all they have to do is grab a few bodies and haul ass, and if they’re after the silver, I don’t think they’re going to let a few bodies slow them down. It’s just too damn tempting. Intentional or otherwise, these guys are going to end up carrying the virus ashore. I can send you pictures via my phone. Is that enough evidence to get a strike to sink this thing before the pirates get here?”

“Maybe,” Ward said. “But that’s not the problem. Even if we sink her with a missile or air strike, we can’t get anyone else there quickly enough to police the wreckage. There’ll be debris and infected bodies floating around when the pirates arrive. If your visitors are al-Shabaab, they may harvest a few. And no matter who they are, chances are they’ll pick up any floating bodies to take them ashore for a proper Muslim burial.” Ward sighed. “Either way, we’re screwed. If the virus gets off the ship, there’s no way we’ll ever be able to contain it. According to Imamura, the only way to kill the virus is to burn the bodies.”

“At least you might have some time to start distributing a vaccine,” Dugan said.

Ward said nothing.

“Jesse? Are you there?” Dugan asked.

“Yeah,” Ward said. “I’m still here, but, ahh … there is no vaccine, Tom. Imamura worked on one for over fifty years and came up dry.”

“Holy Mother of God!” Dugan said. “What’s the mortality rate?”

“A minimum of seventy percent,” Ward said. “Imamura speculated it would be much higher. If everyone on the drillship is dead, that would make it a hundred percent.” Ward paused. “Tom, if this isn’t contained …”

“Yeah, I can figure that part out, Jesse.”

Ward said nothing, and the silence grew. Dugan broke it at last. “Look, Jesse, we’re not equipped to deal with this. I wouldn’t know where to start. Aren’t there any other naval forces nearby?”

“Sure, a few. Chinese, Indian, Russian. Take your pick. They all have ships in the area as part of the anti-piracy effort. Do you really want any of those guys getting access to this bug? Hell, I don’t even want our side to get it. Everyone will pay lip service to destroying it, but the temptation to keep ‘just a little for research purposes’ will be great.”

Dugan cursed, then lapsed into silence again.

Ward waited a bit, then asked, “What are you going to do, Tom?”

“Not a clue,” Dugan said. “But I guess I better figure something out. And by the way, Jesse, thanks for dropping me in the crapper again.”

Ward heard a click.

Kyung Yang No. 173
Arabian Sea

“You don’t have to go,” Dugan said.

Borgdanov shrugged. “I am Russian, so I am fatalist. And if what Ward says is true, we will all die in few months anyway. If I must die, I prefer to die trying to prevent epidemic.” He smiled at Sergeant Denosovitch, who was nodding in agreement. “And besides, without us, who will look after you,
Dyed
?”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Dugan said.

The corporal said something in Russian and the others laughed, as Dugan looked on, a question on his face.

“Corporal Anisimov says Ilya and I must go with you to keep you alive to sign bonus check at end of mission. He has already picked out nice car,” Borgdanov said.

Dugan smiled wanly and bent to apply more duct tape to the juncture between his survival suit and rubber boot. He, Borgdanov, and Denosovitch were dressed in bulky bright-orange cold-water survival suits they’d pilfered from the emergency-gear locker of the
Kyung Yang No. 173
. They were the typical Gumby suits with integral mittens and booties, designed to be donned over clothing. At least they
had
sported integral mittens and booties until Dugan had cut off the clumsy appendages at the ankle and wrist, enduring outraged screams from Captain Kwok as he did so.

“You cut survival suit!” Kwok screamed. “This no good. Suits very expensive. Phoenix pay, I tell you.”

The look on Dugan’s face and the knife in his hand had forestalled further protests, and the little Korean had hurried back to the wheelhouse to record this latest outrage on his growing list of expenses.

The initial roominess of the suits and Dugan’s impromptu modifications meant that, stripped to their underwear, Dugan and the two much larger Russians could fit in the suits sized for the much smaller Korean crewmen. For all of that, the suits were tight, snug on Dugan and approaching skintight on the Russians, and all three looked like gangly teenage boys after growth spurts, with wrists and ankles exposed.

The foul-weather-gear locker yielded three pairs of rubber boots they could squeeze their feet into and some long rubber gloves that would provide much better manual dexterity than the clumsy mittens Dugan cut off the suits. The trio had donned the boots and gloves and then slipped the sleeves and legs of the survival suits down over them before taping the resultant seams with duct tape. With the tight-fitting hoods of the survival suits in place and the full-faced tear-gas masks the Russians had in their gear, the trio would be about as microbe-proof as was possible, considering the circumstances.

And hot as hell. Suits designed to prevent hypothermia in arctic waters were not the most comfortable apparel in near-equatorial heat. Dugan could already feel the sweat puddling in his boots. He pressed the last piece of tape into place and straightened, finding Borgdanov holding a gas mask and eyeing it skeptically.

“Do you think masks will do any good,
Dyed
?” he asked. “They are for tear gas. I think not so good for biologicals.”

“Ward says the main mode of transmission is contact, except when the stuff’s embedded in a powder medium and intentionally delivered as an aerosol. If the masks will filter out the powder, we should be OK.” Dugan grimaced. “And it’s not like we have anything else.”

Borgdanov nodded, and Dugan continued. “Christ,” he said. “We better get this done before we die of heat stroke. Get the corporal here up in the wheelhouse to keep an eye on Kwok. When we’re ready to leave, I want to make sure our ride’s still around.”

Borgdanov nodded and spoke to the corporal in Russian. The man moved toward the wheelhouse as Dugan and the two other Russians pulled on their hoods, donned their gas masks, and moved to the bow of the fishing boat. The pocketless survival suits complicated things a bit, so the trio had improvised. The big sergeant had an assault rifle slung across his body in one direction and a coil of rope in the other, almost like crossed bandoliers. Borgdanov and Dugan both carried small backpacks. The Russian’s holding a radio, a Glock, flash-bang grenades, and spare ammunition for both the assault rifle and the Glock. They didn’t anticipate resistance, but they could hardly go into the unknown unarmed. Dugan’s backpack held tools and other things he’d pilfered from the fishing boat—anything he anticipated he might need for his half-formed plan.

They’d spotted the rope ladder earlier, trailing down the starboard side just forward of the after house. Dugan surmised it was how the pirates had come aboard initially. They hadn’t bothered to pull it in. A lucky break, because boarding the rolling drillship would be tough, even if they weren’t covered from head to toe in rubber.