“Yes, sir. I’ll play the fluff-head and tell him I’m lost. Herve will get all protective. Won’t be a problem.”
She stood up, dusted off her jeans, and started down the steep slope into the gaping crater.
“Watch yourself down there,” CJ told her.
“Actually, I’ll be watching
Twenty NEST personnel had fast-roped to the Russian freighter’s deck and spread out through the ship, searching with handheld scanners. Forty minutes later, they’d confirmed Dean’s earlier assessment: there were two, and only two, nuclear weapons on board the
The four pirate speedboats were also searched, and a SEAL unit had been dropped onto the pirate mother ship a mile to the south after the vessel had displayed a prominent white flag.
Dean and McCauley were on the ship’s bridge with the vessel’s recently freed captain. He was a small and fussy-looking man named Nuranin who spoke passable English — and he was furious.
“Captain Nuranin?” Dean said. “We are turning your ship back over to you.”
“After killing two of my crew? That is so very decent of you, American.”
Dean winced and exchanged a glance with McCauley. The butcher’s bill had included two dead Russian crewmen and four wounded, out of twenty. The wounded, at least, had not been seriously hurt. Superficial splinter wounds; those miniguns on the HH-60s could send shards and splinters flying for a hundred feet.
There’d also been eight passengers on board — all Pakistanis, so far as Dean had been able to determine, and they’d fought hard when the SEALs had come aboard. Only three were still alive. As for the Somali pirates who’d provided the excuse for assaulting the
None of the SEALs had been killed, none wounded. With the exception of the collateral damage to Nuranin’s crew, it had been a near-perfect op.
Except that only two of the expected twelve suitcase nukes had been on board.
“We regret the casualties, sir,” Dean told the man.
“
Dean already knew about the Russian ships, a detachment from the Russian contribution to the international force patrolling Somali waters, though in practice they only escorted Russian ships. Since the
Or,
That was for the politicians to work out, and the Navy SEALs and the NEST personnel had no intention of being on board when the Russians arrived. According to radar reports, a couple of Udaloyclass guided missile destroyers and the frigate
“There is also the small matter of damage to my ship,” Nuranin complained. “My forward hatch blown off, the locking mechanisms destroyed! Both of my masts cut down, the standing rigging destroyed! Bullet holes everywhere! The bridge windows smashed out!”
“Put together a list,” McCauley growled at him, “and shove it up your ass!”
“I believe Commander McCauley means … submit it to our State Department,” Dean added.
“Should I list the cargo you forcibly removed from my forward hold?”
“We have no idea what you are talking about, sir,” McCauley said.
“Liars! You were seen sending packaged bundles up to your helicopters! You are as bad as the damned pirates!”
“I think you will find, Captain,” Dean said carefully, “that everything on your ship’s cargo manifest is still on board.”
“What was in those bundles?”
“We have no idea what you are talking about, sir,” McCauley said, repeating himself in a manner that suggested he would continue repeating that sentence, word for word, for as long as Nuranin cared to keep asking the question.
“This … this invasion means big trouble between your country and mine,” Nuranin declared. “You cannot simply shoot your way on board and rifle through my cargo!”
“You’re welcome,” Dean said. “We’re always happy to help distressed seamen of any nation.”
McCauley tapped his Velcro-covered watch. “We need to haul ass, sir.”
Dean tossed Nuranin a mock salute. “Don’t hesitate to call us if you have any more pirate problems,” he said, grinning.
They emerged on the port bridge wing and trotted down the metal ladder to the deck. The sun was setting in a bank of flame-washed clouds off the ship’s bow. The helicopters had been circling the ship in shifts, returning to the
On the forward deck, the three Pakistani prisoners were being readied for their ascent to one of the HH-60s. Their hands were zip-stripped at their backs, they had hoods over their heads, and each had been wrestled into a harness. As Dean watched, a heavy snap-hook was affixed to a D-ring on one prisoner’s harness, with a cable reaching from the hook up to the hovering aircraft overhead. A SEAL gave the cable three sharp tugs, and the prisoner was jerked off his feet, screaming as he rose swiftly through the darkening evening sky, his legs kicking wildly.
The captured pirates would be left for the Russian military to handle. The Pakistanis, however, were a priceless windfall for American intelligence. While they were likely the terrorist equivalent of privates rather than officers, and probably ignorant of the overall plan, interrogating them might turn up the names of contacts or leaders, timetables, telephone numbers, the locations of training camps, and details of their operational orders.
As the prisoner vanished into the cargo hatch of the HH-60 overhead, McCauley said, “Officially, there were no survivors.”
“What do you mean?”
McCauley shrugged. “We can’t very well send them to Gitmo, right?”
“I’ve already reported to my handlers,” Dean said. “These prisoners will be properly and
McCauley made a face. “What good is it fighting the bastards if we have to let them go?”
“Well … that won’t happen for a while yet. They’ll be questioned, probably at a military base somewhere in Europe.” Likely the prisoners would be held at the same facility where they would be working over Koch, or possibly the Israelis would get them. Those two weapons had been aimed at Israeli targets, after all.
It would be cleaner to shoot them here and pitch them over the side. How did you get desperately needed information from people, information that might save tens of thousands of lives, without violating their rights as human beings?
The question had gnawed at Charlie Dean ever since they’d picked up Alfred Koch in Karachi. If there was an answer, it had to do with people losing those rights when they sought to kill people on a monstrous scale. That they did so behind the cloak of religion made it worse, if that was possible.
Charlie Dean was very glad that the decisions were not his to make.
Lia picked her way down the steep inner slope of the crater, cinders and small rocks tumbling away in front of
