Читать книгу Pirate Offensive - Don Pendleton - Страница 12

Chapter 4

The Bermuda Triangle, Atlantic Ocean

It was raining again.

Not a real storm, or a squall, or even a proper downpour, just a steady, miserable mist that seemed to seep down every collar, dampening clothing and skin. The rebels stayed inside as much as possible, closely watching the radar screen, while Bolan felt compelled to stand on the bow to watch for other vessels.

Naturally, his crates weren’t the only cargo in the hold—that would look too suspicious, even to amateurs, but he hoped the bait would be irresistible. Despite the fact that the Triangle was a known hot spot for pirates, many rich fools sailed their million-dollar yachts in these dangerous waters to have bragging rights at cocktail parties back home in Manhattan, London or Milan. But not all of them came back alive. Pirates grew rich over the foolishness of people who thought great wealth gave them some sort of protection against the wild animals in the world.

Sometimes wisdom comes very hard, Bolan noted dourly, wiping the mist from his face. The peaceful governments of the world did what they could to patrol the high seas. But the oceans were vast and the pirates very fast.

The Constitution was a Canadian ore freighter, massive and heavy, with all of the maneuverability of a sand bar. But the superstructure was strong, and the hull had been reinforced with concrete.

The rows of big diesel engines purred, and the ship carried more assorted firepower than anything Bolan had ever ridden. Half of the lifeboats were actually quad-formation .50 machine guns. A 20 mm M61 Vulcan that nobody had gotten to work properly yet was mounted at the bow, and the ship carried depth charge racks and torpedo tubes from what Bolan thought must have been a PT boat. A wooden cabin on the foredeck contained a short-barrel Howitzer. Bolan did not want to be anywhere near that antique when it was used, highly suspecting that it would do more damage to the Constitution than any enemy.

This was their fourth trip across the Atlantic, and Bolan had stopped at every small island he could to cheaply sell weapons, mostly rifles and handguns, to each group of freedom fighters that he considered worthy of support. A few of them even got LAW rockets. Eventually, he figured, Narmada would learn that about the sales and come hunting. But so far, nothing.

Major Cortez and her people, however, were delighted to learn about magnetic signs, and there were now a dozen names for the old war craft. At the moment, they were flying the Australian flag and bearing the name Dingo Bob.

Unfortunately, it had been three long weeks at sea, and Bolan was running low on missiles, money and patience. He was starting to think this plan was a failure. The thought did not bother him very much. All battle plans were vulnerable to circumstance. He had known this ploy was a long shot, but had believed that Narmada could not resist the temptation of acquiring SOTA missiles to go along with his stolen microchips. Put together, the modified missiles would be unstoppable at short range.

“Are you sure that last group wasn’t them?” asked Private Jenna Carrera, her hands moving steadily along the old wooden frame of her Browning automatic rifle. The wood gleamed from her constant administrations.

Privately, Bolan appreciated her attention to details. He’d seen her shoot during the last pirate raid, and her accuracy approached his. Most impressive.

“Sadly, no,” Bolan replied, turning up the collar of his jacket. “They were just a bunch of Somalis out for a fast raid. Slaves and guns. They’d have taken the ship too, if they could have.”

“Not the Dingo!” Carrera laughed, working the arming lever and firing the weapon. Somewhere in the mist, a seagull cried out as it was hit and died.

“You are very good,” Bolan said, giving his highest compliment. Just then, Carrera’s head jerked to the side, and a red geyser exploded out of her temple.

Even before the corpse hit the deck, Bolan snatched away the BAR and started firing into the fog.

“Incoming!” Bolan yelled at the top of his lungs.

That was when he heard the unmistakable sound of a lawn mower. What the hell?

Then the real source of the noise became clear, and he dove to the side, swinging up the BAR. Martins!

Three irregular shapes descended through the mist, their angular wings kicking out powerful columns of hot air. As the men landed on the wet deck, they drew silenced weapons and spread out, shooting everybody in sight.

Bolan waited until they were past him, then delivered a single thundering round from the BAR directly into the vulnerable fuel tanks. As gasoline gushed out of the holes, the men turned around fast, weapons blazing.

They burst into flames instantly and started screaming.

Firing again, Bolan put hot lead through their helmets, and their burning bodies tumbled into the water below.

Blood mixed with fuel under the gentle wash of the rain. Removing the spent magazine, Bolan reloaded the BAR. Martin jetpacks! That explained how Narmada got his people onto the other ships so damn fast. Wait for rain, snipe any guards on deck, send in your flybys and start the slaughter.

Having flown the bizarre machine many times before, Bolan knew the Martin was not actually a jetpack. That was just what it was called, merely advertising. Some crazy engineer down in New Zealand had discovered a way to modify the ducted fans of a standard military jetfighter to propel humans into the air. It flew at up to sixty miles per hour, with a thirty-minute flight time.

But three men dropping in with silenced weapons did not make a boarding party, Bolan realized. They were a holding force.

Muttering a curse, Bolan sprinted across the slippery deck and scrambled into the wheelhouse. As expected, the pilot and navigator were dead in their chairs, blood dripping from the holes in their heads, broken glass from the small windows scattered across the floor.

Keeping low, Bolan locked the joystick into place, then hit the Master Collision button. A series of klaxons started to clang across the modified freighter, and he grabbed the hand mike.

“Get hard, people. The pirates are here!” Bolan shouted, hoping his words were discernible over the deafening alarm. “All hands, battle stations!”

A split second later, the loudspeakers started to howl with an eerie, modulating wail.

Jammed! Casting aside the useless microphone, Bolan shoved the speed control to maximum, smashed the joystick with the butt of his rifle and dashed back into the rain.

The mist obscured any possible view of additional Martins in the sky, but Bolan felt confident that Narmada would have sent in everything he had in the first wave. Hold the main deck, and the crew were prisoners.

Unfortunately, there was also no way to see any incoming vessels. But Bolan knew they were coming. If they were all old Russian fishing trawlers, he could be traveling with a dozen ships. Bolan felt confident that the rebels could sink maybe half that number with their weaponry, but then the Constitution would be taken.

Turning around fast, Bolan fired the BAR across the deck. The lines holding a lifeboat in place snapped, and the craft flipped over and dropped into the sea. An escape route. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

Reloading, Bolan started for the main hatchway. Kicking open the wooden door, Bolan frowned at the sight of several rebels sprawled on the metal stairs, a thick gray smoke issuing steadily from the air vents. Exhaling as hard as he could, Bolan stepped back into the rain and shouldered the BAR. He drew a knife and slashed off a wet sleeve, tying it around his face as a crude gas mask.

Bolan descended the steps, his boots clanging on the corrugated metal. He headed straight to his cabin. He had U.S. Army surplus gas masks in a box stuffed under his bunk. Not enough for the whole crew, but sufficient for a handful of the Ghost Jaguars to fight.

The gas continued to bellow out of every air vent, and Bolan was starting to feel dizzy by the time he reached his cabin. He had the key, somewhere, but he could not find it. Knowing unconsciousness was close, Bolan simply shot open the lock to his own room and staggered inside.

He ripped off the blankets, yanked open a drawer and pulled on a gas mask. It took every ounce of his iron resolve to wait a few moments to check the seals before allowing himself a breath. The chemically scented air tasted bitter, almost foul, but Bolan gratefully filled his aching lungs.

As the dizziness eased, Bolan stuffed a pillowcase with masks and lumbered back into the smoky corridor. He had no idea if this was a poison gas or sleep gas, but his gut reading on the pirates was that they would want the crew alive to open safes and move cargo. Corpses only fed the fishes. Live men could be made to work.

Plus, there was always a market for sex slaves, both male and female, Bolan noted dourly.

After checking over his weapons he headed down the accessway. Bolan passed a man struggling to pull himself along the hall. He had a coffee soaked T-shirt wrapped around his mouth. Smart. But as Bolan quickly approached, the man dropped, totally unconscious.

Knowing a mask would not help the fellow now, Bolan moved on. There was only one location where a gas bomb or generator could feed outward to the entire ship. The main intake vent at the front.

Bolan moved quickly through the cloudy passageways, trying not to trip over the Ghost Jaguars’ unconscious bodies. His hopes of defending the ship were rapidly dwindling. It was starting to appear as if the gas attack had caught most, if not all, of the rebels.

Reaching the room, Bolan yanked open the door and a thick cloud of smoke rolled out. Temporarily blinded, he backed away until he reached the wall. The external vent was closed tight. But a small machine was bolted to the deck table, the gasoline engine sputtering away and a thick column of fumes pouring out of the vent and heading straight into the primary airway.

Bolan turned off the machine then put a steel-jacketed round from the BAR through the engine to make sure it couldn’t be reactivated. As the booming report echoed down the steel corridors, a pair of figures appeared in the doorway. They were both wearing insulated parkas and rebreathers. Each held a silenced automatic pistol.

The sight of them cut deep into Bolan. Son of a bitch! Narmada must have smuggled people on board during the recent delivery of frozen meat. Attacked from within and without. Damn, the man was good.

As the two pirates swung their weapons toward him, Bolan stroked the trigger of his Beretta and sent a man flying backward, blood spraying across the steel walls. The woman shot back several times, the small-caliber rounds ripping holes in Bolan’s thick Navy coat and flattening on the NATO body armor underneath. Bolan returned the favor, and the shooter joined her partner in the abyss.

Doing a fast sweep of the kitchen, Bolan checked for any more sleeper agents. He found several huge wooden boxes of meat in the main freezer and decided to play it safe, riddling all of them with 9 mm Parabellum rounds from the Beretta. Splinters and hamburger sprayed everywhere, but there came no cries of shock or pain. Good enough. Time to leave.

Charging down the central passageway, Bolan opened door after door until he found Major Cortez. She was slumped over a table, her face smeared with soup. Slinging the woman over a shoulder, Bolan had a brief internal debate, then tossed aside the heavy BAR and drew the Beretta. Speed was more important than firepower at the moment.

Back in the stairwell, Bolan was startled to discover several more rebels staggering along. They moved clumsily, but they were armed and wearing French-style gas masks from another era.

“Pirates?” asked Lieutenant Esteele.

“They’re here,” Bolan replied curtly. “And more coming. We have to abandon ship.”

“Never!”

“Then die,” Bolan said.

The lieutenant paused for a moment, then gave a curt nod and started up the metal stairs.

Reaching the main deck, Bolan was not surprised to now see several vessels in the water around the Constitution. Powerful arc lights were sweeping the deck, and he could hear the sporadic crackle of small-arms fire.

Hit twice, Bolan pretended to stagger, then emptied the Beretta directly into a search light. He was rewarded with a loud shattering of glass, closely followed by a wide swathe of darkness.

Distant voices shouted garbled commands, but Bolan charged into the blackness and jumped over the gunwale. He hit the water hard, losing direction and sinking fast under Major Cortez’s dead weight.

Reorienting himself according to the air bubbles around him, Bolan kicked furiously. A moment later, his head broke the surface, and he yanked off the gas mask to draw in some much-needed air.

A quick check showed the major was still alive, and now Bolan swam further from the Constitution and its new owners, hoping to find the lifeboat he had set free before. Almost immediately there came the sound of a prolonged firefight from the vessel, and Bolan saw Lieutenant Esteele and his people wildly spraying their new AK-101 assault rifles at the pirates. The 5.56 mm rounds did not harm the protective glass covers of the big search lights, but the 30 mm grenades smashed the lights into shards, and soon the only illumination came from the muzzle flashes of the deadly weapons.

“Surrender and live!” a voice boomed over a loud speaker. “All we want is your cargo!”

Swimming with one arm, Bolan hoped the rebels would soon recognize the hopelessness of their position and jump overboard. If they stuck with him, they stood a small chance of coming out of this fiasco alive. But separately...

One of the fake lifeboats flipped over, and now the stuttering flash of the quad-style Remington .50 machine gun roared into operation. The stream of heavy bullets chewed a noisy path of destruction across a trawler. A man screamed, a window shattered. Then there came a telltale double flash, and Bolan saw a firebird of some kind streak across the main deck. The rocket hit the machine gun and the blast overwhelmed the night, throwing bodies and wreckage far and wide.