“Go ahead, Juan.”
Juan spoke in Arabic, and for a moment it seemed like the young terrorist wouldn’t respond. Finally, he spoke as if he’d chugged a fifth of whiskey.
“What did he say?” Max asked.
“He’s convinced that what he originally told me is correct,” Juan said.
“He seems like a newbie hired to drive the boat. Maybe he’s out of the loop.”
“Could be.”
Before they could try another question, a different voice cut in. It was Gomez Adams, the Oregon’s expert helicopter and drone pilot and a veteran of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the U.S. Army unit known as the “Nightstalkers,” responsible for carrying Special Forces operators into combat. He was back on the Oregon providing them an eye in the sky.
“Oh, man, where did they come from?” His voice sounded both puzzled and angry, which was a bit concerning coming from someone as experienced as he was.
“What is it, Gomez?” Juan asked.
“I’ve got two guys on the deck walking toward the ladder down to the boat. They’ll be able to see over the side in less than ten seconds. Max, get under cover now.”
Max may have been fit for his age, but getting back inside the Gator that quickly wasn’t going to happen. His only choice was to duck into the boat’s tiny wheelhouse.
He retreated under its roof and heard voices above him. The terrorists obviously thought they still had the ship to themselves because they didn’t care how loud they were.
Then they fell silent.
“They’re looking over the side of the ship,” Gomez said. “They see the Gator and the man down.”
“Where are you, Juan?” Max whispered.
“On my way up to you from the pump room,” Juan answered. Max could hear him breathing hard as he ran up the stairs.
“Now they’ve got their weapons out, and one is climbing down the ladder,” Gomez narrated.
“Great,” Max muttered, pulling the dart gun from his waistband. What he hadn’t told Juan was that the weapon had just one dart in it.
“Tanjung,” the man coming down called out softly. “Tanjung.”
The last thing Max wanted was for the terrorist to spray the boat with assault rifle fire. The second-to-last thing he wanted was for the man to take a pot shot at the Gator and put holes in it.
“Gomez,” Max said. “I could use a distraction.”
“One distraction, coming down,” Gomez said.
A couple of seconds later, Max heard a sound like an angry hornet approaching. The whine of the quadcopter’s propellers was intended to be confusing to the terrorist, which was exactly what Max needed.
The drone whizzed by, which was followed by a surprised yelp.
“I think I’ve got his attention,” Gomez said.
Max peeked out and saw the terrorist twenty feet above him holding out his AK-47 to try to get a bead on the flying menace. Max aimed the dart gun and fired.
The dart hit the terrorist in the backside, causing him to swat at what he might have thought was a hornet’s stinger. A moment later, his grasp on the ladder loosened, and he let go of the rung, falling the two stories onto the boat’s deck.
Knowing that the man at the railing wouldn’t take long to react to the strange events, Max scrambled over to the fallen man and picked up the AK-47. He pointed it up in time to see the terrorist above him swoon and fall back from the railing.
Juan peered over the side and smiled at Max.
“I see you’ve been making yourself useful,” he said.
“All in a day’s work,” Max replied.
“That’s seven of eight. One more hijacker unaccounted for. It must be Kersen. And he has the detonator.”
Juan disappeared. Max heard him talking in Arabic to the man he had felled.
After a pause, Juan said, “He doesn’t know where Kersen is, but he says the last bomb is inside the main pumping junction not far from here. They must have already been inside when we came on board.”
“Not to be a nervous Nellie,” Hali said, “but my bomb just ticked down to one blinking bar.”
“Ours, too,” Eric said. “Based on the time since the previous bar disappeared, I’d say we’ve got three minutes left before they blow.”
SEVEN
Hali dashed out of the Dahar’s superstructure with a duffel bag in hand and stopped in front of Juan out of breath.
“Where should I put this?” Hali asked.
Before Juan could answer, Gomez called out, “Movement on the bridge wing.”
Juan looked up to see the final terrorist gaping at them from above. The mangled skin on the left side of his head identified him as Kersen, the leader of the terrorists.
The one with the detonator.
The distance was too far to use the dart gun. Juan snatched the submachine gun from his shoulder at the same time that Kersen fired his AK-47. Juan rolled across the deck, the bullets ricocheting behind him, and popped up to his knees to take aim, but the terrorist was already gone.
“He’s left the bridge,” Gomez said.
Juan sprinted toward the superstructure. “I’ll bet he’s heading for the free-fall lifeboat. As soon as he’s at a safe distance, he’ll blow the bombs with the remote detonator.” If Kersen had been planning a suicide mission, he would have blown them already. “Hali, find the last bomb in the pumping junction and make sure all three get off the ship.”
“Aye, Chairman.”
Juan flung the door open and ran inside to the stairs, the emergency arrows pointing the way to the lifeboat station on the stern of the ship.
He burst through the exterior door and emerged onto the gantry in time to see Kersen jump into the orange lifeboat and yank the hatch shut behind him.
Juan stopped to aim his submachine gun, but the lifeboat was already sliding down the rails by the time he got any shots off. The bullets hit the polycarbonate windows but did nothing more than crack them. Kersen stared at him with dead eyes and then went out of view as the lifeboat dropped into the water.
Juan went to the railing and saw the bullet-shaped boat surface after its brief plunge and begin motoring away. A short distance away was a derelict freighter hugging the shoreline of an Indonesian island. Kersen had no time to wonder where the ship had come from.
Juan keyed his molar mic. “Oregon, you are weapons-free. Destroy that lifeboat.”
“Weapons-free, aye,” came the reply.