Rogue Elements

Bolan figured he could beat Hyram in a fight—he’d taken down bigger, badder guys than him—and he sensed it had been a long time since the man had been confronted like this. The mood of the mess had gone from cowed persecution to the Roman Coliseum. They wanted to see Bolan open Hyram like a letter, and they wanted to watch the big man bleed out on the big letter H up top. Namzi clasped his chest and gasped like the female lead in a silent movie.

Hyram slowly held up his hands and suddenly turned on the warmth. “Like I said, Blue. You’re new, and I did read Sifuentes’s report. It was a page-turner. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and I don’t care whether you believe me or not. I told the higher-ups that R & R should be in Mombasa or Mumbai. None of our guys should be unarmed on the Arabian Peninsula with all the shit going on right now. Some bean counter looked at a ledger and figured closer was cheaper. I am going to have that talk with them again.”

Bolan slowly sat down. “I believe you.”

“Well, good.” Hyram walked up to the table and took a beer from the bucket. “Closing time, kids, last call for alcohol. Big day tomorrow! Jobby-job time!” The Rampart Group enforcer of discipline walked out of the mess whistling.

Ibarra shuddered. “God I hate that guy.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d kill him,” Ketch said.

“You know you have mad skills, Blue.” Sifuentes sighed. “But I wouldn’t have bet any pay on you.”

Ketch shook his head. “No.”

Big Abe looked at Bolan in awe. “You were really going to go up on the helideck with Hyram? With knives?”

“Naw.”

The mood around the table deflated slightly.

Bolan produced the other, Russian-made F1 hand grenade he had taken off the dead assassin in Salalah. “I would have just fragged him.” Bolan grabbed a fresh beer. “You don’t give assholes like that a chance.”

Big Abe smiled with childlike delight.

Sifuentes’s morale resurged through the ceiling. “Fuckin’ ay, Bubba! I love this guy!”

Chapter Four

Bolan lay in his bunk reading files the Bear had sent him. Hyronemous “Hyram” Yard was a bad dude. He had taken the unusual route of joining the United States Marine Corps, reaching the rank of sergeant in Force Recon, not re-upping, and then enlisting in the Navy and becoming a Navy SEAL. He had the almost unheard-of distinction of having fought on two different continents in two different branches of the United States military. He had failed the Navy SEAL Officers Course, finished his stint and gone into private security.

Bolan looked up at a knock on his door. “Open.”

Ibarra peeked in. She was wearing a T-shirt and her camouflage bikini bottoms. “Blue?”

Bolan looked over at Sifuentes. “Sifu?”

“Yeah?”

“Get out.”

“Right!” Sifuentes grabbed his tablet and scrammed.

Ibarra closed and locked the door behind him and immediately spooned into Bolan’s side. She smelled nice. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“I get the idea.”

“You do?”

Bolan threw a blanket over the two of them. “You don’t want to be alone on this ship, much less alone in your room, when Hyram Yard is aboard.”

Ibarra snuggled closer. “You are a surprisingly sensitive man, Blue.”

“I can be. What happened with Hyram and Big Abe?”

“You can imagine. Hyram shows up and fires everybody. Those he didn’t fire he treated like dog dirt. Big Abe wasn’t having it. They had it out, publically. Big Abe is a brawler. Hyram is a fighter. He went all MMA. Beat Abe bad and bloody. Then he made him submit, and then he choked him out for good measure. Made an example out of him.”

“What a dick.”

“I’m just glad you didn’t go up on the helideck with him.”

“Me, too. It’s nicer in here.”

“Hmm.”

Ibarra threw a leg over and sat on Bolan’s stomach. “So what do you say about making it even nicer in here?”

Bolan laced his fingers behind his head and admired the view. “I’d say I’m up for that.”

Ibarra pulled off her T-shirt and leaned over to turn off the light.

A fist hammered the door. Bolan knew the answer but asked anyway. “Who is it?”

“Blue!” Yard called out. “You and me need a minute!”

Bolan sighed.

“Maybe Sifu ran off his mouth. I tried to be sneaky,” Ibarra told him.

“I know.” Bolan rolled out of bed. “Just a minute!” He made sure his dagger and grenade were a lunge away in either direction. The soldier opened the door and found Yard filling the frame.

“Hey, Hy. What’s up?”

“It’s your first assignment tomorrow, Blue. I want to get a few things straight. You...” His words trailed off as he looked at Bolan’s bunk.

The soldier looked back.

Ibarra was naked and lighting a cigarette.

Yard’s shoulders sagged slightly. “Prick.”

“Yeah.” Bolan nodded. “Not the first time I’ve been called that.”

“I’ll bet.”

“So, we going up to the helideck?”

Yard actually laughed. “No, no need for that. Not just yet.”

Bolan locked gazes with the man. “She’s mine. Until she says different.”

“You may not believe this, but I have never boned a coworker, much less a fellow soldier.”

“I believe you.”

“Well, that means a lot.”

“So can you get lost?” Bolan looked back at Ibarra.

Yard raised his hands and walked down the steel hallway. “Can do.”

Bolan closed and locked the door.

Ibarra sighed. “I think you’re winning his respect.”

“No, I made him wary. Right now he is trying to figure out his next line of leverage.”

Ibarra wrinkled her nose. “Which is me?”

“No.”

“So what am I?”

“Mine. Unless and until you say different.”

Ibarra’s smile lit up the cabin.

Bolan shrugged. “And I’ll defend your honor, regardless.”

“One condition.”

“Name it.”

“Turn off the light. It makes me uncomfortable.”

Bolan turned off the light.

The bulk carrier Caprice

The helicopter dipped toward the freighter. Mendez examined the deck covered with cranes and hatches. “Hey, Hy! There’s no helideck!”

“You’re real observant, Sifu!” Yard shouted back from the copilot’s seat. “Try not to break your ankles!”

Bolan motioned Ibarra and Sifuentes to lean in. At the moment they were the only people he trusted. “What else is missing?”

Sifuentes gazed hard at the ship. “What?”

“No, in here.”

Ibarra gasped. “Madre de dios...”

“Keep it down,” Bolan advised.

Sifuentes looked around in confusion. “Throw a dog a bone, Blue!”

“Yo, hermano!” Ibarra grabbed Sifuentes’s collar and yanked him close so she could snarl in his ear. “We don’t have any guns! None of the stuff we were issued is on the chopper!”

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit...”

A few crewmen stood on deck and watched as the helicopter hovered over a hatch. One waved. Bolan waved back.

“All right!” Yard shouted. “Listen up! Ketch, you’re taking lead on this one. You have a seven-man team. I want three on watch and three off at any given time, one man floating. I want a report, texted, after every watch whether there is anything to report or not. There are water cannons fore and aft. Get anyone up to speed on their use who isn’t.”

Ketch was appalled. “Water cannons?”

“We’re still in the Omani territorial waters. The Caprice is going to take on a packet of cargo in Raysut. It’s less than fifty kilometers from here. You’ll be there tomorrow. The second she leaves port, she heads into international waters. You’ll have guns by noon.”

The team stared.

Yard’s eyes went cold. “There has never been a pirate attack between Salalah and Raysut. The pirates know the sultan takes that shit personally. He maintains firing squads and televises the results. You are flying the Viking Associates flag. As soon as you leave Raysut and are in international waters, I will personally deliver the hardware.”

The team just stared.

“Anyone want to renege on their contract?” Yard asked.

Bolan grabbed his bag and stepped out of the chopper. He fell four feet and landed lightly on the massive cargo hatch. The rest of the team followed. The chopper flew away without a wave goodbye.

“Motherfucker,” Sifuentes declared.

Bolan listened to his instincts. “Ketch?”

The man blinked and looked away from the departing helicopter. “Yeah?”

“I’m taking command.”

“Thank God.”

A clutch of off-duty crewmen smoked and took in the newcomers. Ibarra held most of their attention. Bolan nodded at a lanky blond man with a beard. “Hey, sailor.”

The sailor spoke back with an American accent. “Hey, yourself, asshole.”

“What’s your name?”

“Houston, Crane Specialist, what’s it to you?”

“I need to speak to the captain immediately.”

Crane Specialist Houston regarded the Viking detail dubiously. “Shouldn’t you guys have guns?”

“Yeah, and that’s what I need to talk to the captain about.”

The sailor scowled. “We don’t have any. It’s against company rules.”

“I know, and you’re going to get hit tonight, tomorrow by the latest.”

The sailor’s face went blank. “We’re going to get hijacked? In the next twenty-four hours?”

“No, the Caprice is going to disappear, with all hands.”

The sailor just stared.

“Houston?” Bolan locked eyes with the sailor. “We have a problem.”

The sailor ran toward the superstructure waving his arms and shouting. “Captain!”

* * *

“We’re about to be attacked?” the captain asked. “Really?”

Bolan could not imagine a more stereotypical ship captain. Merchant captains these days usually wore a shirt with the shipping company logo on it and whatever civvies were comfortable for the climate. Captain Douglas Cleverly wore a crisp white uniform blouse with epaulettes while on duty with the matching white captain’s hat. He also had a beard, smoked a pipe and spoke with a British accent.

Bolan cocked his head. Cleverly had a distinctly military bearing. “Her Majesty’s Royal Navy?”

Cleverly allowed himself a small smile. “I commanded a frigate. I retired. Then my twin daughters decided they wanted to go college. In the United States, and you now find me in mercantile shipping.” His smile died. “Now, from what I gather, you are implying that the Caprice is being set up for an attack, and your own employers are setting you up to fail.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“That is the most ridiculous bloody thing I have ever heard.” Cleverly snorted. “And, as I mentioned, I commanded a frigate in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. You would not believe some of the things I’ve heard, much less seen.”

“Would you believe me if I said I do?”

The captain looked Bolan up and down again and nodded. “Perhaps.”

“Captain, I hope I’m wrong, and if I am I’ll buy you a bottle of scotch.”

Cleverly spoke without missing a beat. “Glenlivet twelve-year-old will do nicely. Your earliest opportunity will be at the duty free in Jeddah.”

“Done,” Bolan agreed. “But meantime I would like you to operate on the assumption that this ship will be under attack in the next twenty-four hours.”

“It is against company policy for any officer, sailor or specialist on this shipping line to have a firearm or anything else that constitutes a lethal weapon on board. That said, I have a Browning Hi-Power with two spare magazines and a box of ammunition in my cabin. Are you requisitioning them?”

“No, but I suggest you load it and keep it handy. If worse comes to worst, use it to defend the bridge.”

“Then, forgive me, but just what is it I can do for you?”

“I gather if the ship is attacked and looks like it is going to be taken you have a safe room protocol?”

“Yes, if the ship looks be lost, I have the power to disable navigation and steering, and there is a four-cornered bulkhead area below that the crew can retreat to.”

“Then all I can ask is for you to aggressively maneuver the ship with the water cannons in mind up until we are boarded. What you do after that is up to you and the crew.”

“Forgive me for asking, but what exactly will you be doing during the attack, Mr...?”

“Blue.”

“Mr. Blue.”

“Defending the Caprice. That’s our job. Speaking of which, what’s in the manifest?”

“Mostly building supplies bound for Port Sudan.”

“What else?”

“Kerosene, again for Port Sudan. The country pretty much runs on it at this point.”

Bolan nodded. “Anything else of note?”

“Two container units of Indian Amrut Brandy, bound for ports of call the Prophet Mohammed would not approve of, and, might I add, if this all some sad plot to finagle a grog ration, I will—”

“I’ll need two cases of the Amrut, actually just the bottles, and four or five cans of kerosene.” Bolan quirked an eyebrow for what was becoming his munition of choice on the Arabian Peninsula. “Got any liquid soap?”

Captain Cleverly saw exactly where this was going. “Oh...my...God...”

“Oh, and I need to talk to the engineer.” Bolan saw his plan coming together. “I’ll need ball bearings, biggest he has.”

* * *

Bolan stood in front of a folding table and addressed his team. Morale was about as low as it could get. The Executioner shouted, “At attention!”

Team Viking snapped to attention.

“The enemy will most likely attack us midships, in fast boats, attempting to avoid the water cannons and erect boarding ladders. They will not be easily dissuaded. It is my personal opinion that they intend to take the Caprice, kill everyone on board, including us, and make it disappear. The captain and crew will try to maneuver the water cannons into position, but they will be mostly useless.”

“No fucking shit!” Mendez agreed. “So we’re back to you and Sifu’s liquid soap and souvenir dagger defense? I say we call Hy back and seriously renege on our contracts! If he won’t come, we commandeer the lifeboat and get the hell out of here. Who’s with me?”

Mono, Big Abe and Ketch looked on the verge of agreeing. Sifuentes gave Bolan a guilty look.

Ibarra gave Mendez a Latina-to-Latino head fake and sneer. “Puto.”

He stabbed a defiant finger her way. “Call me anything you want, honey! You go ahead and stay here with your gringo boyfriend! The Somali pirates will probably do things to you he’s afraid to try! Me? I am out!”

Mono and Ketch nodded.

Bolan nodded. “Laz?”

“Yeah?”

Bolan dropped to one knee and hurled a right-hand lead into Mendez’s bladder. He folded as Bolan rose. The Executioner watched with clinical detachment as his teammate writhed, clutched and peed his cargo pants. “That’s pee, Laz. The next time I hit you, you’ll pee blood, and I’ll throw you overboard. The minute you stepped off that chopper you were in. All in. There is no going back. All we have is us, and a job we’ve already been paid for. We have a cargo and crew to protect and a ship to save. So stand up. Stand up for your team.”

Mendez moaned.

“Stand up, or I stand you up. Then I bum-rush you right over the rail. It’s your choice. I don’t give a shit. We’re out of time.”

Mendez got a foot underneath himself and stood. “Screw you.”

“Good.” Bolan nodded in approval. “Anyone else?” He suddenly held up his hands. “Except you, Abe. Not sure I can bum-rush you anywhere, big man.” Big Abe snorted. “No worries, brah. Anyone turns chicken shit on this action, I’ll hold ’em, you hit ’em.” The Samoan lifted his chin toward the blue waters over the bow. “Then I’ll be happy to take out the garbage.”

Despite his extreme physical discomfort, Mendez bravely raised his hand. “Can I ask a question?”

“I welcome questions, Laz.” Bolan nodded. “What’s on your mind?”

“Do you have a plan?”

“We have a strategy.” Bolan turned to Crane Specialist Houston, who set a brandy carton full of bottles on the table. Every soldier who had seen combat kept a spare pair of boots close. Bolan had requisitioned all of them and spent the last hour cutting out the boots’ tongues and weaving the laces. The Executioner took up his backpack and dumped out his handiwork on the table. “Houston.”

Crane Specialist Houston took up an Amrut bottle loaded with kerosene and liquid soap with a bandanna stuffed down the neck.

Big Abe sighed happily. “Molotov cocktail!”

Bolan nodded at Houston. “Light me.”

He put the bottle in the sling and Houston’s Zippo lighter chinked. Bolan pulled the sling taut and gave the burning bottle three good revolutions to give the fire oxygen, then slung it. The flaming bottle pulled a beautiful spiral and slammed into the bow crane ten meters away. Bolan was pretty sure Captain Cleverly was having a fit up in the bridge as the fire clung viscously and crawled up the crane. Team Viking stared in fascination.

Bolan reached into a plastic bucket and took up a one-inch ball bearing he had requisitioned from the ship’s engineer and seated the sphere of high-carbon stainless steel in the sling’s pocket. It had been a while since Bolan had used the maneuver, but he gave it the forward, back and forward Z-shaped windup for dramatic effect and let loose.

The flaming crane boom rang like a bell.

“And that’s how David slew Goliath.”

Big Abe clapped his hands. “Biblical, brah.”

The rest of the team started applauding. The crewmen standing under the bridge started applauding. Bolan nodded at Houston, and the crane specialist ran to the boom with a fire extinguisher. Bolan held up the sling to his team.

“They have to sail right up to us. They have to try to attach a ladder, then they have to climb up it. This is how we defeat them. They aren’t ready.” Bolan turned and held out the sling. “Abe, you’re up.”

Chapter Five

Bolan stood on the bridge wing and took in the Arabian Sea breeze. The stars were just fading. Every member of his team could reliably hit a crane at twenty meters, and he figured that meant they could hit a human at five. Everyone had ten ball bearings half the size of a golf ball in their cargo pockets, and boxes of Molotov cocktails were spaced strategically around the deck with a lighter or matches handy. So were buckets of cooking and machine oil. Houston and three other sailors had volunteered to man the water cannons watch on watch, and the captain was issuing a tot of the opened brandy after each watch to improve morale.

Bolan nodded to himself and drank coffee. The cook on the Caprice was no Namzi, but he’d do. Coffee and hot food were available 24/7. Bolan’s team was spoiling for a fight, the crew was salty and the Caprice was as ready for battle as it was ever going to be.

Bolan just hoped the enemy didn’t have RPGs.

He smelled Ibarra’s perfume just before he heard the click of the ball bearings in her pocket. “Hey, Blue.”

“Hey yourself.” Bolan held out his coffee. Ibarra accepted the mug. She was wearing her sling around her brow like a headband. “No brandy in yours?”

“Nope.”

Ibarra lifted her chin into the breeze and breathed deep with pleasure. “About an hour till sunrise.”

Bolan’s internal clock agreed as he watched the horizon. “Yeah.”

“Wanna go for a quickie in the crane operator’s booth?”

“Yeah.” Bolan shook his head. “But nope.”

“What, we’re still on duty?”

“I’m pretty much on duty 24/7 until we’re in international waters and have guns.”

“What about when we are victorious?”

“Then we’ll celebrate like our pagan ancestors.”

“Which means you’ll be on me like a conquistador on an Aztec princess?”

“Something like that,” Bolan admitted.

“Can’t wait.” Ibarra held out the mug. “Until then I could use more coffee.”

He pushed off the rail. “Yes, ma’am.”

Ibarra seized his hand. “Blue!”

Bolan looked where Ibarra was looking.

“I swear I saw something!”

Yard hadn’t even issued them night-vision equipment. Bolan gazed into the gloom. In the purple light of the predawn he caught whitecaps moving across whitecaps. “Good eye, B.B. Sound the alarm. We’ve got fast boats coming in.”

Ibarra ran into the bridge. Bolan took the gangway down to the main deck a landing at a time. His boots rang on main deck as the captain spoke across the intercom. “All hands! This is not a drill! Action stations!”

Big Abe charged up. “Is this it?”

“This is it.” Bolan put his phone on speaker and slapped its Velcroed back onto his tactical vest. “Captain?”

“Yes, Mr. Blue?”

“Sound and lights.”

Every light on the Caprice clicked on like Christmas. Her harbor searchlights stabbed out into the gloom as the ship’s collision alarm began its whoop, whoop, whoop! The deck hummed beneath Bolan’s boots as the freighter’s two four-stroke diesels went to full power. Twenty-five knots was just barely under thirty miles per hour, but it would make hooking onto the Caprice much harder.

Mendez shouted as speedboats pierced the halo of lights surrounding the Caprice. “Here they come!”

AK-47s stuttered into life from the approaching boats almost as if they had heard him. Captain Cleverly shouted across the open phone line they were using as a com-link. “It’s the bloody Spanish armada...”

Bolan watched the pirates come in. Cleverly was right. There were too many of them. Even if they had a mother ship, three or four skiffs were the most that were carried, and they usually fanned out to form a wide net across a shipping lane. This group had launched from a land base, and someone had told them when and where to intercept the Caprice. Bolan counted half a dozen. Orange fire strobed from the prows of the pirate skiffs, and bullets rattled like hail off the hull and sparked and whined off the superstructure. Bolan and his team dropped low. Bullets hit the bridge and shattered windows.

Captain Cleverly swore a blue streak. “Fast boats coming alongside to starboard! Right in front of you, Blue!”

The ladder hooks clanked onto the rail and bullets streaked over it. Someone was providing effective covering fire. The hooks rattled and shifted as the ladder took the weight of boarders. “Abe!” Bolan loaded his sling with a Molotov. “You’re up!”

Big Abe came forward with his huge frame hunched over a sixteen-quart stockpot filled with liquid soap. “Better if this shit was boiling, brah!”

“Let them have it!”

The Samoan upended the pot between the ladder hooks. Men who were ascending screamed and scrabbled as the wet metal rungs of the ladder suddenly went bubble-bath slick. The pot tore from Big Abe’s hands as a burst of AK fire drilled through it. Abe crouched, shaking out his hands and counting his fingers. “Shit!”

Bolan lit his firebomb and rose. He swung the sling overhead like a tennis serve and released straight down. Men in the skiff below screamed as the flaming bottle shattered and fire engulfed the prow. The Executioner dropped just as bullets screamed past his head. “Abe! Ladder is clear!”

Abe heaved on the hooks, pulled the ladder free and chest-pressed it into the sea.

The captain shouted across the link. “Skiff to aft! Amidships!”

Another ladder clanked. Ketch and Ibarra ran in a crouch below the level of the rail. A man with an AK hit the top of the ladder, spraying gunfire. Mono rose with his sling taut. “Got you!” The sling whirled, and the ball bearing smashed the boarder in the sternum. The pirate flapped his arms like a dying gull and toppled back. A high-powered rifle cracked out on the water, and Mono spun and fell.

Ibarra screamed. “Mono!”

“Sniper!” Bolan roared. “Stay low! Laz! See to Mono!”

Another pirate hit the top of the ladder. Ibarra cut loose with her sling. The invader bobbled-headed as Ibarra’s missile cracked into his skull. The pirate fell back with a chrome-colored third eye weeping blood from the middle of his forehead. Ketch slid across the deck as if he were headed for home plate, clutching a slopping five-gallon bucket of soap. A screaming pirate appeared at the top of the rail. Ketch slammed the plastic bucket over the invader’s head like a medieval helmet and rammed his fist in a wicked right-hand lead where the visor would have been.