give Wally his NVGs. The young PJ detached the goggles from his helmet and tossed them over. “Sandy, sit up now.” LB helped Sandoval grunt his way to a sitting position. He arranged Jamie and Sandoval back-to-back, M4s up, facing fore and aft.
Wally finished clipping the night goggles to his helmet. He said, “We got about three minutes.”
“It won’t take that long.” LB lowered his goggles.
He led the way up the ladder. On the white expanse, LB crouched to protect Wally’s approach, scanning the breadth of the cargo deck. No glow rose above the southern horizon; Somalia was mostly an unlit land. Moon and stars were enough to paint the rows of gates and crisscrossing cables with an emerald clarity. Nothing of the steel field moved. The thing that did move was human.
The cargo deck presented the same obstacles to this pirate that it did to LB, designed to strap down containers, not for a stroll. The pirate struggled to make progress. He was headed toward the bow to lay another ambush, this time from behind the wounded PJs in the corridor. To do this, he had to climb, drop, run, and climb again.
LB and Wally crept sideways to the center of the deck, keeping low. The distance to the scrambling pirate was no more than fifty meters. Wally braced his carbine against a pillar. In LB’s goggles, Wally’s thin green laser landed on the pirate’s moving back. It wasn’t a broad back; this was not the Somali who killed Robey. There was no sign of that one anywhere up here. Just this one, thin pirate alone.
Wally waited seconds for a clear shot, then took it. The gun’s suppression tube coughed; no thunder for this death. The Somali heaved forward, slammed against the steel gate he was halfway up, then slid to the deck out of sight.
Wally lowered the M4, confident in the shot. He strode forward. LB stopped him.
“You go get Sandoval and Jamie headed to the bridge. I’ll do it. Then I’ll catch up to you.”
Wally raised his NVGs. “Tell me something.”
LB took one more look at the cluttered distance between them and the downed pirate. He lifted his own goggles. “Tell you what?”
“When we were in South America. Those missions I jump-mastered for you my last year at the academy. They weren’t just recon.”
“No. They were black ops.”
“I’ve never seen you kill anybody the way you knifed that pirate on the bow.”
“There a problem?”
“You’ve done that before.”
“You were a kid back then.”
“I stopped being a kid pretty quick. You helped with that.”
“Look, I know why you need to talk. I do. But not right now, okay?” LB said again, “I got this one.”
Wally nodded. “Okay. Later.”
LB dropped the NVGs over his eyes. Wally headed for the ladder down to the port corridor.
LB stood above the pirate, who lay with hands spread as if in welcome. The Kalashnikov was underneath him. Shot in the back, the Somali had rolled over to die faceup.
Wally’s bullet had exited through the sternum, dead center in the torso. The pirate’s eyes followed LB’s last step over him.
LB lowered the Zastava’s muzzle against the pirate’s heart.
Blood dribbled from the corner of the Somali’s mouth. The man’s voice was thickened, his life draining into his throat. He spoke through spattered gold teeth.
“What…what is your name?”
“LB.”
The pirate hacked weakly, swallowed once. “That is an odd name for a demon.”
LB fingered the trigger. “You should never have come on this ship, pal.”
The Somali nodded against the steel deck. “At the end, even enemies agree.”
“You say so.”
The big Zastava roared into the pirate’s heart.
LB caught up with Wally, Jamie, and Sandoval at the base of the port external stairs. LB’s calf pulsed. Blood warmed one boot.
Sandoval looked rough. His left arm dangled uselessly, but he held his M4 out and ready with his right. Jamie could hardly put one foot in front of the other.
LB said to Wally, “Neither of these guys can make it on the steps. Send them up in the elevator. It stops one floor below the bridge. They can backstop the inside stairwell.”
Wally answered with a wan smile. LB had made no mention of the pirate on the cargo deck. That told Wally the job was done.
“All right. Jamie, Sandy, do it. We’ll get you wrapped up soon as we secure the bridge.”
“Don’t worry about us, Captain.” The two PJs propped each other up enough to hobble toward the superstructure. “Send ’em our way.”
Wally took the lead up the staircases, LB close on