fleet through his binoculars. “Those cutters might have tipped off these guys to get their ship back.”
“Either that or they’re just bored,” Nolan said.
To her credit, Emma wasn’t scared. She was angry.
“What would they want with us?” she asked hoarsely. “The people on this ship are in rags.”
Nolan just shrugged. “I guess they want the rags…”
He motioned to one of the Senegals to take Emma and the ship’s crew below.
“Hide them and stay with them,” Nolan said. “No matter what happens.”
When they departed, he gathered the remaining Senegals and Gunner together. Each man checked his ammo supply. Nolan and the Senegals had half-full magazines in their M4s, with three magazines each in reserve. Gunner’s Streetsweeper was about 80 percent full, plus he had a belt of C-80 ammunition, small incendiary shells that exploded like mini hand grenades.
It was a lot of firepower.
So, Nolan told them simply: “OK—you guys know what to do.”
* * *
THE FIRST BOM-KAT boat came alongside the freighter five minutes later.
Those pirates on board it were sure the Taiwan Song would be easy pickings. It was moving at barely five knots, its engine was smoking and it was sailing with a noticeable list. It was obviously wounded and in trouble.
The Bom-Kats weren’t expecting to find a mother lode aboard the rusty old ship. Rather, at the moment, it was the ship itself they were after. Their allies among the Gottabang security force had asked them to be on the lookout for the crippled vessel. If they found it, they could do whatever they wanted with whomever and whatever they found on board. The important thing was they’d get a payment for returning the vessel to the notorious ship-cracking beach.
It wasn’t typical pirate work. But it was a payday, so why not take it?
The first pirate boat had reached the ship with no problem. They’d seen people scrambling about on deck as they drew closer, but that was routine. Whenever they seized a ship, the resulting panic and confusion always worked to the Bom-Kats’ advantage.
The first boat tied up to the freighter’s port-side access ladder. Here it lingered until a second boat arrived. Each boat had four pirates in it. Two more boats were waiting off the ship’s starboard side, being held in reserve. The remainder of the pirate fleet stayed about a quarter mile away, simply to watch.
Once everyone was in position, two pirates from the first boat started to climb the steep access ladder. Ten feet from gaining the railing, the pirate first in line looked up to see an African man looking down at him from the railing.
The pirate thought the man was part of the crew and wanted to surrender. But an instant later, he saw the barrel of a huge weapon pointing down at him. He actually saw a bright flash from this weapon—but then he saw no more.
The pirate behind him took almost the full blast from this same shot after it had nearly decapitated the man in front of him. Both dead men fell back down the ladder, hitting the water with a sickening splash.
All this happened in a heartbeat. The pirates in the second boat immediately pulled out their AK-47s. They hadn’t expected any resistance from this ship’s crew. They’d been told four drunken, unarmed Koreans had stolen the ship. Besides, in situations like this, the imperiled crew usually fled to the engine room and locked themselves inside, letting the pirates do their dirty work unchallenged.
But now shots had been fired and two of their comrades had been killed. The Bom-Kats were forced to fight back.
As soon as the first two pirates had been shot down, three more gunmen, two Africans and a white man, appeared at the midship railing and fired at the second boat. This fusillade was so powerful it punched a hole in the brightly painted vessel, sinking it in an instant. Its four occupants were tossed into the sea and quickly caught up in the ship’s wake, drowning them.
Two pirates were left in the first boat; they tried frantically to rev their engine and get away, but a fourth African gunman appeared on the railing directly above them. He fired straight down onto their heads, killing them and blowing the speedboat to bits.
The pirates on the third and fourth speedboats, waiting not far away from the ship, were stunned by what was happening. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. They turned to escape.
That’s when another figure appeared at the railing. He was a large white