just a few feet away from him. Nolan had no choice but to pull out his Beretta and shoot the man between the eyes. He didn’t even stop to watch him fall. Instead, he pulled the carving knife off his M4, threw the rifle aside, and with both hands, began frantically cutting the rope beneath the large grappling hook.
He was still sawing away when a second pirate neared the top of the ladder. Nolan had to shoot him as well. He fell away, only to be replaced by a third pirate who Nolan also had to shoot, all while still trying madly to cut the rope.
By the time a fourth pirate neared the railing, the weight on the weakened twine had become too much and snapped on its own, taking him and several more pirates down with it, much to Nolan’s relief. But he’d used three bullets from his pistol just to defeat this first tiny group of Bom-Kats—and under these conditions that was way too much ammo to expend. Even worse, when he looked at the carving knife, he realized that trying to cut through the thick hemp had bent and dulled the blade considerably. And a moment later, another hook clanged onto the railing in front of him.
This time he attacked the rope with verve, sawing away as he anxiously eyed six more pirates climbing toward him. But the knife just could not do the job fast enough, so Nolan had to use his Beretta once again and shoot the pirate at the top of the ladder, as well as the attacker behind him. Only then did he manage to cut the second rope to the point where it finally snapped on its own, sending the rest of the pirates back into the sea. But no sooner had this rope ladder fallen away, when another hook clanged onto the railing nearby.
This was getting very crazy very quickly. Suddenly everything was moving too fast. The pirates were screaming like madmen. Their comrades circling in the speedboats were blowing air horns. Somewhere, fireworks and flares were being lit off, weirdly illuminating the night sky. And Nolan had already used more than half his pistol’s ammo supply and he had ruined the all-important knife as a cutting tool—and the battle wasn’t even two minutes old.
Even worse, he could see the same thing was happening all along the railing. There were Senegals to the right and left of him and it was apparent their knives just couldn’t cut through such thick rope either. He was also hearing lots of gunfire. Valuable ammunition was being used to repel the first couple minutes of the assault. Definitely not part of the plan.
As before, he had to shoot the first two pirates coming up this third ladder, then saw away at the grappling hook’s rope until the weight became too much and it snapped. It was harder this time though, as the knife was practically useless; it took so long, the third pirate in line came within an inch of grabbing Nolan before he had to shoot him, too.
But even as he tumbled way, Nolan noticed something else was going on here. The blind ferociousness of the attack told him the pirates were most likely on methamphetamines or maybe Indonesian Ecstasy, which was a combination of several highly toxic stimulants. This was no surprise. But he also realized the attackers were armed only with knives. Why no firearms? There was only one reason. The pirate commander didn’t want his men to leave any weapons on board the lightly armed ship should they be killed or captured. In other words, Alpha’s earlier instincts had been right. The Bom-Kats had done some recruiting and this first wave of pirates, probably all new members, was simply fodder meant to wear down the ship’s defenders without giving them any more firepower. The problem was, it was working.
Amid the growing confusion, Nolan spotted one of the dhonis coming up close to the freighter’s starboard side. He could see a large man dressed in blue sea camos and lit by a flashlight standing on the bridge, yelling into a walkie talkie. Was this the pirate commander? Was he directing the attack?
Nolan only had a few seconds to yell over to Gunner about this when another rope ladder clanged onto the railing in front of him. There was so much noise and chaos, Nolan was sure Gunner hadn’t heard him. Yet a moment later, the telltale streak of a Streetsweeper incendiary projectile