Marauder, Page 3

  When he was done with his snack, he crumpled up the bag and tossed it overboard.

  That’s when his eye was drawn to something strange roiling the water. He rose and went to the gunwale.

  The water bubbled from something rising up, almost as if a sea monster were emerging from the depths.

  A long, flat object appeared next to his boat, barely breaking the surface. It could have been a wayward piece of flotsam tossed overboard from one of the many cargo vessels that plied the strait.

  Tanjung noticed that it wasn’t entirely flat. Toward one end was a short cupola with windows. He was startled to see two eyes inside staring back at him. It was an older white man with ruddy cheeks and a fringe of reddish hair around a bald head.

  For a moment, Tanjung wondered if someone had drugged his klepons. But his trance was shattered when a hatch flew open from the back of what he now understood to be a submersible that had come out of nowhere. A figure dressed in black and wearing a balaclava rose out of the opening like a demon and pointed a gun at him.

  Tanjung turned to lunge for his assault rifle, but it was far too late. He heard a hiss and felt a needle plunge into his back. He tried to reach the dart to pull it out, but within a second his knees buckled, and he collapsed to the deck.

  He didn’t lose consciousness, but his head was fuzzy, and his mouth felt as though it were coated in cotton.

  The man clad in black jumped over the gunwale and loomed above him like a giant. He bent down, plucked the dart out of Tanjung’s back, and turned him over.

  The intruder tossed the assault rifle overboard before dropping to his knees, and Tanjung could see sharp blue eyes watching him intently. The man said something in English, which Tanjung didn’t understand.

  “No speak English,” Tanjung heard himself reply, almost as if it came from someone else.

  The man switched to Arabic, a dialect Tanjung recognized as Saudi.

  “How many of you are on the Dahar?”

  Tanjung tried to resist answering, but he felt compelled to tell what he knew.

  “Seven.”

  “Don’t bother trying to fight it,” the intruder said. “The drug you were injected with not only disables you but it also acts like a kind of truth serum. Believe me, I’ve tried it myself. Now, what is your objective?”

  “Bombs. Three of them. We’re going to sink the tanker.”

  “And the crew. Are they still alive?”

  “Yes. In the mess hall.”

  “Good. You’re going to tell me where all the bombs are being planted.”

  The man yanked off his balaclava to reveal a blond crew cut and a handsome tanned face. He had intense, intelligent eyes, and an innate authority about him that exuded confidence.

  Even in his hazy mental state, Tanjung was surprised to see the man uncover himself.

  “Who are you?” Tanjung asked, slurring the words as he spoke. For some reason, he felt the need to add, “I am Tanjung.”

  “My name is Juan Cabrillo, and I am about to put your terrorist friends out of business. Not that it really matters, I tell you.” Cabrillo smiled like he was enjoying telling a secret he’d been keeping. “You see, the drug coursing through your veins also erases your memory. When you come to in about four hours with a splitting headache, you won’t remember a thing about me.”

  FOUR

  Three people dressed in identical black clothes, body armor, eyeglasses, and balaclavas emerged from the submersible, leaving the driver behind, and joined Juan on the boat as he lashed the dazed terrorist’s ankles and wrists with zip ties. Each of them had an MP5 submachine gun slung over their shoulders and dart guns in hip holsters. The only thing that distinguished them was that one was half a foot shorter than the other two.

  “Looks like the sedative worked as advertised,” the smallest of them said in a high-pitched, feminine voice.

  Juan stood up and said, “With this stuff, I could make Colonel Sanders spill his secret recipes for both Original and Extra Crispy chicken. Tanjung here tells me there are seven hostiles on board armed with AK-47s. Use the darts only as long as we have the element of surprise.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got the bomb locations. Tanjung says we have about fifteen minutes left to deactivate the timers. He also mentioned that Kersen, the leader of their terrorist cell, has a remote detonator as a backup. Apparently, he didn’t trust anyone else not to blow up the ship with him on it. You’ll know him by his missing left ear.”

  Using his tongue, Juan clicked the molar mic embedded in his mouth. The transceiver not only allowed him to use his radio hands-free, it also played the sound inside his skull through bone conduction, which meant he could hear communications even in noisy environments.

  “Is the deck clear?” He looked up, but the small gray quadcopter drone hovering above them was too high to be visible.

  “No movement,” came the reply.

  “Anyone on the Dahar’s bridge?” It would be easy to spot Juan and his team coming over the railing if there were terrorists in that high perch.

  “Maneuvering to get a better look.” A pause. “It’s empty.”

  Juan put on his balaclava and a pair of augmented reality glasses and fed in the bomb locations. They’d downloaded a detailed schematic of the tanker on their way to the ship so their glasses could guide them through the corridors of its interior. In the corner of his eye, he could now see a deck by deck map of the Dahar’s layout.

  “Let’s go,” Juan said.

  He led the way up the terrorists’ ladder. Juan felt it was his duty to be the first on the ship.

  All of them were members of the Corporation, and Juan was its Chairman, an honorific many of his people used when addressing him. Technically, they were mercenaries, but Juan hated that term. Mercenaries hired themselves out to the highest bidders, no matter the cause or morals of their employers.

  Instead, the Corporation was a company of private contractors made up of U.S. military veterans and former CIA operatives. They had an unusual set of skills and did work for the U.S. government when secrecy and plausible deniability were required. One such mission was a raid to sabotage a Syrian pharmaceutical complex producing sarin gas where they had acquired a limited batch of the tranquilizer serum they were now using. They also took jobs from friendly nations or non-government entities, but only if it served the interests of their home country.

  Juan Cabrillo was not only the Chairman of the Corporation but its heart and soul. A former CIA operative, he led the organization with fortitude and savvy, seemingly always one step ahead of his adversaries. He had helped assemble the top-notch crew around him and placed trust in every member of the Corporation to do their assigned job. In return, he was deeply respected and admired by all, most considering him a close friend.

  The Corporation was unique in that it was based entirely on one ship, the Oregon. The new Oregon.

  After the tragic loss of their previous ship, Juan and the rest of the crew had been eager to get back to sea to see what the new vessel could do. Their first voyage was meant to be a simple trial to test out her engines and a few of her other upgraded capabilities before returning to a Malaysian dry dock to finish prepping her for deployment. But intel about an imminent attack in the Strait of Malacca meant she had to set sail before she was fully outfitted. Now the Oregon was on her maiden cruise, and some of her crew weren’t even on board yet.

  The terrorists’ plan was to plant the explosives and get off the ship with their hostages long before the authorities could arrive. But Indo Jihad didn’t realize that their group had been penetrated by a mole from the Corporation, so they wouldn’t be expecting anyone spoiling the party. Although Juan’s team was outnumbered, their advantage was stealth and surprise.

  When they all reached the oil tanker’s deck, they split up into two pairs. Juan and Hali Kasim would take the engine room while the others w
ould go to the bow.

  The pair hustled to an access door set into the stern superstructure.

  “How are you doing?” Juan asked as the two of them pressed themselves against the steel bulkhead.

  Going on commando raids wasn’t Hali’s regular job on the Oregon. The Lebanese American was the ship’s communications officer and had been responsible for catching the emergency alert sent out by the Dahar. Although the Oregon had a team of former special forces operatives who would normally take on a mission like this, they were all away on another job in Bali.

  But everyone in the Corporation was trained for combat, and Hali had been on his fair share of dangerous operations in the past.

  “Having a great time,” Hali said. “That said, I’ll be happy to be back in my nice comfy ops chair with a headset over my ears.”

  “Just follow me, and we’ll be fine. Remember, don’t take any chances.”

  Juan opened the door, and they found the nearest stairway. With the dart gun in his hand, Juan led Hali down, following the map displayed in his glasses.

  When they reached the door to the engine room, Juan could feel the thrum through the steel. At least the terrorists hadn’t shut the big diesels down when they brought the ship to a halt. The noise would help mask their approach.

  Juan looked at Hali, who nodded in reply that he was good to go. Juan crouched and eased the door open. The sound of the loud turbines filled his ears.

  The door was located on a catwalk overlooking the entire engine room, but the vast array of piping, ductwork, and machinery meant they weren’t too exposed to anyone who might be below.

  First, they crept to the control room, and Juan looked in the window. No one was inside.

  Hali tapped his shoulder, and Juan turned to see two of the hijackers huddled over something they were attaching to the massive fuel line feeding the engines. Just as the terrorist on the boat had told them, the plan was to blow up the ship, igniting a raging inferno that would be seen for miles.

  The hijackers twenty feet below them were so preoccupied with their task that they never looked up. Juan gave a signal to Hali that he would take the man on the right while Hali shot the one on the left.

  They aimed through the catwalk railing. Juan fired. His dart hit the terrorist in the back of the neck. He turned at the same time that Hali’s dart hit the other one in the back. Within three seconds, they both collapsed to the deck.

  Edging around the catwalk, Juan and Hali scanned the rest of the engine room. No one else was there.

  They went down the stairs to find the two terrorists huddled on the floor, mumbling to themselves. According to the man in the boat, there should have been two teams planting bombs in the engine room. He couldn’t have been lying, so either he hadn’t understood the plan or he hadn’t been told the truth about it.

  While Hali inspected the bomb, Juan spoke to the Indonesians.

  “Where are your comrades?” he demanded in Arabic.

  Both of them responded in a dialect of Indonesian. Juan was fluent in Arabic, Spanish, and Russian, but Indonesian wasn’t in his wheelhouse. He took out a small tablet computer loaded with translation software, chose Indonesian, and repeated his question.

  The tablet spit out the audible translation. After a pause, the men responded, but the tablet flashed an error message.

  Language not recognized.

  He read it to Hali, who didn’t look up from his examination of the bomb.

  “Must be some unusual dialect that the computer can’t interpret.”

  “Then we have a problem,” Juan said. “Assuming there’s a bomb at the bow, that still leaves one bomb missing.” He checked his watch. “And now we have just ten minutes left to find it.”

  Hali stood. “I think we have a bigger problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I can’t deactivate the bomb. It’s a sophisticated design, and it’s riveted shut, so cutting wires isn’t an option. And if we start typing in random codes in an attempt to disarm it, that might set it off.”

  Juan bent over to look at the device. It was far more complicated than a typical pipe bomb, with a transparent polycarbonate casing and a digital keypad. There was no countdown timer on it, just a set of blinking bars, like the battery-strength meter on a cell phone. There were currently four out of five bars left.

  “Can we move it?”

  “I’m no explosives expert, but I don’t see any mercury switches. I think it’s okay to move, but I’d like a second opinion.”

  “We’ll get one soon. You stay here until we know we can move it. I’ll start searching for the other bomb team.” He took one last look at the device and saw it tick down to three blinking bars. “If it goes down to one bar, get out of here, and put the crew on the lifeboat.”

  Hali nodded as he warily eyed the bomb. “If you insist.”

  As Juan bounded up to the stairs to exit the engine room, he clicked his molar mic. “Linda, we’ve got a more complicated situation than we previously thought.”

  Nothing.

  “Linda, do you copy?” he repeated.

  The silence in Juan’s ear was ominous, but he had to keep his mind on his task to find the third bomb. The team at the Dahar’s bow was three football fields away from him. If they were in trouble, there was nothing he could do to help them.

  FIVE

  It wasn’t that Linda Ross couldn’t hear Juan. It was that she couldn’t say a word. Even breathing might get her and Eric Stone killed.

  The two of them were crouched in the shadow of a huge pipe, staring directly down the barrel of an AK-47. The terrorist with the gun didn’t see them at the moment, but one move—one sound—and he’d realize someone was there and pull the trigger.

  Linda was the Vice President of the Corporation and a Navy veteran. She’d seen more combat since joining the Oregon crew than during her entire time in the service, but she still didn’t like having a gun pointed at her.

  She was currently kneeling next to Eric beside the oil pumping unit closest to the bow. Neither of them had a clear shot at the man, whose attention had been drawn by the random clank of a metal chain behind them. A collection of pipes shielded his body, making a shot from one of their dart guns iffy at best.

  The terrorist swept the area with his assault rifle, and when he was satisfied that he’d heard nothing unusual, he went back inside the shed to his comrade planting the bomb on one of the main release valves.

  Linda finally drew a breath. “That was close,” she said to Eric in a quiet voice that was high pitched but still radiated authority. She tapped her balaclava. “It’s good I have this on.”

  Linda was known for regularly changing the color of her hair to suit her mood. Right now, it was styled in a pixie cut dyed a bright green that would have surely been seen by the terrorist if she hadn’t been wearing the head covering.

  “I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the Dahar’s captain telling him to make sure his crew locks down their equipment properly in the future,” Eric said.

  Eric had also been a U.S. Navy officer and was now the Oregon’s helmsman. Usually, he was dressed in a button-down shirt and khakis, not combat gear. He and his best friend, Mark Murphy, were the smartest people on the crew, so they were normally tasked with figuring out technical solutions to problems that the Oregon faced rather than taking down armed terrorists.

  Like Linda, however, he had seen his fair share of fighting over his years with the Corporation, and the Chairman had made sure to keep all their operational and weapons training current while they finished constructing their new ship. She was glad to have Eric with her, not only for his expertise on the analysis of the bombs but also because he had strong tactical instincts.

  Now they just had to plan how to approach the terrorists without being seen.

  The pumping units were housed in a
small shack that protected the valves from the elements. Pipes snaked from the structure in all directions to the massive oil tanks beneath their feet. A bomb going off in there would rupture a dozen pipes, igniting the oil feeding them and providing oxygen to the fuel vapor in the tanks that could cause a giant fireball to erupt. The blaze would be visible from the coasts of Malaysia on one side and Indonesia on the other.

  “I’m too short to climb over those pipes,” Linda said.

  “I could give you a boost,” Eric said. He wasn’t big guy, but Linda was tiny, so she had no doubt he could do it.

  “Too exposed,” she said.

  “Going around will take too long.”

  “Then we go under.” She pointed to a gap between the pipes and the deck. It was a narrow space, but they could belly-crawl through.

  Juan’s voice came over the line again. “Linda, do you copy? We’ve taken down two hijackers so far. That leaves five more.”

  Linda clicked her molar mic. “I read you, Chairman. We’ve got two hostiles here. About to make our move.”

  “Good hunting,” he replied. They didn’t say “Good luck” on the Oregon. Depending on luck was a fool’s game. Although it didn’t hurt to have some good fortune in a pinch, Juan preached that preparation, training, teamwork, and skill were far more important to a successful mission.

  “We’ll let you know when we’ve got the bomb in hand, Chairman,” Linda said.

  “Copy that.”

  She and Eric went to where the gap beneath the pipes was widest. Eric went first while Linda did her best to cover him with her MP5 submachine gun between the spaces in the pipes. The valve shed was ten yards away, and she wasn’t going to risk a dart shot through such a narrow opening.

  When he had squirmed through, he ran over and crouched beside the shack.

  Linda put the MP5 on her shoulder and got onto her belly, squeezing herself through. The distinctive smell of oil and grease filled her nose.

  She was almost out from underneath when she saw one of the terrorists round the corner of the shed behind Eric. He was so surprised at finding someone there that he didn’t shoot, which was the only thing that saved Eric’s life.