Corsair

Cabrillo shook the kid loose and reached his teammates. “Come on, guys.”

Mohammad Didi was almost on his feet. The water had torn away his shirt, revealing a chest riddled with shrapnel scars, while water dripped from his beard. Looking like a drowned rat, he was more determined than ever to get off the Oregon. He lunged forward and ran into the proverbial immovable object.

Franklin Lincoln towered over the Somali warlord.

“Not so fast, my friend,” the big man said, and grabbed Didi around the upper arm while at the same time pulling the pirate’s pistol from its holster.

“Help me!” Didi shouted to his men.

The powerful jet of water and the spatter it kicked up when it hit the deck made it impossible to see what was happening just ten feet away, but the yell galvanized Didi’s men. They started forward, shielding their eyes from the spray, their rifles held one-handed. Fingers were an ounce of pressure away from loosening a barrage.

“Let’s go!” Juan helped drag Didi deeper into the superstructure, with Eddie covering their rear.

The pirates broke through the waterfall-like cascade, and as soon as their eyes adjusted to the dim interior they realized that their leader was in trouble. One of them triggered off a half dozen rounds, ignoring the danger to Didi.

Juan felt the heat of the bullets singe his neck before they hit the ceiling and ricocheted down the passageway.

Ru

Juan took point position, listening to Linda in his ear for warnings about other pirates still on board. He paused at a corner when she told him there was an armed Somali a few feet from him. He peeked around the junction, saw the man’s back was to him, and gave him a rap on the back of the head with the AK’s butt.

Either he had miscalculated or the pirate had the hardest skull in the world, because the man turned on Juan and rammed his gun into Juan’s stomach, shoving him far away enough so he could take a shot.

Juan kicked out with his left foot as the gun swung toward him, pi

Linda’s next warning came the instant Juan looked farther up the corridor. Two more pirates emerged from the mess hall, their guns blazing. Juan took a bullet just above his right ankle, the impact making him stagger. He lost his balance and was falling when Eddie grabbed his arm and yanked him back around the corner.

“You okay?” Seng asked.

Juan flexed his knee. “Peg leg seems all right.” Below the knee, Juan Cabrillo had a prosthetic leg thanks to a hit from an artillery shell from a Chinese destroyer during a mission for the National Underwater and Marine Agency. It is what the boy on deck broke his teeth on.

Cabrillo adjusted his headset, which had come loose. “Talk to me, Linda.”

“The two who just fired are taking cover positions at the mess hall door and you’ve got a half dozen more coming up from behind.”

“Eddie, watch our back.”

Juan ran across the hall to one of the cabins. The door was locked, and there hadn’t been enough time for the Somalis to force it open and strip the cabin bare. Juan rammed a master key into the handle and threw the door open. The cabin was supposed to be for the ship’s chief engineer, so it was smaller than the captain’s cabin Eddie had used earlier. The furniture was still cheap to maintain the ruse that the Oregon was little more than a scow, and the décor consisted of Spanish bullfighting posters and models of sailing ships in bottles. He strode through the cabin and into the small head. Above the porcelain sink was a mirror affixed to the bulkhead with glue. He jabbed the barrel of his AK into the glass and smashed it to fragments. He plucked one the size of a playing card off the linoleum floor and raced out of the room.

He edged up to the corner again and eased the fragment of mirror out into the hallway so he could see the two gunmen. They were crouched at the mess door as Linda had said, one hunched down and the other standing over him. Both had their weapons trained on the corner, but in the uneven light couldn’t see the mirror.

As slowly as a cobra lulling its prey, Cabrillo inched the barrel of his assault rifle around the corner, so only a tiny bit was showing.

Some call it the sixth sense—the body’s ability to know its position relative to its surroundings, its orientation in space. Cabrillo’s sixth sense was so honed that even looking at a mirror reflection, crouched on the floor, and with six terrorists gu

The stream of bullets smashed into the wall next to the mess hall door and ricocheted off with enough force to impact the door and slam it into the protruding barrels of the pirates’ guns. Cabrillo was moving even as the door was swinging closed, using his fusillade as cover fire. The pirates made no attempt to withdraw their weapons or open the door with rounds pounding it from the outside, which allowed Juan enough time to reach it without being seen. He jammed the barrel of his gun into the crack between the door and frame and fired off another burst at point-blank range. Blood sizzled on the hot barrel when he pulled his weapon clear. He looked through the opening and saw both gunmen were down, their bodies riddled with bullet holes.

He waved to his men, and they charged after him, Linc nearly lifting the Somali warlord off his feet to keep him moving.

“They’re coming,” Linda warned.

Juan knew she meant the six tangos she’d mentioned earlier. He dropped the magazine from the AK’s receiver and slapped home a fresh one. There was a round still in the chamber—no matter how hot things got in combat, Cabrillo knew to never let his gun empty completely—so he didn’t need to cock it. As soon as he saw the flicker of shadow moving around the corner they had just used for cover, he opened up, firing past his men in a desperate bid to buy them the time they needed to reach cover.

The sound was deafening in the enclosed space, and the combination of smoke pumping through the ventilators and the pall left from so much gunfire made it impossible to breathe or see that well.

A blast of light from the end of the hall was a burst of return fire. Eddie Seng went sprawling, as if suddenly shoved from behind. Unable to stop his fall with his hands, he crashed to the deck and slid into the Chairman. One-handed, Juan grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into the mess, all the while firing with his left.

Didi continued to struggle in Linc’s powerful grip as he was manhandled into the mess hall. All the furniture was gone, and, unbelievably, a pair of men was wrestling the stove out the kitchen door despite the gun battle raging just outside. When the pair realized the men who had rushed into the room weren’t their friends, they dropped their burden and reached for the weapons they’d left lying across the burners.

Juan fired fast and from the hip but still managed amazing accuracy. Both men’s chests erupted in a gush of blood and torn meat.

A secret door seamlessly built into a bulkhead clicked open. Linda had been watching them with the hidden camera and had men standing by to help. A pair of operatives rushed into the room, and ten seconds later Mohammad Didi had FlexiCuffs around his wrists. They hustled him back through the door and closed it behind them. Eddie was groaning and trying to get to his feet. Juan gently lifted him up and helped him through the door. Once through, Juan fell back on the wall with his hands on his knees, dripping water onto the plush carpet. It took him a moment to catch his breath.