End Game

He slung his gun over his shoulder and took hold of the rope, waiting for the point man before starting.

Sattari was about a third of the way down when his companion said something. The words were garbled in the wind; as Sattari glanced toward him to ask what he’d said, a gun barked from above.

Without consciously thinking about what he was doing, Sattari hooked his foot taut against the rope and swung up his gun. A muzzle flashed above him; he pushed the AK-47

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

toward the burst of light and fired. His bullets rattled sharply against the steel superstructure. Thrown off-kilter by the kick of the gun, the captain swung to his right and bounced against the fence. Before he could grab on and stabilize himself, he saw two shadows moving above and fired again. This time one went down, though whether because he was ducking or had been hit was impossible to say. The other shadow returned fire. Sattari squeezed the trigger of the AK-47 once, twice, several times, until its magazine was empty.

He let the rifle drop against its strap and skidded down the rope. The captain hit the water and bounced backward, rolling against a rock, half in, half out of the sea. Pushing forward, he willed himself in the direction of a boat floating nearby. Gunfire erupted from above. As he was about to dive into the water, he saw a shadow behind him on the rocks; it had to be one of his men. He twisted back, half hopping, half crawling, aiming to grab the man and drag him into the sea and safety. Bullets danced around him, but Sattari focused only on the black shadow that lay in front of him. He grabbed the man and pulled, growling as he did, a threatened bear cornered in an ambush. Pulling the soldier over his shoulder, he went back to the water, growling the whole time.

The steamy hiss of a rocket-launched grenade creased the air; a long, deep rattle followed. The water surged around him, pushing him down, but Sattari kept moving until hands reached out and grabbed him. The commando was lifted from his back, and Sattari was pulled into the raft. He pushed himself upright, looking around. They were the last boat to get away.

“Detonate the charges,” he told the coxswain when he saw his face.

“Now, Captain?”

“Now.”

END GAME

31

Aboard the Abner Read , off the coast of Somalia

2345

STARSHIP STEADIED THE WEREWOLF A MILE IN FRONT OF THE

small boat’s bow. The Abner Read was now less than two miles away, but the warship sat so low in the water that even if the smugglers had infrared glasses they probably didn’t know it was there.

“Werewolf, we’re about to radio them to stop,” said Eyes.

“Go ahead and turn on the searchlight.”

“Roger that,” said Starship.

The halogen beam under the Werewolf’s nose caught the bow of the little boat dead on. Starship looked at the image from the Werewolf’s video feed; he saw shadows in the cabin but couldn’t make out much else.

A warning was broadcast in English, Arabic, and French on all of the maritime radio cha

Called a SITT, or shipboard integrated tactical team, the specially trained team of sailors was heavily armed and well-versed in dealing with smugglers. Starship’s job was to get a good look at the boat so the boarding party would know what to expect. He would train his weapons on the smuggler’s craft. The boat was so small it was likely the Hellfire missiles or even his 30mm ca

So could the Abner Read—its forward deck gun was already zeroed in.

“I have nobody on the forward deck,” Starship reported.

“Uh-oh, here we go—two guys coming out to the stern. Going to the boxes.”

“Are those weapons?”

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Negative—looks like they’re trying to cut the crates loose. Want me to strafe them?”

“Unidentified ship has failed to acknowledge,” said Eyes, whose remarks were being recorded as evidence of the encounter. “Abner Read SITT team is en route. Werewolf, see if you can stop the smugglers from throwing the contraband overboard.”

“Roger that,” said Starship. He selected the aircraft’s 7.62 machine gun and sent a string of bullets into the rail of the small boat. He saw the people on the boat ducking as he flew past; wheeling the helicopter around, he steadied the nose to spray the stern again, using his weapon to keep them away from the back of the vessel.

A man emerged from the cabin. A second later the Werewolf’s flight control computer sounded a tone in his ear—the smuggler had fired a rocket-launched grenade at the small aircraft.

Starship jammed his throttle, ducking the grenade. Then he reached to the weapons panel, dialing up the Hellfire missiles.

“I have hostile fire,” he told Tac. “Permission to launch Hellfires?”

“Negative, negative,” said Eyes. “Don’t sink him.”

“I’m under fire,” Starship repeated. The men at the rear had gone back to the large crates.

“Do not sink that boat. We want the cargo intact.”

Stifling a curse, Starship keyed back to the light machine gun. As he nudged his stick forward, the man near the cabin picked up an automatic rifle and began firing. The tracers gave Starship something to zero in on as he pressed his own trigger. With the second burst, the man crumpled to the deck of the boat, sliding toward the low rail as it rocked in the water.

Starship returned his attention to the rear deck, where the two crewmen had succeeded in pulling one of the crates from its tie-downs and were shoving it over the side. As it went over, the entire boat began to tip as if it were going to END GAME

33

capsize. Starship continued northward and banked back around, dropping the small helicopter to ten feet over the waves. The men continued working on the crate. If he wanted the cargo, he would have to shoot them; warning shots would no longer do.

He got close enough to see the worried scowl on one of the men’s faces before he fired; the man fell limp on the deck as he passed over. Still, the other crewman refused to give up. He struggled with the chain that held the crate down as Starship zeroed in, finger dancing against the trigger. When the bullets caught him, they spun him in a macabre death dance, a large part of his skull flying off as if it had been a hat. The man danced off the side of the boat and disappeared.

“Defenses have been neutralized,” Starship said, taking the Werewolf back over the boat slowly. “I think the crew’s all dead. They got one of the crates over the side but I saved the other.”

“SITT is en route,” said Eyes.

A SPRAY OF WATER HIT STORM AS HE STEPPED OUT ONTO THE

flying bridge. The smuggler’s boat was two hundred yards away, off his starboard side; the SITT crew was aboard inspecting her. Storm’s communications gear could co

“Captain Gale to SITT—Terry, you there?”

“Here, Captain.”

“What do you have?”

“RPGs. Crate’s filled with grenades and launchers. Have some heavy machine guns in the hold.”

“Get it all on video. Make sure we have a good record.

Then get back here and we’ll sink it.”

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Aye aye, Captain.”