Sheibani heard the clatter and leapt the last steps to the B Deck landing, grabbing the handrail to slingshot around the landing and continue his plunge, feet hitting every third step. He was well out of the kill zone when the grenade detonated at limping Richards’s back.
His ears rang as he resumed his downward rush, thankful he’d delayed killing Richards. He’d planned to leave the American’s body on the bridge, his gambit of preparing two sets of escape equipment a ruse. But Allah had preserved the American as a shield. He pushed Richards from his mind. He had to get out of the stairwell. One more deck to go.
Santos hit the landing fast, slipping in Richards’s slimy remains and crashing to his knees. He tossed the grenade from his knees, banking it once again off the lower-landing bulkhead. “For Victor,” he invoked his brother-in-law’s name before ducking back. He covered his ears just as he heard the main-deck fire door open. Missed him, he thought, as he awaited the blast.
The main-deck fire door slammed behind Sheibani as he ran down the passageway and clamped hands over his ears just before the blast. After the blast, he straightened, training his gun on the fire door. “Come out, come out, my foolish friend,” he whispered.
The engineer threw open the fire door, then ducked back to the safety of the stairwell as bullets bit through the metal cladding of the door as it swung closed. Sheibani cursed himself for falling for the ruse and reflected. If the monkey had grenades left he would have tossed one, and if armed, he couldn’t fire without exposing himself. Sheibani watched the door and stripped off his armor one-handed, dumping it on the deck while backing toward the starboard door. Outside, he closed the heavy steel watertight door behind him, twisting the handle of a closing dog with a solid clunk as the door seated, then jamming all six dogs to delay pursuit. He grinned as he donned the scuba gear. The chopper still hovered to port, and the monkey trembled in the stairwell, no doubt pleased at slaying the idiot Richards. They would still be searching the ship when he was halfway ashore.
Santos slipped back up the stairs to retrieve the dead hijacker’s gun. When he returned to main-deck level, he heard a door slam and the dogs of a watertight door being engaged. He threw the fire door open for a look, darting his head out near the deck, where it wouldn’t be expected. Seeing no threat, he moved into the passageway, not to starboard after Sheibani but to port, to exit the house on the opposite side and circle astern, aft of the machinery casing. He moved deliberately, in no hurry now.
Sheibani laughed aloud as he hefted the sea scooter by its handles, its weight pressed against his thighs as he lugged it to the ship’s side. Five feet from the rail, his world went black.
The booby traps were Santos’s idea. Anderson had lifted each sea scooter as Santos used duct tape from the bosun’s shop to tape a grenade in the recess just in front of the propeller cowling. He left the grenade handle pointing downward, held against the deck by the weight of the unit, and then taped the grenade handle to the deck so it wouldn’t fly off and alert the terrorists when they lifted the units. Finally, he had pulled the pins.
Santos waited out of sight. He feared the booby traps would be seen and had pressed the hijackers hard down the stairwell to keep them distracted. If the remaining man did disarm the trap, Santos intended to charge forward as he splashed into the water and rain the remaining grenades down on him.
Santos flinched at the explosion and then raced past the blackened remains of the sea scooter to where Sheibani lay unmoving. His upper body was intact, shielded by the heavy body of the scooter, but both legs were severed above the knees. Bright arterial blood pumped from the stumps and puddled on the deck. Sheibani groaned.
Santos squatted, bringing his face close.
“Can you hear, you fatherless son of a whore?” Santos asked.
Sheibani nodded.
“Then know this is for the men you murdered today.” Santos spit in Sheibani’s face.
The Iranian looked up with a mocking grin as spittle ran down his cheek.
“And this,” Santos whispered, rising and unzipping, “is from their families. Do you think Allah will gather you into Paradise reeking of piss?”
Sheibani’s smile vanished as urine stung his eyes.
Santos sat in bloody coveralls, staring at the body, hugging his knees, and crying. Tears of mourning for his family, friends, and shipmates. Tears of release from terror. But mainly tears of relief that when the mothers and fathers and women and children of his shipmates mourned their men, they would know their men had been avenged, and that Benjamin Honesto Santos had not hidden like a frightened rabbit, waiting to testify.
The chopper hovered, its occupants staring down at the sobbing man. They had arrived in time to watch in shocked silence as the scene played out below them.
“Who the hell is that guy?” the pilot asked.
“I don’t know his name yet,” Broussard said, “but he’s my new best friend.”
“Amen to that,” Vega said.
Chapter Nineteen
Ward pulled into his parking spot. Traffic before daylight on a holiday had been almost nonexistent, but he knew that would change. If he didn’t get home ahead of the jam sure to follow the Fourth of July parade, his ass would be in a crack. He smiled as he got out and headed into the building; after twenty years of long hours and blown holidays, the “I’m busy saving the world” excuse no longer cut much ice with Dee Dee.
Brice had few details when he’d called earlier. He’d promised Ward an e-mail update as soon as he learned more. True to his word, Ward found an e-mail waiting. Christ. Twenty-four dead seamen. Four survivors. Two wounded. Ten dead bad guys, but no one to interrogate. None of it made sense. Ward picked up the phone.
“Jim Brice.”
“Jim. Jesse Ward.”
“I’ve been expecting your call,” Brice said. “It’s confusing as hell, isn’t it?”
“I’ll say. It looks like it was over before we got there,” Ward said.
“Essentially it was,” Brice said. “The bad guys murdered most of the crew, and the four survivors took out the bad guys with an able assist from our surveillance chopper.”
“Political fallout?”
“I think we dodged a bullet,” Brice said. “Captain Leary was masterful. He planted the seed with his Indonesian counterpart on the exercise that Jakarta was unlikely to throw bouquets to anyone who got them involved. Simultaneously, he got the Singaporeans to convince the Malaysians it would be a coup if they saved the day. When the Indonesian waffled about China Star’s position, the Malaysian promptly agreed she was in Malaysian waters and accepted Leary’s offer of choppers for a boarding party of Malaysian marines. Leary then arranged a tow to the anchorage off Jurong, where the Singaporeans will fend off the press and sequester survivors.”
Ward smiled. “Good for him. I guess he’s still in the running for an admiral’s star then. But tell me, how is it two explosive-laden boats blow up against a loaded tanker and only leave a dent and scratch the paint?”
“Only way we can figure,” Brice said, “is that the boats held shape charges directed back on the boats themselves, away from the ship. We’ll know more when forensics gets through with the pieces of the boats we salvaged.”
“Strange.”
“That’s not the half of it, Jesse. What I didn’t put in the report, because I just found out, was the composition of the assault team.”