General Mustafa wondered where the question was leading. “I’d hunt the beast down and behead him, filming his death live on a jihadi website.” The general took out a smartphone and showed Korfa the video of dead children being carried out of the ruins of a school in Yemen.
“Who has seen this?” Korfa asked, pointing at the video in the general’s palm.
“The world. It’s on Twitter, YouTube, everywhere…”
“Who is the man? Who is the genius behind luring America to attack a school?”
“A propaganda doctor, named Bahdoon,” the general said.
“Send him to Somaliland to meet the hostages,” Korfa said, turning his attention back to the soldier. He stepped past the general and eyed the soldier, saying, “The sniper who killed my brother… I will hunt him down, his friends, his family, his children, pets, cousins, professors, and kill them all. If the bastard is still alive, I’ll smoke him out of a tree stump like termites.”
With that, Korfa shoved the AQAP soldier outside. In the shock of daylight the field grunt turned around and became confused by Korfa’s rage. He gripped a pistol. But Korfa grabbed his hand, and clamped onto the firearm, removing it from his grip. Korfa tossed the pistol to one of his Somali guards, who now numbered a dozen. “Who do you work for? Somali government?… Kenya?”
“No, no. I work for General Adad in Syria.… Let go of my hand,” he said, as a stack of pamphlets slipped out of his tunic onto the ground. Korfa kicked the pamphlets aside and saw the dead, bearded, Jordanian terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi holding an assault rifle.
“You’re lying. You’re not al Qaeda, you’re the Caliphate ISIS. You’re here to recruit my people to Islamic jihad?” the warlord groused. General Mustafa and Korfa’s bodyguards formed a circle around the pirate chief and the ISIS spy as they faced off. “Muse, why didn’t you vet this scorpion? He will kill my people, plant his black Islamic flag in my land, then kill you,” Korfa said. He pulled out a pistol, snatched the soldier’s hand and, with eyes burning in hot embers, he clucked his tongue mimicking the sound of a gunshot. The spy flinched. Korfa pushed him to the ground, tearing open his tunic that revealed his bare chest. The spy wasn’t wearing a wire, but he did have a concealed dagger inside the waistband and a tattoo on his biceps of a “Z” made of rifles.
Korfa turned to the general, saying, “Vermin like him are not welcome in Somalia.” Then he shot the spy in the chest and listened to the air wheeze out of the man’s lungs. His last breath for life filled the air.
The pirate warlord stepped on the pamphlets of Zarqawi, grinding them in the dirt.
Chapter Thirteen
From the helicopter flight deck of the USS New York LPD-21—a San Antonio-class amphibious assault ship built with twenty-four tons of recycled steel from the wreckage of the World Trade Center towers that fell on 9/11—SEAL Commanding Officer Nick “Nico” Gregorius, a stocky Greek-American with thick black hair, checked equipment, weapons, supplies, diving gear, trimix gas tanks, rebreathers, and ammunition prior to loading on board the UH-60 Black Hawk.
The boatswain’s mate master-of-arms stood over the weapons cache confirming the inventory with a handheld scanner. He directed the crew to load the supplies into the cargo bay.
A landing signal officer, holding a pair of glowing batons in one hand, lifted the visor shield of his helmet and approached CO Gregorius. He showed him an instant message and pointed to the stairwell door behind him that went down into the ship’s storage area. The CO nodded and headed into the ship — that was the leading edge of the US Navy’s Assault Ready Group for mobile and rapid deployment missions in the littoral space.
The USS New York carried a crew of 365 sailors and 700 battle-ready marines from the Marine Expeditionary Unit. The ship was more than ready to combat pirates in a clash. Called to duty from the Persian Gulf after the Blå Himmel was seized, the USS New York picked up two SEAL platoons stationed at Point Alpha Base and cruised into the Gulf of Aden.
It launched one of two Predator drones to track, monitor, and survey the American-flag vessel Shining Sea.
The captain’s executive officer, or XO, greeted Nico Gregorius in the below deck hangar. He informed him that he was being led to sickbay. They meandered down a flight of stairs, through the mess hall, to the amidships medical office. The XO flashed his ID badge and took the SEAL inside the room that held the sunburned, fatigued sniper Peder Olsen.
CO Gregorius checked the snoring Norwegian’s med charts and EKG monitor. He turned to the XO. “What do you want me to do?”
“The order came from the top, commander,” said the XO, reading an IM on a tablet. “It states you’re to awaken the patient with whatever means necessary to learn what he saw.”
The CO gave the XO an are-you-fucking-kidding-me look, as he pried open one of Peder’s swollen eyelids. Under the puffy slit, he saw the pupil was dilated. “I need the coldest water you have on board this vessel. Cold, but not too clean.”
“We got some house gray water below deck,” the XO said and ordered it over the radio: “Send a mechanic to the desal filter room and bring up a cold, cold bucket to sickbay.”
“Gray water, clean enough for laundry, I like it,” the CO noted, checking Peder’s pulse.
Five minutes later, the construction mechanic arrived in navy blue coveralls carrying the bucket of water. Gregorius examined Peder’s sun-blistered face. He unhooked a monitor, raised the arm with the IV drip, and then tapped the mechanic’s elbow, prodding him to dump the water on the sniper. Cold water splashed all over Peder’s head and chest, pouring onto the bed, soaking the sheets and mattress, running and dripping onto the floor.
Jolted awake, Peder sprang up shaking his head. He came to, brushing the water off his lap. CO Gregorius put his hand on Peder’s soaked head, saying, “Norseman, you are on board the USS New York. You jumped off the Blue Heaven. Do you hear me, you blond puke?”
Peder managed to squint one eye open. He spat, pursed his lips, and mouthed, “Jaaa.”
The SEAL CO worked Peder on a line of questioning that established where he was when the pirates seized the supertanker; how they hijacked it trailing in the blind spot; how the AIS navigation system had been hacked; and how he suspected the pirates used the mothership as a decoy. Peder then admitted that he shot the lead pirate before jumping ship.
Chapter Fourteen
In the cocoon of silence beneath the surface of a large holding pen, Merk Toten curled his body into a ball, resting his knees on his chest. He felt his kneecaps touch his skin.
Expelling breaths through a snorkel, Merk feathered the water with the swim fins to keep neutral buoyancy. He watched the chalk-blue haze in front of him, sensing a dolphin spying on him. The unseen biologic system pulsed him with its sonar clicks. In a blink of an eye, the dolphin defined Merk’s shape, his heart rate, the density of his sinews and bones, the health of his organs, and the remaining air in his lungs. Unsure from which point the dolphin would attack, Merk panned the blue bowl — when the snout of the dolphin soared overhead.