At two hundred yards Ricks looked through the thermal scope of his rifle, scanning the aft decks. While he did so he spoke into his headset, yelling over the noise of the engine behind him. “Bravo actual, Alpha actual! Two mikes!”
In his headset he heard Special Warfare Operator (One) Marty “Bones” Hackworth reply from up in an MH-60S flying over the cargo ship, his own transmission delivered in a yell. “Roger that, Chief! We’re prepping ropes now!”
And then Ricks heard the man next to him in the boat, speaking with a noticeable Dutch accent. “They know we’re coming, Chief.”
Ricks knew Hendriks was right, and he knew this was a problem, but he just said, “Well, let’s hope they’re cool about it.”
Hendriks replied, “I still don’t see why we didn’t just board covertly, take advantage of total surprise. Hell, we’ve been telling them we’re on the way for the past four hours.”
Ricks did not take his eye out of his thermal scope. “Rules and shit, Hendriks. We had to give them an opportunity to let us board.”
“We’re giving them an opportunity to shoot back.”
Ricks wasn’t going to argue. Hendriks liked to bitch, and normally that was okay, because if rounds did fly, Chief Ricks knew the big Dutchman with the heart of a lion would do more than his share. Ricks let him mumble and grumble a little, because it didn’t affect his job, and sometimes it was pretty damn funny.
But not now. “Stow it, Hendriks.”
“Yes, Chief.”
A special warfare operator called Greaser sat in the rear next to the Navy ensign steering the RIB. Greaser was a breaching specialist, but his job right now was to deploy the telescopic carbon-fiber “hook on pole,” from which hung a Fibrelight II assault ladder, a double-rung polyester ladder reinforced with carbon-fiber poles that could take the weight of three operators laden for combat simultaneously.
Greaser extended the pole to six meters in length, just high enough to reach the railing at the stern of the Emerald Endeavor, and he lifted it, along with the ladder attached to it, and waited for the RIB to get into position.
The Zodiac closed the last fifty yards quickly, then came along on the starboard side at the rear of the cargo ship. Greaser attached the pole hook to the railing high above, then looked down at a small computer monitor at the pole’s base. It showed the view from the tiny fish-eye camera at the top of the hook, and through it he could see no one on the deck aft of the superstructure who might cause trouble for the men climbing the Fibrelight.
“Hook on and secure!”
“Go!” shouted Ricks, and one by one the eight men of Alpha squad began climbing the twenty feet up to the deck.
Parnell was first, then Elizondo and Jones. When they were up and over the railing they covered for the next three; Takenaka, Chief Ricks, and Hendriks. Finally Stovall and then Greaser brought up the rear.
Parnell fortified the pole hook with a carabineer locking system that kept it in place, the RIB below spun away and shot back into the darkness, and the eight men broke into their two fire teams and split up, heading toward the two staircases of the superstructure. Ricks led three men to the port side, and Takenaka led three more to the starboard stairs.
Eighty yards forward of their position, four fast ropes slapped onto the deck and black-clad operators with skull-face balaclavas began sliding down to the Emerald Endeavor.
“Chief, I’ve got movement.”
Ricks dropped to a knee on the metal landing between the main deck and the second deck, and he scanned forward, looking for any indication of the movement Greaser called out. Just fifty feet ahead of him, two men stood at the railing, looking forward at the bow. He could only see their backs at first, and he observed them as they watched the helicopter lift high into the air and peel away.
Ricks knew these men had overwatch on the SEALs of Bravo squad as they came up the main deck toward the superstructure. He needed to be certain neither man was armed.
One of the men turned a little to the side as he lifted his Kalashnikov rifle. Its stock was folded closed, but Ricks could see a magazine in the weapon. The man pointed it toward the deck in front of him, and held it away from his body awkwardly.
In the span of two heartbeats Chief Ricks knew the man was no soldier, and he was unsure of what he was doing, but he was a threat to the men on the deck below nonetheless.
Ricks thumbed off the safety of his M4 and fired two lightning-quick semiautomatic rounds. Both struck the man in the back of his head. Through his thermal Ricks saw the black-hot signature of exploding brain matter, and then the silhouette dropped to the deck.
The second man in his scope did not appear to be armed, but Ricks saw the AK had fallen right in front of him. The man looked down to it, and the moment he did so a short burst of suppressed fire came from the chief’s right.
Greaser dropped the man within the weapon’s reach with a trio of bullets into the back, center mass, and a second later the four-man fire team once again began climbing the stairs.
A minute later Ricks, Greaser, and Jones were in the dark but expansive bridge of the Emerald Endeavor. Elizondo was outside with Alpha’s other fire team, they had detained eight men who all appeared to be Malaysian or perhaps Indonesian, and they were in the process of zip-tying their wrists and arms behind their backs.
Bravo team was belowdecks now, ferreting out crew members and securing them with ties.
But Chief Ricks and the two men with him still had work to do. In front of them were two senior crewmen — again, Ricks thought they might be Filipino or Malaysian — and one North Korean captain. The two crewmen were compliant, they stood with their back to the helm and their hands high, but the gray-haired captain was shouting wildly and swinging a rigging knife with a four-inch blade back and forth, waving it at the armed men in the skull masks in front of him.
Ricks had given the order to hold fire unless absolutely necessary. He knew they needed the captain’s help to quickly inspect the cargo. Using the few Korean words he had learned he said, “Nuo!”—Lie down! — over and over, holding his carbine at the ready with one hand while making a downward gesture with his gloved left hand.
Ricks’s attempt at breaching the vast cultural divide here on the bridge was getting nowhere. Out of desperation he pulled down his mask, smiled and said, “Anneyong”—Hello — because it was just about the only nice thing he’d learned to say in the language. Still, he kept the muzzle of his Colt M4 directed at the man’s chest.
The captain continued swinging the knife around, and his panic remained.
“Nuo,” Ricks said again, imploring the man to lie down, but he could see it in the man’s eyes. He wasn’t going to lie down. He was psyching himself up for something.
Ricks kept his calm countenance going, but into his mike he said, “He takes two steps our way and we drop him.”
“Roger that,” came the call back from Greaser and Jones.
The captain took two steps, but backward, not forward, then he brought the rigging knife over his throat.
Ricks shouted, “Aniyo! Aniyo!” No! No!
The little gray-haired man screamed, then dragged the shiny blade across his throat. Blood appeared instantly, along with the gurgling sound of the breach of his airway.
Ricks watched in fascinated horror as the captain finished his deep cut, then he seemed to look down at the spurting blood coming from him.
“Fuck!” shouted Greaser, just behind Ricks, and he started to move forward.