They had trained to kill but had never actually seen any action.
With the agreed time for the attack just minutes away, their mood was tense. They had agreed to make their move at five the following morning, when, they reasoned, the guards were most likely to be vulnerable as the ones off duty would all be asleep and the one on duty would be off his guard, possibly even dozing through the tedious early morning hours.
Dressed in tight fitting dark combat suits and armed with silenced semi-automatic handguns, they nodded understanding and slipped silently into the corridor.
Chang, the eldest, had always assumed command, a position accepted without question by his cousin. Chang allocated Sing with what he reasoned would the easiest kilclass="underline" the single guard, who usually rested on a stool outside the internal watertight access door to the ships hold and the cargo.
“They’ve given up wearing their body armour because of the heat and with any luck he’ll be dozing so no challenge. Just shoot him twice in the chest. No trying for fancy shots to the head, OK?” he reminded him with a serious shake of his finger, knowing full well his cousin’s excellent shooting skill and his desire to prove it. “Sure kill, remember! Two deliberate shots into the big chest target!” he repeated.
Sing smiled weakly.
“OK cousin, I’ve got the message.” He was clearly nervous.
“Should be a piece of cake,” he had tried to assure the sceptical Sing.
Chang, in anticipation of his own task — that of silently entering the off duty guards’ cabin and getting off three shots into the hopefully sleeping forms — was also shaking inside from the tension.
The young Syndicate director awoke; he had no idea of the time but feeling much better after two days of continuous seasickness, he realised that he was actually hungry! He dressed, wandered onto the corridor and set out to find the galley, eager to put something back into his rumbling stomach.
For some reason he automatically slung his shoulder holster casually around his neck.
“Do not go anywhere without it!” had been the leader’s chilling instructions. He went down a short stairwell and found himself facing one of the guards sitting on a stool outside the watertight hold access. He was sound asleep. His head was slumped forward on his chest.
“Poor bastard,” the young Syndicate man muttered and thinking ‘what a boring, almost futile, exercise out here on the ocean, to maintain a twenty-four hour guard, miles from any possible danger.’
He pulled his pistol from its holster and made a mock gesture of shooting the man. He was about to replace the gun and tiptoe silently back up the stairs when Sing appeared holding his silenced handgun.
Surprised by the unscheduled presence of the other man, Sing hesitated, his mind temporarily frozen and confused. Who was this armed man standing over the dozing guard? Was he a friend? His training had drummed home the importance of only killing valid targets. He did not pull the trigger. The Syndicate man on the other hand had no such scruples; he turned raised the gun and fired. Fortunately for Sing, he was quick but not very accurate, the shot ripping through Sing’s combat suit and opening a deep wound in his upper leg.
The man sleeping on the chair erupted into action. This time it was Sing’s turn to be lucky. Brought so dramatically back to consciousness, the first thing he saw was the Syndicate man standing gun in hand. In that vital second while the guard’s own mind worked out who’s who, Sing fired blindly as he hobbled back a few paces along the corridor and out of danger.
In the confusion, the guard tried to get to his feet just as the young Syndicate man dived for cover, crashing heavily into the guard and knocking him back against the steel door.
Sing stopped his retreat, took a deep breath then, pushing his weapon back around the corner, kept firing shots in the general direction of his targets until the magazine was exhausted. He quickly replaced the empty clip then, getting painfully down to floor level, cautiously slipped his head out and looked across at the scene.
Without any sign of life, the two men lay in a tangled heap where they had fallen. Sing was just getting to his feet when he heard the burst of firing from the crew quarters; he limped up to the bodies and prodded them with his weapon. They were both obviously dead. The Syndicate man with a massive wound to his chest; the guard with a ragged entry wound just below the eye.
Sing went cold at the sudden realisation that he had actually killed a man. The sound of another shot brought him to his senses. He turned and limped back towards stairs and the guards’ accommodation.
By now the whole ship was awake. Men were running and shouting. When Sing found Chang, he was kneeling on the deck nursing a wound in his arm.
“I think it’s broken,” he whispered.
When Chang had opened the door to the cabin, one of the guards was sitting up in his bunk, reading a girly magazine. At almost the same instant the sound of Sing’s battle echoed into the cabin. Chan fired from the hip; the slug passed through the magazine and entered the man’s chest cavity with a loud slapping sound. The man gasped and stared in shocked terror at Chan who turned away to shoot the other two men, apparently asleep in their bunks. But the streetwise guards had both reflexively rolled out of their bunks before Chan could get off an accurate shot. He fired blindly through the bunk at the nearest man. The other countered with a random shot as he vanished from sight. The shot smashed into his arm and Chan swung back in pain, withdrawing to the corridor. One of the guards slammed the steel door behind him; he distinctly heard the lock turn from the inside.
Standing up, he greeted Sing in a matter of fact tone.
“The shooting from your end alerted them a bit too soon I’m afraid but I got one for sure and definitely wounded another. The survivor or survivors they have locked themselves in the cabin now.”
He winced as Sing unintentionally nudged the broken arm while fitting a makeshift sling.
“Sorry it’s the best I can do for the moment.”
“It’s OK.” He swallowed as the pain intensified. “I want you watch the corridor because we’re going to have trouble with the captain and the other crew any minute now. Can you get my mobile out of my pocket? I have to call Alex and ask what we should do.”
Alex was on the bridge of the tug when he received the call. Chang explained what had happened and their urgent need of support. He knew that it would be only a matter of time before the hardened gunmen inside the cabin, the captain and the remaining Syndicate man attempted to regain the upper hand.
“Well done so far anyway Chang. It was always going to be a tough assignment. We are only about a half — a mile away now so we will be able to give you assistance quite soon. Hang on as best you can.”
Big J overheard the conversation.
“Looks as though we’ll have to send in the cavalry, eh?”
“Looks like.” Alex managed a smile. John and Lee were standing together at the wing-bridge, looking towards the cargo boat as the tug, with its superior speed, rapidly closed the distance between them. Both armed with knives, automatic pistols and stun grenades, they looked at each other, nodded understanding and headed down from the bridge and up to the pulpit, from where they expected to be able to transfer to the cargo vessel.
Now it was Big J’s turn; he picked up the VHF radio hand set.
“Cargo vessel flying Liberian flag. This is the dive vessel Deep Blue coming up to your stern. Do you read me? Over.”
They waited for about thirty seconds without any reply. “This is the dive vessel Deep Blue Are you receiving me?” Big J repeated.
The first streaks of dawn had illuminated the morning sky; up until then the tug had been sailing without its navigation lights as it crept up to the slower cargo vessel. Now only metres away, the tug slowed to match the other’s speed.