Isaac looked up from the radar screen at a ship on the horizon that appeared to be closing on the Nigerian Princess. He motioned for Afua to follow him to the lower deck. The pair threaded their way down the narrow staircase, steadily descending one flight after another. When the stairs terminated, the only way to go deeper into the hull was via a hatch that led to a fixed ladder. Both men found themselves at the very bottom of the ship. Walking slowly with their heads ducked to avoid hitting them on the low ceiling, they made their way over to a large wooden trunk. Isaac lifted the lid and waited for Afua to see the cache of weapons within.
Afua glanced inside and was not surprised to see a large assortment of weapons. There were some handguns that looked like Glock 9mm wrapped in
lightly oiled rags — Afua counted six. Isaac reached in to retrieve two Glocks. He handed one to Afua and kept one for himself. Under the handguns were some matching 9-mm magazines already loaded. He handed Afua two magazines, keeping two for himself. Both men slid a magazine into a gun and racked the slides. They tucked the guns into their back waistbands.
To the right of the handguns were several automatic AK-47s. Isaac removed two of the AK-47s, in addition to four magazines. Next to the assault rifles was a large metal ammo box of 7.62 x 39-millimeter, 124-grain rounds. Isaac set the butt ends of the assault rifles on the ground and left them leaning against the trunk. Isaac carefully moved the remainder of the AK-47s out of the way. Under the assault rifles was a Barrett M107, semi-automatic, long-range sniper rifle.
As Afua lifted the massive rifle out of the trunk, Isaac asked him, “Do you know how to fire that?”
“Yes,” Afua responded with a smile. “I have the Barrett M99. They are similar, but the M99 is a single-shot rifle. This is a semi-automatic.”
“Are you any good with it?” Isaac asked.
“Yes,” was Afua’s confident answer.
“Let’s get this stuff up top and get the rest of the AK magazines loaded. There is a ship approaching us, and I don’t know what they want. But if they aren’t military, then they need to go away.”
Afua simply nodded. He started collecting as many guns, magazines and boxes of ammo as he could carry. Still keeping his head low, he turned and quickly started heading up toward the top deck. It took them two trips to collect all the hardware they required, yet they still had adequate time to prepare. Before Isaac had left the helm, he turned the Nigerian Princess away from the approaching vessel. He also increased the yacht’s speed and set the autopilot. That would buy them at least an extra ten minutes.
Five of those minutes were spent loading ammo into the magazines of the AK-47s. Isaac chastised himself for not doing this earlier, before the weapons were needed. But his wife was on board, and she needed attention as well. Excusing himself to go load a dozen magazines with tracer and armor-piercing rounds had been the last thing on his mind.
Both men sat on the elevated sundeck of the ship, and they diligently stuffed cartridge after cartridge into the spring-loaded magazine. Isaac’s fingers were beginning to hurt, but Afua was a regular magazine-loading machine. He had been loading AK-47 magazines for as long as he could remember. When he had begun with the Boko Haram, one of his main chores had been loading AK magazines. He had built up calluses on his hands, located in the specific areas where the
cartridge met skin. Over the years, his fingers had become very strong, like mechanical pliers.
By the time Isaac had loaded two magazines, Afua had loaded six. There were thirty rounds per magazine providing them a total of 240 shots. If they required any more than that, they might as well have brought hand grenades with them because they would be at war.
Isaac stood up and slung a fully loaded AK-47 over his shoulder. He checked that the gun in his back waistband was still in place and headed toward the ship’s wheelhouse.
Afua set his six magazines down by his AK-47, making sure everything was within arm’s reach. He removed a Schmidt & Bender 3-12 x50-mm sniper scope out of the box and attached it to the top rail of the Barrett. He wished he would have had a chance to dial in the scope before firing the weapon, but he was confident he could make the adjustments on the fly. Once the scope had been screwed on tightly to the Barrett’s top rail, he popped the magazine out of the gun and began to stuff .50 caliber rounds into it. The rounds were much larger than the AK-47 rounds, and the big Barret didn’t take many to fill its magazine. Afua noticed that there was not a spare magazine for the Barrett, which could potentially pose a problem, but that was OK. He could work with what he had. He didn’t expect a problem. If he could engage the boat at a distance, each problem could be eliminated with each pull of the trigger. Afua slipped the huge magazine into the huge gun, chambered a round, and set it down in front of him.
Confident that everything was good to go, Afua relocated a box of .50 caliber ammo closer to the Barrett, just in case he needed to quickly reload the magazine. Still sitting on the elevated sundeck of the Nigerian Princess, Afua popped open the bipod on the Barrett and set the back down on its stand in an upright position, pointing straight out over the bow of the ship. He then pulled the AK-47 in a little closer and touched each weapon, making sure he could transition from one gun to the other with little wasted motion. Satisfied with his setup, Afua positioned the spare AK ammo boxes even closer and made sure they were open and accessible.
If the shooting started, it would not end until either Afua and Isaac were dead, or those who were attacking had been beaten back. There would be no time to get additional guns or retrieve extra ammo from down below. This exchange would be quick and violent — perhaps less than a minute of fighting. Afua had a lot of experience fighting in these small ocean skirmishes. For a short duration,he had been a pirate. He had attacked luxury vessels, taking the owner and everyone aboard as hostages. He took their valuables, and sometimes their lives. It was strange to Afua to be the defender in this altercation. The cold reality of the
situation was if the Nigerian Princess was captured, his real mission would be over. He was pretty sure that would mean that his life would be terminated as well. His days of air-conditioned houses and bounties of food would swiftly come to an end. He would end up a man without a country, and that meant a man without the family he loved. Love’s a strong emotion, and Afua wondered if he understood what it meant. When his mother had been alive, she had always told him how much she loved him. But as Afua watched increasing numbers of Nigerians, tourists, businessmen, and children die for senseless reasons, parts of Afua’s heart had stopped working — at least the parts that allowed him to feel love.
The Nigerian Princess started to lean to the right as Isaac began to turn the yacht back toward the ship that was now actively pursuing them. Afua laid on his belly and squared himself up behind the large Barrett, allowing the butt of the gun to rest on his right shoulder. He scooched around a little until he felt that the gun and his body had been joined together — one weapon biological and one mechanically fused. Neither piece was dangerous without the other, but together, they were magnificently fatal. Afua reached up and racked a round into the Barrett’s chamber. The gun felt hot against his cheek. It felt powerfully terminal.