The Nigerian Princess completed its 160-degree turn, and the ship in the distance appeared inside the Barrett’s sniper scope. Afua adjusted the zoom on the scope and focused on the inbound vessel. He saw a large open fishing boat headed towards them. From the factory, it had not been built for speed; however, it had been altered. Afua saw two large black outboard engines on its stern. There were six men in the boat. One was driving the boat, using a large chrome steering wheel positioned in the middle of the vessel. The boat jumped across the wake left by the Nigerian Princess. Each man brandished some type of assault rifle, but Afua didn’t pay any attention to them.
His main concern was focused on the man resting the backend of a missile launcher on his shoulder. He was located on the bow. Afua didn’t know what type of missile, rocket or grenade launcher it was, but he didn’t intend to find out. At this moment, no one in the pirate boat was attempting to open fire on the Nigerian Princess. The yacht was still out of their range. He was confident this vessel did not represent the Coast Guard of any nation. These men were dressed in wet ripped clothing, and they looked hungry. They looked desperate, and Afua knew the look. He had indoctrinated many men into the Boko Haram that wore just this type of look. Men such as these had very little to lose, but instead they had everything to gain. They were the perfect type of man to join any gang offering a better life than the one they currently were living.
Afua adjusted his scope again, clicking the zoom up a little higher, trying to get a look at the faces of the men approaching them. All the pirates were black. It
was difficult to make out specific features, but Afua thought they looked to be from Sierra Leone or maybe Liberia. Their dress was familiar to him, but they were simply too far away to match their clothing with their country. However, they weren’t too far away to engage them with the Barrett.
Using his right hand, Afua reached behind his back and signaled for Isaac to slow the Nigerian Princess. It was difficult shooting from a fast-moving ship bouncing off the waves. Contrarily, it was even harder shooting from a ship that was stopped and gently bobbing in the sea. From a ship’s deck, slow and steady was the best platform in which to shoot long distances. The sound of the engines faded, and Afua readjusted his scope. He refocused the crosshairs on the boat headed toward them at full speed. He wished the pirate boat would slow, because their boat was bouncing over the waves. The posture of the pirates had not changed significantly. As they closed within 700 meters, the barrels of their rifles began to lift into more threatening positions.
The man holding the shoulder-fired missile had moved the weapon into a ready state and started lining up the Nigerian Princess within its sights. As Afua zeroed in on the man with the most significant weapon, he realized that it was not a missile launcher. Instead, it appeared to be an RPG, which Afua knew stood for a rocket propelled grenade launcher. This was good news for Afua. Even if it was a Russian-made RPG-7, it only had an effective firing range of 200 meters. Its maximum firing range was 920 meters, but that wasn’t realistic on a boat in turbulent waters. In contrast to the RPG, Afua felt confident the pirates were closing in on the effective firing range of his Barrett.
The Nigerian Princess had slowed to four knots and was riding nicely on the sea. No more big bumps for Afua to contend with. He placed the crosshairs of the expensive scope on the man with the RPG one final time, adjusting the scope for windage and distance. He placed his finger on the trigger and gently squeezed off a round. The Barrett barked, and the gun slammed back into Afua’s shoulder. He had tried not to tense, and he thought he was prepared for the recoil. However, the Barrett kicked like a fat goat. The sound of water, waves and engine noise had been replaced with a high-piercing tone. Afua wished he would have thought to grab a pair of earplugs from the big trunk below. But, he had become accustomed to being temporarily deafened by gunfire. It was an occupational hazard.
The jihadi watched as the round drifted a little to the right and hit the shoulder of the pirate behind the man holding the RPG. The impact was catastrophic. Half the pirate’s shoulder broke loose. It flew into the ocean along with his AK-47. The pirate looked momentarily stunned as if he had been hit by a bolt of lightning, then he followed the trajectory of his shoulder overboard, disappearing. The other pirates looked confused by the strange incident, but they didn’t put two and two together. The noise the boat’s engines were making, in addition to the roiling waves threatened to toss any careless pirate into the drink. They must have surmised their mate simply lost his balance and fell overboard. Afua thought after the incident they increased their speed, but less weight often equated to increased speed.
The semi-automatic Barrett automatically racked another round into its chamber. In Afua’s skilled hands, the big weapon sat at the ready, waiting to throw another volley of steel downrange. Its 750-grain bullet traveled at 3000 feet per second. At the current distance between the boats, it took less than a second for the bullet to reach the pirates. Afua adjusted the scope a few degrees to the left, and he reacquired the man holding the RPG. The man known as Jesus, rested his finger gently against the trigger, adjusted his breathing, regulated his heart rate, and did his best to relax. He softly eased his finger onto the trigger. The Barrett boomed and bucked.
The bullet hit the business end of the launch tube, expanded, and had ripped the RPG out of the pirate’s hands. The weapon had flown over the top of the pirates’ heads and was now lost to the sea. It all happened in the blink of an eye. The pirate who had been holding the weapon confronted the rest of the men in the boat, holding out his hands. It appeared he was trying to show the men he was not holding the weapon. He fully understood they were now in range of the big yacht, and the only other targets left on their boat were soft squishy pirates who could offer very little resistance to .50 caliber rounds. The driver of the pirate boat got the message, and he quickly spun the wheel, and the pirate boat veered off.
Afua tracked the boat until he was sure they would not double back. Confident the pirates were headed for easier pickings, he removed his eye from the scope, released the Barrett and sat up on the deck. The wind felt nice against his dark skin. The sun was bright and hot, but the wind kept the heat at bay. He felt a sense of freedom he had never experienced. It was hard for him to put a finger on what was different. Afua, after the gunfight with the pilots, felt as if he were doing the right thing — like he was the good guy in a movie wearing the white hat. He was the hero that the children cheered for and woman thought was macho.
Isaac increased speed, and the Nigerian Princess lifted off the waves and crashed into new ones. The wind became violent — no longer a cooling breeze. Rather, it had become an adversary. He could feel the wind pressing against him, trying to force him backward. In that short amount of time, he realized that he was still the same old Afua — the guy wearing the black hat. There were no good or bad guys in his world. There were only people who survived, and those who would soon be dead.
The White House Oval Office — Washington, D.C
From his apartment on Q Street, it had taken Trevor Rodgers about fifteen minutes to drive to the White House. He hadn’t planned on visiting the White House this morning, but he had received a call that the president had called an impromptu meeting with the head of the CIA, NSA and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Of course, Rodgers would be representing the FBI. It was not uncommon for this group to meet. In fact, they did so quite often. What was uncommon was the sense of urgency for this meeting to convene if for no other reason that almost every minute of the president’s day or week for that matter was orchestrated ahead of time. Any deviation in her busy schedule meant someone would be let down. It could be something as simple as skipping a luncheon with the president of Tuvalu, rescheduling a roundtable of educators to discuss raising high school performance, postponing business leaders who wanted to discuss increasing American competitiveness, or having to send someone in her place to extend her appreciation to volunteers who had responded to tornadoes in Kansas. If POTUS had changed her schedule for this meeting, it must be of utmost importance.