“You’re mine now, Zaman.”
“No, I’m not.” The voice came back in clear British-accented English. Under the circumstances it was eerily assured.
Adrenaline racing through him, Crocker took a step closer, as Zaman reached for whatever he had in his right fist.
The American heard a distinctive metallic click and stopped. Zaman had pulled the pin to a grenade, which he held to his chest. He smiled like the devil, without doubt or fear.
“We meet the Messenger together. Allahu Akbar.”
Fuck that!
With no time to think, Crocker sprung over the side and hit the water just as the grenade went off. He felt a piece of hot metal rip into the skin near his ankle and heard a muffled roar as he sank into the Gulf.
Even in the bitter smoke and tumult, his heart rejoiced.
Chapter Twenty-One
Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price.
– Sun Tzu
A part of him wanted him to stop. It kept telling Crocker that he could relax now that Abu Rasul Zaman was dead. Other people would deal with the ship. His body had taken a beating since he’d arrived in Muscat. He’d basically had the shit kicked out of him-having been punched, shot at, burned, shot up with painkillers, deprived of sleep. He needed a break.
But he continued moving automatically-tying the shredded wreck of the launch to the side of the Syrena, slinging the MP5 over his shoulder as he climbed the ladder.
The SEAL team leader half expected to be greeted by Saudi troops or U.S. Rangers, but instead stood alone on the deck, the sun starting to heat up behind him, bursts of automatic-weapon fire coming from the bridge.
I guess we’ll have to stop this bad boy ourselves.
Why not? He and his men were once again at the pointy end of the spear. They’d been trained to do the undoable. But the challenge they faced this time seemed unreal, given the size of the vessel, the fact that it was loaded with kerosene and rigged with explosives. Fire burning on the third deck, sent a plume of black smoke into the early-morning sky. No one had arrived to help.
Hadn’t anyone else taken notice? Were he and his men the only ones who appreciated the danger the ship presented? What had happened to the Omani helicopter? Where were the Saudi patrols, the satellite cameras, the billions spent in the United States, Great Britain, France, on security?
Turning and looking behind him, he saw the Ras Tanura oil-loading platform past the ship’s bow, no more than half a mile away. If the ship did manage to reach the platform and explode, the entire industrialized world would feel the repercussions. Gasoline and heating-oil prices would skyrocket, affecting businesses and economies. Presidents, prime ministers, and generals would pay attention then.
But where were they now? Sleeping? Making pronouncements? Sitting in meetings discussing policy?
He heard a whisper from near the bottom of the cabin structure. “Boss. Boss, over here.”
And recognized the voice. “Davis, is that you?”
“Fifteen feet in front of you. Ten o’clock.”
Shielding his eyes from the glare of the morning sun, he spotted a figure seated in the shadows, his back against the dirty white metal wall. It was Davis, cradling his MP5 and trying to look like he was okay. But when Crocker stepped closer, he saw the intense anguish in Davis’s blue eyes. A bullet had torn through his forearm and fractured his ulna. Davis had used his shirt as a tourniquet, which he’d tied just below his shoulder. His white undershirt was dark with blood.
“We’ve got to get you out of here,” Crocker said, before remembering that they had deployed without the rescue or contingency plan they were accustomed to spelling out in meticulous detail. They hadn’t even carried a first-aid kit or blowout patch to put over a big wound like this.
Davis said grimly, “Looks like you’re going up alone.”
There was no time to try to stop the ship via the engine room.
“Guess so,” Crocker answered, hearing gunfire coming from the other side of the superstructure and hoping it was a sign that Ritchie and Mancini were making progress.
He admired the younger Davis’s warrior spirit, and hated leaving him.
Davis grimaced and asked, “Hey, boss, was that man we saw really AZ?”
“He’s dead now,” Crocker answered.
“Good work.”
Crocker took the narrow metal steps two at a time, feeling the burden of responsibility to his men-all brave and willing to give their lives.
Volleys of automatic-weapon fire echoed through the stairway. Spotting a still body on the floor of the passageway of deck two, he gritted his teeth and prayed that it wasn’t Ritchie or Mancini. Taking a step closer, he saw a bearded face and expectant eyes-waiting for a dozen beautiful virgins, no doubt.
Acrid gray smoke poured out of a cabin behind the corpse. He heard someone calling out in Arabic from a higher deck.
Shielding his eyes, Crocker stepped inside the cabin and saw that it had been a lounge of some sort. A game console was in one corner, a small flat-screen TV on the far wall, a couple of old leather armchairs. There was also a box of nine-millimeter ammunition, shells scattered across the floor, and shards of glass everywhere.
All he could hear was the crackle of something burning inside, so he backed out quickly and hurried up to deck three.
The balcony there was a mess: pools of blood, part of an arm with a hand attached, flames shooting out of the cabins, walls blackened and pitted from an explosion.
The smoke blinded him and burned his throat. The metal under his feet was so hot that the soles of his boots started to melt.
Shielding his eyes with his arm, he was halfway up to deck four when he was deafened for a moment by an explosion. Then, without warning, someone running down the smoke-filled stairway crashed into him chest to chest, as had happened to him one of the few times he’d played rugby.
Crocker went down hard and quickly tried to pull himself up. Got partway when he blacked out, the wind knocked out of him.
He came to seconds later and reached for his weapon, which he couldn’t locate. His hands were seared by the hot metal.
Fuck!
He was getting to his feet unsteadily when the other man hurled himself on top of him. Had him in a headlock before Crocker could react.
The two men grappled in the narrow smoky stairway.
Impossible to see and difficult-painful, even-to breathe.
The man squeezed Crocker’s throat with one arm and reached for something with his other hand. A knife, most likely.
The American had no room to maneuver, and the metal through the back of his shirt was hot. His right arm pinned against the wall, his left grabbed the terrorist’s hair and twisted his head hard.
The man growled and swore in Arabic.
“Fuck you, too!”
He brought his knee up into the terrorist’s crotch. And again. And one more time, with vigor, until the bearded man groaned and loosened his lock on Crocker’s neck.
He pulled free. But a big intake of smoke-filled air clouded his head, and immediately the terrorist swung his right arm and Crocker felt a burning sensation travel along the top of his bicep.
Motherfucker!
The pain from the cut brought a tremendous surge of energy, which Crocker directed into his free left hand, which moved up the man’s chest to his beard. Grasping the mesh of whiskers, with all the force he could muster he shoved the man’s head back until it smashed into the wall of the stairway with the dull echo of a hammer.
The man struggled to raise his knife.
Crocker bashed his head into the metal wall one more time, harder. Then a third, until he heard the skull crack and the knife clatter down the metal stairs. He felt the fight drain out of him.