“Yeah, perfectly safe,” she mumbled, closing her eyes and resting her temple on the back wall of the cabinet. She had to believe this would be over soon. Walter would do what the men wanted and they’d get whatever valuables they could find in the containers they could reach and open, then they’d go. Back to wherever they came from, letting her and the rest of the crew get on with their lives.
Right. That was how it would happen in a Hollywood movie, but this was real life. And with how things were going, she’d probably end up being taken hostage and forced to marry some African tribal chief.
Scott “Mustang” Webber glanced over at his SEAL team. Midas, Aleck, Pid, Jag, and Slate were completely focused on the paperwork in front of them. They’d been on a mission in Pakistan when they’d been notified of a change in plans. They were pulled from the desert and flown by helicopter to the USS Paul Hamilton, a guided-missile destroyer currently undergoing joint Naval operations in the Arabian Sea. There were several other vessels—the USS Lewis B. Puller, USS Firebolt, USCGC Wrangell, and the USCGC Maui—in the area as well. His team had arrived onboard and immediately been taken to a conference room, where the admiral onboard had brought them up to speed on their current mission.
Apparently, a medium-sized cargo ship had been boarded by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. The captain had put out a distress call saying he was currently being boarded by an unknown number of pirates and that he needed assistance ASAP. Since then, there had been no communication with the captain or the pirates.
The USS Paul Hamilton, along with the other ships, were headed that way, but as of right now, they had no information to work with.
Mustang remembered hearing about the Maersk Alabama incident, and how Navy SEAL snipers had taken out the pirates who’d hijacked the captain and forced him into one of the cargo ship’s lifeboats. Mustang and his team weren’t snipers, and frankly, he hated close-quarter rescues, such as on a lifeboat. He’d much prefer to have the run of the cargo ship itself. There were plenty of places to hide and take out the pirates one by one.
“What’s their heading?” Midas asked.
“Right now, they look like they’re on their scheduled course,” the admiral said. “Due west toward Djibouti. They’re supposed to turn northward and go through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and dock in Port Sudan.”
“That’s a pretty tricky strait to navigate,” Aleck observed.
“It is,” the admiral agreed.
“Do we have any idea what nationality the pirates are? Or what their plan is?” Pid asked.
“Unfortunately, not as of yet. We’ve been trying to reach them, to get someone to talk to us, but either their comms are down or we’re deliberately being ignored.”
“Shit,” Jag swore under his breath.
Mustang agreed. Without information, it was almost impossible to come up with a plan.
Almost.
“So, we’re going in blind?” Slate asked.
Mustang couldn’t help but smile. Slate was usually the first to volunteer for a dangerous mission. He always wanted to get the show on the road, so to speak.
“Unless we can get someone to talk to us…yes,” Mustang answered before the admiral could.
It was just lucky they were already in the area and could be taken off their previous mission. The team had been on a few cargo ships in the past and knew they were full of corridors and nooks and crannies. As much as he hated that the crew members onboard the Asaka Express were probably scared out of their minds, he was looking forward to the challenge of finding, and taking out, each and every pirate.
“Sorry to interrupt, Sir,” a lieutenant said as he stuck his head inside the door.
“What is it?” the admiral asked.
“We have communication from the Asaka Express.”
“Thank fuck,” Midas said.
“Can it be patched through?” the admiral asked.
“Yes, Sir. Just a moment.” The lieutenant disappeared from the doorway once more.
Mustang and his team waited impatiently for the connection to be made to the cargo ship. When the sophisticated radio in the middle of the table finally squawked, Mustang blinked in surprise at the voice on the other end.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
“Yes, ma’am, you’ve been connected. Please tell the admiral what you just told me.”
“Um…okay. I’m on the Asaka Express and there are pirates onboard. We need help.” The woman’s voice was shaking, she was obviously scared, but she was keeping her composure.
“This is Admiral Light, I’m in charge of the USS Paul Hamilton. We’re headed in your direction. What is your name?”
“El— Um…Rachel Walters.”
Mustang looked over at Jag, who raised an eyebrow at hearing her response. Most people didn’t stumble over their own name. Even in an extremely stressful situation like the one Ms. Walters had found herself in.
“And in what capacity do you work onboard?”
“My job? I’m the cook.”
It wasn’t unheard of to have females onboard the large cargo ships that constantly sailed through the waters in the Middle East, but it was still rare enough to be interesting.
“What can you tell us about the situation?” Admiral Light asked.
“Right, um, well, I can only tell you what I’ve heard. I—”
“What do you mean, you heard?” Mustang asked, interrupting her.
“Oh, uh…there’re more than just the admiral there?” she asked.
“Yes,” Mustang answered. “My SEAL team is here and we’re going to come help you, but we need as much information as you can give us before we do. How many pirates are onboard?”
“Here’s the thing,” Rachel said. “I haven’t actually seen any of them. They have pretty thick accents and it’s hard for me to understand them. Walter…er…Captain Conger told everyone onboard to hide, so that’s what I did. I’m in the galley…well, not the galley, but in one of the pantries nearby. I’ve got a radio, and one of the officers must’ve turned on a radio on the bridge, because it’s been broadcasting. I can hear everything that’s going on up there, but again, it’s hard to understand. I can’t see what’s happening.”
“How many crew are onboard?” Aleck asked.
“Twenty-two, including me,” Rachel answered without hesitation.
“What channel were you listening to the bridge on?” Pid asked.
“Ten.”
“And what channel are you on now?” Pid asked.
“Um…five, I think. I was just changing channels and seeing if anyone could hear me when you guys answered.”
Pid reached into his pack on the floor and started rummaging around. He was the team’s electronics expert, and Mustang knew he was going to try to tap into the radio frequency Rachel was using and listen to what was happening on the bridge of the Asaka Express himself.
“If you had to guess, how many men would you say boarded the ship?” the admiral asked.
Mustang heard Rachel sigh. “I don’t know,” she said. “We were all sleeping when it happened and woke when the captain made an announcement, telling us what was going on. But I think it’s more than just a handful. There was talk of searching the ship earlier, and I’m not sure they’d do that if they only had three or four people, but I’m not an expert on forcefully taking over a ship, so I don’t know for sure. They want money, and for the captain to open the containers. They said something about more men coming onboard when we got somewhere and that they didn’t want hostages.”