Pirate Alley: A Novel by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online Page B

saw the jet, Penney realized it wasn’t going for the skiff nearest the ship, but one half a mile away.
    He watched, mesmerized. The fighter came plunging down like a hawk.
    The F/A-18 Hornet dipped low, perhaps a thousand feet, and began its pullout. The pirate boat disappeared in a cloud of sea spray as the audible buzz from the jet’s cannon reached him, seconds late.
    “There’s a fighter over here, too,” someone called. “Hammered a boat.”
    What would the skiff right by the ship do?
    “Stick it to those balmy bastards,” another man yelled.
    *   *   *
    Mustafa al-Said was so intent on getting more RPGs into the Sultan ’s bridge that he didn’t see the jet fighters at first. One of his men pointed … then he saw them. Saw one of the boats disappear under a hail of cannon shells. The jet was pulling out, climbing and turning for another pass.
    Mustafa spun the wheel. The fighter pilot might not take the chance of shooting so close to the ship. Mustafa expertly brought his skiff to within ten feet of the speeding cruise ship. The sea between ship and boat was a river of foam.
    The RPG man fired another grenade right into the bridge wing.
    *   *   *
    The explosion of the grenade smashed into the officers and sailors huddled on the deck of the bridge. The concussion momentarily stunned Arch Penney. He found himself sprawled on the deck. Blood. Everything was covered with a fine spray of blood. He looked around. Smoke … carnage … a severed arm lay nearby on the deck. Bodies all over. Harry Zopp was coming around, bleeding from the head. He met his gaze.
    “Bloody hell,” said Arch Penney. He crawled to the engine controls and moved the handles to ALL STOP .
    *   *   *
    “Strike, Sea Wolf One Oh Five. The cruise ship seems to be slowing. There is a pirate skiff alongside.”
    “Can you attack it?”
    “Too close to the ship.”
    But one boat wasn’t. Gerhart steadied up, checked his dive angle and pulled the pipper onto the boat. Closing … now! The radar altimeter deedled, he squeezed the trigger, the gun vibrated, then he was pulling.
    He glanced back. Spray obscured the skiff. As it exited the cloud of water, he could see that the boat was losing way, that people were jumping into the sea.
    The screws of the Sultan were no longer churning the ocean into foam. She was obviously decelerating. A pirate boat was alongside.
    Dieter Gerhart turned back for a closer look.
    “Gear, the bastards are climbing aboard.” That was Tom.
    Gerhart got a glimpse of men going up the ropes hand over hand, assault rifles on slings on their backs.
    Shit!
    They had lost. The pirates were aboard! Two more boats were closing from astern. By the time the fighters got into shooting position, those two boats would be too close to the ship.
    There wasn’t a damn thing two fighter jocks could do about it.
    “Join on me, Tom. We’ll make a low pass, then go home.”
    That is what they did. The two jets went over the Sultan just above the top of the radar mast at three hundred knots. Dieter Gerhart got a good look at two men climbing a rope up the ship’s side. He turned to the northeast, began climbing, and keyed his radio.
    *   *   *
    As he listened to Sea Wolf lead’s report, Admiral Toad Tarkington smote his thigh.
    “Send a Flash message to Washington,” he ordered curtly. “Pirates just captured a cruise ship.”

 
    CHAPTER THREE
    Admiral Toad Tarkington stared at the flat-screen display. The destroyer, Richard Ward, was about an hour away from Sultan of the Seas. His flagship, Chosin Reservoir, an amphibious assault ship with the majority of a Marine Expeditionary Unit, an MEU, embarked, was two hours away. The ship was at flight quarters; the helicopters were being readied.
    But for what?
    The MEU, with 2,200 marines, was a fast reaction force that carried its own logistics. It had choppers, landing craft, artillery and armor, plus the ammo and food to sustain itself anywhere it was