Tiger by the Tail by John Ringo, Ryan Sear Read Free Book Online Page B

fishing boat with twin outboards. “Any guess as to where it’s headed?”
    “It’s not very large—perhaps twenty to twenty-five feet long. It is moving at approximately forty miles per hour on a heading of zero one five degrees. Open ocean that way. Your guess is as good as mine.”
    “The Kildar will not be pleased that someone managed to escape the perimeter.” Vanner hit his transmit button. “Mal, this is . . . Simon . . .”
    * * *
    “—of course I want the cigarette brought around . . . no, Badger and I will handle this one personally . . . Roger that,” Mike said.
    Still tracking the various Keldara teams’ progress, Adams turned to find Mike wearing a shit-eating grin.
    “Feel like doing a bit of boating tonight?” the Kildar asked.
    The master chief raised an eyebrow in unspoken query.
    “Apparently some pirate with more guts than brains is trying to leave our op still breathing.”
    Adams’ other eyebrow raised as he slowly shook his head. “You were just dying for a chance to take that sucker out, weren’t you?”
    Mike shrugged. “I’m not going to deny it. I had been looking forward to seeing what the riceburners could do out here, but damned if we could find any. Ah well . . .”
    Five minutes later, Mike was at the helm of a ’97 38-foot Fountain Fever named Red Hot , with the rare twin Merc 525 SC engines and a new Hardin exhaust. He’d picked it up cheap through the same liquidator in the Philippines who’d supplied the trawler and the training freighter. After a thorough search to make sure there were no drugs hidden onboard, they had been using it as a pleasure craft on the typically glass-smooth ocean.
    Now he was cruising at sixty miles an hour through the clear but dark night while Adams navigated their intercept course. The FLIRs eliminated the issue of vision, other than adjusting to maintain a constant on the horizon. They had two Keldara aboard, Vil Mahona and Danes Devlich, both of whom had also gone along on the Florida op, and could handle the boat in a pinch. The only real problem was that Mike was motoring through waters that were charted, but not known to him personally. Running aground on a reef out here could be not just embarrassing, but fatal. The sharks here were both belligerent and numerous, the apex of a vicious food chain that wouldn’t mind chowing on humans if they got the chance.
    Mike had left cleanup of the island to the Keldara teams already ashore. He had also notified Vanner to get the yacht in gear and follow them. However, it wouldn’t arrive on scene for another hour at least, and they were going to catch up with the pirates well before then.
    At least the boat rode like a dream, slicing through the calm water and responding deftly to the wheel. After the pounding he’d taken on the Atlantic during the Florida mission, Mike had almost forgotten the sensation of running calm water with the wind in his hair.
    “Mal, this is Simon.”
    “Go, Simon.”
    “You are approximately seven hundred meters away from the target. We grabbed a UAV shot of the boat, and they have some interesting-looking cargo on board. These guys probably unassed with the really good stuff.”
    “Are you suggesting we should take them alive if possible?”
    “The thought had come up, especially if they can give us any information on where that box came from or how they got it.”
    “Works. Will let you know how it turns out.” Mike turned to Adams. “Our runners are trying to leave with something interesting. Try to take at least one alive.”
    “Roger that. They should be visible near the horizon due north,” Adams shouted.
    Even as he said that, Mike spotted movement on the horizon and opened up the throttle, making the cigarette boat surge forward.
    “Got ’em. I am a leaf on the wind . . .”
    “Wrong character, dude.”
    * * *
    Yeung Tony pounded the arm of his chair as he watched his island hideout shrink toward the horizon behind him. Everything gone, all in a