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

Jake retired, Toad went on to various assignments and had obviously impressed his superiors with his competence. Now he was a two-star admiral.
    Jake knew Toad had probably had a damn rough day in the Indian Ocean, and, if anything, tomorrow was going to be worse. Every politician from Washington to Doha, Beijing and Tokyo was going to tell Tarkington what he had done wrong. Being second-guessed went with the job. Jake forgot about Toad and began mulling the probable reaction of those same politicians after they stopped grousing and started thinking.
    He climbed from the bed and padded into the kitchen, where he fired off the coffeepot. Two in the morning, according to the clock in the microwave. As the coffee was brewing, he turned on the television.
    Within sixty seconds Fox News had it. News Flash . He flipped channels. Soon all the cable news networks were giving the story a big play. By the time the coffee was ready, one news channel was airing a photo of the ship, Sultan of the Seas, probably one the producer had just downloaded from the Internet.
    Callie came in wearing a robe over her pajamas, and together they watched the idiot tube as they sipped hot coffee. The news organizations didn’t have any more details, just the facts as announced by the Pentagon, so the talking heads began speculating. They wondered how much money the pirates would demand as ransom.
    A lot, Jake thought.
    “My God,” Callie whispered, “I’m glad we aren’t on that ship. And Amy isn’t.” Amy was their daughter.
    Jake finished his coffee. “Well, a lot of people are on that tub, and I guarantee you they all wish they weren’t.”
    He headed for the bathroom. Might as well shower, shave, get dressed and go to Langley. Before he went to the seven-thirty meeting he wanted to learn everything he could about the capture, read the follow-up message traffic, and talk to the people at the National Security Agency who monitored telephone and radio traffic in Somalia.
    In the shower, thinking about the crew and passengers on Sultan, he muttered, “Hang in there, people,” but no one heard him.
    *   *   *
    Mustafa al-Said had thirty-two men, three boatloads, aboard Sultan of the Seas . Their main defense against allied warships, airplanes and marines was the passengers and crew that they held captive. The civilians were hostages, pure and simple. If necessary, Mustafa knew he could shoot a handful every hour for a couple of days and still have plenty of people left alive to ransom. Of course, there was a risk. If he started shooting hostages, the enemy commander might decide to attack in order to rescue as many live hostages as possible. Mustafa certainly didn’t want to goad that infidel into pulling a big trigger.
    After leaving two men who could actually read a compass to keep a wary eye on the captain and his surviving officers, Mustafa went aft and began assigning topside positions to his men.
    Any attack, Mustafa thought, would probably come from the air. Helicopters would hover over the only open area topside, the pool area amidships, which was between the forward and aft superstructures. If attacking helos were allowed to machine-gun the top decks, clearing them of Somali fighters, then they could hover and marines could rappel to the deck. Mustafa was a realist; his men were pirates, not trained soldiers. The people they shot at didn’t shoot back. If more than a handful of marines got aboard, his men would be outfought, killed or captured.
    To keep attackers at bay he placed two machine guns forward, half-hidden inside the skin of the ship, with large windows to fire through. He had the men break out the glass. The third machine gun he placed aft, giving it the best possible field of fire. Men with RPG launchers were spotted inside the superstructure, out of sight of any helicopters that might approach, in position to step out and launch grenades when the choppers were in range and flying slowly.
    Finally, he sent below