were still afloat.
Sure enough, a couple of them began wielding bailing buckets with one hand while resting their rifle muzzles on the thick side rails and aiming outward. None of them were aimed quite at her. Two guys in the bow must have lost their rifles overboard as they now held up handguns.
Though they were all facing in her general direction, at two hundred yards out in the pitch darkness, she was invisible. They didnât know where she was. She kept a special eye on the guy with the RPG launcher. Somehow heâd reloaded it and held on to it, despite what theyâd just been through.
Billy called something over the loud-hailer that she didnât understand. Then he followed in English, âLay down your arms. The U.S. Navy has been notified and a patrol boat is coming.â
The boatâs crew spun in shock to face the DAP Hawk hovering in the darkness to the south. Unlike the deceptiveness of the stealth-masked sounds, the loud-hailer was a point source of sound.
Sure enough, the pirates began firing blind into the darkness.
âFour away,â Maloney called out.
So close to simultaneously that it appeared to be in perfect unison, Roland and the DAP Hawk copilot, Guy Nelson, each unleashed a pair of the Hydra 70 rockets toward the boat. With a sharp sizzle of rocket motor as they zipped past the open sides of the Little Bird cockpit, the 2.75-inch rockets hammered down into the water on the sides of the boat.
Tall columns of water fountained upward to either side of the boat, sending another six inches of water aboard to add to what the crew had barely begun bailing.
Most of the guys were laying down their guns. But the leader with the RPG launcher was dumber than should be possible. He was rising again to take aim at the DAP.
***
Bill couldnât believe the guyâs audacity.
Of course, the pirate leader in the boat wouldnât truly understand the abilities of a DAP Hawk, but even he had to know it was a no-win scenario against a vastly superior force. He must feel such hate or fury at being stopped that heâd risk everything on the off chance of wreaking death on even one of his enemies before he died.
Bill could feel that anger. Every time he thought of his father and the Battle of Mogadishu, he felt it burn deeper. With each mile they had progressed south along the coast, he had become angrier. Serving up north in Puntland, he hadnât felt it so deeply. But with each mile toward the Mog, he could feel the force of it like a strike to⦠He almost smiled. To his solar plexus.
He stared at the image projected on his visor of the pirate leader bracing to steady his aim. He still had to be guessing, but he wasnât far off. An explosion would be very close to aboard even if it didnât hit them.
If it were up to Bill in this moment, heâd dump the chopperâs remaining thirty-six rockets and blow the whole boat to hell.
âOh, for crying out loud,â Lola Maloney cursed over the intercom. âKee.â
âReady.â
Bill glanced through his visor rather than at the projection inside it. Sergeant Kee Stevenson had pulled her weapon out of the steel case bolted to the bulkhead. Sheâd left her seat and attached a three-meter monkey-line tether from the D-ring on the front of her vest to the ceiling of the chopper so that she could move around the cabin without being thrown out.
He whistled to himself as she dropped into kneeling posture in the cargo bay door. A Heckler and Koch MSG90A1 with a night scope and flash suppressor. Heâd fired one when he did some training with the FBIâs Hostage Rescue Team, one of the sweetest guns heâd ever shot. And Kee Stevenson was carrying one around in the helicopter.
Bill glanced at Michael beside him, but he was wholly focused on Kee. One heartbeat. Two.
Then a small blink around the flash suppressor and a sharp crack.
Even with all his training, heâd have a hard time settling
Sure enough, a couple of them began wielding bailing buckets with one hand while resting their rifle muzzles on the thick side rails and aiming outward. None of them were aimed quite at her. Two guys in the bow must have lost their rifles overboard as they now held up handguns.
Though they were all facing in her general direction, at two hundred yards out in the pitch darkness, she was invisible. They didnât know where she was. She kept a special eye on the guy with the RPG launcher. Somehow heâd reloaded it and held on to it, despite what theyâd just been through.
Billy called something over the loud-hailer that she didnât understand. Then he followed in English, âLay down your arms. The U.S. Navy has been notified and a patrol boat is coming.â
The boatâs crew spun in shock to face the DAP Hawk hovering in the darkness to the south. Unlike the deceptiveness of the stealth-masked sounds, the loud-hailer was a point source of sound.
Sure enough, the pirates began firing blind into the darkness.
âFour away,â Maloney called out.
So close to simultaneously that it appeared to be in perfect unison, Roland and the DAP Hawk copilot, Guy Nelson, each unleashed a pair of the Hydra 70 rockets toward the boat. With a sharp sizzle of rocket motor as they zipped past the open sides of the Little Bird cockpit, the 2.75-inch rockets hammered down into the water on the sides of the boat.
Tall columns of water fountained upward to either side of the boat, sending another six inches of water aboard to add to what the crew had barely begun bailing.
Most of the guys were laying down their guns. But the leader with the RPG launcher was dumber than should be possible. He was rising again to take aim at the DAP.
***
Bill couldnât believe the guyâs audacity.
Of course, the pirate leader in the boat wouldnât truly understand the abilities of a DAP Hawk, but even he had to know it was a no-win scenario against a vastly superior force. He must feel such hate or fury at being stopped that heâd risk everything on the off chance of wreaking death on even one of his enemies before he died.
Bill could feel that anger. Every time he thought of his father and the Battle of Mogadishu, he felt it burn deeper. With each mile they had progressed south along the coast, he had become angrier. Serving up north in Puntland, he hadnât felt it so deeply. But with each mile toward the Mog, he could feel the force of it like a strike to⦠He almost smiled. To his solar plexus.
He stared at the image projected on his visor of the pirate leader bracing to steady his aim. He still had to be guessing, but he wasnât far off. An explosion would be very close to aboard even if it didnât hit them.
If it were up to Bill in this moment, heâd dump the chopperâs remaining thirty-six rockets and blow the whole boat to hell.
âOh, for crying out loud,â Lola Maloney cursed over the intercom. âKee.â
âReady.â
Bill glanced through his visor rather than at the projection inside it. Sergeant Kee Stevenson had pulled her weapon out of the steel case bolted to the bulkhead. Sheâd left her seat and attached a three-meter monkey-line tether from the D-ring on the front of her vest to the ceiling of the chopper so that she could move around the cabin without being thrown out.
He whistled to himself as she dropped into kneeling posture in the cargo bay door. A Heckler and Koch MSG90A1 with a night scope and flash suppressor. Heâd fired one when he did some training with the FBIâs Hostage Rescue Team, one of the sweetest guns heâd ever shot. And Kee Stevenson was carrying one around in the helicopter.
Bill glanced at Michael beside him, but he was wholly focused on Kee. One heartbeat. Two.
Then a small blink around the flash suppressor and a sharp crack.
Even with all his training, heâd have a hard time settling
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