With both hands clasped around the Browning, Morgan fired a succession of rounds that struck the captain in the chest and continued up to his head until he sank from sight.
"Cover these bastards!" Morgan yelled to the security team. Then he sprinted across the deck and catapulted his powerful frame up a rickety wooden ladder that led to the wheelhouse. Stunned, the XO and his translator had finally reacted. They’d dived to opposite sides of the wheelhouse, clear of Morgan’s firing line, and were now huddled over the captain’s torn and twisted body.
"You two OK?"
"Yeah and thanks," Randle answered. "Couple of inches to the left and he would have had me." He gestured to a shattered portion of a beam.
"Is he dead?" asked Lambert, her voice shaky.
"Yep. He’s dead," Morgan replied, kicking the captain’s gun away and casting a professional eye over the body at his feet. "Next time," he added, "don’t turn your back on anybody who’s not wearing the same uniform as you. Now let’s see what they’re carrying and get off this heap of shit before the bloody storm sinks us."
"XO!" came a yell from the sweep team below decks. "You should get down here."
Seconds later, Morgan and the XO were leaning over a large crate, inspecting its contents.
"Bugger me!" exclaimed Randle.
Deep within the ice, buried beneath layers of sharks’ fins, were weapons. They were mostly ex-Soviet Bloc: Kalashnikov AKMs and RPKs. Two of the sweep team sailors were holding up a couple of the assault rifles for Morgan to see, while another continued to scrape aside more ice and fins.
"Aren’t they Russian, sir?" It was Lambert. She was standing very close to Morgan, having decided it was the safest place to be.
"That’s right," Morgan replied. "We’re obviously going to find a lot more in the rest of these crates. Great work guys, but tread carefully. We don’t want any—"
"Ah … boss? You may want to check this out," called one of the clearance divers. Turning around, Morgan saw that the ordnance expert had stopped his elbow-deep exploration of one of the crates packed well forward in the darkest recesses of the cargo hold.
Morgan joined him and, carefully brushing aside more ice, saw that the crate contained an indeterminate number of 85mm High Explosive Anti-Tank projectiles of the type fired from an RPG-7 grenade launcher. The munitions were stacked haphazardly, like toys in a toy box, wrapped in nothing more than greaseproof paper.
"Christ!" Morgan hissed, straightening his shoulders. "OK, Mr. Randle, I suggest that we get everyone off this vessel and back onboard theAlbany immediately."
"Aye, sir!"
"And can someone hand me a radio?" asked Morgan. "I need to talk to your skipper."
CHAPTER 4
MALFAJIRI
The stench of rotting meat permeated the air with an intensity that would make any normal person gag. But there weren’t any normal people within 1000 miles of this shithole. Victor Lundt hated the smell of the place. Even referring to it as a shithole was generous. He was sure that the troops pissed and crapped wherever they felt like it – inside or out.
In the depths of the long house, somewhere to the rear and downstairs, he could hear the muffled cries of a man in pain. He stopped his shuffling and listened more intently, mouth open and eyes closed. There it was again. A series of dull thuds followed immediately by a strained, exhausted scream for mercy. Overzealous, Lundt thought with disdain. When subjected to torture there was always that point when death seemed preferable to living with the physical and psychological injuries of sustained brutality. Knowing how far to push was what separated the professional from the amateur. Then, checking his watch, Lundt realized that he’d been made to wait for twenty minutes. Standing around in the foyer of the old house like a schoolboy summoned to the headmaster.Another third-world wannabe, he scoffed mentally. Patience, man, patience.
He strolled outside onto the worn and splintered boards of the sagging verandah and took the last drags from yet another cigarette. There were rebel soldiers everywhere. They were lounging around the compound, leaning against Jeeps, or finding refuge under the shade of trees, while off in the distance, others moved in packs, creeping around the buildings of the surrounding village. There was no discipline among them other than that instilled by fear. Cruelty and an absolute lack of humanity was what made this rebel army move as one.
A couple of women, prostitutes from the local village, lazed across each other at the far end of the verandah. They were exhausted, sweating profusely, their tattered dresses barely covering them. Rough night, he thought. Lundt flicked the still burning cigarette contemptuously in their direction, gulping air in an attempt to fill his lungs. A faded denim shirt clung to his chest, stained salt rings of perspiration looped around the armpits and collar. The dry red dirt, so much the signature of Malfajiri, filtered through his uncharacteristically bushy dark hair and stubble. Bored and moderately annoyed, he reached high above his head, stretching his tall, lean body upward until his heels left the floor and his fingertips touched the roof of the verandah. He let out a long, low groan as he released the tension of the stretch and then, lazily returning his hands to the pockets of his cargo pants, kicked at the exposed, twisted head of a rusty nail. His eyes naturally found their way along the street to the ruin a couple of hundred yards away where he’d found Collins just a week or so ago. Those stupid bastards at SIS would think twice about interfering again, once they discovered their boy was dead. He let out a deep, remorseless sigh. Collins had known the risks of the game; at least, he should have. Lundt spat a remnant of tobacco upon the creaking boards at his feet. It was always the fucking ex-soldiers who came in draped in all the syrup of the union -bloody-Jack, chests full of patriotism, doing everything short of singing ‘Rule Britannia’ as they marched into Vauxhall Cross for the first time. Truth be told, there’d been a time when Lundt had been like that himself. Although those days were long gone. Yeah, he thought again, Collins had known the risks. It was just too bad.