SEAL Team Six Hunt the Scorpion(11)
“What’s that mean?”
“Unclear.”
“What’s the situation?”
“Two armed pirates, possibly three, claim to be holding hostages.”
“Have you spoken to the hostages?”
“No.”
“So you don’t know if they’re alive?”
“That’s correct.”
“Have you tried talking to the pirates?” Crocker asked Akil, who spoke both Arabic and Urdu, which is close to Persian.
“They only speak some local Somali dialect. Some of the words are similar. I understood enough to know they’re threatening to kill the captain and his wife and blow up the ship.”
“Where’s Cal?”
“He’s with one of the crew members on the deck above, looking for access through the ceiling.”
“Where?”
Akil pointed over his head. “The chart room, I believe, behind the wheelhouse, upstairs.”
“Okay.” Crocker turned to Ritchie.
“Boss, I can breach through this sucker if you want me to.”
“Can you do that without killing everyone inside?”
“Since I don’t know the position of the hostages, there’s no guarantee.”
“Alright, then, look…Check your watches. Give me five minutes. If you don’t hear me shoot off a couple of rounds, that means I’m going in through the ceiling. You guys create as much of a diversion as you can, starting now. Shout, pound on the door like you’re trying to break through.”
“Copy, boss.”
The bridge, one flight up, was hot and thick with smoke. He found Mancini, Cal, and a Filipino crew member in a little room behind the wheelhouse. Mancini was using a screwdriver to remove a metal panel in the wall.
“What you got?”
“Access, hopefully.”
When the panel was pulled aside, Crocker saw an opening to an aluminum vent that looked too small to squeeze through. Mancini quickly enlarged it, removing a metal flange, then carefully cutting around the vent with his knife to expose its full width, roughly four feet in diameter.
Crocker looked down at his Suunto watch. Four minutes exactly.
Mancini stuck his head inside and illuminated the space with a small flashlight.
The crewman whispered, “See where the vent makes a sharp turn? Right after that, the first opening should be directly above the dayroom.”
“That’s where they are?”
“The captain and pirates. Correct.”
Crocker tapped Cal on the shoulder and whispered, “Follow me.”
Navigating through the vent with their MP5s would be too awkward, so they took their handguns instead. Each man carried a smoke grenade and an extra magazine of ammo.
Crocker had to squeeze his shoulders together to get through. The bend at the bottom was tight, but after he twisted past, it was only five feet to a rectangular vent cover.
He stopped and pointed. Cal nodded.
The vent, which was approximately three and a half feet by one and a half, presented another challenge—namely, the noise they would create by trying to remove it.
He waited and listened, with Cal behind him. No discernible sound from the room below, just muffled pounding in the distance and the low hum of the ship’s engine.
Crocker indicated that he was going to cross to the other side of the vent and wanted Cal to position himself where he was now. Cal nodded. Assuming a catcher’s crouch, he turned sideways and reached his leg across. Then, lying on his stomach, he peered through the opening.
All he saw was a pair of bare feet that looked to belong to a woman, the legs of a chair, and a blood-covered shirt on the floor.
He took a series of deep breaths, knowing he had one chance to dislodge the metal vent opening before attracting the pirates’ attention and getting them all killed. Checking his watch and seeing that he was within ten seconds of his five-minute limit, he pulled himself up into a crouch, readied his pistol, signaled to Cal, then sprang sideways onto the aluminum vent. His weight immediately dislodged one side, causing his right leg and arm to slide through the ceiling. But his entire left side and torso were stuck. So he twisted his shoulder and reached with his right hand, grabbing the edge of the hanging vent cover with his fingers and pulling it free.
When it came away, he had nothing to hold on to and fell, hitting the floor awkwardly so that his right leg slipped out from under him. The impact stunned him.
He heard shouting and pulled himself up onto his right elbow. Saw the woman tied to the chair, another man bound and gagged, lying on a bed.
He wasn’t in the dayroom. It was the captain’s cabin.
Two pirates rushed through the door and charged. One of them held a machete.
Crocker didn’t have his weapon. It had dislodged from his hand and was pinned under his left shoulder. He turned to grab it, and as he did he looked directly up into the pirate’s face and saw the machete.