“Like riding a bucking bronco,” Ritchie remarked.
“Whether the men on board resist or surrender, we’ve got to gain control of the bridge and stop this sucker before it reaches Ras Tanura.”
Mancini said, “I can do that.”
“Are we dropping in the water?” Davis asked.
“I won’t know until we get close.”
“And see what the bastards throw at us.”
“Basically, we’re going to improvise,” Crocker said. “What have we got to go in with?”
Mancini, always the finagler, had managed to smuggle aboard a couple of MP5 series submachine guns, a half-dozen nine-millimeter handguns, about a thousand rounds of nine-millimeter hollow-point, a few KA-BAR knives, a dozen frag grenades, waterproof weapons bags, and some waterproof utility pouches. All compliments of a friend of his in the military attaché’s office.
“No wet suits or fins?” Davis asked.
“The water’s warm. We’ll manage. Let’s find out what the Omanis have on this bird.”
The men held on as the copter banked left, then scrambled through the fuselage looking in the weapons bays for anything they could use, turning up four more submachine guns, a couple of grenade launchers, an inflatable raft, flares.
Crocker spotted the Saudi coast out the left window, a glowing yellow ribbon.
“Boss! Boss!” Akil shouted from near the cockpit. “Look!”
Pressing his face to the glass he saw a weathered-looking tanker approximately 350 feet in length. Orange-red hull with a matching red stack; white bridge. To anyone else it would have appeared to be an innocuous, smallish, rusting tanker puttering up the coast.
The men pressed their faces against the side window for a better look.
Crocker rushed to join Akil up front. “Tell the pilot to bring this baby right over the bridge.”
“Ten-four.”
A lot of arguing back and forth in Arabic. Crocker asked, “What’s the problem?”
“We’ve entered Saudi airspace. He’s waiting for permission.”
“Screw that. No time.”
The pilot was a stubborn-looking fellow with a big bald circle on the top of his head and fierce dark eyes. As Akil argued with him and the mustached copilot, the helicopter drew closer to the ship.
“Tell him we don’t have time for permission. We’ve got to act now to prevent a catastrophe.”
Akil: “I have.”
From approximately three hundred feet above and fifty feet to the side, Crocker made out men on the bridge waving up at the helicopter and pointing at the orange and black distress flag. A number of them wore black beards.
“What do you think?” Akil asked.
“They don’t look like sailors to me.”
“Me either.”
“Tell the pilot to take it closer.”
“He won’t.”
“Why not?”
“He’s waiting on orders.”
“Fuck the orders!”
Leaning past the back of the pilot’s seat, he grabbed the man’s shoulder and pointed. “Down! Down, man. Take it closer!”
“No!”
“Yes, goddammit. The ship’s headed for Ras Tanura. Do you know what that means?”
The pilot shouted something to the copilot, then steered the metal bird lower until they were about 150 feet over the bridge.
“Lower! Lower! You can do it. Go ahead!”
The pilot shook his head vigorously.
“Lower, my friend.”
“La!” (No!)
“Yalla! Yalla!” (Let’s go! Let’s go!)
“Akl laa!” (No way!)
“You see that ship? It’s going to hit the oil terminal if we don’t stop it. Big explosion. BANG! Your sultan will be pissed.”
“He can’t understand you, boss.”
“Translate.”
Akil did. “He says he’s the commander of this aircraft, and you’re insulting him.”
Pissed off, Crocker started squeezing through the space between the seats. “Move aside. I’ll fly this fucking thing myself!” He’d been trained, along with a handful of other ST-6 operators, to fly helicopters by the pilots of Special Operations Aviation Regiment TF-160, the best in the business.
The Omani pilot started to reach for a pistol on the console. Crocker slapped his forearm and the pistol hit the instrument panel, then clattered across the metal floor.
The pilot flew into a rage, shouting insults in Arabic, then steering the bird away from the ship. As Akil tried shouting over him, Crocker retrieved the MK23 .45-caliber automatic from the floor.
Another garbled voice came over the radio, a stream of excited Arabic that Crocker couldn’t begin to translate in the deafening clamor. Running out of options, he pointed the pistol at the pilot’s head.