Hammet knew they had only minutes, if not seconds, and he hurriedly prodded the men out of the mess room. As the last man hustled by, he stepped onto the deck and closed the door behind him. They stood near the base of the high stern superstructure facing the starboard rail. The exec quickly led the crew forward and across the facing of the superstructure, each man hugging the wall to avoid detection from the bridge high above. Hammet turned and moved the other direction, heading for an aft passageway to the engine room.
The sound of automatic gunfire still ripped through the air, and as he reached the rear of the superstructure he could see a half dozen armed men at the stern rail firing toward the water. Ducking down, he sprinted across to a side doorway that opened to a stairwell. With his heart pounding, he rushed down the stairs, passing three decks, before exiting into a wide passageway. A door to the engine room stood just ahead, which he approached cautiously before opening it slowly. He was met by a gust of warm air and a deep mechanical rumble as he stepped inside and carefully peered around.
Hammet had hoped that the hijackers didn’t enlist a standby engineer for their one-way voyage, and he was correct. The engine room stood empty. He quickly climbed down a grated stairwell, then stood next to the tanker’s huge diesel engine, pondering what to do. There were assorted means he could use to shut down the engine, but a sudden power failure would raise immediate alarm. He needed a delayed effect that would allow time for the crew to safely escape first.
Then he gazed past the engine toward two large fuel bunkers that sat forward like a fat pair of horizontal grain silos.
“Of course,” he muttered to himself, quickly stepping forward with a glint in his eye.
64
In less than ten minutes, Hammet was back at the top of the stairwell, peering across the stern deck. The shooting had long since ceased, and Hammet did not see any of the Janissaries about, giving him an uneasy feeling. Beyond the stern rail, he spotted the shadow of a small boat, angling away from the tanker, which he rightly suspected was the target of the gunfire.
Stepping quickly, he made his way across the rear wall of the superstructure to the port-side deck. Peering around the corner, he was relieved to find it empty. A pair of ropes tied to the rail and dangling over the side gave him hope that the crew had already escaped. But his heart sank when he spotted the inflatable life raft still secured in its rack alongside the bulkhead. He cautiously moved closer, peering over the side to see if anyone was hanging from the ropes but saw only empty water below.
The shot rang out before he felt it, a single clap from a nearby pistol. A trickle of blood ran warm down his leg before a burning ache pulsated in his upper thigh. The leg quickly turned wobbly, and he fell to his other knee as a figure emerged from the bulkhead shadows.
Maria walked calmly over, keeping her pistol leveled at Hammet’s chest as she drew closer.
“A bit late to be out for a stroll, Captain,” she said coldly. “Perhaps you best join your comrades.”
Hammet stared at her with disappointment in his eyes.
“Why do this?” he cried.
She ignored the query as a pair of Janissaries ran up, alerted by the gunshot. At her orders, they grabbed Hammet and dragged him across the deck, depositing him in the ship’s mess. There, he found his forlorn crew, seated on the floor with long faces, a guard pacing back and forth with his rifle at the ready.
The Janissaries roughly dumped the captain on the floor, then took up positions on either side of the door. The Dayan ’s executive officer rushed over to help Hammet to a seated position while a crew medic attended to the leg wound.
“I was hoping not to find you here,” Hammet said, wincing.
“Sorry, Captain. Those men at the stern stopped shooting just as we tossed our lines over the side. We were spotted before we even had a chance to deploy the inflatable.”
Though the bleeding from his leg wound had been halted, Hammet could sense his body going into shock. He took several deep breaths, trying to relax.
“Any luck at your end?” the exec asked.
The captain looked down at his wounded leg, then forced a pained nod.
“I suppose you could say so,” he replied, his eyes turning glassy as his voice wavered. “One way or another, I believe our voyage is about near its end.”
65
Three miles to the north, the Turkish coast guard patrol boat repeatedly hailed both the Dayan and the police craft, but to no avail. When the sight of distant muzzle flashes was reported to the bridge, the patrol boat’s captain ordered an immediate intercept of the tanker.
As the Coast Guard boat sped toward the big ship, its bow-mounted 30mm turreted gun was manned while a small boarding crew was readied. The boat made a quick sweep around the tanker, then drew up on the tanker’s starboard flank when no police boat was spotted. The captain then hailed the Dayan over the loudspeaker.
“This is Coast Guard vessel SG-301. You are hereby ordered to heave to and prepare for boarding,” he shouted.
As the Coast Guard captain waited to see if the Dayan would slow, his second officer called out to him.
“Sir, there’s another vessel approaching from our starboard.”
The captain looked over to see a dark-colored luxury yacht pull up abreast of the Coast Guard boat, then drop back behind it.
“Tell him to back off, if he doesn’t want to get blasted out of the water,” the captain ordered testily. His attention was quickly diverted back to the tanker, where a figure suddenly appeared above them at the rail.
The captain was surprised to see it was a woman, who stood waving at the boat while attempting to shout something. The captain stepped to the bridge wing, then called back to his helmsman.
“Bring us in tight, I can’t hear her.”
Maria smiled to herself as the Coast Guard boat eased to within a few feet of the tanker’s hull. Standing at the rail, she towered over the smaller vessel yet was easily able to look right at the bridge.
“I need your help,” she shouted at the pair of officers, who both now stood on the wing.
Not waiting for a reply, she reached down to a small duffel bag at her feet and quickly tossed it over the rail. Her throw was nearly perfect, the bag arcing toward one of the officers, who easily plucked it out of the air. She waited a second to watch the officer open the bag, then she dropped to the deck and covered her head.
The ensuing explosion lit up the night sky with a bright flash followed by a thunderous roar. Maria waited for the flying debris to land before peeking over the side rail. The Coast Guard boat’s bridge was a scene of annihilation. The blast had gutted the entire superstructure, vaporizing all of the men who stood there. Smoke billowed to the sky from a dozen small fires that were consuming the boat’s electronic components. Around the rest of the boat, stunned and burned sailors were picking themselves up after having been knocked flat by the concussion.
Maria crept down the passageway on her own vessel, then yelled through an open doorway.
“Now!” she screamed.
Her small team of armed gunmen burst out of the door and sprinted to the rail, immediately spraying their weapons on the dazed sailors below. The firefight was short-lived, as the 30mm gun crew was quickly eradicated, followed by the boarding crew. A few of the sailors recovered quickly and returned fire. But they were forced to shoot at an awkward angle, which deprived them of cover. Within minutes they were overwhelmed, and the patrol boat’s deck was a mass of dead and wounded men.