Don Mann, Ralph Pezzullo
Hunt the Scorpion
The second book in the SEAL Team Six series, 2013
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear.”
– Ambrose Redmoon
This book is dedicated to the courageous Navy SEALs, past and present, who have risked their lives to protect our freedoms. And to their families.
Prologue
To those who do not know that the world is on fire, I have nothing to say.
– Bertolt Brecht
The first thing she noticed when she walked across the deck was the case-hardened locks on every outside door. Heavy-duty solid steel. Even on the smallest hatches. Also, the skylight over the engine room was cinched tight by a stainless-steel chain and secured with a padlock.
When she asked her husband, Jake-the captain of the forty-thousand-ton cargo ship-about them, he shrugged and mumbled one of his typically short answers. “No big deal. A simple precaution.”
“From what?”
“Aliens and peeping Toms.”
“Oh, Jake.”
They stood side by side on the navigation bridge of the MSC Contessa looking out at the rising moon, glowing mustard yellow. The sky was an iridescent shade of dark blue bleeding into purple. A swath of even darker clouds formed an arch above the moon like some mischievous child had smeared the sky with black ink.
“Stunning, eh?” Captain Jake McCullum offered.
“Breathtaking, darling, yes. How much longer until we reach Marseille?”
“Three days, maybe four, depending on winds and currents.”
From the moment they met, Tanya had felt herself drawn to his quiet strength, his confidence. Those qualities continued to give her comfort, even if the two of them had been married for less than a year and had spent only two months of that time together.
He’d been working almost nonstop, taking all the ship captain assignments he could get, so they could cobble together a down payment for a flat in their native Melbourne.
The 450-foot Contessa was thirty-five miles off the east coast of Africa, approaching the island of Socotra. Not only was this a busy shipping lane, but the waters up the coast and into the Gulf of Aden were typically crowded with trawlers from Taiwan, South Korea, India, France, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and other countries. Together with local Somali fishermen in smaller dhows, they mined the seas for high-value tuna, lobster, deepwater shrimp, whitefish, and even shark.
Tonight dozens of small vessels dotted the dark sea ahead of them, which caused the CPA (Closest Point of Approach) alarm on the Furuno radar to ring and flash. Captain McCullum walked to the radar on the long console, flipped a switch, and the bridge turned quiet.
“That’s better,” he said, wrapping an arm around Tanya’s narrow waist. “Now we can enjoy the night.”
Just the hum of the engine and the sound of waves slapping the metal hull.
The navigation bridge was a spacious, somewhat sterile chamber with large reinforced windows that were tilted open on this warm night. The raw, salty musk of the ocean mixed with the faint smell of tropical flowers inspired dreams of romance and adventure in Tanya’s head.
She glanced at her husband’s lean, chiseled face and saw that his eyes were focused on Socotra, specifically the flashing red light on the southwest extremity.
Tanya was about to say that the island’s dark shape reminded her of a sleeping elephant when the captain turned to the officer on duty and barked, “Port, thirty.”
“Port, thirty, sir,” the handsome young Sikh officer echoed back.
The navy-turbaned officer slowly turned the ship’s wheel, causing the dial of the electric compass to click off degree by degree as the cargo ship responded to the change of course.
“Steady at twenty knots,” the captain said.
“Yes, sir, full away,” the first officer responded.
To see her husband in his role as captain, to watch the way the crew of twelve responded to his quiet authority, made her love him even more. To Tanya’s mind, he was an old-school man of the world, a leader and adventurer. A rare species in modern society.
The constellations Orion and Pleiades glittered overhead. Nature felt close.
“Wind out of the south-southwest, sir, steady at fifteen to twenty knots. Latest report has rain squalls blowing in from the south,” the Sikh officer reported.
“Tell the third mate, deck lights fore and aft, spotlights on the poop deck,” the captain ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t want those fishing boats to miss us. You’ve got the radar. And keep an ear out for the radio.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” the officer responded, reaching for the phone that was embedded in the long center console, along with numerous dials, gauges, readouts, and radar screens.
“Keep sharp. Call me for any reason. I’m going below.”
He turned to her and smiled.
“Time to walk the plank, my lady.”
“What do I have to do to get you to spare me?”
He rubbed his rugged-looking chin. “Let me think…”
Anticipation fluttering through her body, Tanya followed her husband down the metal steps and into a narrow corridor one deck below. Ever the gentleman, he stopped at a white door, turned the handle, and stepped aside so she could pass through first.
Before she did, she read the warning stenciled on the door in red: DANGEROUS SPACE, TEST AIR BEFORE ENTRY.
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing, really.”
“Then why does it say ‘dangerous space’?”
“Because I sleep here.”
“No, really.”
Her husband smiled his Marlboro Man smile and said, “We put it there to ward off uninvited visitors.”
“Like who?”
He had never answered. It really didn’t matter, because Tanya’s mind stopped the moment Jake removed the towel from her freshly showered body and sighed in a low voice, “God, you’re lovely.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I missed you, Jake.”
“Missed you, too, sweetheart. And you smell delicious.”
His strong hands touched her skin. Their lips met. Then he picked her up and lowered her to the bed as if in a movie.
“Please, Captain. Be gentle. I’m a young, inexperienced lass,” she said, keeping up the game.
“Gentle, eh? Not in my nature, miss. Grrr.”
It was a modest twelve-by-twenty-foot cabin with small portholes that looked out to a large expanse of deck and the sea beyond. Nothing remarkable about it except for the large silver-framed wedding photo of the two of them getting pelted with rice as they emerged from St. Bartholomew.
Attached to the bedroom was a much larger captain’s dayroom equipped with easy chairs, a sofa, bookshelves, a desk, a large flat-screen TV, and a refrigerator. That’s where Jake spent most of his free time, surfing the Internet, reading, writing in his journal.
It didn’t matter that the cabin smelled of mildew, or that the mattress felt hard against her back. Tanya was exactly where she wanted to be, feeling the ship roll from side to side beneath her as they made love. Usually an unemotional woman, she was surprised to find herself on the brink of tears.
She reached up and took her husband’s face in her hands. “Oh, Jake…What is it about you that makes me so happy?”
“My bounteous gold treasure? My undying love for you?”
“The latter, darling. Ahh…”
Gazing into his eyes, she felt as though their souls were intertwining. Then she heard something that sounded like thunder. Her husband stopped moving.
“What?”
“Hold on.”
“What is it?”