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Round one. Or two. Or three, four, or five. He’d lost count.

His head spinning from the combat and the smoke, Crocker kicked the groaning man in the chest, then stepped over him and relieved him of the nine-millimeter pistol stuck in his belt. Crocker’s own MP5 had slid down the stairs when the men collided. There was no time to look for it now.

Pushing through the dense smoke and stepping over another body, he arrived on the top deck-the bridge. His lungs and chest burning. Blood from the cut across his bicep spilling down his arm.

He tore off a piece of his shirt and made a field tourniquet, tightening it around the top of his arm until the bleeding stopped. He figured he had a couple of minutes at best before he passed out from the smoke or loss of blood.

Righting himself against a metal doorway, he seared his left palm again.

Men were grunting and struggling nearby. Through the smoke he recognized the back of Mancini’s square head. Then the side of a stubble-covered face, the whites of someone’s eyes.

In a little oval window of visibility, he saw Mancini and a terrorist locked nose to nose, knife blades glistening, eyes bulging. Mancini shoved the terrorist against a dark blue instrument panel. Then his feet slipped out from under him and the two men fell.

Knives clattered across the floor.

Crocker lost the two men in the smoke.

“Mancini? Where are you?” His heart beating desperately.

“Watch out, boss!”

Holding his KA-BAR knife ready, Crocker bent at the waist, trying to see through the thick murk. He saw someone raise a pistol, then a terrified look on Mancini’s face.

He dove for what he hoped was the terrorist’s arm, held it, and twisted it right. Two shots from the pistol reverberated in the half-open space and numbed his hearing.

Teeth sunk into his left shoulder.

Fucking savage!

“Manny, you all right?” All the while clubbing the side of the man’s head with his fist. Then he stumbled over a pair of legs and fell. Landed on his bum shoulder.

Fuck!

A stab of pain shot from his arm to the base of his head. From his vantage on the floor of the bridge, he saw a knife blade drag across a man’s throat. The thin ribbon of red grew wider.

“Manny, fuck-”

He held his breath and readied himself. His heart pounded; his arm, shoulder, and eyes burned.

“Boss, you still here?” the Italian American whispered.

Huge relief. “Hey, Mancini. How about you help me the fuck up?”

The gunfire had stopped. Both men were breathing hard, wheezing from the smoke.

“That was fun.”

“You see Ritchie?”

“He went inside to try to get the radio to work. Call for-”

A whooping sound.

“What the hell is that?”

Up ahead, past the bow, they saw two Saudi navy patrol boats approaching with wailing sirens.

“I’ll look for Ritchie,” Crocker said. “You try turning this piece of shit around.”

“Sure, boss.” Then, pointing at the patrol boats, “What about them?”

“What about ’em?” Crocker retorted, thinking that the Saudis had arrived with too little and were way too late.

As he pivoted to his right, an explosion went off in one of the cabins, throwing both him and Mancini to the floor.

“I’m getting tired of this shit,” the Italian American groaned from near the wheel.

Crocker’s ears were still ringing. “What’d you say?”

“Ears are fucked, right knee is screwed to shit again, but I’ll manage.”

Crocker saw something, or someone, emerging from the smoke-filled cabin and reached for his knife.

“Three o’clock!”

Mancini aimed his pistol and was about to pull the trigger when Crocker recognized the Nike footwear Ritchie favored. “Ritchie, that you?”

The dark-haired SEAL removed the blanket he’d thrown over his head and squinted. “Boss?”

“What’d you find?”

“Radio’s for shit. Some of the explosives are on a timer, so unless we want to get blown to pieces, we’d better abandon this shitbox. Like, now!”

Crocker turned to Mancini, who had his nose inches from the controls. Through the shifting smoke he could make out a professional navigator, a radar screen, charts, assorted gauges.

“You hear that, Mancini?”

“I need a minute,” the thickly built SEAL said, grasping the ship’s wheel.

“You know what you’re doing?”

“I don’t know this vessel specifically, but I haven’t met one yet that I couldn’t figure out.”

Crocker took some solace in the fact that the Italian American was one of the leading VBSS experts in Naval Special Warfare. His training had included practice in taking down ship bridges and engine rooms in everything from cruise ships to destroyers and supertankers.

Ritchie wasn’t happy. “No time for figuring shit out, right, boss?”

Crocker felt himself fading in and out of consciousness, and begged his mind to hang on for another minute or two.

“Motherfucker’s gonna blow any second!”

“What?”

“You hear me, boss? We’d better bail!”

“No…”

“No, what? Boss, can you hear me?”

Ritchie was holding him up.

“Manny…Rich…”

“Boss, what are you trying to say?”

“Go down to the main deck. Get Davis. You need to help him to the launch. It’s tied up midship. We’ll meet you on the starboard side.”

“You sure you don’t need help?”

“Quickly!”

As he spoke, he felt the ship shifting under his feet.

He looked through the smoke to see Mancini smiling like a kid who’d just discovered how a new toy works. “It’s like steering a big semi, but smoother. Really nice.”

“You got it turning?”

“Look.” The Italian American’s whole body was shrouded in gray-black smoke, which curled around his neck. Past his shoulders, through the windows, Crocker saw that the ship was veering northward.

“Excellent, Manny! Nice fucking work.”

“The Saudis sure seemed surprised.”

“Where?”

Mancini pointed toward the port bow, where the two Saudi patrol boats appeared as the ship swung right. They sounded their sirens and fired flares.

“Lot of good the flares will do.”

“Except possibly set this big sardine can on fire.”

Crocker started to cough. His head wobbled and his lungs hurt.

He felt Mancini lifting him up. “Boss. Lean on me, boss. Like the Bill Withers song.” Mancini started humming in his ear. Everything felt sticky and hot.

“Stop fucking around,” Crocker said with a groan. “Keep an eye out for terrorists. Abandon ship!”

He blacked out as Mancini started to explain how he’d aced a piloting course at the New York Maritime College the team had sent him to a few years back.

Next thing Crocker remembered was standing on the deck and seeing an endless expanse of water in front of the bow.

That means we’ve succeeded. Right?

He was leaning against Mancini’s shoulder. “What happened? Where are we?”

“Watch the cables.”

“Davis. Where’s Davis? I need to treat his wound.”

“Ritchie’s got him.”

Good…

He felt warm salt water all around him and opened his eyes. Mancini had an arm around his chest. He started kicking, trying to swim.

“Relax, boss. Stop struggling.”

“I’m good.” His shoulder and arm burned like hell from the salt.

“Boss, I got you.”

“Where’s the launch?” His vision started to blur.

“The launch sunk.”

“What?”

“There’s a Saudi boat here. We’re close…”

He remembered treading water, then blinked and saw a ship in the distance, steaming away. He blinked again and was seated on a deck. Saudi men in uniform scurried around him. One of them handed him a blanket.

“Is that the Syrena? ” he asked pointing at the distant ship with its stern toward them.