The elder crept around the hijacker, examined the room beyond the doorway, and then pulled the door shut. He snapped an order, and one of his men tossed handcuffs from his bag. The legionnaire bound the hijacker’s wrists behind his back.
After searching the man for weapons and explosives, the legionnaire ordered his men from their hidden positions and attempted to talk to the hijacker. A few of his men tried varied languages, including English, but they gave up.
Then the man looked at Cahill and pointed with his nose.
The legionnaire raised his eyebrows. “I think he wants you, Terry.”
“Me? What the heck?” Cahill stepped towards the man, but he frowned and shook his head.
“Maybe not.”
The man pointed his nose where Cahill had been. The Australian turned and noticed a sound-powered phone. “I think he wants to talk to someone.”
“Maybe. Let’s see.” The legionnaire lifted the man to his feet and shoved him towards the phone. He grabbed the receiver and placed it to the man’s face. The man spoke, but nobody answered.
Cahill shared his idea. “Wait. This is set to the bridge. Let me put him through to the control room.” He flipped a dial, and the man spoke again.
A response burst from the loudspeakers, startling Cahill. The Frenchmen cringed as well, but, shrugging their shoulders and sharing a nervous laugh, they seemed to understand the message.
Cahill felt left out. “Was that French? What did he say?”
The elder legionnaire snorted. “My English will be a bad translation.”
“Do your best.”
“He thanked us for being nice to his colleague, and he hopes we’ll be nice to all of them. They wish to negotiate a surrender.”
CHAPTER 21
The colonel gathered six men around the control room’s central table. “We’re going to escape. Unfortunately, the men on the port side had no chance. No explosives, no weapons, no rebreathers. And with our wounded colleague, surrender was the only merciful option.”
The sergeant was stoic. “Nobody’s blaming you, sir. You did the right thing letting them surrender.”
“It’s good to hear it.”
“They’ll be fine. It’s not like we broke any laws.”
“Piracy.”
The bulldog shrugged. “Okay. So, we stole from a pirate. Who’s going to enforce any sentence? The Omanis? They’re just hired policemen.”
Although the wording left an opening to an ongoing dialogue about surrendering the rest of his team, the colonel trusted his bulldog’s loyalty.
Nine years ago, as a young officer on a counter-terrorism operation for the Pakistani Special Service Group, he’d rescued the bulldog from death. Skilled militants had taken forty-two hostages at the nation’s military headquarters, and the colonel’s platoon had rescued them.
But the resistance had been brutal.
Nine soldiers and three hostages had died, and the bleeding bulldog had been minutes from adding his corpse to that tally when the colonel had taken two bullets pulling him to safety. Medics had patched the victim’s belly, and surgeons had repaired the soldier enough to continue his career and retire.
The bulldog would die for him.
“Our adversaries are just pirates and policemen. That’s a good summary, sergeant. Then I shouldn’t expect much resistance when we swim away.”
“We saw them weld our hatches shut, sir.”
“Did you forget that we have exactly enough plastic explosives to blow through a hatch? We were prepared to blow our way in. I see no reason we can’t blow our way out.”
“Then there’s no reason to bother with a hatch. We can blow a hole anywhere you want.”
A distant whir caught the colonel’s ear. Standing beside the bulldog at the table’s far side, the submarine commander looked over his shoulder at the ship’s control panel. “That’s the trim pump. It shouldn’t be running.”
“I thought it was automatic.”
“Not when we’re stuck in the sand. There’s no change in depth for the pump to compensate for.”
The submarine commander stepped to the panel. “We’re surfacing.”
“That’s Cahill. Stop him!”
Tapping buttons, the commander assumed a defeated expression. “I can’t. He’s locked me out.”
“Damn him!” Brushing by the submarine commander, the colonel darted up the stairs. On the bridge, he looked up and watched darkness become translucent water and then open to the clear sky. Though exposed to his captors by standing behind the glass, he needed to see them.
Behind him, the catamaran hulls surfaced next to drifting Omani patrol craft, one on each side. Farther aft, a Pakistani corvette pointed at his stern, and in deeper waters, the twin submarines floated at anchor.
Skiffs tied to the patrol boats carried boarding parties wearing the combat fatigues of soldiers trained for the task, as opposed to sailors forced to wield small arms as a collateral duty.
The colonel sensed his options fading as the heavy, rapid steps of his loyal bulldog jogging up the stairs echoed. “What do we do now, sir?”
“Get the French translator up here.”
The bulldog darted halfway down the steps and yelled. When he clamored back up, the thin translator joined him. The noncombatant appeared terrified.
“Announce to the entire ship in French that our surrender is unconditional.”
“Sir?”
“Trust me. Do it.”
The translator obeyed, and after time elapsed to allow for an expected second translation for Cahill’s benefit, the French response rang from the loudspeakers.
“What did he say?”
“Teams will board both sides of the ship. The starboard side will be evacuated first, with our injured man as the top priority. They’ll cut through their weld and use the forward hatch.”
“Thank him for taking care of our injured man. Then tell him we await his further instructions.”
A brief acknowledgement followed the translated message, and then the bridge became silent.
Omani skiffs motored to the Goliath and mated to it, and soldiers mounted the ship’s backs.
Loyal to death, the sergeant remained stoic. “So, this is how it ends.”
Portraying a feigned confidence, the colonel assumed his final role of the mission — actor. “Not quite. Follow me downstairs, and I’ll explain everything.” The translator went first, and the colonel grabbed his bulldog by the shoulder to whisper in his ear. “Play along with my ruse.” After reaching the bottom of the stairs and walking to the central table, he tried to appear smug. “It’s been an honor, gentlemen. But it’s time to end this.”
Somber faces nodded, and some men appeared scared.
“These men who are apprehending us will give us humane treatment. You have nothing to fear.”
The submarine commander challenged him. “Who’s going to claim us?”
The colonel speculated. “The Omanis, the CIA, or perhaps even Renard himself — if I don’t negotiate our freedom within the hour.”
“How could you?”
“I personally will hide explosives in every compartment in this hull, and I will set them to detonate in one hour.”
As the bulldog raised his eyebrow, the colonel sharpened his gaze on him, demanding silence. They had plastic explosives but hardly enough to flood one compartment, and the implication of a timer was a complete lie.
But if his men believed him, the chances improved that Renard would believe him.
As he heard the cutting sounds attacking the weld in the hatch above him, he gave his mission’s final order. “Wait here and obey our captors. I will set the charges and return before the last of you is up.” He then ventured sternward, leaving his men to their jailers. As he heard them climbing to their captors, he maintained his spirits by hoping in his final gambit.