End Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

ducking the grenade. Then he reached to the weapons panel, dialing up the Hellfire missiles.
    â€œI have hostile fire,” he told Tac. “Permission to launch Hellfires?”
    â€œNegative, negative,” said Eyes. “Don’t sink him.”
    â€œI’m under fire,” Starship repeated. The men at the rear had gone back to the large crates.
    â€œDo not sink that boat. We want the cargo intact.”
    Stifling a curse, Starship keyed back to the light machine gun. As he nudged his stick forward, the man near the cabin picked up an automatic rifle and began firing. The tracers gave Starship something to zero in on as he pressed his own trigger. With the second burst, the man crumpled to the deck of the boat, sliding toward the low rail as it rocked in the water.
    Starship returned his attention to the rear deck, where the two crewmen had succeeded in pulling one of the crates from its tie-downs and were shoving it over the side. As it went over, the entire boat began to tip as if it were going tocapsize. Starship continued northward and banked back around, dropping the small helicopter to ten feet over the waves. The men continued working on the crate. If he wanted the cargo, he would have to shoot them; warning shots would no longer do.
    He got close enough to see the worried scowl on one of the men’s faces before he fired; the man fell limp on the deck as he passed over. Still, the other crewman refused to give up. He struggled with the chain that held the crate down as Starship zeroed in, finger dancing against the trigger. When the bullets caught him, they spun him in a macabre death dance, a large part of his skull flying off as if it had been a hat. The man danced off the side of the boat and disappeared.
    â€œDefenses have been neutralized,” Starship said, taking the Werewolf back over the boat slowly. “I think the crew’s all dead. They got one of the crates over the side but I saved the other.”
    â€œSITT is en route,” said Eyes.
    Â 
    A SPRAY OF WATER HIT S TORM AS HE STEPPED OUT ONTO THE flying bridge. The smuggler’s boat was two hundred yards away, off his starboard side; the SITT crew was aboard inspecting her. Storm’s communications gear could connect him instantly with the team as well as everyone on his own ship, and he had the crew’s frequency tuned in; he listened to the boarding party as it went about its work. The Werewolf hovered just over the bow of the little boat, its nose slowly moving back and forth as its pilot trained its weapons on the vessel.
    â€œCaptain Gale to SITT—Terry, you there?”
    â€œHere, Captain.”
    â€œWhat do you have?”
    â€œRPGs. Crate’s filled with grenades and launchers. Have some heavy machine guns in the hold.”
    â€œGet it all on video. Make sure we have a good record. Then get back here and we’ll sink it.”
    â€œAye aye, Captain.”
    Storm went back inside. He was just about to see if he could hunt down a cup of coffee when Eyes’s excited voice erupted in his ear.
    â€œPort Somalia has just been attacked!” shouted Eyes. “There’s a fire on the artificial island, and the sonar array picked up the sound of a large explosion.”
    Storm’s mind jumped from shock to reaction mode, sorting the information, formulating a response. The airplanes they’d seen before—they had to have been involved.
    What would Admiral Johnson say now?
    â€œGet Airforce down there right away,” said Storm. “Bring the SITT crew back, then sink the smuggler’s vessel, cargo and all. Prepare a course for Port Somalia,” he added, speaking to the navigational officer. “I’ll be in my quarters, updating Admiral Johnson.”
    Off the coast of Somalia
6 January 1998
0023
    T HE COMMANDO S ATTARI RESCUED HAD BROKEN HIS LEG falling from the decking to the rocks, but had not been shot. He slumped against the captain as the men