In Cold Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

through the spray regardless.
    The radio crackled again.
    “Captain, you must surrender ship. We have RPGs. If you do not allow us to board, we will fire. We will destroy you, captain.”
    Joe toggled the radio. “Joyce. They’re saying they’ve got RPGs. Is that true?”
    There was a pause.
    “Affirmative.”
    It was Joe’s turn to pause.
    Joyce came back again. “Captain? What’s your opinion?”
    “What range do they have?”
    “They’re in range now.”
    Shit, shit, shit. He concentrated on keeping a calm and decisive exterior, but he was floundering. “If they get a grenade into a tank, or on the bridge, we’re done for. We’ll end up drifting, at best. At worst… Good God, it doesn’t bear thinking about what could happen. We’ve got to surrender.”
    “Negative, captain. That’s not what you’re paying us for.”
    Joe ducked down beneath the wainscotting as the Somalis loosed a barrage at the bridge. A line of bullets studded the superstructure.
    “Fifteen degrees left and then fifteen degrees right,” Joe called out and the AB yanked the wheel, turning them away from the skiff. It was a delaying tactic, at best.
    “Captain,” the Somali said over the radio. “Do not resist. We have you.”
    Joe heard the curse over the radio and then, loud and strident, Joyce barked out, “Incoming! RPG fired, port side.”
    A projectile arced up from beneath the obstruction of the superstructure and fell in a graceful parabola that ended on the deck. The grenade detonated between two containers, a beautifully contained little explosion that still sent a barrage of shrapnel against the superstructure.
    “Incoming!” one of the other guards yelled.
    Two more hits, this time at the body of the ship, and the sudden blooms of black smoke unfurled and rolled up the side and across the bridge.
    “Captain!” Vasquez yelled. “We’re on fire to port.”
    Joe could see the thick cloud of smoke stretching up over the gunwale and onto the deck.
    “Thomas to Joyce,” Joe said firmly into the radio. “Stand down. Repeat: stand down. We haven’t got a choice. We surrender.”
     
    THE END of the battle had been quick and bloodless. The pirates had boarded the Carolina without difficulty, once the shooting had stopped. Each skiff had a long thirty-foot ladder with hooks at one end and they had simply raised them up so that the hooks fastened down over the six-inch fishguard. They had scaled the ladders and swarmed aboard. Joe had counted twenty of them and a man had been left in each of the three skiffs that were still operational. The fourth skiff, with the wrecked outboard, had drifted away. The trawler had picked it up once the hijacking had been completed.
    Joe opened the channel on the portable radio. “We’ve been boarded. Repeat: pirates aboard.”
    He moved quickly. He radioed the first engineer in the engine room and ordered him to take the steering. The men down there would lock themselves inside. It would take hours, perhaps even days, to find them and break through.
    The cages did not appear to have detained them for very long. After ten minutes, a thin man, young and with catlike, cunning eyes, entered the bridge. He was armed with an AK-47. Two others came with him. Both of them had semiautomatic pistols. They aimed them at the officers on the bridge.
    The thin man spoke first. “Who is captain?” He turned to Vasquez. “You are captain?”
    “No, I am,” Joe said. “I am the captain. This is my ship.”
    “Very good.”
    “We have money. We have a few thousand dollars on board. You can take it.”
    “This is not about money, captain. We do not want it.”
    The words didn’t process. Joe continued, following the script that he had prepared. “My employer will not pay a ransom.”
    “You do not listen, captain. We do not want money.” He indicated with the AK that Joe should step away from the console. “My name is Farax. I am in charge here.” His broad gesture might have meant the