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husbands with them in ship’s quarters that had never been designed for couples.
    So, Trisha enjoyed that great state of luxury held only by the top Navy officers—her own damn space. Even better, her own damn shower. Well, she shared it with the Maloneys, Tim and Lola, but since they were busy delivering rescued hostages to the aircraft carrier, it was all hers at the moment. The shower flow had a three-minute timer for fresh-water conservation, but she wasn’t complaining. The men from the flight crews on the choppers were in double-up rooms and the service crews were in the open-berth accommodations.
    She showered and changed into a comfortably worn set of fatigues, running shoes, and a T-shirt that declared “Army” across her chest. She decided that she wasn’t going to waste another thought on the ungrateful, ego-ridden, too-damn-handsome-to-let-live jerk she’d rescued.
    Though she was sorry she hadn’t known about the leader Hassan in the Range Rover. It didn’t really matter. At the first sign of trouble, Mr. Pirate-Boss-Bad-Dude would just pull up to some building and shut down his engine and lights. There wouldn’t be any real way to pick him out then, especially in Somalia. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of white Range Rovers there. It was the badge of honor, first purchase of any pirate who earned a cut of some ransom. Whoever owned that dealership sure wasn’t hurting.
    Trisha headed down the narrow, gray-steel passage for dinner. The boat was so lightly manned that only the officers’ mess was running, which worked out great. It meant she was a dozen steps from food, not a dozen passages winding through the heart of an eight-hundred-foot-long ship.
    The Peleliu had been stripped down for this mission, as much as you could strip down an eight-hundred-foot amphibious assault ship. Her total ship’s complement had gone from twenty-five hundred to under four hundred.
    Seventeen hundred U.S. Marines had been replaced by a platoon of forty-two Special Operations Army guys from the 75th Ranger Regiment and a six-man team of Delta Force. It was the sworn responsibility of the Rangers and the Marines to denigrate each other, so the Rangers made lots of jokes about them replacing forty times as many Marines being a roughly equal exchange of abilities. The Navy personnel still aboard didn’t particularly appreciate that.
    As usual, the D-boys didn’t say much at all.
    With the usual twenty-nine choppers being replaced by six of SOAR’s birds, who provided their own service and support team, the ship’s standard complement of nine hundred Navy personnel was also cut by three-quarters. They had only one big and two small landing craft in the hold of a ship that could usually launch twenty craft or more.
    They all practically echoed about the ship. But it didn’t feel like a ghost ship, just an efficient use of a monster vessel that had served for forty years and been given this new lease on life at the end of her days.
    Now, lean and mean was Peleliu ’s mission profile, and Trisha was totally down with that. No Somalis would mess with a ship of her size, and she wasn’t attached to any war patrol, so her defenses needed only to be lightly manned. She wouldn’t be an attractive target for an Iraqi or Iranian with a death wish, as she could still defend herself plenty well even with the short staff.
    The mission debrief would happen later, after Maloney returned from delivering the rescued hostages to the aircraft carrier. From there, they’d be shipped out to Ramstein Air Force Base on a C-2A Greyhound transport plane and then back stateside. The captain would be welcome to negotiate the ransom for the recovery of his yacht. At least it wouldn’t be for his life and that of his passengers. Trisha bet not a one of them would ever sail with him again, not even around the Washington, DC Tidal Basin in a canoe.
    There was also a