Pirate Alley: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

looked for the other pirate boats, which were on the starboard side of the ship, toward Yemen. They were still fifty yards or so away from Stella Maris, angling in.
    Why didn’t the captain turn his ship?
    Louceck came smoothly around and lowered his nose for another pass at the pirate boat on the port side, which was still almost against the ship, with grappling hooks being thrown up toward the ship’s railings.
    Louceck flew the gun’s pipper into the pirate boat and squeezed the trigger. He held it down, walking it the length of the boat, then released it.
    “Don’t hit the ship!” Pigot roared, and automatically Louceck slammed the cyclic left, lifting the right side of his rotor disk. The ship was right there, close enough to touch. He was so engrossed in shooting at the pirates … how he had failed to hit the liner he didn’t know. A miracle.
    The pirate boat fell rapidly behind the cruise ship, foundering in the wake.
    Louceck crossed the cruise ship’s bow and began a circle of the two other pirate boats. They seemed to be holding their distance from the cruise ship Stella Maris.
    He could hear Pigot talking to Stella Maris ’s captain, telling him to speed up and turn into the pirates. He didn’t catch the captain’s reply, but he heard Pigot call him a fool.
    Down Louceck went to ten feet off the water, slowing, flying between the pirate boats and the cruise ship.
    He had done this a dozen times in the last four months. Prevented the pirates from closing on their victim. Pirates had never before shot at him.
    To his horror, the pirates in the nearest skiff were also shooting. He saw at least four men with automatic assault rifles pointing at him, saw the muzzle flashes, felt the bullets striking the helicopter.
    He heard the crewman groan on the ICS.
    Louceck already had picked up the tail and was accelerating away. He would come around and sink this boat, too.
    Halfway through his turn Pigot pointed to the left engine instruments. The engine was overheating, losing power. Now he looked back as he turned. Black smoke behind him.
    Falling oil pressure.
    The crewman was on the ICS. “I’m hit,” he said. “In the leg.”
    Pigot began unstrapping as Louceck shut the left engine down and turned toward the Toulon, one hundred miles away. Pigot maneuvered himself out of his seat and went aft to look after the crewman.
    Damn, damn and double damn.

 
    CHAPTER TWO
    Mustafa and his pirates had Sultan of the Seas in sight. He was on her beam. She was making at least twenty-five knots. He had to hold in eighty degrees of lead as he closed to keep her from moving to his front.
    The men in the boat grasped their weapons. A few fired short bursts into the air in celebratory anticipation. The reports sounded flat.
    Mustafa’s radio was alive in his hand. He could hear the other boats attacking Stella Maris talking to each other. He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the helicopter had left trailing smoke. One skiff sunk. If anyone who had been aboard was still alive, he was on his own; Mustafa needed all his boats if he hoped to capture a cruise ship. The men knew that, knew the risks, and had come anyway. At least there were two more skiffs to harass Stella Maris, which was only ten miles to the northeast.
    “Mustafa, this is Ahmed.”
    “Yes.”
    “We are closing from the north on Sultan . Do you have us in sight?”
    “No.”
    They had the cruise ship in a classic trap. Pirates were closing from two sides, so whichever way Sultan of the Seas turned, she would be intercepted.
    Yes! The plan was working!
    *   *   *
    Captain Arch Penney was facing his worst nightmare: a pirate attack on his ship. He had two boatloads of pirates to port and four to starboard. Ten miles ahead, two or three pirate boats were attacking another cruise ship.
    Penney was on the radiotelephone to the Task Force 151 tactical action officer on duty this morning. The navy guy had a calm, baritone American voice.
    “Nearest