Tiger by the Tail Read Online Free PDF

thrill of executing his mission. After confirming his kill, Vanel holstered his pistol and unslung his carbine before reporting in. “Inara Four on deck. One tango down. Deck is clear.”
    “Roger.” Moments later, the other five team members had climbed up and assumed their positions, holding until Yosif gave the orders to move. Three seconds later, two men had stashed the body and were heading to the engine room to secure it and sweep forward. The second pair was opening the door that lead amidship, and Yosif and Vanel were climbing silently to the bridge.
    On the narrow catwalk, they paused outside the door, listening for any sign of conversation or awareness of them from the small, dark room on the other side. Their surveillance had indicated anywhere from two to four pirates manned the bridge at any one time.
    Pulse hammering in his ears, Vanel heard the engine room team report in. “Engine room is secure. Ready to cut power on your mark.”
    Yosif glanced at Vanel, who raised his H416C and nodded. Ready . Reaching for the door handle, the team leader replied, “Three . . . two . . . one . . . mark .”
    Inside the bridge, the console lights winked out. The second they did, Yosif turned the handle and pushed the door open. Hand back on the stock of his silenced rifle, he entered and turned right, advancing along the wall.
    Vanel entered the door and went left. Immediately he encountered two pirates, one in the battered captain’s chair, the other standing next to him. The standing man was just turning to the black-clad, masked figures that had burst in.
    Vanel put a three-round burst into each one’s chest, controlling his carbine’s recoil and keeping his sight locked on. His shots dropped the nearest man to the floor and made the sitting victim slump back into the chair. Neither made a sound as they bled out, filling the air with the coppery tang of blood. He heard the metallic cough of Yosif’s weapon on his right, but didn’t take his eyes off his two tangos.
    Not seeing any other motion or targets in the room, Vanel carefully stepped through wisps of gunsmoke toward the bodies. He cleared their hands, then signaled that his side was cleared and safe. Yosif confirmed the other side was clear and checked on the rest of the team. Yosifs Two and Three had taken out four tangos while sweeping forward to the bow. Yosifs Five and Six had cleared what appeared to be a crude crew quarters, dispatching three more pirates, for a total of eleven tangos down so far.
    Sixty seconds later, the two below teams had finished clearing the entire rest of the ship. After receiving reports from both, Yosif contacted the trawler. “Kildar, this is Inara Leader. First objective has been secured, eleven tangos KIA, no casualties on team, over.”
    “Roger that, Kildar and master chief are en route.”
    Yosif and Vanel headed down to the main deck to form up with the rest of their team and greet their leader. As they waited for the other ship to approach, Vanel took a look at what they were about to deal with in the second phase of the operation. He’d seen it in the photos, but taking it in for real was something else entirely.
    “Father of All, what have they done out there?”
    * * *
    After deploying the back-up insertion team to reinforce Team Inara, Mike and Adams had gotten in a Zodiac inflatable equipped with a noiseless electric motor and sailed to the trawler. Climbing up the rope ladder that had been lowered for them, The two men stood on the bridge, which had been cleared of bodies, and scanned the pirates’ base two hundred fifty meters away.
    “That is one helluva feat of kludging,” Adams said of the haphazard tangle of boat parts, tin sheets, cargo containers and driftwood that made up the enemy headquarters. It sprawled in all directions, built with little rhyme or reason, with crude rooms tacked on wherever they were needed. Rope bridges, some as high as thirty feet off the ground, connected several areas to