WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller Read Free Page B

their beds, raiding the watch tower and the bridge, taking control of the engine rooms, until the whole vessel was theirs.
    O and Jang wondered if the crew – now hostages – would be brought down to the cargo hold to be guarded until the ship docked in whatever secret cove the pirates’ hideout was located. Both soldiers decided that this is what they would do if raiding the ship, as the container area was the largest area, and the easiest to secure by a few armed men.
    As they heard the sound of feet shuffling down metal steps, muffled cries and aggressive shouts, Jang and O exchanged their looks, and realized they were about to find out if it was also – as they hoped – the easiest area to defend.

5
    Arief Suprapto was pleased.
    The taking of the Fu Yu Shan had gone entirely without incident, all the guards had been subdued without eve n getting a shot off, and he’d caught the captain asleep in his cabin. A quick pistol-whipping had been enough to subdue the man after he’d offered his first gesture of defiance, and he hadn’t put a foot wrong since.
    Now, with his own trusted men on the bridge and in the engine rooms, and the ship’s Automatic Identification System tracking device disabled, he led the fourteen crewmembers – now his hostages – down the steel steps towards the cargo area, where they would be secured for the remainder of the journey.
    ‘ Admiral!’ the call came over his radio, crystal clear and frantic.
    ‘Yes,’ Suprapto answered, pleased to hear his rank announced over the radio. He had conferred it upon himself of course, but after thirty hard years at sea, should he not be an admiral? ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘There might be a problem sir,’ the voice said nervously. ‘ Not including the armed guards we killed, we’ve accounted for fourteen of the crew, but the manifest states there should be sixteen. Two men were taken on at Dalian.’
    Shit! A problem like this he didn’t need. ‘Organize a search!’ he whispered urgently. ‘Right now!’
    ‘We’re already on it, Admiral. We’re combing every square inch of this ship.’
    ‘Very well. Keep me informed.’ He clicked off the radio, and thought. Two men. Not regular crew members, it would seem. Taken on at the port of Dalian. Why? And why were these same two men the ones that were now missing?
    It was an anomaly, and Suprapto didn’t like anomalies. He liked to control everything, to know everything. Control was what gave him his power.
    He needed to reassert control.
    His men were combing the ship for the two fugitives, but hadn’t yet found them.
    The cargo area was secure. Safe. Where would he go if he needed to hide?
    Down below.
    Were the two men here? Could they be armed?
    Suprapto’s eyes took in the gigantic loading bay below him in a fraction of a second, his mind calculating vectors and angles faster than any supercomputer could ever hope to.
    And then he moved.
     
    The bark of the AK-47 assault rifles in the enclosed steel chamber was deafening.
    ‘Shit!’ Jang cursed as the pirate captain leapt out of the way at the last second, pulling one of the hostages down to cover him. Jang’s bullets instead hit a man he recognized as the cook, the rounds rippling through his body and killing him instantly.
    The stairwell leading down to the cargo hold was the perfect area for an ambush. With the pirates confined to the narrow steps – just as the Fu Yu Shan had been trapped in the narrow Strait – it should have been as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
    But then that damn captain had moved just before Jang pulled the trigger. How could he possibly have known?
    O had been blessed with more luck; his high-powered 5.45mm rounds had hit three of the pirates, with fatal results. Bodies toppled down the steps, limp and lifeless. He would surely have tagged more, but the others reacted to their captain’s shouts and started moving, pulling hostages in front of them, already retreating back up the steel staircase.
    Jang