Sanchez watched the old Mercedes recede into the darkness. “Do you think he can keep his shit together?”

Harvath nodded. “He’s nervous, but I’ve made it worth his while. He’ll do it. Let’s get inside.”

The two men hid themselves in the dilapidated dwelling and waited.

 • • •

Twenty minutes later, they received a text message from Mukami. The captain was at the compound and was being kept in a room on the first floor. There were at least thirty men inside.

Sanchez let out a quiet whistle. “Thirty. That’s a lot of man-skirts.”

“That’s a lot of guns.”

“And RPGs.”

“And RPGs,” Harvath agreed. “Let’s see if we can’t peel some of them off. Ready?”

Sanchez nodded as Harvath switched frequencies on his radio to hail the heavily armed support boat that had been doing the reconnaissance on the tanker. It was now hovering just out of sight offshore. “Shotgun, this is Norseman. Do you copy? Over.”

A moment later, the response came back. “Norseman, this is Shotgun. We copy. Over.”

“You are cleared hot. I repeat. You are cleared hot. Bring the rain. Over.”

“Roger that, Norseman. Shotgun is cleared hot. Bringing the rain. Ninety seconds. Shotgun out.”

Looking at Sanchez, Harvath said, “Beers are on me when we’re done.”

Sanchez smiled. “Roger that. Let’s roll.”

CHAPTER 3

Harvath and Sanchez stepped from the shack and listened. They were close enough that they could hear the RPGs as they began to be fired from the Shotgun team on board the support boat. They could feel the ground tremble as one after another of the mother ships and their fast attack craft down at the port exploded. Instantly, the village erupted in pandemonium.

Harvath and Sanchez took advantage of the mayhem to advance unseen on the pirate stronghold. They held up behind a parked car and watched as at least twenty men poured out of the compound and rushed down to the harbor. They gave it another sixty seconds and when no one else came out, they decided to go in.

The gate had been left wide open and Harvath slipped inside first, followed by Sanchez. They split the pie, with Harvath engaging two pirates to the left and Sanchez one to the right. Utilizing speed, surprise, and overwhelming violence of action, they kept moving and firing as they pressed on into the main structure.

From inside the house, a frightened Somali hopped up on khat began firing before the two Americans had even neared the door. As Harvath returned fire with his suppressed MP7, Sanchez flanked the Somali and shot him through a window, killing him instantly.

Entering the structure, the firefight continued as three Somalis on a balcony overlooking the living room fired on them. This time it was Sanchez who returned fire while Harvath attempted to maneuver for a cleaner shot. The only problem was, he couldn’t get one. From their high ground position, the Somalis had total control of the room, and they knew it.

Harvath searched for a way to take them out, and then it came to him. Signaling Sanchez, he counted to three and then charged across the living room.

While Sanchez kept them pinned down, unable to return fire, Harvath slipped beneath the wooden balcony, pointed his weapon straight up, and fired. The high-velocity rounds of the MP7 tore through the planks, chewing the pirates above to bits.

As soon as Sanchez gave him the “all clear,” he stepped from under the balcony and moved back across the living room.

There were two hallways available to them and Harvath was about to suggest they take the one to the right when two more skinnies popped out of a room at the end of the hall to their left. He and Sanchez dropped both Somalis instantly.

Hoping that was the room where the captain of the Sienna Star was being held, Harvath and Sanchez moved quickly for it.

At the door, Sanchez reached for the knob and when Harvath nodded, threw it open.

Inside, they found the last remaining Somali pirate along with two other men—the Greek tanker captain and the Kenyan engineer who had led them into the village. The satellite phone Harvath had given him was sitting in his lap, and pressed against Mukami’s head was the barrel of the pirate’s AK-47.

Before Harvath could shout wait, urge calm, or even get off a shot of his own, the pirate pulled his trigger and the air was filled with a pink mist as the wall beyond the bed was splattered with blood, bone, and pieces of Mukami’s brain.

As the Kenyan engineer’s body fell to the ground, Harvath unloaded his weapon into the Somali pirate. He didn’t stop until his magazine was empty.

“Damn it,” he said. “Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!”

Sanchez didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say. Instead, he turned and faced the hallway to make sure they didn’t get ambushed from behind.

As he tried to get his anger under control, Harvath stepped forward and picked up the radio. Putting his game face back on, he looked at the Greek captain and said, “Captain Velopoulos, we’re here to take you home. Please stay as close to us as possible and do exactly as we say. Do you understand?”

The captain nodded, and after retrieving Mukami’s car keys Harvath and Sanchez moved the Greek quickly out of the building and into the courtyard.

While Sanchez stepped out to study the street beyond the wall, Harvath radioed the Shotgun team, giving them a description of the Mercedes they’d be driving, as well as their ETA to the harbor.

“Roger that, Norseman,” came the response. “We’ll see you in the port in two minutes. Shotgun out.”

They laid the captain down on the floor in back, while Harvath drove and Sanchez rode in the passenger seat.

It took only half a block until they began to see the flames from the burning boats down in the harbor climbing high into the night sky.

“They’re not going to be very happy to see us when we get there,” Sanchez said.

Harvath, still upset about the Kenyan being killed, pressed down hard on the accelerator and replied, “Fuck them.”

Sanchez nodded and activated his radio. “Shotgun, this is Streak. ETA to exfil point sixty seconds. Over.”

“Roger that, Streak. Be advised the port is crawling with skinnies. Over.”

“Understood. Just be there. Over.”

“We’ll be there, don’t worry. Shotgun out.”

Sanchez looked at Harvath. “You ready for this?”

Harvath gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Just watch.”

The Mercedes came screaming down the narrow main street into the port. As people ran in every direction, Harvath leaned on the horn to move them out of his path. While it might have been the somewhat humane thing to do, it also succeeded in drawing a hell of a lot of attention, particularly from the pirates gathered on the beach, who were watching their ships burn.

After glancing into the backseat, Sanchez said, “I hope our passenger has comfortable shoes. It’s going to be a long walk from the parking lot.”

“Who says we’re stopping in the parking lot?” replied Harvath as he pointed the Mercedes toward the dock and picked up even more speed.

“You’ve got to be kidding—” Sanchez began, but was interrupted by a hail of gunfire that tore up their right rear quarter-panel.

As the Mercedes barreled through a stack of crates at the front of the pier, Sanchez returned fire at the heavily armed Somalis on the beach.

Activating his radio, he said, “Shotgun. Shotgun. This is Streak. We have contact. Multiple armed skinnies on the beach. You are cleared hot. We need you now. Over.”

“Roger that, Streak. Shotgun coming up on your three o’clock.”

Before breaking transmission, Sanchez and Harvath looked over to see the Shotgun team and their boat come almost parallel with them out on the water and open up on the men on the beach via a devastating minigun mounted on the bow of their boat.