Pacific Creed

Bolan rose. “Thank you, Sergeant!”

The six-man United States Coast Guard Port Security unit that had been scrambled out of Honolulu cradled their Colt carbines and Remington shotguns and observed Bolan with keen interest.

Bolan was dripping in Coast Guard issue. The jump rig was big, bulky and far from stealthy, but it was designed for operations at sea. The Mk11 Mod 0 rifle he carried resembled an M-16 on steroids. At nearly four feet long and weighing more than ten pounds, it wasn’t the ideal weapon to jump out of a plane with. However this was the only weapon in the Coast Guard armory that had a sound suppressor attached. Bolan hoped the sight of the big, silent, semiautomatic sniper rifle would put the fear of God into sailor and slaver alike. With luck they would never see it at all, much less hear it. He had also picked up a pair of .40 caliber SIG pistols and a Mark 3 Navy knife along with his jump rig and night-vision goggles. Spare magazines, flash stun grenades and flares made up the rest of his kit.

Sergeant Goldstein of the Security Unit gave Bolan a sympathetic look. “You sure you don’t want someone to come with you? I got three men who are jump qualified, including me!”

“Nothing I would like more, Sergeant. But not this time.”

“Are you expendable and deniable ’n’ stuff?” the sergeant inquired.

Bolan nodded. “’N’ stuff.”

“Awesome!”

“One minute!” the jumpmaster shouted. “We have an FLIR on target. The rain shouldn’t start for another ten minutes. The sea is pretty heavy and she’s only doing eight knots. You have a good glide path and a good window. Within thirty it’s going to start getting rough.”

Bolan nodded. The Ocean Sentry’s Forward Looking Infrared RADAR had eyes on the target and that meant so did he. He pulled his night-vision goggles over his eyes and powered them up. The world turned into a grainy screen of greens, blacks and grays.

The freighter’s manifest indicated it had taken on coffee and automotive parts on the main island. According to an NSA satellite Kurtzman had access to, the Anggun was also carrying the RFID Bolan had given Becca. Bolan was hoping it meant she was still alive.

The red lights blinked. The jumpmaster got excited. “You are over the target! Go! Go! Go!”

Bolan nodded and gave the jumpmaster a thumbs-up.

The soldier stepped into space and arched hard. The dark bulk of the blacked-out Ocean Sentry was silhouetted by the stars for a few fleeting moments and then it droned away to leave him with nothing but the bejeweled sky above and the water below. Bolan pulled his ripcord and felt his straps cinch as the canopy filled with air and the sudden drag yanked against his weight.

The Anggun wasn’t hard to find. She was a small tramp freighter in a great big ocean but she was the only light source for hundreds of miles. Bolan pulled on his steering toggles and began his approach. Details of the ship swiftly resolved in Bolan’s goggles as he descended. He spotted a dark area—out of sight behind the wheelhouse—crowded with the lifeboat and nautical objects he couldn’t yet identify. Bolan nodded to himself.

That was his LZ.

Bolan began a slow spiral, constantly compensating for the forward motion of the ship. A tailwind was pushing him in faster than he liked. If the soldier missed his LZ he’d be swimming. Bolan flared his chute and pulled his knees into his chest to clear the stern rail. He avoided a capstan and the chain curled around it and hit the deck in a textbook landing. The wet deck countered by shifting beneath his feet in the swell, sending him skidding. The soldier hit the orange steel side of an inverted lifeboat. His NVGs skewed on his head and Bolan fell back.

His chute filled with wind and began dragging him backward. Bolan’s straps cinched as his canopy dipped beneath the level of the rail and began to wildly billow and gyrate in the chop. Bolan tried to grab the slick hull of the lifeboat, but his fingers slid off, wet with his own blood. He was dragged inexorably backward and he lurched as his chute dipped into the sea. The canopy became an instant sea anchor and the soldier was violently pulled toward the rail.

Bolan’s Navy diving knife cleared its sheath with a rasp. He twisted and slashed at his lines. If the canopy managed to tangle in the propeller there was an excellent chance he’d be reeled in like a fish to a watery meat-grinding grave. Bolan hacked through his portside shrouding. The strain eased as the canopy went from a water scoop to a long soggy ribbon in the bow wake. He hooked an arm and a leg into the railing and cut his remaining lines. Bolan sagged to the deck and spat blood. He gave his septum an experimental and mildly agonizing wiggle.

His nose wasn’t broken but blood poured down his chin. Bolan reset his NVGs on his face and made double sure his rifle’s optics and suppressor were still in alignment. He gazed up at the wheelhouse but he had no visual on whoever might be inside. No one had gone to the rear window to see what had happened. The sea was rough, a storm was on the way and ships were noisy. Bolan doubted his landing, inglorious as it was, had registered over the sound of the engines and the swell. The soldier secured his phone to his left forearm and hit an app. Becca’s tracer was blinking away belowdecks.

Bolan rose and moved to the rear hatchway.

The hatch was open. All the lights were on and everybody was home. Bolan pushed up his NVGs and moved down the stairs that led below. The smell of tamarind, hot chilies, peanut sauce and rice frying told him he was indeed on an Indonesian ship.

Bolan moved along the corridor and took the second set of suicide steps down into the main cargo hold. Cigarette smoke and the sound of harsh laughter rose to meet him. Containers were stacked two high with narrow corridors between them. The center of the hold formed a small open area. Becca hung by her wrists from the starboard fork of a forklift at maximum height. Most of her clothes lay on the floor in sliced condition. A shirtless Indonesian man with a traditional parang sneered endearments in Malay as he laid the heavily curved machete blade between the shuddering woman’s collarbones. Five more men sat smoking, drinking beer and shoving fried rice down their maws as they watched. Bolan had the terrible feeling that Becca was considered a little too long in the tooth for the slave market and was being sacrificed to the crew’s appetites. Becca’s bra popped away beneath the blade.

Bolan sent three heavy, subsonic .30 calibers between machete man’s shoulder blades.

The rape crew watched for a stunned moment as the first in line fell and his blade hit the deck with a clang. They heard the clinking of Bolan’s spent brass a half second later and leaped to their feet clawing for pistols and blades. Bolan gave each man two rounds through the face in as many heartbeats. The slavers dropped dead like dominos in a neat semicircle. The soldier stepped out of the shadows, and Becca sagged in her restraints at the sight of him.

“You’re late.”

Bolan took out his knife and cut Becca free. “I know, and I am sorry.” He scooped up the machete man’s cast-off T-shirt and tossed it to her. “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

Becca pulled the stained V-neck over her head. “Just get me and the girls out of here.”

“On it. Can you shoot?”

“My last boyfriend was a cop. He let me shoot his Glock.”

Bolan scooped up two of the slaver’s pistols. “These are Browning Hi-Powers.” He cocked them and left them unlocked. “Just pull the trigger. You have thirteen shots in each one. Where are the rest of the girls?”