Dangerous Tides. Don Pendleton

quickly assessed his targets visually, verifying that they were dead or out of action. Then he ran back the way he’d come, toward the companionway, holstering the Beretta and charging up to Deck 5 as he unclipped a flash-bang charge from his combat harness.

      A pirate with a Kalashnikov somehow saw him and covered his face as Bolan planted one foot against the lounge door. As he shoved the door open, he tossed the primed flash-bang, ducking backward and shielding his ears while squeezing his eyes shut. The grenade burst, a miniature sun filling the lounge with merciless noise.

      Bolan waited just long enough for the effects to reach tolerable levels. He stormed the lounge, both guns in his hands, scanning the writhing crowd of hostages and pirates in order to discern hostiles from innocents. The first pirate, the one he’d seen through the door, had crawled off somewhere in the blast. Bolan instead focused on those pirates he could see among the crowd, moving through the lounge with his guns leveled. A pirate clutched at a submachine gun and tried to rise. Bolan shot him. Another attempted to find the door, moving among the screaming, sobbing hostages. Bolan ended his struggles with a single round to the head. The Executioner made several circuits through the large, cluttered lounge space, ending the lives of the pirates before they could harm the hostages. Gunfire echoed and the smell of fired cartridges filled the space, competing with the sounds and smell of fear.

      The Executioner knew this world only too well.

      Stepping deftly over struggling passengers, who appeared to be recovering from the blast, Bolan found the nearest exit doors, leading forward. He burst through, knowing he could trigger a trap, but knowing, too, that he had no time to spare waiting out his enemies. As he threw himself through, low and fast, the unmistakable burst of Kalashnikov fire ripped through the air above his head. The hollow metallic sound of the AK-pattern receiver was burned indelibly in Bolan’s brain, something he would not forget for as long as he lived. From the deck, Bolan brought up both the Desert Eagle and the Beretta, punching snap-fired rounds into the pirate’s belly and knocking him down.

      Something beeped.

      Bolan hurried over, his guns trained on the fallen pirate. The small man, who looked Vietnamese to Bolan’s practiced eye, looked up at him, his eyes glazing, as blood pumped from the wounds in his stomach. He made no attempt to reach for the fallen rifle he’d held. On the deck next to him was an electronic device Bolan did not recognize, and an open wireless satellite phone.

      “Too…” the pirate said.

      Bolan leaned closer, mindful of a sneak attack.

      “Too…late…” the pirate whispered.

      “What is too late?” Bolan asked urgently. “Who are you?”

      “Tranh…” the pirate said, his voice failing. “You…killed…me…” His words turned into a death rattle. “But…you…die.”

      The pirate stared up in death, eyes empty. The Executioner grabbed the phone. Whatever call the man had made had been disconnected. He tried reestablishing it, but with no luck.

      Tranh, Bolan thought. Most likely he had been Vietnamese. It was information the Farm might need. Who had he called? Allies nearby? There was no way to know. But there were more pressing concerns. Bolan scooped up the electronic device. He read over the Russian lettering and examined the blinking indicators.

      His eyes widened.

      Bolan ran. He checked the hostages visually as he ran back through the lounge, making sure there were no living pirates still moving about. People tried to speak with him, but he ignored them, jumping over those still crouched on the floor, heading for the companionway. He made Deck 4 and found the nearest of the canisters.

      The electronic detonator registered a countdown.

      Bolan took out his PDA satellite phone and hit the preprogrammed, scrambled contact number for Stony Man Farm. He waited as the call went through. Barbara Price, Stony Man’s honey-blond, model-beautiful mission controller, answered almost immediately.

      “Barb,” Bolan said. “I have a problem, now. The canisters I sent pictures of. The detonators on them are counting down. I’ve got several here. I’ve got less than fifteen minutes.”

      “We’re analyzing it, Striker,” Price said without preamble. “Passing you to Akira now.”

      Akira Tokaido, one of the Farm’s expert computer hackers, came on the line. “I have traced the schematics of the device based on the pictures,” he told Bolan. “It’s a Soviet-era signal receiver and detonator package containing a small but powerful Russian plastic explosive.”

      “The canisters?” Bolan asked. “What’s in them?”

      “No time,” Akira said. “But trust me, Striker, you don’t want them exploding.”

      “Evacuation?”

      “There are three hundred passengers and crew on that ship.” Barbara Price’s voice cut in again. “We can’t get them out in time. We could airlift a few, but not nearly enough.”

      “Options?

      “Each device can be deactivated separately. But you’ve got to hurry,” Akira said. “Each device contains four screws on the side panel. Unscrew those and expose the internal wiring. There are blue, brown and red wires. Cut the blue wire in each detonator. That’s it.”

      “Tamper safeguards?”

      “None,” Akira said. “It’s designed to be simple.”

      Bolan was already removing the folding multitool he carried in his combat harness. He snapped open the screwdriver bit and began unscrewing the panel on the detonator. When the wires were visible, he cut the blue one.

      The countdown stopped. The detonator’s LEDs winked out.

      The soldier had no time to celebrate his victory. He moved from canister to canister and then from cabin to cabin, finding and neutralizing the detonators as he went. He could not afford to miss any. The numbers fell as he worked furiously, hoping that there were no other pirates loose aboard to make trouble while he undid this horrific work. When he reached the final canister in the last officer’s cabin, he saw the readout on the device.

      He was not going to make it.

      The cabin had a porthole. Bolan ripped the Desert Eagle from its holster and pumped several rounds through the heavy glass. Then he knelt, letting the Desert Eagle rest on the floor. He picked up the canister, adrenaline and desperation lending strength to his movements. He heaved the heavy steel tank, detonator and all, out the porthole, past the broken shards of glass. He waited to hear it hit the sea.

      It exploded.

      The Executioner could feel the vibrations through the deck and against the hull. He backed away, slowly, knowing that it would do no good if the sea had not neutralized or contained the canister’s deadly contents. When he was racked with no ill effects, he took out his PDA once more and dialed the Farm.

      “It’s done,” Bolan said. “One of the tanks exploded in the water after I threw it overboard. What can you tell me?”

      “You should be okay, Striker,” Barbara Price’s voice responded, relief only too evident in her tone. “Bear and Akira have a full workup on what we’re dealing with, based on the intelligence you forwarded. The Russian lettering sidetracked us briefly, because it was added to the tanks long after they were made. The containers are Saudi in manufacture.”

      “Tell me,” Bolan said simply. He was making his way to Deck 5 once more, as he listened.

      “The substance is a concentrated acid developed by the Saudis,” Price informed him. “U.S. Intelligence knew about it maybe twelve years ago. As far as we knew the Saudis themselves quashed it because they were worried it was too powerful.”

      “What does it do?”

      “It’s bad, Striker,” Price said. “A few drops of it poured onto the ground, exposed to the air, creates a toxic cloud that acts