Final Assault. Don Pendleton

      It was a floating city. A small city, true, but worth more money than Garrand had ever seen. And it was his for the taking if his plan went off without a hitch. Which it would, because it was his plan.

      Two fingers tapped his shoulder, and he glanced back at his second-in-command, Yacoub. The Moroccan pulled down the edge of his keffiyeh and grinned. “What a way to earn a paycheck, eh, Georges?” Yacoub had served in the Legion with him, and when Garrand had decided to seek larger fortunes for less risk, the other man had come along.

      “There are worse ways. And keep your cover on. There are too many cameras on that boat. No sense in giving the game away early.” Garrand tugged on his own keffiyeh for emphasis. All of the men in the rafts wore them, along with stripped-down FELIN suits. The electronics had been removed from the flak jackets and they didn’t have helmets, but all the men carried FAMAS rifles. The bullpup-style assault rifles were the service weapon of the French military, with a large trigger guard, a STANAG magazine and a handguard just below the muzzle. It was a compact, efficient weapon...two things Garrand prized.

      Standardization of equipment was one of Garrand’s keystones. If everyone was using the same type of weapon, ammo rationing would be easier. He’d gotten the equipment, and more besides, from a black market dealer who’d owed him a favor or six. An investment in mercy that had paid large dividends.

      Their clothing had been dyed and artfully torn in places to give the impression of hard use. Yacoub and several of the others, those who could pass for locals at a distance, had stripped the sleeves from their shirts. Garrand, born and raised in Marseille, kept his sleeves pulled down. The deception wouldn’t pass muster with anyone who was halfway knowledgeable about the region, but that wasn’t Garrand’s problem. It wouldn’t matter in the long run, at any rate.

      As they drew close to the Demeter, he caught the faint sounds of music and laughter from the upper decks, far above his head. Garrand smiled. It was the Demeter’s world tour, and besides her crew, guests of every social stripe as well as their hangers-on and members of the press were on board. He had memorized the names and faces and the net worth of each just in case. It always pays to have a backup plan.

      “What fool thought this was a good place for a party?” Yacoub asked, shaking his head. “It’s like they’re begging to be attacked.”

      “This tub has a security force of thirty, and it’s reinforced to the point of ridiculousness. Even the most aggressive pirates couldn’t take the Demeter,” Garrand said. “It’s the floating equivalent of a gated community. What better way to show how secure it is than to float right through pirate alley?”

      Yacoub shook his head again. “Still seems like asking for trouble to me.” He laughed and hefted his assault rifle. “But who am I to judge?”

      “We’ve got a ten-minute window in the Maritime Security Patrol area, so when we have boots on the deck, move quick,” Garrand said, looking at the others. “We need to hit them hard and fast before they know what’s going on. Take over the control and engine rooms, and that’s game, set and match. And keep your cover up. We’re being paid to look like pirates, so play pirate. Don’t kill anyone you don’t have to.”

      “You sure about the timing?” one of the others grunted. A Serbian named Borjan. Garrand looked at him, and Borjan fell silent. Garrand was touchy about his plans. They all knew that, but it didn’t stop some of them from pressing the issue.

      “Yes,” he said slowly, “I am quite sure.” Garrand looked back toward the vessel. “Aim for the cove,” he said to the man controlling the tiller. Until recently, he’d been part of the Demeter’s security staff, just like everyone on Garrand’s team. Garrand himself had been head of security before he and his men were very publicly fired. All part of their employer’s plan. It was a good plan. His was better, though. More profitable, too.

      The cove was shuttered, as he’d expected. The metal doors could be opened from within when the Demeter was anchored, allowing the artificial cove to flood. But it was standard procedure to keep the Demeter shuttered tight while in the designated hot spots—the Gulf of Aden, the Strait of Malacca, a few others. Garrand knew this because he’d come up with that policy himself. He also knew the strength of the shutters, having overseen their installation. They would resist most forms of explosive...unless it was attached at just the right point.

      “Chuckles,” Garrand said. The big American mercenary gave a grunt of acknowledgment and slid to the side of the raft, a shaped charge in his hands. He leaned out and gestured. Garrand nodded. “That’s it. Hurry it up. We have a hijacking to get on with.”

      “Just call me D. B. Cooper,” Chuckles said, as he attached the charge to the spot Garrand had indicated. When it exploded, it would disable the shutters’ locking mechanism. Without that, the hull would ratchet open.

      “I would, but we’re not in a plane and you’re terrible with parachutes,” Garrand said. “Set the damn thing up. We’re on a schedule.” He signaled for the tillerman to pull the raft back. The explosion wouldn’t be large, but no sense tempting fate. Garrand waved the other two rafts back, as well. “Wait...” he said as Chuckles readied the detonator.

      “I know, I know,” the mercenary replied. Garrand frowned at the edge in the other man’s voice; Chuckles was good at his job, but he was testy. He didn’t like being told what to do, a trait he shared with the others. As the raft reached a safe distance, Garrand chopped his hand through the air.

      “Open sesame,” Chuckles said, and the charge went off with a dull krump. Metal groaned and water slopped over the sides of the raft as the shutters opened like the petals of a flower.

      “Hit it,” Garrand barked. The motor growled and the raft shot forward through the widening gap. As they entered the Demeter’s belly, he could hear alarms wailing. He lifted his assault rifle and was already leaping out of the raft as it thudded against the cove’s fiberglass shore. The others followed suit and soon, all twenty of his men were moving up the slope.

      Garrand saw a startled face peering out through the window of the shutter control booth—the night crew—and fired. The window rattled as the bulletproof glass absorbed his shots, as he’d known it would, but the face vanished. “Two men on duty,” he said. “One armed, one not.”

      “Unless they changed the routine after we left,” Yacoub said as they sprinted toward the booth. The others were spreading out, covering the entrance to the cove. They knew what to do and did it with the alacrity of trained professionals. Yacoub and two others would hit the engine room. The rest would follow Garrand to the upper decks and the control center. But first, they had to secure the cove.

      “They didn’t change anything,” Garrand said.

      Yacoub fired a burst at the closest set of speakers, mounted above the booth, and cut off one of the sirens in mid-wail. “Eight minutes until our window closes, by the way.”

      “Plenty of time,” Garrand said. He hit the steel door with his boot. “Open up!” He kicked it again and then thumped it with the butt of his weapon.

      Silence. That too was standard procedure. One member of the security team and a crewmember would be on duty. The booth was reinforced, and theoretically, the men inside could wait out most anything, up to and including an assault by armed invaders. Theoretically. Yacoub made a face. “Want to blow it open?”

      Even as he spoke, a muffled sound came from within. “No need,” Garrand said. He waved Yacoub back as the lock disengaged and the door swung open. A man wearing the gray fatigues of the Demeter’s security forces stepped out of the booth holding a smoking pistol. “Hello, Sergei. How’s tricks?” Garrand asked mildly.

      “Better now,” Sergei said. The big Russian was slab-faced, with eyes like polished stones. Beneath the plain uniform his broad torso was covered in elaborate tattoos. Sergei looked at Yacoub and nodded.

      “Sergei,” Yacoub replied. The two men eyed one another for a moment and then looked away. They