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rising perhaps four feet on the swell. But his team was made up of experts. The grapplers were ready. The crew stood back for the throw.
    Ismael Wolde positioned himself on the stern to ensure his command would be heard by both boats.
    “Ready?” he snapped.
    “Affirmative,” called Ibrahim Yacin, a former Somali gunrunner who believed he was the reincarnation of General Rommel.
    “LET’S GO!!” called Wolde. In the same split second, four grappling hooks whirled around three times and then flew upward. Each rope was marked with a thick red wool tie, showing the precise place the throwers should tighten their grip to avoid the grapplers rolling around on deck.
    The irons hurled by three of the pirates landed perfectly over the rails with a clinking noise, but the fourth one got away, flying up way too high and landing with a thump, clatter, and rumble as it shot back to the rails and smacked into the metal post.
    Charlie Wyatt, wide awake and with the air-conditioners cut back, was sitting below an open window on the port side. The clatter caused by grappler four caused him to jump out of his chair.
    “What the fucking hell was that?” he shouted. Fred Corcoran, dozing on the whiplash hair trigger of a veteran ocean master, came out of his chair like a bullet. Rick Barnwell had been reading on the far side of the bridge and did not hear the racket. But he heard Charlie Wyatt.
    “We’ve fucking hit something!” he shouted. “Either that or the goddamned radar just fell off the roof.”
    Charlie craned out of the window and could not believe his eyes. There in the moonlight, illuminated by the light from the upper-works entrance, two figures could be clearly seen clambering aboard the Niagara Falls .
    Ismael Wolde and Bouh Adan were up and over. And before Charlie Wyatt had time to collect himself, the rope ladders and their separate grappling hooks were flung over the rail by the dead-eyed Gacal Gueleh, which signalled the moment when everyone, all eight of the remaining men, jumped on to the ladders and climbed up with every ounce of their strength.
    “HOLY SHIT!” bawled Charlie. “We’re being boarded. Get the fucking baseball bats, RITCHIE! This is it!”
    Captain Corcoran already had the loaded M-4 machine gun in firing
position and had joined Charlie at the window. The full crew from the Mombasssa was not yet over the rails, but both Fred and Charlie could see four heads coming up the ropes, with the two lead climbers, Wolde and Bouh, pulling their Kalashnikovs off their shoulders.
    Fred opened fire in a reckless and inaccurate volley of flying bullets. More by luck than anything else, he hit and killed young Bouh. Wolde rushed for cover, and Charlie and Rick charged down the stairs wielding the Louisville Sluggers. The fact they were facing gunfire with baseball bats did not faze them since they both believed they may be fighting for their lives.
    Fred Corcoran pinned Wolde down behind the portside bulwark. He unleashed another furious volley of fire from the high window but hit nothing. Bullets ricocheted in all directions. The assault troops at the top of the ladders froze since to move forward would be suicide.
    By now Charlie and Rick had both reached the bottom of the companionway, and Charlie rushed out onto the deck, where he could see the stalled incoming climbers still on the hull of the ship. Charlie swung hard and caved in the skull of Gacal Gueleh. The former fisherman from Mogadishu, who was trying to fix the rope ladders, toppled backward into the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
    Charlie was just on his backswing to end the life of Elmi Ahmed when Ismael Wolde stepped out of the shadows and gunned him down, four quick-fire bullets straight into his back, instantly killing the first mate from Baltimore.
    Up on the bridge, Captain Corcoran’s magazine was empty and he could not locate another. Jimmy Tevez locked them both in, and down below, with Charlie Wyatt dead, the raiders swarmed over