Stony Man 16 Deep Alert by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

EVEN WITH THE NEWS BLACKOUT about the piracies, word had gotten around the shipping community that merchant ships transporting high-tech cargoes were vanishing in the Atlantic Ocean.

Captains of vessels carrying such cargoes grew concerned, including Captain Bud Marshall of the SS San Juan. Fart of the cargo being loaded onto his vessel in Charleston was cobalt, a rare metal that had uses in certain nuclear and laser industrial applications. He wasn’t carrying much of it this trip, only one container destined for a lab in France. But if the pirate was after high-tech materials, that one container of cobalt could be enough to make him a possible target. Marshall wasn’t the kind of man to stand by and wring his hands when his ship was threatened. He had done two tours in Vietnam with the Brown Water Navy and knew how to fight to protect what was his.

On the weekend before he was scheduled to leave port, Marshall had gone to a gun show in Charleston and purchased a crate of twenty brand-new Chinese-made SKS semiautomatic infantry rifles. He also bought five crates of Chinese 7.62 mm military ammunition for the rifles.

His primary reason for buying the SKS’s instead of something more modern was simple—they were dirt cheap.

By the crate, they had cost him only $69.95 apiece. Dollar for dollar they were the firearms buy of the century. Secondly, he had come across the SKS in Vietnam and knew that it was not only an effective weapon, but simple and easy to use. He would have no problem training his mixed crew how to use them.

As soon as the San Juan left port and was in international waters, Marshall called a crew meeting and explained the situation and what little he knew about it. “I really don’t expect any trouble on this run, boys,” he said, “but it never hurts to take precautions. If trouble comes, I want to be ready for it.”

An hour later, Marshall and his first mate were on the ship’s fantail showing the off-duty crewmen how to load and fire the Chinese infantry rifles.

By their second day out of Charleston, every crewman on the vessel had cleaned and fired his SKS, loaded two hundred rounds of ammunition into the chest-pack magazine carrier that came with each rifle and was ready to defend the ship.

Most of the men didn’t believe there was any danger from submarine pirates, but none of them was about to tell Captain Marshall that. He had a way of running his ship that didn’t make that a wise move. Plus, it was fun to shoot the guns.

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