Tiger by the Tail

Author:John Ringo & Ryan Sear [Ringo, John & Sear, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adventure, General, Fiction, Science Fiction, Space Opera
ISBN: 9781451638561
Google: AAx7tgAACAAJ
Amazon: 1451638566
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

These guys are crazy, Somchai Chaisukkasem thought as he guided the small skiff across the ocean water toward the majestic yacht. No way am I going up there.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to. A former fisherman, he had turned to rice farming five years ago, but the floods in his native land had wiped out his crop, so he had no choice but to return to the ocean and try to catch enough to sell again.

Since then, his days had been filled with nothing but water, water, and more water, starting before dawn and ending after dusk. The fish he caught was barely keeping his family fed, and Somchai found he had to go farther and farther out to catch them every day.

So, when a man he had never seen before walked up to his boat and offered him a month’s earnings to take five men out onto the Gulf of Thailand for one night, Somchai had not thought too hard before agreeing. He figured they were probably criminals, but by that point he was too tired and desperate to care. They had paid the half of the outrageous price up front, and he had made sure his wife and three children had received it before he left. They had also brought a brand-new electric motor for his boat, which they said he could keep after the job was done. Somchai had his doubts that he’d ever see land again, but he was still willing to take the risk.

Now, however, he was having second thoughts about the whole thing. The night had started with him coming down to the pier to see a half-dozen masked men with wicked looking guns waiting for him. The forty-foot cigarette boat they rode in for the first thirty miles with his fishing boat lashed to the stern was the next clue.

When he saw exactly what they were asking him to do, however, he almost backed out right then and there. But the only way out now was with a bullet to the back of his head. Therefore, Somchai had aimed his boat through the rain toward the fast-moving white yacht in the distance, concentrating very hard on the masked man’s insistence that they approach the bow of the immense pleasure craft. Fortunately, the electric motor worked perfectly, propelling his eighteen-foot skiff toward the superyacht in near silence. The plan had been to have the cigarette boat distract any one who might be on deck with a pass to the rear, making sure to show up on their radar, while the skiff approached the bow and allowed the boarding party to come aboard.

“You will have only one chance,” he said when they were less than a minute out. “I will pass in front of the yacht only once. How you get aboard is your problem. I won’t be coming back for anyone.”

“Just get us there and we will do the rest.” The leader had replied.

Even with his fifteen years of piloting, they had almost gone down anyway.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.