Free Sword of Allah by David Rollins

happening, was the most normal thing in the world.

The Persian Gulf
    Commander Steve Drummond pulled the Panamanian registered tanker, Ocean Trader , into focus. ‘Has she decided to come clean, X?’
    ‘Negative, sir,’ said the executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Angus Briggs. ‘We’re getting the same crap about agricultural supplies.’
    ‘What’s she steering?’ asked Drummond.
    Briggs leaned back and checked the figure on the screen. ‘No change, sir.’
    Commander Drummond examined the vessel looming larger in the Zeiss lenses. HMAS Arunta ’s high power cameras were trained on the tanker, presenting it clearly on the bridge’s colour monitors, but Drummond preferred to use the binoculars, a present from his wife when his command of the brand new Anzac-class frigate had been confirmed. Ocean Trader was an oil tanker, an old clunker long overdue for the boneyard. Who was its master kidding? thought Drummond. HMAS Arunta was making twenty-five knots to the tanker’s fifteen, running down the rust bucket like a young lion tackling an old wart-hog. The commander did the calculations in his head. It’d take thirty minutes to close the five nautical miles between the two ships.
    Drummond touched the computer screen at his elbow, calling up the Gulf’s merchant schedule for the week. Yep, there it was, the Ocean Trader. It was indeed due in the Gulf waters at this time, but according to the schedule, it wasn’t a tanker. Yet here it was, an oiler and low in the water with its belly full of what was most likely crude stolen from Iraqi fields. And it was attempting to make a run for it, for Christ’s sake. How stupid was that?
    ‘What does Franklin D say?’ the captain asked. The American battle group to which the Arunta was attached, headed by the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D Roosevelt , was steaming in the opposite direction, keeping an eye on Iran and Syria.
    ‘Sir, they have no record of Ocean Trader being challenged. This one’s kept its nose clean.’
    The captain continued to keep his eyes on the quarry. ‘Officer of the Watch, what other surface contacts do we have on radar?’
    ‘Sir, there’s nothing much in our immediate vicinity. Aside from the Ocean Trader , there’s a fishing boat in its lee, currently heading in the opposite direction.
    ‘What’s the separation between them?’ asked Drummond.
    ‘Three miles, sir, and it’s roughly on a parallel course.’
    ‘What are you silly buggers up to?’ Drummond said to himself. The tanker was still churning the water. ‘What do you think, X?’
    Angus Briggs stood beside Drummond and glanced again at the monitor behind him. ‘Nothing makes a lot of sense here, sir. We’ve raised its master on the radio, but it doesn’t look like he’s got any intention of heaving to.’
    ‘Okay, enough already,’ said Drummond, his mind made up. ‘We’ll board her. And get that fishing boat on the line and tell him to get the hell out of there in the nicest possible way.’ Drummond turned back to their quarry and considered the closing angles of the two vessels. ‘Nav, bring us round on a parallel course.’
    Briggs waited till the course changes had been completed and then said, ‘Quartermaster, get the gunner of the watch up here.’
    ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Teo, the only Australian of Asian origin in the ship’s complement of sixty, and nicknamed ‘China’ by the crew.
    ‘Who’s on today, China?’ Briggs asked.
    ‘Sean Matheson, sir,’ said Teo from memory.
    Briggs then called up Leading Seaman Mark Wallage, a twenty-year-old electronics whiz-kid in the ship’s operations room. ‘Mark, get us a firing solution on our tub.’
    ‘Aye aye, sir,’ he said. Wallage touched the computer screen on the steel bench in front of him, activating the weapons system. A small pair of crosshairs appeared on the screen and Wallage repositioned them amidships on the Ocean Trader ’s waterline. It was as simple as that. The Arunta ’s