Free Cold Shot by Mark Henshaw

curious.
    “And our men?” By which he meant his actual team and not the Markarid ’s own crew members. It was surprising how quickly he, a nonmariner, had fallen into the pattern of thinking of everyone aboard as “his crew.”
    “The four who were in sickbay appear normal. No recurrence of symptoms.”
    That was good news. The ship’s medic had insisted that they suffered from seasickness and prescribed Dramamine, but Elham knew from the start that the diagnosis was wrong. They had all taken the drug before boarding the vessel. There were other possibilities besides his worst-case scenario. Who knew what diseases those Somali pirates had carried? But those four had been the fire team that searched the forward hold, looking for Somalis during the raid.
    It had been days before they could hold down solid food and none of them could control their bowels. The medic had labored mightily to make sure they didn’t succumb to dehydration. They were all back on duty now, under orders to report to the medic daily for follow-up and to limit their contact with the rest of the crew. If the Somalis had infected them with some malady, Elham didn’t want it spreading.
    “Very good,” Elham finally said. “Any problems with that?” He nodded toward the island superstructure where several tarps covered the crater in the ship left by the thermobaric RPG round one of the Somali pirates had fired off at the moment of his death.
    “No,” the sergeant confirmed. “The lashings held fine during last night’s storm. We are still checking it every hour.”
    “Good.” The hole was sizable, large enough that it wouldn’t be repaired without a welding team, a dry dock, and more supplies than they had aboard. Even covered, he worried that any vessel could have seen at a thousand yards that the ship had taken damage, so he had ordered the crew to avoid contact with other vessels and populated islands. Ascension Island, home to a UK airbase, had been a particular concern some days ago, but they had passed far enough away that there had been no incidents.
    “Your orders?”
    Elham shook his head. “Prepare for docking and unloading. After that’s complete, the actual crew remains aboard until we receive further orders. Our men will provide initial security until I can hand off that responsibility to our hosts.”
    “The men are asking about shore leave,” the sergeant noted.
    “I’m sure.” Six weeks aboard this barge had felt much, much longer. “Perhaps after the cargo has been relocated. Dismissed,” Elham said. The sergeant saluted and walked away.
    After the cargo has been relocated, he repeated in his mind. You should have found a reason to scuttle the ship, he thought briefly, then quashed the thought. That was treason . . . but was treason the smarter course here? His country was hated. Even their fellow Muslim states despised them. A few kept it hidden for the most part, barely, behind false smiles and closed doors but some like the Saudis didn’t even bother with that pretense. The cargo in the forward hold would not change that for the better. It would earn them neither the respect nor the fear that Ahmadi insisted it would, he was sure. We will be true pariahs now, to everyone.
    Elham pulled back from the portside rail. Such debate was pointless but he’d rarely had the luxury of so much time to reflect on orders while carrying them out. Time could be dangerous for a soldier in so many ways. He’d been drilled to obey orders as a younger man and taught the reason for it as he’d climbed the ranks. Questions were a hindrance to duty . . . and yet he’d never fully quashed that part of his mind that wanted to reason things out. It was a terrible habit for an Iranian soldier but he’d long since given up trying to kill it.
    He forced his attention away from the debate going on in his head. Elham had never truly been in control of this mission, no matter how free he’d felt on the bridge high above. Such was