Free Seal Team Seven #20: Attack Mode by Keith Douglass Page A

opened silently and a hijacker opened fire.
    “Hey, Keanae, you okay?” a friendly voice came from beyond the stacked foodstuffs. “Thought I saw some blood on your shoulder when you came blasting through here. And there’s a bunch of blood spots on the floor. You come out of there and I’ll do some first aid.”
    In the surge to get away, Keanae had forgotten about his shoulder. He’d been shot before. Now that he knew he had been hit, the shoulder began to throb with pain. “Yeah, let me move some Corn Flakes. You know what you’re doing?”
    “I’m the ship’s emergency medic,” the second cook said. His name was Wally Torrance. He was five-eightand forty pounds overweight and didn’t give a damn.
    “Hey, Keanae, you never did tell us who you really are. After watching you work as a seaman for those six days in port, it was obvious you weren’t no swabby. You got to be CIA or maybe FBI.”
    “Afraid I can’t say, Torrance. Get this shoulder patched up so I can have a nap. I don’t like being shot. You have a dozen or so ibuprofen?” He took four of the pills, then watched the medic at work.
    “We still anchored right off this little island?” Keanae asked.
    “Oh, hell yes. If we got underway you’d feel it. From what I hear topside, we’re just sitting here and waiting. I don’t know what for. How the hell these guys gonna break down them lead tanks of plutonium to sell them? Won’t they get fried into crispy critters by that hellishly powerful radioactivity?”
    “They’ll probably try to sell it in the two hundred-pound lots.”
    “Yeah? What’s the going price for plutonium?”
    “Whatever the seller asks and can get from the terrorists.”
    “We’re talking twenty, thirty million a lead bottle here?” Torrance asked.
    “Sounds like a low-ball price to me, but just depends how much the terrorist nation needs the plut.”
    “You call it plut? Goddamn, then you got to be a CIA spook.”
    “Whatever, Torrance. Did the fucking bullet come out of me, or is it still inside?”
    “We got an entrance hole and we ain’t got no exit hole, so you’re about five ounces of lead heavier than you were.”
    “How long do I have to get it out before it kills me?”
    “Five days if you want to live long enough see your grandchildren.” Torrance put a final wrap on the bandage and fastened it with plastic tape. “Best I can do, CIA man. At least you won’t bleed on the Corn Flakes.”
    “Thanks, and remember, I’m just a lowly swabby.”
    “Yeah, sure. Hell, I won’t tell nobody.”
    On the bridge, Shigahara shouted into the phone. “What do you mean two of our men are on the floor of the radio room unconscious?”
    “Out like a light. Sanchez has a big scrape across his forehead like he got pistol-whipped. His hands and feet are tied. Socha has a nasty bump on the back of his head. He ain’t moving. He could be hurt bad.”
    “Lucas, you take over the radio room. Lock the door and don’t let anyone but me inside. Put Sanchez into the hall and slap him until he wakes up. Watch Socha to see if he comes out of it.”
    “Aye, aye, Captain, sir.”
    Shigahara growled into the set and pushed the button for Engineering. Somebody grabbed it on the first ring.
    “Inbrook, why aren’t we moving?”
    “The computer. We just got it figured out. Rather Ken Schafer figured it out. It was simple. Somebody put a new program into the works. Every time my computer was given an order to perform some function, any kind, even coming up with the internet, the program told the computer that an illegal act had been performed and shut it down.”
    “A virus?”
    “Not really, but kind of.”
    “So you take that program out and we’re moving?”
    “Not quite. Schafer says he needs to write a new program that will cancel out the bad one. Take him about three hours. He also told me that if you want him to do it, the charge is ten thousand dollars. He says he don’t work for free.”
    “What? I should