An extract from a novel tentatively called Father John
by Donald R. Vogel
Prologue
It was the day before Easter and I had a sermon to write but pirates to kill first. I was ordained an Apostle of the Sea by way of sniper duty in Iraq—an experiment in covert maritime security. This was aboard the Colombo Express, a rivet veined beast of steel so big I could see a mirage shimmering on her forward deck. We steamed south through the Malacca Strait to Palau Bukom refinery on Singapore’s Jurong Island, 72 days out of Saudi Arabia. The Strait is a narrow pirate infested cesspool just above the equator, through which one quarter of the world’s oil flows each year.
The Express had just passed Benda Aceh at the tip of the Indonesian Island of Sumatra to our east, when the captain ordered the crew to lockdown and me to station topside. The Port Authority of Singapore had radioed all ships entering the area that pirate activity was up, and the old man didn’t want to take any chances even in daylight. In a world of martyr wannabes who cared little for stealth, our two million barrels of crude were a desirable trophy.
I had a panoramic view atop the ship’s tower, set back against the fantail and about three stories above the waterline. All about me stretched the waters of the Strait: brown, smelling of sewage and oil when the tide brought fuel from World War II wrecks still leeching somewhere in the deep. The collective reek stung my nostrils on the fetid, false breeze created by the movement of the ship and my perch. The equatorial ooze was so thick that the minor blast of air did little to dry the sweat tracing rivulets down my nose.
The heat or the stench didn’t faze me. I only had to think of pig shit. My first day of sniper training saw to that. Day one at Fort Benning, Georgia I was a PIG (Professional Instructed Gunmen) and was treated like one. With an instructor screaming in my ear, I stripped to my skivvies and put on my sniper tux, a ghillie suit. Our christening was to wallow through 10 miles of the deepest, pig infested shit swamp and then run us back in the hot sun with 40 pounds of gear on our backs. So a little heat and stink had nothing on eating shit and asking for more, sir.
I was lying with a rifle nestled into my right shoulder. She was a beauty, an M82A1 with silencer, the weapon those Navy SEALS got international attention for a few years back by taking out Somali pirates in open water. It was recoil operated, semi-automatic classified as anti-material, because it fired the same .50 calibers the big machine guns do. Each bullet was six inches long and tended to separate the sum of one’s parts, man or machine. Yes, those SEALs got clean head shots on a bobbing target, but it was in tow and only 75 yards away. Being on a floating bomb, I couldn’t let anybody or anything get that close.
We were steaming at 12 knots, and navigating around canoes, junks and several hundred other Leviathans in the channel. Being in position for the better part of an eight hour trek through the Strait, I had a rucksack filled with food stuffs and supplies, a .45 with silencer at my side, and a canteen from which I took one of many swigs. The drops from my lip disappeared when they hit the deck. Prone as I was, I was enveloped in vapor, pressing up from under me, through the haze at the horizon line, and in the orange and read smog spewing from Palau Bukom in the distance.
Through my scope, a nitrogen injected XM109, I scanned a 180° swath from port to starboard. I shifted my weight, rubbed my eyes and squinted. Portside, just entering view, I caught a kid snapping his head back with a smile, but I held steady on the trigger. He only appeared to look at me, but really turned to his father, who nodded approval for the fish he caught. About 30° out from them I saw a lithe, brown skinned adolescent holding a gun, no, oar, and pointing it at some kid in another boat doing the same. I held steady on the trigger.
They all had the Austronesian features that populated that region: dark eyes, round faces, and smiles that betrayed protruding ribs. The shirtless, darker ones were the fisherman, the Batak peoples who eked bare sustenance from dwindling reserves of garoupas and sea bass. Among them I had to watch for the bajing loncat, jumping squirrels. Light, limber, and strong from years of menial labor, they didn’t need training to get a footing on your deck, just a skiff and motor. The Loncat were the lesser threat. Priding themselves on using only knives, they were only interested in what was portable. Even rope that could be made into a fish net was treasure.
The sun began its descent to my left, and the smoke from the refinery lingered defiantly at the edges of the light, before its fingertips melted to a neutral gray beyond the glare. We were headed into rush hour traffic. I scoped fishermen hauling their nets at the end of a long day’s languid ritual. Some, nets full, would eat well while others wouldn’t. Between the oil that flowed in and what ships dumped in their pass through the Strait, I wondered if those who went hungry weren’t the lucky ones.
Loncat aside, I was most concerned about anyone that stood out among the Batak. The lone Japanese or Chinese meant something was amiss. The criminals usually wore shirts to hide body paint—Yakuza or Triad. They would be well armed with swift boats and advanced technology. Material things were what they craved; hostages meant witnesses or unwanted attention from foreign governments and were disposable. Typically, they went for the targets of least resistance.
Jamaal Islamiyah was another story. They got nastier when confronted, fueled by Al Qaida-tainted beliefs. Blow their boats and they’d keep swimming without a limb. A lone man in a canoe was an opportunity. People meant ransom; valuables funded their cause. Vessels could be sunk to hamper shipping or redeployed for bigger attacks. They usually had a superior air among the Batak whom they considered impure.
Last were the flesh peddlers or drug dealers. Those were the groups who would sneak up behind a ship to get underneath but not aboard. They proliferated in the Strait where smuggling was easier than in open water, especially for the drug dealers. With the right adhesive and paint, they’d attach their stuff to a hull and camouflage it for their compatriots on foreign shores.
Those who traded in flesh needed the complicity of a crew member to get their product to market. If caught, they were the costliest to the shipping company. With homeland security, stowaways meant millions lost in fines, repatriation, and manpower. Most often a close range weapon was needed rather than an M81.
I scrutinized the horizon as we entered the heart of the Strait. In addition to the rivers from which pirates could flow, there were islands like Rupat, which was just coming into view. It served as cover for pirate operations. The island forms a choke point, just three miles across from the port of Melaka, the Strait’s namesake on the Malaysian side, starboard. Rupat is about thirty miles in diameter and is nothing but low lying swamps. I scanned looking for reeds that moved in the windless heat or vegetation used for camouflage but was out of place in that stagnant environment.
If confronted by anything from Rupat or elsewhere, my mission was simple: deter, harass, or kill. The tricky part was having weaponry on a civilian vessel, which flew in the face of accepted laws. Captains feared mutiny, NATO feared international incident. However, most third world countries didn’t mind the assistance in eliminating their criminal element if for no other reason than piracy kept profit out of their hands.
Still, I tried to remain as covert as possible until on station. The crew going to lockdown helped with that. Once topside, I didn’t care so much. Any criminal that spotted a shooter atop a merchant ship wasn’t about to report it to the local authorities.
And let them come—I had a plan.
On tour with Special Operations in Iraq I would draw up a range card from a given position on which I scribbled and plotted the distance to fixed points within a certain boundary. That way I automatically knew the range to most any targets. Things were obviously different on the Express where I envisioned my position as being the only fixed point in a changing perimeter. It was simpler and better because I kept it in my head. It was also based on homeland security regulations for shipping which recommended concentric circles of protection around a vessel.
The widest circle from where I was positioned was the range of my scope, approximately 2,000 yards out. Anything that entered it became a contact, something to be watched like the kid and his father. Five hundred yards within that was the maximum range of my rifle. Those I labeled targets, which became targets of opportunity if they appeared to disobey Rules of the Road mandating port to port passage.
Simply put, anything speeding toward us, within a thousand yards, unless one of the official boats of the surrounding countries, would have been dead men floating. If they got in the final circle, about the range of an RPG, dead men floating included me.
I had to be more alert when we steamed directly across from Rupat. It formed a ‘U’ shaped harbor with the town of Dumai at its base, hidden from view of the main channel. I began scoping the upper point of the ‘U’ when, about 45° to starboard; I noticed a burst of color in the corner of my eye. It was a line of boats, four abreast, that looked in the haze like a pixilated flotilla out of Haight-Ashbury.
As it all came into focus, I could see that each of their masts formed a maypole with red, white and green streamers fanning out port, starboard and aft. Underneath were bunches of locals that looked to be making offerings to the oil streaked water. Then, a formation of smaller boats in various shapes and sizes began to appear from the shelter of Rupat and behind the splurge of color. I radioed for the captain to take a look and then scoped and calculated potential shots, just in case.
My last day at Fort Benning prepared me for that kind of shooting. They made us run between different positions in full gear, and when we got to each, we had to calculate multiple variables, get off a clean shot in five seconds, and run again. The distance between points increased every time, along with the distance of the shots, from 100 to 1,500 yards. To pass the test, each of us had to get 28 out of 30 shots at a five inch wide target. To put it in perspective, your average military ground pounder is only expected to make thirty percent of his shots.
The captain responded that what I saw was a Petik Laut, a ceremony the locals held to bless the bounty of the sea. He said that it was nothing to worry about and that they were probably staging it for tourists. After he signed off, I thought a moment about tourists, and then looked to Melaka and back to Rupat. There were no resorts in Dumai. That’s when it dawned on me, shit. I jacked my scope to maximum range and scanned the faces of the celebrants. I looked for faces lacking joy.
To hit someone on one of those party boats would have required a ballistic coefficient of 1.032 at 2,000 yards dialed into my scope. This was the sum of factors such as mass, drag, density and length of a bullet. Shooting from where I was, I had to incorporate an additional variable that even those Navy SEALS didn’t have to figure: shooting a moving target from a mobile position.
Trapping was my best option. Essentially, it relied on intuition and the mil dots in my scope’s reticule to establish a lead point ahead of a target. So if one of the boats in the Petik Laut went rogue, I would have pulled the trigger just before it reached a point I had plotted ahead of it. Even though I kept doing calculations in my head to hone my skills, I used a BORS for the shipboard work. Made by Barrett, it was an automatic targeting system that provided instant firing solutions. The BORS was preparation for a coordinated attack.
I scanned each of the party boats, fore to aft, every man woman and child and found what I was looking for—a chess champ at a frat party. He was in the back of the last boat to my right, which was about 150° to starboard. He was smart enough to go shirtless, but not so much to shave the Hussein stain on his upper lip.
I said to myself, “hello Mr. 1.050” as I clicked his BC and kept the crosshairs on him, waiting.
Whatever else my sniper training was about, stealth to get into position and fitness to get out, the most important thing was the mental and physical condition I needed to shoot that guy. It was simple: breath. A Tibetan monk would tell you that breath is life. More than water, food, sex, or companionship, you need it every second. When you mastered breath control, you went from a PIG to a HOG, a Hunter of Gunmen. At graduation we were presented with a bullet to wear around the neck—the Hog’s Tooth. I still wore it aboard the Express.
What I wanted from my target in the Petik Laut was any gesture that would confirm my suspicion: a glance our way, a signal to one of the other boats in the flotilla, or a word or two spoken into any small device. Odds were that his spontaneous combustion courtesy of one of my fifties would certainly deter or reveal his compatriots. I was sure the sea gods wouldn’t mind because the oil gods didn’t. I took the scope off him for a few seconds to see if anyone in the other boats were looking at him.
In the end his IQ proved less than his ballistic coefficient as he was speaking into a cell phone and looking at the Express when I scanned back to him. That was it. I touched my HOG tooth and fired. He was more colorful than the Petik Laut. It would have been comical had it not been real. Very real. Within seconds the partygoers were looking around and screaming.
One woman had caught an arm, freaked, and threw it overboard. The guy’s gizzards were sausage hanging over the rail. Several of the shirtless men and their sons were flecked in red. His blood rivaled the rainbows in the water. From there I looked about at the other boats, but none of them made a move toward us. In fact, the ensuing panic caused the party boats to fan out, knocking over some of their smaller brethren. Nothing was going to get through that pandemonium.
And nothing had to.
The roar of river boats came from the other end of the Rupat and Sumatran channel I had been scoping earlier. Two of them. The first had already penetrated the outer circle. Two masked gunmen hung off either side, one starboard with an AK-47 bouncing against his right hip, the other port with an RPG doing the same on his left. If they got within range, they would spray the bridge with bullets and point the RPG straight at the ship’s main holding tanks. It didn’t take a genius to figure what that could do.
The other boat would probably have two armed grapplers who would have their weapons slung over their backs until they could scramble aboard and take control. We might have been in lockdown, but there were ladders on each side of the ship’s tower providing easy access to the bridge. From there, auto pilot would do the rest for them. Not on my watch. These guys had no idea what had just ruined the party on the other side of the Island.
The decision was easy.
The gunmen would be difficult targets bouncing as they were, but the front of the boats wouldn’t be as they began to come right at us. The calculation was the same principle as establishing a lead point ahead of a moving target, except that I had to figure for one bopping vertically through the water. The upward and downward motion would have had a much narrower range than if they had sped across a vertical plain, starboard to port, or fore to aft.
As I didn’t have a clear shot at an engine, I couldn’t blow the boat. So my fall back was the pilot. Pop him in the confined space of the wheel house and there would probably be too much of a mess to slip around on for anyone that took control.
The sun was still just above the horizon to the Colombo’s portside, which meant they were driving into the glare. It wouldn’t have hindered their view of the ship, but it would their view of me. It also helped me to catch the shadow of the pilot behind the tinted glass. I didn’t need a perfect shot. Wounding him would have stopped the boat to create an easier shot at the lackeys on the sides. With my rifle being a semi-automatic, I would have had no problem getting the rounds off in time.
Their first volley of shots splashed in the water. They were near the second circle but not close enough for their AKs to reach, about 430 yards effective range. As I aimed at the first boat, the second one came along side it.
Stupid, I thought.
I touched the HOG tooth and then re-adjusted my grip on the M82, placing my left hand comfortably on the stock, just under the barrel, and pushed it back into my shoulder. It felt like a natural extension of my being at that moment. With my right hand, I carefully gripped the rifle and placed my index finger on the trigger. The BORS gave me a solution; I timed the bounce of my target, took a breath and shot.
The dual barrel springs of the weapon made the kickback feel like a pat on the shoulder for a job well done. And that’s what it was. The glass imploded in welcome to the incoming round. It seemed suspended for a moment in the humid air and went from great shards to a spray of jagged particulate.
I was sure that if the bullet didn’t get him, the glass would make Swiss cheese of his body. The shot did its job as the boat spun to port, away from its sister, dumping the guy with the RPG into the drink.
The other boat kept coming.
The hangers on jerked their heads back to their compatriots, then to each other, and swung there AKs forward to fire. One of them leaned in and screamed at the wheel house which prompted the pilot to start swerving. This made a second shot more challenging, but made firing more difficult for them too. Once inside the third circle, they stopped evasive maneuvers and came head on, full bore.
Too close for a shot from the rifle.
I shoved the M81 aside, hopped up to my knees, and pulled out my .45, which I aimed right at one of the two clowns on the sides and emptied the clip, ten shots. Something must have hit, because he went overboard and the other dove into the back of the boat for cover, which gave me time to slap in another clip. They didn’t stick around to see what was next. The boat did a 180, coming within a scary 300 yards of the ship when it came about and motored the hell out of there. I emptied the .45 anyway.
I holstered the pistol, grabbed my rifle, and got prone again. The fools in their hasty retreat offered me their engines, clean and easy. I wasn’t one to turn down the gift, knowing that their deaths would prevent others. That justified all that we snipers did, whether you believed a true warrior should see the whites of their eyes or not. Taken to heart, it made the gore of our own making desirable. That was the reward for all the waiting. And that was how you kept your own head through it all.
I adjusted body, mind and rifle, checked the BORS, and fired. Miss. I took a breath, re-aimed, and timed their bounce. I waited until they were on the downward side and fired up to where the engine would be a moment later.
Boom, magic.
Then there was the business of my other buddies who must have taken shelter inside or in the water behind their craft, which was dead in the water. That was going to be fun. Their boat had drifted just outside of the inner circle, about halfway through the second, but was still an easy shot. I’d either get them in the water or on the boat. Time wasn’t on my side though as the sun was almost gone.
Alright then, I said to myself, time to invest another dollar fifty from my M81.
I blew out a side window of the wheelhouse and watched. At least one of them had made it inside because something flailed about. By then, the boat had drifted around for me to get a clean view of the engine.
One shot, one explosion, no more pirates.
I wasn’t done.
Beyond the glare of the burning boat, I saw a dark spot in the water leaving the smallest of wake behind it. Instead of taking direct aim, I planted a couple of rounds nearby, for fun and to get him to panic and expose more of himself. The arms came up with the first shot; head and shoulders with the second. He then started waving his arms, I assumed in surrender.
None of us would have had that option had they succeeded. He kicked his way up, exposing more of himself, probably thinking that I didn’t see him. I BORSed him and took the shot. It landed in front of him, but was still close enough to hit down below the waterline. Sure enough, two arms waving went to one, and then just a head.
I’d like to have seen those SEALS get a shot like that.
I radioed the captain who advised me to remain on station for another hour to make sure no others came darting out from behind Rupat. No doubt the Singapore authorities were on their way, but we would be well beyond the site of the attack by then. I think the Express picked up a few knots. Probably the captain’s ‘just in case.’ If worst came to worst, I could’ve thrown the M81 over the side. It would have been a shame to have wasted the $9,500. Then again it wasn’t my money.
Night had settled and the Christmas colored lights of the Malaysian coast filled the sky, shielding the decadence beneath them. I saw some watch fires burning behind us on the Indonesian side. That was the only light there. By then, I had to look up instead of out to see the smoke of the refinery. Against the artificial light it looked brown—the halt sign of some dark, ungloved thing uselessly halting traffic.
I thought it a shame that I had probably performed some of the best shooting anyone could have seen, but no one ever would. Normally, a sniper recorded things in his log book, everything from the sketches on his range card, his calculations for shots, and the number of confirmed kills. It was his Bible, but not for me, I just had a Bible—my father’s, in my rucksack.
The remaining time on watch gave me a chance to figure what I would do for the Easter sermon. I tabulated the numbers in my head: three kills on each boat, six, plus the guy at Petik Laut, seven. It was also the 24th of the month. I pulled a flashlight from my sack, clicked and held it in my teeth to flip through the New Testament. I didn’t want to go too far, so I stopped at Matthew 24:7, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.”
Yes, I thought, that would do. In the end, they could be just words, but there was a lesson in there somewhere for the crew. For me it was pretty straightforward: $70,000 earned on the 24th of April.
