Sergeant Mathew Bracken snorted as the SEALs instantly transformed themselves into the very picture of slobs and layabouts. Red Squadron of the Joint Special Operations Command's United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group was used to insane missions – they’d spearheaded the killing of Osama Bin Laden – but this had to be one of the weirdest. Officially, one of the Snakes wanted to experience life on a boat. Unofficially, the real objective of the mission was a great deal harder. And after the raids carried out by the federal police forces, there was a very distant possibility that an outraged patriot would take a pot-shot at the Snake. The yacht looked civilian. They’d used it before for trawling missions along the coast of Somalia, looking for pirates who were preying on Western shipping. When the pirates boarded, they found themselves staring down the guns of Navy SEALs who knew how to handle them and were quite prepared to hand out rough justice if they didn’t surrender instantly. Mathew had little truck with the suggestion that the pirates were only trying to feed their families and communities. They could have done that without capturing innocent shipping, let alone mistreating their crews or holding them for ransom. One day, he hoped, the SEALs would be able to go in and clean the nest of pirates out from beginning to end. Until then, they would have to make do with patrols – and strange missions like the one they were about to start.
