The noise was deafening as each pirate fired twice, sending half a dozen rounds flying through the cramped space in the span of a second.

The Norwegian stepped over the dead Iranians and keyed his radio.

“Air-1, Boat-1, squirters down, friendlies approaching the bridge.”

The heliborne sniper fire ceased immediately and the Norwegian radioed Nacay that the assault team had taken command of the bridge.

Back on deck, the former Polish commando led the rest of Team-2 down a set of steel-grate steps into the hold. A commercial fishing boat of this size would have at least six more crew.

The accommodations level was one level down. It looked like a budget motel, with linoleum floor tiles and crude carpentry. There were four doors, two on each side. All were closed. The Pole signaled for the team to split up, with two men holding the hall, while two teams of shooters stacked up outside the first two doors. All the gunfire had eliminated any element of surprise and the assaulters immediately kicked open the doors. Both rooms were empty, but an Iranian crewman stepped into the hall from another room and opened fire with an AK-47.

A member of his country’s elite Sepah Navy Special Force, the IRGC marine had known it would be a suicide mission before he fired the first shot, but he’d heard his countrymen killed like animals and decided that going down quietly was not his destiny. He tucked the weapon into his shoulder and held down the trigger, spraying rounds throughout the cramped hallway. Three pirates were hit. The first was protected by his body armor, the second caught a round in the shoulder, and the third had his femoral artery obliterated when a bullet caught him in the thigh.

The Iranian absorbed nine rounds in the chest and four in the head before he fell to the deck.

A collage of blood and spent shell casings littered the hallway.

The Pole cleared the remaining rooms with two of his men, swiftly dispatching two more unarmed crew members while the other assaulters tended to their wounded colleagues.

The shoulder injury was non-life-threatening, but the Italian who’d suffered the leg wound was laid flat on the ground while a teammate cut away the tiger stripe camouflage pants he was wearing. Another teammate applied two tourniquets and cranked them tight before locking them off, but the location of the wound high up on the thigh prevented the lifesaving devices from stopping the blood flow. The Italian’s breathing grew shallow and desperate, and five minutes later, his eyes blinked for the last time.