Chapter 1: Doubts in the Gulf of Aden

"Attention all, you are about to enter the pirate-infested area, first level of alert, first level of alert! over!”

"03 Roger!" "05 Roger!" "08 Roger!"

Latitude 12.3 ゚ north, longitude 51.1 ゚ east.

In the Arabian Sea, at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden, about 90 nautical miles northeast of Bossaso, Somalia, a Chinese oil tanker is heading east at a speed of 10 knots.

It was the gateway for merchant ships entering the Arabian Sea from the Red Sea. Ahead, it is about to turn southeast and enter the Strait of Abdulkuri Island, a narrow strait, less than 30 nautical miles at its narrowest point, narrow and difficult to navigate, and the most vulnerable place for pirates.

In the cockpit, in front of the bridge, wearing a blue seafarer's suit, the captain Chen Yiming, who is in his fifties, stood upright, holding a telescope to observe the sea ahead, the weather was very good, the wind was below level 3, the visibility on the sea surface was good, and it looked like a piece of blue satin from afar.

Chen Yiming's face was calm, and he ordered in a deep voice: "25 degrees to the right, move forward one."

Fujian captain Chen Yiming is not very tall but very capable, with sword eyebrows and a high nose, a face like bronze, blazing eyes, and a sword eyebrow on the face of the national character is impressive.

Chen Yiming has served in the Chinese Navy for many years, is a veteran sailor, after retiring from the army, he was arranged to join COSCO Group as a boatswain, after more than 20 years of hard work, is now an experienced and excellent captain.

"25 degrees to the right, one forward!" The young helmsman Li Zhixian calmly repeated the instructions to the intercom.

The huge hull slowly turned in a beautiful arc, and the huge ship name "Lu Feng" on the side of the ship was faintly visible. This is a new type of 80,000-ton medium-sized double-hull oil tanker of COSCO Group, which was launched in Nantong three years ago, and the power facilities are very advanced.

This time, the "Lufeng" ship loaded 20,000 tons of bulk gasoline, 40,000 tons of diesel and 20,000 tons of heavy oil from Jeddah Port in Saudi Arabia and set sail to Dalian Port.

Originally, after leaving the port, the "Lufeng" was supposed to form a fleet near the port of Aden with two other supertankers loaded with crude oil of COSCO Group, as well as oil tankers, container ships, and dry bulk carriers from other regions and countries such as Hong Kong, South Korea, and Europe.

When they are about to arrive in Djibouti, they can receive instructions from their superiors, asking them to go to the port of Djibouti alone and dock for 8 hours without waiting for the formation.

Since the Chinese Navy's escort fleet was on a rotational break and was holding a maritime anti-terrorist exercise with the Pakistani Railway Navy near the port of Karachi, the order demanded that "Lu Feng" take a few engineers back to China, and that a special operations team would be sent to escort the ship from the temporary base of the Marine Corps stationed in Djibouti.

On the left side next to Chen Yiming, Major Lin Xiao, the captain of the First Squadron of the Marine Corps Special Operations Brigade and the captain of the escort special operations team, was wearing a black special combat uniform with a tactical vest, black combat boots, and a black Kevlar helmet with insect goggles. After issuing the warning order through the Motorola GP328 explosion-proof walkie-talkie on the shoulder, the hands wearing half-fingered tactical gloves also held binoculars to observe the sea in front and on the left and right sides from time to time.

On the bow deck and on both sides of the ship, the eight special combat team members under Captain Lin were equally armed, and after receiving the order, they skillfully arrived at the battle position under the leadership of each team leader, and closely guarded the surrounding sea.

This escort, originally did not need Lin Xiao to lead the team, but it happened that the headquarters approved him to save three years of family leave, and after completing this mission, he could go back to his hometown in Jiangsu to reunite with his family after he led the team back to the base. Although the vacation is only one month, it is also extremely precious, and besides, his parents revealed on the phone that this time they will arrange a blind date for him.

Lin Xiao was thirty years old after the New Year, and at the age of 18, he was admitted to an infantry academy with high scores, but after graduating from the military academy, he was assigned to serve in the Marine Corps, and after two years of service, at the age of 24, he was selected into the "Jiaolong" special forces with excellent results.

In the past six years, from a rookie to a special forces rookie, he has grown into a top special warfare player, and he has spent almost all his time training and charging. No, it's almost a year old, and the major events of life have not yet been seen, and the parents are in a hurry.

To be honest, Lin Xiao also considered the issue of retirement, but only tentatively mentioned it in a casual chat with the captain, and was categorically rejected by the captain, don't even think about it!

This special warfare king, who has won two individual firsts and all-around second in the all-round special forces competition, exists as the glory of the entire Marine Corps and is also the top of the captain's heart.

Otherwise, it's so easy for a squadron leader to hang a major epaulette before he is thirty years old? These are times of peace!

Behind Lin Xiao, there were two people standing quietly. One is 26-year-old Lieutenant Xiao Kaifeng, his old subordinate, the leader of the special operations team, was recruited by Lin Xiao three years ago and trained by himself. Lieutenant Xiao Kaifeng, who was also draped all over his body, was holding a 95 assault rifle with a serious expression.

Xiao Kaifeng is a native of Beijing, handsome, tall but agile, and his technical and tactical abilities are top-notch. And the key person is very smart, he has followed Lin Xiao on missions countless times, and he has an extremely tacit understanding, and he is a comrade-in-arms that Lin Xiao trusts very much.

The other is Li Tao, the second division of the Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense, who is said to be a deputy director and the temporary leader of the four engineers who picked up the ship this time. This Director Li is not tall and mediocre in appearance, the kind that can't be found in the pile.

In addition to talking about work, Li Tao not only said very little, but often even had no expression on his face, Lin Xiao not only didn't know his military rank, but he couldn't even tell his age.

Maybe his professional instinct was overshadowing his nature, Lin Xiao thought to himself.

A few hours ago, Li Tao, who had not long been on the ship, made a separate appointment with the captain of the ship, Chen Yiming, and Lin Xiao, the person in charge of the escort special combat team, to convey the orders of his superiors and briefly introduce the situation of his temporary "team members."

These four engineers are weapons debugging and maintenance personnel sent by a certain Chinese military industrial group company to several friendly countries in the Middle East and Africa, two of whom are older military workers, and one is a chemical engineer Zhou Xiaojie, 52 years old, who is actually a rocket power expert; the other is Cao Jiawen, a mechanical engineer, 46 years old, who is actually the top artillery expert in China; There are also two young people who are also experts in weapon design and commissioning, one is Sun Lei, an electrical engineer, 30 years old, specializing in fire control systems; One is Lu Hua, a communication software engineer, 26 years old, who is actually a radar expert, and unexpectedly, this is a beautiful engineer.

In fact, these people went abroad this time with a secret mission of the Ministry of National Defense, so the ministry attached great importance to it and sent Li Tao, the deputy director of the Second Division, to personally lead the team to focus on protecting and returning to China. It wasn't until he boarded the ship that his people had all left because they were all stationed on duty, leaving only him, the commander of the light pole, to escort him personally.

Lin Xiao didn't understand why Li Tao was introducing in such detail, didn't these situations involve confidentiality? But since Li Tao didn't explain, he didn't ask. Don't ask what you shouldn't ask, this is common sense for soldiers. It wasn't until Li Tao mentioned the second thing that he suddenly realized.

……

About 65 nautical miles northeast of Hurdiyo, Somalia, the Lufeng is heading south at a normal speed of 12 knots.

Chen Yiming raised his wrist and glanced at his watch, at 5:35 p.m., there were less than 2 hours before it was going to be dark, fortunately, the front was about to leave the mouth of the Abdulkuri Island Strait, after this strait, you can turn southeast away from the coast, and you will be out of the dangerous area infested by Somali pirates, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief, although it is still April, the day here is relatively long, and it should be too late to get out of the gorge before dark.

"Report! Captain. ”

Lu Xiaolong, the first mate on duty who had been staring at the radar and nautical charts in the right rear of Chen Yiming, shouted hurriedly. "A ship was spotted 16 nautical miles ahead."

"What's wrong?" Chen Yiming asked in a deep voice.

"Something doesn't seem right with this ship?"

"What's the situation?" Chen Yiming turned around and asked.

"It'...... It doesn't seem to be moving, I've been staring at it for a while. ”

"Pirates?" Lin Xiao on the side immediately flashed this dangerous word in his mind after hearing this.

"It's possible, but I hope it's anchored," Chen Yiming replied lightly, and then said in a deep voice, "Keep course, move forward three"

"Yes, keep course, move forward three," Li Zhixian replied loudly by pressing the intercom.

……

6:20 p.m.

In the telescope, the blackened hull of a large container ship is already looming.

Behind the telescope, Chen Yiming's gaze froze. After more than 10 years of military service in the Navy, he has experienced more than 10 years of experience on civilian cargo ships after retirement, and he has extremely rich experience in identifying ship types.

In fact, in the morning, the second thing Li Tao mentioned when talking to him and Lin Xiao was about the Taiwanese-flagged cargo ship "Longsheng."

It is said that according to intelligence, this semi-container ship departed from Europe, and on the surface, it was to carry electrical appliances, cables, western medicines, red wine, beef, and other civilian materials imported from Europe for several companies in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but the intelligence analysis of the headquarters said that the ship was very likely to be involved in some kind of secret transaction between the stupid frog ruling authorities and Ah San, and asked him to keep an eye on it when he had the opportunity to try to find out the specific situation, so Li Tao arranged for people to keep an eye on the ship.

When docking in a certain country in the Middle East, Li Tao's people found that the ship strangely unloaded a lot of containers and loaded with a similar number of containers.

Because it involved a certain country in the Middle East, the higher-ups decided to let Li Tao return to China first to report, escort several experts who had secretly returned to China by the way, and asked him to report the situation to the person in charge of the escort and ensure the safety of the experts.