I'd recommend against 'freelancing'. Leave that to the Navies. I'd defend individual ships and ride aboard. A squad and their gear could be helicoptered to ships entering the target zone.
They could surreptitiously install a couple of .50 cals in temporary mounts, put a couple of sniper teams on top of the bridge, and then just wait.
A small per diem would be charged, say $10,000 per man per day, until there was a confirmed kill of a pirate crew. Then the price would go up to a million or so.
A six or seven man team should do it I would think.
The shipping companies would write it of as a CODB. It's either cheap insurance at say 150 to 200K per trip. The sight of pirates being chopped to pieces and their ships sunk would be a fairly strong deterrent.
If there's anyone left with any cojones in the Administration a coordinated Seal or Delta strike on the HQ's of these pirate gangs (I can't believe we don't already know who and where they are.) leaving piles of dead and smoking ruins of their new mansions would also send a powerful message.
Then the Somalis can go back to starving each other to death.
Problem solved in about 6-8 months and Blackwater gets a healthy infusion to their bottom line.
L
I hadn't thought about it that way, but your idea could work nicely. As the ship leaves the southern edge of the danger zone, the Blackwater team takes a helo to a northbound ship and rides it for a few days, then catches another helo ride to the next southbound ship, back and forth for a 2-3 month sea tour. I'd join up with Blackwater for that duty - a cot and a chance of killing pirates - life doesn't get any better than that. Plus, when the ship left port, the pirates' spotters wouldn't see anything to worry about, and when they got to the next port the lace-panty diplomats wouldn't panic that they had weapons. Everybody wins.