“North-northeast,” she supplied.
Boone started to repeat the bearing but suddenly everything clicked. There was a layer of his mind that always seemed to be operating independently of his conscious thought, making random connections, putting two and two together.
“Boone? You there?” the voice in his ear asked.
“The cruise ships.”
“Yes, the cruise ships. They’ve already left Charlotte Amalie, heading for Miami. Don’t worry, we’re—”
“No! The cruise ships in Sint Maarten! There were six of them when we flew out. The sub was heading north-northeast when it submerged—Sint Maarten is on that bearing. Why would that sub be all the way over here, if it were heading for Saint Thomas?”
There was a breath of silence on the line before, “Jesus. We have to alert the port and evacuate those ships. I have to make some calls. I’ll call you back!” He hung up.
Boone set the phone down on the console and addressed Emily and Sidney. “He’s going to call the Dutch, try to get the ships evacuated.”
“There’s not enough time,” Sid said. “The port in Sint Maarten is only thirty miles from here.”
Boone reached down and tapped a key on the GPS to zoom it out until Sint Maarten appeared at the top of the screen—then his eyes slid from the GPS to another screen beside it. “Is that a fishfinder?”
Emily looked down at it. “Yeah, it’s…” Suddenly, she grinned. “That just might work.”
“What might work?” Sid asked.
Boone powered it up. “It’s a device that locates fish and underwater structures using active sonar. You can use it to spot shoals of fish before throwing your hook in. Keep us steady on this bearing. I need to calibrate this.” He muttered under his breath as he cycled through various settings. “When I first got to Curaçao, I used to make extra money crewing deep sea fishing tours. Let’s see… down scan… figure I’ll use the setting for tuna. Low frequency for depth. Set up a couple cones in case he’s off to the side… ok, that should do it. How we doing?” he asked Emily.
“So far so good. I’ve never driven anything with this much power! Hard not to want to floor it.”
“What will it look like?” Sid asked, peering at the fishfinder screen.
Boone shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. But something that big, we won’t miss it.” After several minutes without success, Boone looked at the GPS. “We’re heading right at Sint Maarten.” He relaxed, thinking. “Two propellers…”
“The sub?” Emily asked.
“Yeah. When we saw it, it was fairly close to shore. I’m betting seven knots was their ‘we-just-left-Venezuela-and-we’re-conserving-fuel’ speed. If they’re about to blow themselves to Allah, they’re going to be pedal to the metal. Let’s crank her up to twenty!”
“Aye aye! On it!” Emily said, throttling up until she was satisfied. “Twenty knots.”
Aboard the Nordic Starr, Captain Olaf Björnson drummed his fingers, thinking. Every cruise ship in the port of Philipsburg had suddenly been given an emergency order to either evacuate all passengers or put to sea immediately. He could see two of the nearby ships disgorging passengers, but two of the others in view were working up steam, one of them opposite him on the inside slip, directly to the west of the Nordic Starr. Olaf gnawed on a piece of jerky, debating. He was docked at the rear of the slip and could be clear of the piers rather quickly. I’m ready to sail now, he thought. If those two leave their slips first, I’ll never get out. He was only missing a single van-full of tourists who had gone to visit the French side of the island—Philipsburg traffic was notorious, and they were doubtless stuck on the road. Well, technically, they are evacuated. Using a calculator that he kept near his command chair for just such an eventuality, he did a quick calculation of costs. Much cheaper to leave them behind and pay for a few plane tickets than to evacuate the whole ship.
“Rolf. Give orders to depart.”
“But sir, we are still missing—”
“I know, Rolf!” He held up the calculator as if that was sufficient explanation. “Let’s go! Now!”
The Nordic Starr was one of three ships in the fleet of a recent newcomer to the cruise ship industry, Hygge Cruises. Following the model of success of several bargain-basement budget airlines, Hygge had bought up several used and/or derelict cruise ships and restored them to semi-working order, offering to people who could never afford a cruise a chance to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately, one of the cost cutting measures to allow such savings was in the area of crew salaries.
The order was given for the lines to be released and retracted. The all-clear given, the Nordic Starr reversed her engines and began to back away from the pier, angling slightly into the space between its slip and that of the larger ship across the way. Unfortunately, also caught in Philipsburg traffic was one of the deckhands responsible for the bow cleats. Two lines were still attached and as they snapped taut, the reversing 45,000-ton Nordic Starr swung sharply, smashing stern-first into the side of the 130,000-ton behemoth across from her, wedging herself between the larger ship and the pier.
Ashore, the dockmaster witnessed the debacle and ordered a small cadre of Royal Marines to the pier to speed up the evacuations.
“Got’em!” Boone pointed at a large return on the fishfinder. He reached over and put his hand on Emily’s atop the throttle, edging their speed back while he kept his eye on the fishfinder, slowing them to match speed with the blob on the screen. Satisfied, he removed his hand. “They’re doing fourteen knots. Faster than I woulda thought.”
Sid was already looking at the GPS, noting their location. “They’ll be at Philipsburg in under an hour.”
Emily glanced at the fishfinder. “That is one big fish. What kind of rod and reel would you need for that?”
Boone chuckled. “Martin said the same thing when we first…” he trailed off and looked up at her. “Em… you’re a genius.” He stared at the reddish blob of pixels on the screen, trying to decipher the gradations of color. “Depth is about seventy feet. It might work.”
“You want to bring me along for the ride, Boone?”
“We’ve got a fishhook and reel, of sorts. How long do you think this boat’s anchor line is?”
Emily’s face brightened. “Long enough. Convertible like this, probably a couple hundred feet, chain and rode.”
“The propellers were in round housings, like rings. If we can snag one of those…”
“And then firewall the engines… yeah, that’d mess up their day.”
Boone reached over and started to engage the windlass. “If she’s at seventy, how much should we drop?”
“We’re gonna come up on him at sixteen or seventeen knots, yeah? The line’s gonna drag back and come shallow if you only drop seventy.”
“Let’s drop the whole length,” Boone said. “We want it well below him; we can bring the anchor line up on his stern, maybe even get the rode itself tangled somewhere. Then increase speed and pass her, dragging the anchor along until it catches.”
“Fair enough, but don’t drop yet,” Emily said. “Let’s slow to only a few knots to drop the anchor—need to let it get pretty deep before we floor it, otherwise we’ll tangle our own propellers. I’ll bring us right on top of him so we don’t lose him while we’re dropping.”
Boone watched the blob on the fishfinder as Emily throttled up to twenty-five knots. “We’re over it now!” he said, tapping her on the shoulder. She brought the speed down.
“Two knots!” she called out.
Boone engaged the electric windlass and the heavy anchor dropped from the bow into the ocean. He watched the line play out. “When I give the word, punch it!
Samarkandi watched as water slowly accumulated at the stern of the ship near the starboard shaft. Zougam looked over his shoulder.
“How bad is it?”
/> “Not critical. We are close enough to our target that it won’t matter. We can compensate with the ballast tanks.”
“Sulayman! Hamid! I tink dat boat it back!” Lenox called out. Once their course, speed, and depth were set, the Trinidadian had taken over the sonar station from Sayyid. The Oukabir brother had claimed he’d heard a loud engine right on top of them but when Lenox took the earphones, he only heard what sounded like an idle. Now, the engines above were roaring and growing closer. “She’s coming in fast!”
“Lenox, take the helm.” Samarkandi grabbed the headset and pressed it to his ears. He heard the engines but it still didn’t sound military to him—on the other hand, they were now some distance from Saba and the odds of a watercraft being right over them out here were too unlikely to ignore. Wait a minute… is that… sonar? “Take us deeper!” The leak might grow worse, but he needed to shake this boat. “When you reach one hundred twenty, turn ninety degrees to starboard and hold course for five minutes.” That will give me time to plot the corresponding turn to port to keep us on target, he thought.
“She’s going deeper!” Boone yelled. “I think!” He pointed at the blob. Emily lifted her sunglasses and squinted at the display.
“I think you’re right, but we’re almost on top of them. A tiny bit to starboard…” She nudged the wheel a notch to the right, biting her lower lip in concentration. She flicked her eyes to the fishfinder. “We’re passing over them, yeah?”
The sub’s sonar return was entering the blurry center point of the screen. “Just now!” Boone said. “Sid, you might wanna brace yourself. Depending on the angle of the anchor line, we may get a bite any second.”
“Lenox, what is our depth?” Samarkandi asked. He had nearly finished his calculations.
“One hundred.”
“Prepare for the turn to starboard, on my mark.” After the turn we will lose this pursuer, and after five minutes we will return to a bearing of—
“What is that noise?” Zougam asked.
Samarkandi frowned. He heard it too, and neither one of them needed passive sonar to do so. It was a scraping sound, like something was sliding along the aft part of the hull. Another mechanical issue? Samarkandi ran aft, listening. The rustling scrape changed to a metallic rattling, like a chain being dragged along… No! “Hard to starboard! Now!”
“They’re turning!” Boone shouted. “A tight turn to starboard!”
He reached for the wheel but Emily stopped him. “Wait!” She counted silently then turned to starboard too, but a gentler turn than the sub’s. “If I’m right, the line is right between those thingies, and…”
Suddenly the boat shuddered—there was a sensation of resistance vibrating through the hull.
“Got’em! Let’s set the hook!” Emily yelled. She reached over and pushed the throttle to the stops.
Aboard the Zil there was a sudden lurch, throwing nearly everyone to the floor. A screeching sound echoed in the aft engine compartment. A bucket of lithium hydroxide powder fell over and rolled along the deck.
“What the hell—” Zougam began, struggling to stand.
Samarkandi grabbed hold of a bulkhead, pulling himself up. “Lenox!”
The Trinidadian terrorist had been seated and was the only one not to hit the deck. “The compass, it’s swinging… south! I’m not doing anything!”
“Full speed! Hard to port!”
Lenox increased revolutions to one hundred percent and attempted to turn. “I’m trying, hoss, but she’s real sticky! Da rudder’s barely responding!”
One hundred ten feet down in the depths of the Caribbean Sea, a forty-pound Danforth anchor met the stern of a submarine—specifically, the ring encircling its starboard propeller. As the line went taut, the anchor bit into the housing and the chain portion of the line pressed hard against the rudder that was positioned between the two propellers. As the boat above increased speed and continued north, the line pulled hard against the rudder and the propeller housing started to bend.
Had this been a military sub built by a nation state, doubtless the anchor rode would have snapped first. The narco sub had been engineered well, brilliantly even, but it was still the creation of a jungle drydock; although it had been designed by a pair of experts, the actual assembly had involved a collection of workers with varying degrees of skill. Its construction had flaws and several of them became apparent now.
The housing snapped partially off, bending into the path of the propeller. The spinning blades crushed the housing and the propeller shaft bent and twisted internally. Popping loose from where it was set in the engine room, the shaft punched through the composite hull, starting a second leak in the stern. The anchor and its length of chain, coming loose with such violence, bent the rudder and jammed it. The connection between rode and chain finally snapped and as the Danforth sailed away into the blue expanse, the Zil began an erratic turn to starboard and started to roll.
Boone steadied himself. All three of them had nearly lost their footing as the anchor had torn free of the sub.
“Did we get them?” Sid asked, looking a little green around the gills.
Emily laughed, pumped with adrenaline. “Just a gut feeling, but I think we ripped ‘em a new one.”
“That did have a promising feel to it,” Boone said. “Even so…” He engaged the windlass to draw the line in. “Emily, slow down and bring us about. If we’ve still got an anchor, we’ll make another run.”
“If you’re going to do that again, we’re wearing life vests,” Sid said, heading down the ladder. “I saw some when we first impounded the boat.”
“Good idea.” Boone looked at the fishfinder. Once Emily brought the bow around, he hoped they’d be able to acquire their quarry again. “Emily, hit redial on that sat-phone. Give Rick an update.” He pointed down at a square hatch in the long bow of the Viking. “That’s probably the hatch to the anchor locker. I’ll go down and check the line.”
The submarine was sinking by the stern. Light objects were sliding slowly toward the engine room. Thinking the end was nigh, Rachid Oukabir defaulted to his standard battle cry. “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
“Shut the fuck up, Rachid,” Zougam growled. “Hamid!”
Hamid Samarkandi was already coming forward. “I think they snagged our propeller housing,” he said, reaching over Lenox to blow the tanks. “The rudder is jammed and the hull is breached. The tear is not large but we must surface! I can patch the breach with rubber spray sealant but we’ve got to fix the rudder—we’ve nearly turned a full circle already!”
“Rachid! Sayyid! Arm yourselves!” Zougam roared.
“Damn,” Boone muttered as the frayed end of the rode zipped through the anchor port and coiled around the windlass. He scrambled up from the anchor locker hatch. “We lost the anchor!” he called up to Emily, before heading around to the flybridge ladder.
Eyes on the fishfinder, Emily saw the numbers begin to count down rapidly. “Hey! Looks like they’re coming up!”
Boone paused on the ladder. “Let’s hang back—keep our distance.” He looked toward the open door to the yacht’s cabin. “Sid! They’re coming up!” Climbing the rest of the way, he returned to Emily’s side at the console.
“Boone? You scared?” Emily asked. “I feel like I ought to be but honestly, I’m so pumped with adrenaline…”
“Stay pumped. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.” His own heart was beating a tattoo on his ribcage like a heavy bag being worked over by a boxer. He grabbed his binoculars and trained the lenses on the waters ahead. Nothing yet. A quick glance at the fishfinder and he could see the blip was rising fast at the top edge of the screen. “Here they come…”
Ahead, the waters roiled and the sleek, rounded bow of the submarine breached the surface at the same time the shark’s fin of a conning tower split the waters.
“Thar’ she blows!
” Emily yelled, reflexively coloring the statement with a pirate’s brogue.
Boone brought the binoculars back up. The rudder is bent—we snagged them all right. Now all we’ll have to do is sit back and— A hatch at the rear of the conning tower opened and two rifle-toting figures came out. Crouching immediately, they raised their weapons. Flashes.
“Shit! Get down!” Boone shouldered Emily aside, pushing the throttle to full power as he spun the wheel hard over.
“Hey!” she cried, just as a pair of holes punched through the top of the console between them.
“Sorry!” Boone yelled as he zigzagged the boat a few times, trying to put as much distance between them as possible.
“Under the circumstances, what’s a little shove among friends?” Emily said, staring wide-eyed at the holes. “All the same, I’ll take the wheel before you swamp us.”
“They’re shooting at us?” Sid called as he came up the ladder, a trio of life vests on one arm and a big pair of marine binoculars around his neck.
“They were but we put a lot of distance between us. Looked like they had the same thing the lighthouse guys had AK-something-or-others.”
“Yeah, terrorists love their AK-something-or-others,” Sid replied. “I’ll take a NATO weapon any day. Speaking of which…” He crouched over and pulled the assault rifle from the smuggler’s hidey-hole. “Good. Some sort of M4 carbine. I trained with a Canadian version. You shoot?”
“Just pistols,” Boone said.
“That works. Take mine.” He produced an efficient looking handgun from his holster and passed it to Boone along with a couple spare magazines he pulled from his duty belt.
“Looks a bit like the Glock my friend in Bonaire had.”
“Pretty similar. P99Q, standard issue for Dutch police. It’s a nine mil—if you can shoot a Glock you can shoot that.”
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