Reprisal!- The Eagle's Sorrow

by Cliff Roberts

  “Why not get the records of the campaign’s expenditures and their taxes, as well?” Bill suggested.

  “Yeah, why not? We’ve already broken almost every banking law there is. May as well break all the privacy laws, too!” Steven affirmed. “You really think we’ll find anything in the campaign records? Aren’t they pretty much sanitized before they are even submitted?”

  “Sometimes, there’s a few crumbs we can follow to other sources. While I’m at it, I’ll check all of the banking transactions of Starks’ largest donors. I can make sure exactly what each of them is giving and to whom. It would be good to know if the money really was coming from his political friends or someplace else when we drop the bomb on him,” Bill added.

  “Great. In for a penny, in for a pound. I guess once we’ve broken one law, another dozen doesn’t really matter, does it?” Steven stated sarcastically.

  “That’s the spirit! I’ll get right on it,” Bill stated with a snicker as he hung up.

  Steven then called both Chip and the senator explaining what Bill had found and where they would go from here, leaving out the illegal part with the senator. Neither could believe it, although neither was willing to defend Starks and his cronies. It would be the last time that Steven’s calls to the senator would go unrecorded. From tomorrow on, someone at the NSA would be working full-time trying to break Steven’s unbreakable encryption code.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Shortly after eleven, the super tanker approached the canal leading to the gas terminal. They were right on schedule. Three tug boats gave assistance, guiding the large ship through a wide, sweeping turn into the canal. The three men, who appeared to be fishing in the canal, moved out of the main ship channel and motored over to a pier, where they continued to appear to fish a distance past the final turn to the ship’s berth.

  For some unknown reason, the tanker took over an hour to settle into its berth. As hard as the tugs tried, the ship would slip sideways at the last second, just as it was about to line up with its berth. This slippage would not allow the terminal discharge lines to connect straight enough to safely offload the cargo, so they had try again. It took several tries before they finally got it right. It was almost as if the ship knew it was going to die there and was struggling against its fate.

  As the harbor pilot and the tug boats pulled away, heading back out to the river, the boat with the three ‘fishermen’ pulled alongside the tanker in the shadow of its superstructure. Once they had anchored the small boat, they shot two grappling hooks up over the railings and began climbing up the side of the ship. No one noticed them, as all eyes were on the huge metal pipes being wrangled into place to facilitate offloading the gas.

  With the super tanker aligned properly in its berth, the terminal crew finished securing the tanker, while the ship’s crewmen busied themselves with locking the gangway in place. The five men in the construction trailer watched and waited for the crewmen to finish locking the gangway in place, then they burst out.

  Quickly crossing the hundred meters to the ship at a full run, they shot at every one they saw. They missed most of them, though. Air rifles have an inherent inaccuracy when shooting at targets over a hundred feet away. They were also running flat out towards the ship. When they finally reached it, they stormed aboard where their aim improved, killing the six man deck crew who had their backs to them, busy securing the last of the discharge piping. It had happened so fast, the crewmen were unable to raise an alarm.

  Two of the terrorists then went to the bridge deck where they, surprisingly, met no resistance. The bridge crew hadn’t noticed the men storming aboard because they had turned on the radio and were dancing while listening to a local hip-hop station. They had the radio’s volume turned all the way up and were piping it throughout the ship over the PA system. The radio had completely drowned out the noise of the attack.

  Bursting onto the bridge, they shot only one of the five crewmen they found there, wounding him in the leg, so that they could use him as a delaying tactic, if needed, until the other ship was in place an hour and a half from now. They also smashed the portable radio, ending the aggravating noise.

  The other three terrorists who were part of the assault team began searching the superstructure. They were to kill any crewmen they encountered. They killed six crewmen in the “D” deck crew quarters and then moved on to the second deck. There they encountered resistance from a group of four men who had rallied themselves and counterattacked using handguns they had brought aboard with them to defend against pirates, despite company policy to the contrary.

  One of the terrorists was killed in the gun battle before his comrades could eliminate all four defenders. The two surviving terrorists said a brief prayer over their fallen brother, then quickly collected the handguns used by the defenders and continued to search the superstructure for more crewmen. By the time they had reached the engine room, they had killed eight more men—two of which had been armed but inexperienced, thus providing only a minor hindrance.

  The three terrorists who had climbed on board from their small boat began dismantling the vent stacks and placing the charges in the pressure vessels. Over the course of the voyage, each of the tanks would lose a couple of hundred cubic feet of gas, or about 2% of their volume, as purged fumes due to the expansion of the gas from the heat of the sun beating down on the pressure vessels. With the continuous venting of the boiled-off gases, the liquefied natural gas was at an extremely low risk of explosion. When the boiled-off gas was allowed to concentrate, however, the level of risk increased exponentially.

  Once the bombs had been placed and the vent shafts sealed, two of the three men went to their stations in the bow castle. Their job was to create a deadly crossfire for anyone boarding the ship. Their comrade went to join the other cell members in securing the remaining portions of the superstructure. Within a half-hour, the ship had been searched, and the terrorists were convinced that the ship was clear of crew. They split up and set small mines at the entrances to the superstructure and the top of the gangway. The mines were set with hair-thin tripwires. They were filled with plastic projectiles and powered by compressed gas which would provide a nasty surprise for any police or military personnel who might attempt to enter the superstructure. The terrorists set up defensive positions on “C” deck, utilizing the portals as firing positions and giving themselves total command of the gangway and the main deck. With everything prepared, they then settled in to wait for the police to arrive.

  On the bridge, the terrorists had lined up the crew in the front of the control console at the windows. They then shut down the pumps so that no further LNG was pumped out of the containment vessels, thus allowing for the boiling process to begin.

  They took up positions in the corners of the bridge near the windows so that they could see all the entrances and the bridge wings, without exposing themselves to anyone looking in from outside. The wounded crewman was left lying where he had fallen. With the bridge secured, they called for the captain.

  The captain, on an off chance, looked out of his cabin’s portal just after the terrorists had stormed the ship. Upon seeing the bodies scattered across the main deck, he immediately called the security office on the dock from his cabin and requested assistance. The security staff informed the police of a possible attack underway, hastening their response.

  The captain dragged his feet answering the page to the bridge. He did so knowing there were terrorists waiting for him there. In an effort to resist, he came armed with a handgun, which he held behind his back as he entered the bridge. Slowly, he pushed the door open and stepped inside, where he scanned the room. He saw his men against the windows and the third mate lying on the floor clutching his thigh while blood pooled underneath him.

  “What is the meaning of this?!” the captain shouted as he looked back and forth between the two terrorists who had their rifles trained on him.

  “Good of you to join us. Take a seat in your chair, Captain,” the terro
rist in the far corner ordered.

  “I’m not doing anything until you explain what you’re doing here!” the captain shouted as if he could bully the two terrorists. The attempt to assert control was met with a gunshot. The terrorist in the far corner shot the already wounded crewman in his other leg. The crewman howled, and the captain made his move to end this. He swung the gun around, but before he could bring it up to fire, the other terrorist shot him in the shoulder. The gun dropped to the floor, and the captain slumped over his chair behind the helm.

  “Very brave. Too bad you are a fool. Do as I say, or we will simply shoot you again.” The terrorist spoke in a calm voice, causing the captain to cringe.

  Slowly, he slid into his chair and clutched his wound, but his defiant attitude didn’t waiver. “Why are you doing this? What can you possibly accomplish by commandeering my ship?”

  “Nothing that is of concern to you. Now, shut up and wait until I have a need for you,” the man in the far corner spat.

  The six security men answering the call from the captain, prior to the arrival of the police, received additional information about the attack from several terminal workers who were in full flight mode when they crossed their paths a half-kilometer from the ship. They provided little detail, other than five men had stormed the ship and had fired on them. With confirmation of the attack, the security team requested the office contact the police and inform them that there had been gunfire.

  Arriving dockside, they were quickly dissuaded from approaching the ship by the two dead men, who had obviously been shot, lying just a dozen yards away in large puddles of blood. None of the guards wanted to approach the ship armed only with billy clubs and pepper spray.

  After discussing the situation for a few minutes among themselves, stalling really, hoping for the police to arrive, two of the security guards reluctantly began climbing the gangway. Halfway up, they were shot dead by the men in the superstructure. The remaining security men scattered, taking refuge behind the construction trailer and their golf carts, having decided to wait for the police to arrive.

  It took the police twenty minutes to respond, and they immediately took over command of the situation—both at the pier itself and in the security office. A dozen officers switched quickly from their cars to the security golf carts and drove to the pier where they set up their command post in the construction trailer. Several officers found firing positions within the pipe maze.

  Their next order of business, having established the command post, was to establish communications with the ship. The police followed procedure and began making an effort to raise the ship over the radio phone, but to no avail. Following their plan, the terrorists would wait at least forty minutes more before answering the police.

  After a half-hour of being ignored, the police tried the next step in the procedure manual, and sent a man out onto the pier, where he used a bull horn to try and get the hijackers’ attention. It did. The terrorists began firing on the man, purposely missing him but driving him back into the construction trailer. The police did not return fire, however, as they were under the impression that any spark could ignite the LNG, so the stalemate continued.

  Next, the police brought several police boats into the Petroleumhafen canal along with two large fire-fighting boats, which remained in the main canal, ready to respond if needed. It was all going according to the police manual, just as the planners had known it would.

  After sixty minutes of ignoring the calls from the police, the terrorists finally directed the captain to answer the phone, but he refused. The terrorist in the far corner of the bridge just smiled, stood up and crossed the room to the wounded crewman. Again, he then asked the captain to answer the call, and again, he refused. The terrorist’s smile managed to grow even wider as he looked down without pity at the man lying on the floor. He then lifted his foot, upping the ante on the captain, and then slammed it down on one of the man’s leg wounds, causing him to cry out in pain.

  “I’ll do it!” the captain yelled as the terrorist stomped the man’s leg a second time for good measure. The other terrorist wiggled his gun towards the phone, urging the captain to stand next to it while they waited for it to ring again. The terrorist who had stomped his man remained near the wounded man, ready to inflict more pain should the need arise.

  When the phone rang, the captain answered and told the police he was instructed to tell them that he had a statement to read from the terrorists and that they should record it because the terrorists will not repeat their demands. The police asked for time to set up a recorder, which the terrorists granted. After several minutes, the police contacted them again and said they were ready to receive the message.

  Before they picked this ship as the target, the terrorists knew, by virtue of a simple phone call to the company offices, that both the captain and the first mate were fluent in Arabic. The captain read off a list of demands that was prepared beforehand, including the release of the usual prisoners by Israel and the host country, plus offering a way out of the situation if the prime minister would convert to Islam on public television within the hour. The demands were in Arabic, so the police listened politely but had to get an interpreter to translate it before they could respond…or so they claimed.

  The tactic of stating their demands in Arabic was simply to allow time for the other ship to get into position and allow the boiling process to work its magic on the LNG. They fully expected the police and later, the military, to stall even further, claiming they needed time to translate. That was fine by them. Time was their ally.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Doha Supreme, a VLST that carried LNG, was moored off Cuxhaven, a small village of quaint cottages and fishing piers. It was facing bow-on to the river, just as the planners had predicted. This ship was of Liberian registry, as well, although its crew was made up of northern Europeans according to the company’s website. Yousef studied the map of the river channels as they approached the ship. He wouldn’t be steering the large ship himself—others had been trained to handle that chore. He just wanted to be prepared in case something unforeseen happened. After all, even the best battle plans sometimes fail once the battle begins.

  Swinging the harbor master’s boat around the bow of the ship, Yousef was surprised to find the ship’s gangway down and a small skiff tied up to it. This was completely unexpected, since all of the reconnaissance reports had stated that gangways would be up. Upon seeing the gangway down, Yousef yelled out, “Allahu Akbar!” This startled his men at first, until they, too, realized that the gangway was down, and then they also shouted, “Allahu Akbar!”

  The plan had been that Yousef would have to talk his way onto the ship using some ruse about schedule changes, but this was infinitely better. They didn’t need to use the radio, which might have alerted the other vessels moored here that something was amiss. Yes, this was a much better situation. They’d be able to board the ship without difficulty.

  Yousef and his men tied off their boat to the gangway, while cutting loose the other small skiff. Then Yousef, along with Aijaz, clamored up the gangway, with two additional men close behind. They were unopposed and quickly crossed the main deck to the superstructure. The two men with Yousef and Aijaz remained on the main deck to watch for wayward crew members, while Yousef and Aijaz took the elevator to the bridge deck. The other two men left on board the harbor master’s boat were to wait for the signal before coming on board the tanker. Once on board, they were to dismantle the vent stacks and plant the bombs in the containment vessels. Then, they were to take up defensive positions just inside the superstructure.

  Yousef strode onto the bridge as if he owned the ship. He curtly demanded to see the captain, explaining there had been a change in berthing schedules, and he was here to pilot the ship upriver.

  The first mate, seated in the captain’s chair in the center of the bridge, looked at Yousef dumbfounded and made no effort to call the captain. The other men, standing at the navigation table, also lo
oked perplexed and remained silent, watching the interaction.

  “I said call the captain to the bridge,” Yousef stated firmly, but the first mate remained seated, staring at him.