Death Ship

by Joseph Badal

  Raymond called Michael on a sat phone, “You should be able to hear the fishing boat’s engine soon.”

  “I hoped we’d have the benefit of cover of darkness,” Michael said. “Looks like the sun will be above the horizon by the time we’re alongside the fishing boat.”

  The DELTA team members once again checked their weapons and inspected the deck to make certain there was nothing there that might give away their presence.

  Michael pointed at the DELTA NCO he’d assigned to escort Robbie below decks. “It’s time.”

  The man moved to where Robbie slouched in a deck chair. He looked gray, which was better than his earlier shade of seasick-green. “Let’s go, kid.”

  Robbie looked at his father, hung his head like a whipped dog, and followed the man below.

  Michael turned to Lieutenant Campbell. “Go spell Captain Vangelos. It’s time for him to go below, too.”

  Burt Winfield and Kent Morrell, also at the helm station, stared out to sea through binoculars in the direction of the fishing boat. The tip of the rising sun glowed in their peripheral vision, off the starboard side of the yacht.

  “Cut the engines,” Michael ordered. “Not a sound.”

  The Zoe Mou’s forward movement abated. Then it stopped and rocked in the gentle seas.

  They floated in place for a minute. Then Morrell rasped, “Dead ahead,” and pointed directly over the bow.

  Michael looked out over the heads of his two men in the bow and saw the outline of a boat about two miles away.

  “All right, guys, let’s go to work.”

  Michael and Nick, along with two of the DELTA team members, scurried below, leaving Campbell, Winfield, and Morrell on deck.

  Campbell had an elevated view of the fishing boat from the helm station. He re-started the engines and slowly moved the yacht forward. When they were one hundred yards from the other boat, he pulled back on the throttle and let the yacht drift.

  Luca Galante breathed a huge sigh. He used binoculars to get a clear view of the luxury craft.

  “Ahoy the yacht,” he shouted.

  “Do you have our cargo?” a man yelled.

  “Yes,” Galante shouted. “Sorry we’re late.”

  “You’re here now,” the man said. “Move alongside. Let’s get it transferred.”

  “First, my money.”

  Michael heard the conversation and muttered, “What the hell?” There had been no mention of money in his briefing. The hijackers who took over the Zoe Mou had boarded with false ID, assault rifles, detonators, a sat phone, and clothing. That was it. They had no money with them. Then Michael had a thought: The hijackers and their masters never intended to pay the fishing boat crew. They probably planned to offload the third crate, kill the fishermen, and scuttle their boat. The fishing boat captain had enough sense to demand payment before this final delivery.

  He was about to climb up to the deck when he heard Winfield yell, “Bullshit! No money until the crate is transferred.”

  Good man, Michael thought.

  “You’ve got me confused with the ass end of a horse,” the man on the fishing boat shouted.

  The conversation between the men on the two boats ceased for a few seconds. Then Winfield called out, “Tell you what, mi amico, I’ll come on board your boat while the cargo is moved over here. I’ll be your hostage until you get paid. How’s that?”

  The man on the other boat didn’t immediately respond, but when he did, he agreed to Winfield’s compromise.

  The fishing boat’s engine revved. Then Michael felt the two boats bump. He heard the whining of what sounded like a winch, and then Winfield shouted, “What’s with the two AK-47s?”

  Michael’s plan had always included one of his men boarding the fishing boat to assist with the offloading of the crate. But he had never been worried about his man not returning to the yacht. This money business was a glitch he had not anticipated. Now the fishing boat crew was armed with more than shotguns.

  “Damn!” Michael whispered. The only weapon above decks on the Zoe Mou was an MP-5 suppressed sub-machine gun at the helm station. Now that the sun was partially up, any attempt by Campbell to use that weapon would surely be seen by the men on the other boat.

  The same voice from the other boat answered Winfield, “You can never be too careful.”

  The winch now seemed to scream with effort. Michael assumed it had been attached to the crate and was hauling it from the fishing boat’s hold. The noise continued for five minutes until something thudded on the deck and the yacht momentarily tilted backward. The boat rolled forward, then backward again, and then settled. The thudding noise sounded as though it came from the area of the extended cockpit at the aft end of the main deck.

  “Now the money.”

  Winfield shouted, “Let’s get that money over here so I can get off this boat. There are sixty-seven bundles in my kit bag.”

  It took only a few seconds for Michael to understand Winfield’s message. Winfield had brains as well as balls. He hoped Morrell got it, too.

  “Don’t stand there like a statue, Kent,” Winfield yelled. “Go below and get the cash.”

  “Right,” Morrell answered.

  Michael heard the sounds of footsteps above and then Morrell dropped down below decks.

  “Did I get that right, General? That crazy fucker Winfield wants us to toss grenades over there.”

  “I think that’s exactly what he wants. He told you to get M67 grenades out of his kit bag.”

  “Burt’s right in the middle of those guys over there. We toss a grenade and he’ll be toast.”

  “Go get his kit bag.”

  Morrell scurried away and returned a few seconds later with Winfield’s Special Forces Load Carrying System, or kit bag. Michael grabbed it from him and opened it. He removed two M67 grenades from their pouches and re-closed the kit bag.

  “Give me one minute to get in place. Then go up on deck. I want you to shout at the men over there, ‘Are you ready?’ When they answer, throw the kit bag high in the air. Hopefully, they’ll all look up. That will give Winfield an opportunity to take cover.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’ll toss these two grenades through one of our portholes onto the other boat’s deck the instant I hear you call out.”

  “Our portholes are at least two feet below the deck of the fishing boat.”

  “Yeah, I realize that.”

  Kent Morrell retrieved his .9mm Beretta from his kit bag and stuck it in the waistband of his jeans. He wasn’t happy about the pistol’s double action, but it was all he had that was concealable. He slung Winfield’s bag over one shoulder and climbed back to the main deck. Burt Winfield stood twenty feet away, between two men with automatic rifles. The man on the fishing boat who had done all the talking so far now stood in the pilothouse doorway, a double-barreled shotgun in hand. A fourth crewman at the very point of the fishing boat’s bow also had a shotgun.

  “Here’s your money,” Morrell yelled.

  “Toss it over here; then we’ll let your man cross over,” the man in the pilothouse doorway answered.

  Here goes, Morrell thought. He met Winfield’s gaze and gave him a slight nod.

  “Are you ready?” Morrell shouted. He swung the kit bag in an underhanded motion and launched it high in the air. As though in slow motion, all five men, including Winfield, stared at the bag as it rose above the fishing boat deck and then dropped toward the open hold. The Italians seemed mesmerized by the falling bag.

  Winfield suddenly took a step backward and dropped into the hold. Then Morrell ducked behind a locker and pulled out his pistol.

  The man in the pilothouse screamed, “It’s a trick!” He raised his shotgun and fired down into the hold just as two grenades exploded and scattered metal fragments over the fishing boat’s deck.

  Morrell fired his pistol at the man in the pilothouse doorway and saw the .9mm rounds knock him backward. Then automatic weapons fire sounded from behind Morrell
as Lieutenant Campbell opened up with his MP-5 from the yacht’s wheelhouse and dropped the man in the bow. The two grenades tossed by Michael had already incapacitated the two men with AK-47s.

  Morrell came out from behind the locker, ran across the deck, and leaped onto the fishing boat. A glance at the two men taken out by the grenades told him they would no longer be a problem. He kicked away their AK-47s. Then he ran and scaled the ladder to the pilothouse. The man he’d shot lay on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. He screamed bloody-murder. There was one wound in his right shoulder and another in his right thigh. Morrell slid the man’s shotgun to the far side of the pilothouse and quickly searched him for other weapons. Finding none, he ripped strips off the bottom of the man’s shirt and stuffed them into his wounds.

  The pounding sounds of footsteps told Morrell that some of his teammates had boarded the fishing boat. He shouted, “I’ve got one alive up here.”

  He heard someone yell, “Three guys dead.”

  Then General Danforth demanded, “Where the hell’s Winfield?”

  Morrell felt the warm cloak of relief come over him when he heard, “I’m down in the hold, General.” Followed by a chorus of laughter when Winfield announced, “That bastard shot me in the ass.”

  CHAPTER 34

  It was past midnight, D.C. time, when the call from Michael Danforth came into the Special Ops Center at Langley.

  “Everybody okay, Mike?” Ray asked.

  “Three men on the fishing boat dead; one badly wounded. But he’ll live. One of my men received minor wounds.”

  Raymond sighed. Thank God, he thought. “What’s in the crate, Mike?”

  “Not good, Ray. It looks like about two hundred pounds of high explosive surrounded by thousands of steel ball bearings packed inside two metal containers. The detonators the hijackers brought on board were apparently intended to be inserted into ports on the sides of the containers. The bomb has a digital timer on its casing that can be set manually.”

  “Any chance the devices are something other than HE?”

  “No indication of that. Just high explosives.”

  “That’s good.”

  “We’ve got to intercept those other two boats,” Michael said.

  “We’ll take care of that, Mike. We’re in touch with the commander of the Sigonella Navy Base. He’ll deal with them.”

  “Listen, Ray, the Sicilian guy we captured off the fishing boat has been very cooperative. Once he learned his clients planned to stiff him on his fee and probably eliminate him and his crew, his attitude changed. He says he had no idea what was in the three crates. He thought it might be drugs. I believe him. He says he was hired by a man with an Arabic accent. What do you want us to do now?”

  “Maintain your position outside Syracuse Harbor. We’ll track the other two boats. They’re about ten miles east of you, but both seem to be on headings toward the Sicilian coast north of Catania. At some point they may make contact with one another and may expect to meet up with the Zoe Mou. They might even try to contact you on the sat phone your father gave you. I suspect you’ll need to move your yacht so that they’ll at least be able to see you.”

  “And what do you think their plan is?”

  “The obvious target would be Sigonella. But we’re uncertain.”

  Admiral Elijah Johnson and his Intelligence Officer stood side by side in front of two six-man SEAL teams in the Sigonella Navy Base’s Command & Control Center. Behind them was a large, flat video screen segmented into four separate pictures. On the top, two segments were satellite images of two boats—a cabin cruiser and a sleek yacht. The bottom two screens showed the Zoe Mou on the left and the Sigonella Naval Base harbor on the right.

  “As soon as we get some indication that the top two boats have a target, we’ll display it on the bottom right screen,” Admiral Johnson said. “In the meantime, we’ll track all three boats. Remember the boat on the bottom is friendly. It’s there as a decoy. It’s crewed by a DELTA team.” Johnson aimed a pointer at the three screens in turn.

  “Your mission will be to board the two boats shown on the top two screens, subdue the three-man crews, and secure the explosives. Of course, this presumes the boats stop at some point.” The admiral then said, “This is a Company operation. They think the three boats were intended to work in tandem to attack one or more targets. They further presume the crews aboard the boats were on a suicide mission. So, they’ll not readily surrender. Finally, if they plan to attack a ship or installation, it makes more sense for them to wait until dark. That’s what we think will happen. That’s your window of opportunity to board them.” The admiral paused again and said, “Of course, this is more conjecture than fact at this point.”

  “If the boats don’t stop?” asked one of the SEALs.

  “Then we’ll blow them out of the water before they can do any harm. But we really want to get our hands on at least one of those guys.”

  The adrenaline rush of the encounter with the fishing boat crew had subsided. Michael walked to the steps down to the galley and called out, “Robbie!”

  A few seconds passed before Robbie showed himself. “Yes, sir?”

  “Get your butt over here.”

  Michael moved to the saloon and sat in a chair. He watched Robbie sheepishly move to a chair opposite him and slowly sit.

  Michael shook his head. “Do you have any idea how badly you screwed up?”

  The boy nodded.

  “You do, huh? Explain it to me.”

  “Well, like, I could have been hurt.”

  “That’s it?”

  Robbie’s eyebrows arched and he shrugged.

  “You could have jeopardized a very important mission. And you could have endangered my team because one of them had to play nursemaid to you instead of being available to help his teammates. Yes, and you could have been injured or killed. And your mother would never have recovered if that had happened. And your grandparents were worried sick. You broke trust with them that will be difficult to rebuild.”

  “I guess I’d better call them to tell them I’m okay.”

  Michael’s face went red. It was all he could do to not come out of his chair. “You guess? First of all, I’ve already let them know you’re okay. But I suggest you call them right now and apologize. Then you will need to get ready to get on a plane and go back to the States. You’ve all had all the adventure you’ll ever need.”

  After he glared at Robbie for a full fifteen seconds, Michael said, “I guess you’re not as smart as I thought you were.” Then he stood and walked to the cockpit, where Burt Winfield lay face down on a deck lounge. His pants were down around his calves and the bottom of his t-shirt was pulled up to the middle of his back. There were a dozen or more puckered red wounds on Winfield’s lower back, butt, and thighs, each with black pellets in the center.

  “Pretty nasty, huh, General?” Sergeant Phil Beaumont said, a huge smile on his face. “Old Burt here will have to sleep on his stomach for a while.”

  Michael was used to special ops gallows humor, especially after an engagement with the enemy. But he wasn’t about to encourage Beaumont’s teasing.

  “Take care of the Master Sergeant. We’ll need him healthy.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m gonna pluck that buckshot out of the Master Sergeant’s ass and then I’ll slather a bunch of antiseptic ointment all over his wounds. But, geez, General, he stinks like fish.”

  “Have a good time, Beaumont,” Winfield said. “Enjoy yourself while you can. When I’m back on my feet again, I’m gonna kick your ass from here to Sunday.”

  Michael joined Nick Vangelos and Lieutenant Campbell in the pilothouse. “How’s our fuel?” he asked.

  Vangelos tapped one of the gauges on the console. “We’ve got plenty.” He squinted at Michael and said, “What the hell’s in that crate on the end of my boat?”

  “Nothing to worry about.”

  “What’s the plan, General?” Campbell asked.

  “We’ll wait
here until they tell us to move.”

  “Move where?” Campbell said.

  “Don’t know.”

  “How long do we wait here?”

  “Don’t know that either.”

  “No disrespect, General,” Vangelos said, “but you sound just like a Greek Army officer. Nobody tells them shit either.”

  Michael laughed.

  “What about your son?” Campbell asked.

  Michael turned to Vangelos. “I need you to do me a favor, Captain Vangelos.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to trust me with your boat and take my son and the Italian to shore on the fishing boat. If we see action, I don’t want you and Robbie along. Besides, Galante needs medical attention.”

  Vangelos’s ruddy complexion went beet-red. “What do you mean ‘If we see action’? You’re going to put my boat at risk again?”

  “I won’t lie to you. That’s a possibility.”

  “Why don’t we all go to Syracuse? We can sink that godforsaken fishing boat right here. We could be in Syracuse in an hour or so.”

  Michael calmly met Vangelos’s gaze and waited. After a while, he said, “You know I can’t do that.”

  Vangelos looked as though he might argue some more.

  “Besides,” Michael said as he pointed down at the crate on the yacht’s deck, “you really don’t want to be here as long as those bombs are aboard.”

  “Bombs?” Vangelos said. His face turned red again. “What bombs?”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you. It’s highly classified and you can’t tell another soul about it.”

  “What bombs?” Vangelos asked again, this time in a throaty voice.

  “There are two enormous bombs in that crate.”

  Vangelos quickly said, “Have your men put that malaka-of-a-Sicilian on the fishing boat. I’m ready to take him and Robbie to Syracuse.”

  CHAPTER 35