The terrorists wasted no time racing up the gangway each carrying four or five boxes of explosives with them. Once they had all made it to the main deck, they quickly raised the gangway, cutting off pursuit as the workers and soldiers on the pier stood staring from behind the truck. When nothing happened after a few minutes, several soldiers gathered around the dead man on the pier, poking at the body with their feet, but making no effort to remove it. It wasn’t until an officer arrived that the body was removed and a demand for the terrorists to lower the gangway was made via a bullhorn. The terrorists responded by shooting several soldiers, causing everyone within hearing distance of the weapons fire to seek cover. Within seconds, the soldiers and workers had taken refuge behind a row of containers in front of the pier’s storage warehouse.
“Shit! Are we monitoring communications?” Captain Conners blurted out.
“Yes, sir. Here’s a transcript.” A pretty woman with brown hair and bright cheerful eyes stepped over, handing him the transcript. After scanning the transcript, Captain Conners resumed talking to David.
“One, I think I know what the problem is. It seems our friends have tried to leave without paying their bill, claiming the service was bad. Their hosts are not taking kindly to their claims and they are trying to force the payment issue.”
“Great, where does that leave us?” David lamented.
“Probe the blockage and see if there is any way around it. Also, have Two return and check out whether or not our friends left any luggage behind, if you can. Then report back. I’ve got to get back to my performance for the harbor pilot.”
“Roger that,” David replied without enthusiasm.
Montoya, having heard the conversation, dropped off the team’s travel bags with David and Mitchell on his way back to the safe house. Meanwhile, David and the rest of the team scouted the edge of town for ways past the military.
Captain Conners headed back to the bridge hoping to drag his feet as long as possible so his team could gather as much intelligence as they could regarding the developments aboard The People’s Glory. Captain Conners told the command center team to keep him informed of any new developments.
Despite being outgunned and outmanned, the terrorists kept the soldiers pinned down by virtue of holding the high ground. The ship’s main deck was a good thirty five feet above the pier. As the tense situation continued, the terrorists moved their boxes inside the superstructure, to the same hidden stateroom they had used on their trip to Cuba. They then broke into the armory next to the secret room and helped themselves to AK74s and grenade launchers which strengthened their advantage tremendously. Next they gathered the crew members working the forward hold and herded them back to the superstructure.
Securing the bridge proved extremely easy as the two crew men they found there had been drinking coffee and playing loud music and were unaware of the drama being played out on the pier or the terrorists storming aboard.
Now armed for combat, the terrorists wasted no time letting the soldiers know they had some fire power. They sprayed the pier with rounds from their AK74s, killing three more soldiers. They also launched an RPG at the truck they arrived in, blowing up the truck and forcing the soldiers to retreat further around the corner of the pier’s storage buildings.
The initial threat minimized, two of the terrorists on the main deck settled in for the duration as their comrades—one on the bridge and one in the main hallway—kept an eye on the captured crew members.
On the way to the bridge, Captain Conners stopped off at the purser’s office to pick up the funds needed to pay the harbor pilot and the tugs. Once he reached the bridge, Captain Conners stepped onto the bridge wing and handed an envelope to the harbor pilot.
“Here’s your fee. It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes now, I’m being told.”
The pilot stood with his back to the wind as he counted the money. When he had finished, he gave the Third Mate a puzzled look.
“Oh, the extra!” Conners blurted out as a big smile crossed his face. “That’s for being a good sport while we worked on the generator. I know you get paid by the job and we took a lot of your time. I’m just trying to make it up to you is all.”
“Thank you, my friend. One can always use extra money, even in the worker’s paradise known as Cuba.” The harbor pilot accepted the money with a grin, tucking the extra into his pocket opposite the one he tucked the envelope in. “I hope if the young officer returns before we’re ready, you’ll help us out as much as you can,” Conners stated, knowing full well that the harbor pilot would most likely cut and run the moment the young officer looked sideways at him, but you never knew.
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. I’ve got to go check on the engineer, okay?” the captain stated more than asked as he turned and left the bridge wing.
The harbor pilot just nodded and returned to looking over the harbor, watching the flashes of light at the far pier as he gripped the money in his pants pocket. For a moment, he thought he heard thunder, but then the wind carried the sound away just as two fast attack boats rumbled out of the darkness at the harbor’s mouth and headed towards the far pier.
Two decks down, Captain Conners stopped in his tracks as Hanchell informed him of the fast attack boats entering the harbor. He then contacted David again. “One, Mother Hen. Anything new to report?”
“Mother Hen, One. Negative. The route back has been locked down tight. In addition to the road blocks, they’ve got roving patrols and roof top snipers. Plus I’m still waiting on Montoya to back check in.”
“Yeah, it seems the Cubans are having a serious problem at the pier. The military has started bringing in fast attack boats,” the captain informed David.
“Roger,” David signed off.
When Montoya arrived back at the safe house, he found that the street was deserted except for two soldiers sitting in the street out front in an old American jeep. They appeared to be playing cards on the dashboard under a flashlight and paid no attention Montoya.
Montoya made his way up the alley and slipped silently up to the stairs leading to the safe house. Peeking around the corner of the building, he could see that the soldiers in the street couldn’t see the walkway from their parking spot, so he moved swiftly and quietly up the steps. Upon entering the apartment, he noticed the place looked the same as before except that about twenty boxes or so were missing from the dining area. Turning to the living room he was surprised to find a very large bomb sitting in the center of the room on the floor. He was pleased to see the package he had prepared earlier was still right where he had left it.
He turned back to the large bomb and studied it for a few moments. He counted at least three false leads and three false timers. He estimated that there was close to a hundred kilos of plastic explosives all connected to a cell phone. It would appear that the terrorists were serious about their little surprise for the Cubans.
Having seen enough, he quickly made his way back to the alley and reported what he had found and headed back to the hotel district to meet up with the team.
“Mother Hen, One,” David whispered over the comlink.
“One, Mother Hen. What do you have?” Captain Conner replied.
“We’re still under lockdown, our surprise package is still in place and our friends left an even bigger surprise for their hosts at the apartment. It appears to be a phone-in model, just like ours. The locals have only a couple of military types hanging around the old homestead, otherwise there’s no one home. Any ideas in regards to our travel arrangements?” David inquired.
“I think so. Make your way to the harbormaster’s. Outfit yourselves with tools and hard hats along the way. I’m going to try something to get you transport,” Captain Conners directed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It had been almost two hours since the terrorists had killed the purser and stormed aboard The People’s Glory when three soldiers approached the ship waving the white flag. They stopped far enough back so that t
hey could look up and see the man they were talking to. The terrorists had forced one of the deck hands to stand at the railing and act as their go between. The soldiers made no concessions, only demands. They wanted to be paid for the cargo they had provided and for the terrorists to pay extra compensation for the men they had killed while storming the ship.
The terrorists refused to pay anything until all the goods they had ordered were delivered and demanded that no effort be made to storm the ship or they would detonate the explosives they had left behind at the safe house. They also told the soldiers that they had twelve hostages and that they would begin killing one every hour until their demands were met. To show they meant it, they shoved one of the men they had found on the bridge out onto the bridge wing overlooking the pier and shot him in the head. The dead man toppled over the railing and landed with a sickening thud to the pier below.
The soldiers turned and ran as their counterparts opened fire from at least ten different locations across the pier. The crewman who had been forced to act as the go between was caught in the crossfire and killed. The small arms fire created hundreds of small pockmarks all over the side of the ship’s superstructure but didn’t kill or wound a single terrorist.
With the shower of lead from below, forcing the terrorists to keep their heads down, a handful of soldiers began making their way up the gantry cranes stationed around the pier in an effort to gain the high ground. They didn’t make it very far before the terrorists spotted them and began shooting at them from sheltered positions within the superstructure and from the bridge. Within seconds, they had taken out three of the five shooters forcing the last two to find cover behind the crane’s cabs and counterweights.
At this point, the half dozen Cuban Navy fast attack boats that were swarming about the inner harbor opened fire with their fifty caliber machine guns peppering the bridge and the cabins aft of it. They were using armor piercing shells, and if it had not been for the steep angle of the fire, they would have shredded the terrorists, but instead they merely punched numerous holes in the walls and roof of the bridge while destroying the electronics bay on the ship’s roof. If anyone would have thought to shoot through the level below the bridge, they might have ended the siege right then, but the thought never occurred to anyone. While the drama continued at the pier, Captain Conners was hard at work securing the team a ride home to the ship.
“You need to go to the harbormaster’s office and tell them that you were called by the harbor pilot and need a ride out to the ship. You’re mechanics and you usually work on the dock cranes, but generators are generators, okay?” Captain Conners instructed David and his team. “I’ll have the harbor pilot call and tell the harbormaster that he helped us call you guys and that they should send you out. Plus, we’ll pay for it.”
“Okay, we’re ten minutes out, hopefully! Over,” David replied.
Once at the harbormaster’s, David had to talk fast because the harbormaster wasn’t buying it. David stood there getting pissed at the man’s refusal to work with him, until finally the pilot made the call. Suddenly, the man’s whole demeanor changed. Within two minutes, the team was rushed aboard the harbormaster’s skiff and they were being raced out to the ship.
Aboard the Honolulu Sunrise, Captain Conners had to do some fast talking, himself. He had to convince the harbor pilot that for a couple of thousand dollars, he could make the call. Once he’d been persuaded—twenty-five hundred dollars’ worth of persuasion—the pilot shared a whale of a tale with the harbormaster, the one where the Third Mate desperately needed to get the drunken shore party, who were acting as mechanics to avoid trouble with the military, back aboard ship before they sailed or the captain would fire him. From the pilot’s demeanor, it didn’t seem that it was an unusual request for the harbormaster to run drunks back to their ship as it was about to sail. As with most things, it was just a matter of money.
The plan appeared to have gone off without a hitch until Hanchell pointed out the young lieutenant flying across the harbor in his skiff, straight towards them. Their time was up.
The harbor pilot, seeing the lieutenant racing towards them, didn’t waste ten seconds saying goodbye. He practically ran off the bridge taking the stairs two at a time, sometimes three, on his way to the main deck. The harbormaster’s skiff had just pulled up to the gangway when he pushed past the deck hand trying to finish securing the gangway and plunged down the steep set of stairs. The pilot skipped the last half dozen stairs, jumping onto the bow of the harbormaster’s skiff to avoid David and his team who were starting to climb up the gangway.
Seeing the man race past them and sensing something was amiss, David and the team raced up the gangway, taking two and three steps at a time. They scurried across the main deck and ducked inside the superstructure where they slipped through a false door into the hidden portion of the ship in very short order.
The military skiff pulled up just as the harbormaster’s skiff pushed off. Their bumpers bumped each other but no damage was done, so the military ignored them. The young lieutenant, several armed soldiers and a military harbor pilot, quickly climbed the gangway stairs and then raced up the exterior stairs to the bridge where he confronted the Third Mate.
Captain Conners met the young lieutenant on the bridge wing with a smile on his face. He was really hoping the lieutenant wouldn’t be on a power trip with all the action taking place in the inner harbor. The four armed marines that came with him dispelled that thought.
“Captain!” Captain Conners exclaimed with a big grin on his face as he reached out his hand to shake the lieutenant’s as if he was greeting an old friend.
“Lieutenant!” the young officer corrected him sternly, while not extending his hand. “Why are you not moving? Your man on the bridge assured me that you were underway.”
“Yes, yes, we were, but now there is something else amiss. I’m told that it will be repaired in few short minutes and we—” The lieutenant held up his hand to stop the Third Mate in mid-sentence.
“Unhook your mooring lines. I will have you towed immediately. I have my orders. All non-Cuban ships must leave. If you refuse or hinder this tow in any way, you will be arrested along with the whole crew, do you understand me? It doesn’t matter. Prepare to be towed.” The young lieutenant’s voice cracked as he did his best to bellow authoritatively. Captain Conners almost snickered, but was able to hold it in as he doubted the young lieutenant would have seen the humor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It took less than an hour for the military tugs to tow the Honolulu Sunrise out of the harbor to a spot approximately four miles east of the harbor entrance and two miles from shore or about ten miles from the pier. As they were towed out, the captain and Hanchell took note of a Cuban Navy cruiser slipping behind them into the harbor.
The Honolulu Sunrise had been given twenty-four hours to make repairs and to be underway or they would be boarded. Should that happen, the ship would be searched and then towed to the military base for repairs. It was clear from the tone of the orders they really wanted to be underway before the time was up. With the team back on board again, there was little doubt they would be underway long before then.
David sat behind Captain Conners, thankful the ship’s air conditioning was blowing past him and towards the captain, who was still made up as the Third Mate, smells and all, watching the growing spectacle on the pier.
“I had Hanchell launch a drone as soon as the Cubans untied from us so we would have a live feed of the harbor,” Captain Conners stated as the monitor in front of him flickered to life showing the pier and The People’s Glory.
The Cuban soldiers were trying to board the ship using grappling hooks, only to have the lines cut or the men shot off the lines as they climbed. Next, the Cubans tried an armored car. On approach it was firing 120mm explosive shells into the superstructure. It blew several large holes in the structure before the terrorists tossed C-4 bombs down upon them. It took only a couple of the small C-4 bombs to cr
ipple the armored car, setting it on fire and forcing the crew to flee while under heavy fire by the terrorists, killing all four men from the armored car.
It was while they were watching the armored car being neutralized that Captain Conners decided that a forced escalation of the battle was in order and that the surprise that Montoya had left at the safe house was the best way to do it. David called Shields to the command center. He’d been with the rest of the team in the meeting room down the hall, watching the events unfold on the monitors there. Once in the command center, Captain Conners instructed Shields to detonate the surprise package.
In the distance, a pillar of black smoke suddenly rose up behind the buildings on the pier. They were followed by flames that reached several hundred feet into the sky. By the time the sound of the explosion reached the Sunrise, it was no louder than that of a distant thunderclap. Within moments, the smoke and flames had blocked out the moon and the stars, throwing the already dim city into deep, dark shadows.
The Sunrise’s drone had been buffeted by the shockwave, and the tech flying it almost lost it, but at the last second managed to right it. Within seconds, he had it pointed once again towards the safe house only there wasn’t any safe house left to see. The explosion had left a huge, gaping hole where the safe house had once stood. The buildings that had been within a hundred yards were gone, as well. All that was visible as the drone panned the area was rubble, smoke and flames.
David felt bad for the people in the café which no longer existed, but he didn’t dwell on it. Montoya, watching the monitors in the conference room, felt sorry for the drunken minders he’d encountered and wondered if they had left behind family. From the pictures on the monitor, he doubted they’d have a body to bury making closure very difficult, if not impossible for some.
Reprisal!- The Eagle Rises Page 28