by L. J. Martin
“There is a nice mosque in Bilbao. I could take you there. There is a square near the pier. Three blocks. I will be in the square.”
“Only if none of our group are about,” she says, and flashes him a quick smile.
“I will wait there.”
“Mumin will kill us,” she says, in a mutter.
“Mumin will not know. He doesn’t leave the ship.”
“Inshallah,” she says, but doesn’t look convinced.
We awake docked at Bilbao, Spain. When the little princess rises, we’ll be off to see the Guggenheim Museum, have lunch, then take a driving tour of the city. I like having a client who sleeps in as it gives me time to enjoy my travelling companion. It’s almost as good a workout as going to the gym.
All my retired military buddies are off with their spouses to take in the wonders, so I breakfast with Connie and kill time until I’m shocked by my wrist alarm going off. I haven’t heard it since I first tested it, and it makes me leap out of my chair.
I bolt for the stairway, take the stairs four at a time, reach our deck and palm the Glock 19 that’s in my middle-of-back holster under my loose shirt. I am surprised to see the kids all gathered around the door to Simone’s suite, and they’re laughing it up. The heat begins creeping my backbone.
“What the hell,” I growl as I slide to a stop.
Terry, the short dirty blond sax-player, is looking at his iPhone. “I win, one minute thirty-three seconds.”
“Bullshit,” Bryan says. “You had one and a half minutes, I had two and a half, Simone had three and Patty six. I win because it was over the time you choose.”
“So,” I interrupt. “Y’all had a little pool going on how fast I’d show.” Then I get in Terry’s face. “You win a friggin’ knuckle sandwich if you don’t get that stupid smile off your face.”
They all laugh, if a little nervously. Simone sees how tight the skin is drawn on my face, and my jaw muscles working, and speaks up. “Hey, no biggie, Reardon. Just checking to see if you were on the job.”
I give her a fake smile. “Okay, but let me tell you, fuck with me once and you’re a fool, fuck with me twice and you’ve made a fool of me. I don’t do fool well. So, do I have to mention that I’ll put you all across my knee and blister your asses if you make a fool out of me?”
“You might be pretty tough,” Bryan mumbles, but back steps as he does, “but you can’t spank me.”
“Don’t be such an a-hole,” Simone mutters, before I back Bry baby out onto the veranda.
I turn to her. “You saw me re-holster that Glock?”
“So.”
“So, if some stranger had been in the hall near your doorway, looking like a bad guy, and scratched the side of his hip, I might have stitched four or five .40 cals up his sternum. Would you all have thought that real funny?”
“Okay, okay, okay,” she says. “I get it. We won’t…”
“You’re fucking A right you won’t, or you’ll see a shit storm like you can’t begin to imagine.”
There’s silence for a moment.
“Can I have that spanking now?” Patty says with a purr, I guess trying to lighten the mood.
23
I know she’s trying to be funny, but I still have not shed myself of the shot of adrenaline. “Patty, when I spank you, it’ll be blisters and the last thing you’ll feel is sexy.”
“Kidding,” she says, and pouts.
“Are y’all ready to go?” I ask.
“Give us ten,” Simone says, and I leave and slam the cabin door behind me hard enough to blow the curtains on the sliding glass door out fluttering over the veranda.
I check my phone, see I have a signal, and call Connie. “Ten minutes,” I say, then look up to see her at the end of the corridor, her phone to her ear, her hand in a slot in her purse, I presume caressing her .380. She’s backing me up.
I do like that woman.
Bilbao is a north-facing harbor at the mouth of a river that winds through a wide canyon surrounded by hills. A beautiful city, but one with its share of spray-can art, much of which proclaims, “no king.” I guess that’s the current cause in Basque country. Painting is better than bombing, which Basque separatists have been known to do.
The Guggenheim, in a serene location next to the river, was designed by renowned architect Frank O. Gehry. The museum is flowing titanium tiles and limestone, more a sculpture of a roiling surf than a building. The plan was to have it reflect Bilbao’s heritage with its suggestion of maritime shapes and sails. I read the building is covered with more than 35,000 titanium tiles and pieces of glass strategically placed to catch the natural light. It’s wild and fascinating. I’ve always heard the first rule of Architecture is form follows function, but I guess if a building is supposed to be a work of art itself, that doesn’t matter so much.
It’s well worth seeing.
As has become our normal, the kids stay together and the hired help follows at a discrete distance—Gretchen, Connie and me.
There’s a spindly sculpture of a spider, twenty feet tall, outside the museum and walking under and between its ugly legs sends chills down my back. I’d prefer a butterfly, but that’s just me.
That said, when it comes to art, give me Degas—who the museum also features—Winslow Homer or Andrew Wyeth. Those guys knew a camelhair brush from a whisk broom.
I’m glad I tolerated the modern scribbles as the day redeemed itself with a late lunch at Zortziko, and I love Basque food. Nevada is also blessed with it, as, it too, is sheep country. My baby squid with peppers and scallops, washed down with a good red, mellows my mood. And Connie stroking my calf, snaking toes up under my pant leg, fires my mood back up again. My appetite is rekindled, but not for food.
However again we are sabotaged as a gaggle of paparazzi awaits when we exit.
So, it’s back to work. Luckily, the gaggle is made up of fairly-respectable jerks who keep some distance. And none of them dive a hand into Simone’s purse.
Harry admires her. Felicia is onto something with the German shepherd doubling as a seeing eye dog. She begins working the ship a deck at a time, one end to the other. Tonight, they’ve arranged for Chang to escort her through the crew living area, the kitchen, laundry, shops, and engine room. He's violating ISP rules as no one, other than assigned crew, is allowed in the engine area.
The only hit the dog shows early on is sniffing Mumin, who’s dozing on a chaise lounge near the pool. The dogs sits and barks, six inches from the man who comes violently awake and lurches to his feet. He’s holding a hand to his chest, panting, as if he’s having a heart attack.
Harry and Angelina are nearby, acting as if they, too, are merely enjoying the sun.
“What the fucking hell…” Mumin shouts.
“Sorry,” Chang says. As Mumin is wearing a see-through net shirt and swimming trunks, it’s pretty-obvious he doesn’t have a vest stuffed with explosives ready to detonate.
“Get that filthy animal away from me,” he commands. Chang is not surprised as he knows Muslims will tolerate dogs only if they function for guarding house or livestock.
“So, so sorry.” Chang says, and acts as if he’s helping Felicia away.
When they are out of sight, Felicia turns to him. “That was a hit. What’s up?”
“He’s one of our three known, and who we know handled the C4, so the hit obviously was residue.”
“Then let’s keep moving.”
While they work all the public areas, Chang’s number two, Peter Zucker, has used the sulfur bomb scam again to clear the crew sleeping area, and he watches the corridor while Felicia’s partner, Ronnie Alberto, replaces the C4 with four pounds of yellow play dough that’s nearly the same color.
They all meet later in Chung’s office. While Angelina keeps tabs on Mumin, Harry continues the argument with the head of security. Since Buster made no more discoveries, he wants to immediately arrest Sa’id, Mumin and Mohamid. Harry again talks him out of it, with Felicia and Ronaldo
‘Ronnie’ Alberto chiming in.
Ronaldo, who’s the explosive expert, explains, “The C4 is an easy hit for Buster. Cartridges, hand grenades, or even cannon shells, not so much. Isis and Al-Qaeda love to construct their IED’s from artillery rounds, well-sealed, scrubbed and dried and scrubbed again, hard to detect. I don’t know how much you know about the problem?”
“Not much,” Chang admits.
“Okay, here’s the quick and dirty. IEDs and other bombs are constructed and activated in a number of ways.
“Radio controlled, the trigger for a radio-controlled improvised explosive device is controlled by radio link. The receiver is connected to an electrical firing circuit and the transmitter operated by the perp from a long way off. One of those cheap handheld Motorola radios will do the job but are not desirable as the signal is much too common. A signal from the transmitter causes the receiver to trigger a firing pulse that operates the switch. Usually the switch fires an initiator; however, the output may also be used to remotely arm an explosive circuit. Often the transmitter and receiver operate on a matched coding system that prevents the device from being initiated by random radio frequency signals or jamming. A device can be triggered from any number of different mechanisms including car alarms, wireless doorbells, cell phones, pagers and radios. Even those hot new Ring doorbells would work nicely.
“Mobile phones, like the ones you found, are common actuators and receivers. A radio-controlled IED incorporates a mobile phone that is modified and connected to an electrical firing circuit. Mobile phones operate in the UHF band in line of sight with base transceiver station antennae sites. In the common scenario, receipt of a paging signal by phone is sufficient to initiate the IED firing circuit. Not likely at sea as you're out of range of towers, but when close to shore, as we are now…
“Then, of course, there are victim operated. A booby-trap. Sometimes operated by simple movement, sometimes a trip wire, sometimes pressure such as a butt in a car seat. Or releasing pressure by opening a mailed well-wrapped package.
“Then we have the infrared devices. Perfected by the IRA in the early nineties, many used against the invading forces in Iraq…actually thanks to our friends, the Brits, who inadvertently passed the method to the IRA who, in turn, trained the PLO, the Palestinians, who of course trained the rest of the Muslim world.
“And, of course, hardest to defend against, is the suicide bomber. Enough?” he asks Chang.
“Damn sure enough. More than I wish I knew. I’ve now got my bachelor’s degree in IED’s, thanks to you. Now I hope I don’t get my masters by being the victim of one.”
“Buster is our first line of defense,” Felicia says, then adds, “tonight let’s see what, if anything, he hits on in the crew’s quarters, the storage areas, or the kitchen and cold rooms. Then we talk again.”
24
Chang sighs deeply. “You spooks have your row to hoe and I have mine. Yes, my office tells me to play second fiddle in this and, against my wishes, refuses to evacuate the ship. But, I God-dang guarantee you, if this all goes south, the pricks…I mean the ladies and gentlemen…in the home office will scatter like quail when blame-time comes.”
Felicia smiles and gives Chang a pat on the forearm. “Then let’s circumvent anything untoward happening. I’d like to make another round of the ship.”
Chang nods, “I fear disarming these four bombs is only the beginning. And that lecture only elevates my fear.”
“All the more reason…” Harry says, “…to keep hunting without putting the enemy on notice we’re on to them.”
“Go to work,” Chang says, and puts his face in his hands.
Harry, the last one to leave, turns back and asks, “How is this tub powered?”
“A pair of Wartsila dual fuel engines. Why?”
“What do you mean, dual fuel?”
“She carries three hundred fifty thousand gallons of diesel and three hundred cubic meters of LPG.”
“LPG?”
“LPG, liquid natural gas. Why?”
Harry takes a deep breath. “Because she’s a fucking bomb, that’s why?”
Chang immediately goes into a canned speech. “No way. The onboard LPG system consists of two bunker stations, two horizontal LPG storage tanks, cryogenic, vacuum-insulated, stainless steel, total gas volume three hundred cubic meters. She has double-walled bunkering lines, pipelines that are acid-proof stainless steel, special pipe fittings, gas distribution system, steam boilers. All the electrical equipment is certified explosion-proof. This is the safest…”
“Are you through with the corporate bullshit?” Harry asks.
Chang shrugs and looks a little sheepish.
Harry continues. “So, what happens with an explosive strapped to one of those LPG tanks?”
Harry is not surprised when Chang flushes and suddenly looks heated. His hands ball into fists. “We have lots of failsafe…”
“Nothing I’ve ever come across in damn near thirty years of this kind of duty has ever been proven fail safe.”
“No one’s allowed access…”
“I hate to keep interrupting you, but let me ask you a question? Do you think your number two, Zucker, will hand over a key if a haji has an AK shoved up your ass, or his? Or maybe has the ship’s captain hanging upside down with jumper cables hooked to his gonads.”
“You’re right. Nothing is failsafe. I should arrest those three…”
“And not find the guy who has the next bomb. We’ve neutralized the first threat. Stop with the CYA and let’s save this tub from a visit to Davy Jones’ locker.”
“With luck there’s only those four bombs,” Chang says.
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Harry says, quietly. “I’m going back up to relieve Angelina watching Mumin. Any word on the missing crewman?”
“I may have to report him overboard if he doesn’t show by the end of the day.”
Harry shakes his head. “I presume that’s protocol?”
“Twenty-four hours, since no one saw him go overboard, if he did. Let’s hope he snuck off the boat here after hiding out. With luck he filched some old fart’s Rolex and beat a trail.”
“But it won’t change the day-to-day onboard ship?”
“No. The Maritime Gendarmerie, the French Coast Guard, will search north of Spain, and the Spanish Coast Guard, La Guardia Costera, will do a search from the line to here in Bilbao, but we’ll charge on, on schedule.”
“How many access doors are there to the LPG storage tanks?”
“Two watertight fire heavy duty hatchways with key locks.”
“So, you could station a man inside with instructions not to open under any circumstance?”
“Keys work both inside and out. We could chain the doors from the inside and prevent easy access. The hell of it is, the fuel lines run through that compartment’s walls to the engine room and if those were blown, they'd become the world's largest blow torch and melt everything for yards and yards. We’d likely all be blown to hell.”
“Let me check on Angelina then maybe you could give me a tour?”
“I’ll be right here, worrying.”
Harry chuckles and hurries out.
Simone has made friends with the kids doing the shows, impressed with their ABBA retrospective she hunts them down and they are thrilled to join her for a drink in the aft bar. I’m not surprised when she agrees to go on stage tonight and sing a couple of the songs from her new album.
And I see another reason for Gretchen, as she doubles as wardrobe and makeup.
Simone’s a good promoter has the crowd loving her, and I’m not surprised. It will, however, make my job even more difficult. Half the folks on the ship have no idea who she is—and a few of the older ones wouldn’t know her from Adam’s off ox if she introduced herself—but now nearly everyone on board will know a famous young singer is among them.
Anonymity is my friend, but no longer.
Actually it’s kind of a hoot as Connie and I have to
go backstage to watch over our charge, and the kids in the show and stage crew are great.
For the first time I see what Simone sees in Bryan Cox and Terry Von Riche. I wouldn’t be surprised, after hearing Bryan on the sticks, that he could do a damn good job with Sing, Sing, Sing. And the short dude with the stringy dirty-blond hair wails on the sax and could give Kenny G. a run for his money…maybe even Charlie Parker. And Simone is surprisingly generous, giving both long solos. And Patty, along with the four kids employed, sings backup. I’m impressed.
It’s a night at sea between Bilbao, Spain, and Lisbon, Portugal. I don’t have to worry about several million Frenchmen or Spaniards or even a few Basque terrorists, only about three hundred plus passengers and three hundred or so crewmen.
The kids and their new friends close up La Terrazza, the Deck Seven Italian restaurant, and are safely tucked in just before midnight. Connie has been in our stateroom reading and I’m surprised is still not only awake, but dressed, and invites me back to The Promenade Lounge for a nightcap. And I’m pleased to see General Bull Tolliver and the limey, Nelson, are still at it. He waves us over and we join them.
They both rise, as true military gentlemen would when a lady approaches the table.
“Glad you stumbled in,” Bull says, then leans over and whispers in my ear as Alistair and Connie engage in conversation. “Can I talk frankly in front of your lady?”
“Anything you can say to me you can say in front of Connie.”
He clears his throat and gets all our attention. “I heard a couple of ship employees talking, and it seems we’re missing a crew member. Likely overboard.”
25
“That’s terrible,” Connie says, just learning the ship is missing a crew member, likely gone overboard.
“What’s terrible about it is they think it was foul play.”
“Funny you should say that,” Connie says, “as I overheard some interesting comments. Of course, being a blonde, they’d never suspect I speak Arabic…”