Deadly Cargo: A chilling naval terrorism thriller

by Rich Johnson

“What is this?” He turned to face the driver with a hint of anger in his voice.

  The woman stepped in close, waved a dismissing hand as if swatting at a fly, and the driver turned on his heels and walked back to the car. She was, he guessed, in her mid-thirties, a good ten years his senior. Her stride was long and powerful, and every aspect of her bearing was that of a commander.

  “What is this?” Husam al Din repeated, looking around as if suddenly everything had gone wrong.

  “What’s the matter,” the woman asked, “haven’t you ever seen a woman before?”

  “Of course I have. But …”

  “But where you come from, the women keep themselves covered and hide themselves away. Only men do the important work. Is that it?”

  “Who are you? What are you doing?” Husam al Din barked, sounding suddenly defiant.

  “Listen,” she growled, “where you come from, things are different. But you aren’t there now … you’re here and you’ll deal with me. My name is Alicia Gomez. I run the show in Manila. Do you have a problem with that?”

  Husam al Din knew how to handle men, even tough men. But nothing in his experience prepared him to handle a tough woman. “Why was I not told?”

  “Because you didn’t need to know,” she said.

  “Alicia Gomez?” he asked. “Is that right?”

  “Yes. That is my name.”

  “Alicia Gomez. I have never heard of you.”

  Her eyes flared. “There’s a lot you’ve never heard of, because of where you’ve spent your life. Let me clue you in: it’s a big world and you are a very small piece of a very big puzzle.”

  He glared hard at her, grinding his teeth, but said nothing. Suspecting that her hot Filipino attitude might have taken her too far, she stepped back and softened. “I do not mean to disrespect your importance to the cause,” she said. “Your plan is a good one. Your sacrifice will benefit us all.” She held out her hand, “Let me begin again. I am in charge of operations in Manila. It makes sense, does it not? Who would suspect a woman?” She smiled.

  He found himself smiling back. “Yes, it does make sense. If the devil actually had horns and carried a pitchfork, no one would fall for his tricks.”

  “Okay,” she said, her smile disappearing, “I’m not sure I appreciate the analogy, but your point is well taken. Now that we have that settled, let me show you what we have for you.” She turned and climbed the two steps into the trailer, and he followed.

  “This 26-foot travel trailer will conceal you and will give you everything you need to stay alive during the passage to Miami,” Alicia Gomez said. “Before it is placed inside the shipping container, you will be hidden inside this area beneath the floor.” She lifted the carpet and raised a trapdoor. “We removed the wastewater storage tank and replaced it with this compartment to serve as your hiding place. If the port authorities inspect the inside of the container and examine the trailer, inside or out, everything will appear to be normal. After the shipping container is sealed, you will be free to come out of hiding and live comfortably in the trailer.”

  Even in the muggy heat a cold shiver ran up Husam al Din’s back. The thought of being locked inside a box no larger than a coffin brought back bad memories of the punishment closet in the madrassa, where he was tied up hand and foot and left for twelve hours because he forgot to bring his prayer rug to the mosque. It was a lesson he never had to repeat, but one that locked into his mind a deep fear of enclosed places.

  Alicia Gomez noticed the involuntary shiver and the change in his expression. “Is there something bothering you?”

  He shook it off, looked her in the eyes and lied, “No, it is nothing.” But his pride was stung by her question. Perhaps she had seen his fear and thought him a coward. The question gnawed at him, and his pride quickly turned to bitterness.

  “Come,” she said, “I will show you all the features of this trailer. Light switches are here, and the fan switch is here.” She pointed to the control panels. “The refrigerator is stocked with food and will operate on the oversized 12-volt battery system we installed. Canned and boxed foods are stored beneath the dinette seat. Dishes and utensils are in the cabinets and drawers. We have hidden drinking water beneath the bed in five-liter plastic jugs. The toilet is here.” She pointed into the small enclosed lavatory, “and paper supplies and soap are in the cabinet under the sink. The bed is comfortable. You will have everything you need for the three-week voyage. Any questions?”

  “Yes, I have one,” Husam al Din said. “Will there be enough air in the container?”

  “A good question. Shipping containers are tight enough to protect against water damage. You wouldn’t believe how big the storm waves can get at sea. And sometimes those waves break over the bow of the ship, so the containers are sealed to protect the cargo. But they are not airtight, so a limited amount of air can get in. If you remain at rest most of the time, your air supply will be fine. Is there anything else?”

  “When do I start?” Husam al Din shot her a hard look. “Allah is waiting for me.”

  Alicia Gomez shook her head in disgust. Even though she worked for al-Qaeda, she had no taste for martyrdom or murder. The money was good, and that was how she justified her connection to the terror network, but she did not agree with those who were anxious to kill themselves to prove their faithfulness. She was raised Catholic, and suicide and murder were sins. She knew she had to deal with that someday. Her professed shift to Islam was pure business – very profitable business – and for now that was all she cared about.

  “The container is right over there,” and she pointed to a distant corner of the warehouse. “As soon as you are ready, we will load the trailer inside.”

  “I am ready now,” Husam al Din said.

  “Very well. Do you have your device?”

  “Everything I need is here,” he said, patting the duffel bag.

  “Then make yourself comfortable. We will close the trailer and load it into the container. Our people will bring the flatbed and truck within the hour. By tonight, you will be aboard the container ship Desdemonda. She leaves the harbor at three o’clock in the morning. You will need to conceal yourself in the hidden compartment one hour from now and not come out until the ship leaves. Do you understand?”

  He scowled at her for sounding so condescending. He did not like someone talking down to him, especially not this woman who might suspect that he was afraid of close spaces. “Yes, woman, I understand,” he growled.

  “Hey,” – she pointed her finger at his face – “don’t you talk to me like that! You may be young and you may have decided to be some kind of hero, but I don’t let anybody growl at me like that. Do you understand?”

  His black eyes flashed and he showed her his teeth. “Do you understand that if I did not require your help, I would slit your throat? You cannot fool me, woman. You are a kafir. If you were truly Muslim, you would be ashamed to dress like this and show your eyes to me this way. You are lucky now, but Allah will have you in his hands one day and I will be there to testify against you.”

  “Oh my,” she laughed, “listen to you. A suicide murderer who is going to testify against me at the judgment bar of God? Let me tell you something, He already knows my sins, and yours, so you better start thinking about what you are going to say to Him in your own behalf.”

  “I should kill you now,” he snarled.

  Alicia Gomez laughed in his face. “You talk brave for one who is about to die. Do you think maybe the sound of your own voice will give you strength? Silly boy.” Then her eyes turned fierce and the green fire glowed. With fingernails like claws, she reached toward his throat, but stopped short. “Were you not going to your death by your own hand, I would kill you myself.”

  “Get out of here,” he shouted. “You defile me and the place of my martyrdom!”

  “With pleasure,” she said, turning her back to him and stepping out of the trailer into the warehouse. “Lock him in,” she yelled to her men.

&n
bsp; They moved in and closed the trailer door, then a forklift was brought and hitched to the tongue. In less than five minutes, the trailer was pushed into the back of the shipping container and lashed to the tie-downs on the container walls. The empty space in front of the trailer was filled with cardboard boxes and plastic totes, all marked as household goods. Heavy web nets were draped over the boxes and lashed to the tie-down cleats, to keep them from shifting during shipment. The men stepped out and swung the heavy steel doors shut and threw the locking handles into place with a loud clash that echoed off the warehouse walls. The hoop of a sturdy padlock was dropped through the holes in each of the security handles and snapped shut. Forty minutes later, the truck arrived and the container was hoisted onto the flatbed and tied down.

  “Here is the manifest,” Alicia Gomez said, handing the driver the paperwork. “For the record, in the container are one RV travel trailer and household goods belonging to US Navy Ensign Hal Wadsworth who is transferring to Pensacola, Florida after a long and honorable tour of duty in the Philippines.”

  The driver nodded. “Sounds about right to me. Our guys at the loading terminal know that they’re supposed to shuffle things around. This box will be loaded last so it will be one of the first off in Miami. Orders from Islamabad, I guess.”

  “Whatever makes the guy happy,” she said. “Get this garbage out of here.”

  Inside the trailer, Husam al Din sat in the utter blackness, afraid to turn on the light and face the reality of his confinement. Sweat filled the palms of his hands and his breathing was quick and shallow. In an attempt at mental escape, he closed his eyes and sent his imagination to the high mountains of the tribal area, where the sky was wide open and snow blanketed the distant peaks. His mind saw soaring birds, free in the wind. He inhaled deeply to calm his racing heart, but the biting smell of formaldehyde from the trailer’s cheap wood paneling stung his lungs and made him choke. Sweat dripped from his face and ran freely down his back. He fingered the button on his wristwatch until the dial lighted.

  “One hour,” he muttered into the darkness. “Only one hour until I have to climb into the coffin. This is worse than death. Allaahu, Akbar. Ashhadu Allah ilaaha illa-Lah.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  October 13th – The Land Without Laws

  Two hours after dusk, the wailing song of the call to prayer sounded across the tiny village, and all activity stopped. Josh Adams pressed his face close to the planks across the window and stared out into the cold blue light of early nightfall. As if in a hypnotic trance, all the villagers stopped what they were doing, and headed toward the dusty central plaza where the mosque stood. He knew from past experience that they would be there for most of an hour, and the streets would be empty. It was time.

  It took only a few moments for him to remove the planks from the back window opening and step out into growing darkness. He tapped the nails back into place, then rushed across the narrow road and rapped on the door then put his ear against it. Sorgei called out from within.

  “Josh?”

  “Yes. It’s time to get going. Are you ready?”

  Josh heard the window boards move. “Here,” Sorgei shoved a cloth bag at him through the opening. “Food and clothing.”

  Josh took the bundle and helped Sorgei climb through the window. The Russian had a worried look on his face as they replaced the planks. If they were lucky, nobody would discover that the prisoners had escaped until time for the morning meal. That gave them a ten-hour head start; and in this country, they needed it.

  They looked left and right, but the street was deserted. “This way,” Josh said, and the two of them scrambled across the road and ducked behind the house where Josh had been held. Extending to the horizon was nothing but empty wilderness – a dead-looking landscape of small rough brush and boulders. “Afghanistan is that way,” Josh pointed toward a star that was just appearing in the night sky. “That’s where we’re going. We’ll get back to my camp and we’ll be safe.”

  “Maybe you will,” Sorgei said, “but I don’t think they will look too kindly at me.”

  “Leave that to me. I have a plan. But right now we’ve got to move. You just stay close to me. It’s going to be a long, dark night, and you don’t want to get separated from me. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Sorgei said, but there was reluctance in his voice.

  Josh looked him in the eyes. “Listen, everything’s going to work out.” He pointed at the silhouette of a boulder pile in the distance. “We’ll need to move as quietly as possible until we get to those rocks. Stay low, so you won’t show above the horizon. Let’s go,” he said in a hushed voice, then took off in a crouched run.

  Sorgei whispered a question as he bent and ran behind Josh. “How do you know where to go?”

  “Trust me,” he panted. “You just stick with me and I’ll explain it all later.”

  Barely three minutes passed and they scrambled into the boulder pile and stopped to look back at the bleak village. Everything was dead still. Josh knew that the entire population was in the mosque, prostrated on prayer rugs that were turned to face toward Mecca – the same direction as the escape route he and Sorgei were on.

  Chapter Fourteen

  San Blas Islands – Eastern Caribbean

  “So, how’s it going this morning?” Dan Plover sounded particularly happy as he stepped into the hut that served as Sven’s store. The Dane looked up from the large piece of paper he had stretched out across the counter.

  “Ah,” he said, “You guys are back from down south. How was it?”

  “Man,” Dan smiled, “I’ve never seen anything like it. We had the whole place to ourselves. It was just us and the birds and the monkeys. Perfect!”

  “Well, I was just thinking about you,” Sven said.

  “Yeah? What about?”

  “I’ve been looking at the chart. I love charts. When I study them, I can almost see what the ocean and the islands and the coastline look like. It’s almost as good as going on the voyage myself.”

  “So which chart are you drooling on today?” Dan asked with a smile in his eyes.

  “It’s the one you will be using between here and the Rio Dulce. Won’t be long now before you’ll be heading out. The hurricane season has about to end. Unless something weird happens. A late storm …”

  Dan scratched his head, then tried to smooth down his permanently tousled hair. “That’s why I’m here. Nicole wants to stick around for another couple of weeks, so the kids can have some more time with their friends, ’cause once we leave, who knows where we’ll end up. We might not ever get back this way. At least not for a long time. And she wants to make sure we’re not going to bump into a late storm. She has a sort of sixth sense about these things, women’s intuition, I guess, if you believe in such things.”

  “Hmmm, just what’s going on in here?” a female voice piped up. “You guys were talking about us girls, weren’t you?”

  Dan backed up and looked at Sven for help but got none, because Sven had his head down and was pretending to study the chart again. Dan tried to sound innocent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “And don’t you try to pretend that there’s nothing going on here, either Sven.” Grendel’s tone was almost enough to prompt a confession.

  He looked up from the chart. “Oh, hi honey.”

  “Don’t ‘oh, hi honey’ me. We were standing outside and heard every word you said. These palm frond walls don’t block the sound. What was that remark about intuition? It was a compliment, right?”

  Sven shifted back and forth on his feet, looking for the right words. “Well, yah, sure honey …”

  “Yah?”

  Nicole’s face slowly melted into a warm smile. “You two should be lucky,” she said, “to have such intuitive wives.” Then she hugged Dan.

  Sven turned to Grendel with a ‘what about me’ look on his face. She nodded, “Yah, I agree. You two are lucky. So, now, tell us what you were really talking about.�
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  Just then, Jacob stepped into the room, with Kirsten right behind him. “Hi,” Jacob said brightly. “What’s up?”

  “Well, uh,” Dan said, “Sven and I were just looking over the charts and talking about how we’re going to be sticking around here for another couple of weeks before we take off for Rio Dulce.”

  Jacob broke into a huge smile, “That’s great. I love it here.” He unconsciously glanced over at Kirsten, then realizing what he had done, he blushed. “I mean, this place is an awesome cruising ground. You know,” he stumbled on, “we’ve got coconuts and palm trees and fish and …”

  Nicole rescued him. “We know,” she said. “This is a pretty perfect place.”

  “But eventually we’re going to move on,” Dan said. “In a couple of weeks.”

  Jacob’s face fell a little with the realization that there was so little time left. But he struggled to not let it show. “Oh, right. Of course. The Rio Dulce awaits. I hear that is a fantastic place.” Then he turned and took Kirsten by the hand. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go for a swim.” The two of them headed out the door.

  “See ya later,” Kirsten called back over her shoulder.

  “You two be careful,” Grendel shouted just loud enough to be heard as the kids walked down the beach. Kirsten waved her hand without looking back, so her mom knew she had heard.

  “Well, all right.” Nicole turned her attention back to Dan. “What do you two guys want for lunch? Grendel and I were just coming to see if you have any particular appetite.”

  “Umm.” Dan grinned and wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist. “I do have a particular appetite,” he growled in a husky voice.

  Nicole giggled. “I meant for food.”

  Sven broke into a hearty laugh. “I think he intends to nibble on you.”

  Grendel poked him. “You behave yourself. Don’t go giving Dan any ideas.”

  Sven grabbed Grendel and swept her around, dipping her low for a dramatic kiss. “You’re right. Let him come up with his own ideas.”