Deadly Cargo: A chilling naval terrorism thriller

by Rich Johnson

  Through the thin door, Dan heard two mumbled voices that sounded as if they were agreeing. “Okay,” Ruiz spoke again, “then it will just be the three of us. We will split the eleven million fair and square. That’s the kind of boss I’ll be.”

  “What about the rest of them?”

  “We’ve gotta kill ’em all,” Ruiz whispered. “I’ll take out de la Vega. You each take out three. But you gotta be quiet about it. Slit their throats while they’re sleeping off their drunk.”

  “So what about this guy?” Pacheco asked. “Do we kill him too?”

  Dan sat closer to the door and pressed his ear to the wood, wanting to hear what plans they had for him. “He ain’t a threat to us,” Ruiz said, and Dan exhaled the breath he was holding. “I say we just leave him here, locked up, until we’re done. We can deal with him later. Right now, we got some murdering to do.”

  “Just who are you planning on murdering?”

  The booming voice belonged to de la Vega, and suddenly the door exploded. Ruiz tumbled through the splintered wood and sprawled on the dirt. The huge bearded pirate rolled and looked up. Vega stood over him, feet spread and one fist clenched around the neck of a bottle of rum.

  “You thinking about killing me and taking all the loot for yourselves? Don’t lie to me,” he threatened, “I been standing in the shadows and listening long enough to know your plans.”

  He strode into the hut and bashed Ruiz across the skull with the bottle, sending a hail of broken glass and a slurry of booze across the room. Ruiz crumbled like a dead man. Carlos fled like a rabbit, and Vega turned toward Pacheco. The younger man, seeing that his time had run out, dove for Vega’s midsection, knocking him back into the far wall. And then the slugging began. Dan had to hand it to Vega – for an old guy, he held his own in a fight, even when he was drunk.

  Dust rose from the floor as the two men grappled, crashing through boxes and knocking over other items that were stored in dark confines of the hut. Dan stepped carefully out of the way, while the men grunted and slugged, and he slipped to the back of the hut. In the darkness, he found the loose plank and pushed it aside, then sneaked out into the night.

  At first, he crouched as he crossed the bright clearing, then as he reached the shadows at the edge of the jungle he stood and ran at full speed, ducking vines and jumping over obstacles on the ground. His breath came hard and fast as he sprinted, and he didn’t stop until he had penetrated the jungle for what he thought to be at least fifty yards, then he squatted and sat dead still. Through a clearing in the trees, he took bearings from the stars, then checked his watch. It was 2:15 in the morning. Hoping to get free, he had signaled Jacob to circle around the island to the far side, where he intended to meet the boat in a cove on the opposite side at three o’clock – only 45 minutes.

  “Two miles,” Dan whispered through heavy breathing. “Two miles and no trail. That could take two hours or more.” From his study of the chart, all he knew was that the low pass between the island’s two major hills led to the natural harbor on the far side. With no clear indication of a trail, he would have to bushwhack.

  Far behind him, Dan heard shouting. It was de la Vega, and he sounded furious. “Mutiny is it?” he yelled like a wounded bear, “I’ll show you what mutiny brings.” Three shots rang out, then there was silence. “Look, the rest of you men,” Vega roared, “the traitors Ruiz, Pacheco and Carlos got what they deserved. Who else among you wants to join them?”

  The voice of the old man thundered through the trees and he sounded boiling mad, ready to shoot any who defied his orders. From the silence among the men, Dan surmised that Juan Baptista de la Vega had regained control of the rest of the men.

  “Now look at what has happened,” the old man’s voice boomed again. “The prisoners have gotten away. But do not worry. I do not think the woman will leave her husband behind. I do not believe the children will leave their father. They will be back for him. And when they come, we will have him and we will use him as bait to capture the woman and the children. I will kill the man, sell the children, and keep the woman for myself. Now, get out there and find him!”

  A cheer went up from the semi-drunk crowd, and loud talking followed as the men scattered to search for Dan.

  At the sound of the cheering and Vega’s threat, Dan’s blood ran hot. “Over my dead body,” he muttered, then glanced skyward once again to check his direction and pushed quietly through the jungle foliage.

  Gradually, the sounds of voices and men breaking through bushes faded behind him as Dan periodically looked at the sky to maintain direction while he picked his way through dense forest growth. Half an hour passed, and it felt to him as if he were making good progress over the ground. Beneath his feet, the land had inclined for more than twenty minutes until it reached a natural crown and then the terrain started to drop away and he knew he had passed over the saddle between the two hills and was descending into the lowland on the far side of the island.

  The trees and underbrush were thinner and drier on this side of the island, allowing him to see through natural openings. Ten minutes farther on, he saw a glimmer ahead, and as he stepped into an opening the moonlight on the water brought a smile to his face. He checked his watch then pressed on. The land was falling away more steeply now, and as he reached out to grab a branch to steady his descent a thunderous blow crashed down across his arm. Unable to stop the scream of pain, he cried out, lost his grip on the branch and tumbled down the trail, landing in a heap in the bushes below him. Shaking off the pain, he looked up and saw the silhouette of a man standing above him with a club in one hand and a machete in the other.

  Juan Baptista de la Vega belched out a cruel laugh. “Ah, senor, I knew I would find you here. And look,” – he pointed out toward the cove, where the catamaran was at rest – “there they are. I will have all of you. You should not have tried to defy me.”

  Dan glanced at the boat and saw Jacob and Cadee in the cockpit. It looked as if they were staring into the jungle watching for him to come to the beach. At this distance, it was hard to tell but it looked as if the dinghy was gone.

  De la Vega stepped closer, and Dan rose to his feet. “What? You expected us to just give up without a fight? You don’t know the Plover family very well, mister.”

  “I don’t care who you are, you will not prevail against Juan Baptista de la Vega. I take what I want, I use who I want, and I kill who I want. There is nothing you can do about it.”

  The old man lunged down the hill at him, holding the machete high and swinging the club. Dan stepped to one side and ducked. The club whistled over his head, missing by inches, and Dan snapped a knife-edge kick that caught Vega in the ribs. The gun flew from his waistband and vanished into the underbrush.

  The old pirate grunted out his breath, stepped away and grinned. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “Not by a long shot,” Dan answered, then turned and dove through the bushes, rolling to his feet four yards farther down the trail. Pushing bushes aside as he ran toward the beach, Dan yelled to his family, “I’m coming”, but Vega was only five strides behind him.

  Dan flew through the last line of bushes and onto the beach. The dinghy was there, pulled halfway up onto the dry sand, and he stopped in his tracks. How did that get here?

  De la Vega crashed out of the jungle with the club and machete held high and a fierce look in his eyes. The old man charged like an enraged bull, a growl roaring up through his throat, sounding like a rabid beast about to devour its prey.

  Confused by the empty dinghy, Dan whirled to face the onrushing pirate, and that was when he heard Nicole’s voice. “Hey mister,” she shouted.

  Juan Baptista de la Vega planted his feet and whirled toward the feminine voice. Ten feet away, Nicole stepped out of the shadows. Vega lowered the machete to gut level and sighted down its gleaming blade toward Nicole, then aimed the point at Dan. He swung the club in a circle to his side as he stepped closer to Nicole, an evil grin spreading across his
nearly toothless mouth. “I will have her now, senor,” he snarled, “and you will watch. Then I will kill you both.”

  Nicole took two steps forward, raised her arm and sighted down the barrel of an orange flare gun. “Don’t ever threaten my family,” she hissed. Then she pulled the trigger and watched the night light up as the brilliant red rocket covered the distance in less than a heartbeat and found its target deep in the old man’s throat.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Under cover of darkness, the Plover family quietly sailed north, away from the horrors of San Luis Miguel. The night wind was steady and with the main and genoa taut in the breeze, the GPS was showing a speed over ground of seven and a half knots. For more than an hour, Dan tried to raise someone on the VHF radio, but it seemed no one was listening. Finally, he hung up the mic and decided to wait until morning.

  “Someday, we’ve got to get a single sideband,” he muttered into the night.

  Nicole nodded absently, without saying a word, and he wasn’t sure she even heard what he said. She sat at the helm station, but wasn’t really steering. The autopilot was keeping them on course, and she was staring idly at the moon-glimmered seas and occasionally looking up the mast to check sail trim. She couldn’t sleep that night, so she volunteered to take the final watch, to be alone with her thoughts.

  Dan stretched out on the cockpit seat behind her, to be nearby if she needed him. The past eight hours had been nothing short of hell on earth, and she had walked deeper into the fire than any of them. She had looked into the face of evil, spit her defiance, and then destroyed it. It was a heavy burden to bear – heavier than anyone should ever have to carry. But it was kill or be killed. The threat was not to her alone, but to her family, and that was unacceptable. She was left with no choice. Right now, there was nothing Dan could say that wouldn’t be an intrusion into her private suffering, but at least he could lie down close by so she didn’t feel totally alone. It would take time, he knew, for her to heal emotionally – maybe forever. But he would wait forever for her, if that’s what it took.

  Three hours later, the morning’s red orb balanced on the horizon for only an instant, before breaking free and floating alone in the sky. The hot color of sunrise brought Dan’s eyes open, surprising him with the sudden realization that he had been asleep. He looked toward Nicole. She was still sitting in the double captain’s seat, still staring out across the broad ocean, still quiet. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, stepped to her side and ran his hand across her shoulders then down her spine. He curled his fingers and started a gentle scratch, and she hunched her back and turned to face him.

  “Ooh, that feels good,” she whispered. Her eyes were red and swollen.

  “How about I give you a massage this morning,” he offered. “Then you can take the rest of the day off. Buzz can steer.” Buzz was their name for the autopilot, because of the low hum the unit made with each steering correction.

  “I wish I was tough, like you.” Her eyes returned to the distant horizon.

  He rubbed her shoulders. “If I had to do what you did back there, I’d probably be puking my guts out from the trauma. I think you’re plenty tough.”

  “He had it coming,” she muttered.

  “Yes, he did. I’m only sorry that you’re the one who had to deliver it to him.”

  “He would have killed you.” She looked deeply into his eyes. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Thank you for saving me.”

  She turned to look at the sea again. “Then he would have come after the kids and me.” Her words had a haunted sound. She stared for a long time at the horizon, then turned again to Dan. “But I’ve killed a man.”

  He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. “You saved a man. You saved a woman and two children. You saved a family. De la Vega killed himself by what he was trying to do to us.”

  She lost herself in thought and Dan said no more, knowing that emotional recovery would be a long and slow process. In the silence of the morning, the only sounds were the wind filling the sails, the watery sluice of the wake, and a periodic hum as Buzz kept them on course. They had crossed thirty-eight miles of ocean, and San Luis Miguel had passed beyond the horizon behind them when she finally spoke again. “I think I’ll sleep,” her voice sounded like an exhausted whisper as she stepped down from the captain’s chair. They embraced, but he knew her heart wasn’t in it, and she quickly stepped into the cabin and disappeared into the forward stateroom.

  Dan picked up the mic and switched the radio on. As he turned up the volume, he heard the final words of a message. He listened a moment, but heard nothing else. Then, suddenly, the radio crackled into life again. Whoever he was hearing was close enough for the transmission to come through, but he was hearing only half of the conversation because the other party was too far away. He gave it a minute, then thumbed the mic. “Break, break.”

  A moment later, he heard the words, “Come back, breaker.”

  “This is Whisper, over.”

  “Whisper,” a British sounding voice on the radio came back. “This is Borboleta. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you have a single sideband or ham radio? I need to relay a message to the Coast Guard in Panama.”

  “We’re heading that way ourselves,” the voice said, “but yes, we can relay by radio. What’s your message?”

  Dan gave his latitude and longitude, heading, speed and intended destination, then told Borboleta what happened on San Luis Miguel. “Please let the Coast Guard know about this. And for your own safety, give that island a wide berth.”

  “Thanks for the warning, Whisper. I’ve read about pirate activity in these islands. Glad you got out of there with all your kit. I’ll transmit this message to Panama as soon as we end this chat,” the man on Borboleta promised.

  “I appreciate it,” Dan responded. “Unfortunately, all our kit, as you put it, doesn’t include our cruising kitty. They took it all. But we’re happy just to survive.”

  The signal started to break up, as Whisper and Borboleta were heading in opposite directions and VHF line-of-sight signals are good for only about twenty miles from boat to boat. Dan signed off and hung up the mic. He studied the GPS and chart plotter, then walked back to the transom hammock and stared at the wake, running in an undeviating line toward the far horizon. Three shots were fired, he reflected back to the moments after his escape. Ruiz, Pacheco and Carlos were murdered. Then Juan Baptista de la Vega lost the fight on the beach. Four down, out of ten, he thought. I wonder what’s going on now.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Hours earlier, the island had become a place of murder in the chaotic dark hours of morning. Ruiz, Pacheco and Carlos lay dead. Six exhausted men gathered in a clearing and flopped on the ground to rest.

  “Any of you see the boss?” Juanico asked as he approached the men, but his question was greeted only by shaking heads. “Anybody been all the way across to the other cove?” Again all the heads shook in the negative. He turned and headed for the faint trail Dan had taken. “Don’t nobody do nothing. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

  In the hour it took Juanico to return from finding Juan Baptista de la Vega dead and nearly headless from the fire in his skull, he had formulated a plan. He came out of the jungle directly behind the main house, went inside and loaded a pistol then tucked it into his waistband. With Vega’s machete and club in hand, he walked into the cluster of lounging men. “The boss is dead,” he announced. “I’m in charge now.”

  Five ugly, bearded faces turned to stare at him. Tiago got to his feet, took two steps toward Juanico and adjusted his slouchy hat. “Who says?”

  Juanico reached to the small of his back, drew the pistol and fired. The bullet smashed into Tiago’s chest and the man pitched back and fell like a tree, dead before he hit the ground. “Any more questions?” Juanico looked from man to man, but no one said a word or made a move.

  “Now, here’s the deal,” Juanico began. “I was sneaki
ng around last night and heard Ruiz talking with the guy we took prisoner. I got good ears, and I heard the man say there’s eleven million dollars in the box over there.” He waved toward the container. “All we gotta do is go in and get it.”

  Every man sat up and looked intently at Juanico. “I went to have a look while everybody was out hunting in the bushes, and it looks like Ruiz had cracked open one of the locks. The bolt cutter is still there, laying on the barge where he dropped it.” He swung the pistol around, aiming at each man in turn. “Now, we’re going to work together, and nobody is going to get any more than anybody else. There’s five of us here, and we’re gonna split the loot square. I ain’t like de la Vega, to take more than my share. But I’m the boss now,” – he paused to stare them down one at a time – “unless any of you thinks otherwise.”

  Flies were gathering in the bloody wound on Tiago’s dead body as it lay in the heat of the rising sun. Without a word, the men got to their feet and followed Juanico to the barge. “As the boss,” Juanico said, tucking the pistol back in his waistband, “I think it’s only right that I work right along with you boys. We work together and we share the treasure. Any complaints about that?”

  A mumbled chorus of agreement sounded through the crowd. Juanico smiled. “Then I’ll take my turn right now.” He picked up the bolt cutters and spread the jaws around the next lock. After snapping the jaws through the lock, he handed the cutters to the next man. It took only a moment to break each lock, and quickly the men gathered around to throw open the four vertical latching bars that held the container doors shut.

  With a creaking, metallic squeal, the latches were released, and a shallow stream of water poured out as the doors were swung wide. The men rushed toward the opening, but Juanico pulled the pistol and fired a round into the air. “Back off, men,” he yelled. “One at a time, and I’m first.” He stepped up into the chaotic mess inside the container. A nylon cargo net was draped across a jumble of boxes and plastic totes, but many of them had burst open and there was stuff strewn about under the net. Juanico released the net from the tie-down hooks and kicked a few boxes out to make room for him to move around inside.